Let's just say I didn't vote for Mr. Bush and leave it at that.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant disasters will be the flame that ignites the fuse to the re-regulation bomb, both figuratively and literally. It was always going to be an event that stoked this fire, however no one could have anticipated anything this dramatic.

The course [...]]]>

Not many people unaffected by nuclear power plants.

The Fukushima nuclear power plant disasters will be the flame that ignites the fuse to the re-regulation bomb, both figuratively and literally. It was always going to be an event that stoked this fire, however no one could have anticipated anything this dramatic.

The course to deregulation was also determined by events, namely the seizure of 44 US Embassy personnel in Iran coupled with an Arab oil embargo that quadrupled the price of gasoline. Added to high unemployment and interest rates, Jimmy Carter’s defeat was a fate accompli. Since Ronald Reagan was the only other person in the race, he was the beneficiary.

I expected people to take to the streets after the banking crisis and then the BP oil disaster in the Gulf, but evidently they have more patience than do I. Now, with more than two thirds of US citizens living with a nuclear reactor in their backyards, we’ve reached a tipping point.

It begs the question, how far will we go in re-regulating business and industry this time?

In 1973, an Arab oil embargo against United States pushed the price of crude oil from less than $20 to almost $60 per barrel, causing a sharp increase in the number of applications and approvals for nuclear power plants. At least until March 28, 1979, when the Three Mile Island nuclear reactor near Harrisburg, PA, suffered a partial meltdown. Application approvals came to a screeching halt.

Although the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC), et al., declared virtually zero negative health effects as a result, those findings are not without dispute. Steve Wing, Associate Professor of Epidemiology at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, re-examined the data and found significant increases in cancer rates across the spectrum. Residents in the area are inclined to agree with Wing.

Outraged citizens and anti-nuclear demonstrations intimidated politicians, and no new nuclear plants have been approved since. While it’s unlikely that Ronald Reagan or Bush I would have done so, being deep in the pockets of the fossil fuels industry, Bill Clinton may have been so inclined, and Bush II actually did. People have short memories.

Now there’s a new sheriff in town, and Barack Obama has proposed huge loan guarantees for the nuclear industry for new plants, despite sniping by the likes of Ralph Nader. He must’ve figured that many who remember Three Mile Island are long since dead, and a younger, nuclear naïve generation has replaced them in the voting booths. Since they comprise a large portion of his constituency, he obviously felt safe in moving forward with new nuclear facilities.

They are nuclear virgins no longer, and now they’ve seen for themselves the horror caused when a reactor melts down. Far more likely to identify themselves as greens or environmentally friendly, this disaster won’t be lost on them. But it’s more than that.

This generation that cut their political teeth on Obama’s campaign in 2008 is realizing their political power in Wisconsin, Tennessee and other places around the country. They’re organizing and showing up and suiting up over issues that passed under the radar of the last two generations. They’ve been emboldened, and they will be a formidable force.

The last major piece of regulatory legislation passed is probably the Americans with Disabilities Act, voted into law in 1990. It forced businesses to make major modifications to their buildings to provide access to people with disabilities. These changes were at their own expense, however there were tax credits given to help ease the pain.

Most people under 35 likely don’t remember this battle, nor do they recall a time when buildings didn’t have ramps or automatic door openers. It’s always been a part of their reality, so they’re unaware of the battle that was waged to get this legislation voted into law.

However, walk back 20 more years and you’ll see that Richard Nixon, a Republican, signed into existence by Executive Order the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). He wasn’t even forced to take before Congress to get it done, nor were there any successful legal challenges to his actions. Interesting how things change, because in 1970 we have a Republican president signing into existence the EPA, and in 2010 we have a Democratic president making massive loan guarantees for nuclear power plants.

In the 70s tons of regulations were placed on businesses. Hippies, yippies, feminists, gay rights and other activists had their own legislation printing press set up, and they were cranking out paper faster than Congress could vote on it, or the president could sign it. The American people had their boots to the neck of business, but all that was changed by the election of Ronald Reagan.

Today we have a Democratic president who’s been pushed as far to the right as Richard Nixon was to the left, but that’s changing. Millions have already taken to the streets over GOP union-busting measures, and they’re about to be joined by millions more who fear for their lives because of their proximity to a nuclear reactor.

When this happens and they have some success, and they WILL have success, there’ll be no stopping them. The majority of people are fed up with the banks, off shoring of jobs and the treatment of gays and lesbians. Once these people realize the effect they can have on elected officials, much of the deregulation accomplished since Reagan will be rolled back, and new regulations will be put into place.

It’s amazing how many changes can be made by an outraged citizenry willing to take to the streets. Unfortunately for the Republicans, large portions of their constituency are too old or will die in the next few years, meaning that most of the people in the street will stand against them. It’s likely the reason for their overreach in the last couple of months, since they realize that soon they’ll no longer have the political backing they need.

Democrats will be pushed far to the left by constituents concerned about corporate abuses, nuclear safety and social issues. Unfortunately, 40 years down the road they’ll be guilty of the same overreach we’re seeing on the part of Republicans today, assuming we haven’t killed ourselves off before then. Fortunately for me, I likely won’t be around to see it.

Republicans and right-leaning Democrats are about ready to be taken to the woodshed. Angry Americans have had enough, and they’re determined to express themselves in the streets. They’ve been radicalized by the actions of Republicans, and I don’t expect them to slip quietly into that good night. Shit’s on, and we have a front row seat.

It’s going to be a very exciting year.

I’d prefer to [...]]]>

Boom!

I’d prefer to die being comforted by the gentle touch of my wife’s hand on my cheek. Short of that, hit by an unseen train traveling at 70 miles an hour. Poof, I’m gone, and I didn’t even know it hit me. Unfortunately, only in rare cases do we get to choose how we die.

So today, unless reports out of Japan are mistaken, it appears there’s a group of Japanese workers having the experience of dying at work at the Fukushima nuclear power plant.

It begs the question, what’s it going to be like for them over the next several days?

We know for certain that two containment domes have exploded, allegedly as a result of a hydrogen/oxygen detonation. The explosions were massive, and several people were hurt, although officials claim there was no damage to the reactors themselves.

Officials allege that radiation leakage is minimal, however that doesn’t square with other facts we’ve been given. The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, stationed 100 miles offshore, has declared its crew received exposure equivalent to 30 days of radiation in only one hour. That’s a startling amount.

If people 100 miles away are experiencing increased radiation levels, the people working in the control facilities certainly have been affected. How long will they be able to last, even in their protective environment, before the radiation affects them?

The lack of preparedness for this catastrophe is obvious, evidenced by the fact that the security guards are only protected by gas masks and not radiation suits. Given the exposure level on the USS Ronald Reagan, you know they’re dead men walking.

While in the USAF I was aware that I could be used as cannon fodder, or as a test subject in some grotesque medical experiment. Maybe the people working in nuclear power plants understand that as well, and that’s why they’re so well paid. Now they get to earn that paycheck.

They must recognize they’re being bombarded with deadly radiation, and the symptoms of radiation poisoning are well documented and happen quickly. They would manifest in your and your coworkers on a daily, or even hourly basis. Imagine that mind-fuck.

Your throat gets scratchy, you get sores on your lips and nose and when you scratch your head your hair falls out. The guy at the next console tries to stand but collapses on the floor, and is carried out on a stretcher. All while you’re working at a frenetic, breakneck pace to shut down the nuclear reactor that’s melting down so that millions of your countrymen aren’t also killed.

A second group of workers to consider are the replacements for this first group. As they die they’ll need to send in someone else to sit in that chair. Will they ask for volunteers, or will people be ordered into the plant at gunpoint? That drama is playing out in Japan right now.

There’s a third group, and that’s the crew of the USS Ronald Reagan. Ships are dispatched to a set of longitudinal and latitudinal coordinates, and they were sent smack dab into the middle of the radiation cloud. Everyone on that ship understands they’re being used as guinea pigs so the United States can gather intelligence on the extent of this disaster.

By takings readings on tests during the 40s and 50s, scientists can work backwards and determine the intensity of the radition at the source.

During the days of extensive above-ground nuclear testing, detailed readings were taken on the spread of nuclear fallout based on atmospheric conditions. Using this information, and by knowing the radiation levels 100 miles downwind, it allows scientists to mathematically back into a reading on the amount of radiation being released. Thank you, USS Ronald Reagan and crew.

It’s a dirty job, but someone had to do it. The only question is have they been ordered to retreat from the radiation zone, or does their duty as lab rats continue? Imagine what that does for morale.

Now we could have multiple groups of workers dying, although the crew of the Reagan will likely experience a far more protracted demise than the men and women working in the control room in Fukushima. Regardless, the fact is that workers are being asked to die because of the avarice of capitalism, and you have to wonder how much longer we’ll tolerate it.

The refrain is always there’s no time to talk about it now, we need to get through this crisis, and then we’ll have extensive discussions and investigations. I say no more; there’s no better place or time than here and now, before one more person dies due to corporate avarice and governmental malfeasance.

What’s more likely to happen is that hundreds, or even thousands, will die rescuing us from this man-made hell, and when it’s over the state will use them as rallying points. By making them heroes it will be impossible to have meaningful discussions, because we’ll be accused of besmirching the memories of these fallen heroes. It’s predictable.

So what’s going through the minds of the people in that control room right now? Do you think anyone is showing signs of radiation sickness yet? The security guards have been outside with only gas masks to protect them for 48 hours, and it’s unimaginable they’re not showing the effects of radiation exposure.

As they drop, one by one, don’t you believe that the remaining workers would prefer to be home with their families, even if it’s just for a few minutes before they die? Can they keep their minds on their tasks, or is the distraction of imminent death too great for them? It’s hard to imagine they are not having anxiety or panic attacks as they try to work through all this.

You know there are several identical reactors built by General Electric up and down the West Coast of the United States along the San Andreas fault. Japan is said to have the highest earthquake standards in the world, so what does that mean for us?

Having watched Mad Max and other post-nuclear apocalyptic flicks, I always assumed that it was caused by a war. Wouldn’t it be a hoot if we did ourselves in because we were too stupid to use windmills instead of nuclear power plants? The most important lessons always come at the highest price. We’d better write this one down and put it in a time capsule, because we might not be around to take advantage of it.

G.I., Government issue, grunt, dogface, slick. These are but a few of the more or less colorful euphemisms used to describe military enlistees. If you’re in you’d better accept the fact; you’re nothing but chattel property to them.

Now they want you declare your everlasting [...]]]>

Is this the shit they tested on me?

G.I., Government issue, grunt, dogface, slick. These are but a few of the more or less colorful euphemisms used to describe military enlistees. If you’re in you’d better accept the fact; you’re nothing but chattel property to them.

Now they want you declare your everlasting allegiance to them, but it’s a one-way street. You’re their bitch, and they intend to treat you that way, including using you as unwitting and unwilling subjects in all manner of testing, and who better than a dogface grunt?

I’m not the first and I surely won’t be the last to learn that lesson. Once the government owns you they have the right to treat you in any manner they wish, and they will exercise that right. I should have never taken that step forward at the induction center.

It begs the question, what was that shit they tested on me back in 1976?

Every Monday morning we had a shop meeting. On this beautiful June morning, SMSgt. Jenkinson announced a new, required vaccination for all mobility personnel, which meant all of us. We had one week to get the mandatory inoculation.

My friend Smitty went right down on Monday, but I didn’t get there until Wednesday. On Thursday Smitty failed to show up to work. I called his house and he was sick as a dog, which I thought was kind of odd for June, but I put it out of my mind, that is until Saturday.

I woke up feeling out of sorts, but didn’t think anything about it since it had been a fairly hard Friday night. I got some orange juice from the refrigerator and took a drink, and it felt like somebody was taking a white-hot wire brush to the inside of my throat. Never before or since have I had a sore throat that burned that badly.

Within a couple of hours my temperature had spiked to 104, and I was alternating between sweats and chills with intense body aches in my lower back and hips. I went to sick call, and they gave me some aspirin and something for my sore throat and sent me home. I was in agony all day.

Sunday was more of the same, and when Monday came I was feeling even worse, so I went back to sick call. Let me tell you about sick call in the military. If you believe you’re too sick to work, you have to arrive at sick call by 7:30 AM. As a rule they handed you some pills and sent you back to work, so very few people ever wasted their time with sick call.

I expected to see only four or five people, but there was at least 30 obviously sick people in the waiting room. When my turn came, the doctor looked at me for about two minutes, told me I had a virus, handed me some aspirins and sent me home. I repeated that drill every day that week, and the military that never lets you miss a day unless the bone is sticking out gave me five consecutive days off of work.

For that entire period I was sick as a dog, with spiking fevers, body aches, sweats and chills; in 10 days I lost 25 pounds. Talking to the others that were sick, I found about 10% of the people in the munitions dump had also been sick with the exact same symptoms.

The US military used its personnel in nuclear test things to assess the short and long-term effects of exposure to radiation. The US government has also used prisoners for testing as well. What may be the most famous testing scenario on unwitting subjects in history is the Tuskegee syphilis study performed on African-American men. In the mid-70s TV news magazines like 60 Minutes were reporting about these atrocities. Smitty and I would joke about what kind of shit they had tested on us, but we both knew we had been lab rats without our knowledge or consent.

That’s when I began agitating even harder, becoming an extreme disruption, and securing my honorable discharge 14 months prior to my original separation date. I was determined never to be a guinea pig for some nefarious government testing again. It wasn’t until the advent of the Internet before I was able to figure out exactly what had happened to me.

It turns out the government was playing around with a bacteria known as Mycoplasma fermentans, a pathogen that was eventually suspected as the culprit in Gulf War illness. The symptoms were similar to what I had experienced, though they appeared to be less intense. However the ideal biological weapon would not make people intensely ill for a short period of time, rather it would create a long and chronic illness. Not only would it take that soldier out of the field, but it would force your enemy to invest resources in treating and caring for that casualty.

It’s suspected that Mycoplasma fermentans was reengineered by Dr. Shyh Lo, with the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology in Washington D.C., into what we know today as the AIDS virus. Then in 1978-79, an experimental hepatitis B vaccination was offered to several thousand gay men in New York City and San Francisco. Two years later was the official beginning of the AIDS outbreak in America, and ultimately more than 40% of the men in the hepatitis B study contracted the disease. That this was an random chance event is a statistical impossibility.

My health deteriorated over several years. Never one to be sick, it became normal for me to get ill for several days two or three times every year. Finally, in 1999, I donated blood at a blood drive where the phlebotomist didn’t clean my arm sufficiently. I developed an infected lymph node under my left armpit that eventually grew to over 3 pounds before the doctors removed it. My health almost collapsed after that.

That first year after the surgery I was sick half a dozen times, each lasting four or more days. My health was declining rapidly. Doctors were at a loss, so I decided if I was going to live I would have to heal myself.

I am not a doctor, nor do I make health recommendations to anyone, so nothing I say here should be construed as medical advice. I am merely relating how I managed to heal myself, and this is to be used for entertainment purposes only. Consult your doctor or healthcare provider before you make any decisions of this nature.

In 2000 I discovered colloidal silver, and I got myself a colloidal silver generator and made it in my own home. It took almost a year, but my health eventually returned to what I think it should be, or more correctly what it would have been were it not for the military testing. Today I get sick once or twice a year, and it lasts for a couple of days. I never get sick for several days at a time anymore, even though I’m 35 years older and should be experiencing more, and not less, illness. I believe if I had left my fate to allopathic physicians I would have died several years ago.

My conclusion? Don’t trust the military, ever, for anything, for any reason. If you have someone you love in the military do everything you can to get them out as soon as possible before they become a human guinea pig. One thing is certain, they will use your loved one for any reason that pleases them, and why shouldn’t they? They’re government issue.

“Who’s going to shoot Obama?” Those words uttered by an unidentified man at an Athens, GA, town hall meeting for US Representative Paul Broun, coupled with the events in Wisconsin, signaled the complete unraveling of the Republican Party.

Broun’s unfortunate response to them in lieu of the recent attacks in [...]]]>

Today's Republican party.

“Who’s going to shoot Obama?” Those words uttered by an unidentified man at an Athens, GA, town hall meeting for US Representative Paul Broun, coupled with the events in Wisconsin, signaled the complete unraveling of the Republican Party.

Broun’s unfortunate response to them in lieu of the recent attacks in Tucson surely sealed the deal. He laughed and said, “… I know there’s a lot of frustration with this president. We’re going to have an election next year. Hopefully, we’ll elect somebody that’s going to be a conservative, limited-government president that will take a smaller, who will sign a bill to repeal and replace Obamacare.”

The GOP’s lost control of its loons and is working desperately to walk them back in an attempt to save millions of middle-of-the-road voters. It’s too late. The inmates have taken over the asylum, and all the keepers can do is ride this train until it reaches the end of line, then hope to turn it around. It has to be disheartening to be a sane Republican today.

It begs the question, is there anything the Republicans can do to short-circuit the idiots that have seized control of their party?

Even Fox news understands that they’ve gone too far, indicated by this discussion among conservative pundits on Joe Scarborough’s program, The Morning Joe.

You’ll notice that most of them joined in the assault on Glenn Beck, but uber-conservative Pat Buchanan found it impossible to participate in the gang rape. Why? It’s in large part Buchanan’s constituency, and if he turns his back on them he has nothing left to offer. Mainstream Republicans won’t regain control anytime soon.

The schism was made obvious when a conservative amendment to cut an additional $22 billion out of the budget failed by a 281-147 vote Ninety mainstream Republicans voted with Democrats against the measure, aware they have constituencies back home soon to be negatively affected by their deficit reduction orgy. Unlike teabaggers, many of these Republicans live in swing districts and require Democratic voters to stay in office.

The question is, are these Republican representatives and voters really that stupid? I have two personal anecdotes that suggest they are.

First, I had occasion to have a 15-20 minute discussion unrelated to politics with Michelle Bachmann. I can tell you unequivocally, no matter what you’ve heard, she’s so stupid that I’m shocked she remembers to digest her food. She could have won Dustin Hoffman’s role in Rain Man simply by being herself.

The second was a conversation with a man whose health is failing and is on 100% disability. His extensive health needs are tended either by Medicare or the VA. Multiple heart procedures and bucket loads of prescription medications keep him alive, yet he argues that all government healthcare should be abolished and turned over to private corporations. He’s like a man in an iron lung begging someone to unplug the machine so he can feel better.

In a strategic move by Karl Rove, the GOP reached out to these imbeciles and empowered them, and now it has to live with the consequences of its actions. Because of Rove, the GOP has elected officials like Maine Gov. Paul LePage who made the following quote regarding BPA, a known carcinogenic plastic:

“…if you take a plastic bottle and put it in the microwave and you heat it up, it gives off a chemical similar to estrogen. So the worst case is some women may have little beards.”

The fact that most women would prefer not to have “little beards” notwithstanding, LePage’s idiocy has crossed a line that even the simplest minds understand. BPA (bisphenol-A) is carcinogenic and not healthy for humans, a fact generally understood by even the faintest lights among us. Unfortunately for the GOP, these aren’t isolated incidents.

On Monday Gov. Rick Perry (R-Texas) identified Juarez as the most dangerous city in America. Only problem is, it’s not, it’s part of Mexico. Perry had to be briefed by his aides after the gaffe.

Or there’s the old faithful, Sarah Palin, about whom it was released that she did not understand that Africa was a continent, not a country.

And of course, we dasn’t forget Louie “Terror Babies” Gohmert of Texas:

These and others like them are working furiously to turn the reins of government back over to the Democratic Party, and I predict they will succeed.

Consider those 90 Republicans who broke ranks with the teabaggers, and you’ll see the Republican’s dichotomy.

On the one hand if they vote with the teabaggers they can secure teabagger votes in the next election. Unfortunately for them, many of these Republicans come from swing districts that have largely moderate constituencies, so they risk alienating those voters in the general election.

On the other hand, if they vote against the amendment (which they did), they save their status with moderates, but they alienate the teabaggers. In this case it’s likely they will face a teabagger primary challenge where many of those moderates are registered Democrats and cannot vote for them. Imagine the repercussions of the teabaggers double down and refuse to raise the national debt ceiling, effectively shutting down the government.

All of this will be enhanced by the attack on public workers in Wisconsin by Gov. Scott Walker over the past 10 days. Surely there are many teabaggers among Wisconsin’s public workers who never considered that the discussion about getting rid of lazy civil servants might apply to them. Undoubtedly they thought themselves excluded from the riffraff that was under attack, but now their eyes have been opened.

So whether pandered to or not, these cretins will only become more rabid in their demands. It’s suggested that the $61 billion in proposed tax cuts will result in the loss of 700,000 jobs, many which will belong to teabaggers or their families. Soon there won’t be any thinking people alive that will wish to have their names affiliated with the Republican Party. The teabaggers are taking the party on a header, and no one can stop them.

Most people have figured out that Ronald Reagan was an asshole, not a saint, and we need to diverge widely from his policies. Saddled with the ideological idiocies of small government and tax cuts creating jobs, Republicans are destined to spend the next 40 years wandering in the desert. It couldn’t happen to a more deserving group.

Examine your family, and look for the teacher, police officer, firefighter or other state or public employee, and realize the Republicans have declared war on them. Ask yourself do you want your mom and dad living in your house in the room next to yours while you’re trying to bump uglies with the wife, then make your decision.

Kinda puts a different light on things, doesn’t it?

Americans standing in solidarity with protesters in Tunisia and Egypt, and Egyptians sending pizza to demonstrators in Wisconsin. Amazing, since only five years ago a majority of Americans wanted to [...]]]>

It's here, and it's now, and all you have to do to be a part of it is decide that's what you want.

Americans standing in solidarity with protesters in Tunisia and Egypt, and Egyptians sending pizza to demonstrators in Wisconsin. Amazing, since only five years ago a majority of Americans wanted to destroy Islam. How times change.

Zbigniew Brezinski has misjudged events, for this is not a massive global “political” awakening, rather it’s a massive global “SPIRITUAL” awakening. We’ve come to realize that we have far more in common with our neighbors in the Middle East than we ever imagined, and we’re ready to stand in solidarity against a common foe; materialists.

Don’t believe the materialists will go down peacefully, rather expect them to go kicking and screaming all the way. They like their possessions, and they are loath to share them with anyone they deem less deserving, and we’re all less deserving in their eyes. Expect a counter attack.

It begs the question, what form will this counterattack take, and how will we know it when we see it?

While hardly an adherent to modern-day Christianity, I do find bits and pieces of Christic consciousness in the Bible. This is found in John 17:11, 14-16:

11 I will remain in the world no longer, but they are still in the world, and I am coming to you. Holy Father, protect them by the power of your name, the name you gave me, so that they may be one as we are one.
14 I have given them your word and the world has hated them, for they are not of the world any more than I am of the world. 15 My prayer is not that you take them out of the world but that you protect them from the evil one. 16 They are not of the world, even as I am not of it.

It was put more succinctly by St. Thomas who suggested that we, “Wear the world like a loose garment.”

The gist of it all is the physical is temporal, and not concerning us. Rather we should be prepared to gain an understanding of ourselves as spiritual beings, and that we are all one. The materialists are motivated by and committed to the things that are of this world. They’re happy with who and what they are, and they want to keep us connected to the world with them. The problem is, serious cracks are showing in that edifice, and I look for them to resort to desperate measures to quell this worldwide spiritual awakening that’s unfolding.

For years they maintained control through a church that blurred the lines between spirituality and materiality. However as people’s eyes are being opened, and heretofore sworn enemies are embracing each other as comrades, the bastardized message of the church no longer resonates. People aren’t confused over what’s spiritual and what’s material, so the materialists need to escalate.

War might be the most earthbound activity of all, where people of faith and conscience are convinced to pick up arms and slaughter their fellows. Carnage is a sure way to pull us back into the dark, and I believe the groundwork is already being laid for that eventuality.

Recently, US citizen Raymond Davis, allegedly a CIA operative, was arrested in Pakistan for the murder of two ISI agents. He’s currently standing trial for those murders, and the US has harshly warned Pakistan about it. Interestingly, Davis is accused of giving military secrets, as well as fissionable material, to Al Qaeda.

First of all, accept the fact that Al Qaeda cannot build an atomic bomb. However, with fissionable material they would be capable of building a dirty bomb. A bomb made with one pound of fissionable material that “accidentally detonates” somewhere in Pakistan, before it reaches its presumed target in the US, would provide sufficient justification.

Americans are war weary, and it’s going to take a significant threat to convince them to broaden the hostilities in the Middle East. Pictures of people in Pakistani hospitals suffering radiation burns, being treated by doctors in radiation suits, would suffice. We could create the auspices to invade Pakistan in order to “secure all fissionable material.”

Once that happens it wouldn’t be difficult to rationalize spreading the conflagration to Iran and any other Arab country that we deem “belligerent.” Gasoline reaching five dollars per gallon by the end of this year might serve as a tipping point, and cause the more fearful earthbound people to support military action.

A prolonged war with millions of people considering the prospects of killing and dying could serve to derail this new consciousness that’s among us, in their minds. Their problem is, in order to conduct a war of that magnitude would require reinstatement of the military draft. Having spent considerable time around people currently of draft age, the term resistance would be an understatement.

This newer generation perceives life differently, not nearly as connected to the attainment of power. Teachers will tell you that today’s young people are far less likely to engage in meaningless competition, and quick to question authority. It’s one of the healthier signs I’ve seen it in our society in a long time.

Coalescing this generation around the notion of a necessary war that justifies a military draft would be like herding cats. They’re not built that way. The only young people you see at tea party rallies are too young to have made the decision to attend. Their parents told them they were going. However, when you look at the people protesting in Wisconsin, Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere, you see people from their late teens to their early 30s. The demographic needed to widen this war is standing on the other side of the fence.

They don’t have many plays left, because people are waking up all over the world and understanding it’s a new day, a new age, and it belongs to us. Their attempts at brutality only serve to reinforce the collective will of the people demanding justice. In fact, should they try to widen the war or reinstate the draft, it might be the best thing for us. It would motivate those who still believe they can remain neutral.

Understand now fathers, were not just talking about your sons anymore, but your daughters as well. How are you going to feel when they come after your princess with the intent of placing a weapon in her hand to serve as cannon fodder? Mothers, how about your baby boys? Is that what you had in mind for them? It’s nearly checkmate for our side, and I expect the materialists to do something drastic. Should they choose to widen the war, it can only serve to strengthen our position.

They will attempt to thwart this awakening, but they will fail. Billions are opening their eyes, and they understand it’s our world. So do you want to be part of the awakening, or are you one that’s going to be convinced to cling hopelessly to the materialistic world and live in the shadows? Choose wisely, grasshopper, because you get to live with this one for a long time.

There are descriptions everywhere of how rich and powerful the Koch brothers are, and how difficult, nay impossible, it will be to defeat them. People are giving themselves longshot odds at best, and if we lose that will be the reason. We don’t understand how things work.

It couldn’t have been a worse week for Republicans, with as many as 100,000 protesters in Madison, WI to fight union busting. It culminated with Buffalo Beast blogger Ian Murphy punking Gov. Scott Walker with a hoax phone call, [...]]]>

You think these people might have been energized to learn Scott Walker's game plan?

It couldn’t have been a worse week for Republicans, with as many as 100,000 protesters in Madison, WI to fight union busting. It culminated with Buffalo Beast blogger Ian Murphy punking Gov. Scott Walker with a hoax phone call, pretending to be Wichita billionaire Charlie Koch. Walker regurgitated his entire playbook for everyone to hear, thinking he was speaking to his moneyman.

The Republicans were already in fast retreat in other parts of the country. Gov. Mitch Daniels of Indiana had withdrawn a bill similar to Wisconsin’s, indicating that they weren’t in the business of busting unions. Gov. Kasich in Ohio locked protesters out of the Capitol building. Visions of 100,000 angry people in their streets are giving these Republican governors pause.

With Walker’s gaffe it’s no longer speculation. Everybody knows that union busting was the endgame, and only the most myopic Republican supporter can deny it. If Walker hadn’t been thrown out of Marquette University for whatever reason he was, they surely would have tossed him for being the stupidest kid on campus.

It begs the question, when you’re a Republican backed into a corner and you need a distraction, what do you do?

Enter Julian Assange. He might be the only person on earth who could attract attention away from Walker’s blunder of the century. In yesterday’s news conference Walker took only four questions, three of them about the prank phone call, before he walked out. There’s no place to run and no place to hide in this 24/7/365 news cycle world. Soon people would wonder why cable news networks weren’t talking about the phone call.

The only thing left to do was find someone more titillating for the public, and that person is America’s arch-enemy, Julian Assange. All but invisible for several weeks, yesterday a London judge ruled he must be extradited to Sweden to answer questions about an alleged rape. However, he gave Assange seven days to appeal the ruling, which guarantees seven days of uninterrupted coverage of cable-gate.

Surely the Republicans will use this for cover as they desperately try to walk back their plans, hoping people have short memories. They can always regroup and run their assaults later, but right now public awareness is much too high for that. They needed to shift the focus off themselves, but one has to wonder if they haven’t gone from the frying pan into the fire.

By forcing this decision at this time, it’s possible that the US has set in motion events which cannot be contained. Assuming Assange is as advertised and not a government prop, they likely are playing with fire. He’s promised to release the crack code for the 1.4 GB insurance file he’s distributed if arrested or killed. For some perspective, if the average diplomatic cable was 10 kB, his insurance file is big enough to hold 140 million of them. There were only 250,000 diplomatic cables released, so what could all that other information possibly be about? We may soon find out.

The question is, how will things progress in London?

Now they could play the string along for a week just to take attention away from domestic matters, then grant his appeal. Given the incendiary nature of the prank phone call, I’m not sure too many people’s attention will be diverted. Additionally, there are still matters in several other states pending that need to be resolved.

I think this betrays the desperation that the corporatists and Republicans are feeling right now. While it’s possible that Assange is bluffing, unless they’ve managed to crack his insurance file and know its contents, it’s probably not a wise move. If he is as advertised, the release of this information could make what just happened in Wisconsin look like a Republican victory.

Then there’s another consideration, and that’s what Anonymous will do if Assange is indeed sent to prison, or worse, extradited to the US and held incognito. They’ve already demonstrated their ability to crack the servers of an Internet security firm, and it’s hard telling how many sympathetic techies and geeks they have working in the corporate world. It’s possible they could be granted free and unfettered access to some of the most sensitive information on the planet.

Corporations, the military, government officials, even POTUS; there isn’t a computer network or user whose information would be safe. What would happen if the deepest, darkest secrets of the Fortune 100 companies were suddenly made public? What about Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia’s e-mails, or even the Koch brothers themselves? The best guess is if Assange goes down, it will be open cyber-warfare.

It’s quite possible that Scott Walker’s idiocy could be the turning point in this battle between the ultra-wealthy and the American people, although it won’t be the endgame. I expect the wealthy and the corporations to escalate hostilities in an attempt to gain victory by brute force. Their hubris will be their downfall.

Who could have imagined on January 3, when Tunisian Mohamed Bouazizi set himself ablaze in an act of desperation, that it would lead to this? Less than two months later nearly 100,000 middle-aged, middle-class white people in the American state of Wisconsin taking to the streets. It boggles the mind, however it’s representative of the bottled up energy that exists today.

Zbigniew Brzezinski predicted it last year, a massive global political awakening, unprecedented in size and scope. It appears his words were prophetic, as people in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and now the US are standing up to authority. I don’t think this one will necessarily end well, but the real question is for whom will it end badly?

Given the stir created by Ian Murphy’s prank phone call to Scott Walker, can you imagine what would happen if the American people were presented with hard evidence of corporate tax evasion? How about dangerous chemicals in food or drugs, or poison in the water supply? Maybe government officials lining their pockets with taxpayer money? If that type of information came to light, the current mood suggests an international version of the French revolution.

I don’t believe Assange bursting back into the news is an accident. This is a calculated move on the part of the Republicans and the corporatists to divert our attention away from their Wisconsin blunder, and the ultra-stupidity of Scott Walker. However I believe they have awakened a sleeping giant, and their efforts at obfuscation will fall short of the mark. They’ve passed the point of no return.

It’s here and it’s now, the penultimate battle between the haves and the have-nots. Can they divert our attention, or will we keep our eyes on the prize? No one can know for sure, so the next few days will be very interesting, indeed.

I don’t think they can take it anymore, and they’re going to press the issue with Assange, and I believe they’ll be shocked to find out he can do exactly what he claimed. Be ready, because we’re about to see a shitstorm of biblical proportions, up close and personal. There’s no hiding anymore, you’re going to have to choose sides.

Thank you, Scott Walker, because I didn’t know what I was going to do this weekend. Thanks to you, it promises to be most entertaining and exhilarating.

There’s a cadre of progressives that hound Barack Obama at every turn, dissatisfied with his job performance. I regularly suggest to them that if they don’t like it, why don’t they get off their dead asses, organize and take the Democratic Party for themselves? I never [...]]]>

They are still here because of Obama.

There’s a cadre of progressives that hound Barack Obama at every turn, dissatisfied with his job performance. I regularly suggest to them that if they don’t like it, why don’t they get off their dead asses, organize and take the Democratic Party for themselves? I never get an answer.

It’s easier to sit around and bitch and piss and moan rather than do all of that hard work. Frankly, they’re like small children throwing temper tantrums, incapable of seeing a bigger picture. If they would open their eyes, they’d realize the magnitude of what’s been accomplished.

The current protests in Wisconsin and Ohio are destined to spread to other places like Tennessee, Indiana and Massachusetts. It’s a show of force by American workers we’ve not seen in several decades, and it’s heartening to realize that the middle class still has a backbone. Americans are mad as hell, and they’re not going to take it anymore.

It begs the question, would these protests be nearly as effective had Barack Obama not bailed out the auto industry, saving the United Auto Workers (UAW)?

Obama took office with an ambitious agenda that included saving the foundering General Motors and Chrysler. Investing precious political capital, he bailed out the two automakers, obtaining some minor concessions from the union. Republicans wanted the companies to go bankrupt, because it would’ve decimated the UAW.

Obama got the bailouts through, and GM and Chrysler are back on solid footing, already making significant repayments on the government loans. As a result, there are still 390,000 active members and another 600,000 retirees, keeping the UAW one of the most formidable unions in America. By saving the auto companies Obama kept the UAW from dissolution.

Fast-forward two years to today’s protests in Wisconsin, and imagine had Obama allowed the automakers to descend into bankruptcy. At least half of the UAW’s active members are gone, and retirees are wondering if they’ll have to go back to work. Imagine what would be the attitude of the public workers in Wisconsin had he not invested his political capital to save the UAW. It wouldn’t be pretty.

Some criticize Obama for sitting on the sidelines too long in this dispute, but that’s what organizers do. They take the temperature of the people involved, making certain they have the necessary resolve for the fight before they commit to it. What would it be like if Obama had stepped in during the first couple of days, and then 80,000 people hadn’t showed up in Madison? He would have been standing there with nothing but his dick in his hand. Wise leaders don’t put themselves in that position.

Those busy complaining that they haven’t gotten everything they want, exactly the way they wanted, struggle with this kind of reasoning. This president recognizes that it’s not his job to do all the heavy lifting, rather it’s to take the energy from those whose job it is and mold it into a political consensus. Obama understands his job, unfortunately there are too many Democrats on the streets that don’t understand theirs. That’s changing.

Yesterday I attended a “We Are One” rally at the Capitol here in Des Moines, along with a few thousand other people. It was loud and boisterous, people standing up for themselves and their brothers and sisters in Wisconsin, demanding a fair shake from their employers. There was huge amounts of energy, and little doubt that these people would continue their efforts long after that rally ended.

Your brothers and sisters, standing up for themselves...

...and the UAW was there!!!

There was also an appearance by the loyal opposition, pathetic in numbers, but I guess the Koch brothers didn’t have time to hire enough temps to fill the Capitol grounds. It was obvious that the amount of energy had shifted just since the elections in November from the teabaggers to the normal people. Folks are starting to understand what their part is as we reshape America back to a more equitable nation.

They've lost the stomach for the fight.

Interestingly, it wasn’t long after Obama’s election that there was a healthcare rally held at the same spot, and the number of people in attendance only filled the little round semi circle where the teabaggers stood. All these alleged progressive voices on the Internet demanding single-payer health insurance, yet when we had the opportunity to demonstrate our willingness to fight for our rights, only a couple of hundred showed up. They wouldn’t get off their dead asses to even attend a two-hour rally on a sunny day, yet they blame Barack Obama because they didn’t get the health insurance bill they wanted. So whose fault is it, really?

They wanted to sit safely behind their keyboards and not do any of the heavy lifting, expecting Obama to take care of that part for them. He tried to explain to them, no, that’s not my job, but they wouldn’t listen. It reminds me of a quote by FDR:

His point? You’re the people in charge, so make it so uncomfortable for me that I have no choice. Instill that desire in your followers to the point that they’re ready to storm the Bastille, then we can get this done.

So we got a watered-down healthcare reform bill, and they continued pissing and moaning about it, never understanding that the failure was theirs. They wanted what they wanted, but what they wanted someone else to do the work.

Now the thousands of people unwilling to take to the streets for healthcare reform are in the streets to save their jobs. Obama has some political leverage that he didn’t have during the healthcare debate. I can guarantee you, the state legislators in Iowa heard us all through the Capitol building as we cheered and chanted yesterday, something none of them heard during the healthcare debate. It foretells of a far better outcome for us on this one.

There’s a good chance that the people will prevail in this confrontation, and they will likely be solidified and more energetic going into the next election cycle. There will be idiots that demand someone primary Obama, but that’s what they are, idiots. Compare the first two years of Obama’s administration with any other president and you’ll find the quantity and the quality of legislation passed far exceeds anyone else. He spent his political capital wisely. Had we been in the streets supporting him the way people are in the streets in Madison, the resultant legislation might have been far more acceptable to most people.

By saving the UAW, Obama not only saved the wages of nonunion auto workers in the South, but he set the stage for a successful outcome by the people in Wisconsin, et al. Tactically he’s handled this test remarkably, and he will guide the states to resolve these issues without crushing the unions.

So don’t blame Obama for the healthcare bill, blame the complainers who sat behind their keyboards and wouldn’t get out in the streets. If they had shown up for the healthcare debate across the country the way the workers in Wisconsin have in Madison, we’d all be on Medicare now. And if you’re one of those lazy people who expected Obama to do all the heavy lifting, we’ll get it done without you. We’d hate to see you perspire.

Me? My conscience is clear. I knocked on over 1000 doors last election cycle to get my guy re-elected. Imagine if everyone had done that, how many Dems we might have in the House.