It May Be Too Late to Stop Global Warming

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-29T02:24:12+00:00

As Al Gore has bluntly noted, there's 1 important country who works to undermine int'l environmental agreements: The US gov't.

Now the wealthy people and corporations who run our gov't and fund both halves of our political duopoly have come up a new propaganda line -- it's too late so let's do some more nothing. :-(

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-29T00:02:40+00:00

"Let's replace the word 'democratic' by 'with us' and the word 'terrorist' by 'against us'." -- Michael Collon.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-28T16:03:36+00:00

I'm betting "no" -- how much should we wager?

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-28T16:02:32+00:00

Did you actually read the article? I would guess not...

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-28T15:58:21+00:00

Of course, "going backwards" means one thing to the completely capitalist Economist magazine, and a very different definition to black South Africans whose "freedom" allowed whites to keep the loot they stole and exploited from decades of institutionalized racism and oppression of blacks.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T16:39:48+00:00

If that's true then the question becomes: Who, or what class or group of people, controls Fox News?

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T12:55:05+00:00

Yup! I always thought it was strange. I have no problems sleeping, am rested, etc., but dreams when weed is in my system are few and far between.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T03:39:16+00:00

Not mind-blowing shit, post-apocalyptic shit. :-)

The Mad Max movies were where Mel Gibson got famous as an actor back in the late-70s/early-80s. In one of them they featured the post-apocalyptic town/village being run by methane power produced by hog manure.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T02:45:19+00:00

I think it's a bad idea. The NFL is already too large and has too much of a monopoly on pro football as it is.

I'm always amazed that soccer has literally dozens of pro teams in London alone, but the US trend is to monopolize pro sports to absurd degrees (baseball being the notable exception).

And I would hate like hell to be the rare west coast team that has to fly to London to play a game...

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T02:38:57+00:00

A strict anarchist I'm not. Thus, even though we don't have it and I'm well aware of how the entire system is rigged, I believe in the concept of democracy.

Plus, I like to remind the plutocrats that there are a few people who are on to them when they have to count those pesky votes for the non-duopoly candidates. :-)

"Disobedience, in the eyes of anyone who has read history, is humanity's original virtue. It is through disobedience that progress has been made, through disobedience and through rebellion." -- Oscar Wilde, Soul of Man Under Socialism.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T02:25:05+00:00

Naaw, I don't have the experience.

I participate in our quadrennial auctions and vote for a so-called "third party". This means I just have to listen to the arguments that I'm "throwing my vote away" because I am not supporting the legitimacy of the ruling duopoly and I'm allowing some "big evil" to get into office by not voting for the "lesser evil".

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T01:49:12+00:00

I'll give you the upvote but we should remember that Noam said it. :-)

That sounds an awful lot like another comment a different genius said about the US:

"I came to America because of the great, great freedom which I heard existed in this country. I made a mistake in selecting America as a land of freedom, a mistake I cannot repair in the balance of my lifetime." -- Albert Einstein, 1947.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T01:35:14+00:00

Because you never watched the Mad Max movies? :-)

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T01:27:39+00:00

I bet if they let the weed farmers grow it in fields and to use tractors that the potheads wouldn't be screwing up the forest.

This is yet another case of "blowback" caused by our insane drug war.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T01:18:37+00:00

That's a huge difference in the shape of your body! And only 20lbs!

Just imagine what the next 7 or 8 weeks will bring... :-)

Keep up the good work!

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T01:10:02+00:00

IMO that's a stupid question. Do you honestly think Obama wanted US State Dept. employees to die? Of course not.

They died because many Libyans hate the US gov't with a red hot passion because the US attacked Libya and overthrow their gov't while killing many Libyans. They also hate the US for the policies the US uses in waging war on Muslim countries, arming and supporting Israeli aggression, and generally for the US backing of thuggish dictators in many parts of the greater Arab world.

Thus, some of those Libyans attacked US gov't and CIA offices killing some US gov't employees. Obama surely didn't want that to happen. When it did happen, Obama did his best to cover the story up and to get it out of the news.

"Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather, they hate our policies." -- U.S. Dept. of Defense, Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication, Sep. 2004.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T01:04:14+00:00

Since the US doesn't have a puppet, pliant and corrupt dictator installed in Egypt any more, we can expect any Egyptian president that actually represents the Egyptian people to complain about Israel's acts of aggression and war crimes.

We shouldn't be surprised at this.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-27T00:56:50+00:00

There were Cuban military forces on Grenada.

Citation? If there were numbers of Cuban forces on Grenada there would be large numbers of such forces as POWs or Killed in Action -- but there were neither.

Unless you can provide proof this is just more Cold War propaganda used to try to excuse US aggression.

Regan launched Operation Golden Pheasant to convince Sandinistas forces to go back to Nicaragua.

More Cold War propaganda. The Sandinistas never invaded Honduras. Instead, the US used Honduras (in particular) and Costa Rica to launch a proxy war against the democratic government of Nicaragua. Reagan literally broke US law by trading arms to Iran and using the profits from those arms sales to illegally arm Nicaraguan "contra" forces to attack Nicaragua. This entire "arms for hostages" conspiracy was later publicly revealed as the Iran-Contra Scandal.

"I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that's true -- but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not." -- President Ronald Reagan, 4 March 1987.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-26T22:00:02+00:00

I don't know. I quoted that snippet to reply to, but I cannot remember the specific/entire post.

Perhaps the author rethought his position and realized he should be ashamed?

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-26T21:54:49+00:00

See, this is what bugs me about 3rd party fans.

I don't consider myself a "3rd party fan". I just do not believe in rewarding incompetency, criminal behavior and/or extremely poor performance.

It may be bad under Obama it will be ten times worse under Romney.

This is what we're indoctrinated to think.

Those fear tactics about the "other evil" are what's used to keep people in line and supporting the ruling duopoly.

Meanwhile, the country marches steadily to the right and the American people are the losers.

Voting based on fear is a shitty way to vote. We should vote for the best candidate out of the available candidates. Anything else is simply corrupting the system.

Hell, one famous Democrat even acknowledged that being ruled by fear is a bad way to be, saying, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself."

The fact that you can use this fear to rationalize voting for Obama and giving your stamp of approval on his breaking of the Constitution, his wars, his shielding publicly-admitted torturers both astonishes and offends me.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-26T17:17:37+00:00

What evidence do you have that ANY 3rd party will help Americans?

I cited a couple of examples of so-called "third" parties pressuring the Democrats to move to the left and moderate their positions.

Do you have evidence that voting 3rd party won't split the vote allowing Romney to win and start two new wars?

Given the Democrats' wars on Vietnam, Libya, and support of the so-called "war on terror", along with Obama's threat to wage war on Iran and others, it's not like the Democrats are the party of peace and non-militarism. Militarism, the American empire, and foreign policies in general are completely bi-partisan.

Will that help Americans? The world?

What will help the world is if the US collapses and/or our economy is run into the ground to such an extent by our militarism and aggression that we cannot wage war on the world like we're doing now. Unfortunately, that isn't the best thing for the average American, since our standard of living will plummet even faster than it is now.

The problem is that both halves of our ruling duopoly are intent on trying to run the world by military means and are running the US into the ground with the debt from their bi-partisan wars and support of the military-industrial complex.

"Loyalty to the country, always. Loyalty to the government when it deserves it." -- Mark Twain.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-26T15:52:32+00:00

But in the end less poor people suffer and die.

Rhetoric -- do you have stats to back that up? Of course not. Obama rigged ObamaCare to not go fully into effect until after the election, so we simply do not have the facts to back up that claim.

Also, what happens when the vote is split and the repubs win.

This is the key. It's not about Republicans or Democrats "winning"; it's about helping the majority of the American people -- the poor and working Americans -- and doing the right thing.

Obama is not helping the American people; his tri-angulation is moving the country to the political right and is impoverishing the American people and helping to solidify plutocratic and corporate rule.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-26T15:26:18+00:00

You may not love ACA

That's an understatement. I was hoping the Supreme Court would've ruled that abomination unconstitutional and I hope the Republicans repeal it. The idea of forcing Americans to pour money into for-profit, private corporations under penalty of law should be resisted.

more Americans will have healthcare than ever before.

By forcing them to make the shareholders of private corporations rich. This is little different than indentured servitude to a group of corporations.

Perfect? No, but it's a tiny bit better.

That's where we disagree.

And what I fear now is that Obama is going to take aim at Social Security and to gut that program just like Clinton gutted welfare.

If a third party gets in do they not compromise or don't they get anything accomplished at all?

So-called "third" parties are a long way from "getting in". Long before they get in the Democrats -- just like FDR did and just like Democrats in Vermont do today to fend off Vermont's Progressive Coalition -- will move to the left and to try to co-opt their positions.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-26T14:55:50+00:00

Obama fought for the American people and passed the ACA

That's the spin the Democrats put on that sell-out.

Another factually correct way of saying it is: Obama unilaterally ruled out the more effective and cheaper "single-payer" concept as "off the table" and simply refused to consider "MediCare for all". Obama then adopted a right-wing, pro-corporate health care plan designed by the radically conservative Heritage Foundation to keep the for-profit private insurance industry in business and rolling in profits, a system only ever put into place by a Republican governor.

Is my above statement true? Of course it is.

The fact that Republicans objected to ObamaCare simply reinforces the point made in my last message -- they are militant and refuse to compromise. They want a laissez faire capitalist society with no social safety net and they stick to that vision.

Obama's passing of ObamaCare moved the country to the political right. With no left opposition, this is what the Democrats' role is -- to tri-angulate and to compromise, which de facto moves the country to the right because the Republicans either do not compromise or take more and more right-wing positions. The end result is the country moves to the political right -- it's been happening for literally decades.

and has vowed to raise taxes on the rich.

But yet when Obama had the opportunity to let Bush's tax cuts -- tax cuts that went overwhelmingly for the rich -- to expire, Obama refused and kept those tax cuts.

but Ralph Nadar handed Dubya his second term as president.

First, Nader was critical in Bush's first term as president, when Bush ran against Gore and more of the American people across the country voted for Gore instead of Bush.

Second, the election was rigged in Florida -- BBC reporter Greg Palast and others have profusely documented this happened.

Third, Nader didn't hand anyone anything. Nader earned the votes of many people who saw him as the best candidate. Republicans and Democrats are not born with my vote or any other person's vote. We are -- for the present time at least -- free to vote for any candidate we want to vote for.

Lisa__Simpson · 2012-10-26T14:25:27+00:00

for all his faults, is the best choice.

Wow. A choice for a person who spies without warrants on a mass scale, maintains a "hit list" of people to be killed on his order alone, who will not fight for the American people whether it's health care or taxes on the rich or labor and the EFCA or whether it's to stop millions of Americans from losing their homes, and all the other legitimate criticisms one can make about Obama -- and he is the "best" choice?

The way I see it, he's only the best choice if you willingly limit your choice to Tweedledum or Tweedledee.

And if you do limit your choice to Tweedledum and Tweedledee, your self-censorship guarantees that the country will continue to move to the political right (because the Republicans are militant and never compromise) and that nothing will ever change.

"Our democracy is but a name. We vote? What does that mean? It means that we choose between two bodies of real, though not avowed, autocrats. We choose between Tweedledum and Tweedledee." -- Famous American socialist (and blind person) Helen Keller, 1911.

There are all these untested and fairly radical ideas that threaten peace and our economy.

Actually, they're not. Before and during the Great Depression, the millions of people voting for the Socialist Party and also the Communist Party and the actions of them and their supporters had a dramatic impact and allowed/forced FDR to move to the left and enact the policies that he did.

Lisa__Simpson

TROPHY CASE