Robot Monkeys

Ahh, got to love the Republicans are strong on China. That’s unfair. The dems cave too. They’re both beholden to their corporate masters. Bush in a stunning display of strength, will attend the opening ceremonies of the Olympics.

Keeping quiet, not saying anything. “Rolling” if you will shows strength. Saying, “Hey. We don’t like this,” according to White House advisor, Stephen Hadley put it, “a cop out”.

Bravo. Bravo. I would expect nothing less from the Glorious American Government.

U.S. Major Gen. Antonio Taguba (Ret.):

There is no longer any doubt that the current administration committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered torture will be held to account.

Sorry Tony. There’s no question of that either. They won’t be.

What should happen is that the International Criminal Court should issue an arrest warrant, and then the principles: George W, Cheney, Rummy, John Yoo, Scooter Libby, and the whole lot, should be arrested as soon as they step off the plane in a foreign country. Hell, Interpol should take a page out of their playbook and perform an “extraordinary rendition” and arrest them here.

Hell! Why the hell isn’t the Berkley city council ordering the Berkeley PD to arrest John Yoo at his office at 890 Simon Hall? I’ll tell you why. Because unlike the fucking Berkeley Nuclear Free Zone, this would actually achieve something, and hippies aren’t about achieving real change. They’re all about “sending messages” and forming drum circles and raging against the war machine and what not. Just not achieving real change.

So GWB calls the Democrats, and in an obvious implication, Obama as “appeasers.” Nothing is new here. GWB and the Republicans have been doing that for seven years now. It’s absurd rhetoric, but again, none of that is new. What is new is that he did it from Israel.

That’s crossing the line. He can has the right to make sure everyone knows just how stupid he by making outrageous attacks all he wants while here. But you don’t criticize the government abroad. You don’t engage in political games while abroad. As the saying goes: “politics stops at the water’s edge.”

I read Lincoln Chafee’s account of GWB’s first tax cut, and it’s completely unsurprising. I remember the battle. I remember how less than nine months into his presidency, he was already being considered a failure. It was clear that that the tax cuts were irrational and dangerous. Even his foreign policy was suspect as seen in “Time’s” September 10, 2001 issue.

If 9/11 never happened, he would have been a one termer and we wouldn’t be in Iraq. Still in a recession though.

National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley called Bush skipping the olympic opening ceremonies “a cop out.” I just love the NewSpeak being spouted by him. Expressing displeasure is a cop out. Of course this administration has raised NewSpeak to a level that even George Orwell couldn’t have dreamed. But let’s focus on the real issue here, that “quiet diplomacy” works.

We won’t really count the years prior to the collapse of the Soviet Union since sino-us relations were primarily concerned with keeping the Soviet’s off balance. So let’s look at the past 20 years. After Tiananmen, the world withdrew from China. Normalized relations were disrupted. China was an outcast once again. Then something strange happened. The Chinese government opened itself up for multinational corporations to establish factories there. The Chinese economy grew. The multinationals, and their puppets in Washington, spread the line that by the Chinese people will get richer, buy our stuff, and then since they have things will want to exert political power along with purchasing power, and then China will transform itself into a modern democracy. Of course that didn’t happen. The Chinese people are now better better off materialistically than they ever have been, but political change hasn’t happened. The American people never got what they wanted, democratic reforms. Instead, we’re told to “be patient.” Meanwhile the United States continued to deindustrialize, leaving us with very few things to actually sell the Chinese. Those that are left, like tech companies, ironically shore up the very regime that selling products is supposed to undermine. Of course I’m talking about American companies constructing the Great Firewall of China. Great.

“Be patient.” As it has become clear that Free Trade is was bill of goods sold to the American people, we’re supposed to not believe that anything is wrong. That everything is going swimmingly. That we have the Chinese, right where we want them. We’re in such a position of strength, our government can’t do show any displeasure at all. As Hadley said on ABC this morning:

“We have a lot of leverage on the Chinese. We are using it in a constructive, diplomatic way. And it’s a lot greater leverage than just the issue of whether he goes to an opening ceremony or not,” Hadley said. “The whole international community has leverage. They ought to be using it now, not letting themselves off the hook by simply saying, ‘Well, we won’t go to the opening ceremonies.”‘

To which I respond: HA!

No matter what King George and the Republicans say, our economy sucks. It sucks hard. It’s been mediocre at best, no matter what Ed Gillespie or anyone else says. Iraq is wasting 15 billion a month, meanwhile our infrastructure is falling apart and our economy is teetering on collapse. Weak dollars is supposed to boost our exports, but that’s not happening. Why? The answer is obvious isn’t it. We’ve spent decades deindustrializing. There’s nothing to export.

Our economy has very real structural problems, and there’s no reason to believe that they’re going to be fixed soon, let alone in time to avoid a depression. Hell, given the flack that Obama has caught for stating the obvious truth that people are “bitter” about the loss of jobs and the state economy, there’s no reason to believe that anyone democrat or republican has the wherewithal to fix the economy. They don’t even want to admit that something is very very wrong here.

Our boat is sinking, and no one in charge even wants to take the time to rearrange the deck chairs.

So Bush has finally come around to admitting that the economy sucks. The economy has been stagnant at best for his entire tenure, and now we’re in the midst of a recession, with all signs that the Bush’s lassie-faire policies, especially with regard to regulation, have come home. The amount of debt in this country is serious. Contrary to Bush and his supporters, we do not have a “fundamentally strong” economy.

Bush said that he wasn’t going help out homeowners who are going to lose their homes because they can no longer afford their mortgage. Now these people shouldn’t have ever been loaned that money, and I reluctantly agree with that position. Freezing foreclosures is a dumb idea, because all it does is delay the inevitable.

But just today, the Fed protects out JP Morgan’s buyout of Bear Stearns. That is stupid. The government shouldn’t be bailing out these banks. They took leave of their senses, and made very very very bad decisions. They screwed up, and now they’re failing. The Invisible Hand™ works its magic. Of course, those promoting lassie-faire economic policies, aren’t really lassie-faire proponents at all. They just want all regulation help them. “Don’t get in my way to screw over everyone for a but, when I screw up, bail me out.”

This is stupid, and bad economic policy, and completely expected from the Bush and the modern Republican party. Afterall, government bailouts for bad business decisions run in the family.

We are so fucked.

3 trillion dollars

Makes me think of Eisenhower

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some fifty miles of concrete pavement.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

Or to bring it back to Iraq:

Three trillion could have fixed America’s social security problem for half a century.

Senate dems to protect telco crimes. Reid says, “No warrant? No problem!”

Fuck you Reid, you worthless coward piece of shit.

If domestic spying was so vitally important, then Bush wouldn’t be threatening to veto it if it didn’t have immunity. You had the bludgeon, Reid! If Bush did carry through with his threat, you just had to say, “Well apparently the President thinks protecting his friends from prosecution of their crimes, is more important than protecting Americans from attack.” But no! You had to cave.

But then again, you always do.

Why the hell are you the leader in the Senate, if you won’t lead, and won’t stand up for the people. You’re a goddamn rubber stamp.

Update: Tue Feb 12 14:15:16 PST 2008
Color me surprised.
WaPo reports that Obama voted against telcom immunity, while Hillary abstained.

“The strength and experience to make change happen,” indeed.

Let the show trials begin.