Steaming Pile of the Day (or Food for Thought)

Republican politicians don't give a flying fuck about what's best for the American people, but they don't have the balls to admit it.

Democratic politicians generally believe in the the common good, but don't have the balls to do anything about it.

The American people think they're God's gift to the world, but don't have the attention span to realize they're a nation in self-inflicted, irreparable decline.

It would be an amusing and entertaining reality show to watch if it wasn't happening to us.

The Public Education Analogy for Healthcare

In the raging healthcare debate that currently dominates the American news cycle, it seems like everybody has an analogy that they claim proves or disproves the future viability of the as yet unformed healthcare reform legislation. Republican/conservative fearmongers compare it to socialism (Soviet, not Swedish). Over on the left, Democrats, scrambling to find some type of purchase in the painfully thin topsoil that is America's collective attention span, can't really compare it to anything substantive because they haven't yet decided how much they're going to give up in the face of Republican obstinance, although they have made weak efforts to point out that their various plans are similar in various ways to various existing programs like Medicare and the VA.

In all fairness to the American public, you can't really blame them for buying the Republican bullshit, because at least it's something to buy. The Democrats talked a big game about single-payer universal coverage (without explaining it to people) before the election, but quickly jettisoned that idea as soon as Max Baucus and Kent Conrad got their campaign checks from the healthcare and pharmaceutical industries. Then they babbled about the public option (again, without clearly explaining it to Ma and Pa Kettle), half-heartedly flung co-ops against the wall to see if they would stick (what is a co-op you ask? Exactly!), and now are mumbling stuff about pasting a few legislative band-aids on the suppurating wound of American healthcare.

The frustrating thing is, the Republicans couldn't care less about the plight of the "mythical little people." The Democrats are the ones who push legislation and policy that benefits society rather than the individual or the corporation, and in a country of 300 million people, logic clearly dictates that the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. Or the one. In the words of George Costanza, "we're living in a society here!"

The Dems are responsible for some of the most important social legislation in history, from the Social Security Act to the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to the Americans with Disabilities Act to Title IX, but these days, they seem unable to make the case for healthcare reform or anything else to the American people.

Republicans are great at coming up with neat little Goebbels-like slogans that reduce complex, subtle, critically important policy debates down to bumper-sticker slogans. From "the Moral Majority" to "Contract with America" to "entitlement programs" to "the death tax" to "socialized medicine" to "death panels" and now "the death book," Frank Luntz, Karl Rove, and the rest of the sinister Republican brain trust have got distracting abstraction down to a science.

It works for them because Americans don't want to "read the bill," they want the Cliff's Notes version. The shorter the better, and bonus points if it has a touch of snark to it, too. Democrats, weak-kneed and conviction-challenged as they are, hem and haw about the fine details of policy, nibbling off arcane portions of legislation and then trying to sell them to the American people as legitimate game-changers. Most of the time, most Americans don't know what the Democrats are trying to argue, what their positions are, how the proposed legislation would affect them, or why something needs to change. It's much simpler for the public to absorb a bold, confident, 30-second Republican sound bite than it is to try to figure out what the hell John Kerry just spent seven minutes and 15 appositive clauses trying to say.

This is one reason why the public doesn't buy the Democratic spiel, and frankly, Page A-26 can't blame them. To help the Democrats find their way out of the rhetorical paper bag in which they're currently lost in the healthcare debate, Page A-26 offers two helping hands.

First, a five-word bumper sticker slogan. "Universal healthcare -- for everybody's future"

Second, a simple analogy for single-payer universal health care or the public option. The public education system.

Republicans/conservatives and their town holler proxies are all bent out of shape about universal healthcare and/or the public option for a variety of disingenuous reasons. Oh sure, some of the more undereducated town hollers might actually believe that universal healthcare or the public option would result in rationed care or whacking grandma for the fun of it or socialized medicine (uh, you mean like the VA, hoss? Yes, my little mental midget, just like the VA), but the puppetmasters pulling the strings know that these reasons are just distracting flak thrown into the public discourse to confuse and mislead.

One of the favorite warhorses that Republican leaders trot out in opposition of universal healthcare or even a public option is that such a plan will drive private health insurance companies out of business because they won't be able to compete with the government's economy of scale. (Let's just suspend for the time being the counterargument these same Republican leaders spew out of the other side of their mouths: that a government-managed system would be horribly inefficient and ineffective.) Because the government would be able to offer better coverage at a lower price, reasonable Americans would abandon their overpriced, undercovering private health insurance for the public option. Alas, the poor private health insurance companies, how will they ever survive?

If only there was an example of an existing system in which a critical service was provided to the American public concurrently by the government and the private sector. If only.

Ah, but wait, there is. It's called the American educational system. First sketched out in the Northwest Ordinances of 1785 and 1787, the public education system in the United States is one of the most beneficial and successful systems in the history of the world. Using tax revenue, the federal government, in conjunction with local governments and municipalities provides free education to anybody who wants to attend. And right alongside the universal single-payer government-run, socialized public education system hums a vast network of highly successful and profitable private education institutions.

Just like it would be for universal single-payer healthcare, Americans right now, today! have the right and the opportunity to send their kids to whatever school they want. Parents can choose to send their kids to tuition-free public school or they can choose to send them to private schools for a fee. It's entirely their choice. The government doesn't force them into either option, but it does make an option available for those who cannot afford the high cost of private schools or for those who simply choose to participate in the shared experience that is American society.

So there it is Democratic leaders, your ready-made, easy-to-understand analogy for universal single-payer healthcare, or at least the public option.

One last thing about the public education-universal healthcare analogy. Republicans have been trying for years to get rid of America's public education system. From attempts to dissolve the Department of Education to private school vouchers to unnecessary tax cuts that intentionally leave no money remaining for public services like education, the Republicans/conservatives are hell-bent on privatizing one of the shining lights of American history and American government.

This is an important point, because the Republicans would like to privatize everything, including Social Security, the armed forces, and even the Post Office. Why? Because corporations don't profit from government services, unless they're the ones providing them. So with regard to Republicans/conservatives, the healthcare debate is really about profit and greed, not what's best for individual Americans or America as a whole.

That's one more simple message the Democrats should be trying to make clear to the American public.

Fear Groupthink

Today's topic is the moronic town hollers and the misinterpretation of them by America's beloved media types.

Yes, of course the Republicans/Conservatives/Neocons/Birthers/Deathers/Teabaggers/Minutemen/Swift Boaters/town hollers/et al are driving us crazy here at Page A-26, but as usual we're almost more distressed by the media coverage than we are with their actual antics. That's because, the flaccid "reporting" on the town hollers, instead of being a spotlight of truth that shames these dead-enders and their big-money enablers into something resembling reality and morality, only serves to mislead and distract by sending those still paying attention down the wrong path like sheep into a loading dock.

Like rattlesnakes, the disingenuous Republicans/conservatives can't really be expected not to do what they do. Just as one wouldn't expect a rattlesnake to suddenly turn into a snuggly pet, one doesn't expect Republicans/Conservatives/Neocons/Birthers/Deathers/Teabaggers/Minutemen/Swift Boaters/et al to suddenly turn into rational, thoughtful, caring beings capable of reasonable discussion on any topic. Like it or not, it's who they are and what they do. Apparently, in modern American society, there is always going to be 25-35% of the population who refuse to accept reality and will ceaselessly continue bleating on and on about Obama's birth certificate or God's views on homosexuality and abortion, guns, or the evil incarnate that is taxes and, gasp, government.

So screw 'em. Those people are unreachable. However, that still leaves 65-75% of this country who theoretically might listen to reason. Except. Except the media proves itself on a daily basis to be either a megaphone for intentional disinformation and propaganda (yes, Fox News, we're looking at you) or an echo chamber of babbling sycophants.

Exhibit one in today's media lambast is the industry-accepted reason for the town hall disruptions: fear.

Sometime in the past few weeks, it was decided by the media types that fear was going to the be the universal descriptor to describe the mind-bogglingly stupid antics of the town hall disruptees. Everybody from Brian Williams to Jon Stewart to Keith Olberman to Rachel Maddow to Bill Maher has been beating the fear horse to death ever since. So much so that the fear explanation has become firmly entrenched in the media's conventional wisdom on the topic and nobody even questions it any more, just simply repeats over and over again that these idiot town hollers are driven by fear, fear, fear! All town hall news stories and commentaries are now built on this thematic foundation.

For Page A-26, it has become useless groupthink, very similar to the "Saddam Hussein is a butcher with WMDs that gassed his own people, is a threat to the very existence of the world, and must be taken down immediately" groupthink that every public commentator and politician (with some exceptions: Bill Maher, Barbara Lee, Dennis Kucinich, Howard Dean) was mindlessly parroting in the months preceding the U.S. invasion of Iraq in March 2003. This groupthink is why nobody in the media really questioned Bush's bullshit "evidence" and why Bush and his thugs were able to use the media to convince the American public that the Iraq war was necessary.

After reading and considering Joe Bageant's excellent book, "Deer Hunting with Jesus," a piercing explanation of why poor, rural Americans act against their own self-interests by supporting Republican candidates and policies, Page A-26 has developed a different theory about why these town hollers are acting the way they are.

It's not fear that is motivating them to act out, it's empowerment.

These morons are not scared, they are emboldened. The pundits are asserting that the town hollers are afraid of coming changes to their lives that will leave them on the outside looking in. That's totally bass-ackwards thinking. As Bageant points out, these people are already on the outside looking in. They are forgotten nobodies in the age of celebrity worship, their lives just dreary, empty shells of the American dream and they know it.

The Republican/conservative puppetmasters know it too, and they have tapped into the empty lives of these people and offered them a raison d'etre. They get them all riled up on talk radio and Fox News with a lot of lies and misinformation about Obama, Nancy Pelosi, the Democrats, and policy issues like healthcare reform, then offer them an opportunity to turn their anger into action through abortion clinic demonstrations, town hall disruptions, and the like.

For the poor dopes who buy into the Republican/conservative crap, they feel like this is their chance to be part of something, to make a difference, to be heard -- to feel powerful.

This is evident in the vehemence and total lack of introspection with which the town hollers proffer their ignorance in public. They feel they are part of something that wants and needs them. This is the same principle that drives people to join gangs -- and churches. The Republican party represents something that loves them, has a place for them, and has a mission for them -- or so they think.

Of course, they are being cynically manipulated by Republican/conservative idealogues who prey on these desperate lost souls and hire PR and marketing firms to shape and sell their messages to the very people who will be most hurt by them: Joe the Plumbers, hockey moms, and the town hollers themselves. In the cruelest of ironies, the town hollers are like ants who take poisoned bait from an ant trap back to the nest and end up killing off their entire colony, themselves included.

So it's not about fear, it's about empowerment. And these town hall fools have been empowered and enabled by the attention they are receiving for their public antics. You can see them growing in confidence, vehemence, and righteousness every second they're in front of a camera or a microphone. Their expressions similar to those of an eight-year-old who looks to his older brother for approval before doing something he knows to be wrong but wants to do anyway to impress the brother and his friends. Seeing that their buffoonery generates the right reaction -- attention -- they forge ahead, louder and dumber and wronger.

This is the kind of artificially invested self-importance wielded by security guards and vice principals, as if somehow their rumpled uniforms or polyester ties give them the right to exert social control well beyond their wisdom, intellect, and morality. Of course, it's the power of the superorganism standing behind them that gives them their arrogant righteousness.

So the town hollers are willing to suspend disbelief and logic to be a part of the Republican/conservative superorganism because it gives them a voice and a role in an American society in which they would otherwise be nameless, faceless drones. The Republican/conservative puppetmasters feed them lies and validate their misconceptions and ignorance, then give them a mission as God's warriors on the front line of patriotism and rugged individualism and point them towards the issue of the moment (abortion, Terry Schiavo, gay marriage, gun control, elective war, healthcare reform).

The town hollers are basically social/political/moral suicide bombers outfitted with explosive ideological vests by the Republican/conservative puppetmasters and loosed into the crowded open-air markets of American public discourse. And the town hollers carry out their missions with the same unthinking certainty and misguided prestige as the manipulated martyrs in Iraq.

But American media thrives on fear and so fear is the reason they have chosen to explain why these town hollers are acting out. Fear of change, fear of black people, fear of losing their place in society, which is something they don't even have to lose because it's already gone.

Too bad it misses the mark. Nope, these town hollers are fueled by the sense of purpose that comes from years of being told by the Republican/conservative puppetmasters that their ignorance is truth and that they can make a difference if only they will force the rest of society to see things as they do.

The vociferousness of voice and action of these town hollers and their ilk, at the behest of the Republican/conservative puppetmasters, has gotten steadily more aggressive in the last 25 years and will continue to do so until two things happen:

1) The Democratic/liberal/progressive leaders understand the disenfranchisement of the town hollers and find a way to reinspire their lives. Page A-26 doesn't have that answer yet, but we can sure as hell tell you it won't happen through condescension, derision, complicated philosophical Senate speak, or the inability to stake out a clear position and then stand behind it with the courage of conviction. Something more akin to rolling up their figurative sleeves and getting into these communities and showing how government programs like Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, the VA, public education, and so on directly and positively benefit the lives of the town hollers. It will only work if it's as simple as A + B = C. The Democrats/liberals/progressives must find a way to make the town hollers feel just as important and empowered as the Republican/conservative puppetmasters make them feel.

2) Somehow the American media has to be reclaimed from the MBA and Chamber of Commerce crowds. There is no way that Americans can hope to understand what is going on behind the scenes in Congress and the corporate boardrooms when the media is controlled by the very corporate boardrooms that are carving up this country for their own gain. So long as editorial decisions are made based on spreadsheets, political ideology, and ego, there is no hope to pass meaningful healthcare reform or any other publicly beneficial legislation. The media is the only spotlight the American public has, and without it, the roaches will multiply in the dark and end up eating us out of house and home.

A Theory on Autism

Page A-26 has long been on its soapbox about the total and absolute capitulation of America to China. Setting aside the political, military, and economic chokehold China already has on us -- yes, they could roll us right now three ways to Sunday if they wanted to; believe it -- public health and safety is the issue d'jour.

Page A-26 theorizes that there might be a correlation between the skyrocketing rate of autism in the United States during the last 15 years and the similarly staggering volume of Chinese imports brought into this country during the same time period. No, we are not claiming that the mere act of importing cheap goods from China is the cause of autism, but we are questioning whether there is a relationship between the high volume of these poorly manufactured goods and current public health issues.

Doctors and scientists aren't sure what causes the spectrum of neural disorders generally called autism, but theories are legion. From medical professionals to parents to ranting paranoids like Page A-26, autism theories are like, well, autistic kids -- seems like everybody's got one. Theories range from genetic predispositions to mercury in vaccinations to statistics and reporting.

Currently, the medical profession is fixated on the idea that autism is congenital. Their collective theory is that, as with many other diseases, there must be a certain gene or gene sequence that predisposes some people to autism.

Page A-26 has a whole new theory on the causes of autism, a theory that has major repercussions for not only public health in the United States, but also for the international economy.

Page A-26 theorizes that the sharp rise in autism in the United States over the last 15 years is a direct result of the massive increase in Chinese imports brought into the country during the same time period. We further posit that the search for genetic markers is a wild goose chase, because we believe that every human has the genetic markers for autism -- it's not about the markers, it's about the triggers. Specifically, Page A-26 believes that chemicals exhausted and leached from cheap Chinese imports made with substandard and outright dangerous materials are the triggers which activate the autism gene markers.

Now before you go off screaming Sinophobia at the top of your lungs, don't. This isn't an attack on the Chinese people or culture. China is the focus of our theory because it is now the world's supplier of cheap, plastic, and poorly manufactured goods. It could just as easily be Mexico, Bangladesh, Vietnam, or Romania (in fact, their products are also probably suspect), but as anybody who has done any shopping in the last 10 years will tell you, just about every damn thing for sale in this country was made in China.

In the last three years, there has been no shortage of news stories about recalled Chinese toys, food, and other products found to be too dangerous for human consumption. Each time we are bombarded with propaganda telling us that it was just a manufacturing anomaly and not the result of any kind of systemic deficiencies. And then it happens again. This is no accident. The corporations selling this stuff know damn well that the materials and processes being used to make these products in China aren't safe, but they don't care about safety, they care about profits.

Whether it's lead, arsenic, polyvinylchloride, and mercury in children's toys or radiator fluid in pet food or simply bisphenol A and phthalates in everything from baby bottles to car upholstery, dangerous chemicals are in everything we buy that says "Made in China" on it.

And not just a little contaminated. Lead levels in toys and other products have been found in some cases to be 116,000 PERCENT HIGHER THAN THE ACCEPTABLE LEVELS SET BY THE US GOVERNMENT. Nobody knows exactly what has been causing the elevation of autism rates in this country over the last 20 years, but it is very telling that NONE of the current theories makes any mention of contaminated Chinese imports as a possible line of investigation.

Again with the China, Page A-26? Yup. But China isn't really to blame. Like Colombia, they're just fulfilling a ravenous demand in the American market. Instead, blame the American corporations and politicians who intentionally put Americans at risk in order to increase their profits and power. You see, the European Union has already figured out that these cheap Chinese imports are dangerous and its politicians have set very stringent safety standards for consumer goods. So stringent that most Chinese manufacturers have separate facilities. One set of facilities produces high-quality goods for the European market's tough safety standards; the other set produces cheap, dangerous goods using harmful chemicals and substandard manufacturing practices for the American market. Don't believe us? Look it up and start paying attention, because its real.

But back to the autism discussion. Page A-26 did a cursory statistical survey to see how the increase in autism tracks against the increase in Chinese imports to the United States over the last 10 years. Now granted, Page A-26 is not a credentialed scientific organization, and also granted, the information we used to create our comparison was grabbed at random off the Internet, so don't get caught up in the methodology. In fact, Page A-26 feels that because we randomly pulled data off the Internet from different sources, the results are more objective and credible than some study commissioned by the US Chamber of Commerce or the American Chemistry Council or the goddamn White House.

When we graphed the two sets of data from two different sources for the years 1995 to 2003, we found that they were nearly identical. Both sets of data reveal strikingly similar year-on-year percentage growth as well as similar growth arcs for the entire eight-year period we looked at. Coincidence, or . . . ?



As we suspected, our theory has met with everything from goofy grins to outright annoyance as people wave off such out-of-the-box thinking as the ranting of a radical left-wing wackjob. Guess what? You better start thinking seriously about this theory, because it's not just autism, it's pancreatic cancer, overian cancer, MS, ALS -- these cheap products made with dangerous chemicals are everywhere and you are kidding yourself if you think that they're safe just because the corporations and manufacturers profiting from them and the corrupt American politicians who are beholden to the corporations say they're safe. In fact, the latest recall of toys were actually replacements for previously recalled toys.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092702160.html?hpid=moreheadlines
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/27/AR2007092700231.html?tid=informbox

These products are not safe -- they are killing us. In fact, you can just assume that every single thing you purchase, from food to clothes to toys to medicine, contains ingredients that are harmful to the human body. It's all contaminated.

As mentioned, our theory has met with much resistance. Nobody wants to acknowledge that the cheap crap they buy at Wal-Mart might be why they have asthma or why their kid has autism. Americans long ago made the decision that they prefer cheapness over quality, convenience over health. And speaking of health, Page A-26 wonders if a comparison of pharmaceutical company profits and the rise in autism over the last 15 years would yield similar statistical results. We're thinking yes.

Page A-26 first started thinking about this link between dangerously manufactured Chinese imports and autism after seeing several news stories that reported the mysterious rise in autism rates and how it's one of the great mysteries of our times. Gosh darn, it seems like nobody can figure this out.

So, unlike the medical researchers who insist that the answers can only be found by deciphering the Human Genome, Page A-26 feels that the answer lies in the environmental factors that activate the genetic markers for autism. If we were running the research, we would start looking at historical, environmental, economic, and scientific factors that have occurred simultaneous to the huge spike in autism in the U.S. over the last 15 years. Could be the increased exposure to harmful chemicals from cheap Chinese imports, could be global warming. The point is, doesn't it seem a bit easier to investigate and address the human-created conditions that might contribute to conditions like autism rather than trying to figure out the inner workings of the human genetic code?

It could be that the powers that be don't want to figure it out -- just like the same powers that be don't want to acknowledge global warming. Those making money off cheap Chinese imports don't want that gravy train threatened and those in the medical and scientific community are too arrogant to consider something they hadn't previously considered. Oh yeah, and one more thing: if a legitimate study was to be done, and that study was to determine that there was a link between the dangerous chemicals in cheap Chinese imports and the explosion of autism in this country, it would shake the very foundation of the US and the world economies -- and the powers that be are never going to let that happen.

For example, yahoo.com has a bunch of links on its site for shopping for baby toys and consumer reports tips on buying baby products, but none of them mention anything about chemical contaminants or say anything about China. This content is certainly intended to drive commerce, not to inform the public about the things they really need to know about.

Go ahead, shout it out: it's a goddamn conspiracy. Actually, it's two conspiracies. First is the conspiracy among governments and corporations not to protect the consumers from harmful products in order to make greater profits. Second is the conspiracy to overlook the connection between these harmful products and the recent, sharp rise in medical conditions like autism.

Because the American economy is totally dependent on cheap Chinese goods, nothing will ever be voluntarily done that could possibly jeopardize that relationship or profit margin. In fact, China has the US economy so securely by the balls that last year, Mattel issued a groveling apology to China!

What will happen is that the US retailers and Chinese manufacturers will make incremental changes to move the toxicity of the products right to the edge of acceptable contamination levels, but will make no effort to complete clean up their products. As soon as the American public stops complaining and this latest wave of recall publicity dies down, it will go back to business as usual. (For example, one PR line that retailers are using is the design flaw versus chemical contamination angle -- http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2007-09/29/content_6810132.htm)

And hey, save some of that blame for yourselves. The next time you read a story in the news about some type of recalled Chinese import or see something on TV about how nobody can figure out what causes autism, maybe you will take a couple minutes to really think about whether there might be a link between the two. And then ask yourself why nobody is interested in investigating a link between the two. And then ask yourself if anybody besides you actually cares whether you and your family get sick and die from these products. And then ask yourself whether you really need that Thomas the Tank Engine toy for your son or that nonstick cooking pan or any of the other crap you were thinking about buying at Wal-Mart.

Only we have the power to protect our health -- by not buying these contaminated, dangerous, and unhealthy products. Don't buy them. We know that it's hard to find anything that isn't made in China, but that's part of the point here.

We are being poisoned by the omnipresence of these goods in our lives.

Until we put pressure on the retailers and branded companies that KNOWINGLY sell us these contaminated products, why would they ever change their practices? They are making huge profit margin at the expense of OUR HEALTH.

Don't buy this stuff, and tell the merchants that you buy from that you won't buy any products made in China. If we all took this kind of stand, however difficult and inconvenient it might be (please note that the title for the jumplink to the second page of this article is titled, "Boycotting Chinese toys 'impractical'" -- a subtle but clear message to the American public that they need to shut up, bend over, and take it), the cheap, dangerous products wouldn't sell and the corporations would be forced to replace them with something that will, like maybe the safer, healthier products they produce for the European Union.

It's our health America.

The Plot to Attack the United States, er Iran

Bad news America -- bad news world. Dick Cheney's thirty-year priopism for attacking Iran is closer than ever to coming to a climax. He wants this so bad, he can almost smell it with his lizard tongue.

Generally, it's more of the same from the Bush Crime Family and the Cheney neocon-men: we know Iran has nuclear intentions, we know they are supplying weapons and training to insurgents in Iraq, and we know they have designs on your teenage daughters. We have no tangible proof we can show you, but we have plenty of talking heads that will get up and make the unsubstantiated claim. Basically, trust us, would we lie to you?

And just like the run-up to the Iraq war, Administration officials are getting increasingly frustrated with sanctions and other UN methods for dealing with international conflict. So they are looking for some way to justify military action. Make no mistake, justification will be found. More like, justification will be manufactured -- this war is going to happen.

The terrible twosome have been steadily ramping up their anti-Iranian rhetoric for a couple of years now -- from painting Ahmendinajad as a nutball (takes one to know one), to accusations of providing the materials for IEDs, to empty UN resolutions, to hypocritical accusations of state-sanctioned terrorism, to constant lying about Iranian nuclear intentions, and even a super-groovy retro Gulf of Tonkin hoax -- with frustratingly (to them) little to show for it.



Just last month, President Bushmill got up in front of the country and the world and unashamedly claimed that Iran wants "a nuclear weapon to destroy people." Well, maybe he was a little ashamed, but only because the elite liberal press made such a stink out of it. Jeesh, John McCain gets to totter on about "bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran" and nobody bats an eye, but danged if those elitist liberal pinheads committed to defeat in this here war on terra don't get their drawers in a wad when the President says it.

Of course, it doesn't help when dumbshits in the intelligence community publish naive National Intelligence Estimates that contradict every hyperintuitive bone in Bushmill's one-dimensional world. Or when traitorous, disloyal bastards like General Erik Shinsheki and Admiral William Fallon refuse to be used as puppets in Boom-Boom Cheney's bloodthirsty theater of vain.

Earlier this month, Bushmill sent reliable Administration schills, General David "Betray us" Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan "What a crock" Crocker up to Congress to stall for more time on the Iraq issue. Never ones to pass up an opportunity to get a jump start on the next war, Bushmill and The Dick made sure to have Petraeus and Crocker lob Iranian fear bombs whenever possible. "They spoke of Tehran's 'nefarious activities,' its 'malign influence,' and how it posed 'the greatest long-term threat to the viability' of the Baghdad government."

Ever since pronouncing them as a founding member of the Axis of Evil, the Bushmill Administration has had Iran in their sights. The festering sores of Afghanistan and Iraq have kept their murderous passion to a slow burn, but with Dumbya's catastrophe nearing a hard stop in January 2009, it's go time.

Meet the new lies, same as the old lies. Now, just like they did with Iraq, Bushmill and Cheney are strategically positioning their game pieces in advance of the green light for War III: the Iranian Debacle. This week, Admiral Fallon dispatched the aircraft USS Abraham Lincoln -- you remember old honest Abe, right? -- to join the USS Harry Truman in menacing, er "reminding" Iran that as soon as the bloodthirsty cowards of the Bush Administration get their ducks in a row, it's their ass!



Also this week, Pentagon officials are trying to claim that Iran, a Shia state, is providing support for the Taliban, a devout Sunni organization. That'd be like what, Republican members of congress actually supporting legislation proposed by the Democrats? Yeah, right. Predictably, that bullshit has met with some skepticism from anybody with half a brain, but that ain't going to stop Bushmill and The Dick from their bloody ambition.

Public opinion has no relevance to the Bush/Cheney junta because they have no regard for the public. However, low public opinion does make it tougher to run roughshod over the country and the Constitution because it often leads to nagging questions about details (where are the WMD? where is Osama? Will we again be greeted as liberators? How much is this going to cost? Do you have any kind of plan for after the invasion? Do you have any actual evidence of anything?).

Despite the gaping holes in logic and common sense, Bushmill and The Dick still have their media enablers to help make the case for them.

And yet, still nothing. Daaaaamn. What does a corrupt, war-mongering, intentionally incompetent Administration have to do these days to gin up a fake war against a sovereign country that has done nothing to harm or threaten the United States? Oh for those heady post-9/11 days when all Bushmill had to do was hunch his shoulders and go "boo" and he'd have every legislator in the land falling all over themselves to get a piece of the wartime action.

Some like Mother Jones, Dan Froomkin, and Olivier Knox see the process but don't yet see the mechanism. What they need to realize is that the American public and even this weak-kneed Democratic congress won't back any attack on Iran based solely on Administration say-so. No amount of evidence or statements from military officials or hand-wringing or terra'-baiting can overcome this Administration's credibility gap. So how will they do it?

There is only one card left for Bushmill and The Dick to play, and it's the ace of spades: a massive domestic terrorist attack. Hell, it worked once before.

Think back a few years. Despite all the phonied-up evidence about WMD, would America have supported an invasion of Iraq based just on the warmongering of Bushmill and The Dick? Probably not. But supercharged with the emotion of an event like 9/11, and well, the American public will buy anything. So here we go again.

Stock up on your duct tape and plastic sheets Bay Area, because President Bushmill and The Dick have a shitstorm headed your way.

At the danger of being framed by the NSA as a patsy for Bushmill and The Dick's craven plan or winding up an unfortunate "suicide," based on close observation of the right-wing sound machine and a nasty gut feeling, Page A-26 fears the following:

• There will be a large-scale terrorist attack in the United States this year. Like 9/11, it will be an inside job intended to frighten the American public and American politicians into such a frenzied state of panic that they will agree to anything Cheney's neocon-men want. Fox's pompous pompadour John "Kim Il-Jung stole my hair" Gibson has already acknowledged as much on live TV. (When we say "inside job," we don't necessarily mean that American agents actually carried out every detail of the attack. We mean that there was some direct assistance from US operatives, there was some intentional negligence, and there was some strategic inaction -- all designed to "allow" such an attack to occur.)
  
• It will target a major US city. Bill O'Reilly already let slip that the lunatic fringe would be more than willing to sacrifice the other "blue" capital of the country, San Francisco. It will target an iconic yet low-population-density target in the Bay Area such as Coit Tower (O'Reilly's suggestion), Alcatraz, or the Golden Gate Bridge. For maximum effect on morale, we suspect it will be the Golden Gate Bridge -- think of the anti-Olympic flame protest there in April as a test run on the bridge's security.
  
• It will involve a "dirty bomb" in order to substantiate both the Administration's scare tactic of a nuclear Iran and the necessity of the so-called War on Terror.
• It will occur this summer, most likely after the Democratic National Convention in late August and before the Republican National Convention in early September. Such timing will give McCain the Main Stream Media's (MSM) undivided attention and effectively put him in the middle of the action, compared to the Democratic nominee who will have no access to the decision-making process or the associated spotlight.
• As with 9/11, immediate and irrefutable "evidence" will surface linking the attack to Iran, most likely the elite Al-Quds brigade, which despite being a unit of the Iranian military, is still somehow considered a terrorist organization.
  
• Suspects in the attack will be quickly identified, almost too quickly, but we will soon learn that they were either killed in the blast or have somehow already left the country. Dead (and make-believe) men tell no tales, right, so no use looking for anybody.
• As with 9/11, the boisterous choir of jingoistic vitriol from the right-wing sound machine will make any quest for the truth not only impossible, but treacherously unpatriotic.
• And like 9/11, there will be an immediate flood of emergency wartime legislation designed to give Bush and his Republican successor free rein to act unilaterally in response.
  

Such an incident will accomplish the following for the Bush/Cheney neocon-men and their corporate collaborators.

• It will ensure the election of a Republican president in 2008.
• It will fulfill Cheney's 30-year boner for revenge on Iran.
• It will open up the Iranian oil fields for corporate plunder.
• It will further enable the neocon-men's dream of a "democratic" Middle East by making it possible for the US to establish yet another puppet regime in the region.
  
• It will further expand US military presence in the Middle East.
• It will take all public and MSM attention away from all the other crimes and constitutional depravities of the Bush Administration.
• It will continue indefinitely the plunder of the US Treasury by the Bush Crime Family's profiteering cronies in the military/industrial complex.
  

So there it is. Unless the Democrats in Congress grow a sac or the American people pull their heads out of their jingo-holes, we will have ourselves another unprovoked invasion of a sovereign Middle Eastern country and another interminable war for profit and pride.

As Bushmill and The Dick tried to tell us before they invaded Iraq, we cannot wait to attack because the final proof could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. So for War #3, they are going to combine the last two steps in the run-up to this new fake war: a mushroom cloud to prove their point.

Heads-up America, the writing is on the wall.

Angelina Gives Cheney a Surge in His Pants

So yesterday, the most famous set of lips this side of Mick Jagger decided to use the celebrity bully pulpit to discuss her perspective on the situation in Iraq.

Page A-26 applauds Angelina Jolie's interest in global humanitarian issues; her sincerity is obvious. Not only has she visited many of the world's most depressing and distressed areas to observe the situations for herself, but she has also gotten involved with the United Nations in an effort to improve the lives of people around the world who are less fortunate than herself or most Americans. (Although, it appears that the UN has a proclivity for handing out such titles to attractive Hollywood types. Hmm. Who's next we wonder.)

All well and good, however, Jolie's editorial about Iraq is problematic. First, we find it hard to believe that she wrote one word of it. Oh sure, she probably conferred with a couple of writers about what she wanted to say and then reviewed a few drafts, but that's a lot different from actually writing the piece herself. (Although other humanitarian op-eds have been published under her name -- look at the date on this one. Does she "write" one a year?)

Secondly, while her focus is on humanitarian issues, the piece basically stands out as a propaganda tool for the Surgists who insist that we must stay in Iraq until ALL of the Neocons as yet unspecified criteria for success have been met. Even now as you read this piece, conservative chuckleheads around the country are waving Jolie's piece around and shouting, "See, see! even the Hollywood elites are now saying that we need to stay in Iraq indefinitely. See, see! The surge is working. See, see! We were right to illegally invade Iraq after all."

Third, though she is obviously sincere, we have serious doubts about the people providing her with information. She's only getting to see and hear what the U.S. government whats her to see and hear. When she was in Iraq determining whether or not the surge was working, did she visit the same thriving open-air market that John McCain found so reassuring?

The Neocons couldn't have scripted this one better if ole' Dicky C or Turd Blossom had written it themselves. Wrapped in a humanitarian cloak, the piece essentially claims that things are getting better in Iraq and that we should stay until the job is done. And, if any clear-minded folk disagree with the Administration's posit--, er Jolie's position, then they are ripe for attacks from the right about being invested in defeat and not caring about the fate of citizen Iraqis.

But today's rant is not about Jolie per se, but about the failure, once again, of the Main Stream Media to present content honestly.

Regardless of whether or not AJ misses the point about the stay-or-bring-them-home debate or whether her job as a make-believe artist qualifies her as an expert on geopolitical affairs, Page A-26 wants to know why Ms. AJ gets to have her op-ed run for two straight days? Can't recall seeing this before. Could it be that her celebrity status does mean something after all? Not for the debate on Iraq or the facts of course, but for the Washington Post's bottom line. Would a similar op-ed advocating peace and diplomacy by say Dennis Kucinich or Michael Moore get two straight days on the front page of the online Post? Sadly, this is just more evidence that news and journalism no longer exist in the country -- it's all about entertainment and profit.

Incompetent Design

In yesterday's Washington Post, fellow traveler Dan Froomkin posed the worthwhile, if not after-the-fact question, "What has Bush done to the government?"

His point being that various failures of the last seven years -- Katrina, Iraq, political appointments, et al -- have been the result of government incompetence. It's a logical and totally correct assertion, but it fundamentally misses the point.

It's not about whether the government is incompetent, broken, fucked up-- and it's not even about how. We know the answers to both of those questions. It's about why.

With this Administration, it boils down to this: as bad as you think it is, you haven't even scratched the surface.

That's because their nefarity is almost beyond the scope of rational thinking. To understand what the modern-day Republicans are doing and why, one must contemplate conspiratorial scenarios. Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean it isn't true.

Why has the government become so incompetent so quickly and so thoroughly? Because that's exactly what the Bush corporatists and the Cheney neocon-men want. It isn't an accident or bad execution or the passive dumbing down of America over centuries. This is premeditated, partner.

Over the last seven years, government incompetence has been an intentional objective of this administration, to be used as leverage to drive people into the waiting arms of private industry (as well as to consolidate executive power, but that's a story for another day). That's where the profit's at, and that's what it's all it about. That's the only thing that matters. That's what is driving US policy -- all of it -- immigration policy, foreign policy, health care policy, environmental policy, energy policy . . .

Remember Bush's privatization kick for social security (it's baa-ack), health care, and even education? These are all federal government-level issues that Bush's handlers want to hand over to the profit-producting private sector, and they're using broader policy goals like tax deductions, the War in Iraq, and intentional government impotence to force the issue.

This whole incompetence strategy has been about redistributing the wealth and power of the federal government into the hands of C-level executives, board members, and the private corporations they control and which in turn control American policy. The whole ownership society and privatization of social security schemes are about tricking the American population into thinking that they can get inside the velvet ropes with the real fat-cats. It is about getting us to invest in individual securities, mutual funds, and sketchy mortgages so that we will be compelled to support the corrupt policy decisions of our profitocracy by voting for candidates who support corporate largesse at all costs. But the reality is trickle-down theory. The general public might get a few copecks that fall through the fingers of the rich and powerful, but the rich and powerful are the ones making all the money, as well as all the decisions.

The conservatives, who've been chewing on the welfare state since the New Deal, used to advocate small government based on libertarian principles of privacy and rugged individualism. Now their small government rhetoric is just talking points from the Chamber of Commerce. Modern conservatives, such as Grover "the bathtub" Norquist, see the federal government as a foolish annoyance blocking their access to the gold mines of the US Treasury.

The war in Iraq is about oil, revenge, power, and delusions of grandeur, but it's mostly about looting the US Treasury -- and so is the conservative incompetence campaign of the last seven years.

A dysfunctional government serves as confirmation of the corporatists argument that private industry is more efficient and innovative -- not to mention profitable. It's a beautiful self-fulfilling prophecy the conservatives have set in motion. Set horribly short-sighted, greed-driven policies that intentionally benefit the rich while at the same time destroying the very structure of the government, then turn around and point to the crumbling government as justification for passing more intentionally destructive legislation. Then just repeat, re-elect, and repeat

Money is like matter: it is neither created nor destroyed, it simply changes hands. The conservatives want it to change hands from the public coffers (where it benefits everybody) to the private sector (where it benefits primarily the elite). Figure it out America.

The war in Iraq is costing about $12 billion a month. Where do you think all that money is going? Why are there more mercenaries making $1,000 a day in Iraq than there are US government soldiers making $1,000 a month? Why can't the federal government or the US military account for millions of dollars in cash and weapons that purportedly went to Iraq? Why was there zero oversight of war spending from 2003 to 2007? Why haven't the Bush warmongers ever given any clear idea of how much they envision spending on Iraq and the War on Terra'?

The conservatives have been working on their redistribution of wealth strategy since the Reagan years. Trickle-down economics, supply-side economics, tax cuts upon tax cuts that benefit primarily the wealthy while starving the federal government of the very funds that would make it vibrant and consequential, massive deficits (who holds those notes and who profits from that debt? Who has a concerted interest in seeing crushing deficits and who are their enablers?), systematic incompetence.

It's all come to a head in the Dumbya administration, which is the perfect conservative storm. Wielding all three branches of government and the battle ax of 9/11 above the heads of a cowed and disinterested American public, the conservatives have spent the last seven years in an intentional, targeted, selfish, and greed-driven effort to destroy the federal government. It has been orchestrated by the conservatives who have ingeniously used a defenseless federal government as the patsy in its own assasination. (Playing the role of the Warren Commission: the Democrats.)

Bush bears some responsibility, but mostly for being lazy. The confident, resolute, sure-as-shooting, happy idiot has been the perfect front man for the conservatives' incompetence ruse. It makes perfect sense. Bush is an idiot. He barely speaks English, surrounds himself with unqualified yes men, and can't find his way out of a paper bag. While the corporatists that really pull the strings of the Republican party are anonymously counting their money, the poor hayseed American public, who just realized that the Music Man made off with their monorail money, is bumbling along behind Bush with pitchforks and torches babbling about incompetence.

In his piece, Froomkin references author Jonathon Chait, who writes in his book, The Big Con, "lying has become a systematic necssity . . . integral to the Republican economic agenda." Exactly. Yet still, legitimate seekers of truth and accountability like Froomkin are unable to think outside of the box and realize that the incomptence is just an act, a shiny object, a red herring, misdirection intended to disguise the real enterprise.

Until journalists expand their minds and start questioning current events in the three-dimensional universe of ulterior motives, greed, and conspiracy, until they realize that Hilary and Dan Rather are right -- that there is a vast right-wing conspiracy -- the "news" will continue to be nothing more than a propaganda vehicle for those who have the power and conviction to use it for their own dark agendas.