Big Brother's Superhighway Acommin' Through

Big Brother's Superhighway Acommin' Through!

The below article was written in June but this is the first I've heard of it! The sneaks in the Whitehouse are at it again plotting and planning their next sneak attack on our liberties and the constitution. Doesn't matter how low their ratings go, nothing, NOT ONE THING is going to stop them on their quest to conquer this lonely planet of ours.

The Bush Neo-cons, are secretively at the drawing board planning a super corridor right through the heart of our America. And I might add... without the knowledge of WE THE PEOPLE!

Under the IMMINENT DOMAIN which the Justices on the Supreme Court ruled that Property Seizures were legal, in a 5 to 4 decision for BUSH INC. Our properties CAN PRACTICALLY BE STOLEN by the government, all in the name of GLOBAL progress. (I'm sure this highway was at the heart of that ruling) ...

It will be called the NORTH AMERICA FREE TRADE AGREEMENT or NAFTA Super Highway and it will be open to truckers (not unionized) to haul freight from the Far East, entering the U.S. through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas. It is already in the works and Mums The Word from Bush & Neo-con incorporated. (and so far the mainstream media is silent as well)

So what else is new, we do not live in an open society any longer, who knows what other plans are being mapped out against our freedoms and for the ALMIGHTY CORPORATE WORLD.

"Who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men? The Shadow knows!" AND HE KNOWS BIG BROTHER'S SUPERHIGHWAY IS COMING THROUGH! thinkingblue

PS: Thanks to my friend Judy for sending me this information to share with whomever may stumble across my blog. Here is an excerpt from her email:
I got this off a conservative website called Human Events, but it is the only thing I have seen other than Alex Jones talking about the NAFTA Super Highway system to run from down in Mexico, through Texas and on through the middle of the US to Canada to "facilitate trade." Alex Jones says you will have some sort of device in your car so that you can be tracked the whole time you are on it and will be SENT A BILL for using it that could amount to hundreds of dollars a month, if you regularly need to travel on the road! He says the IMMINENT DOMAIN ruling of
the Supreme Court in this past year is "pre-emptive" to allow the states the
largest land grab in the history of the nation, to offer people a pittance of what their land is worth and if they refuse, it will just be taken - all in accordance with the ruling! This is from Human Events site, describing the road - which my daughter, says is what all the construction that is going on around Austin RIGHT NOW is all about! This stuff is getting scary and it is not just the FUTURE, but it is NOW! judy

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Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway

Jerome R. Corsi / Human Events June 14 2006

Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes,checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.

As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental
organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.

Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.

NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation
system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.

Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”

The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road.

The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.

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And here is another small article about this secret highway: thinkingblue

NAFTA Super Highway Raises Environmental, Trade Concerns

Alana Herro – June 28, 2006 – 5:15am

A little-known project of the Bush Administration may have substantial ramifications for the future of the North American continent. According to the conservative news weekly Human Events, Canada, Mexico, and the United States have signed a trilateral agreement under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) to begin constructing a 10-lane “super highway” from Mexico to Canada as early as 2007. The limited-access road and rail line, to be built along Interstate 35, would allow shippers to transport goods that arrive at the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas directly to a Kansas City, Missouri, customs stop and eventually on to Canada.

The planned super highway raises potential environmental, security, and trade risks. The Texas Department of Transportation has released an environmental impact statement on the project, but some experts fear that insufficient attention is being paid to possible environmental implications, including increased air and noise pollution and the disruption of wildlife habitat. There is also concern that the new corridor will create security risks by further opening the U.S.-Mexican border to terrorists.

According to State of the World 2006 contributor Aaron Cosbey, international trade organizations are moving towards promoting the simultaneous goals of environmental, economic, and social progress. But, says Cosbey, organizations with cross-border mandates, such as NAFTA, the World Trade Organization, the World Bank, and United Nations agencies, will need to work together to ensure that economics is not the only factor determining trade policy.

This story was produced by Eye on Earth, a joint project of the Worldwatch Institute and the blue moon fund.

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On, December 29th 2005, a group of activists came through
Nashville to speak about the construction of Interstate 69. Interstate 69 is a
new proposed highway being built that plans to extend from the Canadian border
at Port Huron, Michigan across the United States to end at the Mexican border in
the Lower Rio Grande Valley. The new interstate has been described as a "North
American trade route," "international trade route," and a "NAFTA corridor." The
Federal Highway Administration has adopted this statement of overall purpose to
the new highway:

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According to a post on Michigan IMC, on Saturday June 4,

24 people were arrested at the Indianapolis State Capitolprotesting plans for the construction of the I69 NAFTA superhighway. Reportedly,at about 2pm, a crowd of 50 people representing several groups joined Roadblock Earth First and converged on the Indianapolis state capitol. After a short time demonstrating, police surrounded and attacked the protesters. One young woman was shot with a Taser, another was pepper-sprayed and suffered an asthma attack. Many were reportedly wrestled to the ground, handcuffed to each other behind their backs and left in the sun for hours without being processed or informed of
their charges. Local Massasauga Earth First!ers are among those arrested as were
two people from Michigan. According to the IMC post, the police did not issue an
order to disperse before arresting people. The people arrested were charged with
disorderly conduct while the woman who was shot with the Taser gun was charged
with battery on a police officer and resisting arrest.

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REMEMBER ROUTE 66'S FATE:

One economist points to Route 66,

perhaps America’s most famous highway, as an example of what possibly to expect. Towns and communities once thrived along the historic highway. But when Route 66 succumbed to the
interstate system, "a lot of those towns withered away," said Joselito Estrada,
a former assistant professor of economics at the University of Texas-Brownsville
and Texas Southmost College.

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The class wars will forever be fought, as long as there are poor people
who out number the wealthy by a wide margin (so wide I can't even find statistics on it... like a dirty little secret those in the know want to hide) oh, it will be disguised for sure, with different monikers like WAR ON
TERROR, DRUGS, or CRIME but rest assure it is all part of the same so called "WAR". The rich like W. Bush DON'T ONLY CARE ABOUT BLACK PEOPLE... They HATE Poor People... The hatred so deep they even have the audacity to
blame the poor for being poor... HUH? I had to include this next article
from Greg Palast, in today's post... Greg puts the words out there that can make you realize... Yeah, Holy cow, that is exactly what's going on! And equipped with that insight maybe we can start to change things... thanks Greg, thinkingblue

THE YEAR THE LEVEES BROKE By Greg Palast

in New Orleans.August 24, 2006What is the unreported cause of the majority of the 2,000 deaths that occurred after the levees broke last year on August 29? Catch Greg Palast's investigative exposé this Monday on Amy Goodman's Democracy Now! And on Tuesday, watch his one-hour Special on LinkTV. Listings at LinkTV.org.

The Year the Levees Broke

America went through a terrible year. The levees broke in New Orleans. When bodies floated in the streets, the Republican Congress saw an opportunity for more tax cuts and consolidation of the corporatopia they had created for their moneyed donors. The Democratic Party was clueless, written off, politically at death's door.

The year was 1927.Back then, when the levees broke, America awoke. Public anger rose in a floodtide, and in that year, the USA entered its most revolutionary period since 1776. The thirty-four-year-old utility commissioner of Louisiana, Huey P. Long, conceived of a plan to rebuild his state based on a radical program of redistributing wealth and power. The ambitious Governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, adopted it, and later named it The New Deal. America got rich and licked Hitler. It was our century.

It's 1927 again.

But this time, the Haves and Have-Mores have something better for you than a New Deal. They are offering "opportunity" -- a lottery ticket instead of a guarantee. Like double-or-nothing in the stock market instead of Social Security -- will the suckers go for it? There's one born every minute. I can't believe they're the majority, but at last count, they numbered over 59 million. And they vote.

Years from now, in Guantánamo or in a refugee relocation "Enterprise Zone," your kids will ask you, "What did you do in the Class War, Daddy?" We may have to admit that conquest and occupation happened before we could fire off a shot.

The trick of class war is not to let the victims know they're under attack. That's how, little by little, the owners of the planet take away what little we have.

On Tuesday, your President, George W. Bush, will return to New Orleans, on the anniversary of the levee breach.

There is nothing new under the sun. A Republican president going for the photo op as the Mississippi rolls over New Orleans. It was 1927, and President Calvin Coolidge sent Commerce Secretary Herbert Hoover, "a little fat man with a notebook in his hand," who mugged for the cameras and promised to build the city a wall of protection. They had their photos taken. Then they left to play golf with Ken Lay or, rather, the Ken Lay railroad baron equivalent of his day.

In 1927, the Democratic Party had died and was awaiting burial.

As The Depression approached, the coma-Dems, like Franklin Roosevelt, called for, of all things, balancing the budget.

Then, as the Mississippi waters rose, one politician, the state's electricity regulator, stood up on the back of a flatbed truck rigged with loudspeakers, and said, roughly,

"Listen up! They're lying! The President's lying! The rich fat jackals that are drowning you will do it again and again and again. They lead you into imperialist wars for profit, they take away your schools and your hope, and when you complain, they blame Blacks and Jews and immigrants. Then they drown your kids. I say, Kick'm in the ass and take your share of the wealth you created."

Huey Long was our Hugo Chávez, and he laid out a plan: a progressive income tax, real money for education, public works to rebuild Louisiana and America, Social Security old age pensions, veterans benefits, regulation of the big utility holding companies, an end to what he called, "rich men's wars," and an end to the financial royalism of the elite One Percent.

Huey Long even had the audacity to suggest that the poor's votes should count, calling for the end to the poll tax four decades before Martin Luther King succeeded in ending it. Long recorded his motto as a musical anthem: "Everyman a King." The waters receded, the anger did not, and, in 1928, Huey "Kingfish" Long was elected Governor of Louisiana.

At the time, Louisiana schools were free, but not the textbooks. The elite liked it that way, but Long didn't. To pay for the books, the Kingfish levied a special tax on Big Oil. But the oil companies refused to pay for the textbooks. Governor Long then ordered the National Guard to seize the oil fields in the Delta.

It was Huey Long who established the principle that a government of the people must protect the people, school them, build the infrastructure, regulate industry and share the nation's wealth -- and that meant facing down "the concentrations of monopoly power" of the corporate aristocracy -- "the thieves of Wall Street," as he called them.

In other words, Huey Long founded the modern Democratic Party.

FDR and the party establishment, scared witless of Long's ineluctable march to the White House, adopted his program, albeit diluted, called it the New Deal and later the New Frontier and the Great Society. America and the party prospered.

What happened to the Kingfish? The oil industry and local oligarchs had few options for responding to Governor Long's populist appeal and the success of his egalitarian economic program. On September 8, 1935, Huey Long, by then a U.S. Senator,was shot dead. He was 42.

It's 1927 again.

**********

Excerpted from Greg Palast's just-released New York Times bestseller, "ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks, the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Class War." Go to
http://www.gregpalast.com/
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1.3 billion people living today on less than a dollar a day.
- Half the world’s population lives on two dollars a day,
and 800 million people are malnourished in developing countries.
- 1.3 billion people who have no clean water.
- Two billion people have no sanitation.
- Two billion have no electricity.
- Almost 1.5 billion people have dangerous outdoor air pollution,
and probably 2 to 2.5 billion are exposed to dangerous indoor air pollution
or vector (insect)-borne diseases.
Many live in areas of civil strife and are vulnerable to natural disasters.

FROM THIS SITE: http://www.jknirp.com/poor.htm

The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear.

(IF YOU HAVE A GOOGLEPLAYER...PLEASE WATCH THIS VERY
FRIGHTENING BUT ENLIGHTENING FILM.

CLICK THE BLOOD BAR OR HERE... thinkingblue)
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Graphic REAL PICTURES OF WAR

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SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE!

SUFFER LITTLE CHILDREN WITHOUT HEALTH INSURANCE!

This morning I got an email from People Email Network or PEN, on the Health Care Crisis in this country. Why this has not been resolved yet is beyond comprehension. Through Democratic regimes and Republican nothing has been done. Now I understand, while republicans are at the helm, nothing is accomplished for the working class of this nation but why didn't this crisis get put out to pasture during Democratic power days. I guess the whole lot that
governs over us, just don't care, big business and global corporations are
the ones who really govern us. It is up to them to "FEEL SOME PITY"
for the working poor of this nation and we all know THAT WILL NEVER
HAPPEN... What an insensitive, pitiless devoid of concern or sympathy, world
we live in... SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN AND THE POOR will be forever the RULE! thinkingblue

PS: Please read my email sent to my representatives, below. I will still write these activism type letters to the government but I can't help but think it is all
really just a waste of time. But, that thought I will try to keep buried in the deep recesses of my mind because if I don't I will lose all hope and hope is all we have during these sad dark days of plutocracy.

My Dear Florida Government Representatives; I am urging you to Pass HR 676 Comprehensive Health Coverage, (Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act) supported by Rep. John Conyers [D-MI]) to solve our heath care crisis. I doubt, if you have any first hand knowledge of what it is like to not have access to medical help when in desperate need of it. Within my family, I saw my father die too young, he was 45 and also my mother, she was 56. We were a lower income family who worked hard for the fundamental needs of life;. A roof over our head and some food on our table. There were no family doctor visits for preventative health screenings, only trips to the emergency room after suffering days at a time waiting for the pain to just go away. Both my father and mother's health problems became critical because the doctor visit came to late to help them survive. Take it, this was well over 40 years ago and still nothing has changed.

Now, today, I see my children struggling to have minimal health insurance coverage. My daughter works as a teacher's aid and pays out almost half her salary in health coverage as she struggles to go to school to strive for a more substantial living wage further down the road, mainly so her two small children will have a better life.

My son, who is self employed as a musician, barely has insurance, he pays over 300 dollars a month for a policy with a $5000 out of pocket deductible. If there were to be a catastrophic illness, a doctor cannot enter him or his wife in a hospital until that is paid. And I believe we are the lucky ones.

I can't fathom what it must be like to have a sick child and not be able to seek the help of a physician because you have no insurance. The statistics must be staggering on how many of us Americans suffer and die because we just don't make enough income to afford medical help.

If I were one of the one percent top of the heap wealthy, or one of the representatives in our government who just don't give a damn, I'll tell you, I would hang my head in shame. This country will not survive unless we take care of our weakest links... our children, our working poor, our elderly and our fellow human being. Our government does not lead by example and this is not only sad but it is dangerous. A danger to our liberty and justice for all. We are slowly becoming a state where a citizen's value depends on how much is in their bank account. This is repulsive to put it mildly.

If you would like a small example of how others feel on this topic please read the below paragraphs that I retrieved from this blog:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/greg-saunders/poor-enough-to-die_b_24463.html

Poor Enough To Die

Since Republicans are opposed to universal healthcare and Democrats are too cowardly to stand behind a social program that has saved countless lives in just about every industrialized nation but our own, this post is pretty much moot. Nevertheless, let's pretend that the egomaniacs in Washington D.C. actually cared about the fact that poor Americans are dying of preventable diseases every damn day and that there was a spirited election-year debate on this crisis.

If that was the case, here's the political ad I'd like to see :

Operator : 911, what's your emergency?

Caller : I need an ambulance for 321 Evergreen Terrace! I think my grandpa
has had a heart attack.

Operator : Okay, is he conscious?

Caller : No, he just fell down. Please hurry, he's not moving.

Operator : Alright, before I send help I need to get a little more information. What's your household's annual income?

Caller : What?!

Operator : I just need to know how much money you make.

Caller : I don't know. Maybe twenty thousand a year. We need help! My grandfather is dying.

Operator : Oh...I'm sorry. I'm not going to be able to send anyone. We're only able to help people who can afford our services.

[Cut to flat lining EKG machine]

Voice Over : Is this the future of American healthcare? Millions of Americans suffer from preventable diseases every day because they can't afford health insurance. Call your Senator and let them know that nobody should deserve to die because they're too poor to go to the doctor.

But like I said, this is just a moot point. Poor people can't afford a lobbyist to stand up for them, so the chances of either party making an issue of this is virtually nil.

--------------------
My sentiments exactly, Thanks for all the nothings over too many years, thinkingblue
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Tell Congress To Pass Expanded and Improved Medicare for All
ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/porter/pnum452.php
We are the only major industrialized nation without universal health care. Although we spend far more for our health care than any other nation, we lag woefully behind in fundamental things like life expectancy and infant mortality. Why? Because we insist on a medical system run not by medical personnel for the benefit of patients, but by insurance and
pharmaceutical lobbies for the benefit of corporate stockholders.

Many physicians have grown tired of seeing patients suffer needlessly. Over 15,000 of them along with two former surgeons general and the deans and faculties of some of America’s most prestigious medical schools, have come up with a Physicians National Health Plan.

I endorse this plan. For about 5% of wages (instead of paying for employer plans) and a 0.5% tax on stock and bond trading, the plan provides comprehensive health care for all Americans. This includes prescription drugs, eye and dental care, physician's care, hospitalization, even psychiatric care. The plan now languishes in the Republican Congress as HR676. Proposed by John Conyers and co-sponsored by over thirty-five other legislators, HR 676 would solve our heath care crisis.

Unlike my Republican opponent, I am fighting for this bill to become law now. Please join me in speaking out.

The one click form below will send your personal message to all your government representatives selected below, with the subject "Pass HR 676 Comprehensive Health Coverage." At the same time you can send your personal comments only as a letter to the editor of your nearest local daily newspaper if you like.
ACTION PAGE: http://www.usalone.com/porter/pnum452.php

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(IF YOU HAVE A GOOGLEPLAYER...PLEASE WATCH THIS VERY
FRIGHTENING BUT ENLIGHTENING FILM. CLICK THE BLOOD BAR OR HERE... thinkingblue)
PROGRESSIVE LINKS

MORE THINKING BLUE LINKS

CAROLYNCONNECTION.COM

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CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I'm going to use it!

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Powered by RingSurf

YOU CAN BEAM ME UP NOW, SCOTTIE. Thinkingblue

NIGHTMARES, NABOBS AND NEO-CONS, ON MY!

Neo-Cons and Nabobs

WORD FOR TODAY: NABOB - A person of wealth and prominence:

• VIP (colloquial) • big shot (colloquial) • big wheel (slang) • bigwig (colloquial)
• dignitary • fat cat (chiefly US) • high-muck-a-muck (British) (my favorite)
• hotshot (colloquial) • lion • personage • celebrity • mogul • notable • somebody
• heavy (slang)
• A NEO-CON

Since, on my blog, I speak rather disparagingly about the neo-cons, (they deserve every deriding word of it) I thought this next article written about the likes of them and an even more powerful and sinister entity called The old-line American Establishment , a fitting post for my blog today.

Mr. Floyd writes so freely about the neo-cons and how they may be the ones that are being used. Very interesting insight to what the hell is going on.

As I've stated on my last posting...

It is time for a change. It is time for hope. It is time to bring back sanity. Hopefully, the neo-cons and their honchos, will no longer be able to use fear to get what they want because people have been alerted to the fact, that what they want is absolute power under any circumstance, pure and simple!

Our democracy, our Nation needs protecting from the likes of this elite American faction, who have wrecked havoc with our way of life.

Wake up America and vote your moral and ethical newly founded awareness! Neo-cons BEGONE!! (sadly it may not be as simple as that... please read the below article and THINK, THINK, THINK... about what we are facing today, it may just be the beginning of the end of democracy). thinkingblue

PS: Please click on the many links for even more of a better understanding as to what is happening to our America.

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Asses Bearing Gold: Of Neo-Cons and Nabobs

Written by Chris Floyd Wednesday, 16 August 2006

It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it: it's time to take up the cudgels (heavy sticks) for the poor neo-cons.

Day after day, these dedicated public intellectuals and hardworking federal officials are calumnied (false statement maliciously made to injure another's
reputation) from coast to coast, accused of every crime under the sun. Who misled us into the blood-soaked mire of Iraq? Who's pulling strings to foment a new war with Iran? Who's fanning the flames of Israel's assault on Lebanon, hoping to turn the entire Middle East into an arc of "creative destruction" that will transform the region into a pacified, profitable oasis of American power? Why, the neo-cons, of course, guilty on every count – or so we're told.

It's certainly a pretty tale, satisfyingly simple like most cartoons, well-suited for a stirring film adaptation, a la "V for Vendetta." (Given the religious heritage of many neo-cons, perhaps Mel Gibson could be induced to take it on.) We'd watch the sinister Machiavels (rulers indifferent to moral considerations) plot in the shadows, pouring their leperous distilments into the ears of government leaders who, zombified by this dark enchantment, mindlessly drive the nation into ruin. Yet if these dastards can be routed in the last act by some hero – a "straight-talking" senator from Arizona, say, or a tough and savvy former First Lady, or even a clean-limbed knight stepping forth from the mists of the blogosphere – then all will be well with the Republic.

Well, as Brick Pollit told Maggie the Cat:

"Wouldn't it be funny if that was true?" Unfortunately, the reality of our political and moral predicament is not so neat and tidy, nor so easily resolved. If the neo-cons all hopped a spaceship for the Hale-Bopp comet tomorrow – indeed, if the cult had never arisen at all –
we would still be right where we are today:
neck-deep in the Big Muddy.

That's not to say, of course, that we weren't misled into Iraq, or that strings aren't being pulled for a war on Iran, or that flames aren't being fanned to widen the Middle East war – or that the gaggle of third-rate thinkers and first-class troublemakers loosely grouped under the rubric "neo-con" aren't intimately involved in all of these affairs. They are, in spades. But to accuse them of playing the central role in America's on-going Götterdämmerung gives them an importance they don't deserve – and unduly mitigates the guilt of the true culprits: the good old-fashioned Anglo-Saxon boardroom buccaneers of the American Establishment, bred for generations to feast on war and rumors of war,and to regard the hoi polloi (that's you and me folks) as mere cannon fodder and cash cows to be mulched and milked as needed.

Götterdämmerung - n. A turbulent ending of a regime or an institution

For what's the underlying implication of the "neo-cons über alles" meme? It's that hard-core, down-and-dirty inside operators like Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld – who have spent their entire adult lives at the dark heart of the government-corporate-warbiz-spygame power nexus – are actually innocent lambkins led astray by the wicked blandishments of Richard Perle. It's that the world-striding oil barons, Wall Street dynasts and CIA scions of the Bush Faction are just wide-eyed rubes bamboozled into acting against their own interests by the dazzling sophistry of William Kristol and Michael Leeden. It's that no U.S.
administration would ever undertake the kind of rapacious (gluttonous) policies we've seen in the last five years – unless they'd been tricked into it by wily
Zionists and their ideological outriders. It is, in short, our old friend "American
exceptionalism," decked out in dissident drag.

uber alles - ABOVE ALL

German: “Song of Germany” formerly (1922–45) Deutschland, Deutschland Über Alles (“Germany, Germany above all”), national anthem of Germany from 1922 to 1945, of West Germany from 1950 to 1990, and of unified Germany from 1990. The verses were written in 1848 by the nationalist poet and university professorAugust Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben and were sung to a tune originally composed by Joseph Haydn in 1797 as an Austrian imperial anthem.

Power Über Alles

Conservatives Endorse the Fuhrer Principle: Our leader über alles



Shakespeare pegged the neo-cons' true place in the scheme of things more than 400 years ago in Julius Caesar. Listen to Marc Antony dismissing his fellow triumvir Lepidus, and you will hear the authentic voice of Great Gamesters like Cheney, Rumsfeld and James Baker, dicing for world empire and using anything at hand – neo-cons, evangelicals, Caucasian despots, Arab tyrants, Israeli proxies, British lapdogs, Shiite death squads – to further their ambitions:

"This is a slight unmeritable man, meet to be sent on errands…and though we lay these honours on this man, to ease ourselves of divers slanderous loads, he shall but bear them as the ass bears gold, to groan and sweat under the business, either led or driven as we point the way. And having brought our treasure where we will, then we take down his load and turn him off, like to the empty ass, to shake his ears and graze in commons." Or at the World Bank, as the case may be.

Again, this is not to deny that neo-con fingerprints are all over the various shivs and bludgeons that the Bush Regime has used in its whack jobs on the Constitution, the Geneva Conventions, the UN Charter, the Magna Carta and the Ten Commandments. After all, the veritable blueprint for the whole godawful shebang – the infamous "Rebuilding America's Defenses" document of September 2000 – was concocted under the aegis ( Sponsorship) of that quintessentially neo-con think tank, the Project for the New American Century. It was all spelled out there, long before 9/11: the invasion of Iraq (regardless of whether Saddam Hussein was still in power); the vast explosion in military spending; planting new U.S. bases in Central Asia and the Middle East to secure dominance over world energy sources; embracing aggressive war as national policy – and the openly stated notion that only a "new Pearl Harbor" could "catalyze" the American people into readily accepting the need for these radical measures.

Damning stuff. But without the presence of long-time Establishment power players like Cheney and Rumsfeld on the PNAC board, the plan would have remained the pipe dream of a few curdled academics and comb-licking policy wonks. Indeed, it was the Great Gamesters themselves who set the neo-cons to work on devising ways to extend the "unipolar moment" of unchallenged American power that arose after the collapse of the Soviet Union; the first version of the PNAC plan was drawn up at Cheney's order by Paul Wolfowitz and Scooter "Leaker" Libby in 1992, in the last months of the Bush I Administration.

Under Bush II, the neo-cons were brought in as shock troops; their mindless zealotry was a perfect tool for implementing the plans drawn up by the real players in the new regime:
Cheney's notorious "Energy Task Force" and the much lesser-known "Joint Task Force on Petroleum" formed by the Council on Foreign Relations and – who else? – the James Baker Institute at Rice University. It was here that the final solution for Iraq was hammered out: regime change with the aim of locking up – not unleashing – Iraq's massive oil reserves, to keep energy prices high and steady (Saddam was mischievously bouncing them all over the place) and to preserve the power of OPEC under the leadership of those time-honored pals and business partners of the American Establishment, the
Saudi royals.

Greg Palast, as usual, has the goods on this in his new book Armed Madhouse,
where he also points out one salient (dominant) fact for our purposes here: there were no neo-cons at the task force tables, where the real action was. No, those useful asses were left out in the paddock, waiting for their loads.

These are dark days, serious times. The whiff of apocalypse is in the air. For it will be virtually impossible for the Gamesters to carry off their next immediate goal, subduing Iran – much less their long-range aim of dominating the world throughout a "new American century" – without the use of nuclear weapons. So let's be done with baby talk and comic books, with the comforting fairy tale that the vast crimes we are witnessing are the work of a few cranks who have somehow hijacked the noble U.S. government and are using it for their own purposes, or Israel's purposes, or whatever.
(scary stuff - thinkingblue)

The reality is that Iraq was invaded because a powerful faction of the old-line American Establishment wanted to do it and the rest of the Establishment – the Democrats, the media, the "respectable"
intelligentsia – countenanced (approved) the crime. The belligerence and oppression of the hardline Israeli government in Lebanon and Palestine are receiving unquestioned – and armed – support from the United States because this suits the larger strategic purposes of the "global dominance" faction of the Establishment, and the domestic political purposes both of the Democrats, heavily reliant on Jewish-American backing, and the Republicans, dependent on their rabidly pro-Israel evangelical base.

It is the American elite – pursuing, as always, the enhancement of its own power and privilege, heedless of the consent of the governed or the genuine interests of the American people (or the Palestinian people or the Israeli people or the Lebanese people or the Iraqi people) – that bedevils us. (torments mercilessly ALL OF US hoi polloi...thinkingblue) The emergence of the cretinous neo-conservative cult is just a symptom of a deeper moral corruption coursing through the dominant institutions and structures of American society. The body politic is rotting from the head.

This column originally appeared on CounterPunch.
***

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Below is another article about the cretinous neo-cons and The powerful faction of the old-line American Establishment, to alert you to the dangers we are facing because of their lust for power. thinkingblue

COMMENT Be skeptical ... be very skeptical
By M K Bhadrakumar

One of the significant contributions to the "war on terror" by Britain's home
secretary David Blunkett before his abrupt departure from the Tony Blair
cabinet last year was his statement on terrorism in the House of Commons that
specifically flagged the possibility of a "dirty bomb" being planted in
Britain by terrorists.

That was in November 2002, when preparations were already in an advanced stage
for the march to Baghdad. We are still waiting for the dirty bomb and its
lethal radiation. The dirty bomb genre, however, provoked two years later a
brilliant television series on BBC2 by acclaimed documentary producer Adam
Curtis, titled

The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear.

CLICK THE BLOOD BAR OR HERE...

(You will need a google player, get yours here... thinkingblue)


Curtis's argument was that much of the threat of international terrorism turns
out to be in actuality "a fantasy that has been exaggerated and distorted by
politicians ... In an age when all the grand ideas have lost credibility, fear
of a phantom enemy is all the politicians have left to maintain their power."

Curtis placed al-Qaeda terrorism in a long line of dramatic panics in Britain's
checkered history since the Elizabethan era, which included the arrival of
Spanish raiding parties, French revolutionary agitators, anarchists, Bolsheviks,
and Irish republicans.

Naturally, Curtis comes readily to mind a week after British authorities
arrested some two dozen Muslims on August 10 for plotting to blow up
trans-Atlantic flights from United Kingdom to the United States. Not a shred of
evidence has since seen the light of day in this Mother of all Dastardly Plots.

Meanwhile, wild stories of new plots in the making are in circulation. The
latest was the "breaking news" regarding the emergency landing of an aircraft in
Boston on Wednesday due to the tantrums of an "unruly" woman passenger. Last
weekend, Michigan police locked up three hapless Palestinian-Americans for
allegedly plotting an act of terrorism. The three "terrorists" were caught
red-handed purchasing 80 cell phones from a Wal-Mart store.

Michigan police concluded that the cell phones could be used as detonators to
blow up the Mackinac Bridge, which connected the peninsula's upper and lower
parts. Subsequently it transpired that the three detained "terrorists" bought
and sold cell phones to make a living.

The London plot itself is becoming curiouser and curiouser. Reports have
appeared that the British security agencies were feeling increasingly
uncomfortable that their American counterparts rushed to make out that the
alleged plot was linked to al-Qaeda. More importantly, it appears that sources
in London have begun distancing themselves from the plot by claiming that the
British side was pressured from Washington to go public with the plot despite a
lack of evidence and clear and convincing facts whether any conspiracy in fact
existed at all.

Not surprisingly, the loudest voices of skepticism about the alleged plot are
heard in Pakistan, where of course the public is habitually cynical over
anything that goes to the credit of the establishment. This despite the
insistent claim that the UK, US and Pakistani security agencies had actively
coordinated in thwarting the plot - a scenario that cast Pakistan as a plucky,
feisty partner in the "war on terror", quite contrary to the prevailing
impression that Islamabad is possibly indulging in doublespeak.

The skeptics in Pakistan feel that the entire plot is a crudely executed hoax by
the Bush administration. It was not only the so-called "jihadi" circles in
Pakistan that ridiculed the plot but even sections of opinion, which usually put
primacy on reasoning. The Pakistani newspaper Daily Times commented editorially,
"There is a horrible war going on in Lebanon and it is not unfolding in favor of
Israel, US and UK. Iraq has gone bad; Afghanistan is getting worse.

"The Bush-Blair duo is in trouble at home and both need something really big to
happen to justify their policies and distract attention from their losses ...
the past record of intelligence agencies everywhere suggests they are quite
capable of blowing up or underplaying things for better media management of
their respective governments' performance. So a bit of skepticism is in order."

Adam Curtis had an explanation for the dilemma
facing the saner sections of opinion in times of public hysteria. As he
explained two years ago, such plots, when blown up in larger-than-life terms and
whipping up an atmosphere of hysteria, have a way of trapping us. In the
process, we get "trapped by a fear that is completely irrational".

Indeed, in a poll after the plot story broke, 55% of Americans voiced approval
of Bush's handling of terrorism and homeland security. A beaming Bush promptly
promised his nervous nation that the terror fight may last for "years to come".
Democrats are beginning to accuse the Republicans of using the scare to
political advantage ahead of the November elections to the US Congress.

Former US president Bill Clinton said: "They [the Bush administration] seem to
be anxious to tie it to al-Qaeda. If that's true, how come we've got seven times
as many troops in Iraq as in Afghanistan? I think that Republicans should be
very careful in playing politics with this London thing because they're going to
have a hard time with the facts."

All the same, it is extraordinary that the mainstream media in the US could so willingly suspend their disbelief over the patchy official claims that the plot was a "real idea" of cosmic significance. Furthermore, they dutifully ran "expert opinions" by commentators on the alleged plotters' al-Qaeda connections. Not a single mainstream newspaper in the US challenged the plot theory as such - leave alone pointed out the patent gulf between the London plotters' ambition and their ability to pull it off.

It could be that they have succumbed to the "suspiciously circular relationship
between the security services and much of the media" (to quote Curtis) in which
official briefings become the stuff of dramatic press stories and prompt further
briefings and further stories.

At any rate, terrorism thrives on bluff. Think of the horrific bomb blasts in Mumbai last month. Unlike the ethereal London plot, it was tangible; it was verifiable. It was of a piece, by all indications, with the cycle of violence ripping apart India's composite society for the past decade or so since the Babri Mosque was pulled down by vandals incited by Hindu fundamentalists.

Yet, in the wake of the Mumbai blasts, an attempt has been made to link the abhorrent violence to al-Qaeda. As if al-Qaeda is an organized international network. As if it has members or a leader. As if it has "sleeper cells". As if it has corporate-style affiliates and subsidiaries. As if it has a strategy towards India.

Indian media people seem to be unaware that al-Qaeda barely exists at all and that it is more an idea about cleansing the impure world of Islam corrupted by the al-Adou al-Qareeb (Muslim apostates) and al-Adou al-Baeed or the "far enemy" (Israel and the Western powers), through violence sanctioned by religion explicitly for such extraordinary times.

Indian opinion makers seem to believe that countering al-Qaeda justifies a
national security objective. Some among them no doubt fancy that a closer
"strategic partnership" with the Bush administration becomes possible if only
India were to assertively stake claim to be a frontline state in the "war on
terror". But there is no way that India can hope to gain entry into the
exclusive, charmed circle that comprises the US Central Intelligence Agency,
Britain's MI6 and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence.

The so-called Islamic terror network is the trinity's fabrication. It has become what would be known in intelligence parlance as an "asset" or an "instrument". The "intelligence assets" do enjoy a certain measure of independence and autonomy vis-a-vis their sponsors but that is part of the art of dissimulation. Al-Qaeda has incrementally become then a
situation or a chain of events in politics that can arouse a particular emotional reaction instantaneously.

M K Bhadrakumar served as a career diplomat in the Indian Foreign Service for over 29 years, with postings including India's ambassador to
Uzbekistan (1995-1998) and to Turkey (1998-2001).

Also read, Frank Rich's FIVE YEAR'S AFTER 911, FEAR FINALLY STRIKES OUT!

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A CHAIN... oops," CHENEY LETTER to send friends.

A LETTER TO THE INDISCREET VEEP

Dear Mr. Cheney, How dare you Mr. V.P. utter this statement: "Connecticut voters were supporting Al Qaeda." - Dick Cheney -

It is an outrageous, child-like tactic to use name-calling and condemnation of voters who vote their conscience instead of their neo-con inspired fears and it is downright stupid on your part, Mr. Cheney.

Most of us know that the preemptive war in Iraq has made us less safe, those who do not agree, must be living in a vacuum. You and your Neo-con pals took away our national security when you sent troops overseas to fight this unnecessary war, rendering us vulnerable to disasters both natural and manmade.

You Mr. Cheney, Bush and the rest of your neo-con cabal are running out of
time and will do ANYTHING to reignite your power position. You cannot believe that people are starting to wake up from your lullaby of lies that hypnotized so many for so long, far too long.

Your foreign policy of preemptive war is a proven disaster; No matter what we do in Iraq we are losers. America has lost so much respect under your regime and we may never recover. And still, you threaten, lie and mudsling. This in itself shows there is no vision inside your neoconservative camp.


What is most puzzling to me though, is, WHAT DO YOU WIN WHEN YOU ACHIEVE THIS ABSOLUTE POWER AND WEALTH POSITION, YOU SO VORACIOUSLY PURSUE? You only have a short life like the rest of us, so you can't live any longer then your allotted time. Also, you can't as the old saying goes, TAKE IT WITH YOU. It's so perplexing how you can live in a world with 6 billion plus, of your own species and feel you are above them all. The only answer I can come up with is, you must not be of sound mind and that along with no vision makes you a very dangerous individual.

It is time for a change. It is time for hope. It is time to bring back sanity. Hopefully, you will no longer be able to use fear to get what you want because people have been alerted to the fact, that what you want is absolute power under any circumstance, pure and simple; And you Mr. Cheney, do not care what or who you hurt.

Our democracy, our Nation needs protecting from the likes of you Mr. Cheney and all your neo-con friends. You have wrecked havoc with our way of life and must be stopped before it is too late. Wake up America and vote your moral and ethical newly founded awareness! Neo-cons BEGONE or the Earth and all of its life will BE GONE! thinkingblue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

TO WRITE YOUR OWN LETTER TO THE VEEP, CLICK HERE

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Dear thinkingblue,

There are 146,587 terrorist supporters living in the state of Connecticut according to Vice President Dick Cheney -- the number of Ned Lamont voters.

He claims they're encouraging "the Al Qaida" types who want to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task" in Iraq.

Cheney's gone too far. His disgraceful declaration of war on Ned Lamont supporters is an attack not just on Democrats, but on democracy itself.

We can't stand by while Republicans like Cheney slander the people of Connecticut and millions of other Americans nationwide who are showing up at the polls to reject the failed record of the Bush Administration.

I thought you might like the opportunity to send your own message to the Vice President. You can send it here:

http://www.tedkennedy.com/apologize

Cheney wants people to believe that anyone who questions the Bush Administration's misguided policies is in cahoots with the terrorists.

But the facts are clear.

The Administration's extremist agenda has drained our resources and stretched our troops. This made the war on terrorism hard to win and made America more hated in the world.

The American people want more than vicious fear-mongering from our leaders. They want realistic policies, accountability for failures, and -- most of all -- a new direction for America.

It's time for Dick Cheney to admit he went too far. Demand that the vice president apologize for his offensive remarks:

http://www.tedkennedy.com/apologize

Let's recognize a few truths: Lamont voters did not allow Osama bin Laden to escape in the mountains of Afghanistan.

Lamont voters did not mislead the American people into war with Iraq.

Lamont voters did not refuse to admit their mistakes. They did not vow to
"stay the course" while more and more Americans die and Iraq descends into civil war.

Dick Cheney and Republicans of his ilk disrespect the very nature of our
democracy when the results are inconvenient for them. But despite this unprecedented grab for executive power, they don't have the ability to decide elections.

The vote in Connecticut proves that free and open elections still exist-- and millions of Democrats around the country are ready to go to the ballot box in the coming months and put America back on track.

Thank you for you support.

Sincerely,

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

The al-Qaeda Types

By: Jayne Lyn Stahl

Nobody ever accused this vice president of being liberal, but he's sure liberal with his language. On Wednesday, he chose to put his own personal spin on Ned Lamont's victory over incumbent Joe Lieberman. According to the Associated Press, Dick Cheney claimed that a win by the Democratic challenger will only serve to embolden and inspire "the al-Qaida types" who want to "break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task." One obvious question for Mr. Cheney is--what is an "al Qaida type," and what does he, or she, look like? Do they have any distinguishing characteristics? A birth mark on the forehead, perhaps, as with that biblical chap, Cain? A double chin? Are they Arabs? Israelis? Asians? Exclusively, or predominately? Also, might we expect to find an "al Qaida-type" lounging in a pair of Blahniks, or in Calvin Klein boxer shorts? And, where? In a five star hotel in Beverly Hills, or maybe in what remains of a five star hotel in Beirut or Baghdad? Maybe even in a college dormitory in Berkeley, or, better still, might we expect to see one shopping for lingerie in Target, or Victoria's Secret? Oh, and while we're at it, why not ask the esteemed vice president what a "dissenter" looks like, and if, at some point, they too might be misconstrued as an "al-Qaida type"?

More importantly, when Mr. Cheney sugests that the "will of the American people" might be broken by those who question his vision, and that of the commander-in-chief, as to how best to prevent future terror attacks on our soil, is the default position one that suggests expressing opposing viewpoints compromises our national security? To the contrary, the inability to contradict official governmental policy is antithetical to everything the framers of the Bill of Rights intended.

And, which "fight," in particular, is this vice president so intent in staying in, and which "task" is he so consumed with completing? Can it be the task of rebuilding Iraq for which his Halliburton, and other Fortune 500 American contractors, are destined to make billions? Very impressive phrase, "al Qaida types;" it seems Mr. Cheney missed his calling; he should have been a casting director.
Comments ( Page 1 of 2 » ):

For all their grandstanding about freedom and democracy these guys are willing to tear the very foundation of democracy apart for their political power hungry ambitions.

Cheney's comments only reflect his New American Century point of view. If anything it shows his total disregard for the importance of his job and American democracy. He should worry less about Lieberman and focus more on fighting the war on terror. He still has a lot to learn about human existence. Remember, he didn't quit smoking until after his THIRD heart attack. Says it all right there.

By: iraflowers on August 13, 2006 at 10:36pm

Click here to see a very risqué film by Real Time with Bill Maher

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WHAT COLOR IS YOUR FEAR?

WHAT COLOR IS YOUR FEAR???

Another GREAT from "Greg Palast The Great"!

Greg has a talent for telling "in no uncertain terms" the truth or better yet... "The Whole Truth and Nuttin But the Truth So Help You God!" (OH, DON'T YOU JUST ADORE OLD WORN-OUT MAXIMS?)

This latest writing of his, will "KNOCK YOUR SOCKS OFF" or "knock you into the middle of next week" with it's out and out vision of reality that lurks right under yours and my friggin nose!

Bravo Greg! In this lousy WORLD ACCORDING TO GEORGE W. BUSH we need all the common sense logic we can get. Please keep em coming, Mr. Palast, just slap us in the face with the foul smell of actuality. Smack us hard, with all the word power you can muster up... SMACK US black and blue until we see the RED (severe) ORANGE (high) YELLOW (elevated) BLUE (guarded) and GREEN (low) of this crazy so called Bush, WAR ON TERROR!!!!! thinkingblue

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SO OSAMA WALKS INTO TO THIS BAR, SEE?

by Greg Palast
Monday August 14, 2006

So, Osama Walks into This Bar, See? and Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have,
pardner?" and Osama says...

But wait a minute. I'd better shut my mouth. The sign here in the airport
says, "Security is no joking matter." But if security's no joking matter, why does
this guy dressed in a high-school marching band outfit tell me to dump my
Frappuccino and take off my shoes? All I can say is, Thank the Lord the
"shoe bomber" didn't carry Semtex in his underpants.

Today's a RED and ORANGE ALERT day. How odd. They just caught the British
guys with the chemistry sets. But when these guys were about to blow up
airliners, the USA was on YELLOW alert. That's a "lowered" threat notice.

According to the press office from the Department of Homeland Security,
lowered-threat Yellow means that there were no special inspections of
passengers or cargo. Isn't it nice of Mr. Bush to alert Osama when half our
security forces are given the day off? Hmm. I asked an Israeli security
expert why his nation doesn't use these pretty color codes.

He asked me if, when I woke up, I checked the day's terror color.

"I can't say I ever have. I mean, who would?"

He smiled. "The terrorists."

America is the only nation on the planet that kindly informs bombers,
hijackers and berserkers the days on which they won't be monitored. You've got to get up pretty early in the morning to get a jump on George Bush's team.

There are three possible explanations for the Administration's publishing a
good-day-for-bombing color guidebook.

1. God is on Osama's side.
2. George is on Osama's side.
3. Fear sells better than sex.
A gold star if you picked #3.


The Fear Factory

I'm going to tell you something which is straight-up heresy: America is not
under attack by terrorists. There is no WAR on terror because, except for one day
five years ago, al Qaeda has pretty much left us alone.

That's because Osama got what he wanted. There's no mystery about what Al Qaeda was after. Like everyone from the Girl Scouts to Bono, Osama put his wish on his web site. He had a single demand: "Crusaders out of the land of
the two Holy Places." To translate: get US troops out of Saudi Arabia.

And George Bush gave it to him. On April 29, 2003, two days before landing
on the aircraft carrier Lincoln, our self-described "War President" quietly put
out a notice that he was withdrawing our troops from Saudi soil. In other words,
our cowering cowboy gave in whimpering to Osama's demand.

The press took no note. They were all wiggie over Bush's waddling around the

carrier deck in a disco-aged jump suit announcing, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED." But it wasn't America's mission that was accomplished, it was Osama's.

Am I saying there's no danger, no threat? Sure there is: 46 million
Americans don't have health insurance. IBM is legally stealing from its employees' pension
plan and United Airlines has dumped its pensions altogether. Four-million three-hundred thousand Americans were injured, made sick or killed by their
jobs last year. TXU Corporation is right now building four monster-sized power
plants in Texas that will burn skuzzy gunk called "lignite." The filth it will pour
into the sky will snuff a heck of a lot more Americans than some goofy group of
fanatics with bottles of hydrogen peroxide.

But Americans don't ask for real protection from what's killing us. The War
on Terror is the Weapon of Mass Distraction. Instead of demanding health
insurance, we have 59 million of our fellow citizens pooping in their pants
with fear of Al Qaeda, waddling to the polls, crying, "Georgie save us!"

And what does he give us? In my own small town, the federal government has
paid for loading an SUV with .50 caliber machine guns to watch for an Al
Qaeda attack at the dock of the ferry that takes tourists to the Indian casino in
Connecticut. The casino dock is my town's officially designated "Critical
Asset and Vulnerability Infrastructure Point (CAVIP)." (To find the most
vulnerable points to attack in the USA, Al Qaeda can download a list from the Department of Homeland Security -- no kidding.)

But that's not all. Bush is protecting us from English hijackers with a
fearsome anti-terrorist tool: the Virginia-class submarine. The V-boat was originally meant to hunt Soviet subs. But there are no more Soviet subs. So, General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin have "refitted" these Cold War dinosaurs with new torpedoes redesigned to carry counter-terror commandoes. That's right: when we find Osama's beach house, we can shoot our boys right up under his picnic table and take him out. These Marines-in-a-tube injector boats cost $2.5 billion each -- and our President's ordered half a dozen new ones.

Lynn Cheney, the Veep's wife, still takes in compensation from Lockheed as a
former board member. I'm sure that has nothing to do with this multi-billion
dollar "anti-terror" contract.

Fear sells better than sex. Fear is the sales pitch for many lucrative products:
from billion-dollar sailor injectors to one very lucrative war in Mesopotamia (a
third of a trillion dollars doled out, no audits, no questions asked).

Better than toothpaste that makes our teeth whiter than white, this stuff
will make us safer than safe. It's political junk food, the cheap filling in the
flashy tube.

What we don't get is safety from the real dangers: a life-threatening health-care
system, lung-murdering pollution production and a trade deficit with China
that's reducing mid-America to coolie status. Protecting us from these true threats would take a slice of the profits of the Lockheeds, the Exxons and the rest of the owning class.




War on Terror is class war by other means -- to keep you from asking for real protection from true menace, the landlords of our nation give you fake protection from manufactured dangers. And they remind you to be afraid every time you fly to see Aunt Millie and have to give up your hemorrhoid ointment to the underpaid guy in the bell-hop suit with a security badge.

Oh, hey, you never got the punch line.

So, Osama Walks into This Bar, See? and Bush says, "Whad'l'ya have, pardner?" and Osama says, "Well, George, what are you serving today?" and Bush says, "Fear," and Osama shouts, "Fear for everybody!" and George pours it on for the crowd. Then the presidential bartender says, "Hey, who's buying?"
and Osama points a thumb at the crowd sucking down their brew. "They are,"
he says. And the two of them share a quiet laugh.

*****

Greg Palast is the author of the just-released New York Times bestseller,
"ARMED MADHOUSE: Who's Afraid of Osama Wolf?, China Floats Bush Sinks,
the Scheme to Steal '08, No Child's Behind Left and other Dispatches from
the Front Lines of the Class War" from which this is adapted. Go to
www.GregPalast.com.

ALSO PLEASE READ Robert' Scheer's : Spinning Old Threats Into New Fears

Fiore Presents: Bare Essentials of Leadership





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