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Friday, August 1, 2008 |
I have several American friends and it is a pleasure to correspond with them. Americans are probably the most approachable people worldwide. But there is a kind of American that is a pain in the neck or worse.
HarrisInteractive: "That very large majorities of the American public believe in God, miracles, the survival of the soul after death, heaven, the resurrection of Jesus Christ, and the Virgin Birth will come as no great surprise. What may be more surprising is that substantial minorities believe in ghosts, UFOs, witches, astrology, and reincarnation - the belief that they themselves were once another people. More than six in ten believe in hell and the devil. Overall, more people believe in the Devil, Hell and angels than believe in Darwin's theory of evolution."
And even the number of 'educated' people who believe in the devil is growing. The possibility of reading ancient stories as metaphors is entirely lost on them. It's a sign of increasing stupidity.
TomDispatch: "Five defining characteristics of stupidity, it seems to me, are readily apparent. First, is sheer ignorance: Ignorance of critical facts about important events in the news, and ignorance of how our government functions and who's in charge. Second, is negligence: The disinclination to seek reliable sources of information about important news events. Third, is wooden-headedness, as the historian Barbara Tuchman defined it: The inclination to believe what we want to believe regardless of the facts. Fourth, is shortsightedness: The support of public policies that are mutually contradictory, or contrary to the country's long-term interests. Fifth, and finally, is a broad category I call bone-headedness, for want of a better name: The susceptibility to meaningless phrases, stereotypes, irrational biases, and simplistic diagnoses and solutions that play on our hopes and fears."
Stupidity has a tendency to end in violence and cruelty.
ChicagSunTimes: "A current example is the sick morality that sees America's program of torture during the war that 'they' had done it to us and would do so again. Therefore we were not evil. The Sept. 11 attack persuaded the leaders of the country that murder, kidnapping and torture were appropriate in the war on terror. June Mayer's carefully documented book The Dark Side demonstrates beyond doubt that the president, the vice president, the director of the CIA and their closest aides are war criminals. They violated international law, they violated American law, and they violated natural law."
And it looks like some companies are profiteering huge from the wars.
MarketWatch: "Joining Exxon Mobil as the only oil company to earn more than $10 billion in a single quarter, Royal Dutch Shell said its profit rose to $11.56 billion."
ICH: "The world has never looked better for the Big Five oil companies. This morning, Exxon Mobil, the world's largest oil company, announced its "second-quarter profit rose 14 percent, to $11.68 billion, the highest-ever profit by an American company. Exxon broke its own record."
And the so-called danger from outside is much exaggerated. The greatest danger comes from the inside.
LATimes: "Bruce E. Ivins, 62, who for the last 18 years worked at the government's elite biodefense research laboratories at Ft. Detrick, Md., had been informed of his impending prosecution, said people familiar with Ivins, his suspicious death and the FBI investigation.
The anthrax mailings killed five people, crippled national mail service, shut down a Senate office building and spread fear of further terrorism after the Sept. 11 attacks."
The question now is 'Is America a fascist state?', is America in the hands of criminals who create an enemy, and incite fear to get away with its own illegal and suppressive activities?
I think it is.
Fascist America in 10 Easy Steps (The Guardian):
"1. Invoke a terrifying internal and external enemy
2. Create a gulag
3. Develop a thug caste
4. Set up an internal surveillance system
5. Harass citizens' groups
6. Engage in arbitrary detention and release
7. Target key individuals
8. Control the press
9. Dissent equals treason
10. Suspend the rule of law."
AfterDowningStreet: "If it hasn't gone the way of Mussolini's Italy and Hitler's Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens (New Orleans), tortures its enemies (Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire (Iran), flouts international treaties (UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on (FISA), and intimidates, its critics (No Fly).
The enabling crowbar was the Military Commissions Act of 2006. It gives the president authority to set up his own system for bringing alien combatants to trial while denying them protection of the Geneva Conventions. 'The president and his lawyers now claim the authority to designate any American citizen he chooses as being an 'enemy combatant'', Wolf writes of power usurpation that characterized the post-World War One epoch in Europe and Asia.
Thus, Congress has empowered Bush just as Germany's Reichstag empowered Hitler, Wolf writes, recalling Hitler's boast, 'Democracy will be overthrown with the tools of democracy'. Hitler's Interior Minister issued Clause 2 that gave police the power to hold people in custody indefinitely and without a court order, powers the U.S. Congress today has conferred upon 'The Decider' in the White House. Mussolini's used the less grandiose 'Il Duce' or 'The Leader'."
When Democrats like Nancy Pelosi refuse to support the impeachment of George W. Bush then there is not much difference between a Republican and a Democratic Party. So you can't really speak of a country with a multi-party system. It's either crude or lite from the same barrel. Pelosi's betrayal is even worse than that of Bush. Pelosi is not a democrat.
AfterDowningStreet: "Former Democratic candidate Mike Gravel says President George W. Bush should be taken to The Hague for war crimes rather than being impeached.
In a Monday video conference with Press TV, the former Alaska senator said President Bush does not 'deserve' to be impeached for invading Afghanistan and Iraq, which has resulted in the loss of 'millions of lives'.
'An Impeachment just means you would only take away his (Bush's) presidency. Well, he is almost done (with) his presidency. What really needs to happen is that these people have to be held accountable for the crimes they have committed,' the 78-year-old Libertarian said referring to the US president and Vice President Dick Cheney.
Gravel is an outspoken advocate of impeaching Bush and Cheney over the disinformation campaign they have led in support of their go-to-war policies."
If America does not get an impeachment of George Bush the state of the union can only be described as fascist. I am an advocate of both impeachment and his arrest and transfer to the International Criminal Court for war crimes. They are obvious to all, even to Nancy Pelosi, unless she is blind.
And, as I said before, Pelosi and other Democrats are highly compromised and complicit in the illegal activities of the Bush administration.
12:02:17 PM 
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© Copyright 2008.
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