Comments on: Keeping Track of the Empire’s Crimes

By: Josie Michel-Brüning

Josie Michel-Brüning — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 12:18:09 +0000

Dear Bill Blum,
thank you very much again for your well-funded article by the lists you added etc.!
My husband and I copied all for passing it to our friends.

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 11:54:02 +0000

In a reflection of the tensions between Chinese environmental regulators and local authorities over the loss of jobs and economic activity, an official of Sun’s agency, Xu Yongsheng, said seven local officials and company managers were punished for restarting power plants after the agency closed them.

China relies on coal for about 60 percent of its power.

The Finance Ministry announced an initiative last week to promote development of China’s solar power industry, promising to pay up to 70 percent of the cost of new solar systems. AP

And now the fair and balanced people.

China is coming under increasing pressure for its reliance on coal. China recently has surpassed the U.S. as the world’s biggest greenhouse-gas polluter, and the power sector is a big reason for that. According to a study by environmental group Greenpeace, China’s three biggest power producers emitted more greenhouse gases than the entire U.K. in 2008.

China has been promoting the use of cleaner coal technology, such as costly power plants that burn at a much higher temperature and have lower emissions, and is looking into even more expensive, cutting-edge technology that could strip out carbon gas from power plants and store the greenhouse gas underground. Chinese officials have so far said this carbon capture technology is too immature to be widely used.

China has pushed back on any absolute limits on its emissions, a roadblock for coming up with a successor to the Kyoto Protocol in negotiations in December.WSJ

I’m ever impressed by just how scabrous a selection of degenerate examples of human pathopsychology they all are. Of course, from the Orwellian banality of the ‘Fair and Balanced’ laugh, that errs on the side of trying too hard to insult the intelligence, to the imcomprehensible rhetorical contortions of the resident robopaths, it’s all a salutary lesson in the essential poisonousness of market capitalism. Mulga

Let’s see here in the States just with health care the imcomprehensible rhetorical contortions of the resident robopaths is now reaching new levels. Next is energy and cap and trade and very sure the imcomprehensible rhetorical contortions are going to start. Hay how about here in the States pay up to 70 percent of the cost of new solar systems or for that matter any system that is clean. Can you imagine the imcomprehensible rhetorical contortions at say Fox instead of a baseball bat that was already used and of course was not used to send a message what next? Remember those first tea party’s in the States and Glenn Beck in Texas? During that little get together Glenn had on the guy that shot those two people on his property and what did that have to do with Tax’s or was it kind of a message.

Ohhh! Great warrior!
Wars not make one great!

“You must unlearn what you have learned.” “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will…” And of course they want us all if they could to go down that dark path with them. Well to all these scabrous selection of degenerate examples of human pathopsychology try this one out.

“You will know (the good from the bad) when you are calm, at peace. Passive. Use the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. ”

Calm at peace as in just the next six month’s imcomprehensible rhetorical contortions will be seen in living color as we all go down the drain in clowntown USA.

By: Mulga Mumblebrain

Mulga Mumblebrain — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 02:29:49 +0000

Don, when I watch FoxNews, for the same reason I read Murdoch-Moloch’s ‘The Australian’, ie for my daily dose of the ‘banality of evil’, I’m ever impressed by just how scabrous a selection of degenerate examples of human pathopsychology they all are. Of course, from the Orwellian banality of the ‘Fair and Balanced’ laugh, that errs on the side of trying too hard to insult the intelligence, to the imcomprehensible rhetorical contortions of the resident robopaths, it’s all a salutary lesson in the essential poisonousness of market capitalism. Any system that allows media, hence propaganda power, to fall almost entirely into the hands of evil imbeciles, does not have a rosy future. While the Yanks are brainwashed with increasingly lunatic fervour into seeing public health-care and saving the planet’s biosystems as Satanism, the Chinese just get on with the job. Not having to pander to malignant morons, in the name of a totally fraudulent ‘democracy’ just gets more and more appealing. The rulers of the US, being nothing if not egotists, find the obvious third-ratedness of their ineffable Republic of Avarice, an affront to their unmerited delusions of supremacy in all things. A war with China is inevitable, if only to slake their blood-lust for ever greater massacres, and to avenge the insult to their ‘Manifest Destiny’ that is China’s rise to global power parity, if not dominance.

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 22:02:27 +0000

And just think after the health care debate/insanity we all get to watch the climate change bill called cap and trade. If you think health care is strange wait until the lobbyists who work for big coal and big oil and big power get going. Of course cap and trade is a joke on the human race does very little to slow the problem and a much more simple approach would be to tax the carbon and return the money back to the people but looks like not to be just more illusion and pitting one side against the other that in reality is no side at all. Must be a lick to do this kind of stuff for some on the third planet from the Sun. Yes a real kick.

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 14:46:45 +0000

Well I see now that Palin just said that Obama’s health care plan is evil. There appears to be enough evil in the World to go around and the health care plan is not evil. Granted it could be done in a more simple way but evil I think not. Calm at peace

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 12:52:59 +0000

Last night on the Glenn Beck show a guy named Eric Bolling was hosting the show. His first people were Ann Coulter and two other people. Well the talk was about heath care and of course we need to keep the status quo. Bolling and Coulter seemed to get a kick out of themselves to say the least. Later on the Hannity show on Fox the fair and balanced people Hannity had on this one guy who said because of this health care debate so that’s what they call it and what’s going on if someone get’s hurt it will be the fault of the President. Of course lobbyists who work for corporations have nothing to do with this. I knew we would start to see the good the bad and the ugly and not just about health care kind of a drop in the bucket as we move forward on the third planet from the Sun in spacetime. I used to watch Eric Bolling on CNBC the show fast money yep fast money. On that show they used to laugh that Bolling would go to Las Vegas to I guess unwind. Well Bolling went to Fox business and seems to fit in rather well. After watching Bolling and Coulter talk about health care for some reason my first thought was the book “The Stand”. Anyway later in the show Bolling did a little thing with a chart I forget what the chart was as Bolling had a baseball bat as a pointer for the chart. Nice touch don’t you think a baseball bat interesting prop. Yes this guy seems to fit right in with the fair and balanced people. It’s strange how this whole thing is playing out freedom work’s the money the power has now made the demonstration there own on the third planet from the Sun.

FreedomWorks fights for lower taxes, less government and more economic freedom for all Americans. Go get them Dick Armey and Steve Forbes. Economic freedom for all Americans has a real ring to it and could just be the least of our problems. Well my old friend Yoda I think said it well.

“You must unlearn what you have learned.” “Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will…” Oh Glenn, Steve, Dick, Bolling, Ann, Rush and let’s not forget the people on the other side of this so called debate on the third planet from the Sun.

Now for all of us who seem to be caught in the middle of this insanity.

“You will know (the good from the bad) when you are calm, at peace. Passive. Use the Force for knowledge and defense, never for attack. ” Calm at peace.

By: Hue Longer

Hue Longer — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 10:47:03 +0000

Hello Mulga,

Claiming it’s worse now forgets that it was worse too then. You know that since -if not before-the little silver cunt who could, labour was a joke in Oz.

The ABC is the same as KPBS…makes it all seem cool…RELATIVELY

(I know you know)

Trust me as an expat on this bit… The US “left” who support Obama NEVER and will NEVER attack and ALWAYS and will ALWAYS defend”their guy” when fuckwits from the right read their blowjob/illegal immigrant/
‘truther” cue cards. You really need to follow US football or baseball from childhood to truly grasp how fucking ingrained it can be.

I asked before but do you have any stuff from you or your old man that I could read?

A Fan,
Cheers

By: Annie Ladysmith

Annie Ladysmith — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 05:44:40 +0000

What stones are overturned, what heaps of garbage must they go through, what dank, rotting Bayou slime must they drege to come up with these bottom dwellers that run Blackwater?? They are the very equivalent to serial murderers except it’s a business and they get highly paid for it. It’s sickening that a ‘civilized’ government would contract a bunch of serial killers to control the civilian population of an occupied nation by fear, shame, death, and of course torture. Putting an end to this would be trully a step in the right direction.

By: Mulga Mumblebrain

Mulga Mumblebrain — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 05:12:18 +0000

You are absolutely correct suthiano, at least in my opinion. The current world system has been designed to be immutable. It promotes and rewards that type who detest other people and whose ego-drives trump all other considerations. Its operating principle, market fundamentalist capitalism, is essentially anti-human, anti-life even, but as the elites who benefit from it are acutely aware of their own mortality and don’t care what happens after they are dead, it rolls on like the juggernaut, and we are all sacrificial victims thrown beneath its wheels whether we like it or not. I believed in reform and progress to a humane, just and morally upright world until my early adulthood, despite much evidence even by then that it would not happen, simply because the powers that be do not, and never will, desire it. Ever since the process of moral decay and spiritual death has mirrored the ecological collapse, and there are plainly dread synergies and exacerbations betwen the two. The great lesson I have drawn from life is that evil is innate, for whatever reason, whatever combination of nature and nurture, within many human individuals, and that, in human affairs as they currently stand, evil is far more potent a force than good.As you say collapse into chaos is our one slim hope. With about one chance in a million, such a collapse of the dominant paradigm of insatiable avarice enforced by limitless violence, may lead to a system based on collaboration and shared enjoyment and deep responsibility, for others, for the biosphere and for future generations. Far, far more likely I fear, is the descent into genocidal brutality, the war of all against all, driven by that fraction of humanity which feels no compunction whatsoever in killing, intimidating and coercing, so long as it feeds their gigantic egotism.

By: Suthiano

Suthiano — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:51:11 +0000

Thanks Mulga, I don’t often get such insight into Australian politics, though I’m not suprised to learn it is much like it is in Canada.

I’m also waiting to hear these sentiments about Obama. I recently met a young American who still wanted to give him a chance, wasn’t “ready to give up”…. still clinging to that hope. And as you said the “hope bubble” will burst leading to a depression, a huge sense of despair for those who refused to examine reality. Or they will shift their politics, becoming cynical and “centrist”, labeling their views “realism” and decrying anyone who thinks things can or should be changed.

Maybe i am erring too in having no hope. I see no hope that things will be changed without first devolving into chaos.

By: Mulga Mumblebrain

Mulga Mumblebrain — Sat, 08 Aug 2009 01:32:00 +0000

I’m still waiting to see one prominent US Obamaniac admit that they were comprehensively conned. In Australia we voted out John Howard after eleven evil years of the vilest misrule ever in our country’s history. It was soon apparent that nothing substantive had changed, that any anticipation of change from neo-liberalism in economics and obeisance to neo-conservatism in foreign affairs was profoundly misplaced. Our new PM, Rudd, soon revealed himself as a cipher,with no deep ideol0gical convictions whatsoever, and a God-botherer, a new and lamentable development in our politics, as well. Rudd occasionally blesses us with ‘essays’ where the incoherence of his ideology and understanding of market capitalist realities and his profound naivete, to be kind, as to the real power relations here and everywhere under capitalism are revealed. One day he attacks neo-liberal greed and excess, the next he obdurately insists on a ‘market-based’ emissions trading system to address greenhouse gas emissions.
Where it really counts he just continues Howardite policy, behind a facade of meaningless gestures. He continues Howardite assimilationist policies to destroy Aboriginal society, after apologising to Aborigines, which Howard always refused to do, being not one whit sorry for any of the depravities visited upon the indigenous. Rudd, tellingly, insisted, despite his ‘apology’ that it did not signal the need for compensation in any concrete form for the child-theft or dispossession of the past. Lofty words (well, banal cliches, actually-he’s no rhetorician)are easy. Money is better rationed and kept for those who know how best to accumulate it.
So we know a bit about betrayal here. However, I don’t think many but the gloriously ingenuous ever expected much of Rudd. The Labor Party here sold out comprehensively years ago. We have the classic capitalist one-party state, with two wings fighting for the patronage of business. However, Rudd, despite being our most Rightwing Labor leader ever, has been under recent heavy attack from the Murdoch media sewer, utilising their tried and tested tactics of innuendo, rumour peddling, disinformation, cynial double-standards and outright lying that the world has come to expect from Murdochism. One wonders how Rudd annoyed the cappo di tutti cappi.
However, our betrayal pales into nothingness next to Obama’s. The policy continuation with Bushism is undisguised. Indeed in many areas it is greater, more marked, than under Bush. The attacks against China, Russia, Iran and Pakistan are even more fevered than under Bush. The transfer of trillions, no questions asked, to the banksters defies belief. The possibly deliberate hash being made of healthcare signals another victory for the psychopaths of the Republican Right. A few meaningless verbal gestures apart (for which he has received a tsunami of bellicose, deeply racist abuse from the Judeofascist extreme Right)Obama is as far up the Israel Lobby’s fundamental orifice as any previous US leader. In every way I can think of Obama has revealed himself as a fraud, a ‘confidence-man’ who clearly never had any intention of reforming US society and its power relations, although he gave the clear impression that he would, through the fog of his inspired but plainly manipulative rhetoric. I expected no other result, simply by considering the unbroken lessons of US political history. I considered Obama a multi-purpose candidate for the US establishment. First the facade of his dark skin will be used for as long as possible to befuddle the guiless into believing things have changed, while Obama executes the unchanging US imperialist policy. Secondly he will, by his selling-out of his followers, hopefully demoralise them and discredit the political process for years, leading to much higher rates of abstention from voting amongst the burgeoning underclass. I think that the performance of McCain in the election, his feigned senility and incomprehension, his lunatic vice-President candidate etc, all were signs that the Republicans were throwing the election, having nothing to fear and much to gain from a one-term Obama Presidency that would rip the heart out of many on what passes for the Left in the US.

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 21:07:04 +0000

The best way to protect the troops would be to keep them on US soil. They are needed to build housing for the homeless.
And yes, that manufacturing site in Vermont, it could be converted into a factory that builds tractors for farmers. $1.05 billion would provide a lot of high quality tractors that could be donated to family farms.

Rosemarie I see now why it was banned in Vermont. Radical ideas you wrote there and let me add those tractors should run on natural gas as the troops are building low loss power lines as fast as they can and thermal towers as we nationalize the oil companies and power companies but as we all know cap and trade a joke on the human race probably can’t pass mind boggling in it’s shear stupidity.

By: Don Hawkins

Don Hawkins — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 20:52:59 +0000

banned in Vermont oh no that’s a sign you know. Remember freedom work’s and appears different kind’s of freedom taking place on the third planet from the Sun.

By: rosemarie jackowski

rosemarie jackowski — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 18:02:19 +0000

http://europe.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/64049

By: rosemarie jackowski

rosemarie jackowski — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 17:56:20 +0000

Thanks for another great article, Bill Blum.
About Vermont’s Senator Leahy…He just secured a 1.05BILLION $$$ military contract. It will be used to escalate the war in Afghanistan. I wrote an article about it, titled “An Important Moral Question”. As usual, the article has been banned in Vermont but is available on the Internet.

By: Absolute-Marxist

Absolute-Marxist — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 16:31:45 +0000

Honduran Coup: The US Connection
by Conn Hallinan
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/06-9

By: Absolute-Marxist

Absolute-Marxist — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:12:33 +0000

GIVE ME 1000 ADOLF HITLERS OVER 1 LIBERTARIAN FAR-RIGHT WINGER !!

LIBERTARIANS WANT TO DESTROY THE FOOD STAMP PROGRAM IN USA.

Beware of the conspiracy lunatics. (Most conspiracy theorists are ultra-right wingers)

I think that most americans are too libertarian capitalist, and too in love with the libertarian, neoliberal anti-welfare, capitalist system, because even though there are 280 million people in the United States with acess to internet, they still don’ get their political information from the web but from mainstream television news.

i think that they get their political information from NBC, ABC, CNN and talk shows like Jay Leno, David Letterman, and are people who are addicted to Hollywood Movies, you know the DVD rental vendor machines where u can rent Hollywood bourgeoise movies for 1 dollar

By: Tennessee-With-Zelaya

Tennessee-With-Zelaya — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 15:11:36 +0000

STOP THE FASCIST RAIDS RIGHT NOW. FULL LEGALIZATION FOR ALL ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS RIGHT NOW !!

Source: immigrationcoalition.org

Across the country tens of thousands of immigrant workers have become the target of I-9 audits and the use of E-Verify leading to mass firings. A clear attack on the working class across the country (documented or not), Obama Administration must put a stop to the cheap scapegoating and racial profiling of Latino immigrants. This is certainly not the change we voted for, and not the immigration reform promised by President Barack Obama.
The workers of Overhill Farms, American Apparel, Farmer Johns and others call on all immigrant and human rights organizations and supporters to DEMAND THAT OBAMA STOP THE RAMPANT I-9 AUDITS AND E-VERIFY!

Stop the ICE Raids Now!

Full Legalization for All!
Stop the Rampant I-9 Audits & E-Verify

By: mary

mary — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 11:51:37 +0000

I put up a link earlier to the article by Jeremy Scahill in the Nation.

I have only just read the testimony of John Doe#2 which is here.
http://s3.amazonaws.com/thenation/pdf/JohnDoe2Declaration.pdf

Items 9 – 11 are of particular interest – Prince’s crazed view of himself as a Christian Crusader and his desire to rid the world of Muslims – the use of call signs related to the Knights of the Templar within his groups – the desire to kill as many Iraqis as possible – and so on.

And Dan E whatever you say that remark of FG’s was offensive and distasteful. There are other ways of saying you disagree with someone and/or their opinions.

By: Tennessee-With-Zelaya

Tennessee-With-Zelaya — Fri, 07 Aug 2009 04:08:34 +0000

THE BEST ECONOMIC-POLITICAL SYSTEM FOR USA RIGHT NOW IS MARKET-SOCIALISM (SOCIALISM OF THE XXI CENTURY) !!

venezuelanalysis.com

Hello, I don’t like to say that i have 100% truths. However from the evidence that we have about Latin America and other countries with economic problems, the best alternative and solution for countries with economic problems like USA is Market-Socialism, Statism and Socialism.

Examples: Argentina, Uruguay, Chile, Venezuela, Paraguay, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Cuba, Bolivia, Iran, Russia, Norway, China, France, Canada, Norway, Spain, Belarus, and many other nation-states out there are choosing the Market-Socialist Welfare model as an immidiate solution for their economic problems caused by Unregulated-Capitalism.

My friends, the evidence is right there is those countries: France, Venezuela, Canada, Norway are all heading toward statism, state-ownership of corporations, and also in other specific regions like in Venezuela, Bolivia they are trying an even more socially economic model which is Workers-Control of the means of production.

Like INVEVAL company in Venezuela.

So my friend, don’t let your self be decieved by Ron Paul’s Free Market, Small Business pettit bourgeoise ideology. That Ideology is very flawed and can only work if we were in the XVIII and XIX Century.

A nation with small businesses cannot provide goods and services anymore. Today the economy is globalized, and it is giant corporations the ones who are most efficient at running our economies. The real problem is not the size of corporations, the problem is not the giant corporations like Ron Paul and his followers believe. The problem is who owns those giant corporations.

So the real solution is a system where GM, Wal Mart, Shell, Exxon and Mcdonalds are owned by the US government and by workers and the smaller corporations would still be privately owned.

So the Market-Socialism of the XXI Century is an economic model proposed by a philosophical revisionism of the Democratic Left of the XXI Century, by Heinz Deterich, Noam Chomsky, James Petras, Allan Woods and which is linked to real Marxism and Lenism but not to Stalinism.

Stalin was a Hitler, a Pinochet, an ultra-right wing dictator.

The Market-Socialism for the XXI Century is gonna be a transitional political model between corporate-capitalism (Today’s USA economic system) and 100%-socialism (Workers-socialism)

I really don’t see any other political system which is better for USA other than Market-socialism (Boliviarian Socialism of the XXI Century)