Why I support Ron Paul

Last night I attended the Ron Paul Webster Hall grassroots rally as both an attendee and as a volunteer for the NYC Liberty HQ grassroots organisation. There was some issues leading the event, such as Pras being delayed and the last-minute additions of speakers, but overall it went will with a final count is over 1800+ in the audience and reasonable coverage from the national media outlets.

It was not always like this. Back in college, I was passionately against George W. Bush, his collaborators and his War of Terror. The people I met who mindlessly supported Bush did so with the assumption that he could do the following: protect Americans from a terrorist attack, get revenge on so-called “dirty Jesus-hating Muslims” for 9/11, stop Sharia Law from subverting Western Civilisation or because the liberals were pro-Al-Qaeda. The war to supposedly liberate Iraq from Saddam Hussein and give the Iraqis peace of mind resulted in that country being divided among religious sects, and culture along with reducing the country into a pro-Iranian proxy state.

In 2004, I supported John Kerry with the hope that he would put a stop to all the excesses of the Bush administration that took hold after 9/11 and went to new heights during the invasion of Iraq. Sadly, the majority of Americans backed Bush because they supported his new war against gay marriage, and were still out for revenge over 9/11 despite the fact that Iraq had nothing to do with the terrorist attack. It was after the elections I lost faith in Americans, believing them to have a hard-on for simple answers to complicated issues and will simply throw away their vote to anyone who says what they want to hear whether it is a lie or fabrication. It did not even help when many Republicans tolerated voter fraud simply for the sake of keeping their “Patriot” as President.

Bush’s 2004 election by the people was simply depressing. It was as if the entire country had decided to stop thinking and voted out of misguided fears and faith in a backwards and corrupt administration. I once said to a group of my classmates that Bush’s election was going to “Bring the country down to hell” and I even mentioned voting for Hilary in 2008 since I had lost that much faith in America at that time. This questionable election by questionable voters in an already rough period of my college life just made matters worse.

2007 came and I was glad that the bastard George W. Bush was going to leave power after seeding America’s decline during his years in power. I didn’t watch any of the early debates but I kept hearing on the news that the frontrunners for both the GOP and Democrats was going to be Rudy Giuliani and Hillary Clinton months before the primary campaigns started. I did not expect much from Republicans at the time so I automatically assumed Giuliani was going to be their nominee while the Democrats would just pick Hillary out of recognition. There was some guy named Barack Obama that seemed intelligent and progressive yet he lacked the influence a Clinton had. In addition, my boss at the time felt that Obama had no chance despite being well spoken and intelligent and implied it was because Americans were incapable of having a “Black President”. Ironically, I had similar thoughts since my expectation for Americans was so low that I did not think they were capable of having an ethnic minority for a President.

Then at one of the debates, a Congressman named Ron Paul got into a heated exchange with “frontrunner” Rudy Giuliani over the root causes of 9/11 and foreign policy. I was shocked to see someone in the Republican Party who actually used reason, persuasion, and logic to explain his views and make a sincere effort to educate the audience and viewers. This was something that was out of the ordinary in an American Presidential debate that usually consists of oversimplified talking points or rants about Islamofascism and 9/11. Many others felt the same way and started their own Ron Paul grassroots campaigns despite having little to no experience in the political process. I was able to find my way to a few of these events in New York City and even voted for the first time in Super Tuesday.

Ron Paul would eventually dropout after the frontrunner Rudy Giuliani, resulting in the nominee being John McCain who won because he was unscathed by his rivals. It was over for the GOP Primary but at the same time, Barack Obama somehow beat Hillary Clinton to secure the nomination as the Democratic Presidential Candidate. To be honest, I really did not follow the Democratic Primaries since I was under the assumption it was going to be Hillary like most Americans and the big media. Because Ron Paul was knocked out, I wanted to punish the GOP for being idiots and for allowing someone like Bush to reduce the country into a cesspool. This was why I voted for Barack Obama like most people who wanted something radically different, make history, and punish the GOP for being stupid.

With a leap of faith, Barack Obama because our next President and a symbol of change that so many needed after nearly 8 years of misrule by George W. Bush. Obama was so popular with the world that the Nobel Prize Committee decided to pass Liu Xiaobo over to prematurely give Obama a Nobel Peace Prize despite being just less than a month on the job. The first 100 days were exciting seeing Obama declare closing the prisons at Guantanamo Bay, getting a stimulus package passed to insulate the American-engineered Global Recession, and wind down the War of Terror.

After those 100 days, I realised nothing was getting better in my life and that very little was actually done despite all the nice speeches Obama made. Some of his fans were rabid fanboys claiming Obama is our generation’s Franklin Delano Roosevelt and that he is the culmination of years of progressive development. I became increasingly disillusioned, realising he was slow to withdraw from Iraq while at the same time escalating the conflict in Afghanistan. I was angry when Obama decided to expand Bush’s TARP bailout programme to mismanaged car companies such as GM and Chrysler. Most of all, what really lost my support was Obama’s need to keep making feel good speeches and allowing his advisers and Congressional counterparts to regularly undermine him instead of asserting himself.

Obama is a very weak President who is so afraid to take bold steps that he prefers to do next to nothing instead of offending anyone. He handpicked advisers that either defied his orders or undermined him, which resulted in administrative deadlock while the entire country continued to suffer. He decided to delegate his defining healthcare reform to Congress instead of leading its development as leader of his party and when he had a majority in Congress. This lack of leadership brought Americans a healthcare reform package resembling Romney’s Massachusetts healthcare reform with its flawed individual mandates and more regulations that increased healthcare costs.

When I keep bringing up all these problems that happened under Obama’s watch, his fans either downplay it or make personal attacks on me. In one instance when I criticised the GM/Chrysler bailout as a plan that rewarded bad management and as a loss for taxpayers, one fan kept making personal attacks claiming that I make a meager income and that I am a disgrace to my university instead of explaining why the bailout was a good plan other than because it was “Obama’s idea”, when that’s not even true. Another fan told me that economics was not a big deal since Obama still has the support of other world leaders and “isn’t Bush” despite ongoing criticisms that the stimulus was misspent or was adding to an already bloated national debt.

Other issues I had with Obama involved his need to keep Guantanamo Bay’s prisons in service, his decision to persecute Wikileaks despite their efforts to expose America’s questionable past and present actions, Obama’s move to renew the PATRIOT ACT, waging war in Libya with NATO assets despite not getting approval from Congress, and his inability to work with Congress on fiscal policy, which resulted in America’s credit downgrade. Although Obama did make some progress in appointing two female minorities into the Supreme Court, improving foreign relations, and “getting” Bin Laden, he failed in translating these achievements into tangible benefits for Americans. In addition, it seemed like despite these missteps, Obama and his fans did not seem to care because they expect everyone to reelect him with the impression that the GOP is incapable of nominating someone who would take him on.

This was true until Gary Johnson first announced his 2012 campaign and later when Ron Paul announced he was also running. I once told a friend that I felt I did not do enough in the 2008 election and that I would be actively engaged in the 2012 election if Ron Paul decided to run again since I was disillusioned with Obama’s lip service to “Hope & Change”. In addition, I told him that I would regret it if I just sat around and allowed the primary elections to result with a lying, shifty personality running against an already disappointing President. With Paul’s official announcement, I began working with the local grassroots movement and taking a role contributing in social media outreach in the NY state and NYC metro area.

I know there are many out there who think the other Republicans candidates are better than Ron Paul is and this is because they believe either the other candidates are a guarantee in helping Obama be reelected or they have serious misconceptions about Dr. Ron Paul. This is something I plan to discuss in a later post.

Not about 9/11

Today is the 10th Anniversary of September 11 in America, and rapper Ludacris’ birthday.  In Chile, it was the day when Allende was overthrown and replaced by Augusto Pinochet with help from the CIA.  Today is another day where they opened the 9/11 Memorial to honour the victims of that day and to show off the in-progress “Freedom Tower”, which in all honestly pales compared to the original towers.  In about 4 years or 2015, the new World Trade Center 1 building or “Freedom Tower” will be ready for commercial use and for tourists.  Seriously, the only people I see around Lower Manhattan are mostly tourists, regularly visiting the mass grave site and the death of the America many of them either hardly cared for or took for granted.

Since that fateful day in 2001, America has exploited this human tragedy to engage in a modern-day crusade against Arabs, to grab more power from the people in the name of security, and to promote a culture of short-term thinking. The War of Terror as it is known in the rest of the world, has resulted in a weak Iraq that is now run by an Iranian puppet, an Afghanistan that is now our version of the Soviet occupation of the country, and it has encouraged average Arab citizens in the region to take matters into their own hands after realising that America does not care for them despite paying lip over democratic rights.  Since 9/11, the government has now taken more control over the people with the implementation of the PATRIOT ACT that undermines due process, healthcare reform that only benefits the healthcare providers, and blanket bailouts that reward businesses for bad behaviour.  Even worse, is the growing  trend of Americans simply living in the present with the assumption that there is no bright future, which results in actions that are rooted in a narrow worldview.

The one question that we all need to ask is: “Are we better off than we were 10 years ago”? In my view, despite all the advances in electronics, web 2.0, and the fact an ethnic minority can become President in America, overall things are worse than they are a decade ago.  The country called the United States of America is now reaching a breaking point with a government based on “checks and balances” stonewalling the other for fickle votes, an economy that is now becoming increasingly locked into a Lost Decade, and a culture that celebrates people not based on their merits but on their abilities to vulgar on camera.

All of this hoopla over the 10th Anniversary of 9/11 has reached the point where I stopped caring about it. Yes, 9/11 was a gross human tragedy that was the result of bureaucratic incompetence from both the Federal government and the Bush Administration.  Yes, many people who died that day did not deserve to be attacked by a bunch of confused, ignorant and weak-minded men with ties to an anti-American Saudi named Osama Bin Laden.  Yes, America did have a right to go into Afghanistan to get Al-Qaida and Bin Laden after what had happened in 9/11.  However, all of this was undermined by Bush’s need to exploit the tragedy to invade Iraq for its resources and its strategic location in the Middle East and Bush’s handling of the tragedy, in addition to invading Iraq, only created more distrust towards America and its government.

The oversimplified explanation that 9/11 happened because “Muslims hated America’s Freedoms” was a great answer for many Americans but it fueled distrust and anger from others.  This answer and the general handling of the tragedy was why a “9/11 Truth” movement emerged in response to anger at Bush’s invasion of Iraq and the distrust in government.  Most of these Truthers only believe the conspiracy because they are ignorant of the real science behind the attacks while some are in the movement to protest the Bush Administration or use it to find answers about the attacks on their own terms.  These people are not crazy, loony, or outcasts as the American media portrays them but rather people who are confused, angry, and distrustful of the government and their exploitation of the 9/11 tragedy for political and economic gains.  I think the 9/11 attacks occurred as they were presented but there was most likely a cover-up to mask any instances of incompetence from the Bush Administration in preventing or reducing the real attacks themselves.

The death of Osama Bin Laden should have brought closure to the tragedy on 9/11 but it was used as a cheap excuse to celebrate in the midst of an American decline.  Also, as a result of the poor handling of the Bin Laden Kill Mission by the Obama Administration, people now have started questioning the exact circumstances of the mission, and whether there was any real confirmation of his death.  None of this was made any better by the media’s acceptance of the official account at face value instead of investigating or asking tough questions what really happened.  The media is also at fault for turning today’s 10-year anniversary into a celebration of sorts when it is nothing but a gross American tragedy that brought the country in the wrong direction at the cost of its people.

Why 9/11 Truth-Seekers Will Never Go Away, or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love America

CORY

Cory Chu-Keenan is a father and a proponent of getting Civics back into American schools. He is an activist for Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Media Reform, and Restoration of Civil Rights. He will be debuting a Politically Conscious Hip-Hop Album in 2012 entitled Technofetishistic Psychodrama under the emcee name, Cory the Keen One.

We don’t teach Civics in America anymore. We teach Literature, Mathematics, and, ahem, History, but we don’t teach our youth how to keep a Democratic Republic. We’ve gotten to the point where we no longer understand what it means to do civic duty.

America was designed as an experiment. It was the first time in human history where the People, the citizenry, were called upon to govern themselves. And this system, designed by the framers of the Constitution, became a beacon of freedom for the rest of the world.

What freedom meant to our founding fathers was chiefly freedom from tyranny. But they couldn’t just say, “Okay, from now on, no more tyranny.” They had to replace monarchical rule with a different form of rule: Rule by the People, for the People.

Oh, by the way, when’s the last time you read the Constitution? Or the Declaration of Independence? Or how about the Bill of Rights?

Middle School? Or maybe you heard all about it in a Schoolhouse Rock song one Saturday morning after The Smurfs.

I’m not going to challenge you to read these documents or anything, simply because I know you wouldn’t do it anyway. Hell, have I ever read any of these? But I do hope you contemplate the power that these words hold for our nation and realize that you are here, with the rights that you hold, and the freedoms you enjoy, because of this ink. Period.

It’s good to be you.

Why is it good to be you?

Because the freedom that you have provides you with many choices. Our inalienable rights allow us to vote, assemble, lobby, and even run for public office. As a citizen of the USA, you are allowed to participate in your own government.

Or not!

You can choose to kick back and enjoy all the bread and circus this land of milk and honey provides for your leisure and entertainment, and let all the experts figure out the boring foreign policy stuff. God bless you, citizen!

But, ahhh, therein lies the paradox of success: material gain has an inverted relationship to happiness and feelings of satisfaction. Being the lone superpower standing after the Cold War ended in 1991 was fun for a minute, until skyscrapers started exploding one beautiful morning in Manhattan.

Let’s pause here for a sec before I get ahead of myself. I’m going to make a deal with you: I promise not to talk about World Trade Center Building 7, what the features of controlled demolition look like, the fact that Osama Bin Laden was never placed on the FBI’s most wanted list after 9/11 because they said they had no evidence linking him to it, or that the Secret Service failed to evacuate Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida where President Bush sat at a highly publicized location (read: target for terror) but instead decided to stay put in order to read a book about a goat and then afterwards hold a press conference at the same location!

I’m not going to talk about any of these things or the hundreds of other holes, discrepancies, fabrications, and omissions in the official story of 9/11, the majority of which the Kean Commission innocently overlooked. I’m not going to talk about any of these things!

I’m going to leave it up to you to do your own due diligence. Because that’s what civic duty and being an American is all about. Deal?

What I am going to talk about here is how America grows weaker and weaker the more and more we see ourselves as a nation divided.

We’ve come to an unfortunate, and illusory, political climate in America where we believe that we only have two choices: Red or Blue.

Not the Crips or the Bloods. Not Snoop or Weezy. I’m talking about Red States and Blue States. Left or Right. Liberal or Conservative. Blanket Pacifism or Reactionary War-Making.

We’re told that, as Americans, we must choose a team and play for it. And anyone who questions this dialectic is a nut-job, crackpot, or worse, a terrorist. -Thanks there, Patriot Act, recently grandfathered through the congressional backdoor!

And speaking of patriotism, there are two kinds, you know. There’s Patriotism, and then there’s “patriotism.” The former, with the capital “P” is the kind where you actually take action on performing your civic duty (there’s that phrase again) of thinking critically about your government by questioning the direction the American Experiment is taking. The latter, lowercase-in-air-quotes, form happens to be the emotional variety that’s spoon-fed to you on a nightly basis via the established corporate media. Thanks, Media Saturation, made up of five corporations that own 85% of all media! :/

Anyhoo, I’m not trying to get all college professor on you or anything. We don’t live in the University of Wisconsin or anything weird like that. We live in the real world. And in the real world, the Law of Attraction will someday give me a Lamborghini if I paste together a vision board and think only positive thoughts.

I mean, take for example The Project for a New American Century, a manifesto-ish document penned by the Neo-Conservative think-tank consisting of Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, and other students of the late Machiavellian Professor Leo Strauss. PNAC is the Law of Attraction in action!

These guys literally wished into existence a New Pearl Harbor in the form of 9/11, which resulted in “rapid transformation” of our military and foreign policy.

“It’s just what I wanted! Yay!!!” shrieked Richard Perle. Clap clap clap clap.

Regardless of what I think of the official story of 9/11, and regardless of what you think about it, ten years later I think we can all agree that we’re in bad shape as a result of our actions taken as a nation in reaction to the event.

I’m not going to mention the loss of life of American soldiers, the use of exotic weaponry the likes of depleted uranium, the torture photos, or gas prices. You can form your own opinions on those topics.

What I am going to mention is that 2012 is fast approaching, and seeing as how I’m considered a “conspiracy theorist” and all (a term originating within a CIA declassified document designed to discredit and ridicule dissenters during the COINTELPRO era), it would be irresponsible of me to pass up the opportunity to tell you my take on the end of the world. So here it goes:

Much like 9/11, the end of the Mayan calendar long count is going to result in a psychological shift. But instead of fear and insecurity, we’re going to finally discover the true meaning of self-governance and personal freedom. Not only in America, but on a global scale.

The true New World Order is the revolution that takes place in your own mind. All you have to do is turn off the TV and let it happen.

That being said, I’m going to end on a high note here just so that you don’t turn off your computer and go blow your brains out.

Here it goes:

Back in the 1960’s there was a guy named Huey Newton and a guy named Bobby Seale. They would go on to found The Black Panther Party right here in Oakland, CA, Bay Area.

Well it just so happens that there were six Asian guys in the Black Panther Party who were known as the Yellow Panthers.

Inspired yet?

Peace and Love,

God Bless America, forreal, forreal

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“Blue Republicans”: an Idea Whose Time Has Come

Posted: 7/13/11 05:41 PM ET

Robin Koerner

Publisher, WatchingAmerica.com

 

My article of a few days ago — If You Love Peace, Become a “Blue Republican” (Just for a Year) — seems to have caused a stir.

Many people of independent, liberal or Democratic sensibilities voted for Obama in 2008 in the hope of jolting America toward civil liberties and away from war, only to find themselves in 2011 disappointed that we are still starting wars and doing nothing to re-instate some of our most basic civil and economic freedoms.

My article suggested “Blue Republicans” as a moniker for those people who, still wanting peace and their basic Constitutional rights, will register Republican to help ensure that Ron Paul gets his party’s nomination.

Within a few hours of the article’s being published, a Blue Republican Facebook group was born, and faster than anyone could say “liberty,” a designer had donated a rather wonderful logo. By the end of the weekend, the group had about 2000 members, and the original article had been shared more than 11,000 times on Facebook.

Why?

Simply, Americans are at the beginning of a gestalt switch, which allows them to see something Noam Chomsky pointed out some time ago:

The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum — even encourage the more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there’s free thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate.

And what are “the presuppositions of the system” — those political realities ushered in and maintained by both Left and Right over the last few years? Here are a few.

1. Wealth is systematically transferred from productive citizens to those who create money as debt and then charge interest on that debt.
2. Individuals have no fundamental right to privacy: without legal process, a government employee may sign his own warrant and intrude upon any aspect of your life — the books you have taken out from the library; the things you’ve looked at online, the calls you’ve made, the goods you’ve bought etc. He can even come into your house. (This is somewhat akin to the Stamp Act, which allowed British officials to enter American homes — one of the triggers of the War of Independence.) The government may store arbitrary amounts of the data they collect.
3. Individuals no longer have a right to contract with a private party to transport them to another part of the country without a government officer’s permission, which will be granted only after an act that would otherwise be deemed an assault, and possibly a sexual assault, or after the provision of visual information about her body that she would not voluntarily show anyone with whom she was not intimately involved. A traveler will be separated from her property and members of her family when this act is conducted. (This could be likened to the situation in a Soviet country before the Iron Curtain came down.)
4. Government officials direct significant fractions of the country’s wealth to selected groups with whom they have been or are associated. (This is similar in effect, if not in intent, to the actions of many corrupt African regimes.)
5. The government has the right to assassinate its own citizens. (This is akin to the old communist police states.)
6. The government may mobilize American sons and daughters to attack those who do not threaten us — now without authorization by our supposed representatives.
7. The government has the right to know where you keep your wealth and what you do with it, even beyond the declaration of income for taxation purposes and even if you are not suspected of committing any crime.
8. Most terrifying, telling the truth is sometimes a crime: if you are served a warrant under the Patriot Act, and you tell someone about it, you have committed a crime. (This is akin to nothing on earth, and is reminiscent only of George Orwell’s novel, 1984.)
9. Since many of the above are obviously unconstitutional, the ultimate legal protection of Americans’ human rights is void when the government deems it so.

All of the above points concern basic civil rights, and the very identity of the nation.

In the light of these, many Americans are feeling that the country has gone too far down a slippery slope toward tyranny and have decided that urgent action must be taken.

Critically, they realize that our current two-party political paradigm is seriously bankrupt as it has brought us to this point. It’s not that we got politically lazy; we did not: in fact, we’ve been as energetic as ever in opposing our political foes on our favorite political issues… Rather, we got too involved in the issues that defined our old political identities, and missed how the fundamentals were being changed around us.

As we were all having our “I’m right, you’re wrong” Democratic and Republican arguments, the powers that be made themselves more powerful, and while we were arguing, we have lost most of the rights that we weren’t arguing about because we took them for granted.

It is as if we have suddenly looked up from an argument at the kitchen table over which sofa we should buy for the living room, only to find out that the house has been foreclosed on and we’re homeless. Sure, the issues we were arguing over were important — but they were not the most important, nor are they now the most urgent.

As I have written elsewhere, America has been brought to its knees by a Left that has empowered the state and a Right that has subsidized big business. The nation has been disempowered by an axis between the apparatchiks of State that pass laws that concentrate wealth in the hands of the financial elite that funds them. Over the last century, the Left have tended to harp on about the corruption of corporate and financial interests, while the Right have tended to harp on about the corruption of State interests.

Meanwhile, corporate interests have made the State corrupt by financing it, and the State has made corporations corrupt through corporatist law-making. The net effect is that the State has concentrated power, and the corporations — and in particular banks — have concentrated wealth. The rest of us have paid for it in liberty and wealth, respectively.

In the face of what has already been lost, those Blue Republicans who are becoming Republicans to ensure a Ron Paul presidency are not abandoning their personal disagreements with Dr. Paul on particular issues, such as abortion (which is the one on which this writer most profoundly disagrees with him). Rather, they are trying to make sure that we still have a recognizable country in which you get to have an argument over abortion without having already given up your own personal liberty, property or knowledge that your country will only send your family members in uniform into battle out of necessity, and nothing but necessity.

Perhaps, then, the cause of the excitement about the “Blue Republican” idea is two-fold. First, the term has caught people’s imaginations because it subverts the paradigm that brought us here. Second, the stakes are high. In fact, they are the very highest stakes of all.

Follow Robin Koerner on Twitter: www.twitter.com/rkoerner

Osama bin Laden is Dead

My father had colleagues working in the World Trade Centre before they were brought down in 9/11. He told me stories about how one colleague survived because he was late to his commute while another literally ran for his life as the towers collapsed, only losing a shoe in the process. My father never did mention what happened to the rest of his coworkers.

Fastforward to May 2011 with Obama announcing the killing of Osama bin Laden by American special forces. From news reports, bin Laden was killed by headshots in his custom mansion along with his family and some associates in Abbottabad, which is about 60km from Islamabad, Pakistan. Initial reaction was a sense of closure, but most Americans used this as an excuse to revel in a military kill mission.

The victims of 9/11 should feel relief knowing that bin Laden is dead given his attack and the grief it caused in America.  Bin Laden’s death was well-deserved in the same sense as a death row inmate being sentenced to die by a firing squad. In a prison execution, the victims or the victim’s families tend to feel a sense of closure, relief, and sadness that the criminal is dead but will live knowing it doesn’t change what had happened. However, when bin Laden was confirmed to be killed, the 9/11 victims were finally at peace, while the rest of the country, which was indirectly affected by 9/11, was celebrating as if they all won the lottery and a major sports championship.

The images shown in New York City and Washington DC had people climbing polls, cheering and chanting “USA! USA! USA!”. Somehow this mindless celebration seems to be in poor taste given that Americans were angered when foreigners celebrated 9/11 and the fact that bin Laden’s death is a Pyrrhic victory knowing that it took almost 10 years, nearly a million lives in collateral damage, and the deep financial costs from invading two countries.

Watching the domestic reaction to bin Laden’s death was almost unreal. The people I saw on TV were either drunken college kids who were just children when 9/11 happened and grew up with nothing but sensationalised accounts of terrorism and with no real emotional connection to the real tragedy. While the other group on TV were mostly out-of-state tourists, who also did not have a real connection to the people in NYC, showing their misguided patriotism by gloating around Ground Zero and Times Square. This type of behaviour towards Osama’s death sends the wrong signal to the world and really shows the trashier side of America (if shows like “Jersey Shore” and “Real Housewives” weren’t enough). It’s only a matter of time before this behavior is unfairly compared to the mob mentality in the Muslim world by California liberals and critics outside of America.

I simply find it sad that a country used to be looked up as a moral and honorable society has fallen to such a dumbed-down existence.  It’s nice to see happy Americans post Toby Keith videos online and chant “USA” but this changes little except closure for 9/11 victims. For me, I really won’t feel real closure until I see a verified photo of his corpse knowing that the government has been misleading the world since the War of Terror started.  His death will only have meaning if it gets American troops home, ends the PATRIOT ACT, and brings back the quality of life that sounds mythical in our current situation. Unfortunately, bin Laden has succeeded in weakening America with attacks designed to restrict freedom, spread terror to the Muslim world, and reduce American society into reactionaries.

With all this in mind, only the 9/11 victims were the real winners from bin Laden’s death while others will use it to advance their petty agendas.

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Thoughts on Arab Revolts and Japanese Tsunami/Meltdown

There isn’t too much going on in the world except for the Arab Revolts. So far Egypt and Tunisia have changed their rulers while it is still in process in Libya and Yemen. Things are just getting started in Syria while the revolt in Bahrain is crushed with the help of some Saudi and Emirati forces. The other countries like Jordan and Morocco are proactively avoiding a revolt by appeasing the disgruntled citizens. It would be nice to see changes in Yemen and Libya with as little violence as possible but it looks like those uprisings are simply beyond the point of nonviolence.

And how does this affect any of us? For one, the price of petrol has already gone up as a result of the instability and it will make it less appealing for foreign investment to go into places where the revolts are ongoing or brutally crushed. On the other hand, it is a boon to oil speculators and the cause of short-term shocks in the financial markets. I can only hope that the people’s revolutions in Yemen and Libya sort themselves out before it starts attracting more unwanted elements.

The Japanese earthquake and tsunami was just devastating. This earthquake was the “big one” pundits, geologists, and survivalists always feared in Japan. It is fortunate that only northeast Japan was affected and I’m glad that 2 of my former classmates and a former instructor are out of danger. Even my penpal who I have not spoken to in over a year is no longer in danger. The major complaints from them are the trains running late or being cancelled (just like with NJTransit trains) and making a strange effort to adjust despite all the loss of life and potential nuclear meltdown.

The people of Japan, like America, are generally pleasant and poorly informed and their government, like America, is run by a group of semi-corrupt idiots. These parallels help explain how Japan, despite all its might and sophistication, could have allowed itself to suffer a devastating tsunami that wiped out its historic communities and leave themselves open to a potential nuclear meltdown. Like Japan, for all its might and ability to wage a War of Terror on the Muslim World, America also allowed itself to suffer a devastating hurricane that ravaged historic regions and left themselves without the means to properly rebuild. There are some similarities to America and Japan and it would be no surprise if America lurches into a Lost Decade like its Japanese friend, but I digress.

In the past, I found it easy to simply repost an article and give a running commentary on the various points written in the article. Now, I find I lost the drive that allowed me to write paragraphs of coherent and focused commentary that made parts of this blog popular in the first place. It will take me some time to get back into that state of mind after being ravaged by a thankless relationship, a thankless jobs, and a thankless circle of friends.

This cartoon made my day:

Decisions tomorrow and intellectual bankruptcy

As everyone is aware, tomorrow is election day. During the midterm elections, many may have the knee-jerk reaction to punish the President and his “allies” in Congress.

Truth-be-told – the economy is in much better shape now than the day Obama took office. While his term hasn’t been perfect, things are dramatically better than during Q4 2008 when he was first elected to office, and Q1 2009 when Bush left office. The economy is growing, the stock market has improved, and while huge deficits are amounting, deflation remains as much a concern as inflation, at this point.

The housing market is still in bad shape, to be sure, but TARP has proven to be a success and GM and Chrysler are posting profits. In Oct 2008, an economic Armagedon was hitting America. Today, America is coming off the ropes and with some sweat equity, will be back.

That said, if you believe that Obama is the devil, a Kenyan born citizen, a Muslim, a Marxist, or a Socialist – you need to look up the definitions of these words, and get back to me. This isn’t for you. Chances are you are insane and need to seek serious mental help, or be put on very high doses of Haldol.

We, as citizens, have a civic duty every election day. We must vote not only for what is in our own best interest, but the best interest of the country as a whole.

What no politician in American will admit to you is that this country has been “sold out,” starting the day Ronald Reagan became POTUS and Free Trade and the mantle of supply side economics became the “laws of the land,” so to speak. NAFTA, CAFTA, and other free trade agreements have destroyed and eviscerated the very engine that created the middle-class in America.

The manufacturing jobs in America are not coming back. If you’re not a professional in this country, or if you aren’t born into a family of money, chances are, you’re not moving “ahead” in life. Your children will almost certainly have a worse standard of living than you did as corporations seek to continually move off-shore to save pennies, and create the never-ending race to the bottom. Education is no longer the marker for success. There are plenty of people who attended Universities, who have higher levels of education than did their parents, who due to rising tuition costs, lack of health-care, etc. will undoubtedly be worse off than their parents.

No politician in America will tell you that. Chances are, you will make about 30% on average less per year, inflation adjusted, than your parents did unless you are a professional of some degree or have a specific trade. So, rather than going to college for 2 years to drop out, push your family members or kids into trades. Become plumbers. Electricians. Machinists. Take jobs/positions that can’t be sent off-shore.

We have had politicians in this country lie to you for the past 30+ years. There is no such thing as a tax cut, just like 5+3 doesn’t equal 6. A tax cut without subsequent cuts in government spending only represents a tax shift.

Anyone who believes in this fallacy about cutting taxes, absent cuts in spending, has been duped.

This means that a tax cut combined WITH HIGHER government spending ONLY guarantees that taxes in the future will need to be higher unless the government wants to perpetually run deficits. This of course, carries the burden of higher inflation and interest rates, which will crowd out private investment, and act as a tax on ones disposable income.

Conservatives love to talk about generational theft. How Obama’s high spending is stealing from your grandkids. Again – if you look at the last Bush budget and the last Obama budget, federal spending isn’t the cause of the change in the deficit. The cause is simply an issue of revenue – meaning – that not as many taxes are being collected because of the huge amount of job losses from 2007-2009.

This has been the game of the Republicans/conservative movement for the past 30 years. They talk about cutting taxes, but NEVER deliver on promises to reign in spending. The past Republican administration saw an increase in farm subsidies, defense spending, and spending on Medicare Part D – a NEW ENTITLEMENT. This came from a man who conservatives had wet dreams about until Hurricane Katrina hit.

I have asked numerous movement conservatives and even emailed Republican congressional candidates about what they plan to cut in the government.

The only answers I have gotten are that they want to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and they want to slow the rate of spending or try to eliminate the Department of Education.

Imagine that. Let’s say you are in a lot of debt in your house. You and your spouse talk about ways to cut your debt and eliminate your credit card balances. Let’s say you spend $175 a month going out to dinner. Well, if you want to get rid of your debts, a good way to start would be to eat in. Eat out less. Don’t buy expensive clothes. Cancel your HBO subscription. Don’t get your nails done 3 times a month. Those are all valid ways to get rid of your household debt. If you spent $175 a month eating out, would you say that a good way to save money would be to buy deodorant on sale because that may save you 40 cents a month, while continuing to spend $17 a month on HBO and $175 a month eating out? No. Of course you wouldn’t.

The budget deficit this year is 1.3 trillion. Eliminating the deficit via fiscal austerity, which usually means cutting government spending, will be tantamount to taking an axe to your arm. Moreover, it will throw the economy into a depression if you simply eliminated the deficit by cutting spending.

Taxes will need to go up. But, how much will they need to go up, and on who.

The Democrats are campaigning on raising taxes only on the rich. There is probably not enough money to only soak the rich unless we can implement a real progressive tax in which those earning more than 1 million a year pay in excess of 40% as a top marginal rate. The Democrats and the Republicans, those who aren’t idiots, likely know this.

Taxes will likely have to increase on everyone.This is the worst kept secret in Washington.

But, most importantly, we are in dire need of entitlement reform in this nation. And, while both parties know this, AND THE CONSERVATIVE PARTY SHOULD BE PUSHING THIS, neither is.

Why – because the Republican base is composed of old senile people who are on Medicare and SS who don’t realize that smaller government means LESS BENEFITS FOR THEM. Once they start to have their benefits cut, they will simply vote out their Republican lackeys who will do the same as the Democrats; buy their votes with more government goodies.

At least the Democrats make no fucking bones about wanting to utilize tax-payer money for increases in social services and welfare.

The Republicans/conservatives are supposed to be against this.

And sadly, even though I’ve offered my vote up for sale, for just a pittance of an educated response, I get that the GOP wants to cut 1/1000 of the federal government’s budget to help eliminate the deficit.

It’s almost shocking to me how stupid they think I am, but judging by those who have voted for their candidates and been duped by this, maybe I’m the one who is stupid for thinking I could get a coherent response.

Unless one wants to talk about cutting SS, Medicare/Medicaid, defense spending, or payments on the debt, one is not serious about deficit reduction.

Do you think all of those Republicans who come from rural districts and represent agricultural states are going to vote to end agricultural subsidies 70-90% of which go to Big Agra companies which have PROFITS in the millions/billions each year?

Surely nobody reading this is that naive of a fucking sap.

I hate Medicaid/welfare leeches as much as anyone. It sickens me every time I look at my paycheck to see how much the government steals from me and wastes on people who have little-to-no desire to improve their own lives.

It also sickens me to see how capital is considered the superior of labor and how deregulation has twice in America’s history nearly destroyed capitalism, one time contributing to WW2, and how the conservative party cheer-lead military operations in Iraq, a country we had 0 business invading and occupying for what will soon be longer than US forces fought in WW1 and WW2 combined. This war cost will cost the treasury close to $4 trillion when all is said and done. $4 trillion for what. At least the stimulus money was spent in America. Money was used in Iraq to bribe politicians, pay off Sunnis from joining Al Queada, and pay for the building of bridges in Iraq that would only be blown up weeks later by IED’s. Talk about the inefficiencies of government.

The Democracts are far from perfect. They have helped to create a sense of entitlement in ghettos across the nation in order to pander to race hustlers that continually spoon feed illiterates that people are held down because of the system and that if only we throw more money at these people that they can rise up.

But, the Republican leadership and conservative movement is 100% intellectually bankrupt. They say they favor small government, but apparently to them, this simply means selling more and more government bonds to the Communists to ensure that the Paris Hilton’s of the world inherit their parent’s wealth to buy more Ferraris.

Why can’t a single Republican get on a microphone and have the balls to say, “I want to cut SS transfer payments by 3% each of the next 5 years for people with incomes over $40,000″?

As it stands, no serious person, with a functioning cerebrum, can vote for such nonsense.

It is intellectually bankrupt to say that you support less intrusive government and then go out and vote for someone who wants to criminalize abortion, prohibit gays from serving in the military, continue the drug war, and simply cut taxes while raising spending.

This really is like a train-wreck from the Twilight show.

On Nov. 2nd, I urge you to vote for the “socialist.” At least then, you get what you vote for.

America in decline

The NJTransit is still running slow after Amtrak decided to have their signal malfunction. It took them almost two hours to fix the problem and it would not surprise me if their maintenance crew was jacking off to porn instead of doing their jobs to prevent problems on the tracks.  Its clear that Amtrak is constantly doing wrong seeing that they are consistently unprofitable and are still alive thanks to government funds. The only Amtrak that runs smoothly is the one Joe Biden uses to commute to work.

The economy is still in the shitters. Obama does not give a flying fuck about any of you unless you are someone he can depend on or if you are a wealthy campaign contributor. Other than that he will talk bold but so nothing if he has to deal with the opposition or his internal factions. Sadly I have no choice but to reelect him in 2012 since the Republicans will put a moron against him. I have the impression many Americans are adverse to sanity or reason which is why Obama won over Kucinich and Palin is favoured over Ron Paul.

This bad economy is a golden age for job recruiters and the HR industry.  They can simply abandon all pretenses of professional hiring due to the large pool of desperate workers.  They can now schedule people for interviews only to take it back at the last minute. They can blacklist candidates at will if they do not immediately respond or have one item that doesn’t fit their requirements. They start asking overqualified people to take the same job for more work and less pay. With unemployment nearing 20% they can do whatever they want.

This is an era of nothing. There is a President that acts cool but can’t do shit when it matters and there is a society that has no real income no real job or no real assets. This is the new American Dream while the original dream is now made in China or outsourced to India.

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China Bans the Burqa

BEIJING (AP) — China’s Interior Ministry announced yesterday that it would ban the burqa from being worn in public. The new law, which will be imposed next month, would forcefully put an end to the wearing of modesty-protecting garments for women in public. The new regulations also stipulate fines for wearing certain types of culturally-related clothing.

State-controlled media stated that the ban was necessary in order to maintain security. The Chinese regime is known for keeping widespread surveillance on ordinary civilians, especially ethnic minorities, to prevent possible anti-government activity. Last month an ethnic Tibetan, who was caught stealing on a convenience store’s camera was ordered to pay a fine, even though a number of dissidents criticized the video footage as “unfair evidence”.

The new law is expected to target ethnic minorities, such as the Uyghurs as well as the growing number of African immigrants, both of which already experience widespread discrimination in the racist Chinese society. While many ethnic minorities experience also prejudice if they wear ethnic clothing, but the new law is expected to add to already-existing prejudices.

“The burqa is like a security shield for me,” said one African woman who recently joined her husband and two children in Guangzhou. “In a hostile society, it gives me the confidence I need. People always stare at me when I go by because I am African. The burqa at least helps me emotionally,” she said. Another Ngubago Okulenagu, who has become an advocate for African immigrants working in China called the ban “simply unfair,” and pointed out the failure of the Chinese government’s ability to accommodate new members of society.

Several dissidents and activist rights groups have criticized China’s new law, which has been described as discriminatory. Reporters Without Borders, Amnesty International, and the International Woman’s Rights Group have all condemned the restrictions. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, responding to the new crackdown also said, “Abridging people’s right to wear cultural symbols violates fundamental human rights,” and urged the Chinese government to reconsider.

Arirang: The Korean American Journey

The documentary “Arirang: The Korean American Journey” traces the development of Korean Americans as they left Korea in the late 19th century first in search of new opportunities and later to escape Japanese imperialism. The documentary first starts off discussing Korean immigration to Hawaii due to increased demands for cheap labor and because it was also a way for Koreans to escape the turmoil in their country. In these immigrant communities in Hawaii, the Korean immigrants were able to create self-sufficient communities that protected their interests as well as teaching their children Korean ways and giving them a good education. This part of the documentary was interesting since it discussed the significance of Hawaii in shaping Korean American culture and as being another outlet for Koreans to contribute to the independence movement. Moreover, another interesting item the documentary brought up was that when Korean Americans went to visit Chosen for a baseball game, they were shocked that many Koreans were unable to properly speak Korean because of Japanese language policies on Koreans. This was very interesting since it highlights the degree that the Korean American community was able to preserve their customs and language while it was systematically destroyed in Korea.

In the second half of the documentary, the interesting parts concerned the Korean American contributions during the Second World War and in general. First, it was quite interesting that the United States actually classified Koreans as Japanese subjects and how the Korean American community was able to mobilize and lobby the US to recognize them as their own people. In addition, it was also interesting that the US made stamps commemorating Korea even though they knew little about it as seen by attempts by Soon Hyun’s many attempts to convince his White classmates that Korea existed. In addition, it was also interesting that some Korean Americans even had to courage to fight alongside Japanese-Americans in the same Army unit and later make contributions by working in the occupied US military government in Korea. However, the most interesting thing was the role the Methodist churches had in assisting Korean immigrants, creating an environment for Korean patriots to work like Syngman Rhee, and most of all in preserving Korean culture.