The Bush Six

Watching the O'Reilly factor tonight, I got the distinct impression that this O'Reilly guy was trying extremely hard to convince me that Spain is wrong in indicting "The Bush Six". O'reilly was over the top, going as far as threatening Spain about "the American response" to such action. O'Reilly was indignant about Spain pursuing violations of international law forbidding torture against the Bush Six. I applaud the Spaniards. IF the Bush Six did not break international law they have nothing to fear. Justice is Justice.
On the other hand, Law is Law, and if others in the world cry foul and point the finger at America, they cannot be wrong simply because we are America, it is International Law that must be the deciding factor, and we must avoid that arrogance of which Americans are so often accused. Thus, it is a shame that the Spaniards are doing America's dirtywork.
Here's the Bradline though, and here is the real danger to those whom are pulling O'reillys strings, for he obviously is somebody's puppet ; If a real investigation of the Bush administration were to be made, it could reveal far reaching criminal action back to, and before, 9\11. ( Of course , I am of the belief that it takes so much preparation to implode a 105 story building that flying a plane into the side of the structure could not possibly drop it perfectly in it' s own footprint,........ Turning all it's concrete to dust......Twice on the same day. )
Remember Watergate, one thing led to another , someone got a sniff of the true story, and the rest is History. That is the danger to Bush and Cheney and the Empire of this indictment. And that is why we're being told to reject Spain's accusations of crimes against high level Bush administration officials. It might lead to something bigger. Like the guillotine. I encourage Spain to help US keep our government accountable. America should be doing everything she can to prevent another hijacking of the peoples money and will , like that suffered during the Bush years.
Which brings us to The Obama Administration increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan. Time to stop the witch hunt and bring the troops home. Heroin is cheaper than a six pack of beer in the Northeast US. Capiscete ?
Ain't no Afghani ever done nothing to me, and if American oil companies need a pipeline to India, let India secure the route. American borders need to be secured first and foremost, and there are pirates in Africa, but chasing ghosts in the mountains bordering Pakistan and Afghanistan ?
C'mon . it is absolute bullshit these wars have drug on for years at the expense of the common man, and for the profit of the elite. Do they not fit into the definition of Privatizing profits and Scializing losses.? And One way to stop the bullshit is for America to be held accountable for her actions .
Again, I applaud Spain, and challenge the Obama administration to drop the " let's look forward " bullshit, and prosecute the criminals of the Bush era, whomever they may be, torturers or bankers.
Unfortunately....the criminals of the Bush era just work for another frontman now. Can We Believe things have changed? Hell no, they just change the label on the can of bullshit.

Hang Mrs Madoff too

Back in early February I wrote an E about Victims gathering to protest in front of homes of bankers they felt were responsible for the predatory loans leaving them homeless. Paupers, shaking the gates of the castle at the servant's quarters, never realizing Lord Banker lived in the great hall further behind the gates where he was never aware of their presence.
I quote from that E
" Remember this desperate day, The victims are forecasting an attitude and frustration that is going to explode nationwide."
" Predatory Bankers better hide now. It would appear when the guillotines are dragged out their heads will be the first to roll."
Add AIG executives to the list next. At least that's what the current threats that AIG executives are receiving would indicate. The ones allowed on TV call for death to them....and their families.....for several generations. After reading a few of the air-able threats on TV, the newscasters will then give a short discourse on how the threats are over the line and reason must be restored. Three newscasters, three discourses.
The Irony is; As we're told that these death threats are unreasonable, We watch totally unreasonble acts that will help bankrupt us all, be rewarded with bonuses. Or, A guy steals 50 billion and awaits his court date in a multi-million dollar Penthouse. That's reasonable? His family, in the same business, and his wife, both, want to keep their fortune .That's reasonable? No wonder there is a Mob mentality brewing.
What a crock. If this was China these clowns would be swinging. Mrs. Madoff too. I might agree. I think that hanging is a much better deterrant to white collar crime than a bailout, or bonus, for that matter. How unfair that we can't waterboard Madoff until every hidden nickel is recovered, and then watch the floor pulled out from under his feet with a noose around his neck. Good thing he didn't have any of my money. Where is all this leading? The final result of the Endless Crisis will be the American people holding the paper on a country so far in debt it enslaves them. While the people who put us there have taken the money and left for more desirable diggs, where they await their bonuses.
Anyway , what really pisses me off are the newscasters. Newscasters are Employees told what to say. Then, once the talking head is loaded, We're told What to think. How to act. How to be reasonable. I think it's time for some unreasonableness to go with the unreasonable mess. I think it's time to decide not to be gentlemen. Not to be civilized. Not to go along as we're told.
If righteous indignation leads to a call for heads, so be it , but don't try and tell us how to act because people should be angry enough for a revolution. People should be outraged, and defiant about being reasonable! All those reasonable bastards in Washington , maybe that's the problem.
Remember, these are the same people that sold you Weapons of Mass Destruction, and Keep your Money in the market and ride it out (to nothingness), and now, they're telling us it's a great time to buy into the market for the long run. Didn't a whole bunch of long run people just lose everything?
Which brings me to the last scam of the day, 4000 additional "military advisers" to Afghanistan. Sounds more like Viet Nam everyday. The American people should feel totally betrayed the way Obama has fallen right in step with the bullshit in Afghanistan. We need to secure our own southern border, yet we pursue securing the Pakistani-Afghan border? Totally Unreasonable. Obama is chasing Osama Oil profits.
Bring all the troops home now.

AIG

Anderson Cooper was asking people how they felt about AIG executives getting bonuses. People didn't like it. Which leads me to think:
Somewhere there is an AIG employee whom doesn't give a rats ass about what people think, they want "Their" bonus.! understand where the money went on inflated mortgages; sellers pocketed the money and mortgage holders took the losses, but is the rest of the meltdown all collateral damage? and if not, then where did the rest of the money go?
Somewhere the question was posed today, "should Mrs. Madoff be allowed to keep Millions in homes and jewlery etc.?" Really.
I think the question posed should be, " Should Madoff be waterboarded by his victims until he gives up the location of the money?"
"Is prison enough for Madoff ?" I mean, he's already had years of luxury and wealth, he's got billions stashed somewhere, and when you consider what his "pay" will be per year for each year in prison; about five billion plus per year if he lives another ten years in prison, he deserves more. Like torture.
Oh, another thing, now that the drought is over in Northern California, three big storms are converging on the west coast to flood the place later this week. I'm not kidding, better buy in Southern Oregon quick.
Is Madoff the Biggest thief in history ?
I mean other than George W. ............ See, we're back where we started. People getting bonuses when they should be in jail.
One last thing , "Too BIG to Fail" , is bullshit because they failed. How stupid are we?

Loose Change and Zeitgeist

According to Russia

According to Russia, the border war going on between Russia and Georgia was initiated by Georgia, which is no surprise when it comes to the blame game. However. there's the further accusation that 'the West' (meaning the US) gave the green light to Georgia to initiate the fracas; something about unlimited support if they got it on. A surprise?
Think about it; MONEY supplies both sides of a war... MONEY in Russia is MONEY. Draw a border. Pick a fight . Make a profit. And the Shock? Hasn't the US been invading and attacking sovereign foreign countries now for eight years? What Shock? According to some experts and a large amount of 'factual' evidence is really that we simply took a swipe at ourselves to get a war going: The War on Terror. Our administration uses 'foreign terror' to create enough fear to fight back at the shadows, while the evidence and the true intention of it's action are as plain as day, but IGNORED.
Back to Georgia, where there's pipeline that connects the Azerbaijani Oil and Gas from Caspian Sea to the West. Surprise! An OIL and GAS pipeline. It only carries a million barrels a day, but it replaced the old one that ran through Russia. And it was built because the OIL consortium wanted it in friendlier countries, ie. Not Russia. But damn, don't these 'pipelines' seem to attract trouble like arteries in a knife fight? I mean, it seems like everywhere there's OIL that needs a pipeline built to it or where the pipelines exist, then there's trouble. Is it the pipeline that causes the trouble, the fight for the OIL that goes through it, or the representation of foreign powers and foreign exploitation that inevitably make these pipelines targets for rebels? Back to the surprise.
Georgia wasn't voted into NATO. And so MONEY knew this War was coming. Russia could not sit idly by and watch the US gobble up oil producing countries and pipeline routes in the 'War on Terror' in Russia's 'Near Abroad', and not get back in the Imperialism game too. You lead by example. Actions are louder than words. Russian national security demands that Russia not have a problem neighbor armed with western weapons (supplied by US and Israel, according to the Russian Diplomat on CNN). And why does it sound so familiar?
We've played all these games before. We've played all these games before. ZEITGEIST. ZEITGEIST. ZEITGEIST Someones making money on both sides of that war. You can bet on it. The 1%.
There's a reason Georgia wasn't voted into the NATO alliance recently; MONEY didn't want things to get out of control and wind up with a real war between nuclear powers. No cos, like the 'War on Terror', or Vietnam, or any shitty little proxy war, in Georgia MONEY is being made by The 1%. ZEITGEIST. Does the Cookie fit the Cut? MONEY is nation-less. MONEY'S Allegiance is to itself. Borders make good Wars, Profits, Control. The Cold War is being replaced by The OIL Wars; Formerly called 'The War on Terror', or 'The Terrorize Yourself 'Til You Terrorize Someone Else Wars', or 'The 1% Wars'.
There is little difference between our invasions of the Middle East, and Russia's invasion of Georgia. Russia doesn't bother with concealing their true intent. They don't need to attack themselves to attack others. As long as the US is 'policing' the world (at least the OIL producing world) then how can Russia be condemned for a little 'policing' on their own border? It's their border (fuck, we let Mexican Bush Cartels wage war on our border). According to the Russians, the US is supplying arms to Georgia and encouraging trouble.
Doesn't it seem like in all these strategic OIL related places where Western OIL rubs elbows with the corrupt democracy, trouble starts... When you consider what has been done in the world by the US over the last eight years in the name of any excuse available, while the real reason is simply greed, how can the current US Administration lecture Russia?
Does the Cookie fit the Cut?

$150 a Barrel of Oil

Another doomsday report from southern Oregon, but first... BE HAPPY. Spend your stimulus check.. no better not. When it makes no difference to the economy at all, you might find it depressing to think of the billions the American people have been swindled, while your cut was a mere few hundred dollars.

Yes, I've been watching the news today. Some of it is almost humorous, if not tragic. Ford Excusions, Chevy Suburbans, BIG trucks, SUVs, all of those $40 - 60k vehicles aren't worth 30% of their original cost less than two years after they're purchased. People trying to trade them in due to the gas crisis (again, circa 1976) are finding they have no re-sale value due to the cost of gas. What? You don't have $240 to fill the tank on your 3\4 ton that gets ten miles to the gallon? No matter, it'll still look good with those 22" rims. Hey... and if the asphalt gets so hot your tires stick to the pavement and two wheel drives can't move, you got four wheel drive, just no gas!

I mean, what the hell did you expect? People out there living in $500 a month apartments, driving SUVs with $600 a month payments, plus insurance (maybe) and gas too. Then there's the homeowner who refinanced and bought that car. Now he's upside down in his house. Then he tries to cut expenses, dump the gas hog, and what happens? He's upside down in the SUV, or already lost $20-30k.

Uh-oh, it's the spiral effect and it's snowballing.

I'm poor, so we must keep in mind my views are from one who views gas prices as devastating to people on fixed and lower incomes.

However, why would anybody want to buy a new car today? Motor home? Hell, at this point anything that burns gas is a bad investment. Soon fuel costs for private transportation will become prohibitive. Which brings us to $150 a barrel oil prices. It was only two months ago that oil hit a previously un-thought of $100 a barrel. At that time gas was over $3 a gallon.

Today it's at $130+ a barrel, and at the current rates of increase it should be $150 by the end of June. As I stated before (All Things Being Equal 05 MAY 08), the price of gas will be $5.25 a gallon by the end of summer and, unfortunately, everything else is going to be 35% more expensive too.

Now here's the back breaker; while everything else becomes more expensive (and the dollar loses value), your house, which is your hedge against inflation, loses value too! Coming and going, Baby, coming and going.

Anyway, don't get me wrong, I'm not worried. Misery loves company and I'm lonely as hell, and I've already downscaled. It ain't all bad. There are unprecedented opportunities in the decline, also. One only need know where to look. I'm looking to the garden.

The Stimulus Program

I cannot believe as the value of the dollar decreases, oil prices increase, the mortgage crisis deepens, the trade deficit balloons, and the average American worker is having their standard of living diminished, our leadership gives us the following short term temporary fix in the form of a tax rebate.

$150,000,000

Does that look like a big figure? Look at this one.

$2,000,000,000,000

Notice how it dwarfs your rebate? War expenses. In dollars only. The rebate looks like a faint hope to divert attention while the crooks get out of town. The next time the media runs stories on how much the war and its contractors are costing you, on oil profits this quarter, on how much money was stolen in the latest scandal that the Bush/Cheney boys were involved in, note the figure and see if you're getting your fair share.
Blackwater received $800 million in contracts, so far. Another $92 million contract has been awarded. How many Al Qaeda/Talibani/terrorists did we kill this week? I still say (The News 08Dec07) for the price of those enemies/per kill we'd be better off to contract them out to the Chinese, covertly paying them in laundered dollars mixed up in the opium trade channeled through Turkey and run by the very terrorists we'd be paying to have killed. I would arrange it so the bad guys would be financing their own hitmen, for a profit! Irony at it's best!
Hey, if that sounds crazy, confused, and in another world to you, it should; unless you live in the world of war profits, drug profits, politics, foreign aid and terrorism. Pretty confusing.
Like most of us, what I understand is a peoples will is not carried out, while their country's entrusted leaders prove untrustworthy. This 'stimulus package' they cough up is a diversion until their terms end and they can run out of town.

$200,000,000

Notice anything about this number? It's fifty million larger than the stimulus package. That's your daily Iraq bill. Two hundred million dollars a DAY! ......That is what the war in Iraq is costing the us and The United States today. We can't afford it. If we could suspend the war for three days we could triple the 'stimulus'! Wouldn't that be a nut. Instead of $300, you'd get $900! We can take a month off and get a $9k stimulus. Like Viagra!
The point is, are you kidding? After we quit trembling about terrorists, and weapons of mass destruction, the only reason to be in Iraq was for the oil, but fuel is through the ceiling so what the hell are we spending $200,000,000 a day for?

A $150,000,000 band-aid is not the cure for a $2,000,000,000,000 disease.

Educate, Educate, Educate!

Change we can believe in... Could I get a definitive explanation of what the term "change" means, so as to see if I can believe in it?
America will have a $726 billion trade deficit this year. Sixty three percent of it will be for oil. Oil.
The greatest transfer of wealth from one part of the world to another, circa 1970's: Thirty years later the transfer is still happening. Are we giving it all away? Yes. That's the impression I'm getting. That and America's wealth is being stolen by crooked politicians immersed in special interests.
Oil interests. Industrial interests. Defense and Weaponry interests. Poppy Interests. Growing up... wasn't 'special interests' just another term for bribe? Buying influence is Bribery. The practice is rampant in Washington; time to remove the Lobbyists.
Except, it could be America isn't really owned by Americans. Maybe... foreign interests and assets have bought our leaders and our sovereignty. In a country\world driven by profits, maybe the 1% of the American people who control 80% of the world's wealth don't necessarily have an affinity with being American first, and ultimately don't care about our well being as a nation or a society. That would help to explain our current state of affairs.
As Americans transfer their wealth for oil and cheap labor, the orchestrators of this tragedy, (those that profit the most) very well could be nation-less. Their only interest in America being to plunder her, ultimately making The American worker cheap labor, or possibly indentured labor, working for taxes and war debt. The dollar buys less, American labor is cheaper... Your wage doesn't change but everything is more expensive: Standards of living adjusted downward. Does it make you feel better to know the average Chinese is better off?
Somebody made money on the current mortgage crisis, does it offset your losses? Obviously the people don't 'run' America anymore, or George wouldn't be President. And it's not enough to have him rule for eight years, now he wants to lock us into Iraq for decades with long term commitments.
I don't want their oil; give me my Two Trillion back. How many mortgages would that buy here in America? Instead of destroying and rebuilding a country in the Middle East? And for what? I wasn't willing to spend Two Trillion dollars for Iraqi Democracy!
If the Iraqi people want democracy....let them fight and pay for it. Freedom isn't Free, remember? Teach them 'United we Stand'. Let them protect themselves! And foot the bill. I keep hearing, "we must win this war!" I thought this war was won?! While too many lose so much, a few steal more than they could ever spend for reasonable survival. A couple of trillion would go a long way towards fixing some of America's problems.
Oil Interests who profit in the transfer of wealth must not continue to dictate foreign policy and bankrupt the country.
The Problem is the same one we should have tackled in the Seventies. Oil. Greed. Windfall profits.
Alternative Fuel Sources...develop them, use them, sell them for a profit to the rest of the world!
Back to the 70s!

The News

I see the the U.S. Army has built a base at 8000 ft in the mountains between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's a well fortified castle, complete with helicopter pads, the big guns etc. A command center high in the mountains for The War on Terror. This reminds me of boot camp mentality; "If we're going to fight them, lets do it at their house, burn their land, kill their women and children." This is all good and fine, I guess. But is this border patrol really necessary when I can't afford it? If we elect not to defend the Afghanistan border might there be enough money to defend America's borders? And dare I say it? Isn't it cheaper still to keep our southern borders porous and source our illegal drugs from there, rather then spend so much money to control Afghan poppy fields and do nothing to prohibit their cultivation? Oh, that's preposterous!... Is it?
From what I've seen the Taliban are now the gunmen for the poppy fields. Seems the local boys would like to continue to grow Opium. Something about 'earning a living' (Seen American Gangster? I wonder if the Armed Forces are checking the coffins. It wouldn't be original to use them for smuggling). How much is the worlds opium trade worth? I dare say, with all the other graft going on, would it be crazy to think that somewhere in the military/intelligence hierarchy an influential man might be making money on drugs connected somehow to those Afghan poppy fields, and maybe even... the War on Terror? I wonder what the shit in Harlem is like these days. Fucking good? I can't afford these wars.
For the money it cost us to kill each Taliban per kill, it would be cheaper to contract their asses out to Hitmen and BIG-GAME hunters. How many bona fide Taliban are we going to kill this year? Now how many BILLIONS are we going to spend? Those motherfuckers are the most expensive hit in the world!
If we just contract them our, for the number of Taliban killed this year versus dollar paid, Uncle Sam will be way ahead! We should close are borders to control our world, keep the shit out of the country, but that ain't happening. No. Ain't No Fucking Profit in that, is there? And at the end of 200 years of isolationism, the Chinese will invade our technologically backward country just like the British invaded them 200 years ago.
We can't afford the tarnish. Don't forget these are 'the lands of the grudge.' They haven't forgotten the Crusades. I try remember 'to save myself; the world don't wanna be save.'
Bring our troops home and let those people go back to chopping each others heads off in the middle of the desert.
Nobody wanted a War of Occupation.

I look out the window and right across from my property reminds me of what's important. America.