Month: March 2011

Are We That Dumb?

Daily Agitator

I would like to give a shout out to one of my readers and commenters….Spinny Liberal (go to blogroll and visit her interesting site)….she beat me to the punch on this subject…..kudos!

How shall I answer that question…… diplomatically?……YES!  (there is NO way to answer that question except with the TRUTH)

For years I have been writing and ranting about the ignorance of Americans on their own government and nation….either they have slept through Civics class or they are just dense……I had done a few surveys on my own over the years but nothing that would indicate that the nation was dumbing down…..but now thanx to the Daily Beast there is some proof of my assertions over the years……

NEWSWEEK gave 1,000 Americans the U.S. Citizenship Test—38 percent failed. The country’s future is imperiled by our ignorance. In this week’s issue, Andrew Romano looks at the risks involved in America’s ignorance.

They’re the sort of scores that drive high-school history teachers to drink. When NEWSWEEK recently asked 1,000 U.S. citizens to take America’s official citizenship test, 29 percent couldn’t name the vice president. Seventy-three percent couldn’t correctly say why we fought the Cold War. Forty-four percent were unable to define the Bill of Rights. And 6 percent couldn’t even circle Independence Day on a calendar.

How about the rest of the world?  How do Americans do on international surveys?

To appreciate the risks involved, it’s important to understand where American ignorance comes from. In March 2009, the European Journal of Communication asked citizens of Britain, Denmark, Finland, and the U.S. to answer questions on international affairs. The Europeans clobbered us. Sixty-eight percent of Danes, 75 percent of Brits, and 76 percent of Finns could, for example, identify the Taliban, but only 58 percent of Americans managed to do the same—even though we’ve led the charge in Afghanistan. It was only the latest in a series of polls that have shown us lagging behind our First World peers.

This could explain why American voters need issues reduced to a slick slogan that does nothing to inform and everything to manipulate….but wait there is more ignorance is everywhere and people are buying the crap…like……

  • The more you cut taxes the more tax revenue flows into federal coffers.
  • History proves America is a Christian nation.
  • Climate change is either not happening at all or, if it is happening, it has nothing to do with our use of fossil fuels.
  • Slashing regulation of business and high finance is good for business, good for the nation and good for the American public.
  • If the rich are allowed to keep more of their earnings they will share it with everyone else, (trickle down.)
  • School science classes should be “fair and balanced,” like Fox News, when teaching the origins of life on earth by teaching the biblically-inspired “creationist” version alongside Darwin’s scientific theory of evolution.
  • President Obama “may not have been born in America” as he claims.
  • President Obama is “a secret Muslim.”

We just seem to be getting dumber and dumber and we do not want to change that…it is easier to listen and believe irrational BS than to prove it wrong…..

One of my pages is entitled, “Rational Ignorance Effect” and I have NOT witnessed anything that Americans do that would change my mind on just how ignorant we have become……the truly sad part is that NO one seems to care that their IQ drops points when they listen then echo the crap being spread…..being spread by both sides……

Birth Of The Paris Commune

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Political Theory/History

This was an approximately two  months of existence and yet not many Americans can tell you just what is was…I hope to rectify that…..

I recall having to do a research paper back in my university days and I chose the Paris Commune to write…..and today is the 150 year anniversary of that situation…I tried to locate my original paper but since Katrina I have NOT been able to find much of my stash of early writings….so I sat done to try and re-write the paper and in doing research I found a piece written by David Rapkin…it is well written and easy to understand so I decided to post a bit of his piece…..

FOR TWO months in 1871, the downtrodden workers and poor of war-torn Paris were able to run the city after having driven their rulers and most of their bosses away. Remarkable as this may seem, it was an ordinary event under capitalism that gave Parisians such an opportunity: inter-imperialist warFrance’s losing war with Prussia, part of the newly formed German Empire, left Paris besieged and bombarded, with the people hungry and angry. The war, started by France’s ruler Napoleon III in 1870, had dramatically widened the gap between rich and poor, and fueled the popular demand for Paris to become a self-governing city.

While France’s provisional government, led by Adolphe Thiers, signed a self-serving armistice with Germany, Parisians were subjected to a humiliating ceremonial Prussian occupation of Paris, while the country’s rulers cowered in safety at Versailles, far outside the city.

But instead of suffering in silence, the working class of Paris took matters into their own hands. As Prussian troops marched on the city, armed worker National Guards and ordinary workers were able to carry off cannons and other armaments and secure them in key positions.

The National Guards were actually citizens’ militias, armed and trained by France’s rulers against the Prussians, but now willing to turn their guns against “their own” corrupt government. When regular troops were sent by Thiers from Versailles to seize these weapons, many of the troops fraternized with the workers and the rest were sent packing. Two of the hated leading officers were killed. Workers, who had been armed by their rulers to fight the “foreign enemy,” were left in control of the city.Sadly, the Commune was destroyed in an orgy of bloody revenge, perpetrated not only at the hands of Thiers’ army from Versailles, but also by the Prussian leader Bismarck, who cut a deal with his French “enemies” and released thousands of French prisoners of war so they could help crush the Commune. Bismarck also threw in many of his own troops for good measure. The rulers of the two warring nations shook hands and made up over the dead bodies of the workers of Paris.

Somewhere between 10,000 and 50,000 workers were killed as Paris was retaken. Tens of thousands more were imprisoned or exiled. “The civilization and justice of bourgeois order comes out in its lurid light whenever the slaves and drudges of that order rise against their masters,” Marx wrote. “Then this civilization and justice stand forth as undisguised savagery and lawless revenge.”

But the workers of the Paris Commune did not fight and die in vain.

They installed many “innovated” ideas into the Commune….

  • the separation of church and state;
  • the remission of rents owed for the entire period of the siege (during which, payment had been suspended);
  • the abolition of night work in the hundreds of Paris bakeries;
  • the granting of pensions to the unmarried companions and children of National Guards killed on active service;
  • the free return, by the city pawn shops, of all workmen’s tools and household items valued up to 20 francs, pledged during the siege; the Commune was concerned that skilled workers had been forced to pawn their tools during the war;
  • the postponement of commercial debt obligations, and abolition of interest on the debts; and
  • the right of workers to take over and run an enterprise,  if it were deserted by its owner; the Commune, nonetheless, recognized the previous owner’s right to compensation.the association demanded gender equality and wage equality, the right of divorce for women, the right to secular education and professional education for girls.
  • an organized woman’s movement that even participated in the affairs of the commune

Yes, they lead the way……whether you be a left leaner or right….they showed us the way to protect ourselves and to take matters in our own hands when the need arises…..I hate to say this but.,…..the rhetoric and the vile being spewed daily may make it necessary for us to take matters in our hands to prevent the loss of freedoms and representation……

Libya Is The Least Of Our Worries

Inkwell Institute

Middle East Desk

BY now we have all heard the cheer leading or the condemnation of Obama for the situation in Libya…..you what a prick…he dithered….he is not doing enough…..on and on….conservs condemning….liberals on the fence…..progressive pissed…on and on……

I have been debating the situation growing in the ME and I do not feel that all are as similar as people think…..like Libya….it boils down to tribe vs tribe….Bahrain boils down to sunni vs shi’a (why do you think Saudi got involved….sunni!)……….and then there is Yemen…..there are many reasons for their problems and when it is settled the US may NOT like the outcome……

No where is the situation in Libya that damn important in the grander scheme of things….I know you think it is Syria….WRONG!  Basically who cares about Syria…then it has to be Bahrain……that should be of minor importance right now….but it could be the big crap of the day soon……None of these….we should be looking over our shoulder at Yemen!

Yemen?  Yes, Irene….Yemen!

Do you remember the USS Cole?  It was anchored in Yemen when it was attacked…..and who did the deed……you recall those little pricks called Al Qeada?

The situation in Yemen is this……there have been massive protests and retaliations by the government of an unpopular leader…Pres. Saleh….the protests heave been going for a month or more……as the protests wear on he is becoming more and more feeble and unable to control let alone rule the people of Yemen…..there are whispers that he may be ready to go and leave the country to its own devices…..good right?

Hell NO!  There is a massive AQ operation in Yemen and this would give them a yet another success in their war on humanity….my suggestion is to STOP worrying about Libya and someone, anyone start worrying about the fate of Yemen when Saleh takes a powder…..I think we may need all our resources when he leaves…..and that would then be the fourth Muslim country that we have inserted our might into….and that is a PR nightmare…….

Just to add fuel to the fire….while I was writing this……

Yemeni officials say Islamic militants have seized control of a southern town and carried out a deadly ambush on Yemeni soldiers in a central province, as Yemen’s weakened president tries to deal with an escalating political crisis.
The Islamist fighters captured a weapons factory and government buildings in the town of Jaar in southern Yemen’s Abyan province on Saturday, initially facing little resistance from security forces who appeared to have deserted the area

Elsewhere, suspected al-Qaida militants attacked soldiers in the central Yemen’s Marib province on Sunday, killing at least six Yemeni troops and wounding four others. Officials say the assailants also seized a Yemeni military vehicle.

While you were so damn worried about the American response to Libya……while you were so damn critical of the President in his action or inaction….Yemen is quickly becoming your next adventure in paradise……..

The G.O.P.–A Closer Look

College of Political Knowledge

Subject:  Political Philosophy/Political Theory

For some time now I have been thinking about the direction of the GOP……it is NOT the same party that I recall from the 60 and 70’s…there has been a change in thought, not necessarily course, but in the approach of those members of the party……

With passing year there seems to be something very familiar about their way of governance and for years I have not been able to put my finger on it…though I have had some bad thoughts about the party….I have tried to put that out of my mind and concentrate on the direction of an American political party…..

In the last twenty or so years here are some of the directions that I have seen…..Rule of Law standing above the people who run the government; no inherent personal rights or liberties; a  national ideology that demonizes all political, religious, and ideological opposition to it; the massive and regular use of hate, fear, racial and religious prejudice, the Big Lie technique, mob psychology  to achieve political and economic ends; and total corporate determination of economic, fiscal, and regulatory policy.

Then there is the social issues…..abortion, food consumption, personal choices…they have this preoccupation of the decline of society through the policies of anyone other than the party…..and an almost social Darwinism when they vilify Hispanics and Muslims…….a social interventionism when they insert the state into decisions made by individuals as with abortion and the other things I mentioned earlier…….

Some minors cases of the party in power, usually the GOP, in states that have had textbooks re-printed to reflect a more revisionist view of history than there actually is…..Texas comes to mind, when they wanted to re-write history about the founding of this country…..

The economic policies are hard for me to grasp…..they seem to be corporatist in nature…where as everything depends on the corporations being healthy and prosperous….a good tag line but they are that now and it does NOT translate into prosperity for the working majority….it is not laissez-faire and it is not state capitalism…it is that third way that has not seem to work in the past…..but they try it every time they are in the majority…..they promise jobs…that are NOT being delivered and yet they work on every issue but the economy…..

Since the GOP has, more or less, embraced much of the Tea Party rhetoric it is becoming more authoritarian and look for purity in their positions….they seem to vilify professors, intellectuals and organizers as somehow anti-American, they seem to insinuate that these people are useless and dangerous to the American way of politics…..

The GOP is still the party of old white guys….the TP members that have won seats in the most recent election are trying to change that assessment…the problems are that the TP has embraced the past and the ideas of old white guys…….as an example……the GOP has a problem with technology…they still have not learned that whatever they say will be instantaneously posted on line….and it will be hard to push back from any dumb statement made when their faces and words are used against them……

In the last election they pushed just how ineffective Obama has been in creating jobs….they won a crushing victory with the promise of jobs and since taking office everything but jobs have been their priority and now the American people are seeing them for what they are……liars…

A new ABC News/Washington Post poll finds just 43% of Americans approve of the way President Obama is handling the economy. However 46% say they trust Obama on the issue as compared to 34% who trust Republicans.

“What’s more, by a 9-point margin Americans now see Obama as better able to handle the deficit than GOP lawmakers in Congress. That represents an 11-point drop for the GOP since December — a period when Republicans have made cutting federal spending a centerpiece of their agenda.”

Let me see……ID enemies and scapegoats, supremacy of the military, obsession with national security, religion and government intertwined, corporate power is protected, labor power is suppressed, disdain for intellectuals and the arts, obsession with crime and punishment, rampant cronyism and corruption…..all that sounds so damn familiar…..I know I should know this….but I cannot put my finger on it……(thinking….thinking)

Wake up and smell the distrust…..2012 is lurking and if they stay on this tact they could well lose their majority…..a recent poll that only 26% of those polled think Congress is doing a good job….and the results slide everyday that they do NOT focus on jobs……

I apologize to my conservative friends and readers…..but I watch and read a lot of news and politics and this is what I see happening on the Right, if you will…..and I do not think that the Party, as it is now, has the best interests of the country at heart but instead follows the money…..the BIG money!

Was There Room For A Lexus?

Yep, you got it….it is the weekend and I must purge the brain of all the politic jargon and happenings of the week….and as usual it has NOTHING to do with the government….

In the past I have written about all sorts of weird stuff…like the Butt Bomber in Saudi that tried to kill a crown prince with a cellphone bomb in his butt….or the crotch bomber that tried to lite is penis on fire as a fuse for a diaper bomb….or the guy in Florida that had pills, cigs, matches and a receipt shoved up his butt……..lots of good stuff!

But I found one that takes the cake!

Police in northeastern Pennsylvania say they recovered more than 50 bags of heroin, cash and loose change from a woman following a cavity search.Authorities say 27-year-old Karin Mackaliunas was detained last weekend following a crash. Scranton police say they found three bags of heroin in her jacket and after being taken to the police station she told investigators she had more hidden in her vagina.

A doctor performed a search and recovered 54 bags of heroin, 31 empty bags used to package heroin, prescription pills and $51.22.

And like I said…all that was missing was a Lexus, a Big Mac and Soda….I guess size DOES matter!

$51.22?  Does that mean it was like a vending machine?  Money in–heroine out?

Atlantis: The Final Frontier

Today is Saturday and I am flushing my mind and soul of the political doings of the past week…..the last way I have of preserving my sanity…..

If you watch any TV then you have seen at least one show on the whereabouts oif the Lost city of Atlantis…….it is off Bimini…no, it is in the eastern Mediterranean……one it is in the Atlantic…no, it is…..(pick a spot and some adventurer has proof that it is where they say)……we must say that NO one knows where it is or if it ever existed……

But wait!  There is more….

From Reuters …..

A U.S.-led research team may have finally located the lost city of Atlantis, the legendary metropolis believed swamped by a tsunami thousands of years ago in mud flats in southern Spain.To solve the age-old mystery, the team used a satellite photo of a suspected submerged city to find the site just north of Cadiz, Spain. There, buried in the vast marshlands of the Doñana Park, they believe that they pinpointed the ancient, multi-ringed dominion known as Atlantis.

The team of archeologists and geologists in 2009 and 2010 used a combination of deep-ground radar, digital mapping, and underwater technology to survey the site.

Freund’s discovery in central Spain of a strange series of “memorial cities,” built in Atlantis’ image by its refugees after the city’s likely destruction by a tsunami, gave researchers added proof and confidence, he said.

Greek philosopher Plato wrote about Atlantis some 2,400 years ago, describing it as “an island situated in front of the straits which are by you called the Pillars of Hercules,” as the Straits of Gibraltar were known in antiquity. Using Plato’s detailed account of Atlantis as a map, searches have focused on the Mediterranean and Atlantic as the best possible sites for the city.

Debate about whether Atlantis truly existed has lasted for thousands of years. Plato’s “dialogues” from around 360 B.C. are the only known historical sources of information about the iconic city. Plato said the island he called Atlantis “in a single day and night… disappeared into the depths of the sea.”

Could it be?  That the dialogues, arguments and speculations could soon be over and let the world go back to solving the mysteries of how to live without screwing the planet up or each other……..Cayce predicted that it would be found and damn he may have another prediction come true….and where was Nostradamus on this?

Anyway…just thought you might like to know……

2011 Anal-Ocity #12

Holy Crap!  When it rains it pours!  I am always looking for the most moronic and anal statement made by people in the public, whether it is the media, the Tube or a public person like a politician and over the years I have found many and I DO mean many….but from time to time I find one that just cannot be real and after research I find that it is REAL…..and then a trigger goes off in my head and wonder just how a person could say something so moronic and then believe the lunacy they spout…..and then there are those that listen to and then repeat the anal statements……I question their mental capacity…

This time it is a conserv analyst that one would see on several different cable shows offering up his analysis…..one Frank Gaffney!  In a piece he wrote for the Washington Times, a conserv newspaper, he called the “Qadafi Precedent”:

“Gadhafi Precedent” could be “used in the not-too-distant future to justify and threaten the use of U.S. military forces against an American ally: Israel.

May I say again…..HOLY CRAP!

And people listen to this person as a qualified expert….About all I can do right now is shake my head in disbelief….and then think about how accurate John Stuart Mill was when he said…..”Conservatives are not necessarily stupid, but most stupid people are conservative”……I apologize to my conserv friends but someone in the conserv movement needs to stand up and call these types of people what they are….MORONS!

Whistling Past That Minefield

This post is a continuation of my post “Tip Toe Thru The Humanitarian Minefield” from a couple of days ago……a post about the snow job of humanitarian reasons for war…..once again Bosnia and Somalia were humanitarian situations………. (for those who do not remember history)

I recently read an editorial that asked a couple of good questions…….”Those who say a military attack on Gaddafi’s bases would bolster a democratic opposition movement against a bloody dictatorship must answer the following question: Why are the great powers not applying the same criteria in Afghanistan and Pakistan, where the regimes they back employ brutal violence against any opposition? And what of Bahrain, headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet, where Sheikh al Khalifa has shot down unarmed protesters with Saudi support? What about Gaza, where these same powers stand by as the Israelis massacre Palestinians? What about Yemen, where the Western-backed President Ali Abdullah Saleh on Friday shot dead some 50 protesters?”  (I got this in an email do not know sent it, so if I step on toes I apologize)

All good questions and none have seemed to ask nor answered the questions of why one over many others…..Not a single government or newspaper that supports a military strike against Libya has taken the trouble to explain these glaring contradictions. However, the real target of the violent action against Libya is clear, if one considers the logic of recent events.

The West has lost a couple of key allies in the ME…Tunisia and Egypt, at least for now…..could this be a plan to sure up support in the region?  CYA as it were.

Syria has joined the list of despots that are killing their own people….and since Assad is not our despot will the US intervene?  This will be interesting to see how the West reacts to the Syrian situation…..watch the rhetoric and pray for saner minds…..

Then Who Pays Taxes?

Daily Agitator

I recently wrote a post about companies that do not pay taxes at all or at a reduced rate….and post got me to thinking about just who pays the taxes that are the income of the country?

When we talk about taxes, the Right has this tag line that X% of Americans pay NO taxes at all…..for them sometimes this is a good thing and when needed it is a travesty that more people do not pay taxes….so far I have NOT seen this in any form but if we take their words for it…..then there is more……this from Paul Bechhuit of Buzz Flash.com……

— General Electric made $10.3 billion in 2009, but received a $1.1 billion tax rebate.

— Forbes said about Bank of America in 2010: “How did they not pay any taxes on $4.4 billion in income?”

— Oil giant Exxon made a $45 billion profit in 2009, but paid no taxes in the United States.

— Citigroup had 4 quarters of billion-dollar profits in 2010, but paid no taxes.

— Wells Fargo made $12 billion but purchased Wachovia Bank to claim a $19 billion tax credit.

— Hewlett Packard’s U.S. income tax rate was 4.3% in 2008 and 2.3% in 2009.

— Verizon’s 10.5% tax rate, according to Forbes, is due to its partnership with Vodafone, the primary target in UK Uncut’s protests against tax evaders.

— Chevron’s tax rate was 1% in 2008.

— Boeing, which just won a $30 billion contract to build 179 airborne tankers, got $124 million back from the taxpayers in 2010.

— Over the past 5 years Amazon made $3.5 billion and paid taxes at the rate of 4.3%.

— Carnival Cruise Lines paid 1% in taxes on its $11.5 billion profit over the past 5 years.

— Koch Industries is not publicly traded, but their many tax-free benefits have been documented by the New York Observer and the Institute for Public Accuracy.

— In 2008 CorporateWatch said Rupert Murdoch’s Newscorp paid “astoundingly low taxes” because of tax havens.

— Google “cut its taxes by $3.1 billion in the last three years by shifting its money around foreign countries.

— Merck, the second-largest drugmaker in the U.S., last year brought more than $9 billion from abroad without paying any U.S. tax.

— Pfizer, the largest drugmaker in the U.S., erased $10 billion in taxes with an “accounting treatment.”

If the people pay little or NO taxes and corporations do the same thing….just who is paying taxes?  It has got to be the small businesses……if it is then there needs to be a change in the tax codes….small business get a lower rate and corporations pay their share with NO deductions or help from the government……now you know why the country is in monetary trouble….NO one is paying their taxes!

What percentage do you pay?

We know that idea will not fly!  Corporations have friends in high places…like YOUR representative!

2011 Anal-Ocity #11

Yep, that time again….another anal statement made by a public person…..another big mouth moron has opened his/her mouth and puked up a bunch of vile, idiotic and hateful rhetoric…..

This time it comes from a conserv social group, American Family Association, and their Director of Issues Analysis, Bryan Fischer….he made a sweeping statement…..

“Islam has no fundamental First Amendment claims, for the simple reason that it was not written to protect the religion of Islam,”

So the guarantee of freedom of religion is not apply to Muslims…is that about it?  Does that also apply to atheists?  How about Deists?  Or is it just Muslims that do not have the freedom of religion?

Why do conservs, mostly, who try to imply that they alone can protect the Constitution are the ones that call for less freedoms?  Is it just that they do NOT understand the wording of the Constitution?  Or maybe that it was written only for them and their beliefs….

The more these people talk the more they prove just how un-American they are…once again I say…..either you are ALL in with the Constitution or you are ALL out…..you cannot pick and choose the parts you want to suit your limited mental capacity……