President Obama is using the same aggressive rhetoric we saw prior to invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, with media repeating the quickly-verifiable lie that Iran's President threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." Previously, Senator Lieberman, Secretary of State Clinton, and former UN Ambassador John Bolton resumed rhetoric of a United States attack upon Iran. There are two general justifications they speak of to justify war: Iran's "nuclear program" and their threat to Israel. Both claims are false (again, verify here: http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2009m11d20-Obama-aggress-for-war-Media-echoes-lie-Iran-threatens-to-wipe-Israel-off-the-map-Citizen-action and here:http://www.examiner.com/x-18425-LA-County-Nonpartisan-Examiner~y2009m9d29-Irans-Nuclear-Program-Iran-in-treaty-compliance-USIsrael-lying-and-out-of-compliance), which follows a history of US lies regarding wars. The following is edited from my brief, “War with Afghanistan and Iraq, rhetoric for war with Iran.” The focus of this article is to explore US interest in having a war with Iran. It's from my brief: War with Iraq and Afghanistan, rhetoric for war with Iran.

Earlier this week, the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program, a k a, the bank bailout fund, released his report on the 2008 rescue of [AIG]. The gist of the report is that government officials made no serious attempt to extract concessions from bankers. Throughout the financial crisis key officials have shied away from doing anything that might rattle Wall Street. And the bitter paradox is that this play-it-safe approach has ended up undermining prospects for economic recovery. Finishing the job of fixing the broken economy has become nearly impossible now that the public has lost faith in the government’s efforts. Officials could have called on bankers to offer a better deal [to bear part of the cost of the bailout], for their own sake, and simultaneously threatened to name and shame those who balked. It was their choice not to do that. And these seemingly safe choices have now placed the economy in grave danger. For the economy is still in deep trouble and needs much more government help. So here’s the real tragedy of the botched bailout: Government officials, perhaps influenced by spending too much time with bankers, forgot that if you want to govern effectively you have retain the trust of the people. And by treating the financial industry — which got us into this mess in the first place — with kid gloves, they have squandered that trust.

Zombies are invading almost every aspect of our daily lives. Not only are the flesh-chomping, blood-lusting, pale-faced creatures with mouths full of black goo appearing in movie theaters, television series, and everywhere in screen culture as shock advertisements, but these flesh-eating zombies have become an apt metaphor for the current state of American politics. Not only do zombies portend a new aesthetic in which hyper-violence is embodied in the form of a carnival of snarling creatures engorging elements of human anatomy, but they also portend the arrival of a revolting politics that has a ravenous appetite for spreading destruction and promoting human suffering and hardship.This is a politics in which cadres of the unthinking and living dead promote civic catastrophes and harbor apocalyptic visions, focusing more on death than life. Death-dealing zombie politicians and their acolytes support modes of corporate and militarized governance through which entire populations now become either redundant, disposable or criminalized. This is especially true for poor minority youth who, as flawed consumers and unwanted workers, are offered the narrow choice of joining the military, going to prison or being exiled into various dead zones in which they become socially embedded and invisible.

The United States is moving backwards…fast. State budget cuts are decimating essential health and social services; public education is being destroyed; the social safety net is in tatters. To make matters worse, all of this is occurring when the loss of jobs stands at a twenty-six year high with no end in sight. But this is only phase one. The federal government intends to balance its books too, at the expense of society’s neediest. Instead of governors presiding over painful cuts, the President will be doing the gutting. And although his proposed budget isn’t due until February, the President’s spokespeople are priming the media to play a major propaganda role in what will be a colossal blow against working and poor people.---Once the Obama illusion is completely shattered, workers can begin to act independently. We must demand that the corporate elite pay for the crisis they created. Their efforts to push this crisis onto us must be fought at every step. This can be done by clearly articulating our solutions to the crisis — taxing the super-rich and the corporations, a massive public works campaign, and ending foreign wars (for starters) — and promoting these ideas through local and national coalitions of labor unions, community groups, students, the unemployed, etc. If we are united and fighting for a clear vision of the future, we will win. If we rely on the Democrats to solve this problem our fate is sealed.

Why do politicians so easily get away with telling lies? In large part, because the news media are more interested in bonding with politicians than in exposing them. Americans are encouraged to believe that the media will serve as a check and a balance on the government. Instead, the press too often volunteer as unpaid pimps, helping politicians deceive the public. In 1936, New York Times White House correspondent Turner Catledge said that President Roosevelt’s “first instinct was always to lie.” But the Washington press corps covered up Roosevelt’s dishonesty almost as thoroughly as they hid his use of a wheelchair in daily life. President Bill Clinton benefited from a press corps that often treated his falsehoods as nonevents — or even petty triumphs. Newsweek White House correspondent Howard Fineman commented that Clinton’s “great strength is his insincerity…. I’ve decided Bill Clinton is at his most genuine when he’s the most phony…. We know he doesn’t mean what he says.”

t's no secret that when gas prices dropped early in the year and with the recession in full swing, hybrid sales saw their first drop in years. Faced with tough new fuel economy restrictions, auto executives had come up with all sorts of unusual suggestions -- such as cutting crash testing -- but now had to puzzle over a new dilemma; what if consumers don't want the higher-priced electric vehicles that they plan to start flooding the market with in less that a year? At a special Reuters summit in Detroit, numerous auto industry executives are cited as suggesting that the government raise taxes on gasoline substantially to spur the adoption of fuel efficient vehicles. States Tim Leuliette, chief executive of privately held parts supplier Dura Automotive, "In the United States, we're afraid to touch the fuel price. We've got to continue to raise taxes in the United States so that, by the end of the next decade, gas is about $8 a gallon in today's terms." He adds, "What you have to do is do it in a manner that is slow enough and predictable enough that vehicle selection and choices by people over the cycle can be made in a logical way." Eight dollars-per-gallon gas? The idea certainly sounds absurd. However, the idea of the government pouring over $100B USD into the auto industry and partially nationalizing GM and Chrysler might have sounded ridiculous a decade ago too.

The United Nations General Assembly has voted overwhelmingly in favor of a report, which accuses Israel of war crimes as well as crimes against humanity during the weeks-long onslaught on the Gaza Strip. 114 states endorsed a resolution supporting the report by a Human Rights Council panel led by the South African judge Richard Goldstone in Thursday's UN vote while only 18 states including the US objected to the report's adoption. Forty-four countries also abstained including France, Britain and Russia. The assembly's resolution demands that both the Israelis and the Palestinians carry out investigations within three months. It also pushes for Security Council attention.

Could there be a more accurate description of the Obama-Brown message of congratulations to the fraudulently elected Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan? First the Palestinians held fair elections in 2006, voted for Hamas and were brutally punished for it – they still are – and then the Iranians held fraudulent elections in June which put back the weird Mahmoud Ahmadinejad whom everyone outside Iran (and a lot inside) regard as a dictator. But now we have the venal, corrupt, sectarian Karzai in power after a poll far more ambitiously rigged than the Iranian version, and – yup, we love him dearly and accept his totally fraudulent election. And now we are still trying to persuade his opponent to join a national unity government, an administration led by the man whose vote-stuffing was the very reason that same leader of the opposition – the good pseudo-Pashtun Abdullah Abdullah – refused to run in a second round of elections. And Karzai got his fawning congrats from the Obama-Brown twins. So that's OK then. Wagons Ho. For Westmoreland, read McChrystal. Send in the brave 40,000 to join the rest of the US cavalry as it fights its way west – or rather south-west – to the Khe Sanh of Afghanistan in Year Eight of the War on Terror.

In a provocative comment to an essay I wrote, Kevin de Bruxelles argues that the government has broken the social contract with the American people, and discusses the ultimate meaning of such a breach of contract: One only needs to consult Hobbes to see where the answer lies. In Leviathan, Hobbes contrasts two states for human society. The first being a state of nature which is described as perpetual war between individuals. The moral logic of the state of nature is that there is no right or wrong: “To this war of every man against every man, this is also consequent, that nothing can be unjust. The notion of right or wrong, justice and injustice have no place. Where there is no common power, there is no law: where there is no law, no injustices. Force and fraud, are in war the two cardinal virtues.” (13.13) And then Hobbes goes on to describe the moral logic of the state of nature: “And because the condition of man is a condition of war of every one against every one; in which case every one is governed by his own reason; and there is nothing he can make use of, that may not be a help unto him, in preserving his life against his enemies, it followeth, that in such a condition, every man has a right to every thing, even to another’s body. (14.4)

"60 Minutes" did a fabulous exposé Sunday on Medicare fraud that should be required viewing for all people who support a government run healthcare program in this country. The facts and figures presented by CBS's Steve Kroft were disturbing as were the details concerning how shysters bilk the system for an estimated $60 billion a year. As Kroft warned viewers in the segment's teaser, "We caution you that this story may raise your blood pressure, along with some troubling questions about our government's ability to manage a medical bureaucracy" (video embedded below the fold with partial transcript, h/t Marc Sheppard):

Just a week after it emerged that the German armed forces was getting a different kind of A/H1N1 vaccine to the general population, Der Spiegel magazine reports that the government will also get special treatment. The general population will be offered the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine, called Pandemrix, which contains a new booster element, or adjuvant, as well as a preservative containing mercury. Controversy has grown around the rapid licensing of the GSK vaccine – and a similar one being made by Novartis. Critics said not enough testing had been conducted before European licensing authorities rushed an approval. Chancellor Angela Merkel, her cabinet members and ministry civil servants as well as those working for other agencies will get Celvapan, produced by US firm Baxter, which does not have the adjuvant or the preservative, according to Der Spiegel. [Note: Different strokes for different folks.]

What the hell is this about? A member of the President’s Working Group on Financial Markets, a.k.a. The Plunge Protection Team, is out spooking investors. If money market funds experience another run similar to the one that happened in September 2008, the money fund industry is unlikely to survive in its current form, according to an SEC official who has done extensive work on money fund regulation, according to Investment News. Investmnet News continues: To avert such a disaster, the SEC couuld finalize a proposal by the end of the year aimed at reducing money market fund risk and improving disclosures about the funds, Robert Plaze, associate director of the SEC’s Division of Investment Management, said at a panel discussion sponsored by the District of Columbia Bar Association. Note: Reducing risk when these funds are generally risk averse is to get them to buy even more U.S. Treasury securities. [Note: This takeover means money to the government. Therefore, it will be done by any means necessary.]

The White House said the stimulus payments would cost $13 billion, though a congressional estimate put the cost at $14 billion. Obama didn't say how the payments should be financed, leaving that up to Congress. The president is open to borrowing the money, increasing the federal deficit, just as Congress did with the first round of stimulus payments. Many seniors groups applauded Obama's plan to provide the $250 payments to about 57 million senior citizens, veterans, retired railroad workers and people with disabilities, saying the recession has reduced home values and diminished retirement funds. Recipients would be limited to one payment, even if they qualified in more than one category. "Without relief, millions of older Americans will be unable to afford skyrocketing health care and prescription drug costs, as well as other basic necessities," said Tom Nelson, chief operating officer for AARP. The payments would match the ones issued to seniors earlier this year as part of the government's economic recovery package. They would be equal to about a 2 percent increase for the average Social Security recipient. [Note: What a pittance compared to the banks and corporate bailouts. Like doling out crumbs to the mass of seniors who have looked to retire on THEIR money.]

The day after this country elected Barack Obama its 44th president, a doctor told me I'd inherited from my father a rare form of cystic kidney disease and that I was already in renal failure. Beyond the devastation I felt on hearing this news, and despite having health insurance, my greatest fear in those first, foggy days was one that haunts millions of Americans. I was more terrified of being dropped or denied treatment by my insurer over some minuscule technicality than I was of facing the disease. After four years of progressive activism, delivery of Obama's campaign promise of universal healthcare suddenly became very personal and urgent rather than simply a political goal for me. A few weeks into my ordeal, however, I learned that my diagnosis qualified me for a little-known existing "public option," or government health insurance plan. The same program had saved my father's life, but I was frankly surprised to learn it still existed despite numerous legislative changes through the decades. Today, almost a year after my diagnosis and amid the disheartening acrimony and willful misinformation pervading our healthcare debate, I can bear witness to what constitutes "socialized medicine" in the United States.

A government official whose taste for expensive cigarettes and very large cars triggered an online furore in China has been sent to jail for corruption. The sentencing of Zhou Jiugeng is testimony to the growing importance of the internet in China as a forum for open debate in a country where all other media are much more closely controlled and censored by propaganda mandarins. Mr Zhou, a former director of the property management bureau of a district in the southern city of Nanjing, was convicted of accepting 1.07 million yuan (£100,000) and 110,000 Hong Kong dollars in bribes from contractors and other officials. He was sentenced to 11 years in jail. [Note: I hope you guys are reading this story VERY closely...internet outrage!!]

Not once in Ken Burns' masterful documentary on America's National Parks does he overplay his most abiding lesson: good government is the heroic engine by which we save special places, ourselves, our nation, and our planet. Methodical and meditative, Burns dramatizes monumental themes by telling stories that start small, one visionary or scattered cluster who finds the human and the sacred in the natural - enriching all three terms in the process. Colossal achievements were initiated by single activists, like John Muir, and national triumphs inspired a worldwide phenomenon active today - rare wilderness set aside from perfidious "improvements." Repeatedly, we learn more effort and greater wisdom come from not intruding, letting nature be, than from cut and rip, dig and construct. As Shakespeare wrote (sonnet 94), "They that have the power to hurt and will do none ... They rightly do inherit heaven's graces."...

"The army of industry lobbyists in the health-care battle is fighting on familiar terrain: More than half of them used to work for the government they’re trying to influence. Of 2,737 lobbyists hired to promote the interests of drug companies, insurers, hospitals, health professionals, industry groups and business organizations, 1,418 -- or 52 percent -- have worked for Congress, the White House or federal agencies. That includes 55 former members of Congress."

Recently, I watched "Pride of Warriors", a documentary about resistance in West Papua. The filmmaker, Jono Van Hest, had asked me to comment on the film's content as he prepared it for public broadcast on Al Jazeera's English language channel. Then, after an article about the film, which quoted Indonesian government sources, appeared in the Jakarta Post, "Pride of Warriors" was pulled from the broadcaster's schedule. Two things about the film stand out to me. The first is the filmmaker's decision to portray unarmed civilian-based opposition to the Indonesian government's rule in West Papua. Van Hest highlights four separate stories: of Yani, the daughter of an independence leader, who was kidnapped and tortured because of her father's political activity; of Matias Bunai, a customary leader from Paniai who is fighting to keep his culture alive; of the rebel leader Tadius Yogi who has put down his guns and now advocates a peaceful solution to the conflict; and of Sampari, a group of young dancers who were interrogated by the Indonesian security forces for performing a dance.

So how can the Dow be flirting with 10,000 when consumers, who make up 70 percent of the economy, have had to cut way back on buying because they have no money? Jobs continue to disappear. One out of six Americans is either unemployed or underemployed. Homes can no longer function as piggy banks because they're worth almost a third less than they were two years ago. And for the first time in more than a decade, Americans are now having to pay down their debts and start to save. Even more curious, how can the Dow be so far up when every business and Wall Street executive I come across tells me government is crushing the economy with its huge deficits, and its supposed "takeover" of health care, autos, housing, energy, and finance? Their anguished cries of "socialism" are almost drowning out all their cheering over the surging Dow. The explanation is simple. The great consumer retreat from the market is being offset by government's advance into the market.

The head of the FCC plans to propose new rules that would prohibit Internet service providers from interfering with the free flow of information and certain applications over their networks, an official at the agency said Saturday... The proposals would uphold a pledge Barack Obama made during the presidential campaign to support Internet neutrality — the equal treatment of Internet traffic. That would bar Internet service providers such as Verizon Communications Inc., Comcast Corp. or AT&T Inc., from slowing or blocking certain services or content flowing through their vast networks. Without strict rules ensuring Net neutrality, consumer watchdogs fear the communications companies could interfere with the transmission of content, such as TV shows delivered over the Internet, that compete with services the ISPs offer, like cable television. Internet providers have opposed regulations that would inhibit the way they control their networks, arguing they need to be able to make sure applications that consume a lot of bandwidth don't slow Internet access to other users.