no soldier died for my freedom, ever.

So here is this holiday which in most cases marks the beginning of the summer season tourism and vacationing, created for the most part by the very people for whom nearly every single US soldier has died: the capitalists. Yes, capitalism is the root causality of all US wars, all US conflicts over the last 217 years. No matter how much people have been led to believe that US soldiers died for freedom or rights or such, one need only look at the Declaration of Independence and the charges against the King to notice that it really was about money and property, first and foremost. You know, those nagging tariffs, tolls, duties, and taxes that pissed off some of the constituency (clearly not all). Indeed, it wasn't until late 1787 that the notion that perhaps rights and liberties were significant enough to warrant being amended into the first US Constitution (there really wasn't a US before that remember?), but mostly because the smaller northern states wouldn't agree to ratify the whole without it (those pesky slaves and their masters, mmm).

So who are we kidding when the preachy get out on their bully pulpits this weekend and claim that so many died for rights and freedom?? Mostly ourselves, and that is important here, because damn it, we need to have a strong secure capitalistic consumer society. Go through the litany of US military engagements and it reads more like the hand of markets acquiring and securing property and power, than it does about anything closely resembling freedom.

• How is it possible that soldiers who died in the 123 years of indian wars were dying for freedom and liberty?? It isn't; they were dying for control and access to land, resources, territorial boundaries, secure transportation routes to move resources, dominion over species. There was nothing about freedom, only genocide and derangement of the planet.
• War with Mexico (well wars actually) provided more land, new expanded borders, unfettered removal of residents of mestizo heritage who lived and controlled land generations before the English colonists established their beachheads. But hey, those US troops must have really died for my freedom, because somebody says so. Now the mestizos return across the border obviously threatening our freedom and liberties (actually aiding and abetting the very capitalists who want us to think that way) so we better call out the troops.
• How about the Spanish-American War or the Hawaiian annexation or the defeat of Russians in the Northwest? Yeah, that sure made me free. Enslaving for future generations whole populations of people and species to enrich the already rich really was the purpose.
  
• Hell the US barely got enough votes in Congress to fight WW1 or WW2. Why? Because some of the capitalists knew from whence their great wealth was coming, while others felt that they might do better if the nation (lied into conflicts--think the Pearl Harbor scam) expanded its own military-industrial complex at the expense of... wait for it... others freedom and liberty.
  
• Is it possible to even begin to deny that a war against communist countries was anything other than a war for capitalism?? No, of course you can't deny that, except the very capitalists demand that those who died in these power struggles for resources, territories, markets want us to hold close to the illusion rather than see it for what it really was.

Next time some pseudo patriotic zealot claims that US troops died for your freedom, ask him about any of this. Do it kindly. Do it with civil tongue. Do it with immense and expansive compassion. But please do it.

more deaths than 9/11, faster than a marine's bullet

Assuming that the US invaded the Middle East and Western Asia for the purpose of revenge, seeking and reeking vengeance upon the islamic world for the deaths and destruction of 9/11, well then, we are now in the negative tolling. As of this morning, the official DoD death toll of US military personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq stands at 2760 dead; more than died in NYC on 9/11 and just a bit less than the two hundred who died the entire day. If we count those that have perished in various non-combat related fatalities, such as PTSD suicides or training exercise mishaps, we have paid the reaper greater than a 100% rebate on WTC. In other words, discounting entirely the idiocy of our folly and near genocidal slaughter of Iraqis and Afghanis, we are have doubled the death toll of the events that are purportedly to have inspired us to go to war in the first place. Doesn't that just make it right??? As the MSM ostrich flaps off into the sanddunes, trying in every possible way to avoid discussing the hideous war crimes perpetrated in all of our names, but done so because MSM failed miserably to account for anything truthful, the military is struggling with trying to control its own forces who have quite literally lost their minds and are randomly murdering, in ritual execution style, Iraqi women and children. This does not bode well for those that must live with this later in their lives. We have met the enemy, and we have been the enemy for much longer than we could have ever possibly imagined.

If that weren't enough, try Billy-boy Frist's comments today suggesting that the most important issues confronting the US are not the war, the atrocities, the environment, the collapse of the dollar, the abuse of constitutional authority by the executive branch, the incapacity of DHS and FEMA to meet the impending disasters, or any of the other real problems. NO, what is most important is protecting christian marriage and the US flag. Is this man a complete idiot, or just another desperate whitehouse wife seeking to curry all of the sexual favors of the office, in the face of his competitor the flipfloppy (i didn't mean what i said as POW, but torture is necessary at times) Johnny-dudely-do-right? Even his loyal GOP personally operated broadcast medium, Fox News suggested Billy-boy was being a bit disingenuous.

"Fox News host points out, these moves are nothing more than pandering to the right-wing base. Flag-burning incidents declined rapidly after 9/11 and haven’t shown any signs of rebounding. Right now, Cuba, China, and Iran are the only other countries to ban flag desecration and the issue doesn’t even show up on recent polls as an important priority for the American public."

Your own medium telling you, you are an idiot, and he still spews the partisan begging. Consider those other nations that have flag burning laws--the three are our declared worst enemies. Didn't Rice and Cheney just castigate China for spending a couple of billion more on its military?? We have embargoed Cuba for almost 50 years, and well we don't even need to mention our issues with Iran. Great company to keep on that one.

This can only be another sign of how bad it is all getting. The US pledges a whopping half a million dollars to help our dictatorial allies in Indonesia (whilst the government still slaughters people in East Timor) recover from an earthquake. That is roughly the same amount as equals the tax relief paid to a dozen millionaires under the latest law ($42K / millionaire); and never acknowledges that we are wasting that much daily in overpaid non-productive Katrina contracts.

Yet perhaps the indicator of the insanity and desperation of the puppets of the neo-feudal lords of capital, recognizing as they do that their precious patronage is faltering and fleeing at every oar stroke across the sea of massive debt and collapsing dollar, is the abuse being heaped upon Al Gore by the paid voices of our nation's combined transportation industries. The following is from today's Think Progress, because i can't make it seem any nicer, or less obvious.

Last week, Sterling Burnett – a senior fellow at the Exxon-backed National Center for Policy Analysis – compared Al Gore to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels.

In this weekend’s Washington Post magazine, meteorologist Bill Gray – one of the most prominent climate skeptics – directly compared Al Gore to Adolf Hitler:

Gore believed in global warming almost as much as Hitler believed there was something wrong with the Jews.

It’s telling that so many of the attacks on Al Gore and his movie are ad hominem, not substantive. There really is no credible scientific rebuttal to An Inconvenient Truth, so people are forced to attack the messenger.

can you say dictatorship?????(from Progress Report)

The Federal Communications Commission refuses to pursue complaints about the National Security Agency's telephone data-mining program "because it cannot obtain classified material."

The Bush administration has repeatedly refused to investigate cases involving the National Security Agency's (NSA) warrantless wiretapping and data-mining programs, citing concerns of revealing classified information and jeopardizing national security. Now the administration is invoking the "classified information" excuse to kill civil suits against the federal government. The Chicago Tribune notes that the Bush administration is frequently employing the state secrets privilege, "a once-rare tactic that essentially gives the government a blank check to kill civil suits." Since 2001, the federal government has asserted the state secrets privilege at least six times, most often "to head off challenges to two of the most sensitive aspects of the administration's war on terror" and in at least two cases challenging detainee renditions. Earlier this month, the Justice Department intervened "in an invasion-of-privacy suit in San Francisco against AT&T," asking the judge to dismiss the case because it would compromise national security. Private corporations such as Verizon have also started using the privilege to shield themselves from scrutiny over the NSA surveillance program: "The inability of Verizon to provide information concerning its cooperation, if any, with the NSA program is further demonstrated by the 'state secrets' privilege which the Department of Justice has invoked in connection with a pending federal court action," the company wrote in a filing with the Maine Public Utility Board.

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales won’t confirm that the federal government collected the phone records of millions of Americans, as reported on May 11 in USA Today. But yesterday, Gonzales claimed that doing so was perfectly legal. According to the Washington Post, Gonzales said "that the government can obtain domestic telephone records without court approval under a 1979 Supreme Court ruling that authorized the collection of business records. … Gonzales told reporters that, under the Smith v. Maryland ruling, 'those kinds of records do not enjoy Fourth Amendment protection. There is no reasonable expectation of privacy in those kinds of records.'" But the issue isn’t simply whether or not collecting domestic phone records is constitutional. The issue is whether it is legal. If the USA Today story is accurate, the NSA program appears to be illegal, not because it violates the fourth amendment, but because it violates two statutes. Significantly, Smith v. Maryland considers activities that occurred in 1976. Both of the statutes that prohibit the activity described by USA Today were enacted after that date: (1) The Stored Communications Act of 1986 (SCA). The law prohibits the telecommunications companies from handing over telephone records to the government without a court order. (18 USC 2702-3.) There are several exceptions, none of which apply in this circumstance. The SCA was enacted in response to Smith v. Maryland. (2) The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 (FISA). The law allows this kind of domestic surveillance in two circumstances: a) the government obtains a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, or b) the government obtains a certification from the Attorney General that the program is legal under FISA. According to the USA Today article, neither action was taken. The Washington Post story on Gonzales’ comments, however, doesn’t mention the Stored Communications Act or the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. For that matter, it doesn’t include any legal analysis from anyone other than Gonzales.

CMA's and Bushco's amurka

The fans of mainstream country music proved last night that they remain loyal to their bushes and dicks and gods. The CMA's were a tragic sad farce of a presentation of values based propaganda replete with the faux appeals to charity, the swearing allegiance to all things bushco, and the endless parade of "god made me do its." Pandering is the only word that fits the scene, as the corporate interests of the business went out of their way to spin the texts and subtexts solely to fit the core GOP constituency, not even bothering to acknowledge that there is any other. We live in really weird times, and this sort of programming of politics and agenda into music awards, shines a glaring spotlight on the darkest and ugliest side of partisan politics in the US.

Clearly the $$ dominates this effort. Recognizing that they have a solid core political constituency who will purchase and devour their product as long as it is chock full of tears of empathy and passion for patriocy, the moneyed elites who produce, release and distribute the music realize that by focussing every aspect, like their puppet masters of bushco have done, on those talking points, they garner a quite sizeable market monopoly. Idiots be damned and full speed ahead.

test of blogger

One of the best ways to analyze this past week of US history is to think of the senior prom rituals in the US. The agonies and anxieties: of choosing whether to go or not, of who to go with, of what to wear, of transportation to and from, of where to spend the night and with whom and for what purposes after the ritual dancing, and so far forth. The actual pleasures are quite small, reserved for that 20% of those who help organize, arrange, manipulate, vote for king and queen, and will realize that this was the very best time of their lives (and yes that implies that these people live for 50 more years in personal hells embittered with no relief from failed expectations that there was life after high school). Hidden behind all of this is the massive amounts of cash, the flow of capital, the egregious profits collected by the neo-feudal lords of capital, whose rentier profiteering comes from: limos, flowers, dresses, tuxedos, fuels, utility energy, wasted paper products, fake flowers and decorations, cheap food, hotel rooms, room service, the sale of photo and video memories, release of new CD's and DVD's; indeed their hands are taking from every possible source squeezing a redistribution of wealth from the masses throughout the US into their very large but all too very few pockets.

And if we see the US this past week as a giant prom dance, then the politics and machinations of capital, the dances with partners, the picking of dates and creating of nasty lifelong bitterments makes more sense in some ways. Otherwise it makes no sense at all. Consider just the votes in the Senate: amendment to ban gay marriage, amendments to fund war, amendments to not fund health and human services, amendments to lower the taxes of the very rich, resolutions to marginalize all but the rich white people, verbal duels on procedures, failing to ask any questions about unconstitutional activities of the people who manage these illegal ways, bills to kill forests and poison water, bills to strip food labels of information to protect consumers and eliminate standards for food quality, and it goes on and on and on.

The only possible positive outcome of this dance, in which various partnerships (the dates) are rewarded with special accessories and accoutrements: far right theocratic christian nationalists, conservative governors, the US military, the fascist nationalist militant conservatives, etc., belongs solely to the profiteering neo-feudal lords of capital. It is, as with all proms, all about the money; a fact of life hidden in the decorations, pretty dresses, potential sexual activities and rapes, nice cars et al. The money slides from the hands of the many to the ever fewer, hardly noticed by the many, given politically to that same 20% to buy their votes, and reserved to be moved offshore and taken out of the country. This week's prom in the Senate will cost this country more than a trillion dollars, nearly all of which will go solely to a tiny miniscule portion of the population, while the minions of good-hearted, high school. rah-rah rifraf will rally round the school mascot and cheerleaders to support kicking ass on number two, and stuffing the kids of color, or who are simply just different, into the proverbial lockers (in this case very real prisons).

Of course, like all proms, the unintended consequences are huge and unfathomable until years later when it is all too late. Consider the language bill, which if allowed to proceed could very realistically entice whole school districts and even states to stop teaching any foreign languages; why bother, if this is an english world. The marriage law would strip a huge chunk of the population of their inalienable rights of liberty and freedom previously protected by the 9th and 10th amendments. The tax cuts will kill most programs that aim to help the have-nots just get through a day without suffering, while continuing to reduce educational opportunities for most of the population. In an odd twist of fate, the Senate's prom this week could end proms across the country.

better dead than red, redux 23

Previewing his analysis of the National Security Agency's just-exposed program to collect the phone call records of millions of Americans, host Neil Cavuto declared during the May 11 edition of Fox News' Your World: "CAVUTO: Yes, it is not great to necessarily hear they're collecting our phone records, but it's a heck of a lot better than collecting our remains.

We certainly have come a long way since the 60's now haven't we? The other day a conservative, talking-headless wonder suggested that we all would be better off living under a totalitarian fascist dictatorship than die fighting for freedom. It used to be that Stalinism (really to what that "red" connotation referred) was so bad and so totalitarian that fighting for freedom to our deaths (Patrick Henry anyone?) was vastly preferred to living within such a regime. Today the same people suggest the very opposite. Could it be that it is all a matter of the elite perspective? In one era they were promoting war against such regimes, in an other era they are promoting war to protect such a regime. And they find not one shred of indecent hypocrisy in their thought processes. It is too kind, as well as a disservice to the disabled, to call these people idiots. They are much worse. Selfish greedy motherfuckers is a whole lot closer, and still an understatement.

tv is succumbing to MSM/GOP merger

So cruising through the various programs on commercial broadcast television last night, i came across some interesting manifestations of just how deep and embedded the GOP conservative talking points have become in our dramatic and comedic programming. I will offer a couple of examples, but first a word from our sponsors. Have you noticed how many manly men oriented advertising there now is across the spectrum?? Numerous attempts to establish male dominance in the marketplace represents something almost sinister, if i didn't realize that the people who actually run the Biz these days are incompetent boobs for the most part. I am sure there are a couple of shrewd fascists among the elites who choose the ads to run because they are encouraging white male objectivist/selfish dominance, but for the most part, i envision most of the executives shrugging their shoulders and thinking about Seinfeldian irony (in other words, stupid) and demographic data. Cars as penis substitutes never seems to be too much for TV.

Then i watch BONES, a Fox drama ostensibly about a forensic anthropologist and FBI agent. The episode had drawn my attention because of its vague similarities to the Tillman case, as well as exploration of the usual war crimes Fallujah style. But not much more than fifteen minutes into it do we get a doozy of a Fox/GOP talking point. The "conspiracy" nutball suggests that the WMD's that had been framed as the cause celebre of the war did not exist and were known to not exist. The wonky/weird semi-goth nerd chick (is this not de rigeuer these days) replies matter of factly: "all of the world's intelligence agencies believed they were there." This is a flat out lie, a lie of such bold proportions, that any, even remotely not-stupid conspiracy type would have been able to recite a long litany of US intelligence data proving it to be a lie. That a smarter one, who supposedly would work in this secret special lab, was not given the lines to rebut this smacks of Fox propaganda. The list of foreign intelligence services, and the subsequent release of their memos from before the war clearly demonstrates that only the cherry-picked data that Bushco chose to release suggested that WMD's existed. This script and dramatic presentation reeked of Orwellian smear. Later, when discussing the war and war crimes, the ostensibly super intelligent forensic anthropologist remained stupidly silent whilst the war loving GOP talking point uttering FBI agent was directed to espouse nonsensical views about war, its purpose, its resultant affects/effects, and other Bushco advancing messages. It is unthinkable, and grotesquely unrealistic, for the lead female to have not clearly been able to state opposition and rational rebuttal to the agent's points. Again Fox has capitulated to the GOP and Bushco, now streaming the talking points propaganda mainline into their non-news programming as well as their cable assets.

Likewise the idiocy of a faux pandemic drama, attempting to garner sweeps points was lunacy run amok. Selling fear as a commodity to garner viewership and to reward the advertisers (they really were big Pharma companies) seems now to be the mainstay of the flagship networks, in this case the GOP ABC affiliate run by Disney. Squeezed with Alias, Lost, and battling Fox's even more heinous 24 the bird flu thriller was even more inane than usual. As this subject is being endlessly discussed in other blogs and online, i will only mention that the commercials for the Poseidon Adventure and X-men 3 that ran were only slightly less loony, but of the same genre.

CBS's Criminal Minds exhibited a further degradation of the same theme-- even our own FBI is hugely vulnerable to fear and intimidation by crazed terrorist nutcases. In order to make this premise work, one would have to accept that everything the producers and directors have established for this show up to this point no longer matters in the slightest. The viewer is being asked to unknow all that they have been asked to know about the characters, because that is the only plausible way that the plot can work, and then it still doesn't. Consider this: an entire FBI unit, an HQ command structure and staff, are under attack by a well- orchestrated, coordinated threat that demonstrates superiority of hacking skills, manipulations of law enforcement agencies, the complicity and cooperation of corporate services and so forth all centered around the kidnapping of a young adult female. And at no time whatsoever are other Federal agencies, including the central command of the FBI itself, getting involved. No NSA, no DHS, no DoD, no DoJ, no SS, etc. are even beginning to question the nature of this threat????? You have to be kidding me. It is so positively unimagineable that even suspending all disbelief and previous constructs based on previous shows, this program ceases all connection with reality. It isn't even good comic book.

I could of course go on and on, but will try to wrap it up well short of spending anymore time on how bad it has gotten. When VH1 has a show called Celebrity Eye Candy and E.tv runs a daily top ten documenting just how corrupt the best publicists can be in getting their celebrities to be seen, one must realize that what occurs in the halls of Congress and the Executive Branch, between lobbyists and bureaucrats remains a mere shadow of the Biz and how it works. I can't even allow myself to imagine the production meetings at which the day's segments are laid down and scripted, wherein those who have the money, are pledging all manner of this and that to get so and so seen at this or that moment to garner attention so sell this or that whilst the advertiser of that two minutes requires this and that to continue providing this and that. It is all one huge scam for no other reason than the scam itself. The money never need change hands at all, in that it is all balanced out in the end; it is just about the scam, the political power brokering to facilitate the nod of the head in submissive recognition that the scam worked and that the scammer, in that moment, was victorious over the scammee. Otherwise there is no reason whatsoever that Lindsey Lohan's life matters on this earth.

what do these two stories have in common??

CORRUPTION -- VACCINE INDUSTRY LOBBYISTS HELPED WRITE FRIST-BACKED SHIELD LAW: "Vaccine industry officials helped shape legislation behind the scenes that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist secretly amended into a bill to shield them from lawsuits," the Tennessean reports, citing internal emails released in a report by the watchdog group Public Citizen. Last December, it was revealed that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-TN) and House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-IL) had inserted legislation shielding vaccine manufacturers from product liability claims into a defense spending bill "without debate and in violation of usual Senate practice." At the time, critics warned that the language was dangerously broad, shielding the vaccine makers from lawsuits even in cases of negligence or recklessness. But that's just how vaccine makers wanted it. In private meetings with Frist's staff and the White House, a vaccine manufacturer's trade group "asked that the legislation make clear that a vaccine maker could only be successfully sued if 'willful misconduct' on its part were proved," The Tennessean reports. In another e-mail, the group's chief lobbyist "described a meeting in which a deputy of Bush strategist Karl Rove said it was 'important to the President that a bill move this year,' and said 'they had invited industry to discuss what they understood to be a few key remaining points' of contention."

ENVIRONMENT -- POLLUTION AT BP REFINERY IN TEXAS TRIPLES IN ONE YEAR: British Petroleum (BP), which is already under criminal investigation for a huge oil spill in Alaska and was recently fined $21.3 million for an explosion at its Texas City refinery last year that killed 15 people, is now under fire for reporting the same refinery "released three times as much pollution in 2004 as it did in 2003, according to the most recent data from the Environmental Protection Agency." The "increase in emissions at BP was so large it distorted the data for refineries nationwide" and "makes the facility far and away the most polluting refinery in the U.S." BP "is investigating whether it has been accurately documenting pollution," and if their numbers turn out to have been inaccurate, it "could prompt the EPA to penalize the company" with a $32,500 per violation fine. "Most of the increase in pollution was from formaldehyde and ammonia, which can form smog and soot and irritate the eyes, nose and throat." "Erroneous estimates of pollution from the industry are not new," the Houston Chronicle reported this weekend. "In 2000, as part of the Texas Air Quality Study, researchers found that companies in the Houston area were underreporting emissions of certain chemicals by as much as three to 10 times." And in 2004, the EPA's inspector general "the agency was not monitoring pollution to double-check the industry's numbers" despite a court order saying they had to do so.

They undermine the founding principles of the objectivist libertarians. These corporations are acting in their own self interests, utilizing market forces to enrich their shareholders, and avoiding the messy entanglements of regulations and laws. That thousands of human beings will die serves only the greater interests of capitalism, no longer able to sustain the havenots with things that "belong" to the haves. At some point, basic essential human rights must be violated to sustain the privileges and rights of the elitist objectivists. Obviously that will never be a problem for them; in their own private relativisms they can create the rational justifications for preserving the free markets at the expense of human life.

FoxNews bastard dittiots..

“This letter sent to Senator Frist from a retired border patrol agent has more common sense than all the rhetoric being spewed from the Senate, with the exception of a few sensible representatives. Anyway, this guy has it together and shows the rhetoric for what it is.”
Wow, can't you feel the Fox flavor in this? The Hanshit, O'BS, Limpingwrist rhetoric spewing across the window. You really have to love the way these minute (long U sound, try it) puppets ditto back to their masters.

Dear Senator Frist:
There is a huge amount of propaganda and myths circulating about "Illegal Aliens", particularly "Illegal Mexican, Salvadorian, Guatemalan and Honduran Aliens".
One is of course supposed to forget about the few hundred thousands of others from other countries. Makes one think there must be some direct agenda (wait for it).

1. "Illegal Aliens" generally do NOT want U.S. citizenship. Americans are very vain thinking that everybody in the world wants to be a U.S. citizen. Mexicans, and other nationalities want to remain citizens of their home countries while obtaining the benefits offered by the United States such as employment, medical care, in-state tuition, government subsidized housing and free education for their offspring. Their main attraction is employment and their loyalty usually remains at home. They want benefits earned and subsidized by middle class Americans. What "Illegal Aliens" want are benefits of American residence without paying the price.
I would very much appreciate the documentation he claims that college and university students from other countries, who do not have the proper student visas are utilizing the benefits of in-state tuition. How long ago did this guy retire?? Valid US citizenship or proper visas are now thoroughly checked for such purposes. Oh wait, just because a student has a Hispanic name makes that person an illegal alien, right???? Must also be what drives the government subsidized housing, except that i am sure this guy is referring to the farm labor camps and the detention facilities.

2. There are no jobs that Americans won't do. "Illegal Aliens" are doing jobs that Americans can't take and still support their families. "Illegal Aliens" take low wage jobs, live dozens in a single residence home, share expenses and send money to their home country. There are no jobs that Americans won't do for a decent wage.
Yes, a living wage in the US would provide jobs that US workers would take, he is wrong that US citizens would do the work though. They would do the jobs that those who are living here without proper visas are doing, if they actually chose to do so. Or are our WalMart, HomeDepots, McD's, BK's etc. entirely staff with non-citizens??? Of course none of them pay benefits, but that doesn't seem to matter to these people does it?? I certainly think $10 to $15/ hour is well within the living wage scale, that is paid out by those contractors. The difference is that the contractor does not have to pay out payroll taxes, unemployment/workers' compensation, benefits,etc. on the non-citizen but can charge the developer or contracting agency those amounts for all workers and pocket generous profits.

Every person who illegally entered this nation left a home. They are NOT homeless and they are NOT Americans. Some left jobs in their home countries. They come to send money to their real home as evidenced by the more than 20 billion dollars sent out of the country each year by "Illegal Aliens". These "Illegal aliens" knowingly and willfully entered this nation in violation of the law and therefore assumed the risk of detection and deportation. Those who brought their alien children assumed the responsibility and risk on behalf of their children.
3. wow $20 billion gets sent out by these people. Sounds like a lot i guess to our border patriot. Too bad he doesn't read beyond the scope of his Fox News radio. Drug pipelines are shipping out upwards of $500 billion each year. Outsourcing and offshore corporate activites moves a lovely $1.5 trillion, and it is estimated at the moment that US citizens are hiding upwards of $11.8 trillion in assets outside the US. None of this counts the outflow of USD for energy resources and manufactured goods (trade deficit in March was $70 billion alone for China) or the need by the US to bring in a whopping $2billion each and every day from non-US citizen investors just to keep the economy propped up. But damn those bastards for sending $20 billion outside the US--of which 15% is swept up by US/Euro financial corporations just in the fees for transferring the $$.. oops

4. "Illegal Aliens" are NOT critical to the economy. "Illegal Aliens" constitute less than 5% of the workforce. However, they reduce wages and benefits for lawful U.S. residents.
How could he overstate this? The total number of persons living in the US who are not citizens and who do not have proper visas or other documentation has remained 4% of the total population for more than 40 years. There has been no expansion, nor contraction of that 4% number, only changes in where that total number lives.

5. This is NOT an immigrant nation. There are 280 million native born Americans. While it is true that this nation was settled and founded by immigrants (Legal Immigrants), it is also true that there is not a nation on this planet that was not settled by immigrants at one time or another.
The sneaky bastard. David Stoddard sure is an indigenous native name from a tribal group whose land was stolen by the genocidal conquering of the peoples. I will have to look that up, there must be a tribe that used Stoddard in the west, say a 110 years ago, before that part of the continent belonged to the US. I love idiots like this. There is also no record whatsoever of any tribe authorizing the legal rights to any of the colonists or other massive influx of subsequent invaders. The claim he makes here is repellent and vile.

6. The United States is welcoming to "Legal Immigrants. "Illegal Aliens" are NOT immigrants by definition. The U.S. accepts more lawful immigrants every year than the rest of the world combined.
If you have $10 million, regardless of your history (genocide, organized crime, crimes against humanity, etc.) you can automatically become a US citizen with no waiting. Other family members are cheaper at $5 million each. We don't have a standard, just an amount. Of course we can't let in people that are being persecuted by their governments who also happen to be our allies, regardless of the degree of inhumanity (can you say Darfur). The current number of US student visas is running in the 150k to 200k range each year. Farmworker visas are about twice that, and special employment visas (yes Oracle and Microsoft do that) were at 87K but they were raised to 94K due to corporate lobbying.

7. There is no such thing as the "Hispanic Vote". Hispanics are white, brown, black and every shade in between. Hispanics are Republicans, Democrats, Anarchists, Communists, Marxists and Independents. The so-called "Hispanic Vote" is a myth. Pandering to "Illegal Aliens" to get the Hispanic Vote is a dead end.
It is a wonder to me how this guy can listen to Fox and not get the message that the anti-Castro cubano constituency, and the Puerto Rican constituency, and the Colombian constituency are not fundamentally necessary GOP hispanic voting blocks that this administration desperately needs to maintain? Of course this guy also seems to have no clue whatsoever that of the 31 million US citizens living in CA more than 39% of them are of hispanic heritage, some living as 8th and 9th generation Californicos, who are a significant and necessary voting constituency, particularly in SoCal and in the election of governor, members of the US House and Senate, and of course the mayor of LA. But i guess this is all some fantasy in the minds of the dreaded liberal media.

8. Mexico is NOT a friend of the United States. Since 1848 Mexicans have resented the United States.
a) During World War I Mexico allowed German Spies to operate freely in Mexico to spy on the U.S.
b) During World War II Mexico allowed the Axis powers to spy on the U.S. from Mexico.
c) During the Cold War Mexico allowed spies hostile to the U.S. to operate freely.
d) The attack on the Twin Towers in 2001 was cheered and applauded all across Mexico.
e) Today Mexican school children are taught that the U.S. stole California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas. If you don't believe it, check out some Mexican textbooks written for their schoolchildren.
I thought the topic was all "illegal aliens" or at least he said upfront he was directing his comments at those from North and Central Americas (making all these people Americans by the way). But now the agenda pops up, the vile stink of bile building from his hatred of Mexico. At least he could have gotten his first date correct, but that would be too much to ask now wouldn't it. I am guessing that he assumes the nation of Mexico loved us even after the Texas wars of the 1830s. And though given where he lives, he seems to have no recollection of something called the Gadsden Purchase, which must have really made Mexican mad since they sold it to us. I am sure the US corporations that have set up manufacturing companies and massive retail outlets (a McD's and WalMar in every single Mexican state) across the country cringe from the hatred. Gosh, if we had known they hated us so very much, i am sure Clinton never would have signed NAFTA, and Bush would not have loaned Fox billions or signed CAFTA.

9. Although some "Illegal Aliens" enter this country for a better life, there are 6 billion people on this planet. At least 1 billion of those live on less than one dollar a day. If wanting a better life is a valid excuse to break the law and sneak into America, then let's allow those one billion to come to America and we'll turn the USA into a Third World nation overnight. Besides, there are 280 million native born Americans who want a better life. I'll bet Bill Gates and Donald Trump want a better life. When will the USA lifeboat be full? Since when is wanting a better life a good reason to trash another nation?
This section is so loopy, i don't know where to begin or end. The latest research data on world wide hunger came in last week-- ten children die every minute from malnutrition causes. We aren't talking about living on a dollar a day here or a year, we are talking about millions of people starving to death each year. There are 6.4 billion people now, with that number climbing toward 8 billion or so before massive famines begin to kill 200 million per year. The Gates Foundation is at the forefront of this problem actually, trying to make the whole planet a better place to live, with deeply dividing philosophical debates ongoing in their Seattle offices about curing diseases that will allow more people to live and thus die of starvation. It is our own corporate overlords that desire for the US to become a thirdworld nation. China and India are the consumer economic engines of profit, not the US. In order for our economy to restabilize, the US must experience a drastic and nasty downturn that forces the end to all forms of entitlement and stabilization programs. This has nothing whatsoever to do with immigrants, but a whole lot to do with the transfer of energy resource funding from US dollars to Euros and Yuan. Can you say Iranian Bourse???

10. There is a labor shortage in this country: This is a lie. There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of American housewives, senior citizens, students, unemployed and underemployed who would gladly take jobs at a decent wage.
Clearly David has no working comprehension of the US economic system, wherein there must be a given minimum number of people not working, looking for work, capable of work in order to generate corporate profits and shareholder dividends. Labor is detrimental to profit. The numbers are staggering at the moment. Just engineering alone, as a field is so overheated that the 60,000 or so graduates are competing for less than 4000 jobs. And the corporations want to give those jobs to visa-bearing people because those people do not have rights!!!! This is critical.

11. It is racist to want secure borders:
a) What is racist about wanting secure borders and a secure America?
b) What is racist about not wanting people to sneak into America and steal benefits we have set aside for legal aliens, senior citizens, children and other legal residents?
c) What is it about race that entitles people to violate our laws, steal identities, and take the American Dream without paying the price?
hehehehhehehe. first he says he is talking about illegal aliens; then it is only those from Mexico, Honduras, El Salvador, and Guatemala (mm can you say Iran-Contra?). Then it is only Mexicans. And now he says he is a racist (It is racist to want secure borders). He seems to want to do everything he can to tell others that he is one--the guilty doth protest too much. "Damn "those" brown skinned Spanish speaking people for stealing my things." He would really love it up here in the North, where our biggest immigration problem comes from Russians being smuggled across the border. He would feel so much safer because they, of course, are not organized nor do they get involved in all those criminal activities-- cough cough, choke choke.

For about four decades American politicians have refused to secure our borders and look after the welfare of middle class Americans. These politicians have been of both parties. A huge debt to American society has resulted. This debt will be satisfied and the interest will be high. There have already been riots in the streets by "Illegal Aliens" and their supporters. There will be more. You, as a politician, have a choice to offend the "Illegal Aliens" who have stolen into this country and demanded the rights afforded to U.S. citizens or to offend those of us who are stakeholders in this country. The interest will be steep either way.

There will be civil unrest. There will be a reckoning. Do you have the courage to do what is right for America? Or, will you bow to the wants and needs of those who don't even have the right to remain here?
There will be a reckoning. It will come in November of this year, again in 2008 and yet again in 2010. We will not allow America to be stolen by third world agitators and thieves.

David J. Stoddard.
U.S. Border Patrol (RET).
Hereford, Arizona.
The threat is the classic call for violence. No where does he make a case that hispanics are agitators of any ilk whatsoever, but that is his final threat. This guy could watch Stephen Colbert and think that show is coming at him straight without irony, satire, parody, or comedy.

believe it if you need it, leave it if you dare

Find the cost of freedom
Buried in the ground
Mother Earth will swallow you
Lay your body down

Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming,
we're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
four dead in Ohio.
Gotta get down to it,
soldiers are cutting us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Gotta get down to it,
soldiers are cutting us down.
Should have been done long ago.
What if you knew her and found her dead on the ground?
How can you run when you know?

Tin soldiers and Nixon's coming,
we're finally on our own.
This summer I hear the drumming,
four dead in Ohio,
four dead in Ohio,
four dead in Ohio,
four dead in Ohio,
how many more?
Four dead in Ohio, four dead in Ohio, four dead in Ohio, home many more?

It was 36 years ago today that Miller, Allison Krause, Sandra Scheuer and William Schroeder, were massacred by Army National Guardsmen at a Vietnam war protest on the Kent State campus. It was a watershed event that touched off a nationwide student strike that forced hundreds of colleges and universities to close and signaled the zenith of American opposition to that war.

http://www.democrats.com/node/8815

paging Austin Powers to the red emergency telephone.

Where is Austin Powers when the US needs him the most?????this is too classic in so many ways...

<>WASHINGTON -- It's time for the White House to go on offense and "get our mojo back" Josh Bolten said Sunday in his first interview since taking over as the president's chief of staff. Bolten made no promises of pulling up President Bush's all-time low approval ratings, but he said he and Bush have decided they want to be more open with the media and the public. "We've taken advice from a lot of folks that we ought to put the president out more in ways that the American people can see what he's really like," Bolten said. But he said that does not mean the president's policies are going to get an overhaul. "I don't think we need to change, but we do need to refresh and re-energize," Bolten said. (Seattle Post-Intelligencer--5-1-06)

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today is the three year anniversary of Shock and Awe mission accomplished... below is the run down.. They really do need more mojo or something powerful since they aren't intending to change...

On Saturday — two days prior to the three-year anniversary of “Mission Accomplished” — the “top U.S. general on the ground in Iraq warned…that a surge in violence was likely in coming months.” "There's nothing about this that I would [call] peacekeeping," he said. "We're in a fight." (LA Times 04-30-06)

	May 1, 2003	Today
U.S. Troops Wounded	542	17,469
U.S. Troops Killed	139	2,400
Size of U.S. Forces	150,000	132,000
Size of Iraqi Security Forces	7,000-9000	250,500
Number of Insurgents	5,000	15,000-20,000
Insurgent Attacks Per Day	8	75
Cost to U.S. Taxpayers	$79 billion	$320 billion
Approval of Bush’s Handling of Iraq	75%	37%
Percentage of Americans who Believe The Iraq War Was “Worth Fighting”	70%	41%
Bush’s Overall Job Approval	71%	33%

hooray hooray, the first of may,
outdoor fucking starts today.
so go outside and find the sun
and let's all get naked and have some fun.

ain't no asian, ain't no austrian, just a spic

I find the whole new controversy regarding the Spanish language version of the US National Anthem quite revealing. At the time the anthem was written and first put to music English was clearly not the dominant language on the North American continent. Not that that matters much, but it does evince a certain perspective on those who are so vehemently opposed to Spanish speaking immigrants. They represent something powerful and deeply disturbing to the powers that be, especially the propertied classes so deeply mortgaged into retaining private chunks of the planet as their own. Because nearly all of the Spanish speaking latino hispanic peoples in the US and Americas are much more closely genetically linked to the actual original owners of the first property rights than the conquering white english speaking genocidal marauders. Millions of people who have a very legitimate claim to this land are intentionally being marginalized, chastized, and hated not because they have come here, but more so because disregarding the language they speak, they belong here. Look at them, look at their faces. When you hear some white boy shouting to other white boys to shoot and kill them, you realize this is about maintaining the genocide and conquest, not about jobs or education or welfare. This is about property.