Gary Null - Let Us Stop The Blame

by Gary Null
Progressive Radio Network, February 13, 2012

One of the most famous examples of journalist integrity, that has served as exemplar of how journalism can correct wrongs and bring justice to bear, is the story of Emile Zola – a French naturalist writer and supporter of political liberalization in the latter half of the nineteenth century.

The case involves a Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an artillery officer in the French army who happened to have been Jewish. Following a scandal of French military secrets reaching the German embassy, growing anti-semitism convicted Drefus on charges of treason leading to his imprisonment on Devil’s Island in French Guiana.  Although evidence was available to implicate another officer, the right wing French government and media refuted it and continued with its original verdict against Dreyfus. Even the French officer, Lt. Colonel Picquart who uncovered the officer who was the real spy, was sentenced to serve a term in a prison.

Taking up the cause on behalf of Captain Dreyfus, Emile Zola risked his career by composing an article entitled – J’accuse – I accuse – that was printed on the front page of Paris’ daily. His article accused the highest echelons of French military and justice, and even the Church which held consider power in France, of anti-Semitism and corruption in accusing Dreyfus.  For his sense of justice, Zola was convicted for criminal libel, but rather than serving prison time, he had fled to England and didn’t return to France until the right wing French administration fell.  Almost a decade later, Zola was finally pardoned of all charges and became the hero standing up against corruption he rightfully deserved.

Who is our Emile Zola today in mainstream media?  Who is it that holds the facts to accuse those who falsify truth for their own profit, gain, influence and power, who speaks on behalf of citizens against those with the means and control to profit from them?

Before we continue our myth that 99 percent of Americans sleep on the side of angels and the other 1 percent bask with devils, we need to ask ourselves why we constantly blame others for the choices we permit those who we select, listen to, admire in power, to make on our behalf.

What would happen if we stopped blaming the Clinton administration and Phil Graham for eviscerating the Glass-Steagall Act, altering the Commodity Futures Trading act and neutering the SEC to assure Wall Street that no one among the banking elite would be subject to scandals leading to legal actions? Nor should we therefore blame Wall Street for its holding 100 trillion in credit default swaps and derivatives to continue their casino gambling.  

So let us stop blaming the attorney generals from all states for penalizing hundreds of banks and thousands of individuals, who engaged in criminal behavior – such as liar loans and robo-signing – with miniscule fines.  

Let us not blame the Federal Reserve for dishing out $16 trillion of taxpayer guaranteed loans with toxic valued assets and collateral at 0.25 interest across 20,000 transactions to domestic and foreign banks, hedge funds, and major corporations

Let us stop blaming Barack Obama and his administration for hiring only former Washington insiders from both the Clinton and Bush administrations to continue the entrenchment of corporate power in our policy decision making.

We must also stop blaming credit card companies who receive government loans at 0.25 percent and are permitted to debit cardholders at 29 percent or more for mispayments.
Let us not blame Walmart and major corporations from important cheap, toxic products manufactured with slave labor.

Let us not blame the economic experts who to this day paint a distorted picture of our recovery and growing economy.

Let us not blame the love-fests of the global elite at DAVOS and the Business Roundtable who believe their power, wealth and class status permit them to devise and direct our domestic and international policies.

Let us not blame the president and congress failing to implement a moratorium on home foreclosures and providing small businesses that qualify with no-interest loans, which could provide employment to millions of Americans.  

Let us forgive corporate America’s celebration of financial profits from off shoring jobs while having closed down over 50,000 factories in the US during the past dozen years and at the same time importing HB-1 foreign workers to replace 8.4 million educated American workers for lesser pay.
Neither should we blame Barack Obama for exonerating all the crimes of Bush-Cheney and their accomplices for knowingly creating secret intelligence offices in the Vice President office, which bypassed our national security apparatus, in order to divine a rationale for going to war in the Middle East.
As a constitutional scholar, let us not blame Obama for undermining our constitutional liberties by supporting the Patriot act, the Homeland Security act, FISA and the new National Defense Authorization Act that consolidates more power over Americans within the White House.  

Let us not blame the American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC for manipulating state legislators to support bills and policies that would overturn and alter existing laws for financial gain to the ruling elite and the political campaigns of those who support them.  

Let us not blame the lobbyists, private consultants and experts, many of whom are former members of Congress or government agencies, who draft legislation that benefits their industries at the cost of the public good.

Let us not blame the military industrial intelligence-gathering industry for its massive financial fraud and redundant operations amounting to approximately $1.3 trillion annually when only $250 billion is necessary to keep Americans safe.  

Let us not blame the Bush and Obama administrations for neglecting 12 million hungry American children, the over 50 million citizens in deep poverty and the other 50 million working poor. And in the meantime, lets forgive the government for intentionally manipulating unemployment figures for political gain.

Let us not blame the House , Senate and the White House for supporting off shore oil drilling and billions of dollars in subsidies for clean coal, nuclear and hydrofracking natural gas while ignoring the cleaner more efficient geothermal and wave energy technologies.

Let us not blame any of the last five administrations for encouraging the FDA and the USDA to denounce complementary approaches for the prevention and treatment of disease while aligning federal health policies with the greed of Big Pharma and private insurance carriers who virtually write our healthcare programs, including Medicare, and prevents government from purchasing inexpensive generic drugs in order to reap an additional $1 trillion in profits.

Let us not blame our Surgeon General and our Secretary of Health and Human Services failing to offer alternative healthcare choices nationwide.  Rather, we should forgive the FDA its attacks on the natural and supplement industries, even preventing those who grow cherries and walnuts from suggesting these foods can actually prevent certain illnesses.

And while we are at it, let us forgive the FDA for permitting known pharmaceutical drugs that have maimed and killed thousands of patients to continue to be advertized and prescribed to patients.
Let us not blame American medicine for being the number one cause of death in the US while ignoring any criticism about its methodologies, drug’s evidence for efficacy and safety, and the regulatory approval processes.

Let us not blame the psychiatric industry for creating non-existent mental disorders, such as Oppositional Defiance Disorder, in order to increase medication rates and drug sale profits.  
Let us not blame the mental health centers in our inner cities for spearheading community programs to diagnose upward to 80 percent of children and young adults through erroneous test batteries such as Teen Screen to increase positive medical diagnoses.  

Let us not blame mainstream media for offering products that promote disease such as obesity and diabetes in children and adults.

Let us not blame the five past administrations for pushing neoliberal free-market globalization practices in their for globalization. Nor should we blame the IMF for the consequences of its draconian rules and structural readjustments opening markets in poor nations for foreign economic colonization.

Let us not blame the FBI, CIA and Homeland Securities for the militarization of our domestic police forces and their intrusion into our lives without warrant or due-process, including their punishing the dissent of peaceful environmental and social protesters who find themselves on enemy terrorist FBI watch lists.  
And lets forgive the dismal failures behind our government’s sanctioned domestic wars – the war on drugs, the war on cancer, the war against poverty, the war on terrorism – that serve only the high and mighty who profit from their bankrupt agendas.

Let us stop blaming the immense profits to private corporations running our prisons and the hidden agendas to incarcerate more Americans for minor misdemeanors and increase class warfare and renew Jim Crow racism with new forms of segregation.

Let us stop blaming teachers for graduating illiterate students and their curriculums designed by private corporations that never challenge students to have the intellectual skills to be independent, creative thinking human beings.  

Let us not blame the American media for failing to look honestly at economic  bubbles – equity partnerships, hedge funds, subprime and commercial market - -and then warning citizens in advance.
Let us not blame the producers within the entertainment industry who inundate us with vulgar, mind-numbing, violent programs and movies carries American culture to the bottom of etiquette, manners, decency and the ethics.

We must also forgive the agro-industrial complex -- the Monsantos and Duponts of the world -- who seek the monopolization of the global food supply and manipulate its control through genetic engineering of seeds.  

We must forgive all corporations who contribute to the pollution and destruction of our environment.
Let us cease blaming the corporate Democrats and the corporate Republicans and their mouthpieces in the media promulgating rigid ideologies that only serve the interests of those in power and not the common people.

Let us stop blaming the US military for causing the permanent disability and death of countless elderly, parents and children in the Middle East and forgive our media’s refusal to acknowledge their suffering.
Finally let us forgive all the administrations from JFK forward who expanded the military industrial complex for a global imperial outreach, sugar coated in the rhetoric of freedom and democracy, while simultaneously supporting dictators and despots around the world.

Let us also not blame the Republicans for claiming to represent smaller, efficient government while supporting the largest social welfare system in history for large banks and major corporations in the form of grotesque bailouts and subsidies.

When we cease to blame government, banks, corporations, the media and influential policy makers and opinion leaders for the choices we have made, then we must ask what personal and collective responsibilities are there for the plight and crises the nation is in?  Since our current system of governance is beyond reform from within the system itself, are we then capable of dissociating ourselves from it?

And we should pay attention to those who accept the torch of Emile Zola’s courage to speak truth to power and accuse those who deny freedom and democracy throughout the nation.  We do have our Zola’s in the voices of Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Tom Engelhardt, Alan Grayson, Chris Hedges, Michael Hudson, Naomi Klein, Bill McKibben, Ralph Nader, Greg Palast, Dylan Ratigan, Robert Reich, Rebecca Solnit, David Swanson, and others.

At this present moment, individuals identifying themselves as progressives and independents represent 41 percent of the population. If you are among this group, you are in the majority exceeding official Democrats and Republicans.  Therefore it is for us to decide, individually and collectively, what standards of ethically based policies and democratic structures should be fought for as we move forward.

Otherwise, just continue to watch Fox and the major networks in order to perpetuate the Manichaean myth of 99 versus 1 so the blame-game can live on. 

Ruth Marcus - Obama and Romney Exhibit Striking Similarities

The general election is shaping up as a contest between two remarkably similar men.

Not ideologically. Despite the Newt Gingrich-peddled notion that “there really is no difference” between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama, the gulf in political philosophy is enormous.

Both men, left to their own devices, would occupy a centrist place within their own parties. But Obama envisions a far more muscular role for government in general and the federal government in particular. Romney’s faith is primarily — excessively, in my view — in the free market.

Still, assuming that Romney becomes the Republican nominee, the two candidates will share surprisingly similar temperaments and habits of mind. They are different from the standard-issue politician — both are more aloof than gregarious, more cerebral than impassioned.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/obama-and-romney-exhibit-striking-similarities-1328804179

David Rosen - The Mass Psychology of Newt Gingrich

Are hypocrites born or made? Is false consciousness a social disease? These are among the unasked questions haunting the 2012 Republican presidential race.

The four surviving candidates are hypocrites. Mitt Romney is the guy-next-door everyman with a quarter-billion-dollars in his pocket; Rick Santorum is the blue-collar everyman who has learned to work the corporate con for self-serving ends; Ron Paul is the white everyman standing before a giant Confederate flag proclaiming that the South was right seceding from the Union; and then there is Newt Gingrich, the shameless everyman who sheds his past like a snake loses its old skin.

Gingrich is the most hypocritical presidential candidate in modern history. But the significance of his hypocrisy can only be fully appreciated in terms of his surprising Jan. 21^st primary victory in South Carolina. Approximately 40 percent of registered Republicans willingly accepting his fiction. This is the politics of false consciousness.

Read More:

http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/01/27/the-mass-psychology-of-newt-gingrich/

Emily Badger - Are Conservatives More Fearful Than Liberals?

The tone of this year’s Republican presidential primary (which now seems destined to last much longerthan Mitt Romney had been planning) seems sort of, well, fearful. One after the other, these would-be presidents have warned of looming threats — war with Iran, economic collapse, class warfare, social disintegration, illegal immigration — and have sought to position themselves as the best candidate for the job of protecting America.

Their political advisers must understand a psychological phenomenon that researchers have been studying for some time now: conservatives appear to be motivated by fear in a way that liberals are not. An expanding body of research suggests that Republicans and Democrats differ on some fundamental level in how they respond to positive and negative stimuli. A new study, published in the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, adds even more evidence to the theory that these two groups quite literally see the world differently.

Read More:

http://www.miller-mccune.com/

Robert Reich - The Republican Myth of Obama’s “Entitlement Society”

One of the few things Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich agree on is that President Obama is turning America into “European-style welfare culture.”

In his standard stump speech Romney charges Obama with creating a nation of dependents. “Over the past three years Barack Obama has been replacing our merit-based society with an entitlement society.”

Gingrich calls Obama “the best food-stamp president in American history.” What’s their evidence? Both rely on federal budget data showing direct payments to individuals shot up by almost $600 billion, a 32 percent increase, since the start of 2009. They also point to Census data showing that 49 percent of Americans now live in homes where at least one person is collecting a federal benefit – Social Security, food stamps, unemployment insurance, worker’s compensation, or subsidized housing. That’s up from 44 percent in 2008.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/republican-myth-obama-s-entitlement-society-1328199765

Andy Borowitz - A Clarification from Mitt Romney About Poor People

Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney today released the following letter to the American people:

Dear American People:

Yesterday, comments I made about poor people made me look terrible.  This always seems to happen when I say what I really believe.

The fact is, I do care about poor people.  That’s because I’m poor myself, when you compare me to Mark Zuckerberg.

According to most projections, Facebook’s IPO should net Mr. Zuckerberg a personal fortune of $28 billion.  I couldn’t make a pile of dough-re-mi like that even if I fired people twenty-four hours a day.

Read More:

http://www.borowitzreport.com/2012/02/02/a-clarification-from-mitt-romney/

Robert Parry - The Ugly Words of Newt Gingrich

Most people probably think that scientists working on embryonic stem-cell research are committed to finding new treatments to help fellow human beings suffering from Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, paraplegia and other terrible ailments – but not former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

To the Republican presidential hopeful, these researchers are engaged in what amounts to “the use of science to desensitive society over the killing of babies.” Just stop there for a minute. In Gingrich’s world, these researchers are using “science to desensitive society over the killing of babies.”

That comment on Saturday at a Baptist church in Winter Park, Florida, got the applause that he apparently was hoping for and maybe some votes from Christian fundamentalists who object to the experimental use of embryos, even ones destined for destruction at fertility clinics. However, in doing so, Gingrich put on display, again, his casual use of ugly language to demean fellow Americans.

Read More:

http://consortiumnews.com/2012/01/30/the-ugly-words-of-newt-gingrich/

John Nichols - Wisconsin Recall Drive More Popular Than GOP Presidential Candidates - Combined

America is almost four weeks into the voting stage of the Republican presidential race. The candidates are debating. The media is covering the competition 24/7, and in such minute detail that Rick Perry’s quitting of the contest was treated as news. And Republicans in three states have caucused and voted in numbers that party leaders, pundits and the talk-radio amen corner tell us are significant.

Yet at the same time, those same party leaders, pundits and radio talkers continue to dismiss the movement to recall Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker as a false construct with little real hope of prevailing.

Fair enough, let’s compare.

Read More:

http://www.nationofchange.org/wisconsin-recall-drive-more-popular-gop-presidential-candidates-combined-1327849443

Robert Reich - Why No Responsible Democrat Should Want Newt Gingrich to Get the GOP Nomination

Republicans are worried sick about Newt Gingrich's ascendance, while Democrats are tickled pink.

Yet no responsible Democrat should be pleased at the prospect that Gingrich could get the GOP nomination. The future of America is too important to accept even a small risk of a Gingrich presidency.

The Republican worry is understandable. "The possibility of Newt Gingrich being our nominee against Barack Obama I think is essentially handling the election over to Obama," says former Minnesota Governor Tom Pawlenty, a leading GOP conservative. "I think that's shared by a lot of folks in the Republican party."

Pawlenty's views are indeed widely shared in Republican circles. "He's not a conservative -- he's an opportunist," says pundit Joe Scarborough, a member of the Republican Class of 1994 who came to Washington under Gingrich's banner. Gingrich doesn't "have the temperament, intellectual discipline or ego control to be either a successful nominee or president," says New York Republican representative Peter King, who hasn't endorsed any candidate. "Basically, Newt can't control himself."

Read More:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/Why-No-Responsible-Democra-by-Robert-Reich-120126-841.html

New Polls: Economy Still Bush's Fault, GOP Responsible For Gridlock

What seems obvious to us is news to Washington pundits:

A majority of Americans believe that former President George W. Bush is more responsible than President Obama for the current economic problems in the country, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.

Fifty-four percent of respondents said that Bush was more to blame while 29 percent put the blame on Obama; 9 percent said both men deserved blame while 6 percent said neither did. Among registered voters, the numbers are almost identical; 54 percent blame Bush, while 30 percent blame Obama.

Independents, widely considered the most critical voting bloc this fall, continue to blame Bush far more than Obama for the economic troubles. Fifty-seven percent of unaffiliated voters put the blame on the former Republican president, while 25 percent believe the blame rests more with Obama.

Read More:

http://www.opednews.com/articles/New-Polls-Economy-Still-B-by-Daily-kos-120118-44.html

Mitt Romney’s TOP FIVE Tax Giveaways to the Rich

While much attention has focused on Mitt Romney’s own shockingly low tax rate — a 15 percent rate far lower than that paid by millions of middle class Americans, less attention has been paid to the details of his tax plan. It’s a plan that would slash taxes on the wealthiest Americans and corporations, while actually increasing taxes on the middle class. What’s more, as the Center for American Progress Action Fund’s Michael Linden and Seth Hanlon wrote last week:

Nowhere in Romney’s 59-point economic plan does he identify a single corporate loophole or tax break he’d eliminate. 

Here’s a rundown of some of the most egregious tax loopholes and giveaways Mitt Romney preserves in his tax plan.

Read More:

http://thinkprogress.org/progress-report/romney-tax-exploiter/?mobile=nc

David Michael Green - Geriatric Obfuscating Pathology: Is The GOP Self-Destructing?

I took a busload of students to New Hampshire last week to observe the Republican primary campaign process up close and personal. 

Alright, alright, I know what you must be thinking:  “Damn, Green, you sure must be a dedicated professor to do that!”  As it happens, you’d be partly right and partly wrong.  In fact, the students are great, the trip is fun and a little unpredictable in nice way, and there really still is a wee bit of genuine candidate accountability remaining in the New Hampshire retail politics process. 

That said, however, it’s absolutely true that the field of GOP candidates is stunning in its sheer capacity for selfishness, dishonesty, and plain old meanness, and that listening to them for too long without wearing noise-cancelling headphones could surely burn off both of your ears.  It’s the political equivalent of staring at the sun, and the cult-like gaga-bots one can observe among these audiences seem to have spent quite some time doing just that.  If you know just a bit about history, just a bit about context, or just a bit about the dark arts of rhetorical legerdemain, listening to a speech by Rick Santorum or Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney will leave you wanting to pop up just about every half-sentence and loudly disclaim “That’s a lie!”, “That’s wrong!”, or “That’s complete bullshit!”  It’s a truly painful experience in that regard. 

Read More:

http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/01/17-1

Kurt Nimmo - Ron Paul Moves to Kill Indefinite Detention Provision of NDAA

Rep. Ron Paul left the campaign trail on Wednesday to speak on the House floor about the National Defense Authorization Act, which was signed into law on the first day of the new year by Obama.

Read More:

http://www.prisonplanet.com/ron-paul-moves-to-kill-indefinite-detention-provision-of-ndaa.html

Linn Washington - The Republicans’ Rancid and All-Too-American Dance With Racism

As the racist rhetoric oozes from Republican presidential candidates, why are comments contained in Ron Paul newsletters from the 1980s and 1990s being widely considered more offensive than current bigoted banter uttered by Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum?

One answer to that question is a politics where partisan criticisms are directed at crippling certain candidates feared as rising stars.

Thus when Congressman Paul began percolating up in the Iowa Caucus polls late last year, news of his caustic comments in those decades-old newsletters became headline news coverage.

Curiously for a candidate tagged racist Paul has a public record of opposing the most racist governmental offensive in contemporary America – the War on Drugs – that societally destructive campaign other GOP presidential candidates ignore.

Read More:

http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1012

[Video] Armed Chinese Troops in Texas!

It is important to separate hunting down terrorists who attack our country and deserve justice (which Ron Paul is 100% for), and not confuse justice with occupying entire countries for a decade under the guise of the "War on Terror" or "Spreading Democracy". Terrorists are individuals and small groups, so why are we picking fights with entire nations? BILLIONS for Defense, NOT A PENNY for Empire.

This speech is called "Imagine" and it was given by Ron Paul on March 11, 2009. The original text of the talk is below:

Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the middle of Texas there was a large foreign military base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they were here under the auspices of "keeping us safe" or "promoting democracy" or "protecting their strategic interests."

Imagine that they operated outside of US law, and that the Constitution did not apply to them. Imagine that every now and then they made mistakes or acted on bad information and accidentally killed or terrorized innocent Americans, including women and children, most of the time with little to no repercussions or consequences. Imagine that they set up checkpoints on our soil and routinely searched and ransacked entire neighborhoods of homes. Imagine if Americans were fearful of these foreign troops, and overwhelmingly thought America would be better off without their presence.

Imagine if some Americans were so angry about them being in Texas that they actually joined together to fight them off, in defense of our soil and sovereignty, because leadership in government refused or were unable to do so. Imagine that those Americans were labeled terrorists or insurgents for their defensive actions, and routinely killed, or captured and tortured by the foreign troops on our land. Imagine that the occupiers' attitude was that if they just killed enough Americans, the resistance would stop, but instead, for every American killed, ten more would take up arms against them, resulting in perpetual bloodshed. Imagine if most of the citizens of the foreign land also wanted these troops to return home. Imagine if they elected a leader who promised to bring them home and put an end to this horror.

Imagine if that leader changed his mind once he took office.

The reality is that our military presence on foreign soil is as offensive to the people that live there as armed Chinese troops would be if they were stationed in Texas. We would not stand for it here, but we have had a globe-straddling empire and a very intrusive foreign policy for decades that incites a lot of hatred and resentment towards us.

According to our own CIA, our meddling in the Middle East was the prime motivation for the horrific attacks on 9/11. But instead of re-evaluating our foreign policy, we have simply escalated it. We had a right to go after those responsible for 9/11, to be sure, but why do so many Americans feel as if we have a right to a military presence in some 160 countries when we wouldn't stand for even one foreign base on our soil, for any reason? These are not embassies, mind you, these are military installations. The new administration is not materially changing anything about this. Shuffling troops around and playing with semantics does not accomplish the goals of the American people, who simply want our men and women to come home. 50,000 troops left behind in Iraq is not conducive to peace any more than 50,000 Russian soldiers would be in the United States.

Shutting down military bases and ceasing to deal with other nations with threats and violence is not isolationism. It is the opposite. Opening ourselves up to friendship, honest trade and diplomacy is the foreign policy of peace and prosperity. It is the only foreign policy that will not bankrupt us in short order, as our current actions most definitely will. I share the disappointment of the American people in the foreign policy rhetoric coming from the administration. The sad thing is, our foreign policy WILL change eventually, as Rome's did, when all budgetary and monetary tricks to fund it are exhausted.

CREDITS:
Voice and Music was done by Jeremy Hoop
Video animation was done by Nicholas Bozman and MysteryBox.

Ben Adler - Three Myths About Ron Paul

THE NATION - December 27, 2011

http://www.thenation.com/blog/165350/three-myths-about-ron-paul?rel=emailNation

In the Republican presidential primary, everyone but Rick Santorum seems destined to have his or her moment. Now is Ron Paul’s. Paul is polling well in Iowa and respectably in New Hampshire. Sharp attack ads against Newt Gingrich helped the media remember he is still running and deflated Gingrich’s balloon. 

And Paul is getting some of the adoration from certain pundits that he enjoyed last time. Andrew Sullivan recently endorsed Paul for the Republican nomination. Glenn Greenwald ofSalon defends Paul against perceived slights from the media.

The liberal counter-argument tends to be that while Paul is good on foreign policy and civil liberties, he is wildly wrong on economic issues. As Patrick Caldwell of The American Prospect wrote, “While his foreign policy and defense of civil liberties might appeal to the progressive heart, Paul jumps off a cliff when it comes to the economy.” It’s certainly true that Paul’s economic views are extremist and strange. But, unfortunately, Paul isn’t a progressive on much of anything else either.

Here are three crucial myths about Paul:

Click to read more ...

Glenn Greenwald - Vote Obama – If You Want a Centrist Republican for US President

December 27, 2011 by the Guardian/UK

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/dec/27/vote-obama-centrist-republican

Because Barack Obama has adopted so many core Republican beliefs, the US opposition race is a shambles.

by Glenn Greenwald

American presidential elections are increasingly indistinguishable from the reality TV competitions drowning the nation's airwaves. Both are vapid, personality-driven and painfully protracted affairs, with the winners crowned by virtue of their ability to appear slightly more tolerable than the cast of annoying rejects whom the public eliminates one by one. When, earlier this year, America's tawdriest (and one of its most-watched) reality TV show hosts, Donald Trump, inserted himself into the campaign circus as a threatened contestant, he fitted right in, immediately catapulting to the top of audience polls before announcing he would not join the show.

The Republican presidential primaries – shortly to determine who will be the finalist to face off, and likely lose, against Barack Obama next November – has been a particularly base spectacle. That the contest has devolved into an embarrassing clown show has many causes, beginning with the fact that GOP voters loathe Mitt Romney, their belief-free, anointed-by-Wall-Street frontrunner who clearly has the best chance of defeating the president.

In a desperate attempt to find someone less slithery and soulless (not to mention less Mormon), party members have lurched manically from one ludicrous candidate to the next, only to watch in horror as each wilted the moment they were subjected to scrutiny. Incessant pleas to the party's ostensibly more respectable conservatives to enter the race have been repeatedly rebuffed. Now, only Romney remains viable. Republican voters are thus slowly resigning themselves to marching behind a vacant, supremely malleable technocrat whom they plainly detest.

Click to read more ...

TERRA DAILY - Science taboo for Republicans seeking White House

by Staff Writers, TERRA DAILY

Washington (AFP) Dec 29, 2011

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Science_taboo_for_Republicans_seeking_White_House_999.html

Many of the Republican candidates vying for their party's nod to take on President Barack Obama, dismiss science in favor of strong evangelical faith, playing to a hardline conservative electorate.

Only one of the White House contenders, former Utah governor Jon Huntsman, has come out with force to proclaim a belief in man-made climate change, as he condemned his party's hostility to science.

"To be clear, I believe in evolution and trust scientists on global warming. Call me crazy," he wrote in an August post on micro-blogging site Twitter.

"The minute that theRepublican Party becomes the anti-science party -- we have a huge problem," the former US ambassador to China later told ABC television's "This Week."

Other major political figures, such as New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, have lambasted the lack of scientific faith of Republican hopefuls seeking the highest office of the world's first superpower.

"We have presidential candidates who don't believe in science. I mean, just think about it, can you imagine a company of any size in the world where the CEO said 'Oh, I don't believe in science' and that person surviving to the end of that day? Are you kidding me? It's mind-boggling!" Bloomberg told an economic forum in November.

The importance of the ultra-conservative vote, championed by a religious, anti-evolution electorate, is not lost on the contenders seeking their party's nod to face Obama in November's presidential election.

In Iowa, where caucuses kick off the months-long nominating process on Tuesday, just 21 percent of Republican voters said they believe in global warming, and 35 percent in the theory of evolution, according to a Public Policy Polling survey.

Click to read more ...

Michael Winship - The GOP’s Hazy Cloud of Ignorance

December 16, 2011

http://consortiumnews.com/2011/12/16/the-gops-hazy-cloud-of-ignorance/

By Michael Winship

Have you heard about the great brown cloud? No, it’s not a new nickname for Donald Trump (his cloud is more an intergalactic nimbus of Aqua Velva and Tang), or the ominous menace in a new Stephen King novel. It’s almost as nasty, though.

The Atmospheric Brown Cloud, formerly known as the Asian Brown Cloud, is a mass of air pollution hovering over northern India along the southern Himalayas and down across Bangladesh and the Bay of Bengal. The cloud began growing shortly after World War II, a smoggy mass of soot and sulfates from diesel emissions, wood fires and other burning stuff that’s almost two miles thick.

A new study by scientists from a number of research organizations – including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography – finds that the cloud’s pollutants are making cyclones in the Arabian Sea more intense.

Click to read more ...

Robert Scheer - There Goes the Republic

http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/there_goes_the_republic_20111214/

Posted on Dec 15, 2011

By Robert Scheer

Once again the gods of war have united our Congress like nothing else. Unable to agree on the minimal spending necessary to save our economy, schools, medical system or infrastructure, the cowards who mislead us have retreated to the irrationalities of what George Washington in his farewell address condemned as “pretended patriotism.”

The defense authorization bill that Congress passed and President Obama had threatened to veto will soon become law, a fact that should be met with public outrage. Human Rights Watch President Kenneth Roth, responding to Obama’s craven collapse on the bill’s most controversial provision, said, “By signing this defense spending bill, President Obama will go down in history as the president who enshrined indefinite detention without trial in US law.” On Wednesday, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney claimed “the most recent changes give the president additional discretion in determining how the law will be implemented, consistent with our values and the rule of law, which are at the heart of our country’s strength.”

Click to read more ...