The Hollywood Liberal

There will be a debate tonight in Hollywood, amongst the last 2 Presidential candidates. The debate will be held at the Kodak theatre which is about 500 feet from the HL. However I will not be covering the debate, and will not have a report on it when it is over. I won’t be watching the debate on TV because I already know who I am voting for, unfortunately he has already dropped out of the race. The debate will be between candidate number 1, and candidate number 2. It really doesn’t matter who wins the debate between 1 and 2, nor will it matter which one wins the nomination. The reason it will not matter is because they are both in the pockets of big corporations, (and Israel) and neither will have any desire whatsoever to do anything that their corporate masters don’t want them to do, like anything that would benefit anyone or anyting but those corporations. (And nothing will change for the good if either one wins) that is if they win the election which either one of them may well not, becuase Democrats have a history of letting the loser have the win.
Stay tuned for more non stories on the non candidates in the non election.

©

The Serialization

Shortly thereafter Healey and Patrick appeared dressed in swimsuits and shoes, carrying beach towels. They walked to the beach, and Patrick raced to the waves that were large and breaking against the sand shore.Miguel was dressed in Columbia pants and shirt. The pants had zippers mid-trouser and on a whim, he unzipped the bottom half and left the parked car. He walked barefoot some 50 yards from where Patrick and Healey had stopped.Then he noticed the sign: “Beware of Riptides.”He looked to where Patrick was swimming some 20 yards off the shore, bouncing in the waves, shouting at Healey to join him. But Healey had already taken out his book and was reading.It wasn’t until both he and Miguel looked up some five minutes later that they saw Patrick flailing, being pulled under and out by the undertow.

Healey bounded up and raced to the water as Patrick went under again. Ten yards out Healey dove, coming up moments later with Patrick, who was flailing and wrestling. It was clear to Miguel that the undertow was taking them both out now.In a huge effort Healey pushed Patrick toward a sandbar, going under as he did. He surfaced once more and again lifted and shoved Patrick up and toward the sandbar before being pulled under.Miguel didn’t realize that he was in the water until he was breaststroking in powerful pulls to where the man had gone under. Miguel was not sure why he was racing to save the man. Because his orders were to kill him publicly as an example or because he felt something for the man, the father of the son.Then he reached the man as he came up for what surely what would have been one last gasp of air, his strength exhausted. He would be towed under for good.Miguel grasped the man from behind, looking to see Patrick semi-standing, puking up saltwater. He pulled the man to the surface and began swimming them both south along the shoreline, half moving with the outgoing current of the riptides and half moving them toward a sandbar some 50 yards farther south.

Some five minutes later he pulled both of them upon the sandbar as a belated lifeguard came racing to their rescue. Behind him, the son followed, accompanied by some others who had seen the rescue. The lifeguard and another man pulled Healey ashore and began giving him mouth-to-mouth respiration. Soon the man was gushing out saltwater. He and Patrick had been saved.When the group looked for the rescuer, he was gone from sight.That night Healey knew something about himself. He had died. He had succumbed to a likely death under the sea. From whence he believed all life had come; where he wished to be when death called. And that he was not afraid.The other thing he knew about himself that day was that he had unselfishly saved his son. Not one moment in his rescue of Patrick did he think of himself. The selflessness came to him as a spiritual revelation. He’d never thought of himself that way.

AP
ORLANDO, Fla. - Following his third place finish in Florida, former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani is expected to drop out of the presidential race today and endorse Sen. John McCain.

Last night, Giuliani stopped short of announcing he was stepping down, but delivered a valedictory speech that was more farewell than fight-on.

The former mayor finished a distant third to the winner, McCain, and close second-place finisher Mitt Romney. Republican officials said Giuliani would endorse McCain on Wednesday in California. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in advance of the public announcement.

Read The Whole Story Here

HL’s Take
Thank God that idiot will not become the next President. Mussolini Jr. can now retire to the multi million dollar business he made to profit of 9/11, Readers of HL’s Comics have known what an A$$hole this guy was all along. Heres one called The Republican Candidates speak: Rudy Giuliani.

LA Times
WASHINGTON — Growing friction between the United States and Russia over Iran is only part of an increasingly difficult relationship that many diplomats and experts consider to be in its worst shape since the end of the Cold War, and at risk of further deterioration.

Although U.S. officials are publicly playing down the rising tension, a series of conflicts has prompted some within the Bush administration to conclude that, for domestic and geopolitical reasons, Russia is now more comfortable with the U.S. as an enemy than an ally.

Read The Whole Story Here

HL’s Take:
Of course readers of The HL knew this way back in July, when HL’s Comics presented Bush and Putin in “Gone Fishin’”

Michael O’McCarthy

Recommendations to the Democratic Party “Agents of Change” Obama and Edwards.

By Michael O’McCarthy

Tonight the President of the United States lied once again to the American people and to the world.

We live not in a time of “concern” about our economy, we do not live in a time success, and we do not live in a time of victory over the agents of terror. We live in a time economic and ecological rape, a time of treason and our country is represented by war criminals. Our nation is held the hostage of dysfunction, disunity and political cowardice.

The Republican Party is the party of this liar – and its apparent heirs continue the lie. We seem once again to be the prisoners of the Democrats to offer a change from this intolerable state. And thus, last Saturday in my resident state came the time to vote. I chose not to and the reason is simple: Neither, Clinton, Obama or Edwards represented progressive change.

Secondly, this “democratic process” is not only rigged by those who have stolen it, bought it and subverted it for their own selfish purpose, but has been negated by the alienated, disaffected masses who simply will no longer participate in the process. Whether by deliberate act of political refusal or passive disinterest or substantive ignorance, they are not moved to play an active part in their political future.

The one “progressive” alternative to the state controlled by Democrats and Republicans was Dennis Kucinich. His platform for change was rational, humane and doable – if there was a Camelot minus the apparent need for a White Knight, it could be found in his vision. Yet his percent of any primary or caucus was negligible. That was before the ruling class machine shut him down, banning him from debate after debate. Thus, the once sparkling, yet daunted, quirky prince that he is too succumbed to passing his baton to one of the Party favorites, Barack Obama. Practical electoral politics or not, it tainted his banner and disaffected those who believe in his campaign for progressive change.

History tells me that what we are about to get in 2008 is more of the same since the “election” of John F. Kennedy in 1960. That is, in my opinion, when the military-industrial-corporate state began to consolidate its rule over this nation. Coming into play after WWII the US became a gluttonous consumer nation; simultaneously it expanded its imperialistic range worldwide. Secondly, the political machines of both the Republican and Democratic parties ramped up Red Scare witch hunts that deterred any “progressive” political alternative by branding any and all dissenting opinion or movements either communist or offshoots of world communism. Nothing has changed: the US foreign policy is economic imperialism with a militarist interventionist arm. Its domestic policy is one of corporate exploitation, greed and deliberate social repression.

Today Clinton, Obama and Edwards represent the moderate wing of the corporate state’s ruling government machine and by their proposals and practice promise to deliver more of the same. History is my primer.

Read post continued at:

http://www.thehollywoodliberal.com/why-i-did-not-vote-–-the-state-of-disunion-2/ 

Read The Whole Story Here

Today we will begin serializing Michael O’McCarthy’s book Rebels in Hell. We will publish one chapter each week.
Here is Chapter 1, of this thrilling novel.

REVENGE

The Beginning
By Michael O’McCarthy © The 01-2008 Serialization

Machinima Graphic Art Cover By Pierce Portocarrero

Based on Original Artwork By Roby Hubbard

Dedicated to El Jovani
With a special salutation to Juan Santamaria, Emile Zapata and Séamas Ó Conghaile
PART I

EPISODE 1
William Smythe, the Patron’s servant, sat comfortably. One casually dressed, woolen-trousered leg crossed over the other. In the fireplace, the logs burned, the sap snapping at times. Next to him sat the silver service. The Costa Rican coffee fresh from the grinder sent a light yet pungent aroma about the room. A Mozart sonata tinkled moderately, filling the one-bedroom suite.

Smythe liked the suite. The myriad windows overlooked the park. The northern light outside filled the rooms. It brought out the mahogany of the wood and the depth of the forest-green paper covering the walls.

He liked the wood. It resonated class and solid surroundings. It meant well-spent expense. And he liked expense because it reminded him of his position. Intimately close to money. Money to Smythe meant prestige. Without his proximity to money, he would be just a hired anyone. He had no illusions about that. But with money, now, that was another matter. It was the extension of his Patron’s power, and that made him feel well.

He waited silently, head nodding a bit to Mozart, slightly sipping the brew.

The doorbell chimed nicely.

The Smythe put down the cup and walked to the door. He peered through the view hole, pulled open the thick, oversized door and nodded to the man.

Miguel Flores, known in the clandestine world as The Assassin, moved into the foyer. He paused waiting to be led into the sitting room.

Read the whole chapter here

Michael O’McCarthy

HOWARD HUGHES:

The Politics of a Mogul and Sin City Despot

A Review by Michael O’McCarthy

Of

Stephens Press - February 2008

Howard Hughes has been tagged the Bill Gates, capitalist entrepreneur of his time. He was many things, but Bill Gates he was not. Rich people do not start at the bottom, and no matter how problematic their products may be upon release, (as is the Microsoft model of “buyer beware – test it for us – we’ll upgrade it based on your complaints and never refund you a cent”), the reality is that Hughes started out rich.

Power, Paranoia and Palace Intrigue is the one “everything necessary to know about Howard Hughes without having to read all those other voluminous biographies.”

Schumacher chronicles the rise and fall of Hughes from his start based on his family tool fortune to his obsession with inventive aviation that was buoyed continually by the growing military industrial complex’s war machine. He covers Hughes as Hughes pleasured himself with his myriad inventions, aerial magic, and pursuits into the Hollywood movie business with an overindulgence in Hollywood female flesh which included over a recorded number of 108 stars and wanna be stars. Schumacher takes us lastly into his dementia of escape into the seclusion of Las Vegas.

His residences in Vegas were primarily those of seclusion in top story penthouses, enclosed with layers of servants and security of whom he tolerated little liberty. There he indulged himself in maniacal paranoid delusions of both power and persecution by known and unknown germs. There he further indulged himself with volumes of varying pharmaceutical supplied drugs, far beyond the physical needs as result of body injuries.

His dance with the CIA, FBI, acquaintance with the treasonous president, Richard Milhouse Nixon, his mania for anti-communism, his racism and the reported ties to the mob are only hinted at. Like most of the villainy entwined in the lives of American icons the truths of these character defects are entombed with Hughes and his minions, or locked forever in the American corporate state’s den of black operations.

As Schumacher profiles Hughes as the epitome of American corporate respectability, it becomes clear that the reputation of Bugsy Seigel’s mob controlled paradise had to give way to the corporate approved image of a Sin City necessary to fill America’s craving for prurient fun and need for simultaneous hypocrisy.

However it doesn’t work. When I think of the Las Vegas I think of three high profile images: the first cast by Nicolas Cage and Elisabeth Shue in Leaving Las Vegas. The second, Verhoven’s Showgirls, then HBO’s Taxi Cab Confessions. What happens in Las Vegas and supposed to stay in Las Vegas seeps out through the screens that Howard loved.

When I reflect on the person of Hughes what I see is not new: the super rich indulge in obsession and greedy, appetite-driven pursuits of the latest whim. So removed from reality, many succumb to the narcotics de jour. Death is their last tango.

And remember George Raft, Bugsy’s mobster pal turned Hollywood respectable movie star by no less than Howard Hughes did in SCARFACE? Together they taught Vegas how to tango.

Michael O’McCarthy

If you still resist the reality of the Corporate States of America then Clinton and Obama made it clear how they view the presidency last night as the two tap danced around the use of “CEO as president,” and bungled through the rhetoric of the “management” of government. If you hate those pin stripe blue suit wearing Peter Principled creeps, gird you loins. Not only will you have to work for them in the ever-growing monopolizing of businesses, (Wal Mart, Ms. Clinton’s former employer, will eat every business on every corner of America before this is over,) you will grovel for government services from the same stupefying cretins to get your just tax payer – citizen’s due. And if you think that the war is over then you didn’t read the lips of Clinton and Obama: combat troops will remain in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mega fortress of the so-called US embassy will be finished and permanent guarding the US’s vested interest in the Iraqi people’s oil and the hundreds of US ” tactical” military bases will remain and be increased upon their discretion.

Bread and Roses:
Change without Revolution?
Nah, I don’t think so
By: Jennifer Lynne Ziemann

We have all heard the call of change over the last few weeks with the Iowa Caucus the New Hampshire Primary and now the South Carolina Primaries. We have heard this cry shouted out of the mouths of Barack Obama, John Edwards, and Hillary Clinton. They talk about bringing the pharmaceutical and insurance companies to task as change, they talk about bringing the troops home as change and they talk about putting more money in the hands of the middle class as change. In the same breath they talk about how the same drug and insurance companies will have a hand in our new healthcare system.

In the same breath you hear they would invade Pakistan to get Osama Bin Laden and Al Quaida. They are still beating the drums of war as they call out for change. Still catering to the “Status Quo” while they call for change.

Change does not come from the candidacy of one person. The next president can preach all he or she wants to about this change but they still have to maneuver their way through Senators and Congresspersons bought and paid in full by corporate lobbyists. Change happens because the people rise up and demand it.

We as a country have grown complacent in our need for change. WE, the people, are bought and paid for by the corporate state, accepting the same gifts as our government. We sit on our new comfy couch financed from Rooms to Go and watch the flat screen television we bought at Wal-Mart with our brand new shiny credit card stuffing our face with Doritos and beer.

We don’t worry about the fact we are paying $152.00 every two weeks for family medical coverage with a $300.00 per person deductible and co-pay. No, this does not include dental, cancer, mental health or substance abuse coverage. It does not cross our mind that our very own government employees receive better health care than we do for free. It does not cross our mind that if we have cancer we will be denied certain treatments that could cure it because we cannot afford to pay the drug companies.

Why should it? After all we have a roof over our head, food in our belly and a car to drive. No matter that on the way to get that food we drive by an entire family sleeping under a bridge. We are comfortable and in our complacency that is all that really matters. This is sheer hypocrisy!

Hey, most of WE, the people, do not even shed a tear as the number of American casualties from the war in Iraq are listed on George Stephanopoulos’ Sunday program. Why should we? It is distant from us. There is no draft. Our girls and boys are safe. We have made no sacrifice. You can’t even get a decent anti-war movement to sweep this nation because of the disconnect.

Our corporate-controlled news media ignores the one candidate that has never voted for the war or for funding of the war, Dennis Kucinich. WE, the people sit bogged down in the middle of corporate-controlled Democrats on the left and more of the same Republicans on the right. This is the result of our complacency!

I watched an interesting movie this week called “Strike”. It was the story of the Solidarity worker strikes in Poland in 1980-1981. They wanted the same things that we want now; better work conditions, better pay, and better health care. They wanted the right to organize and strike written into law. They wanted their government to invest in the people and their country. Just like we want our government to bring home the troops and money from overseas and invest it into our citizens. But there was a fundamental difference with them: they were not coddled with creature comforts to ignore the parts of their lives that were intolerable. They were battling a state capitalist bureaucracy not the corporate state where the illusion of credit allows such conspicuous consumption.

Capitalism was when private business and government were kept separate. The workers have little say and generally the rich are the ruling class. The rich have private property and the poor generally do not and have no means to change that. On the other hand corporatism is the merging of the government and big business as you now see in the United States. Our government is ran by whichever corporation can afford the most lobbyists, i.e. pharmaceutical, weapons, insurance, automobile, and oil corporations. The list goes on and on.

The fact that the workers in Poland had so much less than we do here made them hungrier for change. They had no big comfy couches to go home to, no flat screens to watch and no Bi-Lo around the corner. They also were raised in a culture where there was an ideology of change – one that gave the working people an inalienable right to govern themselves, no matter how skewed their government had mangled that mass cultural message. They revolted, they rose up and the people made the change. They changed their government and they changed their very lives.

In the United States up until World War II we embraced our revolutionary heritage of change. WE, the people demanded changes based upon all men and women were to be treated as equals and our government was FOR the people, BY the people and OF the people. Then the Red Scare came and imperialism and corporatism began to rule. Worker revolts were seen as Communist activities, anti-war was seen as anti-patriotic and change by the people was no longer viewed as revolutionary but treasonous. Fear drove us and complacency set in.

Revolution comes in all forms; it is not always a bloody battle. Yet always, change requires revolution and it cannot happen in our complacency. Another example of hunger for change happened in Lawrence, Massachusetts in 1912. Again, the working class rose up and demanded change: better wages, better work environments and better health care. As they marched against the corporate state they sang:
“Our lives shall not be sweated from birth until life closes;
  Hearts starve as well as bodies; bread and roses, bread and roses.”

Yeah, we may have comfy couches and flat screen televisions but our hearts and bodies still starve for what we asked for when we had less. This country is great because of WE, the people, not the sum total of the number of televisions in our homes. We asked to be seen as equals. This is not happening. We now must demand it.

Michael O’McCarthy

Principles Before Personalities

Preface to the January 29, 2008 Democratic South Carolina Primary
By
Michael O’McCarthy – opolitique@aol.com

I am one lone, politically active person, categorized oft times as “progressive.” I am, in fact, a democratic socialist, in the tradition of Michael Harrington and Dorothy Healey.

My current perspective comes from the political culture of reaction: the Red Shirt, (*) counter revolutionary state of South Carolina. If you know your history you know that South Carolina led the counter revolutionary secession from the United States of America in 1860. Though it lost and a government of “reconstruction” took place, that democratically integrated government was overthrown in 1877. That led to almost a century of racial apartheid, class, caste and gender division within the defeated nation. This same politique has fed this nation state with its toxic message for centuries. It is that which rules the Republican Party. It is enable by its cohort, the Democratic Party.

I am but five minutes from the reactionary, evangelic icon, Bob Jones University. This is Greenville County, the last county in the USA to provide a paid holiday for Martin Luther King, Jr. It is the home of Bob Ingles, Jim DeMint and Lindsay Graham, principal linchpins in the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican (counter-revolutionary,) ruling class party. This is a political landscape that has at its base the current Red Shirt mentality running like a cultural stream through the consciousness of the Republican electorate.

(*) The Red Shirts were a racist, counter reconstruction militia who wore blood red colored shirts en route to trial for the participation in 1867 massacre of black reconstruction militia just outside of Bamburg, SC. Today the Red Shirts are no more than the KKK out of their sheets with “heritage” as their rationalization for a rebirth of Southern Nationalism. This is a faction I first encountered and helped defeat in support of a County Council person in the 2004 county council election that was victorious in the establishment of the King holiday. Thus, I understand and have been deeply involved, when appropriate, in “electoral politics.”

This is the home of Republican Senator Lindsay Graham, Representative Bob Inglis and Jim DeMint, lynchpin reactionaries in the Republican Party. They thrive in a region which is a combination of conservative, pseudo-capitalist, right wing zealotry and racist religiosity that has created an environment that best reflects the America of the past, the present and the future as represented by the current candidates for the Republican nomination.

This is a political culture that has been tolerated and enabled by the other corporate state ruling class party, the Democratic Party. So it is from this frontline of American pre-fascism that I view the future of the United States of America - this pseudo-democratic empire that George Bush now rules with a domestically regressive agenda and a militaristic - imperialist foreign policy.

It is from this base that US Senator Strom Thurmond, racist heir to the Confederates, led the Dixiecrats out of the Democratic Party in 1946 setting the modern trend for the south and South Carolina to begin the Republican takeover of government. A compromise with the other ruling class party, the Democratic party, was struck based upon anti-working class, union busting (right to work – right to fire legislation,) and racial segregation and neo-segregation as it exists today. While the current form of corporate state monopoly would not take root until the election of Richard Nixon in 1968, resurfacing again under Reagan 1981–1989, it would be consolidated until the election of George W. Bush in 2001 and the full implementation until 9.11.2001. Both the domestic and foreign policy of the United States is now shaped by this resurgent reactionary politic and the compromises realized under the “liberal” regime of Bill Clinton.

Despite the very real contradiction in the philosophical base for the development of this “experiment” in democracy as best seen in Paine, Jefferson, Madison, Adams and Franklin, I believe that what we now have as an ideological construct is reflects its historical continuity. This indeed is living in the domestic Belly of the Beast.

There were two major turning points at which that might have changed:

First - The “War Between the States” and the government that succeeded Lincoln that failed to address the forces of the southern counter revolution and the native imperialism of the US.

Second - The failure to significantly reform the capitalist-imperialist government under Roosevelt during the 1930’s. Dialectic, historical evolution not withstanding, the “progressive agents of change” failed during both those crucially pivotal moments in US history and we got what we got. Very much as I believe we are about to get what we get in 2008. Except now the stakes for the world and US are much higher.

My holistic perspective is born of a lifetime of social activism; my politics evolved in the experiences in the poorest of cultures, the unreconstructed South and the working class of the North. Of periods of confinement and political struggles in the worst of state institutions; from a legacy of experiencing the exploitation of the national poor, working classes and the racist-misogynist exploitation and oppression of women and people “of color.”

In my opinion:
Social revolutionaries and “progressives” have now come to a point more important in time other than perhaps the “War for Southern Independence,” as called by the Southern revisionists. We are now challenged to make a very difficult choice. The choice is between principles and personalities – between the principles that demand a major, structural social change vs. corporate state politics; of those candidates and democratic activists who scream “electability” which is a clarion call for yet another form of “Lesser Evilism.” That strategy may had value in choosing between capitalism and Nazism, democratic socialism and the varying brands of Stalinism, but offers no discernible hope for the change needed in this country.

There were difficult theoretical as well as practical issues in that time and of course the Lesser Evil was capitalism. Today there really is no difficulty. While the political ideologues of the corporate state would have us believe that we are either on their side, as Bush and Cheney have raved, or on the side of the hordes, (represented by the terrorists,) the real choice is between the State and the people. I choose in the interest of the people of the world.

Indeed, like no other time in modern history, we have little ideological structure or international support for either our analysis or our struggle. We are left herein to our own devices. We do so under a national government that has only contempt for the people and little other purpose than of exploiting or destroying the rest of the world.

Thus, the Duopoly and its vehicle of “globalization” and its military imperialism now face us with the consolidation of corporate state rule, not democracy. This Lesser Evilism is no longer a valid choice for those of us who know the need for fundamental social change if democracy is to survive. In fact it is a continuing path to Hell.

It appears that the position of “progressives” in this election is “anyone but a Republican.” That distills down to “electability.” Thus, progressives and liberals, “the agents of change” in the Democratic Party – in this election – are charged with nominating, Hillary, Obama or Edwards.

The relevance of the only truly “progressive” presidential candidate, Dennis Kucinich is moot. It began when the corporate media trivialized his campaign; it was enabled with his exclusion from “Democratic Party” debates. And it bears underscoring that NOT ONE … NOT ONE of the then candidates, nor any of the three current ‘front-runners” publicly protested this act of political suppression, much less boycotted those disgraced debates. Yet “progressives” are continuing to dicker over which of these opportunists ought to get our support?

In the end the already fractionalized split in progressive support for Kucinich, Edwards or Obama was mercurially shattered when Kucinich suggested support for Obama during the Iowa caucus. (The best role for Kucinich is to continue to champion his platform, not his hopeless and flawed presidential crusade; continue to lead in the impeachment of Cheney and Bush.)

And I do understand the strategy of Lesser of Evilism. One can argue that even Hillary appears better than the socially regressive and war-imperialists McCain – Romney – Huckabee. Thus, it appears blasphemy – or politically incorrectness to challenge this premise – to be critical of these corporate controlled professionals.

However, I argue that this is not a “progressive” position. None of the above mentioned political managers chosen by the corporate state government’s “duopoly” will be “agents of change” any more than did the heir apparent to this strategy, Bill Clinton, while in office.

Clintonism. That has a true practical reality:

“…when Clinton took office, the Democratic Party controlled both houses of Congress and a majority of state governorships. By the time he left office, the Republicans controlled both Houses of Congress and two-thirds of the governorships. By the numbers, it was Clintonism that relegated the Democratic Party to the shadows….”

In terms of being an “agent of change, (Clinton was to)

“argue inside the Democratic Party that the liberal orthodoxies of the New Deal and the Great Society, as well as the culture of the anti-war and civil rights movements, had become excessive and inflexible. Not only were Democratic attitudes toward government electorally problematic, Clinton argued; they were just plain wrong for the time.” David Morris, AlterNet. Posted January 7, 2008.

Or as said by that last triumphant Democratic Party corporate state Clinton president, “The era of big government is over.” What he really meant was that it was time that the Democratic Party of the people was dead.

From NAFTA to the destruction of the welfare safety net, to The Telecommunications Act of 1996, to the Financial Services Modernization Act and not lastly, Clinton’s authorization to use depleted uranium weapons in Kosovo, indicate his true legacy and that of his “two for one” partner Hillary.

As for Hillary, her list of corporate state contributors, lobbyists and donors are longer than space permits. As for her foreign policy (aside from her not so subtle version of McCain’s Thousand Year Occupation of Iraq,) her chief foreign policy consultant

“is Madeliene Albright — the diplomat who, when asked on “60 Minutes” if she thought the 500,000 Iraqi children who died under the U.S.-led sanctions (during the Clinton years) was worth it, answered: “We think the price was worth it.”’
www.alternet.org/election08/72959/

Obama – then Edwards – then Hillary: Progress is not a color or a sex.
I argue that changing this government from the current, corporate controlled state
is the only important issue facing us since the United States defeated the nation of the Confederate States of America and participated in the defeat of world-wide German and Japanese fascism. Given the prima facie track record and current domestic and foreign policy positions of Obama and Edwards and their corporate donor lists, it is clear that only the bought and paid for corporate media call these political managers “agents of change.” The silliness of declaring “progress” in the form of sex or color is akin to likening progress to Margaret Thatcher and Mayor Marion Berry.

Nor can these Pols be considered agents of “the status quo.” There can be no “status quo” in a world in the midst of the current and coming social, political and environmental upheaval. There will either be progress or the last attempt by a white, ruling class to create a world order under the rubric of Globalization, corporate state militarism and its mutants, i.e., “the People’s Republic of China.”

Perspective:
To think only of what’s good for “America” however is just pure racist, class Selfishism. It is important to step back from this nation-corporate-centric election and look at the US from down under and from abroad. I believe the fate of the world lies in the balance. And the fate of the world has never been more endangered than today:

The levels of starvation and genocide; human exploitation and theft of the people’s wealth has never been greater in the history of the world. No matter how bad was the conquer-and-exploitation of peoples and nations throughout the stages of history, nothing is comparable to that after Columbus and the rise of the European and American regimes. Until this day, those two forces, now along with the rise of the “communist capitalist state” of China, now rule the world. The result can only be glimpsed:

Unlike any other the continent of Africa is fractured, awash in European history’s rape, reconstituted artificially under colonialism and neo-colonialism, when Europe withdrew, and the set-up of puppets states and governments and continues as the preyed upon victim of the new imperialism called “globalization.

Russia is reverting to a pseudo-capitalist dictatorship; the middle East is a Machiavellian nightmare: from the contrived State of Israel and the despotic oppression of the Palestinians and the murder of Lebanon; the wholesale theft of the people’s riches in Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Dubai under despotic monarchies and puppets of Britain and the US; the new terror state of Pakistan, the rising capitalist corporate state dictatorship of India; the long and tortured murder of the central and south American peoples. It is not necessary for me to state the data. All the recipients of this missive are familiar enough with the conditions generally described here.

All require thought and perspective when looking at this new class of corporate managers whose primary task will be to try to keep the white people of America happy with the spoils the corporate state steals from the underdeveloped world. Like George W. Bush, they will do so in the name of the “American way of life,” its illusory “democracy,” and its inalienable right to pray to a God who the deluded believe can both watch one sparrow fall from the sky and manage Huckabee’s Christian presidential campaign simultaneously.

Thus it is left to us “progressives” and social activist “radicals” to set the standard for what are and are not “agents of change.” As it appears we are about to see the coronation of yet another Democratic Party bureaucratic manager, anther CEO for the nation.

Without the ability to enliven a mass movement for change, it is left to us to enunciate principles and act on them. It is both a politically principled act and one of individual existential choice. I believe in principles before personalities and the effort at spiritual progress and not perfection. In the end we are what we do, not what we say.

Without a living progressive “agent of change” to vote for, I suggest that we write-in either Michael Harrington or Dorothy Healey for President in the national election. In the state of South Carolina I suggest writing in Harriet Tubman or Robert Smalls. Then we can stop mourning Kucinich and organize.

There is a right wing talk Nazi out there somewhere who calls himself Glenn Beck. I don’t know much about him because I would never waste a minute of my life watching, or following what is going on in the career of an a$$hole like him or his kind, but apparently he out Limbaughs Limbaugh. He started off on Nazi talk radio, and was so good at being an insensitive prick that one of the supposed “mainstream” TV networks gave him his own show.
We are not talking a Bill O’Rielly type here, this guy makes the Falalfel boy look like Dennis Kucinich. Anyway, Beck went into the hospital the other day for some routine hemorrhoid Surgery (What is it about these Conservative Nazi windbags and hemorrhoids, maybe it’s because they think with their asses.) and was none too happy with the outcome. He is now whining about how hospitals don’t “care” enough about their patients. He went on one of the network shows with his wife to complain about health care in America.

Up until now Beck has been the type of person who hated anything to do with helping people, or “compassion,” and he especially hated Michael Moore and his movie “Sicko.” When the movie came out Beck attacked Moore viciously, calling the movie “Moore’s hate letter to American health care” and of course he stood up for our medical establishment saying that people around the world would love to have access to our system of health care.

Well I guess Beck, after having to deal with the very system he loved so much before just because it gave him an opportunity to call Michael Moore “fat,” now has a different point of view. That’s how this complete sack of crap rolls, he had no real points to make in his attack of Moore so he plays the fat card like all idiot republicans with no brains. This guy who is not exactly anorexic himself even went so far as to say he wanted to kill Michael Moore with his own two hands. (as if this little wimpy piece of trash could even kill a fly)

Radio host Glenn Beck “thinking about killing Michael Moore”

Clear Channel radio host Glenn Beck said he was “thinking about killing [filmmaker] Michael Moore” and pondered whether “I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it,” before concluding: “No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong?”

From the May 17 broadcast of The Glenn Beck Program:

BECK: Hang on, let me just tell you what I’m thinking. I’m thinking about killing Michael Moore, and I’m wondering if I could kill him myself, or if I would need to hire somebody to do it. No, I think I could. I think he could be looking me in the eye, you know, and I could just be choking the life out — is this wrong? I stopped wearing my What Would Jesus — band — Do, and I’ve lost all sense of right and wrong now. I used to be able to say, “Yeah, I’d kill Michael Moore,” and then I’d see the little band: What Would Jesus Do? And then I’d realize, “Oh, you wouldn’t kill Michael Moore. Or at least you wouldn’t choke him to death.” And you know, well, I’m not sure.

Hey Beck, too bad the hospital didn’t finish the job on you, you worthless piece of garbage. Maybe they didn’t take better “care” of you because they know what a total piece of S**t you are. Now go and choke on the millions you have made for yourself and all the big corporations you douchebags love so much.
So how do you feel about the movie now a$$hole?

By: Jennifer Lynne Ziemann

In case you live under a rock and perchance have not noticed that in the recent Democrat debates, Obama, Clinton, Edwards, and Richardson are running for president to stand up for middle-class Americans. Every plan, concoction and soapbox initiative they peddle is for the middle class. From healthcare to ending the war in Iraq they are soldiering forward for that upstanding group in dire danger, middle class America. All of whom are one to two paychecks away from, dare I say it out loud, the dreaded LOWER CLASS or what some call THE POOR. A class that is comprised of people who used to be middle class and others who simply never got the chance to rise above the station life allotted them.

Yet none of the candidates are talking in the debates about THE POOR who consist of roughly twenty-five percent of America and here’s why: They are frequently unemployed and do not have a high school education thus causing many of them to be ignorant of their rights and benefits. If working their income falls below poverty level meaning they make less that 15,000 a year. These two items alone make for an unstable household causing them to move around frequently and thus hard to target for voting campaigns. Often times they do not even have an address, staying with relatives, in cars, homeless shelters, or on the streets. Yet again, not a likely group to vote. And if you factor in lack of transportation, you come up with an entire class being left out of the election machine.

This is unacceptable and is no different than the rich being catered to by the Republicans. We have a quarter of our population disenfranchised and according to John Edwards in the debate on Saturday night, 200,000 of them are homeless veterans. Way to go Edwards, one shout-out to the Poor…now what are you going to do about them?

What I want to know is what kind of programs are these candidates going to initiate to bring in and retain more people in the middle class. They have lots of programs listed on their web sites to combat poverty. Why with 25% of Americans falling into the poverty category are these programs not being discussed in debate on television? The lower class generally does not have access to the Internet, so it is up to these candidates to chat about these items when they are televised. This election is about all of America not just the middle and upper classes.
As Edwards stated, change means doing something different than the current government status quo. Well, if the current Democratic candidates are what we have to choose as leadership, then nothing has changed. It is still the status quo catering only to the upper classes, discussing only those things, which make the United States look like a shiny industrialized nation. Simply ignoring the rest that live in third-world poverty within our own borders.

from Dennis4president.com
DETROIT, MI – Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich, the most outspoken advocate in the Presidential field and in Congress for election integrity, paper-ballot elections, and campaign finance reform, has sent a letter to the New Hampshire Secretary of State asking for a recount of Tuesday’s election because of “unexplained disparities between hand-counted ballots and machine-counted ballots.”

“I am not making this request in the expectation that a recount will significantly affect the number of votes that were cast on my behalf,” Kucinich stressed in a letter to Secretary of State William M. Gardner. But, “Serious and credible reports, allegations, and rumors have surfaced in the past few days…It is imperative that these questions be addressed in the interest of public confidence in the integrity of the election process and the election machinery – not just in New Hampshire, but in every other state that conducts a primary election.”

Also, the reports, allegations, and rumors regarding possible vote-count irregularities have been further fueled by the stunning disparities between various “independent” pre-election polls and the actual election results,” Kucinich wrote. “The integrity, credibility, and value of independent polling are separate issues, but they appear to be relevant in the context of New Hampshire’s votes.”

He added, “Ever since the 2000 election – and even before – the American people have been losing faith in the belief that their votes were actually counted. This recount isn’t about who won 39% of 36% or even 1%. It’s about establishing whether 100% of the voters had 100% of their votes counted exactly the way they cast them.”

Kucinich, who drew about 1.4% of the New Hampshire Democratic primary vote, wrote, “This is not about my candidacy or any other individual candidacy. It is about the integrity of the election process.” No other Democratic candidate, he noted, has stepped forward to question or pursue the claims being made.

“New Hampshire is in the unique position to address – and, if so determined, rectify – these issues before they escalate into a massive, nationwide suspicion of the process by which Americans elect their President. Based on the controversies surrounding the Presidential elections in 2004 and 2000, New Hampshire is in a prime position to investigate possible irregularities and to issue findings for the benefit of the entire nation,” Kucinich wrote in his letter.

“Without an official recount, the voters of New Hampshire and the rest of the nation will never know whether there are flaws in our electoral system that need to be identified and addressed at this relatively early point in the Presidential nominating process,” said Kucinich, who is campaigning in Michigan this week in advance of next Tuesday’s Presidential primary in that state.

Hillary Clinton loses the Iowa Caucasus, was this the first time that the Corporate approved Democrat realized that she was in trouble? Or was it when the poll came out showing her down by 11% in New Hampshire? But not to worry just play the crying card while the entire mainstream media is watching, (they have to have some explanation after all) a little Diebold Magic (or LHS as they are now called) and Presto. The Candidate that corporate America and the mainstream media wanted all along pulls the “Political Upset” of the Century. After it’s over interview some old biddy on network TV who obviously represents everyone in the state. “She really spoke to me, and showed me she is human.” Yep that’s the ticket. And why did Obama concede so early. Is he another Kerry? a hand picked loser. Obama’s still young, he can run again in 8 years right. So now the next few months will be a dog and pony show for the masses. And in the end it will be Hillary by a nose. And if you didn’t KNOW this was going to happen, you haven’t been paying close enough attention. HL.
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This is from the best website on the internet concering fair voting Brad Blog

I’m not sure why Obama would have conceded so soon, given the virtually inexplicable turn of events in New Hampshire tonight.

What’s going on here? Before proceeding, I recommend you read the third section of the post I just ran an hour or so ago, concerning the way the ballots are counted in New Hampshire, largely on Diebold optical-scan voting systems, wholly controlled and programmed by a very very bad company named LHS Associates.

Those Diebold op-scan machines are the exact same ones that were hacked in the HBO documentary, Hacking Democracy. See the previous report, as I recommend, which also includes a video of that hack, and footage of the guy who runs LHS Associates.

That said, the the pre-election pollster’s numbers (NOTE: that’s not Exit Polls, but Pre-Election Polls!) were dead-on, for the most part, on the Republican side, as well as on the Democratic side. Except in the do-or-die (for Hillary) Clinton v. Obama race. I’m watching MSNBC right now, and they all seem to agree that the results, for the moment, defy explanation.

I concur.

The result of his purge, is the mindset of the commenters now seen over there. It seems to me they are are begging for a world of hurt, someday, when their candidate doesn’t win, under questionable circumstances. They will, of course, have cornered themselves such that they won’t be able to ask questions themselvses. In the bargain, they are now fostering a culture of fear. Fear of asking questions. Fear of insisting that our democracy be transparent, of the people, by the people and for the people. If it were only themselves they were hurting by fostering that culture, I wouldn’t give a damn. But rest assured, their comments, actions and attitudes will be leveraged, as we move forward, to hurt all of us.

For the record, I am neither a Clinton supporter nor an Obama supporter (nor a supporter of anyone else in the race at this time, in any party.) I am a supporter of the VOTERS. Period. It’s they — us — who could really use some support right about now. I intend to do exactly that. All damned year. No matter how many “tin foil hats” the shortsighted, self-destructive Kossack types, who are behaving like the worst of the Republicans, try to throw at me.

Click through to read the whole Brad Blog story. It’s got all kinds of charts and graphs. Brad is the man when it comes to voting journalism.

Actor Viggo Mortensen, who starred in the “Lord of The Rings” trilogy, and plays a Russian Gangster in “Eastern Promises was so pissed off at ABC for not including Dennis Kucinich in the debate, that he got on a late night flight from California to go campaign with Dennis. There was one network which was willing to acknowledge the presense of the the only candidate which was against the war from day one. The only candidate that voted against funding the war every time. The only candidate whose mission is not to make insurance companies even richer. That network was Fox News, Dennis and Mortensen appeared on Hannity and Colmes, here it is.

“Play Ball”

Jerry Brown, heir apparent to his Democrat Party elder would-be presidential candidate and father, Governor Pat Brown once told me that American politics is like the great American past time, baseball.“They got their turn at bat, (the Republicans,) and now it’s ours.” I believe Jerry Brown knew then, what we all ought to know by now: The rich love their sport on a level very, very few of the rest of us get to play. While they love golf, polo and the stock market, what they truly love is playing with people. Us!Thus, oh contraire Hillary, who said today,“Some people think elections are a game — it’s about who’s up and who’s down,” she said. “It’s about our country’s future, it’s about our kids’ future — it’s really about all of us together.”Then she took her turn and nailed it,“It’s not easy, it’s not easy, and I couldn’t do it if I just didn’t passionately believe it was the right thing to do,” she said. “I have so many opportunities for [from] this country. I don’t want to see us all fall back[wards],” she said, her voice breaking in the last phrase. “This is very personal for me,” she said to supportive applause from the small gathering…”I believe every word she said. It is very personal for her; she has “so many opportunities for this country.”Hillary is experiencing a melt down. It’s a real disappointment not to be able to lead her team to their turn at bat, akin to the millionaire New York Yankees beating the Boston Red Socks in the next playoffs.