That Does It !!!

That does it !!!  I'm shocked!  Shocked!!
The world really is coming to an end.

How much more oh Lord; how much?

Leanderthal

Madness

Here's an article which sheds light on a movement which can only be described as sheer madness.

I am not anti-Semitic, nor anti-Zionist, but I am anti-Likud/AIPAC(they are one  in the same for all practical purposes), just as surely as I am anti-Organized Crime.

AIPAC operates as an agent of a foreign government, Israel, without being required to register as such as required by State Dept policy.  AND they enjoy the status of a Not For Profit, avoiding paying taxes, while reaching their poisonous tentacles deep into the pockets of far too many American politicians, for the sole purpose of buying loyalty and uncritical support for Likud behavior, however dangerous to America. 

Add to that the reality that American taxpayers fund billions of dollars a year of foreign aid to Israel, plus military armaments costing in the billions as well.  Where is the anger, the outrage which Americans should be displaying over this?

These are the people who,  along with the military/industrial complex which Ike warned us about, stand to make billions by stirring up enmities and tribal hatreds around the world, fanning the flames of emotional behavior, beating the war drums, rattling the sabres, to be sure we  Americans
are at war somewhere, all the time.

They will work to ensure that there is no military draft, because that would arouse the public from its slumber when sons, daughters, mothers and fathers are sent to war.  It would likely lead to the kind of demonstrations in the streets which we saw when it became clear that the Vietnam war was a scam
which cost the lives of thousands.  These people are war criminals, who don't want to wake the sleeping dog of American public opinion, that which led to our getting out of Vietnam.

Cheney/Bush and their Neocon cabal did it to us again in Iraq.  It's deja vu days people. What you are reading in the so-called Main Stream Media and hearing on Fox News is a re-run of 2002-2003.
These are same stenographers for the Pentagon as those in the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq. It was WMD then; It's nuclear weapons now. 

Fool me once, shame on  you .  Fool me twice, shame on me.

Leanderthal

Israel/Iran/US: What To Believe?

Here's a piece from the Daily Beast reporting that Israel will not warn the US of an impending air strike against Iran.

What is one to trust and believe?  Is this a straight forward position taken by Israel, or is it just another
war drum, sabre rattling orchestrated piece of propaganda from the AIPAC/Neocon Israel Lobby  cabal?

I know it's never as simple as one would wish it to be, but isn't it about time to tell Israel that they have squandered any trust they might have had on the part of American citizens, and that the billions of dollars of aid, munitions, etc.. has been stopped?

Not gonna happen.  Too much money has been stuffed into the pockets of US politicians to buy their unquestioned loyalty to Israeli causes, however questionable(that's a euphimism for sinister) they may be.

I'm not anti-Semitic nor anti- Zionist, but I am anti-Likud/AIPAC, just as sure asI am anti-Organized Crime.  

Leanderthal

Juan Cole on the Iran/Israel Thing

I hope you will read Juan Cole's assessment here.

He writes what I think.  He is the best source of reliable Middle
East stuff I have found.  

Leanderthal

The Big Scam: Facebook

Update Below!

Here's your classic curmudgeon crying in the wilderness.  I'm aghast at the so-called Social Media success.  The people who invented such intrusive mechanisms like Facebook, Connect.In and Twitter have found a need which people weren't even aware they had until they were told so.  Now that's brilliant marketing! I suspect that Facebook will become a case study at HBS if it hasn't already, especially since its inventor and founder is one of their own. 

It continues to amaze me how gullible people can be.  Facebook is a giant scam offering opportunities to "Friend"(yet another noun cannibalized and made into a verb) all kinds of people, most of whom  you wouldn't allow into your home if they knocked on your door.  

It's of coursel about making huge bucks by accumulating all kinds of information which you wouldn't be likely to share with strangers (Guess what folks, the Internet is a humongous gang of strangers).  This information is sold to organizations which are dying to know as much as they can about you so that they can bombard you with their ads whenever you log on to Facebook and who knows how many other Internet sites. 

BTW, Google does the same thing.  Ever wonder why you see ads for companies whose web addresses you recently visited when you log onto sites like TPM, Truthout, Truthdig, Salon.com and Alternet, to name only a few that come to mind right now.   

What got me ranting about this tonight?   I wanted to leave a comment on Mat Taibbi's piece on Truthdig about CNN's beating the war drums for bombing  Iran. (That's Mat Taibbi of Rolling Stone.) Problem is that you can only leave a comment if you use Facebook to log on to the comments option. This is a first, at least for me.

Facebook is a danger to our privacy just as surely as are Patriot Act wiretaps.

It's recent multi billion dollar IPO has gotten a lot of people drooling and dreaming of making big bucks, counting on this being the 21st Century's IBM.  They may be right for all I know.  Somehow I have to think that I should approve of the product a company I invest in is selling.( That naivete' is probably why I'm not living on Easy Street.)  Facebook has been forced to change any number of its rules, policies and procedures which have been found to violate personal privacy. Yet people still can't wait to sign up.  It's truly phenomenal how deep into our culture the tentacles of this invasive species have penetrated.  "Find us on Facebook" has become a ubiquitous phrase found in virtually all advertising today.  Even US Government agencies implore you to find them on Facebook. 

I am a Facebook dropout, having tried it for a couple of weeks at the request of my grandchildren.  I was being asked to be friends with perfect strangers, and I couldn't care less about knowing that one of my grandchildren had to stay late after school for some reason.  I'm still not sure I was able to wipe the Facebook slate clean of the few details I was required to provide when signing up.  Fortunately I hadn't revealed anything of real importance to my privacy.

For more awareness try Googling "Facebook Social Media". One of the listings is about Facebook Social Media Marketing, and one such source out there is Social Media Marketing for Dummies. Now there's a truly accurate title for a book.  

Be careful out there folks.  It's been said that TV is a vast wasteland.  Social Media is a vast scamland.

Update:  Here's a link to a site which my son tells me provides instructions for removing your account from Facebook, thereby breaking all ties to it.  I just received this tonight, and haven't checked it out yet. 
http://www.facebook.com/help/?faq=224562897555674&ref_query=remove+account

I am skeptical though that Facebook would actually show you how to do this without  retaining some vestige of your past usage. For example when my granddaughter updated her Facebook page and I mistakenly clicked on the Facebook no-reply email sent to inform me of that fact Facebook wrote "Welcome back Lee".

Yes, I'm paranoid, and perhaps you should be too.  


Leanderthal

Credible Sources for Mid East News

Juan Cole's blog, Informed Comment, a sample of which is found here, and Pat Lang's blog, Sic Semper Tyrannis, a sample of which is found here, are two examples of what appear to be credible sources for accurate Mid East news. To be sure they are biased toward refuting the Neocon propaganda for war against Iran; however that's a bias which is sorely needed to counter the Neocon plan to take us down another dangerous path toward war. 

This is especially important since the so-called Main Stream Media seems once again to serve as the loyal stenographers of the Neocon/Military/Industrial Complex which fooled us into blindly buying into war against Iraq. There is virtually no light between that cabal and the non-registered Israel political arm in America, AIPAC.   The combined resources of these two lobbies are powerful and their poisonous tentacles reach into the pockets of far too many politicians in all branches of government.  

Fool me once, shame on  you. Fool me twice, shame on me.  Buying into the American and Israeli arms dealers' war against Iran would lead to the disastrous result of being the second fool.

Leanderthal 

Mr. Fish, Shock Jock of Cartoonists

Mr. Fish is a political cartoonist, one who usually aims to get your attention by the use of shocking imagery, like his recent pornographic image of George Washington.

Here, he writes rather than draws, and it's effective, if somewhat overdone in the pedantic English department  manner of imagery.  Clearly he's a far left liberal, in the mode of Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com.  He  finds fault with Obama as often as with the GOPher clowns pretending to be serious statesmen.  Frankly I find myself liking and also disliking his messages; liking because I often agree with them, and disliking because he likes to shock in the extreme, bordering on the pretentious. 

It's likely though that I would not have read this piece had I not seen his cartoons; and I'm very glad I did.  I hope you will read it and be glad you did it too.

Leanderthal

An Essay on What Makes Right Wingers Tick

This essay speaks for itself.  It's the first attempt I've seen which tries to understand the psychology behind the behavior of people who cheer the idea that people without insurance deserve to die.

Leanderthal

This is Hilarious

I'm posting about this because the title of the article in question is simply hilarious, that is if you enjoy a little locker room humor.  You have to understand that the article is about GOPhers threatening to add something about contraception to a highway bill.

With that in mind, how can you not laugh at the title of the piece:  "Where the Rubber Meets the Road"?

Leanderthal

More Most Dangerous Fellas

Update Below:

Here's a post on Sic Semper Tyrannis which shines a bright light on the nefarious and shadowy work of AIPAC, the unregistered, so far, Israel Agent, the American political arm of the current Israeli political power, the far right hawkish Likud party.  

These people, AIPAC, are known as Israeli Firsters, a label reserved for Americans who put Israel's interests ahead of the interests of their own country.   They would call me an anti-Semite, if they paid any attention to me and my little blog.  That's the propaganda they spread about anyone who dares to find fault with their unwavering, uncritical support of the Likud hard liners who are currently the rulers of today's Israel.

By that definition many Jewish public media journalists qualify for that label; such clear and objective thinkers as Eric Alterman, Glenn Greenwald and Roger Cohen, to name only three which come to mind at this moment.  But indeed they and the less public bloggers are many, if not legion.


To call Israel a "democracy" is to use a word which can only be described as an oxymoron at best. How can  a country be a democracy when it treats a huge block of its citizens and residents, the Palestinians, as second class citizens at best, denying them the rights accorded to its Jewish citizens.  It is a Jewish state, not a democracy. 

Update:  Here is Joshua Holland's wonderful  and trenchant piece on the problem of criticizing Israel.
"We give up .Please give us an acceptable way of insulting you---------" is aimed at AIPAC which excoriates anyone who dares to criticize Israel. 

Leanderthal

A Most Dangerous Fella

Eric Alterman tells us here about Sheldon Adelson's Israeli hard line support and how he has bought Gingrich's loyalty to that position, which is 180 degrees from the position Gingrich had publicly stated before becoming Adelson's prostitute.

Even though it seems Gingrich's rocket has flamed out this is still a story which people who think should read; a story of how people with huge egos and huge bankrolls can buy influence right here in River City.

Leanderthal

Crying Wolf----Again

Here's an opinion piece which makes sense by exposing the right wing war hawk Neocons for crying wolf again.

Leanderthal

A Fellow Voice Crying in the Wilderness

Here's Glenn Greenwald's lonely cry in the wilderness about the sacrifice of American liberties at the altar of hyped domestic terrorist  threats.

This point of view deserves to be, and needs to be, shouted out all over America.  You can help give this its needed hearing by being outspoken on the issue with your circle of friends and acquaintances. 

Those who stand to make huge profits by promoting and prosecuting endless war are the real enemies of American democracy.  They are collectively called Neocons, and are the loudest voices in the cry for uncritical support of Israel at any cost.  They want America to support Israel in the bombing of Iran, a country which  has not invaded another country in recent history, and which is not suicidal enough to attack Israel. 

Good Grief!!! Geesh!! Speak UP!!! Make your voice heard outside the wilderness. 

Leanderthal

Fool Me Once--------

Full me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me.  It seems to me that this old maxim is the take away message from the Hill poll mentioned in Kevin Drum's post today.

Read here how easy it still seems to be to fool human beings into supporting, even clamoring for, war.
Shame on the Neocons and shame on us.

It's in the genes. Maybe someday, eons from now, a mutant gene in the ageless process of evolution will emerge which will change all that. Survival of the fittest will benefit those humans in our homo sapien, sapien species who eschew violence. 

The news media will fight it though.  Everyone getting along doesn't sell. 

Leanderthal

How's This For Straight Talk?

Tom Toles labels space colonies "lunacy".

The point is we're stuck here on Earth, so we need
to clean it  up.

Leanderthal

Exposing the Self-Serving Cynicism of the Israeli Right Wing

Here's Juan Cole's excellent essay on the cynical, self-serving propaganda of the hard line Israelis and their Israel-first American conspirators. 

This point of view needs to be made known and exposed widely.

Leanderthal