The Economics of Money And Banking

Economics is a science in name only. The field was created to study the wonder of industrialization in England around 1800. One of the founders was Thomas Malthus. Later in his life Malthus was a friend and muse of Harriet Martineau who wrote about how British capitalists were the new paragons of social brilliance. The problem with dear Harriet was her deafness. Certainly she was very attentive to Malthus when she met with him near the end of his life. But note that Malthus had a cleft pallet so how could Harriet not have misreported Malthus sage and sad predictions of population explosion and subsequent direness for the common man.

That nudge of history reminds this writer of Ronnie Reagan who during his eight year White House sleepover was completely without short and long term memory because of degenerative dementia. Understanding the modern art of economics requires a quick wit and a profound memory. To help the old guy think more clearly, Reagan's handlers called up a muse and monetarist from Chicago named Milton Friedman. Note that the term "monetarist" signifies a base interest in all things banking. Just like Harriet Martineau, Friedman listened to some mentor Malthus through a horn vaguely and wrote it all down for the reverent press and republican sycophants. Ronnie and all the Reaganistes declared that a fanatical "Trickle Down" doctrine was the new apotheosis forever and ever for the entire economy of our great nation. Kaiser Ronnie and his rightwing gang practically canonized Friedman. And the Marine Band seductively played "Hail To The Chief" as the chauvinistic, amnesic media all jumped on the wagon.

Now three decades later, Bennie Bernanke sounds a lot like Ronnie Reagan. But Bennie knows his math and he can remember most things it seems. So maybe Bennie is like Ronnie and he is unable to hear the cries of the regular people out there in fields and in what's left of their factories. Last night on CBS Sixty Minutes show Bernanke said:

"The unemployment rate is just not going down … unemployment is just about the same as it was in mid 2009 when the economy started growing, And it looks that at current rates that it may take some years before the unemployment rate is back down to more normal levels. ... At the rate we are going it could be four or five years before we are back to a more normal unemployed net rate, somewhere in the vicinity of say five or six percent."

What's wrong here? The problem is that the Fed and the White House under both Bush and Obama decided to bail out and protect all the guys on Wall Street and the giant banks like Bank of America and Citi and Chase and Wells Fargo. Remember that it is rarely stated but the real reason that Merrill Lynch was taken over by Bank of America was to speed up and lubricate the lending of money to the failing stock broker. In essence Merrill Lynch became a bank under the US Federal Reserve system. Some estimates set the cost of the bank bail out at four trillion dollars.

Helping all those huge financial corporations avoid going belly up was good. But here's the real Bad, Big Problem with all of that: They should have bailed out the regular working people first. How? The government should have spent the four trillion dollars on a massive infrastructure program across the nation. That way people can get back to work much quicker than what is happening. Give the people a paycheck. Let them build high speed rail and subways and fix the potholes and build wind generators and solar power stations and on and on. This is not to forget or diminish the automotive industry bailout that is still an ongoing good solution. It made jobs and not just spurts of consumption.

Give a guy a fish, and he can eat for a day. Give a guy a fishing pole and line, and he can eat until the fish stop biting. Give the nation some tools and some infrastructure and the economy can grow for a long, long time.

But the sad truth of our economic problems is that the Giant Banks sit on their money while their CEOs and Chairmen decide exactly how to divvy up their windfalls from the US Treasury and the Federal Reserve Bank. Warren Buffett needs more donuts for his Gulfstream Netjet and the B of A CEO Kenneth Lewis needs more lounge chairs at his place in Florida.

The banks are not our friends. They are essentially our enemies. We must stop throwing money at them hoping the multiplier effect will give us a new job. This is nuts. This is backwards. The media blitz we endure constantly from the banks is enough to indicate that there is a lie within their media massages.

Have not regular citizens the ability to raise the economy? Give them a chance and they will. The banks don't give a spit in the ocean about the regular people of America. The big banks are corporations. Businesses. They want to make a lot of money. They make their money on the backs of regular people of the USA. It is time to reverse the way the government has financed the financials.

Jumping The Shark With Sister Sarah

Sarah Palin 2007

In TV writer lingo, "Jumping the shark" signifies the episode where the series started downhill in the ratings leading directly to it's eventual death, i.e. cancellation by the network. The shark came from one segment in "Happy Days" when the Fonzi character literally jumped a shark in the water while water skiing. After that segment was aired the ratings tanked.

When did Sister Sarah Palin jump the shark? Maybe it was when she testified in Knoxville? Or maybe it was the shout out: "Drill, Baby Drill!" Or when she endorsed the loser, Joe Miller in the Senate race up there in her former home state? It could be the first Travel Channel airing of her "Death Valley Days Alaska Show." That show is certainly a political maneuver for Sister Sarah following the publicity pattern of blue blood republican Ronald Reagan's 1960's TV show "Death Valley Days." An old friend in D.C. once told me that Death Valley show was key to Reagan becoming a national political icon. The show transformed Reagan into a cowboy father figure from the far west to most Americans. Sister Sarah is attempting to do the same. The difference is that the former governor from Alaska has been stepping on many sensitive toes of the old Republican guard. Such behavior will certainly lead Sister Sarah to sing "The Someday Blues." "Someday maybe she can be the pres. Someday maybe she can be the tops. Someday maybe she can make more bucks."

And there it is. It looks like Sister Sarah is in it for the money and the celebrity just like many in the national political arena. But that's not what the old Tea Baggers want. They want the entire government, and the USA, to look like the 2011 US Senate. No Black people. No power for anyone except the white corporate shills of some other era.

And in another era there is precedent for this. Look at the populist William Jennings Bryan of the early 1900's. Bryan defended the hardshell religious people who would hear not of apes and science but only of an unseen god and the bible of the Jews and King James. Bryan ended up selling lots down in Coral Gables, Florida. Maybe Sister Sarah can find a slot on Home Shopping Network for Alaska Bearskin products. Anyway it was nice seeing you Sister. Now please get off the cable nets. The fickle USA audience is now looking elsewhere for their nostrum for fear.

William Jennings Bryan 1910

Liars & Losers & Fascists

Father Charles Edward Coughlin (1891 – 1979)

The republicans and other liars and losers have almost succeeded. They have almost shown how democracy can be subverted in our nation. In so doing over the last thirteen months the republicans have proven at least two things: they are all "L"s (put the hand sign on your forehead) as in Losers, and they are all "L"s (again on the forehead) as in Liars. One guy who was a speech writer for W. Bush was fired from his job at the Heritage Foundation (a republican loser org) because he said that the republican party was controlled by Fox News.

The little queen of Fox News, Glenda Beck ran a story about Father Coughlin recently. A Wikipedia post said "Beck was criticized for calling 'Social Justice' a code word used by churches after airing a piece on Coughlin on March 11, 2010 which associated the term 'Social Justice' with Coughlin's publication of the same name and Coughlin's fascist politics following the American nazi Fritz Kuhn of the 1930s."

Father Coughlin is apparently admired by Beck. Just like Beck, Coughlin was an adamant loud-mouthed opponent of Communism who reached an audience of millions. In the late 1930s Coughlin slammed President Roosevelt as a socialist and a tool of the "international Jewish conspiracy." Sounds just like Beck's lies about President Obama.

Father Coughlin was bankrolled to a large extent by Henry Ford. Yes the Henry Ford, the good old inventor of production lines who got cheap labor from the American south to cheaply build his inventive autos. Like Father Coughlin, Glenda Beck and his celebrity commentator gang at Fox News are bankrolled by a latter day billionaire, Rupert Murdoch.

Rupert Murdoch comes from a wealthy, privileged newspaper family down in Melbourne, Australia. Murdoch's News Corporation is a darling of the New York stock exchange this past year because the stock value has shot up by over one hundred percent. It is true that most of that increase was due to the great success of the "Avatar" movie.

Having no youthful avatar for himself, Murdoch may be a desiccated old guy, but he is acutely aware to the extent that he knows well the math of making money. What Murdoch may not fully realize is that Fox News's content looks a lot like propaganda. Fox News's content is not spin. It is full of lies. Just like some politicians in the US Congress the celebrity commentators on Fox News simply lie where it serves their purpose. Lies like this are propaganda. The same propaganda that the fascists in Germany smeared across Europe in the 1930's. Murdoch may truthfully believe that the words of Fox News do not have that much impact because he is from a privileged socio-economic class that embraces a similar sort of discourse as light and carefree small talk in the afternoon served with mint juleps and lemonade on the manor house veranda.

Almost beyond belief, in the real world out on the highways of fly-over America there are many partially educated, privileged people who rigidly believe the lies that are put before them as truth on Fox News. These people and tea baggers and other loud-mouthed gangs all get their truth from Fox News. CNN and other news orgs deliriously follow these people, their gangs and their meetings across the land. It apparently makes good news when some populist loser raves on and on using lies heard on Fox News. Even on the floor of the US Senate comes lines of Fox News liars and losers and fascists. Mitch "Mr. Magoo" McConnell stated the other day that President Obama's proposed bill to regulate Wall Street is a "big government give-away." That is a lie. Mr. Magoo simply re-stated the lie of the day from the losers and fascists at Fox News.

It is PR 101 (Public Relations 101) game strategy to keep repeating the same lie over and over again, and eventually the people you are targeting will believe the lie as truth. But this remains a lie. The celebrity commentators on Fox News and the populist darlings are all telling lies. They are liars. And they are probably fascists because they keep telling the same lies. In their exquisite denial, these losers continue repeating the same lies to themselves and anyone who will listen.

Most of the celebrities on Fox News are fascists and liars and losers. Anyone who believes ten percent of what the Fox News celebrity commentators are saying is supporting fascism and liars and losers. They are fascists and they are liars and they are losers. Dick Morris is a fascist and a liar and a loser. Glenda Beck is a fascist and a liar and a loser. Dick Cheney is a fascist and a liar and a loser without a heartbeat. Karl Rove is a fascist and a liar and a loser. Get the liars and losers and fascists off the air waves. Complain to the sponsors who buy the time for ads. Give the tea baggers the "L" hand sign. Give Murdoch the "L" hand sign. Spread the truth.

Sarah Palin Seen in Video at the Voyeur Club

Fresh on the heels of the $2000 scandal, Foxnews just ran a headline that a security camera video at the entrance to the Voyeur Club in West Hollywood recorded the original Girl-Gone-Vogue, SARAH PALIN with the RNC group.

A representative for PALIN, political consultant ERIK BROWN has refused to answer questions about the veracity of this story.

Meanwhile PALIN made an appearance dressed in black leather at a Utah gathering of the Tea Baggers. PALIN denied the video tapes saying, "The videos were falsely created by a group of Hollywood socialists to discredit her stand against communism and muslims in America."

At a press conference in Scottsdale, Arizona's SENATOR JOHN MCCAIN disavowed any further affiliation with the former Alaska governor. In a private interview with the Phoenix Press Ledger newspaper, MCCAIN stated PALIN's support just wasn't working out for him.

MCCAIN also said PALIN's values were not in keeping with the moral high ground of republicans across the nation, and that PALIN still owes an unstated amount of money to MCCAIN for his endorsement of her on the 2008 republican vice-presidential ticket.

So, ... APRIL FOOLS from Martinshushu!

But it sure could be true, couldn't it?

Kristallnacht in our century?

Almost unbelievably, an old Alabama Redneck in a button-down shirt has called on all true Americans to throw rocks through the windows of democratic party offices anywhere in the nation. The other night some like-minded bonehead in upstate New York actually did throw a brick though the front glass at the local democratic party. Other windows were broken in other places across the nation within a day or two.

Tonight Rachel Maddow ran a story on MSNBC about this Redneck. He got the publicity that he wanted through that airing I'm sure. This Redneck got his five minutes of fame. Rachel Maddow was truly disturbed by the guy and his agenda of rocks for democrats and for Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.

Since the Civil war, the American south and west have regrettably given life to many deranged rednecks like this guy. The redneck could even be in government. Like Texas Representative Randy Neugebauer, known as the "Babykiller"screamer. Or the junior Senator from Oklahoma, Tom Coburn who threatens revenge on any lowly Representative who votes with other House democrats for health care. Those slightly sleazy government rednecks would probably laugh this Redneck off with a "Ho, ho ho." and a "Hah, hah, hah."

Neugebauer would probably say "He's really harmless. Don't worry. No one'll listen to him."

Is that what you would say about the dozens of Branch Davidians in Waco who were killed in the fire begun by their psychotic leader, Koresh.

Or Coburn would probably say "He's just a misguided old farmer. He's not one of those Arab terrorists that Cheney and Bush warned us about."

Is that what you said about Timothy McVeigh, Senator Coburn?

Get real. This Redneck guy is a terrorist, and worse, he is a traitor. This Redneck is as dangerous as the kluxers who murdered the three civil rights workers in Mississippi in 1964. This Redneck is as deadly as James Earl Ray who murdered Martin Luther King. This Redneck walks and talks and spews revenge just like Timothy McVeigh who bombed the Federal building in Tulsa or Koresh from the cult in Waco. This Redneck rages just like a Brownshirt from the Wiemar Republic just before the National Socialists took over in Germany in the 1930s.

This Redneck is a fascist. He advocates violence against all people of different political beliefs than he. He wants his followers to break windows on the 19th of April. That was the day McVeigh killed all the people in the Tulsa building. This must stop now. His name is Mike Vanderboegh. He lives outside of Birmingham. He has a blog calling for violence just like the brownshirts of Germany did in Kristallnacht in another century.

Please note here that I was born, raised and educated in the American South. I have a New Orleans accent. Many of my forebears were rednecks and farmers. Some were educated and a bit enlightened and some not. Over many years, I have avowed many times my fidelity and love for this legendary part of America.

My Father and five Uncles served in the war that stopped the brownshirts in Europe and their counterparts in Asia. A lot of truly good men died in that war. True heroes and patriots. Later, other brothers and friends of mine were heroes because they put their lives on the line against the rednecks who bombed churches and murdered people in the south in civil rights times.

Where is the FBI? This Redneck is calling for terrorist actions. He and his followers are terrorists who drive pickups and carry pistols for pretense. He and his followers are an atrocity in the making. They must be stopped now.

His name is Mike Vanderboegh. He lives outside of Birmingham. He has a blog calling for violence just like the brownshirts of Germany did in Kristallnacht in another century.

If you want, the FBI's telephone number in Washington is (202) 278-2000.

Money Talks...

Jean-Baptiste Say (1767-1832)

"Money talks, bullshit walks." That little piece of good advice was taught to me many years ago by a savvy New York movie producer. Government and Money lead to a problem: Why is it that any form of money like a kwai, a pound, a yen, or a buck has no real identification? Therein is a truth that goes deeper than the silk-laced paper note in your wallet, the balance in your Quicken check register, or the absolute value of your biggest asset. Some money has also been called a quid, or a shilling, or an RMB, or a sou. But money has no name really. No name at all.

There's no DNA to money. There's no address to money.

Money is secret. Money is hidden. Money is encrypted. Money is not transparent.

Money travels where it wants to go without question.

Money is a John Doe with a passport to anywhere.

The anonymity of money is the reason we have the drug trade and the drug lords in Afghanistan and Colombia. Anonymity is also the reason we have Wall Street Goodfellas who pay themselves bonuses of millions and millions of US dollars. That no name money can be quickly and easily hidden away in any amount. All those unknown, mysterious Goodfellas must hold discretely numbered bank accounts in Switzerland, or the Bahamas, or Singapore. If no name money was invented in the last century, the CIA and the NSA certainly would have been the originators of the brand to expedite their nefarious schemes across the world.

Now some history of economics. No name money is the reason we have modern economic theory going all the way back to Jean-Baptiste Say (whose name was a tip of the hat to his protestant upbringing in a nation of papists) and to Adam Smith and his "The Wealth of Nations" and to Harriet Martineau and all the other early philosophers. In 1803 Say said that "in the market place money is completely neutral," and in Econ-101-speak "Good money always drives Bad money from the market place." This is also known as Gresham's Law, but it actually goes way back to classical Greek drama in a play called "The Frogs" by Aristophanes.

Jean-Baptiste Say thought of the economy as a product-driven market place. By all rights and by the grace of our godly traditions, our modern market place has transformed itself into a no name money-driven one.

Our no name money-driven market place is guided by unseen no name monetary policies from people like Milton Friedmann and Alan Greenspan the powerful purveyors of laissez-faire everything.

To record no name money amounts in our world we use discrete numbers as in discrete mathematics. That means you must have an integer value for your bucks. That is 1, 2, 3, 4 and so on. It's like a stairway: one step to the next is a jump of some discrete amount. There is nothing in between stair number one and stair number two. So an amount of US$ 25.00 cannot be smaller or larger than the zero cents at the end of the figure except for some US property taxes in "mils" or tenths of a cent. US$ 25.00 is exactly twenty five bucks and nothing else. It's like one of the ten commandments from the Muslim-Christian-Judeo sutras. It is what it is, and you better not change one "i" or one "t" or else.

Some of our Know Nothing republicans in Washington who strive to stop health reform have named some no name money as "Good" and some no name money as "Bad." They affirm that they cannot vote for the present bill because it provides for government sponsored abortions. But that is incorrect because the present bill states that you can make two different payments for your health insurance. The first "Good Money" payment excludes reproductive health care. A second, separate "Bad Money" payment can be made for the reproductive policy. That separate policy may provide for abortions if needed.*

So by the new Say's law of the land, we now have two different kinds of money: buck #1 ("Good Money") provides for a strange, religiously correct health care that meets the pompous demands of our Cheap-rent "C" Street Ticklers coalition. And another buck #2 ("Bad Money") can be used to buy a policy that allows for coverage for an abortion, if needed, and other female abdominal procedures.

This is counting angels on the head of a pin. This is mediaeval. This is a little nuts.

What all this goes to is the anonymity of money. We need to get money out in the open for a good airing. And some re-naming. No hiding it in a numbered account. No working around the rules.

We need to see clearly how much money is controlled by each and every person in public office in the entire nation. Otherwise you cannot run office. And we need to require the shareholders of every financial corporation in the United States to closely regulate how much money the execs pay themselves. The shareholders. Not the executives.

And the no name money those financial executives control is to be named and it is to be clearly open for public viewing.

We need to stop transfers of no name money to off-shore banks for the purpose of hiding the no name money.

We need to open the books of non-profit corporations like every religious org so that the public can see why we are granting those orgs special dispensations like no taxes.

The way to do all this is to name the no name money. Everyone wants privacy. But not everyone can have it. Sorry, the good of the nation is at stake here.

* Remember "Separate but Equal" schools for black and white people under the infamous Plessy vs. Ferguson ruling by the racist US Supreme court in the 1890's.

Hardscrabble Economics Part III

THE YEAR OF THE TIGER

2010

Looking at 2010, the year of the tiger, let us now have some light of reason about China and the Chinese people. How will our nation deal with the nation of China in the world market place? All the people of the world are watching and judging the products and services of our nation.

While some republicans and many myopic entertainment news people here in the USA endlessly debate the merits of "big" government the Chinese continue to pump up their infrastructure and invest in the future of their nation. The historical record gives us a fitting name for those old guard republicans who delight in obstructing our government. In the 1850's the republicans proudly called themselves "Know Nothings."

Some Chinese people I knew in Beijing in 2007 told me that infrastructure was the most important priority for their nation. There is talk by some USA cable news pundits that the Chinese economy will certainly soon "stall." Believe me, there is zero chance that the Chinese people will allow their economy to "stall." Just like the people of the USA, the people of China simply want a better life for themselves and their families.

In our recent past we have a capitalism of government financed research into things like high-tech devices and high-speed communication and high-speed transportation. The good old gigantic US government invested in NASA (1958), and DARPA (1958), and the interstate highway system (1956). NASA gave us integrated circuits. DARPA gave us the internet. And we all must have driven forever on the Interstate commuting somewhere here or there.

All this came about under the guidance of our good, genuine Soldier-Politician, President Eisenhower.

Ike was our last helpful republican in the oval office.

Yes, we do miss him don't we? Good old Ike oversaw the rise to imperium of the iconic, capitalistic American military-industrial complex.

While our Tea Party people and Know-Nothing republicans sling slurs and pose for the cable TV news the Chinese are building... not debating... a new high-speed rail system of thousands of miles to link all the major cities of their entire nation.

What do those Tea Party and Know-Nothing types want for us here in the USA?

Those "keep-our-government-little-so-our-small-minds-can-easily-understand" types have only allowed the congress to budget a few miles of high-speed rail from Tampa to Orlando, Florida probably as lip service to Disney World and Mickey Mouse.

So is our dear old USA doomed to downsize into something more "mouselike" if we continue down this path of fear and denial of thinking and doing the big ideas? Now more than at any time in the history of our republic do we need all the people to think big. The modern world is a strongly competitive place. We as a people must raise the bar and strongly get moving into the future.

If Some Don't Give A Damn About Climate Change Then Try This...

Dear Zachary,

First, note that most of the statistics below came from the obstructionist, right-wing, Know-Nothing republican Senator Dick Lugar from the great state of Indiana. For a time in the 1920's and 1930's, Indiana made the Klu Klux Klan a household word in the good old USA.

It was there in 1924 that daunting republican and proud Klan member Edward L. Jackson was resoundingly elected Governor.

So the terrorist Klan was a lot like our modern Tea Baggers and Know-Nothings. They all gleefully sport alabaster white capuchos, flaunt racist banners, carry deadly weapons, and vainly call out for lynching any weaker rivals.*

Thank you for bringing up the very, very important subject of our nation's energy consumption hidden in all the hoop-la about climate change even if the row is fomented by Tea-Baggers and Know-Nothing republicans.

For a minute, let's forget climate change. We may not last long enough to freeze to death or some satanic alternative.

What needs to be looked at is our importing foreign nations oil. Clean Energy Fuels Corp. founder T. Boone Pickens** has stated it over and over again that we need to do something quickly about oil imports because the money that is running out of our nation is a disaster in the making.

By one study of 2006 the US consumes about 20.7 million barrels of oil a day.

Now it's a little less but still around 20 million barrels per day.

Do the arithmetic: 20,000,000 x US$80.05 (Kitco's Price / Crude Oil) = US$1,601,000,000.

Okay that's about US$1.6 Billion per day.

Now for the problem: We import about 13 million barrels per day of the above amount consumed. For one year that is 13,000,000 x 365 days per year = 4,745,000,000 barrels per year imported. That comes to US$379,837,250,000 or about US$380,000,000,000.

That's US$380 Billion per year.

According to one source, for 2006 we imported about 13% of our total oil from Saudi Arabia, and another 11% of our total oil from Venezuela. And don't forget that we are paying another 10% for yearly imports from Nigeria. That's US$38,000,000,000 or US$38 Billion to Nigeria.

That means we good old boys are paying about US$49,400,000,000 or about US$49.4 Billion to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia each and every year.

Just remember the money that financed old Osama Bin Laden and his gang came from there, plus the Hamas boys, Al-Qaeda in Yemen, and only Allah knows who else.

Thank you very much King Abdallah and subjects.

We are paying the nation of Venezuela US$41,800,000,000 each and every year.

So the old "Stalinist" Chavez is getting paid about US$41.8 Billion out of our poor capitalist pockets every year.

And surely we know that old Chavez uses the cash to foment more "Stalinist" revolution all over South America and the Caribbean.

And even worse, we literally paid for that Captain Christmas kid from Lagos, Nigeria to go and get re-educated and gussied up by the Al-Qaeda guys in Yemen.

So? Are we all sleeping? Is America sleeping, again?

The Know-Nothing republicans need to believe in Climate Change for no other reason than to cut back on paying gobs of our money to a faraway midiaeval King.

Or to a rag-tag bunch of SA Stalinists.

Or to Captain Christmas for his TNT tights.

So what now Tea Baggers and Know-Nothings? Did not the great American patriots of yore throw off the chains of servitude to a faraway evil King?

Old Tom Paine would certainly say that only fools choose not to defy the chains of oppression, correct?

Don't tread on me and all, right?

Right.

We need to get extreme about fuel consumption by cars and trucks or we will suffer in the near future.

And we need to do this now. We cannot continue to deny the reality of our world oil trade.

If we continue in our denial the children of our children will refer to our ignorance as the great horror of the 21st century.

Best regards,

Your Dad Martinshushu

PS: * Please see the Comment by Gerald Hoke following.

PSS: ** T. Boone Pickens is a good libertarian-type-republican. In the 2008 election cycle he granted republican candidates US$37,200 to help the conservative cause. And please note that in fairness, and to hedge his bets, and because he does a lot of business in those states, he did contribute about US$20,000 total to democratic candidates in Colorado and New Mexico.

PSSS: One last thought son, in the 1950's the WWII General and republican US president Dwight Eisenhower reminded us that "The heart of darkest America is in the Mid-West." Ike, of course, was talking about Indiana or thereabouts.

The Five Minute Window of the Cold War and Blowback in the Timeline of Recent History

Explaining A New American Traitor:

Dick Cheney

"Who do we bomb now? Why not Cambodia?"

 Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld asked Henry Kissinger January 1969

Question: What came out of the massive secret US bombing of Cambodia in the Vietnam War?

Answer: Blowback in the form of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge and the deaths of two million Cambodians.

Question: Who stopped the Killing Fields of Cambodia?

Answer: Most reviled by the above gang of Know-Nothing republicans, Ho Chi Minh sent the Vietnamese army into Cambodia to stop the murders.

Fact: Blowback is synonymous with consequence.

Fact: If you kill people in some secret operation there almost certainly will be unforeseen consequences.

Fact: Dick Cheney spent no time in any branch of the Armed services, Intelligence services, or any other government service ever requiring him to be in harm's way as a consequence of volunteering.

Fact: Huey Long once said, "Fascism will come to America in the name of antifascism."

Based on my own experience, fascism may come to America in the name of national security.

Fact: The great actor and precise intellectual Raul Julia once said, "America's the greatest country. You can do anything you want here, but if you really start to make a difference they will kill you."

They certainly killed Huey Long and John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr. and Robert Kennedy. 

Fact: Dick Cheney learned about the world through some parochial dark lens of the paranoid, John Birch Society cold war chess games of the 1950s and the nuclear tête-à-têtes of the 1960s.

Fact: This background transformed Dick Cheney into a reactionary of the worst kind. Cheney believed that our nuclear armed nation needed to react to any threat with overwhelming force in a timeline of five minutes or less because the "Ruskies" are attacking us with the same stuff on the same timeline.

The Mutually Assured Destruction of strategic (read nuclear) weapons warfare.

Fact: Reagan, Cheney and Rumsfeld did not end the Cold War and tear down the Berlin Wall.

Fact: Mikhail Gorbachev ended the Cold War and tore down the Berlin Wall.

Fact: Read some of the Marxist theory that Gorbachev certainly studied in elementary school. To a good Marxist change is inevitable. To a USSR leader Mikhail Gorbachev revolutionary change is your duty to your society.  

Fact: To a good Know-Nothing republican change is something you get in the derivatives market.

Question: What Blowback is coming our way from Cheney and his gang of Know-Nothing republicans?

Answer: We citizens of a democratic USA need to find new ways of dealing with our adversaries across the planet.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

To that here are some excerpts from a speech by

US Green Party Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney

at a recent Munich, Germany Peace Rally.

Thanks to Victor Muh for the following translation from the original German language

"Thank you for allowing me to come from the United States and participate in this rally for peace.

My country has been hijacked by a criminal cabal intent on using the hard-earned dollars of the American people for war, occupation, and empire.

As a result, the national leadership of my country, both Democratic and Republican, became complicit in war crimes, torture, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the peace.

As a Member of Congress from the Democratic Party, I drafted Articles of Impeachment against George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Condoleezza Rice.

Later, when Democrats voted to support more war rather than take care of the needs of the people, I declared my independence from them and all national leadership.

The Green Party nominated me to run for President, which I did on a platform of truth, justice, peace, and dignity.

I watched as Candidate Barack Obama came here to Germany to speak. I saw tears on the faces of many in the crowd who believed that, finally, there was something worth believing in again.
That America had turned a page from its evil playbook that had so outraged and disappointed the world.

That good was finally about to triumph over evil.

I know that beleaguered people all over the world, victims of cruel and deadly military, economic, imperial policies finally could believe in hope and change.
And America could be believed in again.

Everywhere I went all over the world there were pictures of Barack Obama, slogans “Yes, We Can,” and the words “Hope” and “Change” plastered everywhere.

And after eight years of George W. Bush, Barack Obama seemed to be the man the world was waiting for.

So when the Candidate became the President, we held our breath in anticipation.

That torture and rendition; spying on innocent, dissenting Americans; war and occupation; crimes against the U.S. Constitution and crimes against the peace would end and that the United States would finally join the community of nations.

Sadly, one year into the Presidency of Barack Obama, that is not the case.

. . .

So what are we to do? Let us work together on behalf of truth, justice, peace, and dignity. I will struggle in the U.S. and I will struggle with you:

Not one more dime for war.

We can’t give in and we can’t give up. We must take our countries back."

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A notable comment about the 1969 Cambodia Bombing

Martinshushu,

Henry Kissinger gave the order for this mission stating essentially:
"Use anything that flies to bomb anything that moves"

Clearly, that is advocating genocide.

What if Slobodan Milosevic had said the same thing during the breakup of the former Yugoslavia?
Why was Kissinger not prosecuted for war-crimes?

Joey King

Member, National Board of Directors

Veterans for Peace

www.veteransforpeace.org