3:43 PM
Me.

Posted by: juannie | Nov 26 2004 20:44 utc | 4

The democrat opposition to Bush in the US is fake *while for sure many millions believe in it.* The D party is paid for and held by corporate interests (look it up please, while that is still possible…) and Kerry was a two-bit actor, a sham, clumsily playing a part.
A low-down blue-blood buddy, not at risk, willing to perform (millionaire in his own right through marriage), a subservient, friendly, helpful team mate. Willing to do a favor for his friends.
The D’s cannot negate the American dream. It is impossible.
They cannot call for rationing of energy (No SUVS! No more Mac Mansions!), or higher worker salaries (collapse of slave-worker bizness emporia!) or to lift the 35 million under the poverty line up (Huh, them lazy people?), or for universal health care (what that? ..), or anything like that. No..
Or call for the stopping the bloody shattering murder of children, old ladies, helpless teenagers, on pavements or fields in foreign lands.
That D’s cannot do, did not do, will not do.
(Kerry did not. He was chosen according to proper procedure.)
They can’t do it because there is only one thing that is keeping the US afloat – its military might.
That military might acts not only through direct action or influence (we all know the nukes will be used, that will happen, it is just a question of time…) but also indirectly, through the perpetual movement of capital in the miltary-industrial complex.
To continue having its powerful effect, it must act, must bomb, must attack, must show force, determination, even madness.

Posted by: Blackie | Nov 26 2004 23:33 utc | 6

To add briefly to the above post:
Every nation’s history and “soul” is developed over some centuries, and what makes a nation tick is very hard for an outsider to understand.
European analyses from the left or right, do not quite hit the mark, when applied to the United States, just as our analysis of European politics is flawed in the same fashion: We don’t live in and have intimate knowledge of the country we are talking about.
Enough from me. Last think I wanted to do was contribute to “the night of the long knives”, tonight.

Posted by: FlashHarry | Nov 27 2004 0:55 utc | 8

i like hearing what europeans think, broad strokes, finer brush, whatever

Posted by: annie | Nov 27 2004 10:43 utc | 10

“We don’t live in and have intimate knowledge of the country we are talking about.”
Not living in a nation does not preclude having intimate knowledge of its ways.
I’m not European and I think Blackie has a valid argument. I’ve come to see the two parties as opposite faces of the same coin – corporatism.
As long as politicians derive their power from corporations and not the people as was intended, America, or any other nation, can never have a soul.
It will remain the military industrial machine, the maw it has become.
I’m not sure an evil material god, and a good spiritual god are what was intended, but rather the parties are convergent not divergent in their goals, resulting in somewhat irrelevant elections.
Unfortunately, those goals have no one’s best interest in mind but their own.
I hope America finds it soul soon, before the FTA allows it to suck up all the energy and water. And so that millions more people don’t have to be fed into the maw.

Posted by: gmac | Nov 27 2004 14:15 utc | 12

Gee Helen,
Nice to see you have returned.
I sometimes in moments of rage have thoughts that Lester was a hero and I’d be well advised to adopt his methods but I think the tactics of Gandhi or MLK offer more hope for the survival of the species.
However I do in the deepest and most honest part of my heart hold some begrudging respect for those who like Lester fought the corrupt, callous and brutal system the best way they knew how.
BTW, has Lester joined you again in this incarnation?

Posted by: juannie | Nov 27 2004 19:54 utc | 14

…speaking of murderous criminals and banks…
So, who else knew about the coup in E.G?
Britain was given a full outline of an illegal coup plot in a vital oil-rich African state, including the dates, details of arms shipments and key players, several months before the putsch was launched, according to confidential documents obtained by The Observer.
But, despite Britain’s clear obligations under international law, Jack Straw, who was personally told of the plans at the end of January, failed to warn the government of Equatorial Guinea.
The revelations about the coup, led by former SAS officer Simon Mann and allegedly funded in part by Sir Mark Thatcher, son of the former Prime Minister, will put increasing pressure on the Foreign Secretary to make a full statement in Parliament about exactly what the UK government knew of the putsch and when they knew it.
…and The Pentagon knew…
…and wasn’t Bush’s Uncle Jonathan, CEO of Riggs Bank? …yes, he was…
Equatorial Guinea provides 350,000 barrels of oil per day to the American market and it is three American oil firms who do the business: Marathon, Amereda Hess and Exxon.
(Amereda Hess was where 9-11 investigator, Thomas Kean, was parked until he was called forth for damage control over the monkey reading “The Pet Goat” while New York screamed…and, as Fortune Magazine noted, Amereda Hess also has Saudi Khalid bin Mahfouz on board…baby BCCI anyone?)
The dictator’s money is stashed away in one of Washington DC’s oldest and most august institutions, Riggs Bank, which every so often invites him to a nice dinner in the capital. Riggs was recently bought out by the PNC Financial Services Group, but is still sweating under a welter of governmental and quasi-governmental investigations relating to bribery, money laundering, violations of US security law and so on. Not all of these investigations – which include a grand jury investigation – relate to the bank’s dealings with Obiang. The authorities are also interested in some of Riggs’s other customers – namely

General Pinochet,[got his assets frozen today…cold day in hell coming?] a bunch of wealthy Saudis and indeed the World Muslim League. It seems that Riggs failed to file any suspicious activity reports for almost five years – these reports relate to financial transactions which might reasonably arouse suspicion.
[Probably because the money was routed through a branch of Riggs in the Bahamas where no one actually works.]
A cheque cleared by two of the September 11 hijackers was traced to Riggs and this has, retrospectively at least, aroused a little suspicion. There is some disquiet about the World Muslim League, a charitable organisation with which one Osama bin Laden was once associated.

Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 28 2004 4:57 utc | 16

I used to be a Riggs customer. My wife and l lived right behind the Tenley Town branch. It was really nice because the ATM was practically right outside our door. I love their Georgetown branch, tre swanky.

Posted by: Stoy | Nov 28 2004 5:57 utc | 18

The Riggs Bank info dovetails with Sibel Edmonds’ allegations very nicely. I think the problem is that almost EVERYONE would be implicated. It’s like a mutually assured destruction arrangement, with everybody having something devastating on everyone else.If you’re familiar with BCCI, it was a similar deal…both parties, bigshots from all over the place…everybody who was anybody, just about, was in bed with those folks.Good ol’ Senator Lurch Kerry had to work his ass off to get that investigation going, and although his final report was admirable it never led to anything much on the legal front.And wasn’t the m.a.d. thesis straight out of the President Reagan era? But she can’t tell us, and the congressmen she has turned to are cowards…
Riggs Bank-Bush stuff
this and who has since been gagged and had her Info retroactively classifyied could she be refering to President Bush’s uncle Jonathan Bush and the Riggs Bank $25 million fine for a “willful, systemic” violation of anti-money-laundering laws? Nah, of course not. But if you wanna take her advice Follow the Money

Posted by: Uncle $cam… | Nov 28 2004 8:52 utc | 20

@Faux:
Where oh where is Morkie Thatcher?

Posted by: FlashHarry | Nov 28 2004 11:24 utc | 22

That’s a very interesting speculation…that Edmonds’ accusations are related to Riggs…considering their money laundering for other “semi-legit” organizations and people.
I welcome European views about the U.S. All we hear in the U.S. for the most part is rhetoric from the right and the extreme right and that’s supposed to represent a choice.
plus, I give my views aboutother places, knowing I don’t fully understand them, but how can I understand them if I don’t try to talk about what’s going on and get feedback?
I wanted, I needed to hold to the idea that the dems could offer something better, if not entirely different than Bush. But, I’d say there are maybe half a dozen people at most representing Americans in government who offer something somewhat different, and none of them can expect to win anything beyond their districts…at least not at this time, and probably never.
There is a significant portion of the population in America that is very right wing, and this is reflected in all of our instititutions. They do not believe in tolerance or compromise, and we will not see that here in the current government.
Can any western European nation also claim a third of their population that would be considered reactionary right wing?
It seems the percentage is different, but I’m not sure.
This is what makes the U.S. fundamentally (sic) different than any other western democracy, it seems to me. It’s the only thing, because of the ways in which this percentage influences all policies of the U.S.
But maybe I’m wrong.
However, this thought is what makes me think that the only way for me to survive here is to further reject the status quo, the received wisdom, the idea that this nation is one…because the only way it can be one with the reactionaries if it is their way.
In other words, the way I feel about a third of the population is that they can go fuck themselves. That’s how they feel toward me, although the words they would use are different, and that’s why I think it’s ridiculous to think about trying to change America until this nation destroys itself from within, which is also what I think we happen, because of the greed and fear that feed the extreme right.
who knows how many of us we be destroyed along with them.

Posted by: fauxreal | Nov 29 2004 0:29 utc | 24

Stoy, I really don’t want to see you in jail, or have MoA raided by Secret Service, so puhhhhhleeeeease, you know the laws………It’s obvious you’re not a violent person, but certain conventions MUST be obeyed.
Anyway, if it makes you feel better, remember, the figurehead is the least important – he is no Hitler. The turd’s just the Alfie Newman sticker affixed to the window of the Oval Office. They could put a dog in there & the same policies would be followed by this Mob. Cheney, Frist….the Machinery is Being Built…..if Pres-elect Kerry isn’t inaugurated, they’ll have the judiciary so packed w/Fascists & theocrats…..hell, they could run Nobody for Pres. & we’d still be totally fucked. This is not 1984 the Year, it’s 1984 the Reality that’s being constructed.

Posted by: Name | Nov 29 2004 4:12 utc | 26

Flash: You mean, this game? The score was something like 25.000/1.500. Trashing indeed, and mostly done by pikemen, like the Macedonians of Philip II. That was the end of Burgundy, whose army was destroyed and whose treasury was lost in the war – the biggest loot Europeans got between the sack of Constantinople in 1204 and the conquest of Mexico; Nancy was just the literal final nail in Charles’ coffin, killed when fighting some of his own. All this much to the delight of scheming Louis XI, who was too glad to push Burgundy to fight the insane Swiss.

Posted by: CluelessJoe | Nov 29 2004 11:38 utc | 28