POWER CORRUPTS?

Old wisdom, or senile stupidity, has it, that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Now when it comes to absolute power corrupting, I agree if discussing the corruption level of religious leaders who always assume the power and absolute infallibility of the man-made god or prophet of their chosen human engineered religion. I find no ethically corrosive component to power, just the people who wield it. Having power, actually the use of power, and there is a vast difference between the two, act more as an ethical back lighting on a rheostat, the more power you use the more it lights up and stands out from the background. People, right or wrong, are always true to themselves, their core ethics and beliefs; and be sure that there is no direct correlation between the core values and the espoused values among politicians or religious leaders. people do not change, what changes is how much the real core beliefs in action are in plain view for all to see. Consider how often you hear the neighbors, friends, co-workers, and family say of serial killers/rapists or mass murderers , 'he/she was just an average church going family guy/gal I just can not imagine him/her doing anything like this'. The person has not changed, in the same way you can not be hypnotized into doing something you would other wise not do, the difference is a change in the threshold of inhibition and practicality. The same does not apply religious/cult brainwashing; remember the only difference between a cult and a religion is the amount of economic, political and social power they have, all the current major and minor religions in the world today began as anti-establishment cults persecuted until they had grown their economic,political and social power to the point that they could do the persecuting; where the ethical/moral definitions and required action/reaction to ethical/moral interpretation or disagreement are changed through indoctrination. An increase in power affords more opportunity to act on a 'to do list' that was previously impractical or unattainable not unthinkable or undesirable. All this bring me to what seem to be previously less active/acted upon aspects of the Obama agenda being moved in to brighter light of public/media scrutiny. Beginning on day one with the so called 'inclusive' act of having one of the most rabid homophobic attack dogs of the Christian Taliban, Rick Warren a potential criminal for violations of the laws prohibiting the use of church monies, property, or resources for political purposes and politicking from the pulpit for supporting California's Prop *; give an invocation during the Presidential Inauguration, the same kind of necessary desirable 'inclusiveness' as a KKK color guard at a White House Martin Luther King Memorial. This act of blatant homophobic endorsement gave Rick Warren enhanced status for his political agenda and no doubt enhanced his fund raising for future hate activities against Gays. There was the last minuet addition of the token Gay Anglican minister, obviously a back of the hand acknowledgement of the Gay money, work, and votes that helped Obama into the White House. It was also a perfectly predictable shame how the 'Gay' religious figure's invocation just happened to not be aired and was re-shown at the end of the Inauguration when with everyone leaving it would be unnoticed and unremarkable. And why does Obama insist on maintaining the Bush legalization of discrimination and proselytizing by Faith Based organizations receiving Federal tax dollars, none of which come from any religious organization, in clear violation of the legal restrictions incumbent upon any other recipient of Federal funding? For all the good Faith Based Organizations may do all that the Federal funds do is to free up these members of the Christian Taliban of America to use more of their monies for illegal political activities and promote discrimination and intolerance; which I am sure was Bush's reason, what is Obama's? Obama has said that he does not believe in 'Gay Marriage'. Wow! Until 1967 the United States Supreme Court and America did not believe in the marriage of Obama's parents, interracial was illegal in many states, could and did get people killed. Well I guess that nothing proves that your minority has achieved major civil rights quite like being able to step on the necks of another minority and prevent their realization of the same rights; just look at the percentage of African-American voters, 70% that voted to strip Gays of the right to marry that they already had in California! Obama campaigned on 'America as a nation of the rule of law with no one above the law', Ha! at present the Obama administration is not only protecting Bush and Cheney and their minions from investigation and criminal prosecution for war crimes, crimes against against humanity, abuse of power, criminal violations and assaults on the U.S. Constitution, criminal violations of U.S. laws, criminal violations of Treaties and Accords to which the Unite States of America is both author and signatory, but is also expanding legal protection for some. Obama campaigned against the illegal wiretaps of the Bush regime and now he and his 'Justice' department are not only defending their legality but expanding the scope of protection for what was done and those who did it. The Obama Justice Department, as in a departure from justice, is using the exact Bush bullshit 'national security' to protect those who tortured, those who ordered the torture and those who lied up fake legal get out of jail free opinions; this is particularly appalling given that 'just following orders', 'just giving the orders for but not actually doing', and 'creating spurious legal justifications for crimes' are all things for which the U.S.A. has already investigated, prosecuted, and convicted both American citizens and the citizens of other countries. The use of the legal arguments and tactics of the Bush injustice department yields two results, the criminals are protected and the Civil and Human rights of Americans and others are nullified, you do not actually have a right if the government can prevent you from exercising that right in a court of law, and that is just exactly what Obama and his injustice department are doing by by claiming ' national security' and their new broader immunity from law suits regarding torture, illegal surveillance, etc. Obama, the Constitutional Law Professor, surely knows he is legalizing, protecting, and expanding the power grabs and crimes of the Bush-Cheney regime; to what ends I shudder to think! Why did Obam lie about lobbyists in the White House? Why did Obama lie about funding the wars above board and then do a Bush special? All of the whys and wherefores I am sure will be figured out too late, and will in no way bode well for the civil rights and liberties of Americans. And it is a truly sad when the American people can not depend on the President of the United States of America to 'protect and defend' the Constitution of the United States of America, their laws, civil rights and intenational legal obligationd but must instead depend on a Spanish prosecutor to stand up fot them!

REPUBLICANS BEAT OBAMA IN CLASS WARFARE!

'Pull Hear from Ass Now!' it is easier and easier to tell that the Obama administration is tied to Wall Street not Main Street. And it seems that the Obama, 'Wall Street and Main Street are interconnected in the recovery' means that Wall Street gets a no conditions free ride on the back of Main Street. Wall Street (read banks, insurance companies, brokerage houses, and all the hybrids) with maybe a million plus Americans employed; Main Street (read the American Auto Industry) with a 3-5 million plus network (the UAW, suppliers, parts and steel manufacturers, and dealerships etc.) Americans employed. Wall Street with no one knows how many Billions of dollars in corporate assets hidden and untaxed offshore; Main Street with no assets that I have heard of hidden and untaxed offshore. Wall Street has a large number of employees in the $250,000 plus per year with health care, perks, and bonuses, regardless of what they call them now, up to and over $1 million, at present taxpayer dollars, just to show up and regardless of how disastrous and costly their performance in gambling with artificial commodities, none, nada, no contract renegotiation's of any kind to help with their problem; Main Street employees the vast majority below $200,000 per year, health care, few if any perks, few if any bonuses, and with the exception of CEO's and executives nothing near $1 million, and always based on real productivity of real products, multiple contract renegotiation's for lower wages and higher health care costs, etc. And I will bet the average tax per income rate paid by the Wall Street crew is more than just significantly lower than the average tax per income rate paid by Main Street. On Wall Street, at about 400 corporations (that are the cause of our economic sewer tour), I can not keep track with the mergers, buyouts and name changes, getting in excess of 2 Trillion dollars, so far, only 3 corporate heads roll (.75%, yes 3/4 of 1 %), 1 at AIG and one each at Fanny and Freddy ( both of which are government created and sponsored corporations) and none of them by Presidential fiat; Main Street with two corporations getting about 50 Billion taxpayer dollars (less than 2% of the Wall Street gangs haul so far) 50% of the corporate heads roll by Presidential fiat. Wall Street, where did the money go - they will not and do not have to say, foreign banks,bonuses, lavish retreats and parties; what good has the Trillions plus done - little or nothing so they get more, lots more; what kind of restructuring or corrections - none, absolutely none were ask for and none were made all their employee contracts are sacred! Main Street, where did the money go - to keep middle class American employed and paying taxes (to go to Wall Street), what good has the 50 Billion done - paying rent and mortgages, feeding families, educating children, paying power bills, etc, what restructuring and corrections - lots demanded and lots done, multiple contract renegotiation's with American workers getting less and less as their unemployment numbers rise because their contracts are not worth the paper that they are written on unlike Wall Street, and of coarse the taxpayer bailed out banks are neither renegotiating Main Street debt nor are they being ask/told to by the Obama administration. And just why is the Obama administration not pushing the big TARP recipient banks to the negotiating table with Main Street, personally I think it is because the Obama Treasury Department is all from Wall Street and is helping and protecting the asses of their Old Boy Network, at the expense of the American taxpayer and American industry. All auto sales are down, appliance sales are down, all major sales are down due to a complete lack of credit, and those with credit are being screwed by massive cuts to their credit amounts and massive rate increases by the companies they have just spent Trillions to bail out and are expected to continue to bail out, who are hoarding the capital and making profit. Wall Street gets more and more taxpayer money and the taxpayer assumes more and more debt and risk but again Wall Street is not being required to do anything to actually help the economy, unlike the 'shared sacrifices' that only seem to fall on Main Street; sure as hell is beginning to look more and more like the American taxpayer has become the indentured servant of Wall Street. Can you say, ' the rich get richer and Main Street gets screwed!' Obviously to Obama (and his Treasury gang from Wall Street) the green of Main Street grassroots is green enough to get elected with but not as green as Wall Street against that new whit background!


Yet given all of that the 'Obama Class War', is a pre-school hissy fit compared to the 'Republican all out union busting, screw the middle class, kill the planet to make the rich richer Class War'. Let us begin with the Recession Extender the Republican crack-heads of economics call their 'alternative budget'. Part one was, I do believe, the only budget since the invention of counting on your fingers to have no numbers! All it contained, a joke of 14 whole pages, was a litany of political slogans and talking points that would make Herbert Hoover of Hoover Ville, Ronald Regan of Senile Dementia, and George W. Bush of the Fucking Mess We Are In; proud, but still proven wrong by History. Part 2, better never than late, so very appropriately released on April 1st for the joke it is, actually had numbers, all be it that they were wrong, misleading, or just plain stupid. Such as Cap and Pay would cost the average American $3,100 more per year to maintain the current profit margins of polluting corporations instead of the actual $31, dropping the magnificent Bush failure tax cuts for the rich from 35%, of which they actually pay around 3% being able to afford the tax accountants and lawyers so as to fit through the loopholes they always manage to get into the tax laws, to 25% so they would pay about 2%. And these born again, why is it that when people are born again their brains are never included, must be born again as in the first six years of the septic tank overflow known as the Bush administrations they managed to spend the surplus Clinton left them and put the American middle class Trillions in debt even with their keeping the Afghanistan and Iraq wars of the books, want a 5 year spending freeze on every thing except the DOD(O) and veterans programs, most if not all of which in the last eight years Republicans, like John the Sword Rattling Veteran McCain, have voted against, that means all government programs that benefit anyone who is not rich! Something so numbingly stupid in a recession where the only source of spendable capital is the Federal Government; that quite frankly I was amazed that not only did they have enough living brain cells to stand upright and spew forth the evidence of their collective imbecility but to walk down stairs as a group and not tumble down the stairs into a writhing mass resembling a wad of worms but with far less intelligence. Also they want to cut Capital gains taxes and Corporate taxes in general; after all you would not want the only people with secure incomes, from laying off more and more middle class workers they are screwing and regardless of how responsible they are for the mess we are in, to actually pay taxes on their ill-gotten gains! And they want to 'Drill, Baby, Drill!' in spite of the facts that it will do nothing to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, or reduce the gross record profits of American oil cartels, will take 15-20 years to produce anything other than elevated risks of oil spills to endanger American coasts and the Ocean, and will lower the cost of petroleum products to the American consumer by pennies so long as you do not count the cost to taxpayers for the subsidies the American oil cartels get! So even after all the Republican posturing, sound bites, catch phrases, and electioneering slogans they still come up with a 1.7 Trillion dollar deficit that is larger than President Obama's and does nothing to improve the recession or the conditions that plague the Majority of Middle Class Americans. Why the hell do they think they keep loosing elections? Could it possibly be that the Republican Party is as much or more so out of tough with the realities of Main Street America as the Wall Street CEO's and Bank executives? I do understand in a perverse way the Republican efforts to punish Main Street and the poor, more and more of both live on the street, as these groups have the bad habit of voting for Democrats; and busting Unions to keep corporate profits up and the number of Pro-Democrat organizations, funding and voters down; stop or impede improvement to Health Care boosting insurance company, HMO, and pharmaceutical cartel profits and after all the rich have no problem getting the best health care; and keeping non-corporate controlled alternative energy on the fringe as another pesky corporate profit eater. The bottom line is that Republicans oppose anything that will endanger the rich or corporations from getting richer or be of benefit to a Majority of the American public or protect the planet or educate America's children, after all the better more people are the more inclusive, liberal, socialist, egalitarian, tax and spend, and Democrat they tend to be and vote and the less likely they are to accept without question the half-truths and out right lies of the Republicans and their talking point parrots or to let their power base/controllers of the Christian Taliban of America establish their Christian Sharia as the basis for the U.S. Constitution and American law, be it in regard to Gay rights, stem cell research, a woman's right to choose, contraception, or the teaching of real get back in the race science not the unintelligent 'Intelligent Design/Creationism' of go back to the Dark Ages and what was good enough for the editor/engineers of the pre-industrial era is good enough for me crap that includes slavery/indentured servitude, where working class America is headed in the Republican scheme of things, women as child bearing property, and so on, you know all the parts of the Christian Taliban's must be taken literally Bible that they choose to ignore on political feasibility grounds so that they can get what they want on the rest. I guess that when all is said and done I, to use their own term, consider the vast majority of the Republican Party and the Christian Taliban to be the Anti-Christ and his False Prophets leading maybe to the end of the World, although if you give them the kind of power they had during the first six years of G.W. Bush but with a paranoid, power crazed Neo-con like Dick Cheney as President a Nuclear end of the world would be very likely, but definitely working to end the America of the Founders and Developers of the last two centuries in an orgy of ignorance, greed, and political/religious intolerance.