Monroe Anderson

Obama should not take responsibility for Bush's 9/11 failure

    

    Watching today's commemorations of the eight anniversary of the 9/11 terrorists attacks, I am reminded of how badly the Bush Administration blew it. The most incompetent presidency in our nation's history presided over the worst failure in national security since Pearl Harbor.

    Keeping this in mind, I shake my head, then my fist, whenever Dick Cheney or his darling daughter show up on some TV news talk show bragging about how the Bush Administration's criminal torture practices kept us safe. This isn't just another exercise in tortured logic, it's a sputtering lurch of the right wing old fear trying to journey just a bit further on a road well traveled. The Cheneys, in presenting their mythology about keep us safe since 9/11 have never gotten around to telling us who kept us safe from February 26, 1993, when the World Trade Center was first bombed, until September 11, 2001, when the Towers were tragically toppled.

    That stretch of safety, by my count, was one days short of eight years, six months and two weeks. We're not there yet.

    I'm also reminded on this day that the Bush Administration failed to pull off the president's bullhorn braggadocio: "And the people who knocked these buildings down will hear all of us soon."

    Well, either Osama bin Laden was deaf or President George W. Bush and Vice President Cheney substituted the bullhorn for the dog whistle. The mastermind of the 9/11 attacks never heard from the Bush Administration. Now it's President Obama's turn. He wants to send more troops to Afghanistan. He wants to shift our misguided war efforts from Iraq back to where they should have been concentrated all along.

    I'm afraid it's too little, too late. The Bushies had a chance to make a surgical strike right after 9/11. They let the cancer metastasize. They created more terrorists and gave bin Laden and his henchman a chance to slip into Pakistan. The Obama Administration has inherited a bad situation that can only get worse. Sending more of our young men and women into the land where Empires go to die is a losing proposition.

     I'm having trouble writing this, but I agree with George Will: We need to bring the troops home. President Obama should adapt the common sense sensitivities of State Senator Obama and apply them to Afghanistan. Should the Taliban regain power in Afghanistan and should al Qaeda crawl out of the caves in Pakistan, we've can always hit them again.

    We're very good at shock and awe--but not at all good at occupation.

This post was also published on the UK Progressive website.

GOP's stingy stance is not a cure-all at all for swine flu

In the movie, My Big Fat Greek Wedding, as far as the father of the bride was concerned, Windex was the miracle cure for anything from "psoriasis to poison ivy."

In real life, among the dwindling membership of the Party of No, lower taxes is their Windex. 

No matter what political, economic or social challenge confronting our nation, the GOP mantra calls for lowering taxes, cutting taxes or flatlining taxes. As individual American citizens, the Republicans tell us, we can spend our money much better than the bureaucrats in Washington. 

So, right now, right here, we have a threatening crisis that could further cripple our sick economy and, btw, who knows kill how many of us along the way: the swine flu outbreak.

At this moment, more than 100 have died in Mexico from the influenza virus, but so far there has been no fatalities in the United State. Should this public health emergency take a turn for the worst by developing into a pandemic that leaves tens of thousands or millions of Americans dead in its wake, the only measure that will outpace finger-pointing will be vaccination shots.

Hopefully, we'll only need vaccination shots in limited regions throughout the states. In the meantime, allow me to be one of the first to point a finger: The Know-Nothing party thwarted one preventative measure, fearing it might lead to more taxes.

In a post entitled, GOP Know-Nothings Fought Pandemic Preparedness on the website of The Nation, John Nichols reports:

When House Appropriations Committee chairman David Obey, the Wisconsin Democrat who has long championed investment in pandemic preparation, included roughly $900 million for that purpose in this year's emergency stimulus bill, he was ridiculed by conservative operatives and congressional Republicans.

Obey and other advocates for the spending argued, correctly, that a pandemic hitting in the midst of an economic downturn could turn a recession into something far worse -- with workers ordered to remain in their homes, workplaces shuttered to avoid the spread of disease, transportation systems grinding to a halt and demand for emergency services and public health interventions skyrocketing. Indeed, they suggested, pandemic preparation was essential to any responsible plan for renewing the U.S. economy.

But former White House political czar Karl Rove and key congressional Republicans -- led by Maine Senator Susan Collins -- aggressively attacked the notion that there was a connection between pandemic preparation and economic recovery.

We don't know where this swine flu outbreak is going or how soon it will end. But the World Health Organization has been extremely concerned and vigilant since the outbreak has already crossed international borders.

In a special report to the GlobalPost, Christine Gorman writes: 

Although no fatalities have been reported in the U.S., the latest reports from Mexico suggest that more than 100 people have died and at least 1,400 may have been infected with the never-before-seen flu.

 

On Sunday, Canadian health officials confirmed six cases of human swine flu — four in Nova Scotia  and two in British Columbia — while public health officials in New Zealand, Israel, France and Spain began testing several patients with flu-like illnesses who had recently traveled to Mexico to determine whether or not they also had swine flu.

 

Part of what concerns health officials is that most of the fatalities in Mexico have involved adults under the age of 60, which does not fit the usual profile of a seasonal flu outbreak. That pattern is, however, reminiscent of the flu pandemic of 1918-1919, in which the very young and the very old tended to be spared while most of the fatalities occurred in adults in their 20s to 50s.

We've got to hope for the best here; hope that this flu virus does not mutate into something as virulent, Infectious and deadly as the 1918 flu pandemic, which resulted in more than 100 million dead worldwide, before it is over. But we've also got to hope that the mantra of the Johnny-one-note conservatives continue to ring false for more and more Americans.         

I, like most of the rest of us, don't like paying taxes. But, besides paying for wars of aggression that I personally oppose, taxes pay for police and firemen, roads and bridges, and they help fund safety nets for those who may not be as fortunate as we are.        

And, from time-to-time, money that we send to Washington comes back to us in a preventive measure that may be life saving for millions and therefore worth its weight in gold.

(This post was also published on the AgoraVox website.)

Much ado about hugging

    Michelle Obama is a hugger. I know this personally because, the last time I saw Michelle, she gave me a hug.

   So yesterday's international incidence with some of the British tabloids tsk-tsking her because she, gasp, hugged the Queen, doesn't come as much of a big whoop to me.

I think I'll explain my hug first. 

Last year, I was on the Obama press bus in New Hampshire during the Democratic primary. We had stopped at Jack's Coffee Shop in New London, one of those quaint, picturesque New England towns so that Barack could do a photo op.

    The joint was too small for all 40 or 50 of us in Obama's traveling media entourage.  As usual, the campaign staff established the pecking order. TV and still cameras up front, radio and TV reporters next. I took up the rear with all the other print reporters.

    I was freelancing for the Afro American News, one of the nation's oldest black newspapers. I was way, way in the back there. In fact, I was so far back that all I could really see was the backs of the other journalists' heads. I definitely couldn't see what would be going on when the candidate got off his lead bus in our three bus convoy to press the flesh with locals. I was so far back I was closer to the back door of the shop next door to Jack's, Vessels & Jewels, a quaint little gift shop, brimming with arts and crafts, then I was to the inside of the coffee shop.

    I ended up wandering into the gift shop, knowing I wouldn't be getting much of an opportunity to photograph Barack with my digital camera from where I stood. I hadn't been in Vessels & Jewels long enough to complete my speed-window shopping before the front-runner walked in. He'd made an unscheduled detour to the gift shop so that he could buy Malia and Sasha a little shiny something.

    While the press corps were gently pushing and shoving each other for position as they waited for him next door, except for the shop clerks and a couple of Secret Service agents, I had the candidate all to myself. Obama asked me how I was doing and gave me a cordial handshake then went on to find a couple of jeweled bracelets for his daughters and a jeweled key ring for his wife. I clicked away with my small digital camera. By that time, a few of the TV and print photogs had spotted him and joined me on the shoot.

    Obama paid the $36 tab with a debit card, and then headed over to Jack's. I was standing outside when I saw Michelle and her Secret Service agents coming my way.

"How're you doing," she said.

"Good," I said as she gave me the same kind of hug the Queen would get more than a year later.

    I knew Michelle before I knew Barack. Back in 1993, when she was the Executive Director of Public Allies, and I was the host of Common Ground, a public affairs TV talk show, I'd agreed to address her group of young people who had been identified and were being developed as the next generation of leadership in Chicago. Back then, Michelle had greeted me warmly, but there was no hug. Instead, after I'd finished speaking, she gave me a black Public Allies sweat shirt that still hangs in my closet. She was then, and still is now a down-to-earth, warm and friendly South Side Chicago woman who is the FLOTUS.

Now, to the Queen's hug.

   You would not necessarily know from reading the British press that Michelle was just as big a deal as the Queen. The Daily Mail, for one, called the hug "an electrifying moment of palpable majesté: A breach of centuries-long protocol ..."

Other British reports followed suit, noting that protocol "has been set in stone for generations. 'Whatever you do,' courtiers are apt to warn, 'don't touch the queen.'"

The notion of the POTUS or the FLOTUS not touching the Queen is as quaint as the scenic little towns in New England.  It's so... so last millennium. You know, back in the day when Great Britain had an empire and we were a colony trying to do our own thing or when our soldiers had to keep the German troopers from goose-stepping into 10 Downing Street and the Buckingham Palace.

Today, the Kingdom is not all that United and Britain is not all that great. It's a used-to-be empire that--save for the expense of it all--is a nice place to visit to see the historic sites. But, in my proud-American-frame-of-mind, maybe there should be some etiquette rule that warns, "do not touch the FLOTUS."

But that's not Michelle's style or the American way. Even on the TV show, Entourage, Ari Gold, the super-jerk of an agent, likes to hug it out. 

 

(This post was also published on Huffingtonpost.com, UK/EU Progressive and Newsvine.com.)

AIG: Insuring that the rich get richer

Everybody's angry about AIG. The people are seething. The politicians are demanding a payback. Even Edward Liddy, AIG's chairman and CEO, says the bonuses are "distasteful."

Well, while you and me and most of the rest of America are mad as hell and not wanting to give it anymore, the bonusees are scowling all the way to the bank, proving once again that if you want to rob somebody the pen is mightier than the sword--or the gun for that matter. Bernie Madoff didn't even say "stick 'em up" as he hauled off a cool $50 billion. Nor did the AIG muckety mucks wield any weapons as they stuck us up for 173 billion in bail out bucks before slipping $165 million of our money to their executives for a job disastrously done.

This is a classic example of how the rich get richer and the rest of us get screwed.

Let's roll away from Wall Street and head to Motown. A tenth of the bailout money AIG got went to the folks that actually make something. In return for the $17 billion GM and Chrysler got, the auto worker's union and its members are being strong-armed into chucking their contractual agreements with the Big Two while chinning and grinning to show their gratitude that they will still had lower paying jobs.

Mind you, the UAW and its members had done nothing wrong. They built the cars that the car corporations designed. The GM and Chrysler CEO's, who had been stuck on stupid when they first came to the nation's capitol in their private jets, wised up, making commercial airlines their transportation of choice and choosing to pay themselves a buck a year. 

Meanwhile at AIG, there was the $440,000 conference last October at the St. Regis resort at Monarch Beach. That little extravagance turned out to be a pittance compared to the latest revelation that at least 73 employees from AIG's London-based Financial Products unit--the division that sold the derivatives that are responsible for the insurance giant's threatening collapse--got bonuses of $1 million or better each. Eleven of those London employees were received the so-called retention bonuses have already flown the coop.

Big time pay for a big time F-up. How would you like to have a job like that?

As the argument goes, we have to pay the bonuses because they have a contract and there's this magical, mysterious obligation to honor that legal agreement. Why there was no reason to honor the United Auto Workers contract remains a greater mystery--or maybe not.

We know how it works: white collar crime pays. Blue collar labor gets paid not so much.

(This post was also published on my cyber column at Newsvine.com, UK/EU Progressive and Agoravox.)

For News Corp, there's no business for monkey business

 

      When I was a freshman at Indiana University eons ago, I was a resident in Wright Quad, an all men’s dormitory.  

I'd grown up in a segregated neighborhood in Gary, Indiana.  I’d only had two white teachers during my entire k-12 public school education. I knew no whites socially; for me, they were only characters on TV.

      When I arrived on the idyllic Bloomington campus, where only 600 of the school’s 33,000 students were Black, I had some adjusting to do—as did many of the whites who had grown up in rural Indiana communities where the Ku Klux Klan had thrived a couple of generations earlier and continued to maintain a presence in the mid-60s.

      Our men’s room in our men's dorm was wide open. There was no place to hide. The toilet stalls had no doors. The showerheads were side by side with no petitions between them.      

I hadn’t been in my new home away from home for a week before I picked up on something. The farm boys were stealing peeks at me as I stood under the shower facing the wall.  I casually mentioned this curious behavior to one of the white students who’d befriended me. He explained that the stolen glances were the product of rural legends. Their elders had told the farm boys that Negroes had tails.  They were straining to spot mine.

      I am reminded of this early experience in my college education by the current resurgence on a variation of that theme—Blacks as simians—occurring now.   

      Since the New York Post ran the unfunny, tasteless, racist cartoon—you saw it, the one with a white cop holding a smoking gun as he and his partner stand next to the dead body of a bullet-hole ridden, bloody monkey--the Black man as primate once again has been spoon fed to the public's psyche.

      The NAACP has been fighting this sort of ugly, vicious stereotyping for the past 100 years, and the image assault on Blacks in America was being waged 100 years and more before the venerable civil organization was founded to fight it.

      Rupert Murdock offered an unprecedented personal apology for his newspaper’s offensive cartoon in what amounted to a too little, too late gesture. The NAACP began a full-blown counter offensive today on the media baron’s empire, highlighting how token diversity is throughout News Corp. Benjamin Jealous, president and CEO of the NAACP, and Julian Bond, the chairman, have made a strong argument that the cartoon, captioned, “They'll have to find someone else to write the next stimulus bill,” which ran in juxtaposition to a photograph of Barack Obama signing the legislation, was encouraging the assassination of the POTUS.     

      I’m not convinced inciting murder was the intent of cartoonist Sam Delonas or the New York Post editor who green-lighted the tasteless cartoon. But it’s been eight years since New York’s rightwing rag has had a Black editor in the chain of command that could have red-flagged the chimp cartoon.     

Unfortunately, it’s not the first time Obama has magically morphed into a monkey. Last May, a Georgia barkeeper sold T-shirts with a picture of Curious George and Obama 08 printed on them. But simple-minded stereotypes of Blacks aren’t confined to U.S. borders. There’s the chimp-like cartoon character Memin Pinguin so beloved by Mexicans.

Even in the Middle East, they can’t resist the temptation to monkey around with the African American image. Today, I saw an email complaining of yet another primate visual. This one featured Condoleezza Rice pregnant, carrying a baby simian inside her stomach.

      What can I say? From the American South to south of the border, from the Middle East to the East Coast, racist ignorance abounds when it comes to symbolism and iconology. 

Exposing the beauty of the Amazon

If Amber Lee Ettinger is The Obama Girl, then Brazilian Carnival beauty Viviane Castro appears to be just the opposite.

Last year, Ms. Ettinger's 15 minutes of fame came with the viral video, "I've got a crush on Obama." Yesterday, Ms. Castro's minutes may have begun their countdown when she laid bare her protest of how the United States has intentions of stripping Brazil's lush rainforest for profit.

I can keep this short because the picture beats any thousand words I could come up with. 

As you can see, the Carnival Queen has no clothes. Rather than sporting a Carolina Herrera bustier dress, Castro made her appearance in the Sao Paulo parade doing the samba while wearing a strategically placed one-and--a-half -inch strip of tap--and lots of body paint.

On her left thigh Castro wore a portrait of Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva's face. Her right thigh bore the visage of the smiling American President. Above the two world leaders, painted on Castro's stomach, were the words, "vende se"--translation: "for sale." 

Castro said her message aimed to expose the liquidation of the resource-rich assets of the Amazon Rainforest to U.S. corporations. President Obama has been a little busy lately trying to repair eight years of Bush Administration incompetencies, stimulate the U.S. economy and save the world from a global recession. So he may not be paying too much attention to the systematic destruction of the Amazon Rainforest.

But, when he gets a little extra time, he should. ASAP.

The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the "Lungs of our Planet" because it cleanses the air we breath by continuously recycling the earth's carbon dioxide into oxygen. It singlehandedly produces more than a fifth of all the world's O. It also holds a fifth of the world's fresh water.

And, as you read this, the Amazon Rainforest is disappearing. One and a half acres of the Amazon are being de-forested every second. By that count, if Viviane Castro were to literally just have 15 minutes of fame, 1,350 acres of the Amazon will have disappeared by in the brief time it took nude carnival queen to become a has-been. 

I'm hoping she'll be around much longer than that, revealing the naked truth audaciously enough to force the world's many media outlets to cover the rape of Amazon and all its beauty and global importance.

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Obama's no joke to Al Qaida, KKK and other haters

 

         A little more than a year ago, I went to The Second City Theatre to enjoy its side-splitting hit revue at the time, "Between Barack and a Hard Place." The famed improv comedy ensemble, which is the comedic mother of Saturday Night Live, had put together a show that was all about Barack Obama, his candidacy and his political appeal.
    I was reminded of the series of satirical skits today when Al Qaida's mouthpiece for Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, released an audiotape calling our President-elect a House Negro.
    "You were born to a Muslim father, but you chose to stand in the ranks of the enemies of the Muslims, and pray the prayer of the Jews, although you claim to be Christian, in order to climb the rungs of leadership in America," observed bin Laden's sidekick in the recording.
    Has The Second City gone international with its satire? Is Al Qaida giving up on being a bunch of murderous religious zealots for stand-up comedy? What is going on here? And, where the hell is Osama bin Laden? Is he dead or simply too chicken to play straight man his deputy-villain's new routine?

    As it turns out, Obama's historic election as the first black leader of the free world has haters all over the planet in a bind. Right after the election, Thomas Robb, a grand poo-pa-pa in the Ku Klux Klan attributed Obama's success to his being only half black. Apparently Obama's Kansas mother's white, superior blood contributed to all the positive qualities that got him where he is going.
    And before our homegrown, historical terrorist group could finish explaining this inexplicable phenomenon, that terrorist group abroad figured it had some 'plaining to do as well.
    If America was as evil, racist and anti-Muslim as Al Qaida would have its followers believe, then what was the rationale behind Barack HUSSEIN Obama's popular, un-Saddam-like landslide election victory?
    Hmmm. Maybe the K.K.K. was on to something, sort of.
    The Al-Qaida tape definitely had a racial edge to it. Obama isn't a black man or anything the world's majority population--colored people--should relate to. He's a tool of the white man. The House Negro that Brother Malcolm tongue-lashed. Al-Zawahiri's audiotape features snippets from Malcolm X's 1965 speech in Selma, Alabama where he compared the "house negro," who Uncle Tommed for favors from the slave master to the "field negro," who picked cotton and would rather see the plantation owner dead. Malcolm X, the spokesman for the Nation of Islam who later became a convert to a more orthodox Muslim faith.
    Federal surveillance of both Al Qaida and the K.K.K. made it too difficult for note comparison so the Muslim haters left out the white mother part that the Christian haters promoted so prominently.
    Apparently, hiding in the cave lands of Pakistan is not the best place to keep abreast of current events or the latest trends in humanity. If bin Laden is still alive, then al-Zawahiri might want to slip him into Chicago to check out Second City's latest show so the two terrorists, like their counterparts in America the Klan and the neo-Nazis, can work on updating their hateful passions and pronouncements.
    Their work is cut out for them. Two weeks before the November 4 election, an Al Qaida website backed John McCain, not understanding that America was in the process of changing.
    The Second City, on the other hand, was right on it. The comedy theatre's current hit revue is "No Country for Old White Men." I don't hear the haters laughing.

           (This post is also on Huffingtonpost.com.)

Wingnut Watch: Bitter and clinging to maniacal memes

    Members of America's rad-right are almost always strangers to reality. I know because I make it a point of keeping an eye on them. I like to watch Fox Cable News just to see what their aberrant version of fair and balanced is on a given day. I also read the dauntingly diminutive observations on conservative blogs.
   Over the past few days, I've noticed that with Barack Obama's landslide victory on Tuesday the losers are losing it even more.
    Let me give you a sampling.
    Here's the beginning to the latest post on the WesternFront America blog:

Some Of Us Mourn The Loss Of America Today.
By J.D. Longstreet

We mourn the loss of Freedom, Democracy, and America’s position in the world as it’s leader. In place of all these, America has chosen SOCIALISM the “Destroyer of Nations”.

I am ashamed of my fellow Americans for giving up their freedom, their constitution, their liberty, everything the Founding Fathers gave us, for so cheap a price and so fleeting a dream. They were promised nothing. They accepted nothing and will be given nothing.

The disunity of America is now complete. There is nothing left of that which bound us together. The descent of America, into the ash heap of history, has officially begun. The decline will be relatively swift and excruciatingly painful.

May God have Mercy on America, on those who warned “the other people who live in this country”. I cannot use “fellow Americans” as that phrase no longer applies. It has been shredded by the Obama Machine and by the Democratic Party.

It is now time to prepare for the coming anarchy. Providence, it seems, has decided to withdraw it’s protection and leave exposed those who have defaced and destroyed this land from within.

Soon America will face wars within and without our bordrrs, financial collapse, descention between the races, and open hostility in the streets of our cities. Those expecting utopia will quickly learn they have been duped and no such paradise on earth is within their reach nor their sight. They will learn they were simply a means toward an end and now that that end has been accomplished they are no longer needed nor wanted.

    As anybody who reads a newspaper, watches or listens to the news or reads anything but other right-wing propaganda online, we're in the midst of financial collapse. As for the racial "descention" between the races, ahem, more white Americans voted for Obama than black Americans so don't be surprised if you see black and white together marching through our city streets singing "We Have Overcome."

    And here's what Big Dog's Weblog had to say:

The Message About Obama

by Big Dog on Nov 7, 2008 at 14:13 Political

I have listened to people who think Obama is the anti Christ and that his election marks the end time as depicted in the book of Revelation. I am not convinced that the election of Obama is a sign of end times but an interesting thing happened the day after the election.

The day after the contest was declared over and Obama declared the winner, the evening three digit lottery number in Chicago was drawn. That number was 666. Those of you who pay attention will recall that Revelation 13:18 designates that number to “the Beast.”

Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

      I'm not big on this Satan stuff but if I had to go with it, I'd say we've been under that spell with George Bush and Dick Cheney. That's unless you don't believe that lying to get us into a war, then occupation, trashing the U.S. Constitution and turning a deaf ear to drowning and starving Americans in New Orleans is the handiwork of a couple of saints.

    And no honeymoon for President-elect Obama on Teri  O'Brien's blog. Apparently, the Harvard law-educated Illinois Senator is just another black man who got the job a more qualified white man deserved. Here's some of what O'Brien, who is also known as “America’s Conservative Warrior Princess,” had to say:

The Affirmative Action President-Elect

     A friend wrote “Let's look on the bright side. At least we won't have to listen to all those liberals whine and bitch for the next four years.” To which I responded, “you have GOT to be kidding!” They will whine even more now, and louder. Think about it this way: Michelle Obama parlayed her victim status and sense of entitlement into affirmative-action spots at elite schools and a six-figure salary for a white-guilt generated community liaison gig, considered necessary only because of the stoking of anger and the aforementioned sense of victimhood and entitlement in people exploited by “community organizers.” Let me know when the bottomless pit of race-obsessed rage that is Michelle Obama stops whining.

    How about Jesse Jackson? He managed to shakedown the lily-livered, spaghetti-spined suits who run American corporations for millions. Has he been whining less? If anything, today he’s probably whining more, and certainly about the fact that he wasn’t up on the stage last night with The One. Hey, Rev. Jackson, are you rethinking that remark about wanting to neuter the man-god?

    The examples are endless. When you tell people they have been victimized by an immutable, inherited condition, so much so that they deserve to be compensated, all you buy with your compensation is an increased sense of entitlement and more complaining.

    Barack Hussein Obama is our first affirmative-action President-Elect. Many of the white voters who cast a ballot for him did so for the same reason as the administrators at Columbia and Harvard admitted him to their elite schools: his race. Perhaps in both cases it wasn’t the only factor, but it was definitely a factor, as they all freely admit.

    For a bunch that claims to be more American than the rest of us, there is a curious and instant disrespect for the man who is going to be POTUS. Barack Hussein Obama, Jr. presents an interesting challenge for these folks: How do you love your flag and love your country while hating your leader?

   

McPalin's Ayn Rand economics

            As usual, John McCain and Sarah Palin are attempting to take a good thing and turn it inside out. This time it’s Barack Obama’s tax plan, which would increase income taxes for anyone making a quarter of a million a year and cut income taxes for the other 95 percent of us.
      In explaining his proposal, Obama, the McPalins point out, had the audacity to say that he wanted to “spread the wealth.” 
     McCain labeled that generous notion welfare and socialistic. The Republican wants to make sure that the ubber-rich get ubber richer. Rather than having Big Government take a little of the fat cat money to help the homeless, McCain would rather see swells like him have enough money to assure that their seven, or eight or nine homes are all well maintained and lavishly furnished. Many conservatives are quick to make the pitch that the top one percent of America's richest pay almost 35 percent of the nation's taxes, but they fail to mention that the same richest of the rich own nearly 35 percent of the nation's net worth or that the top 10 percent own 71 percent of the nation's wealth.
      That doesn't count to the GOP. For the last few days, McCain and his trusty Pitbull, Palin, have been on the stump, scolding Obama for being some kind of Robin Hood.
     I suggest that anyone tempted to buy into McPalin’s Ayn Rand economics--The Virtue of Selfishness--read an article about a United Nations report that’s just been posted by the Guardian, a publication out of England. The headline and the first few paragraphs explain exactly why the filthy rich ought to be willing to share the wealth more.
     Check it out.

Wealth gap creating a social time bomb

• By John Vidal, environment editor
• The Guardian,
• Thursday October 23 2008

Growing inequality in US cities could lead to widespread social unrest and increased mortality, says a new United Nations report on the urban environment.

In a survey of 120 major cities, New York was found to be the ninth most unequal in the world and Atlanta, New Orleans, Washington, and Miami had similar inequality levels to those of Nairobi, Kenya Abidjan and Ivory Coast. Many were above an internationally recognised acceptable "alert" line used to warn governments.

"High levels of inequality can lead to negative social, economic and political consequences that have a destabilising effect on societies," said the report. "[They] create social and political fractures that can develop into social unrest and insecurity."

According to the annual State of the World's cities report from UN-Habitat, race is one of the most important factors determining levels of inequality in the US and Canada.

"In western New York state nearly 40% of the black, Hispanic and mixed-race households earned less than $15,000 compared with 15% of white households. The life expectancy of African-Americans in the US is about the same as that of people living in China and some states of India, despite the fact that the US is far richer than the other two countries," it said.

Disparities of wealth were measured on the "Gini co-efficient", an internationally recognised measure usually only applied to the wealth of countries. The higher the level, the more wealth is concentrated in the hands of fewer people.

"It is clear that social tension comes from inequality. The trickle down theory [that wealth starts with the rich] has not delivered. Inequality is not good for anybody," said Anna Tibaijuka, head of UN-Habitat, in London yesterday. 

To read the rest of the Guardian article, click here.

Of course, the McPalins, the Bushites and other wingnuts may not be the least bit concerned because, according to some of my more paranoid friends, they already have contingency plans to control the teeming, angry masses. The solution, brought to you by FEMA, the Federal government organization that failed New Orleans when Hurricane Katrina hit, is--concentration camps.

Here's a viral video claiming that FEMA has set up concentration camps. My friend, Bob Tutman sent me this video that's been making for rounds for two years now.

Palin's pale performance undebatable

   

        Watching Sarah Palin debate tonight was absolutely delicious—she’s done!
        John McCain choice for his running mate served up one half-baked response after the next, short on specifics and heavy on platitudes and generalities. With the public souring on the moose dresser turned instant media star—only 38 percent of voters now believe she’s ready for the big time—this was the Arizona governor’s last best hope to demonstrate any competence or comprehension about national and international affairs.
     It didn’t happen. She wasn’t even close.
     Palin served up the same old leftover right-wing bromides that she’s been feeding us, during the infrequent availabilities she’s made since screeching out her acceptance speech in St. Paul 30 long days ago.
     “Can I call you Joe?”  Palin asked in a folksy right off the bat of Sen. Biden before winkin at the Joe Six Packs and Hockey moms sittin out there in Red state America hopin she wouldn’t end up soundin too stupid.
    Gov. Palin didn't. She didn’t say anything dumb. She said only one thing truly alarming—that she wanted to expand the power of the vice presidency over the senate. But she didn’t she say anything intelligent or knowledgeable. Heck, Palin didn’t even offer any straight talk to any of Gwen Ifill’s questions, choosing rather to ask her own softball questions before giving a practiced answer.
    There was plenty of sizzle but no moose steak. Just an oversized platter full of talking points and snippets of her standard campaign speech.

    So savor this: the elitist Eastern media, with its appetite for truth and substance, will have Palin’s poor debate performance for lunch before the week is out.

    Here's the full vice presidential debate on YouTube:

And here's the SNL spoof with Tina Fey and Queen Latifah: