-

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

-
PT Barnum Rides Again or The Marketing of a Hockey Mom The absurd circus that Americans sometime refer to as their democracy is revealing itself in all its glory. Our electoral system - like so much of our society - is all about the marketing and branding of products. The selection of Alaskan governor Sarah Palin as candidate for vice president by the controllers of the GOP is a clear message to the electorate: we are going to market an attractive female politician to you, unlike anyone you have ever seen on the national political stage; someone with radical right-wing views; a petite woman with a cute macho swagger who is totally unqualified to be president of the United States! We will succeed in doing this because we are masters in creating brand loyalty and we have ultimate faith in the depth of your stupidity. The ascendancy of Sarah Palin reads a bit too much like a hymn to PT Barnum. After months of excoriating Barack Obama, accusing him of being a fast-talking, far-left celebr...
Read more
-
Health Care Blackmail: Merry Christmas America After months of internal struggles, the Democratic caucus in the US Senate has passed its version of health care reform. Announcing he had at last marshaled the 60 Democratic votes necessary to shut down a Republican filibuster, majority leader Harry Reid set up a Christmas eve vote that will effectively surrender many of the key reforms supported by the progressive wing of the Democrats. After having promised during the initial phases of the health care debate that he would not sign a bill that lacked an optional public health care alternative to compete with private insurance, President Obama, along with several key progressive Democrats, have bent over backwards to insure the continued health of the private insurance model of health care delivery. In the end, the administration and Congressional allies were willing to shelve truly systemic reform in order to appease two Democratic conservatives (Joe Lieberman (ID-CN) and Ben Nelson (D-N...
Read more
-
Iraq Plus Five - Ho Hum Five years after the US invaded Iraq, the war grinds on, unsupported by the majority of the American people or the Iraqi populace. The conflict in Iraq has now lasted longer than World War II and will end up costing many times more. If one is to believe the statements of the Bush administration and president George Bush’s presumptive Republican successor John McCain, the war is going just fine. The same arrogance and disdain for the intelligence of the American people that allowed this disaster to happen was manifested again in statements by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and John McCain yesterday. In his message to the country, the president again outlined the now famous narrative that if we don’t win in Iraq, al-Qaida will establish a stronghold from which it will be able to attack the United States. Never mind that we have all but ignored going after al-Qaida in Pakistan where, according to most observers, including our own government, Osama bin ...
Read more