Great Question

"All the hardcore, Jim Jones kool-aid drinking Obama supporters never really cared about ending the wars. They just wanted a Democrat to micromanage them. Obama has made it abundantly clear his policies are no different than Bush's. So why then, did all these Obamabots hate Bush so much?" ••• JesseKantstopolis, who wrote it as a comment on this excellent YouTube video on March 4, 2009.

Already - Three Promises Broken (at the very least)

My own commentary follows the four news clips.

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Obama airstrikes kill 22 in Pakistan
The Sunday London Times, January 25, 2009
Islamabad is the first to get a taste of the president’s ‘tough love’ policy. ... The airstrikes were authorised under a covert programme approved by Obama, according to a senior US official.

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US pours cold water over hopes of Iran deal
The London Times, January 30, 2009
The White House warned Iran last night that military action is still one of its options despite the "hand of friendship" offered by President Obama.

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In America, Speaking the Truth is a Career-Ending Event
Counterpunch, January 26, 2009
Paul Craig Roberts
The Bush regime was a lawless regime. This makes it difficult for the Obama regime to be a lawful one. A torture inquiry would lead naturally into a war crimes inquiry. General Taguba said that the Bush regime committed war crimes. President Obama was a war criminal by his third day in office when he ordered illegal cross-border drone attacks on Pakistan that murdered 20 people, including 3 children. The bombing and strafing of homes and villages in Afghanistan by US forces and America's NATO puppets are also war crimes. Obama cannot enforce the law, because he himself has already violated it.

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Leaving Iraq? Not On Your Life

CounterPunch, January 23, 2009
By Ron Jacobs (retitled by MW of Palitone Press)
...Since he was elected, Mr. Obama has hedged on this promise [to bring the troops home from Iraq]. Since he was inaugurated, the Pentagon and its civilian boss, Robert Gates, have hedged even more. Now, they insist, US troops should remain. ... Even if Barack Obama overrides the Pentagon and Mr. Gates ... there will still be around fifty thousand US troops in Iraq. This is because Obama's call to bring all troops home from Iraq that began his campaign somehow morphed into a call to bring home only those troops determined to be "combat troops."

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I Told You So
Palitone Press, January 25-30, 2009
For those of us who stand outside the pathetic sham that is American two-party politics and study it objectively, the future under the faux intellectual, Barack Obama, and his cabinet of warmongers is ENTIRELY predictable (almost as if we are reading directly from "the establishment's" game plan — which, basically, we are). But trying to point this out to Americans who unquestioningly believe in that sham is like trying to talk sense to members of a cult who are excessively arrogant and self-righteous due to their cult's long history and almost universal acceptance.

The first time you try to convince members of this cult to, at the very least, investigate objectively all cult leaders — including their favorite ones — in order to discover that they are all frauds, the "cultists" look at you with smiles (or frowns) of supreme condescension, as if you are either a harmless, but deluded, blasphemer or a potential nuisance. If you continue to try to convince them, they will become annoyed and ignore you. If you persist beyond that, they will become openly hostile and shut you out completely. No amount of rational debate or proof is going to convince them to doubt their favorite leaders or their own deeply ingrained, highly partisan perceptions of reality. To them, the phrase, "open-minded, scholarly investigation," is just a trick to get them to read the "loony, biased opinions of deluded fringe groups."

"Luckily," the newest cult leader (Obama) has already started to break his promises to his devoted cultists (even if they refuse to see it), as we tried to tell them he would. Severe disillusionment among his followers is predicted for the not-too-distant future. This I welcome, as disillusionment often leads to a recognition, once and for all, that American two-party politics is, indeed, a sham — a sinister sham.

Update: According to the January 26, 2009, edition of the London Daily Mail, Fifteen percent of Americans appear to have become disillusioned with Obama already. Contrary to what most Obama supporters may think, I think these people have given him more than a fair chance. He just blew it in record time. However, I realize that he has promises to keep to the sleazy establishment that put him in the presidency. Making promises to them is like making promises to the Mafia. You break them at your own risk. That is the sham that is two-party politics.

P.S. Of course, it is always possible (actually, highly probable) that millions of liberals will either deny, ignore and/or justify Obama's broken promises throughout his entire presidency, just as millions of fanatical conservatives continued to deny, ignore and/or justify Bush's actions throughout his entire presidency. As always, in such cases, the permanent beneficiary is our massive, increasingly Orwellian federal government, that continues to function like clockwork, regardless of party.

The More Things "Change" ...

London Times Online
January 23, 2009
President Obama 'orders Pakistan drone attacks'

Missiles fired from suspected US drones killed at least 15 people inside Pakistan today, the first such strikes since Barack Obama became president and a clear sign that the controversial military policy begun by George W. Bush has not changed. ... locals also said that three children lost their lives. [Read the rest.]

Update 1 of 2, 8:38 AM, January 24, 2009:

Obama Dips His Hands in Blood
Posted by Lew Rockwell at 07:28 AM
Obama seemed like a decent guy, but as president, he has no hesitation in killing a group of people in Pakistan, including three little children. But what is murder in the private "sector is just public policy for the state, and Obama is head of state, so he wields his terrible, swift Predator on people he doesn't know, and of whom he knows nothing. During the campaign, he famously said that if missiles were endangering his daughters, he would "do anything" to stop them. Think anyone else feels the same way? (Via Antiwar.com)

Update 2 of 2, 8:38 AM, January 24, 2009:

I say: Obama "finally" has some innocent blood on his hands; and he even broke international law to accomplish it too. What an enlightened soul.

Of course, like most war criminals Obama can always say, "I was only following orders."

However, if he really believes that then he didn't need to run for president in the first place, because he knew what he was getting himself into. If he didn't know from the beginning, then it should have become abundantly clear by the time he was the sole remaining democratic presidential nominee.

Amidst All the Lies... A Hint of Truth...

Finally!

"The Lying Warmonger Times" (aka The New York Times) has published a tiny hint of truth, in which they "finally" expose a certain group of liars (while mostly absolving or feigning ignorance regarding the third -- and, by far, guiltiest -- party in the conspiracy). This group of liars has turned my stomach every time I've seen their smug faces on TV for the past five and a half years. Here is just a brief bit of that "tiny hint of truth":

In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay... The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo...

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance... Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air... Collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants...

The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation. These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated...

Click here to read the rest.

Thankfully, Glenn Greenwald at Salon.com discusses the third guilty party to which I refer above (I've added the bold emphasis):

In 2002 and 2003, when Americans were relentlessly subjected to their commentary, news organizations were hardly unaware that these retired generals were mindlessly reciting the administration line on the war and related matters. To the contrary, that's precisely why our news organizations -- which themselves were devoted to selling the war both before and after the invasion by relentlessly featuring pro-war sources and all but excluding anti-war ones -- turned to them in the first place...

I could see from the very start (long before the war started) that the media was doing this. So why, then, were the majority of Americans unwilling and/or unable to see it? It was so blatantly obvious! Is it, in part, because they have been subjected for the past sixty years to too many blindly patriotic, mindless movies featuring such "kill-them-first-and-ask-questions-later" stars as John Wayne, Clint Eastwood and Steven Seagal? Is it because, in their blind rage, they wanted to get revenge on someone, anyone, no matter who the guilty parties involved really are? This is a question that has caused me no end of intense frustration for the past five and a half years.

In my opinion, the CORPORATE media (for what corporations wouldn't manipulate the output of what they consider to be their very own "PR departments"?) is, by far, the guiltiest of all three guilty parties.

Why are they the guiltiest?

Because if they had been doing their jobs for the past eight years (actually, the past 95 years), we wouldn't have this sort of government (which is quickly approaching fascist) and this nearly unfixable economic, diplomatic and military mess in which we are now mired. Nor would we have the small group of handpicked, corporate stooges that run for president every four years, thus ensuring that the bad guys are never replaced, and our criminal foreign policy is always seen as "just and decent."

Why again is the media the guiltiest of the three?

Because, due to their willful complicity in all of this unconstitutional mess, most Americans of the 21st century are not only uninformed and filled with incredibly stubborn, misplaced pride (and excessively hedonistic desires), but are also stupider than fence posts. We have the media to thank for our idiotically mindless -- and depressingly unconstitutional -- brand of patriotism more than we do the government or those traitorous retired generals.

P.S. Of course, our horribly federalized, completely shallow, politically and "patriotically" correct (to a fanatical degree), incompetent educational system has primed all of us to be completely receptive to the lies (and hedonistic pleasures) broadcast by the CORPORATE media. I worked in that federalized educational system for five years and saw it first hand!

P.P.S. And, no, I don't believe in religious-based local education either. That warps most people just as badly as does the federal education system.

For the Sake of Our Nation, Do the Unthinkable

I am returning to this blog after a very long absence. Why? Because I consider it my duty to my country. I don't make that sort of a clichéd patriotic statement very often since it has been so horribly abused and perverted by the immature adults and criminals of this nation. That should tell you just how strongly I feel on this matter.

I hope you won't get bored with this long essay, which is, in essence, still in rough-draft form. I've even thrown in an excellent music video as a bonus.

There Is Still Time
Three or four years ago, when I first heard Rep. Ron Paul speak to a nearly empty U.S. Congressional chamber, I never dreamed he would come to enjoy the amount of success that he has experienced in the past five months, an amazing degree of success that has occurred in spite of his having been initially ignored, then lied about and finally demonized by the corporate-owned mainstream media. He truly inspired me three or four years ago, but I must say that the millions of Americans who have been inspired by him in recent months is far more than I ever dared to dream [Update 11/23/2007: Here is an amazing example of that inspiration, which was created by students at the University of Nevada at Reno.]. I am afraid to say it out loud, but I once again believe there is a small chance to save our nation from the evil people.

But it will require all honest Americans to make a major effort, as the Founding Fathers expected us to do.

So, Without Further Adieu...
If you are a registered democrat or independent, please do the unthinkable: Temporarily (or permanently, if Mr. Paul purges the evil from the party) register as a republican so we can help Ron Paul defeat his fascist warmonger opponents in the republican primaries and the democratic warmongers in the general election. That's what I'm going to do -- and I am far from being alone in making the switch --, even though I never dreamed I would return to that party again. Why? Because Ron Paul is the only hope we have left to end both of our illegal wars and to prevent or -- God forbid -- end a third one in Iran. In fact, he is determined to bring our troops home from all 130 nations in which they are presently stationed (how many of you knew that we had troops in that many countries?). Equally as importantly, he is the only candidate who will keep our nation from sliding into a permanent dictatorship (unless Bush and Cheney cancel the elections, which they almost did in 2004).

No, Ron Paul is not your typical republican, not by a long shot.

Horrified Democrats, Please Hear Me Out!

Democrats, please don't worry about the democratic primaries. Even if they weren't already decided (which they clearly are), every candidate is basically alike, except for maybe Dennis Kucinich, and he doesn't stand a chance. No matter which democratic candidate wins the primaries, he or she will be someone who is completely owned by the corporate establishment, especially the three "top-tier" candidates.

At the very least, think of it this way: By registering temporarily as a republican and voting for Ron Paul in the primaries, you will be helping to ensure that none of the evil republicans will make it to the general election. And, by then, I believe you will have seen the light and will gladly vote for Ron Paul in the general election, too.

Well and Succinctly Said
A reader nicknamed "Zenken" says it perfectly:

Who'd have thought that a mainstream Republican with a classically conservative message could end up sounding so liberal that he is accused of being a radical, and by others as "certifiably crazy"? I guess this illustrates just how far the neo-cons have dragged this country into the bottomless pit. After hearing Ron Paul's views, several of which I do not agree with, I am now left with no other choice than to become a registered Republican so I can vote for him. As president, he will probably do a lot of things that will piss me off, but at least I'll be pissed off in a free country.

I couldn't have said it better myself.

But Isn't Ron Paul a Long Shot, Too?

Right now, many of you are probably thinking that Ron Paul stands just as little chance of winning the primaries and the general election as Dennis Kucinich. Well, if you think that way, then you've been fooled by the lying mainstream media. For example, Ron Paul has won 21 of the 41 republican straw polls that have been held around the country in the past five months, including in such diverse places as Alabama, California, Wyoming (Cheney country!) and New York City (Giuliani country)! Check out that link and see the entire list for yourself. Furthermore, he has come in near the top in many of the remaining straw polls.

As you study all those victories, ask yourself, "How come the mainstream media hasn't told us about them?" Even Keith Obermann, the only true defender of the Constitution in the mainstream media, has never even uttered Ron Paul's name, even though they are clearly kindred spirits in many ways. It is almost a certainty that Olbermann's bosses are preventing him from mentioning Paul's name.

Still in Doubt about Ron Paul's Chances?
Then compare this tiny set of maps of independent meet-up groups that are being organized in support of the republican and democratic candidates. Ron Paul's map leaves the other nine candidates' maps in the dust, waaaaaayyyyyyyyyy, waaaaayyyyyyy, waaaaayyyyyy in the dust. You have to see his map to believe it. It seems that millions of Americans are learning about Ron Paul in spite of the corrupt mainstream media.

In fact, in an independent fund raiser that was held in a single 24-hour time period on November 5, Mr. Paul received a record $4.2 million in donations over the internet. In this quarter alone, he has already raised about $8 million, mostly in small amounts from regular citizens. Does that sound like someone who doesn't have a chance? There will be another 24-hour fund raiser on December 16, which is the anniversary of the Boston Tea Party. From the sounds of it, it may possibly dwarf the November 5, fund raiser (I hope). [UPDATE 11/21/2007: It appears that I am right. Click here for details.]

What Europeans Think: Music Video Tribute

By electing Ron Paul, we also have a chance to redeem ourselves in the eyes of the world. Look at this excellent and very inspiring music video that was put together by a European and dedicated to the millions of American supporters of Ron Paul (there is even a European Ron Paul meet-up map in the video).



Not since the days of John F. Kennedy have the citizens of other nations been this inspired by a U.S. presidential candidate. Why are Europeans, among others, so excited about republican Ron Paul? You would think no citizen of any other country would EVER trust another republican. The fact that they are this dedicated to Ron Paul should tell you something about the man. But I think this History News Network editorial explains very well why non-Americans like him so much: Ron Paul: The Only Presidential Candidate to Challenge the American Empire.

[UPDATE 11/21/2007: I should amend the above, for it appears that some citizens of the United States have not been this inspired since the days of JFK either. For instance, Racer wrote the following comment at TruthDig: "I am 65, and the last president I voted for was JFK, and Ron Paul gives me the same hope that JFK did. I will be proud to vote for Ron Paul. This 2008 election is a make it or brake it for our constitutional republic, and this country needs a president with a plan, not a story teller, or a member of CFR global elite. Just one more thing. John Zogby is a member of CFR, of the Zogby polls."]

Finally, if you still have any last lingering doubts about trusting Ron Paul, just read some of his own words. As you read, please ask yourself if these are the words of a modern republican/neocon fascist? I certainly don't think so. I'm none of those things, but I've been shouting most of these quotes all of my life. The first four are more reminiscent of Gandhi than of a republican of the 21st century:

Ron Paul Says

1.) "The most important element of a free society, where individual rights are held in the highest esteem, is the rejection of the initiation of violence."

2.) "All initiation of force is a violation of someone else's rights, whether initiated by an individual or the state..., even if it's supposed to be for the benefit of another individual or group of individuals."

3.) "Legitimate use of violence can only be that which is required in self-defense."

4.) "Setting a good example is a far better way to spread ideals than through force of arms."

5.) "Freedom is not defined by safety. Freedom is defined by the ability of citizens to live without government interference. Government cannot create a world without risks, nor would we really wish to live in such a fictional place. Only a totalitarian society would even claim absolute safety as a worthy ideal, because it would require total state control over its citizens’ lives. Liberty has meaning only if we still believe in it when terrible things happen and a false government security blanket beckons."

6.) "Let it not be said that no one cared, that no one objected once it’s realized that our liberties and wealth are in jeopardy. A few have, and others will continue to do so, but too many—both in and out of government—close their eyes to the issue of personal liberty..."

7.) "Monitoring the transactions of every American in order to catch those few who are involved in some sort of illegal activity turns one of the great bulwarks of our liberty, the presumption of innocence, on its head. The federal government has no right to treat all Americans as criminals by spying on their relationship with their doctors, employers, or bankers. In fact, criminal law enforcement is reserved to the state and local governments by the Constitution's Tenth Amendment."

8.) "No matter how well intentioned, an authoritarian government always abuses its powers."

9.) "You wanna get rid of drug crime in this country? Fine, let's just get rid of all the drug laws."

10.) "Failure of government programs prompts more determined efforts, while the loss of liberty is ignored or rationalized away. Whether it’s the war against poverty, drugs, terrorism, or the current Hitler of the day, an appeal to patriotism is used to convince the people that a little sacrifice of liberty, here and there, is a small price to pay. The results, though, are frightening and will soon become even more so."

11.) "Justifying conscription to promote the cause of liberty is one of the most bizarre notions ever conceived by man! Forced servitude, with the risk of death and serious injury as a price to live free, makes no sense."

12.) "Our country's founders cherished liberty, not democracy."

13.) "The moral and constitutional obligations of our representatives in Washington are to protect our liberty, not coddle the world, precipitating no-win wars, while bringing bankruptcy and economic turmoil to our people."

14.) "One thing is clear: The Founding Fathers never intended a nation where citizens pay nearly half of everything they earn to government."

15.) "I am absolutely opposed to a national ID card. This is a total contradiction of what a free society is all about. The purpose of government is to protect the secrecy and the privacy of all individuals, not the secrecy of government. We don't need a national ID card."

16.) "I am just absolutely convinced that the best formula for giving us peace and preserving the American way of life is freedom, limited government, and minding our own business overseas."

17.) "I believe that when we overdo our military aggressiveness, it actually weakens our national defense. I mean, we stood up to the Soviets. They had 40,000 nuclear weapons. Now we're fretting day in and day and night about third-world countries that have no army, navy or air force."

18.) "War is never economically beneficial except for those in position to profit from war expenditures."

19.) "Cliches about supporting the troops are designed to distract from failed policies, policies promoted by powerful special interests that benefit from war, anything to steer the discussion away from the real reasons the war in Iraq will not end anytime soon."