By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted August 7, 2008.
Instead of acting like journalists, the mainstream media have become McCain’s personal assistants, regurgitating his B.S. without question.
It might seem unlikely that the United States would elect John McCain to succeed George W. Bush when that would ensure continuation of many unpopular Bush policies: an ill-defined war with the Muslim world, right-wing consolidation of the U.S. Supreme Court, a drill-oriented energy strategy, tax cuts creating massive federal deficits, etc., etc.
McCain and Obama represent two fundamentally different economic philosophies. McCain’s is top-down economics; Obama’s is bottom-up.
Top-down economics holds that:
1. If you give generous tax breaks to the rich, they will have greater incentive to work hard and invest. Their harder work and added investments will generate more jobs and faster economic growth, to the benefit of average working people.
If it hasn’t gone the way of Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Germany, it sure is teetering on the brink. America is a nation in deepening crisis, a nation whose leaders repeatedly plunge their citizens into, and make them pay for, serial wars abroad, while stealing their liberties at home. USA has become a country that trashes its citizens (New Orleans), tortures its enemies (Abu Ghraib), threatens other nations with nuclear fire (Iran), flouts international treaties (UN Charter re Iraq), and spies on (FISA), and intimidates, its critics (No Fly). Americans that can clearly see the totalitarian machinations of Vladimir Putin in Russia and Hu Jintao in China are blind to the fascism threatening to envelop them as well.
The huge commotion, wide ranging research and intellectual discussions about the collapse of the civilization due to climate change has created apprehension and confusion about the directions humanity should take to overcome the challenges to its existence. The variety of solutions recommended range from technological fantasies to pessimistic resignation about the complete destruction of humanity. The solutions also include invading new planets, as well as constructing polar cities and Noah’s model of ark, to sustain life on earth. Most of the solutions are based on the assumption of total collapse, along with the end of civilization and human existence.
John Pilger and Joshua Frank have written on Obama’s centrist positions and I would like to add my supporting views. Senator Obama’s views of late toward Iran and the Arab-Israeli conflict are not shifts to the center or flip-flopping in his policies. The senator has always viewed Iran as a threat to world peace and has always supported Israel and current Israeli policy toward the Palestinians of the Gaza Strip. Now, he merely expands on his already expressed beliefs that somehow were ignored or forgotten by his die-hard supporters. He is also on track with the Democratic Party leadership in Congress. Investigative journalist Seymour Hersh published two articles in the New Yorker magazine which laid out the collusion of both Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and the Senate, and the fact that they are aware of current military action against Iran.
You might think you have the right to vote. You might think your vote counts. You might think that there’s a problem here or there, but that they’re the exceptions. You might think that the 2000 presidential election was an aberration, in which the U.S. Supreme Court violated ethical and court precedents to crown the election loser, countering the will of the people. You might think it can’t possibly be an ongoing problem.
You might be very sadly mistaken.
Note video - “FREE FOR ALL!: The High-Tech HighJack of Ohio” below the article
We take an in-depth look at how the presumptive democratic presidential nominee, Barack Obama, was shaped as a politician by his years in Chicago and how he navigated the tough world of Chicago politics. We speak with Ryan Lizza, the political correspondent for The New Yorker magazine. His latest article, “Making It: How Chicago Shaped Obama,” traces Obama’s political rise in Chicago. [includes rush transcript]
JUAN GONZALEZ: Senator Barack Obama is back in Chicago after his overseas trip. We turn now to the story of how the senator from Illinois and the presumptive democratic presidential nominee was shaped by his years in Chicago and how he navigated the tough world of Chicago politics.
Dear Senator Obama. The US economy is in the worst economic crisis in decades, arguably since the great depression. Housing is collapsing, state budgets are in shambles, unemployment is soaring, and the US dollar is sinking.
Things are going to get even worse when the commercial real estate bust picks up steam. We have seen six bank failures already this year. There are 90 more banks on the problem list. Many of them will fail.
Even though the Vietnam War ended 30 years ago, the US.s saturation chemical bombing is still wreaking havoc on millions, including the newly born . making them third-generation victims. Nobody knows when the congenital deformities, one of many horrific health consequences of the toxic chemicals, will end.
