Dennis Kucinich: ‘Why I Voted No On Bailout Bill’

Video from Youtuber yrrmom. Dennis Kucinich on Democracy Now says the bailout as written is a “continuance of a transfer of wealth… upwards” adding “this is a very dangerous moment.”

Kucinich says that a former head of the FDIC told a group of congressmen yesterday that the “Bush Administration has been going around the last two weeks actually so tightening up on the practices of banks that they’re forcing them to have bigger reserves which forces them in a way… would kinda create, you know help to create the kind of tight money policies that we’re seeing, that we’re trying to alleviate with this bill. There needs to be a closer look at this…it seems to me there’s a possibility that this crisis has a little bit of manufacture to it…”

Kucinich says that congress has had no hearings on alternatives. He says we need to work on Plan B, to help Wall Street pay for its own problems via stock transfer tax and cancellation of dividends.

Speaker Pelosi from the House floor: “But it just comes down to one simple thing. They have described a precipice. We are on the brink of doing something that might pull us back from that precipice.” (emphasis mine)

So in effect, Wall Street gets $700+ billion from Americans that every economist agrees cripples our future goals, and in exchange we barter the future of generations of American children to come on a “might.”

Breathe, everyone.

For nearly a decade now, these (Bush) bad actors have successfully managed and terrified the American populace. If you’re terrified now, it’s because they want you to be… they’ve come back to us using their standard modus operandi (fear) for a coup de grace.

Let’s not help them. Let’s seize this moment and turn this crisis into an opportunity for change. The Orwellian thinking permeating our nation that a thing is either this or that, black or white doesn’t reflect a real world landscape where oftentimes there are a range of alternatives from which to choose.

This time let’s remain rational… let’s force our representatives to come up with a better thought out plan that benefits Americans and doesn’t target our progeny, condemning them to an Oliver Twist life in a country  “Third World, Only Shinier.”

ETA links

J Gowasky

Resourceful Neglect: What’s Really Going On In America

You don’t have to be a genius to realize that there’s a massive shifting of wealth taking place in our country. If you haven’t heard there are protests all over the country over the bailout plans.

More money, more money, more money: For a long time I thought that the rich and bloated could not have enough and that there was some sort of wild game played amongst themselves of who could build the highest mound of cash. I still believe that. But, now however, there’s a flip side to that thinking, because I’ve come to understand that not only will they have more money, but we’ll have far less or maybe even no money at all.

This massive redistribution of wealth (from funds that Americans will have to borrow via China?) pretty much seals the deal for me as, already, international banks are lining up for their share of redistribution funds.

I’m no economist. Nor have I conversed with any. I’m just an ordinary citizen whose brain stores important information for later retrieval. While lots of people are focused on the here and now, I’m wondering how we got here and were we’re heading.

Here’s how we got here: After George Bush staked down his claim to the White House and all of what it meant to be our first “dictator,” his first meeting was with the business community where groundwork may have been laid to cut taxes. Whether the scheme was hatched then or later the tax rebate scheme would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy. It took effect in 2001 and was billed as helping the economy.

In early 2002, Bush began talking about “broader home ownership, especially among minorities” for those who previously could not afford them. This announcement came soon after the Senate and Congress began rewriting the bankruptcy code whereby distressed, bankruptcy-declared homeowners could no longer save their primary property. In 2005, a final industry-written bankruptcy bill was signed into law.

Plenty of Democrats, including my own senator, voted for that little piece of stink.

So we have several schemes in a span of just a few years: tax rebates that go mostly to the wealthy; the war in Afghanistan and the Iraq invasion with their accompanying patronage system that includes military privatization. Add to that mix, banking deregulation and a scheme to get more minorities into homes with the caveat of making home mortgages available to those who normally couldn’t afford them.

All these schemes were promoted as helping American taxpayers.

However, if the true goal is to make loads of money while impoverishing America, the scheme has to be widespread covering a number of institutions.

Is it mere coincidence that The Bush Family were deeply involved with the Savings and Loans scandal of the 80’s and 90’s? As was Sen. John McBush, who has a certain fondness for deregulating financial institutions. The similarities between the S&L Loan crisis to today’s banking and investment scandals are striking. The White House, with a slip of the tongue, revealed that they’ve had this bailout plan on paper for months. Oh really… how many months was that you say?

Here’s where we’re heading: The complexion of the American population is becoming browner, everybody. About the time we found that out American businesses had already begun shifting high paying jobs overseas to India, a country that has in place a tidy, though sl-o-o-wly evolving little known or talked about caste system that pretty much keeps everyone in their respective place. An aspect of the caste system operates by virtue of birth, placing darker-skinned aboriginal peoples of India on a lower socio-economic rung than the Aryan invaders, turned rulers and others.

By 2042, America’s white majority will no longer exist. I lay odds that it’ll happen sooner than that. Look at present day state demos.

Economists are saying that this $700+ billion transfer of American wealth from taxpayers will effect generations to come. If that’s the case, they’re talking about it impacting a mostly brown population and probably, by then, a much poorer white population. However, today’s wealth transfer ensures that future generations of the majority brown population will be horribly indebted.

I think a highly educated, militarily strong, wealthy browner-skinned America is anathema to those people who pull the world’s economic strings.

This whole Wall Street mess reminds me of the negotiated downfall of the apartheid South African government. Before the ANC took power certain economic structural controls were put in place. These controls are now so entrenched that anytime the post-apartheid leadership breathes a hint of economic equality for the majority population, the business community steps in threatening economic retaliation. For all their years of fighting, the majority population fares no better under black power.

A couple of years prior to relinquishing control, the South African nuclear weapons and ballistics program, initiated with Israel’s help, was dismantled by then President de Klerk… “they” couldn’t fathom having a black nation controlling nukes. In America, In addition to destroying the economy, Bush has successfully broken the military and has begun privatizing soldiers. Wonder what excuse they’ll give for depleting the nation’s vast arsenal of weapons?

Here’s a little duzy of a quote found on the web that is indicative of a certain mindset re: people of color having wealth and power:

“People think Apartheid was about social repression based on racialism. Nope. Those were tools. Reality was, Apartheid in South Africa and Zimbabwe was about economics. It set up a system where a small oligarchy united by racialism could maximize “rent seeking behavior“ against the majority. It was about “anti-market sustainable wealth transfer”.

“So after ‘white majority rule, ended in Zimbabwe” white elites said, “well we dug this hole for you, and we used the dirt to build up our platform. Out of the goodness of our heart we are now going to take our foot off your head, you climb out and up to our level by yourself.

“See, that is fair and free. Everyone is equal. LOL”

The real sad fact about the entire African continent is that it abounds in natural resources demanded by the rest of the world, yet because of oppressive economic forces and easily manipulated leaders, its original peoples remain mired in turmoil and poverty.

However, even with access to the wiles of technology, the white power structure has little power to control stampeding forces of nature. And along with a continuance of widespread economic oppression will grow leaders much like Hugo Chavez, who instinctively revolt against minority rule and oppression.

There are a very few people who enjoy controlling our economic destinies. They have that power only because we’ve surrendered ours to them.

J Gowasky

Do Americans Have “Soylent Green” In Our Future?

I don’t like to frighten people, I like to inform people… if I’m able. Information that some find helpful others find frightening. I never advocate fear. It leads to irrationality and bad decisions. If you’re spooked easily you may want to consider whether or not to proceed. I encourage readers who are easily spooked to not be. I encourage everyone to to grasp the enormity of the seriousness of our situation in America and think of the urgency of being proactive and not reactive.

I left out major parts of my post “John McCain’s Soylent Green Backdrop” and should not have. In leaving out this part of the post I omitted an opportunity at making present day American life comparisons with those presented in the movie “Soylent Green.” To some, the comparison may be unsettling. To others, sheer nonsense.

Movie synopsis/spoilers: “Soylent Green” is set in NYC, population 40 million. We don’t know why but, there is no access to wild, sprawling lands. We don’t even know if such a thing exists anymore. To say year 2022 NYC’s overcrowded is an understatement.

There are at least three social classes: mercilessly and desperately impoverished; workers, having microscopically more than the non-working; and the rich. By far, the desperately impoverished make up the majority class. The only food available to the masses comes in the form of red, yellow and green “food” squares tossed out at random times. No one, except for the rich, buys fresh food, meat or produce.

Inhabitants of this world are shown standing, sitting and sleeping in clusters everywhere… even on the stairs and landings leading to ridiculously cramped apartments, if you’re lucky enough to have a job. The workers appear to be employed by the Corporation/State. There are assassins, police, truck drivers, “food” producers and those working in the suicide clinic to name a few positions.

Female inhabitants are literal pieces of furniture. They’re bought/sold with luxury apartments that are owned by the rich who live behind impenetrable walls.

In one scene an inhabitant wears priestly garbs. This male is just as helpless and lifeless and miserable as other inhabitants crowding the church. As with every place in NYC, it’s normal for inhabitants who, when unable to fit inside the medium-sized, but impossibly overcrowded church, to simply and haplessly spill through its doorway and down the steps… totally unaware of their long ago God-given birthright to human dignity.

The dispassionate demeanor Soylent Green inhabitants display for their own floundering circumstance has been instigated by an insidious, out of control human force that brutally demonstrates its sole ownership of and rule over all breathing creatures in existence, human or animal. Soylent Green inhabitants have not the slightest sense of past, nor do they long for or wait for a better future. The umbilical cord connecting them to their hopes and dreams is completely severed.

The occupants exist in an irrevocable abyss of Now

Perhaps at one time during Soylent Green’s distant past, hope for a better life was demeaned and ridiculed by the Corporate power structure.

Instead, maybe Corporate/State identified a state terrorist and mounted endless wars in search of that terrorist.

Maybe the Corporate/State stopped funding education appropriately and the drop out rate grew astronomically. People became woefully uneducated, lost the ability to think for themselves and fell victim to a corrupt power structure.

Maybe the Corporate/State took control (at least in the beginning) of all but a very few local and national media outlets, changing media from a public service tool into a profit driven industry having two edicts: propagandize the corporate message of war & terrorism and turn hefty profits.

Maybe the Corporate/State shipped (in the beginning) blue collar jobs overseas before sending the better paying jobs leaving behind in Soylent Green a shrinking middle class, until none existed at all.

Maybe Corporate/State bequeathed the children of the empire an insurmountable debt that taxed and strangled the citizens into oblivion.

Maybe (once), there was a glimmer of hope. The people had before them an opportunity to pick a peaceful, brighter, more prosperous future for themselves and their family. But, maybe the population after countless years of being inundated with blood and death and despair, were now appropriately inoculated against any counter offensive vs Corporate/State. Maybe for far too many people a bloodlust took root inside their minds, strategically attaching itself to a selfish, unyielding call for nationalism, shrewdly disguised as patriotism.

For some others maybe fatigue or disappointment or every day distractions made it too late to hope.

Fait accompli.

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Some of us need to remove our rose-colored “America is number one” glasses. And fast. Our regressive domestic and foreign policies make our claim to a number one status pure lunacy.

And if we don’t put a stop to this not so new (now at least 8 years old) brand of conservatism- Neo-conservatism- ..their inhumane policies will continue, perhaps increasing the probability of some version of “Soylent Green” in our future.

This Neo-conservatism is religious cultism. It has bullied away countless followers of the more balanced ideology of conservatism. “Left Behind” then are members who have blind devotion and abiding loyalty to their leader(s). Demagoguery replaces rational thought.

Neo conservatism agenda is depleting our education system. Many of our children are in failing schools. Too many American schools lose accreditation. In addition the long-standing practice of “teaching to the test” is eroding the ability of citizens to think critically. In some schools science is taking a backseat to creationism.

This Neo-conservatism has placed Americans in the midst of the worst housing crisis since the Great Depression. Do you ever wonder what happens to those who lose property? Do they rent an apartment? Move in with relatives? Check this out here and here.

This Neo-conservatism that first started shipping blue collar jobs overseas is currently sending white collar jobs there. The official unemployment rate is 6.1. That number doesn’t count all Americans not working, who want to work. The real unemployment figure is guesstimated to be somewhere between 10 and 15%.

Food prices are are skyrocketing. More and more people are going hungry. Our nations is in hock up to the heavens.

Oh… have I mentioned that Neo-con’s are engaging a new and ongoing forceful attack demeaning community organizers… who are often the lifeline for people who’ve lost or are in danger of losing every material possession?

“Soylent Green” doesn’t document how the culture collapses. Nor does it mention what’s happening at the same time with the rest of the world. Have other cultures collapsed as well or did America alone crumble? We don’t know.

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America is being systematically and intentionally weakened. Your question may be why. I have my own theories which HAN may decide to publish sometime down the road. If we do decide to publish, it’ll post sooner rather than later.

Was the McCain-Palin campaign telegraphing a message of poverty and despair to their wealthy, Corporate sponsors? I don’t know. I don’t like conspiracy theories without factual evidence.

And I have only instinct and conjecture: McCain’s staging that night- which media chatterlings made muchado about – on the surface was plain silly. I won’t dwell on it anymore beyond this post. But, that a well-oiled machine was showing idiotic scenes behind him during what could possibly be his last major speech before a large audience is- quite frankly- baffling.

Conspiracy stuff aside, what’s really crucial is keeping Neo-cons away from the White House… for the immediate and foreseeable future.

These Neo-cons are dangerous and are playing for keeps. And so should Progressives, Liberals disaffected Republicans, Conservatives, Independents and anybody else not named, but who can sense the ferocity of the Neo-con agenda.

link added

J Gowasky

‘Hockey Mom From Hell’: You Sending Beacons Or Bombs To The World?

Are Hockey Moms Grown In Hell?

What does it say about a person who jokes that lipstick is the only difference between herself and a pit bull… a dog known from multiple news reports for being unrelenting, uncontrollable and a deadly killer of children and people…?

I’m not sure. But, it doesn’t sound good for the small children or people who get in her way while she’s in a frenzy. 

However, it was a line carelessly tossed out last night by Governor Palin. “Red meat for the base,” claim the news reports heard on the progressive radio station I listen to. I think the Republicans/media are emphasizing the red meat line as a way of showcasing the governor’s wit and ferocity.

Sorry, it’s not funny and I’m not biting.  Her comparison is indecent, her remarks offensive. I’ve had it up to the nether regions with eight years of “red meat” in the way of human blood, gore and guts.

Republicans want to convince Americans that we are all about blood and gore and guts, because that’s exactly what they’re presenting to us… more “leaders” who’ll go on blood-seeking missions, tearing the head off any effin’ body gettin’ in their effin’ bloody way.

Only this time we’ll be led by “bomb, bomb, bomb” McPow and his new ass-kicking, name-taking side-kick, Red Meat-Seeking Sarah.

But, are they correct? Is this the kind of stuff some Americans need to feel safe or to boost their esteem in a growing world inhabited by us and those scary ‘others’?

Palin in her speech text states that our opponents have to cry ‘uncle’ before we can move on. I’ve played that game often enough to know that the tide can turn when you think you’ve got the upper hand. Playing ‘uncle’ or as she calls it, claiming “victory” can go on and on with you and your opponent changing the ‘uncle’ position.

Are we prepared to go on endless bloody rampages anywhere and anytime we want… sacrificing our babies to an ever changing cause for ever changing reasons in ever changing regions? 

I have a good friend living in Europe. In fact, this friend is a European. The reaction I get from our conversations about the situation here ranges from disbelief to pity. Europeans, as does the rest of the world, know our early stories of glory and heroism. They are waiting for us to wake up and reclaim our history.

Can we admit that we were wrong, made mistakes and move off into a better, more positive direction?

We used to be the world’s beacon. Have we dug such a deep hole for ourselves that we’ll never see daylight, let alone the limelight, again? I don’t know those answers. A hole tears through my stomach even thinking about it.

Beacons or Bombs? You get to choose which ones we’ll send to a waiting world.

Governor Sarah’s speech text. I won’t watch their convention, ’cause the stench from their “jokes” of rotting animal flesh oozes through the tube. Their filthy, obscene minds stink up my home.

The text can be found here at the Huffington Post.

Speech HIghlights

• Sara’s a hockey Mom and, oh a PTA mom. (The quality of her *motherhood is open to debate)
• Politics is a game. (Not for those of us who suffer terribly from selfish and just plain bad policy decisions)
• She’s a reformer. **(She’s got so much shit brewing in Alaska that it’s stinkin’ up the lower 48)
• Victory in Iraq. (No mention of how) 
• Terrorist states. (Didn’t say who we’re supposed to be afeered of now, perhaps, Iran AND Russia)
• Al Qaeda terrorists. (Speaks for itself, I hope)
• Alaskan oil drilling. (Invasion of pristine area for minimal return; a few years even before benefits are realized)
• She tells countless lies about Senator Obama’s policies.
• Sen McNuts is an upright and honorable man. (She neglected to mention his dangerous lobbyist ties and K5)

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What’s the difference between **hockey mom Sarah and a pit bull?

I don’t know, but I’m guessing that the pit bull smells better.

*The media are looking into her background.

updated

J Gowasky

An Insatiable Lust

It’s crazy. They’re at it again, the Oil Baron’s with their insatiable lust for money. Now they’re after more offshore drilling rights. That’s right they want more because the 33 million acres of the federal Outer Continental Shelf acres under lease are not nearly enough for them. The Oil Baron’s have been given the rights to drill in these areas and others but are not drilling.

Why, you ask? Because the greedy Oil Barons want to grab leases and hoard them for some later future date when they can really screw the American public. With so many people predicting that we’re nearing or at peak oil capacity now, oil in the not too distant future will be really rare and precious.

This whole energy debate reminds HAN of Nikola Tesla. We wrote briefly about him in an earlier post, “Oil Barons and Bust (America).” Here’s some more information about Tesla who made a valiant attempt to make energy plentiful and free for everyone.

Tesla, The Forgotten Father of Technology

Nikola Tesla, was a brilliant inventor and innovator whose inventions ranged from electricity to acoustics, to hydraulics, metallurgy, and geometry (1), wanted to provide free electricity to the public. Of course, the greed of capitalism got in the way. 

Nikola Tesla (1856-1943), born in Croatia, later becoming an American citizen, was a one-time employee and then later a rival to Thomas Edison. After working for Edison repairing motors and inoperable generators at the Edison plant, Tesla asked Edison for the promised payment of $50,000. In response, Edison is quoted as having told Tesla that he didn’t understand American humor. I guess that means Edison never paid Tesla for his work.

Tesla went on to challenge Edison’s vision of using direct current (DC) generator for universal distribution. While Edison was trying to perfect the hazardous, cumbersome and expensive DC generator Tesla’s invention of the alternating current (AC) generator proved more practical, efficient and cost-effective eventually becoming industry standard. Their battle for supremacy is known as “The Current Wars.” Though his story in American history books is recounted fondly enough, Edison was actually the antagonist in this war. Edison distorted the merits of Tesla’s AC generator by propagandizing it as dangerous. Edison went so far as to solicit a professor, Harold Brown, to electrocute “dogs and horses on stage” as proof of the dangers of the AC generator. 

Free Energy For All

One of the last inventions Tesla introduced was the Wardenclyffe Tower. Had it succeeded it would have provided free electricity to the world. The Wardenclyffe Tower was meant to be the start of a global system for wireless telecommunications and a national (and later global) system of towers broadcasting power to users as radio waves.(2) Instead of supplying electricity through a current grid system, users would simply “receive” power through antennas on their roofs.(3) Funding for the project was pulled by backer J. P Morgan when he realized there was no way to meter it.

Tesla is credited with having over 700 patents, including radar, the electric motor and the concept behind the radio. Just months after his death, the disputed radio patent was awarded by the U.S. Supreme Court to Tesla over Guglielmo Marconi, who is generally acknowledged as radio’s inventor.

It’s estimated that Tesla gave up millions of dollars in proceeds from his inventions so that the public could have access to his ideas. He died impoverished having given the world so much while receiving so little in return. It can be said that we are a hundred years behind in technology because many of Tesla’s inventions never saw the light of day. Today people still sift through his patents seeking ways to bring them to life.

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The insatiable lust for money — then and now– is a lesion on our society. These speculators and others who hoard goods– thereby raising prices of life sustaining commodities, who have $$$$$$$ signs in places where the rest of us humans carry our brain, heart and eyes, are never interested in serving the public good.

We are wise to remember that.

Oil Barons and Bust (America) or Jimmy Carter Warned America (Vid)

The Republicans defeated yet another energy bill put forth by the Democrats. You gotta give it to them and admit their moxie in firmly standing behind their constituency in the face of what a lot of people see as an approaching landslide in favor of Barack Obama (though with the Republican slime machine gearing up none of us take it for granted). 

In filibustering the much-needed energy bill the Republicans prove yet again how finely-tuned their tin ears are to the pleas of rich and greedy Oil Baron’s: Republicans must not disturb the greedy Oil Baron’s quarterly record profits. 

President Carter’s Energy Policy

With gasoline hitting more than $4.00/gallon and no respite for the weary in sight, I can’t help but think about where we might be as a country had we not laughed at President Jimmy Carter back in the 70’s. I remember very vaguely the days when Carter put on a sweater and talked to the American people about energy conservation. He told the American people how we needed to change our ways which meant wearing sweaters around the house and turning the thermostat down to 60 degrees. My mom, who was not given to being cold in her own house, dutifully complied, tossing extra blankets on our beds for good measure. I’m sure ours was not the only family that responded responsibly to our President’s call for a saner energy policy, but memory recalls Carter and his policies generally being laughed at. His oval office chat, and the sweater he had worn to show the public what he himself was willing to do, was derisively compared to FDR and his more successful fireside chats. Carter, despite the multitude of catcalls, went on to install solar panels on the White House. We all know what Republican President Ronald Reagan did with those.

American Ingenuity

On one of this morning’s network shows, a guy who’s adapted his car to use natural gas was interviewed. Having tapped off the natural gas line in his home, each night he fills up at about 2 dollars a gallon. Only drawback: He can’t drive long distances because there aren’t too many or, really, any natural gas stations.  Yet, hIs story made me wonder about innovation… Just where we would be if we had heeded Carter’s warning more than 30 years ago? I’m also reminded of Nikola Tesla and his invention that, had it maintained sufficient financial backing, would have tapped into nature’s resources and supplied free energy to every person on the planet.

Now, wouldn’t that have been something?

(I heard news reporters on two separate MSM networks blame the Republicans for the defeated energy bill. While they seem to be utterly oblivious to other Republican policies that hurt working Americans, at least we know they feel the sting of high fuel and food prices as much as the rest of us).

Be back with links.