Why The U.S. Should Accept Defeat And Start Withdrawing From Afghanistan

Look, the other day after Abdullah Abdullah withdrew from the run-off election slated for this Saturday Secreatry of State Clinton and then the administration declared Hamid Karzi the legitimate winner of the Afghan presidential election. This struck me as analogous to a presidential election in the recent US past, 2000 Bush v. Gore. Karzi's legitimacy rests on a decision of US officials.



This being the case perhaps the Obama administration should declare victory, as Karzi was "officially" elected by the Afghan "people," and get the heck out of Kabul.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

On Political Independents

My longtime working definition of an American political "independent" is a Republican who is too lazy to volunteer to campaign for their favorite GOP candidate and too cheap to donate to their favorite GOP candidate.

Over the years I've added the addendum that, by and large, these same so-called "independents" are suburban, white and professional, or coordinator, middle class, i.e. mid-level corporate managers, doctors, lawyers, small business owners, insurance agents and so on. In short the base of the Glenn Beck "teabagger" movement.

They are motivated by greed. Even though the majority are comfortable economically and have incomes which puts them in the alternative minimum tax, AMT, bracket, they always want more. These are the folks who are always whining at the "tea parties," that "we know how to spend our money better than the government."

And they are motivated by envy. Curiously they envy and begrudge the poorest segments of society. Envious in that "independents" envision the poor living the life of Reilly on food stamps and welfare and begrudging ever one of their tax dollars they imagine going to support that imagined lifestyle.

What American "independents" secretly and really want is to live on The Big Rock Candy Mountain, paying no tax yet still receiving all the services and benefits only government can provide.

To that I add that the reason why establishment Democratic politicians and liberal commentators are blind to the economic class element of Glenn Beck-Ayn Rand acolytes is because they are of the same socio-economic class: white, suburban, professional or coordinator class with a commensurate income and social status. And while not as odious as their fellow Beck-Randites, having a social conscience, they do everything to preserve their social status and income, i.e. tax incentives, deductions, credits etc. Establishment Democrats/liberals too want to continue living on The Big Rock Candy Mountain.

Ahmed Wali Karzai Walks on Water While Marc Emery Goes to Prison: The Double Standards of the War on Drugs and the Historical Pattern of U.S. Complicity in the Global Narcotics Traffic

Ahmed Wali Karzai Walks on Water While Marc Emery Goes to Prison: The Double Standards of the War on Drugs and the Historical Pattern of U.S. Complicity in the Global Narcotics Traffic

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The Cost of Empire

The Cost of Empire

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Weimar America

"Our democracy is under attack. Men in high public office and with control over our national airwaves are deliberately stoking a potentially violent movement opposed to our democratic process. They challenge the legitimacy of the last election, they label our elected leaders with the worst political curse words they can think of, they encourage the purchase of weapons at local gun shops and talk of secession in the capitals.

"You don’t have to be a Holocaust-obsessed Jewish academic to see what is going on. Or to remember that German mainstream conservatives were so opposed to the liberal reforms pushed by the democratic system Weimar system that they thought they could harness a violent radical and hateful movement to win political advantage. They were stupid. But we would be stupider the second time around."
Steve Hochstadt
Weimar America

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Consortiumnews.com

Consortiumnews.com

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Creigh Deeds Making Virginia Dems Wish They'd Picked Terry McAuliffe

Several things in this news story illustrate the sorry state of American politics and the electorate.



First: "[Terry] McAuliffe came into the race with a huge financial network that he built on the part of the Clintons; and in the unlikely event that his network had not come through for him, he had enough of a private fortune that he would have been able to help himself."



In other words, in the world of US politics the race does not go to the best and brightest, it goes to the one with the deepest pockets. One the the reasons for the growing cynicism on the part of the average voter is the perception that state and national political campaigns are merely the domain of competing members of the same socio-economic class, i.e. the suburban coordinator class, to the exclusion of everyone else.



Second: "Perhaps the single most politically devastating moment for Mr. Deeds was when he gave a halting and fumbling answer...about whether he would raise taxes to pay for repairing the state’s transportation system. Republicans have used clips from it to produce two of the most devastating advertisements of the campaign, raising questions at once about his views on taxes..."



The sorriest fact of the matter is that the vast majority of Americans want to live on The Big Rock Candy Mountain. We want everything government provides without paying for it. Therefore as voters we truly get what we pay for.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

Consortiumnews.com

"Does anyone on the Left seriously believe that a President John McCain or a President Hillary Clinton would have promoted peace as much as Obama has?

"And when it comes to a country as powerful as the United States, gradations matter; they can be the difference between untold numbers of people living or dying, as Election 2000 should have made clear, when some on the Left said there was "not a dime's worth of difference" between Bush and Al Gore. "
Robert Parry

Consortiumnews.com

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Ayn Rand Redux

Ayn Rand Redux

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Middle class squeeze: The deep roots of an economic and social transformation -- DailyFinance

Middle class squeeze: The deep roots of an economic and social transformation -- DailyFinance

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Second Great Depression Still Possible: <I>The Financial Times</i>

Yes, it will get worse before it gets better. In fact the coming economic collapse, because the economy has not truly collapsed as yet, will make the "recession" of last year look like a child's tea party.



As for the public sector contraction, it is happening in my state. Our less-than-popular Democratic governor has instituted a ten per cent across the board cut to all state departments because of a short fall in tax revenue collection. Lay-offs will likely fall heaviest on unionized state workers, who do not lover our Democratic governor in the first place, putting added strain on the already overtaxed unemployment insurance fund.



Our governor's potential Republican opponents, however, offer the typical GOP response to economic crisis: cut public spending even more, especially to social services such as child care, job training, drug counseling and so on. The irony lost on the typical Republican politician is, many in the GOP base, rural whites, rely on Depart of Human Services programs.
Read the Article at HuffingtonPost

The “Tea Party” Movement and Its Misuse of History

The “Tea Party” Movement and Its Misuse of History

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