[Content removed due to copyright violation and user banned.  - Scout Finch ]

It was natural for neocons to strive for power after the cold war because of Lord Acton's old axiom, "Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

After the Cold War, many people naively thought the U.S. would enter a period of peace and partial demilitarization, including lower defense spending. In a world without temptation and greed this would have indeed been natural.

But this ignored the position of post-cold-war America: ostensible undisputed military supremacy. The crumbling of the USSR -- America's main military, foreign policy and ideological opponent -- thrust the U.S. before the extremely dire temptation that Lord Acton noted has historically absolutely corrupted the tempted.

Neocons were the inevitable outcome.

If the FBI doesn't investigate and properly help prosecute the egregious widespread voting fraud in Ohio in the 2004 presidential election, would citizens be justified by natural law or something else to take matters into their own hands to punish and prevent such fraud?

Put succinctly, should citizens seek out every low-, mid- and high-level Ohio fraud participant, e.g., programmers, managers, company presidents, field workers, government employees et al., and physically punish them with tar and feathers, branding, water boarding (as practiced by the Spanish Inquisition, Japanese WWII soldiers and the Bush admin) or even death?

If not, what if the orchestrated mass fraud happens again?

Since current laws are ignored and no power is actively and successfully applying the law to correct the egregious and numerous violations, it seems the only possible responses are

(1) ignore it and let the fraudulent winners burn themselves out through abject failure to manage and govern competently or

(2) actively stop the fraud with force – either the FBI’s or citizens’.

Personally, I like ice cream and chocolate, and these may be the best way to get through this dark period.

Somewhat stale news to some people, but fresh and shocking to most:

When Albuquerque, N.M., lawyer Paul Livingston first saw the now-infamous photos of the naked Iraqi prisoner being menaced by American soldiers with dogs in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib Prison, he immediately thought of Virginia.

Livingston represents 66 of 108 New Mexico inmates shipped to Virginia’s Wallens Ridge prison in 1999. The cases, he says, involve inmates who were non-violent offenders and have since been released. Nevertheless, Virginia prison guards beat them, shot them with stun guns and rubber bullets, slammed them against floors and walls, chained them to their beds for days at a time, subjected them to racist verbal abuse, and threatened them with sodomy and vicious dogs. This was done as a matter of policy, Livingston says, "just to show them who was boss and how terrified they should be."

From Abu Ghraib in Virginia
Abuse of Iraqi inmates follows a pattern established in Southern prisons
By Laura LaFay

Southern Exposure 32 (Winter 2005)
Southern Exposure / Southern Studies
www.southernstudies.org/reports/LaFay3-WEB.htm

Since my last post I've had the great pleasure of "unsubscribing" from a surprisingly large number of Democrat party, politician and other liberal email lists.  For days, as email arrived asking for money, I immediately scrolled to their bottoms and spanked "unsubscribe."

Only one Democrat organization's email had a dead "unsubscribe" link, but it didn't upset me. If they keep sending emails with an ineffectual list-removal option, I'll simply add them to my spam filter.

Once the dust settles after the primaries I'll consider giving money again. Or if they impeach Cheney.

By the way, it amazes me how many liberals in the last 12 months have changed their minds about the NRA and now support it.  I met a guy today who told me this and I agreed.  He knows a few other liberals who also feel this way, too. And these aren't rock-throwing kids. I think they're in their 50s but I really don't know, except they're all white collar professionals. The NRA probably has local meetings and training in safety, but hell, what do I know? I actually run a gun-control website!  But the NRA is looking better all the time. It seems like a good place to learn responsible gun handling plus receive member discounts: www.nra.org/affiliates.aspx

But I digress.

$ donations

 25 DNC
100 DNC
250 dem party
250 dem national party
100 DNC for door to door campaign
100 DNC
 25 democrats.org

350 moveonpac $50 to 7 democrats in tight races nationwide
100 moveonpac for ron kirk dem in texas
100 moveonpac stickland in colorado
 50 moveon iraq daisy ad in superbowl
 50 moveonorg
200 moveon.org
 55 moveon.org
 50 moveon
 25 moveon
 37.51 caroline production fund through moveon

 66 actblue donation to dems

250 dean
250 dean
100 dean
175 dean

100 john kerry
250 john kerry
250 john kerry
250 john kerry

250 richard morrison dem running against delay in tx
 75 richard morrison dem against delay
100 richard morrison dem against delay

500 wellstone
 50 wellstone annual
 50 vote to impeach
 30 public campaign action fund

100 Obama
 50 Edwards
 50 Dodd
 50 Kucinich

That's what my accounting program reports.

From my favorite soldier, the late Colonel David H. Hackworth, to the active soldiers in the 1960s who started the Vietnam anti-war movement on bases before civilians protested (DVD documentary, "Yes, Sir, No Sir!") to today’s volunteer soldiers who speak and act against the Iraq war, our nation has had soldiers who know and do what’s right, even if it hurts their military careers. Unfortunately, they are the minority.  

- Are other soldiers automatons who "just follow orders" or brown-nose in order to help their careers?  Are such soldiers good for America?

- Are Generals who exaggerate foreign threats in order to get more funding for new weapons and foreign bases hurting America more than helping?

- Are Generals who strive to greedily expand the "military industrial complex" at the expense of the rest of America actually unwitting enemies of the United States?

- Is a soldier who blindly believes everything he or she is told by superiors a loyal citizen?

And I’m not alluding to their sexual orientation and Walmart-sized sexual closet. (The DailyKos list of Republican sex scandals covers this just fine at www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Republican_Sex_Scandals.)

I’m referring to Republicans liking violence both ways.

They love it when big media emphasizes violent crime in the U.S. and parrots concocted military threats about weak foreign oil targets. This hardens them. Yet at no point in the last 25 years did Republicans even murmur about big media continually ignoring the very real 30-year steady decline of violent crime in the U.S. Instead, Republicans profited from that perversely unbalanced reporting and encouraged it (e.g., Willie Horton* in 1988 and numerous other belches of fear mongering).

Republicans now whine and throw hissy fits about media reports of mass violence in Iraq and plead with the media to show the happy times there. Many formerly hardened Republicans now realize their mojo is flaccid, and some of them will no doubt take drastic measures to revive it, perhaps tapping big media’s foot under the table or bathroom stall.

Maybe one day Republicans will realize the danger and cruelty of living double lives, married to the specter of violence at home while trying to hide it abroad.

from London Times Online article about Matt Drudge:
http://technology.timesonline.co.uk/...
(paragraph 32)

"At times Drudge has served Hillary. In April he posted the exclusive that Hillary won the first-quarter fundraising battle in a 'blowout with $36m'. Insiders say the Clinton campaign leaked the figure to spin perceptions, because most of Hillary’s contributions couldn’t be spent until the general election. 'The Hillary campaign leaks their numbers on Drudge because there is no follow-up question,' says one former Democratic operative."

(emphasis added)

Most U.S. politicians run parallel campaigns: one public for non-corporate voters concerned with non-corporate litmus tests (abortion rights, church and state, minority rights, gun control, immigration, environment, etc.)  and one private for corporations dependent on the government for work, approval or property (defense contracts, financial regulation, foreign aid contracts, transportation infrastructure contracts, energy regulation, import/export approval and tariffs, farm subsidies, media use of public-owned airwaves, healthcare regulation, etc.).

Like most Republicans, some national Democrat politicians mainly represent corporate interests and count on cynically manipulating constituents’ reliance on non-corporate litmus tests. In this sense, blue-state voters not weighing corporate cronyism are like red-state voters since both blindly support corporate-crony politicians who pass a few non-corporate litmus tests.  

Though I value "litmus issues" and donated money to some groups promoting and defending litmus views I share, these issues increasingly seem less important as corporations tighten their grip on our government.

Two weeks ago I visited a friend in Washington D.C. for some R & R.

Staying just a 5-10 minute walk from the big white obelisk was a real trip.  My friend used to work for Congress and the Senate but now works for a think tank and is a T.V. talking head, book author and Op-Ed writer on defense with a heavy anti-war slant. "Nothing fattens big government like war," he likes to point out. He says even some big right-wing-hated New Deal agencies were simply converted fat WWI agencies renamed and led by the same blokes retitled.

But enough of that prattle. I was on vacation.

Walking around D.C. made me think of the eye of a hurricane. It's so calm there. Everyone is 100% about the business of politics. Consultants, politicians, staff, lobbyists and bureaucrats all shuffle along in nearly identical suits calculating spin. In D.C., master’s degrees and PhDs are a dime a dozen and mostly in suspect soft fields unworthy of an ounce of extra political power, as Ivy-Leagued PhD neocons and others so thoroughly proved. Having an advanced degree has no bearing on having one's head stuck up one's ass. If you're head-ass stuck before earning an advanced degree, you'll likely be after.

It's ironic and moronic the way hardcore right-wing Iraq war supporters, including some soldiers, simultaneously express concern and hatred for Iraqis.

They claim there will be massive sectarian bloodshed if the United States pulls out of Iraq, so we must stay to prevent it.

Many of this ilk turn right around and claim all Iraqis should be considered insurgents or supporters of insurgents. Some even say we should flatten the entire Middle East. (They typically say "kill them all" or "make it glass," meaning nuke the Middle East, melting the sand and turning it into glass.)

Some of my right-wing clients told me this face-to-face and in all-capital-lettered email replies to my anti-war emails over the last 4 years (we parted ways after these exchanges). I even had two clients tell me that if the U.S. is only in Iraq for oil, all the better: "take their oil!" they said. All of these clients are wealthy business owners or executives, including, amazingly, two graduates of U.C. Berkeley, that so-called bastion of liberal thought.

Dear Santa,

I only want one thing for Christmas. It isn’t money or a sweater.

I just want you to follow the money. Wise guys always say, "follow the money, follow the money!" I have faith you can do it, Santa. This is much easier than 3 wise guys following stars to a manger.

Specifically, Santa, please give us the damn names of the people who purchased the abnormally high volume of 9/11-related options. Sorry to curse, Saint Nick, but the 9/11 Commission knows the answer and said so in its gargoyle-tale report.

Though old news, this loose end needs a relentless hard pull now more than ever.

Tugging on it could unravel the 9/11 fabric of deceit woven by Cheney. War, terror, eroded rights, and "known unknown" corruption are all wrapped in this 9/11 fabric. Unlike other loose ends, our government publicly admitted it knows where this one leads. So, Santa, temporarily tune out Iraq, Iran, dirty bombs, eroded Constitutional Rights, Republican prostitution homosexual pedophilia incest bestiality scandals and focus on one thing: making public the names of the 9/11 investors.

Follow the money!

Terrorists fixate on blue-state targets
Red-state residents have little need to worry about foreign terrorist attacks. Terrorists don't target them because terrorists strike at symbols of America, and those symbols are almost all in liberal blue states. From actual attacks and our national terror-alert system, we can see that terrorists prefer targeting landmarks in liberal regions, such as New York, Chicago and San Francisco, not obscure targets in red states. Obviously, the WTC was more tantalizing than WalMart.

Ironically, people in the regions least likely to be attacked by foreign terrorists chose Bush twice, while people in regions attacked and most threatened with foreign attack chose Gore and Kerry.

The northeast, a perennial blue region, consistently experiences the highest terror-alert levels, along with the liberal blue west and liberal blue Midwest.  Yet red states consistently side with terrorists and attack the same liberals and liberal regions. How could red-state residents vote against the victims of 9/11 by not siding with them and their choice of Kerry?

American culture would be greatly diminished without the south.  Below I describe what and who I admire in the land of Dixie.

In my last entry I inferred that Narcissistic Personality Disorder in politicians and voters is at its worst in the south. I described this as a major problem for the health of the United States because so many southerners are unwittingly enabling the worst manipulative cabalistic kleptocrats in a misguided effort to stave off their own Narcissistic-based shame or feelings of emptiness.

I chose the phrase "shame-evoking" instead of "shameful" because I don't really believe the south's fewer modern accomplishments, lower productivity, lower average IQ (maybe from lead and mercury pollution), epidemic obesity, Neal Horsley-like sexual perversity, etc. are truly shameful. But I realize those stereotypes, plus the legacy of slavery and Jim Crow, almost certainly taint the self-image of southerners and evoke hidden feelings of mass shame and cause lashing-out.

There are negative and positive forces in every culture. And there are narcissists galore in the north, south, east and west. The negative aspects of southern culture are no one's fault.  Any of us born and raised in the south would be part of that culture.

Frankly, I love the south.

This paragraph from "Why is it Always About You? The Seven Deadly Sins of Narcissism" by Sandy Hotchkiss applies well to both the Bush administration and its supporters, especially southerners:

"Unreality is the hallmark of narcissism. Whether it's idealizations, expectations of perfection, manufactured images, illusions, distortions of fact, catastrophizing or other kinds of exaggerations, denial, or outright lying, Narcissists will go to great lengths to avoid any reality that evokes shame and to promote fantasies that sustain their grandiosity and omnipotence. [emphasis added] They require accomplices for this, people to admire them and do their bidding, and often we are all too willing to meet their needs. What draws us into their web is our own longing to feel more worthwhile, more alive. Just as they need us to regulate their intolerable shame, we may need them to fill an emptiness of our own."  

p. 69

That Bush and Cheney have Narcissistic Personality Disorder is old news.

But this disorder seems to be widespread among contumacious Republican southern supporters, too.

I'm not 100% sure about these figures, but...

How can Murdoch's News Corp buy the Wall Street Journal when his media holdings have already reached the 39% maximum for U.S. media?

Murdoch owned 39% of U.S. media back when the law limited an owner to 34%, but the last Republican Congress increased the limit to 39% to match Murdoch's holdings.

So how can Murdoch buy the WSJ or any media company without first selling off something since he's already at 39% and a new purchase would push him beyond the maximum (again)?

I support a change to 15% maximum for U.S.-based owners and a 5% maximum for foreign-based owners.

Boycott Rupert Murdoch's new Fox movie, The Simpsons, due to be released later in July.

The Simpsons show loves to bash Bush and even Fox, but no amount of liberal glee can overcome the fact that Rupert Murdoch takes money from Simpsons-loving liberal viewers (probably 90% of the show's audience) and uses it to fund his prime-time right-wing lie-loving news and news-personality shows.