At present, George W. Bush is unpopular with the majority of the American public not because of the murderous mayhem he has unloosed in Iraq; rather, his standing has plummeted, due to the fact, he didn’t deliver the goods. Americans are fine with fueling our republic of road rage using the blood of Iraqis (or any other distant and darker people) as long as “the mission” doesn’t drag on too long or reveal too much about ourselves. (more…)
Every time I write an article on collapse such as my most recent one “Happy Independence Day; You Have No Government“, I am bombarded with emails asking me “what should I do?” For those who have just discovered this site, that is a legitimate question because for them, the reality of collapse may be new. Those who have been following this site for some time have heard many suggestions on what to do, but this article will offer those and other suggestions again more clearly and more adamantly than they have been offered here before. The intensity you are likely to hear in this piece is driven by the urgency which I and many of my peers are feeling at this moment. Quite frankly, it’s time to quit screwing around with talking about collapse and start acting. The Rubicon has been crossed, we’re not living in Kansas anymore, and we are living in the closest thing we’ve seen to pre-World War II Germany than anything since then. Suit up and stop theorizing and speculating. It’s showtime.
With the apparent success of yesterday’s Live Earth concerts, one has to ask whether something new is being born. It is reported that the broadcasts reached 2 billion people. That is almost one-third of the population of the planet. If accurate, that is HUGE. Certainly, a third of the planet should be more than a critical mass to DO something. (more…)
On the Friday before July 4 Republican Senator Arlen Specter showed his respect for the U.S. Constitution and his anger about President Bush’s repeated pissing on it by introducing the Presidential Signing Statements Act of 2007. What happens to this crucial bill will test both congressional integrity and courage. (more…)
I knew a dog named Scooter one. He had a problem with “cling-ons” when he defecated. He would then “scoot” to clean himself up. Scoot on the grass, scoot on the rug, scoot across the bed. It was effective for him, but it always left a trail. Other than that he was a very loyal dog - not mine by the way. I am strongly reminded of him when thinking about the tremendous popularity of Scooter Libby. My guess that a big part of saving his butt has to do with the trail he would leave if put in a hostile environment. (more…)
Well, SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) has dealt yet another “conservative” blow to the nation. This time by essentially overturning Brown vs the Board of Education. Schools are still expected to achieve racial “diversity.” However, accomplishing racial integration is very difficult if it is unconstitutional to use race as a criteria. Justice Roberts argument was:
“The way to stop discrimination on the basis of race is to stop discriminating on the basis of race.” (NY Times, 6/28/07)
University of Alabama Students burn desegregation literature, 1956. - Image courtesy of Library of Congress (more…)
“Children are completely egoistic; they feel their needs intensely and strive ruthlessly to satisfy them.” –Sigmund Freud
Frightening as it may be, the Earth’s fate rests in the hands of children. With incredibly formidable military firepower at its disposal, the United States could catalyze Armageddon at any time. And while they may be adults chronologically, our sociopolitical structure is dominated by emotional infants. (more…)
By John Chuckman
This is an excerpt from “What’s It All About? The Decline of the American Empire by John Chuckman published by Constable & Robinson Ltd, London. Available from Indigo Books, Canada.
In military matters, China has taken America by surprise a number of times recently, and surprises of this nature are not things with which Americans deal well, some portion of America’s political establishment becoming irritable and uncomfortable. It is not clear how much of this is based on genuine analysis and how much on the kind of paranoid reaction which characterizes America’s attitude towards Arabs since 9/11. There is also the distinct possibility of traces of anti-Asian prejudice which has a long history in America and in its policies. America’s paranoid reaction to a number of events in the past - the rise of Japan, Communism, Islamic fundamentalism - reflect an arrogant imperial attitude of expected easy superiority which does not welcome any clouds on the horizon. (more…)
Check out this presentation by lawyers from Cohen & Grigsby on how corporations can get around immigration laws to get workers visas, by “proving” there are no US workers for the job. YouTube Link
BY Joel S. Hirschhorn author of Delusional Democracy and Friends of the Article V ConventionAccording to a report not yet released, the Council on Science and Public Health of the American Medical Association has recommended that a chronic and widespread affliction of Americans be officially declared a psychiatric disorder. It has been named the Political Attention Deficit Disorder (PADD). It is recommended that the disorder be included in a widely used mental illness manual created and published by the American Psychiatric Association. The current manual was published in 1994; the next edition is to be completed in 2012. The benefit to people of an official classification is coverage by health insurance.
“The symptoms of PADD are all around us and treating it professionally can do more for our country than any election,” said Dr. Mable Wank in the report’s introduction; she is chairwoman of the Council and a professor at UCLA.
Here are the Council’s main findings on PADD:
Nearly 80 percent of adult American citizens are unable to pay sustained attention to issues and problems associated with their government. They are unable to accept their responsibility as citizens, including their obligation to vote, read in-depth articles and books on political issues, become active members of politically oriented groups, and initiate discussions on current events with friends and family. “The decades-old decline in voter turnout is a direct result of a national epidemic of PADD,” said the report.
The chief cause of PADD is the desire to avoid the very real pain of cognitive dissonance, the difference between what Americans want to believe about the greatness of their country and the disturbing reality that their government and country are in terrible shape, which is a constant reminder when there is normal, healthy political attention. Such pain suppression, however, is counterproductive and was found through careful studies at several universities, including the Harvard Medical College, to correlate with depression and anxiety disorders, as well as a heightened level of cynicism and despair. According to the report, many suicides and possibly many criminal acts result from PADD.
Another consequence of PADD is that people devote more of their time, energy and money to pleasure-seeking distractions. PADD is correlated with profound statistical significance to clinical symptoms such as obesity, alcoholism, drug addiction, video game addiction, Internet addiction, sexual promiscuity, excessive shopping, gambling addiction, and other harmful behaviors.
The report profiles a person severely afflicted by PADD. The psychiatrists unanimously concluded that George W. Bush is a PADD victim. Symptoms include no desire to pursue major and contentious policy issues through in-depth reading, discussion and analysis; a clear dependence on others for policy decisions, particularly Vice President Cheney; an inability to maintain sustained focus on diverse policy issues simultaneously; and an inability to articulate policy. The widespread public perception that Bush is unintelligent, uninformed and dogmatic stems from his PADD, concluded the Council. “He needs immediate, emergency therapy for his PADD; that might help get us out of Iraq,” said Dr. Wank.
Reached by phone, Dr. Aaron Gestaltstein, a Council member and psychiatrist with the Michigan Institute for the Study of Individual and Societal Health, said the AMA proposal will help raise awareness and called it “the right thing to do if the United States is ever to regain effective government and equitable public policies.” “Sick Americans deserve compassionate treatment if our country is to survive - PADD is no joke,” he added.
“I saw a college-educated man last month who was so depressed about the Bush Administration - yet he could no longer read newspapers, watch cable news shows or visit news and commentary websites. He was spending virtually all of his non-work time visiting pornography websites and eating at Chinese buffets,” Gestaltstein said. “He is a terrible mess and swears he will never vote again.”
The challenge for psychiatrists treating PADD patients, as noted in the Council’s report, is to help Americans fully integrate political attention into their lives. Their discomfort and hopelessness must be changed into positive behaviors. Friends and relatives of PADD victims are urged to get them to join public interest groups working for the betterment of American government and society, such as Friends of the Article V Convention at www.foavc.org..
