A corrupt corporate ass licking SCOTUS ...political campaigns financed by the 1% ...US diplomats shilling for Monsanto GMO ...a morphed right wing Democratic party ...might as well call it the Demoplican party ...congress with less that a 10 % approval ...more war on the way like that's what the US people want ...less transparency ...indefinite detention ...militarized police force used against protestors ...demonstrators jailed ...eco greens = terrorists ...unfulfilled POTUS promises ...buck being passed around or ping ponged ...reframing ...framing ...false equivalency ...attacks on journalists and their sources ...banksters continue to sell packaged bullshit as derivatives cause they know their buddies will bale them out with the tax payer fools money ...pffft

Yea I will vote Dem but I will feel like I am just another voting zombie.

<>Over 900 people have been arrested across Turkey for what the authorities called a security measure.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article35154.htm


Bet me this doesn't turn out to go full scale!

http://prospect.org/article/banking-regulation-closed-business

<>In a speech to the Levy Economics Institute of Bard College's annual Minsky Conference last Thursday, Undersecretary for Domestic Finance Mary Miller claimed that Dodd-Frank had already solved the “Too Big to Fail” problem.

Oh really ...it's solved now? Yea well don't let the next popping bubble of the Wallstreet balloon pop you in the ass.

<>Senators Sherrod Brown and David Vitter, introduced legislation yesterday to force the biggest banks to foot the bill for their own mistakes by imposing higher capital requirements.

Oh dear we can't be having that ...that would mean that Obama's Dodd Frank bill isn't good enough.

<>Vitter also said the legislation would “level the playing field and take away a government policy subsidy, if you will, that exists in the market now favoring size.”

Gee the policy favors size? That sounds like the opposite of what should be happening. Too big to fail ...so then favor size? WTF

Obama has a lot in common with big banks and Wallstreet ...they are both too big to fail IMO.

<>For example, Miller discounts an influential working paper from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) showing an $83 billion annual subsidy for mega-banks from their Too Big to Fail status by saying its evidence “predates the financial crisis and Dodd-Frank’s reforms.”

Wow ...hmmm 83 billion ...now where have I seen that figure before? Oh yea the auster... err sequester over 83 billion. Oh well that's just a Beck-ish coincidence. But really ...big banks are being subsidized? WTF

Well this is the rot at the core of our capitalism where we have welfare for the rich corporations and they get to control everything including Obama and the House. The worshippers can go on with the cult of personally with who ever the next puppet is after this good cop bad cop show is over and the core problem will go on and screw us again and again ...and by the time the lesson gets learned there won't be a way to bring this country back into the real control of we the people. I don't believe there is a way out for this corruption of our government and country. Now go back to watching The Voice.

rich. The key word is "felt". So let's put the measurement of the "what rich is" goal post on wheels so the rich can move it should they ever be accused of not feeling like they should give back something to society. So let's keep debating what rich really is ....cause that's working out so well for all of us. For those who don't know ...some of us can only wish we had money for an IRA ...instead we are hoping we won't be out on the street when we are 80.

So those that make their income from stocks investments with have to pay a little more SS ...while they enjoy the 14.9% fed rate. Am I suppose to care? Would there be any real threat to jobs here? They are not creating jobs here anyway IMO. Any jobs that might be created for American citizens are mostly service jobs which are subsidized by tax breaks for the corporations and food stamps for their workers ...example Wallmart. The tech jobs here mostly go to "more and better educated" persons from overseas or in other words subsidies to other countries work force. Why should it matter to the common little person and voter what problems the overly spent rich people have? I understand after you allocate your income for 300k that additional expenditures may cause some hardship but that pales in comparison to the plight of the 15-20k a year worker. It's not the fault of the poor that people who make more money spend more and end up in a jam when things go south. Where do they spend that higher income and on what? Bigger home ...better boat ...golf club ...yacht club ...5 star restaurants ...fancy cars ...college for the kids ...health insurance ...all of which the poor could never hope to attain. The Heritage Foundation propaganda is free market capitalism and that is really only for them and not people who make 15-20k a year. I find no excuse for anyone making 10 times as much to complain about their financial problems for any reason ...except maybe health problems which can and does bankrupt just about everyone except the extreme rich. You have to be rich enough to pay for lawyers to get bad faith insurance to pay up on a legit claim anyway. Certainly IMO having the cap limit did not and will not assist job creation. I am tired of the anti American pro unrestricted free market capitalistic Reagan lies ...and the stupid people who believe them.

I find that the left and progressives are definitely not republican and or conservative but they certainly are at the least Dem but more than that they are, to put it simply followers of FDR. I hate corporations ...I hate their disgusting immoral sociopath CEO's. They are animals without a conscience for their fellow human being. Their greedy ways and controls are so thoroughly entrenched that no amount of voting will ever stop them now. To think that the Dems play no part in this is ignorant and blind. Thus we have those that blindly follow Obama and continually make excuses for him. They fawn over the family like American Idol fans. I have to admit though that his lies are some of the nicest ones I have heard from our government. He is an eloquent speaker and that has taken him a long long way but he is owned just like the repukes are. Next up will be the war monger and hawk ...Clinton. I wish Dems would wake the hell up and slide over to the lefty progressive side. This place used to partner with the left and progressives. We were accepted and welcome here years ago but I feel that is waning severely. We need someone who is really on our side who will fight for us and not cave to corporations. We need jobs for everyone not austerity. If we are going to go into austerity then they should have let the banksters fail ...that would have been the real free market penalty for their greedy thieving schemes. We need another FDR ...now!

Pentagon Creates New Medal for Cyber, Drone Wars http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article33941.htm

February 14, 2013 "AP" -- They fight the war from computer consoles and video screens.

But the troops who launch the drone strikes and direct the cyber attacks that can kill or disable an enemy may never set foot in the combat zone. Now their battlefield contributions may be recognized with the first new combat-related medal to be created in decades.

<>The new blue, red and white-ribboned Distinguished Warfare Medal will be awarded to individuals for "extraordinary achievement" related to a military operation that occurred after Sept. 11, 2001. But unlike other combat medals, it does not require the recipient risk his or her life to get it.

<>Response in the cybersphere was immediate and divided, and more often biting. While some acknowledged the contributions of cyber and drone warriors and said the award was the right thing to do, others dubbed the medal the "Geek Cross" and speculated that young video-gamers may soon get Purple Hearts for their animated wounds.

Hey now there's an idea. Let's put all those PS3 game playing basement teenagers to work. They'd probably do a better job of killing and they already have a trophy list on their PS3's so I am sure they would appreciate a (bullshit) real medal from our wonderful military. After all they would be suffering and sacrificing with blisters from all the joy stick actuation, button pushing and sores on their feet from the pedals while marching thru the swamps, jungles and hiking up mountains with 80 pounds of gear. Just think ...about the huge cost reduction in military spending. Hell the kids would probably work for free ...and we can rah rah USA USA the parents to go along with it. The whole family could be proud to serve the military without having to actually go over there and kill innocent people. What a wonderful way to kill people and not have to see all the blood and guts. Just think ...no more washing blood off your hands and changing out of those nasty blood soaked uniforms ...or cleaning guns. Nice clean wholesome family fun for everyone. They could be neighbourhood heroes. Maybe we could have a patriot award for them like a banner they could hang on the front of their house.

WTH is our fucked up country doing? Getting worse everyday.

Obama can't control corporate greed and the sociopaths. Everywhere you look the US is committing suicide. In-debt the youth with college loans for jobs that won't be there ...throw away those over 50 yo ...export the few remaining good jobs ...play world big gun war games instead of caring for our own ...this country was much better than that but now it is all over ...no going back to being decent people who are represented by their government. This country is a facade of democracy under corporate rule with politics playing good cop bad cop and people think their vote really makes a difference ....pffft.

Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy. - Henry Kissinger

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children." - Dwight Eisenhower

You measure a democracy by the freedom it gives its dissidents, not the freedom it gives its assimilated conformists.- Abbie Hoffman


Blind obedience to authority is the enemy of the truth. - Albert Einstein

Become an internationalist and learn to respect all life. Make war on machines. And in particular the sterile machines of corporate death and the robots that guard them. -Abbie Hoffman

That worst outcrop of herd life, the military system, which I abhor . . . This plague-spot of civilization ought to be abolished with all possible speed. Heroism on command, senseless violence, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism–how passionately I hate them! – Albert Einstein

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Patriotism is a menace to liberty. - Emma Goldman

Never was a patriot yet, but was a fool. – John Dryden

A patriot is a fool in ev’ry age. – Alexander Pope.

Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel. – Samuel Johnson

In Dr. Johnson’s famous dictionary, patriotism is defined as the last resort of a scoundrel. With all due respect to an enlightened but inferior lexicographer, I beg to submit that it is the first. – Ambrose Bierce

Patriotism is as fierce as a fever, pitiless as the grave, blind as a stone, and irrational as a headless hen. – Ambrose Bierce

That pernicious sentiment, “Our country, right or wrong.” – James Russell Lowell

“My country right or wrong” is a thing that no patriot would think of saying except in a desperate case. It is like saying, “My mother drunk or sober.” – G. K. Chesterton

Patriotism which has the quality of intoxication is a danger not only to its native land but to the world, and “My country never wrong” is an even more dangerous maxim than “My country, right or wrong.” – Bertrand Russell

Patrioism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it. – George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is the virtue of the vicious. – George Bernard Shaw

You’ll never have a quiet world till you knock the patriotism out of the human race. – George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is a pernicious, psychopathic form of idiocy. – George Bernard Shaw

Patriotism is an ephemeral motive that scarcely ever outlasts the particular threat to society that aroused it. – Denis Diderot

To me, it seems a dreadful indignity to have a soul controlled by geography. – George Santayana

The Athenian democracy suffered much from that narrowness of patriotism which is the ruin of all nations. – H.G. Wells

Nationalism is our form of incest, is our idolatry, is our insanity. “Patriotism” is its cult. . . . Just as love for one individual which excludes the love for others is not love, love for one’s country which is not part of one’s love for humanity is not love, but idolatrous worship. – Erich Fromm

One of the great attractions of patriotism–it fulfills our worst wishes. In the person of our nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat, Bully and cheat, what’s more, with a feeling that we are profoundly virtuous. – Aldous Huxley

Many studies have discovered a close link between prejudice and “patriotism” . . . Extreme bigots are almost always super-patriots – Gordon Allport

It seems like the less a statesman amounts to, the more he loves the flag. – Elbert Hubband

Patriotism varies, from a noble devotion to a moral lunacy. – William Inge

Every miserable fool who has nothing at all of which he can be proud, adopts, as a last resource, pride in the nation to which he belongs; he is ready and glad to defend all its faults and follies tooth and nail, thus reimbursing himself for his own inferiority. – Arthur Schopenhauer

Patriotism is the passion of fools and the most foolish of passions. – Arthur Schopenhauer

Patriotism corrupts history. – Goethe

Into the cultural and technological system of the modern world, the patriotic spirit fits like dust in the eyes and sand in the bearings. Its net contribution to the outcome is obscuration, distrust, and retardation at every point where it touches the fortunes of modern mankind. – Thorstein Veblen

The standardization of mass-production carries with it a tendency to standardize a mass-mind, producing a willing conformity, not merely to common ways of living, but to common ways of thinking and common valuations. The worst defect of patriotism is its tendency to foster and impose this common mind, and so to stifle the innumerable germs of liberty. – J.A. Hobson

2. Patriotism and War:

At the bottom of all patriotism is war: that is why I am no patriot. – Jules Renard

No other factor in history, not even religion, has produced so many wars as has the clash of national egotisms sanctified by the name of patriotism. – Preserved Smith

Naturally the common people don’t want war . . . Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders . . . All you have to do is to tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism. – Hermann Goering.


3. Patriotism and Religion:

Patriotism is a kind of religion; it is the egg from which wars are hatched. – Guy de Maupassant

God and Country are an unbeatable team; they break all records for oppression and bloodshed. – Luis Buñuel

To be patriotic, hate all nations but your own; to be religious, all sects but your own; to be moral, all pretenses but your own. – Lionel Strachey

When a dog barks at the moon, then it is religion; but when he barks at strangers, it is patriotism! – David Starr Jordan

4. The American Syndrome:

If you have a weak candidate and a weak platform, wrap yourself up in the American flag and talk about the Constitution. – Matt Quay

How much longer are we going to think it necessary to be “American” before (or in contradistinction to) being cultivated, being enlightened, being humane, & having the same intellectual discipline as other civilized countries? It is really too easy a disguise for our shortcomings to dress them up as a form of patriotism. – Edith Wharton

The 100 percent American is 99 percent an idiot. – George Bernard Shaw

Treason is in the air around us everywhere. It goes by the name of patriotism. – Thomas Corwin

5. Three relatively positive assessments of patriotism:

A patriot is somebody who protects his country from his government. Or better yet: who has the guts to protect his country from its government. – Piotyr Dirk

Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism. – George Washington

Dissent is the highest form of patriotism. – Thomas Jefferson