Is anyone sad to see Larry Summers withdraw his name for Fed chairman?

Given his advocacy for bank deregulation not just for the US but every other country in the world during the Clinton years, and his strong arming of Brooksley Born, an financial regulator who was actually trying to enforce the fews laws and regs that remained, it is hard to think of someone worse for the job.

Larry Summers was a slug in the garden of our battered democracy, and I for one am glad that he salted himself and melt his own political career.

But I'm curious what the defense is that could possibly have been given for him in the corridors of power, other than that he did exactly what Wall Street bankers told him to do.

Can someone make the case that bank deregulation was GOOD for the US and the world?

Or that intimidating a regulator from doing their jobs was somehow GOOD for America and the world?

Are you sad to see Jabba the Summers go?

Will it turn out that Kerry/Obama played 3D chess on Syria or that Putin pulled us back from war?

I'm not sure.

Though if the last decade and a half is any precedent, I suspect it is the latter.

When the US invaded Iraq to gain further hegemony over Middle East oil, that COULD have triggered World War III, if Russia and China saw it as one of the last dominoes that could lead to US business having a stranglehold on their economic growth through control of oil.

But they held back and let us screw ourselves rather than jumping in screwing themselves too.

Likewise, when we invaded countries on the eastern and western border of Iran, Afghanistan and Iraq, they could reasonably have taken that as a provocation, just as we would if Russia invaded Canada and Mexico.

But instead, they mostly held back.

It seems in this War on Terror era, it's like those two women who came to Solomon claiming the same baby, and Solomon proposed cutting it in half because the real mother would give the baby up rather than do that.

The baby is the world, and we and Russia are the mothers, but our government is the "mother" who wants the baby cut in half--as long as they get both halves.

But I would be glad to be proven wrong.

Which of the major explanations is more likely true?

I finally realized why Obama and Congress never punished Bush/Cheney war crimes...

You can't punish your own war criminals, other countries have to do it for you.

So who should teach us a lesson?

We will certainly have to suck it and say we deserved it if some of our civilians who live near depleted uranium, white phosphorous, and napalm facilities are accidentally killed.

But that is far preferable than Congress impeaching a then president or the attorney general indicting a past president and his cabinet for war crimes and a judge and jury trying the case, which, while unlikely to result in prison time, would be an embarrassment and inconvenience to those charged.

Many in Congress voted to give Bush the power to commit war crimes against children

and earlier voted for sanctions against Iraq that killed up to half a million people by keeping medicine out of the country.

But you go right on thinking they're going to attack Syria for the children.

PHOTO: Why we should punish the use of chemical weapons...

Starting with our own war criminals. Those who ordered two out of three of those are still alive, free, and unindicted.

Shouldn't we take the plank out of our own eye before we take the speck out of Syria's?

If they don't care enough to punish those, what are the chances that the use of particular weapons is why they are itching to enter the war in Syria they already funded well before this chemical attack?

NOTE: This would be a good one to send your senators and representative.

What do you do when politicians ignore polls, contact from voters, demonstrations...

and Media Benjamin yelling in committee hearings?

Since Washington acts like they are immune to public opinion, and the constraints of our two party system make that true in some ways, what can we do to bend their will in the direction of public opinion?

Besides the anti-war protests, the long occupy protests seemed to only give the politicians fodder for campaign commercials.

Is more substantial civil disobedience called for?

Also, can insiders do more than oppose internally and leak to the public?

For insiders, they could also do things that would gum up the works more without endangering American lives:

• leak orders that could lead to a world war
  
  
• slow walk on orders
  
  
• refuse to follow orders that would lead to a world war
  
  
• Not pass on orders if they are higher up the chain of command
  
  
• monkey wrench

Before we contribute to regime change in Syria, how are Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya doing?

Are people in those countries better off than they were before we invaded or bombed their governments out of office?

Are they even up to as well off as they were before we "helped" them?

What will Washington do when they realize no one believes their bullshit excuses for war?

Syria may or may not have used chemical weapons, but people aren't buying that that's a good enough reason to bomb the crap out of them, and probably a large percentage know that is not even remotely why our government would do so anyway.

When the reality that their schtick isn't working seeps into that bubble of hubris and bought and paid for conviction in Washington, what will they do?

This moment in history is reminding me of Rush Limbaugh calling that college girl a slut. He had done far worse in the past, but somehow, that was the event that triggered his undoing.

This planned Syria attack may not be the worst, most reckless, or criminal thing our government has done, but it may be the hit and run that makes us finally take away their foreign policy car keys.

WHITE HOUSE PETITION: US had no moral authority to punish Syria's war crimes while our own...

I hope I didn't leave anything out.

Obama sends Bush to teach Syria how to kill civilians legally

Obama sends Bush to teach Syria how to kill civilians legally



In a last ditch effort to avoid air strikes and cruise missile attacks on Syria, President Barack Obama has deployed former President George W Bush as a special envoy to instruct Syrian President Bashir Assad on the how to kill civilians without committing war crimes.

"No one alive knows more about this than former President Bush," Obama said. "He has by some estimates, authorized the killing of over a million Iraqi men, women, and children and untold tens of thousands of Afghans--all without committing war crimes or human rights violations. That's why I gave him immunity for actions taken in those wars just the other day."

Bush had already arrived in Syria and begun what he called his "Cheneying" of the young president of Syria.

He took a brief break to explain the advice he's giving Assad in an exclusive interview with Fox News.

"See, first thing I told him is we're the deciders. We decide what's the right way to kill terrorists. And that's the first step. Only kill terrorists. And they can come in any gender or age or sexual oriented minority."

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