Redefined War On Terrorism

How do we pick and choose when we want to fight terrorism?
In the 90's, Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh laid a plot and successfully bombed at Federal Office Building in Oklahoma City. Lots of women and children were killed. It was a direct attack on "The People" of the United States - striking at the very fabric of our Federal Government. The two seemed to have ties with right wing extremists in the United States, and preached a message of hatred toward the United States and our Government. They were clearly terrorists - terrorists representing an extreme anti-government hatred from within our own borders.
Clinton could have declared a "War on Terrorism", I suppose, and spent hundreds of billions of money that we didn't have on trying to create a myth of security. But that didn't happen for two reasons:

• I think he was wiser than that, and not reckless with trying to scapegoat one particular group in order to take our eyes off of the real problems that we should be working to correct.
• The right wing in this country, and the vast media empire that they control, would never have allowed it, as it would have struck at the heart of movements that they actually seem to support.

Then, the next big terrorist attack occurred. This time they didn't strike at "The People" of our nation as represented by our government and our government agencies. Instead they struck at the symbol of corporate greed and the emerging Plutarcy that is taking control of our nation. This time, the death toll was much bigger, and the financial impact was even bigger. This time, the terrorism didn't come from the right wing cancer within our own country, but instead from the right wing cancer within the Islamic world - extreme Islamic Fundamentalism. This time, the right wing within our own country was firmly in power, and they pounced on the event to galvanize the sort of "demonization" that they could rally people around. They did a great job of manufacturing a "War on Terror", and using this guise to rape the public treasury of hundreds of billions of money that belong to The People.
Sure, we may have created some short term security gains in our country as a result. We seem to have been able to continue to thwart potential threats that were related to the right wing Islamists. However, just last week, a nut-case of another brand successfully executed another terrorist attack in our country. This time, there was not the great loss of life as the terrorist flew his plane into the IRS building in Texas, but the symbolism was the same as the McVeigh terrorist attack on OKC. This was an attack directly on The People of the United States of America, as represented by our government.
And where is the right wing and their giant media machine in this country?
I know that it is hard to believe, but now, instead of supporting a War on Terror, they actually appear to be supporting the Terrorists. They have kept the story very low-key in their media, and they have actually begun to spin up support for the "underlying causes" of this attack.

Hard to believe, I know, but apparently true. I continue to see media pieces focused on the sympathy for the sorts of frustration with the actions of our government that would lead to an outcry like this bombing.

Now, I'm no great supported of the IRS, or many of the ways that our government operates. But our government continues to be YOU AND ME. When someone attacks us in this manner, it is an act of terrorism, plain and simple. Our response should be the same in all cases. If we think that the appropriate response to 9/11 is to spend a trillion dollars on invading a couple of countries, then why isn't an appropriate response to OKC and the IRS bombing to spend at least a few hundred billion inside our own borders rooting out and destroying the sort of anti-government rhetoric and fundamentalism that makes this sort of thing happen?
Let me be very clear - I do not thing that is an appropriate or productive response, just like I don't think that what we have done in Iraq and Afganistan is appropriate or productive.

My point is very clear - the right wing in this country continues to control the message that gets to us, and grows ever more effective in their "big brother" role of thought control. Nobody seems outraged at this terrorist attack, and even worse, the right wing media seems to have done a GREAT job of getting us all to think that maybe what happened was OK - maybe we should open our minds to having a little sympathy for the underlying causes of the attack - the sense of oppression and injustice that seems to have been there.
Where was this sort of open-minded thought process in 2001? Those who suggested it were crucified.
All three attacks were equally wrong. They all three deserve similar response on our part. The people who carried them out, and the people who supported them, should be prosecuted. Period. I sympathize with none of them. However, in all cases, we SHOULD look at the underlying causes, and do what we can to correct the real problem. More on that later...

I'm just saying...
We need to wake up and see what the right wing is doing to manipulate us. Big Brother grows more effective every day, and this little example demonstrates it so very clearly.

Craig - Really? More of the same?

Craig, 
After our conversation today, I came to your site. There is so much to be disturbed about out in politics today, and Obama is way low on the list. He is actually trying to do something positive. So, since the theme of your site seems to be to just "attack" the one guy who seems to be trying to make some positive changes, I really have no interest in reading it.

If you were to focus on the real issues - the things that we true conservatives should be focused on, then I might have some interest. For example: 

• What about the absurdly activist right-wing Supreme Court decision recently to step WAY BEYOND what they were asked to rule on, and make law in the country by ruling that a corporation is the same as a person, and entitled to the same Bill of Rights protection? Even worst, they decided to rule that money = speech. This may just be the most destructive Supreme Court ruling in the history of our country, yet it isn't on top of the agenda for all conservatives? Obama happens to be on our side on this one.
• You want to talk about fiscal irresponsibility? As you and I discussed, the most "fiscally conservative" administration that we have had in the past 30 years was the Clinton administration. I hope that shames my fellow Republicans as much as it shames me. Between Reagan and Bush2, the massive debt load was created at a time when it wasn't needed. Now, in a time of financial disaster, we actually need to assume debt to prevent collapse, but the massive debt load that was created by Reagan and Bush2 amplifies the negative effects of this coming debt. By the way, the 2009 growth in debt belonged to Bush2, as that was his budget. Just like the 2001 economy belonged to Clinton. Remember that the budget is created a year in advance.
• And speaking of the debt, how absolutely criminal is it that we bailed out the banks in 2008? All of you folks who want to attack Obama conveniently forget that it was Baby Bush who did the bank bailout deal, for which people should be tried for treason in my opinion.
• And speaking of treason trials and fiscal irresponsibility in the same sentence, we have to put the whole debt on the table here, and see where it comes from today. When Bush Baby took office, the debt was $5.something trillion - depends on exactly when you cut if off. When he turned it over to Obama, it was something north of $10 trillion. Almost doubled it in 8 years. And worst, these were 8 years when we DID NOT NEED to be taking on additional debt - we took on the additional debt in order to artificially stimulate an economy that did not need stimulating in order to make him look good in the short term, with the predictable result of the near disastrous crash that he brought on. And, that $10 trillion doesn't even include the massive $trillion+ cost of the war (which he refused to have the balls to ask the American people to pay for) or the $trillion in bank bailouts that he authorized.

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo5.htm

OK, so now we get to Obama. (I could go on but my point was simple - stop blaming Obama for the mess that Reagan and Bush Baby have created.) I am sick to my stomach over the Republicans in congress who sit on their hands and refuse to participate in any positive way in working our way out of the mess we have gotten into. I am ashamed that I am still registered as a Republican. Obama continues to reach out to these people, and they continue to play the old games. And of course, we all know that the Democrats are just too plain dumb to organize any sort of counter to the Republicans sitting on their hands. What ever happened to the "up or down vote" rhetoric that came from the right wing when there was filibuster threat from the Dems when they were in the minority? How quickly we forget, and how quickly the Dems continue to fail to get it. 

So, what is it that you're mad about? 

• The fiscal mess? Then realize where the mess came from, and help the guy in power now try and fix it. Stop voting for these "don't tax and spend anyway" people of either party. 
• Ongoing security concerns? Start supporting efforts to get us off of an oil-based economy. We started down this road in the late 70's, and the go-go Reagan years made us forget that this is a time-bomb we have to face someday. Of course, the Bush family is so in-bed with the Saudi's and the oil industry that they did all that they could to cement our ongoing dependency. If we were not dependent on oil, (its not about foreign oil, its about OIL), then we could immediately cut our defense budget in half. That's big bucks, I don't care who you are. And most of all, we could let the Bin Ladens and the rest of the Saudi, Iranian, Russian, and Iraqi oil criminals rot in their stinkin' oil. How 'bout investing in some good old-fashioned American ingenuity and manufacturing, and create an industry building wind, solar, and other alternative generating sources. Sure its complex and hard, but we're not stupid people, and I'm tired of the oil industry telling me we are. As for your question about oil reserves - looks like I overstated at 4% - looks like we have less than 2%. I'm sure there are different numbers on this too - the bottom line is that we don't have squat compared to the rest of the world, and more importantly, the reserves that we have are becoming VERY EXPENSIVE to exploit. If you do the math and compare our consumption rate to our total reserves, then you can easily come up with a wild idea that we have years or decades worth of reserves. However, remember that the deeper we try to get into these reserves, the more expensive it becomes to exploit them, and we aren't that far from bankrupting the country so that we can keep using oil. http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/ene_oil_res-energy-oil-reserves  
• Worried about the health-care mess? Mad because as a nation, we spend twice what the rest of the modern world spends for health-care, (twice per capita), and our overall quality of care as measured by most objective measures is not even close to the top - usually not even in the top ten depending on what your measures are. Sure, if you are one of the wealthy in our nation, you can buy whatever you want. But for the other 99.something% of us, we don't make the top 10. A dramatically increasing trend in our country is that people are going overseas for procedures, because they can't afford them in our country. The fiscal conservative in me is pretty pissed off that we pay twice as much as everyone else, and get considerably less. And I'm even more pissed off at the Republicans in congress who are clearly just the lap-dogs of Big Pharma and others, continuing to try and sell that same old saw about how great we have it here. Do a little research - you'll be as pissed as I am. 
• As for the tax burden that you and I discussed, let's start with the easy stuff. I don't think you really need me to provide you with links to sites that can give you these facts. Since 1980, we have been on a steady march toward redistributing wealth in this country out of the hands of the many, and into the hands of the wealthy few. This march has had behind it the continued drumbeat of the old neo-liberal saw about how if you give the money to the wealthy they will stimulate growth. (That's right - these are neo-liberals in the most true sense of the global economic sense.) In fact, if you want to stimulate the economy, put the money in the hands of Joe Six-Pack. He's the guy who will spend it right away, and that's where the stimulus comes from. In the hands of the wealthy few, the money is invested in really productive things like complex derivatives that implode the economy and nice mansions in the Hamptons. You want to stimulate our economy, then start by getting back to the "buy American" ethos of the early 70's. Can you imagine the good that could come to our economy if instead of dumping hundreds of billions into the corrupt banking system, we would have invested instead in real manufacturing companies like GM who create real American jobs? What if we invested in these companies, and created real jobs building wind turbines and an upgraded grid for our nation? For the money we pissed down the toilet to the banks, so that they could stimulate the economy with their obscene bonuses to execs this year, we could have transformed the complete electrical infrastructure in this nation. In 1980, as a businessman, I could hire casual labor for about $10/hr in most places. Today, 30 years later, as a businessman, I can still hire casual labor for about $10/hr. (This is with NO inflation adjustment, reinforcing the facts that are abundant that real wages have declined for most wage earners over the past 30 years. Don't get me wrong - the greedy and self-interested businessman in me likes this, but the human being in me is disgusted.) During that same time, average salaries of the top 1% and the top 10% of earners have increased geometrically. At the same time, we have continued to reduce the tax burden on the top earners, while increasing the tax burden on the lower earners. (Remember that Federal income tax is only one component of the overall tax burden - the other components like sales taxes hit the low wage earner at a much higher "rate", and these other tax rates have had to increase in order to make up for the ever shrinking Federal $$ available as we cut taxes on the wealthy.)

So, think about it. We have had a 30 year experiment in this notion popular with the neo-liberal Friedman school about giving money to the wealthy and they will make things better. What we have found is that real production and manufacturing are all but disappearing in this country as investors pour their money into the countries where they can buy cheap slave labor, real wages in this country have plummeted, we have been brought to the brink of collapse. And you really want to keep doing this? Really? Look back at the explosion of the middle class in this country. In the 50s and 60s, wages increased for labor, and a real middle class was created. The result was a pretty darned good economy. The wealthy were taxed at EXTREMELY high rates. Look at some old tax tables - back in the late 50s and early 60s, there were tax rates as high as 90%. So, when we had the highest historical levels of taxation on the wealthy, we had the highest rates of real economic growth in the country. Not only did we have continuing and growing prosperity, but we were actually reducing the overall debt load of the nation in much of that period, when measured against GDP. (Back then remember we called GNP).

Sure there are lots of factors to everything, but at a high level, we have 2 30 year periods we can look at, divided by 1980. Leading up to that divide, we taxed the wealthy at a high rate, we increased the wages of the lower and middle class, we heavily regulated industries, and we saw robust and sustained growth. Post 1980, we have plunged further and further into debt, have destroyed manufacturing in the country, have reduced real wages for most of the country, and have brought ourselves to the brink of financial collapse.

You really want to keep this up? Really?

It's been fun chatting. Think about a different theme for your website - Obama is the last thing we need to worry about right now - he's doing OK for a new guy handed a disaster.

Neil

More on the Activist Supreme Court

I can't get off of this Supreme Court ruling. It just keeps rolling around in my little brain.

I am wondering if those voters that continue to vote right wing realize the damage that their continued support of this developing plutarchy is doing.

• The right wing media machine continues to beat a very narrow set of drums.
• The right wing christian elite continue to sell their souls to the devil of this right wing media machine by engaging in the quid pro quo that delivers votors to the right wing if the right wing will support a very narrow set of agenda items - specifically abortion rights and gay rights issues.
• The real power of the right wing machine accepts these votes to keep them in power, and gives enough lip service to the narrow issues to keep the voters coming back.
• Then, while in power, they completely dismantle the ability of the people to govern, and continue their march toward replacing our democratically elected Republic with a plutarchy that has the facade of democracy and republic.

This ruling by this radically activist Supreme Court - appointed by the radical right - is the cornerstone that will allow the right wing to make tremendous progress in this regard. The two key principles that this ruling declares are these:

• That a corporation is the same as an individual - that a corporation is protected by the Bill of Rights in the same and equal fashion that a real person is protected by the Bill of Rights. Think about this.
• That money is equal to speech.

This tears the fabric of our Republic to pieces. No longer are we a nation "By the People, For the People, and Of The People". With the advent of modern media, people have become sheep to the media. The media is where they get all their information. The media is controlled by the corporate right wing. The corporate right wing now has complete and unfettered ability to spend whatever it takes to get their flocks of sheep to vote the way they want them to vote. They will feed the flocks ONLY the information that they want them to hear, and they will slant and bias all information and opinions to conform to the shape that they want their new nation to take. There are no limits.

People, the government is US!!! Stop buying into this right-wing propoganda that has become urban legand over the past decades. The urban legand tells us that government is bad. Hello - government is US - WE THE PEOPLE! It is our only way to control the rapidly growing plutarchy!

Money is not speech. Period. Money is money, and it is used to buy things, to control things, to corrupt things. It is not speech. The Supreme Court should be looking for ways to protect speech FROM MONEY. That is, if we had a Supreme Court that was not made up of shills for the extreme right wing plutarchy.

A corporation is NOT A PERSON. The Bill of Rights applies to people, not to corporations. Corporations should be tightly controlled and regulated entities, not rulers of our country, and certainly not protected by our sacred Bill of Rights.

This should be THE PRIMARY ISSUE on the mind of every voter between now and when Congress takes action to reverse this abomination of a ruling.