As I shared in my previous post I recently finished reading “The Family” by Jeff Sharlet which was an “eye opening” book, to say the least.  Now, I’m well into “Washington Rules” by Andrew J. Bacevich which is popping my eyes even open WIDER!  Much of what has been bothering me since I started reading everything I could get my hands on regarding the “wars” in Iraq and Afganistan along with the other “doings” perpetrated by the government of the country I love is becoming a bit less foggy.  I’ve been railing against some “invisible force” which apparently lies behind the republican “talking heads,” the “tea party,” and – unfortunately, too many of the opposing democrats.  I noticed almost from the beginning of the Obama administration that the fundamentals of our government were changing very little if at all after his election.  I didn’t understand how “the change we can believe in” could be orchestrated by the very same individuals (or their compatriots) who had created what appeared to me to be the worst set of circumstances this country faced since the Great Depression (and considering the “occupations” of Iraq and Afganistan which have become out of favor with the public dialogue – maybe worse than the 1930’s – the jury is still out on that one).

This is not to say that I don’t believe President Obama means well – for me, the jury’s still out on that one.  I want to be totally naive and just assume he meant everything he said during the campaign, but the is obviously ………well, naive.  I mean, there have already been many HUGE issues which would tend to imply that our president was just very eloquently telling us on the “left” what we wanted to hear.  OK, I can live with that – that’s been American politics since before I started voting (my awareness of politics that is) and probably for a LOT longer.  However, the cynicism is continuing to rise among those I feel aligned with and it’s not as if we feel a sense of relief at this piont having Obama as president.  When George W Bush and Dick Cheney were president we knew pretty much what we were getting.  I watched (and listened) in disbelief as Bush/Cheney gutted America’s treasury for starters, then stretched America’s military to the breaking point (all on borrowed money – all the while asking the rest of us to “keep shopping”), and let our economy into an abiss that may take decades to recover from.  Both Bush and Cheney admitted on national TV to authorizing TORTURE, their underlings refused to honor congressional subpoenas, Cheney outed a CIA agent in retrobution for her husband telling the truth about Iraq, Bush/Cheney/Rove undermined the integrity of the Justice Department, and the Bush/Cheney regime authorized multiple (we don’t know how many because of the lack of investigation) violations of the FISA laws against warrantless wiretapping of American citizens.  Bush and Cheney used presidential signing statements and the “States Secret Privilege” to get around accountability for their arrogant disregard for the will of the congress and the American people.  All of it was astonishing, but none of it was surprising!

That all being said, I’ve gone off endlessly about how I fail to understand why the Obama administration took NO ACTION against Bush and company – not even from a “truth commission” standpoint to uncover all the wrongs committed during the eight years they controlled the White House.  Unfortunately, after reading these two books the “picture” is getting a bit clearer – by inference – because NOBODY even wants to talk about all this – and, in this case I’m talking about the Obama administration.  Remember, Rahm Emanuel’s response to people like me was to call us “f___ing retards.”  I remember at the time pointing out the day will come when people will realize who the “retard” really was.  I don’t think there’s any doubt that Emanuel left Washington DC with “his tail between his legs.”  So, then I’m hoping that President Obama realized he had “hitched his wagon” to a Washington insider who could be considered a “thug” almost as much as the republicans.  But, watching what has happened since the mid-term elections has me on “pause” again.  Is this president going to endlessly make a fool of himself kissing up to republicans?  When will he realize that the only way to deal with these people is through confrontation.  All of the “distractions” Obama was trying to avoid by pardoning Bush/Cheney are INEVITABLE!  Either our president puts up the “fight” virtually EVERYONE on the left is waiting for, or we all (those of us calling ourselves liberals, progressives, or whatever) lose.  (and, by lose, I mean we’ll have to regroup and plan for THE “fight” at another day with another leader – BECAUSE  unfortunately, you MUST have a leader to carry out the necessary “fight”)

So, then the question becomes; why is our president and the democratic party so reluctant to take on the republicans?  Have they all been bought and sold?  After reading “The Family” I’m inclined to believe that enough of them have been “bought and sold” that the answer to that last question is a resoundingly DISGUSTING yes!  You really need to read the book, but essentially an (originally) small group of fundamentalist Christians who were philosophically aligned with people like Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Mussolini, and other authoritarian figures began infiltrating the anti New Deal factions of our government and business community since the first days of Roosevelt’s era.  These people – although remaining in “secret” for most of the time since then – have a discoverable history of racism (some of their original foreign “connections” were refugees of Hitler’s Third Reich), anti union ism (big time), anti anything that propelled the American Middle Class to be the envy of the entire world.  They work behind the scenes and in small “cells” which are scattered all over America and the rest of the world.  In fact, as I shared in my previous post, one of there “recruits” was Suharno of Indonesia – with NO REGARD for the FACT he was a MASS MURDERER in his own country – with the blood of at least HALF A MILLION people on his hands.  They admired his authoritarian skill – to the point of actually inviting him to Washington to “hob nob” with their political connections.

There is also a discoverable association with the “Family” and the American CIA and the CIA’s involvement in the overthrow of democratically elected governments in South America and elsewhere.  Salvadore Allende was overthrown in Chile by a CIA backed coup resulting in the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet who was a murdering thug – killing untold thousands of his own people to retain power with the support of the United States and the “Family” which, by that time was thoroughly entrenched in encouraging America’s exploitation of one country after another in the name of “fighting communism.”  These people were undoubtedly involved in the overthrow of the democratically elected Mohammad Mossadegh in Iran for the dreaded Shah of Iran who was ultimately thrown out during Jimmy Carter’s presidency leading up to the hostage crisis leading to Carter’s undoing (and, unfortunately Reagan’s doings!).  They orchestrated a coup in Guatemala which, true to form, ousted a democratically elected government in favor of giving control of the government to a military junta which was more in “favor” with the US.  This crap has been going on since the inception of the CIA in the early fifties and the “Family” has been, secretly, right in the thick of it all along the way.

Why (and how) is all this happening (has it been happening)?  Well, the simple explanation to me is that the multi-national corporations which were overtly “controlled” with regulations after the first Great Depression (do you think I’m anticipating something?) were able to virtually ignore the regulations imposed after the 1929 “Crash” or “work around them” in their global search for MORE AND MORE profits!  It was oil in Iran, copper in Chile, and who knows what in all the other places where America’s secret “enforcers” were manipulating events in order to allow her corporate interests to rob  country after country of its national treasures.  Why else would we care who the Guatemalan’s or the Chilean’s would elect as governments?  Why were we unhappy with the FACT they were ELECTING governments?  Was there some unwritten code somewhere that they had to elect governments that we approved?  Well, unfortunately, I believe the answer to that question is another resounding YES! 

Prior to the “Great Depression” corporate greed and profit motives were out of control – very similarly to what is happening today.  I keep thinking about how, according to most accounts, Hank Paulsen “headed off” another Great Depression with the TARP bailout – how, people said we had learned from the last depression how to avoid the next one – which may or may not prove to be true.  But, the ironic part of that “theory” to me is that I believe the corporations learned how to head off the retaliatory regulating when their greed got so out of control that it “melted” the entire economy so that – instead of taking 50 years to reverse the effects of the next “New Deal” their plan, all along, was to undermine EVERYTHING Obama, or whoever was elected in 2008, attempted to do and therefore face only a four year struggle in which to regain power and continue their pillaging of the American Treasury.  This time (2008 as opposed to 1929), they have control of the media and the Supreme Court – a very nicely thought out plan – and, based on the midterm elections – it looks to me as if their plan may work (that, of course, is an admission that the American public is willingly uninformed).  Members of the “Family” have been calculating on a “Nazi-like” electorate voting in a democratically elected dictatorship for years(Rove’s “permanent republican majority”) – and, I believe that now they feel they can see the “light at the end of the tunnel.”

Back to our democrats who, for those of us who are seeing this disaster on the horizon, we are forced to depend on to change the direction of the “ship,” I ask myself again (and often each day) why are they allowing this to happen?  Well, the truth is that there are democrats living in the “C” street house (home of the “Family” members of congress – Ben Nelson of Nebraska is one I know about), there are an unknown (to me) number of democrats participating in the “Family’s” “prayer cells,” and it seems as if every politician who wishes the national stage MUST participate in the “national prayer breakfast” (whether innocently or not – they are then in “cahoots” with the “Family”).  The “Family” is connected to MANY MAJOR corporate heads who are funneling money to the politicians and their agenda is very republican like.  I’m just saying that the lack of will to “fight” the republican agenda on the part of democrats is UNBELIEVABLE to me.

As I’m writing this, there is a looming “showdown” on capital hill.  The republicans are willing to stop EVERYTHING – including an extension of unemployment benefits for the so-called “99ers” who’ve been out of work for over two years unless the democrats “cave” on their “Bush tax cuts for the rich.”  Meaning, the republicans don’t want the tax cuts for those making over $250,000 to revert to the same levels they were at under Bill Clinton (39% as opposed to 35%) – which means another $700 BILLION of debt over the next decade.  The republicans are balking on spending $18 BILLION for unemployed workers who are simply hanging on by their fingertips to their homes and what dignity they have left.  This is so UN AMERICAN to me that I can’t even believe it’s happening.  But, you have to keep in mind, the republicans are secretly supported and “pushed” by members of the “Family,” and these people opposed unemployment benefits in the 30’s when they were first proposed.  They opposed the formation of labor unions and have been trying to eliminate them ever since.  They are opposed to Social Security (in fact, they’re trying to get their grimy hands on the Social Security trust fund as I’m typing this – have been for years) and Medicare – their (the republicans with “Family” support) Medicare bill during the Bush/Cheney era was designed to ultimately “break” Medicare – they HATE all government run programs.  Hense, we have private contractors almost fighting our wars at this point – think about that one carefully!  Here’s my fear – Obama and the democrats are going to cave on the tax cuts – Obama thinking he will finally have bipartisanship will be writing his own political obituary should he do so.  We will be in for two years that will be worse than the last two years of Bush/Cheney.

I’m going to end this tirade by questioning, AGAIN, how I’m struggling to understand why President Obama is having such a difficult time processing all of this.  Every which way he turns he’s being undercut by republicans – yet, he continues “reaching out.”  I read “Obama’s Wars” by Bob Woodward and it’s very clear that even the top Generals in America’s Military are playing politics with out president.  They backed him into a corner on both Iraq and Afganistan – and, considering the weakness of the economy and the battle over health care reform, I believe Obama took the easy way out on these wars.  No American president has been willing to “take on” the “military industrial complex” in my lifetime, and I guess President Obama won’t be the first.  It’s like we are military JUNKIES and, as a nation, we’re willing to spend whatever it takes to make us feel as if we have enough fire power to incinerate the world many times over to express our “manhood.”  I honestly thought that, at the very least, when Obama took office the military decisions would be “out of the box” – but, as it turned out, the generals prevailed.  It would take a lot of courage to say no to someone like David Patreaus because he’s been cannonized by the likes of Fox “news” and other right wing media types – but, in reading Woodward’s book you can see him for the manipulating and ambitious person that he is (it wouldn’t surprise me to see him running for the republican nomination in 2012).  Endless wars benefit in a HUGE financial way the very people the “Family” are affiliated with, and those people send hundreds of MILLIONS to our congressional “leaders” in order to maintain the “status qu0.”  It will take “leaders” free of this financial indebtedness to the CEO’s and other wealthy business people and world leaders who fund the “Family” to reverse this right wing onslaught of our govenrment.  Two years ago I thought then President Elect Obama was the man for the job, but as we approach 2011 I have my serious doubts.  I can’t help but wonder whether or not the “Family” has infiltrated Obama’s White House and that’s why he’s constantly kissing up to republicans.  The “Family” has been “eating away” at the fundamental core of America since the days of the New Deal and, why democrats can’t see that is beyond me.  The right wing of the republican party (which includes “The Family”) is trying to create an “Us and them” society!  (And, for those of you over 65 out there who voted for “tea partiers” and republicans in the last election – just wait until these people get ahold of your Social Security trust fund! – that’s looming on the horizon)

 Word of the Week: “uncertainty”  – A classic example of the republicans Nazi – like propaganda machine.  I’ve heard at least half a dozen republican pundits spewing the EXACT same line regarding the “uncertainty” which is causing business to hold onto their TRILLIONS of profits instead of hiring new workers.  What is this “uncertainty” in regards to?  EXTENDING THE “BUSH TAX CUTS”

One More Thing:  Am I the only one who finds it interesting that Eric Holder, America’s Attorney General who reminds me of the lion in the Wizard of Oz, couldn’t manage the guts to investigate George W Bush and Dick Cheney (et al) – BOTH admittedly authorizing TORTURE – or Eric Cantor who PUBLICLY violated the Logan Act (an act of treason and a felony) when he assured the Prime Minister of Israel that “the republicans have his back” in any dispute with the Obama administration – yet, he’s publicly and openly “investigating” the “WIKI LEAKS” which simply tell the truth about what our government has been up to lately?