From Mike Flugennock, naturally:

This one’s a salute to all you surviving Kool-Aid-drinking Obamabots getting ready to soldier on into this year’s Presidential Freak Circus — all you Lefties and Progressives who were willingly, knowingly, happily bamboozled by all the hope’n'change talk four years ago.

Poor Obie. He must have hated this so much. His usual easy fluency is gone gone gone; he stammers and stutters and misplaces his caesuras and emphases half a dozen times in every sentence. Mister Timing himself suddenly has no timing. Particularly cruel -- if you like cringe comedy -- is the bit that starts at 7:00 and culminates right around 8:00, when he can't even manage to read the Gospel words accurately off his script, which he consults far more obviously than I've ever seen him do.

He's quite shameless really. Or not, that's dead wrong. He does in fact have a capacity for shame. That's why he's so awkward here. He obviously doesn't believe a word of this stuff, and even his impermeable conscience, tempered in the hellfire of Chicago politics, manages to trip him up.

He might not be a bad ex-president. The role model is Jimmy Carter, who as president was a horrible prodromos to the unspeakable Ronald Reagan: I baptise you with water but there is one who comes...

Jimmy, in later years, tried to atone for his sins by building houses and using the forbidden A-word in connection with Israel. Obie, I suspect, may in fact have some similar well-hidden depths in his character, and his stumblebum performance at the National Prayer Breakfast -- God, what a phrase -- may be the best evidence I have to cite.

Let's all help save Obie's soul. Stay home on Election Day and allow the cares of Empire to descend upon the broad Mormon shoulders of Mitt Romney, who seems destined for the role. Send Obie off into the wilderness to fast and pray. It'll be good for him.

Of course he already prays, or so he says. Early on in the speech he confesses that when he gets up in the morning he says a 'brief' prayer and reads a 'little' scripture.

Wouldn't want to overdo it. ]]> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/02/bad_faith.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/02/bad_faith.html Thu, 02 Feb 2012 20:29:05 -0500

So I was in the car again today and... you know what's coming: Yes, I was listening to my local NPR 'outlet', a term carefully chosen. Brian Lehrer, a longtime fixture on the local scene -- he even interviewed me once -- was talking to Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor at NYU -- aieee! -- about the Arizona law against school courses that encourage 'resentment'. The immediate occasion was the ban on a course which appears to have taught that the Mexican war was nakedly a war of conquest.

Zimmerman strangely seemed to believe that this was somehow a one-sided view of the matter, though it sounds to me like a thoroughly accurate characterization. Lehrer, to his credit, seemed a little dismayed to hear him talking this way -- he mentioned that Thoreau and the young Lincoln took the same view -- but like a good host, he let his guest blether on to the top of his bent.

(There doesn't seem to be a transcript up yet, but if you want to listen to the whole thing, be my guest. Warning: Zimmerman has a very annoying grating voice.)

At one point Lehrer asked Zimmerman -- quoting from memory here, so don't hold me to it: "Is teaching supposed to make patriots? Or just convey the facts? Is it to form skills?" -- and a number of other alternatives which I don't now remember, all equally unappetizing. And Zimmerman replied "It's to form good citizens."

Now apart from the fact that this program is hard to distinguish from Lehrer's first alternative, what struck me most, at first, was the breathtaking arrogance of it. The auld dominies have appointed themselves soul engineers.

Upon reflection, though, the conceit seemed less remarkable than the abjection -- strange to think, is it not, that the two can cohabit so intimately? All this study and thinking and dialectic, this painful mastery of dead languages and complicated mathematics, this sweaty fieldwork among the ants and the Hottentots -- it's all about delivering a high-quality feedstock of cives to the civitas? ]]> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/02/soul_engineering.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/02/soul_engineering.html Thu, 02 Feb 2012 18:01:39 -0500

http://www.miller-mccune.com/politics/pirate-party-docks-at-berlins-parliament-39443/ note this coy narration "Germany’s Pirate Party won an impressive 9 percent of the vote last September in the Berlin elections. Since then, 15 very unconventional “Pirate” politicians have taken seats in the regional parliament, donning hoodies, sneakers, and even a few ponytails on the men." now note the platform " ... greater public participation and increased transparency as their central political agenda...... “open source” government, where all bureaucratic paperwork and publicly financed initiatives are freely accessible online. In a Pirate paradise, citizens should be able to directly influence politics using the Internet..... improving the education system, offering free public transportation and implementing Grundeinkommen, a basic income guarantee for all citizens." an internal process in place: " a system called Liquid Democracy (which has a more practical application as online software called Liquid Feedback)." " ...anyone (Pirate or not) can approach the Pirate Party board with a proposal concerning the city-state of Berlin. The proposal is then entered into the Liquid Feedback software and voted directly upon by the members of the party. The board is less a decision-making entity and more an administrative arm of the party." Through Liquid Feedback, each Pirate can decide yes or no. If the Pirate is not interested or unfamiliar with the topic, he can delegate his vote to another Pirate, whose vote on the matter then counts as two, and so on." a parallel local run by new york occ outfits might look like fun eh ?]]> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/02/pirate_party_update_grundeinko.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/02/pirate_party_update_grundeinko.html Thu, 02 Feb 2012 08:26:51 -0500 http://www.epi.org/publication/bp336-us-china-auto-parts-industry/ tales of de industrialization chapter 113: . "..... The U.S. trade deficit in auto parts increased from $9.5 billion in 2000 to $31.2 billion in 2010" ...the domestic industry is threatened by Chinese practices. ..... In 2010, the U.S. auto-parts trade deficit with China reached $9.1 billion....The rapid growth of imports of subsidized and unfairly traded auto parts from China puts at risk jobs both directly and indirectly supported by the U.S. auto-parts industry.....Potential job losses in the states are significant..." data: "The 10 most vulnerable states (as measured by total auto-parts industry employment as of 2009) are Michigan (249,989 jobs), Ohio (189,039 jobs), Indiana (132,769 jobs), Illinois (98,748 jobs), Tennessee (79,225 jobs), Texas (74,942 jobs), California (70,883 jobs), Kentucky (58,745 jobs), New York (58,429 jobs), and North Carolina (54,540 jobs)....... " "The 10 most vulnerable states as measured by auto-parts employment as a share of total state employment in 2009 are Michigan (6.5 percent of total state employment), Indiana (4.8 percent), Ohio (3.7 percent), Kentucky (3.3 percent), Tennessee (3.0 percent), Alabama (2.2 percent), South Carolina (1.9 percent), Illinois (1.7 percent), Wisconsin (1.6 percent), and North Carolina (1.4 percent)." read the whole report it will raise hair some where on your body i promise you http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/02/stop_them_china_parts.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/02/stop_them_china_parts.html Wed, 01 Feb 2012 15:50:02 -0500 want to read ron paul's manifesto ?? here it is ":What they demand is the complete and undisguised ascendancy of the Bourgeoisie, the open, official subjection of society at large under the laws of modern, Bourgeois production, and under the rule of those men who are the directors of that production. By Free Trade they mean the unfettered movement of capital, freed from all political, national and religious shackles. The soil is to be a marketable commodity’ and the exploitation of the soil is to be carried on according to the common commercial laws. There are to be manufacturers of food as well as manufacturers of twist and cottons, but no longer any lords of the land. There are, in short, not to be tolerated any political or social restrictions, regulations or monopolies, unless they proceed from “the eternal laws of political economy,” that is, from the conditions under which Capital produces and distributes. The struggle of this party against the old institutions, products of a superannuated, an evanescent stage of social development, is resumed in the watchword: Produce as cheap as you can, and do away with all the faux frais of production And this watchword is addressed not only to the private individual , but to the nation at large principally. high society with its “barbarous splendors,” its palaces pools and flunkeys ? the faux frais of production The nation can produce and exchange without high society away with old money and their languid sinecures the FED and the wall street cabals ? faux frais of production. The large standing army? faux frais of production. The foreign bases ? faux frais of production. The hierarchic Churches, with their riches, the spoils of plunder or of mendicity? faux frais of production. Let parsons compete freely with each other, and everyone pay them according to his own wants. The whole circumstantial routine of civil Law, with its juries of helot revenge ? faux frais of production. National wars? faux frais of production. amerika can exploit foreign nations more cheaply while at peace with them. You see, to these champions of the vigorous job creating class every institution of Old crony america with its rent seeking parasites the bureaucrats the poverty pimps they all appear as part of a giant ceremonial machinery as costly as it is useless, and which fulfils no other purpose than to prevent the nation from producing the greatest possible quantity at the least possible expense and to exchange its products in freedom. http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/marx.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/marx.html Tue, 31 Jan 2012 19:45:17 -0500

http://www.cepr.net/documents/publications/low-wage-2012-01.pdf "The United States has the highest share of low-wage work in the OECD countries ..... the incidence of low-wage work in the United States has been rising for at least three decades, from just over 20 percent in 1979 to just under 30 percent in 2010" defined how those with wages at least one third lower then national median wage compare to ?? take france she's under 12% interesting data here worth a look ]]> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/wages_at_the_bottom_of_amerika.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/wages_at_the_bottom_of_amerika.html Tue, 31 Jan 2012 16:18:32 -0500 http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/labor-law-professors-defy-death-threats-in-italy/ "Pietro Ichino, a professor of labor law at the University of Milan and a senator in the Italian legislature, is known as the author of several “neoliberal” books and studies recommending that the Italian government relax its extraordinarily stringent regulation of employers’ hiring and firing decisions." "..... that means that Prof. Ichino must fear for his life ...he's not just being alarmist. In 1999 and 2002 leftist gunmen associated with the Red Brigades murdered two other reformist labor law professors, Massimo D’Antona and Mario Biagi" beware mouthing neo liberal shibboleths my fellw econ cons ..... armed squads are listening http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/rough_justice_to_rotten_egg_he.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/rough_justice_to_rotten_egg_he.html Tue, 31 Jan 2012 08:26:41 -0500 recall the three little questions: "1. Does Israel have the ability to cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project? And can the military and the Israeli people withstand the inevitable counterattack? " "2. Does Israel have overt or tacit support, particularly from America, for carrying out an attack? " " 3. Have all other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort? If so, is this the last opportunity for an attack? " sounds pwetty impwesive no doubt to pearly innocent goo goo ears but step back a moment and ask yourself is fort zion really concerned about an iranian nuke ? and if so why ? answer that pair of questions plausibly and then one might begin to assemble reasons i repeat ...begin ... to assemble reasons why a pre emptive strike against iranian nuke installations might be in the "interests" of certain powerful elements inside fort zion ----------------------------------- the comment cages are open and waiting for an inflow of hypothetical premptive strike rationales i'll gladly take on all comers fun and virtual blood spils will hopefully be had by all http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/nuclear_card_tricks_or_mini_me.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/nuclear_card_tricks_or_mini_me.html Mon, 30 Jan 2012 09:27:05 -0500

Like most New Yorkers I probably pay too much attention to the New York Times. -- Well, in my case, less than most, but still perhaps too much. This image shows the cover of today's New York Times magazine, which somebody, some years ago, once called the most reliably neocon publication in North America. Here's the pull-quote -- which occupies a whole large-type page of the fiimsy vulgar shallow mag, widely read on Long Island, Westchester county, and parts of New Jersey:

1. Does Israel have the ability to cause severe damage to Iran’s nuclear sites and bring about a major delay in the Iranian nuclear project? And can the military and the Israeli people withstand the inevitable counterattack?

2. Does Israel have overt or tacit support, particularly from America, for carrying out an attack?

3. Have all other possibilities for the containment of Iran’s nuclear threat been exhausted, bringing Israel to the point of last resort? If so, is this the last opportunity for an attack?

For the first time since the Iranian nuclear threat emerged in the mid-1990s, at least some of Israel’s most powerful leaders believe that the response to all of these questions is yes.

Most of the piece consists of bragging about Israel's assassination campaign against Iran's nuclear scientists, but the bottom line -- in the last graf -- is a quite explicit threat to the United States that if Uncle don't do something about Iran, Israel will.

Again: Are they just selling wolf tickets here? It's a thing they love to do, of course. I'm still sorta inclined to think so, but it shook me, I have to admit.

The bright side is that it shows the New York Times falling further and further into the abyss of intellectual and moral disgrace, just when you thought they had reached rock bottom. It's like the equivalent of one of those county fair hamburger-eating contests, with steaming bowls of fresh shit instead of the hamburgers. ]]> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/more_straws_in_the_wind.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/more_straws_in_the_wind.html Sun, 29 Jan 2012 16:39:58 -0500 http://www.alternet.org/story/153695/revolutionary_jose_maria_sison_on_us_imperialism_and_a_way_forward_for_the_philippines at alternet fletch interviews comrade sison: "....conditions have become more fertile for people's war in the Philippines....." "The prices of the raw materials and semi-manufactures produced for export by the Philippines are depressed" "foreign loans to cover the trade deficits and debt service are becoming more onerous" ".. demand for overseas contract workers... (**** ) .... remittances are decreasing" ---------------------------------------------- status of the armed struggle ? "...the Aquino regime ....is implementing the US-designed Oplan Bayanihan, which is the same dog as Arroyo's Oplan Bantay Laya but which tries to be different by dressing up brutal military operations as peace and development operations and maintaining human rights desks in the reactionary army and national police for the purpose of shifting the blame for human rights violations to the revolutionaries." "... the New People's Army ... is carrying out a five-year plan to advance from the strategic defensive to strategic stalemate in the people's war,increasing the number of guerrilla fronts from 120 to 180." ---------------------------------------------- parallel negotiations between the Aquino government and the NDFP : "the Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) are supposed to engage in peace negotiations in order to address the roots of the armed conflict by forging agreements on social, economic and political reforms........The biggest obstacle to the peace negotiations is US political and military intervention.." "..the Aquino regime drew up Oplan Bayanihan under US Counterinsurgency Guidlines... peace negotiations are a mere psy-war device for outwitting, isolating and destroying the revolutionary movement. ..... peace negotiations are only a means to enhance the triad of psy-war, intelligence-gathering and combat operations...... I am not optimistic that negotiations can result in a settlement...the .government is not seriously interested in peace negotiations " " , the Aquino regime ....has shown no inclination to assert national independence and undo unequal treaties, agreements and arrangements that keep the Philippines semi-colonial. It also has shown no inclination to realize democracy through significant representation of workers and peasants in government and through land reform and national industrialization." ------------------------------------------- Mindanao "The NDFP supports the Moro people's struggle for self-determination, including the right to secede from an oppressive state or opt for regional autonomy in a non-oppressive political system. " "The Moro people ... are not free in their own homeland and are victims of Christian chauvinism and discrimination. They have been deprived of their ancestral domain. They have been robbed of agricultural land as well as forest, mineral and marine resources..... The Moro people have all the right to fight for national and social liberation." " The NDFP has therefore found common ground for alliance ...with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) ..The US government and the US media exaggerate the threat of Muslim fundamentalist terrorism because they wish to promote the entry of US corporations for the purpose of plundering the rich natural resources of Mindanao, especially oil, gold and deuterium. They also wish to justify the current stationing of US military forces and eventually the basing of larger US military forces for the purpose of strategic control over Islamic countries in Southeast Asia and strategic countervailing of China and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea in Northeast Asia.... the US Manila governments depict the Abu Sayyaf as a Muslim fundamentalist group and as an extension of the Al Qaeda,." ".Moro land is a second front in the so-called global war on terror." however: " There are indications that the US and Philippine governments continue to arm and finance the Abu Sayyaf in order to block the advance of the MILF in Sulu and to provide the pretext for US military intervention in the Philippines." ------------------------------------------- US policies towards the Philippines under President Obama " ..From the Bush II to the Obama regime, there has been no change in US policy towards the Philippines." " Obama continues the policy of .. manipulating the puppet regime and its military forces, preventing land reform and national industrialization, controlling the fundamentals and direction of the Philippine cultural and educational system ...and maintaining a permanent relay of US military forces. " Obama is a good servant of US imperialism. He used his glibness to make himself look better than the brazenly brutal Bush. But he is using the same glibness to cover many acts as bad as or even worse than those that made Bush infamous." ------------------------------------- sison's web site: http://www.josemariasison.org/ ---------------------------------------- (****) "The scarcity of employment opportunities in the Philippines has compelled nearly 10 per cent of the population to seek employment abroad as overseas contract workers and undocumented workers ..." http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/npa_update.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/npa_update.html Sun, 29 Jan 2012 09:13:27 -0500

So -- will war with Iran be Obie's October surprise? Or maybe happen even sooner than that? The punters here at SMBIVA detect ominous rumblings on their sensitive political seismographs:

The hot war in Iran, to culminate a decade of Uncle Sam terrorism, two decades of punitive sanctions and three decades of isolation, looks like it's really coming for sure.

... The "tells" for me re hot war: one NYT article after another laying the groundwork, plus NPR programs that feature sociopathic lunatics, er, Foreign Affairs writers, making the case for war in serious, somber tones....

And Arianna Huffington's contemptible fashion rag has been running and featuring a daily dish on Iran for almost five weeks, now.

So place your bets. Who says the bombs start falling before year's end? Who says not? Show your work. ]]> http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/once_more_unto_the_sand_trap.html http://stopmebeforeivoteagain.org/2012/01/once_more_unto_the_sand_trap.html Sat, 28 Jan 2012 18:42:14 -0500