Electronic Pen

TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Their last Oval Office resident

Was such a fool and a clod in

Most ways that his profile since

Has been lower than bin-Laden.

Dubya ruined America for two terms.

To many people, what really perplexes

Is his party's new idea now is another

Dim bulb cowboy governor from Texas.

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DICK MEISTER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Discrimination against working women is an obviously serious matter, and
there's a lot more of it than is generally realized, as a new report makes
all too clear.

The report, from the Institute for Women's Policy Research, says that every
year, a substantial portion of the country's employers are charged with
discrimination against women under the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the nation's
basic civil rights law. Certainly not all employers charged with

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ELLIOT COHEN FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

When Guardian reporter, Nick Davies, broke the story that Rupert Murdoch's News of the World had been hacking British citizens' voicemail messages, including those of a murdered teenager, there was a public outcry. Unfortunately, this is the tip of a glacial iceberg that has the potential to bring down a lot more than the News of the World.

Last year, without due public debate and input, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and Justice Department approved a merger between Comcast and NBC Universal that gave the Internet cable giant control over the programming of NBC news.  At the same time, pursuant to the 2008 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Amendments Act, Comcast as well as all other telecommunication companies are required to cooperate with the Federal government in providing the facility for government to search through all electronic communications sent down their pipes.

So presently, the government, with the help of Comcast and other telecommunication companies, can hack everyone's phone and email conversations.   Here also lies a new 21st century media model:  a telecom company that owns and operates the infrastructure for the digital transmission of news and information; simultaneously owns the newsroom; and uses it infrastructure to assist the government in mass, warrantless surveillance of all American citizens.

The News of the World spied on a relatively few number of individuals for the purpose of getting a story.  Comcast routinely spies on millions of people on behalf of government.  The official purpose of such spying is to uncover terrorist plots; however, racial profiling can be used to conduct searches; mass sweeps are warrantless; and adequate judicial oversight of screening criteria and procedures is lacking.  Worse still, in this brave new world, the media entrusted to keep an eye on government abuses of power is now part of this overreaching power structure.

Further, given the symbiotic relationship between media and government, there is nothing to stop Comcast from examining the email messages and phone conversations of rival news organizations, political opponents, and other persons and organizations of interest in an effort to "adjust" its news coverage and massage its bottom line.  In fact, Comcast has maintained that it has a broad right to monitor its customers' email messages and Internet activities.  It has an established history of having spied on its customers as well as preventing them from sharing files.  Further, it is presently lobbying Congress to do away with net neutrality, the principle that assures that everyone, not just giant media companies, has an equal voice on the Internet.  And, in 2008, Chris Albrecht, presently CEO of Starz TV, reported that Comcast's senior VP told him that Comcast was experimenting with installing cameras into its cable boxes thereby allowing it to see into people's living rooms and identify viewers.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

How did Jesus go from being a socialist in the New Testament to a selfish Ayn Rand anarcho-capitalist in modern-day America? After all, one of the most well-known bible verses is from Mark 10:25: "It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God."

Sociologist Gregory Paul stated the paradox clearly in an August 12 Washington Post op-ed:

Many conservative Christians, mostly Protestant but also a number of Catholics, have come to believe and proudly proclaim that the creator of the universe favors free wheeling, deregulated, union busting, minimal taxes especially for wealthy investors, plutocrat-boosting capitalism as the ideal earthly scheme for his human creations. And many of these Christian capitalists are ardent followers of Ayn Rand, who was one of - and many of whose followers are - the most hard-line anti-Christian atheists you can get. Meanwhile many Christians who support the capitalist policies associated with social Darwinistic strenuously denounce Darwin's evolutionary science because it supposedly leads to, well, social Darwinism!

But Paul points out that the New Testament primarily promotes what would nowadays be called socialism:

But to understand just how non-capitalistic Christianity is supposed to be we turn to the first chapter after the gospels, Acts, which describes the events of the early church. Chapters 2 and 4 state that all "the believers were together and had everything in common. Selling their possessions and goods, they gave to anyone as he had need ... No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.... There were no needy persons among them. From time to time those who owned lands or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales and put it at the apostles' feet, and it was distributed to anyone as he had need."

Now folks, that's outright socialism of the type described millennia later by Marx - who likely got the general idea from the gospels.

Paul further notes that "we have Christian creationists like Jay Richards writing books titled 'Money, Greed, and God: Why Capitalism Is the Solution and Not the Problem.' Can a stranger amalgam of opposing opinions be devised?"

In essence, the modern prosperity theologians who dominate the right wing of the Republican Party are essentially heretics. They've grafted on a post-industrial-age emphasis on the acquisition of capital and material goods to the alleged son of God, Jesus, who was himself essentially the father of socialism (as recounted in the bible).

At the next Republican debate, we would like to see a test of faith. All the candidates should be required to thread a camel through the eye of a needle.

If they can't do it, they have to shut up about Jesus, Christianity and the bible.

Now that would be refreshing.

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ROBERT KOEHLER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

As crashing economies and austerity measures slap ever more ferociously at the lives of the vulnerable and disenfranchised, the Western world, with all its hidden poverty and institutional racism, may continue to convulse.

The riots that broke out in London over the weekend and spread throughout Great Britain, triggered by the controversial police killing of a 29-year-old man, have sent shockwaves in all directions. Who knew things were so unstable, that Britain's struggling neighborhoods were just one incident away from such destructive lunacy?

"On Twitter late last night, following the main bulk of the riots, I was astonished at the incomprehension generally expressed as to why they had occurred. There seemed to be an extraordinary lack of awareness that working class youth in Britain are being punished for the financial excesses of the banking collapse," freelance British journalist Pennie Quinton wrote on Al-Jazeera.

"The public spending cuts this year meant many of the youth summer schemes in London did not run. These riots suggest boredom - and inarticulate rage. The youth are smashing and grabbing the things society tells them to want."

Good God, the wealth gap is widening everywhere, and this is its cost: occasional public spasms of inhumanity and nihilism, perpetrated by those who have nothing much left to lose. But who cares about root causes? The riots are so compellingly photogenic, and the need for a return to order at all costs is suddenly so desperate.

"In central London," the New York Times reported, "owners of electrical goods stores along busy Tottenham Court Road shuttered their premises as convoys of riot police vans with sirens wailing crisscrossed the city, a show of force that seemed designed to cow potential looters and reassure their potential targets."

Prime Minister David Cameron, announcing the addition of 10,000 police to the streets, declared: "People should be in no doubt that we will do everything necessary to restore order to Britain's streets and to make them safe for the law-abiding."

This is the world I fear most: a world in which "us vs. them" is de rigueur, co-opting common sense, creating a schism in public discourse. Good guys and bad guys. It is, of course, the world we live in already, but its pervasiveness could spread. And there are so many who would prefer that, and know how to profit from it.

The British riots are a harbinger of what could happen in the U.S., where, of course, the same governmental "austerity" measures - the same cuts in services to the poor and middle class, the same jettisoning of vast segments of the populace to a forgotten hopelessness - are shattering the social structure. And the phenomenon of "flash mobs," in which hordes of young men, self-organizing through the social media, converge to commit random mayhem, have already sent jolts of panic through many urban centers.

And then there's the fact that big, full-scale riots are, well, as American as apple pie, what with our long history of racism and all. This is a looming disaster of immense proportions. Among other things, hard-core Republicans will, in their equal and opposite lunacy, see rioting as an excuse to justify further austerity measures (as punishment) and, ultimately, plunge the nation into all-out domestic war.

This is a peace alert! Peace consciousness is our only hope and it must spread. I believe that there is an extraordinary underground of such consciousness in the United States and around the world - an awareness that "us vs. them" is a single, devalued coin, that one side may succeed at doing great harm to and temporarily suppressing the other but will never "win" in the sense of freeing itself finally and forever of its enemy.

Last week, writing about the aftermath of the mass murders in Norway, and quoting columnist Colman McCarthy, I asked, "Why are we violent, but not illiterate?" There's a more concrete way to put the same question: Why was the Egyptian uprising at the beginning of the year a peaceful one while London's riot has caused the worst damage to the city since the Nazi blitz? Both were responses to police brutality, and occurred in a context of expanding social inequality, but the differences couldn't have been starker.

"When media analysts talk about an uprising like the one in Egypt as spontaneous," Cynthia Boaz wrote last month in an excellent analysis on TruthOut, "they are revealing their lack of understanding of the dynamics of nonviolent action and, simultaneously, are taking credit away from activists, who in many cases, have worked hard for years - often at great personal risk and sacrifice - to make this kind of victory possible. Regimes like Mubarak's don't fall when people just spontaneously show up in the city square. They only fall when movements are capable of exerting sustained pressure on them over a length of time."

The only way out of equal and opposite lunacy is to recognize that action and principle cannot be torn apart. "In Gandhian language, means and ends are inseparable," Boaz wrote.

What would it take to institute nonviolence training and planning on a national scale? I believe the resources to do so exist, if everyone who believes in it understands the urgency of beginning such a process now.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH FOR TRUTHOUT

While politicians argue about how to fix the US economy, many Americans don't even have enough money to fix their homes - and jobs for people who actually build real things (like houses and stores) continue to stagnate.

The evidence shows up in local stories like this one from The Chicago Sun-Times: "Elgin Lowe's store among seven closed." More than 80 people in the Chicago suburb have lost their jobs after Lowe's - the second largest home improvement chain - abruptly shuttered seven stores nationally.

Several factors contributed to the closing in Elgin, including "unemployment among Elgin tradesmen [that] is about 50 percent." That is because people can't afford new homes - and in many cases are putting off hiring contractors to do home repairs.

But what might be most troubling is that many Americans, suffering economically, may be putting off doing many home repairs themselves because of the cost of supplies.

The myth that somehow businesses will generate more jobs with higher tax breaks for the rich is a fiction created to fatten the wallets of corporate CEOs and shareholders. If there is less money for consumers to spend, stores like Lowe's close and jobs are lost, not added.

As BuzzFlash at Truthout noted before, the profit motive does not create more employment if there is not increased purchasing power.

By giving wealthy people more money, nothing is done to stimulate demand, except maybe for Prada and yachts.

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BILL BERKOWITZ FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

I'm not a devoted fan of Ed Shultz's MSNBC show, but when I tune in, I do appreciate his passion and willingness to fight for the working poor and the middle class. I can also share Schultz's frustration the night after Wisconsin Democrats failed in their bid to recall enough Republican State Senators to shift the balance of power in that legislative body, and why he would call out President Obama as being missing in action.

Since Governor Scott Walker launched his attack on the state's public workers and their unions this past winter, President Obama has indeed been missing in action. The recall campaign was a bellwether event. And Obama was nowhere to be found. Too busy to get involved in the recall effort; too busy to visit the state; too stressed by other matters.

Shame on you President Obama.

Breaking up is hard to do

For months I've been searching for an Obama break-up song. I certainly recognize that the president has no relationship with me other than him wanting my vote for re-election (just as he received it in 2008), and having his fundraising team pepper my mailbox, and inbox, with fundraising appeals.

Break ups don't just happen. Depending on the length, strength and depth of the relationship, a break up can be pretty darned traumartic; sometimes the after-shocks last a long time. Break ups can happen over silly things or fundamental chasms in relationships. These days, break ups may be losing its gravitas as text message and twitter replace face to face confrontation.

I've been putting this break up off, hoping against hope that Obama would start to turn things around and redeem himself; that he would recognize the nature of the forces arrayed against him, and that he would fight back. Maintaining hope thing hasn't been easy. I've got friends who gave that up a long time ago. And, I've got friends who never bought into the Obama in the first place, figuring that Obama was too closely allied with Wall Street to significantly reorder Washington's political landscape.

Things have rolled steadily downhill since Team Obama demobilized its 14 million supporters at the start of his presidency (See "Where in the World Is Obama's Missing Millions (people that is!)?" -- http://blog.buzjzflash.com/contributors/2202). Still, there was reason to believe (or so I thought and argued) that he'd come out of his compromise at all costs mentality.

The San Francisco Chronicle's Jon Carroll is one of my favorite daily columnists. Even his cat stories (for the most part) are fun to read. In a column dated August 10 and titled "Can Obama lead? Liberals want to know" (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/08/09/DD8P1KKRVN.DTL) Carroll discusses Drew Westen's recent buzz-worthy New York Times column titled "What Happened to Obama." (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/07/opinion/sunday/what-happened-to-obamas-passion.html?pagewanted=all).

Carroll writes: "Even on Inaugural Day, Obama let the occasion make the statement. He had no overarching message, no call to arms to take the country back from the plutocrats. Indeed, he probably didn't want that - he has hired the world's finest plutocrats as his closest advisers. His election as a black man was historic; the election of this black man may not be all that game-changing."

Carroll: "... Obama is called on to lead a nation-state. There are certain responsibilities there. One is that the leader give succor to his friends and confusion to his enemies. That doesn't mean rejecting compromise; that means appearing never to be forced into compromise. And here we have a leader whose opening gambit is compromise."

Then there's Bret Stephens, a Wall Street Journal columnist who I probably agree with once in a very blue moon. However, Stephens, who writes the WSJ's "Global View" column on foreign affairs and was the former editor-in-chief of The Jerusalem Post, caustically commented that Obama: "makes predictions that prove false. ... makes promises he cannot honor. ... raises expectations he cannot meet. ... reneges on commitments made in private. ... surrenders positions staked in public. ... is absent from issues in which he has a duty to be involved [and] He is overbearing when he ought to be absent."

I'm not sure if the Wisconsin recall effort was the final straw. I'm not sure there are any final straws, but my search for a break up song picked up steam this week.

Break up songs memorialize failed romantic relationships. For the life of me, I can't find any break up songs about leaving a political party, parting ways with a political candidate, or, for that matter, forsaking a favored sports team.

In break up songs it's  either your fault (you cheated), my fault (I'm not ready to commit), or it's no one's fault (we've grown apart). Does any of this possibly apply to my "relationship" with Obama?

Yes; the "you cheated"  break up.

My decision to support him in 2008 was just as much (perhaps even more so) an emotional decision as it was a political one. I wanted to believe in "Hope and Change." I wanted to believe in "Yes We Can."

I knew that Hillary Clinton would fight against the Right's onslaught that was guaranteed, no matter which Democrat was elected, since she and husband, President Bill, had been duking it out with the Right for years. I decided on Obama because I was optimistic that he would bring young people and those who had been disenfranchised into play. There was a possibility that a generation of hopers and changers and yes we can-ers would be loosed upon the land.

My search for a break up song

I'm old school, but this is the twenty-first century so perhaps my choice of break up songs should be closer to Kelly Clarkson's "Since U Been Gone" of Justin Timberlake's "Cry Me a River" than Otis Redding's "I've Been Loving You Too Long" or Neil Sedaka's "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do" (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbad22CKlB4).

In that spirit, I turned to Cristin Maher's list of "10 Best Break Up Songs" posted at Pop Crush (http://popcrush.com/best-break-up-songs/), seeking out something contemporary.

"Better That We Break," a 2008 song by Maroon 5 has the group's lead singer Adam Levine singing "I'm not fine, I'm in pain / It's harder everyday / Maybe we're better off this way? / It's better that we break."

Rhianna's 2008 song "Rehab" takes on life "after her relationship goes sour," singing "It's gonna take a miracle to bring me back / And you're the one to blame."

"Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart" is Alicia Keyes' contribution: "I can still hear inside my head / Telling me, touch me, feel me / And all the time you were telling me lies / So tonight I'm gonna find a way to make it without you."

"Say Goodbye" has Chris Brown singing: "There's never a right time to say goodbye / But I gotta make the first move / 'Cause if I don't you gonna start hating me / Cause I really don't feel the way I once felt about you."

Not satisfied in my quest, , I turned to Isabella Snow's "Top 25 Break Up Songs" (http://isabellasnow.hubpages.com/hub/Top-25-Break-Up-Songs), which includes: "Ain't No Sunshine When She's Gone" (Bill Withers); "Don't Think Twice" (Bob Dylan); "These Boots Are Made For Walking" (Nancy Sinatra); "Lonely Avenue (Ray Charles)'; "Missing You" (John Waite).

There are plenty of break up songs to choose from. But, is it really over between Obama and me?

Given the choice we'll be faced with in November 2012, and paraphrasing The Tempos 1959 summer hiatus song, "See You In September," I'm pretty sure I'll be seeing you in November ... but, in the words of B.B. King, "The Thrill is Gone."

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Increased taxes on billionaires don't put a damper on investment, and a billionaire should know.

That's what Warren Buffet lays out in a blockbuster August 14 op-ed in The New York Times, in which he begs Congress to stop tossing money at the wealthiest Americans.

Buffet makes the case that the decades-long decrease in taxes on the wealthy, including IRS provisions like low long-term capital gains taxes, are fundamentally unfair - and provide no boost to the economy. They just make the rich richer.

The facts and anecdotes Buffet refers to are so compelling that they most certainly will be dismissed by the Grover Norquist "anti-tax on the affluent cheerleading squad." Compare Buffet's cogent plea to be taxed more with Michele Bachmann's fatuous gobbledygook answer to a small businessman in Iowa who asked why big corporations don't pay a greater share of the nation's taxes. By the time you finish listening to her jabberwocky, you'll have a headache - which is something Congresswoman Bachmann can relate to.

Buffet doesn't mince words when he states: "My friends and I have been coddled long enough by a billionaire-friendly Congress. It's time for our government to get serious about shared sacrifice."

In an extraordinarily compelling fashion, Buffet reveals how the super rich get financial gifts from the government, while workers pick up the bill:

These and other blessings are showered upon us by legislators in Washington who feel compelled to protect us, much as if we were spotted owls or some other endangered species. It's nice to have friends in high places.

Last year my federal tax bill - the income tax I paid, as well as payroll taxes paid by me and on my behalf - was $6,938,744. That sounds like a lot of money. But what I paid was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income - and that's actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office. Their tax burdens ranged from 33 percent to 41 percent and averaged 36 percent.

Indeed, it's the declining middle class that is paying for the lavish, gluttonous lifestyles of the rich and famous.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

People want
Their MTV
More than
Their GOP.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

People want

Their MTV

More than

Their GOP.

JACQUELINE MARCUS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Ask your run-of-the-mill Republican candidate what's wrong with government and he or she will tell you that we can't keep "taxing and spending."  If you ask him or her to explain that position, you'll learn that government ought not to tax billionaires and it should eliminate regulations and entitlements and just about every decent social program that represents the bedrock principles of a civil society.  But you won't hear them tell it that way.

You will never hear elected Republicans say, for instance, that "the problem with government is that we're all bought and owned by some of the worst corporate industrialists, and, by golly, we don't give a good hoot about loyalty to the country.  In short, we're corrupt.  The lobbyists have made the government about as dysfunctional as it gets.  Yes sir, if you smell a rotten odor at all times through the halls of congress, that's just the smell of business as usual.  Sure, it's a problem for you-heh heh-but not for us."

So it is, but just for the sake of history, we should occasionally be reminded, that the constitutional role of elected officials is not to increase profits for corporations.

The President of the United States, Democratic or Republican, ought not to dishonor the highest office by becoming a sleazy salesman for the nuclear, oil and coal industries.   But that is the state of our government, and it would surprise no one to hear the President or a Senator talk about corporate profits when addressing the public:  When for example, the Presidential candidates become cheerleaders for the polluting energy companies, they could easily drop the pretenses in their speeches and announce: "I wish to express to the American people some good news. BP's profits just went up 20% even though the Gulf of Mexico is still a big oily toxic mess-profits are looking good!  And Shell was given the thumbs up to drill in the Arctic-so screw the dying polar bears, we're talking big profits, man!"

Increasing corporate profits for a minority of billionaires is what the corporate oligarchs expect from their chosen candidates.  As for the voters, we don't have anything to do with the selection process.

I don't know about anyone else, but I found it almost Twilight Zone-ish strange that Rep. Ron Paul was given zero attention on all the corporate networks, as if he were invisible, despite the fact that he came in second, just 200 votes shy of Bachmann's, without any media publicity, in the Iowa Ames Straw Poll.  Bachmann: 4,823 votes to Paul's 4,671 votes. Nevertheless, NBC Chuck Todd, David Gregory and invited pundits on the other news networks didn't even so much as mention Ron Paul's name.  Instead, they narrowed the Republican candidates down to Michele Bachmann, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry.   Romney and Perry were way behind Ron Paul, but you'd never know that by the Sunday talk shows.

A few campaign points have made Ron Paul popular among Republican libertarians and they've also caught the attention of some Democratic voters: 1) his call to end the Middle East costly military occupation, which would save billions of dollars a month, 2) he's described the war on drugs a waste of billions of tax dollars that perpetuates a circle of violence, and 3) He's opposed to the intensive interrogation practices of torture on detainees and he believes habeas corpus should be restored.   But even though Ron Paul came in second place, he is unacknowledged by the corporate press.  Why? My guess is that congressman Paul hasn't been selected by the Koch brothers or the oil, coal and war oligarchs.  I'm not advocating support for Ron Paul in this commentary (he has some unsavory positions on race and other issues); I'm simply raising the question as to why the corporate media is deliberately ignoring Ron Paul when he beat Mitt Romney and Rick Perry by a long shot and was only 200 votes short of Michele Bachmann's votes?

Since the days of Reagan, Republicans more so than Democrats have been systemically wrecked the foundation of our middle class economy through decisions described in Naomi Klein's book, The Shock Doctrine,  known as disaster capitalism in which corporate oligarchs deliberately render our social and public services inept or at best dysfunctional.  Listen to Texas Governor Rick Perry and you'll hear the Koch brothers speaking through his mouth: "The problem is government!" It's their standard shtick line.  But beneath the rhetoric is a fifty year shock doctrine plan.

The ultimate goal, which is nearly achieved, is to blame everything on the government so that they can slash and burn environmental and Wall Street regulations, and entitlement programs to cinders and then proceed to Plan B: pave the way for "reforms" which is corporate code for reducing middle class incomes to a third world nation of sweathouse factories, low wages, no safety protections and no benefits. As for global warming, when people are starving, the industrial polluters can get away with committing crimes against nature and humanity from coast to coast.

The oligarchs have bought legislators on both aisles.  Together, they've rewritten tax and regulatory laws that benefit corporate CEOs.  Americans have no legal recourse in our courts or constitutional protections whatsoever.  Consider the Roberts Court as proof, specifically the five corporate Supreme Court Justices who've demonstrated time and again that protecting corporations is more important than protecting individuals who've been harmed by environmental abuses and unfair corporate working conditions.

Since the House and Senate are in the business of increasing profits for international corporations, federal and state public services of maintaining our infrastructure, post offices, health care systems, national wildlife parks, public schools, police and fire departments, conservation agencies-are of no consequence.  Funding for the military is actually funding for the private corporate weapon contractors who have stolen billions of dollars over the course of ten years from the tax payers.  Our soldiers, veterans and vet hospitals are in shambles, a state of moral and physical deterioration that is unconscionable.  If you want to hear how a good number of soldiers feel about this occupation, see the film, The Ground Truth.

Those who've traveled through poor countries have seen the results of disaster capitalism at work when government services are reduced to dysfunctional bureaus in crumbling buildings, when there are no taxes to rebuild eroded roads, and when industries pollute the water and air with impunity, or when people are forced to work under intolerable conditions for a couple dollars a day.

What the corporatists don't see from the balcony of luxury hotels is the sprawling ugly face of poverty at every turn; it is the face of "disaster capitalism" when there is no longer a fair mixture between social services and decent incomes that create a strong middle class, when wealth is horded by a few billionaire oligarchs to such a disastrous extent that it inevitably explodes into uprisings and violent riots aimed at overthrowing a corrupt government, as we're currently witnessing in London and in the Middle East.

For 50 years, members of the House and Senate have practiced disaster capitalism.  Consequently, we are now a thin line away from becoming a third world nation.

As for the corporate media's sweetheart, Michele Bachmann, who is given all the press attention and then some, I'll end with Naomi Klein's warning:

"This fundamentalist form of capitalism has consistently been midwifed by the most brutal forms of coercion, inflicted on the collective body politic as well as on countless individual bodies...These fundamentalist doctrines cannot coexist with other belief systems, their followers deplore diversity and demand an absolute free hand to implement their fifty-year campaign for total corporate liberation." And that means virtual slavery for everyone else.

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Strangely, as the Republican presidential nominating process heats up it seems ever more boring and inconsequential. Choosing from a slate of candidates who could be participants in a remake of the movie Dumb and Dumber and who repeat talking points that lack substance makes for infantile political speechifying.

We have reached a sorry place when Facebook becomes the ultimate point of reference for politicians trying to out-maneuver opponents. After interviews in which someone has flubbed a question or feels slighted by a member of the media or a party spokesperson the answer apparently is to whip off a tweet or blog a new version of themselves in which they hope to erase the negative impression they have created in previous appearances. It is emblematic of the sad state of our language and the absence of intelligent political discourse that Michele Bachman has managed to turn herself into a serious candidate, we are told, because she was smart enough to hire Ed Rollins not to educate her but to suppress her more inappropriate utterances.

More important, the absence of thoughtful deliberation about the country's most vital concerns is an indictment of an educational system run amok. It is reported that Iowa boasts a large number of home-schooled children and one can only imagine what they are being taught in a stronghold of evangelical practitioners and deficiently educated adults like Michele Bachman. What's more she and others like her seem not to be embarrassed by their lack of intellectual prowess and in fact appear almost to celebrate it.

In a world that constantly challenges long-held belief systems and exemplifies the increasingly diverse nature of our existence many of our political leaders have narrowed their vision and promote religious protocols they hope to incorporate into the affairs of government. Every time I hear a prospective candidate or other pontificator celebrate their particular religious preference for Christianity with pronouncements supposedly from the lips of Jesus or God I imagine people of other faiths cringing as, at times, even fellow Christians might cringe as well.

It hardly matters that some of the dicta dragged up by 'true believers' to support a political position are not biblical truisms but are rather twisted versions of what they hope will be believed - - in effect turning their warped reading of religious texts into godly wisdom. And in its most disgusting incantation of all that is deemed holy about our social configuration it isn't enough that we are battered incessantly by those who would dictate how and what we should believe. Ann Coulter, who has managed to accomplish the feat of equating shallow word-smithing with intellect, has done it again with another poisonous tome to please the far right and, one suspects, to satisfy her own publicity- hungry ego. Having failed to define President Obama as a secret Muslim she now refers to him as a "secret Atheist." The smug self-righteous posture of Coulter and others on the right whose religious views promote intolerance and further division and meaningless controversy in pursuit of political agendas that distort the very nature of our better selves.

Currently the Republican ranks are filled with joy at the prospect of Governor Perry adding his name to the list of presidential hopefuls. Bless his little evangelical heart he led a prayer meeting to encourage attendees to plead their case for the safety and advancement of our national condition before the Almighty. Perry represents a threat to Michele Bachman's hold on the religious base of the party because he appeals to the same groups. Meanwhile Mitt Romney struggles to keep up with the evangelical tone of the right wing, but he seems capable of assuming any position that meets the needs of the electorate he must address even if he is late to the party so to speak. Former Governor Pawlenty repeats Republican harangues about repealing the estate tax and ataxes on passive income, the usual desperate wails of conservatives who aren't clear about where the funds to support education, the infrastructure and endless war are to be found.

Reports about Texas job production are said to be the strong appeal of Perry but questions about what jobs and what pay workers receive remain. The electorate may be expected to believe that prayer and 'Christian values" will save our republic from its destructive inclinations. Ho, ho and hum.

How radical and cultish are the declared Republican candidates for president?

The answer is clear from a question that came 48 minutes into the FOX sponsored Iowa "debate" on Thursday.

According to a TIME magazine blog of the event, the moderator, FOX's Bret Baier, asked "everyone to raise their hand if they would oppose a debt deal that offered $10 in spending cuts for every $1 in tax increases. Everyone raises their hand, though Pawlenty's hand bobs up and down a bit."

In one infamous moment of ignorant and cowardly group-think the radical and destructive financially anarchistic outlook of the GOP was revealed.

"No new taxes (or really no taxes)" has been the lynch mob call to arms (and votes) for national Republican candidates for years, but it has reached a feverish and pernicious pitch.

Think about it, all the GOP candidates for the presidency (and Rick Perry and Sarah Palin would have held their hands up too, you can be sure), would turn down, let's say, a trillion in cuts in federal spending if they had to also vote for just 1/10th of that amount in tax increases on millionaires and billionaires.

The rational responses to this craven tomfoolery are too numerous to detail in a short commentary. Suffice it to say, the anti-tax mantra has become a political/religious symbol that defies logic or common sense. In a time when the nation is beset by enormous financial problems, it is a placebo pill that removes the challenge of finding multi-faceted and inventive solutions to an immensely complex problem.

By raising their hands in unison in opposition to a modest increase in taxes on the most wealthy, big oil, and hedge funds (because that is whom a $1 in tax increases for $10 in revenue would likely affect), the GOP candidates affirmed themselves as snake oil salesmen. And snake oil doesn't' cure anything; it only enriches the person selling it (or in this case, might help them attain the power to run America).

As the TIME blog noted at 121 minutes into the exchange in Iowa, "Baier mercifully ends it all."

But unfortunately, it was only the debate that concluded. The long delusional nightmare for America continues.

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MARK KARLIN, EDITOR OF BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

So, what was Mitt Romney thinking when he responded to hecklers at the Iowa State Fair with the declaration that "corporations are people"?

He was proudly reconfirming the Citizens United decision and the Supreme Court view that corporations indeed share the rights of citizens.

Who will Romney call when he is in need of a friend's advice if he were president, GE?

Carol King many years ago wrote the popular song, "You've Got a Friend":

When you're down and troubled
And you need some loving care
And nothing, nothing is going right
Close your eyes and think of me
And soon I will be there
To brighten up even your darkest night

You just call out my name
And you know wherever I am
I'll come running to see you again
Winter, spring, summer or fall
All you have to do is call
And I'll be there
You've got a friend

How could large corporations that purposefully abandon Americans in need of work - in the pursuit of profit - be a friend?

Romney made his fortune, in part, by downsizing companies and putting US workers on unemployment.

Corporations aren't people; they are private institutions that are created for the financial benefit of owners and stockholders. They are large institutions that value money over people.

Maybe Romney has a shot of bourbon at night and socializes with his stock certificates. He must get a thrill out of cuddling up to his shares in - let's say - Wal-Mart or Goldman Sachs.

Because that's what friends are for: greed.

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TONY PEYSER FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

Nobody will say, “My god!”

When the pledge of allegiance is changed

To “One nation under iPod.”

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STEVE JONAS FOR BUZZFLASH AT TRUTHOUT

According to an article in The New York Times by Manny Fernandez and Daniel Cadis (1): "Standing on a stage surrounded by more than 30,000 Christians on Saturday morning, Gov. Rick Perry of Texas called on Jesus Christ to bless and guide the nation's military and political leaders and 'those who cannot see the light in the midst of all the darkness,' in a brief but rousing sermon-style spiritual address at the controversial prayer rally that he sponsored at the same time that he is weighing whether to run for president. 'Lord, you are the source of every good thing,' Mr. Perry said, as he bowed his head, closed his eyes and leaned into a microphone at Reliant Stadium.

'You are our only hope and we stand before you today in awe of your power and in gratitude for your blessings, and humility for our sins. Father, our heart breaks for America. We see discord at home. We see fear in the marketplace. We see anger in the halls of government, and as a nation we have forgotten who made us, who protects us, who blesses us and for that we cry out for your forgiveness. . . .Like all of you, I love this country deeply,' he told the crowd. 'Thank you all for being here. Indeed, the only thing that you love more is the living Christ.' "

Fascinating stuff, but boy does it raise a lot of follow-up questions.  I have listed a few of them here.

1. How should we address you? Governor, Reverend, Reverend/Governor, Governor/Reverend? Help. I'm confused.

2. But gosh, in reference to the first question, since you are not ordained but known widely in Texas as a "preacher," is the title "Reverend" inappropriate in any case?  So when you are doing what you did on Aug. 6 in Houston, should it be "preacher," or possibly just "preach?"

3. Tell me, Gov., or Rev. or preacher, or whatever, just what kind of Christian are you? Pro-choice, anti-choice (and there are both among Christians, as you well know [but of course many of your followers don't or don't seem to]), anti-death penalty (like the recently deceased, Catholic, former Governor of New York, Hugh Carey) or pro-, believer in the trinity or not, believer in the necessity of baptism or not, believer in the rapture in which, apparently, only certain kinds of Christians will be "saved" while the rest, and certainly the rest of us who are not Christians of any kind, will dammed to hell for all eternity?

4. Since you are a Methodist, just where do stand on ballroom dancing, including the Texas Two-Step?

5. When you say "Lord, you are the source of every good thing," just which Lord are you talking about?  Is that the Christian Lord (and if so, given the characteristics the vast number of Christian denominations give to him/her/it there seem to be a bunch of them) the Jewish one (and there are a few different denominations of Jews too, with rather different concepts of God), or Muslim (and as I am sure you know, Islam has three major denominations, Sunni, Shiite and Sufi).  If one wants to believe you, they do have to know just which God you are talking about, don't they?

6. And while we are on that subject, what about that religion, one of the largest in the world, Hinduism --- you may have heard of it --- that believes that there are multiple Gods up there, or wherever.  And who knows, could the Gods not be Zeus, Athena, and Poseidon, et al, or the Aztec, Inca, or Egyptian equivalent of same?  Might not the question be, "Gods, you are the source of every good thing?" Of course, since no believers, whether Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or what have you have ever been able to prove, other than always eventually falling back on "faith," that one or more God or Gods exist, as far as I as a Secular Humanist Jew am concerned there is/are none anyway.  But that's another story.

7. Then there is the matter of: "You are our only hope and we stand before you today in awe of your power and in gratitude for your blessings, and humility for our sins." A) If "God" (however you might define him, her, it, or them) is (are) our only hope and has power in front of which we should stand in awe, that doesn't give us much hope, does it.  After all, last April you led Texas in a three-day-long prayer for rain and rain didn't come.  Man, that must have been disappointing.  But I guess your approach would be "if at first you don't succeed, try, try again," no?  B)  How do you define "sin," and if your definition is different from mine, or even from that of another self-identified Christian, how do you go about reconciling them?

8. That last question is real important, Gov./Rev./preach.  In the 16th and 17th centuries Christians in Europe killed each by the hundreds of thousands over disagreements on the matter and related subjects of religious doctrine (and did so in the Near East in the 3rd and 4th centuries C.E. over something that you may or may not have heard of called the "Arian Controversy").  Boy, I dunno.  You do seem to be one of those "Christian Nation" types (see the next question).  How do we know that under that doctrine, were it take over, let's say, the US Constitutional government, that Christians of various types would not eventually be warring on each other over such matters, just as they did back then?  Things could get very messy, don't you think?

9. One of your supporting Revs. (blocking on his name right now), has said that the First Amendment to the Constitution (and I assume that, unlike Michele Bachmann who seems not to have, you have actually read it), applies only to Christians.  What is your position on that unique (at least I've never heard that one before, but I must admit that I do not attend the church or churches in which it is proclaimed) Constitutional interpretation?

10. And the what about another one of your dear old supporters, the Rev. Hagee, who holds that the holocaust was God's way of forcing the Jews out of Europe to Palestine, to prepare the way to Armageddon and the rapture (which, unfortunately would not benefit any of them), and that the murders of the six million by the Nazis and their allies which just an unfortunate by-product of that policy?  Oh yes, he also considers Catholics to be less than dirt.  Do you think that the word "Christian" subsumes the "Catholic?"  And while we're on this subject of who is a Christian and who isn't, some (right-wing) evangelical Christians like yourself consider Mormonism to be a cult.  Especially since two of your potential rivals for the GOP Presidential nomination (to say nothing of the present Senate Majority Leader) are Mormons, where do you stand on that one?

11. Finally, Rev./Gov./what have you, in 1996 there was a book published entitled The New Americanism: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022. (If you might be interested, Gov., you can find it on Amazon and archived at read more