Tag: Socialists

May 16 2011

The Arrest of Dominique Strauss-Kahn

The rape allegations against Strauss-Kahn, seemed pretty cut and dried at first. Personally, I was even enjoying (to an extent)  a prominent person  in the IMF being brought down so low.

I mean it could be a still right out of Law And Order, right?

But then I found out about how this will likely turn France’s next election to the far right, & I got to thinking about the allegations attempting to bring down Assange, which are totally nonsense & a setup, and  even the (true) allegations against the former governor of NY having sex (not rape) with a prostitute.

And then I read this:

Well before Mr. Strauss-Kahn’s arrest there had been reports that Mr. Sarkozy was gathering information to discredit Mr. Strauss-Kahn should he run for president. In a famous incident, reported by the news magazine Le Point, Mr. Strauss-Kahn confronted Mr. Sarkozy in the men’s room at the Group of 20 summit meeting in Pittsburgh in September 2009, saying: “I’ve had more than enough of this continued gossip about my private life and about supposed dossiers and photos that could come out against me. I know that this is coming from the Élysée. Tell your guys to stop or I’ll go to the courts.”

NYT

Before this, the Times had all sorts of innuendo in there about Strauss-Kahn’s dealing’s with women, none verifiable, and much more to the point — true or not, none that amounted to rape.

Now, I have no idea what happened in that hotel room, but it certainly is bizarre– I mean a guy that could be the next president of France, and who already knows that Sarkozy / right wing is after him using sexual innuendo,  rapes an African immigrant maid in New York?  And then runs to the airport– leaving his phone behind.

Who knows for sure.

But, I think we should be very wary of the right wing finding / setting up ways of using our innate wish to champion women, blacks-any underdog really, against , well whoever they want to.  

Mar 12 2010

82% of Americans: Clamp down on Wall Street fraud!

How bizarre.  About 8 in 10 Americans want to clamp down on Wall Street’s fraudulent behavior?  

Photobucket

Someone needs to help me understand what in blazes is going on here.  82% is a scary big super-mega-majority.  Where does a really big percentage, like 80% plus, come from?  Did someone pull it out of a hat?  Did someone conjure it from a lamp?  A crystal ball?  Ouija boards?  Playing cards?  Who in the heck is reading the coffee grounds around here?  Where on gawd’s green earth does a number like that come from?

I am appealing to you, the inside dopesters having a strong strain of frustrated idealism and just the right touch of hard-boiled cynicism, to lend me a hypothesis, a conspiracy theory, if you will, of who “we,” the 80% are, and who “they,” the other 20% might be.  Please try to cast your theory in a form that makes it virtually impossible to disprove.  

This could have implications for democracy, and who rules America.

Mar 08 2010

If Obama was a socialist and the Democrats were socialists…

There would have been no Wall Street bailout.  Instead, SWAT teams would have come with battering rams to AIG and Goldman Sachs, the windows would have been smashed in and the corporate officers would have been hauled away in orange jumpsuits and chains.  Then FBI agents would have been seen carrying off boxes of papers and computers.

If Obama was a socialist and the Democrats were socialists, there would never have been talk of “bipartisanship” from DAY ONE.

Instead, Obama would have run the White House the way that George W. Bush ran the White House, and Obama wouldn’t be talking with respect about Ronald Reagan.  Instead he would have been talking about the Republicanista Party in the same manner that George W. Bush referenced the “Democrat” party, and corporate CEOs would be invited not to lunch, but to testify at criminal inquiries.

If Obama and the Democrats were socialists, we wouldn’t now be debating how much of the taxpayer’s money to give the health “insurance” companies.

If Obama and the Democrats were socialists, the Democrats would be fighting and not asking people to vote for them because they did everything the Republicans wanted but the Republicans were still obstructing everything they did.

If Obama and the Democrats were socialists, the top federal tax rate on the highest earning Americans would be 70%-90%, not 35%.

If Obama and the Democrats were socialists, you might complain about the taxes, but the Federal Government wouldn’t be colluding with Microsoft and IBM about how many of your jobs to ship to India.

Dec 10 2009

Fake Liberals: Why They Deserve Our Scorn

It’s no secret that the far right loathes anyone and everyone to the left of Adolf Hitler.  Just try to get into one of Sarah Palin’s Nuremberg-style rallies; you’ll find plenty of evidence for that statement.  But a certain branch of liberalism is hated even by unapologetic left-wingers.

In a 1996 column by Adolph Reed, reproduced this week on CommonDreams.org, the progressive writer summarized the reason for his hatred in one paragraph:

during the ’80s liberal opinion gradually accommodated to Reaganism by sliding rightward. Two rhetorical justifications emerged for this adaptation. The Democratic Leadership Council called for a new centrism, jettisoning egalitarian politics and the constituencies identified with it. Additionally, an excesses-of-the-’60s-as-fall-from-grace fable propelled this slide and justified the smug dismissal of those of us who didn’t want to go along. This new liberalism curtly demanded that we grow up and accept the realpolitik; Reaganism was all our fault for going too far anyway.

That evaluation is echoed this week by self-professed socialist and TruthDig.com writer Chris Hedges, who writes:

They talk about peace and do nothing to challenge our permanent war economy. They claim to support the working class, and vote for candidates that glibly defend the North American Free Trade Agreement. They insist they believe in welfare, the right to organize, universal health care and a host of other socially progressive causes, and will not risk stepping out of the mainstream to fight for them. The only talent they seem to possess is the ability to write abject, cloying letters to Barack Obama-as if he reads them-asking the president to come back to his “true” self. This sterile moral posturing, which is not only useless but humiliating, has made America’s liberal class an object of public derision.

Robert Scheer blasts Obama for wearing the mask of a reformer while continuing business as usual.  Glenn Greenwald reports on the creepy, cult-like devotion of Obama’s remaining supporters, exposing them for the false leftists they are.

Can one really begrudge these guys their bitterness?  John Conyers can bitch all he wants about everything from witnesses thumbing their noses at subpoenas to continual waffling by Obamacrats, but at the end of the day he still cannot be counted upon to actually follow through on his frustrated-sounding rhetoric.  The tired old man who had the power to start impeachment proceedings against George W. Bush and Dick Cheney for two years and refused sure as hell isn’t going to start playing hardball with Hopey McChangerton now.

The same holds true for the rest of the so-called liberals, who have proven as dangerous to America and the rest of the world as any right-wing, fascist Republican.  These are the same people who regularly denounce anyone to their left as “purists,” as though not selling one’s principles for access to power is somehow a bad thing.  These are the same people who promote half measures as the only reasonable things to push for, proceed to accept less and less when told no by the powerful, and then lecture us on the left for calling them on it as though we’re made up of children who can’t handle the grim realities of political activism.

Small wonder they earn the scorn of genuine left-wingers.  Perhaps it is time for all of us who haven’t thrown away our principles to look upon these pseudo-liberals for what they are: shameless phonies masking their true right-wing ideology.