Profitable Friends, Profitable Foes

by RB Ham
March 31/09

I draw your attention to the following story and a lengthy diatribe below. I'm really getting pissed off. Not even quality ganj, or jazz music or a healthy dose of qualudes washed down with Jameson's can calm the beating heat of indignation in my soul. The Four Horsemen are un-tethering their beasts and tightening their saddle winches. The planning stage for the big ride is in the last phase.

Here's a heart warming news story, from the London Guardian...

'Worse than the Taliban' - new law rolls back rights for Afghan women
Jon Boone in KabulThe Guardian

Hamid Karzai has been accused of trying to win votes in Afghanistan's presidential election by backing a law the UN says legalizes rape within marriage and bans wives from stepping outside their homes without their husbands' permission.

The Afghan president signed the law earlier this month, despite condemnation by human rights activists and some MPs that it flouts the constitution's equal rights provisions.
The final document has not been published, but the law is believed to contain articles that rule women cannot leave the house without their husbands' permission, that they can only seek work, education or visit the doctor with their husbands' permission, and that they cannot refuse their husband sex.

A briefing document prepared by the United Nations Development Fund for Women also warns that the law grants custody of children to fathers and grandfathers only.
Senator Humaira Namati, a member of the upper house of the Afghan parliament, said the law was "worse than during the Taliban". "Anyone who spoke out was accused of being against Islam," she said.

the whole sordid story

Exactly what humanitarian, idealistic, virtuous cause are Canadian and American soldiers killing and dying for? Afghan heroin production is now at an all-time high. There is also no way of getting around the fact that many members of the American puppet Karzai government are opium producers themselves, protected by our troops.

Well, those murderers and torturers at Black Ops Central need funding, don't they?
It would be funny, if it wasn't so sickeningly evil and demented.

The supposed "President of Change" Barack Obama wants MORE troops for Afghanistan? Don't worry, though. Most will be private contractors. Not like we've had trouble with them before...
Unsurprisingly, the NATO Chief - Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer ( what a handle that is!) - wants more troops from all members of the "coalition of the arm-twisted".

Death and destruction on an even wider scale will be guaranteed. They know exactly what they are doing.

Who's next, Africa? What do you think?

I'll interject here and state that I think my favourite Star Wars' character Yoda would say, "Again fooled, we are."

As most of my friends and family know, I've always been a committed Progressive/Libertarian/Social Justice kind of guy. My politics are a little eclectic, but for years I really fell for the divisive left/right paradigm..Accordingly, I've always supported the NDP here in Canada, admired the Liberal Pierre Trudeau because he stood up to Nixon, hated the Conservative Mulroney with a deep passion, etcetera. etcetera....

So, of course, when it came to looking south, I really believed that Carter -then Clinton - were on the side that I believed in. But both were ultimately compromised and used as foils to make the Left look weak and licentious. The Wobblies. The pink-tutu Dems, as Bartcop would say.

Ultimately, the whole political landscape is a well run Hegelian Psy-Op. Obama and other Democrats diss establishment Right Wing radio host Rush Limbaugh, apparently the newly appointed head of the Republican Party (forget about politicians who are anti-war, use common sense and act on their constitutional duty like Republican Ron Paul, Democrat Dennis Kucinich or Independent Bernie Sanders - the media avoids covering them with a fervour that borders on the obsessive, unless they are heaping scorn and ridicule on them. Especially Kucinich and Paul...); thus immediately giving him attention and the credibility of a popular re-actionist. Limbaugh plays his appointed role and makes the outrageous statement that, for the good of the country, he wants Obama's policies to fail. Then the "party loyalists" from each side play their part in the distraction with a back and forth mud-slinging campaign. In translation to intelligent species that may be listening in from the ether it probably sounds like this: blah, blah, blah...yadda, yadda, yadda....oink, freakin', oink....

The corporate media, meanwhile, breathlessly covers this meaningless charade back and forth and sideways. The appointed party "representatives" face off in well-choreographed verbal rhetorical exchanges and repeat talking points until they become mantras. Afterwards, like professional wrestlers, the Republicans and Democrats and their media "friendlies" go off to private parties to drink, dine and whore together; patting each other on the backs and slipping favours into each other's pockets.

Distractions to the left of me, distractions to the right. Here we are. Stuck in the middle of this Political Zoo.

Then, of course, there is the wonderful news about our economic crisis.
How about the Goldman Sachs infested White House rejecting any respite for the hard hit auto sector in North America? Automakers whom received a measly incentive-laden 25 billion (compared to the no-strings attached trillions that AIG and the big banks like J.P. Morgan and Bank of America received), are treated like beggars and top executives pressured to resign.

Yet the banksters don't have to tell Congress a thing about where the money went. It took the courageous Dennis Kucinich, in open congress, to rip into the interim assistant treasury secretary. After much exasperation, Mr. Kucinich made one of the most ominous statements I've ever heard when he remarked, "I don't think anybody questions that you're working hard, Mr. Kashkari, our question, is who you're working for."

Oh, by they way, it's no surprise that Goldman Sachs has profited quite handsomely, compared to say Lehman Brothers, directly because who has been running the show at the PRIVATE federal reserve and at the treasury during both Bush and, now, Obama's administration. Just go to opensecrets.org and you can follow the money yourself, all the way to the top if you want.

If you find yourself, like I do, looking for a way to express your outrage, it's always a good time to recall three memorable H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) quotes:

Firstly, remember that it's normal. You are not alone in feeling outrage and indignation:
Every normal man must be tempted at times to spit on his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin to slit throats.

Secondly, it's a moral issue:
Every decent man is ashamed of the government he lives under.

And most notably, given the currently engineered financial destruction of the middle class, Mencken noted that...
The world always makes the assumption that the exposure of an error is identical with the discovery of truth--that the error and truth are simply opposite. They are nothing of the sort. What the world turns to, when it is cured of one error, is usually simply another error, and maybe one worse than the first one.

This quote pertains to the rather disturbing impression that President Obama, who seems to be an agent for Wall Street and the international banker cartel, is turning out to be just another Bill Clinton - smooth, slick, charismatic and totally compromised. He has very friendly relations with the top banker elite. Why, Mr. Obama is even willing to go to court to defend the corporate rights of the Bank of America!

You may remember that it was under Clinton's watch that Phil Gramm and the Free Marketeers helped eliminate the Glass-Steagall Act; which was the beginning of this derivatives scam. Another thing to consider when you listen to Obama's dire warnings about climate change and the need for a carbon tax – is that he's poised to profit from it. I think a lot of ordinary folk are starting to see through his act.

The Obama Deception, indeed.

I firmly have grown to despise being considered as a "subject of the Queen" (Canada maintains the Queen of England as our Head of State - although this role is supposed to be merely "ceremonial"). More and more, I am starting to evolve into a Canadian Republican, meaning that I firmly believe that we should break all governing ties to England. Be truly sovereign, as it were.
So, to me, it seems more than embarrassing that a President of the United States is currently on his way to my Grandpa's mother country, England, to kneel before the Queen. Oh, by the way, AIG distributed 8.5 billion dollars to Barclay's Bank in England. Has tribute been paid?

Perhaps the renowned economic historian Webster G.Tarpley is right about the consolidation of the OLD World Order...not the New World Order. Tarpley asserts that economic power may be shifting from America back to England and Europe.

Don't worry my fellow North Americans, we can now look forward to serving in other capacities if there becomes a dearth of jobs. After all, when the economy dives - recruitment for the army goes up. Crime also spikes when the economy is in stress - thus, there will be a need for more police officers. And today the blurring of the lines between the police and the military is becoming very troubling.

We've all been had, and something tells me that they're not through with us yet.

Until next time, this is RB Ham signing off.

Pleasant....dreams?