The United States has found another another win-win situation. We will sell more arms to India and also more arms to Pakistan. The more arms they have, the bigger war they can have some day--without having to use their nuclear weapons. And the more money U.S. arms manufacturers will make.
A few years ago the good people who make their money selling weapons all over the world happily sold arms to Ronald Reagan so he could give them to the Taliban--so they could fight the U.S.S.R. Did the arms manufacturers already know that the Taliban would use them to fight the U.S.--and that George Bush and Barack Obama would then buy more arms from the weapons manufacturers so the U.S. could fight the Taliban?
The coffin manufacturers must be next in line for getting really rich. The way things are going, it will soon be time to bury the whole of the U.S.
zaterdag 23 januari 2010
MONEY TALKS
This year, in the United States, the football bowl games all had new names. The AT&T Cotton Bowl, the FedEx Orange Bowl, the Allstate Sugar Bowl, the CitiBank Rose Bowl.
Now that Congress is part of the economy, and senators and representatives can be purchased legally, their owners will start identifying themselves. We will have the MetLife Senator from Massachusetts, the Exxon Senator from Illinois, the DuPont Senator from Delaware, the Pfizer Senator from Florida. Or maybe we will just do away with the state designations, and identify Senators by their corporate owners.
I wonder who will own--or already owns--the Supreme Court Justices? They will no doubt have the biggest price tags.
What a wonderful thing democracy is! The best thing about it, as the United States demonstrates with such remarkable regularity, is that democracy is so easily corrupted.
Bert Hornback
Now that Congress is part of the economy, and senators and representatives can be purchased legally, their owners will start identifying themselves. We will have the MetLife Senator from Massachusetts, the Exxon Senator from Illinois, the DuPont Senator from Delaware, the Pfizer Senator from Florida. Or maybe we will just do away with the state designations, and identify Senators by their corporate owners.
I wonder who will own--or already owns--the Supreme Court Justices? They will no doubt have the biggest price tags.
What a wonderful thing democracy is! The best thing about it, as the United States demonstrates with such remarkable regularity, is that democracy is so easily corrupted.
Bert Hornback
maandag 18 januari 2010
TEACHING OBSCENITY
American universities teach lots of different things: math, medicine, law, the humanities, the natural sciences, the social sciences. But they teach most effectively the anti-social science that their recent presidents practice, which is GREED.
American university presidents teach by example. They are paid hugely obscene salaries, and in demanding and accepting such teach their students GREED. No matter what students are taught in their other classes, they are all taught GREED by their presidents.
Michigan is a state in desperate economic trouble. Unemployment, poverty, homelessness are everywhere, not just in Detroit. There are even unemployed, poor, and homeless people in Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is situated. The president of the University of Michigan has an annual salary of $600,000, plus a $100,000 a year bonus, plus an expense account, plus a huge mansion and servants to take care of her and her husband. In addition to being the university president, of course, she is the university´s senior professor of GREED, and one of the nation´s best.
(If Michigan´s president is not such an effective professor of GREED, then why is she being paid so extravagantly?)
American university presidents teach by example. They are paid hugely obscene salaries, and in demanding and accepting such teach their students GREED. No matter what students are taught in their other classes, they are all taught GREED by their presidents.
Michigan is a state in desperate economic trouble. Unemployment, poverty, homelessness are everywhere, not just in Detroit. There are even unemployed, poor, and homeless people in Ann Arbor, where the University of Michigan is situated. The president of the University of Michigan has an annual salary of $600,000, plus a $100,000 a year bonus, plus an expense account, plus a huge mansion and servants to take care of her and her husband. In addition to being the university president, of course, she is the university´s senior professor of GREED, and one of the nation´s best.
(If Michigan´s president is not such an effective professor of GREED, then why is she being paid so extravagantly?)
HAITI
Of course we need to help the people of Haiti. But we don´t need three presidents urging us to donate a few dollars each to the cause.
Mr. Obama can suspend his wars for a week, and send $7,000,000,000 to Haiti. That´s $20 for every American. And then he can suspend his wars for another week, and send $7,000,000,000 more.
By then maybe we will have realised that we do much more good by helping others than we do by bombing them.
I would rather be afraid of possible terrorists than guilty of mass murder. And I think there is much better likelihood that the United States can be safe from attack if it helps others--the poor, the needy--than if it murders them.
America´s wars kill other people, and they endanger Americans.
Mr. Obama can suspend his wars for a week, and send $7,000,000,000 to Haiti. That´s $20 for every American. And then he can suspend his wars for another week, and send $7,000,000,000 more.
By then maybe we will have realised that we do much more good by helping others than we do by bombing them.
I would rather be afraid of possible terrorists than guilty of mass murder. And I think there is much better likelihood that the United States can be safe from attack if it helps others--the poor, the needy--than if it murders them.
America´s wars kill other people, and they endanger Americans.
woensdag 25 november 2009
PRESIDENT OBAMA
I've been creating a sort of score card for the president. When I am being naive and sentimental I give him good marks, particularly by comparison with his predecessor.
Category: Obama/ Bush
Articulateness: 100/ 0
Intelligence: 100/ 0
Culture: 100/ 0
But on matters of substance Obama scores very differently, despite all his promises: promises that I naively believed were honest promises.
I am not talking about health care: Congress has to agree before we can have decent health care for Americans. Obama can't give us that by executive decree. Nor can he abolish the death penalty by himself.
But in areas in which, as president, he has full executive authority, I hold him responsible for the promises that he made. And he did indeed make promises--which he is not keeping.
Category: Obama/ Status Quo Ante (Bush)
Close Guantanamo: 0/ 100
Restore Habeas Corpus: 0/ 100
Stop, Punish Torture: 0/ 100
End war against Iraq: 0/ 100
End war in Afghanistan: 0/ 100
As I see it, Obama is--after one year in office--a complete and utter failure. I would rather have a known enemy--McCain--in office than a dishonest friend. It would take some major changes to make me support Obama right now.
He is a very bright and articulate man, but a spineless self-promoter. His ambitions, as he told them to us, were all either lies or things he didn't care about nearly as much as he cared about being president.
My first president was Franklin D. Roosevelt. I have voted in every presidential election since Ike beat Adlai Stevenson. I have campaigned for Stevenson, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter (the first time), Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barak Obama.
Right now I am as likely to campaign for Barak Obama again as I would be to campaign for Richard Nixon.
Bert Hornback
Category: Obama/ Bush
Articulateness: 100/ 0
Intelligence: 100/ 0
Culture: 100/ 0
But on matters of substance Obama scores very differently, despite all his promises: promises that I naively believed were honest promises.
I am not talking about health care: Congress has to agree before we can have decent health care for Americans. Obama can't give us that by executive decree. Nor can he abolish the death penalty by himself.
But in areas in which, as president, he has full executive authority, I hold him responsible for the promises that he made. And he did indeed make promises--which he is not keeping.
Category: Obama/ Status Quo Ante (Bush)
Close Guantanamo: 0/ 100
Restore Habeas Corpus: 0/ 100
Stop, Punish Torture: 0/ 100
End war against Iraq: 0/ 100
End war in Afghanistan: 0/ 100
As I see it, Obama is--after one year in office--a complete and utter failure. I would rather have a known enemy--McCain--in office than a dishonest friend. It would take some major changes to make me support Obama right now.
He is a very bright and articulate man, but a spineless self-promoter. His ambitions, as he told them to us, were all either lies or things he didn't care about nearly as much as he cared about being president.
My first president was Franklin D. Roosevelt. I have voted in every presidential election since Ike beat Adlai Stevenson. I have campaigned for Stevenson, Jack Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson in 1964, Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, George McGovern, Jimmy Carter (the first time), Michael Dukakis, Bill Clinton, Al Gore, John Kerry, and Barak Obama.
Right now I am as likely to campaign for Barak Obama again as I would be to campaign for Richard Nixon.
Bert Hornback
zaterdag 21 november 2009
JUSTICE FOR ALL--IS THAT WHAT WE WANT?
As the United States Attorney General prepares for the trial of five people held for the past eight years in cages at Guantanamo, Americans are shaming themselves and their country by objecting to their trial.
George W. Bush abolished the constitutional protection of habeas corpus, and nobody--right of left--objected. Now after eight years of unconstitutional imprisonment for several hundred people, President Obama--who promised a year ago to close Guantanamo immediately--finally decides he will bring five of those men to trial. And Americans are outraged.
A U. S. Senator asks the Attorney General if he can "guarantee that these five men will be convicted." Doesn't that idiot Senator even know what law is? or what courts are for?
Americans are busy showing their ugliest underbellies. We are showing the world how utterly uncivilised the United States and its people are.
Shame. Shame on our stupidity and our arrogance. Shame on our lawlessness.
Bert Hornback
George W. Bush abolished the constitutional protection of habeas corpus, and nobody--right of left--objected. Now after eight years of unconstitutional imprisonment for several hundred people, President Obama--who promised a year ago to close Guantanamo immediately--finally decides he will bring five of those men to trial. And Americans are outraged.
A U. S. Senator asks the Attorney General if he can "guarantee that these five men will be convicted." Doesn't that idiot Senator even know what law is? or what courts are for?
Americans are busy showing their ugliest underbellies. We are showing the world how utterly uncivilised the United States and its people are.
Shame. Shame on our stupidity and our arrogance. Shame on our lawlessness.
Bert Hornback
zondag 15 november 2009
JUSTICE
In the United States of America, "Justice" is a dead word. "Law" has no meaning. And the supposedly revered "Constitution" of the United States is nothing more important than crapper-paper, an ass-wipe.
We will not permit anyone to see the evidence that we have of torture and abuse of prisoners. The torture and abuse are violations of international conventions which--in its more civilised days--the United States officially agreed to. Those tortured and abused are being held without being charged with any crimes: this violates the U. S. Constitution.
But George Bush, the rogue president, suspended the right called HABEAS CORPUS--illegally, of course. The president can't suspend the Constitution; to do so is an act of tryanny. And Barack Obama--supposedly a legitimate president and an honorable man--agrees with Bush. So Obama is a rogue as well, a tyrant, an enemy of democracy and the rule of law.
And Americans quietly sit on their hands, watching football games, being selfish, and preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday.
We have no shame. All we have are nuclear weapons, which keep the rest of the world from challenging all our crimes and immoralities.
Bert Hornback
We will not permit anyone to see the evidence that we have of torture and abuse of prisoners. The torture and abuse are violations of international conventions which--in its more civilised days--the United States officially agreed to. Those tortured and abused are being held without being charged with any crimes: this violates the U. S. Constitution.
But George Bush, the rogue president, suspended the right called HABEAS CORPUS--illegally, of course. The president can't suspend the Constitution; to do so is an act of tryanny. And Barack Obama--supposedly a legitimate president and an honorable man--agrees with Bush. So Obama is a rogue as well, a tyrant, an enemy of democracy and the rule of law.
And Americans quietly sit on their hands, watching football games, being selfish, and preparing for the Thanksgiving holiday.
We have no shame. All we have are nuclear weapons, which keep the rest of the world from challenging all our crimes and immoralities.
Bert Hornback
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