Thursday, January 31, 2013

Rep. Ted Cruz - Our Future Fuhrer??

Lately I've been wondering who our future Fuhrer will be, the one who takes all the Bush-Obama Police State laws and applies them to their own monstrous design for complete power over the American people. Today, I felt like I was seeing him. Representative Ted Cruz of Texas. A former federal prosecutor. A Cuban-American born in Canada with an American mother. Enough machismo to want power, enough sense of alienation from being a "real American" to want to punish "real Americans."

Lots of Capricorn and Scopio in his astrological chart - domination and deviousness combined. (Of course, being a big fan of Latino guys, I do find him rather sexy.)

It wasn't just that he was the fifth or sixth Republican Senator badgering and trying to skewer Secretary of Defense nominee Chuck "I work for America not Israel" Hagel with obnoxious questions. "Why didn't you answer those detailed questions we sent you two days ago - what are you hiding? Read paragraph five of that 2011 speech by former US Ambassador Charles Freeman - who you haven't seen in years - and tell us what you think."  

It was the Charistmatic Monomaniacal-ness with which he did it.  He would have been great playing the chief advisor to King Philip in the Errol Flynn movie "The Adventures of Don Juan" - the guy who grabs power from the king, and tries to kill the queen, all to start a nasty war with England - until, of course Errol Flynn duels him to the death. (The actor who played the bad guy, and has the same long nose as Cruz, Robert Douglas, also played villain statist Ellsworth Toohey in The Fountainhead film.)

What is unbelievable is that Ron Paul endorsed this "Tea Party" guy - certainly not for his civil liberties and noninterventionist foreign policy positions. His performance has been described as like an "attack dog" launching a "bogus attack".  So what was it that Charles Freeman said that was so earthshaking he demanded Hagel comment? Here is paragraph five of Freeman's talk at the Palestine Center, May 4, 2011:

Similarly, the cruelties of Israelis to their Arab captives and neighbors, especially in the ongoing siege of Gaza and repeated attacks on the people of Lebanon, have cost the Jewish state much of the global sympathy that the Holocaust previously conferred on it.  The racist tyranny of Jewish settlers over West Bank Arabs and the progressive emergence of a version of apartheid in Israel itself are deeply troubling to a growing number of people abroad who have traditionally identified with Israel.  Many – perhaps most of the most disaffected – are Jews.  They are in the process of dissociating themselves from Israel.  They know that, to the extent that Judaism comes to be conflated with racist arrogance (as terrorism is now conflated with Islam), Israeli behavior threatens a rebirth of anti-Semitism in the West.  Ironically, Israel – conceived as a refuge and guarantee against European anti-Semitism – has become the sole conceivable stimulus to its revival and globalization.  Demonstrably, Israel has been bad for the Palestinians. It is turning out also to be bad for the Jews.

Hmmmm, sounds like something 96% of the world's population - and lots of Jews - would agree with...  

Watching Hagel flounder and fold against the onslaught of attacks, I first thought - wow, does this ever PROVE how easily intimidated American politicians are by the Israel Lobby. (Raimondo agrees.) I also couldn't help but wonder what Obama really was up to. Was Hagel a "stalking horse" for some candidate who had been quieter on the issues than Hagel, but actually was more radical? Searching "stalking horse" and Hagel, I discovered others had just such a theory and that the real candidate if/after Hagel goes down is Michele Flournoy: you know one of those awful pragmatists who don't think the US should dash into wars to defend foreign interests. Time will tell.

Finally, think I'm just being paranoid about Cruz? After I wrote the first draft of this blog entry I read that a couple months ago The New Yorker wrote that Cruz might run for President in 2016. "Though he was born in Canada, he informed me that he was qualified to serve. “The Constitution requires that one be a natural-born citizen,” he said, “and my mother was a U.S. citizen when I was born.”


Hmmm, what will all the Birthers say who think Obama would not have been qualified to be president if he'd been born in Kenya with an American mother and a non-citizen father.  Does the universe really like to make fun of humans and their follies??

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Obama sticks it to a kid...


 
It was sad to hear that 26 year old internet activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide, depressed because the feds were threatening him with 30 years in prison for downloading quasi-public information.  I'd seen him a few times on RT TV (aka Russia Today) and he seemed like a sincere guy.  But that didn't stop one of Obama's prosecutors, Carmen Ortiz from pressing "Computer Fraud and Abuse Act" charges that could have resulted in a 35 year prison term under mandatory sentencing. She claims that she offered to make a deal and he'd only serve six to eight months  - or even no time, if the judge so decided. But who can trust prosecutors and judges in this day and age of making an example of anyone who associates with or even just defends whistleblowers or Wikileaks types. According to a video embedded by the "Palestinian Pundit" Swartz was "a Fighter Against the Privatization of Knowledge."

So here we are coming up to the four year anniversary of Obama's inauguration and what has he got to show for it. Well,  he DID resist pressure to invade Iran - so far, even if he hasn't freed Palestine, per my requests below. And he put up Chuck Hagel for defense (hopefully) who did a great job lying to Senator Chuck "Israel first" Schumer about how he didn't really mean it that he put American interests before Israel's. (Update: and did Schumer get rewarded for falling for it by getting high profile speaking spots at the inauguration and the later brunch?? Time will tell...) 
 
But Obama shot down all those post-election petitions to "let our state secede." And he probably will prosecute pot smokers in states that have made it more legal. And then there's what we never imagined...he's assumed dictatorial powers to kill anybody he deigns a terrorist.
 
I guess Adam was on the top of the list, even if it only was through persecution as opposed to direct execution.  Gosh, I gotta get famous being another nonviolent revolutionary so I can get on the list... Here's the overly optimistic video I made when Obama was inaugurated.
 

Wednesday, January 09, 2013

Obama's idea of sticking it to the man...

 
Update! 2/26/13:
After much battling by right wing Israel firsters and war mongering chicken hawks to stop Hagel, he gets confirmed by the Senate as Secretary of Defense.  (Details as of 2/28/13 here.) His official photo above. Pro-Israel Lobby loses a major battle.

Saturday, January 05, 2013

Demand a Plan - to end Hollywood's hypocritical violence

I like the knock off video below because it explains the issue to anyone who is too "out of it" to get the entire context or understand the hypocrisy. (In short, Hollywood stars against guns, most of whom have starred as killers with guns in Hollywood movies!) A story about the original is here. WARNING: VIOLENT SCENES AND IMAGES

Here's the short version of the audio of the advertisement accompanied with photos of all of them holding guns!


Of course, as a libertarian I don't call for government to end Hollywood movie violence, just that movie producers have the moral fiber to Voluntarily! stop making money encouraging their mass movie-going audiences largely composed of young and frustrated males to engage in mass murder! And that all these actors have the chutzpah to JUST SAY NO to violent movie roles.

I just watched the movie LOOPERS because I like Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Bruce Willis as cute and funny guys. Both of whom have been forced to play violent killers, in this and other movies. Why couldn't they make a time travel movie with these two playing the same guy that did not make the "hero(s)" contract killers?? Why not butterfly collectors or earnest, non-violent tax protesters (who don't get shot up by feds)? No imagination?

Or just trying to toughen up Americans so they can keep going over to the Middle East and killing millions of Arab and Muslim kids, in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Iran, Somalia, or anywhere else their "Oberherrs" ("overlords") demand they fight, kill and die. (Yes, the U.S. military provides lots of funding and support for those want to make military violence look good in movies.) 

Of course, it was pretty funny to hear that in the new even more violent version of "Red Dawn" Hollywood decided that instead of a hundred million Chinese soldiers invading the U.S. they'd have a few million starving North Korean soldiers do it. Ha. Ha. Ha. Talk about changing your plot so you don't offend the sensibilities of your financier$!  

Which reminds me, did you hear that Al-Jazeera just bought Al Gore's Current TV for $500 million, with $70 million going to Gore himself. Biggest laugh of the week...