tough talk bolsters national security credentials

is it this simplistic and obvious nowadays that politicians establish their bona fides thus:

Elizabeth Warren talks tough on Iran - BostonHerald.com: "U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren left the door open yesterday to military action against Iran in the face of that country’s growing nuclear threat — bolstering her national security credentials as she looks to challenge U.S. Sen. Scott Brown on one of his bread-and-butter campaign issues.
“Our number one responsibility is to protect Americans from terrorism, that’s our job, so being tough on terrorism is enormously important,” said Warren yesterday at a campaign stop in Gloucester."

elizabeth warren, the brazen consumer advocate who gives republicans serious heebie-jeebies for her reputed leftish politics, simply apes the war-mongers and, presto, she gets cred on national security.

for a campaign consultant, who creates his candidate by painting her in broad strokes with a fat paintbrush, this is probably how it is done -- with the media following along as happily as puppydogs.

for the US, however, it's a disturbing and appalling spectacle: just advocate for more war, and ms. candidate insulates herself from charges of being weak on national "defense" -- when it's primarily offensive, in two senses.

shame on elizabeth warren. if you can't say anything sensible, why doesn't she just shut up?

corporate oligarchy tries to define OWS protests, but fails

it's bad out there. even with all the suffering that an out-of-control financial oligarchy has caused the average working people of the US, they remain focused on maintaining their iron grip on the levers of power using their mouthpiece, the corporate media. here, we have a more sympathetic characterization of the protest than most. it even acknowledges that the spin machine is in high gear trying to malign and characterize the protests in its own terms:

Occupy Wall Street: More popular than you think - Political Hotsheet - CBS News: "The conservative criticism of the Occupy Wall Street movement is that it is a "growing mob" (House majority leader Eric Cantor) of "shiftless protestors" (The Tea Party Express) engaged in "class warfare" (GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain) whose grievances - whatever they are - are far outside the political mainstream.

The polls don't back that up.

A new survey out from Time Magazine found that 54 percent of Americans have a favorable impression of the protests, while just 23 percent have a negative impression. An NBC/Wall Street Journal survey, meanwhile, found that 37 percent of respondents "tend to support" the movement, while only 18 percent "tend to oppose" it.

The findings suggest that the right's portrait of the movement as a collection of lazy hippies who need to stop whining - to "take a shower and get a job" (Bill O'Reilly) - isn't resonating with most Americans."

the main quibble one has with the the lead of this article is the naming of the critics as "conservatives," since the protests really have nothing to do with the false ideological divide that is used to describe the US polity. liberal and conservative are bandied about, and the powers that be manipulate people in a divide-and-conquer strategy that serves to distract from the essence of what has trashed the american dream for so many people.

ninety-nine percent encompasses the entire spectrum of political belief in this country. the movement OWS is united in a challenge to the power of that one percent that controls the politicians, creating an environment that enables the maximum pillage of the nation's financial wealth, concentrating it in the hands of fewer and fewer people. the thing most people agree with is that the system as it is currently constituted is rigged, and no longer serves the interests of "we, the people."

as the story points out, and what one-percenters like bill o'reilly and rush limbaugh don't get, is that wedge issues and name calling will not be enough to distract people from their fundamenatal sense that the crony capitalist, corporatist system we have in the USA ia understood to be corrupt -- whether you're young, old, left, right, straight, gay, etc., this is a fact that no amount of media manipulation will banish from peoples' minds.

washington's accusations show blatant double-standard

in this latest dispatch from the rooters for war at reuters, ups the ante in the US government's push for war with iran. now the iranians have violated the UN treaty, showing total disregard for international law and institutions:

Alleged Iran plot may have violated U.N. treaty | Reuters: "(Reuters) - An alleged plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the United States may have violated a U.N. treaty protecting diplomats and could escalate the crisis to an international court.

U.S. authorities have arrested Iranian-American Manssor Arbabsiar for the alleged plot and accused a second Iranian man, Gholam Shakuri, who is believed to be at large in Iran and a member of the country's elite Quds Force."

the only problem is, the US and CIA have been working for years inside iran to destabilize the regime and bring about its fall. while the US and iran haven't been friends since the iranians threw out the CIA's hand-picked dictator, the shah in 1979, is there any excuse for US fomenting terror and paying surrogates to commit acts of mass killing on the US' behalf?

if you're interested in a detailed account of the US government's machinations against the iranians, it's amply documented by seymour hersh in the New Yorker: http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2008/07/07/080707fa_fact_hersh.

that's just a primer, however, on the history of US-directed hostility against a regime that stands athwart washington's ambitions to dominate the persian gulf and control the energy resources there. the purported plot to blow up the saudi ambassador has to be seen in a larger context of regional politics, and the ongoing shoving match between the US and Tehran over who calls shots: the locals or the imperial powers.

more on the setup for this test of wills is in an essay on al-jazeera's site by pepe escobar, which presents the conflict in terms you will never read in the official, government-supported US press: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/10/201110121715573693.html

the US government has become so confident in its ability to manipulate popular opinion that it's ham-handed accusations are ludicrous on their face, and yet are peddled with authority and self-assurance that comes from fat and lazy people who've been used to calling the shots for so long, they have no clue that people no longer take their words seriously. while the folks in TV land here in the US might fall for the increasingly far-fetched dramatics from DC, the world long ago caught on to the con game that is at the heart of US foreign policy -- and which is steering it headlong into a disastrous climax.

"Underwear bomber" -- another "victory" in terror war

the so-called "underwear bomber" folded in federal court today, pleading guilty to all counts against him in a surprise turn of events:

"Underwear bomber" changes plea to guilty - CBS News: "DETROIT - A Nigerian man pleaded guilty Wednesday to attempting to bring down an international flight over Detroit with a bomb in his underwear, telling a surprised courtroom on the second day of his trial that the failed attack was retaliation for the killing of Muslims worldwide."

how very convenient that the facts surrounding umar farouk abdulmutallab's boarding of a aircraft bound for the US without the proper travel documents will never be aired in a public venue.

for the national security industry in the US abdulmutallab's plot to detonate a bomb hidden in his undergarments has proved to pay off incredible dividends, striking a nerve in the fear-conditioned US public during the height of the xmas consumerist holiday. a jetload of innocent lives -- as dubya bush might have called them -- threatened with sudden death at the hands (or should we say the ass and private parts) of this malcontent from the dark continent...

if the terrorists were anywhere nearly as menacing and deadly as they are portrayed in the hysteria-mongering mass media, bumblers and incompetents such as abdulmutallab would not be committing acts of such brazen ineptitude -- and yet, it invariably comes to this. another hapless sap goes down in the triumph of the crusaders over islam.

if a guy can't set fire to his own ass, then it's difficult to perceive him as a threat to the nation. on the other hand, a government that can nullify the rights given to its citizens by our nation's constitution, and can kill dissenters and troublemakers at will, now that is very threatening, and very dangerous to all of us.

U.S.proceeds with Iran war agenda

nothing has changed since MLK jr called the US the world's greatest purveyor of violence, with the Obama administration once again ratcheting up the rhetoric in advance of the next great war in the name of "freedom":

U.S. aims to "unite the world" against Iran - CBS News: "(CBS/AP) WASHINGTON - The Obama administration plans to leverage charges that Iran plotted to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the United States into a new global campaign to isolate the Islamic republic.
"It's critically important that we unite the world in the isolation of and dealing with the Iranians," Vice President Joe Biden said on "The Early Show" Wednesday. "That's the surest way to be able to get results.""

we the people of the US will get nothing out of this latest expression of the global financial ponzi's insatiable greed, but an even weaker economy and further eroded individual rights and freedoms.

we are entering a new era of authoritarianism and central control over the populace, with false flag operations opening the door to an all-to-predictable attack on resource-rich targets that are ripe for plucking by the international bankers' cartel, using the mercenary forces of the US government.

libya down, iran will be next as the US and its stooges in europe strive to make the world safe for hypocrisy.

US busy concocting rationales for Iran attack

when the US government engages in explosive, headline-making accusations against the flavor-of-the-month enemy, you know there's more to it than meets the eye.

for example, this new story about how the iranians were plotting to kill the saudi ambassador in DC -- and up to 100 innocent bystanders -- in an elaborate plot including mexican drug cartels (fast and furious, anyone?):

U.S. disrupts Iranian-backed plot to kill Saudi ambassador - latimes.com: "An elaborate Iranian-backed plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the United States was disrupted by FBI and DEA agents, officials said Tuesday.
Members of an elite Iranian security force planned to detonate a bomb at a busy Washington, D.C. restaurant, killing Adel Al-Jubeir, the Saudi Arabian ambassador to the U.S. and possibly over one hundred bystanders, according to court documents filed in the Southern District of New York."

it isn't that the iranians would not be capable of such an act -- although it seems unlikely. after all, try to think of another, similarly dramatic attack here in the US. there really aren't any (at least, until going back to where our buddies the Chileans were doing back in the pinochet days). despite the assertions of our israeli "allies", the iranian leadership is not crazy or suicidal. what's in it for them if they gave washington a ham-handed pretext for invasion? nothing about it makes any sense.

yet, shoe on the other foot, the US has a long history of CIA assassinations and other machiavellian machinations in various and sundry nations around the world. this sort of operation would be child's play to our boys out of langley. ask the iranians, in fact, who've been targeted by US special operations teams working within the sovereign territory of iran. who's been behind the gunning down of their nuclear scientists, or the separatist bombing and other acts of terror against the iranian government?

this is so obviously a public relations gambit, to prep the nation for the next shootin' war in the oil heartlands of the planet -- world war III, anyone? with the US economy in the shitter, and the global financial ponzi scheme tottering on the brink of collapse, what else can save the current regime besides a blazing, hot conflagration against another juicy, non-IMF target state?

Mekons on tour, 2011

if you're reading this, i probably don't have to tell you about who the mekons are or why anyone would care. just for the hell of it, though, the follow photos were taken on thursday, oct. 6, 2011 at a club named iota in arlington, va. -- last time i checked, one of the US' five wealthiest zip codes. talk about incongruent...

i came early, the result of leaving directly after work and driving for two hours from richmond. after getting lost and roaming the urban canyons of the city, i eventually recognized the grocery store with valet parking, which i remembered being around the corner from iota from my previous visit -- was it 2005?

the early arrival permitted me to catch the mekons in their sound check -- which was a glimpse into the way the mekons interact with one another when they aren't performing. this is something you won't see if you're on your ass, drunk, screaming "rock and roll!" during the show.

then follows a few shots of the vocalists' doing their "star turns" at the mike, which i could only get by standing precariously on my chair, since for an acoustic show, this was definitely NOT a sit-down affair. enjoy.

Lu Edmonds with his saz, looking the part of biblical patriarch

Jon Langford, who had picked up a bug somewhere, and was bit subdued 

Rico Bell, Sarah Corina and Sally Timms

Lu, Susie Honeyman and Steve Goulding.