Basketball fans will remember the 'epic' battles between these two opponents. The joke though, was that they were not really opponents. Instead, the former was really supposed to win, and the latter was supposed to be the loyal opposition.
So it is with the Repugnants and the Dems who are pretending to be adversaries. In reality, they are both funded by the same powerful special interest groups, whose money dictates what they ultimately vote for. In the case of Iraq and the occupation there, the monied interests who are calling the shots, are the Military Industrial Complex (from oil to armaments), and the Israeli lobby. Both want the occupation to continue, and have funded and paid off enough key people in each party, to ensure that our troops stay in harms way as long as possible.
The M.I.C. is making boatloads of money from the appropriations that congress is dutifully and periodically giving Bush to stay in Iraq. The Israeli lobby is ensuring that American troops remain in Iraq to protect Israel from their enemies in the region, like Syria and Iran. So both of their interests are being carried out, in spite of the fact that 70% of the American people, want us out of Iraq and the war to end.
Every time a new supplemental is sought, the canard, "the troops would suffer if the money runs out" is offered, and is simply not credible. There is plenty of money in the defense budget, but it would have to be spent on Iraq instead of being given to Lockheed Martin and Boeing. The supplementals serve to allow the basic defense budget with all it's pork, to be insulated from the war.
The only thing that will end this corruption of our democratic process and institutions, is the public funding of our representatives in all branches of government. The private money that they now answer to and which now corrupts them, will be outlawed, and they will once again have to be fully responsive to the people who sent them to Washington.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Friday, May 18, 2007
Stern's Simplemindedness
Now that the Phoenix Suns have been eliminated by the San Antonio Spurs 4-2, there will no doubt be much discussion of whether they ultimately lost because of the 1-game suspension given to two of their best players in game five. They left their bench after their star player Nash, was knocked out of bounds with a hard foul by Horry of the Spurs. This is an iron-clad rule enacted 10 years ago, that no player can leave his bench area, supposedly to prevent fights from escalating in a game.
I can't stand David Stern. I think he is a patronizing (maybe racist) s.o.b., who sees the mostly all-Black NBA players, as children that have to be controlled, lest the white paying fans be offended at their lack of decorum, on and off the court. To this end, he has instituted draconian, inflexible rules ranging from how to dress, to when to get up or sit down on the team bench. Since he has been commissioner, he has gotten filthy rich off the backs of these players, and yet he sees them only as a commodity without regard to their feelings, or to the normal passions that may arise in the course of a game that might lead to a fight, which is normal and accepted in baseball, hockey and football which have mostly White players. His ultimate racist act, was the suspension of Ron Artest with no pay, at a cost to him of $5 million, for going into the stands and fighting with a fan that had attacked him by throwing a drink on him. The punishment meted out to Ron for having the temerity to defend himself from an attack from a fan, is akin to the old slavery days when 'massa' would unmercifully whip, or even lynch, his 'uppity' slaves to teach them and the other slaves a lesson.
Stern has been on a crusade with these zero-tolerance, mindless rules, that make no sense unless you share his racist views that millionaire Black players are not able to control themselves, and therefore need his unbending rules to govern them.
Well, those zero-tolerance rules have now come home to roost, and the very rule that was designed to constrain and punish mostly Black players, has cost the Phoenix Suns a shot at an NBA championship, because they lost a key, must-win game on their home court in the absence of their star players who were suspended.
But there is plenty of blame to go around, because I believe Steve Nash flopped and overacted as he frequently does. Had he not done such a good acting job that falsely made him appear to be seriously hurt, his teammates may not have come running off their bench to protect him, and gotten suspended.
Also this rule has cost the team owner, potentially millions of dollars, because his team was eliminated prematurely from the post-season playoffs. Stern will doubtless be pressured to do away with, or at least modify this rule that cost the Suns the game and probably the series. It's also ironic that this happened to the new 'America's favorite team', the Suns.
It took this kind of of unintended result, to highlight the arbitrariness and ridiculousness of most of Stern's imperious rules.
It's about time!
I can't stand David Stern. I think he is a patronizing (maybe racist) s.o.b., who sees the mostly all-Black NBA players, as children that have to be controlled, lest the white paying fans be offended at their lack of decorum, on and off the court. To this end, he has instituted draconian, inflexible rules ranging from how to dress, to when to get up or sit down on the team bench. Since he has been commissioner, he has gotten filthy rich off the backs of these players, and yet he sees them only as a commodity without regard to their feelings, or to the normal passions that may arise in the course of a game that might lead to a fight, which is normal and accepted in baseball, hockey and football which have mostly White players. His ultimate racist act, was the suspension of Ron Artest with no pay, at a cost to him of $5 million, for going into the stands and fighting with a fan that had attacked him by throwing a drink on him. The punishment meted out to Ron for having the temerity to defend himself from an attack from a fan, is akin to the old slavery days when 'massa' would unmercifully whip, or even lynch, his 'uppity' slaves to teach them and the other slaves a lesson.
Stern has been on a crusade with these zero-tolerance, mindless rules, that make no sense unless you share his racist views that millionaire Black players are not able to control themselves, and therefore need his unbending rules to govern them.
Well, those zero-tolerance rules have now come home to roost, and the very rule that was designed to constrain and punish mostly Black players, has cost the Phoenix Suns a shot at an NBA championship, because they lost a key, must-win game on their home court in the absence of their star players who were suspended.
But there is plenty of blame to go around, because I believe Steve Nash flopped and overacted as he frequently does. Had he not done such a good acting job that falsely made him appear to be seriously hurt, his teammates may not have come running off their bench to protect him, and gotten suspended.
Also this rule has cost the team owner, potentially millions of dollars, because his team was eliminated prematurely from the post-season playoffs. Stern will doubtless be pressured to do away with, or at least modify this rule that cost the Suns the game and probably the series. It's also ironic that this happened to the new 'America's favorite team', the Suns.
It took this kind of of unintended result, to highlight the arbitrariness and ridiculousness of most of Stern's imperious rules.
It's about time!
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Farewell Falwell
Upon just hearing the news of Falwell's death, my mind reviewed some of the unseemly things I remembered about him - nothing positive among them.
Here is what I remembered:-
He was a staunch segregationist who supported hate icons like Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond and others; Called the Civil Rights movement for justice, the 'civil wrongs' movement; Smeared and libeled Martin Luther King; He and other racists of his time - including J. Edgar Hoover, publicly gloated when Martin Luther King was assassinated; Financed a movie that falsely alleged Ron Brown and Bill Clinton murdered Vince Foster; Supported the evil system of South African apartheid and recommended that his congregants buy the South African Krugerrand to help support that immoral, murderous regime; Falsely attributed national disasters like 9-11, Katrina etc., to gays and pagans whom God was punishing; Called Liberals and public schools satanic; Claimed to be a Christian, yet exhibited the most un-Christlike views and actions; Instituted and sponsored a thinly-veiled curriculum of racial hatred and bigotry at his university when he started it in the early 1970s; Supported Israel's claims that the lands of Palestine belonged to them, and turned a blind eye and refused to criticize their inhumane treatment and dispossession of the Palestinians who they found on the land; Started an organization called the 'Moral Majority', that was neither moral nor a majority; Blasphemed by falsely claiming to speak for God on numerous occasions; Never missed an opportunity to disparage the poor and less fortunate of our country; Lastly, he conflated his extremist religiosity with his right-wing politics to the ultimate detriment of our country.
Fox news and others, will doubtlessly try to venerate, canonize and deify him, and they will be tripping over themselves trying to burnish his image, but no amount of trying will alter the despicable record he has left behind.
What I remember, is only a fraction of the sorry misdeeds in his life that he will have to answer for in the next one. I did not wish him dead, but I'm grateful that he will not be drawing any more breaths to heap more abuse on the humans he despised while he was here. Pat Robertson is his evil-twin and his spiritual and political soul-mate, (Pat publicly called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez) - maybe he can repent and save himself from Falwell's fate while he still is alive and breathing.
In my view, the world is better off without him.
Here is what I remembered:-
He was a staunch segregationist who supported hate icons like Lester Maddox, George Wallace, Strom Thurmond and others; Called the Civil Rights movement for justice, the 'civil wrongs' movement; Smeared and libeled Martin Luther King; He and other racists of his time - including J. Edgar Hoover, publicly gloated when Martin Luther King was assassinated; Financed a movie that falsely alleged Ron Brown and Bill Clinton murdered Vince Foster; Supported the evil system of South African apartheid and recommended that his congregants buy the South African Krugerrand to help support that immoral, murderous regime; Falsely attributed national disasters like 9-11, Katrina etc., to gays and pagans whom God was punishing; Called Liberals and public schools satanic; Claimed to be a Christian, yet exhibited the most un-Christlike views and actions; Instituted and sponsored a thinly-veiled curriculum of racial hatred and bigotry at his university when he started it in the early 1970s; Supported Israel's claims that the lands of Palestine belonged to them, and turned a blind eye and refused to criticize their inhumane treatment and dispossession of the Palestinians who they found on the land; Started an organization called the 'Moral Majority', that was neither moral nor a majority; Blasphemed by falsely claiming to speak for God on numerous occasions; Never missed an opportunity to disparage the poor and less fortunate of our country; Lastly, he conflated his extremist religiosity with his right-wing politics to the ultimate detriment of our country.
Fox news and others, will doubtlessly try to venerate, canonize and deify him, and they will be tripping over themselves trying to burnish his image, but no amount of trying will alter the despicable record he has left behind.
What I remember, is only a fraction of the sorry misdeeds in his life that he will have to answer for in the next one. I did not wish him dead, but I'm grateful that he will not be drawing any more breaths to heap more abuse on the humans he despised while he was here. Pat Robertson is his evil-twin and his spiritual and political soul-mate, (Pat publicly called for the assassination of Hugo Chavez) - maybe he can repent and save himself from Falwell's fate while he still is alive and breathing.
In my view, the world is better off without him.
Iraqi Sovereignty??? (lol)
The Iraqi 'government' that is in place today, is a puppet government that was installed by our government, only to be a rubber stamp for our agenda in that region. One example of this agenda, is the coming enacting of the 'Hydro-Carbon Law'. This piece of legislation will compel the Sunni and the Shia to reach an agreement concerning the control and distribution of a paltry 15% of Iraq's oil resources....while ceding control of the remaining 85% (worth over ten trillion dollars), to American oil companies, in 30-year leases - tax free!
Beyond our agenda, to say this so-called Iraqi 'government' is sovereign, is laughable on it's face, and is as mythical as the WMDs they supposedly possessed but have not yet been found, in the four years we have been occupying Iraq.
Let's stop perpetrating this myth of their sovereignty!
Beyond our agenda, to say this so-called Iraqi 'government' is sovereign, is laughable on it's face, and is as mythical as the WMDs they supposedly possessed but have not yet been found, in the four years we have been occupying Iraq.
Let's stop perpetrating this myth of their sovereignty!
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