@mimi That's how it is Mimi, there's always a carrot to dangle to keep people in their places.
It comes down to a simple saying, "if people really knew", like what Rockefeller said, they'd change their tune. But like my neighbor, even when you tell them it doesn't sink in because the brainwashing has been so complete. It can't be reversed in one conversation, it literally can take years.

it's more than trapped right now. It's outright dangerous. Dangerous like in deadly. At least deadly to the mind, but even to the body. For my taste you are not ... "too critical, contemptuous and insulting to those involved in democratic party reform and third party efforts" ... Speak your mind, otherwise I go crazy that nobody screams like I feel it is necessary.
We have all no answers and solutions. That's what will bring the chaos and collapse. I am without TV since a good four weeks, I am not an online "watch dog". But I literally am confronted with folks, who in fact can't buy food, pay the gasoline to go to their slave work and still believe with "enough hard work" they can "make it". The sanity got lost on the highway in the heat, where people walk for tens and tens of miles in the brutal heat... to go somewhere... where they might find some shelter of some sort and something to eat or meet someone who gives them a job for the day.

That's no life, that's hell. And people don't want to admit it, see it or care about it.

@Strife Delivery in the corporate media monopoly and they'll fully agree then turn around and believe the propaganda from the corporate media monopoly. What can you do about that? Knock them up side the head? Wake up! It's an old fucking problem which is still a major problem.

I like that.

Also United Lies of America.

Because what bonds all Americans together are the lies we are fed to believe.

Sometimes I can't understand folks who believe the garbage.

Kim begging for war? The guy with the country in dire poverty basically with a pitiful army that is mostly for show with all the parades and photo ops. The guy who would face the strongest military in the world. The guy who would face a nation that has what 2000 nuclear weapons.

That guy is begging for war? Come on people. It's like saying the guy in a coma is begging for a fight against Mike Tyson.

@snoopydawg The problem I see is even those who profess to know the deal are willing to compromise about imperialism and war, like voting for a Bernie Sanders as democratic presidential candidate. Until enough people rise up and refuse to compromise, we have no chance.

I too wonder how many people thought that the reason why North Korea has been testing their missiles and saw that

I wonder how many people's first thought when listening to or reading Haley's words, "begging for a war" was that it's the U.S. begging for war, not North Korea, not Iraq, not Russia, not Syria, not China, and not Venezuela?
Not nearly fucking enough!!.

Most of the people who commented about this said that this country should just nuke them and wipe them off the face of the earth.
Not one person wrote that North Korea had every right to defend themselves.
This is their go to idea about every country that "showing signs of threatening us. Look at how many people agreed with Trump when he said that

would bomb the terrorists including their families.

I also agree with you about trying to reform the DP. This is not going to happen. Period!
The democrats had the chance to stop the wars in 2006 and again in 2008.
The democrats held all 3 branches of congress and not one of the democrats said anything about them.
Even Bernie has been okay with what Obama was doing in regards to his use of drones and his illegal invasion of Libya. This too was done on false pretenses.

They don't see the hypocrisy of what happened on 9/11 (the ones who believe the original story).
The "terrorists" that destroyed the towers did so because of what our country has been doing to the countries in the Middle East and elsewhere.
They don't understand blowback.

Haley is the new Powers who followed the same path that others in her position have done. John Bolton is begging for Trump to start a war with against Iran, but they have been following the rules that Obama and the other country's leaders made.

Great to see you writing again. And I agree with Mimi.
Sorry for this to be so very conglobulated, I can't focus my mind tonight.

Edited for clarity. I hope

@snoopydawg Saw that description of Afghanistan many years ago. Have also seen it described as a giant land based aircraft carrier.
Relative to Afghanistan, when people ask why we're still there, I tell them to look at a map.

We first went in to get Bin Laden even though Bush knew that he was in Pakistan. Then the mission was changed to fighting the Taliban. Now the mission is to fight Isis and train the Afghanistan's military.
It only takes a few months to train our troops and it cost $1 million a year for just one soldier, so why after 16 and who knows how much money it costs to train them, aren't they trained yet?

The Afghan military is not going to be trained and our government knows this. But Trump is sending another 4,900 troops back there. Why? If 100,000 troops wasn't enough to accomplish the goals, then why or how is this going to work this time?

This isn't the goal. Guarding the poppy fields is one reason, but here's the main reason for why we aren't leaving. Ever.....!!!!

Afghanistan: Why We Won’t Leave

The real reason is that Afghanistan is a forward operating base for the U.S. military in Asia in its attempts to counter China’s inevitable rise, whatever the official justifications for maintaining troops there are. China’s $900 billion
Belt and road initiative aims to lay the trans-continental infrastructure to allow its transition from great power to world-hegemon. Its projected land routes go north around Afghanistan and south through Pakistan. Given that the United States recently began a “Pivot to Asia” strategy aimed at building an economic and military partnership with Asian states to balance China, and that the economic side of that – the Transpacific Partnership – was temporarily defeated, there has been an increased emphasis on its military part by the national security state.

yes the TPP was temporarily defeated , but Trump is supposedly working on this but saying that he is re-negotiating NAFTA, but it's going to be worse than the TPP because of the IDSD clause. This is the rule that says that corporations can sue our cities and states if they had rules that would get in the way of their profits. Rules such as a $15 minimum wage or if states ban fracking. It's supposed to be illegal for foreign companies to use eminent domain to take people's property, but this hasn't stopped them doing this.
Rules are just for little people.
,

@Linda Wood @Linda Wood I have to agree with Bannon on this, there is no military solution and they know it. It all appears to be political gamesmanship and propaganda aimed at China and Russia as well as to aid the military industrial complex and others like shown above. I even have to wonder (I suppose jokingly) what cut Kim is getting from all this. Like Afghanistan, our rulers haven't kept North Korea around this long for nothing and it surely has nothing to do with our safety.

http://archive.fortune.com/magazines/fortune/fortune_archive/2003/05/12/...

Rummy's North Korea Connection What did Donald Rumsfeld know about ABB's deal to build nuclear reactors there? And why won't he talk about it?

By Richard Behar Research Associate Brenda Cherry
May 12, 2003

(FORTUNE Magazine) – Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld rarely keeps his opinions to himself. He tends not to compromise with his enemies. And he clearly disdains the communist regime in North Korea. So it's surprising that there is no clear public record of his views on the controversial 1994 deal in which the U.S. agreed to provide North Korea with two light-water nuclear reactors in exchange for Pyongyang ending its nuclear weapons program. What's even more surprising about Rumsfeld's silence is that he sat on the board of the company that won a $200 million contract to provide the design and key components for the reactors.

The company is Zurich-based engineering giant ABB, which signed the contract in early 2000, well before Rumsfeld gave up his board seat and joined the Bush administration.

… ABB, which was already building eight nuclear reactors in South Korea, had an inside track on the $4 billion U.S.-sponsored North Korea project. The firm was told "our participation is essential," recalls Frank Murray, project manager for the reactors. (He plays the same role now at Westinghouse, which was acquired by Britain's BNFL in 1999, a year before it also bought ABB's nuclear power business.) The North Korean reactors are being primarily funded by South Korean and Japanese export-import banks and supervised by KEDO, a consortium based in New York. "It was not a matter of favoritism," says Desaix Anderson, who ran KEDO from 1997 to 2001. "It was just a practical matter."

… President Bush was skeptical of Pyongyang's intentions and called for a policy review in March 2001. Two months later the DOE, after consulting with Rumsfeld's Pentagon, renewed the authorization to send nuclear technology to North Korea. Groundbreaking ceremonies attended by Westinghouse and North Korean officials were held Sept. 14, 2001--three days after the worst terror attack on U.S. soil.

The Bush administration still hasn't abandoned the project. Representative Edward Markey and other Congressmen have been sending letters to Bush and Rumsfeld, asking them to pull the plug on the reactors, which Markey calls "nuclear bomb factories." Nevertheless, a concrete-pouring ceremony was held last August, and Westinghouse sponsored a training course for the North Koreans that concluded in October--shortly before Pyongyang confessed to having a secret uranium program, kicked inspectors out, and said it would start making plutonium. The Bush administration has suspended further transfers of nuclear technology, but in January it authorized $3.5 million to keep the project going.

@gulfgal98 against wars, which most people state with a caveat (i.e., unnecessary wars) and against imperialism. Most people have no idea the full realm of economic and political warfare that goes on in the name of power and greed. I'm sure you know you'll find people who say they are against war but have no idea what is happening in Syria and that Obama started a war there.

Relative to blame, plenty to go around gg. I've personally got no problem carrying some of the blame myself for being an apathetic tool much of my life. We as citizens do have responsibilities and if we don't honor them, it's on us.

As far as a boycott, I've never said a boycott would work in and of itself. It has to be part of a larger plan to reject the oligarchy and it's institutions and systems. But I don't think we'll ever change this political system if we don't push back against it, not just those using it for their benefit.

with the Peace vigil, I found that most people were sick of wars and wanted us out of them. My experience is in a limited geographic area. However many of the people who did talk with us described themselves as conservatives, so I do not believe political affiliation is a good indicator of where people stand regarding wars.

What I do believe is that most people have not equated that the people they vote for are complicit in allowing these wars to continue and to be propagated without Congress actually being forced to declare war. Congress has abdicated its Constitutional duty in this regard. IMHO, this is where the pressure point should be.

Without the check and balance of forcing Congress to do their duty, this has allowed us to spread war from country to country via proxies or drone warfare. I was shocked to learn that most people I talked with during our Peace vigils were either clueless about the drone program or thought it to be very limited and surgical.

If we are going to put blame out there, we cannot blame the public which has so very little access to the truth via the MSM. We must blame the media and our representatives in Congress first.

As far as voting in general, I am beginning to conclude that it is a waste of time on a useless exercise that does not reflect the wishes of the public. However, I am not sure of what the alternative is. Boycotting will not work. We are currently seeing many elections in which the winner is being selected by a small minority of eligible voters and yet the PTB and the media could care less.