@dkmich

Nice to be home. Glad you went along.

Hope you had a great trip. Enjoyed sharing it with you.

@Linda Wood

interesting comparison of women's rights -
http://iranprimer.usip.org/blog/2016/jan/04/iran-v-saudi-arabia-women-mi...

We still have our issues in this regard too!

also known as a puppet dictatorship of Big Oil, also known as Chevron and their spawn, hates the dictatorships of Syria, Iran, Libya, Iraq, and Yemen because they have become TOO DEMOCRATIC. Each of these countries has moved toward sharing some of the wealth of their nations with the workforce.

Your photographs illustrating the difference between Iran and Saudi Arabia, as to why you would want to visit one and not the other, highlight the difference in the treatment of women. Each of the countries listed on our Big Oil kill list has allowed women to vote. That is a measure of progressive values because women, though not always progressive, represent a more progressive voting block, probably because of their traditional closeness to the problems of children, the elderly and the disabled. And they're poorer generally than men, another measure of voting perspective. What the Saudis see in women being allowed to vote is not just the end of the Saudi extreme persecution of women but also a more progressive electorate.

The Saudis recently announced women's suffrage on a limited basis, no doubt because this has been a key indicator of their backwardness. One has to wonder if there is anything to vote on that would make a difference.

That we, the people of the United States, are doing the killing tells me that we have a King, that we have been taken over by a ruthless beheader. But that King is not Salman, it is Big Oil. What all of this represents for me is that Big Oil does not allow the social and economic progress that has been made in countries like Syria, Iran, and most especially Russia. The difference between Yeltsin and Putin is exactly the same, the difference between rampageous capitalism and the struggle toward peace and prosperity.

Here are the years listed for women gaining the right to vote in the countries on our kill list:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_women%27s_suffrage

Syria 1949
Iran 1963
Libya 1964
Afghanistan 1965 (first time)
South Yemen 1967
North Yemen 1970
Iraq 1980
Afghanistan 1996 (revoked by Taliban)
Afghanistan 2001 (re-granted after the fall of Taliban)

@earthling1

when Eisenhower takes office, United States has a little bit more than 1,000 nuclear weapons. When Eisenhower leaves office, United States has more than 22,000 nuclear weapons. When Eisenhower's budget cycle is finished, United States has almost 30,000 nuclear weapons.

"Beware of the military-industrial complex." But when you read that, it's not that he doesn't think there needs to be a military-industrial complex, he does, he just thinks beware of how the political effect of having such a massive part of the economy devoted to arms manufacturing. But he's not really for minimizing it, he's just for being beware of it.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed".

D.D. Eisenhower.
It's not like we were not warned. We baby boomers knew all along.
The glorification on tv in the form of war movies with "The Duke" at sea defending our way of life.
The Duke on horseback defending our way of life against indians or Mexicans.
A constant barrage of cops n' robber shows, cowboy n' indians, we were brainwashed, thoroughly.
The brainwashing of succeeding generations continued through violent video gaming in addition to tv and movies. The constant parading of military at our sporting events. The flyovers. "Shock n' awe" at prime time.
How to counter this I do not know. We are too far down the rabbit hole.

@snoopydawg

...they will be... when our radio waves reach them.

Seems sports and militarism are pretty well linked.

Thanks for dropping by.

Good round up of the stupidity of oil being the reasons for both war and the thing that is slowly killing the planet. I still think other intelligent life forces are laughing their asses off at us for our stupidity of sh*tting in our sandbox.

Saw this comment on this article

Saddest thing is...the DoD is recruiting another class right now...

How many ads for DoD were played during the NCAA basketball tournament?

How many more American young men and women will join primarily for the benefits?

Instead of giving our youth free college at a cost of $65 billion--we are giving the world hell on earth for $700+ billion per year.

The executives of WAR, INC. (USA) thank you for sacrificing 1% of the Class of 2018 so they can keep making payments on their mansions and collection of luxury cars..

Yesterday it was in the 50's and today it's snowing again. Oh well, we didn't have much snow this winter so I guess it's all good. We did get a huge pounding rain storm the other night though and hopefully it came as snow in the mountains.

Love the 'toons

@Meteor Man

...and brags about it. Anyone who looked could see he is a lying con man.

A sad comment on the state of things.

A good analysis of how America's anti- intellectual tradition got Trump elected:

Having identified crassness as Trump’s trademark characteristic, we next turn to the historical question of what exists in the American character and culture that would make such a crass man appealing to enough Americans so that he ends up being our president.

Historian Richard Hofstadter’s Anti-Intellectualism in American Life (1962) offers us some clues because Trump’s crassness appeals to the anti-intellectual strain in American culture.

Trump Is Crass

@SoylentGreenisPeople

but it is real. You are certainly correct, our blind support of Israel is involved. I often write about Israel just can't cover it all in one piece. Israel is following the US model...genocide, confinement, and abuse of its native peoples. They also provide a good reason for us to stick our nose in the ME.

Scholar As'ad AbuKhalil says Saudi Arabia is a strategic partner of the U.S. and Israel, promoting Zionism though its powerful media while increasing its hostility to Iran
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&I...
(video or text)

EDIT to add this easily missed paragraph from the essay...

There's so much more to say about our friends and enemies. We never got to Israel nor Honduras for example. Barely touched on Venezuela. But I hope the primary example of Saudi Arabia and Iran serve to point out the utter hypocrisy of our foreign policy.

In discussing such American foreign policy issues?

Perhaps such a discussion is not “politically correct” and also risky, in that it may bring about accusations of “anti-Semitism.” However, I believe such a discussion is nonetheless necessary for understanding U.S. foreign policy when it comes to the countries the U.S. treats as friends and enemies, especially those in the Middle East.

Yes, American foreign policy is driven by money, the quest for control over resources and markets, and the degree to which other countries’ leaders are willing to “play ball” or not “play ball” with American influence and control over their internal affairs.

However, if anyone wants to understand American foreign policy of the past 20 years--especially when it comes to the neoconservatives and their desire to make war on Iran--one has to also look at the degree to which the neocon agenda is driven by loyalty to a pro-Israeli agenda of using the United States to take out or at least destabilize/balkanize Israel’s perceived enemy countries in the Middle East.

Here’s a nice little 2015 expose by two Jewish people, Philip Weiss and David Corn, on the degree to which the neoconservative agenda (and the war in Iraq in 2003) is/was driven by a desire to further Israeli interests:

http://mondoweiss.net/2015/05/facing-neocon-captivity/

(Referenced in this article are two things: A position paper called “A Clean Break” and the “Oded Yinon Plan.” I recommend that anyone reading this comment do some research on these two items and educate yourself as to what they are about.)

Here’s another discussion in 2016 by journalist Jim Lobe on who the neoconservatives—and John Bolton is a neoconservative—are, and how much they are motivated out of a loyalty to Israel:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tioed5gpY_c

During the last 20 years, we’ve seen destabilizing wars on Iraq, Libya, and Syria, and if the neocons get their way, we will see a war on Iran. This agenda has been carried out by Republicans AND Democrats, including Bush II, Obama, and Hilary Clinton. Do you think that it is just a mere coincidence that these countries also correspond to the list of countries that Israel has historically identified as threats?

Here’s an article about, among other things, the link between a leading neoconservative “think tank” Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (which has been pushing for greater U.S. involvement in Syria), and that think tank’s control by Israeli operatives:

https://electronicintifada.net/content/whats-al-jazeeras-undercover-film...

Let me just leave you with this—Wesley Clark talking about how, in the aftermath of 9-11, the agenda was to invade seven different Middle Eastern countries, including Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and, finally, Iran:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kd6vR1J0_6A

@mimi

tows the line...buying weapons, participating in the Afghan war, and so on...Germany will be ole buddy ole pal...but step out of line....

Good to "see" you

and Phyllis Bennis in Bolton Fabricated Lies that Justified War on Iraq, in which Peries really formulated her question like this:

Peries:
All right, Phyllis, finally, with this scenario and the convergence of the people appointed to advise him that we have just mentioned, Haspel, Pompeo, now Bolton, our saving grace might actually be Trump given that, you know, he had advocated and said that he was against the Iraq war, and also when it comes to North Korea he was very quick to jump on a possible meeting just on Sunday after President Putin won the election in Russia. He was quick to get on the phone and congratulate him, and suggest that there should be a meeting. So what do you think of this, I guess, configuration now in Washington, with Trump being the advocate for peace?

For a short moment I thought Peries had lost it. Trump our saving grace? An advocate for peace? Really? Fortunately Bennis responded saying:

I think the notion that Trump himself is somehow not reflective of the kind of warmongering anti-diplomacy approach of these advisers that he has chosen himself would be a mistake. And that if we're looking for saving grace, as you put it, that relies on us. On people who will challenge these positions, who will push Congress not to, not to certify, not to accept these people, those that do need Senate oversight, that do have to be approved by the Senate, at the Senate not vote for them.

Oh lordy, Peries shouldn't joke around like that again, my heart might just jump the ship.

Thank You for your excellent awful collection of essays. As horrible an enema it is to clean out the shit of the colon, it feels great once one has gone through the procedure of reading all and feel to be all clean.

Thank you over and over again and have a great remainder of a Sunday.

PS I was somewhat relieved that Germany wasn't yet on the list of enemies of the "great advocate of peace". Yet. How much longer you think we can hold that position? Two weeks, a months ...?

@Timmethy2.0

onward through the fog...

Sadaam has those WMDs and he's going to visit us in the form of a mushroom cloud and he was a big part of 9/11. This will only take a couple of months to accomplish the mission and they'll welcome us with flowers and be so grateful for us bringing them peace and democracy that they'll gladly relinquish oil revenue to pay for the invasion...and occupation.

The US populace had as much concept of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds as the framers of the Second Amendment had of AR-15s.