First impeachment is off the table, now filibuster too?

Do you call this governing? First impeachment is off the table, now filibuster too? From a recent New York Times editorial, In Search of a Congress:

“We support the filibuster as the only way to ensure a minority in the Senate can be heard. When the cloture votes failed this week, the Democrats should have let the Republicans filibuster. Democratic leaders think that’s too risky, since Congress could look like it’s not doing anything. But it’s not doing a lot now.”

It’s not like they actually brought a piece of legislation to a vote. I totally agree with the Times that the Democrats should call the Republican bluff. I would love a filibuster on the subject of this so-called war on terror. I’ll bet it wouldn’t last a week. The majority is against this war, the people are against this war.

Can you really imagine all the bushdog Democrats and all the lapdog Republicans spouting their lame support for the war, for days on end. Only four votes out of fortyfour need to switch to force a vote and really start to wind down this war. If the Democratic leadership in the Senate does not allow filibuster, then logically they plan to allow this war to continue without end, and they plan to ignore/defy the will of the people.

This so-called leadership will say that filibuster is too risky, a waste of time, there will be a veto anyway. What they’re really saying, is that they would rather defy the will of the people then defy this poor excuse for a president and his corrupt administration.

Democrats in Congress are so risk averse, they can’t even see the possibility of real rewards. A bit of wishful thinking perhaps. Can you imagine if these Democrats actually helped bring a war to an end, restore Habeus Corpus, restore the rule of law, restore the balance of power, restore the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Can you imagine the goodwill of the people towards the Congress? Well, maybe not, but it would be a hell of a good start.

This post is for malcontent…

Just because you happen to be a little paranoid does not mean that ‘they’ are not out to get you!

A Video on ‘The Shock Doctrine’

Warning: This video is not for the easily upset or squeamish and do not let the kids watch!

Hat tip to Paul Rosenberg over at OpenLeft for this. He is starting a series of posts on the biggest question facing progressives everywhere. Can we engineer radical progressive reform in our government and if so, how?

Here’s a quote:

It’s the hegemony of “free market” ideology, widely embraced by Democrats as well as Republicans, and virtually ubiquitous among the media, that is central to the problems we face. Of course, “free market” is a heavily-loaded ideological term. There is a world of difference between the competitive marketplace-which capitalists have always loathed because it drives down profits-and the oligopoly capitalism that has been the mainstay of those promoting this ideology until very recently, when crony capitalism has emerged as even more central and pernicious.

Read the entire post here. I’ll be keeping you posted on this discussion and, perhaps, commenting on same. We are in the midst of a transformative time for our nation. Only if we act with energy and dispatch will our children grow up free and prosperous.

Flash Update: From Crooks and Liars we have:

‘The Trophy Video’

‘Shadow War’

Of course BushCo is in full ‘pushback’ mode with ‘Cute, Perky’ Dana Perino giving her all in a video post here……

But…

She comes off appearing to be dumber than Bush. Interesting technique the Bushists are using lately I call it school of ‘Don’t you feel sorry for me as I piss on myself with my totally unbelievable lies?’

Not so much, assholes…..

‘Disaster Capitalism’ the Monstrous Offspring of Military Keynsianism.

These beefy dudes are here to protect you. They are the proud, the few, the high-paid chumps who do the dirty work for the Bushists, the Xtian Dominionists and Fascistii everywhere on planet earth. Oh…did I say they were gonna protect you? Well if your rich enough to afford to book on Help Jet they will be your buddies. If you are poor, black and live or lived in New Orleans?

Not so fukin’ much.

BlackWater, whom those ‘roided up freaks above work for is a big player in the new boom. The economic engine the Bushists put in place to take the place of the Clintion dot.com bubble. This locus of money, military force and free-market cannibalism has a name. Naomi Klein christened the monster ‘Disaster Capitalism’ in her new book Shock Doctrine. Here’s a quote from her Guardian Article:

….the effect was the creation of the disaster capitalism complex - a fully fledged new economy in homeland security, privatized war and disaster reconstruction tasked with nothing less than building and running a privatized security state, both at home and abroad. The economic stimulus of this sweeping initiative proved enough to pick up the slack where globalization and the dotcom booms had left off. Just as the Internet had launched the dotcom bubble, 9/11 launched the disaster capitalism bubble. "When the IT industry shut down, post-bubble, guess who had all the money? The government," said Roger Novak of Novak Biddle Venture Partners, a venture capitalism firm that invests in homeland security companies. Now, he says, "Every fund is seeing how big the trough is and asking, ‘How do I get a piece of that action?’"

The answer to that question was simple all ya had to do was ask. And the money rolled in. Billions of it in fact. From Katrina to The MeatGrinder to the I-34W bridge collapse the opportunities are not only there for tremendous profits with government in the hands of the MI Complex and Bush’s Republican party are in the perfect position to create these opportunities for their friends.

Who got the contracts to build the camps to imprison house the refugees from Katrina? Yeah that would be KBR. A subsidiary of the company Cheney still works for as I remember. Who guards the prisoners in these camps secures the camps? Blackwater of course.

The really big money has taken notice and this is one of the reasons ‘we’ can’t get out of Iraq. It’s just too profitable. If a few Americans, an perhaps a million Iraqis, die, hey, that’s the price of doing business.

And as we all know the business of America is business.

Don’t wanna hear this? Well the situation can be changed but it’s gonna take a lot of time, work and money. But the alternative is a lot worse. We are headed for a dark future if we don’t start now.

You can read more of Klein’s thoughts in the latest Harper’s online (this is a pay to view site). Or ask me I’ve got a copy. And….

It’s not as if people, well people in England, haven’t been concerned about this emerging cancer for quite some time. It’s just that the corporatist press don’t feel you need to know about this stuff. It’s got to be a good idea because it’s in line with the Kool-Aid Jim Jones the ‘free market’ advocates say is the way to go.

What they don’t tell you is that your destination may look a lot like this………….

So pick up the phone and call Rep. Henry Waxman and tell him to spike Blackwater’s guns, as a start, or one day soon you may look out your window and see those guys in my picture…

At your front door.

It’s the Weekend Music Post!

And today we have one of the greatest American composers of the second half of the 20th Century. For my money homes only Bob Dylan is on the same level. Here he is the late, great Curtis Mayfield!

Hey…turn it up…