Palin to rule planet Earth (a legend in her own mind)

Sarah Palin has announced that "we should not stand" for an Egyptian government led by the Muslim Brotherhood. She courageously made her stand on the Christian Broadcasting Network, virtually guaranteeing that all Muslims who heard her proclamation would be rightfully offended at her disrespect for everyone's freedom except her own and that of her kind. Sarah Palin is in some sort of race to the bottom with Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck for the Ugly American Award, given to Beck in 2010, Limbaugh in 2009, and now comes Palin to make a play for gender equality, presumably.

What would Sarah say if a candidate for back-up ruler (vice-president in the US) in another country declared that "we should not stand" for a particular party or candidate or governing group coming to power in the US? If Wen Jiabao, Prime Minister of China, starting spouting about which party the Chinese would "not stand" for, imagine the rhetorical blasts from Palin. There would be crosshairs all over her website and she's be clamoring to go wave our nukes in a circle around China. But she gets to pontificate about what government a completely sovereign state should have, and which kind we "should not stand" for.

When Mohamad ElBaradei claims that there is no worry about the Muslim Brotherhood being the party of jihad, we should relax a little, take a deep breath, and just cheer for the Arab street, which has been valiantly out resisting US puppet Mubarak for more than a week and a half. These brave people have not left and that is simply more courageous than anything Sarah Palin has ever done in her entire entitled life. It's more than Glenn Beck or Rush Limbaugh (or Sean Hannity, or Tom DeLay, or Dick Cheney, et alia) have done in their benighted existences; it is hardly the mark of a brave person to personally never risk what they expect others to risk.

As the US slides in global stature it is long past the point when we should display just a little humility. We don't rule Earth. We are showing what happens when we decide we do not stand for a particular government; we are botching the two invasions and occupations we've undertaken, they are financially ruining this country, and we are alienating huge swathes of the populations of sovereign citizens all around the world. The uprising in Egypt is theirs, not Sarah's, and it's their country and their government, not hers.

Time for a new path based on equality and humility. We had an embarrassment for president for two full terms in the first decade of this millennium; "we should not stand" for an arrogant attempt to embarrass ourselves again.

Shame on Scrooge Congress

The American people have a government dedicated to enhancing the freedoms, rights and well being of the people--rich people, that is. As record numbers of families face foreclosures, as unemployment hovers officially at approximately 10 percent (far higher in many communities of color), and as the budget hawks eyeball cutting Social Security, help for Americans with disabilities, and public education yet again, Mitch McConnell and the rest of the Banana Republicans rise to defend the elites in Richistan.

Like the mafia only with far more reach and power, they are linking help to America's unemployed to extended tax cuts to the most wealthy millionaires and billionaires. No free pass for the elites, no help for people who cannot find work in a country with less and less work to find. As Christmas approaches, they make deals that make the rich richer and the poor poorer. It is truly Governance by Scrooge.

For a good overview of one primary part of the problem, take 13 minutes of your day and listen to Bernie Sanders. In this remarkably illuminating speech, Sanders delineates the collapse of the middle class by the numbers. The gathering of income and wealth at the very top and the impoverishment of Americans is stunning. The Hypocrisy Index of the Republicans and their Democratic slinkdogs is pegged at Maximum.

From the transcript, which has been started by a young fellow named Tim Novotney:

Mr. President in the year 2007 the top 1% of all income earners in the United States made 23.5% percent of all income. The top 1% made 23.5% of all income more than the entire bottom 50%. That’s apparently not enough. The percentage of income going to the top 1% nearly tripled since the 1970′s. In the mid 1970′s the top 1% earned about 8% of all income. In the 1980′s that figure jumped to 14%. In the late 1990′s that 1% earned about 19% and today, as the middle class collapses, the top 1% earn 23.5% of all income, more than the bottom 50%.

People need to read these numbers--Bernie cites many more, but this is one key set--and consider the human stories behind these stark statistics. The more we humanize these numbers, the more outraged we become at Congress allowing the rich to continue to crush everyone. That wind chill we are feeling is not seasonal winter cold, it's the stagnant atmosphere of our economy as we plummet from middle class down to poverty, thanks to the insatiable greed of the war system.

Bernie doesn't cover that part, but in fact it is the war system that is responsible for these numbers. The military spending of the US correlates pretty much perfectly with the destruction of the economy--exactly backward from the common wisdom that war is good for the economy. War is horrible for the economy. War creates fewer jobs per $billion spent than does any other sector of the economy. It is capital intensive, not labor intensive. It is only good for rich people's economy and they live in a different one than the rest of us.

So we can keep our eyes shut and focus on meaningless trivial inanities or the flatly outrageous--where was Obama really born? why does Julian Assange still breathe when Mike Huckabee, Tom Flanagan (Canadian Tory--Republican), Joe Lieberman and Sarah Palin want him dead? what can we learn about pro football today to give real meaning to our lives?--or we can listen to Bernie and start to make plans to replace all Republicans and many Democrats as they continue to betray us daily. The Ghost of Christmas Past could show us the human stories of the numbers Bernie Sanders lays out for us--time to help the Scrooges into retirement so we can turn this around. It will take a lot of work to replace these people, but their loyalty to Richistan is clear and we need representatives loyal to human security and justice. The strategic planning should start now.

Let them not be in vain: Learn a new way

This what I just received from the US Department of Defense:

DOD Identifies Army Casualties

The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of six soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. They died Nov. 29, in Nangarhar province, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when an insurgent attacked their unit with small arms fire.

Killed were:

Sgt. 1st Class Barry E. Jarvis, 36, of Tell City, Ind.

Staff Sgt. Curtis A. Oakes, 29, of Athens, Ohio.

Spc. Matthew W. Ramsey, 20, of Quartz Hill, Calif.

Pfc. Jacob A. Gassen, 21, of Beaver Dam, Wis.

Pfc. Austin G. Staggs, 19, of Senoia, Ga.

Pvt. Buddy W. McLain, 24, of Mexico, Maine.

They were assigned to the 1st Squadron, 61st Cavalry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault), Fort Campbell, Ky.

For more information, please contact the Fort Campbell public affairs office at 270-798-3025.

These young Americans are now dead, the latest US mortalities in the war of occupation that has dragged on much longer than World War II, longer than the Soviet Union occupation of Afghanistan, and with no promised end in sight. Indeed, every time President Obama talks about getting out, he is attacked rabidly and mercilessly without quarter by Republicans, by Fox News BeckHannityLimbaughO'Reilly types, by Tea Party Know-Nothings and by Sarah "The Refudiator" Palin. They all do so in the name of "the troops," all of whom are sacralized heroes, of course.

It is really really really time to stop. It is so misguided to stay in Afghanistan, where these armed emissaries we send are viewed as infidel occupiers and indeed, not only are their deaths celebrated there, but this occupation is just the sort of thing that fuels the insane desire to plant bombs in our village squares at times of joyous family gathering, such as the Christmas Tree Bomber allegedly did last Friday evening in Portland.

Please. Let us learn nonviolence. When we study war we see what we get. If the deaths of these six could teach us that it's time to learn another way to manage conflict, their deaths will not have been in vain. Otherwise, I'm deeply certain that they are and that is a crime.