Monday, March 23, 2009

ENOUGH ALREADY...?! KEITH OLBERMANN LAYS IT ON THE LINE, FULL FORCE: A SPENDID RANT IF I'VE EVER HEARD ONE. ATTA BOY, KEITH!

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Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment" on Bank Bailout
Video

Olbermann calls for the firing of bank executives and
more stringent bank regulation. Continue

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Launching Lifeboats Before the Ship Sinks

By Paul Craig Roberts

The New York Times reported that “the dollar plunged
about 3 percent against other major currencies” in
response to the Fed’s announcement. Continue

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Captured By The Debt Spider

By Ellen Brown

If governments everywhere are in debt, who are they
in debt to? The answer is that they are in debt to
private banks. The "cruel hoax" is that governments
are in debt for money created on a computer screen,
money they could have created themselves. Continue

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The Big Takeover

By MATT TAIBBI

The global economic crisis isn't about money - it's
about power. How Wall Street insiders are using
the bailout to stage a revolution. Continue

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Myth America

By Cindy Sheehan

Since this country was founded, it has been governed,
or controlled by the Robber Class. Some people
call our “Lords,” the Ruling Class, the Oligarchy,
the Kleptocracy, or Plutocracy. Some call our system
Cronyism, a Democratic Tyranny, Soft-core Fascist
State, or if you are a member of the Robber Class or
Blinded Robbed Class, you call it a Democracy, or
Republic. Continue

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Didn’t We All See This Coming?

By Timothy V. Gatto

This isn’t the first time that capitalism has failed.
Every time it fails we use a form of temporary
socialism to shore up the economy. When things
start to return to normal, we give everything
back to the capitalists. Why is that? Continue

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We're on The Verge Of A Major Crisis : Ron Paul
Video

Ron Paul discusses the AIG bonus controversy.
Continue

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Barack Obama and the Altar of Greed

By David Michael Green

Barack Obama is dumber than a bag of
hammers. Continue

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Obama’s Moment is Passing Quickly

By Dave Lindorff

He should promptly demand Geithner's and Summers'
resignations, and should also fire the CEO of AIG,
Edward Liddy (as 80% owner of AIG, the US has the
power to do that anytime). It would also be a good
idea at the same time to fire the CEOs of all the
leading banks that are at this point surviving on
government bailouts. Continue

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Our Shame

Cindy Sheehan

It is our shame that we as a nation complacently
sit by and allow the audacity of the atrocities of
empire to continue in our names. Continue

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The "Card Check" Hullabaloo

By Mike Whitney

Big business has launched a no-holds-barred
propaganda blitz against the Employee Free
Choice Act. Their goal is to scare people into
believing that if the bill passes it will trigger
higher unemployment and a deeper recession.
According to opponents, there's even the threat
of creeping socialism. The truth, of course, is
far less dramatic. The Employee Free Choice
Act or so called "card check" simply makes it
easier for unions to organize. Continue

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Was the Bailout Itself a Scam?

By Paul Craig Roberts

After Washington’s trillion dollar bank bailouts
and trillion dollar gratuitous wars for the sake
of the military industry’s profits and Israeli
territorial expansion, there is no money for
Social Security and Medicare. Continue

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We Have Seen the Enemy…

By Timothy V. Gatto

When did political dissent become a reason to
end up grounded at an airport because you found
out at a most inconvenient time that your name
had been mysteriously added to a “no-fly list”?
When did the American government begin building
FEMA camps and what exactly is their purpose?
When did Congress become the rubber stamp
for policies of reading the correspondence and
listening in on the conversations of the American
public? Continue

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Preparing for Civil Unrest in America

Legislation to Establish Internment Camps on US Military Bases

By Michel Chossudovsky

Obama's populist rhetoric conceals the true nature
of macro-economic policy. Acting on behalf of Wall
Street, the administration's economic package,
which includes close to a trillion dollar "aid" package
for the financial services industry, coupled with
massive austerity measures, contributes to
precipitating America into a bottomless crisis.
Continue

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Israel’s American Chattel

By Paul Craig Roberts

How is the United States a superpower when it cannot
appoint the official who oversees the National Intelligence
Estimate without the approval of the Israeli right-wing
government and its American agents? Continue

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Of Patriots and Assassins

By Pat Buchanan

"The tactics of the Israel lobby plumb the depths of
dishonor and indecency and include character assassination,
selective misquotation, the willful distortion of the record,
the fabrication of falsehoods and an utter disregard for
the truth." Continue

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How To Destroy the Government in Three Easy Steps

By Joe Brewer

Here's your very own how-to manual for getting Big
Government out of the way so you and your buddies
can horde all the wealth to yourselves and build your
empire.. Continue

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The Parable of the Shopping Mall

By Alexander Cockburn

The savage reverses for capitalism, the gaping wounds
in its pretensions, comprise the single most salient
feature in the world today. Whether in the collapse in
the western banking system, the agonies of post-Soviet
economies like the Baltic and Eastern European Republics,
the rubble of Indian neo-liberal policies, the economic
mantras of an entire generation are going up in smoke.
For the left it should be a time of unrivalled opportunity.
Continue

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The Failed Presidency of Barack Obama

By TA Frank

How the president's timid response to the economic
crisis failed to capture America's populist outrage.
Continue

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Those Hit Hardest Get No Bailout

By Amy Goodman

Obama has surrounded himself with financial advisers
who are too cozy with Wall Street, like Summers and
Geithner. It's time to direct the stimulus to the people
who need it, to those whose tax dollars are funding it.
Continue

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Will He Sell Himself Into His Own Defeat?

Obama and the Empire

By Bill and Kathleen Christison

There are indeed forces in both the United States
and Israel that want a clash of civilizations and are
definitely not against further wars, and these forces
are powerful. Obviously, the first nation to be
affected by implementation of this scenario would
be Iran. Continue

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The TALFBernanke's Witness Protection Program

By Mike Whitney

The TALF and the "Public-Private Partnership" are
another slap in the face of the international community.
They violate the spirit and the letter of the G-20
communique. It will be interesting to see if foreign
holders of US Treasurys endure this latest insult in
silence or if there's a sudden stampede for the exits.
There's a sense that the world is getting fed up with
the Fed's financial chicanery and would like to chart
a different course. Enough is enough. Continue

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The Financial Sector: "A House Burning Down"

Ben Bernanke’s False Analogy

By Prof. Michael Hudson

The bottom line is that the American public is being
fed a carefully crafted mythology (no doubt "market
tested" on "response groups" to see which images
fly best) to mislead the American public into
misunderstanding the nature of today’s financial
problem – to mislead it in such a way that today’s
policies will make sense and gain voter support.
Continue

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“Capitalism’s Self-Inflicted Apocalypse”

By Michael Parenti

The free market does not work. It’s not free. It’s
not really a market; it’s a plunder. And it has
to be done away with. Continue

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How The World Pimps America

How the US is shifting the financial crisis onto
the rest of the world

By Pepe Escobar

The US Treasury will borrow no less than one trillion
dollars from the developing world in 2009. It will
need even more in 2010. Pepe Escobar argues
the US is indeed in a privileged position: not only
it unleashes a global financial crisis, it then sucks
up money from all over the world, based on the
fact that the US in fact remains the "manager" of
choice of global capitalism. Continue

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Seven Avoidance Indicators

By Ralph Nader

If the Obamites do not act now when the political
time is ripest, to put into motion forces of
deterrence and prevention, the casino capitalists
of tomorrow will again be able to de-stabilize our
economy. Continue

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Obama's Economic Saviour Savaged as Keating Lets Rip

By Peter Hartcher

In sum, Tim Geithner is a gigantic fool, the IMF
the gun that can't shoot straight, Alan Greenspan
a bungler. The big US banks were run by the greedy
and the hopeless, the Australian banks by counterhopping
clerks. It's a world of many villains. And only one hero.
Continue

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Dollar Crisis In The Making

Before the stampede

By W Joseph Stroupe

Increasingly ominous clouds are gathering in what
could soon be the perfect storm against the United
States dollar and against the present dollar-centric
global financial order. Continue

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The US Is Facing a Weimar Moment

By Robert Freeman

The devastating collapse of the economy after
eight years of Republican rule has left the leadership,
policies, and ideology of the right utterly discredited.
But, as was the case with Germany in 1919,
Republicans do not intend to allow the new government
to succeed. They will do everything they can to
undermine it. If they are successful, the U.S. may
yet go the way of Weimar Germany. Continue

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Obama's No Socialist. I Should Know.

By Billy Wharton

Socialists know that Barack Obama is not one of
us. Not only is he not a socialist, he may in fact not
even be a liberal. Socialists understand him more
as a hedge-fund Democrat -- one of a generation
of neoliberal politicians firmly committed to free-
market policies. Continue

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Obedience to Authority in America

A Different Kind of Revolution:

By Mike Whitney

We're at war, and the enemy is not the government
per se, but the super-rich corporatists that run the
government and who prevent the economy from
serving human needs. Continue

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The American Rome Is Burning

So Let's Attack Iran

By Eric S. Margolis

Compared to America's titanic economic and financial
mess, whatever goes on in Tehran is of pipsqueak
magnitude. The real danger to America comes from
its Wall Street fraudsters, not from Tehran. Continue

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Homeless Tent Cities Springing Up In US

NBC News Reports

In Sacramento, California, tent cities populated by
the recently homeless have begun springing up in
a scene reminscent of the Hoover ear. This is yet
another sign og bad economic times, and reflects
the need for change, not based on ideology, but
on the practical needs of the people. Continue

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Exposed Cheney Assassination Squads

By Eric Black

MSNBC reported that Seymour Hersh has uncovered
evidence that Vice President Cheney operated secret
assassination squads out of the White House by using
military personnel without the knowledge of the CIA.
Continue

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The War is Not Over

By John Ross

The first step in this charade of false closure is
Obama's drawdown. The next is to make the citizens
of the occupying power forget Iraq ever happened -
a brainwashing that has been in process since the
success" of Bush's "surge." One problem though: how
do you brainwash the brain dead? Continue

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Haircut Time For Bondholders

By Mike Whitney

When George Soros recently said that the financial
system had "effectively disintegrated", it caused quite
a flap. But Soros was not exaggerating. The financial
system has disintegrated. What we are experiencing
now is just the fallout from that event. Continue

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Reforming the Global Financial System

Flushing the Parasites

By Nikki Alexander

Why rob just one bank when you can rob the whole
nation? And why rob just one country when you
can rob them all? Flushing the global economy of
this systemic parasite begins with understanding
how its debilitating web of debt is manufactured.
Continue

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The American Criminal Injustice System

By Paul Craig Roberts

The US has the highest incarceration rate and
the biggest prison population of any country in the
world. With 5 percent of the world’s population,
the US has 25 percent of the world’s prison inmates.
Continue

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Imagine

By Ron Paul

Imagine for a moment that somewhere in the
middle of Texas there was a large foreign military
base, say Chinese or Russian. Imagine that thousands
of armed foreign troops were constantly patrolling
American streets in military vehicles. Imagine they
were here under the auspices of “keeping us safe”
or “promoting democracy” or “protecting their
strategic interests.” Continue

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US Recession Could Last Up to 36 Months: Roubini

By Jane Wells

The man who predicted the current financial crisis
said the US recession could drag on for years
without drastic action. Among his solutions: fix
the housing market by breaking "every mortgage
contract." Continue

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Dmitry Orlov: Social Collapse Best Practices

Video and Transcript

The mid-1990s all sorts of silly things were happening.
Professor Fukuyama told us that history had ended,
and so we were building a brave new world where the
Chinese made things out of plastic for us, the Indians
provided customer support when these Chinese-made
things broke, and we paid for it all just by flipping
houses, pretending that they were worth a lot of money
whereas they are really just useless bits of ticky-tacky.
Continue

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Debt Relief and Regulation

By Mike Whitney

Confidence is not built on inspiring oratory or personal
charisma, but concrete actions to reestablish a rules-
based system that penalizes crooks and fraudsters.
Recovery isn't possible without a strong commitment
to these basic changes. Continue

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This Is What A Financial Collapse Looks Like

Argentina's Economic Collapse Video

Documentary on the events that led to the economic
collapse of Argentina in 2001 which wiped out the
middle class and raised the level of poverty to 57.5%.
Central to the collapse was the implementation of
neo-liberal policies which enabled the swindle of
billions of dollars by foreign banks and corporations.
Continue

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The U.S. Financial System Is Effectively Insolvent

There is a grave risk of a global L-shaped depression.

By Nouriel Roubini

Even with the $2 trillion of government support, most
of these financial institutions are insolvent, as delinquency
and charge-off rates are now rising at a rate--given the
macro outlook--that means expected credit losses for
U.S. financial firms will peak at $3.6 trillion. So, in simple
words, the U.S. financial system is effectively insolvent.
Continue

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The Big Dither

By Paul Krugman

Mr. Obama's failure to match his words with deeds.
The reality is that when it comes to dealing with
the banks, the Obama administration is dithering.
Policy is stuck in a holding pattern. Continue

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Smart Is The New Stupid

By David Michael Green

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Late Night Political Jokes - Late Night Jokes Updated Daily

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY NOVELIST F. SCOTT SINCLAIR

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A CONVENIENT (I HOPE) TABLE OF CONTENTS OF
F. SCOTT SINCLAIR'S NOVELS

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And last, but not least: George Carlin videos. Check them out...!

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A TRIBUTE TO ROBERT LUDLUM BY F. SCOTT SINCLAIR

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Sunday, March 08, 2009

LOVING KINDNESS: THAI STYLE. LOVE BEYOND THE LIMITATION OF WORDS TO SHOW RESPECT TO THOSE WHO HAVE JOURNEYED THROUGH LIFE BEFORE US: OUR ANCESTORS



Copyright (C) 2009 by F. Scott Sinclair. All Rights Reserved. Click on the picture if you would like to enlarge it.

Thailand is predominantly a Buddhist country, and as you can see by the miniature Buddhist shrine, foreigners and Thais alike love Buddhism immensely. Thais (and foreigners) commemorate the lives of the dearly departed: their ancestors and beloved ones who've left planet earth to embark on a new journey, to the hereafter. Yearly, a special ceremony is done out of love, and respect for the departed, whereby monks perform an annual ceremony to pray for the souls of their ancestors. To respect the departed is a lovely jesture and maintains the family link between the living and the deceased. Loving kindness, that it is... Amen.

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