Wednesday Rants

Ok, too much news and too much anger. Too much for one post, so another from past thoughts and listening to NPR this morning. Ok, it's a rant so you can skip if you want.

First, whiners. When Senator Lindsay Graham called us a nation of whiners I was offended, totally offended by his arrogance and ignorance of the common people who make up this country. Here is a senator who lives above the rest of us, easily in the top 5% and likely the top 1-2% by income. He has little if any experience in the ordiinary lives of common people. He has not right to criticize us when we're just trying to get by and he can simply write a check for whatever he wants or find someone to do things for him.

If he wants to call us whiners, he should live the common life an a middle class neighborhood and an ordinary job at normal wages, paying all the bills we have, and then see if he stil thinks himself a whiner. I doubt he will. And he owes the American people and especially his constituents an apology. Not for the comment, that's too easy, but for his arrogance and ignorance.

John McCain is arguing the surge is working and we winning the war and we should stay until victory is achieved. What doesn't he understand that this may be the case now but the war was then and still is still wrong. We are the cause of the problems in the middle east as we have since the 1950's.

We created Iran's Shah. We supported Hussein's rise to power, keeping him in power and his war against Iran. We supported and still support Saudi Arabia's authoritian government. We support Israel against Egypt, Syria and Jordan. We suppored the Taliban with its war against the then Soviets and the Taliban's rise to power in Afghanistan. We support Pakistan's authoritian government with military aid. We also support several new nations from the former Soviet Union with communist dictators.

What's not to understand we are the center of the problem and we can't get out of this by pretending to wage and win this war? We've spent 5 years bankrupting this country in debt (more below) in a bad war badly mismanaged with over 4,000 dead and ten's of thousand permanent injured and disabled. And that's just our troops. Iraq's death and disabled is at least an order of magnitude higher with millions displaced within and outside Iraq.

The war was sold on lies and you can't spin it into a political victory by hiding or denying it's past. We don't belong there and now we can't leave. Thanks to you. So how much more money will be spent and lives lost or injured?

Second financial institutions. Why are we bailing out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and guarranteeing shareholder the value and profit in their stocks? I listened to the news with Senator Dodd and I don't see it. Congress will let people lose their homes but bail out a losing company? We bailed out Bear-Sterns and now these two? Who's next? Banks?

Well, we now know who's money you like, and it's not ours except to spend our tax dollars for corporations.

Third, McCain and "debt" for domestic programs. But not the war? We'll have over $1 Trillion in debt from his war. And it's all on credit to China and other countries. And you're whining about a few $ Billion for domestic spending? You're the whimp not to stand up for people instead of war and war-profiteers. You're the chump exploiting fear for money to boost your importance and political career.

This isn't a war about terrorism or about fighting terrorists. It's about nation building, something Bush said he wouldn't do, except we know he lied then as he had the Iraq war plans on his desk in 2000. He only needed the reason 9/11 gave him. The war isn't about making America safe, but about promoting a global geopolitical agenda for oil and power. And it was about money, for corporations.

So stop lying to us about the issue of debt.

Fourth, Eastern Europe. While we're claiming to install two missile defense installation in eastern Europe, on the pretense of Iranian missiles which aren't a threat to Europe let alone the US, we opening the door to Russia to deploy military systems and equipment to the western hemisphere. Now Russia announced they're considering deploying bombers capable of carrying nuclear bombs to Cuba. Shades of the Cuban missile crisis.

Gee, thanks George for making us less safe and the world worse. And you're no Kennedy to solve this diplomatically. So drop the plan for the two missile defense installations. They're not needed or wanted, and will only make matters worse.

Ok, I'm done ranting. I'll drink a little less coffee and eat some breakfast now.