Progressive Calendar 08.19.06 | <– Date –> <– Thread –> |
From: David Shove (shove001tc.umn.edu) | |
Date: Sat, 19 Aug 2006 02:47:47 -0700 (PDT) |
P R O G R E S S I V E C A L E N D A R 08.19.06 1. Haiti justice 8.19 9am 2. MiddleEast panel 8.19 9:30am 3. Bohemian Flats 8.19 12noon 4. Kip Sullivan - Senator Berglin continues to oppose single-payer 5. Ralph Nader - An open letter to George W Bush on Lebanon 6. David Sirota - Lieberman attacks progressives 7. almartinraw - Bush-Cheney regime prepares US for a bleak future --------1 of 7-------- From: Charles Underwood <charleyunderwood [at] hotmail.com> Subject: Haiti justice 8.19 9am Saturday, 8/19, 9 to 11 am, meeting. Haiti Justice Committee, 3148 - 29th Ave S, Mpls. biego001 [at] umn.ecu --------2 of 7-------- From: Lydia Howell <lhowell [at] visi.com> Subject: MiddleEast panel 8.19 9:30am What is going on in Israel, Lebanon, Iran and Palestine, and Why? Saturday, August 19, 9:30am to Noon Hennepin County Southdale Library, 7001 York Avenue South, Edina. View 20 minutes of the C-Span interview with John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt about their paper on the Israel Lobby and its effects on U.S. foreign policy. Panelists Nasrin Jewell, Rabi'h Nahas and Dominique Najjar will discuss the paper's conclusion that U.S. foreign policy often acts contrary to the U.S. (and Israel's) best interests, due to the lobby, and relate that to what is going on in their native countries now. Nasrin Jewell, a native of Iran, is Professor of Economics at the College of St. Catherine. She has authored articles on the Global Economy, the New World Order, and Women and Work. Rabi'h Nahas, a native of Lebanon, lived in Beirut through most of the civil war. He is a clinical pharmacist who has lived in the Midwest as long as he lived in Lebanon. Dominique Najjar was born and raised in Jerusalem. For twenty years he has worked with the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, and has served on that board and the board of Middle East Peace Now. Dominique is a VP and CFO for Cherne Contracting Corporation. Sponsored by: Middle East Peace Now (MEPN). FFI: 651-696-1642. --------3 of 7-------- From: North Country Co-op <northcountrycoop [at] yahoo.com> Subject: Bohemian Flats 8.19 12noon BOHEMIAN FLATS DAY, Sat., August 19, 12noon-5pm, Free of charge; food available for purchase (brats and sauerkraut), The 2nd Annual Bohemian Flats Day will be celebrated on the historic site of the old Bohemian Flats. In the area on the West Bank beneath the Washington Avenue Bridge many immigrants thrived from the early 1860s to 1932. The West Bank was home to a large immigrant workforce, making the area popular for labor rallies and other events. The Immigrant History Research Center, overlooking the site, holds records of these immigrants organizing efforts, including record of a radical labor college started by Finnish immigrants. This event is being organized by an independent group, but is included in this schedule in solidarity. --------4 of 7-------- Senator Berglin continues to oppose single-payer From: Kip Sullivan <kiprs [at] usinternet.com> Southside Pride, June 2006, 1 Senator Linda Berglin has long differed on health policy issues with many other Democrats, including the two state representatives from her senate district. For the past 16 years Berglin has been the state's leading proponent of HMOs as the solution to the health care crisis and one of the state's most influential opponents of the single-payer movement. In the 1990s she opposed single-payer legislation authored by Representative Karen Clark, a Democrat from within her own district. Today Berglin opposes legislation to remove HMOs from MinnesotaCare and Medical Assistance authored by Representative Neva Walker who represents the other half of Berglin's constituents. Berglin's opposition to single-payer and her support for "managed care" (which refers to the tactics HMOs pioneered to keep health care costs down) also puts her at odds with public opinion. Polling data indicate the public has never been happy with managed care, and surveys and focus group research indicate substantial majorities support a single-payer system. Berglin's efforts to improve access to health care are well known. She played a leading role in enacting MinnesotaCare, the program that offers subsidized health insurance to working families who don't qualify for Medical Assistance. In 2005 she led the fight to defeat Governor Tim Pawlenty's proposal to cut 40,000 people from MinnesotaCare. But Berglin's role in promoting HMOs and opposing single-payer legislation has received very little media attention. One of the exceptions was a report in the Star Tribune on February 12, 1993 about a press conference held the day before by a half-dozen legislators including Representative Karen Clark. The press conference was called by Clark and Senator Sandy Pappas (DFL-St. Paul) to announce that they were introducing single-payer legislation. They were joined by several other legislators who supported single-payer and opposed the pro-managed-care bill that Senator Berglin was carrying. The 1993 Star Tribune article quoted Senator Pappas stating that single-payer was "the only way to get at administrative cost," and Senator Doug Johnson (formerly DFL-Cook and chairman of the Senate Tax Committee) criticizing Berglin's managed-care bill for not containing "strong, tough cost containment." Berglin, who did not sign on to the single-payer bill, was quoted saying she thought her bill would contain cost. She was also quoted saying the Legislature had already decided to go down the managed care "road" and could not switch to single-payer now ("Single-payer health system proposed," Star Tribune, 1B). An article in the August 1995 edition of the Southside Pride also reported on the split between Berglin and some of her Minneapolis DFL colleagues. Under the headline, "Exactly what health care issues did Sen. Berglin support?" the article explored the conflict between Berglin and the single-payer movement that had sharpened due to Berglin's hostility to the Clark-Pappas single-payer bill and several other bills introduced at the request of the Health Care Campaign of Minnesota (HCCM), a coalition of 30 organizations that led the campaign for single-payer in the 1990s. Although Berglin had made numerous statements in the Senate indicating she opposed single-payer, her comments to the Southside Pride revealed how reluctant she was to state to a newspaper that she opposed Karen Clark's single-payer bill. She stated, for example, "It is true that I have chosen not to push single payer the way Paul Wellstone has at the federal level. .. The reason is because it is not feasible to get it through [the Legislature] and get it signed [by the governor].. If you want to criticize me for not being a champion of the single-payer bill, that would be a correct criticism." The implication of this remark is that Berglin did support single-payer, but simply chose not to give it a high priority. That was not the case. Berglin's opposition to single-payer and her support of HMOs has not diminished over the years. In the recently completed 2006 legislative session she opposed a bill to remove HMOs from MinnesotaCare, Medical Assistance, and General Assistance Medical Care. (Under Berglin's leadership, those three programs had been gradually privatized, that is, turned over to HMOs, during the 1990s.) Single-payer systems save great sums of money by cutting out the administrative costs generated by insurance companies. Cutting the HMOs out of the three state programs will cut the costs of these programs (by at least ten percent) in the identical fashion. It is hard to understand how someone who promoted the takeover of the state's health insurance programs by HMOs, and who now opposes removing HMOs from those programs, can claim to be a single-payer supporter. Berglin's opposition to single-payer is beginning to upset some of her constituents. At the Senate District 61 convention earlier this year, Berglin was not the only candidate nominated. A second candidate, Brian Harmon, was nominated for the sole purpose of delivering a message to Berglin. In his acceptance speech, Mr. Harmon praised Berglin for the progressive legislation she has supported over the years, but criticized her for her opposition to single-payer. Then he withdrew from the race and sat down. The message was clear. Democrats in Berglin's district will no longer ignore her role in obstructing debate about single-payer in the Minnesota Senate. Kip Sullivan is a member of the steering committee of the Minnesota Universal Health Care Coalition, which represents 12 organizations. He is the author of more than 100 articles about health policy, and of a new book entitled The Health Care Mess, available at Amazon Books, Mayday Books, and Orr Books in Minneapolis, and from authorhouse.com. From 1980 to 2000, he was an organizer with Minnesota COACT (Citizens Organized Acting Together). --------5 of 7-------- An Open Letter to George W. Bush on Lebanon Telling the Israelis to "Take Your Time" By RALPH NADER The widespread destruction of a defenseless Lebanon-its civilians, its life-sustaining public services, its environment-is a grim and indelible testament to your consummate cruelty and ignorance. Nearly two weeks ago when your tardy Secretary of State met with the Israeli Prime Minister, the message she carried was summarized in a large headline across page one of an Israeli newspaper, "TAKE YOUR TIME." Yes, take your time, says George W. Bush, pulverizing fleeing refugees in cars full of families, bombing apartment buildings, hospitals and the poor huddled in large south Beirut slums. Take your time, says George W. Bush, in destroying bridges, roads, gasoline stations, airports, seaports, wheat silos, vehicles with medical supplies, clearly marked ambulances taking the wounded to clinics, even a milk factory . Take your time, says George W. Bush, while shelters are demolished with bodies of little children together with their mothers and fathers buried in the rubble. Take your time, says George W. Bush, while the number of fleeing refugees nears one million Lebanese, many exposed to hunger, disease, lack of potable water and medicines. All this in a country friendly to the United States, which played by your rules, protested the Syrian army back into Syria and was trying democratically to put itself together. Take your time, says George W. Bush, while he speeds more supplies of precision missiles containing deadly anti-personnel cluster bombs which will claim the lives of innocent children for years into the future. The phosphorous bombs laying waste to fields growing crops and horribly burning innocents come from the U.S.A. under your direction. Do you think the taxpayers of America would approve of such shipped weapons were they ever asked? Are there words in the English language suitable for the impeachable serial war crimes you are intimately involved in committing not only in Iraq but also now through your encouragement and supplying of the once again invading Israeli government? Are there words to describe your strategic stupidity which will further increase opposition and peril to the United States around the world and especially in the Middle East? Your own Generals and former CIA Director, Porter Goss, among others in your Administration, have declared that your occupation of Iraq is a magnet attracting the recruiting and training of more and more "terrorists" from Iraq and other countries. And so now this will be the case in Lebanon. All this is a growing "blowback," to use the CIA word for a boomeranging foreign policy, that is endangering the security of the United States. The calibrated Israeli terror bombing of Lebanon comes in three stages. With its electronic pinpoint precision bombing and artillery, the Israeli government goes after civilians, their homes, cities, towns and villages. Then after telling some to abandon their neighborhoods, it cuts population centers off from each other by destroying transportation facilities into and inside Lebanon, making both refugee flight and delivery of emergency relief efforts either impossible or very difficult. Then its planes, tanks and artillery endanger or destroy what food, water and relief efforts manage to get through to the injured and dying. Warehouse food supplies are incinerated. About four hundred small fishing boats north of Beirut on the oil-polluted coastline were demolished as well. All the above mayhem and much more have been reported in the U.S., European, Lebanese and Israeli media. The bulk of the fatalities in Lebanon have been civilians. The bulk of the fatalities on the Israeli side have been soldiers. Very fortunately for the Israelis, the Hezbollah rockets are very inaccurate, the vast majority falling harmlessly. Unfortunately for the Lebanese, the precision American armaments of the Israelis are very accurate, which serves to account for why the total casualties and physical destruction are 100 times greater in Lebanon than in Israel. Most of these accurate munitions come from your decision to send them. Knowing they will be used for offensive purposes, including the lethal demolition of a long-established UN compound, in violation of the Arms Export Control Act which you have sworn to uphold, places the responsibility of being a domestic law breaker squarely on your shoulders. There is another law that is not being enforced-the Humanitarian Aid Corridor Act of 1996 sponsored by then Republican Senator Robert Dole. Foreign aid is supposed to be cut off to any nation that obstructs the provision of humanitarian aid to another country. As one example, press reports that two tankers, each with 30,000 tons of diesel fuel critical for operating Lebanese hospitals and water pumping stations, are idling in Cyprus from fear of the totally dominant Israeli navy and air force. There are only a few days left of fuel in Lebanon, which is heading for a larger wave of secondary casualties. They and other critical suppliers need safe passage which the U.S. Navy in the area can readily provide, should it receive orders from the Commander in Chief. You heard high Israeli officials accurately say on the day the massive bombing of Lebanon began, followed not preceded by Hezbollah rockets, that "nothing in Lebanon is safe." That huge over-reaction to the recent Hezbollah border raid, in addition to many more previous air, sea and land border violations by the Israeli government, certainly put you on public notice. Since you view yourself as a reborn Christian, and since you have the power to stop the Israeli state terror assaults on Lebanon, you may wish to reflect on Leviticus 19:16 "Neither shalt thou stand idly by the blood of thy neighbor." Lebanon was a friendly country to you and you have stood by not just idly, but willfully aiding and abetting its devastation. --------6 of 7-------- Lieberman attacks progressives David Sirota 8.14.06 De Facto GOP Nominee Joe Lieberman Connecticut's Manchester Journal Inquirer reports that Sen. Joe Lieberman (De Facto R) today unleashed a vicious attack on Vermont Independent Congressman Bernie Sanders - a longtime progressive hero and the leading candidate to keep Vermont's U.S. Senate seat out of GOP hands. According to the newspaper, the Lieberman campaign sent out an official email attacking, among others, Sanders and Markos Moulitsas Zuniga, founder of DailyKos. Apparently, this kind of sick smear game is Lieberman's twisted definition of "bringing us together to get things done." >From now on, I am going to be referring to Joe Lieberman as De Facto GOP Nominee Joe Lieberman and I urge everyone else covering this race to do so in the interest not of partisanship, but out of respect for objective accuracy. Over the last few days, it's very clear that is what Joe is. RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman is refusing to endorse the actual GOP nominee in Connecticut, and is instead heaping praise on Lieberman. Same thing for the White House which is also refusing to endorse the actual GOP nominee in Connecticut. Lieberman has been telephoned with a supportive call from Karl Rove GOP candidates accross the country are rallying to endorse him and a Swift Boat Vets-ish front-group run by neocon leader William Kristol and Bush Iraq War spokesman Dan Senor is beginning to air ads on behalf of Lieberman. Meanwhile, Joe is parroting Vice President Cheney's talking points overtly implying that Connecticut voters are Al Qaeda sympathizers, and now attacking leading U.S . Senate candidates necessary to win back the Senate for Democrats. But even if you don't believe Lieberman is the De Facto GOP Nominee in Connecticut from all of that, consider this new MSNBC story about GOP donors rallying to fund Lieberman's general election campaign *"Quite willing to speak was Bruce Bialosky, a leading Republican donor in California, who said he will raise more than $10,000 for Lieberman....On Tuesday night, once Lamont had defeated Lieberman, Bialosky sent an e-mail to the 2,000 people on his political list 'expressing my despair over Lieberman's loss in the primary' and making it clear he'd raise money for Lieberman's independent bid. 'I've never seen such a tremendous response' from his list, Bialosky said...A Republican campaign fund-raiser based in Washington, who spoke on condition that he not be identified by name, said, 'There's a definite sense among a significant number of the Republicans who I deal with that Joe Lieberman is a man of principle and a man we should support.' This fund-raiser said he'll contribute money to Lieberman's campaign and raise money for him." * This comes on top of the fact that, according to MSNBC, "a number of corporate PACs, such as the National Beer Wholesalers' PAC, have already given Lieberman the maximum amount permitted." My favorite in the MSNBC story is the one supportive Democratic fundraiser, Mitchell Berger, who said he's supporting Lieberman because "He did a fundraiser for the Florida Democratic Party two years ago and raised a million dollars." Berger didn't mention that Lieberman also headed down to Florida just weeks before the 2004 election, stood before Jewish audiences, attacked Sen. John Kerry (D) and praised President Bush (R) on Israel issues - landing a big story in a major Florida newspaper just before the vote. Wow, what a loyal Democrat, huh? But then, that's why Joe Lieberman is De Facto GOP Nominee Joe Lieberman: because he and his friends like New Republic editor Marty Peretz who refuse to openly support the idea of Democrats winning Congress are really very angry, very hard core Republicans - and the Republican Party's Big Money establishment knows it. Posted by David Sirota at 4:06 PM | Link --------7 of 7-------- Bush-Cheney Regime Prepares U.S. for a Bleak Future http://www.almartinraw.com/public/column269.html (7-31-06) The Bush-Cheney Regime has been transitioning the nation from a democracy to a dictatorship, using PATRIOT Act legislation and gradually usurping the constitutional guarantees and protections of citizens. It should be noted that the Regime has also drawn up a plan to transition the nation from a First World nation into a Third World nation. These two transitions classically go hand in hand, by the way, and that shouldn't come as any surprise to anybody, since dictatorships that used to be democracies are created when the economies of these democratic nation-states collapse. Of course, who better to draw up a master plan, as it were, for this transition from a First to a Third World nation-state than that regime whose economic policies are causing the decline of the American empire in the first place. So what does this portend for the U.S.? As has been mentioned before, the Office of Emergency Management has been separated from FEMA and put directly under the Department of Homeland Security. Furthermore, a lot of people don't know that the Office of Emergency Management's powers and scope have been substantially broadened since 2003, since this would be necessary for a regime planning and preparing to transition the nation from a First to Third World status. You need a super-government agency, which the OEM really has become, that can control the nation's diminishing resources, both nonrenewable and semi-renewable, as we have seen the printing of rationing cards for food and fuel already. We would also point out that these plans go much further than what we have discussed before and that, indeed, the Office of Emergency Management is conducting test programs across the country in concert with local utility companies, using their PATRIOT Act powers, wherein they have told utility companies to institute sudden power outages and roving brownouts and to blame it on other, more mundane, phenomena. The point of this is to gauge people's response to suddenly having the power go off and being without power for a number of hours for instance. In a sense it is psychological testing to see how the people respond to more frequent power outages that they are being given a variety of excuses for occurring. These power outages can be from 4 to 6 hours, which would be a typical brownout period. The reason it's convenient now is the record heat. That gets used for brownout excuses, as well as variety of natural disasters and unusual weather conditions the nation has experienced in the last 12 weeks. These will be used as the reason for sudden power outages. Other excuses are being used by utilities such as -- Well, a cable was pierced by the telephone company. These are innocuous sounding excuses. But they want to see how the people react to increased frequencies without power temporarily. In the second decade of the post-economically collapsed America, not only will production of food and potable water fall, but production of utility output is also going to fall. The reason why that always happens, by the way, in a collapsed state, is because the company, the utility or, to speak in a larger context, the nation-state no longer has the financial resources to import all of its energy needs. Remember -- under this regime, we have actually increased our foreign importation of oil and hydrocarbon fuels. For instance, when the Bush Cheney Regime took power, we were importing 58% of our energy needs. Now we are importing 62% of our energy needs. And this has been done, in part, to increase oil prices and to further enhance and consolidate wealth within the United States. To take this further, the OEM has worked with water utility companies to reduce water pressure or reduce water volume or to temporarily shut down water systems for short periods of time -- also to see how citizens would react to them. The OEM has also received a great deal of cooperation from several of the nation's large grocery store chains, wherein the grocery store chains, on whatever day of the week they restock, are not restocking items fully, on a revolving basis, or they are leaving certain items off the shelves, not stocked, in other words, even though they have them. The reason this is being done is, once again, to assess people's reaction to it. Thus far, the OEM seems to be quite pleased. In America, a land that is still very much mired in the fear, ignorance, prejudice and intolerance of the 1950s, when people wanted to believe government (and the majority still do), this has not caused a great deal of stress or distress. It has not caused any civil unrest anywhere. The people's reaction to it has been, "Oh, well, it's just another problem." The American Psychiatric Institute pointed this out in a survey they did with the Kaiser Family Foundation. They didn't ask -- "since the installation of the Bush Cheney regime." They simply asked: "In the last 5 years, have you seen a noticeable decline in service quality at stores and at your vendors? Do you have to wait longer in lines? Have you seen increased computer problems, increased power outages, your pharmacy being out of drugs that you normally buy? Etc." And, yes, people are cognizant of this. But it happens gradually enough so that it hasn't become a problem yet. The reason it hasn't become a problem is because the majority of citizens believe that the United States could never become a Uganda, despite the fact, as we have reported before and as the IMF has reported, our GDP-to-debt ratio is higher than that of Uganda. The reason why people don't believe, by the way, that the United States could become a Third World nation-state bespeaks of the Bush Cheney Regime's greatest ally: ignorance of economics. You see how Gallup Harris polling organization will consistently point to that, which we have pointed to before, that, over decades, there has been almost no change, at 18%, in the number of people that actually understand the temerity of ever-increasing government debt and budget deficits -- not only the long-term fiscal corrosion it causes but how that fiscal corrosion eventually translates, as it does in all nations that are going down the ladder from First to Second to Third World nations, where long-term fiscal corrosion eventually causes deterioration in a nation's underlying industrial/ economic infrastructure, as has happened in this nation since the 1980s. We have pointed out the so-called gap in federal and state spending necessary for the maintenance of infrastructure -- that there was more than a $500-billion deficit in necessary infrastructure spending from 1984 to 1992. Now under the current regime, there has been a $350-billion gap so far in public infrastructure spending. This is in essence the "Third World-ization" to coin a phrase, of America. This has led to statistics that people are generally familiar with. For instance, there has not been a new oil refinery built in this country in 30 years. There has been no expansion of energy transmission systems in the nation in 25 years. We now have a telecommunications system that, in some cases, is as much as 20 years behind that of other First World nation-states. We have utility companies, particularly coal-burning power plants, which have not been modernized in more than 50 years, and we have a rail system now that has not been really modernized since the 1960s. We have internal water transportation systems, of canals, for instance, that have become inoperable. A good special on the Discovery Channel explained how the inter-coastal waterway now has become inoperable in terms of being able to handle commerce. What is the temerity of fiscal corrosion caused by ever-growing debt and budget deficits? It forces down necessary expenditures on infrastructure maintenance and repair, as debt service consumes an ever-rising percentage of governmental budgets at all levels -- municipal, county, state and federal. This is not just the federal government. Remember the aggregate public debt of the nation's states, counties and municipalities has doubled under this regime. Doubled. It is an increase of more than $3 trillion. We are also seeing this deterioration in public pension systems, which has now bled into corporate pension systems, record aggregate accumulated deficits, actuarial deficits within the nation's corporate pension plans, more than $3-trillion deficits. We also now have more than a $9-trillion future deficit in the nation's public, i.e., municipal, county, state and federal, pension systems. The situation is becoming increasingly dire. And the regime is, correctly, in my opinion, instituting a long-range plan to prepare the nation for the decline of the American Empire, something that the regime has largely been able to hide from the people thus far. Now with the speculative bubble in housing unwinding, with consumer indebtedness at record levels, and with real wages now beginning to fall, the consequences of the fiscal corrosion that Bushonomics represents, and how that plays out in the lives of average citizens, cannot be hidden much longer. This then is the impetus for the regime to institute various plans to prepare the nation for the inevitable consequences of Bushonomics and all that it has caused. One way to do that is to put reality in the face of the people when it comes to public infrastructure deterioration, which is a direct symptom of fiscal corrosion of Bushonomics. And there will undoubtedly be more to come. The regime is now trying to push PATRIOT III. There will be more losses to the people of what few constitutional guarantees and protections they have remaining. Indeed, as the World Court and as the United Nations has pointed out, it would not be possible for American citizens to lose many more of their constitutional liberties and protections without the United States losing the capacity under both UN and World Court charter to label itself as a democracy. Of course, one of the consequences of that was that the regime pulled out of the World Court very early on, and it also pulled out of the appropriate UN global constitutional council because of it. They knew that they wouldn't be able to meet the criteria of still maintaining a globally lawful entity of a democracy in the United States. The Bush Cheney Regime then is tightening the noose in every direction. It is tightening the noose on owners of gold. It is tightening the noose on citizens of average means' ability to transfer money out of the country. It is tightening the noose on any type of 'seditious speech,' which is now construed to be any type of speech which is critical of the leadership or its policies. It is furthering its plans to prepare citizens for the transition from a First World to a Third World economic state. Expect more gradual deterioration. This will become more noticeable to you if you know what to look for. The signs are all there. Just notice the next time your power goes out, or the next time your water pressure goes down, or next time where there used to be 12 cans of peanuts on the store shelf, there's now only 6. These are small signals. And think to yourself: Do you have to wait in line now? Has service declined? Do you find, when you go to a grocery store or pharmacy where you shop, that more often now they don't have what you always used to buy? Notice how John Negroponte, the National Security Director, has given immunity to many corporations now to essentially cheat the people by discounting corporate accounting altogether. You haven't seen any actions before the Federal Trade Commission for it. You see this on the grocery store shelf. Look at how the 64-ounce or conventional half-gallon orange juice container is now the new 52-ounce "convenient" size at the same price. Look how many times you can see those examples. What used to be 64-ounce containers are now 52-ounces at the same price. Or you see what used to be called a pound of coffee, 16 ounces of drip coffee, is now either 11 or 13 ounces. Chock Full 'O Nuts calls the 13-ounce package a "lighter pound." That's how they advertise it! "Lighter, more convenient pound." At the same price. When you see the words 'better, easier, lighter, less heavy,' you don't have to knock yourself out, because it's "more convenient." This is the psychological aspect. Why do you think we are, of all First World nations, a nation that has the worst state of physical health? Hey, why lift the 16-ounce brick of coffee when you can lift the 13-ounce brick? In conclusion, this is yet another sign that the regime is certainly aware of what its economic policies are doing to the nation. It is also another sign that the regime knows that we are beyond a point of no return -- as US Comptroller General David Walker publicly stated and reiterated what he had said before, that we are effectively beyond the point of no return. But, in the regime's defense, you could say that the regime is acting prudently in beginning to prepare the nation for economic collapse. Indeed, it should be this regime that ought to foster the plans to prepare the nation for economic collapse, since it is most familiar with the nature of that collapse, in that its own economic policies of Bushonomics, i.e. negative debt financed consumption, are leading the United States down that road to a bleak future. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- - David Shove shove001 [at] tc.umn.edu rhymes with clove Progressive Calendar over 2225 subscribers as of 12.19.02 please send all messages in plain text no attachments
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