digest commentary: FOOLS FOILED IN THE ELECTORAL DANCE OF DECEPTION:
ELECTORAL POLITICS PROVIDES THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE AND PERSONAL POWER IN EXCHANGE FOR LOYALTY TO THE WORLD DOMINATOR #1 SYSTEM.
BUT THE DANCE HAS ANOTHER CRITICAL, LESS OBVIOUS FUNCTION: MOVING A CAPTIVE MOB IN THE DESIRED DIRECTION. RECALL HOW CLINTON'S ADMIN. PUSHED THE DEMOCRAT PARTY EVER FURTHER RIGHT ---INITIATING THE 'IRAQ LIBERATION COMMITTEE", DROPPING BOMBS AND MILLIONS FROM WELFARE ALL TO COOL SAX PSYWAR TUNES? OBAMA - BIDEN DOES THE SAME DANCE, SET-UP BY THE MC CAIN -PALIN FOIL. CHARGES OF 'ANTI-AMERICANISM' & 'SOCIALISM', ETC. HAVE 'DEMANDED' OBAMA'S INCREASINGLY REACTIONARY POSITIONS IN THE NAME OF WINNING. CREATING A FAKE CLASH-OF-OPPOSITES KEEPS FOOLS FOILED AND ENTHRALLED...IN IMPERIALISM.

OBAMA HAS NO PROBLEM DROPPING HIS PHONY ANTIWAR DRAG AFTER WHEN HIS 'ALL-AMERIKAN, NOT BLACK'/ 'NATIONAL DEFENSE' CREDS ARE CONVENIENTLY 'CHALLENGED', SOUNDING MORE HAWKISH THAN BUSH IS ABLE TO THESE DAYS ABOUT 'THE WAR ON TERROR', AFGHANISTAN, 'STANDING UP TO' RUSSIA, NO. KOREA, IRAN . LIKEWISE HIS DECLARATIONS OF ETERNAL FIDELITY TO ISRAEL ARE HELPFULLY PROMPTED BY VAGUE 'QUESTIONS' REGARDING HIS ABSOLUTE ZIONIST LOYALTY, E.G. ANTI-PALESTINIAN LIBERATION. AD NAUSEAM ON EVERY BASIC ISSUE DROWNED IN ENDLESSLY REPEATED DEMAGOGIC SOUND-BITES. A BLACK MAN WHO DECLARES AMERICA IS THE SOLUTION FOR EVERYTHING .... ESPECIALLY RACISM. NEVER HAS AMERIKA HAD A MORE BRILLIANT, TREACHEROUS 'HOUSE NEGRO. AS IT'S CAPITALIST CRISIS 'SOLUTIONS' BEGIN TEARING DOWN THE BAREST MEANS OF SURVIVAL FOR MILLIONS IN THE 'HOMELAND' AS WELL AS WORLDWIDE, WHEN THE U.S. HAS GOOD REASON TO FEAR THAT BLACKS AND ALL THOSE IT GENOCIDALLY OPPRESSED AND EXPLOITED TO BUILD ITS FASCIST EMPIRE, WILL LEAD A REVOLUTIONARY MOVEMENT FOR GENUINE, RADICAL CHANGE ....ENTER UNCLE TOM, BRINGING BACK INTO ITS VOTE-FOR-CHANGE FOLDS MILLIONS ALIENATED, AND AGAINST THE SYSTEM. AND ADDING MAJOR WAR CRIMINAL POWELL WITH SPECIFIC DATES FOR THE 'INTERNATIONAL CRISIS' GUARANTEED BY 'BREAK -IRAQ- INTO-3 PARTS -TO ELIMINATE IT-AND-THE -PROBLEM' BIDEN. A QUICK BUT SHORT FIX COUP DE GRACE.

TRAINED TO NOT THINK CRITICALLY AND TO BELIEVE THAT 'POLITICS' MEANS ELECTORAL REPUBLICAN-DEMOCRAT, FEW QUESTION OR DARE THINK OUTSIDE THE PROSCRIBED BOXES WHICH IMPRISON THEM AND SECURE U.S. CAPITALISM. REGARDLESS OF ELECTORAL IDENTIFICATION, CAPITALIST POLITICIANS REPRESENT AND SERVE THE RULING CLASS' NATIONAL SECURITY AGENDA. PERIOD.

CLASS-RACE PRIVILEGED, HIGHLY EDUCATED LIBERALS, WALLOWING IN SMUG CONTEMPT FOR THE WELL-STAGED, EASY-PICKINGS PALIN, PRETEND THEIR CAUSE IS A MIGHTY FIGHT AGAINST IGNORANT FASCISTS. SHUTTING THEIR EARS AND EYES TO THE EVIDENCE SMACKING THEM IN THE FACE TO KEEP THE FAITH IN A CAREFULLY SELECTED 'PROGRESSIVE' IMPERIALIST EXECUTOR AND HIS APPOINTED STATE TERRORIST ADVISORS. 'CHANGE' THAT RELIEVES LIBERAL GUILT-BY-AMERICA-ASSOCIATION, WITHOUT ROCKING THE CAPITALIST SHIP OF STATE.

LIBERALS PREFER NOT TO NOTICE THAT OBAMA & CO. ARE SILENT ABOUT THE NEW U.S. WAR MOVES HE HAS UNDOUBTEDLY BEEN PRIVY TO, WHICH HE WILL BE 'LEADING' : UNPROVOKED, CRIMINAL ATTACKS ON SYRIA, PAKISTAN AND SYRIA UNDER BUSH ADMIN. "EXPANDED DEFINITIONS" THAT TRANSFORM U.S. AGGRESSION INTO SELF-DEFENSE AGAINST "FOREIGN FIGHTERS" IN SOVEREIGN NATIONS IT AND/OR ITS PROXIES INVADE AND OCCUPY.

WHY, A SANE PERSON MUST ASK, DO THE NEW 'CHANGE' ARTISTS NOT OPPOSE MOVES DIGGING DEEPER RUTS IN THE SAME DEADEND ROAD? SIMPLY BECAUSE IT'S IMPERIALISM'S INHERENT VICIOUS CIRCLE NATURE: CAPITAL MUST EXPAND OR DIE, CONQUER ALL MAJOR RIVALS AND RESISTANCE TO MAXIMIZE CAPITAL ACCUMULATION GLOBALLY. ADVANCING ITS AGENDA FOR GLOBAL SUPREMACY UNDER THE GUISE OF A 'WAR ON TERROR' IS THE ONLY WAY OUT OF THE HORRIFIC MESS IT MADE, EVEN AS IT SETS UP THE NEXT DEADLY ROUND UNDER 'EXPANDED DEFINITIONS'. CAPITALISM CANNOT CHANGE ITS NATURE, MERELY THE FACES & TACTICS IT EMPLOYS TO CONTINUE DOING MORE OF THE SAME WORLD-DESTRUCTION.

MOST OF THE WORLD'S PEOPLES KNOW FROM DIRECT EXPERIENCE THAT THE SOURCE OF THEIR NIGHTMARE IS NEVER THE SOLUTION. NOT ONLY DO WE ARROGANTLY ENJOY THE BLOODY CRUMBS OF THIS COUNTRY'S HISTORICAL AND CURRENT FASCIST CRIMES, WE ALLOW OURSELVES TO BE CHAINED TO THIS DEADLY, ANACHRONISTIC SYSTEM BY ITS TRULY DEADLY ELECTORAL TRAP TO SAVE DESTROYER SYSTEM VOTED WORLD ENEMY #1 ----- NOT CHANGE IT.

DEFINED BY 'ALL THE NEWS THAT'S FIT TO PRINT' NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/
#
Politics
* Candidates Make Their Final Push on Reshaped Map
* Obama-Inspired Black Voters Warm to Politics
* Sheepish, Proud or Set to Flip a Coin, They’re Still Undecided

#
U.S.
* Candidates Make Their Final Push on Reshaped Map
* Candidates Zigzag Across Country as Vote Looms
* Obama-Inspired Black Voters Warm to Politics

doing his job for the master...
Obama-Inspired Black Voters Warm to Politics
Many blacks who have been disaffected, apolitical, discouraged or just bored with politics have snapped to attention this year.... likely to be a level of black participation in the electoral process that is higher than ever before. If sustained, some of those interviewed said, it might also translate into a reinvigorated sprit of democracy in some communities where it has been long dormant.
[TRANSLATION: help avoid the rise of revolutionary struggle again against genocidal state terror's racist national oppression, impoverishment, 'justifiable homicides' and Katrinas]
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/us/politics/02first.html?th&emc=th

An Obama Presidency: More of the Same - Only Worse (Part 1)
Keeping it Real
By Larry Pinkney
http://blackcommentator.blogspot.com/search/label/Larry%20Pinkney%20-%20...
If the masses of people in this nation knew or had known the pertinent facts pertaining to the war mongering “we can fight the war better,” pro-apartheid Zionist, corporate Wall Street-backed, slippery tongued Barack Obama, it is doubtful they would have been so thoroughly bamboozled and hoodwinked to their own detriment and that of the world... The peoples of the world will face intensified imperialistic and military assault and attempts at U.S. hegemony. This time, however, the imperialism of the U.S. Empire will be conveniently spearheaded, condoned and rationalized by its newest and most potent weapon: the dangerously double-talking “Emperor” in black face - Barack Obama. Moreover, in one fell and foul swoop, the corporate / military elite of the U.S. Empire intends to utilize Barack Obama as the “messiah” (created by none other than corporate America and its corporate media) to neutralize and destroy the ongoing Black liberation struggle for justice and equality in this nation, and in people’s liberation struggles throughout the world.

In relative short order - inside the United States itself - under a Barack Obama presidency, the living conditions of the majority of Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples will continue to steadily and massively deteriorate while the corporate Wall Street barons prolong their glut of the every day people’s finances, resources, hopes, and dreams. Under an Obama presidency those non Blacks who stand in opposition to Barack Obama’s de facto pro Wall Street backers and their blood-sucking policies will be branded as racists and traitors, while those Blacks who oppose Obama’s policies will be ignored and/or branded as fringe radicals and traitors. Thus, the horrors of the U.S. Empire will continue unabated, and in many respects, under Barack Obama, actually worsen. The blame for the deteriorating economy and continued war will of course quickly be laid by the Obama / Biden regime and the Democratic Party Republicrats on the previous Bush / Cheney regime, despite the fact that it was the complicity of the Democratic Party itself with the Bush / Cheney Republican Republicrat regime that facilitated the despicable policies and practices of the Bush / Cheney regime. The fact is that the Democratic and Republican Parties are de facto Republicrats with the objective of exploiting the majority of people and maintaining U.S. Empire abroad.

“I believe that there will ultimately be a clash between the oppressed and those who do the oppressing. I believe that there will be a clash between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation. I believe that there will be that kind of clash, but I don’t think it will be based on the color of the skin…”
Malcolm X

Those so-called leftist and progressive... collaborators with U.S. Empire will, for a time, try to pretend that their support of Barack Obama was not a sell out, and that they simply need more time to persuade the U.S. Empire’s colored corporate emperor to do the right thing. Meanwhile, Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White peoples will be enduring an unprecedented rate of economic and social suffering. The anger of the people will ultimately peak and explode, as a result of having bought into false hope and raised expectations. This is precisely why the U.S. corporate government has already made military contingency plans to contain and massively quash dissention within the United States. Barack Obama will serve to provide his corporate / military masters with colored political cover for political repression in this nation; and he will have already provided a small respite of wiggling room for them in this regard. Nevertheless, as brutal reality forces the proverbial scales of blindness to drop from eyes of the masses, it will become crystal clear that the supposed “change” to which Barack Obama referred in his campaign rhetoric, was nothing more than a vicious ruse of double-speak by him, backed by his corporate and military handlers. Indeed, the emperor will be shown to “have no clothes.” But what of the fate of millions of Black, White, Brown, Red, and Yellow peoples inside the U.S.? How many horrible sacrifices will have been, and will yet need to be made by the people in order to get the boot of economic blood-sucking and political repression off their / our necks?

The “clash,” to which Malcolm X referred, “between those who want freedom, justice, and equality for everyone and those who want to continue the system of exploitation” will deepen, as will repression and systemic contradictions. The “clash” will have, by necessity, as Malcolm X suggested, gone beyond “the color of the skin.” Notwithstanding his double speak rhetoric, it will become clear to people that a president Barack Obama supports and wants to “continue the system of exploitation” at home and abroad. Despite continued double speak and corporate disinformation and misinformation, it will be become undeniably clear that a president Barack Obama is the servant of the corporate/ military / prison apparatus of U.S. Empire, and a key facilitator of exploitation and political repression inside and outside the United States.

Building a real, grass roots peoples’ movement inside the United States will then, in some respects, be more challenging but by no means impossible. Notwithstanding the political repression and incessant disinformation that for a certainty will be emanating from the Obama / Biden Democratic Republicrats and their cronies, a genuine peoples’ movement will be, of necessity, the order of the day....
BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board Member, Larry Pinkney, is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner...

Revolutionary nationalism underestimates capitalist ruling class promotion of Obama as an imperialist icon to win support of the oppressed for u.s. neoliberalism to divert revolutionary struggle
Obama, “Black” Messiah for White Amerika
Robert Smith
http://raimd.wordpress.com/2008/06/30/obama-“black”-messiah-for-white-amerika/
... Liberals...have a chronically false ideal of Amerika. Instead of seeing historical injustices carried out by Amerika as part of its overall development, liberals see such things as disconnected aberrations which can be resolved through in a piecemeal fashion through progressive determination. They see Amerika, though flawed, as an unfinished experiment in freedom and democracy.

...Revolutionaries see Amerika as a product of unending injustices carried out upon oppressed peoples. Revolutionaries see Amerika and all the decadent elements which constitute it as something that needs to be destroyed as part of the global struggle to build a better world...revolutionaries hate Amerika...liberals love Amerika: they are always trying to save it, to reform it, to make it realize its so-called historic potential...., by electing Obama, Amerika can go from a country shamed by the Bush administration to one reformed, made better. An Obama presidency proves that Amerikan democracy works. Amerika can arrive as a more pluralistic open society whose legitimacy as the leader of the world is reaffirmed. An Obama presidency represents the continuation of Amerikan ['White'] supremacy without Bush’s overtly hee-haw element. Obama represents a form of imperialism which [white] liberal Amerikans can be proud of.

But liberal love-amerika types are not the only force driving the Obama campaign. Within the imperialist camp, many view the overly belligerent Bush administration as a disaster. Over the last 8 years, Amerika’s actions have rightly inspired hate and resistance the world over.... Within much of the imperialist camp, a popular Obama presidency is seen as more conducive to their own long term interests. Obama is seen as a figure who can recover what power Amerika has lost over the last 8 years.

Obama, and the [White-Supremacist/Eurocentric] forces behind him, are not revolutionaries. They are not trying to end Amerikan imperialism. Rather, for those who benefit from imperialist exploitation, Obama is seen as savior, a messiah who can bring the return to Amerika’s power and so-called greatness. These are the social forces that will, in all likelihood, drive Barack Obama to be the next president of the United States.

both the above from Arabian Sights
gzahran@wanadoo.fr 
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NOT 'POLITICS' & NOT FIT FOR VOTERS: WITHHELD BY NYT FOR 2 WEEKS
McCain and Obama Advisers Briefed on Deteriorating Afghan War
Two weeks ago, senior Bush administration officials gathered in secret with Afghanistan experts from NATO and the United Nations at an exclusive Washington club a few blocks from the White House. The group was there to deliver a grim message: the situation in Afghanistan is getting worse. Their audience: advisers from the presidential campaigns of John McCain and Barack Obama.
Over two days, according to participants in the discussions, the experts laid bare Afghanistan’s most pressing issues... to make clear that the next president needed to have a plan for Afghanistan before he took office on Jan. 20. Otherwise, they said, it could be too late.... The sessions were unclassified, but the participants agreed not to discuss their briefings or the contents of their discussions publicly.... The briefing was part of an effort by the departing Bush administration to ease the transition to the next team in a time of war and economic dislocation and allowed officials to try to have some influence over the next administration’s plans. Both Mr. Obama and Mr. McCain have promised to increase the number of American troops in Afghanistan.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/31/washington/31policy.html?_r=1&adxnnl=1...

results of u.s. led 'international community' democracy & 'aid'
"To maintain its credibility and moral authority to act in Afghanistan the international community must take timely, concerted and effective action."
Millions of Afghans Face Starvation
IslamOnline.net
With a combination of a summer drought, poor irrigation and rising global food prices, a famine is unveiling in Afghanistan with third of Afghans are suffering chronic food insecurity, a British think-tank warned on Friday, October 31. "An estimated 8.4 million Afghans, perhaps a third of the nation, are now suffering from 'chronic and transitory food insecurity'," Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) analyst Paul Smyth said in a press briefing on its website... Days after the 9/11 attacks, the United States invaded Afghanistan to topple the ruling Taliban. ...
Despite the deployment of 64,000 foreign troops under US and NATO command, violence has soared over the past years.

HOW WOULD YOU EXPLAIN OBAMA IS 'LESSER OF TWO EVILS' TO AFGHANI CHILD?
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat's Blog
October 31, 2008
How would you explain to an Afghani child that Obama is the lesser of two evils when he's going to escalate the massive crimes against humanity the US and the NATO have already been committing in that country for the past seven years?

"We're confronting an urgent crisis in Afghanistan... It's time to heed the call... for more troops. That's why I'd send at least two or three additional brigades to Afghanistan... The terrorists who attacked us on 9/11 are still at large and plotting"

The American people, brainwashed by the media and most of the American left, are sending a liar and his gang of war criminals into the White House, once again. But this time they are all happy and smiling; a big difference, for the years to come. The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Financial Times, the Economist... they all helped selling the wars against Afghanistan and Iraq and more recently the notorious bailout (read: extortion). Now they all are selling you the brand new product: Obama, the change we can believe in. The "change" will be bipartisan, Obama threats. So vote for Obama and get Bush's war secretary, Gates. The crowds are still happy and smiling after the pied piper Obama.

Mr. Change bought the White House with $660,000,000 used to brainwash the US/world audiences with smoke and lies. He's been even named Advertising Age's marketer of the year for 2008: ... The best democracy money can buy... the left is in coma and comes to life only to scream its outrage for Palin's wardrobe.

"If we are going into war, then all of us go, not just some" Obama declared a few weeks ago at the national service forum at Columbia University. I think of all those crowds now enthusiastically saluting the new deception; how many young people among them are going to be sent overseas to fight for Obama's friends' wars? I think of the indecent, guilty silence of much of the left, already at work to sugar the Just War(s). And I think of that Afghani child who's gonna be killed while the happy, ignorant crowds salute the new fuhrer....
http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2008/10/happy-halloween.htm

...Empires don't elect presidents, they select emperors. The Empire's Establishment picked up an unknown politician and made of him a star to save itself and control the masses with the American Democracy Show. Casting a handsome, charming black man (yes! the Establishment played the race card. Remember? Everything has to change so that nothing changes) to cover the ugly face of a bloody, ruthless Empire, the ruling class plans to rebuild the illusion of a respectable civilization, the stars and stripes mythology, the American way. The media - owned by those who control the political process, the same people who control the economy and our lives - played marvelously the game and another Hollywood movie is brainwashing the four corners of the planet.
Killing hopes. A self-complacent politburo with its well-funded progressive think tanks and publications has once again participated in this colossal work of whitewashing and propaganda....
http://www.thecatsdream.com/blog/2008/10/remember-remember-fourth-of-nov...

war makers not peacemakers
Afghan resistance statement
Peace Jirga or a New Formula to Compensate for the US Fiasco in Afghanistan
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

...Afghanistan has been chafing under the occupation of the US Alliance of crusaders for the last seven years. Our national independence, our religious and Islamic values, the Afghan dignity and pride have lost their true meaning as a result of the encroachments and aggressions of tens of thousand of troops hailing from more than 38 countries.The brutality and barbarism being perpetrated by the invading army is trampling on our atmosphere, land and villages. Still more, every other day, the invaders are threateningly speaking of bringing additional forces. All these notwithstanding, neither a farce jirga...nor any entity of justice came forward to hint who are responsible for the current crisis and catastrophe in Afghanistan and expose those who are behind all this mess... they rose to the occasion to portray the players bent on further expanding and accelerating this brutality.... a peace jirga is ostensibly held to establish peace. The participants... do not point to the brutalities and atrocities committed by the foreign troops in Afghanistan and the region; they did not raise their fingers to this serious issue, nor to the bloodshed unleashed by the troops.... the participants could not say that the presence of the foreign troops in Afghanistan was itself problems. By and large, the participants of the jirgas are striving, on the behest of the USA, to put the blame on those who are protecting and safeguarding our national dignity, integrity and sovereignty of the land.

They insist on these heroes to lay down their arms and submit themselves to Bush with a full surrender without demur.... we see this hard fact like a broad day light that the people of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq are wading through a river of blood and dust; they are stranded and displaced in their own homeland. The main cause behind all these mishaps is the presence of the Crusaders Alliance; the occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq by this Alliance and the support being extended to them by some other countries. Even today, if the US-led Alliance leaves Afghanistan, and puts an end to the diabolical policy of arrogance in this part of the world, then it is clear to all that peace will return and the masses will take a breath of relief; economic prosperity will usher in; countries and tribes will embark on a path of co-existence on the basis of fraternity and friendship.

We ask the participants of the so-called peace mini-jirga, among whom do you intend to make peace? If you are trying to make peace between Pakistan and Afghanistan, they have their own State institutions and the norms of good neighborliness are well-known to them, they can resolve their pending issues through diplomatic channels. Then what is the role of this mini-jirga’s holding this meeting? We know that no serious difference does exist between the people of Pakistan and Afghanistan...But if the issue is not between the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan and there is a third power, which they consider as a threat – i.e the Taliban. Then it would have been more rationale to have extended a invitation to them to tell their side of the story, to tell why they have put their lives in danger and avowed to lay down their lives and are calling people to jihad and struggle and have opted for a militant approach to resolve the problem. But we see, the real contending party is out of sight; it is being ignored. Both the plaintiff, the witness and the judge are all hailing from the same household, and are calling this gathering of theirs as the peace jirga of the tribes residing on both sides of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Now when the so-called peace jirga’s meetings are continuing in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, our message to them is that such farce jirgas for peace and stability will not succeed because the Mujahid people of Afghanistan know the substance of such shallow jirgas. They know the calibre of the government sponsored intermediaries and the true features of the members of such jirgas who are tasked under the US agenda to achieve a certain goal and put sugar-coated tablets down the throats of the people. Last but not least, to keep the kettle boiling for fermentation of the political game.
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan

The Bush-Obama-McCain Administration
By Morton Skorodin, M.D.
Oct 31, 2008
The period we're living in now is the Bush-Obama-McCain Administration. Bush obligingly initiated Obama's bombing campaign on Pakistan. The three of them colluded on the recent wealth transfer ...from the American people to Wall St.

The 24 hr/7 days/wk media Wurlitzer distracts us from looking at these white elephants too closely. The circus is so loud and visually entraining that it hides the deeper structure of society. The U.S. is a military dictatorship with scientific public relations. Part of this scientific PR is the careful cultivation and trumpeting of America’s democratic trappings. The important thing to remember is that McCain and Obama were carefully vetted by the moneyed rulers and this is not particularly a secret. It’s called “campaign contributions”. After that, we the people get to choose from two approved candidates. The fix is in. McCain's a patsy. Obama's repeatedly been anointed sovereign on the cover of Time (of Time-Warner, the media conglomerate he won't break up.)

There's no left to speak of in the US. There are material reasons for this- weak unions, few strikes. (The reasons why unions are weak are beyond the scope of this discussion.) So left-wing stars like Ralph Nader and Amy Goodman are tethered to nothing, like bloated Macy parade balloons that have floated up and become more bloated....

The Society of the Spectacle meets the neo-totalitarian total information awareness society. The state has technology for and has commandeered the resources to spy upon everyone with 16 or 18 “intelligence” agencies and control us as much as possible with the media of five corporations that are pretty well unified as to how and how much the populace is “informed”. On the other hand, the populace is atomized (deprived of meaningful ties to others); the only major non corporate-government institutions are the cooptable churches.

The handsome prince and his foil, the wicked, but comely, queen. They're comic book superheroes- perfect for TV, the key instrument of oppression and ignorance. (Notice the immense effort to make sure everybody has digital TV by next Feb. I wish they cared that much to give water to our brethren in New Orleans.)

Barack Obama and Sarah Palin are too good to be true:

Barack Obama- that name is foreign beyond foreign, mother a hippy who had a black's child, an actual African (gasp). This sounds as scary to many whites as the orchestrated excesses of the police state such as the Daarth Vader outfitted police with their North Korea style truncheons at the Republican convention seem to anxious liberals and righteous activists.

Sarah Palin - superhero mom, she'll serve milk and cookies for you while on the way to running and ruining the world. She’s not regular pro-gun, church, etc. She is the cartoon version- actually shoots wolves from helicopters; associates with, to put it a little too politely, “white nationalists”.

This dichotomy serves only the rulers. What the vast majority on both sides need are exactly the same things: peace, economic relief, and freedom from the intrusive state.
Divide and conquer. The rulers have been promoting race war as a counter to class struggle since the 1600s. They are very good at it.
After the election the economy may get still worse and there will be further military adventures. As things unravel the game will be: blame the Black guy. This process has already started.

As far as U.S. military planners go, the election cycle and the public’s feelings are only a factor in determining the timing and announcement of aggressive actions, kind of like taking into account the weather for an optimal time for the Normandy landing in WW2.
It’s a military dictatorship with Handsome Presidents. The election is a joke, but more importantly, a waste of the people’s time (except, perhaps some local races). Get over it. Think and find effective ways to rebel. http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/printer_28628.shtml http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48412
Morton Skorodin, M.D. submitted this article to Axis of Logic for republication. He is a columnist on My Town, the original source for this essay.

Incentivizing Murder: Plan Colombia and the Bitter Fruits of Empire
Chris Floyd
...The murder-for-bonuses scheme carried out by many American-trained and American-funded units in Colombia is just one more bitter fruit of the imperial tree. It was spawned by both the "War on Terror" and its twin in corruption, militarism, lawlessness and vast, needless suffering, the "War on Drugs," launched almost 40 years ago, and still going strong...

A government -- or rather, an entire political elite [digest: aka ruling class] -- that validates torture, wars of aggression, cross-border "incursions," "black ops," a military empire of more than 700 bases all over the planet, and the slaughter of more than one million innocent lives on just one front of the "Terror War" alone, will indeed produce results like the ones we see in Colombia. It is inevitable, unavoidable -- it is precisely what the system is designed to do: put the power of life and death into the hands of brutal elites, who will in turn kowtow to Washington's political, financial, military, and ideological agendas.

The Republicans do this without the slightest qualm, proudly (as we noted here earlier), frankly, without any finesse and very little pretense. The Democrats wring their hands a bit over the "excesses" and "aberrations" of the system, and employ more nuanced justifications, more rhetorical gilding. But both parties are in full agreement on the need to maintain -- and expand -- this massive militarist empire.

And yes, it will continue under Obama. And no, the American empire is not about to collapse any time soon, despite the economic catastrophe and the murderous botching of the Iraq and Afghanistan operations. As Princeton historian Arno Mayer notes this week in CounterPunch:

The United States may emerge from the Iraq fiasco almost unscathed. Though momentarily disconcerted, the American empire will continue on its way, under bipartisan direction and mega-corporate pressure, and with evangelical blessings. It is a defining characteristic of mature imperial states that they can afford costly blunders, paid for not by the elites but the lower orders. Predictions of the American empire's imminent decline are exaggerated: without a real military rival, it will continue for some time as the world's sole hyperpower.

But though they endure, overextended empires suffer injuries to their power and prestige. In such moments they tend to lash out, to avoid being taken for paper tigers. Given Washington's predicament in Iraq, will the US escalate its intervention in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sudan, Somalia or Venezuela? The US has the strongest army the world has ever known. Preponderant on sea, in the air and in space (including cyberspace), the US has an awesome capacity to project its power over enormous distances with speed, a self-appointed sheriff rushing to master or exploit real and putative crises anywhere on earth.
www.chris-floyd.com/component/content/article/3/1638-incentivizing-murde... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48390

..............

NYT HELPS EXPAND THIS 'CLASSLESS SOCIETY' BY WHITING-OUT THE BOTTOM, LARGELY 'NON-WHITE', TIER OF THE ACTUAL WORKING CLASS
Who Is in the Middle?
The candidates may enthuse about all they intend to do for the "middle class," but how do they define this segment of American society?
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/opinion/02sun3.html?th&emc=th

SIDESTEPPING ON THE FASCIST ROAD
Social issues so volatile the presidential campaigns sidestepped them will be on the ballots in several states next week, including measures that would define human life as beginning at fertilization/ criminalize most abortions,; ban race- and gender-based affirmative action; prohibit mandatory union membership and dues and ban same-sex marriage in California, one of only three states that allows it....
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/othernationalelectionstories/20083...

Dem. pimp looks backward: it will be ready for -- with no complaints from Dems --- the next amerikan chief
Technology of Repression: Video and Image Retrieval and Analysis Tool, or VIRAT.
Robert Parry
The Bush administration is pressing ahead with a new generation of spy technology -- not expected to be completed until early next decade -- designed to strengthen the U.S. military’s ability to detect and eliminate suspected insurgents in Iraq and elsewhere based on computer analyses of their movements and activities. The Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has begun granting contracts to software firms to create algorithms that can be applied to the real-time video feeds from drone aircraft so the data can be sorted and stored on a wide range of human activities, from digging a ditch to climbing into a car to kissing someone... The contracts represent the latest step in the Bush administration’s seven-year drive to develop high-tech spying capabilities that can be applied to a variety of situations and locales to detect terrorist or insurgent activities.

The new DARPA project would develop algorithms that would identify specific human activities – both by individuals and by groups – and evaluate if these actions suggested behavior that would justify a military response. The list of activities that would draw attention to a single person include "digging, loitering, picking up, throwing, exploding/burning, carrying, shooting, launching, walking, limping, running, kicking, smoking, gesturing," according to DARPA’s contract description. For person-to-person activities, the project would identify and catalogue cases of "following, meeting, gathering, moving in a group, dispersing, shaking hands, kissing, exchanging objects, kicking, carrying together."Categories relating to vehicles include getting into or out of a car, opening or closing the trunk, driving, accelerating, turning, stopping, passing and maintaining distances. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=48432

ANOTHER U.S. 'EXPANSIVE DEFINITION' RULES OUT WORLD-DESTROYING STATE TERRORISM
(U//FOUO) FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
DIRECTORATE OF INTELLIGENCE· COUNTERTERRORISM DIVISION
COUNTERRORISM ANALYTICAL LEXICON

“Terrorism” is the unlawful use or threat of violence in
furtherance of political, religious, ideological or social goals that is intended to (a) evoke
fear, intimidate or coerce a civilian population or any segment thereof; (b) influence the
policy of a government by intimidation or coercion.

The National Implementation Plan for the War on Terror defines “terrorist facilitator” as “A
person who knowingly provides assistance to terrorists or terrorist groups. This assistance may include,
but is not limited to, information, coordination support, psychological aid, safehaven, or financial
resources.” (National Counterterrorism Center, “National Implementation Plan for the War on Terror,”
26 June 2006 (UNCLASSIFIED).

They've Got Your Number
How buying, blogging, calling and Web surfing are being used to track and influence people.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/02/books/review/Walker-t.html?th&emc=th