Chomsky: "There is a sector that’s doing fantastically well, mainly in financial capital. For the general public it’s a different story."

alternet posts excerpts from a conversation between alternet's joshua holland and noam chomsky... well worth reading/listening to...

Noam Chomsky on America's Declining Empire, Occupy and the Arab Spring

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The Dems and the Progressives are tearing each other apart by criticizing Obama...?

joshua holland expostulates extensively in an alternet post about how obama really isn't doing so bad and how liberals, progressives and democrats really do - and certainly SHOULD - support him... he conveniently ignores the fact that obama has done nothing less than perpetuate and, even worse, deepen the worst abuses of the bush years while selling what was left of his soul (a possession i'm afraid was already heavily mortgaged before he even took office) to wall street...

holland...

[T]here is a real danger that refusing to acknowledge the administration’s accomplishments has the potential to sour activist zeal in the run-up to the election. But so far, that doesn't appear to be the case. While Obama saw a decline in liberal support during the debt ceiling negotiations, he still remains quite popular with the base. As of late July, Obama enjoyed a higher approval rating among Democrats at this point in his presidency than any president since FDR – higher than Clinton, Kennedy or Truman. Recent polls show that 72 percent of self-identified liberals (and 77 percent of Democrats) approve of the job Obama has done – a number one would be surprised to discover after reading liberal blogs and listening to progressive talk-radio.

i'm afraid i was ticked off enough after reading it to fire back... (and, btw, i don't know what fucking "base" he's talking about... if i'm not part of that "base," i don't know who is...)

here's the comment i posted in response...

We're not tearing each other apart, Joshua. We're being torn apart by those who are intent on vacuuming up every last trace of money and power and putting it in their Scrooge McDuck money bins.

The whole notion that we should even bother "sticking together" in a completely fraudulent two-party system is absurd. Calling myself a Democrat is meaningless when there is absolutely no daylight between Repubs and Dems. Democrat vs. Republican in 2011 is a distinction without a difference and it has been for a long time. That we're just waking up to that fact is strictly a function of how thoroughly we've been propagandized.

Now that the 18-month run-up to our endless, American Idol-esque reality show is in full swing, are we supposed to, once again, tremble in fear at the evil, extremist R's and instead cozy up to "our" guy Barack who presides over such policies as extrajudicial assassination, mass murder by remote-controlled, video-game inspired technology, and the biggest transfer of wealth and power to the already super-rich the world has ever seen?

You tell me, Mr. Holland, exactly where the hope of our country and the rest of the world lies. While it sure as hell ain't Rick Perry or Michelle Bachmann, it sure ain't Barack Obama either. What a choice we have. We can shit or go blind.

I think I'll go to McDonalds. I'm lovin' it.

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The government shutdown

william rivers pitt...

The impact of a shutdown on the populace will be dynamic, ehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifspecially if you're waiting for the IRS to send you a tax refund. Ain't happening. Social Security checks won't be delayed, at least not at first, but if a shutdown lingers for too long, those checks won't be coming, either. Some 800,000 people will be put out of work, and private sector jobs that rely on federal funding will likewise be left twisting in the wind.

US troops serving overseas will only get half their pay, if that. As the New York Times reported, "If the government shuts down from Friday for a week, troops would receive half their pay in the checks received on the 15th of the month. If the government were to stay shut down until April 30, (Defense Secretary Robert) Gates said, troops would miss a whole check. Troops are paid on the 15th and last day of each month."

The list goes on, and the hits will keep on coming.

Center stage in this theater of the absurd is the brain-damaged frontal assault the GOP appears to be waging on senior citizens, who provided a great portion of the margin of victory Republicans enjoyed in the 2010 midterms. The proposed elimination of Medicare being batted around on Capitol Hill, combined with a potential disruption of Social Security benefits, is not going to sit well with that sector of the electorate, and those people are willing to walk through fire to get to a voting booth.

joshua holland...

The Republicans' imminent threat to shut down the government, the right's assault on public workers, its spending- and tax-cap proposals, the successful campaign to shut down ACORN and attempts now underway to defund Planned Parenthood and NPR and, most prominently, Paul Ryan's plan to dismantle Medicare all have one thing in common: they're about entrenching conservative ideological preferences in the law in ways that future legislators will have a hard time undoing.

All of these efforts are ultimately about subverting democracy, which is, for the right, they're non-negotiable.

what kind of shit is this...? have we totally and completely lost it...? never mind... silly me... of COURSE we have...

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Why does Alternet feel such a big need to shut down 9/11 discussion?

personally, i don't get it... it seems to me that there are way too many questions still surrounding 9/11, so why are there some people so heavily invested in discounting some questions but not others...? i think it's a shame to find a supposedly liberal, progressive, dedicated-to-free speech outlet like alternet stooping to questioning someone's right to ask intelligent questions and to demand comprehensive, truthful answers... however, i have noticed it's been a pattern with alternet, both with joshua holland in this article as well as with matt taibbi's screeds (here and here)...

[H]er comments on that day's show represented the worst of the left's conspiratorial tendencies; Rosie ran with the great intellectual fallacy that supports the 9/11 "Truth" movement: Anything not adequately explained by the official investigations into 9/11 are de facto evidence of an inside job...

that was bad enough, but then he has the nerve to define the debate for us...

What might have led to a challenging debate about the close ties between the Bush administration and terrorist financiers, or about the United States' unshakable relationship with the Saudi Royal family or the nature of our energy policy or the toll of American militarism emerged instead as an easily-refuted argument based, at the end of the day, on a talk-show host's knowledge about the melting point of steel.

don't define my debate for me, please... until i see a comprehensive, analytical, forensic report onthe twin towers, WTC-7 and the pentagon, i am going to continue to have some serious questions... what totally astounds me is why we haven't seen one...

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