.... It's the bait and switch we hate and it makes Obama a tougher sell now. He wasn't honest with us. He promised reform and a new kind of politics and is relying on the same old Washington play book that's been in use for decades.

I'm not surprised. It's why I didn't support him before the primaries. It's why I wrote dozens of posts debunking his generic change theme. It has always been just campaign rhetoric.

..... it occurred to me how absolutely disingenuous Obama's whole campaign theme of change has been. There can be no such thing as the politics of change in a presidential race because no one promoting substantial change could ever win. The numbers wouldn't be there. Presidential politics is all about compromise and it's unrealistic to expect anything else.

And it turns out Hillary Clinton is looking better and better as time goes on:

.... What's sad is we had a centrist candidate who spoke her mind on issues so you knew exactly where she stood. You knew just what you were going to get with a Hillary presidency. You could practically take it to the bank. I, for one, appreciated the honesty. But, she lost.

Now we have a centrist candidate who said during the primaries he was a progressive candidate for change but now has become more centrist than Hillary, his former centrist competitor.

Let's face it - people don't really respond to honesty as much as they respond to what they want to hear - Obama's strategy was to win, but the problem may be that many of his left leaning, younger followers, won't forgive him for appearing to be for changes that he's really not for.

According to a quick study using Radian6 that I just set up, many people are using the word "disgusted" with Obama since his win over Hillary Clinton in the Democratic Primary last month:

Flip Flopping, while it is an issue, isn't really the main thing - people know Obama has to move to the center to win - the problem is - Young People, who wanted to believe he was for change - now are becoming "disgusted" with him.

All we need is an "October Surprise", and it could push the election over to McCain - I think that's a possibility that is becoming more real, every day.

Perhaps, one thing that might help Obama is having a Woman Vice Presidential running mate - in fact, it will help both Obama and McCain, according to the Guardian -  US elections: Hunt is on for a female Veep.

Every so often, Nature publishes a themed issue. For 26 June, the theme is astronomical collisions.
The lead editorial talks about the catalog of near-earth asteroids that's been developed since the 1980s. When the catalog was originally proposed, the idea met with some active resistance from astronomers. It wouldn't really give us any new science, just a lot of boring detail, and the acquisition would have an opportunity cost on more instructive research.

But now we have all the asteroids capable of producing a mass extinction event under our sights; it's a good thing that we do, and it's been good PR for astronomy. There's a tendency to consider the job done. However, there's a huge population of lesser asteroids that could still be pretty devastating, from the point of view of the layman, if not from a planetary perspective. The editorial recommends beginning the larger survey, but in an incremental way rather than as Big Science.

Imagine an unspotted asteroid laying waste to a significant chunk of land, as happened in the Tunguska region of Siberia 100 years ago this week; and imagine if that area, unlike Tunguska and a surprising amount of the globe today, were populated. The politician or scientific adviser who had dismissed such a disaster as being too improbable to bother with would be in dire straits. Politicians know in their bones that unlikely events matter.

Last summer, Director of National Intelligence McConnell took congressional Democrats aside and told them a terrorist hit on DC was likely over the August recess. It was a lie. The Dems swallowed it hook, line and sinker. And so the "Protect America Act", authorizing massive warrantless wiretapping of American citizens, was passed.

Over at the Unclaimed Territory blog, Glenn Greenwald, peace be upon him, has been pointing out that fear of "looking weak on terror" by letting the PAA lapse is groundless. Several Republicans have run against Dems in Republican districts lately, using precisely that attack. And the Democrats who have said, "No, surveillance has to be overseen by courts and Congress, it can't be left to one man's say-so" have won handily. That fear tactic has been defanged. And the polls show it, too.

That's right as far as it goes, and it's true that many Vichy Democrats are paralyzed by exactly that outmoded bogeyman. But I would suggest that there's another political calculus, which may be behind Obama's decision to defuse the FISA issue, even if he has to temporarily deep six the Constitution to do it. A calculus based not on fear of being called soft on terrorism for opposing the FISA extension, but on what would happen politically in the case of a Tunguska event.

Not to put too fine a point on it, if Obama were to lead an assault on HR 6304, and succeed, and if before the election there were another major Al Qaeda attack in the US, Bush would flood the media with a false but unfalsifiable claim: that the warrant that would have prevented the attack was tangled in the (nonexistent) "red tape" of the old FISA laws. And with that, any chance of keeping the White House out of the hands of McCain and his neocon handlers for the next four years would be blasted to green glass.

That probably won't happen. But it isn't all that unlikely. It wouldn't take another September 11. Close enough to Election Day, a Madrid level attack would suffice. The chances of such an attack in any given year are surely over 5%. Considering that Al Qaeda wants to keep the neocons in power, once they have an operational plan, they will try to time the attack to coincide with an election. So it's more likely this year than at any time since 2004. Given Al Qaeda's resurgence in Waziristan, and the rate at which opium wealth has been pouring into their coffers, it is really more likely than at any time since 2001. And AQ may feel they need to move quickly, because although their wealth and military strength have been growing, their brand is hurting of late. Recent surveys, in Iraq and elsewhere, indicate they are getting a rep for blowing up fellow Muslims rather than infidels, and are being taken less seriously as a result. They need a return to America, or at least to Europe, to bolster recruiting.

Obama is free to forthrightly champion the rule of law - by loudly opposing telecom amnesty and, more substantively, by cheering the restoration of habeas, as he did earlier this month. No October attack could be laid to the telecoms having to spend a little time in court, nor to the fact that a few Guantanamo inmates are finally allowed to spend a little time in one. He can meet any political risk in those stances head on, by educating the public. But if he were to squash the FISA amendments, and Al Qaeda chose October to make its next move, the nation would no more be in the midst of a teachable moment than it was through the awful panicked year of 2002.

I don't know if that's his reasoning. (For that matter, I don't know whether the congressional leadership would give up their love affair with amnesty on his say-so anyhow.) But if it is, he might well be right that the time to fully crank up the country's long overdue basic instruction in the Bill of Rights will only come once he stands safely behind the Bully Lectern.

He argued in a a recent article he wrote for the Project Syndicate - that Israel will attack Iran's nuclear facilities before the end of the Bush administration and that Israel effectively received the green light to this action from Bush during his recent visit to Israel. Fischer was recently in Israel to attend the celebrations for the 60th anniversary of Israel creation.

Nouriel Roubini believes the effect of this would be a worldwide depression with oil at over $200 per barrel. But he also reports some political reasons why Bush may have given the greenlight. The Iranians would retaliate for the attack through "Special Groups" in Iraq, which would then trigger U.S. counter attacks on Iranian soil.

The Bush administration whose hands have been tied by the new National Intelligence Estimate (that argued that Iran had suspended its program of development of nuclear weapons) would thus be able to strike Iran – via Israel - before the end of its term. Such October surprise by Israel would also certainly lead to the election of McCain and defeat of Obama as a national security crisis of such an extent would doom the chances of Democrats to win the White House. So both Israel – that prefers McCain to Obama and is hurried to act as it is wary of the constraints that an Obama presidency may put on its ability to act against Iran – and the Bush administration would guarantee the election of McCain.

While i don't buy into Roubini's conclusions about an October Surprise, its still troubling.

THE WAIT IS ON!

WHAT WILL THAT EVENT BE, the one that turns the tide solidly to the might makes right, right wing? The Iran angle setting up just in time to peak at elections?

Conservatism may be as impoverished a philosophy as ever, being that it has a chronically dysfunctional take on current events, and what are the rights and responsibilities of a whole free people. That inbred ideology of exclusion may have backfired and created the illusion, that power moves by the right wing are on the wane, since the exposure of blatant cronyism, incompetence and corruption. But are they?

Here is a Truthout.com link to an article on the fall of conservatism.

Noteworthy in this argument, is a paragraph about a third of the ways in, that describes the acts of Dick Cheney hours after the Florida recount boat was sunk, and democracy overthrown.-- The plans to divide America and the world in two.

• The Fall of Conservatism

  by: George Packer, The New Yorker

What is not said in regards to the upcoming election is; to what lengths will the neocon agenda go to insure their perpetuation into the future? And just who will prevent the next run up to war, or the occurrence of another reactionary driven event, that will scare We the People into knee jerk like conformity, bowing to the jingoist mentalities and war worshiping that come to idle before the public consciousness?

The plundering of the Great American Commons continues unabated, by the philosophy that only corporations or "free" entrepreneurs have the right to raise prices to cover their cost, while the rest of us are left like the residents of New Orleans 9th Ward. "Should have lived somewhere else. Should have been prepared. Should have had some sense. Should of had 5 million dollars. Should have been born into one of those rich families with the welfare for them state and lovely compound by the sea." Inflation and job income reduction are siphoning away the dollars purchasing power, and how much access to it one has. I'm sure the rich and powerful feel the empathetic pain of those living paycheck to paycheck--not.

BLAME THE AMERICAN POOR FIRST CONSERVATIVES

These blame the unprepared individual conceptions, are the contrapuntal notions sifted out to settle on public consciousness, when the reality that society has been engineered to provide freedom of access to the wealthy above all else, is considered "class warfare" talk. It has been estimated that you will need, currently, one million dollars to retire "comfortably". How much preparation will any of us have had when gas gets to $5, then $10 a gallon? Everything will cost much more (already is!). Unfortunately, this is what often motivates empire imperialism to war.

Hey, don't you want the benefits of taking stuff away from others, otherwise once called booty or plunder? We are currently living "high off the hog" from the efforts of near slave labor in China and other places, that is disguising our national decline with a national worldwide credit card. All while producing a lifestyle that is condemning the environment to collapse. Breaking the "Golden Rule" makes for tangible short term gain. But what of the future? The "blowback"? Don't worry. Conservatives will find someone else to blame as always. They cannot help it! That is what cognitive dissonance will do for you.

The people of the USA, as well as the world, need to have a very long talk, just to start the coordination needed to handle upcoming events. Most conservatism is shooting the present and the future in the foot with delusions of grandeur about the past. And some of them are counting on annihilating one another. Too bad if we all are caught in the crossfire.

A country of, for, and by the people?

Who is the butt of that joke?

Guess who has been under attack all along?

Now, why won't President Bush meet with the Iranians to discuss this situaton? His daddy did (In fact Bush Sr. met with them while they were holding Americans hostage, to discuss selling them Weapons of Mass Destruction).

The story of the "October Surprise" conspiracy is one that is still shrouded in mystery and secrets heaped upon shredded documents. But the story is quite simple to follow;

"The October Surprise conspiracy was an alleged plot that claimed representatives of the 1980 Ronald Reagan presidential campaign had conspired with Islamic Republic of Iran to delay the release of 52 Americans held hostage in Tehran until after the 1980 U.S. Presidential election. In exchange for their cooperation, the United States would supply weapons to Iran as well as unfreeze Iran's monetary assets being held by the US government." Wiki, here.

Seems simple enough; the campaign staffers of the Reagan/Bush '80 team didn't want the incumbent, President Carter, to make any headway in the negotiations for the release of the hostages before the upcoming elections. The Iranian Hostage Crisis had dragged on for 400+ days at that point, and the negative feelings about it promised to weigh in heavily on Reagan's behalf in the upcoming elections.

So, as the story goes, members of the Reagan team allegedly met with representatives of Ayatollah Khomeini to hash out a plan that delayed the release of those hostages until after the election.

In fact, the hostages were released 20 minutes after Reagan was sworn in as president.

Now there were several investigations into the "October Surprise" conspiracy. In the Senate, they simply stated that there was not enough evidence to support the prosecution. But the House investigation went much further.

The House investigation concluded that everyone was lying, so therefore Reagan and Bush Sr. were cleared of all wrong-doings. As it just so happens, that investigation was headed up by Lee Hamilton. The same Lee Hamilton who was one of the Co-Chairmen of the 9/11 Commission Report, and the same Lee Hamilton who, after the Iran/Contra Affairs came to light, decided NOT to investigate.

" As chair of the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, Hamilton chose not to investigate President Ronald Reagan or President George H. W. Bush, stating that he did not think it would be "good for the country" to put the public through another impeachment trial." Wiki, here.

His links to the Bush family and this administration continue even today.

"He sits on many advisory boards, including those to the CIA, the president's Homeland Security Advisory Council, and the United States Army."

Although they have succeeded in discrediting most of what Gary Sick had attempted to expose, there are still many key players who have come forward since, that are harder to dismiss:

"Richard Allenwas the Reagan campaign's foreign policy chief. In 1980, he penned a note claiming that George H.W. Bush had asked him to look into a rumor about the hostages. A "plane-load of former CIA officers" had taken up residence in campaign headquarters, he said in 1980. The "nutballs," he said, made him decide to work in a separate office." Wiki, here.

"Barbara Honegger was a member of the 1980 Reagan-Bush campaign team and Reagan White House policy analyst. After the 1980 election, Honegger headed Reagan's gender discrimination agency review before resigning in August, 1983. While working for Reagan she discovered information that made her believe that George H. W. Bush and William Casey had conspired to assure that Iran would not free the U.S. hostages until Jimmy Carter had been defeated in the 1980 presidential election, and she alleges that arms sales to Iran were a part of that bargain."

"Abolhassan Bani-Sadr, first elected President of Iran after the 1979 Iranian Revolution, claimed in a December 17, 1992 letter to the U.S. Congress, that he had first learned of the Republican "secret deal" in July 1980 after Reza Passendideh, a nephew of Khomeini, attended a meeting with Cyrus Hashemi and Republican lawyer Stanley Pottinger in Madrid on July 2, 1980. Though Passendideh was supposed to return with a proposal from the Carter administration, Bani-Sadr said Passendideh proffered instead a plan "from the Reagan camp." "Passendideh told me that if I do not accept this proposal, they [the Republicans] would make the same offer to my [radical Iranian] rivals. He further said that they [the Republicans] have enormous influence in the CIA."

Beni-Sadr went on to say:

"It is now very clear that there were two separate agreements, one the official agreement with Carter in Algeria, the other, a secret agreement with another party, which, it is now apparent, was Reagan. They made a deal with Reagan that the hostages should not be released until after Reagan became president. So, then in return, Reagan would give them arms. We have published documents which show that US arms were shipped, via Israel, in March, about 2 months after Reagan became president."

Now, there are all kinds of allegations out there, some put Bush Sr. at high-level meetings in Paris, where this plan was finalized. But one thing is certain; The Reagan Administration continued to trade arms, illegally, to Iran through their Friends in Israel during the Iran-Contra affair.

Ollie North has admitted as much.

And when you look at the facts that surrounded the release of the hostages:

... coupled with the fact that they continued to trade arms to Iran during Iran-Contra, it is hard to dismiss the story of the October Surprise completely.

We all know what Lee Hamilton's decision not to prosecute bought him, but did you know that one of those "nutballs" that Richard Allen was talking about was Robert Gates?

And just look at what Gates got for his devotion.

William Casey, at the time he headed up Reagan's campaign and later was appointed to head up the CIA under the Reagan Administration.

Caseys resume included:

"Notably he oversaw covert assistance to the mujahadeen (the rise of Osama bin-Laden and the Taliban)resistance in Afghanistan, with a budget of over $1 billion by working closely with Akhtar Abdur Rahman (the Director General of ISI of Pakistan) (the same ISI that sent $100,000 to M. Otta 10 days before Sept. 11th 2001), the Solidarity movement in Poland, and a number of coups and attempted coups in South- and Central America.

According to a 600-page report by the CIA inspector general, Frederick Hitz, the CIA under Casey was complicit in the Contras' massive narco-trafficking operation which resulted in the crack epidemic.^[5]

Casey was also the principal architect of the arms-for-hostages deal that became known as the Iran-Contra affair.

Hours before Casey was scheduled to testify before Congress about his knowledge of Iran-Contra, he was reported to have been rendered incapable of speech, and was later hospitalized... According to Woodward, when he asked Casey if he knew about the diversion of funds to the Nicaraguan Contras, "His head jerked up hard. He stared, and finally nodded yes." Wiki, here.

There's nothing like a hot button issue launched just before the elections to rouse the knuckle dragging hard drinking gun toting unemployed pin headed bottom feeders to the voting booth, Herr Karl Rove taught them that simple truth years ago.

Cogito non, Ergo Bush...

Now, we find that a republican judge in California will allow (some might say drag) the gay folk "out" to get married, creating a perfect storm that will bring out the hesitant right wing old farts that would otherwise skip this election, as most are not happy to hold their collective noses and vote for John McFlipflop, even out there in those Seizure World retirement homes.

All this is, of course, just the precursor for the real hit, the infamous "October Surprise" that Bush has hinted that the country should be getting ready for during past few days.

Just my take, as always double your money back if not satisfied......

1998 Concerns

*Millennium Bug raises concerns of all computer users

*India's dispute with Pakistan over Kashmere, exchanging sub-subterranean nuclear tests

*Will there be enough Viagara for everyone with Erectile Dysfunction

*John Glenn too old to return to space?

*Hummers in the Whitehouse

*Smoking in restaurants banned

*British & Irish formalize end to hostilities

*Constitutionality of "Line Item Veto" debated

*Catholic Church - are your children safe?

*US Embassy Bombings

*Crash of the Russian Economy

*Google Debuts - What will searches of my name find?

*Large Media Mergers

*Pokemon

*Homosexuals - hatred worthy of dragging to death behind vehicles? (sick)

*Truth & Reconciliation Commission eases tensions post Apartheid South Africa

*Jesse Ventura becomes Governor

*Price fixing by large Wall Street brokerage houses

*Exxon-Mobil formed from buyout/consolidation of 2 large oil companies

*Euro becomes prima facea currency in Europe

*Cost of gas $1.78 (today's dollars)

*Panama Canal limiting size of cargo ships for global trade

*Water Wars in the desert southwest US

2007-2008 Fears

*October Surprise - Marshall Law in US

*4000+ US soldiers dead from wars in 2 countries

*Social Security Solvency

*"Mortgage Meltdown"

*Gas fast approaching $4 per gallon

*Kashmere, what's Kashmere? Pakistan harbors Al-queda in "lawless" land

*A 3rd simultaneous war with Iran?

*Peak Oil

*Ice Caps melting at increasing rates, long sought after NW passage looks "promising"

*McDonald's, a blue-collar career opportunity in food "manufacturing"?

*Russia's economy skyrockets, a global super power again?

*Customer Support opportunities in India as "John"

*National Debt, I owe $30,000+ and so do you!

*Habeas Corpus? Hell I need no rights.

*Predatory Lenders

*Do I feed my kids or put gas in the tank? So much for buying the Viagara :(

*Signing Statements the norm

*New Orleans, the modern day Atlantis?

*Water Wars in the southeastern US

Alright, this is depressing enough. 12 years of Republican control of Congress & 8 years of a fear mongering President. Correlation, I'll let you be the judge.

'A Secret Afghanistan Mission Prepares for War with Iran,' says a Washington Post article by William M. Arkin May 9, 2008:

Those predicting war with Iran or some Bush-Cheney October surprise attack on Tehran are constantly looking for signs of military preparations: a B-52 bomber that mistakenly takes off from North Dakota with nuclear-armed cruise missiles; a second or third aircraft carrier entering the Persian Gulf; a B-1 crashing in Qatar.

Since the most likely path to war with Iran is not Marines storming the beach but a strike on nuclear facilities and "regime" targets, signs such as these can often just be mirages. The true strike is not necessarily going to come with any warning, and the U.S. military has developed an entire system called "global strike" to implement such a preemptive strike. #

If you've missed it prior to this very moment, you can read Arkin's article here:

http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2008/05/a_secret_afghanistan_mission_p.html

~~:~~

Thanks go to Citizens for Legitmate Government for the heads-up on this article...LegitGov is a very good watchdog in a wasteland of press sorriness...

http://legitgov.org

So here's my existential question of the evening: is a watchdog standing guard same as a guard dog standing watch? 

What's the diff? Discuss while letting out the cat.

In the very first minute or two of today's F&F First, the co-hosts discussed Hillary's fate. In a segment subtitled "Can Hil Hang On," Steve said that Hillary should fight it through, that he would ride "that baby" up to the convention, and that there might be an "October surprise." To Steve Ali Camerota aptly replied, "That's her campaign's exact attitude: you're parroting it perfectly." Brian Kilmeade added, "Could we take Steve's temperature?" Exactly.

Had the lovely Ali read my Rupert Murdoch article before using my exact description of Steve's "parroting" of the Hillary Clinton's campaign in the race against Barack Obama? Maybe: maybe, not. Regardless, she stated the obvious.

http://jakeho.wordpress.com/2008/05/02/murdoch-crazy-like-a-fox/

Even from halfway around the world you can sense a sea change. Hillary's campaign is running on fumes and she just needs a few days to find a graceful exit. Former Speaker Newt Gingrich warned the Republicans were headed for a November blowout.

Gingrich says the Republican loss in the special election in Louisiana’s sixth congressional district this past weekend should be “a sharp wake up call” for party members.

Gingrich noted President George W. Bushcarried the district by 19 percentage points in winning reelection in 2004. In the end, Democratic State Rep. Donald Cazayoux defeated Republican Woody Jenkins. Republicans tried to cast Cazayoux a liberal by comparing him to Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama, but voters didn’t seem to buy it.

The former Georgia lawmaker also pointed to polls that show Americans now favor Democrats on a host of issues, including taxes and the war on terrorism.

But the real bad news for McCain is that the economic headwinds are getting stronger. Goldman Sachs predicted we will see $150-200 oil within the next two years. $150 oil would translate to $5.00 gas, if not more. There was an article in the WSJ regarding the giant Saudi oil field, Ghawar, and whether it's in decline. If you have to argue about it, it's in decline. The field is over 50% of Saudi production. The Saudi's are employing three times the number of drilling rigs now compared to just a few years ago, and production is not increasing.

In the region where I am, the inflation story is getting scary. There is a great deal of rice hoarding and the price has climbed 20% in the last month alone. Gasoline is $10 a gallon and there are often lines at the gas station on TV. There are reports that Indonesia, a long time OPEC member will drop out of the organization as early next year as they will soon be a net importer of oil. Production from aging wells is in decline and investment has lagged. The environment in Indonesia is not likely to attract investment capital any time soon. Back in the 80's I made a documentary series for PBS and The BBC called "The Prize", based on a book by Dan Yergin. Dan has been a peak oil skeptic his whole life. Reading the Wall Street Journal yesterday, I almost fell off my chair.

"It's not that the genie is out of the bottle -- it's that 100 genies are out of the bottle," said Daniel Yergin, chairman of Cambridge Energy Research Associates. Normally known for optimistic forecasts of lowering oil prices, Mr. Yergin's firm now says the price could rise to $150 a barrel this year.

The world's diminished spare production capacity remains the strongest single catalyst for high prices, Mr. Yergin says. The world's safety cushion -- the amount of readily available oil that could be pumped in a moment of crisis -- is now around two million barrels a day, according to most estimates. That's just 2.3% of daily demand, and nearly all of the safety cushion is in one country, Saudi Arabia. Everyone else is pretty much pumping all they can, which makes the world vulnerable to political or other shocks.

John McCain is running for George Bush's third term. He doesn't stand a chance, short of some "October Surprise"

Since this war long ago turned into a political disaster for Bush, why would McCain follow suit as he has,  insisting that Iraq remain his top-gun issue--against the wishes of 70% of the voting public-- if it weren't for some rose garden deal?  Consider that  Bush 41's poll ratings went through the roof for several months following the '91 Iraq war, before he went on to lose the '92 election.   Fear of papa Bush is why Mario Cuomo and others didn't run, leaving Bill in a lackluster field.  41's re-election was a certainty, that is, if only the election were held closer to the time US bombs hit their targets in Baghdad.  A lesson not to be forgotten.   Again, the surprise.   Bombing strikes against Iran in the weeks before the election would likely invoke enuf fear as to ensconce McCain in the presidency.   "W" doesn't have his dad's brains, but he does have more crass political brawn.   Would also likely give both W and III a hearty chuckle-- which they both enjoy-- at the country's expense.  

and finally, it will be interesting to see whether McCain's media chums will give Bush a pass on this next war, just for their guy McCain.

So I ask you: given that this incident has been named as a possible link to NYC's past bombings of a similar nature--hooded man, bicycle, homemade devices, wee morning hours, etc--at the Mexican and the British consulates, is it just possible that a chain of terroistic acts has begun in order to declare martial law which may culminate in suspension of the November elections?

Most Americans wouldn't take such an outlandish idea seriously, I know. That's one reason why it could happen quite easily--just threaten chaos as a replacement for law, order, and our sense of safety, illusory as it may be. Oh--and fire us, rig the system to create homelessness across the land, undermine the value of the dollar bill in our pockets, and voila! we won't know it's done until it's over.

Kind of like recession--you'll know it's arrived only in hindsight, as economists are inordinately fond of telling us.

Thing is, the common man has known for years now that the US economy is retracting where HE's concerned and has felt (understandably) powerless to do anything about it. What was it Frederick the Great {sic} said? My people and I have come to an understanding; they are to say whatever they want, and I am to do whatever I want.

Well, yes. And you have to wonder if all the 'experts' can't do any better than to watch as the 'global economy' crashes. Personally, I think most of them are enjoying themselves--their insistence upon a global economy in the first place has set up the distinct possibility of a worldwide crash--and you can be sure that big money is being made behind certain doors.

The other reason martial law would be easy to declare here is that the syndicate element intent on world domination will stop at nothing--NOTHING--to continue couping governments all over the world, and they've known for years that taking complete control of the US is key. Yet some say the US is low on the totem pole as far as the NWO governing structure will be concerned. Is that part of the selling-out of America now in progress?

Yes, you're right...yawn...I should get some sleep now...hushing up...sweet dreams to all who love the world, nightmares to those who would see her fall...

Ongeveer 15 jaar geleden ontmoetten M en ik Agee in Hamburg. Zijn beroemde typemachine stond er in de boekenkast. Het interview met hem vond ik zo spannend, dat ik vergat vragen te stellen. De man vertelde, en vertelde.

Hij was de eerste die ik hoorde praten over 'copyrights' als focus, ook voor geheime diensten. Daar snapte ik toen echt geen klap van.

Die banden moet ik nu toch eens opzoeken en digitaliseren...

Kaplan doet mij denken aan Il Conformista van Moravia, en aan wat Noam Chomsky een paar jaar terug in overtreffende trap over Kaplan zei:

“Nobody except the ultra-right wing jingoists like Kaplan is comparing atrocities by various countries. What honest people are saying, is that we should pay attention to our own crimes, and stop committing them. … the just cause for people like Kaplan is: 'we did it, therefore it’s a just cause.' You can read that in the Nazi archives too.” [N. Chomsky "9-11" April 16, 02]