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Guest Post: Mr. Cheney’s Victory Lap
Submitted by Gonzalo Lira
Mr. Cheney’s Victory Lap
Dick Cheney is taking a lap around all the talk shows, peddling his memoir while giving his reputation one final spit-shine before he dies and goes straight to hell.
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| Dick Cheney |
Oh—so you actually doubt he’ll go to hell? With the shit he’s pulled? Cabrón, please . . .
It is remarkable that relatively few people seem outraged by Mr. Cheney. Here is the man who, as Vice-President of the United States, violated some of the most important rights, freedoms and liberties that America has defended for over two-hundred years. Not only did he commit what in other times would have been considered war crimes and crimes against humanity—he is proud of having done so!
He boasts about the torture he ordered, he defends the wars of aggression that he fomented, and he is silent about the sweetheart deals he gave his former employer, Halliburton, in the “reconstruction” of countries that he helped destroy.
In short, he violated every rule in the book—yet no one is throwing the book at him. There are no Congressional hearings into his violation of the Constitution. There are no prosecutors sharpening their chops, getting ready to indict him on charges of corruption.
Most of all, there is no public outrage at him.
Sure, some loony Lefties and some old-style hard-ass Conservatives such as myself bitch and moan about him—but no one is seriously arguing for his arrest, indictment and prosecution for the despicable things he did while in office. Or if they are advocating his arrest and prosecution—like me, and perhaps you—then they are on the extreme fringes of the political discourse—like me, and perhaps you: Marginal, and inconsequential.
Cheney was—and still is—at the center of the political discourse, and he operated with a completely free hand, unconstrained by any limitations—Constitutional, legal, moral—free to carry out the most egregious violations of everything that the United States stands for—
—meanwhile, a college kid with a dime bage of pot goes to jail for five years.
This doesn’t surprise us: We know it as a truism that the rules fall like a ton of bricks on some Americans, while for others, those same rules are as light as ether—and just as non-existent.
Consider banking: Local Savings-and-Loans are constrained and regulated up the wazoo—but the large banks are pretty much allowed to write their own regulations. Small banks and S&L’s have to toe the line, as regards capital reserves—but the Too Big To Fail banks can literally make believe any asset is worth whatever they say it’s worth, and therefore covers these capital requirements with nothing but daydreams. (See my discussion of the suspension of FASB rule 157 here.)
Consider the stock markets: Computer-run algorithmic trading has taken over the markets, super-computers trading with one another in a pattern that is, essentially, a pump-and-dump scheme. A half-dozen Guidos out in New Jersey, pulling a pump-and-dump on penny stock, will rightfully get arrested by the SEC. But a blue-chip firm pulling the same shit—only with stock in Apple, Microsoft, BofA or JPMorgan? They’re invited to the $50,000-a-table fund-raising event that the regulator is throwing, as he positions himself for a run for the U.S. Senate.
Consider industries: Small- and medium-sized businesses have to follow every single FDA rule, every single OSHA clause, every single burp in the regulatory legislation, to the point where a lot of these small- and medium-sized businesses are drowning in regulatory sludge—
—but big outfits like Monsanto, DuPont, BP? They can sell known carcinogens to the general public, to children—they can carry out a monopoly against farmers with unhealthy, untested fertilizers and genetically modified seeds—they can cause the biggest industrial disaster ever, and then lie about it for months—
—and at most? A small fine. Any jail time for those responsible? Any public investigation, let alone opprobrium?
Once again: Cabrón, please . . .
In today’s America—where egalitarianism was once considered to be the cornerstone of our society—the application of the rules and regulations decreases as you go up the pyramid.
See, it’s not that the rules have vanished as you rise up the pyramid—the rules and regulations are still there: It’s just that they’re not applied to those closer to the top of the pyramid, as Mr. Cheney knows so well.
Why is this? Why have we lost our egalitarianism? Why have we lost our equality before the law?
I think it’s because we have lost our moral self-confidence: The confidence which gives us the ability to say out loud and with a firm voice, “This here is right, while that there is wrong.”
Starting with the 1970’s, our society has marinated in the notion that no one has a right to judge how you live: You can do your own thing, to borrow the phrase from the time. Not only does society not have the right to judge the way you live as to its rightness or wrongness—society does not have the right to judge you.
But of course: Judgment is the necessary ingredient for making moral decisions. You need judgment in order to decide what is wrong and what is right. Without moral judgment, all decisions are reduced to either a hedonistic calculus (how much pleasure will I get from this action, as opposed to how much pain, nevermind if it’s right or wrong), a cost-benefit analysis (how much would it cost me to do this as opposed to that, nevermind if it’s right or wrong), or to a political decision (whose support would I win or lose if I did this or that, nevermind if it’s right or wrong).
Without moral judgment, our decisions ultimately turn us from citizens with a common purpose, into nihilistic actors looking out for ourselves and no one else.
More troublingly, without moral judgment, our lives become untethered from fixed principles, and therefore constantly reactive to the people around us. We become dependent on what others think of us—slaves to public opinion.
(As a parenthesis: We shouldn’t be surprised, if our culture has turned so many of us into raging narcissists. Without a fixed moral benchmark from which to render judgment, we are as untethered as free-floating balloons—and therefore must gauge our place in society not by what we believe, but rather by what other people believe about us. Thus we have to constantly, obsessively examine and re-examine the registry of what others say about us. No surprise, then, the popularity of the social networks, such as Facebook, etc.: They give us feedback as to what other people think about us, and thereby help us gauge and measure our place in our ever-shifting society. Think of it as a school of minnows, everyone swimming in the same, ever-shifting direction, everyone constantly terrified of swimming against the school.)
Since we don’t allow ourselves to tell right from wrong—since we don’t allow ourselves to make moral judgments—we cannot make fine-tuned moral distinctions: We lose proportionality, and moral perspective. We cannot discern that a minor shoving match at a bar is not an “assault”, while shelling people with radioactive munitions is in fact a war crime. We cannot tell the difference—or see the similarities—between robbing a hundred bucks with a gun, and robbing a $1,000,000,000 with a lawyer.
Mindlessly Following the Rules
Directly from this loss of moral proportion—and directly from the sense of being untethered—our society begins to latch on to rules: Mindlessly latching on to rules.
Think of something as absurd as the “three strikes rule” in the judiciary: In some states, if a person commits three felonies, then they are automatically thrown in jail for 20 years or more, irrespective of how trivial the offenses were. And as we have all heard, from too many horror stories for it to be a fluke, we know how deeply unfair this three-strikes rule really is.
Yet so many of us don’t say a thing, shielding ourselves from moral responsibility by that most heinous and despicable of phrases: “I don’t make the rules, I just follow them.”
Think, conversely, of what happened with the banksters: They broke the financial system, immorally profiting from that mess—demanded (and got) an unprecedented government bailout by essentially blackmailing the American economy—then paid themselves record-breaking bonuses with money given to them by the American people.
But these banksters—swine that they are, without exception—did not overtly flout any rule. So nobody said a thing, except some confused souls on the margins and in the blogosphere. The mainstream media? The people with positions of authority? They didn’t say a thing—because the banksters didn’t overtly break any rule or law.
Our society latches on to rules—often arbitrary rules—and turns a blind eye both to the abuses that arise from compliance to these rules, and abuses that arise from the lack of any existing rules.
The reason? We no longer have the moral self-confidence to say, “Screw the rules—a dime bag of pot is not enough of a reason to imprison you for five year”, or conversely, “Screw that it’s not technically against the rules—benefitting from the bankruptcy of your financial institution is wrong”.
Since we don’t have this moral self-confidence, we hold on to rules, no matter how arbitrary, or how morally unsound, and watch as perverse results bloom like weeds in what’s supposed to be a perfectly manicured lawn.
Structural Pliancy
I can tell your objection already: If we are doing this—if we are obsessively latching on to rules—why is it that the people closer to the top of the pyramid can so cavalierly break the rules, as Mr. Cheney has boasted of doing? Why does throwing fifty pounds of trash into a deserted lot merit being thrown in jail for a year, while spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico for six months or so merits a (proportionately) minor fine?
In short, why don’t the rules apply for everyone, equally?
Simple: Because without absolute moral judgment—that is, with a standard of morality that is relative, and not fixed—then everything becomes a political game, a numbers game. The more people on your side, the more likely you’ll get away with bending or breaking the rules. The application of the rule of law becomes a popularity contest: If you have the numbers on your side, then you can get away with anything.
This is mob rule.
Consider Mr. Cheney, and Barack Obama’s reaction to Mr. Cheney’s crimes: Since he is a former Vice-President, and seemingly popular with his electorate, Mr. Obama sees no upside to prosecuting Mr. Cheney—but plenty of downside.
Consistency would demand of Mr. Obama that, if he prosecutes Mr. Cheney, he ought to prosecute George W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, George Tenet, several if not most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Why? Because all of them are guilty of the same crimes against the American Constitution as Mr. Cheney: Crimes against the Constitution, and crimes against humanity—and I do not use that phrase lightly.
But in this atmosphere of relative morality that is our curse to live in, Mr. Obama has made the political calculation that there is no upside to prosecuting Mr. Cheney or that whole cabal.
Some Lefty pinko faggots might be outraged—as outraged as I am outraged—that Obama doesn’t do “the right thing”. But see, from the position of relative morality, Obama is doing the right thing: He has made the political calculation that it’s not worth prosecuting the Bush-Cheney cabal. The political cost is too high, the political benefit too low—and besides, everyone accepts that Cheney did what he has done, which would leave Obama out of synch with the school of minnows of Washington.
So Obama says, “Forget the past—move forward”, when it comes to Cheney’s crimes.
But when it comes to a whistleblower who embarrasses the military, or the security aparatus? Whistleblowers cause more political harm than political benefit—which is why Obama has been even more relentless in prosecuting than than even George W. Bush was.
See how crazy this is? This is what relative morality has bequeathed us: An evil old man interviewed on all the morning talk shows, cheerfully admitting to the rape of American principles, and to the gang-bang of those principles most central to our common humanity, confident that he will never suffer punishment for his evil deeds. And on the flip side, a whistleblower who saw waste—corruption—treason—and tried to stop it by calling attention to it: He is prosecuted like a criminal—worse than a criminal, if you go by what has happened to Bradley Manning—while those who betrayed the public trust are coddled and shielded from scrutiny—they are allowed to continue their wrongdoing, while the whistleblower who tried to stop it by shining a light on it is sent to jail.
Sapping Our Will
It’s bad enough that this turd of Satan should parade about, boasting of his evil deeds—what’s worse is, the very spectacle of Mr. Cheney prancing about saps America of our will to goodness and decency.
Just as there is a collective mood—the mood of a crowd at the stadium of a winning team, the mood of a crowd fleeing from an earthquake—there is a collective will: The will to goodness—or evil—of a people.
That will to goodness is inexorably sapped when the people see such an evil man walk away with impunity from his awful deeds—in fact, boasting of those evil deeds.
As our collective will to goodness is sapped, we become cynical, tired, depressed—ultimately despirited.
I am unsurprised that our economy is in the doldrums, teetering on the edge of yet another cliff-dive. Simpletons with Ph.D.’s might spew nonsense about “falling aggregate demand”, or there being “a need to provide markets with added liquidity”, or some other triviality, to explain away our reeling economy—but the answer is so much simpler:
Our economy is falling apart because our common spirit is exhausted, beaten down, and miserable—we have lost our vigor as a people. And the reason we have lost our vigor is because we have seen too many injustices, too much corruption—too much evil—that goes unremarked upon, tacitly accepted, and therefore unpunished.
We see Mr. Cheney take his victory lap on the morning shows as we drink our coffee, and realize as we drive to work that—in the current American society we live in—goodness will be censured, whereas evil will go unpunished. Unpunished, and indeed, rewarded.
No wonder we’re so depressed.
The Way Back
We need to get back to making judgments: We need to start saying, “This is right, and that is wrong”.
We already know what is right and what is wrong—we don’t need to hire some expert to tell us this. We know that Dick Cheney committed crimes against the very essence of America, wiping his ass with the Constitution. We know that the banks carried out wrongdoing, with their robo-signing scams and their criminal foreclosures on people who didn’t even owe them any money. We know that we are fed foodstuffs that poison our bodies and the bodies of our children yet to be born.
We know these things: They are not secret, they are not facts that have yet to come to light, or to be proven. They are the truth.
What’s more, these things are wrong.
So we have to stand up—as individuals and as a people—and say out loud: “This is wrong. This is unacceptable. And this must be punished.”
We must judge.
A lot of people—children of the ’70’s, I suppose—claim that judgment is a bad thing: “Don’t judge! You have no right to judge!” is their mantra. They insist that we as a society have no right to judge how they live, or more importantly what they do.
A lot of other people have taken up the same slogan, and adopted it as their own: People like Dick Cheney—like Monsanto and DuPont and BP, who poison us with impunity—like the oil and gas companies carrying out “fracking”, which is causing earthquakes and flammable water on the East Coast—like the TBTF banks and the prop desks front-running their clients, or illegally foreclosing on homeowners—in short, people near the top of our social pyramid.
They have adopted the non-judgmental slogans: “Don’t judge! You have no right to judge! It’s not illegal! We’re not breaking the law! So don’t judge! Don’t judge!” they yell and scream as loud as they can.
They seem so convincing, these slogans: It’s tempting to do what they ask—to not judge. Because judgment is hard. It’s far easier to passively accept a situation—to not pass judgment—to simply let it be—than to stand up, make a judgment, and then say it out loud.
These evil people clamor all the livelong day: “Don’t judge! You have no right to judge! You have no idea what the circumstances were! Don’t judge! Don’t judge! Don’t judge!”
When you feel you are about to cave in—when you feel that you are about to cede to these clever people, and accept their calls not to judge them—I want you to remember a single, very simple truth:
Only the guilty fear judgment.
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The Vulcans have a saying- "Only Nixon could go to China"
and only Reagan could fall asleep at a cabinet meeting
Be sure and go after Cheney with his big clanging balls of steel.
F'king hippies should all drown in lakes of blood.
Was that too judgemental?
"balls of steel"
Is that the polite term for "sociopath?"
It is a term for an American leader who isn't a pussy.
You probably find it shocking since there are so few of them at the moment.
Not a pussy? Just a draft dodger. A draft doger can have balls too: like Mohammed Ali. But Cheney is just fucking weasel who's always thought he was above it all.
Here's a clue.
I served. I don't mind a politician who didn't, but opposes pissing away my efforts.
Kerry served, in a minimal way, and I do hate that traitorous fucker.
Did Kerry shitcan the Constitution? Who's the traitorous bastard? Patriot Act, conveniently written before 911, sweet, eh? Not ttat Bush's fellow Bonesman Kerry would have done much different, mind you. But how can you say "treason" while defending Cheney, a fascist, a war criminal who had no respect for the Bill of Rights?
"Does the orders still stand, sir?"
Yeah, great American.
Kerry is a failed candidate for that level of office. He didn't have the opportunity.
Thank God.
Here's a clue MFer, Kerry actually won when the Ohio votes were counted post-election. The Bush/Cheney cabal stole two elections. You're a fucking troll.
You are extra poor loser.
Rs have to win by an extra 5% to overcome the Dem, big city, machine, voter fraud and you still can't win.
Fuck off, loser boy.
And you're a fucking idiot.
I can't believe anybody still spits this drivel out and actually believes it.
Perhaps reminding RF every comment he makes of his dream of being teabagged by Dick's
'Balls of Steel' will eventually sour his fantasy?
"It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of gum..."
Rodent, you served fascists...that makes you a DICK...i piss on your service
I guess it is lucky for me I don't value your opinion.
Just lie back, relax and open your mouth wide RF, Dick's in town and he says, "I've got Balls of Steel" Just how you like `em!
I wouldn't piss on anyone's service without knowing anything about it.
and i would never join the service, because i know about it.
Bastiat,
Hitler was a soldier too...WWI...look it up sometime.
Military service is not an inherently enobling experience....and one of the hallmarks of a fascist regime is the promotion of all things "Military" ("our heroes this" and "our brave sons that") btw, Just heard a story on NPR about a gal who was gang raped in the army FOUR times by her "comrades"...
there have been many of those stories over the years, sadly.
and it's still a voluntary military, albeit one that disproportionately represents the poor & low educated - and those who are "serving" to gain "citizenship" - if they stand out, they can always join the Xe boys in Dubai.
while I'm here, anyone who finds Cheney heroic, or admirable, or whatever - sickening.
Military service is not inherently noble, nor is everyone who wears a uniform--far from it. I said that I would not discount or disparage anyone's service without knowing anything about it. Fair enough?
go back and read Rodent Frei's "comments" then defend him and his "service"...Fair enough?
Following Cheney's puppet's orders is the very definition of pissing away your efforts.
Rodent Freikorps: "Here's a clue. I served."
What service? Judging by the "Freikorps" moniker and your comments here, it must have been a fascist one.
Cheney is a legal draft dodging slug who was more than willing to send other peoples kids to kill and be killed for oil. His wife gave birth almost exactly nine months to the day after Cheney's last of five deferrments disappeared when they began drafting married men without children. Slug, just like daddy got me into the National Guard Bush. ChickenHawks all.
And, here's a clue, I served, too, for 21 years, so don't give me your "liberal BS" comment.
So, you are just an unrecoverable idiot?
Okay...
Shouldn't you be in Af-Pak right now?
Or are you just a hypocrite?
Wars are fought on many fronts.
You'd know that if you had a brain.
So in the rear with the gear then? Look out everyone, it`s Radar O Reilly! (any relation to Bill? `cuz I`m beginning to see a resemblance, cous`)
Look RF, I believe you when you say that you have first and second hand knowledge that DC has Balls of Steel, it`s just that, unlike you, I have no desire to suck on them.
so when you kill an innocent child...you want a politician to pat you on the back so you can feel all warm and fuzzy about it.
damn you're brave.
War sucks. Shit happens.
If you can't handle that, don't start one.
Last time I checked not one of "us" has ever started a war. Last time I checked it was either the politicians, big banks or the military industrial complex starting the wars and sending the children of the poor and middle class to make them money, I mean fight the war.
You, and I, are responsible for what our nation does.
Don't like that? Change it.
With Dick Cheney`s
Balls of Steel
"It's time to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and I'm all out of gum..."
Thats funny I thought our nation is responsible for telling you and i the real things it is doing and the real reasons for doing them
You -"served" - I picture Beetle Bailey peeling potatoes. Thank God Cheney, et. al., have made sure your efforts didn't go to waste.
Come on, give the man a break, he had "other priorities".
OK Mr. "Beware the Muslim Caliphate" - we get it, Dick Cheney is your hero and thank God we had someone like him running things on 9/11...lol
It took 9/11 to shitcan all the commie bullshit and the muzzling of the intel agencies after the Church Commission.
We've had lots of traitors, but rarely so many as the Dems produced in the 80's.
And Cheney was vice president, in case you feeble minded have forgotten. The Ivy League carpet bagger Bush was in charge.
Bush was in charge?? ROFL!!
Yes, moron. If he wasn't, we would have nuked Afghanistan, and then nuked the rubble.
didnt cheney say on he was running the show from a bunker underneath the white house after 9/11?
Vice President is in charge if the Prez is out of contact.
However, I bet this was on the lines of Haig, when he said he had a handle on the WH until the Prez arrived and all the commies blew that up into a coup attempt.
Dems lie, you know.
"It took 9/11 to shitcan all the commie bullshit and the muzzling of the intel agencies"
Dick? Is that YOU???
It does help your argument when you create your own reality and overlook all those inconsistent facts. History has a way of bleeding out the truth despite all the deniers like you.
Right, just like the Reagan was in charge in his last couple of years.
Penalty...personal foul...you know thats complete bullshit.
He was out of office for six years before diagnosis...you say you're believing that stalwart of jounalistic integrity, gossip columnist Leslie Stahl?
wowOwow.com...lol.
you know thats complete bullshit.
Actually I don't know that. I suspected at the time Ronnie didn't have all his oars in the water. My dad was about the same age and followed just about the same course.
Ronnie was NOT actively running things for some time after he was shot - Herbert Walker was.
And it's funny how anti-DC, anti-Fed Ronnie changed his tune once he got the nomination....
and how Perot - who vociferously complained about US monetary and trade policy - didn't run again=, complaining that his family had been threatened.
I don't think it matters who gets elected - those pulling the strings get their way (and note how Cheney - who was supposed to find a VP for all-hat-no-cows W) ended up as the babysitter himself.
you really aren't very bright, are you - if Afghanistan had been "nuked" then how would the military maintain their poppy fields? and launder the proceeds through their banks?
you internet warriors are so sad.
well said. funny how production went back to 140%. Funny how important the underground economy has always been and is ever so today
If you put George W. Bush's brain in a grasshopper it would be like putting a BB in a boxcar.
No, George was not in charge. He knew nothing about those drone airliners flying into those buildings.
Ya Think? Cheney ran the show.
rodent,
i'd burn you to the fucking ground right now. but janus does not sow fruitless seeds.
now, can i rip your little ego into tiny shreds and expect something more than the woefully banal "utter nonsense" for rebuttal?
are you ready for the Hippodrome, or are you just havin fun?
sincerely,
janus
I like horses.
Let's rock.
Why, do you see them as having tasty
Balls of Steel like Dick Cheney's?
giddy-up
"for we fight not against flesh and blood, but against evil spirits and principalities which are in high places."
rodent, you have made an error; it is, however, one that is common among men of a particular sort. let's paint a picture and see what applies:
there is a nameless young man who's trying to make sense of the world around him; and while this struggle can befuddle even the best among our species, it is a particularly nettlesome dilemma for those lacking specific resources. wit and curiosity, rodent; those are in you exceedingly wanting. there are consequences for toting around deficencies so pronounced; and one of those is a phenomena called 'overcompensation' -- which is a vernacular term, but let's not ask too much of you just yet...we can get technical later. in you, rodent, this overcompensation manifests itself as a contorted and bastardized form of 'manliness'. you see, you've observed that the other children 'get' complex ideas much more readily than yourself; and you respond by projecting a "manly" bearing (sort of an 'oh yeah, well, i'm better'n you at this' type thing). normally, it is of no avail identifying the cavity in other men's souls -- but i think there may be hope for you after all. there's a liberal in you somewhere; and janus will draw him forth.
before i go any further, i'd like to say that i'm not pickin on rodent; i like and respect him. i choose him because he's one of the few fascists around here with balls enough to fight (whether or not he's out of his depth is another matter altogether). so, this isn't just for rodent; any of you fascist feelin' froggy, jump on in.
so, rodent, your 'manly' Dick opposes pissing on our soldiers efforts. rodent, you've served, i take you at your word; so tell me, what was your operational level? did you go about your business like an automoton. kill, capture, hold, abandon, kill, capture, hold, abandon...sound fucking familiar? WHAT THE FUCK WERE YOU DOING OVER THERE? did you not witness the utter futility of our efforts? tell me, please, what is he doing? no, he's not pissing, he's spraying you with hot, foul diarrhea...and chuckling in your face. you're to tell me that broadcasting wholesale lies to the american public to foment an immoral war in order to enrich his fraternity is 'manly'...well then call me a pussy (just don't do it to my face, son). men who go to war don't talk about it; and men who go to war don't send young men to such a fate capriciously. darkness is gathering around the dark one; and i, for one, am giddy about it.
the commies at the church committee, huh? i'm going to assume this is for effect; unless you say otherwise.
and nuke them and nuke the rubble? you best fucking apologize for that right now! that was totally out of bounds. these are innocent human beings. again, where the fuck were you? you telling me that humble villagers are to die en masse to sate some demonic oil lust? goddam predator drones are saturated in wickedness; and you want to cruise at 50,000 ft. and drop a nuclear bomb on simple folk for the sin of salting their bread with the sweat of their brow. you're a goddam coward. if america's hegemonic decadance is so valuable, at least get on the ground and fight them man-to-man. you're so deluded you can't even identify your enemy...i'll give you a hint: despite all propaganda to the contrary, very few of them have dark skin.
Give me back my broken night
my mirrored room, my secret life
it's lonely here,
there's no one left to torture
Give me absolute control
over every living soul
And lie beside me, baby,
that's an order!
Give me crack and anal sex
Take the only tree that's left
and stuff it up the hole
in your culture
Give me back the Berlin wall
give me Stalin and St Paul
I've seen the future, brother:
and it is murder,
janus
Bush was in charge kinda like those dirty muslims were in charge of the 757s on 911... not
now, now - it was simply a coincidence that all those investigations stopped after records were dsestroyed, and the problem with all those 'extra' Treasury Bonds went away with Cantor Fitzgerald (whose offices were on the top floors. Odd how the doors to the roof were locked this time - compared to 1993 when helicopters were evacuating people from the roof.... all those chopppers standing by - and no way for anyone to get to the roof.
The neocons got their little 'terrorist incident' - but still couldn;t manage to steal the oik they lusted for - nevermind the puppet state in Iraq that was supposed to be a permanent US bastion dominating the region.
But W stood up to Uncle Dick at the end and wouldn't go after Iran no matter how much he was baited. You gotta love the 'speedboat' version of the Gulf of Tonkin....
Yeah, Bush was in charge. The way Ludwig was in charge of Bavaria.
Rodent, rodent rodent! You are so hopelessly lost in the false right/left paradigm it is quite embarassing. Please join the awakened. We will welcome you, warts and all:)
I know the Rs are mostly corrupt, but they truly are less evil than the commie dems. I need the four years the Rs will buy me.
Dems will run it over to cliff too soon.
Why's that, RF?
Because they are willing to kill the economy with bullshit, ever increasing and pointless regulations.
Because they are willing to put us all at risk with bullshit, new age, wishful thinking instead of looking at the real evil and opposing it.
You're gonna have to enlighten me, RF. What is the 'real evil' you speak of? Bear in mind, I'm open to the possibility that I've got it completely wrong, so your input will not be taken lightly.
Heh. S&L,
You are far more dangerous than the people who are too programmed to follow the middle path.
The problem is the myriad of low level paper cuts at this point.
We won't have the power in the future to whack them when they grow. That is one of the reasons we on the knife edge now. We need to spend our capital to smash the most dangerous, and hope we can recover and win later, after the others have gained power.
We really are close to losing it all, since we have a reset to survive.
Freikorp, you are a hoot. I'll bet you eat lightning and shit thunder. LOL.
Nah, I'm actually a pacifist by nature.
If you kill all your enemies, you can have peace.
How simple is that?
I bet you are a socialist pussy who doesn't understand geopolitics
Understand them? Hell, considering that your comments on this thread have been on a level lower than a frog`s ass I`m f`kin` impressed you were even able to spell it.
idiots at either intense spectrum are exactly that, pathetically believing that corruption, collapse and criminality are piled into one label or philosophy. Do you really think "democrats" serve a different master and get fed by a different cage handler than their boys across the aisle? Get a clue, read a history book, pay attention.
I'm dangerous? To whom?
chill out Rambo. We get it, you got a woody for Dick. how very butch of you.
Come on S&L! Hippies redistribute wealth to the poor and the politicians, RF wants to redistrubute wealth to the war machine and the politicians. If you can't spend money you don't have to kill people in a foreign land - you're just not living right.
Strangely, hippies redistribute your wealth to others.
But they totally have your back, honest.
"clanging balls of steel..." REALLY?...
titanium urostomy bag, more like it....
No.
It shows that you lack the ability to judge reality for what it is.
@Freikorps
Cheney doesn't care if a million Iraqis, Afghans or Libyans die or are tortured indefinitely. He would also send every last soldier of the 82nd Airborne and 101st to die in a foreign land plus tie your hands and send you down the river with all the hippies, Freikorps, if it would get him what he wanted. Everyone is expendable to Cheney.
What makes you qualified to read Cheney's mind?
Five Fucking deferments...any???
Rodent is right.
The rest of you are a bunch of nutless peace mongers that refuse to recognize good from evil. If only Dick Cheyney was in power before WW2. He would have waterboarded Hitler with his own 2 hands.
Or even his own 2 giant clanging balls, tough SOB that he is.
Nah, if he was into waterboarding his giant clanging balls, he would've started the Tea Party.
(Couldn't help myself... shame on me.)
Nice Snark
Almost Mised It
"good from evil" Like the religious violent nut, you grab hard on that phrase and put "our" people in one camp and "their" people in another. How are you any different than the "terrorist extremist? " Clue - Jesus is not the answer
Rodent, thumbs up for having the patience to interact with these dithering jerkoffs. I dont know how you are able to interact with these ' Cheney and Bush are evil ' idiots. What a fucking waste of time reading this shit. Gonzalo Lira is good when he is talking economics, but a complete asshole when he gets into politics.
I like to fight.
ZH hasn't given me any real red meat for weeks. I actually like this stuff.
But thanks anyway.
It's not really a fight if you keep missing the point. Kind of like watching a boxing match where one guy has a bag over his head - and the other guy is looking at the ref saying "WTF?"
Just go take up paint balling on your nickel and quit waisting our tax dollars on your egotistic need to fight.
Hmm, he's completely "good" when he's talking economics and a "complete asshole" with politics. And that's because the two are unrelated? Power, policy, money and resource never mix do they? And they never challenge democracy do they? And Dick never mixed them in his career did he? And our founders were never fighting that very dynamic were they?
Why is Cheney so bad when the current administration pretty much continued Bush's policies? Too many people fall for the meme about Cheney being all powerful in the last administration. They are all corrupt bastards.
Bush f'd things on his own. Don't pin blame on a vp. I don't care for Cheney, but vp is the weakest position in federal government.
Cheney was the most powerful VP in my lifetime, if not in US history.
painfully true to anyone paying attention
Obummer is using bush/cheney's administration as a model for his administrations' behaviour however using soft rhetoric. The differences are negligible except Obummer has protected the former admin as did pelosi
It's funny how many self described liberals and progressives are apologists for neo-conservative foreign and domestic policy when it's being administered by a Democrat.
peak oil, peak debt and a corrupt reliance on a broken financial system to hide these realities will only increase this phenomenon.
not when his president has a dull normal IQ
Torture and warrentless wiretapping ("The Cheny Doctrine") have been discontinued under Obama AFAIK. But yes, Obama deserves oodles of contempt for carrying out many of the same policies in the war on terror.
Agreed Taxpayer. Why else would the military brass allow our troops to use depleted uranium rounds since 1991. Are radioactive isotopes suddenly nonlethal or does our government not give one shit about the brave men and women it sends to die to do their bidding!?
indeed Tuco, despite the denials the truth is there for anyone who cares to look. . . and DU is the "gift that keeps on giving" as it's passed in the semen. . . it's hardly surprising the dozens of suicides every month despite feeding troops anti-depressants by the handful. . .
RF, for what it's worth, I'm with ya on this one
Five deferments- that's all pussy. Pretty good at having others killed, too big a pussy to do it himself. What a dickhead.
Balls of steel, I guess that's why he dodged the draft three times, but has no problem sending other people's kids off to die for no reason? The Dickster is a chickenhawk hypocrite.
Dick is a dick.
Cheney won't die ... he's a cyborg.
He will die. I am certain of it
He will die. I am certain of it
You are correct. Vampires must die before they can truly become one of the undead.
Yes, Dick Cheney is Iron Man. This clip is funny if you haven't seen it.
http://video.adultswim.com/robot-chicken/iron-cheney.html
Who would've thought Nixon's bag man would make it so far.
Life is getting really scary I wonder how far down we will fall before this is all over
I agree.
It seems to me that some things should have be sorted out by adults already.
But it appears we have a bunch of Baboons running the planet.
Well, given enough time perhaps they will churn out the complete works of Shakespeare. Anyone got a typewriter?
Not baboons, but eugenicist psychopaths!
"how far down we will fall" ... all the way. It is their intent, in order to provide cover for all the crimes
.
10% odds of "road warrior" I am afraid!?
the more this planet's resources drop against its population without a radical adjustment, the uglier it will get.
Here is a guy that is making a broad brushed, scathing analysis of the decay of true ethics and ethical judgemment in the US and the uncivic melt down in public values and behaviour that has resulted. Why is the gripe just against Cheney? He is just an icon of the times. This article nails the moral decline so brilliantly. TY GL you have just said it to a T.
An icon who is personally responsible for the deaths of thousands in Iraq. He is the poster child for the potentially destructive force of sociopathy.
fucking loser, deaths in Iraq where the result of Sunni Vs Shite.
Of course, because if our soldiers weren't in Iraq, they'd be killed by Sunni/Shiite violence on the other side of the planet, by bullets and IEDs that travel 10,000 miles. Flawless logic.
This is not a matter of logic fuck head. It is a fact that most of the deaths in Iraq where muslim on muslim, just like Darfur.
What about the ~5000 American lives (young men and women in the prime of their lives) we lost in Iraq?
Nope still M on M like Spitzy says: apparently you have to convert to Islam before you can serve in MENA.
it was cheney himself in 1994, o wise one, prior to peak oil invasions, who warned AGAINST going into Iraq for these very reasons. Look up his interview on YOUTUBE.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YENbElb5-xY&playnext=1&list=PL540FF525435C083D
It was their leaders iron grip who kept these ancient parties from going at each other. Anyone with a brain or an ounce of historical knowlege knew this would be the result. That makes us responsible. Get a clue, some ethics, and lose your hypocrisy
Yes, all 1,000,000. Ha, ha, ha!
Why don't you tell that to all the parents of children killed and maimed because of a psycopathic coward. What a fucktard.
Thank you! Very kind of you to say.
GL
This "loony Lefty" also enjoyed it, good work. And here I was thinking that 'your kind' ("old-style hard-ass Conservative") just blamed all our problems on acorn, abortion, and, of course, loony lefties ....
I really like (and also resemble) this line: "As our collective will to goodness is sapped, we become cynical, tired, depressed—ultimately despirited. "
Again, very good.... But it sounds a little lefty you old hard ass...!
hey gonzo, why don't you guys in chile get your own flag. that one is taken thank you very much.
signed
texas....
Actually, the Texan flag was adopted in 1839—22 years after the Chilean flag, which was adopted in 1817.
Look it up.
GL
Well played, sir!
say what?
There is a reason he is known as Dick.
indeed,
http://www.hc-sc.gc.ca/ahc-asc/media/advisories-avis/_2011/2011_116-eng.php
So does that mean Gonzolo is going to refuse an invite to join Mr. Cheney on a pheasant hunt and debate policy?
I'd be afraid he'd shoot me in the face. He does have that habit, after all.
GL
You would have spoken the same of Churchill at the time.
churchill was pretty much in he same mode of operation. totally corrupt and totally satanic...........but you go ahead and believe what you want there sptiz....
"Great Wars and Great Leaders" Ralph Raico. Churchill was a psycho.
maybe save it for a discrete hunt with a supreme court justice before he hears your case?
"In short, he violated every rule in the book"
The public lacks details with which to make sound "judgements" regarding Dick just like this article.
If you want the public to be outraged you need to be more specific than "he violated every rule in the book"
What SPECIFICALLY did DICK do. Even the famed Nazi hunters had some specifics on their mark.
Just trying to help you help the public and this article does not help the cause.
Ohio 2004
and New York 2001.
"What specifically did DICK do."
Let's waterboard him and find out.
Provide access to classified documents and the question will be answered. Oops GW put a 75 year lock on them.
murdered americans both here and there and lied all the way through it.
Waterboard one of 'em per week on national tv. Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney... all of 'em.
Then do their book interviews.
A fascinating historical read on how society has allowed cheating to go on.. this time in the food we eat:
"Swindled" by Bee Wilson shows that the greedy don't stop at making money illegally, they kill as well because of what they do to food
It lists the people over the decades that fought against such evils, like ZH, there are some that do care and want to put a stop to such deeds
Chair Satan. the next such type of book will have you as the main villain!
ZH aims to make a profit. I suspect it will do whatever it takes. Seeming to care, when done properly, can be very good for profits.
"This is mob rule."
This is the heart of the issue - when the laws are ignored, or enforced selectively, society breaks down. But Cheney and his ilk are even worse that that. Cheney celebrates the recognition of that fact, on the basis that laws and morality are not for the ubermensch, the masters of the universe who operate in the realpolitik, who dwell in the rarified atmosphere of raw power. Men such as he have no time for your trifling, petty, sheep issues like justice, fairness and equality, and he mocks you for thinking those things are important. To him, you just don't get it. Nietszche had this nailed quite a while back.
There's one song that was written for this guy, and you've never heard the original 1963 version, just Bob Dylan and his guitar, you should give it a listen for Dick Cheney, for he is a "Master Of War." Excerpt -
"Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul
And I hope that you die
And your death’ll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I’ll watch while you’re lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I’ll stand o’er your grave
’Til I’m sure that you’re dead."
outstanding post, ned.
unfortunately, i didn't see it before i posted the entire song at the end of the thread.
great minds..., i suppose.
if i could only add but one phrase to your most excellent post:
"when the social contract is broken, the people must revolt.",
thus spoke zarathustra (aka janus)