Fuck Obama

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Postby Percival » Thu May 28, 2009 3:34 pm

The problem here is that you are completely wrong in every respect.

Hey I'm going easy here and will have no mercy on the fools who are in even mildly supporting Obama for any number of convoluted reasons. Fuck the coddling nonsense. You folks who supported him failed to inform yourselves and in your support have done immense damage to many possibilities and in fact are supporting mass murder if only on a lesser scale than the most Imperial warmonger. So maybe I should go easy on that? No thanks. You people failed in every way the likes of us who time and again predicted every single thing that is happening and in doing so you have caused immense damage.

How about then you and the folks who want to play word games owning up to some responsibilties and now that it has become crystal clear what a corporate errand boy your man is you actively struggle against this asshole. But I suppose that's too dirty and would mean something beyond the abstract which y'all wish to avoid.

Don't worry I've heard and read every possible rationalization for supporting Obama and they are all half-baked excuses of cowardice and ill thought out "strategies." Send out a few more if you wish but I will not be gentle in my rebuke.

Unfuckin' believable that anyone could've failed to see this comin' and even harder to believe that anyone could still be even faintly trying to defend such an obvious charlatan.


QFT

Fuckem.
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Postby Username » Thu May 28, 2009 3:36 pm

~
I see it just fine thx.

Anyone paying the least bit of attention sees it also.

chlamor wrote:The problem here is that you are completely wrong in every respect.

Hey I'm going easy here and will have no mercy on the fools who are in even mildly supporting Obama for any number of convoluted reasons. Fuck the coddling nonsense. You folks who supported him failed to inform yourselves and in your support have done immense damage to many possibilities and in fact are supporting mass murder if only on a lesser scale than the most Imperial warmonger. So maybe I should go easy on that? No thanks. You people failed in every way the likes of us who time and again predicted every single thing that is happening and in doing so you have caused immense damage.

How about then you and the folks who want to play word games owning up to some responsibilties and now that it has become crystal clear what a corporate errand boy your man is you actively struggle against this asshole. But I suppose that's too dirty and would mean something beyond the abstract which y'all wish to avoid.

Don't worry I've heard and read every possible rationalization for supporting Obama and they are all half-baked excuses of cowardice and ill thought out "strategies." Send out a few more if you wish but I will not be gentle in my rebuke.

Unfuckin' believable that anyone could've failed to see this comin' and even harder to believe that anyone could still be even faintly trying to defend such an obvious charlatan.


I'm not saying Obama is great.

I'm saying you're an ass.

Thx for making my point.

Peace Out Bro.
~
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Postby Percival » Thu May 28, 2009 3:51 pm

Username wrote:~
I see it just fine thx.

Anyone paying the least bit of attention sees it also.

chlamor wrote:The problem here is that you are completely wrong in every respect.

Hey I'm going easy here and will have no mercy on the fools who are in even mildly supporting Obama for any number of convoluted reasons. Fuck the coddling nonsense. You folks who supported him failed to inform yourselves and in your support have done immense damage to many possibilities and in fact are supporting mass murder if only on a lesser scale than the most Imperial warmonger. So maybe I should go easy on that? No thanks. You people failed in every way the likes of us who time and again predicted every single thing that is happening and in doing so you have caused immense damage.

How about then you and the folks who want to play word games owning up to some responsibilties and now that it has become crystal clear what a corporate errand boy your man is you actively struggle against this asshole. But I suppose that's too dirty and would mean something beyond the abstract which y'all wish to avoid.

Don't worry I've heard and read every possible rationalization for supporting Obama and they are all half-baked excuses of cowardice and ill thought out "strategies." Send out a few more if you wish but I will not be gentle in my rebuke.

Unfuckin' believable that anyone could've failed to see this comin' and even harder to believe that anyone could still be even faintly trying to defend such an obvious charlatan.


I'm not saying Obama is great.

I'm saying you're an ass.

Thx for making my point.

Peace Out Bro.
~


What makes Chlamor an ass? I dont get it? Is it because he refuses to sugar-coat the fucking truth? If so, when did that become such a bad thing, maybe that is the problem, everyone is too fucking scared or timid to simply tell it like it is.

I dont know the slightest thing about Chlamor or what his politics are and I really dont fucking care to. About this, he is right.
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Postby freemason9 » Thu May 28, 2009 4:18 pm

Honestly, when you give it any thought at all, passionate political embrace is a hallmark of social retardation. When you think about it. Right, chlamor?

Clamoring for attention.

Here's the deal: Do you really, really believe that everyone feels exactly about things as you do? No? You acknowledge that others may differ in their opinions? Are they, then, all fools because they do not think as you do?

It's only a matter of perspective.

Could it be, Mr. Chlamor, that you feel that you should be running things? And is it a fact, Mr. Chlamor, that you are in charge of nothing? Does your braying and shouting provide you a sense of empowerment that you don't otherwise get, or merit?

Compensation isn't all that.

There are simply some aspects of behavior that one can identify quickly, when you reach my age (and remain among the breathing). You, Mr. Chlamor, are the sort that make a poor drinking companion. I'm damned sorry that your childhood went so badly. I'm damned sorry that your first wife left you for a biker. I'm damned sorry your parents don't care about you. I really am.

Frustration should never guide your soul.

But leave it behind, please, and don't assume everyone the fool. I've not earned or asked for your judgement, and (as nearly as I can tell) you've not earned the right to judge anyone. You remind me of the fierce radical that lives off his parent's fortune. Whatever.

Entitlement isn't just for the aged and the impoverished, is it?

My life has been hard, varied, rich, colorful, laborious, academic, painful, joyful, and--at the very least--interesting. I resent being tested by someone like yourself, because I sense that you are a kept person. I don't particularly like kept persons.

I sense a soft jaw speaking hard words.
The real issue is that there is extremely low likelihood that the speculations of the untrained, on a topic almost pathologically riddled by dynamic considerations and feedback effects, will offer anything new.
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Postby ninakat » Thu May 28, 2009 4:37 pm

Defining Moments in US History and their Relevance Today

By Charles Sullivan

May 28, 2009 ""Information Clearing House" -- - There are periods in the history of every nation that define its character and reveal who is really running the government and its social and financial institutions. In the US, one of those periods, of which there are so many, was the political witch hunt that occurred during the 1950s. Known as the era of McCarthyism, this was a time in which the civil rights of anyone with leftist political leanings were violated through a series of tormented public persecutions. During McCarthyism, thousands of law- abiding citizens were blacklisted and thus unable to find work. Among this group, numerous families were torn asunder, divorces sharply increased, and multiple suicides were reported.

The era of McCarthyism, one of many dark epochs of US history, clearly demonstrates that the political forces running the government were conservatism and right wing extremism. They are the very same elements that are tearing the nation and the world asunder today. Men like then Wisconsin Senator Joseph McCarthy, J. Edgar Hoover, and Ronald Reagan were manifestations of the syndrome of right wing extremism. Their fanatical neocon progeny are making the world a dangerous place today.

The McCarthy era was one of the most shameful of our young nation. Its value to the present, however, is that it permits a glimpse of the destructive forces that lurk behind the façade of democracy. These forces have always subverted the democratic process, discarded the will of the people, and run the nation for its own sinister purposes. This was a period in which liberal politics and progressivism, populist ideologies with socialist leanings, were openly under attack. In fact, liberals and progressives have been under constant assault in the US but rarely so openly and as blatantly as during McCarthyism.

Periodically, progressives, liberals, socialists and communists, were rounded up, divested of their constitutional rights, and imprisoned or executed. There were the notorious Palmer raids on the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) and other revolutionary unions, the execution of organizers like Joe Hill, and the deportation of others, including Big Bill Haywood. Eugene Debs, a socialist union organizer, was imprisoned multiple times for his political views. The Haymarket Martyrs, who championed the cause of the eight hour work day, were hanged in Chicago for their anarchist ideology, framed for crimes they did not commit.

Rightly or wrongly, during the height of the civil rights marches of the 60s, Dr. King and his followers were associated with the Communist Party by J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. Functionalists have an extreme phobia of populist movements because, if successful, they would usurp their political power and disburse it among the people. In other words, neo-conservatives, and this includes virtually the entire Democratic Party of today, the neo-liberals, have an extreme fear of democracy.

Virtually all of today’s democrats do not deserve to be associated with the ideology of progressivism. Barely a handful of them are worthy of the liberal label. The traditional liberals, personified by the likes of Cynthia McKinney, were forced to leave the party. It is beyond absurd to think of President Obama as anything but a political conservative dressed in the garments of liberalism and masquerading as a man of the people. Obama’s voting record, his political appointments, the money trail, and his policy decisions reveal his true colors. So much for change we can believe in.

As significant as they are, such defining episodes of history are curiously absent from the narrative disseminated in the public education system. For most Americans, these episodes never happened. Indeed, anything that contradicts their obstinate belief in American democracy did not occur. Most Americans cannot wrap their languorous brains around these defining actions, and that is why current events, including 9-11, make so little sense to them: they lack historical context.

Indeed, as history attests, it has always been dangerous to be a progressive in this or any nation, and it still is. Since the people who wield the most political power were never struck down or divested of their ill- gotten influence, such episodes are certain to occur again. Imagine, if you can, a world in which polio had not been eradicated. This is why racism, sexism, and inequality, all characteristics of functionalist social theory, with its hybridized credo of neo-conservatism and neo-liberalism, flourish today; they were never eradicated and were allowed to spread.

Since the counter revolution ushered in during the interminably long Reagan years, it is wrongly perceived that progressivism in this nation is dead; that is wishful thinking on the part of the neocons and the corporate fascists who are running the show. The political left, occasionally a powerful revolutionary force for change in this nation, is currently disorganized and ineffectual, but it is not dead. And because it is not dead, it is likely to rise again in response to a future crisis. Some catalyzing event, such as an economic depression and massive job loss, is likely to revive it. This is arguably the only force capable of saving the republic, and much of the world, from self-annihilation.

Meanwhile, we must decide if it is worth salvaging.

Charles Sullivan is a free-lance writer, educator, and citizen activist residing in the Ridge and Valley Province of geopolitical West Virginia.
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Postby Col. Quisp » Thu May 28, 2009 4:39 pm

Whoa whoa whoa...everybody needs to calm the F*k down here.

Making assumptions about your opponent is likely to bring on more insults and ad hominem attacks, ad infinitum, and over what? Come on, what's done is done. Stop blaming "you people" for this current state of affairs. Let's look forward at how we can rectify this.

What makes Clamor a hard-talking, soft-jawed, kept ass? I'd like to know how you people know this.
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Postby harflimon » Thu May 28, 2009 6:26 pm

.
Last edited by harflimon on Sun Aug 02, 2009 3:20 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby Fred Astaire » Thu May 28, 2009 7:00 pm

Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid tastes great

Kool-Aid, Kool-Aid can't wait
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Postby Jeff » Thu May 28, 2009 7:38 pm

Col. Quisp wrote:Making assumptions about your opponent is likely to bring on more insults and ad hominem attacks, ad infinitum, and over what?


Like the Colonel says.

Please keep your remarks to the message, not the messenger.
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Postby chlamor » Thu May 28, 2009 8:57 pm

freemason9 wrote:Honestly, when you give it any thought at all, passionate political embrace is a hallmark of social retardation. When you think about it. Right, chlamor?

Clamoring for attention.

Here's the deal: Do you really, really believe that everyone feels exactly about things as you do? No? You acknowledge that others may differ in their opinions? Are they, then, all fools because they do not think as you do?

It's only a matter of perspective.

Could it be, Mr. Chlamor, that you feel that you should be running things? And is it a fact, Mr. Chlamor, that you are in charge of nothing? Does your braying and shouting provide you a sense of empowerment that you don't otherwise get, or merit?

Compensation isn't all that.

There are simply some aspects of behavior that one can identify quickly, when you reach my age (and remain among the breathing). You, Mr. Chlamor, are the sort that make a poor drinking companion. I'm damned sorry that your childhood went so badly. I'm damned sorry that your first wife left you for a biker. I'm damned sorry your parents don't care about you. I really am.

Frustration should never guide your soul.

But leave it behind, please, and don't assume everyone the fool. I've not earned or asked for your judgement, and (as nearly as I can tell) you've not earned the right to judge anyone. You remind me of the fierce radical that lives off his parent's fortune. Whatever.

Entitlement isn't just for the aged and the impoverished, is it?

My life has been hard, varied, rich, colorful, laborious, academic, painful, joyful, and--at the very least--interesting. I resent being tested by someone like yourself, because I sense that you are a kept person. I don't particularly like kept persons.

I sense a soft jaw speaking hard words.


Pretty lame-ass nonsense that resembles smarmy new-age self-help GooSpeak.

What's interesting in all of this is the tenor which describes to a tee the manner in which you perceive all of this through the lens of self, in this case self-indulgence. This is of course why and how it escapes you that the very essence of politics is something you cannot grasp through such a narrow lens.

You sound pretty much like the charlatans who write such drivel as "The Secret" and "100 Ways To..." with none of what you say having any relevance whatsoever to political realities. This is why it is not of use at all for you to even consider politics and instead continue navel-gazing with your eternal relativism while the world goes up in flames led by a brown man with good diction who turns his nose away from the torture he condones and the wars he supports and the high financiers that he sucks up to.

Everyone has the right to judge and such asinine comments of yours are to be judged most harshly as they have consequences when so many folks reiterate similar nonsense in support of atrocities that they wish to whitewash or completely ignore as they support the man who is out in front of The Bloodstained Empire.

And as for your attempt at a bio sleep well that you missed on every point just as you miss on every point as regards to your incoherent ramblings about Obama. At least you are consistent.
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Postby freemason9 » Thu May 28, 2009 9:05 pm

chlamor wrote:
freemason9 wrote:Honestly, when you give it any thought at all, passionate political embrace is a hallmark of social retardation. When you think about it. Right, chlamor?

Clamoring for attention.

Here's the deal: Do you really, really believe that everyone feels exactly about things as you do? No? You acknowledge that others may differ in their opinions? Are they, then, all fools because they do not think as you do?

It's only a matter of perspective.

Could it be, Mr. Chlamor, that you feel that you should be running things? And is it a fact, Mr. Chlamor, that you are in charge of nothing? Does your braying and shouting provide you a sense of empowerment that you don't otherwise get, or merit?

Compensation isn't all that.

There are simply some aspects of behavior that one can identify quickly, when you reach my age (and remain among the breathing). You, Mr. Chlamor, are the sort that make a poor drinking companion. I'm damned sorry that your childhood went so badly. I'm damned sorry that your first wife left you for a biker. I'm damned sorry your parents don't care about you. I really am.

Frustration should never guide your soul.

But leave it behind, please, and don't assume everyone the fool. I've not earned or asked for your judgement, and (as nearly as I can tell) you've not earned the right to judge anyone. You remind me of the fierce radical that lives off his parent's fortune. Whatever.

Entitlement isn't just for the aged and the impoverished, is it?

My life has been hard, varied, rich, colorful, laborious, academic, painful, joyful, and--at the very least--interesting. I resent being tested by someone like yourself, because I sense that you are a kept person. I don't particularly like kept persons.

I sense a soft jaw speaking hard words.


Pretty lame-ass nonsense that resembles smarmy new-age self-help GooSpeak.

What's interesting in all of this is the tenor which describes to a tee the manner in which you perceive all of this through the lens of self, in this case self-indulgence. This is of course why and how it escapes you that the very essence of politics is something you cannot grasp through such a narrow lens.

You sound pretty much like the charlatans who write such drivel as "The Secret" and "100 Ways To..." with none of what you say having any relevance whatsoever to political realities. This is why it is not of use at all for you to even consider politics and instead continue navel-gazing with your eternal relativism while the world goes up in flames led by a brown man with good diction who turns his nose away from the torture he condones and the wars he supports and the high financiers that he sucks up to.

Everyone has the right to judge and such asinine comments of yours are to be judged most harshly as they have consequences when so many folks reiterate similar nonsense in support of atrocities that they wish to whitewash or completely ignore as they support the man who is out in front of The Bloodstained Empire.

And as for your attempt at a bio sleep well that you missed on every point just as you miss on every point as regards to your incoherent ramblings about Obama. At least you are consistent.


All right, I don't need this at all. Chlamor, you are an ass. Period. And your tone has become viral, and you are a self-righteous pig.

Ban me, Jeff, I don't care at this point. I think RI has taken a turn for the worse.
The real issue is that there is extremely low likelihood that the speculations of the untrained, on a topic almost pathologically riddled by dynamic considerations and feedback effects, will offer anything new.
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Postby lightningBugout » Thu May 28, 2009 9:13 pm

I know its a typical name calling conundrum but I referred to Chlamor as behaving like a reactionary asshole solely because he posted that I was "completely wrong in every sense." With all due respect - that's almost always a crazy thing to say because strategically it is *bound* to elicit a reaction and take the conversation off topic.

Especially because I was actually not so much giving an opinion as I was suggesting that RI should be able to hold those of us who detest Obama and see him as a puppet and those of us who see him with much greater ambiguity. I know I hold both of those opinions in myself. I don't see why the board shouldn't be able to as well.

All these charges that supporting Obama is a black and white indicator of someone's stupidity, naivete, denial, etc. are offensive. The "kool aid" thing is really lame. Sure it might apply to an eager and naive head-in-the-sand champion that Obama is just swell, but it most certainly does not apply to me.
"What's robbing a bank compared with founding a bank?" Bertolt Brecht
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Postby chlamor » Thu May 28, 2009 9:15 pm

Obama and the Environment
The Politics of Bait-and-Switch

By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR and JOSHUA FRANK

After little more than 100 days in office, the Democrats, under the leadership of Barack Obama, have unleashed a slew of anti-environmental policies that would have enraged any reasonable conservationist during the Bush years.

Take the delisting of the gray wolf in the Western Great Lakes and parts of the Northern Rockies, which was announced during the waning days of the Bush era and upheld by Obama earlier this spring. About 200 packs of wolves live in the northern Rocky Mountains today. But only 95 of these packs are led by a breeding pair of wolves, which is significantly less than half of what most biologists consider to be a healthy number in order to fend off imminent decline and long-term genetic problems for the species.

In Idaho, free roaming wolves have been radio-collared, allowing their human killers to track and gun them down by helicopter. Freed from the protections of the Endnagered Species Act (ESA), the state plans on permitting hundreds of these wolves to be murdered this coming winter. Only a few environmental groups have stepped up in the wolf’s defense, with the Center for Biological Diversity based in Tucson, Arizona leading the charge.

It’s not just the wolf that’s been hung out to dry. Shortly after Obama’s inauguration, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar and Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced they were revoking an 11th hour Bush directive that weakened the ESA listing process. However, shortly thereafter the Dept. of the Interior refused to repeal a special rule that would have granted the polar bear protection from the impacts of global warming. Salazar said his agency does not believe the law was intended to address climate change, even though many policy analysts believe the ESA could be used to limit the issuing of permits for development projects that would potentially threaten the polar bear by emitting additional greenhouse gases.

"The Endangered Species Act is not the proper tool to deal with a global issue - global warming," Salazar said. "We need to move forward with a comprehensive climate change and energy plan we can be proud of."

Apparently federal protection should not be granted if the industry’s emissions happen outside the polar bear’s natural habitat. The Obama administration, under Salazar’s watch, is refusing to lead the way in protecting the bear’s dwindling populations. Of course the oil and gas cartels were unabashedly pleased with the decision. So much for thinking globally and acting locally.

“We welcome the administration's decision because we, like Secretary Ken Salazar, recognize that the Endangered Species Act is not the proper mechanism for controlling our nation's carbon emissions,” said American Petroleum Institute President Jack Gerard. “Instead, we need a comprehensive, integrated energy and climate strategy to address this complex, global challenge.”

That’s not the only recent victory for big oil provided by Salazar’s office. During one of the most ridiculous episodes of the 2008 presidential campaign, the strange tag-team of John McCain and Sarah Palin led their diminutive crowds in spastics of “Drill, baby, drill.” Off-shore oil drilling and a new generation of nuclear power plants represented the sum total of the McCain/Palin energy plan.

Though it seemed like political comedy at the time, this strategy has now been at least partially embraced by the Obama administration. As the clock approached midnight on the final eve of the Bush administration, his Interior Department put forward a rule opening 300 million acres of coastal waters to oil drilling. According to the hastily prepared decree, the leasing was to begin by March 23. Enter Salazar with a maneuver that is typical of the Obama approach to environmental politics. Instead of killing the drilling plan outright, Salazar merely extended the analysis period for an additional six months. The environmental lobby was given a procedural crumb, while the oil hounds still had its long-sought prize on the table for the taking.

Although off-shore drilling is so intensely unpopular in coastal states that even Jeb Bush stood up to his brother’s attempts to expand drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, Ken Salazar, accompanied by a consort of oil lobbyists, held four town hall forums this spring on off-shore drilling and left that distinct impression that he was leaning toward what he called a “comprehensive approach” to energy development, in which the oceans will be mined for off-shore wind, wave power and, yes, oil. This is proving to be an administration that doesn’t know the meaning of the word “no”.

Down in Appalachia things are not much better, where the coal extraction industry was recently given the green light to proceed with 42 of its 48 pending mountaintop removal permits. While Obama speaks out about the negative impact of the aptly named mountaintop removal, where whole mountains are blown apart to expose thin lines of coal, he is not willing to take on an industry that continually pollutes rivers and threatens public health.

“If you still have an Obama sticker on your car, maybe think about scraping it off and sending it to the White House with your objections,” says Mike Roselle of Climate Ground Zero, who is working hard to stop mountaintop removal in West Virginia and elsewhere. “Blowing mountains to pieces is a crime.”

When it comes to CO2 emissions, the EPA has also been more bark than bite. While admitting that greenhouse gases are a threat to human health, the agency will not necessarily move to regulate industry emissions.

White House climate czar Carol Browner and EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson initially said that such a declaration would “indeed trigger the beginning of regulation of CO2," but only weeks later Jackson reversed her belief that industry would be affected by the White House’s admission. Speaking before the U.S. Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Jackson said on May 12: "The endangerment finding is a scientific finding mandated by law ... It does not mean regulation."

In fact instead of implementing real regulatory oversight to combat the alleged culprits of global warming, the Obama administration has held its campaign promise to tackle CO2 emissions by embracing free market environmentalism, i.e. cap-and-trade. Obama proposes reducing US emissions 83% by 2050 by essentially allowing industry to regulate itself by putting a price on carbon. But many say there is a reason industry isn’t frightened.

“[Cap-and-trade] programs have so many leaks, trap doors, and perverse side effects that they'll probably do more harm than good,” says Ted Nace director of CoalSwarm, an environmental project of the Earth Island Institute that seeks to shut down the existing coal plants in the US.

“The illusion that a solution is in place will then prevent simpler, more focused solutions from being implemented. An example of this phenomenon is the sulfur trading system. Proponents of cap-and-trade point to it as proof that pollution markets work, but decades after the program went into place I can show you a big database of coal plants that continue to spew inordinate amounts of sulfur dioxide,” says Nace. “A simpler solution to the global warming problem would be to mandate that all the existing coal plants be phased out in an orderly, phased manner.”

Not surprisingly, Obama refuses to consider strict regulation let alone a carbon tax to address the country’s big CO2 emitters. Instead, after intense pressure from the pollution lobby, Obama’s approach to attacking with climate change has been whittled down to nothing more than weak market-driven economics that can too easily be manipulated politically. Polluters will be let off the hook as they can simply relocate or build new infrastructure in places where there are few or no carbon regulations.

But by far the boldest stroke of this spring was Obama's courageous decision to zero out funding for the planned nuclear waste repository at the sacred Yucca Mountain. This vault on earthquake prone lands of the Western Shoshone near Las Vegas was long meant to be the escape hatch for the nuclear industry's most aggravating problem: where to hide the accumulating piles of radioactive material from the nations 104 commercial nuclear reactors. Sen. Harry Reid says Yucca Mountain is dead. So does Energy Secretary Stephen Chu. But Yucca Mountain has been buried before only to rise up from the grave. If indeed Obama has succeeded in killing it off, this alone will eclipse all of the vaporous achievements of the Clinton era.

Still, appraisal of the true meaning of the Yucca Mountain decision must be countered by the administration's ongoing promotion of nuclear power as corrective to climate change. Both Chu and Obama's chief science advisor John Holdren are pushing for federal subsidies for a new generation of nuclear power plants -- even though Obama has admitted there's no safe place to store nuclear waste. Even more disturbing, Holdren continues to hawk the fool's gold of the nuclear lobby: fusion energy.

In a recent interview with Science, Holdren said: "We need to develop and deploy approaches to nuclear energy that can minimize the liabilities that have inhibited expansion of that carbon-free energy source up until now. We need to see if we can make fusion work. This is a quest in which I've been engaged since 1965. Again, I started [my work at MIT] in that domain. At that time, people thought fusion was 15 years away. Now people think it's 40 or 50 years away. We need to shrink that time scale again by increasing the investment for making that domain."

This means billions more for the nuclear lobby under the guise of research and development, the pipeline of federal subsidies that has kept the industry alive since Three Mile Island.

Then just last week Obama announced a sweeping overhaul of the car fuel efficiency (CAFE) and exhaust emissions standards, which have languished unmodified for more than a decade. These long-overdue upgrades will force car-makers (if there are any left five years from now when the rules are slated to finally kick in) to curb carbon dioxide emissions by 35 percent and hike fuel efficiency standards from 30 to 35 miles per gallon. While the proposal has been hailed as historic, it has plenty of drawbacks.

For starters, the plan capitulated to automakers by endorsing a national emissions standard, which will likely preempt states, such as California, from adopting even more stringent clean air rules. Obama also gave the auto industry a few more years to come into compliance with these rather modest requirements. No wonder the move was hailed by traditional Motor City defenders such as Sen. Carl Levin and Rep. John Dingell.

Less endearing is the Obama administration’s relentless push to replace oil with biofuels, which will push marginal agriculture lands into production of genetically-engineered and pesticide saturated monocrops, scalping topsoil and draining dwindling water supplies across the Great Plains and Midwest. Overseeing this misguided scheme is Obama’s Ag Secretary Tom Vilsack, the former governor of Iowa who has long been a servant of industrial agriculture and the bioengineering industry.

Under Vilsack, the biofuels project is poised to move far beyond burning corn and soybeans for fuel. They want to chop down national forests and burn the public’s trees inside a new generation of biomass power generators. This insidious and little noticed program will be marshaled by biomass booster Homer Lee Wilkes, a little known urban planner from Madison, Mississippi. Wilkes was Vilsack’s surprise pick for the powerful slot of Undersecretary of Agriculture for Natural Resources and the Environment, a position which among other responsibilities places Wilkes in control of the U.S. Forest Service.

So look for to a new wave of timber sales on federal lands, sanctified in the name of fighting climate change, categorically excluded from full environmental analysis and enthusiastically supported by so-called collaborative groups who will be first in line to cash in on the lucrative logging contracts. Coming soon to a national forest near you for a return engagement: greens with chainsaws.

http://counterpunch.org/stclair05212009.html
Liberal thy name is hypocrisy. What's new?
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Postby lightningBugout » Thu May 28, 2009 9:32 pm

Chlamor wrote:The problem here is that you are completely wrong in every respect.

Almost noone is ever "completely wrong in every respect. What's up with your ego that you are comfortable deeming that of *anyone*?

Chlamor wrote:Hey I'm going easy here and will have no mercy on the fools who are in even mildly supporting Obama for any number of convoluted reasons. Fuck the coddling nonsense. You folks who supported him failed to inform yourselves and in your support have done immense damage to many possibilities and in fact are supporting mass murder if only on a lesser scale than the most Imperial warmonger.


As a fool let me point out that I have never supported Obama's stance on Af-Pak in any form though I believe he has been fairly straightforward about his beliefs since the beginning of his campaign.

Supporting nearly any US politician is "in fact supporting mass murder" in the way in which you see things. If you are a pacifist and war tax resister, then all the more power to you. If not, acknowledge that your argument is largely hyperbole because you're so pissed off.

Chlamor wrote:You people failed in every way the likes of us who time and again predicted every single thing that is happening and in doing so you have caused immense damage.


I see Chlamor. How have "we" caused immense damage? What alternative did you support?

Chlamor wrote:How about then you and the folks who want to play word games owning up to some responsibilties and now that it has become crystal clear what a corporate errand boy your man is you actively struggle against this asshole. But I suppose that's too dirty and would mean something beyond the abstract which y'all wish to avoid.


I'm not playing word games. I acknowledge that Obama is probably in part corrupt. I'm not actively struggling to see him in the kind of black and white terms that you seem to.

Chlamor wrote:Don't worry I've heard and read every possible rationalization for supporting Obama and they are all half-baked excuses of cowardice and ill thought out "strategies." Send out a few more if you wish but I will not be gentle in my rebuke.

Cowardice? And this would make you, what, a valiant Samurai of some sort? What is it you are doing here that is so distinguishable from "cowardice?" Is there something brave about the operatic tone you've adopted to assault anyone who falls short of calling Barack an imperial warmonger and corporate stooge? Where is the moral courage in repasting articles from Counterpoint and insulting the integrity of people who disagree with you but are fundamentally intellectually, politically and philosophically educated and respectable?
"What's robbing a bank compared with founding a bank?" Bertolt Brecht
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lightningBugout
 
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Postby Col. Quisp » Thu May 28, 2009 9:35 pm

Ah yes, I remember feeling my heart sink when I read that Vilesack (sic) was the new Sec. of Agri. I remember feeling that all hope was lost at that point.

"Vilsack has repeatedly demonstrated a preference for large industrial farms and genetically modified crops; as Iowa state governor, he originated the seed pre-emption bill in 2005, effectively blocking local communities from regulating where genetically engineered crops would be grown..." - from Wikipedia.
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