Murdering Afghan and Pakistani Kids is OK; Murdering Syrian Kids Isn't

I couldn't bear to listen to Barry's trio of bellicose liars [the identical clones of George W. Bush's gang of bellicose liars, all of whom should be hauled before the International Criminal Court to be judged for crimes against humanity] delivering their prepared remarks on September 3, 2013. I either would have vomited my guts out or smashed my TV set.

So I hit the mute button and waited until the distinguished members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee asked their questions.

I identified four of them, three Republicans and one Democrat, who appeared not have guzzled Barry's poisonous Kool-Aid--so far--and tried to ask real, thoughtful questions.  They were:

Jim Risch [R-ID]
Tom Udall [D-NM]
John Barrasso [R-WY]
Rand Paul [R-KY]

As Kerry, Hagel and Dempsey--Barry's Three Stooges--and most of the Democrat senators, were slobbering crocodile tears over the dead Syrian kids, I could only think of the scores or hundreds of Afghan and Pakistani kids [not to mention their mothers and fathers, uncles and aunts, grandparents, siblings and  playmates] murdered in cold blood by Barry's assassination drones on a weekly basis.

Yeah, I get it: it's just fine for a Nobel Peace Prize winner to blast Afghan and Pakistani kids to smithereens with his assassination drones but--somehow--it's a crime against humanity for Bashar Al-Assad [or, maybe even the Syrian "democratic" opposition] to gas Syrian kids.

Can somebody please explain the difference?  Inquiring minds want to know.

Military Missteps: Bomb-first diplomacy becomes habitual to US

Fantastic!  Film clips on the RT television network show "bomb first" warmongers spouting the very same lies about Syria that they screamed before bombing Serbia, Iraq and Libya. It's as if Barry & Co. just dusted off the old speeches and filled in the blanks with "Syria."  

And, since the "enemy" must always be personified as one amoral monster who "murders his own people," Slobodan Milošević and Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi are replaced with a new face to hate, the face of Bashar Al-Assad who, like the others, is "murdering his own people" and therefore must "step aside."   

We all know, however, what followed when Milošević and Saddam Hussein and Muammar Gaddafi "stepped aside."  Their countries became anarchies where murderous factions continue massacring each other to this day.

Does anyone with half a brain actually think that "this time it's different" in Syria?

Why do so many Americans--particularly the ruling class in Washington--allow themselves to be bamboozled and brainwashed over and over?  Why do  they keep believing the same lies and guzzling the same poisonous Kool-aid?

By the way, wasn't Einstein's definition of "insanity" doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result?  If that's the case, then Washington, DC, has turned into a gigantic loony bin!

Abolish Private Prisons

Prison privatization in the United States means that the for-profit companies such as Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and GEO Group [formerly Wackenhut] want as many people jailed as possible for as long as possible in order to continue maximizing their income and, thereby, their profits. 

Private prisons should be abolished by law, but their lobby is one of the most powerful on Capitol Hill and in state capitals. In 2011  the private prison lobby spent $45 million on lobbying, while collecting $5.1 billion for immigrant detention alone.

There is, however, some movement against them:three states, Idaho, Texas and Colorado closed CCA prisons in the month of June 2013.

Mass incarceration in privatized prisons is in reality nothing more than a modern versin of  feudalism and slavery because the detainees, the modern equivalent of slaves or serfs, are put to work, manufacturing goods or performing services such as computer programming, for which they are paid far below the legal minimum wage--often just pennies per hour.

The U.S. is not only the country with the most people incarcated, 2,266,800, it's also the country with the most people incarcerated per capita. 

Here's a chart that shows prisoners per 100,000 population, country by country: the U.S. heads the list with 716.people incarcerated for every 100,000 people.

Abolish private prisons now!

House of Representatives Should Have 10,000 Members

The United States Constitution does not require states to be sliced up into congressional districts, which are by their very nature undemocratic.  Consequently, most states are divided into gerrymandered districts every ten years, following each census.

Fat chance, though, of getting rid of gerrymandering!  Both parties benefit from gerrymandering and are afraid to abolish congressional districts because the "ins" benefit from gerrymandering and the "outs" know that they will benefit when they take power.

Nor does the Constitution mandate 435 members of the House--that is also unconstitutional.

Article I Section 2 states: "The Number of Representatives shall not exceed one for every thirty Thousand, but each State shall have at Least one Representative."  

In 1911, Congress passed Public Law 62-5, which limited the size of the House of Representatives to 435 members.  Congress can change the number of members of the House at any time.

With a 2010 population of 308 million, that comes to one Member of the House of Representatives for every 710,767 people! 

That is outrageously unconstitutional!  

I propose to abolish all congressional districts and elect all the Members of the House at large, from each state.  Furthermore, I propose returning to the Founding Fathers' formula for the House.

If we applied the constitutional formula, after the 2010 census the House of Representatives would now have around 10,000 members today. 

What's wrong with that?  

Congress could simply construct a new building for the House of Representaties the way the Chinese did.  Their Great Hall of the People [see below], opened in 1959, can simultaneously seat 10,000 representatives.  If the Chinese can do it, so can we.

Egypt's Next 30-year Military Dictator?

From the Washington Post, August 7, 2013: 

Source: Khaled Desouki/AFP/Getty Images

CAIRO — He is a savvy operator, people who have worked with him say, a career military officer who methodically campaigned a year ago to become Egypt’s defense minister under its first democratically elected president.

Now Gen. Abdel Fatah al-Sissi is faced with a society even more bitterly divided than it was a year ago, when Mohamed Morsi took office as president.

Egyptian officials say that Sissi’s commitment to returning the country to civilian-led democracy is genuine and that they do not think that he will run in elections, expected to be held next year.

But in a country where the only leader in six decades not to have a military background was just deposed in a coup, many say they would not be surprised if the charismatic Sissi decided to throw his high-brimmed officer’s hat into the ring. Some supporters are hailing him as a new Gamal Abdel Nasser, the revered general who led the 1952 coup that overthrew Egypt’s monarchy.

“I think it’s hugely tempting for anyone,” said a high-ranking Western official, referring to the possibility that Sissi might take his popularity to the polls. Full text of article.

Jagor's comment:

You see?  After a momentary interruption--the "Arab Spring," Mubarak's resignation and the 51.7% election victory of Mohamed Morsi, whose Freedom and Justice [Muslim Brotherhood] party had repeatedly stated publicly that they would never run a candidate for the president--Egypt is finally going to get back to normal, i.e. a military dictatorship, as has been the case since King Farouk was overthrown by a similar military coup d'état on July 23, 1952.

Let's see if Sissi can beat Mubarak's record of 30 years in office before he gets kicked out!

As the French say, "Plus ça change plus c'est la même chose."