by cameron | Apr 6, 2009 | Uncategorized
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As much as he campaigned against anything, Obama railed against precisely this sort of incestuous, profoundly corrupt control by narrow private interests of the Government, yet he has chosen to empower the very individuals who most embody that corruption. And the results are exactly what one would expect them to be.
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A terrific article – must reading – on Salon which details how Obama’s administration is closely tied to Wall St firms that it is currently bailing out with taxpayer funds.
This paragraph sums up the scam:
Just think about how this works. People like Rubin, Summers and Gensler shuffle back and forth from the public to the private sector and back again, repeatedly switching places with their GOP counterparts in this endless public/private sector looting. When in government, they ensure that the laws and regulations are written to redound directly to the benefit of a handful of Wall St. firms, literally abolishing all safeguards and allowing them to pillage and steal. Then, when out of government, they return to those very firms and collect millions upon millions of dollars, profits made possible by the laws and regulations they implemented when in government. Then, when their party returns to power, they return back to government, where they continue to use their influence to ensure that the oligarchical circle that rewards them so massively is protected and advanced. This corruption is so tawdry and transparent — and it has fueled and continues to fuel a fraud so enormous and destructive as to be unprecedented in both size and audacity — that it is mystifying that it is not provoking more mass public rage.
by cameron | Mar 22, 2009 | geopolitics, israel
Interesting analysis of the stories coming out from Israeli troops (in the Israeli press) about war crimes committed during their December 2008 attacks on Gaza, why the New York Times is giving it coverage, and what the Obama administration’s response has been so far.
by cameron | Mar 10, 2009 | Christianity, Cuba, Podcast
They are all featured in today’s show!
On today’s show I just have another little heart-to-heart chat with anyone out there who is still listening. Among other things, I talk about:
The State of TPN’s finances
The threat of marketing spam on Twitter
Obama’s plan for Cuba
Sean Penn’s interviews with Chavez and Raul Castro
Obama’s encourage of stem cell research
Some talk about my book Debunking Christianity For Dummies and why it’s important to debate Christians in public
My review of CS Lewis’ book ‘Mere Christianity‘
by cameron | Feb 2, 2009 | Cuba, Iraq, Podcast, US politics
When I was visiting my girl Chrissy in Seattle last October, I met her best friend Jed Montgomery. The four of us (including Jed’s partner Chris) had some vigorous debates about American politics. I was trying to make my point that for all of Obama’s intelligence and oratory, at the end of the day he’s a member of the Democratic Party. In the last 60 years, the Democrats have provided a pretty appalling list of Presidents:
Harry Truman – Among other things, authorized the only use of nuclear weapons on a civilian population in history
John Kennedy – Among other things, authorized the attempted invasion of Cuba, nearly brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, was sleeping with Marilyn Monroe, etc.
Lyndon Johnson – Among other things, escalated the Vietnam war. Possibly implicated in the Kennedy assassination.
Jimmy Carter – Actually, a pretty good guy, defender of human rights.
Bill Clinton – Bombed and starved the people of Iraq, decided the best way to spend his days in the White House was to get blowjobs and stick cigars up an intern’s vag.
So… will Obama be another Jimmy Carter? Or… one of the others?
Anyway, Jed joins me on the show today to talk about our hopes and concerns for the Obama administration.
by cameron | Nov 2, 2008 | US politics
Interesting articles I’ve been reading today on Obama’s refusal to disclose the names of his millions of small donors. The Slate article sums up my thoughts:
Obama has campaigned (effectively) on a platform of making government more transparent, citing his efforts to do so in Chicago and Washington as signature achievements.
And yet…. they are avoiding disclosing the names of these small donors. Call me a crazy conspiracy theorist, but with such massively high stakes as are involved in an American Presidential election, I think it pays to be suspicious and naive to start with the assumption that ANY candidate is pure and holy. I think it was Eleanor Roosevelt who first said “The war for freedom will never really be won because the price of our freedom is constant vigilance over ourselves and over our Government.”
I’ve been reading Howard Zinn’s excellent work “A People’s History Of The United States” where he makes the argument that the American Revolution was orchestrated by the American wealthy elite (George Washington was the richest man in America) to preserve and extend their own wealth and power. During a time of increasing class struggles in the American colony, the elite found a way to focus the anger of the populace on a foreign enemy, a tactic which successive US administrations have perfected ever since.
Slate – Yes, He Can
Judicial Watch – Obama Should Disclose
