XPost: ba.politics, dc.media, soc.penpals   
   XPost: alt.burningman   
   From: traitor@barackobama.com   
      
   It didn’t take the Israel Lobby very long to bring President   
   Obama to heel regarding his prohibition against further illegal   
   Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land.   
      
   Obama discovered that a mere American president is powerless   
   when confronted by the Israel Lobby and that the United States   
   simply is not allowed a Middle East policy separate from   
   Israel’s.   
      
   Obama also found out that he cannot change anything else,   
   either, if he ever intended to do so.   
      
   The military/security lobby has war and a domestic police state   
   on its agenda, and a mere American president can’t do anything   
   about it.   
      
   President Obama can order the Guantanamo torture chamber closed   
   and kidnapping and rendition and torture to be halted, but no   
   one carries out the order. -Essentially, Obama is irrelevant.   
      
   President Obama can promise that he is going to bring the troops   
   home, and the military lobby says, “No, you are going to send   
   them to Afghanistan, and in the meantime start a war in Pakistan   
   and maneuver Iran into a position that will provide an excuse   
   for a war there, too. Wars are too profitable for us to let you   
   stop them.”   
      
   And the mere president has to say, “Yes, sir!”   
      
   Obama can promise health care to 50 million uninsured Americans,   
   but he can’t override the veto of the war lobby and the   
   insurance lobby.   
      
   The war lobby says its war profits are more important than   
   health care and that the country can’t afford both the “war on   
   terror” and “socialized medicine.”   
      
   The insurance lobby says health care has to be provided by   
   private health insurance; otherwise, we can’t afford it.   
      
   The war and insurance lobbies rattled their campaign   
   contribution pocketbooks and quickly convinced Congress and the   
   White House that the real purpose of the health care bill is to   
   save money by cutting Medicare and Medicaid benefits, thereby   
   “getting entitlements under control.”   
      
   “Entitlements” is a right-wing word used to cast aspersion on   
   the few things that the government did, in the distant past, for   
   citizens. Social Security and Medicare, for example, are   
   denigrated as “entitlements.” The right wing goes on endlessly   
   about Social Security and Medicare as if they were welfare   
   giveaways to shiftless people who refuse to look after   
   themselves, whereas in actual fact citizens are vastly   
   overcharged for the meager benefits with a 15.30% tax on their   
   wages and salaries.   
      
   Indeed, for decades now the federal government has been funding   
   its wars and military budgets with the surplus revenues   
   collected by the Social Security tax on labor.   
      
   To claim, as the right wing does, that we can’t afford the only   
   thing in the entire budget that has consistently produced a   
   revenue surplus indicates that the real agenda is to drive the   
   mere citizen into the ground.   
      
   The real entitlements are never mentioned. The “defense” budget   
   is an entitlement for the military/security complex about which   
   President Eisenhower warned us 50 years ago. A person has to be   
   crazy to believe that the United States, “the world’s only   
   superpower,” protected by oceans on its East and West and by   
   Canada and Mexico on its North and South, needs a “defense”   
   budget larger than the military spending of the rest of the   
   world combined.   
      
   The military budget is nothing but an entitlement for the   
   military/security complex. To hide this fact, the entitlement is   
   disguised as protection against “enemies” and passed through the   
   Pentagon.   
      
   I say cut out the middleman and simply allocate a percentage of   
   the federal budget to the military/security complex. This way we   
   won’t have to concoct reasons for invading other countries and   
   go to war in order for the military/security complex to get its   
   entitlement. It would be a lot cheaper just to give them the   
   money outright, and it would save a lot of lives and grief at   
   home and abroad.   
      
   The US invasion of Iraq had nothing whatsoever to do with   
   American national interests. It had to do with armaments profits   
   and with eliminating an obstacle to Israeli territorial   
   expansion. The cost of the war, aside from the $3 trillion, was   
   over 4,000 dead Americans, over 30,000 wounded and maimed   
   Americans, tens of thousands of broken American marriages and   
   lost careers, one million dead Iraqis, 4 million displaced   
   Iraqis, and a destroyed country.   
      
   All of this was done for the profits of the military/security   
   complex and to make paranoid Israel, armed with 200 nuclear   
   weapons, feel “secure.”   
      
   My proposal would make the military/security complex even   
   wealthier as the companies would get the money without having to   
   produce the weapons. Instead, all the money could go for multi-   
   million dollar bonuses and dividend payouts to shareholders. No   
   one, at home or abroad, would have to be killed, and the   
   taxpayer would be better off.   
      
   No American national interest is served by the war in   
   Afghanistan. As the former UK Ambassador Craig Murray disclosed,   
   the purpose of the war is to protect Unocal’s interest in the   
   Trans-Afghanistan pipeline. The cost of the war is many times   
   greater than Unocal’s investment in the pipeline. The obvious   
   solution is to buy out Unocal and give the pipeline to the   
   Afghans as partial compensation for the destruction we have   
   inflicted on that country and its population, and bring the   
   troops home.   
      
   The reason my sensible solutions cannot be effected is that the   
   lobbies think that their entitlements would not survive if they   
   were made obvious. They think that if the American people knew   
   that the wars were being fought to enrich the armaments and oil   
   industries, the people would put a halt to the wars.   
      
   In actual fact, the American people have no say about what   
   “their” government does. Polls of the public show that half or   
   more of the American people do not support the wars in Iraq or   
   Afghanistan and do not support President Obama’s escalation of   
   the war in Afghanistan. Yet, the occupations and wars continue.   
   According to General Stanley McChrystal, the additional 40,000   
   troops he asked for are enough to stalemate the war, that is, to   
   keep it going forever, the ideal situation for the armaments   
   lobby.   
      
   The people want health care, but the government does not listen.   
      
   The people want jobs, but Wall Street wants higher priced stocks   
   and forces American firms to offshore the jobs to countries   
   where labor is cheaper.   
      
   The American people have no effect on anything. They can affect   
   nothing. They have become irrelevant like Obama. And they will   
   remain irrelevant as long as organized interest groups can   
   purchase the US government.   
      
   The inability of the American democracy to produce any results   
   that the voters want is a demonstrated fact. The total   
   unresponsiveness of government to the people is conservatism’s   
   contribution to American democracy. Some years ago, there was an   
   effort to put government back into the hands of the people by   
   constraining the ability of organized interest groups to pour   
   enormous amounts of money into political campaigns and, thus,   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)