Proving my, er, ‘statement of fact’ that all money is ‘funny’ (Sadly, even funnier than you might be inclined to think) the stock market is currently up more than 200 points due to ‘relief’ that Hurricane Irene didn’t do more damage.
On that note is a more disturbing observation…what if Irene was a ‘practice run’? Some of you might have noticed that, against all odds, Irene managed to ‘bulls-eye’ NYC.
Remember what I said about destroying evidence?
Will they ‘bide their time’ until a sufficiently powerful storm happens along?
(It would look a little TOO suspicious if tropical storm Joe turns into a force 5 hurricane and just happens to bulls-eye NYC too!)
But that is not the topic of today’s rant.
I got an e-mail from a friend yesterday and it is of the ’pass it along’ variety.
Like a lot of ’good ideas’, it simply doesn’t go far enough.
I fail to understand why our op ed columnists have not hammered on this repeatedly. No one has been able to explain to me why young men and women serve in the U.S. Military for 20 years, risking their lives protecting freedom, and only get 50% of their pay. While Politicians hold their political positions in the safe confines of the capital, protected by these same men and women, and receive full pay retirement after serving one term. It just does not make any sense.
Monday we learned that the staffers of Congress family members are exempt from having to pay back student loans. This will get national attention if news networks will broadcast it. When you add this to the below, just where will all of it stop?
This will take less than thirty seconds to read. If you agree, please pass it on.
This is an idea that we should address.
For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform... in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop.
If each person that receives this will forward it on to 20 people, in three days, most people in The United States of America will have the message.. This is one proposal that really should be passed around.
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution: "Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States ."
Naturally, a ‘28th amendment’ would be unnecessary if we had the much broader Human Anti-Exploitation Law in force. It automatically forbids any legislation that favors any individual or group over any other.
If we fail to level the playing field (and keep it that way) then peace will forever be a temporary/elusive thing.
But you know that, and so do the criminals but the bad news is they don’t give a shit.
No, the criminals are far more interested in fostering situations like this:
The Pentagon power elite is waging a global war whose size and scope has never been revealed... until now.
A few weeks ago, in a conversation with U.S. Special Operations Command spokesman Colonel Tim Nye, Nick Turse - one of the great investigative reporters on military power and national security - learned something truly shocking. He found out that, on any given day, American commandos are carrying out secret missions in 70 countries. And here is some startling news -- by the end of the year, that number is likely to reach 120.
That’s right. You read that correctly. America’s secret commandos are carrying out operations in 120 countries around the world. What Nick learned provides striking new evidence of a rising clandestine Pentagon power elite, waging a secret war in about 60% of the world’s nations -- a far larger number than was previously acknowledged. This represents a huge expansion by the Obama administration over that of George W. Bush, who deployed "Special Ops" troops in 60 countries.
As Turse points out: Without the knowledge of the American public, a secret unit within the U.S. military -- U.S. Special Operations Command (SOCOM) -- has grown into a combined force of startling proportions. Made up of the Army’s “Green Berets” and Rangers, Navy SEALs, Air Force Air Commandos, and Marine Corps Special Operations teams, in addition to specialized helicopter crews, boat teams, civil affairs personnel, para-rescuemen, and even battlefield air-traffic controllers and special operations weathermen, SOCOM carries out the United States’ most specialized and shadowy missions. These include assassinations, counterterrorist raids, long-range reconnaissance, intelligence analysis, foreign troop training, and weapons of mass destruction counter-proliferation operations.
This is the kind of reporting that is necessary if we are to challenge the Obama version of the expansion of military intrusions all over the globe. Investigative journalism is essential. Will you help support it?
Nick Turse, the guy who broke this story, is a key part of AlterNet's editorial team, overseeing our new strategic coverage area: Empire. Nick is an award-winning investigative reporter, historian and author of The Complex: How the Military Invades Our Everyday Lives. Nick has written a batch of stories for AlterNet over the years and worked closely with the groundbreaking Tom Dispatch. And now we will have him, with your help, aiming his laser focus, uncovering dirt and details on the relentless expansion of U.S. military operations all around the world, even as the country suffers from huge jobless rates, unrelenting hunger, persistent poverty, and a truly distorted sense of priorities.
I don't have to tell you how important this work is. Needless to say, keeping an eye on our secret military takes time and isn't cheap. Can you help fund Nick's research and writing with a contribution right now?
In return, we promise you that we will have superb reporting and inside information on the growth of the president's super-secret "private army" that can be sent to assassinate targets around the world, with just a signature from Barack Obama.
Okay, if we discount the not so subtle begging what remains is a government that is out of control.
I know I’m not alone in being puzzled by just what determines ‘national security’ (because they’re doing a damn piss poor job of it! Especially when it comes to protecting the jobs of US workers.)
How ironic is it that we arrive full circle at the skyrocketing stock markets…is it ‘military might’ pushing stock prices upwards?
Don’t discount it good citizen, military might is precisely the factor that lets us retain the world’s ‘reserve currency’.
No irony should be lost on the fact that it is this same ‘global financial dominance’ that has cost us our government.
These two stories illustrate how your needs come, er, pretty far down on the totem pole from the ‘wishes and desires’ of those who have more power than they should.
Which is to point out how ironic it will be to see our self-professed betters complaining loudly about people who don’t appreciate their lowly place in life (just as they would if the situation were reversed.)
Good to my word, it is not my place to tell you what to think, my job is to provide you with something to think about…
Thanks for letting me inside your head,
Gegner
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