Let’s not dabble in the history of Pakistan. Let’s not get tangled up in the web of finger pointing as to who is ultimately responsible for the fact that Pakistan is now a nation on the brink of almost certain collapse. The bottom line is that Pakistan has nuclear weapons and is a failed state. End of story.

Before we take our bows here at The Daily Nigger for that nice, quick wrap up and synopsis of the Pakistan dilemma, shall we ponder for a second what exactly is Pakistan today. Quite simply Pakistan is the new home of al Qaeda. Remember al Qaeda? In case you don’t we have a war going on right now with them. The attacks in India and the resurgence of the Taliban in Afghanistan are proof enough of how our failure to follow through in Afghanistan has led to a destabilized and dangerous Pakistan. And the fact is we have to deal with what is now rather than the way we would have wanted it to be.

Mr. Obama deserves a lot of praise for his hard line stance vis-a-vis Pakistan, but one can only speculate if he is not throwing gasoline on the fire by making incendiary remarks about what he may or may not do with respect to Pakistan. The ante has now been upped by the terrorist groups operating in Pakistan. They have called Mr. Obama’s bluff and he isn’t even in office yet. Think of how dangerous this is. A nuclear armed country that is a haven for a sophisticated terrorist network is flexing their muscle and Mr. Obama has only himself to blame for the predicament where he now finds himself.

Pay close attention to what John McCain has to say to Mr. Obama about Pakistan. He says that he would not publicly say the things that Mr. Obama was saying with respect to bombing suspected terrorist sites in Pakistan. In other words, by stating his foreign policy agenda with respect to a war that is currently being waged is quite simply giving your whole game away. Now, even before Obama has a chance to assume the oath of office he has already created the firestorm that he swore to fight. Was this smart? Was this a wise thing to do in light of the dangers that exist in the world that we can clearly see now that the so-called Mumbai Massacre has taken place? Loose lips sink ships, and Mr. Obama’s ship of state is already so badly damaged as a result of this incident that this to us at The Daily Nigger is a sign of why we opposed this man in the first place.

Yes, it is clear that Obama is inexperienced, yet if one cannot see how clearly Pakistan has shown their hand to him then likely one could also not be able to connect the dots right back to Mr. Obama himself. In global politics words speak louder than actions, and events across the globe are all interconnected. We feel we are the ones here who peer beneath the shiny veneer of a photograph or a video and instead views the meaning behind the action. We are not saying that the Pakistan government had a part to play in this act in Mumbai or are directly responsible for the resurgence of the Taliban, but if it smells like a rat in that part of the world then you don’t have to stick around to see if it looks like a rat either. It’s a rat.

Pakistan is degenerating before our very eyes into one of the world’s most dangerous countries. It is a fact that Pakistan had a role to play in supplying Iran with nuclear technology. It is a fact that terrorist groups are operating almost with impunity throughout much of the country. And it is a fact that there is little if anything that the United States can or will do about Pakistan. World War Three would definitely rear its ugly head at that point removing all doubt that the wars we have had so far were in fact the big one.

This would be it. A war with Pakistan would be the final chapter in a supposed real war on terror. The facts on the ground are almost indisputable with the fact that so much is at stake in that country. Pakistan is clearly unstable and is careening around the region from Indian to Iran and Afghanistan like a sled full of lit dynamite slithering its way through a crowd of indiscriminate bystanders. This is a very serious situation that has been exposed whether one likes it or not by the very inexperienced manner in which the words of Barack Obama became front page news.

The media had no choice but to play Mr. Obama’s remarks, but the media took its eye off of the real issues of this campaign and instead directed everyone’s attention to Jeremiah Wright, Father Pfleger, and Bill Ayers. The media played them up to be people who could tell us something about Obama. His “associations” were being scrutinized but never really taken seriously. The bottom line is that Mr. Obama has poor judgment skills. His careless remarks about Pakistan revealed something interesting about the man, which is that he finds it hard to keep his big mouth shut. The problem with having the media produce a candidate is that the candidate has to be able to learn facts that he can repeat at rallies. Sometimes when these facts get ensnared in the candidate’s ego and endangers the country then the media has a responsibility to point this out. They didn’t do their job this time around because that would mean exposing their own creation.

The party is already over with Obama. While he runs his mouth off about the economy and foreign policy matters, the stock market tanks as Pakistani terror groups begin making gains. The problem with having a smart man with a big ego as President of the United States is that one has no choice but to educate the man as to how to be more measured and statesmanlike. All of our Presidents have been able to mind their P’s and Q’s when it comes to the national security interests of the United States. Say what you will, but George W. Bush hoodwinked and bamboozled everybody with the WMD story so that he could take out Saddam Hussein’s regime. Nobody saw it coming, and that’s the way wars are won. The problem with Iraq, however, is that even though the initial invasion was a success we should have carried through with the ultimate plan which is to take out the Iranian nuclear facilities.

Therein lies the double-edged sword of the power of speech. George W. Bush specifically called Iran as part of the ‘axis of evil’. He singled them out before Iraq had been invaded. When Iran saw the U.S. about to enter onto its doorstep they made haste to the nuclear option. Presidents must keep their mouths shut and just do what is necessary to keep the nation safe as safe as possible and then a result would be a safer world. The military’s job should be to constantly keep tabs on the President and make sure that he has the most up to date and precise information as is possible. It should be explained to the President how to talk about this information and who he can speak to about it. Mr. Obama especially is clearly in need of this kind of relationship with the military of this country or else America is headed down a very rocky road in the war on terror. He has now been issued an ultimatum and given a lesson about how global politics is played. Let’s see if he gets the message.

-TDN

Watch this “report” from The Real News Network and let us know your opinion. We want to know why it is that the so-called alternative media has to take the side of socialism in order for them to be called an alternative to the mainstream media. Surely Chavez was elected democratically, but that in itself does not condone socialism. Watch as the alternative to the mainstream pitches itself to the Internet community while also glorifying the arrival of Russia’s nuclear military fleet in Venezuela. Nuclear weapons are located within striking distance of the United States, and the mainstream media doesn’t say a word. In our opinion, this cut the alternative media a wide path to expose themselves as socialists.

Say what you like, but what we feel is happening right now is the exposure of the socialist bias in the U.S. media. It is their complicity by way of silence in not reporting these major events that exposes the dangers of alternative media groups who fall prey to tyranny. Sometimes socialism can achieve great economic gains, while the old school democracies of the world sometimes are left alone to struggle with a system which generation after generation some people tend to use as a symbol of the ultimate death of America. It isn’t so much that socialist countries are pleased with their own success, but rather they feel they must export their ideologies elsewhere. World utopia is any committed socialist’s downfall. There is no happiness associated with socialist victories because the ultimate goal is imposing this viewpoint elsewhere.

The U.S. mainstream media has been absent without leave when it comes to the responsibility it has for pointing out both sides of the coin of how history is written. There are times when power subsides from one side and accumulates on the opposing side. Injustice often hides behind the good intentions of many whose only fault is that they do not have the tools that are needed to actually see and experience more than one way of thought. Intellectualism to a socialist is one-sided, albeit intellectual. However, often by turning away from the discussion of history and government and replacing it instead with simplified opinions one can lose their grip on the normal process of human thought itself whereas before the power of understanding was within ones grasp.

The American mainstream media has chosen to take sides of the political discussion today so as to avoid discussing both sides. It is almost provable that it is not because the media wants to convince people that government control over people’s lives and decisions is a good thing or a bad thing. But rather the media has lost its grip on the discussion itself in order to relegate the power to that discussion to others. In this way the media itself has promoted socialism, because by definition that is what socialism is – the “spreading around” of the power. Obama quite cleverly took the socialist notion of spreading the wealth and instead solidified his power base by spreading around the power. Obviously, by his deeds and not his words one can clearly see how the media has become the tool of vacant socialist rhetoric, which either in Venezuela or in the United States is only a means by which to maintain power in the hands of a few.

Journalists have a responsibility to report on these phenomena because people can arise one day and begin to think for themselves rather than depending upon the journalists who failed to report the facts. People who call themselves Americans have an obligation to understand that there are fundamental rights which cannot be taken away no matter what. The awesome responsibility for preserving those rights rests with the ability a good citizen has to understand there is more than one way of seeing things. Yet by turning away and ignoring the facts as the mainstream media has by and large created an invitation to disaster the likes of which we are seeing unfold in Venezuela. You may not see it now, but with the price of oil in free fall and a global recession at hand even the best of intentions can get tangled up in the reality that no one can promise utopia to another. In short, ignorance is an invitation to a future disaster and this lesson will surely be taught about Venezuela down the road with the same amount of shock and horror as what has already been driven home about the sophisticated attacks which took place just now in Mumbai.

We are just asking a simple question here at The Daily Nigger. That is, why can’t we make up our minds that we are here to exercise our freedom to understand these events before they become tragedies? Reaching out to Venezuela should not involve adopting their political point of view. However, the success of democracy lies in understanding many points of view and the media has an obligation to point out that the opposition to state control is healthy and natural and is a victory for everyone, including Chavez himself. Accountability comes with merits which extend far beyond the power one gains from winning. Ideologies crumble when open minds are honored and respected. In that regard Americans have an obligation to make their media responsible to them and respect this sacred time-honored American tradition.

-TDN

America’s oil dependency has some benefits. Roger Howard on how the diminishing resource acts as a source of stability, and forces countries to work together.

The Wall Street Journal
NOVEMBER 29, 2008
By ROGER HOWARD

In its collective mindset, every nation not only harbors aspirations, fears and delusions but also conjures rogues, villains and scapegoats upon which it vents its anguish, insecurities and resentments. And for many Americans, one such villain is a highly prized commodity.

Oil is, after all, a primary source of man-made global warming, while spillages and drilling have sometimes inflicted lethal environmental damage. Despite the sharp falls of recent months, dramatic price rises have also underwritten every postwar global recession, including the current economic malaise.

Oil lies at the heart of bitter civil wars in several parts of the world, notably West Africa, while several governments have recently been scrambling to stake their claims over the newly discovered deposits of the Arctic. Above all, it is often regarded as America’s strategic Achilles’ heel. President-elect Barack Obama has promised to end U.S. “foreign oil dependency,” claiming that it can be used as a “weapon” that allows overseas governments, particularly “unstable, undemocratic governments…to wield undue influence over America’s national security.” Last weekend, Mr. Obama announced his plan to create a major economic stimulus package, including spending on alternate energy.

Alarming as these scenarios are, they disguise the true picture, one that is really much more complicated and much more reassuring. While there are, of course, circumstances in which oil can exacerbate tensions and be a source of conflict, it can also act as a peacemaker and source of stability. So to identify America’s “foreign oil dependency” as a source of vulnerability and weakness is just too neat and easy.

This identification wholly ignores the dependency of foreign oil producers on their consumers, above all on the world’s largest single market — the United States. Despite efforts to diversify their economies, all of the world’s key exporters are highly dependent on oil’s proceeds and have always lived in fear of the moment that has now become real — when global demand slackens and prices fall. The recent, dramatic fall in price per barrel — now standing at around $54, less than four months after peaking at $147 — perfectly exemplifies the producers’ predicament.

An engineer walks across an oil field in Bakersfield, Calif.

So even if such a move were possible in today’s global market, no oil exporter is ever in a position to alienate its customers. Supposed threats of embargoes ring hollow because no producer can assume that its own economy will be damaged any less than that of any importing country. What’s more, a supply disruption would always seriously damp global demand. Even in the best of times, a prolonged price spike could easily tip the world into economic recession, prompt consumers to shake off their gasoline dependency, or accelerate a scientific drive to find alternative fuels. Fearful of this “demand destruction” when crude prices soared so spectacularly in the summer, the Saudis pledged to pump their wells at full tilt. It seems that their worst fears were realized: Americans drove 9.6 billion fewer miles in July this year compared with last, according to the Department of Transportation.

Instead, the dependency of foreign oil producers on their customers plays straight into America’s strategic hands. Washington is conceivably in a position to hold producers to ransom by threatening to accelerate a drive to develop or implement alternative fuels, realizing the warning once uttered by Sheikh Ahmed Zaki Yamani, the former Saudi oil minister who pointed out that “the Stone Age did not end for lack of stone.” Back in 1973, as they protested at Washington’s stance on the Arab-Israeli dispute, Middle East producers were in a position to impose an oil embargo on the Western world. But a generation later, technological advances, and the strength of public and scientific concern about global warming, have turned the tables.

The United States has powerful political leverage over producers because it holds the key to future oil supply as well as market demand. The age of “easy oil” is over, and as fears grow that oil is becoming harder to get, so too will the dependency of producers on increasingly sophisticated Western technology and expertise.

Such skills will be particularly important in two key areas of oil production. One is finding and extracting offshore deposits, like the massive reserves reckoned to be under the Caspian and Arctic seas, or in Brazil’s recently discovered Tupi field. The other is prolonging the lifespan of declining wells through enhanced “tertiary” recovery. Because Western companies have a clear technological edge over their global competitors in these hugely demanding areas, Washington exerts some powerful political leverage over exporters, many of whom openly anticipate the moment when their production peaks before gradually starting to decline.

A man rides a bicycle in front of an Iranian oil refinery in Tehran. Many oil wells in Iran are aging rapidly.

Syria illustrates how this leverage can work. Although oil has been the primary source of national income for more than 40 years, production has recently waned dramatically: Output is now nearly half of the peak it reached in the mid-1990s, when a daily output of 600,000 barrels made up 60% of gross domestic product, and can barely sustain rapidly growing domestic demand fueled by a very high rate of population growth. With enough foreign investment Syrian oil could be much more productive and enduring, but Washington has sent foreign companies, as well as American firms, a tough message to steer well clear. It is not surprising, then, that the Damascus regime regards a rapprochement with the U.S. as a political lifeline and in recent months has shown signs of a new willingness to compromise.

The same predicament confronted Libya’s Col. Moammar Gadhafi, who first offered to surrender weapons of mass destruction during secret negotiations with U.S. officials in May 1999. Facing a deepening economic crisis that he could not resolve without increasing the production of his main export, oil, Col. Gadhafi was prepared to bow to Washington’s demands and eventually struck a path-breaking accord in December 2003. Col. Gadhafi had been the “Mad Dog” of the Reagan years, but oil’s influence had initiated what President Bush hailed as “the process of rejoining the community of nations.”

Oil could also help the outside world frustrate the nuclear ambitions of Iran, whose output is likely to steadily decline over the coming years unless it has access to the latest Western technology. Many wells are aging rapidly and the Iranians cannot improve recovery rates, or exploit their new discoveries, unless Washington lifts sanctions, which have been highly successful in deterring international investment.

Sometimes the markets will prove at least as effective as any American sanctions in keeping a tight political rein on oil producers. For example, when Russian forces attacked South Ossetia and Georgia on Aug. 8, Russia’s stock market — of which energy stocks comprise 60% — plunged by nearly 7%, and within a week capital outflow reached a massive $16 billion, suddenly squeezing domestic credit while the ruble collapsed in value. A month later, the country was facing its worst crisis since the default of August 1998. But the future of the oil sector is so dependent on attracting massive foreign investment, and the wider Russian economy so heavily dependent on petrodollars, that the Kremlin simply can’t afford to unnecessarily unnerve investors.

Today the markets know that Russia needs at least $1 trillion in investment if it is to maintain, let alone increase, its oil production. Just five years ago, output was increasing so fast — energy giants Yukos and Sibneft were posting annual production gains of 20% — that even the Saudis were worried about their own global dominance. But in the past year Russian oil production has started to wane. Leonid Fedun, a top official at Lukoil, Russia’s No. 2 oil producer, admitted back in April that national output had peaked and was unlikely to return to 2007 levels “in my lifetime” and that “the period of intense oil production [growth] is over.” Without foreign money and expertise to extract offshore oil and prolong the lifespan of existing wells, Russian production will fall dramatically.

Russia’s oil, in other words, acted as peacemaker. This seems paradoxical for it has sometimes been said that the Kremlin’s attack on South Ossetia and Georgia was prompted by an ambition to seize control of local pipelines. But although this was an aggravating factor, it was not the primary cause because Russian leaders would have felt threatened — reasonably or not — by the presence of NATO in what they regard as their own backyard even if the region was not an energy hub. They were also reportedly eyeing Ukraine, which has no petroleum deposits of its own and poses no threat to the dominance of their giant energy company, Gazprom.

Oil can also act as a peacemaker and source of stability because many conflicts, in almost every part of the world, can threaten a disruption of supply and instantly send crude prices spiraling. Despite the recent price falls, the market is still vulnerable to sudden supply shocks, and a sharp increase would massively affect the wider global economy. This would have potentially disastrous social and political results, just as in the summer many countries, including France, Nepal and Indonesia, were rocked by violent protests at dramatic price increases in gasoline.

Haunted by the specter of higher oil prices at a time of such economic fragility, many governments have a very strong incentive to use diplomacy, not force, to resolve their own disputes, and to help heal other people’s. This is true not just of oil consumers but producers, which would also be keen not to watch global demand stifled by such price spikes.

Consider the events of last fall, when the Ankara government was set to retaliate against the Iraq-based Kurdish guerrillas who had killed 17 Turkish soldiers and taken others prisoner in a cross-border raid on Oct. 21, 2007. Even the mere prospect of such an attack sent the price of a barrel surging to a then record high of $85 because the markets knew that the insurgents could respond by damaging a key pipeline which moves 750,000 barrels of oil across Turkish territory every day.

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration pushed very hard to prevent a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq — State Department spokesman Sean McCormack aptly described the frenzy of diplomatic activity as a “full-court press” — not just to avoid shattering the vestiges of Iraq’s political structure but also to stabilize oil prices. In the end it was American pressure that averted a major incursion, allowing crude prices to quickly ease. And the Turks would also have been aware that any invasion could have prompted retaliatory damage on the oil pipeline, losing them vast transit fees.

In general, oil is such a vital commodity, for consumers, producers and intermediaries alike, that it represents a meeting point for all manner of different interests. Sometimes it offers an opportunity for competitors and rivals to resolve differences, as in March 1995, when Iranian President Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani tried to break deadlock with Washington by offering a technically very demanding oil contract to Conoco. Today, the symbiotic energy requirements of Europe and Russia allows scope to improve mutual relations, not least if European governments act in unison to impose the rules of the European Union’s energy charter on Moscow. Oil also gives consumers a chance to penalize, or tempt, international miscreants, just as U.S. sanctions are forcing the Tehran regime to reassess its cost-benefit analysis of building the bomb.

What cannot go unchallenged is a facile equation between oil on the one hand, and war, bloodshed and, in America’s particular case, strategic vulnerability on the other. For oil, fortunately, can often be our guardian.

Roger Howard is the author of “The Oil Hunters: Exploration and Espionage in the Middle East, 1880-1939,” published by Continuum.

Almost lost in the news reports of the events in Mumbai was that protesters took over the Bangkok airport basically shutting down all air traffic to and from Thailand in an effort to force the overthrow of the Thai prime minister. This as the well planned and coordinated terrorist campaign in Mumbai is finally beginning to get under control after three days of fighting which has left scores dead and wounded. The head of Pakistan’s intelligence organization, ISI, will be visiting India to investigate the terrorist attacks there. There is speculation of a connection between the Mumbai attacks and Pakistani terror groups.

Meanwhile, Somali pirates are still in business this time taking over a chemical tanker off the coast of Kenya after also having taken over a Saudi oil tanker with a cargo valued at nearly $100 million. Somalia has not had a government in more than a decade.

Also, there are reports surfacing that Yemen, which borders Saudi Arabia, has become a major base of operations for al-Qaeda with the assistance of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards. And of course Iran’s involvement in terror activities in Iraq can only be underscored perhaps by the news that there was another suicide bombing in that country, this time taking place in the courtyard of a mosque leaving 12 dead.

And toss in the fact that the British government took control of the Royal Bank of Scotland today to the tune of over $31 billion, while numerous other U.S. banks continue to go belly up adding to the already growing list that recently included the likes of Downey Savings, U.S. Bank, and several other regional and local banks across the U.S., not to mention Citigroup, all of which have been taken over by none other than the taxpayer.

Yet, the big news story today is Black Friday. No, this isn’t some kind of description of the horror and shock at the sudden spike of coordinated and planned terrorist activities around the world that are happening on a seemingly increasing grander scale and complexity and could wind up being pulled off one day with nukes. Rather Black Friday refers to the rush to buy consumer goods at stores across America. The media jumps on this event as some kind of odd American ritual which attempts to perpetrate and propagate a mind-numbing, media induced distraction from the world’s problems. Maybe denial is a good thing, and The Daily Nigger is not opposed to it.

Everyone knows that the news is not good, and good people deserve to have a good life. Maybe in a strange way the whole point of escaping into the extreme world of frenzied giving on Thanksgiving, to frenzied buying on Black Friday, and no less frenzied receiving of gifts on Christmas is only a diversion from the inevitable awakening which takes place on New Years Day. One good thing about being black on Black Friday is that you don’t have to do anything. You either already spent the money you made this year much earlier in the year, or if you don’t have any money then being black itself is a daily reminder that every day is Black Friday.

Yet it is utterly amazing to us at The Daily Nigger how the news can be so apathetic and blase about what is happening in the world. To the media, death and destruction on a mass scale are singular, unconnected events which bear no resemblance or connection to any other similar event. It is as though the democratic governments of the world are operating as a unit, yet underneath there is a fairly well-organized quasi government which seeks to gain power at all costs. The term terrorism is only injected by the media when it does not want to talk about this topic further. They will only mention that terrorist groups are “involved”.

Describing these quasi government groups called terrorists as being “involved” with one another is like saying a couple has been “involved” with one another for the past ten years while living together, working together, sharing the same goals and aspirations, and in the case of terrorists and terrorism, arming themselves. There is a world of difference between the constitutional right of individuals to bear arms in the U.S. and groups of people who arm themselves and are connected ideologically. Think about it, the genius of the U.S. system of allowing its citizens to be armed is that it removes the limitations of some citizens who choose not to have arms. This is done by making arms possession an inalienable right on the individual level. In short, it is a choice to bear arms and it is everyone’s choice regardless of your thoughts and opinions on the matter. There is little or no ideological connection between gun owners in the United States such as what is seen elsewhere because of this stroke of constitutional genius.

The constitutional right to possess firearms was put forth as a individual matter of choice, and it was pure genius by our founders which has given America a special place in the world. Where other governments have lost power despite the fact that they may have been otherwise noble, American succeeds even though the government may be held in the lowest esteem by the public. Either by using outside forces and militias to maintain power, or by maintaining power through exerting overwhelming force of the established military, the notion of a group of people taking over power in a country can least be done when it is known that the public has the right to possess firearms. Before anyone could even begin to plan an attack the United States, they would first have to assume that anyone they meet along the way can have just as much firepower if not more than they have.

The world is a dangerous place because the world does not have the gun laws that the United States has. The media likes to show images of people buying televisions, clothing and cars for Christmas, but The Daily Nigger would like to suggest that in times like these a sound alternative gift idea this year should be a gun.

We should worship the gun and everyone should be encouraged to possess firearms. A government-sponsored program should be instituted whereby gun ownership is encouraged and promoted. Gun safety programs should be paid for by the taxpayer. Mandatory gun training programs should be taught in the public schools. Everyone should learn how to maintain and operate a gun properly. If such were the case, then the public would learn about history and geography, because responsible gun owners also are curious as to how weapons have been misused throughout the ages. Instead of bailing out banks so that people can continue to take for granted the freedom and safety they enjoy in America by buying useless consumer goods, Americans should buy their teenage kids a gun and take them out on a range and show them how to use it properly. They should be given a gun lock and be taught how to handle a weapon with caution and respect. Parents should take their kids to bad parts of town where crime is rampant and show them the lesson of how weapons wind up in the hands of the wrong people.

Black Friday isn’t feeling so black any more for me, because I already have my flat screen, my designer fashion assortment and my perfume. But I’m packing heat this year and I encourage all like-minded, red-blooded Americans to go out and do the same. The Daily Nigger supports responsible gun ownership and believes wholeheartedly that if the American way of arming its citizens were promoted around the world by setting an example here then much of the mayhem in the world would disappear. We can nibble around the edges and glorify throwing consumer goods at everyone, however, as we can see on Black Friday when it comes to individual survival and the survival of the democratic state there is far less joy that comes from buying things to which people have no right to possess. There is no law proscribing the ownership of flat screens or blue jeans. However, by exercising ones right as a citizen to possess firearms then they are sending the clearest possible message to themselves as well as to others as to why America remains a safe place. Perhaps arming the citizenry was the government bailout Americans needed the most, and which is perhaps the least expensive and most effective means of making the world safer place and would restore real American hope and make change in the world a far more realistic goal than by ignoring the fundamental foundation of how freedom endures in the first place.

-TDN

Let’s all take a deep breath now, and sit back and ponder the facts for a second. Let’s turn off the news and stop gawking at the scenes of gunfire in the street and the dead and wounded being evacuated. Let’s just look at the facts. The attacks in Mumbai were directed against westerners, including Americans, whom the attackers felt were trying to wreak financial havoc there. The attacks were located in luxury hotels and in the Jewish section of the city. The attacks were planned and carefully executed.

These are the facts. Planned attacks are nothing more than another way of saying terrorism. The media apparently has turned away from calling terrorist attacks as such and instead called them simply attacks. The words terror, terrorism and terrorists have now been pushed aside along with George W. Bush by the media that wants to have a joyful little lovely world where occasionally things go haywire and thugs mow down people with machine guns. But they are not terrorists who did this and this is not a terrorist act which just took place in Mumbai. Why? Because the media told you so.

What does Obama have to say about what just took place in Mumbai? Does he have anything to say about this? Well no he doesn’t, and why does he not have anything to say about the tragic terrorist attacks in Mumbai? Because the media has forbidden the timely application of the term “terrorist attacks” as a means by which these people who planned this can be hunted down, and have their organizations pulled out by the root. Instead we are told, Americans are somehow at fault for this having occurred. We are being told to think as such because the media gives the terrorists a platform from which to express their sick ideas about the value of human life. When did it ever become fashionable for a sitting member of Congress to be interviewed by a state run television network of a nation which has committed itself to the destruction of another nation, i.e., Iran and Israel? Yet, John Conyers felt it was alright to do this, and the mainstream media looked the other way.

The point about terrorists and terrorism is that information is essential in order to prevent such acts from occurring in the first place. When the government and media are in love with one another like they are right now in America, there is no guarantee that anyone is going to take the time and effort necessary to investigate these groups. The sycophant society that we have today is more concerned with movie stars like the latest one they have, Barack Obama, whose fifteen minutes of fame have already come and gone.

Obama has already enjoined his fate as becoming known as the father of missed opportunities. Others tried to warn Americans that the signs were there that he was a media fabrication, but most people didn’t seem to be concerned. We saw this when he was body surfing in Hawaii while Russia invaded South Ossetia. The media gave him a pass. And now the news is that if the housing boom didn’t work out in order to keep people from focusing on the perilous state of our world today, then the media turned its attention instead to government bailouts. The media shined their spotlight on their great savior of the victims of self-delusion, Washington. These are the victims that the media themselves created mind you, and if AIG couldn’t be relied upon to insure that the house of cards would not fall then the media turned to Obama for hope. A right turn here, a left turn there, a nip and a tuck and a workout at the gym and suddenly we are all on the right course again. But of course we needed a giant guard rail on each side just in case we veered too far to one side and crashed. That is where the Federal Reserve becomes our drug dealer to keep the whole party going, where all we have to do is print more money and suddenly just like that everything is better.

This is pure fantasy that we are living in America. We are postponing the inevitable, which is an awakening to the facts as they are rather than the way we would like for things to be. The fact is nobody wants to go back to the carnage and destruction that took place 65 years ago in which tens of millions of people perished needlessly while entire cities were leveled. This is not the world that anyone would enjoy living in, yet it is perilously closer than people tend to think. The only separation that exists between good and evil is the human conscience. It’s always a good idea to have periodic reality checks as to the existence of that consciousness or else boundaries become blurred, which is exactly the way in which terrorists feel they can operate best.

-TDN

As this story below went online, terrorist grenade attacks in the city of Mumbai killed at least 80 people and wounded over two hundred others. The attackers were targeting westerners staying in luxury hotels. The point to make is that the threat from terrorism is real, not fake, and the talk of pulling out of Iraq will serve to embolden them as analysts had predicted. Obama has no choice but to renege on his promise to pull out of Iraq, and he made this clear by keeping Robert Gates as Secretary of Defense. The point being there are no shortcuts to solving the problems that America faces.

Here comes Barack Obama, the drama queen, who announced today that on “day one” his economic plan is going to save America! Wowie! I’m enthused. Can’t you just tell I’m gushing with enthusiasm?

I am perfectly convinced that the media will stop at nothing to inoculate the public as to what is going on in their lives. The media threw a war that hardly nobody wound up liking. The media covered up the their Bush follies after having gone along with the WMD story by just moving along to the next media extravanganza – the presidency itself. So the media threw us a big election and we got us a half-black dude who beat out a guy who pimped his wife to S&M bars to become the shining new star of the Democratic Party. Wow. I’m so impressed. And now I’m just quaking in my boots waiting for Inauguration Day so that I can feel the effect of Barack Obama’s master plan for the economy.

Man, I can tell everybody one thing for sure. The media will continue to jerk us all around until we’re blue in the face and will stop at nothing too dramatic to razzle dazzle a country which by and large is swimming in debt up to its eyeballs and is trying everything it can to make people wake up and start making the economy better. The politicians today are only a reflection of the people, and Americans would rather live in a fantasy than realize what is happening to them and their lives.

Basically, average citizens are being hung out to dry by the media. The media learned how to produce the biggest, the best, the most spectacular stories out of thin air. They do it believable and they make lots of money doing it. They sell products and services, and they have even altered the tastes and habits of people to fit the products and services they want to sell to us whether we want them or not. (Do I hear a “global warming” in the house?)

And now while the economy is going down the toilet and people are sick and tired of listening to the same old promises about the new and improved presidency de jour, we are being told to wait breathlessly for Inauguration Day, because the very next day Obama is going to wave a magic wand and everything is going to get better all of a sudden. Gosh, I wouldn’t want to be that guy even for the inside story of all the skeletons in John Edwards’ closet.

Think about it, can anybody in their right mind believe this promise that on “day one”  Obama is going to implement a plan to save the American economy? Mind you, this is coming from the same guy which practically everyone can see now was nothing more than a media creation himself. I want to know who is putting out all this garbage, and frankly I’m amazed that more Americans aren’t raising hell about the fact that Obama’s actions after the election are basically a 180 degree turn away from practically everything he campaigned on. From reneging on rolling back the tax cuts to the wealthy to tackling once and forever the global warming question, he has had to backtrack and say that he might reconsider moving forward on these.

Well hell yeah he better look at these issues he campaigned on again. Now it is going to be under Obama’s watch whether General Motors goes belly up. Obama finds himself fighting for the very things that he said he was going to change. GM has lost its market share because it was building SUVs while Japan was building hybrids. It doesn’t take a genius to know who won that race to the bottom line when gas prices rose to four bucks a gallon. Remember that? Oh my, another inconvenient truth.  Now Obama has to save the very one’s whose lack of interest in the future, i.e., change, caused them to go begging to Obama for money to help “save” them.

And where is Al Gore and Warren Buffet these days? How come you don’t hear from them any more? And Oprah sure is laying low herself, too. Interesting. Where have all these rich fuckers gone who put Obama in our midst and made us sit here and listen to these vacant promises? Now I know why they kept talking about hope. It was all about hoping, meaning when one is always hopeful then apparently they aren’t very satisfied.

Television ratings have soared to an all time high according to media reports. Something like five hours per day is what the average American now watches on television. Imagine all the garbage and refuse one can absorb in five full hours. No wonder we have us an Obama for president. We’re all just sitting on the couch hoping for change.

The joke is on everyone who sits on their ass and does nothing but talks a big game. By their own laziness and ineptitude people have by and large literally become sponges for the great waterfall of power that exists among the mighty and the few of the corporate media elite. They have a plan for those who are miserable. They will sell you happiness in a box. Haven’t you heard about this? Why, it’s absolutely fascinating. It’s called the i-Bama. You plug it into any computer and download your favorite Obama dramas. Play them back any time and email them to your friends. Makes a great holiday stocking stuffer. It’s only $9.95 from Ronco.

Frankly, a lot of us in America like myself are getting sick and tired of this overly dramatic horse manure that these hooligans in Washington and New York have cooked up for us. In a way I can understand why Sarah Palin had a certain kind of cult following out there. To many her affiliation with the Alaskan separatist movement struck a chord. Maybe the Russians are right in their prediction that America stands a strong chance of breaking up in the near future. At the rate things are going this might well be true.

Unless people begin to cherish education and awareness and self-development and individualism instead of this dependency victim nonsense then nothing good is going to come out any movement that is undertaken in this country. The government is not people’s savior, and politicians can’t fix the world. They will beat their brains out to tell everyone that they can make it all better, but the truth is simply that they cannot.

Each person has to change in order for there to be change. Change does not occur from without but rather from within each individual. This is a lifetime of work to undergo true change. We are literally smitted by God at birth and made to forget about the magic of paradise we knew before the material world got a hold of us. Striving for survival often blinds men to their true purpose here on earth, which is to find peace. It does exists, and it can be found. But for people to join in unity in their self-pity rather than to try to find peace in their lives is inexcusable, especially when it becomes fashionable on a national level in which to do so.

Maybe that is the message of Obama after all, which is that immediately after having been elected on the platform of change he then basically handed over the White House to an administration that existed sixteen years ago. It isn’t so much that he doesn’t know what he is doing that he had to hire people who did which is probably at stake here. Perhaps this is simply a case of Obama teaching us what he is learning himself, that it is possible to change.

People have to have basic means of survival in order for their minds to grow and thereby increase their chances of becoming wise and adding to the strength and character of their communities and the nation as a whole. Nations survive only when their populations are well fed, well educated, and well respected. Right now America has such a bad complex about their standard of living, aka the economy, that they are missing the whole point of this magnificent experience. It is possible to drop the lifestyle to which one has become accustomed and lift onself out of the world of images and tricks. And in doing so such an individual stands a good chance of finding out things that are significant, powerful, real and virtuous about this world in which we live. In fact, ones chances of finding happiness and joy by walking away from the mainstream media are far better than by doing nothing but staring at their ridiculous nonsense all day long. And that includes by the way the Inauguration. I’d rather take a January dip in the bay instead.

-TDN

California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger said of the state Legislature Tuesday that “it’s like kindergarten up there where they point fingers at each other. We have crises left and right, and they don’t want to deal with any of them. They’re living in denial.”

The California Legislature killed a Democratic-sponsored plan to raise taxes and decrease state spending. The plan failed in the Assembly and the Senate as Republicans voted along party lines to defeat it. California’s current fiscal year ends in June 2009 and is projected to have a deficit of $11 billion. Republicans claim that despite spending cut backs mandated by the plan, programs are nevertheless increased every year. At the heart of the tax increase is a proposal to increase the vehicle registration fee by three times and cutting funding for schools by $4 billion over two years.

Governor Schwarzenegger has called for a special session of the Legislature in December to tackle California’s budget crises. Schwarzenegger warned Treasury Secretary Paulson in October that California may need an emergency loan of $7 billion due to the state running out of cash to fund its day-to-day government operations. California is one of several states that has been locked out of the bond market by the ongoing global credit crises.