Chopin's Comments (290)

“What's your point?

There're 2 general categories of factors affecting people's lives --- human interactions, and environmental interactions. They're interrelated in intricate and complex ways. You have commented only on human interaction factors.

As far as the glacier starting level, whether it's 5,000 or 10,000 meters does not invalidate the undeniable physical evidence that mountain glaciers on ALL 7 CONTINENTS are melting fast (in geological time scales). Mountain glaciers for millenia have determined the waterflow (rivers) patterns. All agrarian communities, the majority of human settlements, are along rivers and continental coastal waters. When mountain river sources rapidly disappear, and ocean levels rapidly rise, the majority of human communities will be torn apart. Human settlements by the hundreds of millions, even billions around the globe, would be scurrying around frantically like rats on a sinking ship, looking for safe places to survive. That means wars, conflicts, riots, communal suicides (communal wars are a form of mass psychoses leading to mass suicides), droughts where there used to be water (Dafur), torrential rains, floods and hurricanes (New Orleans) would overwhelm cities and regions, warm dessicated regions would go up in flames (California), coastal metropolitan cities would be submerged by rising ocean level, food would be scarce, summer heat would be intolerable heatwaves, . . . all predictable patterns.

In light of such dire prospects, it would be CRIMINAL negligence and complicity, and the height of infantile stupidity to focus debate on the starting level of mountain glaciers, or call global warming hoax.”

“IA, your logic is impeccable. Have you thought of cooperating with individuals like Dr. Reich and others with eminent experienced minds to form a non-partisan "think tank" to provide wisdom in government and the marketplace?

What is taking this country and economy down is a fundamental philosophical as well as structural flaw in the building and driving mechanism of this society and the world economy. The aggregation of money and amassing of power by those that already have plenty of both is a very intoxicating exercise. Money and power are extremely powerful aphrodisiac to the mind that drives the motivation for repetitive behavior. I would guess that money and power are self-reinforcing mood enhancers more potent than any conventional narcotics that few people can resist. The fact that "compound interests" and "upward concentration of wealth" are human inventions that lead to oppressive unstable human dynamics does not enter into the realms of the top 1% superrich.

There're other valid alternatives. One such human dynamic and entrepreneurial approach to wellness distribution is demonstrated in practice and explained with great clarity by Dr. Muhammad Yunus (of the Grameen Bank fame). He calls that model a "social business" that rejects maximization of profits as the only goal and measurement of success of a business corporation. Let Dr. Yunus explain in his own words in hour-long interview with Charlie Rose:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IstOkG8erg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XvwllE33cy4
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZ1P3W8ABiU
.”

“Your ideas, perceptions and terminology seem to be formed and frozen in the first half of the past 20th century. What are you talking about, . . . communist China, communism, slave labor and globalization? If you truly understand or want to understand the root causes and problems of globalization, they have little or nothing to do with communism. Take a close look at the Marshall Islands. It is not a communist country. But it has the latest manifestation of globalization in high concentration of off-shore unregulated slave labor sweatshops.”

“The same private equity capital investment corporations that invest to hire the market-oriented MBA genius folks at GoldmanSharks to invent exotic sophisticated credit bubble derivative instruments of speculation on Wall Street USA, also invest to hire production-oriented science-engineering genius folks to manufacture "Made in China" merchandise for export to USA.

Real investment capital (in multi-trillions dollars worth) is entirely fungible and stateless, and has no allegiance to any nation, people, or humanity. That's why Mr. Reich is soberly pointing out that Chinese workers and American workers are basically in the same fix that we are all in today. The workers on either side of this artificial national dividing line do not create enough wealth for themselves to buy what they themselves produce.

The race to the bottom applies to standard of living of American workers, and soon Chinese workers too. The race to the top applies to the massive concentration of wealth to the wealthiest, and they are doing fine.”

“I'm fearful that the scenario is more than a little scary, and more than a little too close to reality today. There're plenty of dots of scattered information, when connected in a coherent analysis would trace out broad pattern of sociopolitical evolution stumbling along the path of the German Weimar Republic of late1920's.

In broad outline, collapse of the financial markets and laissez-faire capitalist economies of the "roaring 20's". Unbridled greed and unconstrained wealth concentration led to masses of dispossessed and discontented lower-midd­le-working class --- the 95% of the population that Republican (and complicit Democratic) administrations had enabled the wealthiest 1% of the population to orchestrate massive wealth transfer upwards.

Mr. Reich paints a bleak picture of SYSTEMIC UNEMPLOYME­NT+UNDEREM­PLOYMENT, by design of the multinational capital investment corporations. I'm waiting for "the other shoe to drop". Chronic unemployme­nt+underem­ployment may persist, + outofcontrol national debt + ballooning budget/trade deficit. Add to this toxic economic trend a fundamental national "exceptionalism", historic racial-xenophobic hysteria, and humiliating military setbacks, then a hotbed of fascist brew exists below the surface, and just over the horizon.

In the Hitler model, German industrial­ists+conse­rvative landowning class (Junkers)+­disaffecte­d army, brownshirt streetbrawlers all conspired to support and exploit Hitler to gain total authoritarian control of the state. A similar blend of multinational corporate conglomera­tes+religi­ous fundamenta­lists+raci­st teabaggers+war promoters in Pampergon+state sponsored mercenaries . . . already exist today in USA.”

“Enough derogatory hyperbole on all sides. There're legitimate points from those who say Obama isn't moving fast enough or in wrong direction, and from those who counsel patience. Namecalling "whining" and "betrayal" won't help.

Discussion would be more productive when we getdown to specifics. Let's take economic team. Summers and Geithner are known to be part of architects and proponents of credit bubble buildup and meltdown. They're part of the problem. Is this Obama's tactical maneuver subject to adjustment? Or is it central misplaced trust and misdirected policy goals and methods? This team in less than 9months has dispensed 3quarter trillion dollars free bailout to unrepentent bigbanks and WallStreet.

Such substantive mistakes raise central question whether what we're seeing are part of or deviation from the hoped for "transformation that people can believe in." The serious and realists among Democrats+­independen­ts should face fact that people disappointed once too often would drift away and never come back. Namecalling disappointed supporters "whiners" won't change dangerous potential reversion to deadend politics people thought they left behind. Democrats+­independen­ts need to get grip of ourselves, and engage in meaningful discussion of policies and priorities, and how to hold this coalition together in 2010 and beyond.

President Obama cannot summon people to lofty ideals, inspire them with soaring oratory, and not follow through with matching executive decisions, and then not expect significant numbers of disappointed followers to drift away. Insults and labels would not avert a predictable outcome.”

“Scarborian: "Let's save the money or spend it on building alternatives to imported fossil fuels . . . "
There're two parts in your statement. I agree with the intent of the second part. But both parts are based on an unstated assumption that the money is there to be spent.

That's an assumption too carelessly forgotten or ignored by the average American. There IS NO MONEY to be spent. THAT MONEY HAS TO BE BORROWED from international creditors. This country is already today $12 TRILLION in debt. That makes the war in Afghanistan and any follow-on wars planned by Pentagon war planners totally SURREAL WARS in the 5th dimension --- NO NATION IN HISTORY HAS SUCCESSFULLY SUSTAINED WARS CONDUCTED ON BORROWED TREASURES. Some historians on Huffpost can confirm or refute this observation.

The British Empire successfully sustained WW2 on American "lend-lease" conditions of surrendering British colonial bases to USA at end of WW2, and effectively initiated dismantling of the empire. A similar fate awaits the American Empire down the path of perpetual war conducted on borrowed money.”

“Once President Obama accepts the rationale to escalate the war in Afghanistan, he would be trapped by the same dynamics that drove GWBush in Iraq. That is, if it becomes politically inconvenient and unsustainable to provide regular troops through the frontdoor legitimately, he would be forced by Pentagon to go through the backdoor illegitimately, ending up indirectly taxing the nation to support whole hosts of Backwater mercensaries by the tens and hundreds of thousands eventually, just as the way it was done in Iraq. The pressures and dynamics of the war would not let him deviate from that tried and workable script. The public would be less aware and less troubled by this back door sleight of hand.

Once this approach is launched, this nation would be well on its way to fullblown entrenched wars of attrition by private mercensaries. The nation's economy would gallop relentlessly on the road to crippling war debts, hyperinflation and bankruptcy --- in the form of drastic and rapid devaluation of US$. It's a tragic melancholic script that a wise President could foresee and a courageous President would avoid at all costs.”

“If President Obama does not fight the hawkish generals occupying the Pentagon over Afghanistan NOW, he would almost certainly have to fight them in and out of uniforms, in 2010 and 2012, over the airwaves in USA, on the streets of American cities, in the bars and living rooms of American homes, and finally fight them and their allies in the halls and cloak rooms of Congress, against the armies of their war contractor corporate allies on K-Street, directed by Armchair-Generals Limbaugh and Beck on FoxTV, coordinated by shadow kickboxer Rove, and financed by Exxon, McDonald Douglas, Lockheed Martin, Blackwater (or whatever its latest cryptic name is) and Haliburton, and championed by a smiling retired General Patraeus.

The rallying cry "If we don't fight them over there now, we'll have to fight them here in USA later." . . . would have a special prophetic ring to it.”

“Technically correct. The monetary excesses started notably with the single event of Nixon's "closing the dollar-gold convertibility window" in 1971. The seeds of that mindset and drive towards "funny money" were sown at the seminal event of the assassination of JFK and the radical policy shift towards war and monetary inflation.

The monetary and debt inflation have multiplied by more than tenfold (1000%). While Obama obviously didn't start that trainwreck, he's almost definitely the last chance and greatest hope of averting that oncoming trainwreck. As any train engineer could tell you, and any thoughtful person can understand, you stop an oncoming trainwreck by applying brakes and throwing everything into reverse, and let the gears grind into white heat (metaphorically) to slow and then stop the forward momentum of the rushing train.

To freely bailout the big banks that contributed massively towards the subprime real estate credit bubble inflation, and to consider escalating the third major endless war in Afghanistan are the two signature actions of "going along" with the oncoming trainwreck.

Who do you blame for an oncoming trainwreck i s a tragically misplaced question. A wise leader and informed public should at least all agree on this.”

“Future historians would probably observe that the coup-d'etat of 1963 (regime change, American style) was the beginning of a long dark lost era in American history, when fear and injustice reigned, dreams died, and despair turned into mass amnesia, overt aggression, and compulsive conspicuous consumption that has not yet ended.

We lost much much more than a generation.”

“Most reasonably curious and well-informed people who lived through that terrible time would have figured that out by one way or another. (except for those who are ideologically blinded to avoid the big truth)”

“Only SeeEyeA would have that kind of unfettered access and long planning cycles and purpose. Oswald's intelligence involvement had been years in the making, The person that got Oswald hired and placed in the Texas School Book Depository was De Morenschield, who was a personal friend of Oswald through the Russian community was the contact. He was later exposed as a CIA operative. His head was blown off by shotgun right before he was supposed to testify before the second Congressional committee on the assassination investigation. De Morenschield was one of dozens of potential material witnesses that had died of violent deaths.”

“Chilling testimony of a heroic man and tragic president overcome by dark forces of destruction.

I wonder how President Obama would handle it, if the joint chiefs advised nuclear bombing of Iran if the nuclear standoff is unresolved in a few years.”

“Has it crossed your mind, as it does mine, that info item #5 has something peculiar and out-of-place about it?

Oswald the ex-Marine was highly trained and experienced in high-secur­ity-cleara­nce military radio cryptography during the 1960's, and was intensively trained in Russian language, and was cleared (by CIA) to go through a high profile "defection" to Soviet KGB, and was accepted and used by the KGB, and subsequently recanted just as inexplicably, and was mysteriously and hurriedly rushed through at high security clearance level and re-admitted back in US, placed in Dallas, employed as a low-level casual labor book freight handler on the 6th floor of the Dallas School Books Depository, in the same year, same month, same day, same fateful hour and minutes from a long-time pre-scheduled Presidential limousine drive through RIGHT BELOW that building, with its protective bubbletop removed, and subsequently coincided with the president's head blown off in cross-fire, . . . and Oswald claiming to be innocent and a patsy, and the rest of the scenario cannot be explained away as random coincidence of such statistically highly improbable magnitude of so so many events.

Perhaps, the fish-smell test indicates that Oswald the hightly skilled intelligence operative was not employed as a casual book handler at the Book Depository on that day, that he was in fact being expertly "handled" down to the last detail over years.”

“I like your Sherlock Holmes deductive reasoning.”

“I would be very interested in your "Peace University".
It would be quite a novel and important achievement, no matter how small and humble its beginning is.

I'm reminded of the humble and modest but inspired beginning of Dr. Muhammad Yunus, the founder and Nobel Peace Prize winner for his world famous Grameen Bank and the revolutionary concept of "micro-lending". Anybody that can carry such a wild and magnificent dream and nurture it for such a long time is to be admired, as he is now worldwide, after over 30years.”

“I meant info item #2 to be the inference that there would be necessarily be a SECOND GUNMAN because of the unreliability of Oswald's known poor marksmanship and the unreliability of the ancient Italian rifle recovered on the scene. I don't believe that's how Sherlock Holmes would approach it.

Any good plot planner would have scrapped the idea of using Oswald and the old Italian rifle in the shooting, second gunman or no second gunman. Used as a patsy, that's a different story, and a whole new set of angles and criteria.”

“The first info item#1 is a documented (authenticated) and published fact.
The second info item#2 is NOT logically related or dependent on info item#1, unless you start with that preconceived assumption that they are logically related, which is not good and sound deductive detective work.

Based on the known presented evidence:--
1) Oswald is a shooter of known average competence
2) The poor decrepit ancient Italian (inaccurate) rifle recovered on the Book Depository 6th floor

Any nut that would rely on #1 to carry out the highest stake assassination relying on #2 is simply rationally and logically ENTIRELY NOT CREDIBLE. I believe any objective person would agree with that observation and conclusion. The assassination plotters were NO DUMMIES. Put those facts and inference together, and #1 and #2 would be ruled out in any serious, meticulously pre-planned and methodically pre-planned attempt. That assassination, as a matter of historical record, is STILL UNSOLVED, over 40years afterwards. That's how meticulous and methodical that effort was --- it covered EVERY ANGLE and EVERY ASPECT.”

“Don't forget the context --- Marina Oswald was a very young new immigrant from RUSSIA (at a time of heightened general anti-Russian [anti-Soviet] sentiments all over US in the 1960's), can hardly speak English (still with a heavy foreign accent 30years later), and a scared and INTIMIDATED wife of an alleged assassin of the President of United State. If that whole context is not enough psychological pressure to scare her out of her wits, I don't know what would. (And you can bet that the FBI, Dallas police, CIA, Secret Service, and every other government official knew that weakness, in extracting any information true or forced, in the hours, weeks, months and years after 11/22/1963.)”

“Come to think of it . . . in NONE of the other reported attempts and actual presidential assassinations in modern history (in late 20th century) did any of the assailants claim "I am a patsy". So, for that fact alone, Oswald's claim was unusual and did not fit any normal pattern.

As a logical consequence of that claim, if true, it would doom him to a quick premature death, as in the way it did actually happen. Why? --- To shut him up before he could spill any more damning information to the public. It doesn't take a Sherlock Holmes to deduce that.”

“Grasy, you obviously have a fixed agenda, and I don't intend to persuade you. To answer some of your points seriously, I would imagine myself in shoes of a plotter --- To setup a patsy that can be identified as president's assassin and quickly eliminated, a plotter would set him up as killer of a policeman, for very simple logical practical reason. ALL law enforcement personnel at all levels know instinctively that an alleged president's assassin's life is to be preserved for trial, but not that of an identified policeman's killer, to be shot on sight like a rabbid-dog at any sign of struggle or resistance to arrest by personally enraged fraternal Dallas policemen. That would serve to "kill two birds with one stone" --- liquidated President and permanently silenced assassin's patsy. That answers to peculiar circumstances of Tibbit's shooting death within minutes of President's shooting.

Corroborating evidence of this approach is in Ruby filling in this role as a failsafe backup last resort at the policestation before Oswald was transferred out of Dallas City jurisdiction and start talking under uncontrolled county jail jurisdiction. That accounts for the seeming odd behavior of Ruby perspiring profusely before knowing of Oswald's confirmed death and turning into perfect calm after knowing of Oswald's death. For the plotters and their strategy and logistics to succeed, it was NECESSARY AND ESSENTIAL THAT THE LONE ASSASSIN-PATSY BE ELIMINATED IMMEDIATELY from talking, in order for the elaborate coverstory to hold up without risk of contradiction and exposure.”

“Arianna, you express what a lot of people see and feel, progressive Democrats, and independents. People have seen a process of change, maybe just the beginning.

We have seen a transformation, but not of what we expected. It's less a transformation of society and nation than a metamorphosis of an individual. It began with a rabble rousing grassroots community organizer, motivational orator and mass campaigner,

reminiscent of Howard Biel in the movie "Network":--
He encapsulated the spirit of popular rebellion.
"I'm MAD AS HELL, and I'm NOT GOING TO TAKE THIS ANY MORE!
I'm a HUMAN BEING. My life has VALUE!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_qgVn-Op7Q

Slowly, incrementally, perceptibly, the theme of transformation of society and nation has morphed in metamorphosis into a corporate conciliator advised, guided and constrained by corporate players nurtured and cocooned in corporate philosophy (Summers and Geithner), in economics (big bank bailouts), social change "that you can believe in" (directionless healthcare), and military posture (war escalation instead of de-escalation).

It's reminiscent of the people's populist Howard Biel's wakeup call by Arthur Jensen the corporate capitalist:--
"YOU have meddled with the PRIMAL FORCES OF NATURE!
and Y_O_U will A_T_O_N_E !"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BVqIjKyJh0&NR=1

This transformation is not complete. But the people's disillusionment is palpable, and the sadness is seeping in.”

“or 3) he would have no possible idea, sitting in the downstairs lunchroom, whether his alleged shooting succeeded or not, and he would somehow blurt out some inadvertent questions to the cops confronting him in the lunchroom about what happened to the President.

Apparently, none of those scenarios happened.”

“BB: "Oswald DID fire shots from the Texas School Book Depository."
Who or what told you that for a fact? A voice? Warren Commission Report? What?

Oswald was physically present in the lunch room on second floor minutes after the shots were heard.

The first (real) cops on the scene inside the building questioning Oswald did NOT reportedly observe him to be out of breath or anything other than calm and normal.
Anyone racing down 4 floors after shooting the president would be out of breath with a racing pulse. IF Oswald DID shoot, as you allege, he would be a damn idiot to be sitting there calmly in the lunchroom, knowing full well that his prints would be on the alleged rifle, and gunpowder traces would be all over his hands and body.

Remember, as his detractors allege, he had plenty of time to methodically plan this dastardly deed and contemplate the consequences. For a knowingly guilty person, he would either be
1) busily removing all incriminating traces of evidence,
or 2) he would be ready to own up to the alleged act openly without any qualms and reservations.

Which is it? Which story do you want to pin on Oswald to make it stick?”