DesertDivine's Comments (126)

“It has been said that the CIA is the biggest drug dealer in the world.

Any comments? Is this true? Is Karzai's brother in bed with the CIA and the AFG. war a cash cow as such??”

“Unreal. What happened to the respect that used to be the cornerstone of our Congress? You would have thought they were being interviewed on CNN, with the opposition being talked over and treated like dirt. Have you ever noticed that the Dem will politely listen to the Repug, then when the Dem begins to speak, the Repug just shouts over whatever the Dem has to say? And after that the moderator generally goes to commercial­.....A truly sorry state of affairs.

Ofcourse we have seldom seen the spectacle we witnessed at the State of the Union either, where Joe Wilson could shout "liar" as the duly elected President Obama was speaking. These people are ignorant and classless. Republicans, you are in the minority now so get over it, poor losers.”

“Read the book, Mr. President. Don't let the insulation surrounding you in the Washington bubble make you forget why you are there. People crossed party lines for the first time in a long time to vote for you because they knew our country was thriving at the expense of the middle and lower class, banks and Wall Street greed destroying our republic, creating a corporate owned America. Shake yourself awake now and return to your core values. If not, I fear you will not be re-elected.”

“And don't forget Geitner and Summers. Another scary situation. Almost as bad as Paulsen, Mr. 700 million dollar Goldman Sachs man.”

“And I saw Andre climb up the side of an umpire chair once, grab the mike and give a game point to Yannick Noah that the line judge had called in Andre's favor. He got a standing ovation from the crowd.

I guess Agassi has many sides.”

“Agassi has done so much for different causes, especially by funding his school in Las Vegas for underprivileged kids. I think it is commendable that he is willing to confess his past mistakes. He is a class act and an asset to his sport.”

“You are both so right. It seems that many do not recognize that we are all human beings, with mostly the same desires. As Jimmy Carter once said, and I am paraphrasing, you do not win over a country when you are killing their children. Or torturing them.”

“Torture is something done by dictators and despots, not the US. No wonder we are no longer admired in the world. And I love the old "They hate us for our freedoms" line. They hate us because we are arrogant bullies, trying to impose our ideas on other cultures and defining everyone as "good and evil". If you were a small Arabic country, why wouldn't you want a nuclear bomb to ward off threats by people like the Bush/Chene­y/Rumsfeld cabal?

We are wrongly stuck in serial war mode and Obama needs to recognize this and get us out. This whole middle east strategy is ignorant. You cannot fight entire countries because of groups of thugs. Police action with allies involved in eradicating them is the key. The military industrial complex, et. al., is the only winner in this perpetual war era.”

“Moyers worked in the Johnson WH.”

“You are so very correct. Great post!”

“Regulation is the dirty word that Reagan made it to be in the 80's and look what has happened since then? Government oversight and regulation is what made the strong middle class in this country and the lack of it is what is destroying it. Chris Cox just turned his head and allowed the greed and corruption to run rampant. Now all of Congress is on the take, including the Executive. The corporations rule so what is there to be done about it?”

“Exactly!!! Ritter was everywhere and very credible. We went to our congressman with about 50 others to say "let the inspections work first", to no avail. Our 'rep' returned to vote in lockstep with the Bushies. There were many, many people on Ritter's side but soon he was silenced and we were 'terrible Americans' for not supporting this illegal and immoral war. We had no help at all from the MSM, as they saw what ratings they would be getting for reporting war. It is such a terrible shame.”

“Fareed should be on everyone's 'don't miss' list. His shows are what television should be about. I haven't had a chance to watch Amanpour but hers should be good as well.

Besides it being difficult to find any real news on TV, the commercials and teases far surpass any hard stories. But then look at how the dumbing down of our culture has changed every aspect of our lives in the last thirty years. Sure, we have computers, I-Phones, etc., but we have much dumber people. Therefore, the news panders to the lowest common denominator to get viewers, as well as much of the rest of the programming. Hence we get "Kate Plus 8 " drivel by the &^%$loads. As dear Sarah used to say, "Thanks but no thanks!"”

“Mr. Lear, you have hit the proverbial nail on the head. We have no more news, only "I Reports", sensationalism segments and opinion. Even then there is only about two minutes of 'news' followed by 20 commercials, most of those from big pharma, which is a disgrace. People struggle to buy medications that they request from their doctor (another serious problem) because of the unreasonable cost. Is there any way the MSM would go after their own advertisers?

There is no more independent press, unfortunately, thanks to the corporations that now own us. Along with China, ofcourse.”

“Exactly, Dave. As you well know, the generals like war because it is their job. When my son was flying in the USMC, he was actually disappointed to go to the Gulf in the time BETWEEN the two Gulf wars. They are stoked to look at it as putting their training to use after so many war games. It is only when they see the true devastation it creates, up close and personal, that they feel the real impact of the fact that in war, no one wins.

We do not need serial wars that are too often cosmic: GOOD V. EVIL. The Crusades should be in the past and due to extremists on all sides, including our own, we are mired in this mess, continuing to fight the world over nebulous causes. We cannot change cultures to DEMAND they become like us.”

“Great piece, Arianna. I agree that we are sick of the mea culpa books after the fact. If Colin Powell, as one of the most respected military men of our era, would have held a press conference before the disastrous Iraq debacle and told the American people that the info they were spreading was BS, just imagine the debate and fact checking that would have taken place.

Instead we have squandered so much for so little. The 10 billion+ we continue to spend on these wars could have afforded us all with universal health care and perhaps a little oversight at the SEC would have prevented the pillaging of our financial system. The foxes have taken over the henhouse and it seems there is so much greed and corruption on all levels of business and government that there is no way out.

Dianne Feinstein has always been a bit of a hawk and I would say to her she should consider all of the single mothers and suffering families in THIS country.”

“And don't forget, Faux News also have a major problem with the truth. They couldn't have him face to face because then they couldn't spin it their way.”

“Right on, brother!!!!”

“Great comment. I completely agree.”

“Me too, humane. You are right on. We had the whole world with us after 9/11 as it was the 'world trade' center that was attacked. We could have covertly gone after the bad guys, productively used our allies to do what needed to be done, which was to eradicate a gang of thugs. Attacking two countries because of a group of religious zealots was exactly what Bin Laden wanted. He couldn't have united the Arab world against the west any better.

As I have stated many times, if BL would have sent Bush a checklist of what he wanted done after 9/11, it couldn't have worked out more perfectly for his cause. I am not a conspiracy theorist but I can see how the conclusions could be reached by many that Bush was somehow involved. Those of us against the wars from the beginning never had a chance. If you would have read a novel with this scenario, war of choice, etc., ten years ago, you would have said this is totally implausible but here we are.

I sure hope we can make a difference now, Susan, but I have serious doubts. The war machine is in serial mode now and the money being spent could cover healthcare without any problems at all. It is truly disgusting to think of all the blood, treasure and esteem we have flushed away for the greed of a few.”

“It is inconceivable that this great nation can continue to stonewall and subvert what over 70% of the people want; healthcare for all. I am appalled at the inhumanity of these zealots that claim to be Christians. They love to blow people up in other nations, electively, but don't want to care for their own citizens? It is sick and disgusting. If the Baucus plan goes through, it will be a bigger rip off to the middle class than the Bush Medicare Drug Plan, and that was beyond awful!!

And the corporate greed continues.”

“YES !!!!!”

“Too Bad. I loved him on Boston Legal too. He will be missed. Nice post, Harry. Keep up the good work. Your NOLA posts have been terrific.”

“Yep, got to get the money out of the system. That is why, just as in the Watergate scandal, we need to 'follow the money', the unfortunate root of all evil. There must be regulations. Otherwise, it is the old capitalism run amoke theme once again.

I do like the idea of taxing the transactions. Makes a lot of common sense, but then that is not around anymore.”

“Another huge problem mingled with the rest is this mind-set now of serial war. We are squandering our blood and treasure, paying our soldiers squat to be cannon fodder, yet paying multi-national corporations to guard our embassies (Marines USED to do that), provide meals, and all the other various jobs our military used to do at 6 figure salaries. This is also a disgrace and has contributed to the corporations owning us and our system.

Maybe big government is bad but the dominance of the corporations is worse. Unions got a bad name, often rightly so, but they were better at looking out for the little guy. That idea has been so demonized in the last 30 years.”