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1) The Articles linked below were Abstracted from the sources cited. After the abstract there's analysis and commentary, links to related articles, and a link to the database with suggested search terms.

Brown under fire as allies rally

bbc, Friday, 25 July 2008 19:13 UK

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/7526328.stm

critics have increased the pressure on Gordon Brown after Labour's defeat in the Glasgow East by-election, but colleagues have leapt to his defence.

The head of one of the UK's top unions has demanded a leadership contest, while Tory leader David Cameron has called for a general election.

...

'Constitutional right'

The SNP won Glasgow East - previously considered one of Labour's safest seats - by 365 votes, achieving a 22.54% swing.

John Mason, the victorious candidate, said the result was "not just a political earthquake, it is off the Richter scale".

It followed Labour's recent loss of the Crewe and Nantwich seat, the London mayoralty and poor results in local elections.

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What's Really Going on Here??

The brits are trading one bad party for another, just as we are doing here

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., July 25, 2008

Gordon Brown just got his ass handed to him in the Scottish by-elections. The downfall of labor should be of no surprise to close observers of British politics. This day was preordained when Bill Clinton and Tony Blair each led their respective parties to betray their core constituencies, and replace popular democratic support for their parties with the power and wealth of each county's respective corporate elite.

Clinton betrayed the working people of the US by adopting the economic and social policies of the Republicans, while Blair did the equivalent in the UK. Both the Dems and Labor became the handmaidens of corporate power under the camouflage of their respective party's working-class labor credentials.

Clinton pushed the American political center so far to the right that George Bush's open criminal presidency was inevitable. The economic and military failures of Bush, and Blair's successor, Gordon Brown, assure that both Republicans here, and Labor in the UK will lose control of government.

This will not significantly alter or improve the political, social, economic, or war policies of either country.

Strange as it may sound, but both labor in the UK and Republicans in the USA both pursue the same domestic and foreign policies. Even Stranger is the fact that the Democrats in the USA have the same war policy as the Tories in the UK.

The dems are The Other War party here in the US, while the Tories are the original war party over there in England. Each is receiving the baton of political leadership as their political opposition collapses in the failures of their commonly held domestic and foreign policies.

I hope the picture is becoming clear to you: Both parties here in the USA are funded and guided by the same interests, and a change in party will not alter the fundamental trajectory of our international or domestic policy. The cosmetic details will slightly rearrange themselves.

The pig is merely changing its lipstick, here in the USA and in the UK

 

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2)

The Committee Site was not Updated for Nine Days as my Dell Crashed

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What's Really Going on Here??

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca. August the Sixth, 2008

So the Dell Tolls, striking its last digital blows for democratic revolution in the US.

Prior to getting the Dell I had been quite unsuccessfully working the notions of liberty across individuals and social networks for quite some time. Respected, but not heeded.

I gave up computing when Gates sucked up DOS and spit out Windows, long before the generality of the internet.

Then the Dell fell into my lap, a blessing and a curse at the same time. A blessing, because I have become tired of being a small rip tide against a tidal wave of ignorant greed and pride.

A curse, because the demands of mastering the technology adds a deep layer of work to the first task of tracking how corruption dominates elections, establishes the character of social, economic, and political policy. as well as determining the national distribution of wealth and power.

To the already significant demands of keeping of with and tracking the flood tide of corruption our country is drowning in, is that of learning the digital tools necessary to effectively identify and respond to the process of political corruption that dominates our government.

Thus began the curse and blessing. Now, after two years of work collecting, presenting, and analyzing the processes which maintain corporate domination of our democracy, the Dell crashed. It was sad and difficult, but long overdue.

AA (name withheld until I get his consent) threw the dell into my lap almost exactly two years ago, after he completed a chem major at Cal with it, and got a Mac duo processor laptop.

The dell was a 5100 that was 4 or 5 years old. The 5100 series are the ones that run hot and cook themselves. AA put little legs on the bastard which kept the heat down which allowed it to run far past the short life span its poor design predetermined for most 5100's.

I have finally obtained a new to me computer, another dell, but one that doesn't have a cooling problem. But it's not quite as fast. This is not a problem: I feel that I've done well to even replace AA's dell and get back online. But the site has suffered during the nine days since the crash.

I have been working on this new (to Me) computer for a day now. I have removed all the last user's programs, consolidated the files and the hard drive, fought to connect it to the internet (thanks Al!) and installed and run anti virus software.

And that was only the beginning! Since then I have been locating, reinstalling, and configuring all the programs I need to find, analyze, format, and distribute the Committee site. After a long run, I am almost done.

The Committee Site is back online and is again tracking the political distortions that fuel the social, economic, environmental, and psychological damages that running politics with bribery brings on.

 

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3)

The last week's news

 

What's Really Going on Here?

The Olympics of Filth

Olympic Filth not questioned, nor its sources tracked by the corporate media

example: In Beijing, let the (choke) Games (cough, cough) begin! sf chron, 8-6-08

The danger pollution poses to athletes participating in the Olympics in China has attracted a good deal of media attention to the seriousness of China's pollution problem.

Although our Corporate Media cannot ignore the filth that China is drowning in, they have roundly failed to put together the big picture: The filth of China is the byproduct of moving virtually all of our manufacturing to a police state with little or no environmental, labor, safety, or health laws.

The fact is, that without the help and assistance of our corporations and corporate government, China would not have been capable of stealing our manufacturing, and drowning itself in its own filth.

By ignoring our assistance and complicity in China's fouling itself and the world, the corporate press can ignore the social and political changes here in the US that are paralleling the growth of China's wealth and filth.

Our corporate press blinds itself to the fact that China's filth, as well at the massive new wealth of China, are the byproducts of moving American manufacturing to China, and dividing the wealth of the American middle-class between China and American corporations.

The wealth of China is substantially composed of their share of the profits generated by destroying the American middle-class. The filth and pollution in China, and the spread of poverty here, are the environmental and social by-products of this great rip-off.

The other partners in dividing up our middle-class's share of our nation's wealth live here in the US. They are the Corporate Masters who fund Both of our Domestic Political Parties. They are the American Corporate Elite. They have sold the health, welfare, and security of our country down the river to increase their hold on illegitimate political power and push their profits to historic highs.

Don't be fooled by the rhetoric of "globalism" and "a better way of life." These are merely the new code words for the same old stuff: empire and aristocracy.

Our Corporate elite are just the new, modern version of the same old pretension to aristocratic superiority sufficient to justify an empire ruled by the rich and powerful, rather than a domestic government by and for the people. The previous global empire was colonial, ours is corporate. The previous aristocracy was based on blood lines and land, ours is the boardroom, the trust. Despite this evolution of aristocracy and empire, both are still based on naked industrial, financial, and military power.

These are exactly the same pretensions of top-down rule that our Revolution defeated, and our Constitution once checked. But no more. The corporate aristocracy has arisen, and it brooks no check on its power.

The aristocrats are back in charge of America, but this time they wear suits and ties. And our modern corporate aristocrats are very supportative of China's Industrial Police State, not just because of how it enriches them, but also out of envy of China's unchecked open combination of political and economic power.

Democracy has nothing to do with what our government and corporations are doing here at home or around the world.

China has been vital to the Corporate theft of the American middle-class"s share of our nation's wealth and political power. Without China's help killing our middle-class, our corporations may have fallen short of the wealth needed to bribe both political parties into submission.

The fact is that corporate bribery owns both parties. When this fact is combined with the destruction of our middle-class, we can see how the China trade has played a vital role in the corporate takeover of our government. The final result is that we have experienced the loss of our Constitutional right to rule ourselves through democratic processes.

Today, our government is ruled by a very small economic elite of self-appointed corporate "superiors," rather than through democratic processes. Government and society are being effectively ruled and regulated by the wealth of the corporate class, when our Constitution calls on our citizens, joined together in democratic government, to regulate all the affairs of our nation, including business.

 

Because the filth of China is the byproduct of the corporate thievery of our rights and money, we can't expect the corporate lapdog press to report this story. We can't expect them to inform us that the US is the biggest purchaser of China's industrial production, and therefore the greatest funder of China's filth. Without the vital oversight of a free press we are are kept in the dark about the fact that we are not just funding the filth of China. We are also funding their powerful domestic police state. We are also funding China's growing power and influence around the world.

So we only get half the story: The Corporate press points out the pollution, but does not have the balls to track it to it's source in American boardrooms and Congress, let alone tie the Olympics of Filth to the many crimes of the Chinese Government.

Although the Corporate Press is silent, silence cannot protect us from the dangerous consequences of funding and encouraging China's filth, and covering it with the credibility of the Olympics.

Ultimately, the filth of China blows across the Pacific, along with container ships filled with consumer crap, back into the US. In the final analysis the irresponsible profits of our international corporations, and their supposed "better way of life" has not only fouled the air and water of China, but has fouled the air and water of the whole planet. China is just their biggest smokestack.

Our corporation's successful use of China to concentrate massive profits has given them sufficient wealth and power to bribe both parties into abject submission. This in turn allowed the corporations to shift virtually all of our manufacturing overseas, which has plunged billions of people around the world into grinding industrial poverty, destroyed the American middle-class, and has so polluted the environment that the seasons have changed.

While we were being robbed of our riches and rights, the corporations and their bribed politicians have been crowing about how much wealth they created. The numbers look great until you look closer, and see that all the wealth they created went into their own pockets.

The Corporate Press and Politicians always omit the most important point when they brag about all the money they are making: most is stolen from our own people and people around the world. Most disturbingly, these profits came at the expense of our civil rights and political freedoms. The result is that all of our political, natural, and social infrastructures have been sucked dry.

The corporations, their lapdog corporate press, and their bribed politicians, all tell us that sending our manufacturing to China is good. Good for them, anyway. It has made them as rich and powerful as the Nazis were at the height of their power.

Besides the environmental filth of China, we have only scratched the surface of what China is doing with their share of the profits of destroying the American middle-class.

At the very least, our money and political support has supercharged China's domestic police state, emboldened their crimes against basic human rights, and has strengthened the hold of the weird commie elite that controls the Chinese Police State.

On a broader scale, our corporate government and our corporations have stood silent and gone on with business as usual, essentially funding China's rape of Tibet, their militarization of Asia, and the expansion of China's global reach and influence.

China's domestic crimes, along with their massive production of filth, are substantially funded by the massive profits generated by allowing Corporate America to move our jobs to China. China and our corporations, with the willing assistance of the thoroughly bribed criminals that run our government, (Both Parties) ate our middle-class. There is only one path we can take to move things in the other direction, and restore our middle-class.

Our goal must be to shut off all trade with China until they establish reasonable political, environmental, product safety, health and labor standards. We must boycott the Olympics of Filth and all of the corporations that are sponsoring it.

Establishing and implementing the trade policies necessary to restore our middle-class is impossible unless we take our government back from corporate control. Until then, I am going to boycott all Chinese products, and I am making it a special point to

Boycott the Olympics of Filth

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4) The California Budget Crisis

The Real Deal

This is a Corruption Crisis, not a Budget Crisis

friday, August 9, 2008, 4:54 am, Berkeley, California

Despite the bitching of the Dems about the intrangence of the Repugs concerning tax increases, which is matched by the carping of the Repugs about the wild spending of the Dems, we are not having a budget crisis in California. What we are experiencing is a crisis of corruption. This crisis has been brought on by the shared environment of institutionalized corruption that makes the Dem and Repug parties partners in corruption.

The budget crisis we are experiencing is nothing more than the annual demonstration of the failure of democracy in California. The gridlock of the annual budget crisis is the result of these corrupted parties having divided up every electoral district in California between them.

The fact is that there is not one election district in California that is not the property of one party or the other. This division of our democratic rights was made by mutual private agreement between the parties.

The parties crafted this dirty deal to divide the political power of our state between themselves during the last redistricting. The parties controlled this redistricting, and cooperated to draw the election district lines in such a way to assure that each district is the property of one party or the other.

The Dems were awarded the most districts in this private division of governmental power by the parties, but the price was the destruction of our democratic right to elect our own representatives. The parties would now decide who our representatives would be without the interference of the people of California getting in the way.

Although the Dems received the most districts, the Repugs received enough districts in the deal to check the Dems on all bills requiring a 2/3rds vote, such as the budget. This dirty deal guaranteed that that particular balance of power between the parties would be virtually unassailable for the decade between census readjustments.

This deal was made by the parties with the full knowledge that they were corrupting elections to serve their party interests. They also knew that this particular division of power would would render our state government merely competent to pay off each party's respective bribers, but incompetent to craft policy necessary to provide basic governmental services.

And no election can change the basic split that the parties's corrupt redistricting cut into the forehead of our democracy. The redistricting cut a virtual scarlet "C" for corruption into the forehead of our democracy: every electoral district in California is designed and guaranteed to elect the candidate of one party.

This means that neither party has anything to fear from openly exposing their corruption, greed, cupidity, and incompetence during the legislative sessions and the annual budget crisis. The corrupt bastards in both parties collect millions in bribes from lobbyists and special interests during these fixed elections and at the end of each legislative session, when they pay the big bucks to bend the law to their will.

Thus our brilliant politicians designed a system where monopolized districts funded by open bribery determines the direction of policy and law in the California legislature, and there's not a thing we can do about it. We are in the midst of a full-blown corruption crisis in California politics, not a budget crisis.

The fact is that neither party in California has any interest in democracy or good government. Both parties are dedicated to collecting and paying off the special interest bribes that keep them in office while living a life of pampered luxury and ease, traveling the world on the dime of the biggest special interests in the state and the country.

As the parties's division of political power in California assures that there is nothing the voters and citizens can do about it, neither side has any incentive to change. The open corruption both parties use to maintain their positions assures the voters of both parties that their voices and values are no more than props their party and politicians use to distract the voters from who they really serve, the special interest bribers who bankroll this dirty scheme.

Taking a deeper look at the ethical aspects of the horrid political situation in California is disturbing. Below the dirty mechanisms of redistricting fraud and bribery that the parties have used to cheat us out of our democratic rights (and our wealth, our health, our wages, our benefits, and our education system) we are confronted by a group of bad people who have no honor, who do not believe in democracy, who are devoid of honesty, and will do and say anything to maintain the lies, bribery, corruption, and the crooked elections that keep them in power.

We have a budget crisis because both parties are no more than political mafias who have put themselves, their personal and party interests, and the interests of their bribers far above the needs and general welfare of the citizens of our state. Under this system that the parties constructed for themselves, neither party will suffer any consequences for their corruption, greed, and incompetence.

Systems of corruption of a similar nature are repeated in states all across America, and the concentration of bribery and corruption is particularly strong in our federal government.

In this system of corruption that the Dems and Repugs created in California, the skill sets required for political success are corruption, greed, and incompetence.

Until term limits were passed we were stuck with the same corrupt politicians until they died in office. I'm not kidding. The only way to remove one of these corrupted tools from office was for them to die in office, or by getting busted for corruption, which is almost impossible in a system run by and for the corrupt.

Now, after California passed term limits, every open seat in the Assembly and Senate causes a mini party war over which party minion gets to win the general election.

...

Don't be fooled by the lying politicians of both parties. The budget crisis is not a product of the 2/3rd rule, despite the Dems boringly predictably insistence that it is. They repeat this mantra every year, as if they believe the voters of California will lower the threshold to pass a money bill. Fat Chance.. There are fewer things lower than Bush, and one is the popularity of the California Assembly.

On the other hand, the budget crisis is not solely the product of overspending by the Dems, as the Repugs boringly repeat every year, although there is a bit of truth in their claim. It is very expensive for the state to subsidize the social costs of the massive illegal cheap laboring force the Dems maintain in California.

The real source of the annual budget crisis, despite the lies of the party politicians, is the dirty deal that divided our democratic rights and governmental powers between these two thoroughly corrupted parties. This scam assures each party a monopoly of districts, and it also assures gridlock in our legislature when the state budget comes up every year.

It is crystal clear that this crude, corrupt division of our electoral districts exposes the reality that both parties have mutually set up a system that has effectively institutionalized the ability of one party or the other to steal every election in the state.

The trade-off for gutting honest elections is a dishonest government incompetent to create a budget capable of protecting the general welfare of our citizens. Hell, the government in California is toxic to the spirit of honest people, bad for their health, and incapable of educating their children.

These are but minor shortcomings and tradeoffs to the parties, considering the rewards they reap. The parties traded our democracy to achieve their goals, not ours. The Dem and Repug redistricting in California assures that the party machines will remain in perpetual power, and can not be held accountable for their corruption and incompetence by the voters of our state.

The division of our state's electoral districts between the corporate parties assures that the only elections of importance in California that are actually contested are the statewide elections. These are the only elections that rise above the corrupting effect of the crooked districts the parties cooked up.

In the case of the Governor and Attorney General elections, the outcome of the election generally comes down to a bribe war between the richest and most powerful special interests in our country. The winner is almost always the candidate who collects the most corporate and special interest bribe money, as the candidate who collects the most bribe money wins almost every time.

...

According to the Dems, our educational and medical systems are being put at risk by the budget crisis.

This is an out and out lie. The California educational, medical, water, and road systems failed long before this year's budget crisis, and neither the Dems or Repugs have given a damn about our education or health systems, except to subsidize cheap labor and the profits of the health industry, respectively..

An honest analysis of California's education system indicates that it has failed to educate the majority of the children of our state for at least the last twenty years.

If we extend this honest analysis to evaluate our state's whole infrastructure, we can see that both parties have been co-conspirators in shifting the wealth of our middle and lower classes into the hands of their biggest corporate bribers for the last thirty-five years, by robbing our infrastructure to pad corporate profits..

During most of this thirty-five year period the Dems have had control of Sacramento, and they have not done a damn thing but stuff our schools full of millions upon millions of illegal children, making the state subsidize the costs of their cheap illegal laboring force. The Dems and Repugs have welcomed crimigrants into our state to serve their corporate bribers at wages that destroyed the middle class and crushed the institutions that once served the middle-class.

The Dems style themselves as the party of education, when their educational policies indicate that they should be called the party of ignorance, not education. Not only have they failed to support education for the last thirty-five years, but they have been fully aware that their policies are designed to impoverish the working-class citizens in our state while enriching their corporate bribers.

Both parties have actively used illegals to transfer the wealth of our state from the middle-class to their corporate bribers, but only the dems have openly offered to break down our borders in exchange for the votes of criminals who they never should have made citizens in the first place.

Ironically, as the Dems fight to take away our rights as citizens, they are also fighting to make criminal subservience to corporate greed, the willingness to work cheaply, and the desire to consume the standard of American citizenship.

The dems would also have us believe that California's medical system is threatened by this budget crisis. This is a bald face lie. California has no medical "system." The politicians long ago failed to provide a fair or honest system to meet the medical needs of our citizens, leaving us to be ripped off by their corporate health bribers.

At this point in time our country contains way too many consumers of the empire, and far too few citizens of the Republic. Neither the Dems nor the Repugnants are democratic parties of the Republic. In reality they are both corporate parties of a criminal empire.

....

The dems have proven themselves to be the party of ignorance, not education. The Dems have proven themselves to be the advocates of Corporate health profits, not health care for our citizens. In brief, The dems have proven that they will do exactly the same thing the Repugs do: Divide up the political power in our state between themselves and the Repugs, and then use this ill-gotten political power to extort bribes from the well-heeled corporate interests and their tiny elite unions, all while promising to make the foreign criminals who serve them citizens. In the meantime our state's social, political, economic, and environmental infrastructures have been sucked dry in a frenzy of greed and irresponsibility.

The Dems and Repugs are playing exactly the same game. Both parties are dedicated to draining the citizens of this state of their wealth, health, and education to serve the needs and profits of their corporate bribers.

...

There is only one way we can take our government back: we must restore the fundamental processes of democracy in California. To do this we must be willing and able to pull the fat heads of the greedy politicians out of the trough of corruption.

The path before us is clear. We must end every bit of corporate and special interest bribery paid to every candidate in the state. Period. Entities, special interests, and corporations must be prohibited from "contributing" one red cent to any candidate, in any election.

Only individuals qualified to vote in an election can be permitted to contribute to candidates in that election. We must restore the local voter as the primary source of the vast majority of campaign funds in their local election. Citizens who cannot vote in that election must be restricted to participation that reflects their actual free speech and assembly rights, rather than using free speech and assembly as a thin cover for what can only be called bribery.

The key entity for rebalancing the non-voter's assembly and speech rights against the right of the local voter to select their own representative is the political party.

The key to restoring our democracy is determining the role of the party in financing elections. As it stands today, the parties are no more than money laundering operations for well-heeled special interests, lobbyists, and corporations. They are engines of bribery and corruption.

The parties collect and redistribute vast sums of what can only be called bribes. I propose that we make one simple change in the party process of collecting and redistributing bribes: allow them to collect, but limit the redistribution part of the equation.

As we cannot legally, and would not if we could, stop parties from collecting contributions that reflect political opinion or economic interest (which may be indistinguishable much of the time) we would be wise to put limits on the distribution of these funds to assure they are subordinated to the funding, and interests, of the local voters.

I propose that individuals, entities, special interests, and corporations be allowed to give freely to the parties, as they do now. But no candidate can be allowed to receive more than 30% of their funding from any combination of party or outside sources.

Let all the interests and individuals in the country give money to the national, state or local parties. But the combined total of contributions of these parties to their, or any candidates, must not be allowed to exceed 30% of the total contributions of the local voters in the election. This provides a sliding scale of contributions limts that balances the free speech and assembly rights of non-voters against the right of the local voter to select their own representative.

These rules will not just satisfy the legal and common sense requirement that the elimination of outside money does not also eliminate political parties, which would certainly be an infringement on our right of assembly, but these rules will also assure that the local voter is the biggest source of financial support for their representative. And as money is the mother's milk of politics, this will make the milk, and therefore political power, flow from bottom-up, as our Constitution requires, rather than the top-down, as is occurring now.

These reforms will translate the democratic principals of our Revolutionary and Constitutional Forefathers into our corrupted corporate age. These reforms will bring the will of the people back into our legislature, and allow us to craft law and policy democratically, rather than as a cattle auction.

Only then will our Assembly be competent to craft policy and law that is legitimate. Only then will our government craft immigration, education, retirement, and health policies that reflect the interests of our citizens, rather than the desire for profit and power of our corporations.

 

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What's Really Going on Here??

 

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., March, 2008

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5) Full georgia link list follows analysis below

The Start of the Georgian Invasion

'Fierce Fighting' Breaks Out In South Ossetia, caucaz, 8-7-08

Official: Georgian Forces Capture Five Villages, caucaz, 8-8-08

Russia Responds with tanks to s ossetia

Large-Scale Fighting Erupts In South Ossetia, rfe, 8-8-08

A Russian's View, utube, 8-9-08

Georgia forces Crushed, begs for peace

Georgia move fails to halt raids, bbc, 8-10-08

Russia points to media bias in coverage of S.Ossetia conflict, ria novosti, 8-11-08

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What's Really Going on Here??

The Rise of Russia:

Russia will have Black Sea Access, and World Power

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., August 10, 2008

The Russian-Georgian conflict is very simple: Russia will have access to the Black Sea, and therefore the Med, period. But Russia's moves in Georgia are also part of a complex emerging process of countering America's Global Corporate Empire.

During the Soviet breakup, Russia made a deal with the Ukraine that calls for Russia to depart its major port facilities in the Crimea in 2012. Before that time comes the Russians will either have cut a new deal with the Ukraine to maintain their port facilities there, or they will have access through Georgia, or both. It's as simple as that.

The Russians still remember when the Black Sea was considered a Russian lake.

The Russians will not be denied direct access to the Black Sea, and through to the Med. Behind this simple fact of Russian geopolitics are the complications of feedback to American aggression along Russia's borders, as well as America's political manipulations within the former Soviet States and early Russia. We have been messing around in Russia's backyard, so to speak. They have grown strong enough to do something about it.

Our heavy investments in the "Color" revolutions in Georgia and the Ukraine, the aggressive moves of NATO to extend itself right up to the Russian border, and our brilliant plan to move missile sites right up to the Russian border have provoked a long and angry response from the Old Bear. Our actions guarantee that Russia will not cooperate with the west in the final disposition of the former Soviet states in Eastern Europe.

Russia has been pouring money into the Ukraine to counter our massive bribes to the pro-western faction.

Russia is now set to militarily crush Georgia. Russia has restarted deep water Naval patrols, and is once again flying strategic bomber patrols armed with nukes. Russia has redeployed mobile nuclear missiles, and has threatened to "target" Europe and any nations who host American missile systems.

Oh yea, and Russia has also claimed the same right to use preemptive nuclear strikes that Bush popularized. Apparently, after listening to Bush for the past five year claim the right to preemptively nuke anyone he wants Russia decided it was in their best interest to also claim that "right."

Regardless of if Russia's claim to the "right" to exercise the Bush doctrine of preemptive nuclear war was opportunistic or prudent, it was provoked and justified by our actions. Everyone should assume that the Chinese, and every other world power on down the line, will employ the Bush doctrine of preemptive war as it suits their interests. Bush has put this hollow justification for war into the whole world's selection of tools of state, not just our own. The world is rapidly becoming a much more dangerous place because of our actions.

We set the table for an Imperial feast on oil and American power in Iraq, in pursuit of the golden goose of continued domination of the world's oil markets. But the way things are working out the main course on our menu is not what we expected it to be. We may have learned the limits of our ability to project power by losing our hegemonic power over the middle-eastern and its oil.

Our ability to project power through war, dictators, and economic and trade manipulations appears to have reached the end of its tether. Our applications of force appear to be becoming the midwife of an independent Middle-East, if not a post-colonial world. Now it is our influence and power in the region that that appear to be on the menu, and it may be Iran, Russia, and China that eats our juicy lunch.

Georgia is just the beginning.

Russia's aggressive response to the Georgian attack on South Ossettia should be no surprise to honest observers of the recent trajectory of Russian-American relations. From the fall of the Soviet Union the US has acted irresponsibly and aggressively towards Russia. These actions have established the tone and character of our relationship with Russia. This course was short-sighted.

These actions may have offered us the temporary joy of rapidly dismembering the Soviet Union, but in the long term our it established an imbalance of power and influence that way hostile to honest long-term Russian interests, and could only be maintained if Russia was to remain in a permently weakened state. Our influences on Russia were not just confined to the post-Soviet border states, but extended into the heart of the new Russian polity and economy. In the wake of the Soviet breakup the US exerted extreme pressure on Yeltsin to privatize the industry of the emerging new Russia, which he did.

Our encouragement of the Russian Robber Barons caused tremendous strain on Russia's emerging polity and economy, not to mention the incredible suffering of the Russian people during this period. It also ignored the history and culture of the Russian people. This led to the fall of our oligarchs, and the rise of a new form of Russian nationalism, and Putin.

Externally, in the post-soviet E. European states, the US and Europe encouraged a drastic and precipitous political breakup, fueled the independence aspirations of the Balkan States, which directly lead to the series of bloody Balkan wars that tore the region apart.

Apparently American policy makers believed that Russia would remain weak, so they began kicking and stomping Russia when it was down. Russia is no longer down. Instead of creating trust, these hostile aggressive moves provided a rallying point for Russian public opinion and a strong foundation for the rise of Russian nationalism. And now Russia is back.

Now that Russia has consolidated its domestic polity and economy, it is looking to readjust both its regional influence in the post-Soviet Eastern European states, which will require Russia to do whatever is necessary to maintain access to the Black Sea and the Med. In the post-Soviet border states, Russia is countering the western funding and political support for pro-western factions. And Russia is a lot closer than we are.

We would have been much wiser if we would have encouraged these post-Soviet border states to emerge as neutral independent states, rather than as targets of NATO expansion and American backed governments.

A pattern is emerging in American foreign policy: the harder we fight to impose our will, the costlier the task becomes, while the objective moves further away from our grasping hands.

Our aggressions all along the Russian borders are now being easily overmatched by Russia. The fact is that none of the European NATO nations are willing to go to war over any of the ex-Soviet border states, while the United States Army is incapable of responding in any meaningful way at this point in time. If the next administration continues forward with the Check and Polish missile sites, Russia is going to fully rearm, and begin exerting real global pressure to counter our empire.

If we had a competent or even an honest government, this would have never happened. The Democrats and Republicans are neither. They represent the most violent, greedy, and powerful corporate interests in our country, and these interests are only concerned with expanding their global influence and power. Rather than ushering in a post-cold war age of expanding democracy and freedom, we have filled this void with a wave of political, economic, and military aggression under the rubric of "globalism." If it smells like an empire, it is an empire.

This may appear to many to be a good time to build an empire. The Europeans have effectively disarmed, the Russian army fell apart, and no major power had any real incentive or capacity to begin a global arms race. Until they woke up when Bush exposed the whole nature and extent of the American Corporate Empire that had spread with the fall of the Soviet counterbalance.

The US's poorly thought out attempts to form and prop up pro-western regimes in Georgia, the Balkans, the Turkmen states, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the Ukraine since the 1990s are now being strongly countered by Russian political, economic, and now in Georgia, by military means, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it, either militarily, politically, or economically.

Our army has been broken by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The lying and manipulation that led to the war has compromised our diplomatic credibility and our ability to wield international political power. Decades of internal economic corruption have looted our economy, and our middle-class of its wealth and power. We are incredibly vulnerable in military, political, economic and social terms right now.

And we have little credibility or influence left with Russia. We demonstrated huge amounts of bad faith after the fall of the Soviet Union by pushing our influence right up to their borders. Now Russia is just beginning to push back, just as our political and economic power are under real downward pressure, if not in perment decline. Our military has been severely degraded in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I believe (and I have stated since 1991) that an American political and economic crisis would follow the breakup of the Soviets by fifteen years. Our corporate elite was well on the way to eviscerating the strength of our country by then. Today in August of 2008, they have almost finished sucking the last bits of life out of our democracy, and stealing all the wealth of our nation.

My prediction put the American political and economic crisis at around 2006. It appears that I am a bit off, as our crisis appears to be building to a crescendo right now in 2008.

Well, here we are in 2008, and we are losing control of the middle-east, and subsequently, our control of global energy markets is in question. We have lost our Empiric Domination of South America. China is dominating Asia and building strong alliances in Africa, all while the American economy is on the verge of collapse.

Remember what broke Russia? Afghanistan. Us, we have two wars.

In the meantime, Russia is responding strongly to our aggression. They have pulled out of the Conventional Forces Treaty in Europe, and are making a big deal about rearming themselves to counter placement of American missiles along its borders. They have made sweet deals with China, settling long-standing border disputes, and are building deep economic relations based on energy. Russian energy.

Russia has pushed us out of the gas rich post-Soviet Central Asian Turkmen nations. Russia has made a mutual defense treaty with Iran, and has supplied them with sophisticated weapons and nuclear fuel for their Bashir reactor. Russia has signed a mutual-defense treaty with Iran, and has demanded the US withdraw from Iraq.

It appears that the idiot aggression of our corporate government has triggered a new chapter in the struggle for global domination. I guess they figured our domination would never end. This chapter will feature Russia, China, Iran, and a whole bevy of nations all around the world acting strongly in concert to counter America domination of the world's resources.

Geopolitics is kind of like an earthquake. It is generally a long, slow grinding process of increasing pressure punctuated by rapid and precipitous readjustments. I believe we are reaching a confluence of various grindings. Long term economic issues are coming to a head. Long term global alliances and subordinate relationships are shifting. The real question is how rapidly will the global balance of power readjust?

If I'm right about the timing of an American political and economic meltdown following the Soviet Collapse by fifteen years, (roughly) and by all indications I am, we here in America are going to have much bigger problems than a simple domestic economic meltdown crisis.

Our impending meltdown is almost perfectly timed with Russia's reemergence as a global power, with the rising economic and regional power of China, and the the rapid decline of American influence in the world's gas station, the Middle-East.

Our domestic corruption, composed of our political elite allowing the corporate power to hijack our democracy, loot our country, and use our global power to destroy the rule of law in a doomed attempt to impose a corporate empire on the world, appears to have put our once secure global dominance at serious risk.

Let's admit that we controlled about 85% of the world's power and resources before bush risked it all to assert full control. Once we allowed corruption to dominate politics it was inevitable that each succeeding generation of politicians would build off the corruptions of the last generation, ultimately resulting in a Bush. We have created a monstrous system that can only produce monsters.

We are guilty of allowing our government, our military, and our political power to be poorly used to advance private corporate profits at the expense of justice, common sense, and global stability.

Our country has lost its domestic democracy, our nation's wealth has been stolen by the corporations, and now our corporations are going to lose their "globalized" empire. Our country's stolen wealth and power has been misused in a failed attempt to militarily dominate the Middle-East.

This very well may be the pivot point for a global shift in the balance of power, and draw the high water mark of American Global Domination that will recede into networks of regional powers. If this is even partially true, there are not enough resources to support 300 million Americans with the consumer lifestyle they have become accustomed to.

So far we are watching new hegemons, or new alignments of anti-"global" countries forming in South America, Asia (China), South Asia (India, China, or Pakistan?) the middle east, (Iran?-but not us, we are on the way out.) Europe of course, and Africa (China.)

I would not be surprised if the situation in Georgia is the point where Russia truly resolves to strongly counter American expansionism by supercharging their support for Iran, stirs up the Serbian nationalists, and offers every kind of support they can think of for the people in Egypt, Pakistan, Palestine, and Colombia who are tired of living under the whip hand of their American Dictators.

This is our own fault. Allowing our democracy to be hijacked and looted by the corporate power is our own fault, and we are all responsible for allowing these bastards to use our nation's power to terrorize the world, impose dictators everywhere we can, wage criminal wars, kidnap and torture people, and provoke Russia all across Eastern Europe.

It appears that our aggressions have finally triggered the formal start of a new global struggle, not yet for domination, but for nations around the world to get out from under the iron fist of the American Corporate Empire.

If this view is correct, we are about to enter a period where a series of wars and civil wars will begin around the world to contest American control of their governments. This could very easily end in a world war. If this summer's crops fail or are of reduced yields, we could see our global house of cards come down, and shit really hit the fan on a wave of governmental collapses on the teeth of a global wave of food riots.

Egypt, Pakistan, all of Eastern Europe, the Philippines, Colombia, and Ethiopia all come readily to mind as emerging battlegrounds between local desires for self-determination and freedom, the American Empire, and the emerging global powers of Russia and China. And if food, energy, or water become more scarce than they already are, these countries could explode or implode.

I expect that Russia and China will be very, very helpful in accelerating the process of third world decolorization, or should I say deglobalization. Getting out from under the American Empire is going to become a lot easier.

We had our time as the uncontested dominant world power, and we used this time to rob the world, not spread democracy and freedom. I expect the world to treat us the same when we are down as we did when they were down.

Now our time at the top of the heap is coming to a close, and no countries that are honest or free will have any incentive to defend the Americans who stole their wealth, imposed dictators over them, and called it "a better way of life."

The power and wealth we have stolen from the world is slipping through our fingers, at the same moment that our justifications for our global empire are being recognized as lies by the vast majority of people around the world. We are still blind here in the US, too fat and spoiled to notice our breakdown until it interferes with our consumption.

We have lost our domestic democracy, or just pissed off our wealth. We have not just lost the hearts and minds of people around the world, We are not just losing our position as the dominant world economic power, and therefore losing our position as the dominant military power in the world. What we really have lost is our character and our spirit. That is the greatest loss of all, and is the mother of all the has come afterward.

Georgia is just the first real external step of the reemergence of Russia as a global competitor against the American Empire. And Russia is not alone, by any means. The World is ready to have options in their emerging fight against American domination of their wealth, resources, and politics. And we have made ourselves fat, lazy, and stupid on the stolen wealth of the world. It shouldn't be too hard for them to take it back.

If our economy really tanks, and I expect the dow to hit 7000 well before the end of this year, the wolves at the borders of our global corporate empire are going to start taking big bites out of our fat asses.

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Also See:

Russia, the Black Sea, and the American Corporate Empire, alex, 8-15-08

 

 

Balkan Conflict Looms between US and Russia, alex, july 20, '07

Russia-China and the rise of a New World Balance of Power, alex, aug 27, 07

...

The Start of the Georgian Invasion

'Fierce Fighting' Breaks Out In South Ossetia, caucaz, 8-7-08

Official: Georgian Forces Capture Five Villages, caucaz, 8-8-08

Russia Responds with tanks to s ossetia

Large-Scale Fighting Erupts In South Ossetia, rfe, 8-8-08

A Russian's View, utube, 8-9-08

Georgia forces Crushed, begs for peace

Georgia move fails to halt raids, bbc, 8-10-08

Russia points to media bias in coverage of S.Ossetia conflict, ria novosti, 8-11-08

Ru

Awesome map of the region and the recent conflict, i love bonnie.net

Timeline of S. Ossetia conflict, reuters

 

background

Corruption Updates 64, 8th article on the page, "Russia, Putin: US imperialists start new round of arms race"

Corruption Updates 66, 3rd article on the page, "Gorbachev criticizes US 'empire'"

Corruption Updates 73, 6th article on the page, "Putin Plays Down I.M.F. and W.T.O."

Corruption Updates 92, 1st article on the page, "Russia sends warning to the West: American Military Empire Draws Russian Response"

Corruption Updates 102, 3rd article on the page, "Putin increases missile defence rhetoric: Bush Gives Russia every Reason to ReArm

 

Stark Differences on Arms Threaten U.S.-Russia Talks: Bush, Fool of the Ages, Continues to Abuse Treaties, the Rule of Law, and Russia, NYT, October 10, 2007

 

'Russia plans missiles in Belarus,' CNN, 11-14-07

 

Putin pulls out of treaty limiting arms in Europe, wp, 12-1-07

 

 

Russia claims right to use pre-emptive nuclear weapons, russia today, 1-19-08


Iran has half nuke fuel from Russia, xinhua, 1-20-08

Iran Receives Nuclear Fuel in Blow to bush, spiegel, 1-18-08

 

Russia threatens "terrible problem" if Kosovo splits, bb, 2-10-08

PUTIN"S MUNICH SPEECH, security conference, munich, 2-10-08

Russia calls for new arms treaties, irish times, 2-10-08

 

russian bombers buzz japan, then US carrier, ria novosti, 2-12-08

russia deploying fancy nukes pointed at europe, ria novosti, 2-27-08

 

Putin’s successor maintains hardline, ft, 3-3-08

russians ordered to vote, guardian, 3-2-08

 

russia: idiot bush called fanatic, US seeks world domination, mcclatchy, 4-6-08

Russians mock less ‘stable’ democracies (the US), ft, 4-23-08

 

Russia's foreign minister warns against use of force on Iran, ap, 6-20-08

 

A war waiting to happen, asia times, 7-16-08

 

 

The Start of the Georgian Invasion

'Fierce Fighting' Breaks Out In South Ossetia, caucaz, 8-7-08

Official: Georgian Forces Capture Five Villages, caucaz, 8-8-08

Russia Responds with tanks to s ossetia

Large-Scale Fighting Erupts In South Ossetia, rfe, 8-8-08

A Russian's View, utube, 8-9-08

Georgia forces Crushed, begs for peace

Georgia move fails to halt raids, bbc, 8-10-08

Russia points to media bias in coverage of S.Ossetia conflict, ria novosti, 8-11-08

 

on the Georgian Invasion

A Russian's View, utube, 8-9-08

U.S. Warns Russia over Georgia Moves, caucaz, 8-10-08

Russians bomb capital of U.S.-allied Georgia as border war rages, salt lake tribune, 8-10-08

Russia presses deeper into Georgia; U.S. says regime change is goal, reuters 8-10-08

Cyberwar too, i love bonnie.net

 

Georgia set for military action - Russian General Staff, ria novosti, 8-22-08

Moscow Says Some Troops to Stay Put, moscow times, 8-22-08

Activists in Ukraine's Crimea ask Russia to reclaim territory, ria novosti, 8-22-08

...

Russia warns NATO over naval buildup, timesofindia, 8-27-08

U.S. military ship avoids tense Georgian port, mcclatchy, 8-27-08

Russia Adds 2 New Countries to Its Map, moscowtimes, 8-27-08

Western leaders blast Russia for recognizing Abkhazia, S.Ossetia, ria novosti, 8-26-08

Russia to support Abkhazia, S.Ossetia if they are attacked,ria novosti, 8-26-08

 

 

Russia 'could destroy NATO ships in Black Sea within 20 minutes,' ria novosti, 8-29-08

...

 

US offers $1bn aid for Georgia, ft, 0-3-08

Cheney's Tour in Caucasus, ept, 9-3-08

Dick Cheney, US vice-president, attacks Russia for 'illegitimate' invasion of Georgia, telegraph, 9-4-08

 

Russia, the Black Sea, and the American Corporate Empire, Russian Bear Awake

 

all russia links

 

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6) The Article linked below was Abstracted from the source cited.

 

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What's Really Going on Here??

 

Alex Wierbinski, Berkeley, Ca., March, 2008

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Also See:

 

Search the Corruption Database under

 

Does this piss you off? Make you happy? Join our fight against political corruption, and speak your mind about this at our feedback and organization site:

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