Peak David's first post on this thread gave the link to Jeremy Scahill's article on Blackwater.

He was on Democracy Now this morning as the first story, right at 8 Am. Blackwater is funded by a military unit previously run by McCrystal until 2008.

If Obama goes in with the 35, 000 more troops, it shows that Bush III is alive and well in war as well as the law.

One of my first comments, possibly my first on this blog, was to bring up Hannah Arendt's work on the Politics of Lying.

Those who lie have to build an elaborate structure to maintain the lie. I thought at any time that the structure of lies from the Bush administration would collapse at any minute.

I was wrong.

Daniel Ellsberg, who published the Pentagon Papers was interviewed recently and said that there are thousands of people in Washington who are aware of lies. And they can keep the secret for years. When your job depends on staying on message, and your social contacts, you keep your mouth shut. The media is complicit as well and has thus lost much of their legitimacy.

It looks like those really, really outside the beltway, like Lithuania, are the ones to actually live up to the quaint notion of the rule of law.

Another area of rule of law extremism is the satire of Jon Stewart and Steven Colbert.

I well recall Senator Dorgan's statement that politicians change when the see the light or feel the heat. The heat is being turned up.

Change we can believe in?

As Obama brings in another staff member dedicated to maintaining the status quo, he makes it safe for the corporations and other special interests who run the place.

The rule of law is so quaint.

Here in the good old USA, corporations and politicians have joined forces in what Sheldon Wolin calls "managed democracy." His construct of Inverted Totalitarianism requires a tradition that can be subverted. (See his book "Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism".

His political philosophy provides insight on what Glenn does here on a daily basis.

The same tactics don't work as occupiers. Recall that right after the start of the invasion of Iraq, there were ads for right wingers to go there and create a capitalist heaven. The kids failed.

We are failing because we are using the same tactics that worked with our government.

Another masterful take down of a pundit!

I am reading "Democracy Inc." by the political philosopher Sheldon Wollin which has unique insights about the jumbled up mess our political system has become. The corporation is now king and religion has ascended above science. But while anti scientific, the Christian conservative position is in fact dependent on the power of science as embedded in military technology which supports the empire.

Strange, multi level layers of confusion and manipulation.

Wollin points out that the hardest job is not to be president, but to be a citizen. With the current media, citizens cannot know what is going on so our system is not set up to enable citizenship.

The neo cons don't want government to work because if it did, it would show the lie of their anti government rhetoric.

The neo cons don't want negotiation to work because it would show the lie of their military solution for everything.

What is the energy source to keep the lies alive?

A one line definition of crazy is: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Time to try something different, like cutting off funds until behavior changes. Just like the allowance for the kids.

And why not try it for our wars? I saw the figure that US spends 4 times the GNP in Afghanistan. Will the US follow the Mc Crystal advice of spending more, or take a lower profile?

Following the logic of this topic, when will other countries get tired of giving us loans, i.e., in financing our empire?

according to Senator Dick Durbin, it may take further trouble in our financial system to break through the propaganda. If the Chinese and others stop financing our war machine, change could come much faster.

Click the link for an excellent video which shows many Fox news statements and claims since the election. It is incredible when all of them are stacked up back to back.

http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2009/10/22/795906/-Its-not-the-White-House-War-on-Fox,-stupid.

Grayson showed how to use the forgotten document and 18 th century reasoning. The founding fathers would be pleased. Some of the best political theory is in that body of work. It is mostly forgotten and maybe some day even academics will wake up and see how to use it to work toward the change we need.

is the title of an essay by Hannah Arendt. Those who lie have to maintain a huge edifice to keep the lie going.

The truth will come out eventually. It is important to get this surfaced quickly so the world can know what we have done and America can decide if that is who we are going to continue to be.

Slightly off topic.

This involves a Muslim man from Kuwait who was on a humanitarian aid trip to Afganistan and got caught early in the war and was held for years and interrogated even under Obama.

When the case was finally brought to a judge, it was thrown out. This article is based on the redacted public transcript.

I find it easier to get my mind around a specific case like this than the general discussion of the torture.

http://www.truthout.org/10140910?print