Funny thing about people knowing or not knowing Bush was a liar. I marched with thousands of other working class people down Market Street in San Francisco in the winter of 2003 in opposition to the Iraq invasion. If there was one thing that we all could have agreed as a common perception, it was that Bush was lying about the so-called "weapons-of-mass-destruction" that Saddam Hussein supposedly had. Yet back in Washington DC, the center of power for the world's most destructive military in history, highly placed lawmakers like Hilary Clinton and John Kerry couldn't see through the smoke of hysterical rhetoric. Shouldn't these political celebrities who are dumber than a bunch of schmucks dancing and chanting down Market Street be tossed out on their ears rather than being offered Cabinet positions?

Why does the "centerist" approach always end in disaster? Why can't, for once, simple reason and ethics prevail? Let us, for once, drop the pretense that the "conventional wisdom" of the corporate-sponsored talking heads on TV represents good sense, wisdom, or morality. They are shilling for their masters and have no interest in the lives of 99% of the people in the world. Stop listening to the hype about "terrorist threats" and start looking at the real economic and ecological threats that will render the planet uninhabitable in a few decades. And quit expecting the Pied Piper to lead you to the Promised Land, especially if he refuses to show you a map and hires exterminators as assistants.

The new President's positioning in the center-right of the Democratic Party isn't surprising. It's what he repeatedly made clear he intended to do.

I agree that no one should be surprised by Obama's appointments of globalist oligarch shills, patsies, and flukies to the highest positions in the executive branch. However, a terrible violation of ethics has been perpetrated on the American people, taking advantage of their longings and aspirations for change, using that as a rhetorical slogan (without giving many specifics), to win office. I would classify this as a case of political betrayal. Since Obama would not reveal the precise manner in which he intended to effect change and the specific ways in which he intended to reverse the damage done to our nation and the world done by the Bush Administraion, I found it impossible to support or vote for him. The minor party candidates all agreed explicitly to immediately withdraw from Iraq and to investigate the Federal Reserve System, two critical issues on which Obama remained silent and one of them got my vote.

Now we have to go back to the trenches and start over finding a candidate and forging a platform of concrete specific measures that will save our Constitution and rescue the nation from domination by the globalist corporate oligarchy.

Future presidents will bless George W. Bush daily for his precedent-setting use of Executive Orders and Signing Statements to run the country in the absence of any useful activity on the part of the other two branches. President Bush has shown us that the Constitution is a quasi-religious relic of a bygone era, to be publicly revered and privately ignored. Exploiting the hollow shell that the Republic has become, President Obama and his successors (if any) will be free to impose on the American people any direction or policy he desires, all in the name of freedom and security. Thanks a lot, Georgie!

Since big corporations like General Electric, Disney, and Time-Warner, all of which are invested in businesses unrelated to their original function, have been allowed to take control of most mass marketing media outlets, what we have now is a propaganda machine for the globalist corporate oligarchy. Hasn't anyone else noticed how in the recent political campaigns the "mainstream media" moved as if by a hidden conductor to promote and celebrate certain candidates and ignore, sneer at, and mock others? Did not anyone else notice how the media would blow hot on a candidate together for a few weeks, then denigrate him (or her)? Did you notice how Hillary Clinton's campaign was declared hopeless before some of her biggest wins and how the unrelenting drumbeat of negativism became a self-fulfilling prophecy? So much for "objective reporting". We live in a nation where we are not only told what to buy, but which candidates for political office are acceptable and which national policies are "prudent". By no coincidence, the candidates and policies that benefit the corporate culture the most are portrayed as "centerist" and "moderate". Those who have the perspicacity to declare that this culture is ethically, financially, and ecologically bankrupt are marginalized and declared to be fringe elements. So much for the "free press".

If you think Bush has done such a great job protecting American and American interests, why is Tom Tomorrow's This Modern World cartoon this week so pointedly funny?

http://www.salon.com/comics/tomo/2008/12/02/tomo/

From the cabinet position nominations made by Barack Obama to date, it appears that he can be classified as "neo-con lite". He seems committed to continue the use of American military and economic power in the service of his corporate masters, revising and updating but not contradicting policies of the Bush Administration. I think it unlikely he will renounce any of the powers his predecessors arrogated to themselves in violation of the Constitution and federal and international law. Certainly he will not denounce or seek to prosecute Bush, Cheney, Rumsfelt, et. al., when his intent is to continue what they have begun. Obama's campaign rallying cry for change is one of the biggest political frauds ever foisted on the American public.

P.S. I hope I am dead wrong on all of the above, but each cabinet nomination seems to confirm my view.