George W Bush. Without his family's money and influence he would be now dead of alcoholism and drug addiction, incarcerated as lifetime swindler and embezzler or a skid row bum. This guy never accomplished anything without others providing the money, connections and influence and even then he had failed most of the time. The same pattern is true for most of the chickenhawks. The "conservative" movement is crawling with people who would be utter and miserable failures if it weren't for their family influence and other forms of nepotisms. genuine conservatism means conserving what is good and decent about a society:taking care of the weak and the sick, protecting its environment and eco-system, maintaining its infrastructure, protecting its employment sources, guaranteeing affordable healthcare to all, healthcare and not burdening future generations with astronomical debt acquired through criminal borrowing from other countries to finance imperial wars and tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans.

The most astonishing and tragic aspect of the collapse of the American experience-our transition from corporatist democracy to fullblown fascism, has occurred without the American people even noticing. This resembles a house being robbed and emptied of all its contents while the occupants are asleep and when they wake up they just go about their business completely oblivious to what just took place. A friend of mind compared it to a woman being raped without even noticing it. The ignorance(vastly facilitated by the corporate media) and gullibility of the American public are truly unprecedented and astonishing.

I traveled last summer in the remote Peruvian Amazon region. I met locals who live without electricity and running water under circumstances that would be considered stone-age like in our country. I notice that those people were much more informed about what was going on in Peru and in the outside world than 90 percent of Americans are informed about the their own country, let alone the outside world. The astonishing thing for me is that even now, in the age of the Internet and easy access to information, Americans are generally as ignorant about their own country and the outside world as they have ever been. This ignorance and indifference have allowed their corrupt politicians to subvert the Constitution and to turn the US into a fascist empire without the public ever noticing. After all, with the new O.J. trial coming up, Britanny's child custody trials and Paris Hilton's next panty-less sighting, who cares that the US has become a fascist empire.

Unlike Hillary Clinton, Chris Dodd is beginning to make amends for his 2002 shameful decision to vote to authorize the felon-in chief to invade Iraq. Dodd has always been a very smart, reasonable and honest man as Beltway politicians go-everything is relative. For what it's worth, this Bay area progressive is switching from Obama, whose time will come, to Chris Dodd.

The only explanation I have is that he wants the Democratic base to be so disgusted and discouraged that it will stay home on election day and hand the Republican the congress and the presidency. His reward would be in not getting labeled by Limbaugh as an al-Qaeda collaborator.

If Kurtz tried to do this novelty unheard of for a journalist-you know, follow a lead as far as it takes you, conduct research, ask tough questions, follow up and get to the truth, regardless of whose toes the truth crunches, he would be completely lost. He's too stupid, ignorant, compromised and lazy to do any of that. Of course, he wouldn't do it even if he had the brains, because "you don't go against the family" in the Beltway, lest, heaven forbid, you will be considered as bucking the insider club, which means you'll be treated like a leper and not get invited to the important parties, which is what the Howie Kurtz of this world live for.

The only people still afraid of the Republicans and Bush are the Democrats. It seems like the weaker and more unpopular and despised Bush is in the general population, the more scared of him and the more eager to enable him they get. The analogy that comes to mind is of a deadly snake whose head had been crushed. The snake is near death and although its mouth is still oozing the deadly venom, the snake itself is finished, yet the cowards still expect him to strike and kill them and are trembling in fear.

If you want to be informed about serious subjects(like war, corruption, the economy, climate change, terrorism, globalism and its implications, etc) that doesn't involve catastrophic fires, celebrity debutants getting off limousines wearing no underwear, celebrity trials or violent crimes, you ignore the US corporate media which is completely useless, vapid, corrupt and in bed with the administration. If you arrived from Mars today you would think that the only thing happening in the world right now are the fires in S.California. We haven't had an independent and functioning 4th estate for years. We have a number of corporate outlets who recycle government propaganda, fluffy gossip and titillating crime and disaster stories. The so called media we now have in the US isn't worth wasting a second on.

It's very easy now to access international sources of real news and information. Many foreign information providers have excellent web sites-The Guardian is a prime example. They and many others provide a far more accurate panorama of world affairs and even US news that are much more insightful, penetrating and informative that what one would get from the corporate US media.