Are You In?

You’ve got to hand it to Obummer, his timing’s impeccable. On the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King — and one day before capitulating to the Rightists and allowing military commission trials of Guantanamo detainees — Obummer rolls out his 2012 re-election campaign, complete with a smarmy, grassrootsy video, and asks, “Are You In?”

“Are You In?” Jeezus, what the hell kind of slogan is that? It sounds like the wrapup for a venture capital pitch, like a question asked by some newly-minted Stanford MBA trying to schmooze a few million for his crappy-assed Internet start-up.

The “official” unemployment rate is nailed at around 10%, the foreclosure rate is climbing, bankers are getting fatter than ever, Bush’s tax cuts for the rich are still in place, the healthcare system is still in the hands of corporations, we’re up to our asses in three wars, the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay is still open, our civil liberties are in worse shape than ever, Obummer’s just rolled over for John Boehner on the budget deal — and now Obummer’s got the sheer gall to ask me if I’m “in”.

Like hell I’m “in”. Take a goddamn’ hike, piker.

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Sock Puppet Rebels

Late last week, not long after Barack Obummer announced there’d be no US “boots on the ground” in Libya, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times revealed — much to my total lack of surprise — that the US did, in fact, have the proverbial boots on the ground in the form of CIA spooks functioning as “advisors” and gathering intelligence to share with Libya’s “Toyota Tigers”.

Even more interesting was this report on the CIA connections of Libya’s new rebel commander, Khalifa Hifter. Apparently, Mr. Hifter defected from Gadhafi’s army about twenty-five years ago and was living a comfortable life in the suburbs of Washington, DC, until he suddenly felt moved to come to the aid of his motherland in its most desperate hour of need.

“Verr-rrry innn-teresting…!”
– Arte Johnson, as the German soldier on Laugh-In

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Greetings From Afghanistan!

For those of you who were able to tear yourselves away from the tragedy in Japan and the US media’s gushing over Obama’s “humanitarian intervention” in Libya, there was some horrifying news from Afghanistan which underscores Obama’s hypocrisy in the area of human rights and violence: the publication in German publication Der Spiegel of a batch of photographs taken by US soldiers with their “trophies” — the corpses of Afghan civilians murdered by “kill teams” who created artificial “combat situations” in order to hunt human beings for sport.

What especially galled the hell out of me was that President Hope apparently couldn’t be bothered to fly home from his holiday in Brazil to deal with these atrocities. It’s this kind of vile behavior by the US empire around the world that fills me with even more contempt for the “cruise-missile Liberals” who cheer Obama’s attacks on Libya while Saudi and Bahraini security forces murder protesters in Bahraini streets using weapons sold to them by Obama. Never mind all the talk about “freedom” for the Libyans; remember that imperialists will always do only what’s in the best interests of imperialists.

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