It seems counter intuitive to make the comparison at first, but an old fart at a Tea Party rally with a sign reading “Don’t touch my Medicare” has a lot in common with a college student asking for Wall Street to pay back the TARP money (which they did, but that doesn’t get them completely off the hook). Seriously, even an anti-Obama birther has something in common with a 9/11 truther. They are all incredibly ignorant of reality and they do not represent mainstream America in any way shape or form. I think Karl Denninger’s experience with the Tea Party has more than the above parallels.

In fact, sharing a few lessons learned, Karl implores the OWS protesters to not settle on any specific demands and to not stop the occupations. In fact, “The problem with protests and the political process is that it is very easy, no matter how big the protest is, for the politicians to simply wait for the people to go home,” says Denninger. “Then they can ignore you.” His first bit of advice, to not go home, is probably more feasible with OWS protesters because of the chronic unemployment experienced by most of them this far into the recession.

Strangely enough, the biggest complaint about OWS from the right as well as most Tea Partiers seems to be their lack of specific demands, but Denninger praises this as well. “One of the things that the Occupy movement seems to have going for it is it has not turned around and issued a set of formal demands,” said Denninger. “This is a good thing, not a bad thing. Everyone is looking for a set of demands.” Denninger added that once the protesters formally approach the banks and government with a list of demands, “then somebody is going to say, ‘Well, we gave you 70 percent. Now go home.’”

Karl Denninger’s final advice to the OWS movement, “Stay on message, which is that the corruption is not a singular event,” he said. “You can’t focus in one place. You have to get the money out of politics, which is very difficult to do, but at the same time you can’t silence people’s voice.” Maybe there’s our common ground. Get the money out of politics, can’t argue with that.

http://rt.com/usa/news/tea-occupy-denninger-wall-819/

The debt ceiling is set as a limit on the amount of money we pay for debt already incurred. Deciding not to raise the debt ceiling is like deciding to call up your utilities and say you aren’t going to pay for the electricity you used last month because your family spends too much on things they don’t need. It just doesn’t make any sense and the only possible result is a damaged credit rating. Low and behold, here we are, but wait…I thought we finally raise the debt ceiling at the last minute, right? No harm done…wrong.

It turns out that just going through with the practice of holding the debt ceiling hostage in order to extract concessions from political opponents is so irrational, that it was enough to cause the downgrade in the US credit rating. A timely implementation of a mix of long term spending cuts and long term tax increases (letting the Bush tax cuts expire) would’ve been the only way to avoid that credit rating downgrade. The “compromise is like date rape” attitude of the Republican leadership with that Tea Party gun to their heads made this display of political insanity possible. The genius of the Republicans will come out now when they work their magic and convince 50% of Americans that they had nothing to do with this whole mess.

The fact that most of America’s problems can be solved if both political parties simply agree to compromise highlights that America’s biggest liability is our political factionalism. Something our founding fathers actually did warn us about, the current schism in American politics is the only thing holding us back from being the country we once were.

Those leaders of Arab countries that limit the brutality with which they handle protesters will keep or lose power in a much more stable and peaceful environment, but if these leaders decide to hold onto power by their teeth, the western world will reach in and defang those leaders as they are doing to Gaddafi now. This will allow the 2011 Arab Revolutions to maintain their momentum. Hillary Clinton made a point to mention Bahrain and the forces from various Persian Gulf nations that have entered that Shiite majority country to put down protests to make that very point.

The way this military operation is played in the context of the 2012 elections will be a litmus test for Americans as far as how they want foreign policy handled in this second decade of the 21st century. We all know we can’t afford to keep our state budgets in the black, so we should also know that we can’t afford to maintain massively expensive land wars over years and sometimes decades. Spending a couple of hundred million dollars on Tomahawks from off shore while Sarkozy sends his flyboys into Libya to lead the cavalry charge sounds about right to me. Besides, US forces had to clear the skies before NATO could call it a no fly zone.

We are weaning the world, and our own massive ego, from the concept of the United States acting as the world’s police force.  If Operation Odyssey Dawn is one of those baby steps, then so be it. Maybe next time we can just cut a check to the UN and sit it all out?  Then we can start reducing the amount of that check and increasing the amount paid by China, Brazil, India, Russia and the EU.  Let’s at least start sharing the burden and the ‘morning after’ guilt for these huge international military campaigns if we can’t avoid them altogether.

It remains to be seen how fast the no fly zone can be implemented and how fast this operation will have an actual effect on forces loyal to Qaddafi as they advance rapidly towards the rebel stronghold of Benghazi. Even once the no fly zone is implemented, Qaddafi is determined enough to still advance on Benghazi and finish the job. This will inevitably lead to an escalation of the no fly zone as well as the confrontation between Qaddafi and President Obama. Obama has said that Qaddafi must go and the administration has also announced that military options beyond a no fly zone are definitely on the table. Qaddafi will test that assertion not because he thinks he should test Obama. Qaddafi is in the middle of the fight of his life and it’s between his whole family/tribe and the rest of Libya, so he has no choice but to test the entire international community. He’s going to take this whole mess as far as it can go.

If NATO gives a green light to engage Libyan forces on the coastal highway, they’ll have nowhere to run or hide and the rebels will soon be back on the advance. Obama simply can’t afford to allow a wave of revolutions for democracy in the Middle East to become halted by a dictator slaughtering his people, especially not as the 2012 election starts to heat up. This example would lead to untold deaths in Yemen, Bahrain, Syria, and other countries including places like the Ivory Coast. Obama has a chance to look strong on foreign policy while calling it the “right thing to do”, but like most presidents, his decision will happen to coincide perfectly with the strategic needs of his reelection campaign.

This defense doesn’t clear Cohen of anything. Invoking the Nazi label on this issue is inherently misleading and nothing more than baseless political harassment. Although Goebbels took the concept of propaganda to a whole new level at the time, this black art has developed light years further since the dark days of WWII. The advertising industry alone has advanced propaganda tactics like repetitious falsehoods and other tricks to the point that some people now tune in to the Super Bowl to watch only the commercials. We don’t even want to know what US and Soviet black ops people were up to around the world in the 50s and 60s when it comes to propaganda tactics.

In fact, the essence of bogus political talking points like “Obamacare is a government takeover of America’s health care system” from the right or “The GOP has tricked its base into voting for policies that only support the rich” from the left is the same repetition. These lies are repeated enough to make political supporters believe them immediately and then they slowly wear on the minds of political opponents as well. Hopefully, such lies don’t effect critical minded independent voters as much as they have blind faith partisan voters.

The point remains…Congressman Cohen. Trotting out the Nazi flag and pinning it on the Republicans because of a common political tactic used by both political parties as well as the entire advertising industry is disrespectful of the victims of Nazi hatred and brutality.

While the miracle of Congresswoman Giffords’ survival continues, the nation tries to heal from such a violent outburst by trying to make sense of it or at least prevent this from happening in the future. Is this more about issues surrounding recognition of mental illness and timely treatment of such illness or is this about mental illness as it relates to gun control laws. These previously stagnant issues will return to that state after the attention caused by the Tucson shooting subsides, but the lasting impression of these shootings will be burned into the American experience as a lesson about political unity. A lesson that reminds us we are all Americans and the alternative to unity is undeniably unacceptable.

Obama’s Tucson speech of January 12th, 2011 will encapsulate the tragedy of Tucson as a guide post to a better America. Christina Green, a nine year old girl, was killed that day as she enthusiastically observed American democracy at work. Living up to ideals of the United States that Christina Green believed in so strongly, as the President urged the country to do, is a worthy goal.

In fact, the gap between rich and poor has widened, so nothing is trickling down to the majority of Americans except perhaps the chuckles of the top 5%. Please don’t get me wrong. I’m not a steal from the rich and handout to the poor kind of guy, I’m just quoting Reagan’s previous budget man. Reagan knew how to delegate and his entire tax cut initiative was delegated to David Stockman. Well, you should hear what Mr. Stockman has to say about the Republican party today. He’s no fan of the liberals either, obviously falling into what I like to call the “defactionalized zone”; in other words he’s an independent conservative and has no political home anymore.

Regardless of Stockman’s current political motivations, he believes that anytime a politician claims tax cuts are the solution to the country’s economic woes, they are lying to your face. That top 5% of Americans have fattened themselves to the point where everyone in the country should have a secure job, but it turns out that really rich people don’t necessarily hire Americans most of the time; foreign labor is just too damn cheap for them to pass up. Everyone on Capitol Hill understands that the only way out of the mess they have put the country into is to both raise taxes and cut spending. Otherwise, this country is just endlessly treading mud in a bottomless swamp. The only problem is that the two party political system has set certain ideological ground rules that force Democrats to only use tax increases to solve the problem while the GOP think only spending cuts can solve the problem and taxes should always be cut.

David Stockman understands the very simple problems involved in lowering taxes while increasing spending. He was Reagan’s point man on doing just that. The Reagan administration lowered taxes shortly before outspending the Soviet Union to win the Cold War. It’s great the U.S.S.R. collapsed, but did the country have to go into severe debt to do it. This trend was reversed by the Clinton Administration which raised taxes before handing things off to the Bush administration with the deficit virtually eliminated. The Bush Administration then lowered taxes and continued to increase spending through the roof as the war on terror got underway. And here we are! China is now our banker. This is about simple math, not politics. You may think the last few sentences are partisan, but they are only facts.

How you react to these facts is definitely partisan, though.

The hateful divisive atmosphere that pervades our country is simply George Washington’s nightmare realized. After Civil War came and went with horrible loss and pain, we now have the disease of factionalism paralyzing our great nation from within. When I say this threat paralyzes us from within, I mean more than within the government. This threat goes beyond political parties. It’s a part of the political and cultural psychology that has slowly and methodically divided us to the point where people with different perspectives can’t even communicate effectively. Post WWII ideological propaganda has created two different view points, each castigating the other with extremist labels and custom made ideological talking points that cause an untenable division in our country. This is not a complimentary relationship as you would hope. Rigid ideological principles on both sides of the “aisle” attempt to dictate everyone’s thoughts and feelings on every issue.

It’s simple, just pick an ideology that most matches your personality. Always want to be cautious and present a tough image so nobody messes with you? Be a conservative! Do you have trouble harming a fly, do u think everyone is special and needs support? Be a liberal? Now that you’ve chosen your ideology you are stuck voting for your respective candidates, who are in turn stuck following rigid party guidelines. If the official you elected steps out of their chosen party’s loving embrace they will find themselves labeled as either RHINOs (Republican In Name Only) or Blue Dogs.

It’s my belief that the 2012 election is poised to be a peak in America’s divisive political discourse. The 2012 election began as soon as polls closed on the 2010 midterm and the next two years will see a deadlocked government where both parties fight to gain political ground through any means necessary. Even if that means working hard to screw the American people just to make the other party look bad, so the ammunition necessary for 2012 is in ample supply. Both parties will be guilty of shamelessly attempting to reshape the political landscape until November of 2012. Get ready America, it’s going to get ugly!

I understand the fear, this has happened before. Both Islam and Christianity are the only two religious phenomenons to take a shot at the title of champion of the world. The Greeks made a good go of it as did the Mongols, Romans, French and Germans, but the British won and when it came to any imaginable religious contest for the world, Christianity won that war long ago as well. Economic and political domination of Muslim lands by Non-Muslims has been the norm for centuries. In my opinion, Christianity already successfully took over the world before dozens of these Christian nations with colonies across the globe proceeded to duke it out between themselves through four centuries of warfare. Warfare that continuously intensified culminating in Imperial Britain maintaining superiority through massive challenges from France and then Germany. Not only did Christianity take over the world, but English Christians eventually dominated the Christian world and handed that hegemony to the United States.

I’m not saying there was some kind of cabal or conspiracy involved in this. I’m only saying that a religion already did take over the world and it was Christianity. Take a look at the last five hundred years of history and it becomes clear who won. This happened during a unique and unrepeatable time in human history. There was a void during a time of massive industrial and scientific discovery and a bubbling cauldron of warring European nations forged each other into a superior explorative Christian force that spread across the globe harvesting resources, converting savages and suffering under the overall “White Man’s Burden”. This happened once and anybody who thinks it’s about to happen again today missed the whole point of World War II. Nobody will ever take over the world again, unless we regress back to the stone ages. A stone age mentality, however, seems to be a trend among some fringe conservatives these days.

It stands to reason that the people most afraid of such a global religious takeover in these modern times are the beneficiaries of the only people to have ever successfully perpetrated such an event on humanity. The bright spot here is the United States Constitution and what that living document has guided us towards as a nation of people seeking freedom. This country has brought an end to that global Christian take over of the world. I’m sure that many Americans agree that our beliefs about freedom as a people have helped us first transcend our shaded and painful history and then help the world be a better place.

Our steady relentless march towards more freedom for all, more humanity for all both within and outside our borders has set us apart from the other nations that exist on this earth. Our faith to that freedom has seen us through the darkest times in our history, but we’ve actually found the strength as a nation to overcome the darkest of times in the world’s history. The nation that was instrumental in pulling humanity back from the brink of genocidal totalitarianism must not succumb to the ignorant fearful demons we’ve defeated in the past.

The U.S. Constitution protects the religious freedoms of all citizens in this country. If you want to tell people where and how to worship, then you’re going to need a constitutional amendment. If you can’t get an amendment to overturn the Bill of Rights then you better find another country because this one isn’t yours anymore.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;”, U.S. Constitution.

There is never a good time to start a senseless military conflict that results in thousands of people killed or injured, but as far as North Korea is concerned, it’s now or never. Let’s just hope that strategic and tactical realities will prevent this country’s isolated and brainwashed state apparatus from crossing a dangerous line. Already responsible for a successful nuclear weapons program as well as attempts to share it with other totalitarian regimes, this ideologically warped dictatorship recently sank a South Korean vessel and killed 46 sailors before throwing a diplomatic temper tantrum about being caught red handed. Pyongyang then successfully intimidated the United Nations into watering down its condemnation of the sinking by not naming North Korea as the perpetrator when all investigations consistently pointed north.

In reaction to the diluted UN condemnation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton laid blame for the sinking of the South Korean vessel squarely on North Korean naval forces. Also helping to stir the pot is a four day joint military exercise scheduled to begin today (July 25-28), which is ruffling Pyongyang’s feathers to no end. For some reason, this nation of starving missile makers above the 38th parallel has been particularly sensitive and belligerent towards any action that could be remotely perceived as hostile. Claiming that any condemnation of the sinking that named North Korea would be considered an act of war, they succeeded in making the UN blink, though it’s usually the Chinese and Russian diplomats doing the blinking. (Or are they winking…at Kim Jong Il?) Unfortunately, the pitiful drama at the UN matters little now as the democratically elected South Korean government prepares to defend its people from a horror they remember all too well. Yet the Northern government continues to scream foul, declaring the upcoming joint military training an unacceptable provocation that cannot be tolerated by the Korean People’s Army. This brings us back to the question that still lingers. Just what do these guys want? Are they simply crazy or is something else going on?

Well, yes. They are crazy, but there’s more to it then that. A power struggle is going on in Pyongyang because Kim Jong Il’s long term health is uncertain. We shouldn’t be surprised by what is possible in the name of this power struggle because the morality of North Korea’s culture has been festering in isolation for sixty years. The North Korean leaders rattling sabers today all grew up in a culture of blind obedience underlined by the constant threat of merciless execution. This means we have no conception of what these guys are capable of, especially the children of Kim Jong Il.

Besides internal power struggles and lost morality, this fiery belligerence is also being stoked by North Korea’s belief that this may be the best time to play brinkmanship with Uncle Sam.  North Koreans see a majority of the United States armed forces pinned down in Iraq and Afghanistan, the current US administration mired in a complex stand off with Iran, an American born recession that won’t end and the American people more divided than they‘ve been in 150 years. All these factors may convince enough people in Pyongyang to do something drastic, but their urgency belies the fact that North Korea is quickly becoming an anachronistic exception to the democratic rule that dominates our geopolitical world. A democratic ideal that has slowly and painfully spread across the globe to leave only a few more hold outs of tyranny and ideological rot. The same democratic ideals that just pulled our country through one of the most exceptional elections in history is at the core of how democracy continues to spread. This is one of those moments in history when who is in the oval office doesn‘t matter. All that matters right now is that the United States of America is the only country prepared to stand up to North Korea.