HItler Weighs in on the 2012 Election and the Downfall of the American Empire



After Super Tuesday, Mitt Romney was asking his rivals to drop out. I have not payed much attention to the Republican primaries, but even I am aware that this has been the most entertaining Republican presidential primary season in the history of the country. It has been a parade of funny, idiotic, delusional clowns. I was hoping it would go on much longer. I miss Michelle Bachman. I wish Herman Cain had not dropped out. Rick Perry, were are you? Texas can't have you all to itself. Sarah Palin, please run for President! Rick Santorum, you da man! Paul, who?

Is it possible that a Hitler parody utilizing the brilliantly written, directed, acted, shot, and edited scene from the movie Downfall, expresses more truth and gives a more realistic assessment of the state of the American society than most of the traditional media coverage regarding the 2012 Presidential election?

The U.S., with less than 5% of the world's population consumes 21% of the world's oil. At our peak it was more than 25%. Any presidential candidate who is talking about improving the economy and creating jobs without realistically describing how significant reductions in America's radical oil dependence are to occur or realistically describing how such a pattern of consumption is going to be perpetuated is masturbating.

The high prices at the pump are once again challenging American consumers and businesses, creating fear and anger, according to a recent Los Angeles Times headline. It can be deduced, that this radical oil consumption is the primary cause of America's economic woes, and perpetuating this enormous pattern of consumption is the primary motivation for its foreign policy, from Venezuela to the Middle East.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of the developed world has per capita oil consumption rates which are 40-60% that of the U.S.'s. The vast majority of the developed world responsibly taxes gasoline and funds vast and efficient mass transit systems.

Unfortunately, the American society is dominated by irrational attitudes and perspectives. Proposing to responsibly tax gasoline and fund mass transit, at this point in history, is still a politically suicidal move, or is it?

When we consider to what degree an alternative fuel or alternative technology will replace gasoline, we must keep in mind that there are 250 million registered cars in the United States, and the colossal problem this poses for the mass scale production and adoption of any alternative fuel or technology.

The prospect of the rest of the world eventually abandoning the U.S. dollar as the sole reserve currency of the world, should truly create fear within people who already think that the price of gasoline is too high. In fact, the run up in world oil prices undeniably reflects a weakening dollar.

Is it probable that a majority of American votes can be swayed to support one of these delusional ignoramuses? When it comes to foreign policy, does it make much difference who the President is? Is the American President not bought and paid for? Does the President of the U.S. not answer to invisible, enormously powerful interests instead of the American people?

Obama Come Home!



TelesurTV is reporting that Barack Obama's visit has been the cause of protests in Brasil and is expected to be met with protests in Chile, as well. Friday's protest ended in front of the American consulate and was dispersed by military police using tear gas and rubber bullets according to Brazilian news outlets.

According to the press release cited by Telesur, the protest is against the "imperialism of the United States and the demagoguery of Obama, who practices a militarist and interventionist policy, while he uses a rhetoric of defense of human rights."

Telesur is also reporting that the American consulate has announced that Obama's speech will no longer take place in a central square in the open air, but in an indoor location.

Folha.com has published numerous photographs related to the event and will surely publish many more in the next few days which promise to be very colorful, as well as videos, although their videos don't seem to load.

Poor Imperial Chief.

A Nobel Prize for the Imperial Chief

When the news that Barack Obama had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize became concrete in my mind, I thought, a Nobel Prize for the imperial chief; a man who is president of a country involved in two wars. He opposed the Iraq war, but was not yet in the Senate. If he had been in the Senate back then, it is not an exageration to think that he perhaps would have voted for the resolution that authorized the use of force, given the pressure that is exerted on senators and the fact that Barack Obama is a centrist. This is a quality that has contributed to his success, even since the days as president of the Harvard Law Review, based on what I've read.

It's not just ironic that he be awarded the Nobel Prize at the same time that there is talk of escalating the war in Afghanistan, it is also ironic and disillusioning, that Barack Obama has not yet acknowledged that the invasion of Afghanistan was wrong.

Another irony is that he still maintains the economic blockade against Cuba, in spite of the fact that all of the governments of the western hemisphere have asked him to lift it, the majority of Americans are against the blockade, and he does not need the consent of Congress to lift it. This is revealing of the fact that the empire has owners. He also has not closed the prison in Guantanamo.

The seven new American military bases proposed within Colombia are also contrary to the process of peace. When Barack Obama refers to Venezuela as a "rogue state" that supports terrorism, one does not know if Barack Obama genuinely believes what he says or is cynically apealing to right wing and imperialist tendencies within his country. They are belicose and conflagrant words that collide with the image of a Nobel Peace Prize winner.

There is a video on Youtube titled, "El Discurso Que Estados Unidos No Esperaba"(The Speech which the United States Did Not Expect) in which all of the presidents of the continent are gathered around a table and Hugo Chavez talks about and denies the alleged economic aid he gives to the FARC. Immediately afterwards, the Colombian President, Alvaro Uribe, gets up, goes straight to the Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, shakes his hand, and exchanges a few words with him. Immediately after this he goes straight to Hugo Chavez and does the same thing. What this video suggests to me is that not even the President of Colombia believes in the shit which Barack Obama says.

On other occasions, he appeals to the ignorance and the prejudice of Americans, like when he proposes eliminating oil imports from Venezuela and the Middle East within ten years. When he made this proposal, the latest available data was from 2007, and such reductions would barely amount to a reduction of 17.3% of the total oil which Americans consume. The Nobel Prize committee has awarded the prize to Al Gore for his work in the area of climate change, and now awards the prize to Barack Obama in part for the same reason, but according to its criteria, is a reduction of 17.3% over 10 years on the part of a country which consumes 24% of the world's oil a goal which is commensurate with the threat that climate change represents?

Barack Obama could have proposed to reduce oil consumption by 17%, 25%, or 35% without having to wrap the goal in a turban and dress it in the military uniform of a dictator who hates America, which is how many media outlets portray Hugo Chavez. In the meanwhile, the vast majority of the rest of the industrialized countries of the world have per capita oil consumption rates which are 40-60% below that of the U.S. A country can be rich without consuming so much oil.

The U.S. can reach a similar rate, but it would have to develop mass transit, a "socialist" solution which would not go well with oil coompanies, which the vast majority of Americans are compelled to make rich because of the lack of mass transit, and who are some of the owners of the empire and the bosses of Barack Obama himself. You all cannot imagine the isolation, the loss of social and economic opportunities which results from living in a city like Los Angeles without a car. We are compelled to destroy the planet simply to be able to live our lives to the fullest.

The contradiction is immense and reminds me of something which Fidel Castro recently wrote. That the immense American military power is not a necessity of the world, but a necessity for maintaining the economic system which it has imposed on the world.

On the other hand, like Barack Obama said in his acceptance speech, "The Nobel Peace Prize has not been used just to honor specific achievement, it's also been used as a means to give momentum to a set of causes." Perhaps Barack Obama and the rest of the world will be conditioned. In determining what steps to follow in Afhanistan and other regions of the world, Barack Obama will have in mind that he is a Noble Peace Prize winner and that he should do more to achieve peace. Perhaps leaders of the world, especially from the so called "third world," will have in mind that he has been awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, in part because of his ambitions to confront global warming, and demand more and be more firm in Copenhagen and beyond. Perhaps Americans ourselves can demand more, like instead of perpetuating a transportation system that compels us to make oil companies rich and which requires invasions of other countries in order to sustain, we can develop mass transit as the primary mode of transportation.

The Aftermath

California was in no mood to approve short term solutions yesterday as the map demonstrates. Mainstream politicians have not brought before the voters fundamental changes to our socioeconomic structure such as the ones I discussed in yesterday's entry, because they are perceived as politically inviable. Voters have demonstrated that the short term solutions they were asked to approve are not politically viable either. It will be interesting to see how politically viable the cuts in programs and social services which are now being threatened will be, and what effect they will have on the society in the context of a plummeting economy. The opportunity for real changes is the best when the society has collapsed, or is perceived as being on the verge of collapsing. May Californians see the light and transform their socioeconomic structure which is neither ecologically, nor economically sustainable, and which I would characterize as sadomasochistic.

The Most Memorable of Barack Obama's Inauguration Speech



This is perhaps the most inspiring speech I've ever heard an American president deliver. Among the most memorable quotes are the following:

"The world has changed, and we must change with it."

"In the year of America's birth, in the coldest of months, a small band of patriots huddled by dying campfires on the shores of an icy river. The capital was abandoned. The enemy was advancing. The snow was stained with blood. At a moment when the outcome of our revolution was most in doubt, the father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people: 'Let it be told to a future world , that in the depth of winter when nothing but hope and virtue could survive, that the city and the country alarmed at one common danger came forth to meet it.' America, in the face of our common dangers, in this winter of our hardship, let us remember these timeless words with hope and virtue. Let us brave once more the icy currents and endure what storms may come. Let it be said by our children's children that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end, that we did not turn back nor did we falter and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us we carried forth this great gift of freedom and delivered it safely to future generations."

I find it interesting that he compared our current state of affairs to the coldest of months, to the hardest of times, to a moment when the outcome of the American revolution was most in doubt; as if the country itself is crossing such a moment right now, as if the empire and the society it sustains is on the edge of collapse.

50 Years of Revolution: Fidel Castro Speaks to the Americas in English



In May 2003, ex-Cuban president Fidel Castro was in Argentina to attend the inauguration of the new Argentinean president, Nestor Kirchner. Just two months earlier, the United States had plunged itself into a world of intellectual darkness by pre-emptively and illegally invading Iraq. Against this backdrop, Fidel Castro delivered a 2 1/2 hour speech on the steps of the law school to thousands of Argentineans, yet the footage has the feeling as if he was speaking to the entire continental mass that comprises the Americas.

In these videos, 44 minutes have been excerpted and provided with translation so that people from the English speaking world have the opportunity to form a better criteria by which to judge one of the most historically important Americans(in this sense, someone from either of the Americas) of the 20th and 21st century.

After 50 years of revolution, 47 years of an embargo, hundreds of assassination plots, one failed invasion, and unquantifiable lies and slander by the United States government and American media outlets, the world faces the prospect of a crumbling American empire and a Cuban revolution that will survive it in the context of an increasingly independent and socialist Latin America. The multi-polar world is a reality.

By 2003, the beginnings of change had begun to manifest themselves, as Fidel Castro explains towards the end of his speech. In these 44 minutes, he discusses the Bush doctrine, education, health, immigration, the Cuban electoral system, mass media and communication, and neoliberal globalization. He even touches upon "an international economic crisis."