Kinda Makes You Wonder

From the Ramparts
Junious Ricardo Stanton
Kinda Makes You Wonder

“With 12 Democrats joining a unanimous Republican bloc, the US Senate voted Wednesday to defeat a proposed extension of unemployment benefits for workers who have been jobless for nearly two years. The bill would have extended unemployment benefits for those out of work more than six months, until November 30. In the two and a half weeks since June 1, when the last extension expired, some 903,000 workers have seen their benefits cut off. By June 26, that number will top 1.2 million. Meanwhile, the Labor Department reported that the number of new claims for unemployment compensation jumped to 472,000 last week, the highest figure in several months. The result is that a Congress that rushed through a $700 billion bailout of Wall Street in October 2008 in a matter of days, and authorized a further financial windfall to the banks and speculators five months later, cannot bring itself to support even the most meager subsistence for the unemployed workers who are the victims, not the perpetrators of the economic crisis ... The unemployment extension is part of a larger bill that includes additional aid to state governments to cover Medicaid, the healthcare program for the poor, and to offset a potential 21 percent cut in reimbursements to doctors who treat Medicare patients. The House of Representatives passed a version of the bill May 28 costing $113 billion, but without the Medicaid assistance to the states. The Senate version includes the Medicaid support, and costs a total of $140 billion, which sparked the unanimous no vote of the Republicans, as well as the opposition of the 12 Democrats, mainly conservatives, but including liberals like Russ Feingold of Wisconsin.” - 12160.0rg

By all statistical accounts except for what the US government and the Wall Street shills put out of course, this country is in the deep throes of a full fledged economic depression. Yet a President who campaigned on the rhetoric of “transparency and change we can believe in” opts to deceive the people by telling them this is going to be the “Summer of Recovery”. How can you call the current state of the US economy a “recovery” when unemployment continues to rise, banks continue to fail at an alarming rate, the FDIC which is supposed to protect depositors’ savings is insolvent, homelessness is on the rise as are bankruptcies, defaults and foreclosures? Either Obama and his administration are idiots or pathological liars. Perhaps they think we are imbeciles and chuckle-heads who will fall for any flim-flam or okey doke they put out there.

The US Senate, the house of millionairess, recently voted not to extend unemployment benefits for folks who have been out of work for more than six months. What this means is that during a time when jobs are shrinking, businesses do not have access to credit or cash to keep their businesses afloat, to do research and development, purchase raw materials and inventory and hire workers which is shriveling the overall economy, the congress critters who can give themselves pay raises any time they want and who enjoy life time health insurance at our expense callously chose not to help the very people whose taxes pay their salaries and benefits. Close to a million unemployed US residents are being kicked to the curb by the swine in D.C who’ve gotten fat gorging themselves at the public and private troughs. Citing concerns over rising deficits, they voted no. Yet these same so called fiscal conservatives rarely vote against appropriation bills to increase spending for the military or the imperialist resource wars being waged around the globe. Kinda makes you wonder whose side the US Senators are on and what they really stand for ? Hmmm?
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“In fact, more oil is spilled from the delta's network of terminals, pipes, pumping stations and oil platforms every year than has been lost in the Gulf of Mexico, the site of a major ecological catastrophe caused by oil that has poured from a leak triggered by the explosion that wrecked BP's Deepwater Horizon rig last month. That disaster, which claimed the lives of 11 rig workers, has made headlines round the world. By contrast, little information has emerged about the damage inflicted on the Niger delta. Yet the destruction there provides us with a far more accurate picture of the price we have to pay for drilling oil today.” Nigeria's agony dwarfs the Gulf oil spill. The US and Europe ignore it www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/may/30/oil-spills-nigeria-niger-delta-shell

The US mind control apparatus is making a huge deal about the humongous oil spill and leakage in the Gulf of Mexico and some even suspect it will be Obama’s political undoing. The pumping station owned by British Petroleum that somehow skirted safety regulations without sanction is wrecking havoc on the whole Gulf Coast area and the damage to the surrounding ecosystem is incomprehensible. Daily we are shown pictures of birds, the damage to the wetlands and fish being impacted by the continuing oil and sledge pouring into the regional waterways. But the corporate media suppresses the damaging impact on the locals and their way of life.

However, the BP “spill” is not an isolated situation. In the Niger Delta region of Nigeria Africa, another oil company, Shell has been causing oil leakage, environmental pollution and ecological spoilage for over fifty years!! The oil is destroying the fish and the ecosystem throughout the region. Residents in the Niger Delta region get nothing from the billions Shell makes on the oil and the Nigerian government seems just as impotent as the Obama administration to do anything to rectify the situation there. Things have gotten so bad, locals have taken up arms against Shell and the government. Despite the armed conflicts and enmity the spills and exploitation have caused, Shell and other major oil companies continue to despoil the environment, cheat the people out of their share of the oil revenues and avoid paying compensation for the massive damages they have created over the years. Makes you wonder if transnational oil companies like PB, Shell and Exxon-Mobil enjoy special privileges wherever they operate or if they have some kind of mystic Mojo working that wards off justice and doing the right thing. Perhaps as a corporate entity oil companies are simply ruthless psychopaths out to make a dollar any way they can?

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“What should we make of the fact that 11 U.S. warships and an Israeli warship are sailing up the Suez Canal on their way to the Red Sea? This is - on the surface - a faceoff over Iran's support for relief ships trying to sail into Gaza. Specifically, Iran has said it will have Iranian military ships escort the flotilla providing humanitarian goods to Gaza to make sure it arrives safely. On the other hand, the U.S. has backed Israel's blockade of Gaza.Tensions are obviously high between the U.S. and Israel, on the one hand, and Iran on the other. The U.S. and Israel have talked for years of bombing Iran's nuclear sites.” www.washingtonsblog.com/2010/06/s

In the Spring and Summer of 2001 while the US media focused most of its attention on the supposedly missing (many investigators already suspected she was dead) Washington D.C. intern Chandra Levy and her alleged affair with US Congressman Gary Condit (sex and political scandals sell newspapers and creates a great distraction from what’s underfoot) , the European press was reporting on a US military buildup for a possible confrontation with the Taliban in Afghanistan. Keep in mind this was months before 9-11. The invasion of Afghanistan was being planned by the US in early 2001. 9-11 was merely a convenient pretext they used to sell their bogus War on Terror to the American sheeple. (US oil companies wanted the Taliban to sign a trans-Afghani oil and gas pipeline deal and the US CIA wanted the Taliban to discontinue suppressing the opium trade. When the Taliban refused, the Bu$h administration made up its mind to bum rush Afghanistan.)

It seems history will repeat itself. The US has set its sights on Iran because they dared open an oil bourse (oil trading exchange) and they’ve agreed to accept various foreign currencies in exchange for their oil and natural gas; thereby undermining the US dollars’ hegemony as the world’s reserve currency. The issue about Iran possessing nuclear weapons and posing a threat to its neighbors being pushed by the corporate media is totally bogus.

In the late ‘90's Saddam Hussein did the same thing, he sold his oil in Euros once the US imposed crippling sanctions on him, which is one of the reasons the US invaded Iraq. Gaining access to Iraqi oil, executing the Neo-Con and Israeli agendas were the other reasons. Here we go again. Look for a continuation of the same “WMD, eminent threat, mushroom cloud, blah, blah, blah” BS they used on Iraq to be used on Iran. Watch for any lame excuse for the US and Israel to justify their pending attack on Iran. The coming attack could very well be the beginning of a new world war since Iran and Syria have a mutual defense pact, Russia and China are Iran’s major trading partners, Russia built Iran’s nuclear reactor and still has technicians on site and the recent Israeli attack on the Gaza aid flotilla has aroused anti-Israeli sentiments throughout the Muslim world. Keep in mind the US is the only nation that has used atomic weapons on civilians and Israel is the most aggressive nation in the region. Kinda makes you wonder if they think we are stupid enough to go for their warmongering okey-doke one more time?

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