Warning: Swallowing the President's Bitter Pills May Cause Harsh Austerity

Hello readers. First off, I apologize for not updating my blog in a couple of weeks. I'm still writing the rest of my pieces on the primaries. I can't promise there will be a weekly post anymore, but I will update this blog when I can. Obviously the Obama chapter is going to be more epic since he is the President, end result of the primaries and general election in 2008, and just reelected now in 2012. So it's taking some time to get it right and it's a lot of work but it will get done eventually.

In-between my work on The Obvious Report I also write blog pieces on current events and upcoming events. So once again, this week we are....

Warning: Swallowing the President's Bitter Pills May Cause Harsh Austerity

We are being told that the mess this President caused when he helped pass the Bush tax cuts in exchange for 1 year of unemployment insurance - which was unnecessary because Republicans caved on UE extension before - WITHOUT even securing a rise in the debt ceiling by putting his full trust in John Boehner with the full faith and credit of the US was "worth it." This of course gave Boehner immense political power and the right hostage needed to cause the debt ceiling debacle just like I predicted. Well here are are again dealing with the fallout.

Already? Obama Tells Supporters to Expect 'Bitter Pills'

As the Huffington Post, who listened in on the call, reports:

The president, speaking from a White House phone, cautioned listeners to expect disappointments during his second term. As he has in the past, Obama warned that he was prepared to swallow some bitter pills during the negotiations, including some that would agitate the base.


"As we move forward there are going to be new wrinkles and new frustrations, we can't predict them yet," he said. "We are going to have some triumphs and some successes, but there are going to be some tough days, starting with some of these negotiations around the fiscal cliff that you probably read about."

Though his encouragement to his activist base may be encouraging to some, the President's preemptive admission that he's willing to give away bargaining chips so early in the game will surely irk those who criticized Obama for his negotiating style throughout his first term. That will be doubly true for progressives who have publicly called for a more hardline stance when it comes to defending key social programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid.

We know from the president's interview with the Des Moines register that much of what was in the memo revealed by Bob Woodward as part and parcel of all of this nonsense we shouldn't even have to be dealing with in the first place is a starting point. Oh yes, many will screech about how Simpson Bowles is dead because the commission was a failure, but the horrible ideas live on through our elected leaders that keeps bringing them back to life.

Obama vows debt-cutting ‘grand bargain,’ immigration reform in Des Moines Register interview

"I am absolutely confident that we can get what is the equivalent of the grand bargain that essentially I've been offering to the Republicans for a very long time, which is $2.50 worth of cuts for every dollar in spending, and work to reduce the costs of our health care programs," Obama said. (The White House quickly clarified that he meant $2.50 of spending cuts for every dollar in new tax revenue.)

"We can easily meet—'easily' is the wrong word—we can credibly meet the target that the Bowles-Simpson Commission established of $4 trillion in deficit reduction, and even more in the out-years ...

This is not going to help the unemployed and it's economic illiteracy. When you hear things like, "We all agree we must pay down the deficit," it might as well be, "We all agree on economic illiteracy. Come on. Everybody's doing it." Anyone who is still making excuses for this doesn't even understand why this fake fiscal cliff, really an austerity bomb as Brian Beutler of TPM puts it, is coming back up in the first place.

“The past isn’t dead. It isn’t even past.” – William Faulkner

This is quite literally true so for all those "that was then this is now" excuse makers, you have a lot of studying and reading to do.



By now readers of the blog Naked Capitalism are aware from the reference to the paper by the excellent Yves Smith of the paper by Federal Reserve economists Glenn Follette and Louise Sheiner showing that the projections used by the CBO for continuous exponential health care cost growth are quite flawed as is the whole case to swallow these bitter austerity pills. Instead of reexaming their flawed projections based on that post, the CBO strangely decides to solicit a private chat with Yves Smith for unspecified reasons showing they really have no counter factual to the data that refutes them. After all, the CBO assumes growth past 100% of GDP as well which is impossible.

Economist at the CEPR Dean Baker concurs as well for he remembers how the CBO did not project the housing bubble and he has made similar cases in the past.

Now UMKC economist William K. Black uses Zane Tankel's whining about Obamacare to in addition to the Glenn Follette and Louise Sheiner paper to explain to us what a huge lie deficit hysteria really is. Their paper refutes the testimony of Richard S. Foster, FSA, MAAA, Chief Actuary, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in front of the House Committee on the Budget (February 28, 2012) with solid evidence. The pervasive accounting fiction with regard to health care costs in tandem with a lack of knowledge about sectoral balances in a sovereign currency is sadly pervasive as we can see throughout the actuarial realm.

Applebee’s Obamacare Rant Reveals the Lies of the Deficit Hysteria

Projecting that U.S. health care costs will continue to increase at roughly twice the average growth rate of GDP guarantees that federal budget expenditures will be driven by health care costs. Chart 7 of Foster’s testimony explains that what he terms the “alternative” projection is what he favors as most accurate. Under this scenario, Medicare would rise to approximately 10.5% of GDP by 2080. Chart 8 projects Medicaid expenses only out to 2020 – increasing to nearly 4% of GDP. By 2080, this implies that combined federal Medicare and Medicaid expenditures would exceed 20% of GDP – roughly 100% of the federal budget. That is absurd, a point made forcefully by Federal Reserve economists in an article entitled: AN EXAMINATION OF HEALTH-SPENDING GROWTH IN THE UNITED STATES:


PAST TRENDS AND FUTURE PROSPECTS (by Glenn Follette and Louise Sheiner).


“All other” health care expenses would, under similar approaches to projections, rise to over 40% of GDP by 2080. The overwhelming bulk of these expenses would be private health insurance and state contributions to Medicaid. The first question that should arise, therefore, is which constraint would actually bite first and doom the projections. The imminent constraint is not the federal budget. The U.S. is neither a household nor a business firm. We have a sovereign currency that we allow to freely float and we borrow in our own currency. The U.S. federal government, therefore, is nothing like a nation that has joined the euro and given up its sovereign currency. Like Japan, the U.S. can create money, or if it chooses to issue debt it can do so at minimal interest rates even with a debt to GDP ratio over twice as large as the current U.S. ratio.


Businesses have to compete. Many must already compete globally and the future will increase the number of firms that must maintain global competitiveness. Foreign firms often provide no health care benefits to their workers. U.S. businesses also have to compete against small U.S. businesses that are not subject to the employer mandate of Obamacare. Decades before the U.S. federal government experiences ran into any real budgetary “crisis” the increase in health care costs that the CBO is projecting would bankrupt businesses that offered health insurance. “Somebody has to pay” – and if health care costs increase indefinitely at twice the growth of GDP no business can long survive paying such costs. The only question is how soon they will become uncompetitive and fail – and the Tankels (Applebee) and Schnatters (Papa John) of the world are claiming that we have already rendered them uncompetitive by requiring them to provide health insurance to a pool of very young workers in good health (i.e., a far cheaper pool to insure than would be the case for most professions and industries). Note that neither of their businesses faces global competition. Many U.S. industries and professions will face much more severe competitive disadvantages than restaurants do if health care expenses increase as the CBO projects.


The mass loss of U.S. competitiveness that would occur if the CBO health care expense projections proved true would mean that the CBO budget projections would be wildly over-optimistic. One of the grave but more subtle flaws in the CBO projections is that they are not “stock flow consistent.” For example, under the CBO’s projected increase in health care expenses U.S. firms would soon fail by the tens of thousands as they were rendered uncompetitive. The U.S. would fall into a Great Depression, the budget deficit would explode, and Medicare expenses would skyrocket as tens of millions of Americans lost their jobs and became impoverished. Health care expenses measured as a percentage of GDP would surge as expenses increased and GDP fell sharply. The CBO projections, however, are internally inconsistent on multiple dimensions as James K. Galbraith, L. Randall Wray, and Warren Mosler explained in their Congressional testimony and paper entitled: THE CASE AGAINST INTERGENERATIONAL ACCOUNTING: The Accounting Campaign Against Social Security and Medicare.


Another example of internal inconsistency would become obvious if we increased the length of the CBO projection. Eventually, health care costs would exceed 100% of GDP under the CBO’s methodology. That is, of course, impossible because health care costs are part of GDP. The assumptions about the growth of health care expenses and GDP are not consistent.

I have had this debate here in the blogsophere and it appears I have been vindicated by this Glenn Follette and Louise Sheiner paper as well. Of course I was merely aware of the work of James K. Galbraith, L. Randall Wray, and Warren Mosler on how intergenerational accounting has pervaded the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) which in turn has pervaded the CBO, CMS, and SSA in some of their trustee reports. Funny balance sheets claiming to be the nation's balance as well as the federal government using those terms interchangeably along with similar doom and gloom projections showing only liabilities and no assets for Social Security and Medicare do not add up.

Not only that, but I knew the CBO projections couldn't be accurate because if a trend is unsustainable it won't be sustained, especially past 100% of GDP. So now hopefully we can stop hearing excuses anywhere about why Medicare is on the table. Also Social Security belongs absolutely nowhere in the conversation at all. We know this now.

As I stated in that diary, it's time to protect our whole safety net from these intergenerational warriors and anyone who would make excuses for them or this austerity bomb. Obviously the CBOs projections are off, but truly whatever the health care cost burden is in the future will be in the private sector because other countries don't pretend asymmetric information and monopolistic for profit health insurance companies provide optimal outcomes for private businesses. Only we do.

These costs cannot and will not bankrupt our government for the reasons stated above; a sovereign currency denominated in our own debt created by a keystroke. However, health care costs will continue to be a drag on our economy despite being more sustainable than projected by the intergenerational warriors unless we take the burden off of businesses and go for Medicare for All. The CBO doesn't want to respond to Glenn Follette and Louise Sheiner because they can't. So all this crap about how the president has to put everything on the table is simply demonstrably complete crap so I don't want to hear that anymore and I don't want to read that anymore, anywhere.

This austerity bomb is completely unacceptable and reeks of economic illiteracy and budgetary fallacies cooked up by Wall St and their Third Way wing in the Democratic party.

Don't make excuses for it. Don't play that game. Raise your voice! Oppose this! Deficit terrorism will terrorize many people already hurting who are counting on you to care about them.

Grand Bargains and Scared Sacrifice After the Election

AS a reminder we are still...

After the election, regardless of who wins, though it will most likely be President Obama, there will be a self induced so called fiscal cliff that involves a sequester which is a number of cuts across the board that go into effect automatically from the debt ceiling deal. This was entirely predictable and self induced once the Bush tax cuts were passed again by a Democratic President. These facts should ring true after the election because they won't change. Because our leaders in both parties are stuck on stupid economically when it comes to national accounting and monetary operation in tandem with fiscal operations they want us to suffer through austerity.

The Republicans and the President both want us to be scared in order to sacrifice the most successful programs of the New Deal and Great Society. They want us to be frightened to death of the self induced crisis(because this president can't negotiate a debt ceiling raise like every other president or he has something else in mind) they created together in this debt ceiling debacle. And it is entirely a self induced crisis.

It was entirely avoidable and entirely predictable if one knows their history, even recent history from the Obama/Bush tax cut deal as well as the 80s. This isn't the 90s. There is a jobs crisis. There is not enough demand in the economy and tax cuts, even employer side payroll tax cuts being proposed (the only arguably effective stimulus in this situation) are not efficient and won’t increase hiring.

The president doesn't understand demand or economics in general. It’s sad to say, but he believes in the pseudo economics of the confidence fairy that will supposedly lure back the bond vigilantes (who haven’t even left yet even during this debt ceiling debate) and his magical Internet gnome David Plouffe perpetuating his Independents deficit disorder. The public does not share the president’s adherence to pseudo economics, so he’s using the crisis he helped create:

"I’ll take John Boehner at his word — that nobody, Democrat or Republican, is willing to see the full faith and credit of the United States government collapse"

The president is using this crisis he helped create in order to make us “eat our peas.”

There is no debt/deficit crisis. As professor James K. Galbraith says:

“When Obama says, even offhand, that the United States is "out of money," he's talking nonsense--dangerous nonsense. One wonders if he believes it.”

If you read that piece you learn that the federal budget is not deficit constrained nor is it like a family's budget because we issue our own currency unlike any EU nation like Greece or Ireland. It's a shame I have to keep repeating this and that the president still is talking nonsense when it comes to fiscal matters. But let's pretend the federal budget is deficit constrained for a second. Let's for a second buy RW and neoliberal framing(like the president is doing) that the debt is an immediate problem and must be handled now or we'll all die!

In doing so I will take you back in history when the deficit/debt did matter to a point because we were still on a version of the gold standard as the dollar was pegged to gold until Nixon took us off of it in 1971. The Bretton Woods system of international financial exchange then ended. There used to be a gold reserve constraint in our banking reserve system and when we ran a trade deficit as we started doing during this time, we had to pay the surplus country we ran the deficit with in gold so it was bound to fall anyway. So this is when in the long run, deficits and debt mattered, but not anymore because we don't have those constraints anymore.

However debt only means something even in this scenario when compared to something else and that is the debt to GDP ratio. If we listen to the John Boehner or Obama buying into his framing but in a lesser way, you would have thought the world ended and our economy collapsed during the height of WWII when our debt to GDP ratio was 120%.



It didn't. In fact, it was the most prosperous period across the globe there had ever been, the Keynesian golden age. The global economy grew at an average of 4.9% and all one has to do to make themselves feel better if they are worried about deficits and debts and spending is to look at that downward slope the national debt took as the economy grew during this period. It's like skiing down the alps and though the debt to GDP ratio is picking up though not expected to be close to 120% of GDP(depends on medical inflation) it's clearly not an immediate crisis even if one thinks we are still deficit constrained in the long run, but we are not.


So don't believe the BS! The President, John Boehner, Harry Reid, and Mitch McConnell, and the gang of six are all coming after our social safety net in this debt ceiling sham of a negotiation. They are all using these proven pseudo economic lies to push Shock Therapy Americans don't want or need. We must fight this grand bargain regardless of the outcome of the 2012 Presidential election. It is unacceptable.

Defeating Money in Politics with Art

Ok, I will finish this series despite how many of you don't show up to read it so ti can at least be printed(even though print is dying) so I am still rewriting and reediting the interview with Obama supporters during the Democratic primaries of 2008, so this week we are still....

Like other issues, the issue of money in politics is what will speak to what is or is not done in the next Congress more than the Presidential election of 2012. Unfortunately we didn't hear about that in any of the debates thus far and it is the most important issue, because it spans to all issues and speaks to what hope legislation has of affecting the lives of real people.

Because of the daunting nature of this problem given how little money in relation to corporations real people have, it can feel rather hopeless. However, there are times when the creativity of certain individuals can make a difference as it has in the past.(PDF) That is where I am trying to make a difference using whatever talents I have because I have no money and very little voice or say in our real political process which is real pernicious hence the issue at hand.

The good people at GOOD Maker have set up a design contest to call attention to this dire and most important issue.

art > MONEY: Design to Define a Movement

You can vote for my piece here featured below, and if you like all my contributions in both writing and artwork over the years I ask that you please do because the competition is fierce and there are a lot of good pieces. You can vote using facebook which is probably the easiest way(don't worry, I won't know anything about your personal info and neither will anyone else) but if you don't want to use facebook to vote, you can sign up to Good Maker which is probably a good idea because this organization uses creativity as an outlet for good things which made me want to get involved in this contest to hopefully do some good.

Money in politics defeated qualitative health care reform. Money in politics defeated the Brown Kaufman amendment and the stronger Volcker rule during the Dodd Frank proceedings leaving many of the rules undefined as well as a real bank rescue instead of handing the same banks that caused the crash, trillions. Behind every sellout of every politician and behind every good politician's(Senator Sherrod Brown for Instance) inability to do anything about it, there is also big money.

Even Democratic Senator Dick Durbin has admitted in the recent past that the banks own our legislative branch as a whole. So those are just a few of the multitude of reasons why attention to the general issue of money in politics regarding Citizens United, Buckley vs Valeo and the most important issue corporate person-hood undecided but decided anyway(because of a suspicious clerk on the inside with a corporate conflict of interest) in Santa Clara County Vs. Southern Pacific Railroad which is the most pernicious.

I covered this in this diary which shows the daunting measure of this problem here:

What to Do When Liberal SCOTUS Justices Think Corporations are People Too

Voting like all transactions with regard to creating and moving capital/money is now electronic since money is not dropped out of helicopters nor ballots anymore, but this metaphor was strong, I thought, because most of our money supply goes to the coffers of the big banks, oil companies, and other corporations who make the biggest investment that always pays off which is buying the government they want and a population convinced to vote against their interests. So the printed dollars into printed ballots was a metaphor that perhaps more people now understand since more people are at least aware that the Federal Reserve prints money.

Because of corporate person-hood which is illegitimate and recorded illegitimately in Santa Clara County vs Southern Pacific Railroad the money supply in our economy and it's velocity will run towards buying all Senators and Congressman that pretend to write our laws. Overturning Citizens United via Super PACS and 501(c)4s(no disclosure at all) is just a small step to mitigate this damage like the EFCA would have been(also defeated by big money) with regard to Taft Hartley and right to work laws but an important one.

Anyway, spreading awareness of this issue by participating in this voting process in which voting is open till 12 pm today so the real voting process is hopefully some time soon more worthwhile is a worthy endeavor in my view. I hope you enjoy my entry and this redux which I think would have maybe scored more votes and is more iconic but I am happy with the idea and both.

I hope you agree with me and thank you for voting!.

Halloween Post: Zombie Cat Food Commission Edition

As a reminder this week, we are still.....

And it's Halloween time and there are neoliberal bankrupt zombie commissions and ideas! This Catfood Commission just won't stay dead and Nancy Pelosi is talking about resurrecting it. It started out with Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg in 2008 with an event at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Their purpose was to cut, loot, and perhaps privatize Social Security of course as Republicans and third way DLC Democrats have tried to do for many years. In 2009 Conrad and Gregg tried to get their so called entitlement reforms fast tracked into the recovery package President Obama and Congress passed even writing an Op Ed in the Washington Post in support of such measures. Conrad and Gregg started threatening against voting to raise the debt ceiling if  their commission wasn't raised from the dead.

To form a séance for it these zombies attached it to the debt ceiling/Pay-Go bill in January of 2010. However good prevailed  the amendment failed and there was no commission once again. But not for long, for President Obama vowed in his SOTU speech after that to create it by executive order with Executive Order 13531 which he did; the Simpson Bowles Commission chaired by Alan Simpson and Erskine Bowles. These dark lords tried to reign over the commission but their proposals failed to garner the 14 votes necessary for their proposals. The Commission died and so these zombies put forth their own proposals which was a white paper and that went nowhere too but not without a promise from the political elite that their ideas would not be forgotten and would be forever floated particularly with the Grand Bargain in the fake fiscal cliff debate coming up after the election in 2013.

But this did not start with Conrad and Gregg or even Simpson and Bowles. It started with a Wall St. billionaire Investment Banker whom started a foundation to destroy Social Security and Medicare in the name of zombie fiscal responsibility; thy name is Peter G. Peterson. He got former President Bill Clinton to facilitate a pre-Catfood Commission in 1993 called the Kerrey Danforth Commission headed by Democratic Senators Bob Kerrey and John Danforth. Peter G. Peterson was a member of that Commission. So as you can see Peterson has had Democrats as well as Republicanism under his spell for awhile and today he has the ear of President Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The debt ceiling debacle which led to the Super Congress, the sequester, and the Grand Bargain set to bring forth the so called fiscal cliff after the 2012 election has Peter G. Peterson's influenced and fingerprints all over it. Oh the spell he has all politicians under as they set forth to plunder our Social Safety net.

He spent a billion dollars of his own money over the years to spread the fact-less zombie insanity in the media that there is a 20 trillion super sub prime crisis by Social Security(irrelevant to deficit economics but he doesn't know that or does and doesn't care) and Medicare. Truly scary propaganda putting an unruly spell on the electorate.

And like donkeys herded like sheep, Democratic voters either buy into this or make excuses for it because the President is involved in some way. As economist James Galbraith says, those numbers represent the strangest balance sheets I've ever seen, all liabilities and no assets. However try breaking the spell during election season where you will find little rhyme or reason when it comes to the real issues of the day.

The kind of herd mentality present among Democratic partisan is truly terrifying and they are being controlled by the dark overlord Peter G. Peterson and the zombies in his service Kent Conrad and Judd Gregg as well as all mainstream corporate news stations that run his propaganda like CNN. Die Zombie Commission  Die! Go back to the hell from whence you came! The dark treasonous horde controlled by the name Peterson! Don't ever come back again!

Happy Halloween!

Present Day: President Obama's Drone War Deaths

While I create the interview with Obama supporters in comic form during the primary,  I'm going to make some time warps to the present to show that I'm not trying to relive the past to keep this blog going until then. I'm still relevant and up to date on what's going on today. This is just my Primary Colors piece I am trying to finish, and I will finish it. In the meantime, I have added some of my written pieces and artwork on what's going on with the Obama administration right now. Thank you for tuning in, and stay tuned while I take you from the past to the present and back again to show why we are here. Regardless of what Obama says, you always have to look backward; otherwise you don't know where you are or where you are going.

Yes, anything can happen, but with the latest open disdain for 47% of the people in this country by Mitt Romney, it's looking like a safe bet that President Obama will be reelected. There's also more time for Romney to say even more stupid shit. It's almost like he's running against himself, so I'm looking past the President''s very likely reelection onto life or death issues.

In this introspection I sadly conclude that there is just not enough differences in this campaign when to comes to the wars and the national security state; none of them will consider rolling it back even though that is what will ultimately make us safer. Destroying the 4th amendment did not make us safer one bit.

What makes us even less safe is the hate bred through what is called the collateral death of innocent civilians that we in this country and our horse race mindset can't seem to understand. This is not something human beings just get over and why should they? Who are we to tell them to get over it? They literally can't get over it, and this war is spilling blood in our name as the diarist jpmassar outlined the other day in his extremely important diary on Daily Kos.

I Know You Don't Want to Hear It, But We Have Blood On Our Hands. 8 Women Just Killed in Afghanistan

How many times must the cannonballs fly
Before they are forever banned?

"...precision aerial munitions... as well as precision fire from aircraft..."
At least eight women have died in a Nato air strike in Afghanistan's eastern province of Laghman, local officials say. Nato has conceded that between five and eight civilians died as it targeted insurgents, and offered condolences.

And I'm tired of the lies. This war is not ending in 2014. The troops will not be gone. There will be troops staying past 2024, while you are asked to share sacrifice with more billionaires for a deficit that will not be a problem as long as people are unemployed. We are told full employment cannot be on the agenda, and that we can't afford Medicare, but there's never that scare with the military which always most grow and grow or "keep strong" as the President says. We are told we're going to tackle climate change while one of the biggest wasters of energy via the Department of Defense grows and will continue to grow no matter what.

So in that sense all wars are dumb wars, Mr. President. And this is the exact same kind of mindset that got us into the Iraq war. War doesn't make us safe. Our freedoms do. Indefinite detention doesn't make us safe either, and yes the NDAA still allows that; whenever the White House's lawyers can't define what "associated with Al Qaeda means" when it was struck down before being reversed, it's still open for interpretation.

The fact that Democrats defend that which came from the 2001 Afghanistan AUMF but now codified, except Congresswoman Barbara Lee of course who was smart enough to know this way back in 2001, given the damage done to our name every bit as damaging as Abu Ghraib in Bagram Air Base and others, it really makes us look like we don't stand for anything. So the fact that this war is based on the same flawed promises about standing down when the Afghan people stand up like the war it surpassed, Vietnam, is a slap in the face. Most Americans want this war to end, but the war profiteers do not.

From both candidate's speeches we know they don't care what the American people want when it comes to war; they're also both likely to allow Israel to start a war with Iran we will be dragged into. Will you follow because the President won reelection as he most likely will while telling you you need to share sacrifice with war profiteers because of a fake deficit crisis and magical right wing bond vigilantes and confidence fairies?

Hell no we won't go for that! I hope not, because otherwise these disasters will extend past the President's second term while domestic cuts are made using the deficits as an excuse because Washington is stuck on stupid; they don't understand national accounting, the federal budget they write, or that the biggest cost of war is the waste of human potential globally to do better things for humanity.

Obama's 'Midnight' Deal Will Stretch Afghan War to 2024
One thing crystal clear in secretive US-Afghan 'strategic partnership agreement': War not even close to ending

The agreement, broadly understood, codifies the ongoing conditions under which the US government agrees to operate in Afghanistan and will guide policies on the management of military bases, authority over detainees, the execution of night raids and other security operations, and will set conditions for troop levels and residual US forces that will remain in Afghanistan even after a 'withdrawal' commences in 2014. The agreement also deals with ongoing financial support for the Afghan government and military into the future.

[..........]

"Interestingly," writes Jason Ditz at Anti-war.com, "with the ink now drying on the document and the US officially committed to the occupation of Afghanistan for another decade, officials are continuing to tout 2014 as the “end” of the war. This speaks to how the 2024 date, though openly discussed by the Karzai government in Afghanistan and privately acknowledged as part of the secret pact, has not been publicly presented to the American public. When they will officially spring it on us remains unclear."

[.........]

"Does anyone think our staying until 2024 is going to bring peace and stability to Afghanistan?" ask Kevin Martin and Michael Eisenscher in an op-ed today on Common Dreams. "We’ve already been there for eleven years – the longest war in our country’s history. What do we really have to show for it? We’ve spent almost $523 billion. Almost 2000 Americans have been killed and another 15,300 wounded. 1000 NATO troops have lost their lives." Eisenscher is National Coordinator of U.S. Labor Against the War and Martin is the executive director of Peace Action.

Kevin Gosztola is all over the never ending war on terror and how it terrorizes civilians globally.

More Killing in Obama’s ‘War on Terror’ Than Bush’s ‘War’

Heading into November, President Barack Obama has America on a path to further entrenching the perpetual war on “terrorism.” No longer packaged and pushed as the “war on terror,” he has cosmetically retooled how some of the worst Bush administration policies are presented to the public. In many cases, these policies are not publicly described to US citizens at all.

It has special operations forces in at least 75 countries and at least six countries—Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, The Philippines, Somalia, and Yemen—have seen the US launch covert drone strikes within their borders.

Though a violation of sovereignty, John Kerry and other Democrats have bragged and boasted about being willing to carry out operations in Pakistan. They have no problem with the fact that 344 US strikes, 292 of them launched under Obama, have killed 2,500-3,300 people including 400 to 800 civilians. They express no concerns over the reality that over 1200 have been injured by the strikes and that Pakistan greatly opposes US drone strikes.

The neoconservative war doctrine has been modernized and fine-tuned. Unilateral preemptive war is no longer conducted with a large number of forces. Instead, the government under Obama covertly launches operations with forces spread out around the globe. At any time, a small operations squad can be sent in to target and kill or a drone can be launched to extrajudicially assassinate a person.

What happened? Why has the president adopted this same mindset?

When Sens. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Barack Obama met in California for the Jan. 31 debate, their back-and-forth resembled their many previous encounters, with the Democratic presidential hopefuls scrambling for the small policy yardage between them. And then Obama said something about the Iraq War that wasn't incremental at all. "I don't want to just end the war," he said, "but I want to end the mind-set that got us into war in the first place."

I also think Nobel Peace Prize winners shouldn't have a kill list. And seeing the human impact of these drone strikes makes my stomach curl knowing this is done for war contractors who won't even make sure all of Afghanistan have electricity or trash removal; they only care about the no bid contract given to them by the Pentagon while too many Democrats make believe there is any point besides the theft of their natural resources and death for profit.

The Pashtuns dead from drone strikes now have no voice at all. I am appalled so using whatever talents I have, I let it show so more people will know why.

The MIC will take everything and with that everything dies. They took the identity you all displayed in 2004. Did you really mean it when you wanted to end the Bush wars and national security state? I did, and I was only 24. So did a lot of other Democrats appalled by the Bush years and its abuses, but where are they now? Their voices have been drowned out and shouted down.

What we have found from the bluster we hear from DC about this war keeping us safe while taking away our civil liberties for a fake sense of security(Oh and you loyal partisans are lapping it up) is truly a bipartisan nightmare we are all living through. So why do we continue to spend more than all countries combined to destroy lives and life? What are we fighting for? Really? What?

But it's OK if one is a Democrat? We have let our party forget its inner Eugene McCarthy in 1968. That is when we stopped being the war party, for a good while, anyway. That should be remembered and embraced and the Bush years and their destruction can't be swept under the rug so we can look forward.

So codifying those abuses, continuing a never ending global war on terror, and a national security state despite the grim fate of so many, is unacceptable. To accept it, you have to be honest, and say that it's because Democrats are conducting it. However, that would be called inconsistency and dishonesty. Human life depends on the kind of consistency which opposes Bush style wars regardless of what you think of me.

Right now we're not even looking into the present, and we need a wake up call. So that's why I illustrated this visually. This represents the cold sad truth; a truth not really up for discussion in this campaign all but almost over like the lives of too many beautiful souls.

The Democratic Primaries in 2008: Hillary Clinton's Campaign Pt 2

Welcome back. Here is the conclusion of Walt's interview with Hillary Clinton supporters. The archive is to the right in the right panel that pops out, but just in case you can't find it, here is a link to part 1. And now the interview continues.

As you can see, Walt was starting to realize that issues based questions were not going to get very far when it came to Hillary's candidacy which was considered historic by many because of the prospects of being the first woman elected. Of course Carol Moseley Braun ran for President in the Democratic Primary of 2004 which could be considered more historic being both an African American and a woman, but she didn't have the name recognition and support that Hillary Clinton did. Hillary also had the Clinton Democratic machine behind her and much of the mainstream media as I mentioned in my last post. However, the issues like the Iraq War and our health care crisis are what affects the most lives so Walt tried to press on.

It was hard for Walt to believe what he was hearing so he was a little taken back. The aura of Hillary's inevitability was continually touted by the corporate media and as one of the Clinton campaign's main messages it kept coming back. The prospects of electing the first woman as President seemed to trump any mention of the pressing issues that were supposed to be behind this 2008 election. These questions were not verboten in 2006 as they were what allowed Democrats to take over Congress two years ago, but now the symbolic nature of Hillary's candidacy seemed to trump everything else.

This interview was getting intense. It turned out that to some of her supporters Walt Priceman was not merely questioning Hillary's campaign based on the merits, but as an attack on a kind of electoral and symbolic faith.

This interview was overheard by other Hillary Clinton supporters passing by. Their reaction was an extreme one and then things really started to get out of hand. It turned out that the act of merely asking these questions shattered the initial image they have had of the former First Lady and then Senator of NY for years. It was time for this interview to end and for the write up.

So that about sums it up. This interview doesn't apply to all Hillary supporters(some who are my good friends), but it does accurately show my experience in my debates with most of them. Walt Priceman conducted interviews with supporters of each main candidate in the Democratic Primary to ask the tough questions no one else would ask in order to gaze the motivation behind the support of each candidate.

It may be awhile since I had this portion of the series drawn and written already, but in the next chapter Walt Priceman will be conducting another intense interview with the supporters of then Senator, Presidential candidate, and now President Barack Obama. I hope to keep working to keep this series going as sort of my Primary Colors looking back from then to now to see where everything went wrong so we don't blindly support politicians who don't mean what they say or say what they mean. Hopefully more people will be more skeptical of the politicians who don't really care about their interests in a qualitative way in 2016 when the next primary will begin so that is why I think it's worth taking a look back and worth finishing this project.

Thank you for reading, and please share this far and wide.

The Democratic Primaries in 2008: Hillary Clinton's Campaign Pt 1

I'm new at publishing online comics, though I have been drawing comic book related material for most of my life. This story was written during the Democratic Primaries so you will find some familiar material referenced from those days. There are times when I think I should have went to journalism school instead of art school, and I think of this project as a mish mash of the two. My views have changed while staying the same in many aspects since I wrote this. I am considerably more radical and have considerably less faith in the electoral system than when I wrote this.

However, I do think of these days as a sort of coming of age period where I met many of my best friends online. I had never blogged about politics before getting involved in the Democratic Primary. It was a challenge to put myself out there, but from those days to today I have found my political identity; I have shaped my views to a hilt going through what everyone else went through from the wars to the ongoing economic crisis that came to a head in 2008. This is a fictionalized account of real experiences and sometimes real conversations from the Democratic primary in 2007-2008.

I hope you enjoy this look back and can relate. There is more that has to be written and drawn, but I started out with the Hillary Clinton experience in the early stages of the primary. I hope you will follow along and demand I finish this series so I will.

And here is the truth about the dynamics of the 2006 mid-term election victory for Democrats. Rahm Emanuel would have screwed the whole thing up if he got his way like he helped screw the economy up with helping to pass NAFTA and Permanent Normalized Trade Relations with China while working for Bill Clinton. Too bad he kept failing upward to Obama's Chief of Staff and to now being the anti union mayor of Chicago.

And here is where Walt Priceman makes his first stop once the primary is heating up and Hillary Clinton is the front runner. The aura of Hillary Clinton's inevitability professed everywhere by the corporate owned media really rubbed a lot of people the wrong way, especially those that didn't want a political dynasty in the White House. A different narrative was needed.

There were always legitimate questions about the aura of inevitability involved with regard to Hillary's campaign going by the polling and who she hired to run it. All of these things seemed to go by the wayside when Walt questioned the logic behind her support.

Now certainly not all Hillary supporters were this irrational, but a good number of them really couldn't debate the merits of her record(and the reasoning I was given, as you can see, was rather bizarre) or her electability. And so the false accusations of sexism towards reporters like David Sirota and others who asked these questions were used to defend Hillary sadly.

Looking back she probably might have won had she been the nominee(and she would have been had she not have voted for the war), but it would have been close given the horrible advice she was given and inept way her campaign was run. She really had it all and her campaign totally self destructed.

That is all for this post. I'll post the second parts of this interview where Walt grills this Hillary supporter about these said issues regarding Hillary's candidacy next week. Thank you for reading.