I would have voted for Mitt if:
( hell froze overCollapse )

Since my 2008 campaign for the presidency I have often been asked, “How would a constitutionalist president go about dismantling the welfare-warfare state and restoring a constitutional republic?”

This is a very important question, because without a clear road map and set of priorities, such a president runs the risk of having his pro-freedom agenda stymied by the various vested interests that benefit from big government.

Of course, just as the welfare-warfare state was not constructed in 100 days, it could not be dismantled in the first 100 days of any presidency. While our goal is to reduce the size of the state as quickly as possible, we should always make sure our immediate proposals minimize social disruption and human suffering.

Source (indirectly):
http://www.yaliberty.org/yar

I have a thought about Obama and his new move to increase funding for our military engagement in Afghanistan. MoveOn has taken the position that it is "wrong" to escalate the war and that we should keep our money at home and deal with our own crises before spending our wealth across the globe. I happen to agree with this argument, but I also see a possibility that I haven't heard mentioned by either side.

The possibility that I hope for is this: that Obama is not entirely a pawn of the military industrial machine, and that the US approach to military efforts under his administration might be a world apart from what happened under Shrub. In other words, Obama and his clan might just cause some positive change with the funding that he seeks. His military extravagance might set the stage for a whole new political balance in the middle east. His attempts to influence matters diplomatically will be bolstered by a strong and controlled military presence.

So while I have a peacenik predilection, I can imagine that this troop surge could potentially be a completely different endeavor than the last one. Good work could be done through military funding, if the leadership and strategy are brilliant. I like to think that Obama is capable of brilliance in many spheres. Or, to entertain the darker side possibility, Obama may be in the grip of the politico-military-industrial machine and this surge could just be another pilfering of our coffers by Haliburton et al. I don't know, but I still have the audacity to hope.
( Image of Obama with some of the shine rubbed off.Collapse )

A few notorious neocons have created a new organization called The Foreign Policy Initiative. They are promoting US involvement in the world. Spreading freedom. The board: Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan. Far as I can tell these guys are advocating for the military industrial complex and their pocket books.
( we definitely need to keep an eye on themCollapse )

OCO = overseas contingency operations budget = the new way of referring to war spending in the Obama administration. These appropriations are officially in the US budget, and will no longer be slipped in as "emergency spending", as the Shrubbery did throughout their reign. Obama's getting hammered for his big budget but those so-called Republicans (more like fascists in my view) are having a hard time getting honest about how much was spent that was not in the budget in the past.

Political awareness dawns slowly for me. I was not a good student of history in school. I lasted nearly 4 years after the airplanes hit the world trade center before I viewed video of that event. I am like the proverbial ostrich with my head in the sand. But today I came to a new understanding of JFK. He really was working for peace. He was in opposition to the military industrial complex. Eisenhower had recognized and named it, but he did not attempt to restrain it. Kennedy did. And there is no politico-economic force more brutal than that which specializes in death and world domination. Of course he was assassinated. Of course.

JFK had a prayer, borrowed from Abe Lincoln, that he said to himself to maintain calm in the face of incredible pressures for war. The prayer ended with "I am ready"....and it seems he was ready to accept full responsibility for his actions and the retaliation that took his life. No wonder this man is so often referenced by presidents and peace advocates. He lives in our subconscious as a warrior for truth, good and right. And he was martyred. And as for the conspiracy theorists; yes, there must have been a conspiracy. Such actions are rarely random. I don't know the details, but just like 9/11/01, JFK's assassination was intentional and for profit. The stench lingers in the story. The executor of such action is carefully and completely separated from the planners so as to insure "plausible deniabililty", but the link is there, somewhere.

Many thanks to my local radio station, KBOO, for the history lesson, and for the inspiration.