Let's instead look at what, perhaps, They™ would use such sabre-rattling clamor to obfuscate. Reports of true Kafkaesquisity in the ever-growing beurokrautik double-blind farce of the WatchList, which a SlashDot post posits is most probably fueled by datamining. With recent NSA and telecom collusion coming into fine focus, one might argue that this is not so much a lame-duck Presidency as an infant totalitarian dictatorship we here in the US of A have allowed to bloom.
Not this Candidate.
Personally, i've always thought that the NSA had best be wiretapping and the FBI watchlisting and the CIA renditioning and such. I just would have thought these agencies more targetted and adroit at thier game, like they were during the CoIntelPro days. These days their nets are too big, too broad and ill-suited to the tasks. They aren't going to catch any fishies like this, all they're going to do is piss good people off. Or scare them.
This doesn't make it any more palattable. It just makes us a bigger target, which we didn't need help with. We've been, as the Latin Americans who survived our decades of death squads and dictators say, "pinche hue Gringos." What's the gain in this game Cheney and Company are running?
Follow the money. The "left" press is almost there; watch them pull back from it like a slug from salt. It's right under your noses when you sniff at Fox news. It's why we fight in Afganistan, Iraq, and every other Eastern Hemisphere theatre, it's why you were so confused about the voracity with which the shut-down of Lyndon LaRouche was effected.
If you say "oil" i swear to Maa i'll fucking reach through the tubes and smack your dumb asses. I done tol' allz'y'all prior that the USA is not going to get oil from Iraq. That much is obvious, or should be, to anyone with access to the internet who cares enough to look into who owns the damn pipelines. However, follow those pipelines and they'll lead you home.
If you care.
If not, look up. There's a new star in the North Eastern skies.
Since i know some people in New York read this, i thought i'd give a Destination Event Suggestion ~ Form Of: David Rees in Greenpoint for a free engagement at Word Books. Buy a copy of both books, whose royalties go towards landmine removal.
I note that the US is having an unrequited honeymoon with our new nuclear bedfellows in the World's Largest Democacy™, India. Thanks for blue-balling America back to dealing with that clusterbombing hooker in Tel Aviv, Singh.
Fair Friday morning t' ye'all, fellow Citizen Workers. I spent a little time last night between night tremors updating the Operation: Enduring GangRape Player. I even threw in a very touching vid from a soldier of his buddy playing football with some kids in Tukrit (or some backlot in LA, can't recall which). I felt it provided a good countertensioning between the videos on women prisoner treatment and the friendly fire POV snuff. The new opener is "Guernica In Iraq", an AMV from the WarFan communitee.
Renting: It's A War Thang, Baby
code:
RE; FF POV: In all fairness to the US aviator(s) involved in the above archived incident in which a British convoy was introduced to The Lightening Round, the fault clearly lies with C&C. The guy asked his wingman to confirm, and then nagged him to double back on it, then re-confirmed twice with the tower. They twice (at least) erroneously reported no coalition activity or presence in the area, chiming in just after his second run. Sounds to me like he felt it coming and did his best to avoid it; the way he cracks when they describe the "yellow cabs" of the UK armour he had just vapourised smacks of deja vous.
Besides, this is BP's war. Fuck the Redcoats. If they pulled more shifts in the air and drove like White Folks they wouldn't have to duck so much.
I just want to note that if Greenspan is coming out of retirement just to poke strawmen and soundbite about the Iraq Adventure revolving around oil, he's got more free time and less grasp of American industrial economics than i had thought.
If you wanna watch some D Gray, everybody's favorite Akuma-killing, vampire Exorcist hanging-out-with, half-possessed-cyborg toyboy, do so below with haste. These vids get yanked with vengeance by the dark toadies of IP™.
D'Gray's Anatomy code:
Here's some animal planet bullshit.
Mortal Carnivalé code:
Here's a bit of the very glitchy future we're building our selves. L0lz.
A taciturn lecture offered as rejoinder in an ongoing dialogue i'm having with our BeltWay Insider. Our story thus far: i have posited that Capital runs the game, and that political movements are more wagging dog than they are bellwethers for change. Civil rights was proffered as an example of a popular movement that changed policy. I pointed out that the Civil War was fought to that end 100 years prior, and was rebuked by an intriguing rejoinder about the echoes of Abolitionism in the current abortion debate. We'll come back to that. Firstly:
So basically, you are refuting the notion that capital interests rule the policy making process from the top down. Now, this isn't just some hair-brained idea of mine, you know. This is, unfortunately, historical fact.
Let's consider the Abolitionists and the Civil War some more.
The Abolitionist movement (along with early versions of the Temperance and Suffrage movements) grew out of Quaker/Shaker and Baptist churches, and although they were vociferous they were in fact outlawed in the South and only given lip service in the North after the Dred Scott descision struck a chord with folks who otherwise didn't care.
Why did it strike a chord? Because it asserted property rights across state lines, a clear problem for states' rights no matter how you slice it.
This is why it was made an issue. Federalism was not quite codified, and all sorts of concessions were being handed to locality as far as right of way and self-determination were concerned. Although the Federal Government had carefully plotted out territories for slave and free states (indicating it's disregard for the issue) settlers had more than once "jumped claim" and lept upon the territory as if the bank wasn't due payment.
This is one of the real issues: homesteaders got an allotment for a stipend, no more, and the territories were already determined. But the settlers would change rules at whim, the ingrates, as if self-determination were the founding principle of the country. Add to this the Southern Aristocracy's marked difference of opinion on the matter of centrism/Federalism, and you have your issue. What drove the war ideologically was the need to resolve the power of the Federal Government as supreme, once and for all. What enabled it and caused the other shoe to drop was ENCLOSURE. Remember the Cotton Gin? This is a modification of the wool mill used in Britain. No big whoop, despite what you may have heard, and whitney went broke in the 1790's without it really doing much. It was one of the loci of Northern industrial concentration, a process very much like Britain's industrial "revolution." This process requires agrarian aristocracy to migrate off of the land, so the land can be repurposed both in utility and in titlage, allowing the leverage of parcel valuation as Capital. Capital Aristocracy is of course the successor; a class of gentry whose wealth is the dictate by which they rule, separate from the land and it's sullen marginless stasis. The Northern industrial elite already understood this, having direct capital ties to Europe, where the process had already spawned the Enclosures, with ensuing dislocation, famines, Dickensian factories, workhouses and mines and slums of the 17 - 1800's.
Capitaldoes make up the issues. Where else would anyone get the idea that "feeding Africa" is something that can be done from the outside, or indeed that Africa is starving in the first place? Is it famine or enclosure killing people in Darfur? In Ethiopia we hear of famine and draught; yet the largest lake in Africa sits at it's heart, and this is a nation so old it dates to dynastic Egypt. It has irrigation; indeed it has quite a few resources, and is able to invade Somalia regularly. So why can't the ethnic herders get water? Is it perhaps because they can't pay for it?
Westerners are uninformed, naive somehow? I am here to tell you this is not true. We know exactly how evil we are, and we justify it by saying "better them than US" before "accidently" allowing warlords to usurp UNICEF monies. Those Suzuki jeeps don't ship themselves over there from NYC impound lots, it's strickly COD.
/ lecturette.
Extra credit: compare and contrast the states' rights issues involved Slavery vs Abolitionism against those of Pro-Choice vs Pro-Life. Explain how the logical outcome of this wlll be determined by Capital.
"The thing about regret is that it's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't." -Gibby
Shi'ite Persian Props code:
I will never regret running the above playlist as much as i do. It's important to attempt to educate peeps as to the very real differences between places the US/UK/Dutch imperium run game and the places they can't. Persia is in the later catagory. For a very brief time it was under UK/Haj control, ending with a hot-potatoe pass to the US, who quickly ended thier democracy with imposed rule by the Shah.
This did not stand, and will not be allowed to occure again in this millenium. The Islamic Republic of Iran is a first-world superpower, one that successfully repelled 10 years of US-UK backed agression by our thugocratic ally Sadaam. Chemical weapons made by Dutch subsidiaries of Dow-Corning were funnelled to the front lines via Israeli arms merchants, and Iranian guardsmen died by the hundreds on thier own border under clouds of mustard gas. They came back with cameras and gasmasks. In the end, sheer guts and Kolenshikovs won out AGAIN over duplicity, war crimes and misfiring high-tech weapons with US serial numbers. Millions were killed.
Millions, people. That's a magnitude of scaling that you need to keep in your head when considering a possible invasion of Iran. You need to cross-reference it with thier Russian cooperative projects, and realize that this is the re-establishment of an old arraingment that kept the Caspian dynamically self-contained during epochs of external turmoil. It's called mutually benificial trade partnership and defence. The missile systems of the Russian Federation are 21st century refinements of those the Soviets had, which contrary to popular myth were capable of neutralizing any US attack. No, we don't have saucer technology, kids. Know why?
Because flying saucers from alien civilizations have never come to planet Terra.
This is because they don't exist. Oh, don't get me wrong. People have created them, and there very well may be mag-lev flying saucers in hangers at Roswell, but you should try to operate a hovercraft prior to thinking about possible mag-lev saucer action. Traction and drag are much more desirable than one would initially think. So, since that's out, and the Iranian satelite net is up, and our Stealth fleet is a black hole for research money and can be shot out of the sky by Serbs, and even Her Majerstray's Wave-Rulers stop waiving the rules just this side of Iranian territorial waters, what chance do you see our battered and broke military having with a unilateral Blitzkreig on Tehran?
None. The real stumbling block is the Chinese, of course, who have given thier one warning on the subject. Nukes are a no-go against nations bordering the OG superpower and worldwide gunpowder monopoly cartel headquarters, the People's Republic of China.
Target: Syria. I hope i'm wrong, but this looks like a misdirect ahead of a false flag, and the next logical target has ALWAYS been Syria. Israel wants it. Lebanon half-wants it. The Arab world has always wanted it; Syria is the original Semetic nation-state. Jordan just wants the rest of the middle east to STFU, maybe flood? Iraq wants to die in peace, maybe flood. Palestine wants to eat, maybe flood, exist some. Britain has what they wanted; all the oil and none of the security detail, as well as access to the Alaskan fields and proper semi-centenial draining of the US Colonies' Imaginary Treasury Reserves via the auspicious perenial perniciousness of Lord Halifax's Chartered Privateering Company.
Candidate's comment to Popular Mechanics: I think Canada did it to take our attentions away from their assumption of Bechtel's bid-list; and although i would like to believe that Pop Mechanics' armchair CSI is plausible as much as i would the standard Truther™ fable (that Dubya and his Illuminati freinds used alien C4), niether get my timeslice. I require hard lab forensics, and you both have missed the option for an actual inquiry by years.
All the evidence is gone.
So, only speculative sleuthing is left.
Start with motive. I'd put Kaliph S Moha' as prime suspect at this point; he's the one with a stated threat AND a prior attempt. 9-11 would have been a successful life's work for him. However, his cabal wasn't particularly good at IT (International Terrorism), being moled out in the 90's; he's no Jackal.
Ideologues are the exception among criminal masterminds, though. Most are just greedy. Thus the next most likely suspect is a profile familiar in New York; an inspecific slumlord, one who has a partner who's into development and another in demolitions, maybe another in industrial scrap. Remember, the bullion in the basements was moved out too. Next would be Haliburton, for real; even a 5th grader could see by the time tower 2 came down that we were going to war with Iraq, and that meant a cash payoff for our usual suspects in war profiteering.
I'm sure a couple more cabals could be reasonably suspected prior to adding our Sunni allies in Afganistan to the list of criminally motivated, and without a money trail i really don't see them motivated enough to spend as much as was required to train, inject and house the agents here who pulled it off.
First, follow the money. Who benifits? The benificiary or Bin Laden? How much cash is being/has been spread around as opposed to lump-sum dropped on particular companies involved in the properties affected?
I mean, IF you want to get at an answer. If you just want to bitch about a bitch's demand for a real investigation and give the rest of us no real meat from EITHER camp, do by all means keep playing the 9-11 Truth™ Game with the conspiracy crowd.
I know I sure love it. It's refreshing to have so many people in the country around me dance around the real issues and throw shit at each other.
No wonder we still have the electoral college embarassment...
/C_j's comment
Oh, do let's all jump on the lesbian for actually talking about a politically pertainant issue.
The Dems will put a woman or a black up. This will give you a Republican president in 2008, even if the popular vote disagrees. Congress will allow Dubya's agenda to play out, since that's what Congress does is facilitate the ruling cabal's agenda.
TheirTube contact and Cj_08 alias BobForehead (aka yours truly) notices the absence of a long-time subscription, Halifaxion, thanks commentary on a vid posted fromorangefu. Halifaxion, aka belowgroundsurface, is/was a Truther Extreme; a devotee to the myth of 9-11 as he sees/saw it. This is most probably why i didn't note his passing, since i didn't even have a 9-11 playlist per-se until i created the above Memorial.
Contained in this irreverent but sincere memorial to a seemingly dissapeared prophile are a number of invective attacks by battim, who seems to have cool tattoos but whom supports Chomsky and so should also be ridiculed some.
{Just because Chomsky and i share the shellshocked side of the Palestinian situation doesn't mean he's not a gatekeeper. He sets the tone for US Leftism™, which he purposefully keeps in the intellectual sphere; his prescription is inaction and a suscription to Utne Reader. Both are wrong.}
When i was but a wee-rabble rouser i latched onto the fact that certain powerful circles of money and influence overlapped and daisychained a poisonous ring-around-the-rosey that spanned centuries and spawned death, inequality and injustice of the meanest varieties. By the time i was a university Junior i had given up the ease of nebulous conspiracies and found a common seed-germ for this System of syndicates within our Systems, the nexus with name.
Banking. In specific, Llyodd's of London and it's unnamable syndicate of silent partners. The Dutch West India Company and it's British counterpart are the most obvious transnationals of the former class. Note that both of these corporations outlive thier charters and are dissolved under Chapter 11-ish circumstances.
This is the way corporations have always been subsumed back into the fabrice of the aristocracy who hold controlling shares. Regardez vous Haliburton's recent dissolution of KBR.
The conspiracy is real; but it doesn't lie in an Illuminatti plot by aliens to turn us all into Verichipped solent green. Yes, there are times when the families who currently hold the ball(s) work in concert to devastation effect: The European Enclosure and more notably the creation of fascist regimes during interwar 20th century's socialist awakening. Enabling Franco and Hitler to stop workers from transforming Europe into the jewel Internacional was sick, petty, wasteful, shortsighted, dull and inhumane to the point of sociopathy. Personally i'd wager that Lenin had the backing of the Monarchist-Capitalists as well, since he hadn't read Marx well enough to know that a socialism needs a democratic footing in a fully industrialized economy. His Bolshevik bullshit has fucked socialists for a good 100 years by association. However, this latter add-on of mine has one tiny flaw.
It's not a matter of public record, unlike Britain and the United States' funnelling of cash to the proto-Reich to thwart trade-union socialism.
As soon as Hitler became an issue we can see where the global conspiracy looses it's giest, becoming a phantom of itself. Britain had to wait for the US aristocracy to want war bad enough to allow Pearl Harbor for us to STOP aiding and abbetting the Third Reich. We kept cranking those Krupverks Special Orders out of New Jersey full knowing they were sinking allied ships under Her Majesty's flag in the North Sea until we were actually served papers by the German Embassy.
Hell, Prescott Bush kept trading with Der Fuehrer until injunctions were served on the companies of his that were involved. War profitteers are fey to close up shop when a war is on; it's like being a chimneysweep who takes fall and winter off. Even a commie like me understands that.
So the unity of purpose that kept the Czar propped up longer than healthy kept pressing the "react" button like a junkie on a morphine drip, fomenting the sickest kind of nationalist ethnic zenophobia-as-political-agenda across Europe, schisming the lowest 2/3 of the population against itself in an effort to prevent a people's movement.
This is what the Atlantic Cabal does. This is what we're doing in the mid-east, the US and Britain, protecting Dutch and British investments in the area by attempting to keep the Ottoman Schism of Persia and the Arab Schism of themselves from unifying (again). We are in Iraq, the poorest country resource-wise per acre in the area, NOT to gain resources. Again, the conspiracy Doppler shifts itself into a ghost of a shadow; we see only war profiteers and thier money-men making good on this. The Bush family is once again aiding and abetting, but not in a profitable way. Former British holding Haliburton has used the past 6 years to complete it's metamorphosis into a full transnationalist, now free to settle where it's own cabal can enjoy fewer taxes. Shell oil has benifitted along with thier Dutch owners, and British Petroleum has managed to sink it's teeth into the Alaskan Reserve while we puzzled at losing control of two (2) major pipelines (Alaska and our Unical Miracle pipe from Uzbek to Turkey).
Follow the money and see how these sometimes collaborative cartels and cabals are NOT a unified Illuminati, even if they do all go to Ivy League schools to polish thier inhumanity off with law degrees. They were, at one point, all Masons, too. So's my dad. So's my uncle.
My father and namesake uncle are NOT two men to have in the same room at the same time. They are NOT a unified Brotherhood. My uncle was/is a few ranks below my dad, but his business inclinations allowed him to no doubt make better use of the network the Masons had to offer; he retired early, a millionaire.
My dad, whom i take after, is either dead or still working and living hand to mouth, working class style: because that is what we workers do.
Unless you've got a healthy coat of the Lazies like me, they'll work you to death, Mason or no. Why? Because it's money that is the main-god, the mantra, the whip that drives the future.
See, there IS no Lucifer or YHWH or Allah or Maha Devi Kali Maa (Jai Jai, i kid) or Gray aliens or Mayan Ant-Serpent-Fairies or what the fuck EVER you think it is that They™ are in cohoots with in order to gain control of your precious pink panties. Turns out that the rich just do it for the money, and that they already have your pink panties because you're so busy being lazy and blaming the Illuminati/Islamofascists/your parents that you traded them away a long time ago.
You support Them™ with every purchase. You know this; why do you litterally buy into it?
Labor Value code:
So there's that.
Then there's why i felt the need to get up-ons Against Conspiracies. Turn that gun on myse'f, half-cocked. Let's talk of disappearances, half-truths and outright lies; govenment projects and tripping over the outline on the doorstoop.
I've been dredging NASA/JPL for audio files again.
Granted, the space agencies have MASSIVE amounts of data to host on limited server space. So i don't expect all three hours of any given auroral event, or the complete Mars Mike hash. (the first Mars Mike was lost, second got funding whacked, so that's a bad example-i just like the project's name) However, when they pull files that are only 1 meg at most, i wonder. When it happens again and again, and certain types of data are pulled, i start digging.
Orbiter Gravity - Radio Saturn
New Moons for Saturn - Voyager Hits Termination Shock
The goal is to find all of the files involvingVoyager hitting the heliopause. The originally released one is gone; i have a copy if anyone wants to hear the Space Frogs.
BTW, i'm not sure what NASA and the EAU are hiding by dissapearing the files that they do, but i have a theory. It's not UFO's.
Alright, get serious. Show some damn respect for the only other sane activist in Amerikkkuh.
The Ba'ath Party was built on the misuse of the words and dreams of one Michel Aflaq, a Syrian-born Greek Orthodox scholar and Pan-Arab populist. Having fled his beloved Syria when that country's co-opted Baath Party led to the current dictatorial dynasty, he was heralded in his new home of Iraq as proof that Sadaam's Ba'athists were The One True Party™.
Sadaam: one of our more killingest patsies!
Web of Deciet code:
Mssr. Aflaq's protestations were not broadcast, but he was allowed to live out his remaining years, trying to get Arabs from all nations to work together for the greater glory of Arabism and championing free speach and human rights.
His failure is notable because of its bitter paradox as well as his unsinkably good nature.
Observez vous, si vous plait - the Ba'athist Palestinian/Kuwaiti flag flying over the school at the begining of the following cartoon.
Block 13
متنزهة جنوبيّة
code:
We have no subs yet. Srry. I still laugh though; they're visually off the hook, chain and meter. My current theory is that it's set in one of the migrant worker "towns" set up in the OTHER Palestinian Apartied system by the Saudi Arabians and Emerites. These nasty little company towns were the model for KBR (Halliburton) when building the Green Fortress in Baghdad. Seperate but not-equal is the rule for the disenfranchised workers of the world. The Ba'athist references obvious in the Teacher's character and the fact of Kenny's headwrap have more sting if i'm on the right track here...
(Nase! Help a brotha out, G! I KNOW you know some folks who sprakenzei Arabic...it's for world peace, dammit!)
Speaking of thangs Iraqui and American Monolingual Handicapability, some fresh vids have been added to the cornocopia of insanity that is:
Renting: A War Joint
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Additions include an American GI parotting Iraqui (looks like someone's being tricked into saying something they probably wish wasn't on YouTube), a couple of n00b IED strikes, and an IED/VBIED training demo from the Insurgents' SoCOM video game.
The first rule of the Selective Source-Openning Process is that it is a stone-cold groove.
Uzumaki
Naruto Shippuuden code:
The second rule of the Selective Source-Openning Process is do not use an acronym for the Selective Source-Openning Process when talking about the Selective Source-Openning Process.
متنزهة جنوبيّة code:
There are no other rules about the Selective Source-Openning Process.
Secrets are stupid. The selfish motive behind the idea of secrecy itself is anti-productive. Not merely aproductive, but aggresivly anti-devlopement. It serves no one's interest but criminals of the lowest order. I do many illegal things, i don't keep them a secret; because they really ARE victimless, no-one complains or even notices.
I steal, but i'm not a thief like Dick Cheney.
Or Sony-BMG. The idea that one can own an idea is stupid, like many of the accepted canonnical incongruencies which form the lexicon of oligopsony capitalism. Intellectual property corporations leverage thier market control against artists and consumers, forcing both to accept copyright laws written to benifit thier interests, not the artists. Piracy is liberation; it's not a game. It's not a free lunch. It's the Selective Source-Openning Process.
I guess nobody else has noticed the IDF incursion in Nablus. Israel has been wrecking the West Bank city for the past 4 days, since the Palestinian infighting came to a screeching halt in Mecca last week. I'm not implying that the two are related.
The Electronic Intifada is one of my fave feeds; they never fail in depressing the shit out of me with some YHWH-forsaken tale of inhumanity. The Palestinian people have nothing to lose by risking life and limb to get word out about what goes on behind the Wall Of Shame, since they're all targeted for genocide anyway.
It's Treblenka in slow-motion, going strong since 1948. Israel's anti-Semitism knows no bounds.
So i made it up to myself by adding some new fun facts & DIY to the Functional Intructional playlist, including an intro to circuit bending.
Functional Instructitainmentismae code:
Also, regardez vous si vous plais, important new additions to the Renting In Iraq saga, most probably with a shelf-life. Notably probably effemeral are the CNN Al-Quiada funding story and the "leaked" footage of a US fighter striking British troops.
Aluminium Azrael
Renting: A War Joint code:
I added a short clip depicting a British Tornado fighter-bomber striking an Iraqi position. Here's the frame of interest.
HMMMMMMM.
I just assumed it was a laser-guided bomb, until i noticed another user had uploaded it with a title asking, "Is this a laser?" I watched that one, and thought that it had been altered. Then i watched this one again, which doesn't make mention of laser guidance or much of anything.
According to Wikipedia, which i'll admit is NOT Jane's, the Tornado carries Paveway laser-guided bombs, which are all unpowered, meaning no contrail. So....w/e. I don't think we're at laser stage yet for actual weaponry, although we're close.
Man, we suck. No wonder you chickenshits don't trust yourselves with direct democracy. I have bad news, though: your current ruling elite is rich, and the rich HATE YOU.
in response to CJ's comment on "Cheney as Lepidus"
It seems that there were three freedmen, and one senator that Claudius employed to manage the most important aspects of his reign, of these only Pallas, his finance minister was recorded as a confidant of Nero through his alignment with Agrappina (mother of Nero), and according to some sources was directly involved in the supposed poisoning of Claudius and rumored to be having an affair with emporor's wife, and so would have been a sort of unofficial regent at at the beginning of Nero's reign, helping significantly with his transition to power.
Not only did he have an intimate familiarity with the institutions, procedures, and players of Claudius' administration, Pallas happened to be finance minister. That fact alone brings Cheney to mind as both maintain(ed) close ties to government and the private sector using each to suppliment the other's benefits. His rumored association with Nero's mother and the murder of Claudius (if true) would have helped to insure his safety through the changing of the guard. His death most probably coincided with the execution of Agrappina, or arranged for by Agrappina herself once Nero was effectively placed on the throne.
Polybius is also a good candidate as he was rather benign pollitically despite his imperative to arrange administrative appointments. He would have also had a good working knowledge of Claudius' government in a practical sense and a great deal of influence by the very nature of his work, mingling with the powerful and arranging their appointments to government positions. That certainly makes him comparible to Cheney by way of being well connected, valuable as a governement "insider", and most likely extremely wealthy through the patronage of his appointees.
I think, though I can not verify it, that Narccisus was killed shortly after Claudius' death, by order of Nero. He had been Claudius' minister of letters, and thus knowing all of the emporor's secrets would have been a great danger to Nero so his death makes sense. Having been a great ally of Claudius, most notably in putting down the coup of Messalina in 48BC this is probably not who you mean.
There is also the older Vitallus, father of the future Emporor and a notable Senator. There are no references to him that I can find during Nero's reign. He also makes an unlikely imperial insider given his position in the senate which had become ever more removed from the palace's machinations of power, not to mention that his very appointment to the senate had been arranged by Claudius.
Anyone else appearing as important to both Nero and Claudius was eventually killed or exiled by the end of Nero's reign.
I'm not going to pretend that I pay enough attention to anything that's going on in Washington to make a serious claim as to the figure driving the Cheney Vice Presidency or his business practices. That said, I am not oblivious to the practices of government and warfare, or to the lessons of history.
So, my assessment would be that Cheney is no more than a modern "safe pair of hands", the third Triumvir without the love of the people, or the ambition to be a real threat to the powers that be. Assuming as we only can these days, that there must be a third entity pulling the strings of administration, because it has become increasingly evident that Bush has neither the skills, nor the intelligence to stand alongside Caesar, or even Mark Antony (as has been suggested). And as has been pointed out, Cheney could have made more money so perhaps he doesn't have the brains he has been credited with either. In all likelihood both he and Bush will be lucky to hold rank next to Russia's Nicholas III when the history books are finally written.
On the other hand, that third entity if it does exist, is probably not very smart either.
Unless of course the whole point is to destabilize the Middle East (among other regions) in the hopes of killing off 2 to 4 billion people, and in doing so solving the problems of over population, global warming, and our dependency on foreign oil all in one fell swoop. Then of course, with our republic in it's final death throws, Bush and Cheney would make convenient scapegoats for explaining to the nearly comatose populace why democracy failed, and hegemony will usher in a new golden age fulfilling the west's manifest destiny to rule the planet.
Pre-Querry: I wrote someone, i was all, like: "Hey, saw your comment in Gen Clark's blog, and just have to give props to you for being one of the few Citizens who can still follow the $. Here's a serious question (i am being sincere in the above statement, mind you, so look at this as a desparate cry for help; ie, lie if you don't know the answer, plz):
Who is Cheney's Boss? It doesn't seem like the guy's gotten particularly rich, or that $ motivates him, personally. I always have gotten the impression that he is very close to the "inner circle", along with Caspar and Henry and the rest of the Plummers, and he has definately made money for war profiteers hand over fist in his long and disgusting career. However, his own books are pretty sparse, not clean, mind you; just not as bling as one would imagine. He's the only Haliburton board member to not make a 500 percent margin on his latest handworks, you know? He works for another, or for another reason. He's a lawyer shooting bulldog, but for who?
Vote Citizen j in 2008, BTW. "
Dunno if they'll answer, so if anyone could, i'd totally appreciate it. I've been trying to figure it since Bush 1, and even the SourceWatch folk can't really help. - Cj_08
In retrospect, i should have said "whom". For Whom Doth Dick Pillage All, Always, Anon? Is Halliburton a domestic parent or something...else?
"In 1914, native Texan Herman Brown was given eighteen mules in lieu of back wages for construction work done in his hometown of Belton, which he used to enter the construction business on his own. In 1919 his brother-in-law, Dan Root, advanced him money for working capital, and the company was named Brown and Root, Incorporated. In 1922 Herman's younger brother, George Rufus Brown, joined the firm. Dan Root, a prosperous Central Texas cotton farmer, died in 1929. The paving of dirt roads and building of steel bridges for municipal and county governments in Central Texas led the firm to a successful joint bid in 1936 to construct the Marshall Ford Dam (now Mansfield Dam) on the Colorado River. A 1940 contract to construct the Corpus Christi Naval Air Station was the first of their big federal war projects. The brothers formed the Brown Shipbuilding Company in 1942 and constructed more than 350 vessels for the navy. The shipyard had a labor force of 25,000 and won the Army-Navy E and a presidential citation."
Read Democracy Now!'s Josh Wolf Interview, and then wonder why this is even a story. Dude's witholding evidence from a grand jury. Sorry, Josh, you're part of the problem. That's why you're still in jail.
