"Vietnam is on the move, see the transformation"

This is the caption from an advertisement by the World Bank. Words are a funny thing. Of course it helps to understand what the World Bank does to realize just how funny words can be. The World Bank is an aggregation of funds accrued like subscription fees from the industrial nations of the World, but most of the money is from the United States, Britain, and Germany. The bank is meant to offer high risk loans to "developing" "third world" nations, but in reality the bank functions by offering cheap loans to connected businesses that help finance the corporate takeover of the vast jobless poor nations of the world.

Vietnam is one of these poor nations. Remember that was the country where the United States creatively used that good ole American know-how to bomb the small coastal nation into the Stone Age. Could it be that the constant warfare between 1950-1975 hurt the long-term economy?

The Corporations that own the factories and the distribution networks have been doing a lot of moving around over the last 40 years. Corporations have closed up factories and moved to lower wage, lower cost regions of the world where the governments are more easily corrupted so they can save money. This is the real reason for the stock market booms of the 80's and 90's. The large financial players that finance and oversee this movement have been squeezing out the difference, resulting in larger dividends for the investing classes. While the median income of the lower 99.5% of the population (anyone who makes less than $500,000) has remained flat at $35,000 for the last 40 years, the median income of the upper 0.5% (those who have more than $500,000) increased 10 times !!!!

The median, by the way, is not the same statistic as the average. The median is the data item that is exactly in the middle of an ordered stack of data arranged from lowest to highest. Half of the population are below the median; half are above. This is a more meaningful statistic because the average gives you no sense of how the data is spread out or distributed. ( Example: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 +2 + 24 divided by 8 = 32 divided by 8 = 4, whereas the median is 1.) The median income of an increasing population can also remain the same even while the number of data items increases -- which is what has happened to the lower 99.5% over the last 40 years (the average, on the other hand, will always increase or decrease depending on the sum totals because since you divide by an increased number of data items, the denominator is different. Example: add another 1 to the above data. The median is still one, but the average is now 33 divided by 9 = 3.666666...) Likewise, the median income for the upper 0.5% could have only increased 10 times ( as in 1 million to 10 million) if the upper half experiences a gigantic boost in income.

Example: Think of the number you would now have to add to our data in order to make the average 10 times bigger. This would be 36.666, and we have to solve X + 33 divided by 10 = 36.666. Multiply 10, and this is X + 33 = 366.666. You would have to add 333.66 which is MORE THAN 10 TIMES the next largest data item of 25.

1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 +1 + 2 + 24 + 333.66 is a microcosm of the income distribution of the United States today. Which number do you think the politicians listen to?

The impoverished nations that receive the new factories, offices (telphone clerks from India), and warehouses are said to have "benefited" from this "transformation." Without a doubt, having a steady income is better than being poor, but the way in which the benefit occurs is like giving a dying patient morphine instead of a cure. When a factory leaves and demolishes a community's economy, the new location is a boon to another community, but the net transfer is not an even swap because the financiers are milking the difference in costs instead of turning it over to the new community.

These costs are also said to pass on to the (beloved) customers, but even this has been shown by the economic data to be false. When Nike moved its sneaker factories to Vietnam and reduced it's labor and operational costs by 50%, the price of the sneakers at a shoe store in the United States didn't drop. In fact the price has gone up over the years, even though the labor and operational costs remain flat. Where do you think the money these companies pay for advertising comes from?

The transformation goes something like this analogy, using money in a box to represent the business. Suppose there are 4 persons, each representing the four nations where a corporation has moved over the last 40 years. Call them USA, Mexico, China, and Vietnam.

At first the box has $100 in it. This money represents all of the revenue used by the business, to pay wages and expenses, and to flow through the local economies where the business is located. Now when this box moves to Mexico, the owners take out $30 for themselves and leave only $70 in the box. Then the box moves to China, and the owners take out another $30, leaving only $40 in the box, which just so happens to be enough money to pay the wages and expenses for the business in China. When the box finally moves to Vietnam, the owners take out $10, and there is only $30 in the box.

Where did the $70 go? It went through the filters of the financial system because the prices in the USA did not all drop by 70% by the time the box got to Vietnam. This is what Walmart shoppers need to understand, where the prices are supposed to be "so low" because of the low cost, low wage imports. The reality is however, that if the goods sold at Walmart were all from the United States, the price MIGHT be only a dollar more, because the corporations don't pass the savings on to the customers.

This thing called "free trade" and "globalism" is nothing but a swindle.

But now Vietnam is "on the move." You see, the people used to sit around and do nothing. Now, they are walking around and moving. Glorious days are ahead.

I forgot who that person was
the individual cast against the walls of the skull
the caricature of selfdom
and the opened luggage besides
with unwashed socks piled randomly
upon the tossled blue jeans and flannel shirts
and the scattered papers wherein lie the sketched imprints of the real
that flows endlessly
and yet
is said to cease
at some point called death in the future
rather than a mirror to another domain
that is leaped through like entering the surface of the water
into the world beyond
where time slows way down
and sentences take half an eon to speak
like an evolutionary process
eclipsing the history
we become forgetful.

On January 17, 1961, 3 days before he stepped down as President, Dwight Eisenhower gave a farewell address where he warned about the rise of military contracts and military contractors. And he would know because he presided over the presidency at the time of the CIA's nascent overseas black operations, and when the first groups of US advisors and forces began to show up in Vietnam.

Yet it was Eisenhower who squelched the idea of dropping an Atomic Bomb during the 1954 French military defeat at Diem Bien Phu. It was Eisenhower who managed a successful de-escalation and troop withdrawal from Korea.

He was the Commander in Chief during World War Two AND also President from 1952 to 1960. He was in a position to know what he is talking about.

A vital element in keeping the peace is our military establishment. Our arms must be mighty, ready for instant action, so that no potential aggressor may be tempted to risk his own destruction.

Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime, or indeed by the fighting men of World War II or Korea.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions. Added to this, three and a half million men and women are directly engaged in the defense establishment. We annually spend on military security more than the net income of all United States corporations.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence -- economic, political, even spiritual -- is felt in every city, every State house, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the militaryindustrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

You can get the entire farewell speech here or here for a more readable format.

Little known is a 1953 Presidential speech by President Eisenhower where he castigated the "war machine" and laid out his reasons for pursuing peace. Mind you, the Dulles brothers were orchestrating international escapades in Iran, Iraq, Indonesia, and Central America at the time, but Eisenhower was independent of those intrigues, and discovered them towards the end of his Presidency. Nixon discovered them too -- Nixon was Eisenhower's Vice President -- and was in the middle of the Bay of Pigs development in 1961 when Eisenhower gave his farewell address above. Nixon's connections with the mob are documented. and given that Nixon was also involved with the Cuba-Bay-of-Pigs cabal that is known to have resulted in Kennedy's assassination, one has to wonder just how deeply involved Nixon really was. Recall that Nixon barely lost to Kennedy in 1960.

Oh but I digress, the history is too intricate to ignore.

Anyway, here is what Eisenhower said in his 1953 speech. Click here for the entire speech.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.

This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals.

It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

-- From Address by President Dwight D. Eisenhower "The Chance for Peace" delivered before the American Society of Newspaper Editors, April 16,1953.

Thom Hartmann (a Radio talk show host) talked about two interesting matters involving politics, science, nature and religion today. He talked about how intelligent design is really a religious belief, and the Theory of Evolution is a scientific fact based upon observable effects and predicable experimentation. Mutations and changes in the Earth's environment are cataclysmic events that result in some species being better adept to live by exploiting some available resource or method of obtaining such resource. Animals that specialized a method of eating and having off-spring have an very advantageous ability to live. However, when the environment or eco-system changes and these specialized methods are no longer effective, the species who cannot adapt die off.

Thusly, if we humans cannot change our methods of energy production we will destroy our ability to live here on Earth and die off, like the Dinosaurs before.

The beliefs called Intelligent design consist of the idea that some superior man-like being "intelligentally" watches over all events big and small, ascribing to all of the multitude of molecules, sub-atomic particles, planets, universes, and living things his very astute eye. The father with a thick grey beard -- or the loving earth mother -- watches over his many flocks, rewarding and punishing them, or pushing a little here, pulling back a little there, all day and night, 24-7. In short, God is a control freak that has his hand in everything that goes on for a higher "intelligent" purpose.

It must be remember firmly by all who have personal religious "spiritual" beliefs (like myself, and everyone else) that this "God" and the actions of "God" get interpreted by human beings. People who go around saying that "God" has spoken to them are viewed with suspicion for a reason. Why would "God" speak to some persons, but not everyone anyway; or if "God" does speak to everyone by actions, the interpretation or ramification of these actions and events still must come through mankind. These spokespersons for the Lord, or "prophets," are not always considered such by their contemporaries, and are only named "Prophets" after they are dead and history views them with better perspective. These "prophets" are also equated with social upheaval and political events that are rooted in a community of ideas and common issues. In short, religious faith and spiritual beliefs cannot be separate from the human society in which they evolve because their is no way to separate the actual God from the interpretations of men.

We cannot know what God's intentions are really. Certainly the course of action that is most beneficial to everyone would be the best action to take, but we modern-day persons assume an infinite wisdom and ageless perspective. The Gods of the ancients, and even some Christian religious sects, were jealous, whimsical, and wrathful beings. We humans cannot ever completely understand the workings of the Universe, and are only better equiped by the advanced technology of our machines. We analyze actions and reactions scientifically and observe phenomenom that we try to explain, with models that are usually better, but not anymore adequate to a complete understanding. However, to say that God is what lives in the vacant spaces of scientific knowledge is a very limited narrow-minded view of spirituality.

The belief that all things must happen for a purpose does not have to interfere with the scientific method. Nor does the scientific method obliterate the purpose of God and spirituality. Knowledge and understanding are intrinsic parts of spiritual awareness, and spirituality is not separate from the human culture and society from which it comes -- which is why there are and have been millions of religions across the world throughout the history of mankind.

What we have here is a political movement that is trying to foist confusion upon the ignorant masses who consider themselves religious folk. Lacking scientific knowledge these people are vulnerable to this foolishness because they don't have the knowledge to understand evolution, and thus can be persuaded to view evolution as something that is anti-religious and hedonistic. This is yet another battle in the age-old fight of "Faith" versus "Reason" by organized religion upon the universities, or the Protestants upon the Catholic monopoly in Europe, or the mandarins versus the clerics in China and the ancient world. Or in modern day language: obeying the hierarchy of officialdom versus thinking for yourself and being allowed to see the documents or here the ideas upon which all official decisions a based.

They can't let go of the plan. Those 14 permanent military bases were meant to be the beginning of an invasion of Syria and then Iran. This is why Bush and the gang listen to no one. They are driven by their messianic conviction of the grand plan.

And today, in the San Francisco Comical (disgrace of a newspaper) all you got was a sloppy story about Bush's intentions to increase troops -- buttressed no less with the hack words of American Enterprise Institute, in the 4th paragraph. AEI is a lobbyist mill that is literally funded by a handfull of large corporate slush funds and a few paranoid multi-billionaires in order to sway public opinion by legitimizing untenable policy positions. Anything anyone quotes from "AEI" has no merit, unless the purpose is to create nuanced versions of news that informs the reader very little even though there are plenty of quotes.

And on page 12, the cut page of the story, at the top there is a photo. A good looking young marine kneeling down at the coffin of his boyhood friend.

What a pathetic appeal to maudlin patriotism. Do our boys a real service and tell the truth, instead of pasting together the scripted sound bytes of 3 or 4 public relations campaigns and the occasional edited quote of some chosen representative of the opposite opinion.

Bush has fired and replaced all the generals who don't tell him what he wants to hear. The pundits on the television said this action was like Lincoln who kept firing generals until he got a general who would successfully pursue the victory of the Union over the Confederacy. But exactly how is the American Civil War akin to an invasion of a foreign land and the defense of the 14 military bases from a native insurgency in the midst of a sectarian civil war.

The action of Bush firing his generals is more synonymous to Louis the Fourteenth firing his generals in the wake of the disaster of the war of Spanish Succession after France invaded Spain to secure the Spain crown, only to discover that the native resistance was cutting his troops to pieces, and that he couldn't fight a multi-front global war -- the American colonies and Spanish new world forces were indeed involved in this global war.

And did you see the tear drop on Georgie boy's eye that the chronicle offered. The subliminal message : Bush cares. Bull. Shit.

For instance: When has the damn Chronicle said or reported anything about :

1. The 14 permanent military bases
2. How local SF firm Bechtel skimmed government profits
3. Who funds Governor Schwartzeneger (as in 1 million dollars from Chevron)
4. Anything negative about silly smiley do-nothing photo-op mayor Gavin Newsom
5. A story about the Bermuda Tax Havens used by more than 16,000 US businesses to avoid paying taxes
6. How about the Centco British commander of Afghanistan who said in December that a disaster is imminent within 6 months?

Nothing. Instead, Bush is put into the frame of a man who cares, who makes thoughtful decisions, and admits to mistakes ... rather than a lying political operator whose purpose is to conceal the vile destructive corruption of the federal government and the militarization of all foreign policy.

We are animals,
congealed molecules of life's plasma
that slither over the sculptured crevasses we call our world.

Satisfied with nothing,
we take pleasure like claiming luggage at the airport
knowing what is inside the suitcase
while hastily pacing to the taxicab waiting area outside the terminal.

I often engage in blog commentary with a few political blogs. I suppose I'm something of a political junkie. It is an extension of my thirst for knowledge. I just have to know. I've always been this way.

Anyway, I made this fly-by statement in an evisceration of a troll who hangs out and makes stupid statements.

I only believe what is true. I can always prove that what I believe is true. If I am not sure about something, I will say so. If I am speculating (watch out, big word) I will say so.

And most importantly, on the odd occasion when I am wrong (it does happen) I will admit I am wrong, because the truth might be hard to accept, but it is far better to accept the truth than to lie to yourself and live in morbid denial of what is inescapably true.

The pursuit of truth and knowledge is neverending. We are on this Earth to achieve time to learn and understand, keeping the mantle of humanity burning. There is and never will become a point at which you can finally stop and say that you have achieved complete understanding. A so-called "expert" is really only a person who knows more than almost everyone else, or (in the case of math or sciences) makes the least amount of mistakes. Keep in mind that some people are amazingly encyclopedic in one or a few areas, but have scant details about much else.

It is impossible to learn everything, but you must still try.

1. Salvadore Allende
2. School of the Americas ties with Pinochet
3. more of the same
4. School of the Americas
5. A timeline of the Chilean coup d'etat

Chile is a long, thin country on the West side of the South American Andes mountains. It rises up more than half of the North-south distance of South America, and is actually the nation with the largest North-south distance in the world. Notice how the top of Chile is above Paraguay and Argentina.

This is from thinkprogress.org, a site you must visit EVERYDAY. -----

In a new interview posted on Townhall.com, conservative columnist Cal Thomas asks outgoing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, “With what you know now, what might you have done differently in Iraq?” Rumsfeld offers a remarkable response:

I don’t think I would have called it the war on terror. I don’t mean to be critical of those who have. Certainly, I have used the phrase frequently. Why do I say that? Because the word ‘war’ conjures up World War II more than it does the Cold War. It creates a level of expectation of victory and an ending within 30 or 60 minutes of a soap opera. It isn’t going to happen that way. Furthermore, it is not a ‘war on terror.’ Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control.

Leaving aside the fact that Rumsfeld himself used the phrase "war on terror" a number of times (follow the link): remember, these people describe themselves everytime they describe the "enemy."

Here is the poignant quote : "Terror is a weapon of choice for extremists who are trying to destabilize regimes and (through) a small group of clerics, impose their dark vision on all the people they can control."

Ah ha. The corporate fascist clique uses false flag operations as a "weapon of choice" in order to "destabilize" the democracy of the United States, all of this done by the "small group" of neo-con "clerics" who impose their strategic plans "on all the people they can control."

Amazing. Isn't it.

Read Wayne Madsen in the blog list on the right side. He is an ex-Naval Officer ex-NSA government bureaucrat who blew the whistle on the Navy's colussion with the NSA via spy ships back in the early 1980's. When you have to read this site, you have to keep in mind that this is a government insider with contacts inside the government. He should be considered the honest version of the report.