So, apparently, Obama gave a speech the other day about Afghanistan. Mind you, I haven’t watched a single Obama speech ever since the ’04 Democratic Convention keynote and the Inauguration. That was pretty much all I could stand; since then, about all I could handle was the occasional video clip on TV, or the transcripts posted on the Web. From all accounts, it was classic Obama, a rehash of the Iraq “withdrawal” announcement: out of all the clips and reports I saw, two “money quotes” really stuck in my craw, and one of them was that “the tide of war is receding” — and just in time for next year’s election. Who’da thunk it?

It’s reported that our Boy Emperor is bringing home the troops he sent when he first escalated the slaughter in Afghanistan, leaving 70,000 still there, plus leaving himself an out — of course! — allowing him to stick around if things aren’t working out for the Empire. All told, this “withdrawal” means a continuation of the war until at least 2014 — conveniently, a year into the incoming GOP administration, at which point the Liberals and Progressives will have miraculously rediscovered their anti-war voices and be cynically filling the streets again.

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Welcome, folks, to Day One of Obama’s second term.

Well, hot damn, America, you finally got Bin Laden. So… how many innocents did you have to slaughter, maim, torture and unjustly imprison; how many of your own citizens were stripped of their basic liberties, their privacy and their dignity; how many inconvenient truths did you have to suppress to accomplish the symbolic goal of nailing Osama Bin Laden?

Then again, what the hell; in the end, it was all OK for people like Bush, Cheney, Obama, Clinton, Yoo, Holder and Murdoch. Go ahead, America, throw yourselves a goddamn’ party. Enjoy it while you can, before you wake up and realize you’ve still got no job, your house is about to be foreclosed, and you’re about to lose your Medicare and Social Security.

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You’ve got to hand it to Obummer, his timing’s impeccable. On the anniversary of the assassination of Dr. Martin Luther King — and one day before capitulating to the Rightists and allowing military commission trials of Guantanamo detainees — Obummer rolls out his 2012 re-election campaign, complete with a smarmy, grassrootsy video, and asks, “Are You In?”

“Are You In?” Jeezus, what the hell kind of slogan is that? It sounds like the wrapup for a venture capital pitch, like a question asked by some newly-minted Stanford MBA trying to schmooze a few million for his crappy-assed Internet start-up.

The “official” unemployment rate is nailed at around 10%, the foreclosure rate is climbing, bankers are getting fatter than ever, Bush’s tax cuts for the rich are still in place, the healthcare system is still in the hands of corporations, we’re up to our asses in three wars, the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay is still open, our civil liberties are in worse shape than ever, Obummer’s just rolled over for John Boehner on the budget deal — and now Obummer’s got the sheer gall to ask me if I’m “in”.

Like hell I’m “in”. Take a goddamn’ hike, piker.

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Late last week, not long after Barack Obummer announced there’d be no US “boots on the ground” in Libya, the New York Times and Los Angeles Times revealed — much to my total lack of surprise — that the US did, in fact, have the proverbial boots on the ground in the form of CIA spooks functioning as “advisors” and gathering intelligence to share with Libya’s “Toyota Tigers”.

Even more interesting was this report on the CIA connections of Libya’s new rebel commander, Khalifa Hifter. Apparently, Mr. Hifter defected from Gadhafi’s army about twenty-five years ago and was living a comfortable life in the suburbs of Washington, DC, until he suddenly felt moved to come to the aid of his motherland in its most desperate hour of need.

“Verr-rrry innn-teresting…!”
— Arte Johnson, as the German soldier on Laugh-In

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