Capitalism corrupts — the Washington Post is the latest example.

Washington Post’s Publisher and Editor Criticized for ‘Ethical Lapse’ – NYTimes.com.

In a sharply worded critique, the ombudsman of The Washington Post wrote on Saturday that the newspaper’s plan to sell interest groups private access to its journalists and to government officials was “an ethical lapse of monumental proportions” and “a lasting stain” on The Post’s reputation.

Ever since newspapers were transformed into big business with stock options and earnings report, it has been downhill for truth.  One acquisition after another with the resulting debt load has made it so that the previous Free Press has been castrated.  Look at the Tribune corporation, presently in bankruptcy — or even the New York Times.  They all have been crushed with debt — debt that has created false earnings and briefly higher stock prices.  America can just chalk up capitalism to destroying the Free Press.

Newspapers, real newspapers, should be not for profit.  America needs media that has an uncompromising fervor to tell the truth — no mater who it hurts.   Murdoch’s model of transforming news into entertainment has helped to cripple the previous Free Press.  Fox News is shit.  Ditto for the Wall Street Journal that Murdoch recently purchased and fucked up.   Now the Washington Post.

America is doomed.

Arrogant, arrogant Dick Cheney needs to be called into account for the things he did.  Let’s start with this one where he likely broke the law.  If so, put him in jail — the sooner the better.

The Associated Press: 2 senators: CIA concealment may have broken law.

Regarding the 8-year-old counter-terrorism program, the Bush administration’s failure to notify Congress “is a big problem, because the law is very clear,” said Senate Intelligence Committee chairwoman Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

I doubt if Cheney will ever go to jail — he will complain about his heart.  Actually, everybody knows Cheney doesn’t have a heart.   President Obama is just too much of a nice guy to actually call illegal activities by the prior administration into account.   He will continue to offer the lame excuse that it will distract the country.  From what?  If he is talking about the lame legislation that he has passed — not that big of a deal.  The bigger issue is not prosecuting illegal activity will encourage them to continue.

America is doomed.

It is surprising to me how clueless President Obama is about economic recovery.  This is partly the result of his decision to keep Wall Street goons Geithner and Summers in charge of critical elements.  Obama seems to think that the stimulus bill will actually let the economy recover.  He is wrong and I wonder how long it will before he realizes just how wrong he is.

Obama Asks For Patience On Stimulus.

He [Obama] said his stimulus plan must be given time to work and appealed to Americans, who are increasingly uneasy with rising unemployment and ballooning budget deficits, to let his plan “work the way it’s supposed to, with the understanding that in any recession, unemployment tends to recover more slowly than other measures of economic activity.”

It is difficult to realize when transformational events occur — to realize that the current financial crisis and economic “recession” (I prefer D E P R E S S I O N) are unique.  It has never happened before.  The 1930s were not the same as the crisis of 2000s — yes, this economic crisis began with the stock market plunge in 2000 — it is nearly a decade old already.  Sure, there are some similarities with the 1930s — both had stock market busts and both had high unemployment.   However, what makes this economic crisis so unique is jobs are being destroyed and they are not coming back.   Sure, the stimulus package will create some jobs.   However, most of the public work projects will be short term jobs, lasting just a few years.   If they improve infrastructure this will be good the the overall economy.  Yet, permanent living wage jobs are the problem.

Capitalism’s purpose is just to make profits — not to create jobs, and certainly not to help people support themselves.   If there is anything good about capitalism, it is the ability optimize.  However, optimization is not necessarily a good thing.  For example, when mergers occur between two large supermarket chains, it results in stores being closed and people being laid off.  The back office of the newly merged entity can function with many less people.  There is less competition so prices are increased.   In the end, you have a more optimized company but less people are employed, prices are higher, and rich people make more money.

For example, in my area the CVS drug store has been acquiring competitors for the last few years.  With the latest acquisition of Longs Drug Store, it has rendered CVS without any competition in my area.  As a result, prices has zoomed — in some cases as much as 50% — all because of elimination of competition and a willingness to gouge their customers.  CVS does not have to compete any longer.  The only people to benefit from this are the stockholders of CVS.  Meanwhile, all of the people who shop there are exploited.  This is typical of capitalism — reward the few and exploit the many.  For CVS is doesn’t matter if products they sell are vital for the health of their customers — profits, only profits, are what matter.  This is a good example of why capitalism is self destructing.

The longer President Obama fails to realize that this economic crisis is unique, the worse he will appear to the electorate.   Already, I will not vote for Obama again — he was been a great disappointment to me.   I thought Obama was smart enough to solve real problems; instead, he seems to be 70%+ like Georgie W who I consider to be a corporation pretending to be human.

Meanwhile, Republicans will continue to hammer Obama for his stimulus plan even though it was Republicans who contributed to the inane provisions of the stimulus, e.g. 1/3 of it was tax cuts.   Republicans love to compromise and subvert legislation with the help of corporate special interests.  In the end Republicans will not vote for the legislation because they will always find something wrong with the end result –  and be ongoing critics.  Democrats fall for these tactics time after time.  They will fall for it with health care, climate change, and Wall Street reform.  In the end, ordinary citizens of America will lose.  Longer term even the rich in America will lose as the country is destroyed.

America is doomed.

Compromise is destroying Obama’s presidency and won’t save America.  The recent House passage of the climate bill, aka, Energy Cap and Trade, has been discussed on this blog.  The House bill is worthless and the one that will emerge from the Senate will be even worse, if any at all.  Republicans decree that it is just another tax, but why anybody cares what Republicans think is beyond me.   Republicans won’t ever vote for any climate change bill — many of them don’t even believe in the science.  Republicans are all about money — it is their only true god.

George W Bush is a corporation pretending to be a person.   Although Obama is more of a person than Bush, he is still heavily influenced by the corporate, special interest culture that is destroying America.  I know that Obama cannot dictate to the Congress what should be in any bill; however, when the Congress comes up with crap, Obama needs to stand up and say so.  Stop pretending that America is making progress.  That is, even though many progressive activists supported Obama in the election, they still call out crap when they see it.  Greenpeace is one such organization.

Disillusioned Environmentalists Turn on Obama as Compromiser – NYTimes.com.

But over the last few months, as the ambitious climate legislation was watered down in the House without criticism from the president, Ms. Miller became disillusioned. She worried that the bill had been rendered meaningless — or had even undermined some goals Greenpeace had fought for. And she felt that the man she had thought of as her champion seemed oddly prone to compromise.

The corporate culture manipulates and bullies.  There are thousands of lobbyists who are paid big salaries to advocate for special interests.  As Senator Bernie Sanders pointed out on the Thom Hartman’s talk show, lobbyists don’t usually offer bribes to get votes –  it is far more evil than that.  Lobbyists are the friends of the elected and their goal is to get the elected representatives to see the world from their corporate world view.   For example, a lobbyist might readily agree that climate change is a bad thing but would argue that it isn’t that serious, it will put people out of work, and they would point out all the negatives for the constituents of the elected representatives.  It doesn’t matter if climate change represents an extinction event.

The same is happening with health care.  The same is happening with food production.  The same is happening with Wall Street reforms.  Corporations and special interests are getting their way.  Over time, they might even be successful at changing how the electorate view an issue.   These special interests will celebrate each time they render something good to a pile of crap and cash their paychecks.  But, make no mistake, they are destroying America and all the people, including their own children and grandchildren.

America is doomed.

The Bureau of Prions banned prisoners from reading Obama’s books.   Later, after Obama was elected, they changed their mind.  But, it made perfect sense to them to ban the books when Georgie W was President.

The Associated Press: Al-Qaida inmate gets access to Obama’s books.

On Friday, bureau spokeswoman Traci Billingsley said the bureau reversed course in November and let him read the books.

Why do conservatives always want to ban books?  I think the bible is a worthless piece of shit, but I would be totally opposed to banning it.  I want everybody to have access to it.  I consider it pornographic.  I cannot imagine what a book would have to contain for me wanting it banned.   Not so true of Republicans and social conservatives.  Sure, there are plenty of books that I wouldn’t read but opposed to somebody else reading them — no way.

Like the old joke goes which makes me laugh every time I hear it.  What is the scariest thing in America?  Answer. A black man with a library card.  I don’t laugh at this joke for the reason that many Republicans do — they actually are afraid of blacks learning.  It is funny for me to think there are people who would be scared that anybody had a library card.   Republicans who are afraid of others having library cards are really scared.  Boo!

Republicans live their lives scared — of practically everything.  I think that is why they are so religious.  They are afraid of dying.  They are afraid of terrorists.  They are afraid of aliens — the kind from other countries.  They love guns. They are afraid of losing their money.   Their fear causes them to put anybody not exactly like them in prison.  Build more prisons because Republicans are just afraid.  They are afraid, afraid, afraid.

If you examine most of the issues in the country, it is the Republicans’ fear that is frequently at core of their argument.  Consider these Republican statements: America cannot have universal health care because it will mean that my health care will get worse and it will cost me money.  Opposed to immigration reform because it would mean there are more people and I would get less.   Republicans are just fucking cowards.  It is the reason they love war and big military budgets.  Bomb the shit out of the other guy so we don’t have to be afraid.  But, it never really helps because Republicans can always find something else to fear.

Republicans run to church, temple, or whatever to pray to a mythological god to save them.  They are afraid and their fear is wrecking this country.

America is doomed.