Pat Prachter, I have been busy recently with my own affairs, and not been able to read every single post for the last few days, I however read yours, and am beginning to notice a unity (or oneness) developing on this forum which includes yourself, palindromedary, cygnus1 myself, as well as a few others. This unity now needs to spread into the millions all over the net. I see it as a developing oneness of mind whereby we can steer the global discontent among the downtrodden in a way where, before they even realize it, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams, when they find themselves rewarded beyond expectation in a newly created paradisiacal global world order, where ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE can enjoy living in harmony and comfort.

So much for an introduction in passing. Coming back to the topic under discussion, I strongly suggest that we begin calling the two parties (Democrats and Republicans) the "SEE-SAW" Parties, for neither of them will effectively address the concerns of the people as their policies and laws are dictated to them by the unseen hand of the few super rich fleecers of this world. We, the people, have for a long time now observed that it makes no difference any more which of the two are in power. Therefore I agree with one of your friends who suggested to not give their vote for any candidate running under our (newly created) See-Saw label, but let the people find a credible alternative when they vote.

Having said so, it must be understood by all, that toppling the See-Sawers will still not provide a cure to the problem of Washington elite subservience, because all new "arrivals" there will be approached with blackmail and threats to work for them and not for the people. Resistance to their established order of control will be met with either character assassination in the least, or concrete boots in the worst of cases.

Talk about bait-and-switch...seems to me that's just what Obama did. He baited us with progressive campaign talk and then switched to his true Republican self after he was elected. Let's not let that happen again. I'd rather have my enemies in front of me than stabbing me in the back. If you still think voting is even worth while anymore...then vote Green. If we can oust both the Republicans and the Democrats out of office then it will show them both that WE DO HAVE OTHER CHOICES. If either Democrat or Republican retain control then we still have the streets to obstruct the fascist tricksters.

So, Obama is finally moving to remove the troops out of Iraq (didn't say anything about removing the other troops out of all those other places that are just as, or even more so, futile wastes of money and lives). The goals of the ruling elite is to get Obama re-elected because they believe that he will continue to pretend to be OUR President and not the ruling elite's...the 1%. The ruling elite knows that if one of their clown Republicans are put into office that the 99% will riot in the streets. They know they have a much better chance of continuing to exploit us if we, again, put our futile hope with someone who is pretending to be sympathetic to OUR goals.

How many lives (both Iraqi civilians and our US troops) have been lost in the 3 years that Obama did nothing to cut off that ridiculous and criminal war in Iraq. And now, at the end of his term, seeking re-election, he decides to bring the troops home as a campaign ploy? There is absolutely nothing (contrary to what they will have you believe) that we have accomplished in Iraq that will make the outcome any different. The Arabic factions in Iraq will continue to bash heads in a civil war until one side wins and puts in another Saddam Husein. All we manage to do is to murder a lot of innocent civilians and have blood on our hands which creates anger and hatreds magnified against the US. And the US well deserves those hatreds. Wouldn't you hate anyone who bullies their way into your home...murders all your family...steals what wealth and humanity you have left? What would you do under such circumstances if you had no police or rule of law that would allow you redress? Hide you head in the sand?

When American and Iraqi lives are sacrificed for no real reason except to make lots of money for 3 years, since Obama took office, and in the 5 years of Baby Bush's reign, and now, in order to use it as a political campaign ploy to further beguile the voters Obama finally announces a pull out from Iraq, then I'd say that Obama (right along with the Republicans) are willing to see people die in order to make financial and political gains for themselves.

Vote for the party that has the least amount of backing from Wall Street because if you vote for the one who has the most backing (Obama) you will only wind up with a President that is owned by Wall Street..and you are merely voting for a President that will not act in your best interests. And if the Green party accepts a lot of money then I wouldn't even bother voting at all.

At the beginning of the most current session, Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico did introduce legislation to change the filibuster, but President Obama and Harry Reid opposed Senator Udall's plan. I believe that Senator Reid made a deal with Senate Republicans not to change the filibuster. We can now see what a great deal that was.

Parts from an article by Alternet:

How Can We Rouse Police and Other Protectors of the Corporatocracy - "Guards" of the Status Quo - to Join the OWS Rebellion?

“In a highly developed society, the Establishment cannot survive without the obedience and loyalty of millions of people who are given small rewards to keep the system going: the soldiers and police, teachers and ministers, administrators and social workers, technicians and production workers, doctors, lawyers. . . . They become the guards of the system, buffers between the upper and lower classes. If they stop obeying, the system falls.” —Howard Zinn, from “The Coming Revolt of the Guards,” A People’s History of the United States

Howard Zinn predicted the revolt of the guards would occur when guards recognize that they are “expendable.”

How to Accelerate the Revolt of the Guards

For guards, it is not easy coming out of denial of our role and our fate. As Upton Sinclair observed, “It is difficult to make a man understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.”

To accelerate the revolt of obedient guards, I recommend two strategies: (1) create unpleasant dissonance about their role as guards; in other words, put guards in some pain for their unquestioning obedience that maintains the system. (2) offer encouragement for even small acts of rebellion against their guard role; small acts of rebellion may well be major financial risks.

It is my experience that guards are far less defensive when they are “off-duty.” So, if you are at protest demonstration, don’t try to lecture police about their role as a guard for the system or stroke them for any act of humanity. When we guards we are on duty, we are extremely vigilant about being manipulated. Off-duty, we are more receptive.

If you have social contact with off-duty law enforcement officers, you might ask them “Wouldn’t it be more satisfying putting the handcuffs on some billionaire tax dodger than arresting some small-time pot user?” I’ve asked police officers if they’ve heard of Jonathan Swift’s quote, “Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.” On-duty police will respond with “no comment” or a blank stare, but some off-duty cops will smile and even agree. And should off-duty police ever tell you an anecdote in which they ignored a law designed to catch a small fly, give them encouragement.

For off-duty corporate journalists, you might talk to them about how much you admire journalists such as Bill Moyers, former press secretary of Lyndon Johnson, and Chris Hedges, former New York Times reporter, for their rebellion from the their guard role. Remind journalists of their expendability, as the corporate media is increasingly eliminating reporters for the sake of profitability. And if they give you anecdotes in which they created tension with their editor by challenging the system, be encouraging.

http://www.alternet.org/world/152802/how_can_we_rouse_police_and_other_p...

Don't set your iphone on your desk next to your computer....

"Researchers at Georgia Tech and MIT have developed a proof of concept to demonstrate that it is possible to record a computer user's keystrokes using an iPhone 4's accelerometer. The researchers developed a method to accurately translate the vibrations from typing on a keyboard picked up by the device's accelerometer when placed on a desk near a PC. Though they warn that hackers could potentially use their method to eavesdrop on a user's keystrokes..."

"...the method is 80 percent accurate with a 58,000 word dictionary. Even that accuracy, though, requires thoroughly modern equipment. “We first tried our experiments with an iPhone 3GS, and the results were difficult to read,” Traynor said in a statement. “But then we tried an iPhone 4, which has an added gyroscope to clean up the accelerometer noise, and the results were much better. We believe that most smartphones made in the past two years are sophisticated enough to launch this attack.”

http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2011/10/researchers-can-keylog-your-pc...
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"Germany. Calls for "Less Democracy": Police Caught Planting Spyware on Personal Computers"

"German secret state agencies installing spyware capable of transforming PC webcam and microphone into listening device.."

"As I have written many times, the secret state is bound by their own set of "laws." Normal rules and procedures which are supposed to protect citizens from unwarranted government intrusions are deemed inoperative for reasons of "national security."

"In the United States, constitutional protections designed to guarantee the right of citizens to protest, enjoy a modicum of privacy in their daily lives or, at the most basic level, have their day in court before being executed, have been overthrown by two successive administrations (Bush and Obama-my comments) who assert the right to conduct the affairs of state in secret, according to a set of legal guidelines which are unreviewable by any court."

"It would appear that similar moves are underway in Germany."

"...the trojan's developers never even tried to put in technical safeguards to make sure the malware can exclusively be used for wiretapping internet telephony, as set forth by the constitution court. On the contrary, the design included functionality to clandestinely add more components over the network right from the start, making it a bridge-head to further infiltrate the computer."

"The government malware can," analysts noted, "unchecked by a judge, load extensions by remote control, to use the trojan for other functions, including but not limited to eavesdropping."

"This complete control over the infected PC, is open not just to the agency that put it there, but to everyone. It could even be used to upload falsified 'evidence' against the PC's owner, or to delete files, which puts the whole rationale for this method of investigation into question."

"Their study also "revealed serious security holes that the trojan is tearing into infected systems. The screenshots and audio files it sends out are encrypted in an incompetent way, the commands from the control software to the trojan are even completely unencrypted. Neither the commands to the trojan nor its replies are authenticated or have their integrity protected."

"There are glaring similarities between the "R2D2" package deployed by German police and "Magic Lantern" software used by the FBI. As with Bureau spyware, the German program is a keystroke logging virus installed via a malicious email attachment or by exploiting operating system vulnerabilities."

"..."the remote-control function could be used to load and execute malicious software, and to plant bogus digital evidence on the computer, which can then be detected if the computer was seized. A suspect would have no way of proving that this had happened."

This would certainly be a convenient way to "neutralize" a troublesome politician, journalist or over-eager anticorporate campaigner."

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=27107

I had also read that the government spyware is commonly being put into a traveler's laptop as he/she passes through Customs.

I agree that Obama is only trying to sound like he is finally doing some of the things he hinted at when he was running for President the first time. It is only now, after 3 years of giving in to the Republicans and acting more like GWBush that he is "pulling out of Iraq". Uh, yeah, like sure..I'm sure! How about pulling out of Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and everywhere else where our US trained terrorists are currently murdering innocent civilians. Maybe, if they are really serious about pulling out of Iraq, it is because they are contemplating having to use the military against the 99% who are rebelling against the corrupt system that we currently have. Like, I watched Bill Maher tonight and he had on head of the EPA, Lisa Jackson, who tended to present a positive, supportive tone toward Obama. She said that one of Obama's goals was to do such and such by the year 2025 and Bill Maher flew off the handle and said that 2025 was too far down the road and that other countries are more pro-active. Lisa kept backing Obama.
Well, it wasn't long ago that Lisa Jackson was going to resign because she was not happy with Obama's position on her major proposal for stricter air pollution regulations. That's Obama, again, bending over for the Republicans.

http://atlantapost.com/2011/09/19/epa-head-contemplates-quitting-decides...

It's like when Obama dropped Elizabeth Warren for the Consumer Protection post. He again took it in the @$$ for the Republicans.

Obama is a Republican who says he is a Democrat and some people still believe him. Re-electing Obama will only get us more of the same Republican policy. And Obama will no longer even have to pretend sometimes that he is a Democrat. He's telling the same kind of lies that he told the first time when he wanted fools to vote for him. I was such a fool and believed in him....but his actions over the last 3 years..shows that he is not worthy of my vote again. Obama is owned by Wall Street...they are his true base...not us.

And let's not forget that there are just about as many Blackwater terrorists (now call themselves Xe, I believe) over there that will likely remain. We didn't build all those compounds and fortresses for nothing. And they'll continue to be utilized to do our bidding..but without the overt seal of the US Military. If you really think we are getting out of Iraq...you're just being suckered by political rhetoric.

Any hope of these republican scoundrels waking up was lost to THE NORQUIST NO TAX PLEDGE induced coma. Time for "WE THE PEOPLE" to pull their plug. GROVER NORQUIST has described himself as a boring white bread methodist who wants to shrink govt. to a size he can drag into a bathroom and drown in the tub. So at least he's honest about his hatred of Democracy and expression of psychopathic thoughts.

Is this pious conservative on the no fly list? I wonder if it has ever occured to him just how much pain and suffering his ECONOMIC TERRORISM has caused the muti-millions out of work. Many of these good people are paralyzed in tear-filled silence as they lose their homes, hopes and dreams, while familys are ripped apart, all due to the blind and uncontrollable thirst for greed and power by a few 1% ers!

Grover may be a Harvard Grad, but I sure as hell know he must be sleeping through all of the Sunday sermons!

IN A TRUE DEMOCRACY, NORQUIST SHOULD NOT BE THE DECIDER! ...THE 99% WILL PREVAIL!

jstrahan: I support everything you say. However, I believe the problem is bigger than we know. The closer you look at this almost cartoon-style of politics, the sooner you realize that none of this can possibly BE real politics. These people are all in the positions they are in BECAUSE they will follow orders from the top. "The top" has nothing to do with Americans -- republican or democrat. The top is the class of people you never see or hear about. There are no democratic voting processes anymore; everything is pure theatre and a lie. There is no way left but revolution.

The Republicans know exactly what they are doing. They want total control of the government, including the Presidency and are following instructions outlined by A.L.E.C. They have picked 2012 as their best ever chance to realize their dream of total domination of the U.S. political and economic systems and will simply do anything to accomplish this end. It is the American people who are not brain dead against Corporate America and those who are brain dead Face it. There are a lot of awful dumb people in this country who are easy to lead by the nose with such comments as they are taking from the white man and giving it to the people of color. We are going to find out just how dumb Americans are in 2012. I doubt if any country in the history of mankind voted against their own interests more than in this country. Another fact is that the average American doesn't have a clue to what is going to happen to him if the Republicans do win in 2012. If you think there has been a shift in wealth from the middle class and poor to the rich, wait until after the 2012 elections. If you think racial issues are behind us, wait until after the 2012 elections and states are given the right to make their own laws without fear of retribution from the federal government, if you think a lot of poor die now from lack of medical care, wait until after the 2012 elections. If you don't think minimum wage jobs will become the norm in the future, wait until after the 2012 elections. If you think you have issues now about pollution of the air, land, and water, wait until after the 2012 elections. If you think health care is expensive now, wait until after the 2012 elections.

Republicans in Congress hate Obama more than they love America. They prefer to destroy American families because they believe they will have an even greater victory if Obama is defeated in 2012 then they will have all the power they need to hand the government over to the Wall Street Gang. They are not stupid. They know who their masters are. They are hiding behind the flag but they detest the United States Constitution and they detest those who are not already millionaires or better.

They will pay the price for the insolence at the November elections. The progessives and people who care about America and really love this country, will send them packing.

You need to oust out the Judges who work for the 1% and place in an entirely different Judicial system. You do not want to keep poison in the soup for term limits.

Let me explain it this way: You, the people, have placed on the bench, a Judge whom you, the people thought would be honest, wise, and just, toward the people. After a month or two, you, the people, find that this Judge works in just the opposite manner. But you have placed a 'term limit' on his post. So that means, that while the police working for the 1% continue arresting people, and the court brings them before this Judge who then fines them or sends them to jail for a period of more days, you, the people, will need to just wait until his or her term is up. This is completely flawed and will never work within a paradisical system the people, themselves, are trying once again to build.

Voting them out of office and then voting others back in will do no earthly good. Many of the voters would not know which man or woman of the Bench, to be wise, just and honest. And those Judges whom are appointed, are usually appointed by those who work for the 1% and their own agenda, of which is working against the people of the land. Where there are flaws in a good opinion, you will never get it to work in the long run.