Arthur Silber

Impoverishment, brutalization, destruction and death are what he wants to achieve. He has said so, repeatedly. These are evil goals, and this is a deeply evil man.

I've made this point numerous times before. I'll make it again, because, Jesus Fuck Me Christ, a lot of you are truly, deeply, stupefyingly dumb.

So we have the debt ceiling deal, yet another step on the road to the impoverishment, brutalization and death of all those who are not sufficiently blessed to be part of the ruling class or of the ruling class's endlessly helpful adjunct, the media-blogger complex. For the cognitively impaired, which seems to be most people, that complex includes all "leading" bloggers on both right and left -- that is, Instapundit and his fellow gangsters on the right, and Atrios, Digby, et al. and their fellow gangsters on the left. I use "right" and "left" as those terms are commonly used. Let us please skip the onanistic pleasures of analyzing at interminable length what might make up the "true" right or left: most of those who contemplate such matters are only perpetuating the existing system while pretending they aren't. If you regularly engage with the present political system, you're perpetuating it. The rest is details. More on that issue soon.

Lots of people are celebrating or moaning about the "triumph" of the Tea Party. Apologies: I meant to say the crazy Tea Party. Which triumphed! I betcha some of those who say they will fight to the death to defend Social Security, Medicare, etc. would like to be "crazy" like that. They might actually succeed! Well, they might if you assume their actual and proclaimed goals are the same. Usually, and almost always in politics, they aren't.

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Stephen Lendman

Harry Reid (Democrats) and John Boehner (Republicans)

Seven previous articles explained the following:

(1) Bipartisan lying manipulated popular sentiment to believe what political Washington won't tolerate - defaulting or not raising the debt ceiling. In fact, it's been done routinely 74 times since 1962, including 10 times in the last decade. Moreover, whatever may unfold ahead, default won't happen now, and top officials know it.

In addition as Ellen Brown explains in her latest article headlined, "Bipartisan 'Russian Roulette' and America's Federal Debt: The Debt Ceiling Is Unconstitutional," authority under the 14th Amendment's Section 4 mandates paying public debt obligations.

Despite a nonsensical 1917 law imposing a debt limit, the 14th Amendment says

"the validity of the public debt of the United States....shall not be questioned." As a result, "(w)here statute and the Constitution collide, the Constitution prevails." It's constitutionally mandated, "not a matter of negotiation."

Moreover, "(t)he debt crisis was created, not by a social safety net bought and paid for by," payroll tax deduction insurance premiums, contractually obligating Washington to pay benefits as mandated.

"The debt ceiling crisis" also was manufactured, "engineered to extort concessions that will lock the middle class in debt peonage for decades to come."

Indeed that and much more as previous articles explained, recapped briefly below.

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Patrick Martin

The US House of Representatives voted by a 269-161 margin Monday night to approve the budget agreement between congressional Republicans and the Obama administration that will cut nearly $3 trillion from federal spending over the next ten years, the bulk of it from domestic social programs.

The Republican majority in the House backed the bill by a top-heavy 174-66 margin, while the Democratic minority split evenly, 95-95. The two top House Democrats, Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, backed the administration-supported bill.

The comfortable margin of more than a hundred votes belied suggestions in the media that a combination of ultra-right Tea Party Republicans and liberal Democrats might defeat the bill. In the end, the Tea Party elements fell in behind the Republican leadership, while the liberals made impotent and insincere protests about the devastating cuts to social spending and the complete absence of any tax increases on the wealthy.

The Senate began discussion of the budget deal with presentations to the caucuses of both parties, with a vote expected either Monday or sometime on Tuesday. The legislation was expected to pass by a large majority of both parties, with both Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Minority Leader Mitch McConnell endorsing it.

The agreement reached Sunday night in negotiations at the White House raises the federal debt ceiling by at least $2.1 trillion, including an immediate boost of $400 billion once the legislation is approved, staving off a default on US government obligations that the Obama administration claimed could have taken place as early as Tuesday.

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Stephen Lendman

America's media staunchly back all US imperial wars, regurgitating officials lies as truths. Moreover, they never explain their illegality or daily crimes of war and against humanity against civilians, as well as non-military related infrastructure and other sites.

Nor do they report how NATO bombing prevents targeted nations (including Libya) from providing essential public services, including enough food, medical care, electricity, fuel, and clean water.

Nonetheless, America's led Libya war may have backfired. In Tripoli, Middle East/Central Asian analyst Mahdi Nazemroaya told Progressive Radio News Hour listeners that NATO bombing united Libyans behind Gaddafi to save their country.

Instead, American and Western media falsify reports, claiming:

● non-existent rebel gains;
● Tripoli may fall;
● the country may collapse;
● Gaddafi has little support when, in fact, mass rallies turn out in Tripoli and elsewhere for him;
● few civilians have been killed or injured when, in fact, around 1,200 or more have been killed, many thousands more injured;
● NATO only attacks military targets when, in fact, civilian ones are deliberately struck; and
● Tripoli is a ghost town, when, in fact, life goes on relatively normally in spite of daily bombings.

In other words, falsified reports suppress reality on the ground, including that NATO miscalculated. As a result, it's losing because Libyans are united against lawless, naked aggression, refusing to let their country become another imperial trophy.

Knowing Libya's been there before, they want none of it. Moreover, they understand Washington's Middle East/North Africa agenda to colonize the entire region, militarize and balkanize it, control its resources, steal its wealth, and exploit its people ruthlessly. It's why all US wars are fought, never for humanitarian reasons.

It's the same dirty game Washington and its coalition allies repeat against all nations less than totally under their control, especially resource-rich ones. As a result, Libya was targeted for takeover, a plan that may, in fact, have backfired.

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Bruce E. Levine

The ruling elite has created social institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance.

Traditionally, young people have energized democratic movements. So it is a major coup for the ruling elite to have created societal institutions that have subdued young Americans and broken their spirit of resistance to domination.

Young Americans—even more so than older Americans—appear to have acquiesced to the idea that the corporatocracy can completely screw them and that they are helpless to do anything about it. A 2010 Gallup poll asked Americans “Do you think the Social Security system will be able to pay you a benefit when you retire?” Among 18- to 34-years-olds, 76 percent of them said no. Yet despite their lack of confidence in the availability of Social Security for them, few have demanded it be shored up by more fairly payroll-taxing the wealthy; most appear resigned to having more money deducted from their paychecks for Social Security, even though they don’t believe it will be around to benefit them.

How exactly has American society subdued young Americans?

1. Student-Loan Debt. Large debt—and the fear it creates—is a pacifying force. There was no tuition at the City University of New York when I attended one of its colleges in the 1970s, a time when tuition at many U.S. public universities was so affordable that it was easy to get a B.A. and even a graduate degree without accruing any student-loan debt. While those days are gone in the United States, public universities continue to be free in the Arab world and are either free or with very low fees in many countries throughout the world. The millions of young Iranians who risked getting shot to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, the millions of young Egyptians who risked their lives earlier this year to eliminate Mubarak, and the millions of young Americans who demonstrated against the Vietnam War all had in common the absence of pacifying huge student-loan debt.

Today in the United States, two-thirds of graduating seniors at four-year colleges have student-loan debt, including over 62 percent of public university graduates. While average undergraduate debt is close to $25,000, I increasingly talk to college graduates with closer to $100,000 in student-loan debt. During the time in one’s life when it should be easiest to resist authority because one does not yet have family responsibilities, many young people worry about the cost of bucking authority, losing their job, and being unable to pay an ever-increasing debt. In a vicious cycle, student debt has a subduing effect on activism, and political passivity makes it more likely that students will accept such debt as a natural part of life.

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