The lifestyle of the average middle American is meticulously designed to create a reactive consumer-bot. If the first thing you do in the morning is fire-up the TV you are probably one of them. You probably taught your kids to watch TV before you taught them to be wary of strangers. Childrens' TV is as insidious a molester as they get.

Baby Boomers used to listen to Bobby Dylan. They need to recommit to the Revolution. It looks disgustingly like 1962 all over again.

Raj is correct, Obama is a hypocrite. However, Raj has forgotten that radical muslim jihadists brought sudden death and destruction on American soil on September 11, 2001. Hence we must remain vigilant and on offense. Remember 9/11 and Benghazi.

See we'll never agree; I will always believe our own government played a hand, brought 9/11 to us by invading Muslim holy lands with our military bases. Sure they probably looked perfect, all deserty and barren but for Muslims, people so caught up in religious tradition (kind of like us and Hindus), each area is important. We invaded, so they attacked. Or, it was merely a full-on false flag, by our government, to bring the end of peace; the beginning of indefinite war.

Raj, which military bases invaded Muslim holy lands prior to 9/11?

“I don’t see Islam as our enemy,” Paul said. “I see that motivation is occupation and those who hate us and would like to kill us, they are motivated by our invasion of their land, the support of their dictators that they hate.”

Regarding 9/11, Paul said that attacks against the U.S. from Middle Eastern groups at home and abroad can be traced to the foreign presence of U.S. troops, as well as America’s relationships with dictator regimes.

Paul referred to a military base in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of Islam, as a key motivator in the Sept. 11th attacks. Osama bin Laden viewed it as an American desecration of holy land.

http://caucuses.desmoinesregister.com/2011/08/27/paul-says-u-s-intervention-motivated-911-attacks/


To Muslims, the Saudi Arabian peninsula is “holy” ground. It houses two cities sacred to Islamic tradition: Mecca & Medina. When the United States first stood in alliance with other countries to oppose Saddam Hussein’s seizure of Kuwait in the first Gulf War, the government of Saudi Arabia allowed the United States to set up military bases on this “sacred ground” because it feared that Saddam would move from Kuwait into Saudi Arabia. These bases are still in Saudi Arabia, and are one of the main reasons that Osama Bin Laden opposes the United States (Beeman).

http://ancientroadpublications.com/Studies/BiblicalStudies/MuslimsHateAmericans.html

Raj,

I ‘m in agreement with the premise that the US uses ‘war’ as a tool to gain access to foreign land and thus resources – think oil.

But I’d like to see your view as to why the Saudi government ‘allows’ the based you refer to to exist in their country.

Also, is the government of Saudi Arabia supported by the people there or are they in the same situation we are here?

Finally, on the economic side, is any of the oil money paid to the Saudi Aramco get to the public?

I couldn't tell you, I'm not a military tactician or strategist; I am peace monger. From the reading, it sounds as they were allowed for conflict and then once that specific conflict was over, we were expected to leave but we didn't.

I can't speak to the condition of Saudi Arabia, only India do I know some, having gone there; it's a world so tightly wound around religion. That's such the norm, it's odd to think that America's Christians are not as fanatical but in comparison, yes, Muslims, Hindus, faith means more to them then their lives. This is the wrong kind of thinking for anyone.

I don't know anything about the oil, it's all above my pay grade; I'm forced to weed out the words of lying politicians and find what sounds right.

If a base was "permitted," how can that be an invasion? That sounds like the characterization of an agitator and rather that of a peace monger

Windy: "I‘m in agreement with the premise that the US uses ‘war’ as a tool to gain access to foreign land and thus resources – think oil."

Hey WIndy, when has America stolen oil via a pretext of War? By the way, do you actually believe America's industrial might, our capitalist system and our high standard of living could have occurred without oil?

"""If a base was "permitted," how can that be an invasion?"""

It's kind of like our government deciding the Chinese could have bases here around our homes. Government may "OK" it, but how would you feel about it as you drove past every day to work? The citizens did not OK it, just the Saudi Sheiks who have benefited from Americas oil addiction.

Here is translated text from an interview with OBL. You will have a limited amount of time to read this before it is forcefully removed from the internet because most of his quotes are redacted by our government:
http://www.meforum.org/435/usama-bin-ladin-american-soldiers-are-paper-tigers

What the heck, Manq?

I clicked on your link and within ten minutes had a dozen SEALS crashing through my skylights. They took my computer, cut the power lines to my house, then dragged me to some abandoned warehouse where I got waterboarded. That's right, Manq, waterboarded.

They kept asking me who sent me the link to UBL's paper-tiger speech but I wouldn't break.

You owe me, bro.

Boy I'd sure like to know what O.R. means by "capitalist system"? (Does he believe fiduciary duty requires that a public corporation kill if it makes a profit)? Does O.R. think we owe a debt of gratitude to oil for helping us design and build and ship to China the greatest industrial capability the world will ever see?

Coal, then oil, cheaply powers burdensome tasks to be sure, but carbon based fuel also engenders laziness and denial and has a fatal flaw in that it enables Bullying. You can't use oil straight out of the ground. This means a centralized infrastructure (refinery) that in private hands can be easily abused for greedy ends.

If security is paramount, you don't want anything centralized. Generate power locally and cleanly anywhere and everywhere; tear down those ugly towers or turn them into art.

You are very funny, JC.

Yes, the government 'edits' parts of the internet. Especially when a political opponent gives hundreds of interviews explaining the reasons for his anger with the US, and as a result, few Americans know anything about it.

It's kind of like our government deciding the Chinese could have bases here around our homes. Government may "OK" it, but how would you feel about it as you drove past every day to work? The citizens did not OK it, just the Saudi Sheiks who have benefited from Americas oil addiction.

Like that is likely to happen.

"""Like that is likely to happen. """

EXACTLY.

@ricketzz:

The USA remains the largest manufacturing nation state at approximately 21% of global production.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States

http://shopfloor.org/2011/03/u-s-manufacturing-remains-worlds-largest/18756

"The manufacturing sector of the U.S. economy has experienced substantial job losses over the past several years. In January 2004, the number of such jobs stood at 14.3 million, down by 3.0 million jobs, or 17.5 percent, since July 2000 and about 5.2 million since the historical peak in 1979. Employment in manufacturing was its lowest since July 1950. The number of steel workers fell from 500,000 in 1980 to 224,000 in 2000. -wikipedia

@ricketzz:

Does your post alter material facts of mine? I'd say our manufacturing global market share is rather impressive in ratio to population. Many assume that China is #1 given the political/media hype.

Did you expect USA manufacturing to retain the same post WWII percentage when we had a monopoly on intact infrastructure?

Have you accounted for gains in other sectors of the economy? Are you familiar with the terms creative destruction, disruption, etc? Or was your expectation that dynamic market economies are static?

Fiduciary duty makes a corporation distort its value. Off-loading externalities to taxpayers distorts the Risk = Reward rule. Would China manufactured goods be cheap without USA subsidies?

@ricketzz:

Non sequitur.