Games Within Games
2006-05-12, 15:44

How is it that someone like me could have heard about this whole NSA-Telecom data love affair before the entire US Congress? Do none of them own a computer? Because it's been in the blogosphere (something the MSM seems to have forgotten about lately) for a good while now. It seems pretty obvious to me now that this latest 'discovery' by USA Today (known for its hard-hitting investigative coverage - ha) has been timed to thwart the nomination of Gen Michael Hayden to CIA chief (something which I'm all for), up for the job after Porter Goss, one of Cheney's lapdogs, quit, content in that he did his job in gutting the CIA and handing over the bulk of clandestine operations to the Pentagon, and can now retire in peace (until he's claimed by Hell). Now suddenly, even though there's been litigation on the matter since January, Democrats (and Republicans) are in an uproar over something they supposedly just found out about. Seriously? Just? I think not.

I can't help but see this as yet another attempt to goad the populous into the right directions in order to set things up for the '06 elections. Let's face it, the Bush Administration is a slowly sinking Titanic (or slowly burning Hindenburg, if you're a shrewd Stephen Colbert fan), and everyone else around is posturing as much as they can to try and make it look like they're trying to save the lives of the poor innocent populous on board. Unfortunately, the people only get the choice of directing their lifeboats either toward the Andrea Doria or the Bismarck. Not that Bush/Cheney would ever admit to any problems. This is all just a corporate-funded wargame to them, it seems. I can't help but picture Cheney, as we speak, hovering, wringing his hands with sinister intent, over some Bond-villain-style map of the globe, little markers being pushed around with an ornate stick. "Mwaaa aaahhh, now we'll pretend we're idiots so the Republican Congress can pretend they're fed up with us and promote the next President from their ranks! Perfect!!"

That (Cheney) reminds me of a question - if Burgess Meredith was The Penguin on the old Batman series, then why did he quack like a duck when he laughed?

The other thing that's really bothering me - and seems to be another tool for election promotion - is the Iran situation. Everyone seems to be worried about the country's nuclear ambitions - a hot-button issue, especially in the year of the 20th anniversary of the Chernobyl accident - but the thing that very, very few people are talking about is that it's not about nuclear energy at all. It's about - yes, you guessed it - oil. And natural gas. But not in the same way it is with Iraq (reserves) or Afghanistan (pipelines); this is about oil and the Dollar. Or, more specifically, oil, the Dollar and the Euro. There's a Christian Science Monitor story from August of last year that boils things down nicely: Iran (they have the 2nd-largest reserve of natural gas in the world, and when you combine oil and gas totals, they're actually number one overall, even over Saudi Arabia) wants to start an oil- and gas- based commodities exchange, but based solely on the Euro, whereas its potential counterpart, OPEC, is based on the US dollar. If that happens, there's serious potential to undermine the value of the dollar and seriously mess up our already whacked-out economy, a.k.a. send us spiraling into a new Great Depression. And you know, I'm all for keeping our economy going, even though the Capitalist System - at least as we know it in the US - is verging on ubiquitously criminal. I'd still like to have a job and feed m family, if that's okay. But I'm not up for being lied to about the truth of the matter and going off to kill thousands of Iranians (and US soldiers) over a trumped up story about nuclear capabilities. The problem is, the populous is not going to like the idea of sending their sons and daughters to die for The Dollar. Fighting the good fight to prevent Nuclear Annihilation sounds so much better. So put up your dukes, kids, the Ragheads are trying to get the Bomb!

Oh - since we use SBC for our internet here at work, I suppose this email entry-to-journal-posting will be flagged by a supercomputer, read by some Federal employee, and filed while they make a little black check mark in my profile. So be it.

-- End Transmission --