In the News – 9/11

First here’s some personal news.  I may not get to visit blogs today.  The F key on my computer is sticking, so I’ll be out most of the day at the computer store.  It’s an hour bus ride away.  I wish I did not have to do this, but with so many Republicans acting up, a working F key is an absolute necessity! 😉

Yesterday was a high holy day in the First Church of the Ellipsoid Orb.  It was the first game in the 2009-2010 NFL season.  I watched the entire game and the Pittsburg Steelers beat the Tennessee Titans 13-10.  I did not have a dog in that hunt and did not care who won, but I thoroughly enjoyed a close game.

Getting serious, new poverty figures are out or last year.  The graphic is around five years old, so it’s much worse now.

In the recession, the nation’s poverty rate climbed to 13.2 percent last year, up from 12.5 percent in 2007, according to an annual report released Thursday by the Census Bureau. The report also documented a decline in employer-provided health insurance and in coverage for adults.

The rise in the poverty rate, to the highest level since 1997, portends even larger increases this year, which has registered far higher unemployment than in 2008, economists said.

The bureau said 39.8 million residents last year lived below the poverty line, defined as an income of $22,025 for a family of four.

In another sign of both the recession and the long-term stagnation of middle-class wages, median family incomes in 2008 fell to $50,300, compared with $52,200 the year before. This wiped out the income gains of the previous three years, the report said.

Adjusted for inflation, in fact, median family incomes were lower in 2008 than a decade earlier…  [emphasis added]

Inserted from <NY Times>

The mess we inherited from the Bush regime was far worse than we knew.

Moving on, one cannot notice the date without thinking about the terrible events that occurred on 9/11.

On September 14, 1970, a deputy to then-National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger wrote him a memo, classified SECRET/SENSITIVE, arguing against covert operations to block the duly elected Chilean socialist Salvador Allende from assuming the presidency. "What we propose is patently a violation of our own principles and policy tenets," noted Viron Vaky. "If these principles have any meaning, we normally depart from them only to meet the gravest threat to us., e.g. to our survival. Is Allende a mortal threat to the U.S.?" Vaky asked. "It is hard to argue this."

Kissinger ignored this advice. The next day he participated in a now-famous meeting where President Nixon instructed CIA Director Richard Helms to "save Chile" by secretly fomenting a coup to prevent Allende’s inauguration. When those covert operations failed, Kissinger goaded Nixon into instructing the entire national security bureaucracy "on opposing Allende" and destabilizing his government. "Election of Allende as president of Chile poses one of [the] most serious challenges ever faced in this hemisphere," says a newly declassified briefing paper Kissinger gave to Nixon two days after Allende’s inauguration. "Your decision as to what to do may be most historic and difficult foreign affairs decision you will have to make this year…. If all concerned do not understand that you want Allende opposed as strongly as we can, result will be steady draft toward modus vivendi approach."

Had Washington adopted a "modus vivendi approach," it is possible that Chileans, indeed citizens around the world, would not be solemnly commemorating the thirtieth [now 36th] anniversary of the coup that brought Gen. Augusto Pinochet to power. In the United States, the meaning of this anniversary is, understandably, overshadowed by the shock and tragedy of our own 9/11. But Chile reminds us that the topics of debate on US foreign policy today–pre-emptive strikes, regime change, the arrogance of unilateral intervention, unchecked covert action and secrecy and dishonesty in government–are not new. From the thousands of formerly classified US documents released over the past several years, the picture that emerges strikes some haunting parallels with the news of the day…

Inserted from <The Nation>

This illustrates why it is so necessary to remove the GOP from power completely.  Whenever they have held the reigns of power, they have supported  terrorists under the deceptive label of “freedom fighters”.  The GOP under Nixon engineered the Chilean coup 1n 1973, murdering Chile’s democratically elected President.  The GOP under Reagan supported Saddam Hussein in his war against Iran, providing him with the means to produce chemical WMD and, under Reagan and Bush senior, funded Osama bin Laden.  The GOP under Potomac Pinocchio funded terrorists  groups in Iran.  The first line of defense against terrorism is to stay out of the terrorism business.  That’s why every Republican in office is one Republican too many.

Finally, I’ll leave you with Keith Olbermann’s Special Report from last night.  Fasten your seat belts.