[Newfie]

If I get your drift you are saying that we are in Iraq to secure the oil.

I agree and think we are in Afganistan to cut off the land route from China/India to Iran/Iraq thereby securing the oil.

As we have no stomach for change what we are doing is trying to continue our past life well past its lifetime. I don't think it matters if it is Dem or Rep, they are both caught in the same reality gap. The public will demand that they do whatever they must to secure the cheapest oil possible. They just want us to do the nasty quietly and keep up the good front in the meantime.

I think part of yesterdays debachel was people want the return of Ozzie and Harriet/Father Knows Best/Lone Ranger/et al. They can't understand why things are changing for the worse and DEMAND things go back to the way they think they were.

You know my prediction. 4 more years of stalemate and inaction followed by the rise of a reactionary third party. Some Glen Beck kinda charismatic.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'A')s I witness the varied responses globally to Post Peak Oil, I find myself more and more concerned about the ethical treatment of our fellow men in a time of profit and scarcity.

[Cid_Yama]

We initially went to Afghanistan because we believed there were oil reserves there. Subsequent tests were not promising, but we stayed because it was a foothold in Central Asia, and the Grand game was looking at it as a potential second front for an invasion of Iran.

The Oil Factor

Then Iraq bogged down. The Risk game wasn't playing out as planned. The Bush administration originally had 7 nations on their list of wars of aggression they wanted to launch. They didn't grasp what real wars were like.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')n November 2001, General Wesley Clark, who had recently retired from his post as head of the US Southern Command, learned from a general he knew in the Pentagon that a memo had just come down from the office of the secretary of defense outlining the objective of the "take down" of seven Middle Eastern regimes over five years.

The plan would start with the invasion of Iraq, and then go after Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia and Sudan, according to an account in Clark's 2003 book, Winning Modern Wars. The memo indicated the plan was to "come back and get Iran in five years".

[Sixstrings]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Cid_Yama', 'I')t appears that much of the change in seats had to do with trading out ConservaDems for actual Republicans.

No big loss.

Democrats keep the Senate, so net result is more of the same.

[PrestonSturges]

Why should Obama insult them? They just realized that they are some of the most unpopular people in America and their friends have been trying to warn them for years that their grandstanding was a huge public embarrassment.

[Cid_Yama]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')s I witness the varied responses globally to Post Peak Oil, I find myself more and more concerned about the ethical treatment of our fellow men in a time of profit and scarcity. Throughout history are examples where the lure of profit has led to atrocities against large segments of populations. These have not just happened in small African or South Asian countries. The West holds no ethical high ground in these matters. Nor are these occurrences in the far past or 'beyond us' now.

It is easy to rationalize any position that profits oneself and to discount arguments against. Every journey begins with a single small step, even ones that lead to atrocities.

We must seek to recognize the ramifications of our policies and positions with regards to their effects on our fellow men. Markets and political decisions do not exist in a vacuum.

[mattduke]

Bombs away.

[Lore]

Why vote for a pretender when you can vote for the real thing? They lost because they ran a foul of their liberal lines. The people have spoken and for all the talk about getting Washington politicians to work together the citizenry really wants their own individual brand of ideology to prevail. There is no center to talk about.

[PrestonSturges]

One quarter of the voters were over 65, going to the polls to vote against Social Security.

Okey-dokey, let's get rid of it then ?

[Ludi]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('PrestonSturges', 'O')ne quarter of the voters were over 65, going to the polls to vote against Social Security.

Okey-dokey, let's get rid of it then ?

[Sixstrings]

Another interesting fact.. according to Huffpost, 8 of the 11 conservadems who voted against unemployment comp extension lost their seats:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/04/dems-who-voted-against-un_n_778931.html

[Plantagenet]

Looking at individual votes isn't very meaningful----every dem in Congress is responsible for the democrats' disasterous decision to focus on Obamacare instead of fixing the economy.

[Oneaboveall]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', 'B')ombs away.