22 January 2009

Thoughts for a change...



If this author were Tom Friedman of (amongst other things) the New York Times, he might have this thought on the transition, from the previous misAdministration to the incoming Obama years...


"The only thing we learned in the last eight years, is that Tanks and Garbage trucks cost more than Ambulances and Pickup trucks..."


And 'Tom' would go on to show us how the costs of destruction are one-dimensional, as we knew long ago from our oft-repeated quote from Dwight Eisenhower (stand by...). Bombs and bullets provide a one-time profit to their source contractors, get used, or stored, but they never 'create' positive consequences.


But the Ambulance that saves a life, as well as the pickup trucks of the plumber, carpenter or mason, are public or private expenses that benefit their source contractor, and their end users: patients and hard-working women and men.


Not being Tom Friedman, and being on the ZEN side of things, we reflect now on the nightmares of past propaganda, in comparison to the nightmares of present reality.


There is no single aspect of the outgoing misAdministration that deserves praise, and while Dick Cheney appears as healthy as Kim Jong-Il ...

Seriously: who believes that that true blue–blooded oilman Cheney has EVER boxed and hauled his own cartons from one sordid office to a new location? As an excuse for his situation, however, that excuse is as fine as any other.


He may be paying for the sins of his public career and we are not inclined to add to the weight he carries.



Do you know anyone who didn't sell their Halliburton stock? :-)


Looks to be a perfect economic analysis of the outgoing misAdministration, non?


As the war in Iraq intensified, and as the shadow-economy oil speculators drove the market to absurdly dis-economic cost levels, Halliburton rode the Republican wave to its natural cyclical end.

The world, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, the hot spots in Africa, Mexico, even in New Orleans: the world needs a year of ambulances. A world and year of blankets, simple food... clean water.

Guns or butter... Econ 101, in the simple true words of the last clean(er) Republican President (link goes to a previous crystelZENmud post):

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."(Dwight Eisenhower, during his Administration)



One sure thing, is that the weight of the misunderestimations presented by the spectacularly connived policy pronouncements of the outgoing misAdministration, have begun to be lifted from the shoulders of the peoples of the world. The dark dreams of empire-mongers give way to the weary charge laid upon Barrack Hussein Obama, and
Congress, in spite of their badger-vicious minority Republican Party and its media allies.

Conservatives don't get it, perhaps. Yet to be a 'Conservative' in the USA requires soul-searching as to whether they follow a lost concept or their present reality. A new Republican Party may arise, but it would either have to be better, or worse, than that model run into the ground by Karl Rove and Rush Limbaugh. Any Conservative reading this Progressive blog should seek out the writings of Ike Eisenhower, or study the waning years of Barry Goldwater, whose epiphany was "Why do I spend so much time HATING?..."



We, the People, however, should have stronger bases to create the sustainable future we've desired, as the world asks, waits, witnesses.



Those were 'Thoughts for a change'...


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© 2009


20 January 2009

Bush A-Go-Go...


I don't want to think about George W Bush.


I don't want to think about him ever again, in the same way I don't think about Charles Manson, Adolf Hitler, Al Capone or Jeffrey Dahmer.


Or Pol Pot, E Gordon Liddy or John Negroponte...

As the hours and minutes race off to a new beginning, here is a retrospective of some Bush photos created exclusively here at ZEN Central...
From one of our favorite posts:


23 August 2007

Napoleon v Bush.... read the Juan COLE blog...

(you can click on photos as well, for links to the posts provided...)


Excerpt:
And all the while we were thinking Bush was a second Hitler, joyfully authorizing torture, playing with the lives of innocent Iraqi children, and loyal, patriotic American troops and their families...



From another post, back in 2006:


From:

04 September 2006

Appeasement then, then and NOW?...

Excerpt: When Neville Chamberlain sought the hand of Adolph Hitler in 1938;
When Donald Rumsfeld sought the hand of Saddam Hussein in
1983
The first would symbolize the 'horrors' of appeasement, while the second would be conveniently forgotten...
by those who trumpet that word against opponents of the Second Bush Crusade...



29 January 2008

Your choice: statistics or spin...

The link (photo) goes to Bartcop, who provides so many friends with mirth...


you could find updated information somewhere near Henry Waxman's House Committee, we're guessing...


And we're proudest, and saddest, for having published this (Again at Bartcop) cartoon long before Bush started thumping his media-drum...


10 September 2007

CASE: the US Media v General Petraeus




Although Bush's third war was scuttled by all reasonable opinions, his desires were fanned by his fans... One can only presume that, even right wing taxpayers know when to stop feeding an addiction...

Last evening, on CANAL+, a French network similar to HBO, they spoofed Bush, showing him packing his office to vacate it today... His 'body guard/handlers', who look like Sly Stallone twins (this is a 'news show' with Puppets ('les Guignols': what they are doing against Sarkozy is priceless...)

... and anyway so as he was packing up his desk, one of the Sly-clones found a box with his helmet, from his ignoble flight to the flight deck of a US aircraft carrier: the famous 'mission accomplished' media-porn-travesty... and it held a brain in it! When they told him to put it on: WHAAACK!!!

The man could think and talk for the remaining seconds of that brief routine...

Maybe the Christian extremists can pray that Bush won't ignore his legacy... once a fuck-up, always a fuck-up.

And with that thought: Bush won't occupy time, here at ZEN Central.


It's OBAMA WORLD, from today forward... do your share.


Peace,

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© 2009



05 January 2009


A new year, a new format for crystelZENmud...


New ideas, new American President, new crises, need new eyes, and solutions that create harmony.

Zen is as ZEN does...


This post introduces a new concept, to be irregularly supported as time allows.

"Letters to Mr. President" (still "-elect" at this date...)

Other concepts are ongoing, and our long-term focus is still primordial.


Letter To Mr. President-elect (One):

Here's a thought for your attempt to bail out the Detroit auto industry, Mr. Obama:

Have your future Commerce Secretary re-invite the GM, Ford and Chrysler CEOs into a conference room, and invite them to bring with them, the (depending on which company) 5 to 20 auto designers, auto architects, auto engineers, at the most senior level, who have had the greatest number of 'eco-car' designs rejected by those CEOs.

Invite the designers/architects/engineers/forward (Team "D/A/E") , and invite them(D/A/E) to be the recipients of the funds, granted in the name of the corporation, and invite their input as to whether the CEOs should maintain their A) Jobs, B) Salaries, C) bonuses.

If you want the corporation to change, start with the right people: those employees whose careers have been frustrated through the Detroit macho-ignorance shown by their current SUV culture. Those whose designs sometimes make it to a car show, but die there after the glitz turns into a hangover!

That's Letter One, Mr. President-elect: welcome to Washington, DC.

Sincerely,

ZENmud Central

PS: to our loyal readers, merci for your waiting and input!


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©
2009