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Blackout Stolen Without a Gun Finding the Bloom of the The Madness of George W. Bush Coyota Silent Battlefields Think Like a CEO The Food and Feelings Workbook Fixing American Healthcare Sojourners in a Strange Land Peacemaker of the Pecos Dream of the Dragon Pool The End of Sorrow: The Siege of Leningrad in World War II A Winter's Vigil Terrorism 101 The Final Human Warming the Stone Children The Bible's Cover Stories Revealed: The Golden Keys That Unlock History Remembrances of Times Past Apollo 21
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Hillary Clinton: A Win-Win By John F. Miglio It's a done deal. The corporate power brokers who hold the politicians in their pockets like so many nickels and dimes have already hedged their bets and decided that-- barring any unforeseen circumstances-- Hillary Clinton will be the Democratic nominee for president. It's the smart choice for them, a win-win situation. Naturally, they would rather see a Republican become the next president, someone just as corrupt and heartless and dimwitted as George W. Bush, their ultimate wet dream. However, this is a tall order. It will be difficult to find another human being-- even a Republican-- so thoroughly bought and paid for with corporate dollars and so unbelievably devoid of compassion for average Americans. Nevertheless, the corporate power brokers have plenty of Republican candidates to choose from, and any of them would be suitable replacements-- except for Ron Paul, of course, who actually has some degree of integrity and independence, which immediately rules him out. But if polls are any indication of future success, and if the Republican candidate is destined to lose the next presidential election, who better than Hillary to win? Of all the Democrats running for president, which one is the most mainstream and accommodating to corporate America? Which one has already sucked up to John McCain, Newt Gingrich, and Rupert Murdoch? Which one has a husband who makes the scene with George H.W. Bush every time there's a natural disaster? Which one has no compunction about shifting her political philosophy to suit her ambitions, beginning as a conservative "Goldwater girl" in high school, to a liberal supporter of George McGovern in college, to a centrist Senator in the current Congress? And which one knows how to play the Machiavellian game of hardball politics in Washington better than anyone? In other words, Hillary is the safe choice. The corporate elite have dealt with her and her husband for years, and they know they can count on the king and queen of compromise not to push the envelope nor do anything radical to shift the balance of power in the United States to a more populist agenda. Ironically, many Democrats (especially women) are under the delusion that Hillary is liberal, even progressive, and they think she will right all the wrongs of the Bush regime. But what many of these individuals fail to realize is that on the three most important issues of our time-- health care, the U.S. occupation of Iraq, and renewable energy-- she's almost as conservative as her Republican presidential opponents. And Obama and Edwards aren't much better. In fact, the only real Democrats in the race who aren't bought and paid for by corporate America are Dennis Kucinich and Mike Gravel, but like Ron Paul, they have no chance of winning. This political reality is very depressing to liberals and progressives since once again their choice for president in the next election will be between two corporate-backed candidates who will do the bidding of their financial malefactors and leave most Americans out in the cold. As a result, Democratic power brokers like Rahm Emanuel will once again use the same old saw to get liberals and progressives to vote for the lesser of two evils: "All right, maybe Hillary isn't as liberal as you would like, but she is certainly better than her Republican counterpart." In other words, forget about voting for a candidate that would actually promote single payer universal health care, withdraw from Iraq within six months, and create a national renewable energy program that would undercut the power of the fossil fuels industry and ameliorate global warming. The best you're going to get in our corrupt, corporate fascist system is Hillary. So be thankful for her, boys and girls. And remember, a half a loaf of bread is better than no loaf at all. This was the same argument that Bill and Hillary used in the oval office when they negotiated with a Republican-controlled Congress. But what did liberals or progressives ever get out of their half-baked, "half-loaf" strategy? Name one major piece of liberal legislation that Bill and Hillary proposed during their two terms in office that was signed into law? NAFTA? Welfare reform? A balanced budget? Oh, wait! They were part of the conservative Republican agenda! Mother Teresa, John Paul II, By Michael Parenti During his 26-year papacy, John Paul II elevated 483 individuals to sainthood, reportedly more saints than any previous pope. One personage he beatified but did not live long enough to canonize was Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun of Albanian origin who had been wined and dined by the world's rich and famous while hailed as a champion of the poor. The darling of the corporate media and western officialdom, and an object of celebrity adoration, Teresa was for many years the most revered woman on earth, showered with kudos and awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her "humanitarian work" and "spiritual inspiration." What usually went unreported were the vast sums she received from wealthy and sometimes tainted sources, including a million dollars from convicted savings & loan swindler Charles Keating, on whose behalf she sent a personal plea for clemency to the presiding judge. She was asked by the prosecutor in that case to return Keating's gift because it was money he had stolen. She never did.[1] She also accepted substantial sums given by the brutal Duvalier dictatorship that regularly stole from the Haitian public treasury. Mother Teresa's "hospitals" for the indigent in India and elsewhere turned out to be hardly more than human warehouses in which seriously ill persons lay on mats, sometimes fifty to sixty in a room without benefit of adequate medical attention. Their ailments usually went undiagnosed. The food was nutritionally lacking and sanitary conditions were deplorable. There were few medical personnel on the premises, mostly untrained nuns and brothers.[2] When tending to her own ailments, however, Teresa checked into some of the costliest hospitals and recovery care units in the world for state-of-the-art treatment.[3] Teresa journeyed the globe to wage campaigns against divorce, abortion, and birth control. At her Nobel award ceremony, she announced that "the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion." And she once suggested that AIDS might be a just retribution for improper sexual conduct.[4] Teresa emitted a continual flow of promotional misinformation about herself. She claimed that her mission in Calcutta fed over a thousand people daily. On other occasions she jumped the number to 4000, 7000, and 9000. Actually her soup kitchens fed not more than 150 people (six days a week), and this included her retinue of nuns, novices, and brothers. She claimed that her school in the Calcutta slum contained five thousand children when it actually enrolled less than one hundred. Teresa claimed to have 102 family assistance centers in Calcutta, but longtime Calcutta resident, Aroup Chatterjee, who did an extensive on-the-scene investigation of her mission, could not find a single such center.[5] As one of her devotees explained, "Mother Teresa is among those who least worry about statistics. She has repeatedly expressed that what matters is not how much work is accomplished but how much love is put into the work."[6] Was Teresa really unconcerned about statistics? Quite the contrary, her numerical inaccuracies went consistently and self-servingly in only one direction, greatly exaggerating her accomplishments. Over the many years that her mission was in Calcutta, there were about a dozen floods and numerous cholera epidemics in or near the city, with thousands perishing. Various relief agencies responded to each disaster, but Teresa and her crew were nowhere in sight, except briefly on one occasion.[7] When someone asked Teresa how people without money or power can make the world a better place, she replied, "They should smile more," a response that charmed some listeners. During a press conference in Washington DC, when asked "Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?" she said "I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people."[8]
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A bone-chilling political
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