A letter from Cindy Sheehan:

I am writing this to you on the fifth Veteran's Day I have mourned the death of my son, Casey Sheehan. Casey was a soldier in the Army. You killed my oldest son with your lies and greed for Empire. Casey never became a Veteran because he came home in one of those pesky flag draped coffins that your mother doesn't want to bother her "pretty mind" with.

During that other illegal and immoral war that you and your VP, Dick, had the good sense to dodge, your mother never had to go through one second of worry for your safety, did she? You were too busy doing your drugs and going AWOL to bother her "pretty mind" about that. What galls me the most when I think about my brave and honorable son's needless and untimely death, is that you were so cowardly and worthless when you were his age and you had the nerve to condemn thousands of our children to death or disability with your lies.

George, I have written you letters before. I have demanded your resignation and also promised you that I would work for your impeachment. If you remember, I even started a peace camp of thousands of protesters outside your Crawford ranch and I even tried to get into Congress so I could impeach your criminal hide. You never answer my letters and you have never had the integrity to tell me what "Noble Cause" killed my son. This is the last letter you will receive from me while you are infecting our Oval Office, but it won't be the last time you hear from me.

George, I guess I could "rest on my laurels" and allow you to slink off into the quiet desperation of leaving the White House as the most detested President in American history, but that is not enough for me: Millions are dead, wounded, displaced and suffering life-long pain because of your actions. You are the number one terrorist in the world today and this country catches, tortures and prosecutes "terrorists" doesn't it? Haven't you said so yourself? You have turned the USA into a nation of imperial mobsters and we have the ignominy of being torturers and you do not deserve to retire with any kind of peace or honor.

George, if Nancy Pelosi and the other complicit Congressional leaders won't hold you accountable, I will. This nation has a very short memory and we have been assaulted on a daily basis by your arrogance and stupidity and most of America is buying the hype of pre-packaged and aggressively marketed, Hope, but I don't have the option of burying your deadly legacy like it never happened and moving on. The hole in my heart that used to contain the living and breathing presence of my son will never heal and you are the one who put it there. If you think you are going to live a comfortable life in Dallas, or Paraguay, or wherever, a la Johnson, Nixon, McNamara or Kissinger, you are wrong.

George, this country too hastily moved on from the abomination of Vietnam and we never healed from that horror because we never did the hard work of holding American leaders accountable for crimes against humanity. If history repeats itself, as it tends to do, you won't be held accountable for your crimes, but I won't let you forget the faces of my son, Casey and his comrades or the legion of faces of the Afghan and Iraqi dead. Are your dreams haunted by the souls of the people massacred by your hubris?

If I have to buy or erect a billboard near your home and plaster it with the faces of the people you murdered, I will. I will also work with my contacts in the international community to have you indicted for crimes against humanity. I will do whatever it takes to be the thorn in your side as you have been my sorrow. There are many people around the world who thirst for justice and healing who will join me in this noble cause.

This Nation forgot the faces of the 58,000 plus Americans and millions of Vietnamese who were slaughtered for imperial greed, but they won't forget the faces of the ones you have sacrificed on your altar of deception or the ones who will be sacrificed for the President Elect's continued War OF Terror. If Obama does not declare a speedy and complete end to the USA's war of terror on the world, someone should set up camp at his vacation home (which I bet will be nicer than Crawford, TX in August).

On this Veterans Day, I make this pledge to you. Unless we stop the bloody tide of war for profit and US hegemony by seeking justice for your war crimes and crimes against our Constitution, more Casey's will die and more countries that unfortunately lie in the path of imperial conquest will be decimated.

On this Veteran's Day, I also send my love and support to the Vets from all wars who live on our streets and are substance abusers because they can't get help from this hypocritical government. My heart goes out to all Gold Star Mothers who have nothing but a box of medals, a triangular folded flag and memories of a dead child and regrets for a life not lived with him/her. The war machine in collaboration with our government chews people up and rolls on oiled with pain.

George you broke your oath to "faithfully" execute your office and you betrayed the troops that you command due to nothing but election fraud, but I will not break my promise to you.

Cindy Sheehan Mother of Casey Austin Sheehan KIA in Sadr City, Baghdad April 04, 2004

WE keep hearing that there is a crisis of confidence that is causing the stock market to drop.  DUHHHH!!  When Tweedledum and Tweedledee and Chicken Little are all crying that the sky is falling, of course there is a crisis of confidence.  It is a manufactured crisis, as I have been saying all along.  And not it is no longer a phony crisis, because the panic created by the Terrible B's (Bush, Bernanke and Baldy) is really and truly affecting the easily panicked; e.g. Wall Street-o-philes.

I predict that confidence will return when Obama is elected.  If McaCain is elected, the markets will continue to flounder because, by his own admission, McCain knows nothing about economics.

We have a President that has squandered the confidence of the entire world that American has so painfully acquired.  His own personal credibility if zero.  Until we have a President that the world--not just the U.S.--can believe, we will continue to suffer economically.

I keep hearing that we have a "credit crisis" that must be solved by giving 700 billion to the banks in return for their crappy mortgages.  I keep hearing that we must do this RIGHT NOW so this "credit crisis" will not bring down the whole economy.  It's phony and the numbers prove it.

I wrote a week or so ago that the LIBOR, the London Interbank Offered Rate (which is set by 16 big banks including Citibank) was 2 percentage points less than a year ago.  Yet every day, I hear that "credit is drying up" and "banks won't lend to each other."  It's phony.

Bogus fact number 1: the LIBOR is at an all-time high.  Not so.  True, the rate rose sharply today, just like the stokc market dropped sharply yesterday.  But as the chart below shows, the LIBOR is still well below its high from as recently as a year ago.

Also, I got a call on my cellphone today from "John at MBNA" telling me that my line of credit was approved.  I didn't even know I asked for a line of credit.  The credit crisis is phony, just li ke the "biggest drop ever on the stock market" yesterday was phony.

My good friend Donna Smith could not have been more right on:

Pissed Off and Defrauded, One SiCKO responds
By Donna Smith, American SiCKO

CHICAGO - OK, Michael, I did it . I called - just like you asked me to.  I
called my senators and told them I am fed up with the mess on Wall Street,
fed up with the bail-out of the big boys, fed up with the wealthy ruling the
rest of us.  I am so angry today I can hardly contain it.  Enough is enough
doesn't touch my rage.

Senator Barack Obama's office politely logged my comments and took down my
address. Sen. Dick Durbin's office did not - they argued with me about the
benefits for me of the bail-out.  They argued with me - asked me if I wanted
to see more people suffer if there was no bail out.  Oh my God.  They argued
with me. 

Four years ago, mu husband Larry and I declared bankruptcy because even with
health and disability insurance and a healthcare savings account, we went
belly up when our bills and expenses surged well past our ability to cover
them - Larry has chronic health issues; I had cancer.  There was no way for
us to hang on despite our efforts to borrow and plead to stay afloat.  We
lost our house and most of our furniture and most everything we worked to
achieve.

As punishment for going bankrupt in America, we will never again - never
again - own a home or have a credit card that isn't savings backed or have
any of the nods of acceptance the "good" credit bearers have in this nation.
People will look at that bankruptcy and judge us unfit - look down their
noses at us and decide we are losers from now until forever.  We got sick and
we went broke and we are no longer among  the valued folks in this nation.

But today, my U.S. senator's office argued with me about how Wall Street
needs this bail out to protect me.  Bull shit.  There is nothing in this for
me.  I have lost everything.  I will never have it back no matter if I work
100 hours a week or try 1,000 times harder than I did before.  Nothing I can
do will erase my failure in getting sick.

Next week, though, armed with my money from the bail out, the Wall Street
leaders and the government leaders who now judge me unfit will sit fat and
happy sipping fine wine and eating pate and giggling about the next trip to
Europe or an evening at the club - their lives will remain soft and pure and
without the nasty judgments I have to endure every day. My bail out will have
funded their greed and smug disdain for people like me.

It stinks to the high heaven in America today.  I understand damn well that
they've mismanaged this into a point of collapse and that without a fix from
somewhere that there are dire things waiting to unfold worldwide.  But by God
no one was there to lift me up or put me back on my feet.  And I will die
without a home.  I will die without ever regaining what I lost. And I will
die with the bastards who I am bailing out today looking down their noses at
me like I am a piece of garbage because I cannot shop at Neiman Marcus for my
clothes or carry a Fendi bag...

I am sick to my stomach after talking with Durbin's office.  I can only hope
that the polite and respectful response from Obama's staff will reflect how I
will be treated under a President Obama.  Else, I am not sure staying alive
under this sort of domestic and economic  terrorist assault on my humble
position in life is worth enduring.

This bail out reflects a much deeper and more difficult problem - a very
fundamental disdain for democracy.  You see, anyone in government who
believes this is the way to treat the vast majority of your citizens
certainly does not believe in the common good or the value of individuals
within a democratic system.  We are just depositors in their bank accounts -
they need us to foot the bill for their party.  And we're not invited to any
table at all. We can pick up the trash.

As Casey Stengel famously said, “it’s déjà vu all over again.”  Last week I wrote on how this bailout was a manufactured crisis, precipitated by greedy administration fatcats leading George “Dummy” Bush into a panic and then into a stupid decision.  I likened this “crisis” to the panic that led us into Iraq.  I suggested that just as Cheney’s old company, Halliburton, profited mightily from Iraq, so too would Paulson’s former cronies at Goldman Sachs profit from this panic.

All that was missing was the smoking gun.  Today the smoking gun turned up on the pages of the New York Times.

It turns out that at the meeting in New York where Paulson and Bernanke were discussing the bailout of AIG, “the only Wall Street chief executive participating in the meeting was Lloyd C. Blankfein of Goldman Sachs, Mr. Paulson’s former firm.”  The article goes on to detail the reason for Goldman Sachs’ interest: it was on the hook for $20 billion as counterparty in trades with AIG.  No bailout for AIG and presto—Goldman loses 20 billion and Blankfein loses this year’s bonus.

Well, all’s well that ends well.  AIG got its bailout and Goldman remains standing—for now.

Oh, by the way, the article also reports the details of how AIG collapsed, mostly due to trades of “handpicked” credit swap guarantees, supposedly risk-free insurance policies on debt paper.  These “insurance policies” written by AIG produced billions in profits, almost of half of which was paid out in employee compensation.  And guess what—the collapse of this market was no surprise.  It could have been easily foreseen as early as a year ago, when AIG first showed a loss on these transactions.

It might have been foreseen earlier had anyone cared to look into the characters behind AIG and this particular bright financial scheme.

It turns out that the guy who ran the AIG subsidiary, Joseph Cassano, was a former colleague of convicted felon Michael Milken, the jailed junk bond king of Drexel Burnham Lambert.  The apple didn’t fall very far from the tree.

One could also look at AIG’s own black history under Maurice Greenberg, the former AIG chief executive who was kicked out because of an accounting “scandal” (closely akin to fraud and theft.)

It seems reasonable to point out that doing business with thieves often results in losing your money to theft.  And so now we, the taxpayers, are going into business with the thieves of Wall Street and—it appears from the smoking gun news—the thieves have completely hoodwinked George “Dummy” Bush and the Congress once again.

I understand John McCain—he wants to be the bad boy who becomes the hero.  He is a Peter Pan, a boyish old guy with adult responsibilities who wants to chuck them all for NeverNeverLand.  That is how I explain his otherwise inexplicable (or at least irrational) choices.  Sarah Palin (forGodSake) as Veep.  “Suspending” his campaign to ride off to rescue the nation from Henry Paulsen.  Joe Lieberman as keynote speaker.

This is also a good explanation for his radical lurches into insulting and misogynistic riffs on his wife and his (female) campaign aides.  To his wife—“At least I don't plaster on the makeup like a trollop, you c**t.” To his aide, Brooke Buchanan—“bipolar”, “a drunk”, “someone with a lot of boyfriends.”  Peggy Noonan and even less reactionary mediaheads write this off as the “fun-loving” McCain, the “boys on the bus” goodtime Charlie, the “maverick.”

Truth be told, I understand and so do a lot of guys.  Off-handedly insulting, then profusely apologetic or enragedly self-righteous because my insult was “just in fun.”  It’s comforting to be able to claim the moral high ground of being misunderstood.  I am sure Peter Pan would cop the same attitude.

This even shows up in McCain’s political stands over the years.  He has the reputation of a “maverick” but he is only a “maverick” when ca cause excites him, when he sees some way he can throw a bomb and come out without a scratch.  McCain is less a maverick than a bomb-thrower.  He takes a contrary position, sometimes just for the hell of it, sometimes because he is mad, sometimes on the strength of personalities, but never on well thought out principle.  He throws bombs at other people’s ideas or comes up with his own bombastic ideas mainly in order to portray John McCain as “his own man”, “nobody’s stooge.”

Even in the Senate, this is fairly innocuous.  After all, an occasional bomb thrown into the crowd does not mean that you can’t vote 90% of the time with the rest of your party.  They will forgive the occasional bomb as long as it’s mainly a stinkbomb that you are throwing.

But that gets to the point.  A bombthrower in the Presidency is dangerous on a nuclear scale.  Throwing an occasional bomb, even if it is only a stinkbomb, has far more serious consequences in the Presidency than for a Senator from a western state known mainly for cactus and unrelenting sunshine.  And that brings me to my second point, which surprised me but makes sense.

I think McCain wants to lose the Presidential election.  Maybe he won’t admit it to himself and certainly not to others, but I think he knows that the job of President is hard and demands steadiness and forethought. It demands that you put your mind in gear before your mouth is in motion.  McCain is good at talking but not at thinking and not at sticking to a position.  He is chimerical and he does not like to be told what to do.  He really didn’t want to win the Republican nomination, at least not if it meant compromising whatever few principled positions he has taken.  Unfortunately for him, his Republican opponents were so weak and lacking in principle themselves that not even the “base” could stomach them.  So the “base” stayed away in droves and McCain was nominated despite himself.

Now he has what he wants—top Republican dog.  Now he has shown the Bushes, the Roves, the Falwells that he is a “maverick” who can win, a bad boy turned hero.

Again unfortunately for him, nomination is just the first step and this is where he falters.  After nomination, he has to swallow a Republican platform written by the most conservative members of the “base”, a platform that trashes McCain’s own views on immigration and abortion, that makes no pretense to be “maverick.”  And as the nominee, but not yet the “boss”, McCain has to swallow.  It’s as if Peter Pan came to London with Wendy and shed his green tights for a suit and tie.  A disappointment to himself and to his lifelong image of himself as someone who can thumb his nose at authority (his father the Admiral, the Naval Academy, the Vietnamese, the Arizona Republican Party, the President) and get away with it.

That is how I explain the otherwise inexplicable.  McCain doesn’t really want to be President.  Peter Pan doesn’t want to grow up.

Oh and by the way, even Peggy Noonan agrees: “He doesn’t need the presidency. He got what he wanted. So now he can coast.”