With Syria the President plays it smart, and his supporters expecting otherwise don't get it.

It's amazing that even so many of the President's strong supporters don't realize he does NOT want to get involved in Syria in any way, shape or form.
From the first time HRC declared the rebels worthy and Assad had to go, virtually his entire foreign affairs team has been pro-intervention.
That he has told the pro war people on his own team no for 2 years seems lost on everyone, as even his supporters think he is for it.
For once it'd be nice for his supporters to realize that the decision making at the presidential level is not simple black and white.
After 6 years he finally realizes the best way to handle the Republicans is to use their antipathy to him personally as a weapon against him.
He is so against involvement he's willing to use that as a tool to fight against the constant pressure from his own cabinet and administration like Kerry.
So what does he do when the pressure post gas attack became a cacophony of shouts and screams to attack Syria in DC both from within his administration in conjunction with Republican demands he get involved in the House and Senate, he says OK let's do it.
And ever so predictably, the Republican party rapidly discovers it actually has lost its interest in attacking Syria.
McCain is suddenly virtually alone among Republicans continuing the call to go to war.
The Republican house majority he could depend on to parrot his calls to go to war in Syria has suddenly adopted the teahadist isolationist mindset, and Graham once his echo has also become silent.
Just like that the pro-war members of his own administration who had been counting on the voice of Republican war mongers to make the case for war to the public suddenly had to do it themselves, and there not up to it.
Without inside the admin war mongers working in tandem with Republican war mongers it suddenly looks like it's President Obama who is the only one to want to attack Syria, but for the last two years the story has been the exact opposite.
Rather than being on the ropes, the President has played this extremely skillfully.
For once he has followed through and purposefully manipulated the Republican hatred of him to his own advantage to gain what he really wants and that's to stay out of Syria, and to shut down the enthusiasm in his own administration for it too.
For the last 6 years he's chosen the high road with Republicans always hoping that if he treated them with respect they'd eventually realize they are wrong to hate him so mindlessly.
This is the first time he's treated them with the same contempt they treat him by using such obvious reverse psychology to get his way with them.
And no such vote will come to pass without solid Republican support.
The Democratic caucus in congress has always been split with a slight majority opposing involvement.
That Democratic congressional voices seem late to the party is a reflection of the American Corporate News Establishment (ACNE) ignoring them, because Democratic party being anti-war wasn't newsworthy.
Without a resounding vote in favor, he now has the perfect excuse to
climb down from what looked like the first step to full scale
involvement.
AND best of all he can do it and say he is fulfilling the will of the people and the will of congress despite the fact he has the authority nevertheless.

Progressives are not automatically anti-war, but they are actively anti military/industrial complex

Progressives are anti-military-industrial complex, the grotesque amalgamation of for profit private and publicly owned corporations in the business of supplying weapons to our vaunted military machine that has proved to be every bit as dangerous to the future of this nation as President Eisenhower warned it would be when he first used the term he coined.

For those who cannot see the inherent evil, let me make it real simple.

In order for the military/industrial corporate machine to stay in business and make money for its investors we must make war.

If we fail to do that as a nation, corporations and industries our leaders in DC feel are critical to the interests of our nation (because they are key providers to our military machine) quickly start going downhill with the predictable reactions and results.

First they lay off workers providing instant angry constituent feedback to DC representatives.

If that fails, they threaten to go out of business and deprive our military machine of their critical supplies, services.

Of course it's not all bluff.

Without war keeping many of them profitable, they will go out of business.

Luckily for those businesses they have CEOs who have a vested interest in making sure that doesn't happen.

So they open their coffers to finance one of the largest lobbying efforts in DC.

And what do they lobby for, well ultimately they lobby for the USA to engage in every and any military conflict we can. They don't literally say that. They are not idiots. They know how to say what they mean without literally saying to our representatives in DC that they need a good war to stay in business.

From that reality grows the natural progressive scepticism regarding all wars post-Vietnam.

What some see as a knee jerk anti-war philosophy in the progressive belief system, is a healthy and justified scepticism regarding the outsized and wrong role the corporate war profiteers and their surrogates in the media (neocons, military personnel retiring to a job with them Etc.) in deciding when we should go to war and why.

It's also a result of the fact that many progressives are far more aware than most of the wholesale propaganda effort that plays the entire nation when we are faced with situations like the one in Syria.

Only an idiot would believe any nation goes to war to do the right thing.

Nations go to war strictly to serve their own interests.

Unfortunately in the modern day "our interests" now include the need to keep the corporations that supply our military machine profitable and growing to keep their investors happy.
</i></b> Now that's insane.

It is ludicrous, and purposefully naive to believe any war in the last 30 years has been about national interests, helping the downtrodden, oppressed Etc.,

To NOT see this in the case of Syria is to admit to a particularly serious case of bias in favor war

In Syria there are NO good guys.
 
Syria is in a 4 sided civil war, and NO side is pro-American.

You have the gubment Assad, his history is well-known vs a vs the "rebels" that all too many are making the huge mistake deciding to support intervention simply based on his ruthless regime's history.

People think Assad is so evil (and he is BUT) that they dismiss the need to examine the opposition.

If they did they'd realize there is NO ONE OTHER SIDE.

The "other side" fighting against Assad really consists of at least two competing factions who are fighting their own mini war while simultaneously fighting against Assad sometimes together but usually apart.

Together however they have developed into basically an ALL-Sunni militia that has recast this conflict as a religious war as much as it is a rebellion against an autocratic leader.

Luckily for us a lot of Americans know about this stuff at least somewhat, and that is why not only progressives but over 70% of the nation oppose getting involved in Syria.

Unfortunately, the MI complex has turned on its propaganda machine and has spent the last couple of months painting the FSA Free Syrian Army as our guys, as the good guys.

 We are constantly lied to in the media that they are in charge, but in reality they are NOT in charge.

They consist of a disparate collection of secular SUNNI fighting groups  who do their best to present themselves as a cohesive fighting force against Assad, and because the war mongers on our side need this to be true to push for us to get involved we are presented this lie as the truth.

Not mentioned is a key part of the FSA, the Kurds are refusing to fight with the FSA, and currently are engaged in heavy fighting with the Islamists in Syria (the strong leg of the triad that makes up the umbrella group called the FSA)

The truth of the FSA is truly an abomination.

The best fighting forces in the FSA are Al Nusra Front and Al Qaeda Levant, both fundamentalist Islamic forces that want to turn Syria into a fundamentalist Islamic state ruled by strict Koranic law.

Of the total victories on the rebel side, the vast majority have been won by them.

They hate the USA and everything we stand for as much as they hate Assad as much as they hate the heretical Alawites and Shia minorities in Syria along with the Druze and 10% or so of Syrians who are Christians.

We are being told that the rebels must win for justice to prevail in Syria, but how that will be the result of a rebel victory we aren't told, because it's a lie.

Should the rebels defeat Assad, Al Nusra and Al Qaeda Levant will destroy their much weaker allies in the FSA to eliminate the last of the secular forces in Syria.

About the ONLY WAY such a result from a rebel victory can be prevented is if we the USA have troops on the ground.

And a lot of progressives know that is the real agenda.

Thus the seeming nearly automatic rejection of getting involved in Syria.

It has nothing to do with helping the oppressed win their freedom, because that will not be the outcome of a rebel victory unless we are directly involved with about 100,000 troops long term.

By having troops in Syria we feed the military/industrial complex what it needs to make money for its investors.
Everything we are being told is just a means to make that ends reality.

Aaargh! Physicists! Again!

Aaargh! Physicists! Again!

A great article that demonstrates that even very bright minds can stumble around like morons when they stray out of their field of understanding without making any attempt to understand the basics of it beforehand.

HOW COME STATES CAN'T SUCCEED - EZ EXPLANATION

The People who live in a state DO NOT OWN the TERRITORY making up any state.

That goes for everyone newcomers and people whose family have lived in a state for generations.

Likewise, the government of any state which was created by laws of the United States does NOT own the territory of the state they govern.*


The TERRITORY OF A STATE is OWNED BY THE USA.

The citizens of the USA who live in any of the 50 states are citizens of the USA.

NOT ONE single person in the USA is a Citizen of their state, because legally there is no such thing as being a citizen of a state that is equal to or superior in nature to being the citizen of the USA.

All such assertions reflect are "honorary". 

They do NOT reflect any sort of legal status recognized by the USA or any other nation.

Some people confuse RESIDENCY with citizenship.

But Residency does not equal or is it a form of CITIZENSHIP. Otherwise a person's status would NOT change simply by moving to another state.


Citizenship and the constitution do NOT give anyone the right to take property owned by the USA established by war and treaties as their own property. 


For that reason there is NO type of vote, NO type of declaration that can be made by people living any state that can legally create the basis for succession.


Of course then there is the fact that a significant minority, often a majority of a state has NO desire to succeed.


People who think their state has a right to succeed seem to believe those who don't agree have no rights at all, and can be forced to move somewhere else while they steal territory belonging to the USA under the guise of succession.


And that is what succession boils down to, an attempt to steal property belonging to the USA own in the name of all citizens by a few dissatisfied few.


*(the civil war settled the question as to whether or not the states that were the original 13 colonies that formed the USA were exceptions. They are not.)