For the most part, the health care "town meetings" staged by members of Congress are shams designed to deceive and disinform the public on the possibilities and progress of health care reform. Like a stopped clock that's briefly on time twice daily, right wing nutcases and those who order them about have grasped something that eludes many progressives. The town halls are theatre, and ought to be treated as such. Maybe, suggests Dave Lindorff, we ought to do the same.   Read more…

It's not the best piece of writing I've ever done. It's not even the best thing I did this week, and doesn't contain any ideas or insights you haven't seen here at the Mighty Corrente complex already.

What it is, is an attempt to spread some of those ideas you have here to a wider audience. That's why it's a top ten list, something that folks are used to seeing. People who don't even want to know what a "public option" is will read a top ten list. I dunno why, that's just the way it works. If I'd had more time I would have added five or ten more things you can do at the bottom, but what the hell?

Anyhow, here it is.   Read more…

Until 1947, the United States habitually told the truth about at least one thing. The job title of the Pentagon's highest ranking civilian was the Secretary of War. But the recent slaughter of tens of millions in the Second World War had given the Pentagon's real function a bad name. So Democrat Harry Truman rebranded the Department of War, naming it the Department of Defense. From that day, the Secretary of War became the Secretary of Defense. War plants, war expenditures and bloodthirsty war industries became more benign-sounding defense plants, the defense expenditures and the patriotic defense industry.