STOP NOW YE PLUNDERING CAPITALISTS

AND MAKE US PROUD AGAIN. There is a under-appreciated class of pro-capitalist anti-communist citizens workers who feel great pain at what America and the global economy have become. We want better choices to be made. We do not wish to destroy in order to have magically appear some unlikely new world because we believe we know at what price that new world would begin. We are the radical center. We want change, but we do not prefer left over right, or right over left. Here is an interesting article on how big business steals back our money after exploiting us in the first place which continues to proliferate the algorithm of the rich getting richer and the poor becoming more numerous, if not exactly poorer. Don't yawn quite yet, the article is solid, and worth a glance.

As someone who had suffered the early part of his life under a brutal regime, economic and political philosopher Friedrich Hayek's keen observation that capitalism works better than communism is proved mathematically. A thousand business owners each working in its own interest can react to the shifting aspects of supply and demand quicker and more efficiently than a centralized committee can even begin to recognize a problem. This mathematical insight solved the riddle once and for all for us here at the Two-Fisted Quorum, as to which is the preferred system, despite the problems with any system, by employing a metaphor akin to the historical scenario of the slow, bulky Spanish Armada warships who lost to the smaller, faster English fleet in rough weather.

We must turn the tide in this fight against an oligarchy of the rich. We must fight for freedom and renewed opportunity. This notion that things are not right does not make me a frothing leftist any more than wanting to own a gun to protect my family automatically makes me an avenging angel of the Right. Come now, let us reason together.

CHAVEZ BUYING URANIUM FOR IRAN

CARACAS, Venezuela— The Washington Post is reporting today that a mysterious Venezuelan air force flight came under attack from vigilantes when it touched down last week at an airfield in northern Bolivia amid fears that the transport plane was delivering weapons. Suspicions were only deepened when officials confirmed that a Venezuelan banking official on board the flight had been carrying a briefcase stuffed with $160,000 in cash.

The airfield, at Riberalta, is located near a Bolivian uranium-mining area, adding to long-standing suspicions that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trying to purchase uranium from his Latin American neighbor for transshipment to Iran. Riberalta is in Bolivia's northern and eastern lowlands, where local officials are resisting efforts by President Evo Morales to concentrate more power in his central government, which is dominated by highland Indians.

More than 400 changes to the constitution were approved by a special assembly dominated by Mr. Morales' ruling party during an all-night session ending Sunday morning.

Read it all.

FILMMAKER AARON RUSSO'S AMERICA

You be the judge. Here is an excerpt from film maker Aaron Russo's rather frightening documentary. I have been hearing about David Rockefeller and the Trilateral Commission world banking conspiracies since I first began to open my political eyes in the early 1970s, only to slam them shut quickly to avoid instant blindness, but here is a more contemporary, and dare I say, less conspiracy-riddled investigative report that makes a strong case that the bankers did indeed destroy what was once a beautiful world.


The preceding clip is only an excerpt. See the entire documentary here.

But while we're busy at saving the world, leaving no jihadi unturned, here is more news from NYC about the Somali terrorist convicted for planning to blow up a shopping mall. A judge on Tuesday sentenced a Somali immigrant to 10 years in prison for plotting to blow up an Ohio shopping mall with a man later convicted of being an Al Qaeda terrorist.

Nuradin Abdi, a cell phone salesman before his arrest, will be deported to Somalia after serving the sentence. U.S. District Judge Algenon Marbley imposed the sentence as part of a plea deal Abdi agreed to in July. In a 20-minute statement to the court, Abdi's attorney Mahir Sherif said his client apologized to the people of the United States, the people of Ohio and the Muslim community.

"He apologizes for the things he thought about and the things he talked about and the crimes he pleaded guilty to," Sherif said. "He wants to make it very, very clear that he does not hate America."

The alleged plot was never carried out and Sherif long maintained Abdi was guilty at most of ranting about the United States' handling of the war in Afghanistan. Abdi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support for terrorists. Three charges were dropped as part of his plea deal; Abdi could have received 80 years in prison had he been convicted of all the counts he had faced.

Prosecutors said Abdi made threatening comments about the unspecified shopping mall during a meeting with two other alleged terrorists on Aug. 8, 2002, at a coffee shop in suburban Columbus.

Abdi and the two "could attack the mall with a bomb," Abdi told his friends as they sipped $11.25 in refreshments at the coffee shop, according to court documents. One of the men with Abdi that day was Iyman Faris, who pleaded guilty in May 2003 to providing material support for terrorism. A Pakistani immigrant, Faris was convicted of plotting to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge and sentenced to 20 years in prison.

The third man alleged to be at the meeting is Christopher Paul, a U.S. citizen who grew up in suburban Columbus. He was charged in April with plotting to bomb European tourist resorts frequented by Americans as well as overseas U.S. military bases, and his trial is scheduled for January 2009.

Abdi was arrested in November 2003. His attorneys have said he was upset at the war in Afghanistan and reports of civilians killed in bombings by the U.S.-led invasion. Prosecutors also say Abdi gave stolen credit card numbers to a man accused of buying gear for Al Qaeda, and lied on immigration documents to visit a jihadist training camp. His attorneys meanwhile have pointed out that the stolen credit card numbers were never used and that the Justice Department never alleged what organization they believed was running the camp, what Abdi intended to do with the training, or whether he ever actually went.

Big whoop, say I. It's not important to write the entire screenplay of an act of aggression against innocent people in order to stop it, and arrest the plotters. Now, the big question is this: shouldn't we also be going after the Saudis who are our deceiving enemies, and people like David Rockefeller who are cold-blooded usurpers of the American republic and George Bush who gives blundering aid and comfort and outright appeasement to both these players in an endgame no one can be sure is worth winning...

I suppose not, so instead let's just say a prayer for the spirit of Tom Paine who fought with powerful words against both these types of men in the flesh of his own times.

FLYING DUST

China continues to fix its own currency against the dollar. The House of Saud tightens its grip on the American economy, holding it hostage with its blood-stained stash of petrodollars, whispering threats to go Euro. Dubai oil sheiks ratchet up the stakes of impending financial doom by purchasing controlling chunks of Western stock exchanges. Hardball. Playing for keeps. Winner take all. The West is rapidly losing its stewardship, and foul friends just laugh and cackle good riddance.

Vincente Fox admits push for a single Western Hemisphere currency. Open borders. Political alliances operating on false presumptions and feckless ignorance. Babies nursed on bombs. Roving gangs well-hidden. Faces ripped off dirty headlines. Motion in recoil. Deceit in motion. No one in control. Welcome to chaos, ugly to its core. Fear in the fingers. Arrogance on the nose. Hatred by the book. Cowards without fright. Opposing thumbnails. Inversions of the rule. The pauper's pose. Hooked on transference. Lies. Damn lies. Peace at any cost. Ugly to its core.

And now of course, our trendy American kids are at it again, proving that ruthless irrationality in any forum always trumps strategic idealism in the hawkish eyes of its declared and undeclared enemies:

Wearing black shirts and covering their faces with bandanas, scores of sometimes unruly demonstrators marched through Georgetown last night to protest the international finance and development organizations meeting this weekend.

Despite the large contingent of officers on scooters and bicycles who flanked and followed the 200 to 300 protesters, violent incidents broke out. A woman bled after being struck in the face with what police said was a flying brick.

Trash cans were overturned in the rain-dampened streets, objects were thrown, and newspaper boxes were overturned. Two protesters were arrested in connection with an incident in which an officer was pushed from a scooter, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier said.

Many store windows were boarded up in anticipation of the demonstration, which targeted the meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, but two unprotected windows were struck near Wisconsin Avenue and M Street. It was not clear whether they were broken.

Read more in the Washington Post...