Bermas On Politics

I discovered that you can download Bermas' and Avery's show from the Usenet Newsgroup alt.binaries.sounds.radio.misc rather than getting up at 7:00 in the morning (my time) to listen to his ramblings. The commercials have been snipped out, although unfortunately, the overlong musical bumps to begin each segment have not. Yesterday Bermas gave us some insight into his political thoughts, which, if anything, are even more poorly informed than his 9-11 thoughts.

Bermas gets into Dennis Kucinich's fantasy about impeaching Dick Cheney. Bermas apparently believes that this proposal will get somewhere, which is absurd, as even Democrats agree:

But Kucinich shouldn't hold his breath on getting anywhere with his impeachment plan. "We'll see a Kucinich Administration before we'll see a Cheney impeachment," quipped one Democratic aide.

Bermas doesn't like Kucinich (hey, we have something in common) because of his proposal to ban handguns (two things in common). Bermas prefers Ron Paul (definitely someplace I disagree with Bermas) and is concerned that Kucinich's impeachment proposal will split the 9-11 Denial Movement. But this was risible:

"It'll split us into two, and instead of, you know, Ron Paul getting 30 or 35% of the vote in the (Republican) primary, it may be down to 15 or 20, because the other half is voting for Kucinich, in the Democratic Primary."

I'll make a deal with you, Jason. I'll donate $1000 to the charity of your choice for every percentage point Ron Paul gets above 15% in the Republican primaries, if you agree to donate $1000 to the charity of my choice for every percentage point Ron Paul gets below 15% in the Republican primaries.

In fact, Ron Paul will get 1-2% of the vote in the Republican primaries; essentially the kook libertarian vote.

I listened to most of the show. Avery and Bermas are now talking about a big announcement 60 days down the road, not imminent as Dylan was claiming last week. We hear that "we might be seeing a trailer" with Remo Conscious' new (c)rap song on it.

There's a hint that the Cuban Deal may have gone south. Bermas is talking about Mark Cuban and says something along the lines of "Look at all the flak Cuban took from ESPN.com and sports blogs, and I don't think Cuban even wants to be bothered with this...." Unfortunately at that point they go to a commercial.

They do mention a History Channel documentary upcoming called 9-11 Search for the Truth, during the course of which Jason trashes Loose Change (33:00):

"He didn't agree with all of it, and really nobody should agree with all of it, and no one really does agree with all of it...."

We get another history lesson from Bermas. Apparently the HC documentary producer had said that there had never been a false-flag terror attack within the United States and Jason counters with:

"In the late 1800s, before he was president, McKinley bombed his own ship, the Maine, blamed it on the Spanish, Hearst Publications published all these lies, there was a song called 'Remember the Maine', and through massive indignation we were able to bear arms against the Spanish."

The usual sterling job by the crack researcher of the Louder than Words Crew. In fact, McKinley was never the captain of the Maine (he was in the Army during the Civil War, but afterwards became a lawyer and politician), the sinking of the Maine took place in Havana harbor (i.e., not within the United States), it happened during McKinley's term as president, and while there has certainly been some speculation that the explosion (which killed 266 US sailors) was somehow an "inside job" this is undercut by the fact that McKinley opposed the Spanish-American war until public pressure became too great. In fact, McKinley did not even cite the Maine in calling for US intervention in the Cuban civil war (which led to the Spanish declaring war on the US). But aside from that, Bermas is 100% correct; the Hearst papers did agitate for war, and there was a popular song called Remember the Maine.

Bermas on casualty figures:

"And if you're not killed in Iraq, aka you're blown up and then you're flown to a military hospital in Syria or Pakistan or along the border somewhere and you die, you don't count as a casualty of the Iraq War. You died somewhere else, and they don't give us that number."

So now we have military hospitals in Syria?