Constructive Anarchy: The Blog

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Do the Math!

If our Commander-In-Chief sends 30,000 of our best and brightest kids into a combat zone to defend drug dealers it will cost America an extra 30 BILLION DOLLARS PER YEAR! On the other hand, if Obama pulls all GIs out of Afghanistan it will save taxpayers more than 90 BILLION a year…By a strange coincidence, the cost of Health Insurance for every American! And if we pull out of Iraq, we save enough to create millions of jobs at home and begin to wipe out our debt.

Only in America…

Could illiterates like Palin, Joe and Prejean receive a book deal worth millions before they have ever read a book cover-to-cover. But, if this fiction encourages white trash to learn how to read I’m for it 100%!

No takers for Prejean’s sex tape but the Donald uses it in Court Trump

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We warned you about this gold-digging, HypoChristian homophobe
The fallen beauty queen had sued Miss Cali officials in August for libel, slander and religious discrimination two months after they fired her over missed appearances. Prejean was MIA from the pageant-sanctioned events as she traveled the country as a newly minted conservative activist espousing her views against gay marriage.
Ummmm, yeah. Last week Carrie suddenly agreed to a settlement and fled the courtroom. The following day, TMZ reported that a sex tape was the pageant’s trump card, and Prejean wound up with no money.
Carrie Prejean Sex Tape that no one wants to see
Is Carrie Prejean technically subject to 5-year mandatory minimum federal sentence for child porn?.
Gloria Allred says yes. Carrie was 17 when she sent this vid to a boyfriend…Underage…Kiddie porn…Felony! 5 years in prison minimum.
But, Wait…the floodgates are open and a mob of exes are stepping forward with graphic vids of a 16 or 17 year-old Sainte Prejean masturbating. What would Jesus do if He received such porn?
YES! Christ risked his life to save a prostitute from stoning…
But, would he step forward to save a self-serving, HypoCristian homophobe like Carrie Prejean?
I think not.

Carrie Prejean’s Vibrator Signs Book Deal

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report) - In a move that took many in the publishing industry by surprise, the vibrator of former Miss California Carrie Prejean signed a deal today to write a tell-all memoir.
The book, tentatively titled Still Buzzing, will offer what the publisher called a “vibrator’s eye view” of the scandals and controversies that have dogged Ms. Prejean.
At a press conference in New York, the vibrator said it would reveal little-known episodes from Ms. Prejean’s life, such as when pageant officials tried to strip her of her fake breasts and award them to her runner-up.
For her part, Ms. Prejean said today that making a sex tape was “the worst mistake of my life, if you don’t count all the grammatical ones.” Andy Borowitz House passes Healthcare bill 220-215…WITH ONE GOP VOTE!
Joseph Cao A real American hero.
All week long the PARTY OF NO bragged that they were unanimous in their obedience to the Great White Corporate Shark…But, one republican stepped forward and asked, “What’s best for my people?”
Dear, Lord! It’s been a decade since a conservative considered that question. Who is this guy?
Mr Cao, the first Vietnamese American in Congress, is from New Orleans and even before entering politics worked his ass off to get aid for Katrina victims and funds to rebuild his city’s largest hospital. Although threatened by his party, Joseph Cao voted with his heart and mind…rather than his bank account.
Cao knows his people need health insurance.
GET INVOLVED! Big Business will spend billions to destroy this guy.
Here’s where I lose half of my regular readers (What…Me Worry?):
YES, I AM BEGGING YOU TO SUPPORT A REPUBLICAN! If a Blue Dog corporate whore runs against Cao in the next LA election I DEMAND that you send Anh some bucks and vote red! Honest politicians are an endangered species. Left or Right…GOP or Dem…I DON’T CARE! Email him a thank you note now…Skip your Starbuck lattes for a week and send Cao your savings. Click here for Rep Cao’s gov site
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One Year Ago…a week after Obama’s election, David Rees predicted the rise of the Tea Baggers/ Birthers/ Tenners/ Deathers and the 39 Blue Dogs who voted against health care:
Get Your War On

The Team Bus when Rush Limbaugh becomes an NFL owner

Rush denied ownership of Rams.
Rush Limbaugh was forced to resign for racist remarks as a ESPN NFL commentator in 2003, but this month the head of the GOP with a new contract extension worth $400,000,000 tried to buy his way back into football. SWEET REVENGE!…Alas, one slight problem: As soon as Limbaugh announced his intentions nearly every NFL star (both black and white) declared that they would never play for that racist pig for any amount of money. Investors in his group and the NFL quickly kicked Rush to the parking lot. Limbaugh was stunned. Republican members of Congress can be bought cheap, but football players love the game and are concerned with what is best for their fans.
A few quotes from Limbaugh:
Rush wants to buy the St Louis Rams, but the city has a few problems with his past comments:
In 1994, Limbaugh mocked St. Louis for building a rail line to East St. Louis “where nobody goes.”
East St. Louis is home to roughly 40,000 residents — 98 percent of whom are African-Americans.
In response to a caller arguing that black people need to be heard, Limbaugh responded:
“They are 12 percent of the population. Who the hell cares?” Source
“Look, let me put it to you this way: the NFL all too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons,” Limbaugh stated. “There, I said it.”
A smart, young black female confronted Rush with some facts and Rush freaks out and cut her off: “Take that bone out of your nose and call me back.” Find it on YouTube…very funny.
“Have you ever noticed how all composite pictures of wanted criminals resemble Jesse Jackson?” Source
A couple of quotes Rush now denies…but, millions heard him say:
“I mean, let’s face it, we didn’t have slavery in this country for over 100 years because it was a bad thing. Quite the opposite: slavery built the South. I’m not saying we should bring it back; I’m just saying it had its merits. For one thing, the streets were safer after dark.”
“You know who deserves a posthumous Medal of Honor? James Earl Ray [the confessed assassin of Martin Luther King]. We miss you, James. Godspeed.” Source
The GOP claims this is a First Amendment Freedom of Hate Speech Issue.
One of the comments that got Rush fired from ESPN:
“…A little social concern in the NFL. I think the media has been very desirous that a black quarterback do well. They’re interested in black coaches and black quarterbacks doing well. I think there’s a little hope invested in McNabb and he got a lot of credit for the performance of his team that he really didn’t deserve.”
BETWEEN THE LINES:
Blacks are not smart enough to run a team on the field or from the bench.
We saw this same kind of racial ignorance when Jackie Robinson broke the sports color line in 1947:
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Above Left: Every American boy read Baseball Digest. This issue (Feb 1947) had a centerfold toon: Above Right (From my private collection) Arrogant Racism? You Betya!
Oh, dear…Jackie Robinson won Rookie of the Year in 1947, and National League Most Valuable Player Award in 1949…and led the Dodgers to their first World Championship (after 55 years of futility) in 1955. Not good enough? Not smart enough?

GOP Claims Olympia Snowe Was Born in Kenya

WASHINGTON The Borowitz Report -
Just moments after she broke with fellow Republicans and voted in favor of health care reform, Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) came under fire from the GOP for allegedly lying about her nation of birth.
“This vote is going to raise suspicions, once again, that Sen. Snowe was born in Kenya,”
said GOP Chairman Michael Steele.
“We demand that she prove, once and for all, that she is definitely not Kenyan.”
Orly Taitz, leader of the so-called “birther” movement, said that Sen. Snowe’s vote was “textbook Kenyan” behavior.
“She’s putting her tribe first,” Ms. Taitz said.
“When I heard what she did, all I could think of was one word: Kenyan.”
Ms. Taitz said that Sen. Snowe “has not produced any legal documents that say ‘I am not Kenyan’ on them, and that speaks for itself.” Damn you, Borowitz! I wish I would have written that first.

Why did Obama win the Nobel Peace Prize?

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Bush was an easy act to follow.
GOP TALKING POINTS for Friday 10/09:
(1) “It’s not big deal. Yasser Arafat also won. Weak, weak, weak.
In 1994 Arafat shared the prize with Shimon Peres, Foreign Minister of Israel and Yitzhak Rabin, Prime Minister of Israel “For their efforts to create peace in the Middle East”.
(2) Why didn’t GOP Saint Ronald Reagan, (my archive link), receive a Peace Prize for whooping commie ass and ending the Cold War?
Before he became president Ronny’s coach, Henry Kissinger, worked out a deal with Iran to hold the embassy hostages until after the 1980 election. In return Dr Stangelove promised to sercretly and illegally sell them our best weapons. The First October Surprise. Today Kissinger is a war criminal and will be arrested and tried before the world court if he travels outside the USA.
During the Reagan years America armed Saddam with tons of WMDs (including the gas used on the Kurds), while secretly selling tons to their enemy in Iran to finance Contras in Nicaragua because socialist, Daniel Ortega wanted to control his own natural resources.
Why didn’t Danny understand? The American Empire has always ruled brown people below.
Blowback, Baby! President Reagan made superstars out of Saddam, Osama, the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Without Ron’s support you would probably never have heard of these people.
Reagan gave $3,000,000,000 to Afghan punk war lords like Osama bin Laden to fight the commies and convinced Saudi Arabia to match (after all bin Laden, like 15 of the 19 911 highjackers, was a Saudi).
Russia went broke occupying Afghanistan…Now, it’s our turn. Afghanistan- Empire Graveyard - local link.
The Creation of OSAMA and Saddam
Reagan Nobel Peace Prize? I think not.
Who was the last Republican President to win the Nobel Peace Prize? That would be Theodore Roosevelt 103 years ago. And, of course, like Lincoln (the first Republican) soon after decided that his party was too corrupt, and thus formed his own third party. Lincoln won in 1864, Teddy came in a close second in 1912. Ah, yes…3rd parties can work.

Wacky Conservative Christians Hate Bible…Demand Rewrite!

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Conservative Bible Project Cuts Out Liberal Passages
IT’S ABOUT TIME! American Conservative Christians are writing their own version of the Bible where redneck Jesus offers no health care to lepers, casts the first stone at whores and homos and kicks some serious hippie ass at an anti-war demonstration. Better action than Rocky 6 or Rambo 4!
“I talk to God every day,” says the Reverend Elvis Slobinski, “and, He tells me the time has come for a new, improved Bible that doesn’t make my Son look like peacenik, liberal socialist. He was misquoted!
For instance: The Bible cites Jesus, ‘Blessed are the Peacemakers’, when He really saythed,
‘Blessed are the Peacemakers…and there’s nothing more peaceful than a dead Islamofacist!’
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A wonderful puzzle and my next entry…Who wrote the King James version of the Bible?
Count 46 words from the beginning of this psalm and 46 from the end and you will find your answer.
Psalm 46
1God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.
2Therefore will not we fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; 3Though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains SHAKE with the swelling thereof. Selah. 4There is a river, the streams whereof shall make glad the city of God, the holy place of the tabernacles of the most High. 5God is in the midst of her; she shall not be moved: God shall help her, and that right early. 6The heathen raged, the kingdoms were moved: he uttered his voice, the earth melted. 7The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.
8Come, behold the works of the LORD, what desolations he hath made in the earth. 9He maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the SPEAR in sunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire. 10Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth. 11The LORD of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge. Selah.

Afghanistan…Empire Graveyard

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The 3 rules of Real Estate: LOCATION, LOCATION, LOCATION!
I pity Afghanistan…in the wrong place for 3,ooo years…
Gateway between Stupid White Men in Europe and the rest of the known world.
The Afghanistan quagmire has swallowed so many great Empires.
The Greeks…2340 years ago:
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Alexander the Great conquered Afghanistan in 330 BCE, but after 25 years of occupation The Turks kicked his ass to the curb and soon after the Greek Empire collapsed.
The Great Roman Empire invaded and began an occupation of Afghanistan in the the first century AD, but in 220 Parthian Persia vassal, Ardashir, kicked their ass to the curb and thus began the fall of the greatest Empire in history.
In 1219 Genghis Khan invaded and occupied Afghanistan with the same result.
MODERN HISTORY: After WWII there were only two great empires: The United States and Russia.
In the 1980s the commies put all their chips on the table and Reagan matched them with $3,000,000,000 of our tax dollars to Osama bin Laden and his warlord Taliban buddies in Afghanistan. And then, Ronnie raised the bet by forcing Saudi Arabia to throw another $3,000,000,000 into the pot. Russia went bust and bin Laden became a superstar.
Today America is posed to wage a full scale occupation of Afghanistan…Will our fate be any different than the Greeks, the Roman Empire, the Huns or the Russians?
Those who do not know history are doomed to relive it. George Santayana OR:
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Albert Einstein

I’d Like to Buy a Vowel…

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AMERICAN CITIZENS WITH FUNNY NAMES CAN NOW RUN FOR HIGH OFFICE!
From 1776 until 2008 only four US presidents have had a surname ending with a vowel :
a silent E… (okay with illiterate voters): Monroe, Fillmore, Pierce and Coolidge.
Before Obama: If your last name ended with vowels A,I,O or U…forgetaboutit! Too ethnic!
For 232 years the White House was an impossible dream not only for Blacks (13%), but for a MAJORITY of Americans with names from East Europe, Asia, South America, Central America, Mexico, Spain, Italy, etc…Thanks to you, President Obama, EVERY American child has a shot.
Greg GiaconA

The two greatest heroes of the Vietnam era…Both born on the 4th of July!

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Happy Birthday to Two of My Favorite People ~
S. Brian Willson (on right) & Ron Kovic, Author of Born On the 4th of July- In Peace, Frank Dorrel, Publisher of Addicted To War
P.O. Box 3261, Culver City, CA 90231-3261, 310-838-8131
fdorrel@addictedtowar.com and www.addictedtowar.com

What the Flag Means To Me by S. Brian Willson

I was probably seven years old before it really sunk in that everybody in my town was not celebrating my birthday on July 4. It was an exciting day with parades, picnics, fireworks and, in my case, special birthday parties and gifts. I lived much of my young life with the extra boost of having been born on the day that our earliest political framers signed the Declaration of Independence, an historical act of defiance against monarchial colonial rule from distant England. I remember proudly carrying the U.S. American flag in one of the July 4th parades in my small, agricultural town in upstate New York. And for years I felt goosebumps looking at Old Glory waving in the breeze during the playing of the national anthem or as it passed by in a parade. How lucky I was to have been born in the greatest country in the history of the world, and blessed by God to boot. Such a blessing, such a deal!
It wasn’t until many years later, while reading an issue of the armed forces newspaper Stars and Stripes in Vietnam, that I began thinking and feeling differently about the flag and what it represents. There was a story about an arrest for flag burning somewhere in the United States. I had recently experienced the horror of seeing numerous bodies of young women and children that were burned alive in a small Delta village devastated by napalm. I imagined that since the pilots had “successfully” hit their targets, they were feeling good and probably had received glowing reports that would bode well in their military record for promotions. I wondered why it was okay to burn innocent human beings 10,000 miles from my home town, but not okay to burn a piece of cloth that was symbolic of the country that had horribly napalmed those villagers. Something was terribly wrong with the Cold War rhetoric of fighting communism that made me question what our nation stood for. There was a grand lie, an American myth, that was being fraudulently preserved under the cloak of our flag. Click here to read the entire essay

It took me years to process this clear cognitive dissonance between the rhetoric of my cultural teachings and the reality of my own personal experiences. I had to accept that, either there was serious distortion in how I was interpreting my personal realities, or the cultural rhetoric was terribly distorted. Hmm. A dilemma! If I accepted the former, I could relax and feel good about being an “American.” If I accepted the latter, I would experience a serious identity crisis, perhaps a nervous breakdown. But no matter how hard I tried, I could not ignore what my own conscience was continually telling me.

I began a serious reflection that included careful study of U.S. and world history. When I was a teenager living near Seneca Indian reservations in western New York State I occasionally heard Seneca acquaintances utter “jokes” about how the “White man speaks with forked tongue.” We thought it funny at the time. But then I discovered how my country really was founded. There were hundreds of nations comprised of millions of human beings—yes, human beings—living throughout the land before our European ancestors arrived here in the 1600s. The U.S. government signed over 400 treaties with various Indigenous nations and violated every one of them. And over time these original peoples were systematically eliminated in what amounted to the first genuine American holocaust.

When I reread the Declaration of Independence I noted words I hadn’t been aware of before: “He [the King of Great Britain] has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavored to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.” Honest history reveals that the very land upon which our founding fathers began this new experiment in freedom had been taken by violence and deceit, ironically using the same diabolical methods the framers accused of those already living here. It became obvious after extensive reading that my European ancestors did not believe that Indigenous Americans were human beings worthy of respect, but despicable, non-human creatures, worthy only of extermination. The pre-Columbus population of Indigenous in the Western Hemisphere is estimated to have been at least 100 million (8-12 million north of the Rio Grande). By 1900 this population had been reduced to about 5 percent of its former size. An Indigenous friend of mine, a Seneca man who had served the U.S. military in World War II, Korea, and Vietnam, and then after retiring, discovered his ancestral roots as a native American, once remarked to me: “I call the American flag ‘Old Gory,’ the red representing the blood, and the white, the bones, of my murdered ancestors.”

When adding to our first holocaust the damage done to African cultures through forcefully seizing human beings to be slaves in order to build our early agricultural and industrial base, and the carnage from nearly 300 U.S. overt military and thousands of covert interventions in the Twentieth Century to acquire access to markets and resources on our selfish terms, we see there are actually three holocausts that have enabled the “glorious American civilization” to be what it is today. It is now estimated that Africa lost 50 million of its population to the slave trade, at least two-thirds of whom were killed resisting capture or died during the horrors of transit; an estimated 20 to 30 million people in the Third World have been killed as a result of U.S. interventions. Note that when other peoples all over the globe have attempted to emulate the spirit of our Declaration of Independence (a proclamation of self-determination), such as Vietnam explicitly did in 1945, our government not only has turned a deaf ear, but has done everything in its power short of dropping Atomic bombs to destroy their efforts to obtain independence. This is the foundation upon which we have built “America.” Quite the karma!

The founding of our Republic was conducted in secrecy by an upper class who insisted on a strong national government that could assure a successful but forceful clearing of western lands, enabling the safe settlement and economic development of previously inhabited Indigenous territory. Our Founding Fathers did not represent the common people. Some historians believe that if the Constitution itself had been subjected to a genuine vote of all the people it would have been resoundly defeated. Subsequently, what evolved is a political system run by plutocrats who perpetuate an economic system that protects the interests of those who finance their campaigns (a form of bribery). The U.S. government is a democracy in name only. Never have we had a government that seriously addresses the plight of the people, whether it be workers, minorities, women, the poor, etc. Whatever has been achieved in terms of rights and benefits for these constituencies, i.e., the people, has been struggled for against substantial repression, and the constant threat the gains will be subsequently lost. Intense pressures are applied by the selfish oligarchy which seeks ever increased profits, rarely, if ever, considering the expense to the health of the majority of people, their local cultures, and the ecology.

What the West calls capitalism is nothing like what Adam Smith had in mind with his views of decentralized networks of small entrepreneurs working in harmony with the needs and forces of others in their own communities. What we have is a savage system of centrally institutionalized greed that is unable to generalize an equitable way of life for the majority of people here in the U.S., or in the rest of the world. It requires incredible exploitation of human and other natural resources all over the globe with the forcible protection of military and paramilitary forces financed or sanctioned by governments. It thrives on its own sinister version of welfare where the public financially guarantees—through tax loopholes, subsidies, contracts, and outright bailouts—the profitable success of the major corporations and financial institutions, especially, but not exclusively, in the military-industrial complex. Additionally, our monopoly capitalism defines efficiency by totally ignoring the true costs of its production and distribution. It conveniently forgets the huge ecological and human exhaustion costs (both being our true wealth). If these costs were included, the system would be finished in a second. The reality, upon honest examination, is that the economic system we call capitalism, now neoliberal, global capitalism, is cruelly based on a very fraudulent set of assumptions that justify massive exploitation. The reality, upon honest examination, is that our political system was founded, and has been maintained to this very day by substantive plutocracy, not democracy.

So when I see the flag and think of the Declaration of Independence, instead of the United States of America, I see the United Corporations of America; I see the blood and bones of people all over the globe who have been dehumanized, then exterminated by its imperialism; and I see a symbol that represents a monstrous lie maintained by excessive, deadly force. It makes me feel sick, and ashamed. And I know that my opinions being expressed here will not be popular, even among some of my closest friends. But I cannot ignore the reality as I now understand it. I believe we are living one of the most incredible lies in history, covered over by one of the most successful campaigns of public rhetoric, ignoring empirical reality. It is truly amazing! I hope that one day we will end our willful ignorance and be able to see our transgressions, and beg, on our knees, for forgiveness, and then wail as we begin to feel the incredible pain and anguish we have caused the world as well as our own bodies, minds, souls, and culture.
Brian’s web site is
Brian’s statement about ADDICTED To WAR
“Our original White ancestors possessed both a Eurocentric racism and a religiously-based arrogant ethnocentrism that justified, and continues to justify, a continuum of expansion, initially for land, then markets and the drive for increased profits, and a way of life, i.e., the American Way of Life (AWOL). In the early 1600’s, Captain John Smith of the Virginia Colony referred to the native inhabitants as ‘sub-animals’ worthy only of extermination as rationalization for unilaterally controlling the land and the inevitable associated guiding policies of hegemony.

Through all the phases of U.S. “Manifest Destiny,” from the Appalachian Mountains and the Ohio River Valley to the Pacific Ocean, then to the entire globe, the evolving “national interest” has increasingly, and aggressively, sought for our “special deserving” one-twentieth of the world’s population, a disproportionate consumption of the globe’s resources that at times approaches one-half of what is available for all the earth’s inhabitants. Exploitation is a given! There is no possibility for justice if this unfair formula persists.

This voracious, mindless materialism can only be achieved through the use, or threat of use, of brute force. Thus, as we are addicted to AWOL, we are necessarily Addicted to War.

This illustrated expose by Joel Andreas clearly lays out this pattern, and severe problem, in the hope that people of the United States might SEE that our addictions are rapidly leading toward destruction of much of the life on our dear Mother Earth, including extinction of our species, and of course, our own “civilization”.

As Gandhi said, “There is enough for everyone’s need, but not enough for everyone’s greed.” Let us pray for an historic and radical alteration of our consciousness, from that of selfishness to humble & sacred ecological interconnectedness. That would be revolutionary!”

“The U.S., with 4.5% of the world’s population, arrogantly plunders resources and cultures to support its American way of life. Addicted to War illustrates why the U.S. is necessarily dependent upon war to feed its shameful consumption patterns.”
S. Brian Willson Vietnam Veteran For Peace
“Addicted To War is an extraordinarily important and powerful little book. Every American should read it.”
Ron Kovic, Vietnam Veteran, author of “Born on the 4th of July”

In Peace, Frank Dorrel, Publisher of Addicted To War
P.O. Box 3261, Culver City, CA 90231-3261, 310-838-8131
fdorrel@addictedtowar.com and www.addictedtowar.com

Millions of Republicans don’t like John McCain:
1) Neocon Corporatists remember that he voted against tax cuts for the richest.
Now John is for them, but the elite know that he could easily flip-flop again.
Real Republicans make their money from the Oil, Drug and HMO Industries…not BEER!
2) Born-Again, Rapture-Ready Wackos remember that McCain called their heroes, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, AGENTS OF INTOLERENCE during the 2000 primary…
and what kind of Republican would appear on The Ellen Show?
3) Racists believe that John doesn’t hate illegals nearly enough.
4) Soccer Moms can’t afford gas for their SUVs.
5) Current military and vets are very angry that McCain is blocking Jim Webb’s new (and modest) GI Bill.
6) Intn America survive another idiot Commander-In-Chief?
elligent Republicans (yes, there are a few) are very concerned that McCain doesn’t know the difference between Shiite and Sunni…and the fact that these people have been fighting for 1326 years. Ca

The dumbest state in the union? From Reidblog
I nominate West Virginia:
Like most people in Mingo County, West Virginia, Leonard Simpson is a lifelong Democrat. But given a choice between Barack Obama and John McCain in November, the 67-year-old retired coalminer would vote Republican.
“I heard that Obama is a Muslim and his wife’s an atheist,” said Mr Simpson, drawing on a cigarette outside the fire station in Williamson, a coalmining town of 3,400 people surrounded by lush wooded hillsides…
I swear, this isn’t a parody…
…Occupying a swathe of the Appalachian Mountains on the threshold between the Bible Belt and the Rust Belt, West Virginia is a swing state that voted twice for George W. Bush but backed Democrats in six of the eight prior presidential elections.
No Democrat has been elected to the White House without carrying West Virginia since 1916, yet Mr Obama appears to have little chance of winning there in November. Recent opinion polls indicate that Mrs Clinton would narrowly beat Mr McCain in the state but Mr Obama would lose by nearly 20 percentage points.
West Virginia is hostile territory for Mr Obama because it has few of the African-Americans and affluent, college-educated whites who provide his strongest support. The state has the lowest college graduation rate in the US, the second lowest median household income, and one of the highest proportions of white residents, at 96 per cent.
A visit to Mingo County, a Democratic stronghold in the heart of the Appalachian coalfields, reveals the scale of Mr Obama’s challenge – not only in West Virginia but in white, working-class communities across the US. With a gun shop on its main street and churches dotted throughout the town, Williamson is the kind of community evoked by Mr Obama’s controversial comments last month about “bitter” small-town voters who “cling to guns or religion”.
“If he is the nominee, the Democrats have no chance of winning West Virginia,” said Missy Endicott, a 40- year-old school administrator. “He doesn’t understand ordinary Americans.”
Ms Endicott was among roughly 500 people who crammed into the Williamson Fire Department building on Friday to attend a rally by Bill Clinton, the former president. He told them his wife represented “people like you, in places like this”, and urged voters to turn out in record numbers on Tuesday to send a message to the “higher-type people” who were trying to force her out of the race.
Conservative commentators have questioned Mr Obama’s patriotism for months and the issue is expected to be one of the Republicans’ main lines of attack if he wins the nomination. “The American people want a president who loves their country as much as they do,” said Whit Ayres, a Rep­ub­lican strategist. Obama supporters believe patriotism is being used as code to harness racist sentiment.
Josh Fry, a 24-year-old ambulance driver from Williamson, insisted he was not racist but said he would feel more comfortable with Mr McCain, the 71-year-old Vietnam war hero, in the White House. “I want someone who is a full-blooded American as president,” he said.
Nobody tell Josh that McCain was born in Panama … the mental disconnect could kill him…
The sad thing is, Hillary and Bill Clinton have spent the latter half of the campaign stoking the ignorance of people like these, Hillary’s “hard working white people,” because they know that

RACISM WORKS

…especially in places where the educational system isn’t putting up much of a fight.
I feel sorry for the West Virginians who are being tainted by the ignoramuses among them, but we’re about to find out if this country is made mostly of the ignorant, or mostly of the evolved. And if Barack Obama loses the general election because of people like the ones quoted in this article, then they will richly deserve the four more years of Bush-league government they get.

Republicans Vote Against Protecting Americans

The votes are in on the latest Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and no need for a recount. The House of Representatives passed critical legislation protecting American citizens from terrorists, despite a majority of Republican representatives voting against it. What will the Senate do now?
Republicans have recently argued strongly that this bill is vital and necessary for protection against future terrorist attacks. But the House bill did not contain legislation granting telecom companies retroactive immunity against illegally wiretapping American citizens (like the Senate version), hence their opposition. So when push came to shove, Republicans chose protecting US companies from US laws over protecting US citizens from international terrorists, otherwise they should have voted for this bill - it contained everything else they demanded. It is therefore their priority to hold the safety of Americans hostage, until corporations are allowed to ignore the law and violate the US Constitutional rights of citizens with impunity. Who’s playing politics now? Shouldn’t protecting Americans always come first?
The bill now goes back to the Senate, and President Bush has already promised to veto it unless it contains the immunity clause. If the telecom companies have not broken the law, then they should have nothing to worry about. And if the companies have broken the law, for good and patriotic reasons, then they will be given ample opportunity to demonstrate so in private, without revealing any state secrets. So what are they and the Bush Administration trying so desperately to hide, that they would jeopardize the safety of millions of Americans from terrorists?
Nick Giacona

Bush Holds the Phone on Protecting Americans

President Bush wants Congress to renew the Protect America Act so that surveillance of suspicious electronic communications can be monitored. Sounds patriotic enough. But hold the phone! (So to speak.) Bush has also said he would veto the law if it does not include retroactive immunity for telecom companies who may have illegally assisted this effort in the past. Sounds like Bush is more concerned with allowing companies to break the law and avoid prosecution for their illegal activities than actually protecting Americans from terrorists, otherwise he sign the bill without the immunity clause.
Bush’s rationale is extremely impotent. He claims that retroactive immunity is necessary or the telecom companies won’t assist the effort in the future. But wouldn’t it be unpatriotic for these companies not to assist, and wouldn’t they also be required to assist by law??
Bush has made it clear that his priority is protecting American companies from the law over protecting American citizens from terrorists. The Senate has already caved in, but the House, to its credit has yet resisted. So all of you US Representatives out there – what are your priorities? And to all you Constructive Anarchists out there, please contact your local rep and let them know how you feel. I know I have.
Nick Giacona

Election Madness

By Howard Zinn in The Progressive- March 2008 Issue
There’s a man in Florida who has been writing to me for years (ten pages, handwritten) though I’ve never met him. He tells me the kinds of jobs he has held-security guard, repairman, etc. He has worked all kinds of shifts, night and day, to barely keep his family going. His letters to me have always been angry, railing against our capitalist system for its failure to assure “life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness” for working people.
Just today, a letter came. To my relief it was not handwritten because he is now using e-mail: “Well, I’m writing to you today because there is a wretched situation in this country that I cannot abide and must say something about. I am so enraged about this mortgage crisis. That the majority of Americans must live their lives in perpetual debt, and so many are sinking beneath the load, has me so steamed. Damn, that makes me so mad, I can’t tell you… . I did a security guard job today that involved watching over a house that had been foreclosed on and was up for auction. They held an open house, and I was there to watch over the place during this event. There were three of the guards doing the same thing in three other homes in this same community. I was sitting there during the quiet moments and wondering about who those people were who had been evicted and where they were now.”
On the same day I received this letter, there was a front-page story in the Boston Globe, with the headline “Thousands in Mass. Foreclosed on in ‘07.”
The subhead was “7,563 homes were seized, nearly 3 times the ‘06 rate.”
A few nights before, CBS television reported that 750,000 people with disabilities have been waiting for years for their Social Security benefits because the system is underfunded and there are not enough personnel to handle all the requests, even desperate ones.
Stories like these may be reported in the media, but they are gone in a flash. What’s not gone, what occupies the press day after day, impossible to ignore, is the election frenzy.
This seizes the country every four years because we have all been brought up to believe that voting is crucial in determining our destiny, that the most important act a citizen can engage in is to go to the polls and choose one of the two mediocrities who have already been chosen for us. It is a multiple choice test so narrow, so specious, that no self-respecting teacher would give it to students.
And sad to say, the Presidential contest has mesmerized liberals and radicals alike. We are all vulnerable.
Is it possible to get together with friends these days and avoid the subject of the Presidential elections?
The very people who should know better, having criticized the hold of the media on the national mind, find themselves transfixed by the press, glued to the television set, as the candidates preen and smile and bring forth a shower of clichés with a solemnity appropriate for epic poetry.
Even in the so-called left periodicals, we must admit there is an exorbitant amount of attention given to minutely examining the major candidates. An occasional bone is thrown to the minor candidates, though everyone knows our marvelous democratic political system won’t allow them in.
No, I’m not taking some ultra-left position that elections are totally insignificant, and that we should refuse to vote to preserve our moral purity. Yes, there are candidates who are somewhat better than others, and at certain times of national crisis (the Thirties, for instance, or right now) where even a slight difference between the two parties may be a matter of life and death.
I’m talking about a sense of proportion that gets lost in the election madness. Would I support one candidate against another? Yes, for two minutes-the amount of time it takes to pull the lever down in the voting booth.
But before and after those two minutes, our time, our energy, should be spent in educating, agitating, organizing our fellow citizens in the workplace, in the neighborhood, in the schools. Our objective should be to build, painstakingly, patiently but energetically, a movement that, when it reaches a certain critical mass, would shake whoever is in the White House, in Congress, into changing national policy on matters of war and social justice.
Let’s remember that even when there is a “better” candidate (yes, better Roosevelt than Hoover, better anyone than George Bush), that difference will not mean anything unless the power of the people asserts itself in ways that the occupant of the White House will find it dangerous to ignore.
The unprecedented policies of the New Deal-Social Security, unemployment insurance, job creation, minimum wage, subsidized housing-were not simply the result of FDR’s progressivism. The Roosevelt Administration, coming into office, faced a nation in turmoil. The last year of the Hoover Administration had experienced the rebellion of the Bonus Army-thousands of veterans of the First World War descending on Washington to demand help from Congress as their families were going hungry. There were disturbances of the unemployed in Detroit, Chicago, Boston, New York, Seattle.
In 1934, early in the Roosevelt Presidency, strikes broke out all over the country, including a general strike in Minneapolis, a general strike in San Francisco, hundreds of thousands on strike in the textile mills of the South. Unemployed councils formed all over the country. Desperate people were taking action on their own, defying the police to put back the furniture of evicted tenants, and creating self-help organizations with hundreds of thousands of members.
Without a national crisis-economic destitution and rebellion-it is not likely the Roosevelt Administration would have instituted the bold reforms that it did.
Today, we can be sure that the Democratic Party, unless it faces a popular upsurge, will not move off center. The two leading Presidential candidates have made it clear that if elected, they will not bring an immediate end to the Iraq War, or institute a system of free health care for all.
They offer no radical change from the status quo.
They do not propose what the present desperation of people cries out for: a government guarantee of jobs to everyone who needs one, a minimum income for every household, housing relief to everyone who faces eviction or foreclosure.
They do not suggest the deep cuts in the military budget or the radical changes in the tax system that would free billions, even trillions, for social programs to transform the way we live.
None of this should surprise us. The Democratic Party has broken with its historic conservatism, its pandering to the rich, its predilection for war, only when it has encountered rebellion from below, as in the Thirties and the Sixties. We should not expect that a victory at the ballot box in November will even begin to budge the nation from its twin fundamental illnesses: capitalist greed and militarism.
So we need to free ourselves from the election madness engulfing the entire society, including the left.
Yes, two minutes. Before that, and after that, we should be taking direct action against the obstacles to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
For instance, the mortgage foreclosures that are driving millions from their homes-they should remind us of a similar situation after the Revolutionary War, when small farmers, many of them war veterans (like so many of our homeless today), could not afford to pay their taxes and were threatened with the loss of the land, their homes. They gathered by the thousands around courthouses and refused to allow the auctions to take place.
The evictions today of people who cannot pay their rents should remind us of what people did in the Thirties when they organized and put the belongings of the evicted families back in their apartments, in defiance of the authorities.
Historically, government, whether in the hands of Republicans or Democrats, conservatives or liberals, has failed its responsibilities, until forced to by direct action: sit-ins and Freedom Rides for the rights of black people, strikes and boycotts for the rights of workers, mutinies and desertions of soldiers in order to stop a war. Voting is easy and marginally useful, but it is a poor substitute for democracy, which requires direct action by concerned citizens.

Support our Right to March this Veterans Day
The L.A. chapter of Iraq Veterans Against the War was recently denied permission to march in the Long Beach Veterans Day Parade on the grounds that they do not “represent the spirit of the parade.” On November 7, members of IVAW, Veterans For Peace and Military Families Speak Out (whose local contingents were also denied permission to march) spoke before a meeting of the Long Beach City Council and asked the Council to overturn the Parade Committee’s decision to ban them from the march. The Council denied their request.
IVAW-LA and their MFSO and VFP counterparts are conducting a phone campaign to convince the Parade Commissioners and the Long Beach City Council to recognize IVAW’s status as a veteran’s organization due the same respect as all others.
Please support IVAW’s right to the free speech that our members served to protect.

Support Veterans For Peace, IVAW, and Military Families who want to honor Veterans!

Veterans For Peace members, along with members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, and Military Families Speak out are being excluded from the Veterans Day parade in Long Beach, California. Due to pressure by members of Veterans For Peace around the country, members in Denver, CO who were previously excluded, are now being allowed to join other veterans in the parade. Other cities, such as Boston, MA are being included in their parades, but have strict guidelines to which they have to adhere, while other veterans marching do not. It’s time to use our voice as veterans (and supporters of veterans) and let these cities and parade organizers know that VFP should be included!
HOW TO HELP LONG BEACH, CA
Call the mayor’s office and parade chairperson and let them know that there is great disapproval across the nation against this action!

Call Mayor Bob Foster, 562-570-6801
Call parade chairperson, Martha Thuente, 562-422-6669
VETERANS WORKING TOGETHER FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE THROUGH NON-VIOLENCE.
Veterans For Peace, 216 S. Meramec, St. Louis, MO 63105, 314-725-6005
www.veteransforpeace.org

We have placed the Italian EVIL EYE curse upon Rush Limbaugh. He will be in rehab within six weeks.
Laugh now, but mark the date on you calender just for fun.
This is not a prediction.
Please do not send more “You made another lucky guess” emails.

You can call The Rush Limbaugh Show program line
between 12 Noon and 3PM Eastern Time at: 1-800-282-2882
email Rush

Rush Limbaugh

“Service members who support U.S. withdrawal are “phony soldiers”

During the September 26 broadcast of his nationally syndicated radio show, Rush Limbaugh called service members who advocate U.S. withdrawal from Iraq “phony soldiers.” Full text here

Chickenhawk Deck

Condi…Blood On Her Hands!

A message from Desiree Fairooz at Code Pink

When Condoleeza Rice entered the Congressional hearing room on October 24th, I approached her, with no advance planning and almost without thinking, extending my red-painted palms. I told her that the blood of the Iraqi people was on her hands. I felt compelled to confront her, woman-to-woman, face-to-face, for the untold death and destruction her policies have unleashed. I had no idea that the image of this gesture would be in newspapers around the world. A very personal expression by me, a schoolteacher from Texas and current CODEPINK housemother in D.C., had global impact.
Judging from the hundreds of thank-you notes I’ve received, this action has struck a chord with people all over the country. I have been buoyed by the gratitude, but I’m concerned, as well. One result of my action last week was the banning of all the CODEPINK women who were at the hearing from Capitol Hill. Now that many of us at the CODEPINK house have a “stay-away order” from Congress, who will take our places? Our loud and vibrant anti-war presence in the halls of Congress these past six months have made “business as usual” impossible. CODEPINK needs to be there reminding our representatives of the human costs of this war.
This is why I’m urging you to help us today. There are two things you can do:
1. Come join us-whether for a few days, a week or longer. We’ll orient you, show you the ropes, and pair you up with other great citizen activists. Both women and men are invited.
2. If you can’t join us, please send a donation to help give someone else the opportunity. Support our “Adopt-an-Activist” fund to pay the airfare and living expenses of those who have the time and passion to join us but lack the financial resources.
Thank you for helping us to stand up against the warmongers and thank you for helping us to work for peace with our sisters and brothers in the Middle East.

Peace,
Desiree Fairooz

Is this an important issue?

CA Editor: Our First Amendment Right to FREEDOM OF SPEECH is what makes America the greatest country in history. If Code Pink is banned from Congress, the USA falls from Number One to 19,327 on the Best Nation of All Time list.

Dear California Evacuees from Ward Reilly

Greetings from south Louisiana. We are all very saddened by the fires
that have destroyed so many of your lives and homes. Our sincere regrets
to all of you. We can relate.
Please come to New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. We need you. We can’t get
our own native-sons and daughters back, since Katrina, because of this
administration, and the right time is RIGHT NOW for you to escape from
FEMA and Homeland Security, while you still have a chance.
You will be occupied by Blackwater troops shortly, and they are not
friendly or helpful. They will protect the banks as the banks start
taking the property you can no longer afford because you are homeless,
but they wont be there to help you. We reach out to you.
Come help us rebuild from scratch, and trust me when I tell you that
your government is going to screw you. Help us rebuild New Orleans in
the PEOPLES image, by joining us in pain, as we start over.
If you see any of our people hitch-hiking on the streets while you’re on
your way here, please give them a ride home. We miss them, and we need
them. We have learned how to survive with nothing, and we will be happy
to teach you the same.

Peace from Ward Reilly in south Louisiana aka Disasterland

Blackwater Drew Guns on U.S. Soldiers

By Rod Nordland and Mark Hosenball Newsweek Oct. 15, 2007

The colonel was furious. “Can you believe it? They actually
drew their weapons on U.S. soldiers.” He was describing a
2006 car accident, in which an SUV full of Blackwater
operatives had crashed into a U.S. Army Humvee on a street
in Baghdad’s Green Zone. The colonel, who was involved in a
follow-up investigation and spoke on the condition he not be
named, said the Blackwater guards disarmed the U.S. Army
soldiers and made them lie on the ground at gunpoint until
they could disentangle the SUV. His account was confirmed
by the head of another private security company.
Asked to address this and other allegations in this story, Blackwater
spokesperson Anne Tyrrell said, “This type of gossip has led
to many soap operas in the press.”

Whatever else Blackwater is or isn’t guilty of‹a topic of
intense interest in Washington‹it has a well-earned
reputation in Iraq for arrogance and high-handedness. Iraqis
naturally have the most serious complaints; dozens have
been killed by Blackwater operatives since the beginning of
the war. But many American civilian and military officials in
Iraq also have little sympathy for the private security
company and its highly paid employees. With an uproar
growing in Congress over Blackwater’s alleged excesses,
the North Carolina-based company is finding few supporters.

Responsible for guarding top U.S. officials in Iraq, Blackwater
operatives are often accused of playing by their own rules.
Unlike nearly everyone else who enters the Green Zone,
said an American soldier who guards a gate, Blackwater
gunmen refuse to stop and clear their weapons of live
ammunition once inside. One military contractor, who spoke
anonymously for fear of retribution in his industry, recounted
the story of a Blackwater operative who answered a Marine
officer’s order to put his pistol on safety when entering a
base post office by saying, “This is my safety,” and wiggling
his trigger finger in the air. “Their attitude was, ‘We’re f—-ing
security; we don’t have to answer to anybody’.”

Congress disagrees. Until now, private security contractors
working for the State Department, as Blackwater does, have
effectively not been covered by either U.S. or Iraqi law, or
military regulations. A bill that overwhelmingly passed the
House last week would close that loophole. But the law
would also require the FBI to establish a large-scale
presence in Iraq in order to investigate accusations against
private contractors. Law-enforcement officials worry that this
would draw valuable resources away from FBI efforts to
combat terrorism in the United States. Also, whenever FBI
agents venture into Iraq now they are guarded by
Blackwater operatives. The bureau has sent a team to
Baghdad to investigate the Sept. 16 shooting in Nasoor
Square, in which Blackwater guards are accused of killing as
many as 17 Iraqi civilians. In order to avoid “even the
appearance of any conflict [of interest],” according to an FBI
spokesman, the agents will be defended by U.S. government
personnel.

It is not an idle concern. Blackwater’s staunchest defenders
tend to be found among those whom they guard. U.S.
officials prefer Blackwater and other private security
bodyguards because they regard them as more highly
trained than military guards, who are often reservists from
MP units. A U.S. Embassy staffer, who did not have
permission to speak on the record, said, “It’s a few bad eggs
that seem to be spoiling the bunch.” Late last week the
State Department announced that it would increase
oversight of Blackwater in particular, installing cameras in its
vehicles and having a Diplomatic Security Service officer ride
along on every convoy. But another State Department
official, also speaking anonymously, says that DSS agents in
Baghdad have not been eager to rein in the contractors in
the past: “These guys tend to close ranks. It’s like the blue
wall.”

Testifying before Congress last week, 38-year-old Blackwater
chief Erik Prince vigorously defended his company’s
“dedicated security professionals” who “risk their lives to
protect Americans in harm’s way overseas.” Prince probably
had no reason to be as smug as he seemed to many
observers. In deflecting questions about a drunken
Blackwater operative who allegedly shot and killed a
bodyguard for Iraqi Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi in the
Green Zone on Christmas Eve last year, Prince said that the
employee, later identified as Andrew Moonen, had been fined
and fired. But on Friday House Oversight Committee chairman
Rep. Henry Waxman released a letter to Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice recounting evidence that Moonen was able
to return to Iraq and worked there for another company.
Moonen’s attorney, Stewart Riley, told NEWSWEEK his client
denies wrongdoing and is not facing criminal charges.
Blackwater is no doubt in for further fire fights.

War Supporters Spit on Iraq War Vets in D.C.

By Ward Reilly…September 16, 2007

Are these people patriots and good Christians? Or, are they like Germans in the 1930s?

A Gathering of Eagles aka Chickenhawks…Who are these Idiots?

The Animals Who Assaulted a Gold Star Father on September 15th

Account of what happened from Arredondo’s wife Mélida Arredondo

Carlos Arredondo, 47 year old father of two sons, arrived in the nation’s capitol on Monday, 09/10/07 to share a memorial he has made to honor for his eldest son, Alex. Carlos has visited thirty of the United States with the traveling memorial to his son Alexander. Lcpl. Alexander S. Arredondo, USMC was killed on 08/25/04. He was 20 years and 20 days old. The memorial consists of a casket, poster- size photographs of Alex when he graduated from boot camp, before his second tour in Iraq, lying in state at his wake, and a photo of Alex with his younger brother Brian.
Saturday, September 15, 2007 consisted of first a rally, a march towards the capitol and then a die-in. Carlos pulled the memorial along the march route approaching the rotunda near the capitol building. Several of the marchers requested for him to speak about the memorial where a crowd gathered around him. After finishing, several people walked with Carlos as he pulled the memorial. Several pictures of Alex dressed in his blues were attached to the display.
As Carlos passed counter protesters, one man ripped a picture of Alex from the memorial. Carlos leaped on the man to retrieve the picture. It was at that point that approximately five others all began to attack Carlos by kicking him in the head, legs, stomach and back.
The Capitol police bicycle patrol then appeared to break up the fight. Several officers including a female officer were engaged in breaking up the fight and were able to stop any further injuries from occurring. Hannah Jones who was walking with Carlos was also assaulted.
A bystander named Ramesh witnessed the whole encounter and also retrieved the picture of Alex for Carlos. He was quite distressed at how he watched the men follow Carlos as he pulled the memorial, purposefully yelling epiphets and eventually taking Alex’s photograph. Soon, an ambulance showed up as well as many concerned activists. The paramedics provided first aid to Carlos but he did not seek further medical attention. Carlos sustained bloody cuts on his shins. He also reported bruises all over his torso and head where he was kicked. From After Downing Street

Fifty Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War, led 100,000 other American citizens in a huge demonstration and march in Washington D.C. on Sept. 15. They were exercising the Rights that they thought they had just earned on the battlefields. Behind them, thousands of other military veterans, including many members of VVAW and VFP followed.
IVAW marched as in a military company, in formation, with a 7 man honor guard front and center, all in their military uniforms. They carried the U.S. flag, as did many of the vets and citizens, in the position of “distress”.
ALL of them were called “cowards”, “traitors” or “disgraces”… there were hundreds of “fuck you’s” screamed at them, and there were even screams of “we’ll kill YOU later” coming from the pathetic group of 1000 pro war citizens that formed a thin line in a few small areas along the route of the march, and the pro war group ALL claimed that they “supported the troops”.
Does any else see the extreme irony here?
This “proud” group of fanatics even took the time to stomp on the father of an Iraq war KIA, as he was walking back to his car after the march had ended. They kicked him a dozen times when he was down on the ground, and shredded the picture of his son that he carries on top of the coffin that he was pulling. I guess the “Eagles” support “Gold Star” family’s too. And not a cop in site. The police were all waiting for us at the Capitol I guess, protecting an empty building against the petition to end the war that was signed by about 1,000,000 people, that we wanted to leave there.
Apparently “spitting on the troops”, as it were, equates to “supporting the troops”, at least if you are a so-called “Gathering Of Eagles” or “Move America Forward” member, which are pro-neocon, pro-war groups. This gang is given support by the national media, in the form of Michele Malkin and Rush Limbaugh, among others… 2 more military experts that blindly suck Dick Cheney’s ass. Two more war freaks that never served a second in the military.
The “Eagles” even had bright red arm bands, just like the nazis used to wear, except with black eagles instead of swastikas. I swear.
The Cheney and Bush fan club.
They are more like the “Gathering Of Vultures”, if you ask me. They support the genocidal slaughter of innocent people. They support killing kids and torturing innocent humans. They support the sending of our children into an unjust occupation, where they are hated for being occupiers, so their minds will be screwed forever. You know, troop and flag support. But the troops know the truth.
This is one group of eagles that is fortunately on the endangered list, and becoming extinct soon.
In that there were 1000 of them, vs 100,000 anti war attendees at the march, you can get a true representation of the percentage of the nation that still supports having troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. 99% against the occupation, and 1% for the occupation. The majority rules here, right?
I love it when these folks show up to scream and hate. I’m from south Louisiana, and they give any protest march sort-of an Mardi Gras feel. Anti Mardi Gras that is. I felt like throwing them something…doubloons, beads, or maybe my old military medals or awards. I want to tell them “thanks for your support”, you know?
Can you even imagine standing on the side of the road for 5 hours so that you can scream “fuck you traitors” to a bunch of military veterans as they walk by? How sick is that? All that troop support is going to give those eagles a heart attack someday, and it can’t be soon enough.
What they have done by spitting on the troops, especially by hating the Iraq and Afghan vets, is simply traitorous. Just like their heroes are. And the way that they conduct themselves represents the Bush administrations policies perfectly.
Thanks for showing up, Eagles, the anti war movement needs your type of “support” to stop the wars. Keep it up, FOX is watching you. And you taught these newly returned vets, and thousands of our new radical youth, who really spits on the troops, and who really supports the troops.

Peace Out.


Ben Franklin, the most smartest of our Founding Fathers, tried to convince his peers not to pick this wicked bird as the symbol as America because EAGLES are big, dumb, lazy, vicious bullies.
Ben suggested the wild turkey because the Pilgrims (America’s first illeagal aliens) would have starved without this bird. Franklin added that it would also be a shout out to the Native Americans who turned us on to this major food source, but he was outvoted by his dumber, lazy buds.

10/2: Here is a Special Report from the Wayne Madsen Report, which is a
subscription news site. Date: September 26, 2007
Air Force refused to fly weapons to Middle East theater
WMR has learned from U.S. and foreign intelligence sources that the B-52 transporting six stealth AGM-129 Advanced Cruise Missiles, each armed with a W-80-1 nuclear warhead, on August 30, were destined for the Middle East via Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana.
However, elements of the Air Force, supported by U.S. intelligence agency personnel, successfully revealed the ultimate destination of the nuclear weapons and the mission was aborted due to internal opposition within the Air Force and U.S. Intelligence Community.
Yesterday, the /Washington Post/ attempted to explain away the fact that America’s nuclear command and control system broke down in an unprecedented manner by reporting that it was the result of “security failures at multiple levels.” It is now apparent that the command and control breakdown, reported as a BENT SPEAR incident to the Secretary of Defense and White House, was not the result of a command and control chain-of-command “failures” but the result of a revolt and push back by various echelons within the Air Force and intelligence agencies against a planned U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and conventional weapons.
The /Washington Post/ story on BENT SPEAR may have actually been an
effort in damage control by the Bush administration. WMR has been
informed by a knowledgeable source that one of the six nuclear-armed
cruise missiles was, and may still be, unaccounted for. In that case,
the nuclear reporting incident would have gone far beyond BENT SPEAR
to a National Command Authority alert known as EMPTY QUIVER, with the
special classification of PINNACLE.
Just as this report was being prepared, /Newsweek/ reported that Vice
President Dick Cheney’s recently-departed Middle East adviser, David
Wurmser, told a small group of advisers some months ago that Cheney
had considered asking Israel to launch a missile attack on the
Iranian nuclear site at Natanz. Cheney reasoned that after an Iranian
retaliatory strike, the United States would have ample reasons to
launch its own massive attack on Iran. However, plans for Israel to
attack Iran directly were altered to an Israeli attack on a supposed
Syrian-Iranian-North Korean nuclear installation in northern Syria.
WMR has learned that a U.S. attack on Iran using nuclear and
conventional weapons was scheduled to coincide with Israel’s
September 6 air attack on a reputed Syrian nuclear facility in Dayr
az-Zwar, near the village of Tal Abyad, in northern Syria, near the
Turkish border. Israel’s attack, code named OPERATION ORCHARD, was to
provide a reason for the U.S. to strike Iran. The neo-conservative
propaganda onslaught was to cite the cooperation of the George Bush’s
three remaining “Axis of Evil” states — Syria, Iran, and North
Korea — to justify a sustained Israeli attack on Syria and a massive
U.S. military attack on Iran.
WMR has learned from military sources on both sides of the Atlantic
that there was a definite connection between Israel’s OPERATION
ORCHARD and BENT SPEAR involving the B-52 that flew the six nuclear-
armed cruise missiles from Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota to
Barksdale. There is also a connection between these two events as the
Pentagon’s highly-classified PROJECT CHECKMATE, a compartmented U.S.
Air Force program that has been working on an attack plan for Iran
since June 2007, around the same time that Cheney was working on the
joint Israeli-U.S. attack scenario on Iran.
PROJECT CHECKMATE was leaked in an article by military analyst Eric
Margolis in the Rupert Murdoch-owned newspaper, the /Times of
London/, is a program that involves over two dozen Air Force officers
and is headed by Brig. Gen. Lawrence Stutzriem and his chief civilian
adviser, Dr. Lani Kass, a former Israeli military intelligence
officer who, astoundingly, is now involved in planning a joint U.S.-
Israeli massive military attack on Iran that involves
a “decapitating” blow on Iran by hitting between three to four
thousand targets in the country. Stutzriem and Kass report directly
to the Air Force Chief of Staff, General Michael Moseley, who has
also been charged with preparing a report on the B-52/nuclear weapons
incident.
Kass’ area of speciality is cyber-warfare, which includes
ensuring “information blockades,” such as that imposed by the Israeli
government on the Israeli media regarding the Syrian air attack on
the alleged Syrian “nuclear installation.” British intelligence
sources have reported that the Israeli attack on Syria was a “true
flag” attack originally designed to foreshadow a U.S. attack on Iran.
After the U.S. Air Force push back against transporting the six
cruise nuclear-armed AGM-129s to the Middle East, Israel went ahead
with its attack on Syria in order to help ratchet up tensions between
Washington on one side and Damascus, Tehran, and Pyongyang on the
other.
The other part of CHECKMATE’s brief is to ensure that a
media “perception management” is waged against Syria, Iran, and North
Korea. This involves articles such as that which appeared with Joby
Warrick’s and Walter Pincus’ bylines in yesterdays /Washington Post/.
The article, titled “The Saga of a Bent Spear,” quotes a number of
seasoned Air Force nuclear weapons experts as saying that such an
incident is unprecedented in the history of the Air Force. For
example, Retired Air Force General Eugene Habiger, the former chief
of the U.S. Strategic Command, said he has been in the “nuclear
business” since 1966 and has never been aware of an incident “more
disturbing.”
Command and control breakdowns involving U.S. nuclear weapons are
unprecedented, except for that fact that the U.S. military is now
waging an internal war against neo-cons who are embedded in the U.S.
government and military chain of command who are intent on using
nuclear weapons in a pre-emptive war with Iran.
CHECKMATE and OPERATION ORCHARD would have provided the cover for a
pre-emptive U.S. and Israeli attack on Iran had it not been for BENT
SPEAR involving the B-52. In on the plan to launch a pre-emptive
attack on Iran involving nuclear weapons were, according to our
sources, Cheney, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley; members of
the CHECKMATE team at the Pentagon, who have close connections to
Israeli intelligence and pro-Israeli think tanks in Washington,
including the Hudson Institute; British Foreign Secretary David
Miliband, a political adviser to Tony Blair prior to becoming a
Member of Parliament; Israeli political leaders like Prime Minister
Ehud Olmert and Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu; and French Foreign
Minister Bernard Kouchner, who did his part last week to ratchet up
tensions with Iran by suggesting that war with Iran was a
probability. Kouchner retracted his statement after the U.S. plans
for Iran were delayed.
Although the Air Force tried to keep the B-52 nuclear incident from
the media, anonymous Air Force personnel leaked the story
to /Military Times/ on September 5, the day before the Israelis
attacked the alleged nuclear installation in Syria and the day
planned for the simultaneous U.S. attack on Iran. The leaking of
classified information on U.S. nuclear weapons disposition or
movement to the media, is, itself, unprecedented. Air Force
regulations require the sending of classified BEELINE reports to
higher Air Force authorities on the disclosure of classified Air
Force information to the media.
In another highly unusual move, Defense Secretary Robert Gates has
asked an outside inquiry board to look into BENT SPEAR, even before
the Air Force has completed its own investigation, a virtual vote of
no confidence in the official investigation being conducted by Major
General Douglas Raaberg, chief of air and space operations at the Air
Combat Command.
Gates asked former Air Force Chief of Staff, retired General Larry
Welch, to lead a Defense Science Board task force that will also look
into the BENT SPEAR incident. The official Air Force investigation
has reportedly been delayed for unknown reasons. Welch is President
and CEO of the Institute for Defense Analysis (IDA), a federally-
funded research contractor that operates three research centers,
including one for Office of Science and Technology Policy in the
Executive Office of the President and another for the National
Security Agency. One of the board members of IDA is Dr. Suzanne H.
Woolsey of the Paladin Capital Group and wife of former CIA director
and arch-neocon James Woolsey.
WMR has learned that neither the upper echelons of the State
Department nor the British Foreign Office were privy to OPERATION
ORCHARD, although Hadley briefed President Bush on Israeli spy
satellite intelligence that showed the Syrian installation was a
joint nuclear facility built with North Korean and Iranian
assistance. However, it is puzzling why Hadley would rely on Israeli
imagery intelligence (IMINT) from its OFEK (Horizon) 7 satellite when
considering that U.S. IMINT satellites have greater capabilities.
The Air Force’s “information warfare” campaign against media reports
on CHECKMATE and OPERATION ORCHARD also affected international
reporting of the recent International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)
resolution asking Israel to place its nuclear weapons program under
IAEA controls, similar to those that the United States wants imposed
on Iran and North Korea. The resolution also called for a nuclear-
free zone throughout the Middle East. The IAEA’s resolution,
titled “Application of IAEA Safeguards in the Middle East,” was
passed by the 144-member IAEA General Meeting on September 20 by a
vote of 53 to 2, with 47 abstentions. The only two countries to vote
against were Israel and the United States. However, the story carried
from the IAEA meeting in Vienna by Reuters, the Associated Press, and
Agence France Press, was that it was Arab and Islamic nations that
voted for the resolution.
This was yet more perception management carried out by CHECKMATE, the
White House, and their allies in Europe and Israel with the
connivance of the media. In fact, among the 53 nations that voted for
the resolution were China, Russia, India, Ireland, and Japan. The 47
abstentions were described as votes “against” the resolution even
though an abstention is neither a vote for nor against a measure.
America’s close allies, including Britain, France, Australia, Canada,
and Georgia, all abstained.
Suspiciously, the IAEA carried only a brief item on the resolution
concerning Israel’s nuclear program and a roll call vote was not
available either at the IAEA’s web site — www.iaea.org — or in the
media.
The perception management campaign by the neocon operational cells in
the Bush administration, Israel and Europe was designed to keep a
focus on Iran’s nuclear program, not on Israel’s. Any international
examination of Israel’s nuclear weapons program would likely bring up
Israeli nuclear scientist Mordechai Vanunu, a covert from Judaism to
Christianity, who was kidnapped in Rome by a Mossad “honey trap”
named Cheryl Bentov (aka, Cindy) and a Mossad team in 1986 and held
against his will in Israel ever since.
Vanunu’s knowledge of the Israeli nuclear weapons program would focus
on the country’s own role in nuclear proliferation, including its
program to share nuclear weapons technology with apartheid South
Africa and Taiwan in the late 1970s and 1980s. The role of Ronald
Reagan’s Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency Ken
Adelman in Israeli’s nuclear proliferation during the time frame 1983-
1987 would also come under scrutiny. Adelman, a member of the Reagan-
Bush transition State Department team from November 1980 to January
1981, voiced his understanding for the nuclear weapons programs of
Israel, South Africa, and Taiwan in a June 28, 1981 /New York Times/
article titled, “3 Nations Widening Nuclear Contacts.” The journalist
who wrote the article was Judith Miller. Adelman felt that the three
countries wanted nuclear weapons because of their ostracism from the
West, the third world, and the hostility from the Communist
countries. Of course, today, the same argument can be used by Iran,
North Korea, and other “Axis of Evil” nations so designated by the
neocons in the Bush administration and other governments.
There are also news reports that suggest an intelligence relationship
between Israel and North Korea. On July 21, 2004, New
Zealand’s /Dominion Post/ reported that three Mossad agents were
involved in espionage in New Zealand. Two of the Mossad agents, Uriel
Kelman and Elisha Cara (aka Kra), were arrested and imprisoned by New
Zealand police (an Israeli diplomat in Canberra, Amir Lati, was
expelled by Australia and New Zealand intelligence identified a
fourth Mossad agent involved in the New Zealand espionage operation
in Singapore). The third Mossad agent in New Zealand, Zev William
Barkan (aka Lev Bruckenstein), fled New Zealand — for North Korea.
New Zealand Foreign Minister Phil Goff revealed that Barkan, a former
Israeli Navy diver, had previously worked at the Israeli embassy in
Vienna, which is also the headquarters of the IAEA. He was cited by
the /Sydney Morning Herald/ as trafficking in passports stolen from
foreign tourists in Thailand, Myanmar,
Laos, and Cambodia. New Zealand’s One News reported that Barkan was
in North Korea to help the nation build a wall to keep its citizens
from leaving.
The nuclear brinkmanship involving the United States and Israel and
the breakdown in America’s command and control systems have every
major capital around the world wondering about the Bush
administration’s true intentions.
NOTE: WMR understands the risks to informed individuals in reporting
the events of August 29/30, to the present time, that concern the
discord within the U.S. Air Force, U.S. intelligence agencies, and
other military services. Any source with relevant information and who
wishes to contact us anonymously may drop off sealed correspondence
at or send mail via the Postal Service to: Wayne Madsen, c/o The
Front Desk, National Press Club, 13th Floor, 529 14th St., NW,
Washington, DC, 20045.

From Nick

A telling moment for me during this week’s testimony was when Sen. Warner asked Gen. Petreaus,
“Is the surge making America safer?”, and David responded, “I don’t know.” He is clearly a soldier who is dedicated to making his assigned mission work, and does not question the mission itself.
But if the soldiers are bravely doing everything they’ve been asked to do, as everyone agrees, and the mission is still not succeeding, then the problem clearly isn’t with the soldiers. It is rather with their leaders who sent them on a flawed and tragic mission in the first place.

Note from Editor: As regular readers already know we often swap emails with recruiters. Ten or so have posted our letters and ten or so were knocked off the net in a couple of weeks. But, please, don’t attack this RECRUITER …His website- Adventures of a Detailed Recruiter. SFC B is the most honest, open and intelligent of the bunch. Give him a chance…Let’s hear what he has to say. Latest:

SFC B-9/8: I think that is impossible to get a good view on Bush II’s record since were still in the middle of it being written. Any historian who comes out now any argues that Bush is the “Worst President in History” is getting caught up in the partisan nature of our times. While it is arguable that Bush started a civil war in another country, he didn’t sit back and let one happen in our own like Buchanan prior to the Civil War. And for all the rhetoric about how vulnerable Bush’s foray into Iraq has made the US, it was no where the red flag which was Carter’s handling of the Iran Hostage Crisis. If Carter threats the Iran situation like the invasion of soverign US soil which it was maybe the next 30 years play out differently. But that sort of “What if” is best left for alternative history fiction writers. SFC B

Greg-9/9: Dear SFC B…. I agree that Buchanan was a horrible president…an idiot who did nothing to stop our CIVIL WAR, which lasted 3-plus years.
But, much worse: Dubya is an idiot who demanded an illegal preemptive strike on a harmless third-rate power and half way across the world.
This OCCUPATION has lasted 4-plus years (longer than WWI, WWII and our own Civil War)….
In 2003 one only had to look back to the death of Tito in Yugoslavia to predict the chaos and civil war in Iraq without Saddam. Both men were brutal thugs, but there was peace when they ruled. If a terrorist or religious fanatic stood up they would immediately be slapped down. Any high school history student should of known the consequences of taking out Saddam…but, it came as a complete surprise to Dubya and his staff.
For that I grade Dubya a F on the war.
Economy- F. Bush has run up more debt than all prior presidents combined!
Foreign Policy- F. Like a girl cut from the cheerleading squad Bush is the first president to refuse to talk to our enemies.
Domestic- F. No other president would have dreamed of spying on all Americans.
And, the list goes on and on. George W Bush is a failure to America in every area. Even Buchanan and Nixon had some good points…but not Dubya.

You need to do a little research into Carter and the Iran Hostage Crisis. Google October Surprise or click here. This has been public knowledge since 1993. Kissinger and Bush Sr made a secret deal with the Iranians to hold the hostages until after the 1980 election in exchange for millions in arms to our enemy. To me this was treason! Without the unofficial interference from these two traitors, Carter would have freed the hostages months earlier and won reelection…and you’re right: American history would have played out differently…for the better!
Greg

SFC B-9/6: The worst president in history… well… this has several different sources for multiple rankings of US Presidents
For someone addicted to history I find myself a bit stunned to see you consider Bush to be worse President than James Bucanahan or Andrew Johnson. Heck, in the aggregate scholar’s ranking Bush II is pretty middle of the pack. Also, I figured a history oriented person would take a longer-term view of the issue and not rush to judge a still-sitting president as “the worst ever”. Of course I’m the last person to judge anyone for putting partistanism above objectivity.
Have a great day!
Greg-9/7 Thank you for pointing out the Wikipedia Historical Rankings. This is an old article from early 2005. If you scroll down to Historians Survey, you will see that Dubya was judged on only 2 of their 12 old polls…one in 2002 when Bush had 90% Approval Rating (alas I was in the other 10%) and a 2005 Wall Street Journal Poll (Bush today still has a 90% approval rating from war profiteers). Thanks to you I have notified Wikipedia and they will soon update to give George W Bush his proper due at the bottom of the list in the “Failure” category.
It all began with an article in the Rolling Stone- Worst President Ever?
And, soon after an article from the world’s greatest historians in the Washington Post

READ MORE

I CHALLENGE YOU TO FIND ONE SURVEY SINCE 2006 THAT RANKS DUBYA HIGHER THAN THE BOTTOM FIVE (FAILURE category).
Google “Worst President Ever” and you will find 4,200,000 links. Of the hundred or so I’ve looked at since 2006, Half name Boy George as the worst ever. 90% place him in the bottom three.
As Commander-In-Chief there is little doubt that JR is the Worst Ever.
I tried to join the National Guard in 1968 and was told that there was a ten-year waiting list. I soon realized that at the time the Guard was a country club for Fortunate Sons (rather than the living hell it is today). Boy George trained as a nuke plane pilot when there were no nuke planes in Vietnam). His peers (spoiled brats…became musket loaders, saber polishers and blacksmiths). Even given this incredibly cushy gig, Bush refused to take the drug test (required of all pilots) his final year…Do you wonder why? And, then, disappeared. DESERTION DURING WARTIME? How does that sit with you?
Bush’s excuse: “I worked it out with the Guard.”???? Damn, I wish I could have “Worked it out with the Army” and skipped my final year (in Vietnam).
At the end of a 2004 debate with Kerry Bush was asked, “You compare your service with John’s, but he volunteered for combat duty and you didn’t. Why?
“Well…I…um…I…didn’t believe in that war.” Dubya immediately fled the stage to avoid follow-up questions.
When you recruit kids today what do tell them about their mission? In 2003 Condi warned us of the Mushroom Cloud…a fantasy. Then it was to capture biological and chemical WMDs…Weapon Inspectors hadn’t found any since 1992 and those of us who were paying attention knew that most of these weapons had a shelf-life of six months. Surprise! WE DIDN’T FIND WMDs! Now we hear the mission is freedom, liberty and democracy. We gave Iraqis the vote and the majority chose to be ruled by a wacky bunch of religious fundamentalist fungi. They voted to become a THEOCRACY…the exact opposite of DEMOCRACY! The Shiites are in control and their police squads are also their death squads to commit genocide on Sunnis.
The entire Middle Class (2,000,000) of educated Sunnis has fled the country. AMERICA CAUSED A CIVIL WAR in which (according to the UN at least 600,000 Iraqis have been killed…a third of what Bush claims the Psychokiller Saddam wiped out in his 30-plus years).
AND, WHAT IS THE MISSION? What do you tell the kids headed into this Islam Civil War that began in 700 AD? “Stay the Course for another 1300 years or so.” Should they die for the Sunnis’ or the Shiites’ vision of Allah? Which version of Allah are you willing to die for?
Call me old-fashioned, but I kinda like Jesus and the Bible…so count me out of YOUR CIVIL WAR. I pray that the Prince of Peace will help me bring our kids home now.
You and I both know that the Iraq Occupatiion is all about the OIL. Bush SR and JR are oilmen, Andy Card ditto, Cheney (who claimed less than $400,000 as VP and $8,000,000 from Halliburton in defered payments last year on his income tax form…where does his real loyalty lie?) builds oil pipelines, Condi Rice was a VP at Chevron…all gave up millions-a-year jobs for low-paying public service. Yeah, right on, Dude. Tell me another fairy tale!
Since you are The-Man-Without-A-Name do mind if I call you Ollie North Jr in our next exchange? He was the ultimate loyal no-questions-asked soldier.
Peace and Love…and, you too, Have a Great Day! Greg

Editor: Since Boy George’s speech on how “We withdrew our troops too soon from Vietnam”
(after 20 years or so) CA has been daily swamped with emails from fellow VN vets.
None of us saw Bush or Cheney or Clinton or Gore fighting at our side. My posse is angry.
Here is one example:
“I was in the Army, infantry in South Viet Nam in 1970 when George Bush was in the National Guard Air Force in south USA. George Bush is now saying that if we leave Iraq the same things will happen that happened in Vietnam. George needs a history lesson. The war in Viet Nam was approved by Congress because of the Gulf of Tonkin incident. North Vietnam, Congress was told, attacked a US Navy ship in the Gulf. One big problem - the attack never happened. Then Defense Secretary McNamara in his recent film “The Fog of War” admits it…

Gulf of Tonkin: McNamara admits It didn’t happen.

So, we invaded a country based on lies. Millions of Vietnamese were killed. Millions were traumatized. Their country was destroyed. They are still suffering from Agent Orange. Thousands of US troops died, and are still dying from that war.
A war based on lies. Results felt for decades. Yes, George, there are similarities between Vietnam and Iraq.”

Do you ever admit you were wrong? Fog of War trailer from Sony Classics

Peace - Gandhi style,
ARNY
War is slavery

On Spying, Hillary and the Dums from Tomm

Sorry, but I have no particular information about e-mail privacy here in
what used to be known as “the land of the free,” but as far as I know
Beloved Leader can do anything he wants. Who knows what would happen if he
actually wanted to protect the American people or the Constitution, the
physical land and infrastructure, our environment, or our posterity, but
fortunately that question is moot since his concerns are elsewhere.
As for Hillary, we do not need a dynasty in this country and the sooner
everyone gets over the idea that once in power, you stay in power, the
better. I think she is wrong on keeping troops in Iraq— the removal order
should be signed between the swearing in and the Inaugural Address— wrong
on keeping her plans secret as Nixon’s plan to end the war in Vietnam,
wrong on using insurance companies as a major part of health care, and
wrong on NAFTA. I don’t hear her talking about civil liberties or the
shredding of the Constitution the way the indispensable Glenn Greenwald
does daily on salon.com. She did not have the right answer on gays in the
military, and it was a gimme, as they say in golf when they just put the
ball in the hole and move on.

And I think she is the only candidate the Dums can run who could be
defeated. That said, she IS slick and confident looking and the entire
Group of Perps pack of losers is a stunning revelation on the state of our
national discourse, wherein calling for holy war on a religion,
enthusiastically endorsing torture and more Guantanamos, and routinely
smearing your opponents as “traitors” (which have a prescribed treatement
in law) is beyond disgusting but absolutely standard.

The candidates’ mouthing of religious pieties at every opportunity as if
supersitition and a loathing of science are qualifiers is just insane
nonsense. They are corrupt, ignorant, vile, hatemongering pigs who every
one of them wd have opposed the Declaration of Independence and every
subsequent act of the signers thereof.

That these vicious scum can infest our airwaves and infect our political
process without being tarred and feathered and driven from the society of
civilized humans is an outrage and and insult. That the media aid and abet
them, openly admit that reporters despise John Edwards as much as they did
Al Gore, is also despicable. And then yesterday when Despot was reported
to have said flatly that Iran has announced that it is determined to have
nuclear weapons (the opposite of what Iran has consistently claimed),
there is no longer even outrage.

Is he a liar? Sure. Is he a fool? Sure. Do they all just make up shit and
pull it out of their asses and get away with it? Absolutely. But they
don’t get called on it. Doesn’t even matter anymore whether he’s that
misinformed and ignorant or that corrupt and dishonest, the result is the
same and it’s all old news. We’ve had national fanboys claiming the Dum
sellout on FISA is only for a law that does NOT allow warrantless
wiretapping, does NOT eavesdrop on conversations without probably cause,
ONLY on conversations that take place with terrorists or start outside
this country, etc. etc. and reporters, interviews, enablers who purport to
be journalists, let them get away with it. And of course, everyone thinks
Abu Gonzales should be given more power and authority because he is such a
man of capability, conscience, and honor and always knows exactly what is
going on around him and always puts the Nation and the Constitution first.

There is supposed to be a “disaster fatigue,” where too many
catastrophes— the Utah mine disaster, the Manhattan flooding (which I
barely missed during my visit last month), the missing weapons in Iraq
(who was in charge? Why, General Petraeus!)— but the outrage fatigue is
greater. We are doomed. Television is again beating the drum for war and
persists in refusing to expose the level of filth and malice and evil from
these bastards. They go on Fascist Radio to score their points. They
organize smear campaigns against ordinary soldiers and translators and
other citizens trying to do their jobs.

And meanwhile, power is increasingly concentrated in the hands of the few
and fewer and the middle class is wiped out, tuition is unafordable,
health care is destroying our morale and misery is rising around us like
the temperature at the North Pole as hope evaporates like ice at the North
Pole and we are all polar bears drowning.

Meanwhile, we mayflies, flicker in the sun, an evanescence that vanishes,
leaving a memory that vanishes nearly as fast. Me, I fret over bills I
cannot pay and my irresponsible spending, long for human contact and
relationship, babble my screeds uselessly into the ether. And I fiddle
with my library researches, pursue lost stories by forgotten authors,
enjoy poring over “quaint and curious volumes of forgotten lore,” and
otherwise develop an asthetic for deck chair rearrangment as the band
plays, “Nearer My God to Thee.” Our present disasters will be followed by
tomorrow’s calamity but I am preserving bits of history no one cares
about and which may well never make it out of my hands anyway and thus
literally be lost forever.

Put cowards and losers in charge and their airy and preposterous power
fantasies will get worked out in the blood of patriots and martyrs because
cowards refuse even to do their own dirty work, sign their own Condolence
Letters for the families of slain soldiers, attend a memorial service, so
long as they can be oblivious to the chaos and misery they create. Real
soldiers do not go to war unnecessarily, do not go willingly, and know
that it is not a chess game but the wreck of lives that will ensure.

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every
rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft
from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are
cold and are not clothed. —Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1953

Today’s children will curse our generation for doing them in the eye, or
turning a blind eye while others do the poking. Media moguls sharpen their
sticks for the purpose. More fun to focus on the lost past than the
equally lost future, but the rage persists. Someone with less equanimity
than I and better organization will summon the determination to do what
our Founding Fathers would have done, but even that will merely make
things worse.

When you live in a culture of fear, spreading fear, thriving on fear,
thriving on division and subversion and hatemongering and lies and
secrecy, you not only fundamentally misunderstand the vision, the genius,
that has made this nation great and triumphant from its beginnings until
now, and then created as much as presieded over and orchestrated its
swift decline to the point where if there were to be a history, it would
be another case study in the Decline and Fall of empire through idiocy and
hubris and sloth. But the bastards may be spared that judgment because
there well may be no history after this regime.

What this maladministration has done to the political vision of our
founders, to the social contract in general, and indeed to the professions
of faith in their very god itself, is to deny by every single deed
everything those entities represent. If we cannot exist with an open
society where not even a candidate can express his or her honest views on
foreign policy, where there are checks and balances and the rule of laws
and not of men, where officials ARE accountable and there severe
consequences promptly and inevitably follow, then the Great American
Experiment has failed. It faced down the Nazi juggernaut and Fascism in
Italy and Spain, royalty in Japan and totalitarianism in the Soviet Union
by means of principles now abandoned because the chickenhearts who run the
place no longer have faith.

Yes, they prate daily of their faith and pray daily in the marketplace
that all may see them, but they do not believe as their predecessors did
in the power and glory and majesty of a sovereign people empowered to make
their own decisions and run their own lives with not only the Four
Freedoms, but the greater freedom even than those— the freedom to be let
alone.

Scooter Skates While Justice Waits

We no longer live in a country where the “Rule of Law” prevails. A single individual (President Bush) can now subvert the American legal system at will, and decide who goes to jail and who doesn’t.

Despite the best lawyers money could buy, Scooter Libby was found guilty by a jury of decent, ordinary American citizens of four felonies for lying to FBI agents and a grand jury. He thereby successfully obstructed investigation into the treasonous act of outing a CIA agent’s identity by someone in President Bush’s administration during war time. The underlying crime could not be determined because of Libby’s intentional deceit. And yet Libby was rewarded for his dishonesty with a commutation of his sentence by President Bush. So much for the hypocritical “Law and Order” party. Loyalty to one’s political bosses seems to have won out over loyalty to the truth, to the Constitution and to the American people. We deserve better.

Meanwhile, since the recent loss of the writ of habeas corpus, a single individual (President Bush) can now deem any American citizen as an “enemy combatant” on little or no evidence, and jail that person with no right to challenge his/her detention. Is this really Democracy?

Our Founding Fathers framed the Constitution so that no single individual (good or bad) would ever possess too much power. That’s called a dictatorship. In America we’ve taken pride in the fact that no man is above the law. President Bush, however, seems to believe that the law does not apply to him or his cronies. Where are our checks and balances? Where are the American values for which we fight?

Nicholas Giacona

Mr. (Greg) Giacona,

We’re on the same side. It is why i do this publication and go through the trouble i go through to keep it alive. When I read that 14 more valuable American lives have been lost over the weekend to this utterly pointless war it just kills me. We are led by an Administration that is killing off the best we have in our country. We are led by generals who care more about their next star than they do about the lives of the people under them. Not one general has resigned in protest of this war. Not one has taken off his or her stars and put on the table in front of Bush or Rumsfeld. Now we know why Hitler happened not that Bush equals Hitler but the dynamic is the same. Stay with us.

Best,
LeRoy Woodson Jr
Editor
Militaryweek.com

From our new friends at The Seminal
An unidentified Republican Senator placed a secret hold on the Open Government Act, a bipartisan bill to strengthen the Freedom of Information Act, thereby preventing the Senate from acting on the bill this week.
Senator Patrick Leahy, a cosponsor of the bill, made the following comments on May 24th: “Regrettably, an anonymous Republican hold is stalling this important Freedom of Information Act, FOIA, legislation, needlessly delaying long-overdue reforms to strengthen FOIA and to protect the public’s right to know. It is both unfortunate and ironic that this bipartisan bill, which promotes sunshine and openness in our government, is being hindered by a secret and anonymous hold.
This is a good government bill that Democrats and Republicans alike, can and should work together to enact. I hope that the Senator placing the secret hold on this bill will come forward, so that we can resolve any legitimate concerns, and the full Senate can promptly act on this legislation.”
This is a shame and the American people deserve to know which Republican Senator is responsible.
Read more…get involved at The Seminal
We get emails…but very little spam this past week
You have been receiving spam via the address on my site that has some how corrupted the mailing used to send you news alerts. I have been out of action for a number of months due to health problems which have at last been resolved. I am now working diligently to resolve this problem which I have traced to Reno. I am contacting the Reno office of the FBI to file a complaint of identity theft and mail fraud. I’ll keep you posted.
I’m very sorry for this major inconvenience. The site will resume normal operations in the very near future and I and will be sending alert on what is happening here. Thanks for your support.

Best,
LeRoy Woodson Jr
editor
MilitaryWeek.com

The GOP asked America to remember Reagan over Memorial Day weekend in their new sales pitch for Fred Thompson (another bad actor who will work cheap and read his talking points without question).
Unfortunately, tens of millions of Americans do remember the real Reagan.
I remember Kissinger making a deal to sell WMDs to Iran if they would hold American Embassy hostages until AFTER the 1980 election.
I remember Ron selling billions of arms to Iran which we now accuse them of passing on to Iraq.
I remember that Saddam Hussein was Reagan’s best friend in the Middle East in the 1980s and we provided him tons of WMDs, including the gas used on the Kurds.
I remember that Reagan (obsessed with communism) spent $3,000,000,000 to stop Russia in Afghanistan and pressured Saudia Arabia to commit another $3,000,000,000 plus a billion dollar a week allowance to petty thugs like Osama Bin Laden.
I remember that there would be no 9/11, no Saddam, no Bin Laden, no Al Queda or Talliban without the help of Reagan. Can we afford another bad actor PLAYING our president?
Don’t even get me started about Iran/Contragate and union busting! Greg

And I remember that a single man infected with TB who took a flight got more press in 2 days than the AIDS epidemic got in the first 7 years of the Reagan Administration. I remember that 27,909 men and women died by the time Ronald Reagan uttered the word AIDS in public in 1987.
I remember that during the 1986 centenary rededication ceremony for the Statue of Liberty, Bob Hope made the joke: “I heard that the Statue of Liberty has AIDS but she doesn’t know if she got it from the mouth of the Hudson or the Staten Island Fairy.” And the cameras showed the Reagans laughing like hell. I remember
From Bill at Wrapped in the Flag
Oh, Dear…Two more recruiters have been blown off the web
My links to them are dead. Don’t get me wrong…I think that the Army is a great career for millions of American kids…when they are not dying for Halliburton and Big Oil. Recently, four recruiters have posted my letters…each of them has been blown away within a couple of weeks…Too easy. I wish that one of these guys (never met a female recruiter…why is that?) would find the courage to respond on this site.
recruiting8yi.jpg You think your job sucks? Imagine yourself as a recruiter working for the Worst Commander-In-Chief in American history:
…can’t help but feel pretty down right now.
As most of you know I am a Christian. I believe that Jesus Christ died for my sins and I put my trust in him. I know deep down inside me that everything that happens to me is for good as long as I am walking in his will (Romans 8:28.)
However, I feel like Job right now. I feel like my life is falling apart. I am losing something that really mattered and was very important to me and I can’t help from feeling very sad about that. However, God gives me the strength to deal with that. Sometimes I deal with it very well. Sometimes… not so much. Right now I am in a very low place and feel that pang of despair. Link to Recruiting Tirade
please check out his farewell…very touching and cowardly.
I am become Death
(CA editor: “Is that English?”) The destroyer of enlistments.”
-SFC B
Well, I’m in charge again for the week. During my periods of being “the boss” the station is a cumulitive -2. I don’t know if it’s me, or if SFC SC2 simply times his leave so that I’m left standing when bad things happen. Or it could just be sad coincidence. Sad, sad coincidence. Fortunatly none of the losses have been mine. Thank heavens for small favors.
I shipped one of my 09Ls today. That was good. This guy has been in the DEP for a while and he was eager to get out of here. While I’m glad to have him gone (I don’t mean it like that), he was the best Future Soldier I’ve ever had. He provided several referrals, some processed, and a couple even joined. He’s excited to finally get to start his time in the Army. However it’s been delayed because the airline overbooked the flight and booted him. Wonderful.
With the losses taken it’s been a rough week. My standing order when the phone rang today was “Tell them I’m not here, I’m in the hanging by my boot laces from the plumbing in the bathroom.” The bastards never followed that simple order and I had to speak to everyone who called. Suffice to say it was not a happy day all around.
As if to add to the suffering I was called to the carpet on a distinct lack of seniors who have enlisted. Of course this required everyone’s favorite solution: mandatory prospecting. With the front door locked, blinds closed, wireless cards removed from the laptops LRLs were broken out and numbers were dialed. The old Murphy’s Law of Combat is still in effect: If it’s stupid but it works it isn’t stupid. Smilin’ and dialin’ might be boring, repetitive, occasionally depressing, but if you do it long enough production will happen. It’s like magic or something.

Alas, this may be the last last we hear from our happy recruiter friends. The Surge is a disaster, so from now on the Amry will censor every military blog, comments to websites and even emails home. If it ain’t optimistic, hit delete. Link to Army Clamps Down on Soldiers Blogs
How to piss off millions of vets and our wounded at Walter Reed
Dear Dubya: You’re Stylin’ Now!
5_18bushstyling2222222222.jpg The Purple Heart was added to the photo. If he had really pinned it on Dubya could have been arrested for violating the 2005 Stolen Valor Act, which Bush signed into law!

by Tom Chartier Much more from Tom at Atlantic Free Press
Yo Dude! What is that bodacious bauble blazoned on your breast?! Is that what I think it is? Are you wearing a… medal? You look fit to bust with pride. One might think you had accomplished some sort of dangerous mission like telling Laura that you are out of gin.
And it’s not just any medal is it? It’s a Purple Heart! Tres Chic oh Magnificent Moron in Chief.
Where the heckers did you get that!? Kinda makes you look like Idi Amin or Benito Mussolini. Well, if you got it, flaunt it!
Exactly when (and where?) were you wounded in combat? As I recall… probably much better than you do… Daddy Bush pulled some strings and you skipped out on any combat when you were at prime cannon fodder age. You Dynastic Bushes sure are sneaky devils.
So let me take a guess. How did you get wounded? You were drunk, dancing naked on top of a table and you fell off. No?
Well, it seems Vietnam War veteran Bill Thompson is a recipient of not one but three Purple Hearts legitimately earned for his service to the country when he was wounded in combat. Thompson and his wife, Georgia, decided to give you one of his. What a nice guy! Now that’s supporting your Democratic Dictator!
In Bill’s words: “We feel emotional wounds and scars are as hard to carry as physical wounds.” However delusional you may be my Dear Leader Guy, neither did you get PTSD from taking questions from Helen Thomas nor did you suffer wounds when watching Keith Olbermann.
Well, Bill is entitled to do what he wants with his Purple Heart even if that means flushing it down the toilet. Which seems to be exactly what he’s done with this one.
LA READERS - BREAKING NEWS: Candorville has returned to the Los Angeles Times! Presumably thanks to letters from a few thousand Constructive Anarchists like you and me. It doesn’t take much to force the greedy screwheads (a Hunter S Thompson term) buckle under. Freedom of Speech is a little safer in LA today!
Many thanks to our Left Coast readers who took time to demand the return of Darrin Bell
The LA Times regained a bit of my respect with this email today- 5/14(in response to my letter to the editor below):
Dear Candorville fan,
I am happy to inform you that the Los Angeles Times is bringing back “Candorville” to the daily paper starting today. Because the color comics have advance deadlines, it will return to the Sunday paper in early June. Thanks for your interest in The Times.
Sincerely, David Hiller Publisher

2007-05-14candor-hatecrimes22222222222.gif Above: the return of Candorville with another too-hot-to-handle topic from Mr Bell.
My letter to the Times:
On Candorville
When the Tribune bought the La Times locals saw trouble coming: your top priority has always been to silence the voices of minorities…you walked in and dumped the only strip by Mexican-American and the sole toon by an African-American. Lalo is back after you learned that a large chunk of La Ciudad de Los Angeles (your readers) is Latino. What a surprise! Perhaps do a little homework before you invade another major city.
Darrin Bell is the most brilliant and relevant artist today, and I think the real problem here is not his color, but the fact that he talks about issues which concern the vast majority of real Americans, but might be frowned upon by the White House and the Great White Corporate Shark…the topics you ignore or simply print the White House talking points. This past week. for instance, the hot story was, according to you: Thousands of Emails Accidentally Erased. “We made a mistake,” says the White House. You know they’re lying, we know they’re lying. How about a little investigative reporting? It would take about five minutes for one of your people to call the Geek Squad at Best Buys to learn that each email would have to be erased at least 47 times to be lost forever. Mr Bell ran a series of Amnesia toons that was dead on target, but you would rather run good old Charley Brown. He was safe back in the early fifties when Tailgunner Joe was doing his thing, and even safer now that Mr Shultz is dead and can no longer comment on the DEATH OF FREE PRESS IN AMERICA.
Greg Giacona at constructiveanarchy.com/blog
Read much more at Darrin Bell’s site Candorville

3_30BuckGeorge_Bush_Walter_Reed.jpg aaaaaareed22222.jpg
It will be rainy, cold, and maybe snowy. We will be there for three hours.
ENTERING OUR THIRD YEAR OF THE WALTER REED VIGIL

my brother returns in the dead of night
my sister returns kept out of sight
in the night out of the light

A sense of urgency moves us. We don’t want to hear about one more bill that calls for withdrawal some time in the future, not six months, not one year, not maybe in a year or two. Any call beyond Bring Them Home Now means continuing to fund the war and occupation, and more funding means staying, and staying means more funding. Staying means more medals for the generals. It means more battlefield experience and experimentation for the Pentagon. It means more profits for the corporations given contracts to build more weapons. New weapons means new ingenious ways to kill, to maim, to reduce humanity to raw meat. Every precious consciousness snuffed out is gone from us forever, leaving empty boots, homes reduced to rubble, grief that smolders in the hearts of those left behind. Oh, America, how can you be content to be distracted?

Truth is an asteroid
tumbling at the Earth
the crater it makes will be very large

Drive, take a bus, a cab, catch a ride with a friend or a friendly stranger—bundle up, wear your thermals, gloves and hats and mufflers—

They use us
these bosses these exploiters of our time and strength
war is just a different factory with a broken time clock

EVERY FRIDAY 6PM TO 9PM
in front of Walter Reed Army Medical Center
Georgia Avenue between Dahlia and Elder
ABOUT FIVE MILES FROM THE CAPITOL
HALF A WORLD AWAY FROM BAGHDAD
There are no heroes, only victims.

In solidarity,
Bruce Wolf (OPEIU Local 2)
Walter Reed Vigil
Firing Was Performance-related, Not Political
Thank goodness the controversy surrounding the firing of US Attorney David Iglesias has been resolved.
New Mexico Republican Party chairman Allen Weh has now admitted that he urged President Bush’s political advisor, Karl Rove, to have Iglesias removed because of “…dissatisfaction in part with his failure to indict Democrats in a voter fraud investigation in the battleground election state.” (McClatchy Newspapers, 3/10/07). Rove’s reply was “He’s gone.” So obviously politics played no part whatsoever.
Of course Mr. Iglesias’ firing was performance-related rather than political. If he had performed more vigorous prosecution of Democratic evil-doers, and performed less energetic prosecution of Republican lawbreakers, he would still have his job. And then Republican Senator Pete Domenici and Republican Representative Heather Wilson would not have been forced to seemingly surrender their ethics by personally phoning Republican Iglesias right before a close election to “motivate” him to better perform his job.
Case closed. Nicholas Giacona
Dear Lord, I love hate mail
Hunter S Thompson was outraged when he learned that he had not made Nixon’s Enemies List.”If the Screwheads aren’t pissed off, I’m not doing my job!”
I feel the same way and this is the first bit of neocon love I’ve received since Dubya’s approval rate dipped below 30%:
Not since I squirmed through “Roger and Me” have I seen so much “dumbass” confined to such a small area. You are truly amazing. How you manage to make it through your day without losing your bicycle helmet or shitting your pants is beyond me.
E-mail joshua hockman

In 1852, Abraham Lincoln shrewdly observed:
“Kings had always been involving and impoverishing their people in wars, pretending generally, if not always, that the good of the people was the object. This, our Convention understood to be the most oppressive of all Kingly oppressions; and they resolved to so frame the Constitution that no one man should hold the power of bringing this oppression upon us.”
Thank goodness America does not have an ambitious king with dubious motives, a leader who would drag his country into reckless and unnecessary wars at the expense of his people and the national treasury. But even if we did have such a shameless modern-day ruler trying to do so, saying it is only for the “good of the people”, surely our Constitution would prevent him and his greedy cronies from being able to do so…or would it?
We are repeating imperialistic history with tragic and predictable results. Names and dates have changed, but human nature has not. It is time to value the Constitution for more than the paper it is written on, and start “checking and balancing” what our Founding Fathers (and later President Lincoln) saw as the country’s worst-case scenario. Don’t be fooled by false “patriotic” rhetoric. If you oppose further war-mongering and shameless war-profiteering, please use your free speech and actions as provided for in our Constitution to stop it!

Nicholas V. Giacona

From TOMM:
The president is about to max out his ego trip by ordering more thousands of Americans to the killing ground of Iraq in the name of “sacrifice,” despite a firm and growing national concensus that this is just Wrong and a product of something, perhaps messianic delusion, other than clear and rational thinking about what is best for this nation, much less for Iraq.
And that reminded me of this poem by Wilfred Owen, a British soldier who made the “ultimate sacrifice” in the final hours of World War I.

The Parable of the Old Man and the Young

So Abram rose, and clave the wood, and went,
And took the fire with him, and a knife.
And as they sojourned both of them together,
Isaac the first-born spake and said, My Father,
Behold the preparations, fire and iron,
But where the lamb, for this burnt-offering?
Then Abram bound the youth with belts and straps,
And builded parapets and trenches there,
And stretche’d forth the knife to slay his son.
When lo! an Angel called him out of heaven,
Saying, Lay not they hand upon the lad,
Neither do anything to him, thy son.
Behold! Caught in a thicket by its horns,
A Ram. Offer the Ram of Pride instead.

But the old man would not so, but slew his son,
And half the seed of Europe, one by one.
Link to great works by Owen
Perhaps if the SOBs who demand that OTHER people make sacrifices cannot be stopped, even by the sensational and unprecedented Keith Olbermann’s call to arms (so to speak) tonight, our betrayed soldiers will vote with their feet and like the WWI soldiers who decamped from Archangel, do on their own what the spineless will not do for them.

And if you missed Olbermann’s ten-minute cri de coeur last night on
Countdown (MSNBC)— none dare call it treason (wanna bet?)— lefty
bloggers all have the transcript (rawstory.com, huffingtonpost.com,
atrios.blogspot.com are likely suspects) and I’m sure YouTube is going
wild with it. The gauntlet has been thrown and you Need to see this or at least read the transcript, then forward it to everyone you think should join the movement to prevent the upcoming insanity of increasing the number of US soldiers for Iraqis to target. Go here, for example: http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Countdown-SC-Sacrifice.wmv
Steve Gilliard has been more right on the Iraq quagmire than most of the millionaire pundits who dominate official discourse— and right more often. He offers some typically fierce commentary on the angry ten-minute rant that concluded Countdown the other day, and, as usual, gives no quarter. Olbermann is this generation’s Tom Paine and may be even BE the reincarnation of Tom Paine, for all I know. He was talking about the insane Bush plan to call for increased troop levels in the name of “sacrifice,” beginning with these words:

If in your presence an individual tried to sacrifice an
serviceman or woman, would you intervene? Would you at least
protest? What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them?
What if he had already sacrificed 3,003 of them — and was
then to announce his intention to sacrifice hundreds, maybe
thousands, more?

And then the foul-tongued blogger snarled:
Oh fuck no he wasn’t angry enough for me, and he was so angry, even my
mother noticed it.
But George Bush is in no position to ask for sacrifice from ANYONE.
He told people to go shopping after 9/11. Now he wants sacrifice? From
whom? The survivors of Iraq? The Iraqi people?
We’re all sacrificed out. Teenagers look like horror show freaks because an IED burned them up. What more can they give?
His daughters whore around Argentina and he thinks no one notices? He
wants some poor kid from Wal Mart to do another tour?
I think we have sacrificed quiet enough for Bush’s Colonial War. Send
his daughters and the rest of the Bush brood for his attempt
to save his ego.
Sacrifice?
Hmmm, let’s start with the Iraqi mother who’s son was snatched up
from a hospital and killed for being the wrong religion. I think she’s
sacrificed a great deal for this war.
Or we can walk around Walter Reed’s neurology ward, where they’re
building plastic skulls for the wounded.
Maybe we can ask a nurse on the flight from Balad to Rhein Main about
sacrifice.
Maybe we can ask the survivors of Haditha about sacrifice.
And since no one talks to them, why not ask some grunts about sacrifice.
I mean, they’re the ones watching their friends die. Iraqi, American, I think both have sacrificed enough for Bush’s war.
I think of the Shia women crying on caskets as their children are given a quick burial. Or the mothers who get the phone call, which reads US Government, and the next thing she knows, she’s flying to Germany to see what’s left of her child.
Iraq has created a great deal of sacrifice, for many people.

Except one group: Bush and his friends. He should take those fat, cheetos eating fucks at the think tanks and ship their asses overseas. Let Cliff May run a convoy and have Max Boot drive. Let Goldberg man the .50. Let those useless war profiteers sacrifice more than their filthy mouths. Let them do what they ask of others and then denigrate.
Bush must be in a Potemkin Village to think he can ask for sacrifice.
Sacrifice? Him and metal heart Cheney did everything but ask for
sacrifice. He has no standing to ask for sacrifice. He pissed that away with his tax cuts.
What a sad little man we have running this country. Sacrifice. What does George Bush know about sacrifice? He’s never sacrificed a
thing in his miserable life.

Olbermann’s pre-emptive strike may actually end up making a Difference, and he’s not alone for a change. A couple of weeks ago, Josh Marshall
wrote online:
No actual policy or strategic imperative is driving the move to escalate the conflict in Iraq. The real causes are political and psychological.
And on Christmas Eve, a reader of his “cafe” site noted “Nobody knows what the goals are anymore, and nobody’s asking.” Turns out both writers were quite correct in their analysis.
Sunday on NBC News, Jim Miklaszewski reported that the new strategy will be announced next Tuesday, and that an administration official admitted to us today that this surge option is more of a political decision than a military one.
Just weeks ago, CentCom commander Gen. John Abizaid told Congress I met with every divisional commander, General Casey, the corps commander, General Dempsey, we all talked together. And I said, in your professional opinion, if we were to bring in more American Troops now, does it add considerably to our ability to achieve success in Iraq? And they all said no.

Transcript and video are online at:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/01/03/escalation-political-decision/

A Comment from Nick on Stay The Course:

So let me get this straight: After 3½ years of “Stay the Course” with regard to his disastrous Iraq War, President Bush is now denying that he ever proclaimed this strategy. Unbelievable. And as if this blatant disrespect for our intelligence wasn’t bad enough (doesn’t he realize we live in a video age?), studies have shown that roughly 27% of us will accept this alteration of the past and assault on the truth without question.
As George Orwell observed in “1984”, totalitarian governments know that “Who controls the past, controls the future: who controls the present controls the past.” For this same 27% of the population, authoritative doublespeak maxims such as “War is Peace”, “Freedom is Slavery” and “Ignorance is Strength” will also be blindly accepted.
So how about the other 73%? Are we willing to be fooled by this president’s denial of something we know to be the truth?

Nicholas V. Giacona, Jr.

Published by Greg at 02:03 AM on November 30, 2009

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