Hasta Luego, Alberto

The highest ranking government law enforcement official ... lies to Congress under oath and to the people of the nation.

Alberto Gonzales claimed he had no knowledge about the firings of the US attorneys. No meetings. No discussion. No participation in the decision. But voila! Documents released from the DOJ put the lie to his mealy-mouthed denials.

Yet again, one of GW Bush's closest has been proven to have obstructed justice. What a fucking sad irony that this man is (and hopefully soon WAS) the head of the Department of Justice.

Nearly every single department of our government now stands for its OPPOSITE. Justice? ROFL! Can you say lies and injustice? Interior now stands for finding ways to let the polluters pollute. State now stands for siding with Israel, to hell with Palestinians, suck up to Korea now that we know they have a nuclear bomb, threaten and posture Iran because we KNOW they don't... yet.

Why has no one stepped up yet to IMPEACH this president and vice-president? I swear to God, had any previous president been as outrageous and duplicitous and low-down and scurrilous... he'd have been outta here long ago.

Lying Under Oath Used to be Illegal

The firing or forcing out of at least 8 US Attorneys is a hot topic these days, and rightly so. There is abundant evidence suggesting that loyalty -- nay, fealty -- to the Bush administration was a primary factor in drawing up the list of which USA's to get rid of.

It's obvious the folks at the AG's office and the White House shared concern over how these firings would be perceived. From the e-mails published 3-19-2007 at the House Judiciary Committee Web site, we can see that a good deal of effort went into concealing the political motivation for these firings. And then we have AG Gonzales himself, under oath and in front of the cameras, protesting that, "I think I would never, ever make a change in a United States attorney for political reasons or if it would in any way jeopardize an ongoing serious investigation. I just would not do it."

Let's see, what is the meaning of "I think I would never..." ? Does he mean he would not do it again? Or does he mean he would not do it if he thought he'd be caught at it? Or perhaps he means that he personally wouldn't do it, but would have no hesitation to okay such a thing for a subordinate to do?

To listen to the damage control squad including WH Press Secretary Tony Snow, all of Fox News and a bevy of other paid propagandists, you'd think this sort of thing is not illegal at all. Firing the attorneys that is. They'll tell you that every President cleans house at the beginning of the term. It's only natural! Well, if it is justifiable and routine, why protest so loudly? Oh, I know. To distract from what IS illegal and unethical. Lying under oath.

I remember well that lying under oath (about a private sexual dalliance) was enough to start the impeachment ball rolling. How about lying under oath about turning the Justice Department into an army of personal yes-men for a unitary executive with a god complex?

Is it any wonder that the Bushies are fighting tooth and nail to testify under oath about what they knew and when they knew it? Do they really think we are buying the line that if we want the "truth" we'd do well to take what they tell us behind closed doors, without a record and not under oath?

Since when is the "truth" so fearful of being overheard or repeated or sworn to?

Does Bush Deserve Benefit of the Doubt?

Question: Does the Bush Administration deserve the benefit of the doubt anymore, on anything?

Think back to the secreted interview with Bush and Cheney holding hands before the 9-11 Commission (hint: whitewash, and we WILL uncover it). Think back to the Bush Administration's assertions that Saddam Hussein and his imagined WMDs were an immediate threat to the US (hint: intentional misrepresentation). Think back to W's protestation that no citizen in our country was being wiretapped without the FISA court approval (hint: LIE). Think back to W's declaration that we do not torture anyone (well, extraordinary rendition, waterboarding, and a host of other abominable practices excluded, and therefore, a LIE). Think back to the White House Press Secretary insisting that Karl Rove didn't know nuthin' about the Valerie Plame leak, and W's phony promise that anyone in the White House who participated in this egregious leak would no longer have employment there (hint: another flat-out lie).

Enough? Have you had enough yet?

Answer: No, the Bush Administration does not deserve to respond to Congressional inquiries behind closed doors, not sworn in, and with no transcript provided. If the firing of the US attorneys was all okay and up front and legit, there is NO reason in hell not to testify, sworn in, and have statements recorded.

I found it most difficult to listen to Tony Snow today, trying to paint Karl Rove et al as honorable people. Don't you?

Why They Outed Valerie

The current wisdom is that the reason Ms. Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert agent of the CIA was exposed has everything to do with trying to discredit Joe Wilson's assertion that OUR government was falsifying evidence to push a rationale for invading sovereign Iraq.

I suspect an even more despicable motive. Ms. Plame Wilson was involved in a division of the CIA dedicated to intelligence discovery regarding Iraq's WMD. Doesn't this ring any bells for anyone? Valerie is running a very covert op posing as someone else, in the effort to gather intel regarding Iraq's WMD for God's sake!

What better message to send to the CIA than "BACK THE F*** OFF" besides outing one of its premier assets involved in exactly the task of finding out IF Saddam really had WMD? I mean, do you recall.... please say you remember..!!! that the main REASONS we were given for the impetuous invasion and occupation of Iraq had everything to do with that nation's ability to create, distribute and deliver smoking mushroom clouds!!

So.. not only attempt to discredit Ambassador Joe Wilson's honest but naked-making op-ed, but at the same time send a message to those in the CIA, who are trying to do a good job, by exposing one of the main channels of intelligence... honest intelligence... we had concerning Iraq!

Bastards. I hope their limbs are slowly eaten away in Hell.

How Many Conspiracists Does it Take to ...

Why is one conspiracy any more believable than another?

To read forums and blog comments, some people believe that 19 incredibly lucky Arabs with boxcutters pulled off the total destruction of the entire World Trade Center complex, plus the destruction of a plane with passengers and crew in Shanksville, PA, plus heavy damage all the way through several rings on one side of the Pentagon.

I'd say that's fairly outlandish.

But if you suggest there's more to the story, or a different story, all of a sudden it's impossible because it would take the assent, aid and continuing silence of thousands of people!


This, my friends, is a straw man argument. There is no mainstream 9/11 Truth theory that calls for a cast of thousands.

I mean, if all it took was 19 mostly Saudi Arabs, then surely another group of 19 could do it too. Especially if the event was planned in advance and the mechanisms put in place over time.

I do not believe now, nor have I ever taken seriously, the motive ascribed to Osama bin Laden and his followers, that, "they hate our freedoms." Did Osama benefit? Did Islam benefit? Did the Taliban benefit? Just who did benefit? And who might have had the means and a motive?

If we are looking for motive, we find one right here -- the implementation of the PNAC's hegemonic plan simply could not have happened absent our "new Pearl Harbor." The neo-cons seem to have been ready for 9/11/2001.

[Tunick photo found here, fair use]

Run to the Rock: IMPEACH

This powerful video says it well.

To the United States House of Representatives: it's past time you listened. We know your game. Either do the people's work or share the blame earned by the corrupt Bush administration and the prior rubber-stamp Republican Congress.

911 CONSPIRACY MOVES TO MAINSTREAM MEDIA VIA AL JAZEERA

911 conspiracy theories just became mainstream news. if you don`t think AL jajeera is mainstream media you better check their audience. it is bigger than the Washington post and new york times combined. conspiracy theories and theorist are sure to change names and categories very soon and become conspiracy TRUTHS and TRUTH REPORTERS.



read more | digg story

Why the BBC Video is Important

"9/11 Changed Everything"

Can you remember when and who first spoke the phrase, "9/11 Changed Everything"? Within a day or two of 9-11-2001, pundits began this curious chant. The phrase persisted through the publication of the 9/11 Commission Report where, on page 328, you'll find:

However, the attacks of 9/11 changed everything. Less than one week after September 11, an early version of what was to become the Patriot Act (officially, the USA PATRIOT Act) began to take shape.

But who seeded that phrase into media consciousness? I surely thought it odd at the time. 9/11 didn't change everything for me.

Someone Planted a Story for the Media

Who seeded the media with the notion that WTC7 collapsed because of fire and damage? The same entity responsible for releasing the soon-to-be news a tad too early, that's who. That's why the recently unearthed BBC video is so important. You know, the footage where Jane Standley reports that the Salomon building (aka WTC7) has collapsed, only it is quite uncollapsed in the view out the window behind her.

At about 5:10 in the video linked above, Jane makes a rather honest observation: "It looks like the aftermath of a huge Atom bomb or something..."

How Perceptions are Formed

This video is called The911Solution. Watch how the news was massaged from the very beginning. After all, if we see it on TV, it must be true, right?

To All the Debunkers...

...who suggest that it would be perfectly ridiculous for bad guys to pre-announce their dirty deeds: you must not be astute or educated enough to grasp the fact that the television is a tool to brainwash the masses. The purpose of the news feed that made it on air too early was not to pre-announce a crime. Its purpose was to provide an explanation (fire and damage) for WTC7's collapse to replace the only other conclusion people could have reached had they been left to their own observations (that WTC7 was imploded in some sort of pre-planned demolition).

Part of the Conspiracy? (2)

Richard Porter, head of news for BBC World, continues to explain away the "9/11 foreknowledge of WTC7 collapse" broadcast, the missing BBC tapes, and all in all, how reasonable and easy to explain the whole thing is, after all. He ends his blurb with, "There's no story here." I don't think he understands that he doesn't get to decide that.



read more | digg story

Fight Ignorance: Read Widely

"Fight Ignorance: Read Buzzflash"

Or so it says at the bottom of many of the pages at Buzzflash. The motto should read, Fight Ignorance: Be Sure to Read Things Not Allowed Here.

I have doubts whether Buzzflash will print my contribution to their Mailbag, so I reproduce here what I wrote them today.

There are a handful of alternative news compilation sites I've frequented—and supported, financially—over the last several years. Every site has its particular bias or focus, naturally, because there is a human on the other side of a site and we each wear our own spectacles, right?

I have been visiting Buzzflash almost every day for the last few years since the site presents a good cross-section of stories from major and not-so-major news publications around the country. Buzzflash's obvious bias, like many other sites these days, is anti-establishment, and in particular, anti-Republican. Not unlike DailyKos in this regard, Buzz tends to promote Dems while harping on Repubs. Fair enough, the ruling party deserved it.

Another site I've frequented is WhatReallyHappened. Michael Rivero's bias is plain to see—Zionism in its extreme form can be quite ugly, and computer hackers (the bad kind) do deserve to be strung up.

Yet another site I've spent much time perusing is InformationClearinghouse. You'll find some of the more graphic images and videos of the "war on terror" here. The site owner has some pretty strong opinions about neocons and torture and globalism.

I think it is fine if you run a site and make your biases known. But I've run into a problem with Buzzflash in this regard. The site owner has biases he or she keeps hidden. Thus, you think you understand the scope of the content and don't realize the filtering that goes on behind the scenes.

I should have guessed this about Buzzflash, given a recent guest contribution from one Peter Michaelson.

Mr. Michaelson wrote a piece for Buzzflash where he, with true Frist-like audacity, remotely diagnoses everyone associated with what is called the 9/11 Truth Movement. I'll blog about his piece separately. The bottom line is, it was a hit piece disguised as a plea to those folks who dare question the Official Rendition of Events on that "day that changed everything"—a plea to leave their pointless questions behind and join with the true progressives to fight for the issues that really matter. Mr. Michaelson derided and belittled and talked down to and insulted all those who ask questions about what really did happen on 9/11/2001. So, do we assume just because Buzz invites this guest to contribute an article (which was nearly universally repudiated by its own readers) that Buzz itself subscribes to the "you are a nutcase if you disbelieve the government line about 9/11" belief?

Well, I didn't. Until yesterday that is.

Buzzflash offers an alternative .net site that solicits news from users—sort of a toned down Digg. You post something, users "buzz" it or not and if it makes the grade the story is supposed to go on Buzzflash's main page.

So okay, there is a new story this week about someone who uncovered a piece of video aired by the BBC back on 9/11/2001. The video shows a female reporter, standing in front of windows that let on to a view of the World Trade Center complex from a pretty good vantage point, blithely repeating some information she'd been given that the Salomon Brothers building, aka WTC 7, had collapsed. The problem is the building is visible over her shoulder and out the window. She reports the story about 23 minutes before it actually happens.

This is no small bit of news and, at least in my mind, it should raise a few very troubling questions, to wit: Who provided this breaking news to the BBC that had yet to break? And why did her live feed suddenly go black a couple minutes before the building actually fell? Shouldn't we ask some questions of the BBC, this reporter, and possibly the news service that provided that feed? How did someone know ahead of time, for sure, that WTC 7 would collapse?

Shortly after posting the item on Buzzflash.net, and after it had been 'buzzed' a few times, the posting was removed.

A subsequent posting of a similar story, this one bringing to light the CNN broadcast of Aaron Brown saying that WTC 7 had fallen down, or was falling down (when it obviously wasn't since you could see it in the video behind Aaron) more than an hour before it actually DID crumble, well.. this posting was also duly removed from the pending items. It isn't as if the stories were voted down and rejected. They were simply removed from consideration. I'd wager that the majority of Buzzflash.net readers never got a shot at viewing and rating the stories.

So what we are left with is the knowledge that Buzz has a hidden bias. Talk about government lies, fine, unless it's lies about 9/11. Talk about corruption and evilness and lack of compassion in Katrina-handling or veterans' health care or Iraq profiteering, but don't mention the possibility of corruption or evilness or lack of compassion regarding the government's handling of 9/11. Talk about National Intelligence Estimates and Government Accountability Office reports and secret Pentagon briefings, but don't talk about the 9/11 Commission Report. Whatever you do, don't post a newly unearthed video of a live news broadcast from 9/11/2001 that indicates foreknowledge of at least part of the tragedy that day.

I'm more than a little disappointed that the Buzz folks, whoever they are, have a phobia about this topic. I'm also quite sure that I won't purchase anything from the Buzz store or financially support this site anymore.

You may well be behind the curve, Buzz. There is a growing understanding that the Official Rendition of Events simply doesn't add up. This is not a wild-eyed kook-generated conspiracy. The perpetrators left too many loose ends, and we the People want to know the truth. I wish you were there with us, but either you are a left gatekeeper or simply too afraid of being accused of wearing a tin foil hat. Either way, you'll never earn a place in your own hall of fame for courage in the face of adversity.

Maybe one day you'll be honest with your readers that you are scared to death about 9/11 questions. At least that way progressives like me won't waste a few years and a few hundred dollars on your site, thinking that we are hearing about all the important issues of the day. Or maybe you'll catch on and catch up. But first you'll have to pull your head out of the sand and join the people who care not only about the Iraq War but about the event that "changed everything" that got us in there in the first place.

Sincerely,

Lee Franklin

New Congress: Here is Your Mandate

There are three items on your agenda, you who find yourselves elected and in the new majority in the House and Senate. I'll spell them out nice and simple.

1. Create a voting system that is transparent and verifiable.


2. Get the military out of Iraq, and while you're at it, destroy those permanent bases.


3. Begin impeachment proceedings against the lawless elements in the current Bush White House, beginning with Bush himself.

That's it!

If our vote keeps getting hacked, the voice of the people is not heard and we have no representation. It is not enough that this nation's wonderful disgust for "stay the course" actually seated the other party in power. In state after state, no recount was possible because there was no record of the vote other than that contained on proprietary memory cards. In district after district with e-voting machines there was a serious discrepancy between the exit poll data and the reported vote count. If we do not fix this, we should change our name to the Disunited States of Banana Republicland. Fix our voting system now!

We are not fighting "terror" in Iraq. We are creating "terror" in Iraq. We are slaughtering Iraqi people, daily, in massive numbers. We are building colossal bases and a majestic embassy. We are trying to decimate the country of Iraq so we can take over that patch of sand with its oil, so we can threaten other neighboring countries, so we don't have to ask Turkey for permission to base troops for future imperialistic ventures. We MUST get out of Iraq now. Now!

And finally, we cannot accept the President's men -- Alberto Gonzalez, John Yee, et al -- telling us that they think it is legal to torture, legal to wiretap, legal to invade other countries. So what, I should hire a lawyer and then commit murder and use, as my excuse, that my lawyer thought that murder under these circumstances is legal? Hahahahaha. Give me a break. I do not believe, no matter WHO is President, that a "unitary executive" is Constitutional. When the chief executive of a country is allowed to trample on the law he is sworn to uphold, our nation is greatly weakened. Impeach now.

---

Later on you can start working on the rest of the issues, like global warming, health care, financial solvency. But if these BIG THREE don't get fixed first, you're just diddling yourselves over there in D.C.

Not in My Name

Support Our Troops: Bring Them Home!

Get them the hell out of Iraq, and Afghanistan for that matter.

As long as our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters are assigned to places like Forward Operating Base Falcon, as long as their jobs involve driving around Bahgdad or Kirkuk or Fallujah in tanks with guns trained on the local population, as long as they are ordered to bust down doors and drag Iraqi citizens out into the street -- bagging their heads and cuffing their wrists -- and haul them off for questioning somewhere, we fertilize their hatred against us.

In fact, given what happened at Abu Ghraib and other holding facilities in Iraq, we lost the Iraqi hearts and minds a long time ago.

A large majority of Iraqis want us to leave.

Our soldiers don't want to be there.

Top military men are in full revolt against the status quo. In an unprecedented display of dismay, they are retiring their commissions early to come out and say that the way the "war" is being waged is a farce.

Yet those responsible for this farce are still in their jobs -- "Yer doin' a good job, Rummy!"

There is an explanation for the disastrous state of affairs in Mesopotamia. Let me preface this by reminding us that nothing we were told in the pre-war buildup has turned out to be true. There were no WMD. Saddam Hussein was not an imminent threat to us or to his neighbors. We were not greeted with flowers. And our invasion and occupation sure as hell cannot be likened to a cakewalk.

There is an explanation for the disastrous state of affairs. We saw the new rationale, the new goalpost, laid out for us in the Chimp's press conference yesterday. Why are we in Iraq now? It is no longer the lofty notion of bringing democracy to the region. We are there now because Iraq is unstable, and we will stay until the job is done, that is, until Iraq reaches a point of "stability." How does that make sense, though ... how is that a reasonable goal?

It's clear that our continued occupation is the cause of instability, violence, chaos, resentment, and attacks. In fact, US intelligence agencies are uniformly of the opinion that we are breeding more terrorists by staying in Iraq. How does it make sense that staying another day will somehow magically change this fact? Simple answer: it doesn't.

There is an explanation for the ongoing disaster: we need an unstable Iraq to justify our continued presence. The longer we stay the more permanent bases we complete. The longer we stay, the more our permanent presence becomes the "facts on the ground." The longer we stay, the more resources in Iraq we can steal. The longer we stay, the more Iraqis who have means will leave the country. The longer we stay, the weaker the rest of the population becomes.

I ask myself, "Is it possible this administration is willing to be called incompetent and delusionary to cover for the real reasons we are there?" I ask myself, "Are the real reasons for our invasion and occupation any different from what they were initially? And if not, why should we believe the administration would tell us the truth now?" I doubt the real reasons are any more politically palatable than they were almost 4 years ago.

All this leads me to think we have only one option now... a military withdrawal, in as orderly a fashion as possible, and as quickly as possible. There are many who say, "But this will create a mess!" Yes, it is likely it will, at least in the near term. And we will have to face it, accept it, and recognize that this is the result of our misguided and mismanaged attempt at empire-building in the Middle East. We have to demand accountability from those responsible.

I thought, and wrote, a long time ago that the ill-conceived invasion was akin to opening Pandora's box. What's done is done. If we feel, as a nation, that we bear the responsibility to fix it, we first have to admit that we cannot fix it with guns and bombs and torture -- the very things that broke it in the first place.

We did break Iraq. On purpose. Our soldiers are not able to fix it, by the very nature of our armed forces. We are not fighting terrorism in Iraq, we are fighting Iraqi citizens. We've helped create a situation that has fractured Iraqi society and civilization. We've helped to pit Sunni against Shi'ite against Kurd.

All the king's horses and all the king's men cannot put Iraq together again.

Bring our troops home now. Anything less is horribly cruel to our brothers and sisters, fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. Anything less continues to hide the disaster we've created, on purpose, with the fiction that somehow our troops can make it better.

It's time we all accepted responsibility and face the music.

WTC 7 9-11-01

A 4 min. video about the collaps of World Trade Center Building 7 on 9-11-01.

Osama Was a Friend of Ours

Back when we were all a'skeered of communism and the USSR was our enemy, the US of A armed, supported and made friends with some Ay-rabs who were hanging out in Afghan-istan. One of these lead Ay-rabs was none other than Osama Bin Laden. If we could help the poor Ay-rabs in Afghan-istan resist the Russian move into their country, well hell, we'd be doing ourselves and all the communist-hating peoples worldwide a favor, right?

So our CIA made deals with Pakistan's ISI, their CIA counterpart. Through this connection, we sent material aid to the Afghan-istan terrorists who ended up thwarting commie Russia's drive to make the area their own.

Now, don't go telling me we will fight terrorism wherever we find it. Truth be told, we support and even create terrorists when it serves our "Nashnul intressshhhts."

So here we have good ol' Osama, he's a friend. That's a good reason why we never caught the dude even when we blamed him for coming up with this plan to fly planes into our buildings. That's probably also the reason we thought we could blame him for the events. After all, he was our boy, and we needed some scapegoat. How in hell we got from Osama to Iraq... well, that's all laid out in history now, the lies and the phony Niger documents and the smoking gun mushroom clouds and the morphing poor Saddam with Osama.

By the way, Saddam was our boy too. We put him where he is, we even gave him the chemical weapons we are now trying him for using against Iran and the Kurds.

Meantime, back at the ranch... the Congress just passed a bill and it's been signed... that effectively obliterates the Bill of Rights to the US Constitution. In fact, by writing and publishing this, I could be declared as giving aid and comfort to the enemy, making me eligible for one of those orange suits and a 6 x 6 cage down in Guantanamo.

Letter to Producers of the Diane Rehm Show

[For those who do not listen to NPR (National Public Radio), the Diane Rehm show is a highly respected and nationally distributed talk show.]

I'm sure this has already been suggested, but I'd like to hear a show anytime now ... given the upcoming 5-year anniversary of 9-11-2001 ... that takes a much closer look at the official story of events, as given in reports from the Administration and the 911 Commission report.

Bush, in his first radio address to the nation on the morning of 9-11, promised a full investigation into who perpetrated the tragedy. On the same day, Bin Laden was accused and a list of names and pictures of the 9-11 hijackers was published. A few months later a "Bin Laden" tape, supposedly found in a bombed-out house in Afghanistan, appeared to contain Bin Laden's confession. (The Osama in this tape really doesn't look like any other Osama pictures we've seen. Several of the alleged hijackers -- who should have died, right? -- seem to have been quite alive in the months following. Can this be disputed? I'd really like to know!)

The Bush administration fought setting up any 9-11 fact-finding body for 14 months. The Zelikow Commission that was grudgingly established (originally headed by Kissinger, wasn't it?) finally published a report which failed on a grand scale to adequately explain what exactly happened on 9-11. Two commission members have now indicated they seriously considered exploring criminal charges against certain officials for their misleading and contradictory testimony.

There's more. The 911 Truth movement seems to be growing, and respected professionals -- scientists, engineers, physicists and scholars -- have spent a great deal of time trying to analyze what happened. They cannot explain the WTC buildings collapsing into dust in their own footprints using the official line (WTC1, WTC2, WTC7 .. and what happened to WTC6? Have you seen the photos of the gaping vertical holes in that building?).

These brave people express dismay and disbelief that examination of the physical evidence (removed promptly from the scene and destroyed) was prevented. They claim it is impossible that the laws of physics somehow did not apply on 9-11 and 9-11 alone. (They point to the fact that no steel building before or since 9-11 ever collapsed due to fire. Can this been disputed? I'd really like to know!)

If .. and I pose this as an if that should be examined in great detail .. the official 9-11 story is more hype than fact, don't we as a nation deserve to discuss it? This seminal event .. the day that changed the world as we know it (according to the MSM anyway) .. has given rise to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, to the abduction and interminable detention of foreign born and US citizens, to the abrupt passage of the Patriot Act, to warrantless domestic wiretapping, to disregarding the Geneva Conventions, and to countless other sea-changes in our way of life.

We are being told these are all for our own good. But what if the premise on which the War on Terror rests is a house of cards? We already know that we were hyped in the lead-up to the Iraq invasion. We've seen repeatedly how certain politicians seem to rely on evoking fear by conjuring up images of 9-11. And who did forge those documents about Saddam's supposed attempt to purchase yellowcake from Niger? I'd really like to know.

I have so many questions and I don't want to wait 30 or more years for the answers to trickle out. By then, the real perpetrators will be dead and gone, and so will I. But the all too real results of this day that changed our lives forever will reverberate in the world my children and their children have to inhabit.

Thank you kindly for your consideration of one or more shows dedicated to revisiting 9-11. Someone has to do it. Is NPR and WAMU able and willing?

Dear Joe...

Dear Senator Lieberman,

Isn't it time to thank the Democrats of Connecticut for giving
you 18 years in which to serve them and our country? Wouldn't it
be the decent, and yes, even ethical thing to do, to accept the
fact you were defeated? Why do you believe running as an
Independent reflects, in any way, the will of the people?

To do so will only further damage your already tarnished image
and may do harm to Ned Lamont's campaign. Why are you really
going to try to stay in the campaign? You have campaign funds to
spend? You can't get over the fact you lost? You want to do harm
to the official Democratic candidate for revenge?

By ignoring the voices of your former constituents, you are
attempting to marginalize the very people you claim you
represent. You are calling them pro-terror and fake Democrats.
Were they pro-terror and fake Democrats when they gave you the
nod to represent them over the last 18 years?

Instead of living in the bubble you seem to have created about
you, please take a moment to reflect on the possibility that the
people of Connecticut -- and all over this Nation -- no longer
want the kind of policies you so fawningly support in our
current administration. Please try to find an honest place
inside yourself to realize that running your own race does
nothing to further the ideas and ideals of the Democratic party
you claim to live by.

Would you cut off your nose to spite your face? If you fulfill
your promise (or is it a threat) to run as an Independent, I am
most inclined to to think your answer to that question is yes.

Lee Franklin

Lamont Wins - US Goes on HIGH Terror Alert!

Read my response to news of Ned Lamont's pretty amazing win over Joe (No-Mentum) Lieberman in Buzzflash's Mailbag on August 9, titled I Refuse To Be Marginalized Any More.

Democrats registered to vote in this one. Non-registered Democrats changed their registration to vote in this one. (One has to wonder how many were truly independents or those registering for the first time, and how many were actually koolaid-drinkers who switched from their Repug label so they could vote for Joe...)

In the end Ned Lamont, unknown as of 5 months ago and with less than half the funds Joe had, succeeded in unseating Sore Loserman, a guy with national name recognition, a huge purse and ego to match, and recipient of a fatal "Kiss."

Joe sort of goes brain dead now, registering to run as an Independent while still retaining his Democratic party membership, in order to let the other voters of Connecticut give him yet another defeat.

The blogosphere sizzled over this race for the past few weeks, and given Lamont's win, was bound to explode with astute analysis of the meaning of this nearly unparalled turn of events. And then what happens, the very next day?

You got it! The alert system we haven't seen used since the last election cycle, and an alert level we've never seen -- red -- is suddenly issued! Remember, Tony Blair and Chimp are both on vacation, and have remained on vacation in spite of this extreme "terra-alert" while everyone who flies a public airplane in Great Britain or the US has to throw out all liquids and gels they carry.

Here's how it might have gone down:

[Chimp] (Ring ring) Hey poodle, how's things down on the island where you are vacationing?
[Poodle] Not too bloody bad. How's the brush-cutting going? *laughs respectfully*
[Chimp] Aww hell, it grows faster than I can snip it, sorta like whistle blowers or lawsuits against my administration or questions about the war without end. Speakin of which, I got a favor I need ta call in. You got anything for me in the Terror scene?
[Poodle] What do you need now, boss?
[Chimp] Well see it's like this. We got us a breakin story here about my best kissing cousin, Joe Lieberman, that drew the press away from all the turrible things Hizbawlah is doin ta Israel. I need a distraction. One that puts the fear back in the hearts of all my sheeple.
[Poodle] I see, blimey, sounds like a bit of an emergency. I'll ring you back shortly. (click)
======
[Poodle] (Ring ring) Cheerio cowboy, I have just the thing.
[Chimp] *chews something noisily* Spit it out, poodleboy.
[Poodle] MI6 has been keeping an eye on this group of disgruntled peaceniks. They tell me they can bust the group wide open anytime, just give the word. Apparently, they have been planning a protest aboard US bound airplanes.
[Chimp] Protest, eh? What were they gonna do, link hands and sing Koombye-ah?
[Poodle] Much worse, I'm afraid. They planned to drink enormous amounts of fluids before and during the flight, and then piss their pants in the planes. Their slogan is "Wake up and smell the pisspoor way our governments are dealing with world problems."
[Chimp] *long pause* You can fix it so that sounds mighty dangerous, right?
[Poodle] No problem, el presidente. In fact, I'll have our boys raise the alert to its highest level.
[Chimp] *cackles and snorts* I knew I could count on you, tonybaloney! By the way, we won't have to stop vacationing over this, right?
[Poodle] *sound of sipping through a straw* It will be a done deal, no need to get back to work, our security boys and TSA will take it from here.
[Chimp] Knew I could count on ya! Time for my afternoon nap. Laters!

The Slippery Slope

When did it start? Is there anyone still alive who remembers the horror and shame, the mass murder of innocents, and the sudden silence of disbelief post-Nagasaki?

Who among us believes there will ever be a reason to use a device like this again? If so, under what circumstances?

Our government -- mind you, these are OUR representatives, so what they do, think, say, plan or carry out is OUR responsibility -- is planning for a possible nuclear attack against Iran. Seymour Hersch pointed it out the other day. No one has denied it.

I wonder if we still can say NO to the lunatics in 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. After all, we didn't do much when our military -- under orders (legal orders? hey generals, do you believe the orders were legitimate?) -- invaded Iraq. Turns out it was under false pretenses and if you didn't figure it out already, well, you were taken for a fool.

Then, we didn't do much when our government said, "Hey, we can call you people 'unlawful combatants' because we didn't give you our permission to defend yourselves, and that lets us lock you up for the next few decades without trial or representation."

After that, we just let it slide when our government redefined torture and exempted itself from the Geneva Conventions. After all, what's a little more bending of international law when nobody came down too hard on us for our preventive invasion in the first place?

Are you starting to see how this works yet?

Just eat a little bit of this at a time and before we know it, our bellies are so full of crap that it simply doesn't matter any more. We move from observing to excusing and rationalizing to becoming full participants. You know it. Those pictures from Abu Ghraib, when you saw them, was a bitter bite but you swallowed it. And in so doing, in allowing there to be times and situations in which torture is justified, you sold your soul. It's simply too late now to take back that permission.

Then, we stood down when we learned that our government exposed the identity of someone in our own intelligence community. Small potatoes at this point. Further, we put up a negligible fuss on discovering that our government was spying on us citizens, without warrant or independent oversight. After all, nobody even read the Patriot Act when it was passed, right? Following on, we now find out that the leader of the executive branch of our government himself authorized the leak of selected pieces of a classified document in order to discredit a citizen who was telling the truth that our government didn't want told.

At this point, any conscious normal human being should be tearing their hair out and screaming, "Impeach the bastards!"

If we don't say NO after all this, there's only one reason. We've slid too far, we're going too fast.

See you in hell.

Impeach Bush and Cheney

The i-word is showing up more and more, and I plan to use it in post titles frequently. Given the nature of our digital information world, the more times we use the i-word in conjunction with the names of the Bushco leaders, the more the machines who crawl over Internet content will capture it, record it, and report it.

Didn't we just go through an impeachment? But what other recourse do we have to let the current White House occupants know that we, we the people of this country that we love, will not stand for their out-and-out lies, law-breaking, Bill of Rights-shredding and Constitution-rewriting?

For what egregious acts shall we call for Bush and Cheney's impeachment? Let's start with law-breaking because too many pod-people will shrug off lying as something common in politics.

• Law-breaking
  ...from International Law to the laws of our land: there are laws against invading countries when they've done nothing to you first and then torturing their citizens and incarcerating them indefinitely without charges, not to mention warrantless wiretapping on citizens of the United States. There's more, but nobody has spilled the beans just yet.


• Bill of Rights-shredding
  ...goes on daily when our 'government' secretly tramples on free speech, freedom of assembly, freedom from unreasonable searches and seizures -- all in the name of prosecuting a war that isn't really a war, no matter how you look at it.


• Constitution-rewriting
  ...has been in the works since the founding of the Project for a New American Century. For centuries, pretty much everyone understood that our Constitution provides for three co-equal branches of government, guaranteeing a check against any one branch running amok. But these days we see signing statements attached by the executive that essentially nullify lawful Congressional bills; we see threats against the judiciary and bullying or simply ignoring the legislature; and we hear unbelievable protestations that the executive is so supreme that it does not need to answer to anyone. That is an interpretation of the Constitution that is brand new since 2001. Last I checked, nobody asked if 'we the people' approve of this Constitutional mutilation.

Isn't that enough to impeach with?

There's more, this is just what's become 'common knowledge' so far.

If we don't send this message loudly and clearly now, I don't think we'll see another election in 2008. Why would an omnipotent executive ever let democracy get in the way of ruling?

Hello Almighty?

What I Want to Hear

... from Democrats or Independents or anyone. The label doesn't matter. The not-so-embedded media recognizes that election season is upon us and the question of the month seems to be, "What IS the Democrats' message, anyway?"

Well, here's what I think it should be.

Respect.

R-E-S-P-E-C-T.

• Respect the laws of the land and the Constitution of the United States. That means no illegal spying, no signing statements negating congressional law, no outing undercover CIA agents as political punishment, no hob-nobbing with corrupt lobbyists.
  
• Respect our allies. That means no making fun of France or Europe in general, even when they try to act as a moderating influence on a runaway (and run amok) administration.
  
• Respect the international treaties that we've been party to, and those we should be party to. That means support an International Criminal Court, get on board with Kyoto, for God's sake follow the Geneva Conventions, don't toss the Nuclear Non-Proliferation treaty in the garbage for one country (India) and point to it as reason for sanctions against another country (Iran) in the next breath, and treat Israel the same as Iraq when it comes to "breaking" UN resolutions.
  
• Respect international law. That means no preventive wars (Iraq), no manipulating other countries (the list is too damn long to put here).
  
• Respect the peoples of every land, regardless of what ornery dictatorship leads them at the moment. That means no more military engagements founded in falsehoods that end up killing (with bullets, bombs, or white phosphorus) and poisoning (with DU and God knows what else) innocent men, women and children. (Need I say Iraq?)
  
• Respect the citizens of this country. That means no more lying, propagandizing, revising history, tampering with courts and vote-counting, fear-mongering, stonewalling FOIA requests, threatening, bullying, ignoring, or separating government from the people.
  
• Respect human rights and civil rights everywhere, including the right to be treated humanely, decently, honorably. That means stop the damn torture, stop exporting 'suspects' to countries where they will be tortured, stop supporting mega-corporations who thrive only because they enslave peoples to do their labor, stop propping up the dictatorships who do your bidding even if their human rights records are almost as abysmal as our own. That also means respect a woman's right to make decisions about her own pregnancy.
  
• Respect the basic needs of peoples everywhere. That also means fix New Orleans and the whole southern infrastructure, even though lots and lots of poor folks and folks of color live there. That also means, stop messing with the school systems by trying to replace evolution with a religious belief, by giving children subliminal reading material that discourages independent thought. That also means reverse the the flow of money that has been creating a super-wealthy upper class while squeezing the middle class and totally impoverishing anyone below that. Actually this category could go on and on...
  
• Respect our earth, the environment, Mother Nature. Hell, respect the scientists who know we are changing the earth's climate. Respect pristine wilderness (ANWR), respect our wetlands (think Katrina and the Gulf), our oceans and waterways and forests and mountains. We don't have to leave a barren landscape as a legacy for our children's children...

That's just a start. But it all comes down to respect. The current adminstration has none for anyone but its own "elite backers." Believe me, you 'pioneers' are just a tiny minority in this country.

It's time for someone to stand up and say they stand for respect for the rest of us, the rest of the world.

Here's Why

Remember when Chimpy promised the people that if anyone in his administration had been involved in blowing the cover of Valerie Plame they would no longer work in the (our) White House? Yet now that the evidence is out clearly marking Libby and Rove as the actors-in-chief, Libby's boss is praising him for his service to the country and Rove is still in place.

I postulate a simple reason for this. Both Cheney and Chimpy knew and approved.

Gotta love simplicity. Cuts right through the spin, doesn't it?

Out of Control!

The winds of Katrina did something no one had been much able to do since 9-11, except, to a lesser degree and a shorter time, Cindy Sheehan. See, Bushco CEO Rove understands full well how important it is to control the message. Not only has he made sure that Bushco's name appears in the "news" every single day, he has crafted the content of the accompanying message and insured that it has been dutifully disseminated by every possible medium.

Cindy Sheehan, by promising to camp out in a Texas ditch until she received an answer from Bushco, managed to wrest control of the media -- unwittingly, I'd bet -- for a brief time in the lazy dog days of August. I mean, what she did was so fresh, so preposterous, that the media just had to take notice. After all, many of the usual voices were on vacation.

And then came Katrina in September. The winds of this massive storm not only ripped the roofs and siding off hundreds of thousands of buildings. It ripped the remote control right out of CEO Rove's fingers and sent it flying far out of his reach. For days the message was not carefully crafted. For agonizingly long days the message was raw and truthful and real and in living color, too.

It was beautiful and horrifying at once.

The Era of Making Distinctions

The flavor of the current societal bias is overwhelmingly political. How exactly did this happen? We still point out when someone is black or maybe when someone is Hispanic or possibly when someone is poor. But the labels liberal (as in bad) and conservative (as in good) when describing individuals whose occupations or life work should be apolitical is now pervasive. Entertainers. Scientists. Judges. Journalists. Teachers. Diplomats. Preachers. We know, somehow, that the executive branch of the government wants to know one thing first -- which side are you on.

Bushco ran on a platform that included frequent chants about his being a Uniter, not a Divider. Yet even in the McCarthy era we were together in the same camp except for the Communists. Now, we are either 'with' or 'against' the administration. Everyone is drawing these lines, it is how we define ourselves in 2005. It isn't healthy.

Can't we all just get along?

Now Let Us Celebrate the Idiots

In these trying times the dunce rules. And 'dunceness' is celebrated, elevated, and memorialized in our major media. Witness "Blue Collar TV" or many of the current and recent films. I mean to cast no aspersion on Forrest Gump, for the message there was plainly that simplicity may well cover a beauty and depth of heart and compassion that is plainly lost on those more sophisticated. However, with the advent of the Chimp in Charge, the C- student, the man who failed at every venture he ever got involved with, the redneck with the down-home twang and the folksy mannerisms.... suddenly being dumb and out of touch and unable to string a sentence together with real words is something we all misunderestimated the power of ... apparently.

Blah.

Science and scientists are currently marginalized and their scientific studies are discounted. Medical men, environmentalists, engineers .. their recommendations are spurned. Education has been dumbed down to the ability to answer questions on standardized tests -- no wonder teachers find little reward in their time-honored profession. Evolution is slowly being replaced by schmevolution (thank you Jon Stewart).

Ever since the Emperor got wind that he may not be wearing any clothes, the propaganda has been set into high gear to make idiocy 'cool' and most acceptable.

I don't know about you, and I'm certainly no genius, but one thing I learned as I grew up was, "be around those you want to be like." And I extrapolate that to mean, elevate those who represent the best .. in brains, ethics, sincerity. Down with the intentionally mediocre, the banal, the corrupt.

Down with Bushco and the media blitz designed to make stupid admirable.

"The Aftermath Will Be a Cakewalk"

Remember the rosy predictions about the state of Iraq after our unwarranted, immoral, and by international standards illegal invasion? We were supposed to conjure images of thankful Iraqi children strewing flower petals at the feet of our brave soldiers as they marched their victory march through the streets of Baghdad. We were led to believe the people would pay us obeisance for relieving them from the misery of a brutal dictator who cut off ears and fingers on a whim, for whom mass murder was just another day at the office, someone who reveled in the thought of spraying poison gas on thousands at a time.

I now find it hard to see where the fabrications end. We had to have worked hard ("It's hard wurk!") to paint Saddam Hussein as Satan, Osama, Hitler all rolled into one. Given that the tales we were told by our "We will restore honor and dignity to the White House" administration about WMDs in Iraq and about the post-invasion scenario turned out to be total falsehoods, I have to sprinkle at least a few grains of salt on the stories about how disgusting and awful Saddam and his sons were.

But that's not what was on my mind for the blog today. Ever since it became clear that what we were told about the Iraqi people's welcome was way, way off base, some anonymous administration official lets slip, from time to time, a short-term prediction. That prediction always is, "because of [insert latest move toward 'democracy' here], the [terrorists | insurgents | foreign fighters | Zarqawi | Al Qaeda in Iraq | etc, etc] will try to make things worse so expect more bombings and disruption and terrorist activities."

I am getting very tired of this pathetic singsong excuse, how about you? If every deadline for "democracy" we set causes hundreds or thousands to die, why do we keep doing it? Bushco seeks to validate its slow but unending assimilation of Iraqi Oil and other assets by asserting that "terrorists hate freedom" and you can see that to be true by how much resistance they put up whenever Bushco inches forward with its plans. Such resistance can only be dealt with by applying even more force, and to hell with the damage that results.

What of the "law of opposites" or Karma or the Golden Rule? I do know better and it very much looks, to me, like Bushco wants the conflict in Iraq to continue. It's good for business, which is the only "nashunal intereshtsss" that Bushco recognizes.

"We have to make sure this never happens again,"

...they always say. How many times will we let our government mouth this pathetic platitude? Now, after how much warning about the potential devastation a large hurricane could cause... now after ignoring science and technology and common sense! Now that the worst has happened, we have to figure out what went wrong? So it can be fixed and never happen again? How many iterations of failure will we put up with? Intelligence failures, planning failures, rogue corporals following orders from hired mercenaries in Abu Ghraib failures, political spite blowing secret agent's cover failures, leadership failures -- the litany of abominable failures since January 2001 are several too many.

So how will we make sure any of these will never happen again? So many words out of so many mouths that may as well be assholes instead, talking crap, spewing crap. But there's no real intention there to change. Real change. Transformative change. I don't see it even though you can find out what needs changing and how to go about it. It's there. There just is no real leader to take hold and speak the truth.

I fear we are lost, we the people have lost, short of a real revolution.

Remember September 11, "The Day That Changed Everything..."

but what about August 28 and 29 and 30 and ...

If the slaughter of 3000 or so citizens of this great United States could change everything, then what about this slaughter of 10,000 citizens? Where is the catch phrase that will permit us to focus on the systemic problems that birthed the death of an entire American city?

I remember thinking .. "Huh?" when every official and the parroting media started saying, "This changes everything," or "Nothing will be the same, now." I thought, well, hey, something pretty incredible just happened alright, but why should that change who we hold ourselves to be? Honest, moral, just, forgiving, welcoming, free, symbols of all that can be good in our world... But oh how everything did change.

We turned into obsessive vengeful ghouls, casting aside decency and morality and patience and yes, even basic intelligence. We slavered and growled, we taunted and mocked, we used our treasure to spoil a hundred years of developed world manners and invaded a sovereign nation based on LIES. Lies freely spouted but carefully concocted, rehearsed and propped up, lies painstakingly designed to incite us to slaver even more with the urge for revenge.

The poor dear peoples of Iraq, already burdened by the dictator we had imposed upon them, became 'rag-heads' and scum, the focus of our collective scorn and hatred. Stop! we yelled, but of course we yelled it in English and they were confused so we slaughtered them too.

So what shall be the new battle cry in this immense disaster? Pray to GOD! No one is to blame! Bah. I pray that the incompetence and negligence and willful ignorance that Katrina has exposed will truly change everything. It is long past time that we work toward equalizing the have nots and the haves. It is way past time for this administration's egregious policies to be laid bare for all to see the outcomes. This is what happens when the rich bitches get away with murder. Murder happens.

I do pray for you, New Orleans, and for all the people who have been displaced, drowned, corralled, transplanted, separated, and suffocated with empty promises. Lord have mercy.

The President Who Lost a Whole American City

...may well be Bush's epitaph and the legacy that albatrosses his neck in the picture painted for posterity by the history books.

Purposeful degradation of the federal government's ability to respond has resulted in the deaths of untold thousands of our own citizens but also the shameful loss of untold billions of dollars in commerce. The latter is why even Bush's normal flunkies are spitting mad at the string of decisions that led to the loss of an entire American city.

Katrina was one thing. People can rebuild their homes and businesses, it would have been hard. But the drowning of New Orleans and its environs is a different story. The city has been declared dead. Residents have been replaced by gun-toting militia of all stripes.

"No, former residents, you must leave to make way for Halliburton who will take care of the rebuilding. Sorry about your jobs and lives, go settle down elsewhere. New Orleans will be better than before, mostly because you won't be a part of it."

Can We Survive '05?

Today a few members of our Congress (far too few) made a courageous gesture by raising an objection to the state of Ohio's certified tally of votes for President. Where was Robert Byrd? Teddy Kennedy? I saw Hillary's and Barak's name in some alternative news item, but they were not mentioned by the PBS news.

They will be marginalized, of course, and their objections brushed under the rug that now bulges obscenely with the ashes from the other burning issues that the administration (and to be fair, many fellow 'Mericans) simply don't want to look at:

• The Missing WMDs (or Failure to Make the Case for Creaming Iraq)


• The Burgeoning Fiscal Problem (or Screw the Elderly, the Poor, and Dismantle the Middle Class)


• The "There Is No Global Warming" Blindspot


• The Case for Torture (or Let's Make Torture Be in the Eye of the Beholder, Not the Victim)

There are more, of course.

Gosh, how unproud of America I am today. Worse than Ukraine when it comes to elections. Worse than most of the rest of the world now in so many things. Ethics in government is a meaningless concept.

And actually, what I wanted to write about today was a very brief encounter I had when I was making my way to work this morning. I stopped at the local Sheetz to pick up some coffee and a bagel. I drive a 10-yr old Acura that sports a couple of bumper stickers, to wit: Kerry/Edwards 2004 (pasted on top of my Gore 2000 one) and WVPEACE.ORG. I make the assumption that the encounter has to do with these obvious signs of my objections to the current administration policies.

After I finished in the store and was getting back in my car a Toyota 4x pickup with toolboxes and bedcover pulled up in the slot alongside me. It was occupied by two young men with Marine-like buzzcuts. Before I closed the car door I heard the driver fairly shout toward me, "The hell with ragheads, burn them all!"

As I pulled out, his words rung in my head while I figured out what he'd said and probably why.

I see too much hostility in some faces. What happened to religion? Wasn't Jesus called the Prince of Peace? Didn't he come to show us the way to humility and generosity and forgiveness? But it is the Old Testament God that has reared His head these days, the God of Vengeance. Except people forget .. "Vengeance is mine," saith the Lord. We are all vengeful mini-gods now I guess, with our guns and our attitudes.

Damn GW Bush. Damn him to hell for setting the example that you can do what you want without repercussion as long as you are on his side.

I pray there is a hell.

I Wish I Were a Humorist

When your worst fears turn out to be true, there are only two things to do. One is to say goodbye to the cruel world, and the other is to laugh.

I really want to be able to laugh. I want to be able to hope. I want to be able to reach the crest of the hill just once in my life, where I can stand and look back at the long climb, feeling the sheer exhaustion of it all, but knowing that I have, at worst, level ground for a while.

The egregious disparity between the exit polls (legitimate technology for ascertaining whether or not an election in a 3rd world country can be regarded as valid) and the published 'actual' results leave very little doubt that the fix was in. Why else would the Bushes, so posed in their residence around 8PM Tuesday evening, appear so smirkingly jovial on national TV?

Maybe it is my upbringing. Mom was largely responsible for endowing me with a severe negative reaction to being 'taken.' I'm trying very hard to see the silver lining in this immense black cloud that hovers over the home of the brave and the land of the free today.

Yes, there had to be massive voter fraud. But it could not have been accomplished without willing accomplices -- among them, the actual 50 million or so Americans who actually did vote for Dubya. What is wrong with you people!!

I read somewhere today amid my bleary-eyed browsing that at least we (those who never voted for the chimp that is) no longer own any result from this government. The deaths of 100,000 plus people is on your hands, not ours. The destruction of our environment will be inscribed on your epitaph, not ours. The collapse of our financial structure will be attributed to you, not us. The heartlessness that is killing our social system and our educational system will be tallied up on your bill, not ours.

I really wanted my next entry to be about the awesome experience I had going on the road to work for change. Maybe next time. Til then, I'm going to just try to understand the depths of greed and ideology that would let a fellow American fuck with my vote. How can you sleep at night? Don't the flames of Hell lick at your very soul? You are indeed damned.

Today's Excuse

Numbers are strange things, they can be used in a lot of ways. But the bottom line is numbers by themselves don't lie, and numbers do add up.

According to recent reports, attacks against US 'Coalition' forces are up 25% in Iraq. Violence of every kind is up, from roadside IEDs to kidnappings to rockets launched even into the 'Green Zone.'

Since April 9, 2003, the day Saddam's metal statue was toppled in Firdis Square, any attempt at a real plan to bring and maintain peace, repair infrastructure, restore electricity, serve up clean water, and lend a hand to the Iraqis' restoration of order to their torn country seems to have been overridden by some in our administration.

Let me repeat that. The kinds of things that would have truly helped a post-invasion Iraq were scuttled and replaced by things that have created an ever-growing disaster.

I can only hope it has not gone past the point of no return.

But back to the numbers and the excuses... I remember we were told that the Iraqi insurgents (well, they called them terrorists) hated freedom so they were going to up their attacks. And sure enough, the attacks increased. Then we were told they would fight the return of 'sovereignty' (what a laugh) and things would get worse before they would get better. And so they did. And now we are told that the enemy (notice, Iraq is now our enemy) will do anything to prevent 'democratic' elections (again, what a joke), and will increase their attacks. And so they are. And again, we are being told things will get worse before it will get better.

Two and a half years of things getting worse is a long time, for our soldiers and for the peoples of Iraq. After the phony election in January, I imagine there will be another reason to explain the ever-widening insurgency.

Does it never occur to our neo-con neanderthals that there is a legitimate reason for the attacks? (Aside from the ones they themselves are perpetrating, of course... but that is another blog for another day.) We came, we saw, we overthrew. Now, why don't we get the hell out? Why don't we offer real help? Why don't we tell Iraq we will not stay, they have to take care of themselves? We did what they couldn't do: we removed a corrupt man from office, one we had installed ourselves. Now it is up to them. We broke it, but we can't begin to fix it while we are feasting off the carcass that lays rotting in the desert.

There are other reasons we can no longer fix it.

We lost our moral authority when we broke the basic rules of civilization and attacked a country that had not attacked us, and in fact didn't even have the means to attack us, to arrest one man. We lost our aura of righteousness when we ordered the dogs unmuzzled and the lightsticks anally inserted and the fake electrical wires attached to extremities. And we lost the support of the rest of the civilized world when we told them to shut up if they didn't go along with what we were doing.

So today's excuse is just like yesterday's, and we keep on doing things that make it worse, like bombing Fallujah and Samarra and the area around Tikrit and north and south and east and west of there. Since when does bombing a people make them friends? We say we want to win hearts and minds. What we are doing is akin to performing brain surgery with a sledgehammer. There, that'll fix it.

I can't believe Bush and Company are so stupid that they don't see this. Therefore, there is only one conclusion: they do see, and this is exactly what they want. More war, more resistance, more reason to ethnically cleanse those troublesome Sunnis and Shias. More excuses to keep our troops there under false pretenses, while we build massive embassies and bases and pipelines and gorge ourselves on the profits of war. Did you know that we have written into their law that their farmers cannot keep their own grain to use as seed for the next planting? Know why? So giant agri-business has yet another ready-made market for their genetically-altered products. Makes me want to scream.

When I joined the Air Force, I never imagined we would be sent across the world to make an enemy so we had to stay there and fight and die for Monsanto, Halliburton, and the Carlyle Group.

Where to Begin?

I watched, via the net, Al Gore's address to Georgetown University that he gave on October 18, 2004. CSPAN has it, if you want to watch. All the memories from 4 years ago flooded over me. At the time I was strongly in support of Gore and engaged in spirited debate with others on the forums that CNN hosted at the time. You had to be careful what you said or the moderator would suddenly kill your login. That happened to me a couple of times... but what I remember most is the final retort from the right, when we beat them back with how pathetic a choice Bush would be for President. They said, "Look, for you worst case scenario is he is in office for four years. How much harm could he do in four years?"

I think many of us know the answer to that now.

The US, once revered and respected and regarded as a symbol of freedom and tolerance and liberty around the world, is now reviled and mistrusted and regarded with fear and loathing.

Who would have thought it only took 4 years to do that?

The economy was booming, and projections were for trillions of dollars of surplus. The looming baby boomer Social Security disaster had been averted. Kids could go to college, it was a job-seeker's market, the onerous federal debt was being paid down.

Who would have thought this bounty could be undone from top to bottom in only 4 years?

Then there's the environment, education, health care, the state of our military, the trust or lack thereof in our government, international treaties, loss of liberty, the media control...

Bottom line is, four years has been more than enough to screw with America as we knew it. Four years has been more than enough to set us back at least 20 years. I am appalled at what Bushco has managed in 4 short years. There are some things that cannot be taken back. Preventive war, once struck, is not something you can erase with a presidential directive. The albatross all of us have been hung with can never be unhung.

That being said, this election year I won't just be sitting at my computer sharing my views in a community of others. I will be heading for a "swing state" to put my old boots on the ground to GOTV for Kerry. My knees aren't good anymore, and I haven't done any training to get ready for exertion. But I will do what I can, in word and in deed, to overturn the Selected resident of the White House.

I know how bad the last four years were. I simply cannot imagine four more.

Meet the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss

I read a brief article in my Web browsings titled, "Everything Didn't Change on 9/11." The author was at least hopeful that our Constitution still exists, the flag still flies, and the hearts of Americans are still by and large magnanimous, caring, and freedom-seeking.

Sadly there are some not-so-hopeful things that remain unchanged -- corporate greed (how delicious that by law, corporations are faceless and monolithic), income disparity, and endangered species among them.

You'd have to be Iraqi to see another rerun from pre-911. US-appointed Iyad Allawi, according to today's Sunday morning talking heads, wants to "take out Fallujah" before our election. Our military is supposedly more than ready to help him. I am reminded of the post-Desert Storm months when GHW Bush encouraged the Iraqis to overthrow Saddam, and Saddam grew in evilness by putting down that rebellion, creating mass graves we now seek.

It seems to me the Iraqi people haven't changed. They see Allawi, for plenty of reasons, as just another ruthless dictator appointed and supported by the US. Instead of the Republican Guard, he has the American military at his disposal to slaughter these dissidents.

The words in the Who's song apply equally well to the people of Iraq and the people of the United States. It may take a revolution here before the powers-that-be recognize that 9/11 didn't change everything.

"There's an old saying in Tennessee—I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee—that says, fool me once, shame on—shame on you. Fool me—you can't get fooled again."—George W. Bush, Nashville, Tenn., Sept. 17, 2002

Getting Revenge on the Dead

I've seen this quote a few times now, included in reports about the recent penetration of the Oz-like "Green Zone" and the twin suicide bombings:

The National Security Adviser, Qassem Dawoud, said: "This cowardly act will not go unpunished. We shall strike them ... we shall smash them."

First, dying for what you believe in is hardly a cowardly act, is it? I mean, we give our highest honors for bravery and courage to our troops who put themselves in harm's way, and more oft than not Medals of Honor are distributed posthumously.

Second, how in the hell do you punish someone who is already dead? Yeah, yeah, I know Qassem means they want to go after the support system for those who try and take others with them as they commit this act.

But who has stopped to think how against human nature it is to kill oneself? What does it take? People who are so desperate, so void of hope, or so mentally depressed that they see their own death as a positive measure -- or maybe even a final pain-killing measure -- would strap explosives onto themselves and then detonate them. The human being, marvel of creation, could not have survived this long if suicide was easy.

I remember the story about Thich Quang Duc, in Saigon in 1963, dousing himself with gasoline and setting himself alight. And I remember thinking, "There is no greater sacrifice than this..." There was much to be said about whether or not Thich Quang Duc's self-immolation was right. But you have to admit, at least back then, it meant something.

And So Here We Are, At a Nexus

I participated in a survey online a week ago, and one of the questions was, "How would you feel if __________ is elected?"

Options of course were Kerry or Bush. The radio-buttoned list included terms like "hopeful" and "depressed" and "angry" and "joyful."

To be perfectly frank, I will be severely depressed if Bush manages to score the big one on November 2.

At the same time, I will be trying my best to be optimistic if Kerry wins. Recent statements made by him and by Edwards give me great pause, especially in regards to their attitude towards Israel. How can any thinking, feeling human being witness the massacre of the Palestinians (children! for God's sake, children!) without feeling something seriously wrong is going on there? And then the dynamic Democratic duo's hostile statements towards Iran?

On another note, I have recently been reading about Peak Oil. That term means the time in the life of an oil field (or even, more generally, in the life of the world's -finite- oil supply) when the ability to get oil out of the ground has reached its peak. In short, good times have stopped rolling. And nobody is talking about what this really means for the US, or the world's, economy. Nothing happens without oil. No transportation, electricity, manufacturing, no nothing. What happens when a commodity grows rare? Prices escalate. Mother earth only has so much black milk in her breast, and we've milked her for too long. We are about to be batted away from the everflowing crude, sent out on our own.

Dunno 'bout you, but I'm really glad I learned in my 20's and 30's about how to garden, raise beef cattle and chicken, grind wheat and run a greenhouse. I feel very sorry for everyone living in a city about now.

Oh, one more thing. The "Green Zone" in Baghdad has apparently been hit twice today by suicide bombers. Somehow they smuggled explosives in and two backpack-toting men blew themselves up in nearby public shopping areas, killing a few and wounding some more. Some idiot official in Iraq's capital city made an asinine statement to the effect, "These cowards! We will make them pay!" Duh. It is cowardice to carry a bomb and blow away one's own life for something they believe in? Duh. How will you hunt them down when they are already dead, man?

Abu Ghraib

The recent images, the ones that someone knew were wrong, of humiliation and torture and gloating, are burned in my mind, much like the utterly fantastic fireworks of shock and awe. I've been cringing for almost two years. I am truly ashamed to be American today. I've had a sick twisting stomach feel since it became clear, to me at least, that the dickhead in the Whitehouse was dead set on sending our military might on a desert exercise. That was around October 2002, it became clear they were going to do it, no matter what we said, no matter what the inspectors said.

So now, we have caused mass graves in Fallujah's stadiums. We have slaughtered in a variety of ways a ten thousand count of innocent Iraqis. We scooped up and still hold over 6 thousand in the prisons of the former dictator. They are subhuman to us, dogs to kick, flies to pull wings off of, two-dimensional beings we may number but never name. Who cares anymore about things like the Geneva Convention? Don't like the way we do things? Tough shit. What are you going to do about it?

Bring 'em on. We can take it. The troops, they are my guys and girls, my sons and daughters and brothers and sisters. They wanted an education, to go to college and make something of themselves, so they sold themselves to the military machine. And they are getting an education but not one that enlightens or enriches, not one that rewards with understanding, compassion, self-knowledge and transformation. No. They are coming home broken, corrupted and fouled, angry and lost. They'll hide, a lot of them, out of shame and fear and dreams that won't leave them alone. Others will find the taste of blood and danger the most intoxicating, most real addiction and they'll sign up for more. Some will break down completely and end their lives. May as well, the big sleep is the only peace. Their babies will be DU-deformed anyway.

And nobody stands up to say, "I take responsibility."

The buck keeps floating around like a balloon. Bush bats it to Cheney who bumps it over to Rumsfeld who scowls at it and tosses it toward the Pentagon. The Generals are getting really pissed about that by now.

Who will stand up and take responsibility? Maybe I should. Enough hand-wringing. Enough expressions of disgust. I did that to you, Iraqi man. I made you naked and covered your head and snickered as I made you spank your monkey. I piled you in that pile and pissed on you, kicked you in the ribs til you thought they were broken, made you think you'd be electrocuted. I kept you on your knees for so long that the skin broke and you lost track of the pain. I tossed you out in the yard, handcuffed and headbagged, naked in the rain like so much garbage.

I did it to you and so it was also done to me.

I'm so sorry.

Thought for the Day

Trying to win the "war on terrorism" with overwhelming military force is like trying to get rid of houseflies by burning down houses.

Net result? Plenty of garbage for houseflies to breed in, and no safe place to live for the former inhabitants of the houses.

How long will it be before we address the real reasons for terrorism?

Tell Me the Story Again?

Why did we invade Iraq, again?

I mean, at the beginning, back when we were in such a rush that we couldn't give Hans Blix another month or two, when we thumbed our noses at France and Germany who tried to offer an alternative UN resolution, why did we tell the world to go to hell, we'd do it our way if we wanted?

It's too damn bad that we'll never hear Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld or Wolfowitz or Perle or Rice tell us the real reasons. Such information would not be understood by us peons, and must be kept secret and separate. Or is it that they don't have the balls to tell us?

I find it a total outrage that when the first "reason" crumbled like a dry cookie on the road there was no apology, not even the barest acknowledgement of the lie. All we heard was denial and then a new "reason." All we were told was that we heard it wrong the first time but that doesn't explain the need for a new reason, does it? That's what pisses me off the most.

Let's take a look -- no WMD. None. 212 days and counting.

Then actual WMD morphed into "programs" for making WMD. Still nothing. Less than nothing in fact! Iraqi scientists are saying they even lied to Saddam, they had nothing to make anything with in the first place, and were glad they could cover their lies by saying the inspectors, in the 90's, destroyed their work. That's actually pretty funny. I wonder if Bush, who never reads his own news or searches for his own information, realizes that his very advisors are dressing him in as much invisible finery as Saddam's scientists did him! Bottom line -- no WMD programs. None.

Next? Ah right, those terrorists who could hurt us. Iraq was helping them in some way, right? Nope, wrong again. No linkage. From time to time a rumor is spread, often enough so that the weak-brained who only read headlines but not the fine print seem to recall that Al Qaeda is connected to Iraq somehow. Again, bottom line -- no Al Qaeda links, no connection to 9-11. None. Never were any.

The last reason is failing rapidly, "liberation and democracy." Remember those? We've liberated the Iraqi people from their lives, their property, their jobs, their health and their standard of living (which in pre-war included electricity, gas, food, shelter...). And democracy! While we tell the world in the gravest voices how much Iraq should want it, that's not what we're giving them at all. We close their media channels, replacing them with our own. We pick their leaders for them, since obviously they can't possibly be trusted with decisions like that on their own. We are building their new economy for them, by selling off state owned enterprises to private interests (most of which are not even Iraqi). We are blockading their roads, razor-wiring them inside their villages, bashing open their doors without warrants, incarcerating their citizens without trial, and periodically when we get angry enough at the resistance, we go bomb the crap out of a marsh or a warehouse. Sound like democracy to you? I didn't think so.

We didn't invade Iraq because they had WMD or even WMD programs.
We didn't invade Iraq because they were involved in 9-11.
We are occupying their country instead of liberating it.
We are teaching the Iraqis the opposite of democracy.

So, why the hell DID we go there? It's a good question to ask. Don't be afraid to ask it.

Why Trust W to Protect You?

I've been thinking about this a lot. What is it that gives people comfort?

Sure, our unelected president fits into a flight suit. He sure sounds tough as he says, "Bring 'em on." And gosh, that "You're with us or you're with the terrorists" line was impressive.

But let's take a look at what's actually happened. Are we safer? Or are we just more afraid?

Osama bin Laden has not been caught. Supposedly, lots of 'masterminds' from all levels of his organization are out of commission. If that's so, why is every new bombing attributed to Al Qaeda? There've been plenty lately. So, the head of the organization that brought us 9-11, who has been convicted sans trial by the way, is still roaming around, and despite our efforts to dismantle his terrorist network, it seems to be functioning just fine. Why give kudos to W for this abject failure?

Since we couldn't catch Osama, we moved on to the next 'front' in terrorism (according only to the neo-cons, but hey, let's pretend for the sake of continuity here that Saddam had anything to do with 9-11 or posed a looming international threat of massive death), Iraq. We marched in and overthrew the government by force. The people resisted. We now call them terrorists. We flex our muscles, break down their doors, kill innocents with trigger-happy fingers, bomb their cities again, incarcerate thousands without a decent system to sort out the captives, torture those captives, man roadblocks (how would you feel if you had to stop and be questioned when you wanted to go to the next town to visit relatives?), decide who can be an interim leader, shut down newspapers and television stations, cleanse the textbooks and fire the teachers, and generally break rule after rule within Iraqi culture. As a result, the resistance grows and insurgents make deeper and deeper forays. So, how is this making us safer? It sure as hell isn't safer for our troops.

Let's not forget that we insulted and scoffed at all the allies we may have had in this operation. Let's not forget that we ignored millions and millions of voices all around the world. The result? More violence, more deaths, more resentment, more frustration, but no help or assistance, and no true international face on our actions. Doesn't sound to me like this has made us any safer.

To those who still believe W can save you: I think the only reason you are willing to give W the right to break international law, disregard our own Constitution, and continue to wave his pecker on the podium is because you've let him scare you. You've let him tell you only he can take care of this. You've let yourself be un-empowered.

The blood of all the well-meaning troops and the true innocents is on someone's hands. I'm sure W will be more than willing to share.

Something About Wars

Have you noticed there are two kinds of wars? The first kind is literal war. World Wars and Country Wars are in this category. You can identify these because the word 'war' can always be said at the end of the phrase, like 'Korean War' or 'Revolutionary War.' (One never hears 'War on Revolution' or 'War on the World.') These wars are fought with armies against entire peoples in certain regions or countries. The World Wars were so named because armies fought against multiple peoples in multiple countries at once.

Then there is the other category of war, the figurative one. Thus we see the 'War On Poverty' or the 'War On Drugs.' These wars are 'fought' against things, not peoples or territories, because there is no geographical boundary and no clear face on the enemy. These wars always begin with the word 'war' and then identify the thing or the condition that needs correcting. Unlike the other kind of war, these wars don't require massive fighting forces to win. They are best 'fought' with education, economic assistance and the creation of viable alternatives.

I propose that the 'War on Terrorism' is the second kind of war. In its pure form, it is not about territory or any particular peoples or country. It is a war against a thing, a condition. There is no clear face on the enemy. It could be anti-abortionists in the United States, elite forces in Israel, religious fanatics in Ireland, Maylasia or Saudi Arabia.

The first kind of war can be won, the second cannot. In the first, two nations can sign a peace accord, the loser conceding things to the winner. Not so, in the second. But drugs and poverty can be contained and reduced to a manageable form by applying education and economic assistance, and offering viable alternatives.

To win the first kind of war, all you need is the biggest, most powerful set of fighting forces and weapons of mass destruction. To win the second kind of war, you need to identify the root causes of the condition and cure it, much as you would with a disease. It takes intelligence, caring, generosity and open-mindedness to abate the undesired condition.

We can't win a 'War On Poverty' by bombing poor neighborhoods. The 'War On Drugs' won't end by supporting the conditions under which people get very, very rich selling drugs.

We aren't going to win or even abate the 'War On Terrorism' by bringing terror to entire peoples.

How to Kill Democracy

Just follow these easy steps and you too can destroy representative government!

1. Begin by telling calculated lies to your constituency.


2. Later on, when confronted with those lies, just deny you meant what you said.


3. Take the time to beef up the original lies with more lies. Don't forget about omissions, either. Hide the things you can't lie about.


4. Do all you can to create fear within the population. Whatever you do, don't empower the people. Make them utterly dependent on you instead!


5. Say that God is on your side. That should give you the ability to see into souls and figure out what others may be thinking or planning to do in the future.


6. With this super power, you can invade sovereign countries or jail anyone
   with impunity. After all, someone has to make sure that Democracy spreads!


7. Make sure that you don't really let the people decide anything. Hey, they may be stupid enough to think Democracy means they have a choice!


8. Whatever you do, never back down once you start heading in a certain direction, no matter how unpopular that path is. Otherwise, someone will no doubt call you a wimp, and everyone knows patriotic Democracy supporters aren't wimps.

Sorry, Makes No Sense

"Sometimes you have to use violent means to get rid of violent men to have a world without violence."

Or so says W. I've never been able to understand that rationale.

How long is it going to take before someone tells the dunce in the White House the real reason why people blow themselves up?

Haha. I hate you so much, I hate your way of life, I hate freedom so much that I'm gonna blow myself right up, right here on your doorstep.

Yeah right.

Go get 'em, double-dumb Dubya. Get them terrorists who kill themselves! Give 'em hell!

Jerk.

I Worry About the Health of America

I worry about the world my children are inheriting.

I am really worried about the serious lack of basic education exhibited by too many of my fellow Americans.

The voices in my head say all kinds of things. "Don't worry, be happy, mon!" "Damn bastards, you goddamn bastards." "Faith, what is it and where is mine?" "The hell with it." "So what?" "Lord, have mercy."

It's so easy to just escape, forget about all the vile things that people seem to do. Sometimes it's hard to even imagine that people can be as cruel as they are. We torture people. How can one sleep at night? How can you look in the eyes of someone and be so cruel to them? Even more, how can we hold on to the knowledge that our fellow man can be so cruel, and reconcile it somehow?

Poignant: Someone chopped down a whole orchard of olive trees near an Israeli settlement. The aged Palestinian farmer who had planted and tended and harvested that orchard for decades was crushed. Devastated. Anguished. Whoever did it just killed that farmer, even though they didn't hack him with an axe personally.

The little things we can do to brighten, help, give back... I don't think we can make up for this kind of brutality.

Maybe it's time for another great flood.

Why are men and women in military uniforms, military vehicles, and military weaponry the ones who are in charge of "reconstruction" in Iraq?

What on earth were the planners thinking? First we invade a country on the basis that they pose an imminent threat to the world because they have the most hideous weapons in history, poised and ready. Of course that wasn't true. Next we smash the hell out of this country -- precision bombing, my ass. Thousands of civilians killed, but of course, we don't bother to even try to count the dead and the mutilated. Then we declare major combat over.

But the military, our fighting forces, the ones who don't know anything other than how to advance and kill, are given the task of winning hearts and minds while they bash doors in looking for "terrorists" who hate freedom.

The absurdity of what has been happening in the Middle East is mind-numbing.

It started with USUK's first preventive war. Saddam at some point in the future might do something bad to someone so it's alright to "take him out." No matter that he had nothing to do something bad with! He must have been considering it, right?

It followed with this inane notion that the general Iraqi populace (as if one can generalize about the peoples there) would be so grateful for our shocking and awful invasion that they would sing our praises. All the while, we let their children play with leftover cluster bombs, we hand-pick their future leaders, we sell off all their assets to the highest non-Iraqi bidder, we protect the Oil Ministry but let their culture burn, and we start building four major military bases on their land.

The absurdity continued with the idiotic idea that our fighting troops were the right people to show Iraq the essential goodness of democracy (read: corporate greed, aka capitalism).

Is it really any wonder that our soldiers, and those seen to be collaborating with them, are attacked with increasing frequency and deadliness?

There's a saying, "Don't send a boy to do a man's job." We can add to that, "Don't send a soldier to do a diplomat's job."

George W. Bush has made it clear he doesn't read newspapers, check the Internet, or watch TV for his information. He says he relies on his advisors for his information, the people he trusts the most. I call that inviting disaster. But then, George was never too smart, remember?

What sort of country is it when our leader doesn't read?

The Bushboy from Texas (along with his undereducated supporters) seems somewhat proud of the fact that he doesn't read. No newspapers, no books, probably none of those weighty reports that everyone else in the Administration takes care of for him.

I'm beginning to think that Dubya really doesn't have a clue about what is going on. Too bad, otherwise he'd see that Israel is viewed as the scariest country in the world by the EU, and the US is not far behind. Heck, we come in third, right behind North Korea which is .. yes! BEHIND Israel.

Too bad the man who claims it is vital for every child to learn how to read doesn't do it himself. If he took his own advice, maybe he'd recognize he's just Cheney's pony.

Wake up George!