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Nutty people in the news
Man charged over girlfriend found stuck on toilet| |
Excerpt: Things people do never ceases to amaze me. I've always wondered why anyone needed to take reading material to the bathroom but this is really something. |
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"This is really something," as you say, and I'm as much a sucker as anyone for wacko news like this. It's a head -shaker, but we've always had nutty people among us.
What upsets me is that this won't be some little piece of weird news, it'll be everywhere. It'll be on the local newscast on hundreds of TV stations in places a thousand miles from the town in Kansas where it happened. It'll make page 2 in papers that relegate dead soldiers and the latest atrocities in Iraq to the back pages. It'll nudge real news right off the newscasts, and that's the real tragedy in news like this...
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Helen & Harry
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Ass-clowns in Wonderland
by Hazel Burke
| Mar. 22, 2008 |
Is it really good public policy to have millions of people homeless, without jobs or healthcare while homes sit empty and work remains undone? ... MORE ...
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Hazel Burke
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The color of global oppression is in shades of white
by Herb Ruhs, MD
| Mar. 22, 2008 |
Racism is a very personal issue and needs our personal ground truth involvement to beat it back. To the extent that we are willing to be fully human, we need to accept the realities of the suffering of all our brothers and sisters. Love thy neighbor as thyself. ... MORE ...
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Herb Ruhs, MD
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International law
In remembrance of the start of the 6th year of the illegal US Iraq occupation: I may have missed the exact day -- Mar. 19, 2008, but this excellent article didn’t. The author summarizes all of the international laws that the US has flouted in the last 5 years “at its peril.”| |
• ”Going into Iraq, we ignored the UN Charter, which prohibits the use of force except in self-defense or with Security Council authorization. . . . Some may believe Security Council authorization is no longer needed if an invasion removes a dictator from power. That is not the law, however.”
• ”Once in Iraq, we ignored the Hague Regulations, requiring us to put a stop to looting and to make only necessary changes to local law and government.”
• ”We ignored the Geneva Conventions, which prohibit secret detention and abuse of prisoners of the kind we saw at Abu Ghraib.” |
The author also points out that too many -- the President, his advisers, members of Congress, and even critics of the administration -- are NOT discussing international law, and then indicates that “the world is discussing international law, however. They hold us to this standard, to which we should hold ourselves.”
As for the US taking military action against Iran, the author points out what would make such an attack legal: “Iran would have to launch a significant attack on the United States or launch a significant attack on another state that formally requested our assistance to lawfully attack Iran in self-defense.”
After five long years in which we could have learned to do the right thing, the author says this -- ”we have lost standing in the world, a literal fortune, and precious lives. Rather than internalizing the lesson of law violation in Iraq, we continue to defy the law in serious and self-destructive ways.”
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I'd love to see international law respected as something that matters as more than just a rhetorical flourish. But in reality, the concept of international law seems to be just another sham.
The Bush-Cheney administration's obvious violations of international law could be heard at the Hague or the United Nations, but there's no interest in actual prosecutions. No rumblings of action, which to my mind makes these over-lauded organizations as complicit as the Democratic Party or the American media. These atrocities have happened because the only people who've been willing to speak out against such crimes are nobodies like you and me, and of course, the victims in Iraq, but nobody's listening to them either.
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Helen & Harry
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Furthermore
Re At the bottom of the ravine
And furthermore, there are a great many unfortunate souls murdered and raped in public
places that go undiscovered without cuddly animals as a distraction.
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Chris D.
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Ordinary
by Scotch on the Rocks
| Mar. 22, 2008 |
Hard drives were destroyed, White House now says| |
Excerpt: "When workstations are at the end of their lifecycle and retired ... the hard drives are generally sent offsite to another government entity for physical destruction," the White House said in a sworn declaration filed with U.S. Magistrate Judge John Facciola.
It has been the goal of a White House Office of Administration "refresh program" to replace one-third of its workstations every year in the Executive Office of the President, according to the declaration. |
The criminality and arrogance is ... ordinary.
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Scotch on the Rocks
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At the bottom of the ravine
Re Only a monster, void a soul
I wonder if I'm the only one to consider the distinct possibility that somebody owned that adorable puppy before it was hurled to it's death, an owner whose fate nobody's inquired about.
Could that be the pet of an Iraqi child? A lonely old man with know other friends? Or the household pet of a family of five? But perhaps they don't miss the dog... It might have just been the last one to make it to the bottom of the ravine. We don't know, and nobody asked.
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Much more to the point than all my babbling nonsense yesterday...
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Just a different set of thieves
I especially enjoy your Dialogue page, even if I do not understand everything or agree 100% with each opinion. Kathy F's note, They keep lying to us! interested me because it is a little bit scary to read. I do disagree with liquidating 401K and IRA accounts, but each person should do what makes sense to them -- of course.
It would take too long and be too boring to explain everything I think about (I tried to write yesterday and stopped after 10,000 words.)
1) You might enjoy the apocalyptic writings of Jim Willie: That guy scares me! Aaach! Phutt! Phtooey.
2) I think the Fed and Treasury will print unlimited dollars to halt the arterial bleeding in the financial system. Too soon to tell if we've taken a death blow, but they'll be printing dollars to the bitter end if need be. Therefore one may expect some prices to increase, even in stock markets. The stock prices might not increase enough to offset the monetary inflation, but ownership of something may be better than ownership of a Fistful of Dollars.
Harry Browne recommended 1/4 cash, 1/4 bonds, 1/4 stocks and 1/4 gold as a permanent allocation subject to yearly rebalancing because the Masters of the Universe cannot manipulate all of the variables all of the time, and this allocation strategy works good.
3) I see that gold fell from 1000+ to 900+ in just a few days. Probably this is the beginning of a 2->4 week correction down to the 200 day average price. I believe that this will be a great opportunity because of the future dollar printing activities we will see. HOWEVER people purchasing physical gold are investing in something that is sellable only in a Mad Max environment -- in other words, it is a permanent purchase to bequeath to one's heirs.
Still, if one were going to attempt such a feat I would recommend purchasing 1/10 oz. American Eagle coins, and perhaps 1/4 oz. The 1/10th oz. size is really small and can therefore be safely squirreled away (read Papillion to find out what I am talking about.) In a Mad Max world, you could probably trade a gold "dime" for rent. Electronic gold is also risky (just a different set of thieves), but is much more saleable, and worth considering (Ref: GLD, IAU, CEF, GDX, etc. on the AMEX) in addition to physical assets.
4) I am donating excess stuff to Goodwill so that someone might be able to benefit from stuff that is cluttering up my existence. I just gave away 3 really nice suits and a lot of nice ties. I'm keeping one suit to get buried in, or in case I need to go to court, but I vow never again to work at a job that requires a suit and tie!
I have some more stuff I am going to donate while there is time for it to be put to good use by people who need it (by the way, anyone going to court, be sure to wear a black or navy blue suit, and a matching tie with a white shirt, and get a harsh haircut/shave before visiting the judge -- even if it sounds like a crazy idea, just do it.)
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Ishmael
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On the up side of this disaster
by Herb Ruhs, MD
| Mar. 21, 2008 |
Vision is important. No vision, no future. Realism is also important. No realism, no survival. ... MORE ...
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Herb Ruhs, MD
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Tropicana cure?
by Kathy Fisher
| Mar. 21, 2008 |
Holy sh*t, I think those 2 Juices are working on Leon. He didn't have to go to the doctor after all. I went out yesterday in the morning and purchased the Tropicana Ruby Red Juice and mixed it with the Tropicana Lots of Pulp OJ. And all the time saying to myself this ain't gonna work, but an hour after the first big glass he was feeling much better, then after dinner another glass with two turmeric capsules bee pollen and garlic capsules. He made sure he got a lot of sleep. I didn't hear him cough all night and his fever's gone. He woke up hungry at 4:30 AM so I made him a nice breakfast and more juice, and he went back to sleep and rest up. I don't know if he'll go in today, he's off Saturday and Sunday, says he feels much better! Go figure!
Came tumbling down
An interesting article in Counterpunch caught my eye. As well as one in The American Prospect.
What got me was how so many people seem to be fixated on the "Crash" of Oct. 1929. Yes, the market took a major dive that day. But what made it look so bad were two things. First a very large portion of the stock was purchased on margin. (Bank loans etc. This is what was fueling the "roaring twenties") And second there had just been one of the largest rallies in recent times.
This was followed by a mini rally. But then the real crash came in 1932 which was actually a long slow decline ending in the DOW at 45. Money dried up everywhere.
In other words, everything the FED tried to do was for nothing as the problem still existed. The same as today, nearly everyone living well above their means by "mortgaging" their lives. When the "markers" were called in, the system came tumbling down. Predictable then ... and now.
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Re Only a monster, void a soul"If a woman were being raped in a park I'm almost certain it would go unnoticed if it happened while some kids were torturing an adorable family of squirrels..." is melodramatic and immature.
Indeed ? This has already happened. On March 13, 1964, a 28 year old New York City woman, Kitty Genovese, was murdered. Even though 38 "citizens" awakened by her cries for help watched as she was assaulted not once, but three times over a half hour period. Not only did they fail to come to her aid, they also failed to call the police for help.| |
Look outside the window, there's a woman being grabbed
They've dragged her to the bushes and now she's being stabbed
Maybe we should call the cops and try to stop the pain
But Monopoly is so much fun, I'd hate to blow the game
And I'm sure it wouldn't interest anybody
Outside of a small circle of friends." Phil Ochs "Outside of a small circle of friends" |
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Foreign investors veto Fed rescue| |
Excerpt: "It is like fighting a virus with antibiotics," he said.
We can no longer exclude a partial nationalization of the American banking system, modeled on the Nordic rescue in the early 1990s.
But even if you think the Fed has no choice other than to take dramatic action, the critics are also right in warning that this comes at a serious cost and it may backfire.
The imminent risk is that global flight from US Treasury and agency debt drives up long-term rates, the key funding instrument for mortgages and corporations. The effect could outweigh Fed easing.
Overall credit conditions could tighten into a slump (like 1930). It's the stuff of bad dreams.
Is this the moment when America finally discovers the meaning of the Faustian pact it signed so blithely with Asian creditors? |
And the chickens will come home to roost.| |
"To find ourselves dishonorable graves.
Men at some time are masters of their fates:
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars,
But in ourselves, that we are underlings." Julius Caesar Act 1 Scene 2
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Does Obama really have a race problem?| |
Excerpt: But let's be clear about the class nature of racial prejudice, stereotypes, discrimination, and disparities. Wealthy whites are more likely than working-class whites to use the race card in the voting booth. Voting statistics reveal that most upper-income whites consistently vote in Republican, not Democratic, primaries, which means they don't have to vote for black or Latino candidates. And in partisan run-off elections, wealthy whites overwhelmingly vote for Republican over Democratic contenders. In the 2004 presidential contest, eight of the 10 wealthiest congressional districts voted for Bush. The two districts that went to Kerry were both in California's high-tech-oriented Silicon Valley. White voters earning incomes of more than $200,000 a year cast 66 percent of their ballots for Bush. (The Kerry voters among them tended to be professionals in human services, government, teaching, and creative sectors, not those in business and management.)
In contrast, among white voters with family incomes between $15,000 and$30,000, 51 percent voted for Bush, and among white voters in the $30,000 to $50,000 range, 58 percent went with Bush.
If Barack Obama winds up facing John McCain in November, Obama will certainly attract some upper-class white voters -- including some among the 1 percent of Americans with incomes over $364,657, who have 22 percent of all income and own 37 percent of all corporate stock. Because their numbers are so small, they won't make a big difference in the outcome of the election, except in terms of where they send their campaign contributions.
It is all but certain, though, that in an Obama-McCain face-off fewer wealthy whites will vote for Obama than working-class whites whom affluent pundits are so quick to label as racist. Indeed, we've already seen a significant number of blue-collar white voters show their support for Obama in Iowa, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and other states. Yes, white working-class Democrats in economically troubled Ohio favored Clinton over Obama. But in November, most of the blue-collar Democrats, working-class independents, and union members who voted for Clinton -- in Ohio and elsewhere -- are likely to switch to Obama, not McCain. |
This is what I have been saying all along. It is more a class issue in this country than a race issue. It's that the republicans and their elitist supports playing the old shell game and trying to convince people there is a race issue so they will not notice how much they (the elites) despise anyone lower in economic standing than themselves. And conversely those in the lower classes, especially the trades and working class, really do not have much use for the elitist intellectual and upper classes. I can personally attest to this.
Strangely enough, these upper class college educated folks are the most clueless people when it comes to even the basic tasks needed to take care of themselves and their possessions. They are also the most difficult ones to train. The seem to think it's somehow beneath them or that they should be able to master any new skill simply because they managed to somehow put up with 6 to 8 years of BS in some university someplace.
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Mortgage industry makes it harder to borrow -- even for good credit risks| |
Excerpt: The entire states of California, Florida, Arizona, Michigan, Ohio and Nevada -- which have seen the highest foreclosure rates and the worst price declines -- are blackballed on some mortgage insurers’ lists.
Banks that have lost billions because of bad bets during the housing boom are now reverting to strict lending standards not seen in nearly 20 years, according to industry data and interviews with lenders. |
This is precisely why anything the FED does will be for naught and will probably even make matters worse.
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I generally do not take things from Counterpunch but this really hits the nail on the head:
When reality is too much:
Obama and the psychic auto-shrink-wrapping called race in America
by Manuel Garcia, Jr., CounterPunch| |
Excerpt: Racism is an instinctive tool to capture resources and deny them to competitor "species." This is why Obama is backed by the Wall Street bankers. To them, he is a tool to safeguard their fortunes against the rising tide of public resentment. They are excellent psychologists, and psychic abusers of the popular Black mind. They know, through their experts in PR (advertising and the management of the public mind), how the popular Black mind pines for symbols of "hope," for action heroes on basketball courts and on the big screen -- Will Smith saving the fantasy worlds Hollywood conjures with smoke and mirrors. Any hero in any arena can be produced to distract and quell the masses, so long as it is not an actual hero in any arena of actual power. |
Collection of lies
by Mariah W.
| Mar. 21, 2008 |
Here's a fascinating collection of lies from Associated Press, headlined
US may be just at midpoint in Iraq. Lots of claptrap about the long arc of the "war" (of course it's not a war, it's an occupation, but that word doesn't appear here), how it'll take somewhere between ten and tens of millions of years to quell the "insurgencies, with expected drop-offs in recruitment and core strength after a decade".
Not even a whisper about whether there's a why that's worth all this slaughter, and of course, anyone with a conscience or a hint of humanity knows there isn't. But all the "experts" quoted in this story simply assume American rightness, American victory, no ethical questions asked. This isn't "news", it's a right-wing editorial masquerading as news.
The author's name, one "Brian Murphy, Associated Press", will be remembered, at least by me. I have to suspect a more accurate byline would be "Brian Murphy, Central Intelligence Agency".
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Mariah W.
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Seriously damaged
Call Tom DeLay ...
Where are they now? Nine men of war
... to fumigate the woodwork. Like roaches these vermin crawl in and out of the woodwork when not in the light of day. But then, of course, the exterminator is unreliable at the task.
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A collaborator's bed:
Iraqi aides hope for new life in U.S.
For some unknown reason my "bleeding heart liberalism" doesn't bleed for
these collaborators. I think Bush has seriously damaged my "good will towards
all" outlook.
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Wig
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Barack Obama's pastor
by Dandy Dawn
| Mar. 21, 2008 |
Uh, am I the only person in America who doesn't give a rat's ass about Barack Obama's pastor? Other than his being, you know, right about everything he's said in the clips endlessly replayed on TV and radio, how come his old sermons are suddenly newsworthy? How come the so-called Christian and just-plain kooks in John McCain's corner, and the other so-called "ministers" who rail against America from the right and call the Catholic church a whore and shout anti-Semitism and call for apocalypse now and give God's endorsement for endless war and tax cuts for the rich and "blow them all away in the name of the Lord", how come none of those nutballs are worth a whisper, but Obama's minister gets wall-to-wall 24/7 coverage?
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Nope, you're not the only one who doesn't give a rat's ass. I don't give half the scent of a fart from a rat's ass.
And to answer your other rhetorical question, Obama's pastor is all over the news and McCain's nutballs aren't, because the American media loves John McCain, and he has their unspoken endorsement. And because there's nothing "controversial" in abusing Christianity to call for war and slaughter and all manner of things Christ abhorred, but it's virtually unheard of to use Christianity as Obama's pastor has, to speak out like Christ.
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Helen & Harry
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How the big boys play
by Marshall S.
| Mar. 21, 2008 |
Obama's pastor's words ring uncomfortably true| |
Excerpt: Wright's call for God's judgment is not a rejection of either the Christian faith or the American nation. Rather, like his forebears, Wright's preaching is an affirmation of religious and democratic ideals and a call to uphold them.
The uproar over Wright's preaching is not because he is wrong, but rather the uncomfortable realization he is right.
At the same time, Sen. John McCain's religious supporters have received little scrutiny. Conservative Christian supporters such as the Revs. Rod Parsley and John Hagee have a long record of hate-filled statements about Islam, Judaism, Catholicism and most anything besides their form of Christianity. |
I think the problem with Wright is that America is in a "bring me no bad news" mood, and has been since forever.
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Inspector faces charges for faking paperwork at crane site disaster| |
Excerpt: A New York City buildings inspector is accused of falsely claiming he inspected that crane that collapsed on the East Side, killing seven people. Now he is facing charges. |
On the "Law and Order" TV show, they'd have him up for murder. But this is real life, so he'll probably only get a wrist-slap.
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McCain sought nutball Hagee's endorsement| |
Excerpt: In an interview that will appear in this Sunday's New York Times Magazine, controversial televangelist Rev. John Hagee declares, "It's true that McCain's campaign sought my endorsement." |
Lie down with dogs and you come up with fleas.
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Pelosi challenger promises Bush impeachment| |
Excerpt: "It is outrageous and unacceptable that any member of Congress, let alone our majority speaker, should unilaterally declare that impeachment is 'off the table,' and so defy the Constitution herself," Golub said in a flier circulated to activists at the Take Back America conference. |
It's also outrageous and unacceptable that the leader of the Democrats should suck Bush's c*ck so much.
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Hans Blix, ex-chief weapons inspector slams Iraq war as 'tragedy'| |
Excerpt: Blix, who clashed with Washington in the run-up to the Iraq war, described the war as "a tragedy -- for Iraq, for the US, for the UN, for truth and human dignity." |
It's also been a tragedy for the million or so killed needlessly.
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Cheney’s former chief of staff disbarred from practicing law in U.S. capital| |
Excerpt: Former White House adviser Lewis “Scooter” Libby, convicted last year for lying to a grand jury and federal agents probing the leak of a CIA agent’s identity, was disbarred from practicing law in the nation’s capital on Thursday. |
Cheney himself needs to be disbarred from doing anything in US government.
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U.S. interrogator gets immunity in exchange for cooperation in his victim's trial| |
Excerpt: The U.S. military has given an interrogator immunity for possible abuses against a prisoner now held at Guantanamo Bay in exchange for his cooperation with prosecutors against the detainee in a war-crimes trial. The interrogator was previously convicted of assaulting another detainee in Afghanistan.
Jumana Musa, advocacy director for Amnesty International USA, said the arrangement raises doubts about the reliability of statements taken by the interrogator.
"If you're talking about getting immunity for actions you have taken against the person you're testifying against, there's no way to look at that and not wonder if that implicates how you got the statements," she said. |
What better way to have a culture of torture than to protect the torturer who tortured out the information?
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San Francisco's video cameras don't deter crime, study shows| |
Excerpt: A new UC Berkeley study of San Francisco's 68 security cameras appears to indicate what many city officials have long suspected: The controversial devices perched at the city's roughest street corners don't have much of an effect on violent crime. People just moved down the street to kill each other. |
Just goes to show that the cameras are not there to watch criminals, but to watch the rest of us.
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Treasury secretary Paulson admits deregulation has failed us all| |
Excerpt: The housing bubble wasn't a flaw; it was a predictable outcome of a system that rewarded smart people small fortunes for conjuring up ways to persuade people to borrow more than they could ever hope to pay back. All the profits were taken off the table quickly, but the staggering costs are only now being paid by homeowners, shareholders, builders and the rest of society. |
Where was this guy when it all started? Was he raking in the profits too?
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Democrats want contract fraud documents| |
Excerpt: House Democrats demanded documents Thursday about a multibillion-dollar overseas contracting loophole to track down how -- and why -- the Bush administration slipped it into plans to protect taxpayer money.
"Who snuck this in at the eleventh hour and why?" Welch said in a statement. "No contractor should be given a free ride to defraud taxpayers, at home or abroad." |
Why not? This has been going on at least since Roosevelt. They can put on a show of stopping this corruption and embezzlement, but any sincere effort at stopping the criminals will probably lead to killings. That's how the big boys play.
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The full Spitzy! Eliot Spitzer is offered big money to pose nude in Playgirl| |
Excerpt: Playgirl has offered to make former New York Governor Eliot Spitzer "a very attractive offer" to pose for their magazine. On a posting today on the Playgirl blog, the mag invited Spitzer to show them "what you saved for such a select few," dangling the $1 million figure offered by Hustler to call girl Ashley Alexandra Dupré, whom Spitzer first met as "Kristen" and who has since been revealed happily offering up the goods for free on various "Girls Gone Wild" videotapes. |
I think I'll skip that edition.
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Most Americans say war not worth it| |
Excerpt: One the eve of the five-year anniversary of the start of the war with Iraq, Americans continue to think the results of the war have not been worth the loss of American lives and the other costs of attacking Iraq, according to a new CBS News poll. |
So?
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U.S. soldiers who serve in Iraq may be at increased risk of developing allergies| |
Excerpt: A review of the medical records of more than 6,000 soldiers shows that those who were deployed to the Persian Gulf were about twice as likely to have newly diagnosed allergic rhinitis (nasal allergies) after discharge, compared with those who were stationed stateside.
"Or, maybe it is lung injury due to inhaling a lot of pollution," Szema says, pointing to the massive dust storms that plague the country. Other sources of pollution that are present in Iraq but not the U.S. include exhaust from rocket-propelled grenades and IEDs (improvised explosive devices), he says. |
Of course, soldiers being recruited are not told this, and there is no effort to prevent it from happening in Iraq.
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Electrocutions kill at least 12 soldiers, Marines in Iraq| |
Excerpt: Houston-based KBR -- which builds bases and maintains housing for U.S. troops in Iraq -- is at the center of the inquiry, with questions being raised about its responsibility to repair known wiring problems. |
Ah, Lady Bird and Cheney's company.
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Beyond the border of war
In Canada, deserters find an uncertain haven, and aid from an earlier generation that fled| |
Excerpt: Across Canada, the remnants of a lost counterculture are rising up again as hundreds of aging draft dodgers reluctantly leave the quiet comforts of their anonymous lives to help an estimated 200 Iraq war deserters who fled north with no promise of asylum.
In truth, they share little beyond the difficult choice they made to forsake their citizenship, and the timeless debate whether theirs was an act of courage or cowardice. What they believe, where they came from, and how they ended up here are as different as 1968 and 2008. |
Makes one think of the similarities between the Vietnam war and the Iraq war. And in the middle of both is the KBR company. Coincidence? Ok, so someday we stop the war in Iraq. But will we stop KBR, probably even now planning the next war after Iraq?
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24 retired police convicted of human rights violations in Chile| |
Excerpt: Two dozen retired police officers were convicted Wednesday of human rights violations linked to the 1973 massacre of 30 political prisoners -- the biggest group of defendants ever sentenced in such a trial in Chile.
Judge Emma Diaz convicted the former officers on charges involving the detention, torture and shooting of 31 leftists whose bodies were dumped in a fast-flowing river days after Chile's military coup. One woman survived to testify about the incident. |
And the CIA, who was behind it all, gets away Scot free.
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Marshall S.
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Dick Cheney world tour II
by The Canadian
| Mar. 20, 2008 |
Did not the last VP Dick Cheney "world tour" precede the outbreak of Gulf War 2 by a few months? Did you get the commemorative T-shirt?
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The Canadian
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A most imperfect Union
Re Obama's speech
I read Barack Obama's speech yesterday, "A More
Perfect Union".
I regard it as logical and well-argued. Needed to be said. Regrettably, the cable "news" outlets -- CNN, MSNBC, and FOX -- used it as an excuse to hammer Rev. Wright for one more day, without much consideration to the import of Obama's actual words.
It may be divisive and contrary to what Barack Obama would like said, but my gut says that the cable news guys like Glenn Beck and the Fox smear "artistes" find in Rev. Wright someone they can electronically lynch. They can't touch Barack, but Rev. Wright's old sermons are a noose and they plan to hang him by his own words over, and over, and over again until Rev. Wright is seen in the eyes of many viewers as a black Osama bin Laden.
And just as America is not really prepared for an honest and frank discussion about the blowback and long term consequences of slavery, neither is America ready to openly discuss foreign policy blowback and unintended consequences. Right now pure propaganda and double-speak resonate deeply with a large number of Americans.
Many Americans still love the idea of bringing "freedom" to Iraq, and punishing evildoers with whips, chains, bullets and bombs. This is why President Bush can, without being publicly mocked and scorned by the cable news networks, give a speech on the 5th anniversary of the Iraq invasion stating that last year's surge produced a great strategic victory in the war against terrorism.
If anything is true then it is correct to say that the invasion of Iraq will go down in the history of Earth as one of the greatest strategic blunders of all time. The "surge" amounts to paying $300 a month to former Iraqi anti-US Resistance movement members not to fight us anymore, and to arming various tribal groups in Iraq. At best the US "surge" is a tactical stalemate which will persist until the U.S. is bankrupted or Americans demand a withdrawal.
Guerrilla movements don't need to "win", they just need to survive until the occupation forces quit. Iraq isn't a war! It is a blood-letting. It is the death of a thousand cuts! At the primary strategic level of geopolitics, the U.S. has already lost big. Inside Iraq, the atrocities committed against the people of Iraq ensure that America will live in fear of blowback and karmic payback unto the seventh generation.
Topping off everything else, George Bush's openly enthusiastic embrace of an official American policy of torture, secret prisons, secret trials and assassination of political enemies has completely undone any minor tactical gains. Al Qaeda and other enemies now argue that we deserve to be attacked. America's enemies claim that any country that would tolerate these sadistic and depraved cruel official deeds performed by military, police and covert agents involving sexual degration, bludgeoning, hanging, electrocution, drowning, attack dogs, hypothermia, child and wife kidnapping, and worse yet, loud American rock and roll... that country is OWED.
President Bush can give all the speeches he wants and they won't matter a bit to the world because almost everyone has now seen the actual photos and videos of American atrocities in Iraq. The world KNOWS.
The only way forward for the Bible-thumping American war-lovers is the way of Nineveh after Jonah crawled out of the belly of the whale and preached to the King. The King commanded everyone in the land to don sackcloth and ashes, and to fast and repent -- even the animals.
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Glenn G.
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A huge dose of skepticism
by Herb Ruhs, MD
| Mar. 20, 2008 |
Re the Mitchell postEverything that comes from military officials ought to be soaked in skepticism, and if you're more thoroughly marinated than I am, that's probably a good thing.
What great insight! It's true. Living through five years of war was a formative experience for me. As you say, everything thought to be happening during war needs to be viewed with a huge dose of skepticism, particularly when the conclusions fit nicely with preconceived notions. Truth isn't just the first casualty of war, it is the major enemy of both sides.
I'm not so sure that this hidebound skepticism is a good thing. Healthy environments are transparent enough to dispel such skepticism and leave room for people believing in each other. Unhealthy environments demand suspicion and skepticism.
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Re Obama's speech
I feel your pain, as our previous liberal president would say. Perhaps a difference we have is that I believe that individual personalities have a minimal influence on events. To my observation people are recruited by the structures that use them to their own ends. Part of the come on is to appeal to personal ambition, and sometime to sincere idealism, by convincing the people slated to be used that they do have the potential for having a real impact on the course of events. This is a radical structuralist perspective. It is not a perspective that I recommend as a personal choice. But it is the one that experience has forced me to take on. Maybe I will surprise myself and vote for Obama, but more likely to vote for Kucinich as a sort of meaningless protest.
*** *** ***
The business of globalized business is to lead us all to early
graves, destroy life on earth.
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When I'm appointed dictator, nobody who lacks your level of skepticism can be a spokesperson at any level or branch of government.
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Helen & Harry
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Thank god I'm an atheist
by Siskiyousis
| Mar. 20, 2008 |
Re Clinton's Glass-Steagall slipper
I've always heard that it is not so hard to make a lot of money if you have a gangster family background, other connections with no more conscience than dirt, and no compunction working around whatever institutions were put in place to deter you...
Thank god I'm an atheist and I can only lay the blame on humans.
*** *** ***
It's Nam all over again only with sand and no water. This time we the people have no
credible spokesman like Cronkite to say it's time to get outta the sandbox.
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Siskiyousis
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Only a monster, void a soul
Re Americans finally outraged by violence in Iraq ... after Marines kill one puppy
Wow. My first disconnect with unknownnews. How disappointing.
A soldier who kills people because he believes (true or not) those people are an enemy of his is very different (to me) than a person who can kill an innocent, trusting animal who, he knows, has no intention of causing harm whatsoever. A puppy would rarely be perceived as an enemy. Only a monster, void a soul, could have done what that soldier did. I'm glad he got death threats. Frankly, the fewer of this kind of people on the planet, the better.
And Chris D's response, "If a woman were being raped in a park I'm almost certain it would go unnoticed if it happened while some kids were torturing an adorable family of squirrels..." is melodramatic and immature.
It's not nearly the same.
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Somebody who tosses a puppy to its death is a monster. On that we agree. Someone who commits war crimes against human beings is no less a monster, and probably more. On that we disconnect? Really?
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It's a matter of...
...a "monster" born of ignorance (and being allowed to be manipulated in the name of "patriotism") vs. a Monster void of feeling, which is the worst kind. The soldier who falls under the 2nd category will NEVER be acceptable in society, DESPITE his "patriotism". The soldier who kills in the name of patriotism will be considered a hero by many in this culture. (Not me, personally. Despite the repercussions, I would (if I were in the military) NEVER fight a war I didn't believe in. This one was clearly motivated by oil. Anyone who believes in this war is ignorant.)
It's not unlike someone who breaks into your home at night. You have no idea the intentions of this person, and so (I would imagine) in your mind he becomes a potential "enemy". And if you felt threatened, and were cornered, you would fight to the end. If you killed him, I don't think you would consider it a crime against a human being. You would feel as though you were defending yourself. Soldiers are TRAINED to believe they are defenders of the US, but brainwashed and manipulated into fighting the wrong wars.
If you want to be angry about that, (and yes, some of that responsibility should belong to the soldier him/herself,) then be angry at the "system" ... the lack of good education in this country, the despicable, deplorable advantages given to greedy corporations so that they can benefit from wars, and to the disgusting political system that takes advantage of all of it.
At the end of this war, who do you believe will be noted as the "war criminals" involved? Soldiers? Maybe some, over some specific, vile action (real Monsters). But no. The war criminals of THIS war are Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rove, Rumsfeld, Blackwater decision makers, and so on. They're the evil puppet masters.
There are MANY MONSTERS in this war, but there are far-more "uninformed soldiers" I think. The piece of garbage who hates himself so much, who threw a harmless animal over a cliff, is something completely different. His actions don't represent the US in any way (quite the opposite, apparently, if he's getting death threats over it). His actions are disturbingly personal.
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I find what you're saying quite interesting, but I don't think our perspectives are really at a disconnect.
The concept of military service is the essence of heroics: putting your life and body on the line to defend your nation. Of course, military recruiters target underage teens precisely because they're more susceptible to such concepts than adults, but that’s a different conversation. And of course, in military training ("boot camp") recruits are taught to value taking orders over independent thought. You say you wouldn’t fight in a war you didn't believe in, but of course, that's you thinking, and thinking is not exactly encouraged in the military. That's the point of the indoctrination, to drill the thinking out of 'em.
I don't think it would be possible to fight wars without that kind of indoctrination. It's not a matter of being "brainwashed and manipulated into fighting the wrong wars." It's just that they've been brainwashed and manipulated, as an unavoidable part of their training, and the point, the reason for the brainwashing and manipulation is to make sure that soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines don't seriously consider refusing orders, or picking and choosing their wars.
Their training is effective: Ordered to deploy, the vast majority will deploy. And of course, they've been ordered to deploy, over and over again, to a war and occupation that is, by all non-propaganda accounts, sheer insanity seven days a week. That takes its toll, and will eventually drive more and more soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines over the brink.
That said, I'm not one of those who thinks all veterans are walking PTSD time bombs. I see most of the American military as victims in this giant clusterfuck. But if you take a well-balanced person and send him/her into a life-or-death utterly insane situation, and then send him/her again, and again, and again, you're increasing the odds that eventually you'll get psychosis. Eventually you'll get war crimes, slaughtered civilians and decapitated babies and gutted grandmothers and so on. And eventually you'll get soldiers killing cute little puppies.
These are, generally speaking, American kids who fell for the bait, signed up to defend their country, and their country -- in the guise of men like George W Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and Robert Gates -- their country has metaphorically tossed them into the ravine. I'd say that's an extenuating circumstance that demands a little mercy.
A Marine driven so bonkers he's willing to launch a puppy over a cliff, or kill an innocent Iraqi human, is a monster, sure, but he's an all-American monster. If I take your point, you're willing to cut the grannykillers and babykillers some slack, because they might at least believe granny's got a gun or that baby might grow up and kill them in twenty years ('cuz of course, American soldiers will still be in Iraq in twenty years).
I'd just say that Marine was probably an ordinary guy, before his orders made him a monster. He's not a piece of garbage, he's somebody's son and he's a victim in this ongoing catastrophe. American soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines who need mental health care should be given it, without charge and without repercussions.
Get me, I sound like a bleeding heart liberal ... because I am.
The Americans whose actions don't represent the US in any way, the real monsters, the human garbage as you say, are the aforementioned Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney & Gates and their cohorts. They're the ones who deserve your rage and mine -- and even they deserve a fair trial at the Hague.
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No comparison
Re Obama's speech
The current administration tries to scare people with color-coded threat alerts. Senator Obama makes an honest speech about race relations in America. There is NO comparison.
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Paige S.
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A far away land
by Kathy Fisher
| Mar. 20, 2008 |
Don't forget the vet?... to do so would be a sin! They're already so messed up from this shit!!! They will keep coming home killing their spouses and themselves, turning to drugs given to them by the house doctors. No real medical help can fix your head from being MIND FUCKED over and over, tour after tour.
One day the most normal seeming vet will go off like a grenade, surprising his or her friends and family, and it will be over, newspaper headlines won't give the dumbed down American sheeple a clue as to what really happened. Multiply this buy ten thousand, add all the mysterious illnesses, unexplained deaths and birth defects from veterans' newborn babies and you have the scars and residue that only wars can leave behind for generations.
It's already happening but this is just the tip of the iceberg. Due to the lack of good paying jobs and all the crap the neocons will have us into very soon, when they finally do come home many will come home to work in the guard or the police force during a period of Martial Law (and they will have zero tolerance). Again they will be messed up from what they did to people in a far away land in the desert, only this time it will be their own countrymen, women and children. They will be so confused by the fog in their heads left by the conflict of wars that at times they will forget which country they are in.
The United States Universal soldiers will be battle fatigued and full of guilt and remorse. But that won't bring back to life all the dead people laying on the ground!
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Here is an old saying...
What's good for Wall street ain't necessarily good for Main street.
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My God, I'm listening to Democracy Now, eyewitness soldier's accounts of decapitation with a machine gun in front of his child. For what and for who... Fuckin goddamn realistic video game. Come home, get on with life, and take pills to numb you. Wake up with night sweats. Raise your children to not fight a war for scumbags that lie to you and laugh at you when they are behind closed doors.
Freedom????!!! JC oh mighty!!!
These men and women better not be like the last two generations from wars! They better make sure they warn their kids and keep them the hell out of the industrial military scamplex.
Just taking orders is not bravery.
*** *** ***
For the first time in ten years I had to call Leon's work and say he
was not coming in due to sickness. This is some bug when it knocks him
on his ass.
*** *** ***
Are You Listening to Amy Goodman this morning? Did you hear her guest Naomi Prince and Economist Max Fred Wolf on the economy? He brought up Glass Steagall Act. I was right to remind people about that one in my last commentary wasn't I?
I like it when Max said Bear Stearns wasn't Bailed out It was TAKEN OUT! I must get the correct spelling of this man's name so I can find out more about him.
There has to be laws put place to protect the masses, he's right the poorest people are the most vulnerable, it is now spilling out to the vast middle classes. So many under water!
1929
US stocks rally on Goldman, Lehman earnings, Fed rate cut| |
Excerpt: US stocks rallied the most in five years as earnings from Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. and Goldman Sachs Group Inc. allayed concern investment banks are collapsing and the Federal Reserve cut its benchmark rate.
Lehman, the fourth-biggest securities firm, had its steepest advance ever and helped lead financial stocks to their biggest gain since 2000. Goldman, the largest securities firm, rallied the most in almost nine years. All 10 industry groups in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index added at least 1.7 percent after the Fed cut the target rate for overnight lending by 0.75 percentage point, helping the market erase a two-day tumble that wiped out $767 billion following Bear Stearns Cos.'s collapse. |
A little historical reality check. The crash of 1929 came right after the biggest rally on Wall Street ever. The malady has not been cured, the symptoms have merely been temporarily suppressed. Wall Street is behaving like a patient on heavy pain killers. Once they where off...
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Chris M.
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Ah, capitalism
by Uteunawaytay
| Mar. 20, 2008 |
Re A modest proposal for the immodest problem of a failing health care system
It will never work, no one gets rich.
Ah capitalism, the cure all (to those that want to believe in bullshit).
Hillary's heroics
Re Gaining ground“A lot of heroes ... were far from perfect ...”
That’s a strange thing to say and I just don't get it. I don’t see anything “heroic” in Hillary Clinton, but that’s OK, I’m looking for a Presidential candidate, not a hero. If you’re looking for a hero, vote for a fireman. I have pretty high standards for my heroes, and Hillary Clinton? Her heroics are, what, exactly? Going to law school and having a career? A lot of women have done that. Marching in lockstep with Bush-Cheney? A lot of Congressmen, Congresswomen, and Senators have done that. Marrying well? Or does it just come down to having a vagina and a shot at the White House? Would you vote for Condi Rice if she ran?
Cheeze whiz, I just can’t stop shaking my head. I'm sorry, and I don't want to be belligerent here -- notice I'm not even using my ordinary "Angry" moniker -- but if Hillary Clinton is a hero, what do you call someone who, uh, does the right thing or is somehow courageous?
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Annie
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When the dust settles
Re $30 billion for a wooden nickel
The assets might be worth something when all the dust settles in a year or two. Nobody knows. Maybe the Fed will make money! Taxpayers can dream, can't we?
The alternative would have been for ALL the investment banks to fail, one right after another, domino fashion. Then this could have spread to the big commercial banks like Citibank and Bank of America, then further on down the line as everybody rushed to their bank to withdraw their deposits. This is better than financial apocalypse now.
The Fed is making a big mistake in lowering interest rates. While this will stimulate the economy short term, it will cause the dollar to fall more as big investors sell U.S. dollars to convert to other currencies which pay a higher interest. A cheaper dollar means higher gas prices. Printing gobs of money will eventually lead to higher inflation. In a few decades the Fed will be powerless. China will have such huge piles of dollars they will be telling the Fed how to manage the dollar. Financial blackmail via the threat of dumping their holdings into the market at once causing the dollar to plummet.
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I suspect Citibank and Bank of America are just as rotted to the core as Bear Stearns. Thirty billion for every fetid financial corpse, I say! Of course, seriously, I don't know enough or have interest enough to argue the rightness or wrongness of current anti-Depression strategies, but I'm nowhere near convinced that the alleged experts know any better than ignorant me. I get the impression the floorboards, walls, and ceiling are only held in place by habit, and the whole economy is about as rock-solid as Enron.
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Helen & Harry
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Obama's speech
by Herb Ruhs, MD
| Mar. 19, 2008 |
Another nauseating great speech by a pandering politician: I just forced myself to read Obama's Great Speech, the text of which
can be conveniently found at Smookler's None So Blind website.
Consequently, I am feeling a little nauseated, like I do sometimes
when I eat something I know I should not. I have been
conscientiously non-involved in this most spectacular US electoral
misadventure of all time (until the next time) and am reaffirming my
resolution to keep my distance. It seems that the more money that is
spent campaigning the more horrendous the BS that results. Good
mental hygiene seems to dictate just staying away from any discussion
of the upcoming national election.
This speech is a classic of emotional manipulation and I advise
avoiding it, and the campaign, entirely. Here is a choice cut of
this "Great Speech." Speaking about the words of his pastor Obama said,
"But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren’t
simply controversial. They weren’t simply a religious leader’s effort
to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a
profoundly distorted view of this country -- a view that sees white
racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above
all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the
conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of
stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse
and hateful ideologies of radical Islam."
For those election junkies that can not resist reading or listening
to the rest of this classic of electioneering trash have this to say
about Obama's rejection of his pastor's "inflammatory words."
I think Reverend Wright got it right when he pointed to white
supremacy as being at the root of our problems. Obama has just
sullied himself by betraying the sincere words of his pastor. White
supremacy IS at the root of the US's ills from its long standing
racist imperial policy (remember Johnson's remarks about the "little
yellow bastards" in Viet Nam?) to a domestic policy that condemns
people of color to short and brutal lives and an infant mortality
equal to that of some of the least developed countries in the world.
The darker you are here in the USofA the better your chances of being
unemployed, of being incarcerated, being innocent and executed or of
dying as a result of a treatable illness. Elsewhere in the world the
darker you are the greater is the chance that you will be bombed
"back to the stone age" or hunted by a Predator drone. These are the
facts of an aggressive white supremacy that has ruled the world for
hundreds of years now. To try to deny these facts is to reveal one's
self as abjectly ignorant and/or a proponent of a white supremacist
view. Being a little darker of skin is no obstacle to being a
servant of white supremacist objectives.
Obama just doesn't want to scare off his white contributors and
supporters by telling it like it is. Not that I blame him
especially. Being involved in politics in the US (and everywhere
else in the world for that matter) means being willing to lie to get
ahead. Remember Mondale saying that he would have to raise taxes and
those lying, winning lips that said never and went ahead and raise
them anyway once elected? That was the last test of truth telling in
politics by a major candidate in my memory. To tell the truth is to
marginalize one's self in a contest run by professional liars, to
invite the fate of a Kucinich or a Paul.
In many ways this campaign is the worst ever. It is certainly
longer. The spectacle of the people's hopes and dreams, fears and
sorrows being manipulated so blatantly is sickening. The fact is
that the US is a virtual smoking wreck after decades of war-making
and looting in the interest of white minority property interests.
Shortly an
economic collapse, worse than our parents and grandparents
experienced in the Great Depression (do you suppose history will call
the coming one the Greatest Depression?) will provide a unique
opportunity for sober reflection. If Obama is allowed to win, his
assigned role will be whipping boy just as Clinton's was.
I am not actually cynical. I was just born in cynical times.
*** *** ***
I took a look at the Mitchell post about the alleged suicide and I am heartily unconvinced.
It is often difficult, even in civilian jurisdictions with high standards, to rule out homicide in cases of apparent suicide. Under the circumstances described in the referenced piece I would say that it is impossible. From my forensic viewpoint much more points to the possibility of murder than suicide. A decent
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Before we condemn out of hand the politicians who are taking orders from the gangsters who have taken over the country, it would be good to think what we would do if they threatened to torture and kill our children if we disobeyed. Politicians in these days are no more than glorified puppets. We need to target the gangsters and mass murderers who are pulling the strings.
*** *** ***
If and when we get our government back, I say use what is left of our military to invade any country that offers shelter to Bush and his cronies, in order to bring them back for trial. That is the sort of war crime I can get behind.
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It isn't a crisis in the financial markets, it's a vast robbery of the treasury and every 401K and retirement fund in the US.
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psychological postmortem, for which the
military has no motivation to undertake, would likely show an absence of the telltale signs of a personality prone to suicide.
We will likely never know, but high on my list of reasonable scenarios would be a rape followed by a murder or an assassination of an "unreliable" witness to some horrendous crime. Rape is reportedly a common event in our gender integrated armed forces and shooting your victim and forging a suicide note is a maneuver that would occur to even a less than
bright rapist, particularly in response to threats by the victim to bring charges. Dissident soldiers are also at high risk of being murdered by their fellow soldiers and having the crime covered up.
I am a little disappointed at UnknownNews' posting this example of poor journalism without comment. The fact is that we can not reliably conjecture about many deaths occurring during war. The general violence of war provides a host of opportunities for violent crime that can be covered up. People listening to the Winter Soldier testimony (available as an archive at KPFA's site) will now be familiar with a pattern of officially ordered cover-ups of the murders of innocent civilians by placing weapons or shovels alongside the victims in order to brand them as insurgents. A pattern of crime and cover-up has become generalized to the entire official establishment in the US from local beat cops to the president himself. In the context of this established pattern it makes little sense to trust any official story that has an alternative explanation that is unfavorable to the officials involved.
The fact is that we will likely never know for sure about the exact reason for this young woman's death. Maybe at some point in the future more information will surface, but that is highly unlikely. In the meantime let's do this young woman the honor of admitting that we just can't be sure about the true nature of her death. It would be a shame if we became unwitting enablers of a crime by virtue of being seduced by an appealing story about someone so sad about the spectacle of heinous events occurring around her that she felt compelled to take her own life, especially since the story as presented by the military is so specious on its face.
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