How is starving in Gaza different from starving in Auschwitz?
Joe Bageant - on the Audacity of Depression
POLISHIFTER: Gluttony is a Sin, ya fat Bastard!
Sorry that this post is slow going, lotsa stuff going on in the world of the Non-Tubes , most notably- leaving the life of money massaging for Lubbock fatcats and the ex wife is on a bender.
And I may actually post more of my pathetic attempts at "video". Compared to Culture Ghost , Fred, and Agi, my attempts at internet Art was like a stick figure scribble compared to ze Mona Lisa, but I haven't let lack of talent stop me thus far...
Let Mickey's Malt Liquor be my Muse ! (What? I'm broke for four more days)
UPDATE : Check out The Poetry Man's Obama in 30 sec video here. Then sign in and vote for a few videos there...
Apr 24, 2008
Slow Death
Apr 7, 2008
Absolut-ly ridiculoso
Apr 3, 2008
BAILING OUT WALL STREET
But for a majority of the others, especially Bob Corker (R-TN)- it's a mad rush to thank the Fed for saving the big corporations from the weally weally nefarious FREE MARKET.
Bernanke feels that its likely that $29 BILLION investment by the Fed with taxpayer money will be worth it. But, he stammers, they haven't assessed it yet, they are in the process...
They haven't even figured out how much the Fed will be charged by BlackRock yet. Seriously- Repeat that to yourself: BlackRock was hired to evaluate Bear's assets for an unspecified fee. And not one that they aren't just specifying TO US- One they haven't figured out yet.
As in "Trust us. We'll tell you how much of this crap is crap. And we'll charge you something, er reasonable. Yeah, that's it, Ben."
Don't you Fed guys worry your pretty heads about it, m'kay? The big businessmen will tell you what they need and when. Go back to designing your dreamhome when you resign from the Fed next year...
Well, we've sent a lesson to the Mortgage holders. And we've sent a lesson to the shareholders of Bear-Stearns (and soon to be shareholders of several other major financials). But where is the lesson for the people who have been uprating the dirty Financial Institutions? Where is the lesson for the architects of this mess? Where is the lesson for these cutthroat lenders who give the loans with no accountability, then quickly bundle them all together and sell them away to the big financials as soon as possible?
Ben Bernanke just GUARANTEED an un-assessed pile of shit at a price tag of $29 Billion. But he feels that it will all be okay in the end. The only thing this insect has really guaranteed is a future position at JP Morgan.
And a panel made up mainly of sycophant Senators prattles on, helping cover the asses of THEIR biggest lenders, Corporations.
Once again, regular Americans get screwed and Big Business- who screwed over all these people, took the cash and ran- gets a big wet kiss.
Free Market my ass. There is NOT ONE DAMN Republican in Congress that isn't a crony for Big business. Trickle down into your rep's pockets.
Enjoy it, those of you dumbasses that vote for these dirty crooked Republicans even though you can't afford to buy stock.
By the way, Senator Bob Corker is the biggest Asskissing Weasel I've ever seen. If anyone is firmly of the back pocket of corporate interests its this slimeball. God, he's practically blowing Dimon, not questioning him. Do you HAVE any questions, Corker, you sellout?
The Headline on CNBC moments ago: Dimon: I was asked the right questions
Doesn't that just say it all...
Oaths, and some damn paperwork, and no more of this "no one can understand all this durn complexity" Bullshit! I also don't want to hear what you people are "reasonably confident" about!
Slave Market
If Bernanke is "reasonably confident" that Bear Stearns assets AREN'T a pile of worthless paper, then why was this bailout needed? Smokescreens that aid the Financials AREN'T in the Americans best interest. Without some real oversight - these lenders will keep this going until it breaks the country's back.
Mar 31, 2008
True Patriots fight FOR Freedom, not against it
80 year old Anti War Deacon arrested for t-shirt
They are arresting American citizens for t-shirts that offend warhawks. They are arresting preachers in America for calling for an end to the Iraq war. They are arresting eighty year old men who openly voice their opinion peacefully.
They are arresting American citizens for exercising free speech.
We are not free to oppose the warlike among us. We are not free to express morality in a country run by the immoral. We are not free to assemble peacefully when our opinion opposes that of the corporatists.
We are not free.
Those who are for the war can assemble, protest, and even assault the antiwar crowd and not be arrested. But if you dare stand up for the thousands of soldiers who are dying to make money for the military industrial complex, you will be spat upon, you will be accosted, you will be harrassed, you will be arrested by government officials.
I don't know who I despise more, the government who is taking away our American freedom, or the pathetic citizen scumbags who assault other Americans for speaking out FOR THE TROOPS.
I take heart that more and more christians are standing up for true christian beliefs and morality against the war. I pick christians out because the pro-war, pro-torture crowd, by and large, is made up of those who consider themselves christians.
Another Gathering of Eagles brownshirt story. This weak ass nazi gets "assaulted" by an 82 year old woman after verbally abusing her veteran husband. She kicks the dumbass in his dumb ass. I guess those Octagenarian peace activists are really dangerous, after all.
She got a $25 fine. Where can I send her my $25 for standing up to these nazis?
More American Patriots, veteran and otherwise:
Amnesty International teen protest
Iraq Vet: we need to leave Iraq immediatelyVoices speak out (World Can't Wait)
Give me a link to your favorite American patriot who is working to end the war now, in the face of those who would steal our freedom...
BONUS LINK: Matt Taibbi on the Rev.Wright
Mar 24, 2008
Religious Persecution in America
And by this I mean, being persecuted by Christians, not the silly notion that Christians are somehow persecuted in America...
Extremism
Blog against Theocracy
Expelled at Expelled - PZ Myers gets bible-blocked at a creationist movie that supposedly addresses the issue of SUPPRESSION. I've got mixed feelings about this movie since another equally intellectual flick is about to hit the theaters and is aimed at the same demographic, the average American idiot.
Will Ben Stein convince Amerkan idiots that Jewish Mythology is getting the short end of the stick in Amerkan education? Will Harold and Kumar touch a nerve of morality within that same dumb Amerkan bastard and convince him (in between tokes) that destroying the constitution and torturing people (although hilarious) is bad? God (my one true god, not yours!) only knows...
Make sure you check out the link to see which big bad atheist made it in to see the film.
"Whoever fears to submit any question to the test of free discussion, loves his own opinion more than the truth."
I should have known this already, but I discovered yesterday that the reason we hide eggs on the spring festival of Easter is because centuries ago Christians tried to kill off the pagan tradition of giving colored eggs as a symbol of fertility on this pre-christian holiday. They banned the practice of giving the eggs and punished those who they caught giving them as gifts on Easter.
I guess the ban didn't work. A thousand years later, my brother, a part time christian, took his children to the largest easter egg hunt in our area yesterday, a church sponsored event where 5000 christian children unwittingly participated in an ancient pagan ritual. And I'm sure, like me before them, there were 5,000 children wondering what rabbits and eggs had to do with the death of Jesus. I sat down with my daughter and we discussed what Easter meant to our ancestors. We discussed the celebration of Spring, the rebirth of the earth, the traditions and the meanings of the colored eggs and the rabbits. It ended up being a great conversation that I believe enriched her understanding of our world, and the mentalities of people both past and present. Unfortunately the parents of those 5,000 children (like my brother) will brush aside their own children's questions and inexplicably attempt to convince them that this is all for Jesus.
After talking about the christians attempting to make Easter their own holiday, she told me something I've heard many, many times growing up in West Texas: "My friend Bethany isn't my friend anymore because she says I am not a christian and I'm going to ... down there"
I smiled and replied "Honey, there isn't a hell. Why would a god who loves us and forgives us need a place like that?" She shrugged, and gave me that I dunno look.
"God doesn't NEED Hell. Only christians do. The ways of our ancestors were not the ways of christians. Their prisons are the ones they create for themselves. You don't need to worry too much about their judgements. " And then, realizing the cold truth of the matter, I added "But sometimes, it's safer not to make yourself a target for them. What you believe is only your business."
"He who will not reason is a bigot, he who cannot reason is a fool, and he who does not reason is a slave."
UPDATE: Creationists instruct their children about Vegetarian T-Rex
Mar 13, 2008
Going Down?
CAPITALISM THREAT RED!!
(Ooogah! Ooogah!)
Carlyle Group's Mortgage bond fund collapsing - someone besides me will blog it better, I'm sure...
Retail sales decline because of High gas prices...
Dollar falls below 100 Yen...
Olbermann rips Clinton, justifiably.
I would beseech her to give up for the sake of the party and, uh, the country- but Amerka, apparently, has teh spoken. They are lackwits and popularity-chasing buffoons, even among the Progressives, and they are playing right into the hands of an extremely weak Right wing. And that right wing may walk away with this election because of our power hungry candidate. Hillary defers gracefully and she might be receiving long term gains for 2012. But, you know, my fellow Americans can't see past next fucking week, so I don't expect anyone with the foresight greater than that of a housefly to prevail.
ACLU reports that we are one minute closer to Midnight
And once again- Corporate corruption and LACK of REGULATION makes America unsafer
Today's investment tip: Stock up on Salvia and Ammo Now!
And remember kids- it could be worse- at least the Zombie assault hasn't begun!
Mar 11, 2008
A Tale of Two Headlines
Both under "Terrorism" on MSNBC this morning...
Judge: Detainee's abuse claim not believable
Bush vetoes bill banning Waterboarding
A judge ruled Friday that an Australian man's claim that he had been mistreated in custody in Pakistan before being sent to the U.S. prison for terror suspects at Guantanamo Bay could not be believed.
President Bush said Saturday he vetoed legislation that would ban the CIA from using harsh interrogation methods such as waterboarding to break suspected terrorists because it would end practices that have prevented attacks.
Justice Peter McClellan of the New South Wales state Supreme Court ruled against Mamdouh Habib in the man's defamation suit against a Sydney newspaper, which Habib said had implied he lied about being tortured.
"The Bush administration continues to insist that CIA and other nonmilitary interrogators are not bound by the military rules and has reportedly given CIA interrogators the green light to use a range of so-called 'enhanced' interrogation techniques, including prolonged sleep deprivation, painful stress positions, and exposure to extreme cold," Daskal said. "Although waterboarding is not currently approved for use by the CIA, Attorney General Michael Mukasey has refused to take it off the table for the future."
"I am satisfied that Mr. Habib's claims that he was seriously mistreated in the place of detention in Islamabad cannot be accepted," McClellan said.
The bill Congress sent me would take away one of the most valuable tools in the war on terror," Bush said in his weekly radio address taped for broadcast Saturday. "So today I vetoed it," Bush said.
He said Habib was "prone to exaggerate," "evasive" and had made claims about mistreatment in Pakistan and Egypt which could not be sustained.
Jennifer Daskal, senior counterterrorism counsel at Human Rights Watch, said Bush "will go down in history as the torture president" for defying Congress and allowing the CIA to use interrogation techniques "that any reasonable observer would call torture."
Habib, an Egyptian-born immigrant, was arrested in Pakistan in late 2001. He says he was held there for 28 days and was interrogated by Americans before being transferred to Egypt, where he alleged he was beaten, shocked with electricity and nearly drowned while under interrogation.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Bush often warns against ignoring the advice of U.S. commanders on the ground in Iraq. Yet the president has rejected the Army Field Manual, which recognizes that harsh interrogation tactics elicit unreliable information, said Reid, D-Nev.The intelligence bill would limit CIA interrogators to the 19 techniques allowed for use by military questioners. The Army field manual in 2006 banned using methods such as waterboarding or sensory deprivation on uncooperative prisoners.
The military specifically prohibited waterboarding in 2006. The CIA also prohibited the practice in 2006 ... But the administration has refused to rule definitively on whether it is torture. Bush has said many times that his administration does not torture.
After six months, he was sent to the U.S. military base at Bagram, Afghanistan and then Guantanamo Bay. He was returned to Australia in January 2005.
Australian judges continue to believe that George Bush's policies haven't been resulting in kidnapping and torturing their citizens. I guess Australia believes that if the U.S. eventually releases their citizens after torturing them it's okay. The U.S. government decided that Habib was innocent after all.
Fortunately for Canadian citizens, their judicial system isn't so trusting of countries who want to torture their people.
The acclaimed Army officer who literally wrote the book on counterinsurgency weighs in on 24, its impact on the U.S. military’s view of torture, and the implications for the fight against terrorism: Torture is NOT ACCEPTABLE (from Foreign Policy.com)
Why Torture doesn't work (also from Foreign Policy.com)
UPDATE: I noticed that Frederick has been on fire lately, check his blog out...
UPDATE 2: Funny shit of the day : Whiny Cops -More Proof that the Internet has EVERYTHING. This site is for cops to whine about other cops giving them tickets and not letting them slide "for the brotherhood". It's fucking hilarious to see our "Proud men in blue" nominating their fellow officers for Dick of the Month. The whole point of the website seems to be that cops think they should only treat citizens like shit, not each other. The indignant cop who put this site up might get a little more respect from me if it was just a site for anyone to bitch about the poor common sense of traffic officers. But the attitude that Cops should get favorable treatment when breaking the law is just bullshit.
Feb 11, 2008
Self consumption
Arthur Silber is back and with a little help from Matt Taibbi , tells us, again:
Any individual who rises to the national political level is, of necessity and by definition, committed to the authoritarian-corporatist state. The current system will not allow anyone to be elected from either of the two major parties who is determined to dismantle even one part of that system.
I love Arthur's writing. I love his passion and his fire. After reading this article, however, I wondered if people sometimes read my rants and have the bitter taste left in their mouth that Arthur's rant left in mine-
Shorter Arthur: The system is fucked. All Progressives are fucked. You are probably a hypocrite for not noticing. But even if you do notice, you will still just eat shit and die.
Arthur's writings have had their own effect on me. I sometimes believe that if just enough people could see the truth or if they only believed what I do, that the country would change overnight. People would suddenly comprehend what Arthur says and what I say and what a thousand others are saying and we would rise up and force the politicians to change as a result.
I don't see Arthur leading a rebellion with his cats, his sickbed mounted on a tank. I don't see myself leading a crowd of veterans to storm the Rush Limbaughs and Sean Hannitys, even though I truly believe these lying, self-serving propagandists are destroying all that is truly patriotic in our country. I can't see Keith Olbermann calling Bush a traitor to his face. I cannot see the leader of a superchurch that says "Enough is Enough. Torture and murder is un-christian, we have sinned in this war". I can't see a few good millionaires standing up against the crowd in the whitehouse looting the treasury. I can't see a nation that rises up against a system that is self-destructing in a full rebellion against this 2 party corporatocracy.
That's a lot of pain to inflict upon ourselves for a nation that is still only partially broken. It will get worse before it gets better. It is bad now, but it hasn't quite fallen apart yet. We still do have options, even though they are not as pure, as perfect as we'd like them to be. From this high ground of self-awareness, nothing seems to be a good idea but to completely remove the ranks of politicians and fill it with our clones. Everyone else is just an appeaser to the system that has failed us.
At the end of Arthur's article, I get nothing but a world of eternal shit. It isn't that bad yet. It may get there. Arthur's writing has done me a service, over and over, by helping me understand the everyday hypocrisy that we all have had a hand in, as citizens of a nation that is responsible for a million deaths- and barring protests, have done nothing to stop it. Nothing really. We haven't sacrificed anything to stop it. Nor will we. Until it gets worse. Not for those damn Iraqis, of course, but worse for ourselves.
Arthur believes that Americans are fooling ourselves more than I believe we are. Look, we know the score, and deep inside, as a people, we just don't give a shit about those dead people half a planet away. Even the worst neocon anti-environmentalist understands that the world's resources are limited, and that we all will die, and that in order for some to prosper, others will have to die sooner. There is predator and there is prey. As long as the American people don't feel the full-fledged bite of the predator, then we will remain content. As long as we are the top predator in the food chain, we will not be overly concerned with the plight of the prey. We are animals. We are chattel, too.
If our "hope", in the form of Obama or Clinton, offers nothing in reality, then we will sink further into excrement. We will be one step closer to being prey instead of lead predator as a result of our gross depletion of everything in sight.
There is a place for balance. If we can find that balance, we can be self-sufficient and survive. In order to balance we must sacrifice efficiently and effectively against our consumption.
If not, the shit we eat and die from will be our own.
UPDATE: The link to Taibbi's piece has a lot of interesting comments as well.
UPDATE 2: Winter Patriot has a comprehensive post on Iraq
Jan 31, 2008
Did someone mention change?
Barack Obama wants a U.N. Security Council resolution on the Gaza Strip to mention rocket attacks on Israel. The Democratic presidential candidate in a letter sent Tuesday to Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, urged the United States not to allow the resolution to pass unless it notes the rocket salvos.
The Security Council is in emergency session this week considering Israel's blockade of Gaza.
"All of us are concerned about the impact of closed border crossings on Palestinian families," wrote Obama, a U.S. senator from Illinois, in his letter to Khalilzad. "However, we have to understand why Israel is forced to do this. Gaza is governed by Hamas, which is a terrorist organization sworn to Israel's destruction, and Israeli civilians are being bombarded on an almost daily basis."
4 more years! - of Terror. Oh you stupid fucks. Thanks. thanks so fucking much. Nothing will change until we disarm Israel and stop them from their unending bombardment and murder of Palestinians, Lebanese, and oh, anyone else they decide to kill with impunity.
Obama won't interrupt his schedule to vote against wiretapping, but he does have time to defend the put-upon Israelis.
Oy fucking vey.
Jan 22, 2008
The Totalitarian Mindset
This article by J.R. Nyquist "Alien Minds" seems to both condemn and condone the totalitarian thought process.
My response:
Your article is an interesting one, and with a very sound premise. However, I have to rebuke you for considering "the West" as being an exception to the rule. This is laughable. There are many of us in the West who do indeed wish for a world that is not in a constant state of conflict. But that sentiment is not shared by our current leaders in the United States, who do indeed, live by the thought of future (and present) world war. On one hand, you dismiss and bemoan the thought processes of the Hitlers and Stalins, on the other, you prop up Tocqueville's words to the effect that the opposite of these minds is weakness and capitulation.
Totalitarianism does not except this nation as it expands it conquest- however failed the efforts of our current government.
"History teaches that totalitarian regimes cheat when it comes to arms control." And indeed, the United States and Russia have. Our regime will never give up its nuclear arms, only a fool would suggest this. More's the pity. Everything that you write about our enemies supposed goals from the holier-than-thou attitude of a Westerner can be also be said of the United States. And with the added evidence that we have the been the only aggressor nation in the past 10 years.
The tone of your article, and the emphasis on fear and aggression have indeed have an effect on the regimes of the past. You fail to recognize that in the face of the world's history - in contrast to the major powers of the world, that America has risen to the apex of its power by a history of appeasement, diplomacy, and controlled aggression. We did not rise to power by conquest or invasion or reckless aggression.
Congratulating Moscow on their so-called "stunning achievement" is ridiculous. Of course they would not dismantle their nuclear armaments, not as long as they have plenty of men like Mr. Nyquist, on their side, who are loudly crying that the United States is Russia's most dangerous enemy.
Russia and America own 95% of the world's nuclear weapons. Other countries will slowly gain these same weapons; not out of Nyquist's knee-jerk fear that "they" drool and chomp at the bit to use them against "us" in a suicidal attack- but as bargaining chips that bring them higher up the food chain militarily. We have all the steel - so those around us are only too happy to trade up from their bronze.
The same men who are "worried" that nuclear weapons “could” fall into dangerous hands are the Kissingers who make back room deals to give these weapons to other countries in trade for oil, trade agreements, and enriching themselves.
Mr. Nyquist makes a big point of : "As alien as this way of thinking is to normal people, it is second nature to a man like Vladimir Putin." The sad truth is that the Bush's, the Putin's, the Kissingers ALL own the totalitarian mindset. And Nyquist himself seems to own this mindset, as evidenced by the entire article and his belittling of the opposite - the mindset of the normal people with their "bourgeois morality".
“One death is a tragedy,” Stalin once said, “but one million deaths is a statistic.” Of course, you'd have to prove to me that these shallow power brokers believe that any death but their own is a tragedy.
Jan 16, 2008
Israel kills 17
...and seriously wounds an 8 year old boy, most likely using flechette weopons in civilian areas.
Bush sure is making headway in the Peace Process, isn't he? ISRAEL is the greatest terrorist nation in the world and should be disarmed and sanctioned... Neocon murderers WILL NEVER support peace. Vote in a President who will quit giving Israel weapons and money to continue spreading terror.
From Common Dreams IDF Kills...
and from the comments there...
It’s really too bad that seemingly all what israelis learned from their holocaust is how to oppress and exterminate their neighbors. Perhaps they should open the Torah.
Book of Leviticus:
‘You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; for you too were once aliens in the land of Egypt. I, the LORD, am your God.’chapter 19, verse 34
Take no revenge and cherish no grudge against your fellow countrymen. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. I am the LORD. (chapter 19, verse 18)
peace
...
The Reich of Zion is predicated on the conviction that Israel owns the moral high ground in perpetuity– as if the Moral High Ground were conferred on the state of Israel as weregild by an abashed world in apology for the Holocaust.
Even if that were true, the government of the little Reich has long since been washed off that high ground in a deluge of blood shed by its wanton, genocidal violence against aboriginal societies which resists Zionist territorial aggression.
Israel and the US compose a binary system of rogue states run by ruthless deathmongers– not to put too fine a point on it.
...
So Bush went to Israel to give Olmert green light to steal and kill. Hamas again offered a truce which the murderous Olmert decided to ignore. Israel deserves every bad things coming its way!
And Bush is now exposed as another poodle for Israel! This is for folks who thinks that this is not the case
...
Israelis killed Palestinians? Oh that’s okay, as long as not one precious Israeli is killed. Israel and the U.S. might drop a bomb on the Palestinians if one of “God’s Chosen People” were killed, even accidentally. You could even blame the Iranians for it.
Good job on the “peace effort,” Chimp. We can see you and your buddies the Israelis have taken your visit seriously.
...
I agree, the Israelis don’t seem to have learned a thing from the Holocaust. They have no compassion, empathy, or any humane feelings for the people they are oppressing.
Did you see the Chimp wearing a Jewish skull cap when he was in Israel a few days ago? I guess he and Rice consider themselves Israelis. On her first trip to Israel, she gushed to the Israelis and said how she felt like it was “home” to her.
..
I see that the Jewish Nation has provided our Sadist-In-Chief with the human sacrifice that he needs to keep that coprophagous smirk on his face. I cringe to think what God and man will do to the American people to balance this and all the other Iseaeli atrocities commited in the name of their God of Cruelty and Avrice.
...
Thank you all for caring enough to comment on these latest horrors inflicted by the Israelis on the Palestinian people. I continue to be amazed at how little press Israeli aggression gets, although I’m sure that only shows my own naivety. The word needs to get out in as many ways as possible. I somehow think that if people at least KNEW what was going on, there might be a chance for justice. I’ll check out “boycott Israel” and will commit to post messages to as many news outlets as I can each time I hear of an assault like this. My question to them: Why aren’t you reporting terrorist actions by the Israelis?What other ideas do people have? How do we get the U.S. to quit supporting these crimes against humanity?
And as for some blowback, how about this comment....
"To kill a snake you’ve got to go for its head. America happens to be Israel’s head."
That sentiment is a large reason why Israel needs to be stopped, and stopped BY AMERICA, from murdering its neighbors on a wholesale basis year after year after year. Israel's actions and the retaliations of suicide bombers are both terrorist actions. To stop one, you've got to stop the other.
Murder is murder. Israel's actions sponsor more Israeli deaths. They will NEVER learn. It is time to stop giving the ignorant bastards more bombs and money with which they will continue the destruction.
Dec 10, 2007
Sun, set.
This life so crippled that I can't stand,
And God on High, with no command
Angels futile and Devils impotent as well,
And to think that I was once afraid of Hell...
Seek not your soul, it does not exist-
Meaning and truth are ideas that do not persist
Each moments experience is its only reward-
Let passion be your shield, pleasure be thy sword.
And Love? That lofty goal so pure-
is no more than some charlatan's cure.
I realize now, and understand all too late
Faith in heart will not change your animals fate.
that is it, no moral here,
my search ends as my own worst fear.
I know of nothing more to say or write-
and these words- my life, no matter how slight...
Fade
Nov 2, 2006
Take back your Country
The right wingers HATED it when Pres. Clinton stood up to the GOP Media.
They hated it when Sen. Kerry made fun of their inept dysfunctional deity, Bush Alrighty.
They hate it when the only liberal in the main stream media, Keith Olbermann, speaks out in eloquent speech after speech about the immoral leadership of our country.
They hate it when Democrats hold the feet of the GOP to the fire.
Don't give in. Keep it up. Support the men who are fighting back, eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth, against the cretins who are ruining the United States.
Hold these damn Republicans accountable.
Hold The President Accountable.
Hold Rumsfeld Accountable -
and yes- even hold the moron down your street with the W bumper sticker Accountable!
Don't let them shout you down.
Their incompetence, their corruption, and their outright sexual harassment of Lady Liberty is OVER. Take back YOUR country.
Oct 19, 2006
Riverbend is back...
Riverbend returns! ( http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com )
Her last blog post was on August 5, "Summer of Goodbyes". After checking each day for the past two and a half months, I wondered if this was, indeed her goodbye.
In the various blogs I visited, in the commentaries and such, I would run into others who wondered where she was, and if she had fallen prey to the violence in Iraq.
Billmon noticed her return and I breathed a sigh of relief. And then, reading her new blog, I wondered just how naive and ridiculous American bloggers must appear to her- voicing Our concerns and Our fears about her- when we all have our share of blame for the plight of Iraqis.
Even those like me, who were against the invasion before it started. Maybe she could rightfully blame us as well= for not doing enough to stop our countrymen in their lust for revenge, in their rush to destroy muslims and Saddam and anything unAmerican that might possibly stand in the way of our God-given American pride and glory.
What does my angst and hand-wringing mean to HER? With her country in shambles around her, death surrounding every family she knows- how can my sympathies do anything but disgust her? I know that in my heart, it would be very hard to not hate all things American at this point were I in her shoes.
How do you comfort the family member of someone that your family has murdered? I don't really know...
I don't know what she sees when she reads American blogs. I don't have any idea if she sees anything more than a spoiled nation of pampered elitists and warmongering racists. I don't know if the growing number of Americans who are working towards peace for those in the middle east gives her hope, apathy or despair...
But I am glad she is alive. And I am glad that she decided to blog again, because the window into her world that is her blog is a necessary view for me, and I think for all Americans who want to see a glimpse of what is REALLY going on in Iraq's streets, away from the rose-colored television news with its sunshine-spewing politicians telling us that everything is alright.
And in seeing her truth, and knowing that the worst IS TRUE- What are we to do? We have Republicans who say that they will not leave Iraq. Their corporate sponsors aren't done raping the people of Iraq yet. We have weak democrats who WILL follow the Republicans if they retain control of Congress. We have "Strong" Democrats who do this right now- Like Hillary and other spineless cowards.
As Billmon says: ( http://billmon.org/archives/002843.html )
We were all complicit. I was complicit. Because I was afraid -- afraid to sacrifice my comfortable middle class lifestyle, afraid to lose my job and my house, afraid of the IRS, afraid to go to jail.
But not nearly as afraid, of course, as the thousands of Iraqis who have been tortured or murdered, or who, like Riverbend, are forced to live in bloody chaos, day after day. Which is why, reading her post today, I couldn't help but feel deeply, bitterly ashamed -- not just of my country, but of myself.
So what will we do? We must remove the Republican party from all positions within our government by voting them out. We must put Democrats in both houses in such a majority in on Nov.7 that they will be able to completely wipe the stain that is the Bush administration from our flag.
We can't remove the bloodstains of the Iraqi people from our hands- and if we are to atone for our complicity- we cannot remove them anyway. We must hold our bloody hands high even in our shame- and bring down the masterminds of terror who have orchestrated these warcrimes against the people of Iraq.
We must ALL be held accountable in order to save America's soul.
