Virginia Doesn’t Know Much About Confederate History
By ELIE MYSTAL
Image via Wikipedia
I’m a bit of a Civil War buff — which is to say that I needed to check off the “knows about war” box in the manship handbook and I picked this one. I’m no Shelby Foote (R.I.P.), but I’m conversant in most of the military and political history surrounding that war. Hey, it’s the war that (indirectly) set me free, and it’s easily the most interesting war America has ever been a part of.
I love and respect the history on both sides of the conflict. The Confederates fought with courage, pride, and tactical brilliance. Their fight is something to be remembered, something to be studied, something that deserves its place in the annals of American history.
It is not something to be proud of. Sorry Confederates (and modern sympathizers), you were on the wrong side. Not just on the wrong side of history, but also on the wrong side of morality. The often heroic deeds undertaken by Confederates on the battlefield were in furtherance of an evil cause. I repeat, an evil cause. Let’s not forget that Southern hero Robert E. Lee fought for a pro-slavery state. Sure, he seems to have been really uncomfortable with slavery, but when the chips were down he chose state over morality. Can we respect the man as arguably the best American general? Absolutely. Should we be proud that our greatest general chose the morally reprehensible side? No we should not. Love of country cannot and should not trump love of your fellow man. Unless you are an asshole. Lee, for all of his laudable qualities, failed the crucial moral test of his life. I respect him, but he was a dick. There’s a difference between respect and pride. That difference is apparently lost on Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell…
From Vanity Fair website comes a unbelievable story:
After bad peanuts, bad lilliputian seats and bad manners from a jaded workforce,
some airlines would like you to pay to go pee.
And Ryanair is actually beginning charging you as of right now.....
Discount airline Ryanair will begin charging passengers around $1.30 for bathroom use on flights shorter than one hour. The thought being that if passengers are discouraged from using the bathroom, there will be less of a demand for the bathroom, and therefore less of a supply will be necessary. Economics! Under the current plan, several restrooms will be replaced with seats, allowing the planes to fit six extra passengers but just one toilet for 189 antsy, thirsty people.
The small-bladdered are not the first victims of fiscally motivated airline discrimination: last year, several companies began charging overweight passengers for two tickets. (Director Kevin Smith was forcibly removed from a Southwest Airlines flight earlier this year after failing to do so. Angry Tweets, as they are wont to do, followed immediately after.) And just yesterday, the ironically named Spirit Airlines introduced a policy under which passengers must pay $45 for the great pleasure of jamming carry-ons in overhead bins.
Not even dead passengers can escape airlines' draconian rule: on Wednesday, two passengers tried to sneak the corpse of a 91 year-old man on-board an plane but were nonsensically forbidden. If you consider how few times the dead use the bathroom, and how unlikely it is they would require overhead storage, it's not the most financially sensible policy, is it?
NEW ORLEANS — A former New Orleans police officer told federal authorities he saw a fellow officer shoot and kick unarmed, wounded civilians in a deadly incident on a bridge in Hurricane Katrina’s aftermath, marking the first time an officer has provided federal authorities with an eyewitness account of the events.
The former officer, Michael Hunter, pleaded guilty Wednesday to helping cover up the shootings on the Danziger Bridge less than a week after the August 2005 storm.
A court filing Wednesday that describes Hunter’s account of the shootings contradicts a police report that said civilians shot at officers before the police opened fire, killing two people and wounding four others.
Seeing no danger to officers, Hunter says he shouted “Cease fire!” after an unidentified sergeant with an assault rifle and other officers opened fire on a group of unarmed civilians who took cover behind a concrete barrier on the bridge.
After they stopped firing, Hunter says he saw several civilians who appeared to be unarmed, injured and subdued.
“(The sergeant) suddenly leaned over the concrete barrier, held out his assault rifle, and, in a sweeping motion, fired repeatedly at the civilians lying wounded on the ground,” the filing says. “The civilians were not trying to escape and were not doing anything that could be perceived as a threat.
Moments later, Hunter saw two men later identified as Lance Madison and his 40-year-old mentally disabled brother, Ronald, running away near the bottom of the bridge.
Hunter’s statement said an unidentified officer shot Ronald Madison in the back with a shotgun.
“As Ronald Madison lay dying on the pavement, (the sergeant) ran down the bridge toward Ronald and asked an officer if Ronald was ‘one of them.’ When the officer replied in the affirmative, (the sergeant) began kicking or stomping Ronald Madison repeatedly with his foot,” the filing states.
Madison and James Brissette, 19, were killed by police.
U.S. District Judge Sarah Vance said Hunter participated in a “blatant and systematic perversion of justice” and shouldn’t be seen as a “hero” for taking responsibility.
“I don’t think you can listen to this account without being sickened by the raw brutality of the shootings and the craven lawlessness of the cover-up,” she said.
Hunter, 33, of Slidell, faces a maximum sentence of eight years in prison following his guilty plea to one count of conspiring to obstruct justice and one count of misprision of a felony. His sentencing is scheduled for June 30.
Dr. Romell Madison, one of Ronald’s brothers, said he didn’t know that police kicked his dying brother until he heard a prosecutor read the filing aloud in court.
“The cruelty that my brothers had to endure and the other victims had to endure was heartbreaking,” he said.
Hunter’s attorney, Townsend M. Myers, said in an emailed statement that his client made “a series of very bad decisions related to what happened on the Danziger Bridge, and what he did in the aftermath of those events. He accepts full responsibility for his bad decisions, and for their consequences.”
Two other former officers have pleaded guilty to helping cover up the fact that police shot unarmed people.
Less than a week after the Aug. 29, 2005 hurricane, Hunter drove several officers in a rental truck to the Danziger Bridge, where police shot and killed two people and wounded four others. Hunter allegedly provided a false account of the shootings when he testified before a state grand jury in 2006.
Former Lt. Michael Lohmann and Jeffrey Lehrmann, a former detective, have pleaded guilty to participating in the cover-up, which included a planted gun, phony witnesses and falsified reports.
When conservative activists James O'Keefe and Hannah Giles released tapes last fall purporting to show ACORN employees advising them on how to set up a child prostitution ring, it resulted in widespread praise for their intrepid journalism and a Congressional defunding of the anti-poverty group. But it is now becoming clear to all but their most fervent supporters that the O'Keefe "expose" was deliberately misleading.
"If you were a member of Congress and you voted to defund ACORN because of the outrage portrayed in these tapes," MSNBC's Rachel Maddow proclaimed on Tuesday, "you were had."
Last week, California Attorney Gerneral Jerry Brown released some of O'Keefe's raw footage, which he obtained as part of an agreement not to prosecute O'Keefe for violating state privacy laws. Maddow reviewed several of the most severe distortions revealed by the footage, starting with O'Keefe's claim that he was wearing his outrageous pimp outfit when he visited the ACORN offices.
That claim, which Brad Friedman at Brad Blog has been debunking for months, was promoted heavily by Fox News and swallowed uncritically by most of the mainstream media. The unedited tape of O'Keefe's visit to the ACORN office in San Diego, however, includes a shot of his arm as he opens the door to leave, and he is clearly wearing a nicely pinstriped dress shirt.
The edited video released by O'Keefe also appears to show an ACORN employee advising him on how to smuggle underage girls into the United States. O'Keefe is heard off-camera saying, "What things do you need from me in terms of the shipment information," and the employee replies, "It's better if it's in Tijuana ... because I have a lot of contacts in Tijuana." O'Keefe then goes on to say, "There's twelve of them. ... Twelve girls, they're like 13 to 15 years old."
But as Maddow pointed out, in the previously unreleased portion of the video, the employee continues asking very detailed questions about O'Keefe's phone number and the exact time and location of the girls' arrival. "What's this ACORN guy going to do with all that information?" Maddow wondered. "Oh, he calls the police and reports what they've told him is going to be a crime."
According to Jerry Brown's report (pdf), "Immediately after the couple left, Vera telephoned his cousin, Detective Alejandro Hernandez, at the National City Police Department... [and said] that a self-admitted prostitute had been to the office and was discussing human smuggling."
"For that he ended up getting fired," Maddow noted wryly.
A final O'Keefe tape appeared to show a different ACORN employee reacting to the child prostitution scheme by saying enthusiastically, "You can do anything. ... Don't give up."
But the unedited tape reveals that the encouraging words came after O'Keefe had told the employee that he and his prostitute girlfriend were having trouble finding a house because she is "in a unique line of work." Her "never give up" meant to keep trying different banks until one said yes.
"This is not meant to excuse what ACORN has done wrong in the past," Maddow concluded. "But the huge tide of negative publicity ... was bullpucky. It was a dishonest political stunt that bears no resemblance to journalism and no resemblance to the actual facts. "
"But it worked," she added. "Who do you think is next on their list?"
This video is from MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show, broadcast April 6, 2010.
'Small government, helping the little man, bla bla bla...
Or do we bankrupt the nation so that they have no choice but to privatise EVERYTHING !
And leave the poor and ugly to rot as a bonus! Perfect plan, boys!'
- Republican Idealist
No doubt Kathryn Bigelow is a great director that have matured since Point Break.
No doubt either that the ensemble cast was perfectly chosen. Young, earnest, brazen, adorable fools with gumption and a WTF attitude that's a winner in the US.
But a film about war is a dangerous beast.
And somewhere along the line I thought we just forgot that that war is not just about American lives. We're affecting others, telling them what to do, where to go, judging which deserve to live or die. Where were they? How were they represented in that narration?
And when I saw that little boy trying to sell off those DVD, I knew this movie had reach its limit. Honesty would be reign in for a more glamorous US approach. All psychological observations would be put aside for sensations and sounds.
A good actor can makes us forget that not every soldier is out there putting their life at risk for little children, not every soldier is a hero, not everything about this war is about the US saving the day.
Here's a more realistic vision. Actually, here's reality: War is not only Hell for us, The US. It is also Hell for all those surrounding us, those we kill, those we wound.
WikiLeaks helped us to remember today with this very important video about the collateral damage done in Iraq. To them and us.
Yes, it was kitchy.
Yes, it was soapy.
Yes, I was too young to watch and I watched anyway. Hey, I watched Shogun and this was even nuttier than that.
Yes, I'm ashamed to admit it: I was only 13 and the TV mini serie The Thorn Bird made me realized that what I was taught to be a congregation of saintly men giving their lives to the ideals of Christ like St-Francis of Assises was, in fact, only a congregation of men. Warts, drunks and all.
I didn't read Stendhal yet, I didn't know that ambitious young priest were standard fare in Literature. But what I did understand then was that the Church was an assembly of guys that wanted power, riches and played politics with the best of them. They also had the privilege, the chance to don a robe that gives them instant credibility and innocence however dirty their hands.
I was in a button down uniforms, girls only catholic schools and we had to confess our sins every months to a priest. He didn't know our names, we didn't know his. And what you read before is what I told that priest at 13, after watching Richard Chamberlain getting it down with some sweet lass half his age.
I did not believe that this melodramatic drivel was anything but, however it opened the door to doubt.
And without doubt, there is no free will... And there is no real faith...
So you can understand how the abuse crisis do no surprise me.
It is only how they treat their victims that does....
I was a victim of abuse. This is what the Pope must do to stop it'
By Colm O'Gorman
Saturday, 20 March 2010
It was not being raped by a priest at the age of 14 that shattered my faith; it was the horrifying realisation that the Catholic Church had wilfully, knowingly abandoned me to it, the knowledge that they had ordained the priest who abused me despite knowing he was a paedophile and set him free to abuse with near impunity, ignoring all complaints.
And so it is difficult not to be cynical about the likely merit of the pastoral letter that Pope Benedict XVI will publish today.
We all know some wanted the Bell Curve to be definitive proof that the White Guys had it All: Intelligence, Looks, Perfect Blond locks of hair that can Move in the Wind (the last detail more important than you'll ever know...).
But one very crazy irony of being a right wing bigot, is that maybe, deep inside, you do not like smartness.
No snobby, arrogant North East Liberal for you, hell no!
And they can take their uppity Negroes straight to their cold uppity town with them!
You know the drill...
So... I guess they'll try to engineer their master race without a single intelligent being in it.
Palin and McCain were really a small, disturbing inkling into the future...
Crude jokes are my way of dealing with this absurdity. But Krugman just discovered the political consequence of this trend.
Seriously though, most understood where it was all going when Gore conceded to the Bush Dynasty.
You’re So Vain
Jonathan Chait and Robert Waldmann, in slightly different ways, highlight a crucial dynamic in American political debate: the extent to which public figures are punished for actually knowing what they’re talking about.
It goes like this: Person A says “Black is white” — perhaps out of ignorance, although more often out of a deliberate effort to obfuscate. Person B says, “No, black isn’t white — here are the facts.”
And Person B is considered to have lost the exchange — you see, he came across as arrogant and condescending.
I had, I have to admit, hoped that the nation’s experience with George W. Bush — who got within hanging-chad distance of the White House precisely because Al Gore was punished for actually knowing stuff — would have cured our discourse of this malady. But no. Why not?
Chait professes himself puzzled by the right’s intellectual insecurity. Me, not so much. Here’s how I see it: in our current political culture, the background noise is overwhelmingly one of conservative platitudes. People who have strong feelings about politics but are intellectually incurious tend to pick up those platitudes, and repeat them in the belief that this makes them sound smart. (Ezra Klein once described Dick Armey thus: “He’s like a stupid person’s idea of what a thoughtful person sounds like.”)
Inevitably, then, such people react with rage when they’re shown up on their facts or basic logic — it’s an attack on their sense of self-worth.
The truly sad thing, though, is the way much news reporting goes along with the condescension meme. That’s Waldmann’s point. You really, really might have expected that the Bush experience would give reporters pause — that they might at least ask themselves, “Isn’t it my job to ask whether a politician is right, as opposed to how he comes across?”
But NOOOO! [/Belushi]
From the pages of the New York Times.
Oh No! Another uppity Liberal Media....
Love the toys and their slick, organic design. Hate to think Bernie and friends probably have 2 or 3 already pre-paid by you and the other suckers of Main Street.
Somebody compared them to Douglas Adam's Heart of Gold on water !
Couldn't agree more...
I rediscovered the CBC. They wake me up every morning now and I'm liking it more and more.
I also savor every day the irony that if I want to get a good mix of alternative rock, classic and old decades standards - including jazz and blues - music, I can only count on my national public radio. All private radio have been formatted to death as to become lifeless clones of one another, as we all know. Their only goal is to jam the same repetitive, mindless, "products" down our collective throat.
And they wonder why radio is dead.
Radio is the perfect example of the wide divide that exist between the theory of competitive diversity and how it is applied right now. The forces at work are destroying opportunities for dissident voices and different approaches to problems. At the same time, they are destroying opportunities for a healthy, diversify, striving competitive market.
Monopolies are being born and small businesses, the real way to attain economical independence and fortitude for most of us little guys, are snip at the bud.
So, obviously, I never said that capitalism is bad or its fundamental principals are without merits: it is the way that greed transforms this ideology into a destructive force, as it always does with all ideologies, that makes it
so unnerving.
Repugs are not fighting for freedom or democracy or even capitalism, but for a pure oligarchic dominion of sovereign monopolies.
Companies as the new kings and queens of Americas, left unchecked to act as they please...
Now cue to music. This song as been in my head - in a good way - for a whole week now.
It's called Kick Drum Heart from the Avett Brothers. It's cute and wild and it rocks hard all at the same time.
When the action is all psychological and the bad guys have won, what happen to Martin Scorsese' s camera?
I respect Scorsese and love most of his films, I'm generally surprised by Leonardo DiCaprio and his passionate acting slowly grows on me with each successive performance. Because of all this I was awaiting Shutter Island with real trepidation and anticipated a satisfying and smart thriller, stuffed to the hilt with DiCaprio/Scorsese chemistry and the artful touch of a Master Director in top shape.
Well, that's not what happened.
Anybody who grew up on a steady diet of X-files will have guess within 30 minutes the 2 possible outcomes of this movie: unfortunately they do not take up the most interesting one, nor the most thrilling. We can't help but think how snidely Mulder would have crack the case all the while charming one of the dour nurses for sport. But since it's all for the sake of good acting on DiCaprio's part and one of the most clever last sentences uttered in movies in the last 10 years, we forgive.
I thought all of this must be a parable, a symbolic construction on the modern state of Man bla-bla-bla since nothing knew is presented here. We could feel how DiCaprio's character could be seen as an Everyman trying to survive in a world giving to lies and violence with no shelter or warmth to give him hope. But, the real mystery was that even thought I was wrong and no second degree was hidden in the fold of Scorsese's mind this time, I could not let Teddy Daniel, the U.S. marshal lost in this leaded waste land, faces his despair alone.
DiCaprio's furry brows and clear baby eyes hold us to the screen as much as we would want to leave this Island behind us too. His search for the proper answer to atrocities and manipulation (should we stay civilized, should we let our outrage wrecks loose, should we retreat in a dream world of our own making where we are the heroes: protecting all the innocents, including our fragile egos, our so delicate minds and susceptibilities...), his quest for the meaning of being humane in a climate of provoked paranoia and delusions make us hope in turn for his success. Finding an answer could really help us right now to face the everyday craziness and hysteria of the contemporary American landscape, tea bags and all.
But of course, his success is our demise. Not a pretty picture for us who are left in the asylum with our crazy doctors and bad hospital food. This man fall from grace leaves us with a bitter after taste.
With Ben Kingsley making an appearance, used as always as the devious joker sprung from a very creaky Jack-in-a-box.
And I must add: those are some mighty powerful matches...
As you can see: there is a problem. It is huge and not just, as those pics suggest, in 'under' developed countries.
Europe and the States have their own 'over' developed, 'over' polluted water bay to think about.
Ellen Brown has reported that the public bank option is gaining support. According to Brown, four states are considering the concept, which is a proven banking system for North Dakota. This end run around the useless Too-Big-To-Fail comatose banks is a real threat to Wall Street. But this concept is perfectly legal. The four states considering the bill are Michigan, Washington, Illinois, and Massachusetts.
I have written about the "Move Your Money" concept and certainly this public bank system would strengthen the community banks. Perhaps in the aftermath of this states rights movement, Ben Bernanke wants absolute control over the smaller community banks. Indeed, if these banks caused the economy to grow, he would have less ability to tamp down inflation by controlling lending, as he does now by giving banks the option to borrow low and invest in treasuries instead of main street.
Ben would have to go back to monetary policy or capital requirement controls to control the overheating of the economy. That would be good because it would mean that ponzi housing scams and the like would not be so manageable. We don't want them to be manageable because we don't want them to happen. If big banks knew that they were vulnerable to assured destruction in the face of their ponzi excesses, then the likelyhood of anything like this happening again would diminish.
Indeed, the public state banks could diminish the power of the New World Order in economics.
Not only have these four states opted to consider the state bank concept, but there are seven candidates running on the state bank platform. Ellen Brown has reported that these candidates view Washington as having abdicated responsibility for making sure that the states can keep their budgets under control. She makes the case that the only state left with a surplus is the only state with a public state bank, North Dakota.
It is time that the issuance of money be returned to the people, and indeed, through state public banks this would be the effect. I hope that we can get behind the concept. We could even nationalize the Fed to make sure that lending is placed with effective banks, not comatose ones.
The Fed, then, would have still power to control the overheating of the economy by the tried and true methods of interest rate control or by simply requiring higher capital requirements for all banks. For those who think that interest rate control is not the way to go, then perhaps that method could be abandoned in favor of simply requiring the higher capital requirements in times of excess money creation.
Then there would be no more stealing from the taxpayer in order to make banks whole. This simply must stop and banks cannot profit off treasuries in the way that they have been doing. Most of us are in agreement that stealing from the treasury is a bad idea. This idea of state banks that Ellen Brown has championed for some time may just be the way to rescue main street from the excesses of Wall Street and rescue the average Joe from the credit crisis. Disclosure: No positions
I am retired from Fresno County. I like to blog and comment on financial matters. I knew of the housing bubble in late 2005, way before Cramer. And I am an all star on Hubpages with over 100 hubs published. My handle is "bgamall" on Hubpages. I am most proud of:... More
Well, being in Greedland, one have to align oneself to the level of the Greed people and talk a language they will understand.
To get their attention, words like Democracy, Freedom and Respect can't translate well since they mean an entirely new thing in Greed speech as we can see when Pope Glen Beck the Loonie and Fuhrer Rush use them to talk to the fateful masses.
So, the only alternative left is to vote with your money. Put your cash where YOUR will is not theirs.
Not a new concept, I know, but still effective. Most of the time old ideas (like Democracy, Freedom and Respect) are the way to go. Look at how Repug have been using the same scare tactics since the Reconstruction and how it still work like a Swiss clock!
So here's a wonderful tool to help you think before you shop:
Companies donate to political campaigns in order to gain some leverage over policy making processes. This fun interactive graphic (via) allows you to see which companies donate primarily to Republican and Democratic campaigns, and which straddle the political fence. These are the companies with the largest total contribution:
The most Republican leaning:
The most Democratic leaning:
You can also search by type of company. For example, media and entertainment:
Transportation:
Pharmaceuticals:
Taxes are being raised. Draconian cuts in services are being made. Public employees are being fired. The tissue-thin national economic recovery is being undermined. And in many cases, the most vulnerable populations — the sick, the elderly, the young and the poor — are getting badly hurt.
Arizona, struggling with a projected $2.6 billion budget shortfall, took the drastic step of scrapping its Children’s Health Insurance Program. That left nearly 47,000 low-income children with no coverage at all. Gov. Jan Brewer is also calling for an increase in the sales tax. She said, “Arizona is navigating its way through the largest state budget deficit in its long history.”
In New Jersey, the newly elected governor, Chris Christie, has proposed a series of budget cuts that, among other things, would result in public schools receiving $820 million less in state aid than they had received in the prior school year. Some well-off districts would have their direct school aid cut off altogether. Poorer districts that rely almost entirely on state aid would absorb the biggest losses in terms of dollars. They’re bracing for a terrible hit.
For all the happy talk about “no child left behind,” the truth is that in Arizona and New Jersey and dozens of other states trying to cope with the fiscal disaster brought on by the Great Recession, millions of children are being left far behind, and many millions of adults as well.
“We’ve talked in the past about revenue declines in a recession,” said Jon Shure of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, “but I think you have to call this one a revenue collapse. In proportional terms, there has never been a drop in state revenues like we’re seeing now since people started to keep track of state revenues. We’re in unchartered territory when it comes to the magnitude of the impact.”
Massachusetts, which has made a series of painful cuts over the past two years, is gearing up for more. Michael Widmer, president of the Massachusetts Taxpayers Foundation, told The Boston Globe: “There’s no end to the bad news here. The state fiscal situation is already so dire that any additional bad news is magnified.”
California has cut billions of dollars from its education system, including its renowned network of public colleges and universities. Many thousands of teachers have been let go. Budget officials travel the state with a glazed look in their eyes, having tried everything they can think of to balance the state budget. And still the deficits persist.
In the first two months of this year, state and local governments across the U.S. cut 45,000 jobs. Additional layoffs are expected as states move ahead with their budgets for fiscal 2011. Increasingly these budgets, instead of helping people, are hurting them, undermining the quality of their lives, depriving them of educational opportunities, preventing them from accessing desperately needed medical care, and so on.
The federal government has tried to help, but much more assistance is needed.
These are especially tough times for young people. “What we’re seeing now in Arizona and potentially in New Jersey and other states spells long-term trouble for the nation’s children,” said Dr. Irwin Redlener, a pediatrician who is president of the Children’s Health Fund in New York and a professor at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health.
“We’re looking at all these cuts in human services — in health care, in education, in after-school programs, in juvenile justice. This all points to a very grim future for these children who seem to be taking the brunt of this financial crisis.”
Dr. Redlener issued a warning nearly a year ago about the “frightening” toll the recession was taking on children. He told me last April, “We are seeing the emergence of what amounts to a ‘recession generation.’ ”
The impact of the recession on everyone, of whatever age, is only made worse when states trying to balance their budgets focus too intently on cutting services as opposed to a mix of service cuts and revenue-raising measures.
As Mr. Shure of the Center on Budget noted, “The cruel irony is that in a recession like this, the people’s needs go up at the same time that the states’ ability to meet those needs goes down.”
Budget cuts also tend to weaken rather than strengthen a state’s economy, especially when they entail furloughs or layoffs. Government spending stimulates an economy in recession. And wise spending is an investment in everyone’s quality of life.
All states have been rocked by the Great Recession. And most have tried to cope with a reasonable mix of budget cuts and tax increases, or other revenue-raising measures. Those that rely too heavily on cuts are making guaranteed investments in human misery.
I hope that John Cory will forgive me if I try to share his outrage and hunger for justice.
We must stop the insanity: it must be done before irreparable damage is done to this country and it becomes ungovernable by normal citizens.
We are seeing a wonderfully orchestrate coup by the corporate powers that be to hijack a whole nation for profit. Their only line of defence is that this treasured pie will soon be shared through jobs creation and all this power and all the riches will trickle down to the Wal Mart masses.
Sure.
Sign the petition: at least, you'll be able to have your Howard Beale's moment from the movie Network and let it all out: 'I'm as mad as hell, and I'm not gonna take it anymore!'
Sometimes, insanely defending humanity is the only response to people drunk on numbers, guns and power.
American flag behind barbed wire, and all that implies, 06/15/09. (photo: Public domain)
am angry.
I'm tired of pundits and know-nothing media gasbags. I'm tired of snarky "inside politics" programming. I am sick of the bigotry and hatred of "birthers" and faux patriotic cranks and their GOP puppet masters. And I'm really pissed at the Democratic Party that confuses having a plate of limp noodles with having a spine.
I'm going to vomit if I hear the word "bipartisanship" one more time.
It was "bipartisanship" that gave us this activist conservative Supreme Court. A Supreme Court that says money is free speech and corporations are persons except when real people try to hold them accountable for their greed and poisonous ways.
"Bipartisanship" gave us the Patriot Act and FISA and illegal wiretaps and two wars and "free speech zones" and "no fly" lists. God bless bipartisan America.
I get nauseated every time the Senate explains how it takes a super majority to do anything for the American people. Tell you what Senate Bozos, if it takes 60 votes to pass legislation then it should take 60% of the popular vote to get you elected.
When some Tea Party crank says, "I want my country back," I respond, "No madam, you want your country backward."
When a deficit-mongering politician says, "How do we pay for this?" Why not ask, "What did you Republicans do with the surplus we Democrats left you?"
When a compassionate conservative says, "Healthcare reform is socialism," why not answer, "No, sir it is the moral and American way to care for people."
Yes, I can hear it now: "You are naïve and simplistic. These are complicated matters and require sophisticated solutions. Democrats are a big tent and strive for balance. But Republicans block our path at every turn. We are thinking and considering new ways to work in harmony with everyone."
Bite me.
The only thing you get with "harmony" is a Barbershop Quartet.
Democrats stop being Republican Lite. Stop whining about that mean GOP and their nasty messaging. Grow a pair, get a message, get a bumper sticker and hang it out there. Get some strong vivid talking points.
G-O-P = Greed Over People.
Greed Kills - jobs, people and the economy.
Terrorism is Viagra for Republicans: The more fear - the more excited they get.
When a soldier dies for America, who dares ask if they were gay or straight?
Don't act so shocked, Democratic Party. Have you looked around lately?
You're losing the young vote that showed up to elect Obama. You're losing those old enough to remember real Democrats. Why? Because you don't talk to them any more than you talk to me. You talk at me. You talk around me. You talk down to me. You talk about me. You don't talk with me. And you don't inspire and you don't champion and without that you are nothing more than an arbitrator of compromise and abdication.
You are facing a bully. Deal with it!
Republicans want the country backwards. They champion superstition over science because it entrenches ignorance and bigotry and captures the easily frightened.
Republicans treat the Constitution the way they treat the Bible, with selective interpretation and selective application to others while exempting themselves from judgment and accountability.
Republicans preach the gospel of fear because fear is darkness and darkness covers their theft of civil liberties and Constitutional principles.
For thirty years the Republican Party has claimed the mantle of law and order but now quake in dread of the American judicial system when putting terrorists on trial. How criminal is that?
Torture is illegal. Period. John Wayne and Jack Bauer were not our Founding Fathers - only in the make-believe world of Republican drugstore-patriots.
DADT needs to be repealed. Now. It is unconscionable, immoral, and disgusting.
Empathy, compassion and equality are not pejoratives. They are American values proven again and again throughout our history.
Republicans believe that bake-sales and cookies for chemotherapy best determine the value of life and healthcare because life is a pre-existing condition and the "free market" should not have to take on such a high risk - after all, no one gets out alive, so why should the corporation be left holding the bag? Unless of course the price is right.
Republicans believe that government should keep its hands off healthcare but should put its hands inside a woman's body.
Republicans believe in small government - small enough to hold the "right" people and small enough to be owned and operated by the "right" people. And who are the "right" people? Them. Not you.
Democratic Party, DNC, DLCC, DSCC or whatever your acronym - I have only one question for you: Really?
You can't win against these guys? You can't get your message out against these guys? You can't give America leadership against these guys?
Where I am, there is a small blizzard and the girls are joyously rioting in the snow.
But for me, to paraphrase Shaky, this is the winter of my discontent.
The political landscape that is emerging from the cold here is one of catastrophic, epic shithole proportion.
Stephen Harper have decided that he doesn't need parliament to have a good time after all and decreed - by some imaginary superhero' s omnipotence - that they can all go take a hike until March... because the economy is getting better and he needs to think!
In my birth country, the judges of the Supreme Court have decided that corporation needed free reign on every political aspect of governance and could flux and influence as many 'guns-for-hire' they wanted to make sure their satisfaction was guaranteed.
And Haiti, birth place of my mother and her 12 long-exiled siblings, is oozing and burning like an infected blister in the sun, while every doctor on the planet is making promises of doing something very soon about it.
Obama - and this is no typo - Obama lost Massachussetts' election AND the Kennedy seat (!) because he believed- unlike every single voter that choose his name over McPalin - the right-wing dream pairing of the century- that he must represent the center and keep the Bushes' legacy alive. Even if it means taking the blame for all their failures, excesses, ugliness, law breaking craziness and their deficit.
Somehow, change meant not rocking the boat.
Believe me, I know he must feel pressured from all over to keep quiet, lay low and let the Big Boys handle it. He actually, like Colin Powell before him, spent all his political capital, credence and reputation for the status quo so as to make those Big Boys as comfy as possible.
All the while, the middle class and Main Street were ready to follow him anywhere as long as it wasn't to More of the Same.
But he's not the only one that should be blamed.
Those famous blue dog Dems should all be called teh 'We're in the Pockets of the Healthcare Industry ... and They're in Mine! Tee-Hee!' stupid coalition. They're exchangeable monkeywrenches needed to grind everything to a halt.
And the Supreme Court just gave them a raise. Indirectly, of course...
Now what?
What is wrong with this pictures? The entire population wants Obama to create jobs while keeping government spending low. Most gave a blank check to the private sector and are still waiting for the trickle down thingy to take effect. (Jobs? From the private sector? They have jets and bonuses to think of!) They want the Golden Days to come back but without any rules, unions, taxes, trade barriers and a war that eats 70% of all the government's budget.
Yeah... Right...
Mr. President. Good luck. And forgive the Middle Class because they just don't know in what mess they're in. Too bad they'll blame you for all of it.
But I can't help it, I still hope for you. Read a lefty someday. Better yet: take one in your administration. They might surprise you. Maybe even help you. You would need a friend.
Shelby Foote (R.I.P.), but I’m conversant in most of the military and political history surrounding that war. Hey, it’s the war that (indirectly) set me free, and it’s easily the most interesting war America has ever been a part of.
am angry.
