Goethe Chose Mercy

Medicine for profit: social neglect

2007-03-31T00:22:00.000-04:00

“The bottom line is that insurance companies make money when they don’t pay claims,” said Mary Beth Senkewicz, who resigned last year as a senior executive at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. “They’ll do anything to avoid paying, because if they wait long enough, they know the policyholders will die.”

motherfucking criminals

"I predict a riot"

2007-02-25T16:19:00.000-05:00

From a site titled "Gathering of Eagles."
Eagles are a wonderful symbol of . . . empire of course.

The second point of their mission statement:
We are a non-violent, non-confrontational group. We look to defend, not attack. Our focus is guarding our memorials and their grounds.

Here is what they've got planned for 3/17/07:

Gathering of Eagles is an act of love by thousands of veterans who choose to honor the sacrifice of the fallen by guarding the memorials from those who would desecrate them on March 17th in a “peaceful” anti-war rally in Washington D.C.

It is also an act of war, a call to action for every American who chooses to stand and say “No more!” to those who would spit on our veterans and ridicule their service to our nation.

We invite you to join us March 17th, as we stand together as one to ensure that the sacrifices of our fallen and the memorials that remember them are not tarnished by the ungrateful.

I think this is a gathering of liars. Their intention is to confront and defend.
You can't do that without fighting.
They advocate the war, so certainly they advocate violence against anyone disagreeing with them.

Evidence of a new Gilded Age

2007-02-22T08:15:00.000-05:00

The government favors the large over the small, the strong over the weak, the ones whose lawyer bills are paid in advance.
The government favors the corporate over the citizen, sheds the drop of blood to gain more dollars.
Polarization is on the way. Just keep on, keep on.
A new naturalism will indict those in favor.

The numbers will only keep growing

2007-02-18T08:10:00.000-05:00

The facile creeps in this government who aren't facing the fire, and most of whom, I must add, have never faced it, had better do something about this.

So here are my future plans

2007-01-10T22:06:00.000-05:00

1. To begin my exam readings this year.
1.5 To edit my bomb paper for the spring conference.
2. To take all my exams within a year-and-a-half.
2.5 To edit the bomb paper for publication in the future.
3. To write my Romantic Atlantic thesis.
4. To write a history of the Americans in the sealing trade.
5. To write a definitive history of the rise of the Shakers in America.

Yes, I think all that should be enough. For the time being.

The deception of mission

2007-01-10T21:54:00.000-05:00

Principle has been supplanted by interest in public dialogue.
Purposefulness, clarity and simplicity are gone, all betrayed by the reality of empire.
There is no American nation.
There is an empire imposed from above us by those with the most economic & political agency.
The American nation will have to be recreated, because the Constitution & Declaration have both been abandoned by those in government.
Every time they raise their hands to preserve, protect & defend the Constitution, they lie.
So the American nation doesn't really exist now.
Such a nation will have to be the product of another revolution, which must encompass the complete alienation of the corporate & current elites from power.
The party is too rich, loud and stupid; it makes me sick. I want it to be over, and I mean it.

A Reality Shaped by Licentiousness

2007-01-10T21:43:00.000-05:00

It is time to write in order to clarify my most essential point with respect to the world I've got. The United States government, in its creation of an empire beyond North America, has behaved licentiously and criminally in the interests of elites. There is no sense of mission in them, there is only the base desire to control resources and intimidate those who live in proximity to them.
The United States government has become the creature of elites, has turned its back on the desires and needs of the American people.
Who are the majority?
Those who work.
Whose voices are the most muted in government?
Those belonging to workers and the majority of citizens.
Can a government run by a privileged minority be said to be republican or democratic?
No. It is, in fact, an aristocracy.
There is no merit in aristocracy.
There is only money, which takes the place of merit, principle, and mission.

Yes, I know I haven't written here

2006-10-07T20:38:00.000-04:00

in more than a month, but I've been busy.
I've decided that this blog needs to take a turn away from political discussion, and toward something broader, something more literary. Rage is an awful thing, it seems to empower where it consumes.
I've decided I don't want to be consumed any more. I can direct my energy toward other things.

I am quite sure

2006-08-28T19:41:00.000-04:00

she has slept with the father of lies.

Quote:
Separation of church and state is "a lie we have been told," Harris said in the interview, published Thursday, saying separating religion and politics is "wrong because God is the one who chooses our rulers." end quote.

The neocon claim

2006-08-27T21:07:00.000-04:00

that we must fight terrorism over there to keep it from coming here is useful.
So useful that I think I'll assert that we must impose justice over there to keep it over here.

The neocon executive branch is determining what law is.
Jurists are being silenced.
The courts are our last line of defense against these doomed reprobates.

You can't come back again

2006-08-27T20:58:00.000-04:00

This is a story of expulsion. What's in a name? That which we call a rose would by any other name smell as sweet.
I seem to recall expulsion being a regular policy in the Soviet Union.
The U.S. expelled a vast number of people in the wake of ww1 because of radical or extreme liberal leanings.
Here is part of the shadow that threatens to engulf this country.
"I am part of the part, which was at first, the whole."
Mephistopheles, Faust.

Well since when do radical Muslims

2006-08-27T14:32:00.000-04:00

want to preserve the past. It's the period of love-priestesses wide-belted & unveiled, cuneiform tablets of divination & accounts, and careful management of the marshes by coordinating the activities of ordinary people. It's the time of Ninhursag, Inanna, Tiamat, Ereshkigal and Siduri. It's the time for narratives, narrative commentary and narrative embellishment. Perish the thought anything could be imperfect in the Muslim world; what with the final word given, the final prophet born & died so long ago, the angels so satisfied with him.
I don't think what I'm writing is anti-Muslim. My problem is that what lies in the silty sand of Southern Iraq belongs to the world. What have radical Muslims to do with preserving anything that challenges their beliefs about themselves? They are too frightened and insecure in their own identities to respect history or the rest of the world.

And now, I must point out an injustice

2006-08-26T14:59:00.000-04:00

committed by the staff of the San Francisco Chronicle. They have covered a story about an adorable draft horse named Coulter.
Here are a few facts about Coulter.
He is an American cream draft horse.
He loves to play with toys.
He is gentle, docile, and willing to work. What marvelous virtues.
The problem is that the writers have chosen to include pictures of and a comparison with Ann Coulter.
Ann Coulter has probably played with very few toys in her life.
She certainly is not gentle and willing to work.
In the process of comparing Ann's face and disposition with certain parts of Coulter's anatomy, I contend that Coulter has been wronged horribly. If anything, Ann and these writers should walk to the zoo and apologize to Coulter.
I tell you, the crimes against the silent and graceful never end.

It beats smashing faces

2006-08-21T18:30:00.000-04:00

When you think of someone working for the Department of Homeland Security, enforcing the law he has embraced, abandoning the Constitution & Bill of Rights, doesn't it make you mad enough to smash that person's face in? It does me. But I've decided that the best way to deal with the people who claim that Americans don't know their Constitutional rights and don't care about them should be confronted by Americans with the Constitution in their hands & the memory of their rights upon their lips constantly.
Damn the people who cherish the law of repression they've embraced since 9/11; confront them, destroy their power with the law they abandoned, that is, the Constitution & Bill of Rights. Destroy your fear with the knowledge of what America really should be, not knowledge of what it believes itself to be.

America, lower your face, think,

2006-08-20T15:57:00.000-04:00

and choose another road, one away from the commission of these crimes.
Here are the words of the aggrieved party.
Their suffering is their illness and our guilt-- hopelessly intertwined.

Good police work

2006-08-20T10:09:00.000-04:00

will protect us from a police state.

Quote:
George Bush used a lie more subtle than Chertoff's but no less unmoored from reality, that the conspiracy somehow justifies his conduct of the "war on terrorism" and presumably the war on Iraq and perhaps, in time, an assault on Iran. Keep the Bush, Faith. But we might wonder why the Bush administration was seeking to divert six million dollars in funds earmarked for explosives detection. Or whether the existence of a plot automatically justifies a policy that many leading anti-terrorist experts have stated has left us more vulnerable than we were before 9/11. Or we might remind ourselves that good old solid procedural police work apparently thwarted the airline plot, work that had nothing to do with any U.S. anti-terrorist measures. We could also point out that the existence of such a plot, five years after 9/11 was perpetrated on Bush's watch in the face of friendly warnings from our allies, speaks more to the failure of Bush's efforts than to their success. end quote.

From National Priorities Online,

2006-08-19T18:40:00.000-04:00

a sobering site for those who believe that war is a boon to the economy.

Quote:
Below is a running total of the U.S. taxpayer cost of the Iraq War. The number is based on Congressional appropriations.

John Aravosis puts the pretender

2006-08-19T10:48:00.000-04:00

right in his place.

Quote:
We've got the president of the fucking United States of America lecturing a US court of law that it's supposed to reach decisions NOT based on the rule of law, but on "the nature of the world we live in."

You God damn stupid fuck.

You have the nerve to claim Osama and the terrorists hate our democracy? They got nothing on you and your fellow "Republicans." Do you people even believe in freedom? Do you believe in the Bill of Rights? Do you believe in our Constitution? Do you fucking believe in anything other than your absolute power to do whatever the fuck you want like some two-bit communist dictator rather than the president of the greatest country on earth? end quote.

There is no memory of democracy here,

2006-08-18T19:59:00.000-04:00

and the people will have to make something that resembles it on their terms. Where there is compulsion in communication, there can be no democracy.
Where there is mutual hatred and conflict over power, there can be no democracy.

He's making a list,

2006-08-17T20:22:00.000-04:00

and checking it twice.
Gonna find out who's naughty & nice.

Comfort, comfort my people

2006-08-17T10:16:00.000-04:00

here in America.
God has forsaken the elites and those who fancy they have power in the next life because they wield it in this world.
The corporate citizens, he has never known.
God is with these people, wherever they are.
He comforts those who mourn, makes holy again all that has been compelled to suffer by the ravages of the indifferent world.

I doubt that

2006-08-16T13:59:00.000-04:00

the thin blue line has been the only one containing African-Americans.

Quote:

Racial bias is systematic because policing institutions were designed to contain rather than serve and protect the black community. For most of U.S. history, African-Americans were denied access to the nation’s cultural and economic capital. Police forces were the “thin blue line” that enforced those barriers.

This job of racial containment has been white America’s mandate to the police and, for the most part, they have faithfully performed their duty. end quote.

The thin blue line does not concern me as much as the thicker red line which has yet to be addressed.
The idea though, that African-Americans should address their problems with police brutality by bringing suit in federal court is ludicrous.
The federal government is holding people without charge, subjecting them to torture and even prompting their suicides.
The federal government, as of 2000, has not proven it possesses any genuine commitment to the upholding of civil rights.
If anything, it has proven it is committed to the violation of civil and human rights worldwide.

The language says it all.

2006-08-16T13:03:00.000-04:00

Quote:

BEIRUT, Aug. 15 -- Hezbollah refused to disarm and withdraw its fighters from the battle-scarred hills along the border with Israel on Tuesday, threatening to delay deployment of the Lebanese army and endangering a fragile cease-fire.

The makings of a compromise emerged from all-day meetings in Beirut, according to senior officials involved in the negotiations, and Prime Minister Fouad Siniora scheduled a cabinet session Wednesday for what he hoped would be formal approval of the deal. Hezbollah indicated it would be willing to pull back its fighters and weapons in exchange for a promise from the army not to probe too carefully for underground bunkers and weapons caches, the officials said. end quote.

First of all, Hezbollah is asked to withdraw its fighters . . . from the battle-scarred hills.

Did Hezbollah invade and conquer south Lebanon?

Hezbollah indicated that it would be willing . . .

An indication is not an assertion.

in exchange for a promise from the army . . .

which army?

not to probe to deeply.

This is the most meaningless story. I would not have covered it. I would have said, "Wait until you really have something to say."

And then, there is the similar obfuscation on the Israeli side out of the ever-ready-to-speak, flyboy Dan Halutz.

Quote:

UNITED NATIONS (CNN) -- Israel's forces will not leave Lebanon until a U.N.-led multinational force arrives, "even if it takes months," Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Dan Halutz said Wednesday.

On Tuesday, Halutz had predicted Israel would withdraw its forces from Lebanon within 10 days. end quote.

First this, then that.

Hopeful prediction, contradictory conditional. Give the people what they want with one hand, take it away with the other. Sadists do this sort of thing all the time. Genuine fighters don't. They just continue fighting until they win.

A taboo case

2006-08-16T09:27:00.000-04:00

It's a sore spot, and I'll make sure to keep the salt in it. This decision and what it did must be remembered. And if some good comes of it then all this pain is not futile.
Get over it? Never.
I've barely had a chance to respond.

Quote:

At a law school Supreme Court conference that I attended last fall, there was a panel on “The Rehnquist Court.” No one mentioned Bush v. Gore, the most historic case of William Rehnquist’s time as chief justice, and during the Q. and A. no one asked about it. When I asked a prominent law professor about this strange omission, he told me he had been invited to participate in another Rehnquist retrospective, and was told in advance that Bush v. Gore would not be discussed.

The ruling that stopped the Florida recount and handed the presidency to George W. Bush is disappearing down the legal world’s version of the memory hole, the slot where, in George Orwell’s “1984,” government workers disposed of politically inconvenient records. The Supreme Court has not cited it once since it was decided, and when Justice Antonin Scalia, who loves to hold forth on court precedents, was asked about it at a forum earlier this year, he snapped, “Come on, get over it.”

...

The heart of Bush v. Gore’s analysis was its holding that the recount was unacceptable because the standards for vote counting varied from county to county. “Having once granted the right to vote on equal terms,” the court declared, “the state may not, by later arbitrary and disparate treatment, value one person’s vote over that of another.” If this equal protection principle is taken seriously, if it was not just a pretext to put a preferred candidate in the White House, it should mean that states cannot provide some voters better voting machines, shorter lines, or more lenient standards for when their provisional ballots get counted — precisely the system that exists across the country right now.

...

There are several problems with trying to airbrush Bush v. Gore from the law. It undermines the courts’ legitimacy when they depart sharply from the rules of precedent, and it gives support to those who have said that Bush v. Gore was not a legal decision but a raw assertion of power.

The courts should also stand by Bush v. Gore’s equal protection analysis for the simple reason that it was right (even if the remedy of stopping the recount was not). Elections that systematically make it less likely that some voters will get to cast a vote that is counted are a denial of equal protection of the law. The conservative justices may have been able to see this unfairness only when they looked at the problem from Mr. Bush’s perspective, but it is just as true when the N.A.A.C.P. and groups like it raise the objection.

There is a final reason Bush v. Gore should survive. In deciding cases, courts should be attentive not only to the Constitution and other laws, but to whether they are acting in ways that promote an overall sense of justice. The Supreme Court’s highly partisan resolution of the 2000 election was a severe blow to American democracy, and to the court’s own standing. The courts could start to undo the damage by deciding that, rather than disappearing down the memory hole, Bush v. Gore will stand for the principle that elections need to be as fair as we can possibly make them.

What, with

2006-08-16T09:06:00.000-04:00

defending democracies & fighting terror,
with weak education, increased incarceration of teenagers and adults,
with outsourcing the nation's production,
with skyrocketing government & trade deficits,
with turning citizens into workers & soldiers, preparing them to be slaughtered like cattle or become sociopaths in their turn,
I have to admit, I think this is our nation on the crack of neoconservative leadership.

The neocons have a brand new

2006-08-16T00:40:00.000-04:00

Neoconia.

And for good measure, here is a roster of the extreme righteous.
Cold Warriors, don't lose heart.
I'm sure you'll get the nation on the march to Beirut, Damascus, Kuwait City, Amman, Riyadh & Teheran soon enough.
And then, Bully! The entire Hindu Kush along with the lower Caucasus becomes the 51st state.

Setting it up for the next neocon adventure.

2006-08-14T19:08:00.000-04:00

I think Richard Cheney wants to go to war again. It seems we're not aggressive enough. We're going soft. We're getting indolent. What's the cure? Well we need a revelation first. A revelation from the stumbling, slow-of-speech prophet himself, GW Bush. Here he is, quoted from Seymour Hersh's latest article.

Quote:
"It’s now become clear why we don’t have peace in the Middle East.” He described the relationship between Hezbollah and its supporters in Iran and Syria as one of the “root causes of instability,” and subsequently said that it was up to those countries to end the crisis. Two days later, despite calls from several governments for the United States to take the lead in negotiations to end the fighting, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that a ceasefire should be put off until “the conditions are conducive.” end quote.

It's now become clear. Wow. Truly the words of the slow to understand if ever they were heard.
What a peculiar turn of the truth, to find that our government helped plan this unreciprocal slaughter, and what another peculiar turn of the truth, to find that they deny it with all their hearts.

Quote:
National security advisor Stephen J. Hadley said in an e-mailed response: "The suggestion that the U.S. and Israel planned and coordinated an attack on Hezbollah — and did so as a prelude to an attack on Iran — is just flat wrong." end quote.

I don't believe the White House.
I don't believe their supporters.
They've lied time & time again.
Their power is illegitimate and they should be overthrown any way.
It's all fruit of the poisonous tree as far as I'm concerned.
And I'm sure the MyLai massacre didn't happen either, Hadley boy.

With our complicity, Israel plans a defensive attack on Hezbollah.
The defensive attack, though, is not a defensive attack.
It is, rather an aggressive war.
Bush appears to support cease-fire.
But wait! Does he really? Oh, the mysterious ways of the idiot.
Bush plays up Hezbollah's connection to Iran & Syria.
Furthermore, Bush characterizes Hezbollah as a "state within a state."
So who's the next war against-- Iran? Syria? Iran & Syria together?
As I've said, the ways of the idiot are mysterious.

A committee to serve elite interests,

2006-08-14T08:07:00.000-04:00

meet the next mouthpiece for believers in the Project for a New American Century.
A government shorn of judicial review and democratic protections for the citizenry is being formed. A government of, by and for the elites, a government for a nation of dollars, not human beings.

I got a comment here

2006-08-13T18:55:00.000-04:00

and I think I may have pushed the wrong button because it wasn't saved. I wanted it published.
To that person who was reading, I just want to write this.
I am an American. Right to the center of my tiny spine. I think it's true that most Americans do not understand the realities on the ground in the Middle East. They have never experienced the kind of poverty most people living there have experienced, nor are they privy to the cultural heritage of the region. There are certain biblical enthusiasts who fancy themselves knowledgeable, but really, most Americans are quite ignorant of the divisions both culturally and politically that prevail there and most important, they don't understand the reasons for their existence.
For instance, Hezbollah is a grass-roots organization in Lebanon that represents the interests of Shia Muslims. Their constituency is local and on the ground, it is not Syria, and it is not Iran. The Shia Muslims need Hezbollah, considering the proclivities of certain Christian and Sunni neighbors of theirs whose organizations' names will not be mentioned here. But I know you've got the picture.
Networks must represent various cultural and factional groups because in that region, it is my impression, if you don't assert yourself through a coherent community, you get stepped on. Perhaps you even get thrown aside. That's why I think Hezbollah exists, and if they ever stop serving that purpose, they're gone.
These are realities that we don't face here in the United States.
We are not a country where tribes, factions, or historical divisions determine the nature of community and politics.
Even though we do not understand Middle-Eastern realities first-hand, I think most Americans have the common sense to see the difference between reciprocity and injustice in war, trade, diplomacy and various interactions at all levels of human contact. It is human to react violently or with tremendous dissonance to realities that are unjust right on the face.
I don't know what's going to come of this newly-negotiated cease-fire. I suspect that the Israelis under Olmert, true to this newly-chosen neocon form, will do something small to violate it, small enough to provoke a response of course, and then it will come to nothing. I've never known neocons to employ good faith in negotiations with anyone, and I think what we're seeing in Israeli leadership are neocons.
And like radical Islamists, they're perverts. Their minds are so narrow you could fit them into tiny glass tubes.

What makes me so angry

2006-08-13T11:33:00.000-04:00

is that the Israelis, armed with the precision weapons my country so lovingly sent them, have killed, maimed and destroyed more property and people in a matter of three weeks than Hezbollah has in a matter of years.
And they've done it with the relish & joy peculiar to neocons.
There is one thing that is also peculiar to neocons, and that is a refusal to sacrifice. Every war on the cheap, aggressive, calculated to kill the highest number of civilians and combatants alike with the least amount of sacrifice on the part of the aggressive force.
I think aggression should be extraordinary in its costliness. It should hurt. It should cause everlasting horror.
The world is out of balance.

There is the armored mentality,

2006-08-13T11:21:00.000-04:00

and then there is the flexible one.

Quote:

Too many journos are wearing flak jackets and helmets, little spacemen who want to show they are "in combat" on television. I notice how their drivers and interpreters are usually not given flak jackets. These are reserved for us, the Westerners, the Protected Ones, Those Who Must Live.

I used to wear a flak jacket in Bosnia, but no more. Ever since a bullet penetrated the neck of a colleague and was kept within his body by the iron jacket - going round and round until it had destroyed his kidneys, liver and heart - I have refused to touch these things. Better to die in shirtsleeves. end quote.

Damn straight.
After losing 19 people and getting 70 wounded in one day, Israel is party to a cease fire. I suppose they believe they are "those who must live." Contemptible.

The U.S. government

2006-08-13T09:41:00.000-04:00

is far better at killing soldiers than the enemies they face. Bad enough there's aggression on the ground. Worse that those behind it are indifferent to radiation sickness.

Read the list of complaints & symptoms. This is radiation sickness. It's as if we'd bombed them and the civilians that surround them.

Oh, and one more thing,

2006-08-11T19:32:00.000-04:00

in the United States, the people are sovereign.
But if some people are having a problem with that idea, I'm sure the majority of Americans will be pleased to teach it to them the hard way.

Oh, I just wanted to tell you

2006-08-11T19:31:00.000-04:00

that in the unitary executive universe, a/k/a Totalitaria, I'm an exception.

To the usurper who characterizes

2006-08-11T19:27:00.000-04:00

his enemies as Islamic fascists, I say, physician heal thyself.

Quote:
According to Schmitt, the ultimate power of government is not to be found in legislation, but in the executive power to abrogate or suspend legislation. What matters is not the rule, but the exception, and "sovereign is he who decides the exception." Schmitt's aphorism describes how Hitler in fact took power, with the unilateral abrogation of civil liberties in Germany. Hitler imposed a "state of exception" on those whom he deemed alien to or a danger to the regime, and those in such a state of exception no longer have the rights of citizens. This state of exception, willed by the German unitary executive power, was the juridical basis for the Nazi death camps. The assertion of notional "unitary executive power" in part results from officials' prior disgust at the inherent weakness of a parliamentary system to forcefully address long-term problems facing society, like a weak fiat currency, economic crisis, or terrorism. A "unitary executive power" appeals to the "Right," to which Schmitt and purportedly the Bush Jr. administration belong, but, one has to note, it also could have appeal for the "Left." Such executive powers no doubt appeal to all who are certain of their own rectitude, certain that they are guided by destiny or by God to act, to be decisive. Thus one characteristic of fascism is said to be "decisionism." "At least we're doing something," a decisionist says - even if what "we're" doing is in fact despotic and destructive. George W. Bush is, he tells us, "the decider." end quote.

The unitary executive . . . an idea begging to be overthrown. Just like corporate personhood, signing statements, and Congressional neglect.

For God's sake, Dr. Rice,

2006-08-10T11:07:00.000-04:00

forsake these tedious old fools.

Quote:
The tensions in the region and within the administration have left Ms. Rice visibly weary and she has at times spoken in unusually personal, emotional terms. After the meeting in her suite, Ms. Rice, Mr. Abrams, Mr. Welch and Richard Jones, the United States ambassador to Israel, had dinner with Prime Minister Ehud Olmert. There, Ms. Rice showed a rare flash of impatience with him. When Mr. Olmert responded to her request to suspend airstrikes for 48 hours by saying that Israel had warned residents to evacuate, Ms. Rice shook her head, according to two American officials.

“Look, we’ve had this experience, with Katrina, and we thought we were doing it right,” she reportedly said. “But we learned that many people who want to leave can’t leave.” end quote.

From Scott Ritter,

2006-08-10T06:31:00.000-04:00

an article worth reading.

Quote:
Israel claims the moral high ground in this current round of conflict, citing the July 12 attack by Hezbollah on an Israeli Army patrol that left eight IDF soldiers dead and two captured. The disproportionality of response aside (Hezbollah fires hundreds of rockets into Israel, and gets thousands of artillery shells and aerial bombs in return; Israel's civilian casualties run in the scores, Lebanon's in the hundreds), Israel's claim as the aggrieved party simply does not withstand the test of history and fact. end quote.

People in general know reciprocity when they see it.
There is a biblical belief that those who bless Israel will be blessed & those who curse Israel will be cursed.
I don't subscribe to it.
And no, I don't think an earthly Israel is holy. Period.

Some might say

2006-08-09T21:19:00.000-04:00

that Congress's willingness to cut budgets represents a recognition of reality.
I contend that this budget cut represents an evasion of reality.

More evidence

2006-08-09T09:36:00.000-04:00

for the contention that this is a criminal regime.

Quote:
Article. VI.

All Debts contracted and Engagements entered into, before the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United States under this Constitution, as under the Confederation.

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. end quote.

This document is in the national archives now, where I hope it is maintained well in a physical sense. Its power has yet to be realized.
Here we see again the elites attempting to change the structure of government by changing its function. Law is being interpreted, has been interpreted since 2000, by the executive branch. Bring them down.

The states must defy

2006-08-07T08:59:00.000-04:00

the ignorant and oppressive federal government.
The federal government that always deals in bad faith.
The federal government that wants workers and not citizens.
The federal government guided by a Congress that raises its pay more easily than the minimum wage.
In other words, the traitorous federal government.
Quote:
Many state officials and their advocates are furious. "You had fixed block grants in exchange for state flexibility," said Elaine M. Ryan, deputy executive director of the American Public Human Services Association, which represents welfare directors around the country. "Now you have fixed block grants in exchange for federal micromanagement. . . . That was not the deal." end quote.

Gosh, Donny-boy,

2006-08-03T11:49:00.000-04:00

I wonder what a classic civil war is.

This is a cloaked admission

2006-08-03T11:42:00.000-04:00

by Donald Rumsfeld that the Iraqis are in a state of civil war. It is cloaked by an equivocation. Equivocation is a common flaw in the logic of neocons, only eclipsed in popularity by the straw man and the appeal to ridicule.

Quote:

RUMSFELD: Does that constitute a civil war? I guess you can decide for your yourself. And we can all go to the dictionary and decide what you want to call something.

But it seems to me that it is not a classic civil war at this stage.

RUMSFELD: It certainly isn't like our Civil War. It isn't like the civil war in a number of other countries.

Okay.
Let's look up civil war and then take into account the inability of people in the region to separate tribal, religious, and political affiliation.

Quote:

civil war

• noun a war between citizens of the same country.

end quote.

Has it ever occurred to anyone

2006-08-03T09:19:00.000-04:00

that these men need the pay and benefits they ask for?

Quote:
Many of these men could find work if they had to, but with lower pay and fewer benefits than they once earned, and they have decided they prefer the alternative. It is a significant cultural shift from three decades ago, when men almost invariably went back into the work force after losing a job and were more often able to find a new one that met their needs. end quote.

I think laborers of every stripe have the right to demand a living wage and necessary benefits. With the corporate sector booming, extreme profits going to CEOs, there's no excuse for not paying a living wage.
These middle-aged men know they're being played.
And they, wisely, are choosing not to play the game.
Kudos to them. Bless them everywhere.

The Israelis are going to reap

2006-08-03T09:12:00.000-04:00

exactly what they have sown.
Their only way to prevent the vengeful confrontations of the future is to destroy every child. I know the Israelis are ambitious in the mass murder area, but really. You'd think they'd become . . . Nazis.
Hezbollah or no Hezbollah;
the hatred between the people of these two regions is being sown.

Succinctly stated,

2006-08-02T10:07:00.000-04:00

the case against the Bush Regime.

Neoconservatism,

2006-07-30T19:40:00.000-04:00

the half-man at Sherburn's door.

Quote:
"You didn't want to come. The average man don't like trouble and danger. You don't like trouble and danger. But if only half a man -- like Buck Harkness, there -- shouts 'Lynch him! lynch him!' you're afraid to back down -- afraid you'll be found out to be what you are -- cowards -- and so you raise a yell, and hang yourselves on to that half-a-man's coat-tail, and come raging up here, swearing what big things you're going to do. The pitifulest thing out is a mob; that's what an army is -- a mob; they don't fight with courage that's born in them, but with courage that's borrowed from their mass, and from their officers. But a mob without any man at the head of it is beneath pitifulness. Now the thing for you to do is to droop your tails and go home and crawl in a hole. If any real lynching's going to be done it will be done in the dark, Southern fashion; and when they come they'll bring their masks, and fetch a man along. Now leave -- and take your half-a-man with you" -- tossing his gun up across his left arm and cocking it when he says this. end quote.

Mark Twain, The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.

The most massive delusion

2006-07-30T13:38:00.000-04:00

this nation is acting upon, is the idea that the mentally ill don't need persistent hospital care.
Couple that with the idea that the mentally ill should be incarcerated and a delusion turns into a massive abuse of human rights.

Behold and dread

2006-07-30T12:42:00.000-04:00

the new reprobates.

Quote:
“When the church wins the culture wars, it inevitably loses,” Mr. Boyd preached. “When it conquers the world, it becomes the world. When you put your trust in the sword, you lose the cross.” ...
He said there were Christians on both the left and the right who had turned politics and patriotism into “idolatry.”
He said he first became alarmed while visiting another megachurch’s worship service on a Fourth of July years ago. The service finished with the chorus singing “God Bless America” and a video of fighter jets flying over a hill silhouetted with crosses. ...
In the end, those who left tended to be white, middle-class suburbanites, church staff members said. In their place, the church has added more members who live in the surrounding community — African-Americans, Hispanics and Hmong immigrants from Laos. end quote.

Quote:
22:15 For without are dogs, and sorcerers, and whoremongers, and murderers, and idolaters, and whosoever loveth and maketh a lie. end quote.

More, the expansion of Guantanamo.

2006-07-30T11:03:00.000-04:00

Two elections, stolen.
Hundreds of people, detained.
American culture, poisoned.
American soldiers, fighting desperately . . . to remain alive.
The State Department, humiliated.
The Defense Department, in control.

Quote:
Amnesty International's UK campaigns director, Tim Hancock, said: "This appears to make a mockery of President Bush's statements about the need to close down Guantanamo Bay. In addition to strongly urging the President to step in to prevent any extension to this already notorious prison camp, we call on him to speed up the process of closing Guantanamo and of ensuring that all detainees are allowed fair trials or released to safe countries." end quote.

Quote:
My fault is past. But, O, what form of prayer
Can serve my turn? 'Forgive me my foul murther'?
That cannot be; since I am still possess'd
Of those effects for which I did the murther-
My crown, mine own ambition, and my queen.
May one be pardon'd and retain th' offence?
In the corrupted currents of this world
Offence's gilded hand may shove by justice,
And oft 'tis seen the wicked prize itself
Buys out the law; but 'tis not so above.

Tyranny, cloaked as tradition, has an earthly reach

2006-07-30T10:18:00.000-04:00

and an earthly price. It elicits merely contempt and fear.
Liberty is free and divine.
America's dullness, and choice to become tradition-bound is ample evidence of the tyranny of money and circumstance, and liberty's absence in American culture.

And we see Mark Twain's two nations:

2006-07-30T10:15:00.000-04:00

one which frees the captive by principle alone, the other which puts him in chains forged by Halliburton.
Halliburton should be recognized as the greatest producer and maintainer of unhappiness in the history of the world.

Not all American Jews

2006-07-30T10:00:00.000-04:00

support the American facilitation of the slaughter of Palestinian & Lebanese civilians. Indeed, it is folly of a profound nature to insist that all minds on Israel are alike in the West.

Quote:
[Jonathan Tasini states]
I believe passionately in a two-state solution, which includes a strong, independent, economically viable Palestinian state existing alongside a strong, independent, economically vibrant Israel. It is the only solution that will bring peace to the civilians who now live in fear of death raining down from above—either because of the missiles of Hezbollah or the bombs of Israeli aircraft. ... I would end with this thought: As a Jew, I have always been proud of the Jewish concept of “Tikkun Olam” or “repairing the world.” I like to think that that is what brought so many Jews into the civil rights and labor movements in the 1960s and 1970s, and into the current anti-war movement—and, personally, guided me into the world of social justice work. I feel great sorrow that Israel is an occupier of another people and I believe that Israel can never be whole and can never be at peace until that occupation is ended in a just way. And I also believe that the concept of Tikkun Olam means that we must never be silent. end quote.

False Dilemma, Mr. Bush.

2006-07-29T20:35:00.000-04:00

No, I'm not buying the idea that Middle East peace is linked to U.S. security. The Israelis have proven themselves incapable of producing military victories on command, and that is what threatens Bush and his elites.
Israel can justly be accused of cowardice by its enemies.
Just as the U.S. can also be justly be accused of cowardice for its clandestine prisons & torture protections of the unitary executive branch.
Americans produced one victory in 2003, Iraq.
What kind of a victory was it, though?

Quote:
Estimated number of foreign fighters in Iraq in May 2003: 100

Estimated number of foreign fighters in Iraq in May 2006: 1,500

Number of civilian casualties in Iraq since U.S.-led invasion: 20,600 – 37,200

Estimated number of 88 Iraqi military battalions that are capable of operating independently: 0

Number of multi-fatality bombings in June 2004: 9

Number of multi-fatality bombings in June 2006: 57

Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2004: 45

Average number of daily attacks by insurgents in June 2006: 90
end quote.

Cowards!

2006-07-29T14:08:00.000-04:00

They're brave enough to do this:

Quote:
Israeli warplanes blasted bridges and demolished houses in southern Lebanon, killing seven people, including a woman and her five children. end quote.

But they're not brave enough to actually fight their enemies with a sustained, direct ground assault, squad upon squad, man for man. They want an American war (and American wars have become singularly cowardly after the invention of the airplane, tank & missile).
I can't stand these air, missile and bomb attacks. An attack on civilian communities is not direct confrontation. It's just cowardice.
I want people to really fight instead of pretending to fight.
I want them to embrace their mortality and stop running from it.
I want mutual adversaries worn down by massive casualties, days of sustained fighting, exhausted, dismembered, and living on dust.
I want them all to mutually embrace despair.
I want them to fight hopelessly, with no possibility of any kind of assistance from the U.S., Iran, Syria, or anyone else.
LET THEM TRUMPET THE GLORY OF THEIR CAUSE THEN.
Only then is war respectable and its costs worth bearing.
Only then, when the suffering becomes intense among the committed, is there a chance of negotiating an end to it.
Evidently, Israel is not up to the challenge. Neither is Hezbollah for that matter.
Israel has fought this war as competently as John Bolton has served American interests at the UN.

The concept of "terrorist ties"

2006-07-29T12:12:00.000-04:00

is unclear, and based on it, the Bush Regime wishes to take away a good chunk of your legal rights.

Quote:
WASHINGTON - U.S. citizens suspected of terror ties might be detained indefinitely and barred from access to civilian courts under legislation proposed by the Bush administration, say legal experts reviewing an early version of the bill. ...
The administration's proposal, as considered at one point during discussions, would toss out several legal rights common in civilian and military courts, including barring hearsay evidence, guaranteeing "speedy trials" and granting a defendant access to evidence. The proposal also would allow defendants to be barred from their own trial and likely allow the submission of coerced testimony. ...
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England are expected to discuss the proposal in an open hearing next Wednesday before the Senate Armed Services Committee. Military lawyers also are scheduled to testify Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee. ...
The draft proposal contends that an existing law — passed by the Senate last year after exhaustive negotiations between the White House and Sen. John McCain (news, bio, voting record), R-Ariz. — that bans cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment should "fully satisfy" the nation's obligations under the Geneva Conventions. end quote.

The problem is that the signing statement the usurper attached to it nullifies McCain's law. The Congress passed it, the usurper won't enforce it, and so it may as well not exist. So the criminal regime chooses to simultaneously secure immunity in U.S. courts and to increase its power to commit more crimes. All this news in 24 hours. They're the busiest sociopaths I've ever observed.

Our nation's top law enforcement officer

2006-07-28T18:55:00.000-04:00

is trying desperately to cover his regime's collective criminal ass.
I want the criminals of the Bush Regime busted, squealing, and then burnt.

2006-07-28T12:24:00.000-04:00

Quote:
From April to June, Exxon earned $114 million a day — $80,000 a minute. Or look at it this way: In 30 seconds, the Exxon Mobil Corp. makes about what an average American family earns in an entire year. end quote.

The idea of corporate personhood should be stripped from all American economic & legal practice. For once, let the people who commit these social and political crimes stand at the bar.

Less grain, less food,

2006-07-28T12:18:00.000-04:00

fewer jobs, more desperation, more poverty, and the biggest profits for oil companies ever.

One regime, a president, vice-president & secretary of state all possess direct ties to the oil industry. It must be government-corporate collusion. It must be Bushworld.

Congress suffocates the courts

2006-07-28T11:16:00.000-04:00

Though the Pledge Protection Act, passed by the idiotic House of Representatives, protects the Pledge from review by courts. The resolution as agreed to reads thus:

Quote:

Sec. 1632. Limitation on jurisdiction

`(a) Except as provided in subsection (b), no court created by Act of Congress shall have any jurisdiction, and the Supreme Court shall have no appellate jurisdiction, to hear or decide any question pertaining to the interpretation of, or the validity under the Constitution of, the Pledge of Allegiance, as defined in section 4 of title 4, or its recitation.

`(b) The limitation in subsection (a) does not apply to--

`(1) any court established by Congress under its power to make needful rules and regulations respecting the territory of the United States; or

`(2) the Superior Court of the District of Columbia or the District of Columbia Court of Appeals;'.

end quote.
So now the jurisdiction of the courts is the business of Congress, not the dictate of the Constitution. So they would sooner protect the Pledge (which they never swore to do) and attack the Constitution & Bill of Rights (which they did swear to do). Here as observed before, they are trying to change the very structure of government by changing its functioning.
The Pledge of Allegiance is the protection of traitors and elites.
For that reason alone it should be scrapped.
Every representative who voted for this should be impeached for violating their oath of office.
And every senator who supports it should be similarly menaced.
And then they all should be run out of town on a rail by the people, the real people, the citizens who work for a living that they have betrayed.

Oh, the vulnerability of elites!

2006-07-28T11:09:00.000-04:00

Protect them Dear Leader!
Safeguard through everlasting aggressive warfare, their capacity to profit from anxiety and death.
Safeguard their profits through everlasting initiatives to thwart the work of the IRS.
Groom and command the IRS, in turn, to go after political enemies. I'm sure that's the next step.
God, where is the guillotine when we need it so desperately.

Republican righteousness isn't right.

2006-07-28T09:22:00.000-04:00

Mercy and its accessory dictates, social and political justice, amount to a better path.

Israel is not applying itself

2006-07-28T08:36:00.000-04:00

to victory. It seems to want only to prevail, and to prevail is to give future advantage to its adversaries.
I was not in favor of Israel's war before, but now that they've bought the ticket to mass slaughter, it seems they're a little squeamish about genuine fighting. They'd rather bomb apartment blocks than confront their enemies directly. They are showing more faith in their missiles & planes than in themselves. And that is costly, and will be costlier. They are not afraid to kill, but deathly afraid of dying. Well that's just too damn bad. When you engage in aggressive warfare, you'd better be prepared for the possibility of losing, and to see a good number of your soldiers die. I'm sick and tired of seeing these small numbers of Israeli casualties in the face of so many Lebanese. It shows that the will to fight and die and sacrifice are amiss in the IDF.
When I think of the nature of aggressive warfare, I think of June 6, 1944. Remember? American soldiers were advancing and dying, advancing and dying, in vast numbers, and they kept coming until the Germans were exhausted and had to retreat. The advance was the product of death as much as death was the product of advance. Now that's aggressive warfare-- confronting your enemy and his fortifications directly and being willing to sacrifice the necessary number of soldiers to secure advance and victory. When you engage in warfare of any kind, you become the spouse of death, and you must give him his due.
The arrogant believe that victory is the product of mass murder.
Those who have really fought understand that victory is the product of movement. And movement is possible when you are willing to sacrifice the lives of your soldiers in direct confrontation.

I think I may have an answer

2006-07-27T08:44:00.000-04:00

to the question of this very old conservative.

Quote:
He went on: "How the hell long can they refuse to raise the minimum wage?" He was furious, he said, with the Republican leaders of Congress who keep blocking bills to raise the minimum wage, which has been stuck at $5.15 an hour for years. "I'm a conservative," he said, "but they make me sound like a damned liberal the way they act. They spend like fools, they run up the deficits and they refuse to give a raise to the working people who are struggling. How the hell are you supposed to live on $5.15 an hour these days?" end quote.

The U.S. Congress can refuse to raise the minimum wage because they feel absolutely no empathy or connection to the people trying to live on it. The Congress members have been bought by the businesses that pay the minimum wage, and so the Congress does businesses' bidding. The dollar is more important than the citizen.

Please note

2006-07-27T08:05:00.000-04:00

from the post below, that James Baker was "determined" in his response to North Korea.
Condoleezza Rice is about "talk."
The male responses to crises are "determined" and "firm."
Dr. Rice's responses are designed to appease the enemy.
I don't understand.
Did we actually give something to North Korea?
Have we given anything to Iran?
Appeasement is defined as giving something, namely territory, to the dictator Hitler because Hitler said his German-speakers needed a larger Germany.
Where is the appeasement here?
What territory have we given anyone?
I don't see it.
I don't agree with Dr. Rice. She's a neocon hack.
But the objections of Cheney, Gingrich, and Perle have nothing to do with competence. They have everything to do with sexism. They want a firm response . . . and if you understand the gender values endemic to American international policy language, you know exactly what this is.
All talk.
It's the State Department you idiots.
It's not the Defense Department.

Veiled sexism remains sexism.

2006-07-27T08:01:00.000-04:00

Listen carefully to the gendered language in the objections of these male conservative icons.

Quote: The criticism of Miss Rice has been intense and comes from a range of Republican loyalists, including current and former aides in the Defense Department and the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. ...
Mr. Gingrich agrees and said Miss Rice's inexperience and lack of resolve were demonstrated in the aftermath of the North Korean launch of seven short-medium- and intermediate-range missiles in July. He suggested that Miss Rice was a key factor in the lack of a firm U.S. response. ...
"North Korea firing missiles," Mr. Gingrich said. "You say there will be consequences. There are none. We are in the early stages of World War III. Our bureaucracies are not responding fast enough. We don't have the right attitude." Several of the critics have urged that Mr. Bush provide a high-profile post to James Baker, who was secretary of state under the administration of Mr. Bush's father. They cited Mr. Baker's determination to confront Iraqi strongman Saddam Hussein in 1990. end quote.

An officer crosses the line

2006-07-26T12:52:00.000-04:00

and refuses to serve this illegitimate and evil neocon regime.
Way to go.
He remembers his heritage enough to think for himself and act upon his independent thinking.

Americans

2006-07-26T12:33:00.000-04:00

are still trying to justify Israel's actions in western terms by explaining that they amount to strategic bombing.

The neocons, on the other hand, see the campaign for what it is, an attempt to invade & conquer Lebanon. But as usual, they're not satisfied with that level of aggression.

Quote:
Hardline neo-conservatives, such as former Defense Policy Board chairman Richard Perle and his colleagues at the American Enterprise Institute, have called for Washington to encourage Israel to carry its war against Hezbollah into Syria - presumably to persuade it to cut off Hezbollah and even, if possible, to realize a long-held dream of theirs - to overthrow Assad's Ba'athist regime. end quote.

Cooperation? Is that really the goal here? I don't think so. I think aggression is the first line of action in the minds of the Bush Regime and always will be. That is, until the American people cease to desire a place in these games of morbid profit.

I think Perle et al are clearer about what's really happening, and our government's part in it: which is, 1. nourishing the invaders, 2. discouraging compassion for the moribund nation of Lebanon, and 3. ignoring the UN totally. It's the neocon prescription again: attack, attack, hold, subdue, and make sure 1. the lines of refugees and the starving are long enough, 2. the lists of the wounded are long enough, and finally, 3. make sure the pile of corpses is high enough, to elicit the beaming esteem of enemies labeled too barbarous for any other interaction.

And now, the articles of faith.

2006-07-26T12:26:00.000-04:00

These have been posted in several places, and I've decided to run them here as well.

What you believe, if you are a Republican.
"Republican Truth/Never Give Up/Billyboy Bennet"

I got this from my Brother. Enjoy & pass along!
Things you have to believe to be a Republican today...
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary.

Saddam was a good guy when Reagan armed him, a bad guy when Bush's daddy made war on him, a good guy when Cheney did business with him, and a bad guy when Bush needed a "we can't find Bin Laden" diversion.

Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing health care to all Americans is socialism. HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.

A president lying about an extra-marital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's driving record is none of our business.

Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

Were I a member of Congress,

2006-07-26T09:14:00.000-04:00

I'd throw this "legislation" out on its ear. The president is supposed to recommend legislation, not write it.
But then, he isn't the president, he's the usurper.
And that's what usurpers do.

Specter: government spying is fine,

2006-07-25T07:32:00.000-04:00

but the signing statement is so questionable that he wants to open it to judicial review.
He's dealing with a bunch of wolves.
If the signing statements were subject to a genuinely impartial judicial review, they would be made unconstitutional. The problem is that we have a one-party state with a majority in the Supreme Court that is fully on board. They believe that our current rulers are:
1. the most virtuous we could have, and
2. their faction deserves to hold whatever power it's gained in perpetuity.
The lure of permanent money and permanent power dominates here. I don't think principle will find a way through.

Goodness,

2006-07-24T18:33:00.000-04:00

Mr Specter will not give me a check. Let the Specter be rousted, stuffed, booked & tried on the basis of the Constitution & Bill of Rights.

I want a check.

2006-07-24T17:41:00.000-04:00

Not for a million dollars, but a check on the power of the fraudulently selected, neo-conservative, unconstitutional, unitary executive, power-mad, avarice-driven, elitist, jingoist, criminal and uncivilized Bush Regime.
The signing statement should be criminalized and ejected from American political culture at every level. It deserves no precedential status in law because it is unconstitutional, anti-democratic and anti-republican.

Israel is in the deep dark corner.

2006-07-24T17:21:00.000-04:00

They must fight to win, not to prevail.
No choice. Every alternative is gone. They must continue to attack, augment forces, and attack again to keep face. They must occupy Lebanon again, subdue it completely. It is the situation they have created for themselves, and they can resolve it only with force. I'm sure my own government will give them whatever help they need-- whether in the form of bunker busters or the bullying machinations that are supposed to pass for diplomacy of Dr. Rice & John Bolton. We're just nourishing cowards to confront and destroy the families of more cowards. Where a fighting force is only as good as its weapons, cowards abound.

Something's curiously missing

2006-07-23T11:18:00.000-04:00

from this speech.
Bush summarizes American history of the Early Republic.
He mentions Jefferson, Adams, Washington, Franklin.
He calls the slaves another group of founders of the U.S., but does not mention slavery and slaves at all.
He implies slavery, but does not assert that it existed. Very clever.
What faith did they have to keep?

And now:

Yet through captivity and oppression they kept the faith. They carved a great nation out of the wilderness and later their descendants led a people out of the wilderness of bigotry.

Nearly 200 years into our history as a nation, America experienced a second founding, the civil rights movement. Some of those leaders are here. end quote.

No Nat Turner, no John Brown, no escapes northward, no underground railroad. No attempts to occupy & spread slavery to Cuba or Nicaragua. No civil war. That's convenient too. No narrative of defiance, no hint that authority had been questioned and its hold broken repeatedly in the Early Republic. As a historian trained at Yale, Mr. Bush leaves much to be desired.

Let's see,

2006-07-23T10:36:00.000-04:00

long supply lines,
partisans everywhere,
inhospitable environs.
It sounds oddly familiar.
Barbarossa anyone? Grand Army before?
I'm sure the Bush Regime is up for it.

A most unfortunate metaphor

2006-07-23T10:29:00.000-04:00

from an unlikely source.
I'm not buying the goods, Dr. Rice. I guess the presentation isn't right, the timing is off, and the media are liberal.
Billmon is the best. Thanx.

Political fear,

2006-07-22T18:10:00.000-04:00

defensiveness on the part of the encumbent elite are anti-democratic.

Quote:

When school was canceled to accommodate a campaign visit by President Bush, the two 55-year-old teachers reckoned the time was ripe to voice their simmering discontent with the administration's policies.

Christine Nelson showed up at the Cedar Rapids rally with a Kerry-Edwards button pinned on her T-shirt; Alice McCabe clutched a small, paper sign stating "No More War." What could be more American, they thought, than mixing a little dissent with the bunting and buzz of a get-out-the-vote rally headlined by the president?

Their reward: a pair of handcuffs and a strip search at the county jail. ...

Their experience is hardly unique.

In the months before the 2004 election, dozens of people across the nation were banished from or arrested at Bush political rallies, some for heckling the president, others simply for holding signs or wearing clothing that expressed opposition to the war and administration policies. end quote.

Elitism, political repression, and aggressive warfare = the Bush Regime.

Good, I hope they're frightened.

2006-07-22T17:16:00.000-04:00

History does not judge, but look bad by way of your own actions, and there's no changing it. Here, the state that gave the election to Bush expresses its deep dread of the art of Clio. Clio's going to get you either way.

Quote:
One way to measure the fears of people in power is by the intensity of their quest for . . . control over knowledge.
By that standard, the members of the Florida Legislature marked themselves as . . . most terrified of history in the United States when last month they took bold action to become the first state to outlaw historical interpretation in public schools. In other words, Florida has officially replaced the study of history with the imposition of dogma and effectively outlawed critical thinking. ... So, as part of an education bill signed into law by Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida has declared that:
"American history shall be viewed as factual, not as constructed." That factual history, the law states shall be viewed as knowable, teachable, and testable.
end quote.

Okay, Jebbieboy.
Slavery existed.
The Reconstruction became reconstructive after the Radical Republicans (your party, can you believe it Mr. Bush?) abandoned their supporters in the South in favor of big business, money, whites, and the power of the boot, klan & dollar.
The Native American nations were subject to sustained genocidal policies throughout the Colonial, Early Republic, and Gilded Age periods.
The war in the Philippines, 1902-1904, was rife with atrocities on both sides.
In the 1970s, thousands of mentally ill people were turned out of institutions and became a core population of the homeless that continue to exist throughout the U.S.
Veterans of several wars have joined them on the streets over the years.
No infrastructure exists to help these alienated populations. They are, for all anyone says, internal exiles.
Your brother's response to Hurricane Katrina was extremely inadequate and as a result, thousands of people died, some of whose bodies are turning up in New Orleans and in the flooded regions even now.
That is knowable, teachable, and testable.

Choke on it, you anti-democrat, you Ivy League Embarrassment.
If it were in my power, I'd strip you of your citizenship and ship you and your entire ugly, treacherous family to the Cayman Islands in hogsheads.

Now it's only fair

2006-07-22T11:57:00.000-04:00

to say that Marxism, which encompasses a bastard socialism with a deceptive democratic veneer and communism, is another form of elitism. It resembles Straussianism to an amazing degree. Could America be going Marxist without even knowing it?

Wow, I feel so directed now.

2006-07-22T11:43:00.000-04:00

I have Friedrich Engels to tell me how Utopian Socialism was developed. A Marxist priest writes the history of socialism in the 1880s and we should all just accept his words and ideology as the origin and direction of socialism.
Why should I question anything?
It's all just laid out there.

The narrative of the hijacking of socialism is told here:

When it is put that way, perhaps the terms "democratic socialist," "libertarian socialist," and "anarchist socialist" may not seem so strange. Is there something about a classless society that requires the existence of a government? The only balanced answer is "maybe." All of these socialist ideas have been controversial from the beginning, and have been critical of one another. For example, the libertarian and democratic socialists often argued that a dictatorship could not co-exist with socialism, since the bureaucracy and political groups surrounding the dictator would eventually form a new exploiting class, and re-establish capitalism with themselves as the capitalists.[2] This is probably what Lewis had in mind when he included democracy in his definition of socialism.

The socialists felt that a capitalist society is unavoidably divided between the capitalist employer class and the working class of employees, so a classless society would have a non-capitalist economic system. But this does not tell us just what the non-capitalist economic system would be. There have always been several schools of thought on this, among socialists. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, the major theorists of socialism in the 1800's, were careful not to describe a "socialist economic system" (though they clearly had their own opinions of what it was likely to be). Instead, their position was that the economic system of a socialist society should be decided democratically by the workers themselves. end quote.

Now here's a bit of manipulation. This author wants us to believe that communism and Marxist socialism are different. They are not. They are two aspects of the same ideology. Communism is the brainchild of Marx & Engels, and this attempt to separate their names from it is particularly deceptive. The economic system decided democratically? Well that sure as hell didn't happen in Russia, did it? I think this is just a cosmetic measure, something to make the reality look good before lowering the boom. And the boom of course, is communism.

Quote: Another element in this mix was communism. Originally separate from socialism, the communism saw competition as the root of all evils. In the communist society, the economic rule would be "from each according to his ability, and to each according to his need." But that rule could not be applied in a capitalist society, because of the defective human character capitalism produces. Communists believed that human character is formed by the environment. A competitive environment would cause people to grow up greedy and aggressive. But, in turn, a population of greedy, aggressive people would create a highly competitive society, so that their children, too, would be greedy and aggressive. Thus, the communists saw the social evils of aggression and competition as the result of a vicious circle. To break the vicious circle, the communists felt that the small, intelligent minority who understood this truth should take power as a dictatorship, an "educational dictatorship," and ruthlessly suppress competition, and direct the allocation of resources "from each according to his ability, and to each according to his need." Thus, over a few generations, a new virtuous circle might be set in motion, in which sharing and action on behalf of the whole population would replace greed and aggression as the basis of society and human character.[3]

Nothing further?

2006-07-22T10:48:00.000-04:00

Are you satisfied?

Quote:
"When Roy Veal was found hanging from a tree in Woodville, Miss., in April, for many black Mississippians, it became a tale of two headlines," writes James Varney in the New Orleans Times-Picayune on Sunday. ...
"Roy Veal was a familiar figure in the Wilkinson County clerk of courts office, researching a lawsuit to defend his family's land, when turkey hunters in April found the 55-year-old hanging from a massive pecan tree," the story notes. end quote.

The crime was committed in April 2004.
The Varney story is dated 6/21/04.
I haven't forgotten it yet. I guess the seduction of the present isn't working.
I'll be rubbing salt into this wound until I see justice done.

More bad faith,

2006-07-22T10:34:00.000-04:00

more broken commitments. What could it be? The story of African-Americans in Bushworld of course.

Quote:
Voting Rights Act -- This was a big applause line. Bush gloated about his convincing the White Sheets Caucus of the Republican Party to go along with the renewal of the Voting Rights Act. But he forgot to mention the fine print. The Southern GOP only went along with renewing the law on the understanding that the law would never be enforced. Think I'm kidding? Check this: in July 2004, the US Civil Rights Commission voted to open a civil and criminal investigation of his brother's Administration in Florida for knowingly renewing a racially-biased scrub of voter rolls. In April 2004, Governor Jeb Bush, of the "family committed to civil rights," personally ordered this new purge of "felons" from voter rolls, despite promising never to repeat the infamous scrub of 2000. The new purge violated a settlement he signed with the, uh, NAACP. end quote.

Greg Palast is the author of The Best Congress Money Can Buy, a title statement the U.S. Congress has yet to live down. True more than a decade ago, true today, no reform in sight, institutional loyalty means retention of the elitist status quo.

Here's a pregnant question for you:

2006-07-22T10:13:00.000-04:00

Is American capitalism the same as free enterprise?
Is corporate American business inherently democratic?
Would a third world war be a boon to democracy as a result?

I think conservatives have confounded capitalism and the creation of elites with free enterprise & democracy since their huge steroid high (strength, brutality, malice & murder included) in the Gilded Age. A high they are trying to get back by any means necessary. They, in turn, were seduced by the objectives of neoconservatives.
I think the neoconservatives have turned the New Deal, Fair Deal, New Frontier, and Great Society state into state niggardliness, state control, state command, state aggression and imperialism.
The National Security State is the constitutional bastard belonging to them all.
Now the relationship is not so cozy, seems all that outwardly-directed state power is costly. The ideologically committed refrain from discussing costs, of course. It is only where the commitment was lukewarm from the start, that costs are considered & coats may turn.

I would say that if you've concluded that American business in corporate structure is not democratic or republican, that in its practices and objectives it does not serve in an individual sense, the objectives of life, liberty & the pursuit of happiness, then it should not be respected through the myriad of government indulgences, tax breaks, the Taft-Hartley Act, &c.

The premise is

2006-07-22T10:07:00.000-04:00

that war is high profit, and so let there be as much of it in the future as possible.

Quote:
In April 2003, at a teach-in at the University of California, Los Angeles sponsored by Americans for Victory Over Terrorism, R. James Woolsey, a former CIA director and founding member of PNAC, told the audience that "This fourth world war, I think, will last considerably longer than either World Wars I or II did for us; hopefully not the full four-plus decades of the Cold War." end quote.

But former reichsfuhrer Woolsey, your hopes are vain, because:

Quote, John Stauber, Center for Media & Democracy:
"The Cold War was the best thing that ever happened to American capitalism, and the collapse of the Soviet Union was a disaster for the Eisenhower-named military-industrial complex," Stauber pointed out.

If this is what passes for spirituality,

2006-07-21T17:15:00.000-04:00

then I'll be damned.
Do you have a spiritual heritage, do you believe this nation has a spiritual heritage?
I don't believe in either.
Spirits exist outside time and nations. The thought that one might have a spirit has had a liberating influence in American history.
For instance, in the Second Great Awakening, a denomination was born-- the African Methodist Episcopal church. It was created by people who believed that spirituality and faith gave them the freedom and equality that their nation and culture had denied them time & time again.
The rational underpinning of the antislavery movement in this country came from two sources: the Declaration of Independence and the Second Great Awakening. Because if every spirit is equal in the eyes of God, it isn't much of a leap toward the idea that all human beings should be equal in each others' eyes and should be treated equally by the society, culture, polity and government.
It isn't much of a leap to assert that the powerful have no right to weaken and destroy the impoverished.
The problem with this is that the Second Great Awakening postdates the founding of the nation, and the Pledge of Allegiance postdates both the Declaration of Independence and the Second Great Awakening.
The Declaration of Independence takes time to read and understand.
Similarly, the Second Great Awakening is a historical event that is absolutely seminal to the development of American culture.
The Pledge of Allegiance was created in a time where people, in their xenophobia and obsession with simplicity and order, wanted simple formulas to say that would show loyalty without requiring understanding.
The Pledge of Allegiance should be scrapped, never said in public again. It belongs on the trash heap of history, to be studied as a document of the American Gilded Age, nothing more.
Because simple formulas are more appropriate for people who don't want to think, and therefore inappropriate and even inimical to a democratic society.

Suffering groans,

2006-07-21T10:02:00.000-04:00

money talks, panic shouts, and death is silence interpreted conveniently as relief.
Mercy killings, NPR?
How gentle to the medical accountants and social workers, how tolerant of the diverse crew that did these murders and how, dare I say deadly?, silent on the system that allowed them to to be committed. This is the nature of preparedeness and compassion in Bushworld, where the interest of one is the frustration and/or destruction of another. No room for severalty in the world-- the winners take all and the rest can swallow ashes.

Who is writing here?

2006-07-21T09:08:00.000-04:00

David Broder is a commentator.
A commentator incapable of writing for himself.
He wrote this commentary as coming from the lips of Barney Frank, yet claims the expression. He asserts little and lets Frank fill in the gory parts.
He characterizes Frank as an "exceptionally bright" liberal. So I suppose that the overwhelming majority of liberals shineth not in the dark and suffocating night of David Broder.
He is not sure that Bush's domestic policies have threatened civil liberties.
Yet he does not come out and say that this country is free and that those who complain about the wideness of the war on terror (like the vast number of states & localities that have passed ordinances in defiance of the USA Patriot Act) are paranoid alarmists.
His attitude toward the threatened, silenced, tortured and severely repressed left is outwardly one of disdain, and if he were truly honest with himself and his readers, he would just come out and acknowledge his hatred & contempt. Broder hints at debate rather than demanding it. There is a group of people out here, Mr. Broder, who have not been heard. They have no desire to see your version of their words, or to use you as an errand boy. Above all, they write for themselves. Now that's democratic.

As for Frank's assertion that this remains a "very free country," well you should tell that to girls who want abortions, gays who want to get married, and dissenters who want 1. to be represented truly in the MSM, 2. to be represented in Congress, and 3. to burn the damn flag (which is not sacred and never will be). Secular religion is for Romans, not for Americans. The Enlightenment happened, nationalism is a dream born of stupidity from which humanity will awaken with the right amount of jarring, so get over it.

As a matter of fact, I think the only things which should be communally sacred are monuments & headstones. They're democratic, and what you write on a tablet of stone is something that will stay with you for a long time.

Different time, same song.

2006-07-21T08:59:00.000-04:00

That is the theme and structure of the story, but one of the comments is what is of most interest to me.

Quote:
#12: It's interesting that Bill Kristol is still treated by the mainstream media as someone with credibility, while the people who warned us that the Iraq adventure was a bad idea are still marginalized.

Formica: bad advice.

2006-06-18T11:49:00.000-04:00

No excuse.

Do you believe

2006-06-15T12:11:00.000-04:00

the Pentagon's assertion in the headline & at the lead of this story? I don't.
I believe they'll disclose a fraction of the truth-- that fraction that looks best of course.

Well perhaps I should be a little more nuanced.

2006-06-13T10:30:00.000-04:00

This article states the following:

Quote:
In a statement, Mr. Luskin said, "On June 12, 2006, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald formally advised us that he does not anticipate seeking charges against Karl Rove." end quote.

And then there's this:

Quote:
Mr. Fitzgerald's spokesman, Randall Samborn, said he would not comment on Mr. Rove's status. end quote.

So what the hell is really going on here?
At any rate, I would call on Jason Leopold to expose his mendacious sources by name immediately, to devote an entire article to how he was deceived in this matter.
As for Mr. Rove, I'm sure the smearing spree will begin in a matter of a few hours at least. Smearing is the only thing Rove does in politics with any originality and consistency. Every strategy he uses to glorify his clients is ripped straight from Dr. Josef Goebbels.

Rove: innocent till proven guilty.

2006-06-13T09:51:00.000-04:00

Detainees at Guantanamo: guilty until proven innocent.

My son, good gosh.

2006-06-12T20:47:00.000-04:00

I was just talking to my son, and he would be glad to deploy . . . he wants to go to Iraq, not Kosovo. And why? "I can do more good in Iraq than in Kosovo. I can kill more Hajiis and protect my buddies."
Here's how I feel. I feel like I must have committed suicide the day he was born. I must've somehow disappeared because I certainly didn't teach him to despise in so facile a fashion. Will someone please tell me if I'm alive or dead, because it's obvious I'm dead to him.
If I were going to Iraq, I'd probably say, "screw this, I'm headed off to Uruk or Eridu. Don't call any time soon."
If I could read Sumerian or Old Babylonian stylus marks, a trip to one of those cities would be more fun than all the theme parks in the world. And here are these fools wasting time killing each other and hating each other to boot.

Giving up so soon?

2006-06-12T18:20:00.000-04:00

I find that hard to believe. Scroll down to headline: Mission Accomplished?

Quote:
The doors may be closing shortly on the nine-year-old Project for a New American Century, the neoconservative think tank headed by William Kristol , former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle and now editor of the Weekly Standard, which is must reading for neocon cogitators and agitators. end quote.

I sense that they're trying to cover their tracks.

Hey, it's the new Gilded Age,

2006-06-12T08:26:00.000-04:00

you're going to see a lot of situations like these.
It's Bushworld, of course there's no money to bury the dead, feed the hungry, house the homeless, and secure the future.

It's the ACLU

2006-06-12T08:22:00.000-04:00

versus the Trust-Me Government.
Whose side are you on?
It's bright and early, and already, the drummers are working the street.

Some pictures are worth seeing

2006-06-11T19:20:00.000-04:00

over and over again. The best of these are the most ancient, the water buffalo standing next to the tears of Tiamat and the house that stands in the winds of Enlil.
This project is the most important any occupation force or existing government could undertake in Iraq, and I note that it has required the cooperation of the surrounding nations to succeed. The entire world has a stake in the restoration of the marshes, so let's not go halfway here. My thanx to my sigoths.

Scanning

2006-06-11T08:29:00.000-04:00

& reading Stephen L. Sears's Landscape Turned Red: The Battle of Antietam. This is a history of the South Mountain Campaign & the Battle of Antietam. I've been focusing most on the places where Sears describes formations marching in columns, the ambience of the fields in every stage of operations, features and face of combat, reactions of the soldiers to combat, and individual and collective states of mind.
I've also been reading about reputed hauntings there, and the Sunken Road is a real crowd of military ghosts. I had two places to set my poem, one is the Sunken Road, the other possibility is in the vicinity of the Rohrerbach or Burnside Bridge. Several soldiers were buried anonymously in the latter area, and their bodies remain there, unmarked, to this day.

And then, there's the neocon at judgment,

2006-06-11T08:24:00.000-04:00

"Dear God, who loves me no matter what, I imprisoned, tortured & killed people because I was frightened. I declared virtual war on New York City because I was frightened of pluralism. I fought war after war after war because I wanted safety."
And God would answer, "Yeah, you're really a picture of perfect faith."

I suspect that the detainees

2006-06-11T08:15:00.000-04:00

are very divided about suicide. After all, they're in an untenable situation, imprisoned by implacable authorities who want to keep them on ice for the rest of their lives. To commit suicide is to make a statement about one's conditions, but one can only make it once.
There is also the problem of Muslim doctrine & suicide. If Allah commanded you into existence, I don't see where you have the right to deal yourself out of life. If you're answering for your suicide, what do you say, "conditions down there got too much for me, and I wanted to make a statement and get out at the same time"? Or how about this: "Since I have heard the final revelation and perfect word, I felt I had the right to chastise the infidels who imprisoned me by killing myself and humiliating them in the eyes of the rest of the world."
I could imagine there being a few questions about the nature of faith in adversity ensuing, if not in conversation, within the individual.

What I'm saying is, I wouldn't want to be these people for all the American debt in China.