Two senators who were leading separate efforts to put Congress on record against President Bush's troop buildup in Iraq have joined forces. Republican John Warner and Democrat Carl Levin have agreed on a nonbinding resolution that would oppose the buildup and potentially embarrass the White House.
Oh, whoopee. Boy, that will show him. Bush will be so embarrassed.
It won't stop the buildup, it's won't stop the war, it won't bring any troops home, and it sure as hell won't stop Bush from starting another war against Iran.
But hey, it's probably the most we can expect from the midgets in Congress.
Next year they will be passing nonbinding resolutions suggesting that we probably shouldn't have bombed Iran and created an even worse mess.
"Know what you would destroy," it says. What follows is a video, a montage of images of a modern city -- fountains, flowering parks, flowing streams, tree-lined streets, a city skyline against the backdrop of magnificent snow-covered mountains, and of course people. There are images of children, musicians, crowds on the street, smiling women...
It looks like a place you'd like to live in.
The images in the video are all of Tehran, Iran.
Iran, the country that Bush and the neocons are lusting after, the next country that they want to destroy after Iraq and Afghanistan. Congress, which has the power to stop them, is mouthing platitudes and will do nothing if Bush the Decider orders the planes to rain destruction on this country, this beautiful city.
This is the kind of in-the-gut reporting that you would hope would come from NBC, CNN, though not from Fox news of course. If this kind of thing had been available before we allowed the Neanderthals in the administration to start a war with Iraq, we might have decided to reign them in. But, of course, NBC, CNN, ABC, did no such thing.
These images don't come from the corporate media. They are on a website. Take a look at it and know what we are about to destroy.
http://www.lucasgray.com/video/peacetrain.html
I recently wrote about putting the story and picture of a civil rights leader, Medgar Evers, in the Palm Beach Times in 1963 and the reaction of one old-timer to putting a picture of a black man Page 1.
A friend, also a newsman, expressed astonishment: "Surely, the management then wasn't that awful."
They were, but even they knew the times were changing and they ignored my breaking one of the most sacred Southern traditions.
A few years earlier, I'd been working at the Orlando Sentinel during the segregation lunch counter sit-ins. I was told, though I never actually saw the memo, that the publisher had sent a note around to senior editors saying that under no circumstances was a sit-in story to appear on page 1 because, "I'm not giving those niggers any more publicity than I have to."
In the year that I was there, no sit-in story ever appeared on Page 1.
When I was reading a chapter in the book, History Lessons: How textbooks from around the world portray US history, about the Cuban missile crisis, it brought back somber memories of that dangerous time.
When President Kennedy put up a blockade around the country to prevent Russian ships from carrying cargo to Cuba, it was an act of war. Some administration officials thought that there was a 50-50 chance of nuclear holocaust if they put a blockade in place.
But they did it anyhow.
Kennedy was not the king of Camelot; he was a madman. He and his lackeys were willing to put the whole world to the fire over some meaningless missiles in Cuba in an attempt to prove who had the bigger balls.
I was in Florida at the time and watched the madness with disbelief, and a great deal of fear.
In the end, Khrushchev proved to be saner than Kennedy and backed down, pulling his missiles out of Cuba. Nuclear war was averted, but it was close.
A former sheriff's deputy in Mississippi has just been arrested for the murders of two 19-year-old black men who were beaten and thrown alive into the Mississippi River in 1964.
The killings of blacks was still sanctioned by the South in the 60s and white murderers were routinely set free. But times they are achanging and several murderers have been belatedly brought to justice in recent years, including the man who assassinated NAACP activist Medgar Evers in 1963.
That's one I particularly remember because I was putting out the front page of the Palm Beach Times at the time and I put the story, including Medgar Evers picture, on page 1.
When the papers were first brought to the newsroom, one of the old-timers erupted in fury. He called me some choice names and informed me that was the first time a picture of a "nigger" had ever been on the front page of the paper.
I heard nothing more about it from my superiors, and I don't know whether that was true. I rather hope it was. I'd like to think I struck some small blow for racial justice, because I didn't do anything else during the civil rights movement.
MoveOn.org breathlessly tells me that Speaker Pelosi and the House wrapped up their historic '100 Hours' push, passing eight key measures, with 13 hours to spare.
The eight measures are: Restricting lobbyists, No new deficit spending, 9/11 Commission security recommendations, Increase the minimum wage, Support stem cell research, Lower-cost prescription drugs, Cut student loan interest rates, Cut oil company subsidies and invest in safe alternatives.
Whoopee.
The Devil, of course, is in the details. If you believe the measure they passed will do anything to stop lobbying, for example, I have a bridge to sell you in Brooklyn.
More importantly, notice what is not on the list -- impeach President Bush...
>let me repeat that IMPEACH PRESIDENT BUSH, without taking that measure the rest of it is just a lot of hot air.
But let's go on. What's also not on the list:
-- ending the war on Iraq
-- preventing a war on Iran
-- doing something about global warming
-- giving us universal health care
-- truly cutting back on corporate welfare
The 100 Hours push is a joke, and the Democrats are clowns.
Qantas said the man's T-shirt had potential to offend other passengers and barred him from a flight.
The T-shift features an image of President George W Bush, along with the slogan "World's Number One Terrorist".
I wonder if the T-shirt had lied and featured Osama bin Laden as the "World's Number One Terrorist," would the passenger have been allowed to board?
There is one Republican candidate for president that I can enthusiastically endorse -- Rep. Ron Paul from Texas.
I know, I know, he doesn't have a tame quail's chance in Cheney's gunsights. But while a few Democrats are timorously saying that well, it's possible that we maybe ought to start thinking about withdrawing a few troops someday in the far future, Ron Paul has been against the Iraq war from the start.
As the media, politicians and media cower in hiding while Bush prepares to take us to a new war with Iran that will be even more ugly, obscene and dangerous, a man with his anti-war credentials is essential to national survival.
"We Want Tough Action, not Toothless Resolutions," TrueMajority thunders in an email,
"Now that we have a Congress that can make some progress in Iraq, don't let the Democrats cave in" the email goes on. "Push them to pass meaningful legislation that will actually change the direction in Iraq."
Unh huh.
Congress has the authority to end the war now. They control the purse strings and if they should decide the money should only be spent on bringing the troops home, we would be out of the war in 3 to 6 months.
But Congress is too gutless to do that, or to do the only thing that would truly change things -- impeach George Bush.
I sent TrueMajority an email reply making that point:
"This is typical of the messages I keep getting from True Majority. While it is a fine sentiment, it is useless.
"The only "meaningful legislation" that will make any difference in the path that the nation is on is impeachment and True Majority should be devoting the time, energy and money of its followers to that end.
"Everything else is meaningless feel-good rhetoric."
But TrueMajority is as unlikely to act as Congress.
It has to be one of the most outrageous statements by any autocratic, dictatorial, callous, cold, inhuman and ruthless leader in history.
After we brutally invaded a country that had never lifted a finger against us, slaughtered more than 600,000 of its citizens, destroyed its culture, shattered it into warring remnants, George Bush, the moron who started it, said: "The Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude."
Douglas Herman says New York City's troubles are all a matter of karma stemming from refusal to honestly investigate the crime of 911:
"New York has become a laughingstock, an embarrassment, a sham; a city of pimps and wimps only concerned with money... A city filled with millions of media words concerning her collapsing sports teams but none concerning her oddly collapsing skyscrapers."
The following was posted as a comment to my last post on a mirror LiveJounal blog. I am reposting it here. Thanks to the author, Ken Larson.
Deck
THE MILITARY INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
There are good points in your article. I would like to supplement them with some information:
I am a 2 tour Vietnam Veteran who recently retired after 36 years of working in the Defense Industrial Complex on many of the weapons systems being used by our forces as we speak.
If you are interested in a view of the inside of the Pentagon procurement process from Vietnam to Iraq please check the posting at my blog entitled, “Odyssey of Armaments”
http://rosecoveredglasses.blogspot.com/2006/11/odyssey-of-armaments.html
The Pentagon is a giant, incredibly complex establishment, budgeted in excess of $500B per year. The Rumsfelds, the Administrations and the Congressmen come and go but the real machinery of policy and procurement keeps grinding away, presenting the politicos who arrive with detail and alternatives slanted to perpetuate itself.
How can any newcomer, be he a President, a Congressman or even the new Sec. Def.Mr. Gates, understand such complexity, particularly if heretofore he has not had the clearance to get the full details?
Answer- he can’t. Therefore he accepts the alternatives provided by the career establishment that never goes away and he hopes he makes the right choices. Or he is influenced by a lobbyist or two representing companies in his district or special interest groups.
From a practical standpoint, policy and war decisions are made far below the levels of the talking heads who take the heat or the credit for the results.
This situation is unfortunate but it is absolute fact. Take it from one who has been to war and worked in the establishment.
This giant policy making and war machine will eventually come apart and have to be put back together to operate smaller, leaner and on less fuel. But that won’t happen until it hits a brick wall at high speed.
We will then have to run a Volkswagen instead of a Caddy and get along somehow. We better start practicing now and get off our high horse. Our golden aura in the world is beginning to dull from arrogance.
"In many ways," Charles Sullivan says, "George W. Bush is the perfect ... emissary of the ruling class. He possesses all of the qualifications...: callousness and indifference to the needs of others, the absence of conscience, truncated mental capacity... a penchant for cruelty ... a powerful sense of nobility and entitlement that stems from being born into wealth and privilege. He is also a pathological liar...."
Corporate America placed Bush in the White House, Sullivan adds, to put virtually all of our tax dollars into supporting the military industrial complex. "The people who put him in office intend to end public ownership of the commons...If Bush and his handlers prevail in the class struggle, all social programs of value to the middle class and the poor, including Social Security, will be privatized and run for profit...."
Read the whole trenchant essay:
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/4676
Three warmongers -- Sen. Hilary, Sen. Bayh and Rep. John McHugh -- are off to Iraq so they can see the Disney World version of the war inside the Green Zone bubble.
They will come back and declare that more troops aren't the answer, but if we just hold on a little while longer...
Why do we keep electing these clowns?
The imbecile in charge has done it again.
The Democrats who won back control of Congress primarily because people wanted an end to the war on Iraq are reduced to bleating that they will control the surge.
They won't pull out, they will just complain that George Bush doesn't listen to them.
And nobody listens to the voter.
America has become so blase about killing people anywhere in the world anytime it wants to, the accounts of our latest outrage in Somalia are given ho-hum treatment by the media, politicians, and the public.
I doubt if one person in 50 could tell you exactly where Somalia is, but that doesn’t matter, if we want to kill the people there, it’s all right with most of us.
Newspaper reports say that American attack helicopters strafed suspected al-Qaeda fighters in southern Somalia today, following two days of airstrikes.
I love that “suspected” al-Qaeda fighters. Let’s accept for the sake of argument that we have a right to kill Al Qaeda fighters anywhere anytime, just because they’re Al Qaeda. [an outrageous assumption, but what the hell].
But “suspected” al-Qaeda fighters? At home, we assumed that people have to be convicted of a crime before they can be executed. But abroad, we can kill suspects anytime we want.
31 of the 50 odd victims were civilians, including a newlywed couple, a Somali lawmaker said. But they weren’t Americans, so what does it matter.
I'm not saying that the U.S. army is desperate, exactly, as Bush prepares to escalate the Iraq war.
But they did ask dead men to re-enlist.
The army sent letters to more than 5,100 officers who had recently left the service, including about 75 killed in action.
Ooops. Just kidding folks.
The army said it was it was sorry.
"One of the things I learned while exploring the Everglades," says author Dave Lindorff, "was that alligators, while looking fearsome, are actually very timid animals with walnut-sized brains...attack only small prey and shy away from anything larger than they can comfortably swallow whole. In that, they sound not unlike Congressional Democrats, who may talk a good game on the stump, but who in office are afraid of their own shadows."
Unfortunately, the shadows they are afraid of are those cast by the Neanderthal Neocons, the corrupt and greedy military/industrialists, the slimy corporate lobbyists. They are not afraid of the shadows cast by an angry electorate who want an end to the rape of Iraq.
Instead of listening to the voters, most Democrats are preparing to support not only continued war, but an obscene escalation. And if they do, Bush's foreign policy of mass murder will become as much the the Democrats' fault as the Republicans.
It's not only big brother who is watching, it might be anyone with a cell phone.
CNET News reports that camera-equipped phones have delivered images of some of the most-talked about stories in recent months and "turned regular folks who happen upon crimes, celebrity gaffes and civil catastrophes into photojournalists. And with sites such as YouTube and Revver.com...millions of Web users can witness these events from a you-were-there perspective."
Cnet gives several examples -- the hanging of Saddam Hussein, the July 2005 London bombings, the tsunami, police beatings, etc.
http://news.com.com/Images+This+video+just+in+from+a+cell+phone.../2300-1041_3-6146958.html?tag=nl.e404
Some time ago I sent the following to John Conyers. I never got an answer, of course, and nothing has changed. In America, we're losing our democracy bit by bit, while most of sit befuddled in front of the TV listening to the Big Brother lies regurgitated by the corporate media.
----
Dear John Conyers:
You say that "I have agreed with Speaker-to-be Pelosi that impeachment is off the table."
Which is both absurd and cowardly.
If this administration's criminal acts are let stand, it endangers our democracy to a frightening decree.
Before and after the election, Democrats have been bleating, 'no impeachment, no impeachment, no impeachment.'
Before the election, they worried that the 30 to 35 percent of voters who actually like Bush would be upset. More importantly, they worried that the raving rightwing pit bulls from hell like Rush Limbaugh who are are given free reign in the corporate media would tear them to pieces.
But they are doing the same thing after the election that proved the voters don't support this inept and murderous regime.
Why, for god's sake, why?
Some Democrats say that it's not the time for partisan bickering. Instead they want to work on the Democrats agenda: repeal the tax cuts for the rich, raise the minimum wage, enact universal health care, work on global warming, etc.
Yeah, right. The Democrats are owned by the same corporations and rich oligarchy that own the Republicans, So don't expect anything beyond a tepid minimum raise hike.
Others say that impeaching Bush would mean that we would get the even worse Cheney. Un huh. If you see the mayor commit mass murder in front of City Hall, you don't decide to let it pass because you don't like his successor.
At any rate, Cheney is already president in all but name. If he succeeded Bush because of impeachment, he would be too hamstrung to do any more significant damage.
We can't let Bush go scot free.
There is no chance of changing our imperialist policies without impeachment. Bush and Cheney will blunder along in Iraq and perhaps even start a new war with Iran, the Democrats will wring their hands, and hundreds of thousands of more will die.
Impeach the bastard.
In a world where global warming is a catastrophe that will be felt in most of our lifetimes, where a war against Iraq is being waged by the US at a cost of thousands of American troops and hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis, where billions of people live in poverty and despair, it is perhaps understandable that we won't pay any attention to something as baffling and as elusive as the UFO phenomenon.
But the phenomen is real and has enormous implications for our concept of reality.
And yet we continue to refuse to deal with it.
The latest example comes from Chicago where a group of United Airlines employees saw a mysterious, saucer-shaped craft hovering over O'Hare Airport. The workers, some of them pilots, said the object didn't have lights and hovered over an airport terminal before shooting up through the clouds.
As usual, the government and the media treated it as a joke and refused to investigate. Federal officials say it was probably just some weird weather phenomenon.
Reminds me of one official government investigation of a UFO sighting that said it was the result of "a weather phenomenon so rare that it had never been seen before or since."
Right.