"A Time to Break Silence"

"Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak. And we must rejoice as well, for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance, for we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.

...Now, it should be incandescently clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present war. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read Vietnam. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

...Now there is little left to build on -- save bitterness. Soon the only solid physical foundations remaining will be found at our military bases and in the concrete of the concentration camps we call fortified hamlets. The peasants may well wonder if we plan to build our new Vietnam on such grounds as these? Could we blame them for such thoughts? We must speak for them and raise the questions they cannot raise. These too are our brothers.

...I am as deeply concerned about our troops there as anything else. For it occurs to me that what we are submitting them to in Vietnam is not simply the brutalizing process that goes on in any war where armies face each other and seek to destroy. We are adding cynicism to the process of death, for they must know after a short period there that none of the things we claim to be fighting for are really involved. Before long they must know that their government has sent them into a struggle among Vietnamese, and the more sophisticated surely realize that we are on the side of the wealthy and the secure while we create hell for the poor.

...Somehow this madness must cease. We must stop now. I speak as a child of God and brother to the suffering poor of Vietnam. I speak for those whose land is being laid waste, whose homes are being destroyed, whose culture is being subverted. I speak for the poor of America who are paying the double price of smashed hopes at home and death and corruption in Vietnam. I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken. I speak as an American to the leaders of my own nation. The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours.

This is the message of the great Buddhist leaders of Vietnam. Recently one of them wrote these words:

"Each day the war goes on the hatred increases in the heart of the Vietnamese and in the hearts of those of humanitarian instinct. The Americans are forcing even their friends into becoming their enemies. It is curious that the Americans, who calculate so carefully on the possibilities of military victory, do not realize that in the process they are incurring deep psychological and political defeat. The image of America will never again be the image of revolution, freedom and democracy, but the image of violence and militarism."

If we continue, there will be no doubt in my mind and in the mind of the world that we have no honorable intentions in Vietnam. It will become clear that our minimal expectation is to occupy it as an American colony and men will not refrain from thinking that our maximum hope is to goad China into a war so that we may bomb her nuclear installations. If we do not stop our war against the people of Vietnam immediately the world will be left with no other alternative than to see this as some horribly clumsy and deadly game we have decided to play.

The world now demands a maturity of America that we may not be able to achieve. It demands that we admit that we have been wrong from the beginning of our adventure in Vietnam, that we have been detrimental to the life of the Vietnamese people. The situation is one in which we must be ready to turn sharply from our present ways. In order to atone for our sins and errors in Vietnam, we should take the initiative in bringing a halt to this tragic war. "

-MLK JR, April 4, 1967. He was murdered 1 year later.

Blackwater Provides US Intelligence to Foreign Buyers

So today we are going to contemplate the politics of using the word treason, especially when it gets so cleverly wrapped in the trapings of globalization. Blackwater developed it's own private intelligence agency and now hires out former CIA agents and their experience to the highest foreign bidder. And they admit point out that they are gleaning information from foreign contacts, developed by it's employees while they were in government service, which would be considered the treasonous exchange of state secrets to a foreign government if these foriegners took their information to a US embassy. The silent side of that logic is that capitalism permits the exchange of US classified information and state secrets to a foreign private individual for money. Shortly after 9-11 there was a lot of focus on the dangers to democracy posed by non-state actors. But it seems that instead of learning from history, conservative Republicans were falling in love with the concept of developing armed religious mercenary forces beyond the control of world government.

You learn in government service that it's not enough to avoid providing proof of wrong-doing, but you must also avoid the opportunity to do that wrong. It's not enough not to be caught having sex with a prostitute, you must also not be found in her hotel room with money in your hand. Here we have former CIA agents and other civil servants, building a shadow intelligence agency to collect intelligence they insist is only open source, after having spent a career developing skills focused on intelligence that was anything but publically available. What do they plan to provide intelligence analysis on? Their Global Fusion Center, staffed around the clock, searches for warnings on everything from terrorist plots on radical Islamic Web sites to possible political upheavals in Asia, [b]labor strikes[/b] in South America and Europe, and economic upheavals that could affect private enterprise. "We're not a private detective," former CIA's head of counterterrorism Cofer Black said. "We provide intelligence to our clients. It's not about taking pictures. It's business intelligence. We collect all information that's publicly available. This is a completely legal enterprise. We break no laws. We don't go anywhere near breaking laws. We don't have to."

America and Iraq have learned quite bloodly over the past few months that Blackwater doesn't believe that any laws apply to them at all, or should. If laws applied to Blackwater, as they have consistently argued in court, the ability of the Commander-in-Chief to wage war would be crippled, even while Blackwater was busy changing it's name from Blackwater USA to Blackwater Worldwide. Odd that Black insists that their intelligence operations don't involve pictures, while the live feed from al-Jazeera plays in the background and GoogleEarth is a common feature on computers across America. Yeah, who can blame the reader who swallows that one. But what is Black talking about in terms of gathering information from terrorist websites that's publically available. We happen to have had it out in public quite recently that the gathering of information from these sites uses technologies that provide illegal uses if they were used to hack say, information from Target's pharmacy records about whose getting emergency contraception. Even open source, we are talking about a global form of Operation CHAOS. Yes, the building of files on union activists and anti-war protestors in order to protect the interests of the highest bidder. Funded by conservative Republicans who are using your tax money.

How concerned should a democracy be considering that this intelligence is being fed into an organization with no alligence to the United States, and will consist of analysis of anyone who they have been paid to spy on. Such activities can be reasonably understood to include infiltration both of internet groups and face-to-face of anti-war and fair trade organizations, labor unions and human rights groups. A list of the children of labor rights organizers in Brazil and their schools and routes home. A method of concealing arms shipments from international inspection or even the law. The interrogation of democracy activists in Burma. The suppression of local activists protesting the corrupt regime in Nigeria and it's support by international oil companies. All of which are activities fundamentally in odds with the spread of democracy in the world and the idea of open societies.

Ending Poverty for the Average Federal Employee

So today let's note a rather unusual book out there in the slew of presidential hopeful pulp-novelas: Ending Poverty in America: How to Restore the American Dream. The book contains only an essay by Democratic hopeful John Edwards, and the meat of the book at least isn't endless puffing about how he's going to fix everything that's wrong with you. Instead, it's a collection of essays by both liberals and conservatives, produced by the Center on Poverty, Work and Opportunity. These essays are scientifically based studies of the nature of poverty and both the successes and failures of recent American policy in creating a fair economy for all of us. The collection begins centered around a simple set of irrefutable statistics:

"In 2005, 37 million Americans- about 1 in 8 people- lived below the income poverty level, defined as $19,874 for a family of 4. Almost 13 million were children under 18... The income gap between the rich and poor is growing as well: in 2005 the top 20% of U.S. households received over half of all income, while the bottom 20% of households received only about 3% of total income. Wealth inequalities are also on the rise: in 2004 the top 1% of households by income held more than a third of all net worth and financial assets. Approximately 80% of stock is held by the top ten percent of wealthy households; the poorest 40% of households own less than 1% of all stocks... Over 46 million Americans (about 16% of the population) lacked health insurance coverage in 2005... over 27 million workers are employed with no health insurance."

What does a poverty statistic mean on a personal level? How accurate is this idea that passing over $19,874 will enable parents to care for two children? Heck, what about single young women working for the federal government to defend the nation against terrorism? Let's calculate the cost of living for one such employee: $9,600 Rent ($800 a month, 1 bedroom), $1,960 Food ($35 a week), $2400 Gas (1 hour commute), $740 Insurance USAA, $396 Work Parking Permit, $1,920 Retirement Savings, $1,440 Health Insurance Co-Pay, $140 Prescriptions (No Birth Control), $100 Emergency Room Co-Pay, $230 New Tires, $480 Cell Phone, $252 Internet Services, $60 Bank Fees, $370 Vet Bills for 1 Cat, $1,940 Car Repairs, $120 AAA, $60 (3 $20) Haircuts, $270 Plane ticket to see dying grandfather, $120 Contact Lenses, $180 Dentist plus x-rays, $380 Holiday Gifts (including Birthdays and Christmas). Not included: Thanksgiving Dinner, Booze, Christmas Tree, Easter Eggs, clothing of any kind, movie tickets, books or magazines, Starbucks, Halo 3, dating, make-up, cable television, laundry detergent. Yes, I need the Internet, as a college student. The cell phone serves as a stand in for a land line. Total Cost for 1 Year: $23,158.

Base Salary? $23,700. A cost of living adjustment raises the total to $27,100. After $3,523 in federal taxes and $813 in state taxes, take home pay would equal $22,764. Rumors on several job sites are that pay is $33,000 and that is not true. For those of you who are curious, the cost in salary and benefits of TSA for 2007 will cost $3.45 billion, at an approximate cost of $1.91 per passenger, and $1.65 per checked bag. The cost per passenger includes the cost of screening carry-on luggage. How interesting it would be to ask passengers how much they think it costs to screen them in terms of labor. The above recounting of expenses includes $26 in prescription co-pays for medication after needing four stitches for an on-the-job-injury, my second in as many years after surviving ten years in retail with a clean record.

Edward's book notes that "One in four people who work full-time, year round, still earn less than the amount of money needed to keep a family of four above the poverty threshold... The single parent with three children, working a full 40 hours a week for 52 weeks a year, must earn $9.55 an hour to stay at the poverty line." So basically what you have here is the cold hard economic fact that a fighting the war on terror won't even allow you to provide for yourself, let alone a spouse and two children, without massive government assistance or going without health insurance. And several of my coworkers follow the later track in order to come up with money for their families, betting against the odds that all of their medical needs can be solved with extra sleep and Tylenol. Times I have required medical care in the past year? Three times with my family practice and one emergency room visit after an allergic reaction to a steroid inhaler in the middle of the night. Not that I am completely innocent, I agree, having twice had overdraft charges of $34 dollars for a total of $68 in the past year.

The Congressional Budget Office reports that between 1979 and 2000, the income of the top 1% of Americans grew 184%. Top 5th grew 70%. The real income of the bottom 5th grew only 6%. Edwards's book notes that inter generational mobility has stagnated to the point that "it would take a poor family of four with two children approximately 9 to 10 generations- over 200 years- to achieve the income of the middle-income four-person family... A son whose father earns about $16,000 a year has only a 5% chance of earning over $55,000 per year." Meanwhile, the CBO has just released two estimates of the cost of staying in Iraq. For the favored Republican scenario of continued combat operations, the estimated cost is $25 billion per year. For the favored Democrat scenario of non-combat peace-keeping operations, the estimated cost is only $10 billion per year. Both scenarios use conservative estimates on the necessity to replace equipment and armor. Some one's going to have to pay for all of this, and sorry to you war-mongers out there, but this federal employee is running in the budgetary red.

More voices are speaking up about what our money has been buying us in Iraq: Foreign Policy's Terrorism Index.

"The outcome of the war in Iraq may now rest in large part on the success or failure of the so-called surge. Beginning in February, the White House sent an additional 28,000 U.S. troops to Baghdad in an effort to quell the violence there. Securing the capital with overwhelming force is a key component of the anti-insurgency plan developed by Gen. David Petraeus, the top U.S. commander in Iraq and the military’s foremost expert on counterinsurgency tactics. It took until June for all the U.S. forces to be put in place, and the number of American troops in Iraq is now at its highest level since 2005. But is Petraeus’s plan working?

The index’s experts don’t think so. More than half say the surge is having a negative impact on U.S. national security, up 22 percentage points from just six months ago. This sentiment was shared across party lines, with 64 percent of conservative experts saying the surge is having either a negative impact or no impact at all. When the experts were asked to grade the government’s handling of the Iraq war, the news was even worse. They gave the overall effort in Iraq an average point score of just 2.9 on a 10-point scale. The government’s public diplomacy record was the only policy that scored lower.

These negative opinions may result in part from the experts’ apparent belief that, a decade from now, the world will still be reeling from the consequences of the war. Fifty-eight percent of the index’s experts say that in 10 years’ time, Sunni-Shiite tensions in the Middle East will have dramatically increased. Thirty-five percent believe that Arab dictators will have been discouraged from reforming. Just 5 percent, on the other hand, believe that al Qaeda will be weaker, whereas only 3 percent believe Iraq will be a beacon of democracy in the Middle East. If true, the surge, or any other tactical shift for that matter, was probably already too little, too late."

Americans need to get over their love affair with movie stars and cowboys as Presidents. Certainly doesn't make the world safer, or fairer, or more democratic. As a democrat, I want a renewed commitment to the ideals of democracy, towards compassion and justice. I want to see America renewed in the beauty that democracies are able to produce, in their bustling cities and the equal allocation of riches to it's people, the wealthy and the worker. Instead of tax breaks for corporations, I want workers to have the right to show each other their paychecks without getting fired. Instead of private mercenaries used to secure oil reserves, I want trained and armored US soldiers deployed to end on-going genocide. I want to be able to travel to my job on public transportation, I want utility companies brought under control, I want spammers put out of business. And I want the American Dream for myself, to be able to put away money for a new car and use my tuition to reduce my tax-burden even though I don't itemize.

I want a President who believes in the noble endeavor that democratic government was created to bring about in the world, instead of being pledged to destroy it in the name of private profit. John Edwards saves his remarks until everyone else at his Center has been given a chance to contribute, and he makes a point of including everyone's good ideas towards creating a wonderful future for America... both conservatives and liberals. And it's a good vision, about us as a people... a way to give up terror and war, in exchange for hope and peace.

"The American people understand that no one who works full-time should live in poverty... Let us set a national goal-the elimination of poverty in America in 30 years. It will not be easy, but I believe in the unlimited power of the American people to accomplish anything we set our hearts and minds to acheive. If we do not rest until poverty is history, it will be."

Technorati Tags:
John Edwards, politics, current affairs, economics, poverty, health insurance, homeland security, war on terror, Iraq, moonbat

Lessons of the Matrix for "the War on Terror"

So today moonbat shall expound on how Osama bin Laden uses The Matrix (1999) to plot his global jihad and recruit otherwise luckless young people to go blow themselves to pieces in foreign countries. You see, it's one thing to declare war on the United States, fast food and the Jerry Springer Show, and quite another to have a clue. Now, OBL got schooled in the usual Saudi customs and road construction, yet neither provide a road map for how to organize a global network of terror without potential recruits laughing in your face and going back to the Arab version of moonshine. And then OBL got his lucky break: a movie came out in America. A movie about a young man waking up to the corrupt system that keeps his true nature a prisoner and the soulless machines whose power must be challenged and whose citadels can be destroyed. That evil liberal Hollywood; don't those directors ever think about how their movies could be emboldening the enemy? So OBL hops on Ebay and snags a pirated copy from a Chinese seller, leaves some positive feedback and an exhortation to read the Koran, and throws a bag of black market Pop-Secret popcorn in the microwave. And Morpheus expounds to him all the secrets of how to recruit idiot young men:

The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inert, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it....What you know you can't explain, but you feel it. You've felt it your entire life, that there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad... What is the Matrix? Control.

If there's anything young people want it's to be the ones in control, to be outside the system, to be above the powers that be. And all that Morpheus tells Neo, all that he promises Neo he will become if he swallows the Red Pill, that my dear readers, that's what OBL tells his recruits into Al-Q. Step outside the system, your actions are for a higher cause, accept no boundaries and no limitations, you will find glory. Of course, not everyone can be the chosen one, even if you tell everyone that they will be the chosen one. Running a terrorist cell in a Western Country, staying under the radar, and reaching your target do take at least a few braincells, and not all your "Neos" have enough to suffice? So you have to get rid of them, and what better form of euthanasia than someone else's occupation? Like... an occupation by a certain Western Country in an Arab land. Iraq. You hardly need persuade your not-quite graduates to the worthiness of their target, since from a distance everything American looks the same.

Moonbat found cause to desire pills for several hours herself today, listening to the debate on the floor of the House in Congress. Republicans denied funding for the troops, of course. Republican after Republican took to the floor, not to admit that 4 previous surges have failed, not to admit that they spent years hiding the total cost of the Iraq War in six other supplemental funding bills, but to insist they were right about investing in an endless war for the mere sake that such a pursuit is fundamental to being American. Meanwhile, the total cost of the Iraq War soon shall surpass $500 billion. Calculate out how many millions and hour that is. And how much did moonbat contribute in taxes for 2007? $3,900. Did moonbat literally pay for a nanosecond of our occupation in Iraq? For the dry erase markers used by defense contractors to teach Iraqi Security Forces to yell "Drop your weapons!!" .. in English? If I insist I would rather have paid for something besides dry erase, of course, that would be emboldening the enemy. Not that they don't laugh about dry erase markers already...

Back to the Matrix. So OBL got the point clean off, that the heart of the movement should have an ethereal city away from the war with the "West" and should strike by slipping in and out of the false world, removing recruits and eliminating targets. Show recruits that the false world can be used to defeat it's own masters, and that by having secret knowledge and faith, an individual could become stronger than the weapons of war, and transcend them, even if only in death. The glamorous image of the warrior that the villains fail to see, touch or stop, destroying even those central artifices of power which reason holds as impenetrable. Shut down the system built to ignore you and your anger at it, again and again and again.

Of course "Zion" is not Iraq. The point of having a "Zion" is so that no matter where you fight you cannot be defeated, your source of fighters will not be lost, your flag is never in jeopardy. Yet out on that House floor, the Republican Party tried to cling to a world without computers, a world without cellphones, a world without globalization. A world where war is a seige of a castle, or a capital, or a country. And as always, appearances for appearances sake. The pure wish that if everything looks good, then everything is good. That the presence of American troops on every street corner in Iraq stops training camps from being set up in Pakistan-when it does not. That the existence of the Green Zone prevents Islamic extremists from a hostile takeover of other countries- when it did not. Republicans hiss and spit over Beruit and Somalia, and neglect to mention that when al-Q assisted the radical Islamic takeover of Somalia last year... the Republicans left that to Ethiopia. Oh yes, but we can't have a second Somalia, they plead. Don't they mean a third?

So long as we humor Bush and his elephant friends by calling this a "war on terror," the longer we remain caught in that loosing equation of energy expenditures that Morphous demonstrated to Neo: takes twice as much energy to swing and miss, as it does to swing and hit. No matter how many "Al-Qaeda operatives" go down in Iraq, the West always misses Al-Q. Anytime Al-Q carries out a terrorist attack on a Western target, they strike us. How can they loose? As long as you can't hit Morpheus, and he can hit you, he always wins. And instead of seeing this, the Republicans lower their heads and flail away at a target that remains always out of reach, only to get blind-sided time and again. Four other times, four other surges, all promised to work. Meanwhile, the monstrous appeal of being at war against an evil enemy keeps debate over not getting our fanny whomped time and again constrained to the classical idea of war: battlefields, generals, tanks, soldiers. But like Morpheus, OBL pursues targets not in the "desert of the real," but in the false cities of the Matrix, in the West.



Democrats like the shine of the term "war on terror," that much is true. Obama and Clinton remain on very romantic terms with GWOT, and so far, only Edwards perceives the relationship might be a little.. limiting. "I also think it suggests that there's a fixed enemy that we can defeat with just a military campaign. I just don't think that's true." Not true in Britain, where investigative work uncovered and stopped a 2003 Al-Q bombing plot and just netted 5 life imprisonments. No weapons of mass destruction were found, however, just plant food. Such a point finds itself hard to be understood. Democrats everywhere who seek to broaden efforts to combat international terrorist networks will be accused of trying to abandon the use of military force and being irresponsible. And people do understand what our "war on terror" means; it's something for which no one has to be responsible. A broad catch-phrase for whatever your chosen politician advocates, from sound environmental policies to the highway robbery that gets itself called cost-plus defense contracting. Want funding? It's for the "war on terror." Don't support tax cuts for the rich? By golly- you must be one of those terrorists!!

War remains the ultimate defense, even ones of last resort and even pre-emptive ones. You find war an appealing choice because you were lazy or too proud to deal with the five thousand things that led up to the war itself. You never will hear conservatives admit they should have listened when liberal American call for intervention in Afghanistan and the ousting of the Taliban... in 1997. Never. You will hear continued Republican refusal to intervene in Darfur (including Bush's "I really mean I might think about doing something about you" speech to Sudan) used by the Republicans to support as many surges as it takes to surpress an insurgency in a country where everyone and his brother has a weapons cache. From old Iraqi Army munitions depos. Which Bush and his cronies failed to secure. Too busy printing up that "Mission Accomplished" banner, eh? As long as we see this only as a war, all we focus on as a nation is the art of war. Not homeland security, not airline security, not international security. Not the black market, not passports and visas, not how much plant food Muhammad is buying on Aisle 5. Not of course, all the future Timothy McVeighs out there either. But I digress.

Giuliani's idea that a Democratic President would mean a return to pre-9/11 mentalities on the reach of global jihad is more than "plain wrong" as Edwards replied, it's plain hysteria. Guiliani remains the kind of politician who believes there are no cockroaches if you stamp on all the ones you see. That sort of mentality leads to the idea that if you make war on the Al-Qaeda network you can see, there is no other network in the world. While the U.S. made war on Al-Q in Afghanistan, and later after the fall of Saddam and the entry of Grand Viceroy Bremer, in Iraq, Al-Qaeda merrily trained the bombers of the "Operation Crevice" intercepted 2003 plot and the successful 2005 "7/7" bombing of our allies, in London. Two years of occupying Iraq failed to prevent, by some form of magic, the ability of Al-Qaeda to target and strike a Western City. Perhaps that is why the Republican Party stood up on the floor of Congress today and declared that "Europe was lost."

Moonbat gets it. Iraq we can't loose, but our Allies can fall to the enemy. What does a dusty little desert country have that our time-honored and true Allies don't? Oh wait, we didn't go into Iraq for oil. So it must be goat meat!!



Whatever we are there for, the pentagon has made a few moves to keep America from ever ever knowing. Opinions about
the surge perhaps:

Rajiv Chandrasekaran: Based on what I read and the soldiers with whom I communicate, it's my view that military personnel in Iraq are deeply divided over whether the "surge" will work. There seems to be far more support among officers, even junior officers, than there is among enlisted personnel. That may well be because enlisted personnel are often the ones at the greatest risk over there because they are the ones running convoys, going on patrols, etc. They also are able to see how Iraqis on the street level relate to them and whether the presence of additional U.S. forces is changing Iraqi attitudes.

The reporter in question would be the author of "Imperial Life in the Emerald City." Reporters may soon be our only source of info out of Iraq, whatever your stripe, besides the rare Iraqi blogger. On April 19th the U.S. Army issued a directive prohibiting all unauthorized blogging or personal e-mail, including one imagines, anything criticizing your CO or anything NC-17 for the wife.

Army Regulation 530--1: Operations Security (OPSEC) (.pdf) restricts more than just blogs, however. Previous editions of the rules asked Army personnel to "consult with their immediate supervisor" before posting a document "that might contain sensitive and/or critical information in a public forum." The new version, in contrast, requires "an OPSEC review prior to publishing" anything -- from "web log (blog) postings" to comments on Internet message boards, from resumes to letters home.

No resumes? No Monster.com? A ploy to increase retention, by limiting job-hunting? Not all bloggers always went unscathed before, though now anyone seems fair game for telling the truth. Of course, while this may be the final nail in the coffin for combat blogging, there's little talk about this "emboldening the enemy." Only that it would cut down on PR for the U.S. military, keep the real glory of war and the success stories from getting through the MSM and countering the bleak accounts given by the anti-war crowd of misery and death. Of course, all of OBL's little Neos won't be fooled into thinking that just because they've gone silent, there's been a withdrawal of the American military....

Neo: I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... afraid of us. You're afraid of change. I don't know the future. I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell how it's going to begin. I'm going to hang up this phone, and then show these people what you don't want them to see. I'm going to show them a world without you. A world without rules or controls, borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

Technorati Tags:
Bush, Iraq, troop surge, war, war on terror, global jihad, matrix, osama bin laden, afghanistan, homeland security

TalkLeft Learns to Say "Yes, Mistress!!"

So today marks the day when moonbat addresses an unfortunate incident when she was addressed as "SIR." Given gender and a stunning photo of my lavish red hair, this was very wrong, wasn't it??

TalkLeft: Yes, Mistress.

Let's choose a "safe word" for today. I know, that self-described "service" for busy progressives who want their own voice heard inside the legislative and electoral progress in an age of big money... Move On.

So, why is the anti-war movement so sick at heart? Why do the turn outs to the marches and rallies still suck even after a few thousand pairs of feet are argued one way or another? 2% turnout of a city so liberal the Democratic winner of the primary for Mayor orders his stationary the next day with city funds is piss poor. Especially since the march got infusions from around the country. Where was this majority of the country that disapproves of the Iraq War and elected a Democratic Congress, and why does nobody talk about Iraq?

"Now that this atrocity has moved into its fifth year, I don't overhear any street-corner, café, or waiting-room debate about what is being done in my name and yours. Of course, the war and endless war are the main topics when I'm with my friends and fellow members of the different peace organizations....Perhaps, soon, more and more of our young will awaken, throw off that blanket of apathy, examine the crimes committed by this administration against the people of Iraq and the people of the United States, and emerge as defenders of justice who will not allow the peace baton to ever be dropped again."

But it's not the anti-war movement's fault!! Oh no. Never let that cross your mind. Despite the fact that at the Pentagon, the only way they came up with that crowd was to give microphone time to causes that had nothing to do with Iraq. Like immigrants. Save the cheap lettuce, and all, but you are standing outside the Pentagon. Despite the fact that they spent more time denouncing the crimes of the Democratic Party than they actually spent denouncing the Iraq War of the polices of Bush. Despite the fact that so many of the protesters showed up to put pressure on the elected members of their government while waving the face of Hugo Chavez. But don't say it's the anti-war movement's fault they couldn't come up with the numbers to actually surround the Pentagon.

The anti-war movement explains that the Iraq War is the liberal anti-Iraq War voting public's fault: they have an imperial mindset, the fact that a majority of Americans don't support a phased redeployment is kept from them, and they've been duped into believing that the only way they can fight injustice is to shop. You see:

Let's remember, by the way, that, unlike mainstream Democratic "withdrawal" plans, the American public is talking about actually leaving Iraq, as in that old, straightforward slogan of the Vietnam era: Out now! In other words, there is a hardly noted but growing gap -- call it, in Vietnam-era-speak, a "credibility gap" -- between the Washington consensus and what the American people believe should be done when it comes to Iraq.

What I love about the anti-war movement is the whole "planting the seeds of your own destruction part." Yes, after cutting your teeth on movements to tell a whole lot of people what they can and can't do (save the rain forest, save the whales, dolphin-free tuna, stop violence against women, yadda yadda), you are told that all your skills are imperialistic. Right. Yes, because if you follow the links the anti-war movement provides to prove that the American public no longer backs the Iraq War, you find out that the answer to the question "Which of the following comes closest to your view? The U.S. should immediately begin to withdraw all its troops from Iraq. The U.S. should withdraw all its troops from Iraq within a year. The U.S. should keep its troops in Iraq as long as is needed to turn control over to the Iraqi government." is not something the anti-war movement wants to have anyone talk about. The numbers? Oh yeah. Only 21% support an immediate withdrawal, 37% in one year, 39% to stay as long as necessary for peace, 4% unsure. RightAnd I sure have noticed all the "spend your money here" payment links at the bottom of the only anti-war emails moonbat is privileged to receive. Right.

Heh. Right. If ill people need it explained to them that it's stupid to quote sources that disprove your own agenda, then yeah, that makes you an "idiot." The cameras of FOX News and the blogs of the gung-ho are just waiting to use such idiocy to feed the process of internal sectarian strife in the land of liberal, so that all out civil war will justify their having to remain in occupation until the job is done and liberals have stopped shedding each other's blood and learned to live in peace and share their toys. And back to Iraq.

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MoveOn, TalkLeft, anti-war, Iraq, politics, liberal, conservative, Bush, moonbat

Amateur Liberals Shocked; Move on Moves On

So since the passing of supplemental spending on Iraq the response of the outlying fringes of the Democratic Party seem all the rage to dish. Bush tried his best to best what he called "an act of political theater" by denouncing it as "an act of political theater" while standing with a vet behind him to the left and a pretty blond soldier with wispy blue eyes at his right hand. No one noticed, amidst the spasms of outrage over Move On's move to support Pelosi. Move On took no official position without doing something horribly democratic: it twice emailed it's members to vote. 126, 000 Move On members participated in the (first) vote. 84.6% supported the bill. 9.2% said they weren't sure and 6.2% opposed it. Both votes garnered an equal response to Move On's email vote over supporting (or not) Ned Lamont last fall. Anti-(all) war bloggers began to mobile quickly to denounce and campaign against Move On, infected with amnesia over the founding of the online grassroots organization. Which was to ah... promote legislative action that provides results over ideological purity.

Let's get out the discection kit: little scapal, tweezers, eye dropper, ruler and latex gloves. Got your gloves on? So here's this anti-war movement on the cold and hard steel table of reality before you, and it wants to know why it's not getting what it wants from the Democratic Party. Three words: Veto Proof Majority. And ah... not everyone has to think the same thing, like we were brainwashed or something. Move On might be the most accessible target and competitor for media love but the anti-war movement has so starved itself in an effort to avoid the anti-IRAQ war crowd that it bites anything that moves. One despairs over political activists who can't fathom the difference between having your bill defeated by a session of Congress supposedly elected with a mandate to alter the course in Iraq, and a presidential veto. To put a measure on the floor of Congress that will only go down in flames, is to avoid a showdown with Bush. To insist that an ideologically pure bill supported by a segment of the American population that couldn't elect a majority of candidates to Congress should trump over the combined opinions of those members actually elected by majority vote is anti-American. See there? Very little matter in the brain cavity.

Let's move on. With a deep blade into the heart. Here we find a feeling of sickness because Move On dares to stick to it's founding principles (if you don't win, you aren't noble, you just loose) and applauding members of Congress who chose to vote the Dem line. Of course, this heart may judge that another member of Congress who voted to get nothing as being a representative in whom a voter could feel pride. Others may judge, but not Move On? Others may speak, but pragmatism must be silent? This heart quivers from an urgency because tens of thousands of people will die in Iraq if Bush blinks and signs Pelosi' budget? Of course, hundreds of thousands of people will die from other preventable reasons in that same ammount of time, and frankly if the anti-war movement spent all of it's time and money in other directions, more lives would be saved. So it is a fair question for Move On to ask: are you in this to bring the Iraq War to resolution or to see your mug shot on FOX?

Moving down to the shriveled stomach, we find barely the strenght to mention that both Move On and the Congressional Black Caucus announced support for Pelosi. There's an old saying that laws and like sausage, and one should not watch how they are made, which should really apply to the anti-all-war movement, who seem to be largely vegan. Also to be avoided: chess, the Olympics.

"The legislative charade mounted by the Democratic Party has nothing to do with ending the war in Iraq. There are, in fact, no principled differences between the Democrats and Bush when it comes to the imperialist aims of the war. Both parties, the Democrats no less than the Republicans, serve the corporate interests—the oil conglomerates, the Wall Street banks, and the American financial oligarchy as a whole—that seek through military violence to establish US control of the resources and markets of the world."

One cannot forgive the self-imposed confusion of anger at Bush with immediate withdrawal, or the idea that the Democratic Party would best serve America by pissing into the wind. One simply misses the slimy contents of the stomach in the light of the glaring ulcer which ills the anti-all-war segement of liberal America: who the frak do they think they are to accuse the Democratic Party of secretly being just like Bush? How far do they think they will get stabbing other liberals in the back? What, do they live alone on a barren Moon that their desires are alike the decrees of a jealous God?

Good enough reason for this moonbat to join up with Move On. Hah!!

Move On Nancy Pelosi anti-war Iraq liberal politics

The Most Dangerous Game Over Iraq

So today I will first thank my mother who introduced me to CSPAN RADIO which for the Maryland D.C. area is 90.1 on the dial. Via this sudden bright spot on my daily commute to actually defend our country from terrorists, I got to listen to a news conference given by MoveAmericaForward. Besides copycatting MoveOn and incorrectly identifying Cindy Sheehan as a foreigner, they announced the debut of an ad campaign "Choice is Clear" which promises the American people that if we "win" in Iraq, America will never suffer a nuclear attack. By implication, if we fail to win in Iraq, whatever that means on any given day, the very next day some Iraqi terrorists will get a nuke through customs and level some never before heard of town in Alabama. Even more, the ad promises that the mere unquestioning support somehow generates magical energies called "patriotism" that form a complete barrier around our country so that terrorists outside of Iraq are unable to even think about further attacks on America. Like say, al-Qaeda hanging out in northern Pakistan. If you put a flag sticker on your car, you freeze the brain of a terrorist!!

We are of course waiting for the same jokers to insist Congress fund this magical shield around America by making all those Made-in-China flag stickers free. While we wait, let us delve a little into this secret circle of magicians. What are the underlying implications of this campaign, whose commercial shows outdated photos of anti-war protesters and ends in a nuclear mushroom cloud? These jokers promise that all of al-Qaeda will be defeated and America will be safe if we "win" in Iraq, which in the news conference they equated with believing in and doing everything the "commander-in-chief" says. Without question. These jokers also have no confidence in the abilities of General Petraeus or Bush's recently enacted surge plan in Iraq. A strange paradox indeed. How many of us really believe that the "war on terror" hinges on Iraq, in a once and for all scenario? How many of us believe that our presence in Iraq prevents terrorist plots, despite the continued evidence that other active cells exist around the world? Evidence like Madrid and London?

More importantly, why do those who believe in Bush's strategies for Iraq have no faith in either the surge or in Petraeus? To say that we cannot set a date for withdrawal now for we will embolden the terrorists is to say that Petraeus will fail and the surge is yet another one of Bush's mistakes. To say that we can set a date for withdrawal is to say that we believe Petraeus will succeed and the insurgency will fail. To not support a defined conclusion at this time itself emboldens the terrorists because it shows a complete lack of faith in the ability of the U.S. military to bring a conclusion to their presence in Iraq sometime in this decade. To call Pelosi "Madame Terrorist" as they are want to do because she and the Democratic leadership in Congress are taking Bush at his word that Patraeus and this surge will finally bring success in Iraq, merely masks an underlying fear that America will never find a way to exit Iraq with some shred of honor.

Who are these jokers who profess blind faith in America's military strength, and whose main page campaigns to send our troops the much needed .... cookies they need to defend themselves from insurgents? Who are these people whose primary and sole complaint about the provisioning of our soldiers in their press conference is that we don't hand every individual solider unaccountable cash to bribe the locals to support the presence of the American military? Again and again, they don't ask for better intelligence, better satellite support, better body armor, better humvees, more translators. Just cash they never have to tell anyone how they spent. Uh huh. So why doesn't anyone give me ready cash to support my daily mission in defending America from terrorist attacks right here at home?

Yes, who are these jokers? Big surprise: they are not a grassroots organization but a Republican election tool built by the public relations firm Russo Marsh & Rogers. Moola cash cow. (5 Republicans paid RM&R $2,475,223 for the 2001/2002 election cycle, during which time no Democrat likewise purchased services.) For a chairman: Melaine Morgan, a conservative talk-show host who gained notoriety in 2006 for advocating the gas-chamber death of a New York Times editor who approved a story detailing domestic spying on Americans by the Bush administration. Even while Bush has admitted publicly that the intelligence supporting the idea that Saddam Hussein possessed an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD), and ties between Saddam and 9-11 have gone up in smoke, Move America Forward began an extensive and local commercial campaign to insist that Bush was right about what he said he was wrong about. Interesting tactical choice, to call your commander-in-chief a liar, but never let logic or patriotism get in the way of a good sound-bite. These jokers got their start in the Republican led effort in 2003 to recall California Governor Gray Davis, officially formed in 2004, spent two years raising about $1 million, and ran a campaign supporting Bolton as the U.N. Ambassador. They also sponsor conservative radio hosts in trips to U.S. military bases in Iraq to do live broadcasts, trying to make the case that WMD exist still inside that country and that it's not as violent as all the bombings might make you think. MoveAmericaForward also maintains the CensureCarter website, denouncing the former President for his Middle East peace activism. Understand them clearly, for the political hacks they are, and make no mistake.

Hip on current events, MoveAmericaForward works it's appeal on two fronts, working to gain a monopoly on the claim to support the troops, and portraying the anti-war movement as exactly the same group of people who marched on the Pentagon in 1967. The first conceals the fact that they openly attack and insult veterans who speak out against the Iraq War. By that means they seek to publicly strip veterans who do speak against Bush of their military service in public opinion and label them traitors. By portraying the current anti-war movement as hippies, they heap upon the current generation any sins of the anti-war past, all the violence and the disrespect. Of course, Americans convinced first that we are all hippies, are hard to enlighten as to the large advancements of civility reached between police and protestors following the long series of World Trade Organization protests, and the organizational push to control litter and acts of vandalism. The idea that any organization can control (what, through mind-control or turning people into zombies?) all of its members is juvenile and the demand of a pure simpleton. Yes, no one should have spray painted the steps of the capital, since it's the tax money of a Democratic city that has to pay for the chemicals to remove it. Hardly accounts for the hysteria that the Vietnam Memorial would be desecrated, and needed to be protected by a contingent of Vietnam vets who for the most part used to despise the Wall designed by a gook.

Gathering of Eagles presents itself as the "Silent Guard of America's Memorials" and claims that it does not support violence or verbal assaults on veterans, though it sorta forgot to tell the people who signed up to counter-protest last Saturday. Oops. The Eagles did a lot of verbal assaulting of veterans that cold afternoon. Anyways, one should take a close look at the verbal garbage being spouted there, because it's a problem that liberals need to be educated about. One member claims, "we are closer to civil war here than they are in Iraq." Another, "To most of the students up here, the US government is an evil thing that knocked the twin towers down for an excuse to steal Iraqi oil." Here, "we will take no prisoners when it comes to stopping our Vet’s from being hurt or our monuments from being splattered with paint or whatever…??? How are we going to do that without a little blood being spilled now and then?" And here, "I don’t know if I could restrain myself from KILLING any of the vermin attempting to further their anti American Anti God agendas by damaging ANY memorial in that area." Another, "Great mission statement and great work with one exception, the first sentence. “Gathering of Eagles is non-partisan.”. I believe being non partisan in today's political situation is not caring about our future and that is not in line with the rest of the mission statement." Others generally equate a concrete step with a "monument" to work up the hysteria that the Wall will be "attacked." Another, "I hope one of theose Muslim commies cross the line so we can teach them a valuable lesson. I will be there with my brothers and will be victorius over these Dimicrat scum. This will teach them not to look at us with seditious eyes." But of course, they are against violence. Sure.

Oh, and there's also this snippet of an opinion, "Oh, and I’ll add that we are in no one’s pocket - much less the Republicans. The Gathering of Eagles is a PURE grassroots effort - driven entirely by veterans. There has been NOT ONE politician involved to tarnish the purity of this movement. No one has their hands on this - not the media, not big money, not anyone in politics. It is JUST US." Grassroots? Let's google around and see how truthful this veteran is being, eh? Gathering of Eagles donations are handled by Vets for the Truth, which organized campaigns against Kerry in '04 and Murtha in '06. That is in it's turn a minion of Iowa Presidential Watch, a political action committee. The face behind the mask behind the mask is a PAC. Oops. That PAC bears responsibility for a horrendous fraud political poster depicting an American solider holding an adoring Iraqi child. The photo was an AP one but altered. The real child's face had been scrubbed off because she was riddled with American bullets received in a firefight in which her mother was killed. The Navy Corpman treating her wounds told the AP: "If anything good comes from this nonsense, I haven't seen it yet."

Searching back to the root of things untangles motives and brings clarity, so we should follow MoveAmericaForward and the Gathering of Eagles back from when I met them last Saturday to the beginning of their journey. Their first stop was not to the grave of a fallen soldier, to the family of such a soldier, to a military base, to anything one might first guess. So what's your guess? Sorry, time's up. Their first stop was to invade The Crosses of Lafayette. The Crosses are a hillside memorial, on private property belonging to a WWII vet, and set up in remembrance of those American soldiers who have died in Iraq. A sign at the memorial is updated every week with the current fatality count. The Crosses, which when first placed were destroyed by pro-war vandals, "signify a memorial to those soldiers who have sacrificed their lives in the service of our country." The organizers also ask that people who see them slow to the speed limit in salute of the fallen soldiers. But MoveAmericaForward and the Gathering of Eagles broke with their stated intentions and invaded the memorial, demonstrating a deep disrespect for areas of sacred ground set aside for fallen soldiers. Pro-war activists demonstrated their respect for a memorial for fallen soldiers with vandalism and verbal assaults. Would they support the right of anyone to scratch a name of the "The Wall?" Police were needed to keep the peace until the pro-war caravan moved on.

MoveAmericaForward Gathering of Eagles anti-war Cindy Sheehan Nancy Pelosi Iraq

Not in My Name Either

So today we are going to discuss yesterday and what it takes to get a moonbat to walk away from an anti-Iraq war rally, the very March on the Pentagon. Loved the March. Being confronted by screaming hordes of mostly men swathed in black leather biker jackets and calling for us to be hanged, sorta lights a fire under you. So does the hilariousness of the counter-demonstrators trying to claim more of them came than those protesting the war. Enough is enough. How is it scandalous to hint at holding critical thoughts of those serving in the armed forces, and anyone who has served becomes a protected elite and free to conduct themselves in any manner in public? One key lesson that should come of this is that American should be made to face the unforgivable tactics of those who call for the mass slaughter of their fellow Americans. To call someone a traitor is to advocate for their death, and this thirst for bloodshed is the growing battle cry of those who advocate unending military involvement in Iraq. America needs to take a hard look, and the left should be ready at the next rally to provide unflinching documentation of this poison.

Let me take a little moment to give a shout out to the D.C. police, who handled themselves with remarkable decorum and efficiency, and whose mounted presence was crucial to the lack of violence at both the march and the rally. Thanks to the men and women in blue. And the horses. Love the horses.

But the rally broke my bleeding heart, which of course is hard to do as it is wet and soggy with the tears I cry over the state of the world. But the rally broke my heart indeed, and Cynthia McKinney torched the ruins. Standing there in my khaki slacks and a Mossimo jacket, I looked nothing like my fellow demonstrators (which did mean I wasn't harassed walking to the gathering point for the march). And the numbers for the march were again, as they were a year ago, not high enough. The devote anti-war contingent of the Left needs to take a hard look at the result of calling Democrats collaborators in torture and war crimes, especially since the movement has its hand out so often. Iraq is not the only goal, and whatever aid the anti-war movement gave towards the recovery of House and Senate last fall for the Democratic Party, we do not have a veto proof majority. Congress literally has not the ability to force complete withdrawal (which I don't advocate anyway), so denouncing the Democratic majority for not providing it only shows an extreme level of policial immaturity. Not a very pretty sight. Ire raised, I left and headed off to a family birthday party. And I love the cold. Et tu, Brute?

I will confess that the anti-war movement has made visible progress since last year's rally, which some of you might remember from the scant coverage that it received. I shall hear admit that I ran into the group World Can't Wait when they showed up at a pro-Wall of TexoChina rally. I rambled into the frakking thing, going from one Smithsonian Museum to another. Started chanting "Save the Cheap Lettuce." Got a shout out from the organizer for being disrespectful. Got joined in booing the rally by... a group of parents on a school field trip... from Texas. Texans ... booing the Wall. Go figure. Anyways, a passing officer worker text messaged a member of World Can't Wait, and they showed up with a few signs and [i]they[/i] made the photo for the Washington Post. Instead of me, the instigator of the whole counter-protest. As a random aside note, Nazis showed up to support the Wall of TexoChina, in full regalia. Oops.

So I got curious and showed up at two World Can't Wait meetings, which were Wednesday night in a basement of a row house near Union Station. I'm still on their email list. World Can't Wait leaned more towards "Bush Step Down" in those days over impeachment, which they saw as impossible and a validation of a system of corruption in Congress. Or something. I chastised them for that. And also their terrible fliers, full of quotes from Hollywood celebs and not facts and statistics. And for the silly bandannas over the faces bit. And for allowing the other side to frame themselves as the only ones holding the Stars and Stripes. And for not being able to explain their organization goals. The floor went on to another woman, who remarked at length about how all our lives were in danger because the CIA might "get us." Sigh. By the second meeting they were trying to arrange movie nights and facing up to the problem of their rent being $1100 a month for a basement. So I bailed and went back to Drinking Liberally.

The March reflected honest growth, some reclaiming of the right to call oneself a patriot and fly the colors, although bandannas still cropped up here and there. Really, it wasn't that cold. The signs were better, clearer, but the message coming from the speakers was not. Several were off topic, several attacked allies more than they criticized either the Bush administration of the conduct of Pentagon officials. Organizers recruited veterans and soldiers who had served in Iraq to speak, and that deserves especial kudos. But at some point, the anti-war left has to embrace the idea that speeches are a kind of art, and need polish and cohesion. And although I admire the dedication of Mama Moonbat Cindy Sheehan, no one should stand up in front of the crowd and call for people to not pay their taxes. When there's a shortfall, it won't be military funding that suffers, but domestic programs and the salaries of government employees, like myself. Although it commendable, the lenght that speakers went to in order to be respectful of all soldiers and veterans on both sides of the line, since the march was on the Pentagon, the speakers missed the mark time and again. Pentagon officials bear some responsibility for the fiasco in Iraq, yet their guilt was avoided by and large. More marches there should be, but the anti-war left will have to choose the goal of sanity in America's policy towards Iraq, and form coalitions with the liberal majority that is not inherently anti-all-war.

More flags. Clear documentation of what those who support unending war in Iraq are advocating be done with those Americans who disagree. More outreach towards the populations of the states surrounding the march site, so that the general liberal public doesn't find out about the march a week before hand from a tiny poster on a random city street light. Coordinated blogger coverage, utilization of YouTube, and more training of groups and organization members in dealing with resistance met along the march route. There are needed reforms to the anti-war movement, and until the lead dogs like answer find a way to address them, they will not come up with the numbers of marchers needed to really surround the Pentagon again.

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