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03/31/2007
Potpourri
Jim Hightower explains it all: AlterNet: Blogs: Video: Why we're in Iraq: Not oil... not oil... not oil... [VIDEO]
James Anthony Traficant, Jr. (born May 8, 1941) is a former Democratic Representative in the United States Congress from Ohio (from 1985 to 2002). He was expelled after being convicted of taking bribes, filing false tax returns, racketeering, and forcing his aides to perform chores at his farm in Ohio and on his houseboat in Washington, D.C., and is currently serving out an 8-year prison term scheduled to end in 2010.
- "I will take with me a file, a chisel, a knife, I will try and get some major explosives, try to fight my way out," Traficant said of the possibility of his incarceration.
- Exchange between James Traficant, a Democratic congressman from Youngstown, Ohio, and a woman called Sandra Ferrante. The occasion was the somber meeting of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct. The subject was whether Mr. Traficant should be expelled from Congress. Ms. Ferrante was a rare friendly witness:
Traficant: Were you and I sex partners?
Ferrante: No
Traficant: Why not? - Mr. Speaker, how can America be bankrupt? There are airport taxes, highway taxes, excise taxes, estate taxes, gas taxes, property taxes, income taxes, sales taxes, luxury taxes, nanny taxes, old taxes, new taxes, hidden taxes, inheritance taxes; there is even now a tax called a sin tax. I say to my colleagues, no wonder the American people are taxed off. The truth is that Congress as a Congress that taxes everything ultimately will tax freedom and will not balance anything. What is next? A budget tax? Is it any wonder that the American people are saying, kiss my taxes? Beam me up, Mr. Speaker. I yield back the balance of my taxes.
James Traficant inspired me long ago to come up with what I call the James Traficant defense:
I lied, I cheated, I broke the law but I didn't do anything wrong.
What could be a more appropriate defense for Alberto Gonzales?
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It happen twice yesterday. Once when my sick wife ask me to make her toast, tea and two 3 minute eggs. My youngest daughter asked, "3 minute eggs?"
Later during the day, I told my sick wife I had seen a spinning wheel for sale at the second hand store. My middle daughter asked, "Spinning wheel?"
I never realized that their education didn't include 3 minute eggs or spinning wheels. Although, looking back, it makes sense.
1. The kids were probably never introduced to 3 minute eggs because they would have fussed, cried, shrieked and whimpered had we ever set anything as gag response inducing as 3 minute eggs in front of them to eat.
2. Spinning wheels are antiques and I don't even know why I know about them.
How curious that things that were once everyday staples, fade into the recondite corners of our past. A friend once pointed out that the identification of herbs and plant's was, at one time, standard knowledge. And yet, can the average person today identify even the most common ones?
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I listened to Chalmers Johnson on the Commonwealth Club of California this morning on NPR. This is as close as I can find of an audio clip of the discussion. He makes the same points here as in the Commonwealth Club presentation. It's as disturbing an account as even the most antimilitary conspiracy theorist could concoct.
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Yesterday, I called the head of a local veteran group. He asked that I not use his name or his group's name. I wanted to know the connection between his group and Gathering of Eagles, Mystery solved: Gathering of Eagles : PittsburghThoughts.
Both veteran groups, plus others, were in D.C. on the 17th, allegedly protecting monuments from desecration. I wrote about our experience and how the veteran groups were extremely hostile towards us, The March on the Pentagon : PittsburghThoughts.
I wanted to know how this local chapter was affiliated with GoE. The man I talked to turned out to be a reasonable, decent man. He was contacted by the GoE and asked to attend. He was told about the desecrations and that the dreaded Jane Fonda would be there.
We talked for, maybe, 10 minutes. I told him we both want the same thing, our troops home, that we just disagree on when and the other mechanizations that need to take place in order for that to happen. I said that the demonstrations and protests will continue as long as the war does and we should work together rather than be at each others throats.
He didn't disagree, and was actually against the Iraq War. What he wants, and I think all veteran groups want, is for our troops to be supported and not shown the disrespect that they believe takes place during an unpopular war. I couldn't agree more. To believe that the two are irreconcilable is to be manipulated. "Love of country," does not entail blind obedience to military expansion. Somehow militarism and patriotism have become synonymous and they were never meant to be and in fact, have been on opposite sides of the divide all the way from George Washington until recently since we've allowed the modern military industrial complex to sink its claws into our democracy.
What's to be done? For starters: we must extend our hand and lay down our sword. We must believe, once again, that all men want the same for their children and families, that a few desecrators or terrorists do not an army make. Gene
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03/28/2007
Don't worry, be happy
John McCain and the legions of darkness,
Yesterday, I heard McCain lauding our new found success in Iraq during an interview on "the Situation Room" and I wondered how things could have possibly improved so much in Baghdad since the "surge" began. Micheal Ware set the record straight. From Crooks and Liars » Michael Ware: “I dont know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about…”:
" ... this afternoon, John McCain told Wolf that he needs to "get up to speed" and stop reporting three-month-old news from Iraq. According to McCain, the surge is working! and the streets of Baghdad are safe for Americans to go strolling down. The only problem? Michael Ware, who is, ya know, in Baghdad, says McCain hasn't a clue…
Download (4103) | Play (4790) 
Download (1599) | Play (2918)
The problem with these pro-military guys, as I see it, they are either so convinced that military action is forever justified, that anyone challenging them has their loyalty called into question, or, like McCain, they are so stinking sincere that we become lulled into a false sense of trust, a belief in their judgment and ability.
In my mind, unless McCain is flat out insane, he's the bigger villian, intentionally using his endearing facade to mislead while the negative consequenses to us and the world are not only severe but impossible to calculate. The American people, meanwhile, have made it clear that they are sick of Bush's phony war.
The other alternative? They are correct and war is justified, but we can't count on them to give us the straight scoop once it starts, particularly if it falters, so how will we ever know?
It's taken 4 years of lies, death, failed strategies, incompetence and arrogance to wade through the bullshit and get to the truth: we are not winning, we have created a terrorist breeding ground, there is more fear and chaos than ever before and we have destabilized the entire middle east.
But, since Bush has decided, that he, as always, knows best, the smiling pitch men line up for duty. They need this war. As long as it continues, as long as they can persuade us to allow it to continue, they do not have to account for themselves, they are noble warriors fighting for a noble cause and we are patriotic Americans.
Who are you going to believe, John McCain or your own eyes? Gene
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03/27/2007
Reading Material
AlterNet: Americans in the Opinion Polls, Not in the Streets
Since war protest has been the primary subject of these blogs and comments lately, I thought someone else's take on war protest might help codify what we, the people who do attend protests, think.
The author, Tom Englehardt, shines his light onto the dark recesses of our collective consciousness. After some history and analysis, he laments the changes that have occurred in our national psyche since the Vietnam era (protests) and today's, providing this interesting account:
" ...why were antiwar Americans so mobilized in the Vietnam era and why are they so relatively demobilized now? (And don't think, by the way, that the Vietnam-era mobilization in the streets, with all its wildness and excesses, made no difference. Seymour Hersh, for example, points out in The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House that President Nixon was considering a major escalation of the war in 1969 when vast crowds of demonstrators descended on the capital. "Those Americans who marched in Washington on October 15 to protest the war," Hersh wrote, "had no idea of their impact; they were protesting the policies already adopted by the Nixon administration and not those under consideration. Nixon came out of the crisis convinced that the protesters had forced him to back down [from his secret plans to escalate the war]. The protestors thought the Moratorium had been largely a failure.")"
On the draft and how it effected the Vietnam war protests:
"The draft made the war, and anger about it, real in a mobilizing way as nothing has done today."
He, then, attributes our complacency today, to a loss of hope:
"When they [young people] look to Washington, what they see is fraud, dysfunction, conspiracy, cronyism, cabal, influence-peddling, corruption, fear -- in short, a system, a world, beyond response, possibly beyond repair, and utterly alien to their lives. In such a situation, despair or apathy tends to replace anger and hope."
His conclusion is as unsettling as the subject itself. While the political system:
"... has increasingly been subcontracted out, with malice aforethought, to thieves, looters, cronies, and absolute dopes. Little wonder that Americans, living through the Age of Enron, scanning the horizon from Iraq to New Orleans to Walter Reed Army Medical Center, and watching Halliburton head for Dubai, generally believe their system no longer works; that those high-school civics texts are a raging joke (that, in fact, fierce joking, à la Jon Stewart, is the only reasonable response to the extreme, roiling absurdity of this administration as well as our world); and that, if you took to the streets of the capital, no one in either party would be paying the slightest attention."
We, have also have become outsourcers, outsourcing the political protests to the few who are willing and able to take up the charge.
He mentions Bush's "fumbled" response to a question asked by Jim Lehrer; why he hadn't ask the American people, other than the military, to sacrifice more. (Possibly, by actually paying for the war?)
"Well, you know, I think a lot of people are in this fight. I mean, they sacrifice peace of mind when they see the terrible images of violence on TV every night. I mean, we've got a fantastic economy here in the United States, but yet, when you think about the psychology of the country, it is somewhat down because of this war."
Bush, makes an unsubstantiated claim, plugs his wonderful economy and then, like the true benevolent dictator he dreams he is, admits that we are "somewhat down" as a nation.
There is no answer to be found, no way to reconcile our grievous mistakes and continuing behavior. Their is only this war, staring us in the face, and us, glancing around uncomfortably, pretending that our hands aren't dripping with blood. Gene
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03/26/2007
What does Democracy look like?
I'm radio reactive,
I'm a reactionary that has learned, in general, to control my reactions but this time I won't. I've spent an hour this morning listening to our local talk radio host discuss why people either, didn't attend the protest march in Pittsburgh on Saturday, or how they were put off by the side issues, the language, the way people were dressed or a shopping list of other frail excuses that keep them feeling justified in their elitism and or mummification.
If you don't give a shit about what goes on in your name, I might not like it, but at least I'd appreciate your honesty to say so. But, if you want to make an antiwar statement, don't whine that the protocol wasn't up to your expectations or standards, etc., etc. You can look for a hair in your shit sandwich somewhere else, OK?
The poetry slam antiwar sentiments expressed by one of the speaker groups contained the dreaded "F" word, but it was, in the idiom expressed, appropriate. We were also warned in advance. They painted their pictures brilliantly, using the same gritty hues that people use everywhere. I salute them.
The people that were offended strike me as people that were looking for a reason to be offended. In the next life, I'd like to see them explaining to an innocent Iraqi child, blown to bits, why they thought saying "fuck" was inappropriate under the circumstances, or to a dead GI, a dead GI's mother, father, sister or brother.
The same goes for all the other pissy reasons that people find to bury their heads. There are those that will oppose any demonstration on the grounds that, in their hearts, they don't believe people should have the right to make a fuss. What does democracy look like? Bombs and rockets, or signs and chants? Diversity and tolerable chaos or regimented conformity?
Who do you think you are anyway? Above the fray?
The wolf is at your door too and he really doesn't give a shit about your sensibilities. Gene
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03/25/2007
Let's put things in perspective boys and girls
Here's, in miniature, what's wrong with congress. They are, routinely, more concerned about form than function, who gets credit and who get the blame. But, I give Gene Taylor credit for having the guts to say what he said. Of course the response isn't about what he said, but about how he said it. It brings to my mind, bickering, effeminate, French aristocrats before the revolution. Think about it, we have guys willing to send other guys off to some foreign hell hole to fight and die but can't take a little slack? Lost touch with the American people? How about with reality?
Taylor criticized Price directly during debate over funds for Gulf Coast hurricane recovery, after the Georgia lawmaker attempted to restrict these funds.
“Mr. Price, I wish you would have the decency, if you are going to do that to the people of South Mississippi, that maybe you ought to come visit South Mississippi and see what has happened.” Taylor said.
The Mississippi Democrat evenutally apologized for breaking House rules, but not to Price.
Price said later that he went across the floor to ask for an apology and Taylor said he would not.
“I didn’t feel the need to apologize to him,” Taylor told The Hill, saying he had asked Price if he had been to Mississippi recently and the lawmaker had said no. “The apology was for breaking the House rules...I abided by the ruling of the chair.”
The whole scheme behind our newly resurrected imperialism consists of imposing our reality on someone else. Our reality being, a system that benefits the few at the expense of the many. Because we have, until recently, the fortune to live in a time and place that has brought us unprecedented prosperity, at the expense of native people of course, we have become imbued with our own sense of infallibility and arrogance and have transformed ourselves from a good, judicious, innovative people into ones that have the luxury to demand apologies for any perceived manner of insult, regardless of actual, demonstrable damage.
If the founders thought a duel between parties was appropriate to settle a dispute, maybe we should too. I'm sure there would be less rancor and more cooperation among our elected representatives if getting mouthy meant getting your mouth shot off. Just a thought. Gene
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A dark vision
Katrina Redux,
Yesterday, we attended the Pittsburgh protest march. There was one minor arrest early on. I don't know who they were but a bunch of young people carrying black flags were involved.
I believe in organization, strong action and civil disobedience as a last resort in the passive resistant way but it doesn't do the larger majority of peaceful protesters any service to have a small faction of militants grab the spotlight. If Fox News had been covering our march, you can be sure, that would have become the story.
Shawn Hannity would undoubtedly characterize it as an extreme left wing militant demonstration and decry and deride the sorry state of the liberal movement while interspersing his lecture with calls for the abrogation of free speech under certain conditions to be established by real patriots like him.
Aside from that, it was well organized, the speakers were excellent, the chanting was loud and clear, the banners and signs were carried proudly and there was a palpable spirit of solidarity.
Unlike the previous Saturday at the Pentagon, we were not confronted by right wing cranks bent on portraying us as the enemy. Everything went well except; we're still in Iraq and the same people that wanted us to attack Iran before, want us to attack Iran now, or Syria, or any other nation, group or person that gets fingered in our perpetual war on an abstract concept.
Does the puffer fish, because he swallows air and pumps himself up to twice his size, think he has become a more formidable foe? Fish, of course, don't have the capacity to think to that degree, they can't and we won't.
Our resources are not infinite and yet we proceed as if they are. Our day of reckoning is here but not for the pundocracy, the elitists or the fat politicians that connect themselves like octopi to the halls of congress, and at the same time, special interests.
To a fraction of the degree that the Iraqi's has, our way of life has also begun to degrade and erode and it's certain to continue.
Pittsburgh, alone, a rust belt city in decline, has, through its taxpayers, put over 300 million dollars* into this war. One chant; Busses not Bombs, another; Healthcare not Warfare. We get it, why can't we make the people in charge get it? Hungry, desperate people are dangerous people, can we build enough prisons to house them all? Is this the new reality, the new answer to public housing? Do we actually need to play out this scenario before someone at the top says, "Hey this isn't working!" It's here and it's happening and no one at the top cares.
We are a poorer, damaged nation forever besieged and surrounded by enemies.
I see the new America clearly now, a brutish, ignorant America were the best jobs revolve around the enhancement and furtherance of the military industrial complex, no engineering degree? No problem, you too can be a highly paid mercenary embarking on new and patriotic career, promulgating peace through fear, democracy at the end of a barrel.
We put our faith in a lie and now we must live in one. Hold on to your hat, another bad storm is coming, this time, man made, but like the last, effecting primarily the poor and lower classes. Gene
* Cost of War - National Priorities Project Use the drop down menus to find the cost in your community.
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03/24/2007
Bill Moyers, man of the people
"The laws of this country do not prevent the strong from crushing the week ... Don't deceive yourselves for a moment as to the power of great interests which now dominate our development... There are men in this country big enough to own the government of the United States. They are going to own it if they can ... There is no salvation in the pitiful condescensions of industrial masters... prosperity guaranteed by trustees has no prospect of endurance."
Woodrow Wilson
How we need that spirit today! When Woodrow Wilson spoke of democracy releasing the energies of every human being, he was declaring that we cannot leave our destiny to politicians, elites, and experts; either we take democracy into our own hands, or others will take democracy from us.
We do not have much time. Our political system is melting down, right here where you live...
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03/23/2007
Don't it always seem to go?
What hath God wrought?
I need someone old, real old, older even than me, to tell me, has it always been this way? Lies, lies, lies? it seems, now, we're on the precipice of some kind of breakthrough or breakdown in human thought; the irrationalization of man.
Oh, I know spinners and sinners have always walked hand and hand but listen to Newt or Tom, who, by the way, are bitter enemies themselves, talk for a few minutes on almost any subject and you'll swear that we've crossed the Rubicon of reason. Add to the list: our President, Vice-president, Tony Snow, the Wall Street Journal, Fox news, 10,000 maniacs, otherwise know as conservative talk show hosts and you have an anti-Superman, megamediamonster, snapping up truth, justice and the American way in a cheap, Japanese horror flick meets 1984, kind of way.
Tom Delay is on a book promotion tour, God help us, but as witnessed by his appearance on Chris Matthews, hasn't read his own book. YouTube - Tom DeLay on Dick Armey on Hardball
Newt is on YouTube calling for serious dialogue. Here's one of his ideas about serious dialogue; suspending free speech, in 2006 he said:
"This is a serious, long-term war ... Either before we lose a city or, if we are truly stupid, after we lose a city, we will adopt rules of engagement that use every technology we can find to break up their capacity to use the Internet, to break up their capacity to use free speech, and to go after people who want to kill us to stop them from recruiting people."
Of Course, because he says, "their" and not, " 'our' capacity to use free speech," it's OK because we know he means someone else.
I feel like a broken record, oops, make that a broken CD, harping on this continually but how can we give these anti-American ideas credence? Because we were attacked on 9-11? I'm sorry I don't buy it. And, as long as Osama walks free, neither does the White House believe it. They want just a little more power, just enough so they don't have to listen to anyone who disagrees, so disagreement becomes something like a ... crime ... like a thought ... crime.
In their mind, If Blackwater has to roam our streets, arrest citizens, suspend the writ of habeas corpus, oops, too late it's already gone, all the better. Then, we'll be safe to go about our lives, raise our children and turn in our neighbors in peace. Gene
P.S. For those interested in attending, Therese, wanted to remind you about the “March Against the War” which is tomorrow, in Pittsburgh, sponsored by the Thomas Merton Center .
1:30 PM – Main March starts at Schenley High School ; Center Ave. and Bigelow Blvd. in Oakland
If you want more information, you can contact the Thomas Merton Center :
5125
Pittsburgh, PA 15224
(412)361-3022
Fax:(412)361-0540
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Lewis Black video
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03/22/2007
Therese's story
Rolling Thunder Abuses Protesters
Two busloads of Pittsburghers made a journey for peace to Washington, D.C., March 17, 2007, to oppose the war in Iraq. Knowing it was a first time protest for many of the participants, I had mentioned that there could be counter-protesters, for which we should be prepared. What we encountered as we were trying to make our way to the start of the march was anything but peaceful, and far beyond anything I had ever imagined.
Our group of 100 included women, men, Caucasians, African-Americans, and an exchange student from Germany. There were college students, 10 high school students, an 11-year-old boy with autism, his 12-year-old sister and their mother, and senior citizens, including a 79-year-old woman.
The March on the Pentagon was to start near the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. As we were approaching the juncture between the Reflecting Pool and the Lincoln Memorial, we noticed that most of that area had been closed off and that only a fairly narrow strip was open, adjacent to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. I stopped to ask a police officer if we were heading in the right direction for the anti-war protest and he said, "Yes." He did not warn us that we were heading directly into the counter-demonstration, being held by “Rolling Thunder.”
We were carrying a large banner, 12 feet long by 3 feet high, that said, “Pittsburghers for Peace.” We soon found ourselves surrounded by men and, to a lesser extent, women, clad in leather and with angry faces, calling us traitors, whores, queers, along with other profanities. They shoved members of our group in what felt like an attempt to provoke us. One man pulled a sign out of the hands of one of our high school students and tore it in half, another spit on a student. They would not permit us to pass.
We peacefully turned around and walked the long way back along the reflecting pool to approach our march from another direction. The police, who were standing nearby, never came to our aid, even though these counter-protesters had prevented us access to our own National Monuments. We later realized that this group was supposedly protecting the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from “possible vandalism” by us.
We were shaken by the experience but also shocked that anyone would treat us with such disrespect and inhumanity. One of our high school girls reprimanded a counter-protester who was verbally abusing the 79-year-old woman in our group, “Don’t you know how to respect your elders?” The man became silent. The mother of the boy with autism was particularly worried about her son, who was upset by the encounter.
I have nine veteran relatives who have served in W.W.II, including my father and uncles, one of whom was killed. I have worked for the Department of Veteran Affairs and it is hard for me to imagine that the veterans, whom I have known and cared for, would ever treat anyone, let alone women, children and the elderly, in this fashion.
Our group wondered why these counter-protesters thought that they needed to protect the Vietnam Veterans Memorial from us? We consider that Memorial to be a sacred place. Recent analysis says that half of the names on the “Wall” would not be there, if our government had pulled out of Vietnam when it became apparent that the war could not be won with military means. Major General David H. Petraeus, commander of our troops in Iraq, himself, has recently admitted that the Iraq War cannot be won on the battlefield but by negotiation and compromise.
We came to DC, as United States citizens, and we were exercising our first amendment right of free speech. We came to urge the President and Congress to start taking the steps to get us out of Iraq now, before more of our precious children, spouses, parents, and friends die in this war.
Why would people, who claim to have fought for our country, want to prevent us from exercising the very rights that they fought to protect? And, if these people were veterans, what did they have to gain by their “bullying” attitudes, trying to intimidate our group, and frightening our children? Why did the police, after being asked for directions, not warn us that we were heading directly into a potentially dangerous situation, especially with all the young people and elders who were with us?
I would hope that veterans’ organizations would thoroughly investigate and reprimand this group, called “Rolling Thunder.” Their behavior not only disgraces my relatives, both living and deceased who served this country so bravely, but they disgrace all veterans. In the meantime, let us stop creating more veterans, especially disabled and deceased ones, and call on the President and Congress to start bringing our occupation of Iraq to an end.
Therese
"March on the Pentagon" Bus Organizer
Physician
P.S. One more: What's red, white and blue with black eye?21:10 Permalink | Comments (0) | Email this