February 17, 2013

And ol' myth wrongney had a bunch of 'em lined up to be his foreign policy advisors.

MAN did we EVER dodge a bullet there!!!

These greedy belligerent fiends are like trapdoor spiders. Hiding for now, but ever-present. And just waiting for their time to come again.

WHENEVER you have to decide on a candidate for high office, you can't afford just to study that candidate and leave it at that. It's more critically, even urgently, important to know who they have assembled around them to advise them and coach them and "educate" them about issues and policies. It's not just the candidate him/herself. IT'S WHO THEY BRING INTO OFFICE WITH THEM!!! Especially those who don't need Senate confirmation or any other kind of formal vetting as a condition of hiring or of being appointed. Those, especially, are dangerous because they are thus accountable to no one but the successful candidate who brought them into power.

So you have to watch EVERY republi-CON and even so-called "moderates" and "independents" - both of whom are in actuality neither all that moderate NOR that independent. I worry that even a Jon Huntsman might bring some of the PNACers in with him if he got elected. Because, moderate or not, he's still a republi-CON, and we all know painfully well who republi-CONS hang with, and listen to, and pay the most attention to, and to whom they give the most access and who they freeze out and ignore.

From here on, that HAS to be one of the leading guidelines for deciding for whom to vote. Just one example: randy scheunemann - a BOARD MEMBER of the PNAC from the earliest, advised rummy on Iraq, advised john mccain on foreign policy during hte '08 campaign, coached (in some frustration, I might add) sarah palin in her debate prep against Joe Biden, and was often consulted when wrongney was the candidate, in both press queries and behind the scenes. These bad pennies just keep turning up, again and again and again and again. And let's all remember john bolton. He has VERY PNAC-dirty hands - remember the obnoxious spectacle he made of himself while (I CRINGE to say this) America's ambassador to the United Nations during the bush/cheney years. What an utter slap in the face to the whole world!!!! And he was circling around the outskirts of the wrongney foreign policy team - already considered a likely Secretary of State. JESUS, MARY, and JOSEPH!!!!! OH GOD would we have been sunk as a country if THAT had happened.

I was stunned, several years ago when I noticed Michael O'Hanlon's name as a PNAC signatory. SHOCKING!!! During that miserable time when bush/cheney held America hostage, the ONLY voice that was allowed ANY room or face-time at all in the media SUPPOSEDLY to "represent" the opposing view on the buildup to the Iraq war. He was from the Brookings Institution, at the time the ONLY think tank or foundation or institution to be found on the left side of the political spectrum, while even back then there was the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato Institute, the Hoover Institute, the Eagle Forum, and umpteen-dozen other organizations available to go on camera and on radio and in print and write those editorials and commentaries and appear on all those talk shows and cable programs and panel discussions and guest (and even guest-host) on all those millions of hate-radio shows. On our side, there was only the Brookings Institution - when anybody in the media even bothered to make room for the "other side." And fucking michael o'hanlon's name turns up as a signatory of the PNAC. SHEESH!!!! A true wolf in sheep's clothing. And HE was the only one we had. Or the only one who was given any exposure - SUPPOSEDLY to represent the opposing view. That's certainly one for the "Yeah, SUUUUUUUUUUUURE" file. When I spotted his name on that PNAC list, I freaked! Brookings Institution be damned - he was one of THEM. One of the BAD GUYS.

Hey, brothers and sisters, remember the warnings Mad-Eye Moody always gave to Harry Potter: one, of course, was "CONSTANT VIGILANCE!!!!" And the other one was "YOU'VE GOT TO KNOW!!!!!" Just as you've got to know who the Death Eaters are in the Harry Potter world - you've ABSOLUTELY, DEFINITELY, and URGENTLY GOT TO KNOW who the bad guys are in real life and politics. You've GOT to know not only who the players are, but who's advising them, putting ideas into their empty heads, and steering them toward and into directions of sheer evil, war, death, and criminality.

February 17, 2013

Excruciating! Look at that moustache and goatee...

Surely the most distinguished tuxedo cat ever!

February 17, 2013

Welcome to DU, AverageMe!

Because nobody at the big network had the courage. THEY'RE all still interested in not messing with their precious fucking access. "Oh-my-my nobody will talk to me! My sources will dry up. I won't get invited to all those chi-chi Georgetown cocktail parties anymore! Won't get to rub elbows with the high and mighty anymore..."

Rachel Maddow stands head and shoulders above them all. This is valuable information that NEEDS to be out there in the public eye, and in the public square. This was all pushed under the rug, and it's still being sanitized and rewritten and face-lifted today. What a disgrace. We were literally yelling and screaming about it! I remember so well. The petition drives. The email campaigns. The call-your-congresscritter campaigns. The letter-writing campaigns. The protests. The marches. The rallies. EVERYTHING. Nobody covered it. NOBODY asked questions. All those White House press briefings and news conferences were little more than worship sessions and softball tosses. They even had a stooge or two planted in there to lob cutesy little distractions and cream-puff questions and editorializing, to further pollute and pervert the information exchange. Result? It rendered the public neutered, disconnected, and almost irretrievably cynical. Wouldn't trust anybody at that point, even those of us trying to get the truth out there.

What an awful time.

February 17, 2013

Tommy Franks indeed. Man, he sure skeedaddled outta there in a hurry.

He freakin' disappeared as soon as his time was up. Gee, Tommy, why didn't you stick around for all the glory?

February 17, 2013

DEFINITELY an important post, and thread. I suppose I'm among the lucky ones - never to have

experienced that kind of horror you did, sheshe2. Thank you for sharing this. I can only imagine the anguish, day after day after day.

The VAWA simply MUST be passed. It amazes me to watch the republi-CONS stand so firmly against legislation like this - and then in the next breath they're turning around and scratching their heads, wondering why they're stuck in the ratings basement with women voters. NO DUH!!! And every last one of them has women in THEIR lives too. More infuriating, republi-CON women are against this too. It just doesn't compute for me. I don't get it. I do not get it. What the hell are they THINKING??????????

I am grateful every day that I never went through that or was exposed to it. My mother's father beat her and was abusive to her siblings, too. She'd tell me stories about going to school and feeling her skirt stick to the back of her thighs because he'd beaten her so badly she had weeping sores on the back of her legs. BASTARD. I always found it rather remarkable that, as scarred as she surely was by that, she never hit me. It stopped with her and never got passed on to me. She could be verbally abusive, and I realized early-on that the nursery rhyme "sticks and stones can break my bones but words can never hurt me" - is NOT true. Words CAN hurt. But she NEVER hit me. And for that I'm grateful and actually kind of proud of her. So many batterers learn it from their own parents and then pass it on.

And it just stunning to think - that somewhere in this country, at this moment I'm writing this or you're reading it - some woman is being beaten by someone close to her.

February 17, 2013

Welcome to DU, Amerigus!

Good to have you with us! The worst may have actually been Tim Russert, who sat there nodding and smiling and giving cheney and all the rest of 'em loads of facetime on "Meet the Press" - not challenging them, not questioning, just happily letting them pass all this false information along to the gullible public. Delighted and smug as could be that he had all that damn precious all-important access. He's to blame for this. When they stovepiped raw, unvetted "intel" straight from the street to cheney's office, Tim Russert was willingly the mainstrem media stovepipe they used to hose America.

February 16, 2013

As a lapsed Catholic, I regretfully agree, with indignation!!!!! =(

My church is in tatters.

I mean - what are we to make of the following reality, based on anecdotal evidence I've gathered from talking with other Catholic friends:

The pope announces he's resigning. The immediate reaction and the questions and comments veer directly to the molestation scandal, and whether that's part (or all) of the pope's motivation for leaving.

What are we to make of a situation like that? Since when are we faced with a Church that does THIS shit? Pardon the pun but Jesus, Mary, and Joseph! The faith, much of it instilled from early childhood for those of us who did all our time in parochial schools. That faith is betrayed. BETRAYED. Trashed. Shredded. Turned totally upside down.

I think the human instinct to want some sort of relationship or involvement with a power larger than the human - is basically a quest to prove we're not alone. It's an awfully big world out there, whether you're in the cave-dweller days and could only see the word from the top of a hill, or in orbit, looking at the planet and then the vastness of space around you. It can make that prayer seem awfully real - "Dear God please watch over me. The sea is so vast and my boat is so small." Aloneness is terrifying. And there you have it: a prayer. It's like finding the biggest (and in this case benign) bully on the playground and sidling up to him because you know you'll be safe in his company.

And not only alone - but the other terror to cope with at the most basic level, seems to me, is the reassurance that there's a Force or a Power you can count on somehow. Something that'll be there for you in times of trouble. Who would we be most likely to go to for comfort or solace or protection in the community, aside from parental or family elders? Usually the first answer is some version "your priest." You count on this constancy. Priests are supposed to be steadfast and supportive, literally men of God. Why wouldn't one count on them and turn to them for comfort and wisdom and a reassurance (from someone who's ordinarily expected to know) that God doesn't hate you? That's what so many of us grew up with. In my case, since pre-kindergarten. Our kids went to pre-school at the neighborhood Presbyterian church. That church was and still is famous for it. So that kind of formalizing mindset starts very gently with so many Americans - at maybe the age of three. And with legions of us, also, that faith-based pre-school or early-childhood education directly follows all the stuff at home, saying of Grace before meals, prayers before bedtime, talks about Guardian Angels and all the stuff surrounding Christmas and Easter. Religion is DEEPLY imbedded across society, from the earliest ages.

So what if your own quest doesn't find sufficient answers in all of the above? What if that doesn't fit you, for whatever reason? What if that's just not who you are? When you're surrounded by a strong and demonstrative and fully-involved Judeo-Christian tradition, and it just isn't you - where do you go for that deep-down human need for connection beyond yourself? Or even just connection to something.

I'm glad to see this happening. Clearly it's needed with all the aggressive missionary and evangelistic activity out there! I'm glad there's a refuge these folks can seek out, and fellowship and community that lets them know that yep, they, too, are not alone! You do not have to be religious or religion-oriented to be a good person. Especially in a time when there are religious who are bad people.

February 16, 2013

How many of them faced the wrath of their Neanderthal party, and wound up losing to a Democrat?

That would be a win-win situation as far as I can see, and something to be hoped for and encouraged in other races and campaigns around the country. Let this be like a pink slip in their pay envelopes!

No sympathy from me for these Neanderthals! Fuck 'em. Too damn bad. I'm tired of these assholes holding the rest of the country back like balls and chains around our ankles. This is what happens when you willingly, even eagerly, place yourself on the wrong side of history and the inevitable evolution of thought and knowledge and wisdom. Just Fuck 'em.

"I think a lot of conservative elected Republicans are going to go down with the ship on this one," (Cheryl) Pflug said. "I think the Republican Party is at a crossroads."

calimary reads passages like this and says "GOOD!!!!!! And GOOD RIDDANCE!!!!" Followed by another "Just FUCK 'em."

February 16, 2013

We marched in West L.A. And attended the candlelight vigil in Santa Monica on the night before

the war started. My kids were even interviewed by our local ABC affiliate.

I remember the internet coverage - TONS of people. TONS. On EVERY continent, including Antarctica - where there was a scientific expedition and they all got together and formed a human peace sign on the ice there.

I remember seeing the mighty river of people marching through New York City - during the republi-CON convention in 2004. The people just kept coming and coming and coming - and only CSPAN had it. It was like everything else was The Untouchables and Unmentionables. The whole mainstream media was compromised.

I remember thinking - if I was running one of those news departments and was told that I must not cover the opposition or give them ANY face time, much less equal time, or I'd lose our White House credentials, I'd make THAT the story. Because if you think back, and if you were watching all this via the internet, or even just simply here on DU, you'd know there were LEGIONS of people available to speak, be interviewed, present intelligent and fact-based arguments - maybe everyone was afraid to let the other side's voices be heard because they might be persuasive. That's certainly what we've seen from the NRA and the gun lobby - that's bullied and outshouted and intimidated ANYONE who wants to put forward an opposing view. Hell, they made sure it was against the law even to do RESEARCH, even to STUDY the effects of gun violence on society, business, and families.

I would have gone 24/7 with nobody but those speaking out against the war and against being silenced and vilified and demonized because they weren't gung-ho for war. I would have made THAT the story. And I know there would have been NO anchors sitting there with empty guest chairs. There were THOUSANDS of intelligent and credible and knowledgeable spokespeople to choose from who were VERY available and eager to put forth OUR side of the case, and totally ignored.

I still burn with anger over that! SO pleased that Rachel Maddow is pushing forward with this. SOMEBODY. FINALLY.

FINALLY!!!! Ten years later and at least four thousand unnecessary American deaths, plus who knows how many innocent Iraqis died? And nobody even cared to try to count them. And george w bush and the dick cheney and paul wolfowitz and donald rumsfeld and all those war hard-ons are still walking around free as birds, when they should be sitting in some war crimes tribunal, in leg irons, in the Hague.

It's gonna steam me, too. But it's stuff that needs to be said and looked at and studied and dissected and the truth HAS to be pushed forward.

EVERYBODY MAKE SURE YOU WATCH!!! And then Tuesday morning start calling Congress.

February 16, 2013

Welcome to DU, Chakab!

Glad you're here. Scary, isn't it? I can't believe how far some of these extremists are willing to push it.