I side with school bus drivers on both these doofuses ...
Topic: Politics
I can't help myself but in the spirit of true democracy and school bus drivers, I'm making a well-recognized gesture of assessment at both Bush and 8th District Marionette Reichert. Some things are worth passing on and are so true that it would be sinful not to shout it out. The following is one of those things that someone sent Lietta who forwarded it to me. ... and I'm playing it forward -Arthur

Things you have to believe to be a Republican today.....

or, as I would have titled it 15 Dumbass Beliefs of Highly Dumbass People

Republican Belief # 1 Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.

Republican Belief #2

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

Republican Belief #3 Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is Communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.

Republican Belief #4 The United States should get out of the United Nations, and our highest national priority is enforcing U.N. resolutions against Iraq.

Republican Belief #5 A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.

Republican Belief #6 The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches, while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.

Republican Belief #7 If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.

Republican Belief #8 A good way to fight terrorism is to belittle our long-time allies, then demand their cooperation and money.

Republican Belief #9 Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy, but providing healthcare to all Americans is socialism.

Republican Belief #10 HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.

Republican Belief #11 A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense, but a president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.

Republican Belief #12 Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.

Repupblican Belief #13 Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness and you need our prayers for your recovery.

Republican Belief #14 You support states' rights, but the Attorney General can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.

Republican Belief #15 What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.

Honk if you've had enough septic pumping into our national consciousness.

Vote if you're willing to do something about it!

---

And this ......for the holier-than-thou-crowd crowing about troops with hurt feelings. Repuglicans started this whole negative lack-of-dialogue crap. Wannabe "peace celebrities" among repuglican opponents are on their soap boxes with their "We-are-too-polarized-to-communicate-so-we've-got-to-stop-resisting-them" pop-psycho-pretend-statesmanship blather. It's still too early for that. That time is not here yet. The bouncers still need to do their jobs and throw the bums out. We delude ourselves if we think the time to start acting peaceful, regretful and anxious to stop talking nasty has arrived. Not yet .... not yet ... they are still farting in public on purpose. Still need to be bounced out of the building before trying to talk wisdom and sense with them in "dialogue." That'll happen when they are all out in the cold or in treatment. The following from Steve Young Blog on Huffpo

 

Within any problem lies an answer, so said Einstein. Kerry botches a joke about Bush. Republicans demand an apology to the troops and their families. A problem for Democrats? Only if they don't seek the answer inside the problem. The answer? Republicans want to call for apologies when defaming, undermining and letting down our troops? Let's get this party started.

COMMERCIAL #1 Run Bush's hysterical search for WMD at the White House Press Corp Dinner. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #2 Run Rumsfeld's "Go to war with the army you have, not the one you want." Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #3 Run Cheney's "The insurgency, if you will, is in its last throes." Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #4 Run John Boehner's "We''ll beat (Kerry) to death." Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #5 Run Bush's "Brownie, your'e doin' a heckuva job." Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #6 Run Cheney's "We will, in fact, be greeted as liberators." Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #7 Run George Tenet getting the Medal of Freedom from George Bush. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #8 Run Wolfowitz testifying how the war would pay for itself. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #9 Run Rumsfeld saying that he couldn't see the war going past six months. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL # 10 Run Barbara Bush saying that living in the Astrodome is working out really well for Katrina victims Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #11 Run Tony Snow saying that the thousands killed in Iraq was "just a number." Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #12 Run Bush's admission that he just doesn't think that much about bin Laden. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #13 Run Bush's "Bring it on." Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #14 Run the faces of the 655,000 dead Iraqis Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #15 Run Bush's description of Itaqi war as a "comma"; a "nanosecond." Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #16 Run web photos of Rush Limbaugh (the same Limbaugh Bush and Cheney use to sell their message) mocking Michael J. Fox's Parkinson's. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #17 Run any ten seconds of Sean Hannity. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #18 Run Colin Powell's performance at the U.N. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #19 Dubai Ports scandal Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #20 Dick Cheney's closed-door energy pow-wow. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #21 Pharmaceutical lobby writing the pharmaceutical legislation Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #22 Outing a CIA Agent. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #23 Run George Bush saying, "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration." Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #24 Run photos of the flag-draped coffins of our young heroes we're not supposed to see. Ending Graphic: Where is the apology?

COMMERCIAL #25 Mission Accomplished Ending Graphic...

Where is the G-d FUCKING apology? Got any more? Keep sending them in. I'll be added them to the list and shipping the bunch of 'em to the DNC. If they don't use them, then we do have a problem. With them.

Steve Young is author of "Great Failures of the Extremely Successful" www.greatfailure.com

If you read nothing else this week, read this one.
Topic: Politics
Includes a striking comparison of Bush and Truman that reflects the blend of nationalism and imperialism that has permeated the American subconscious back to the second World War - a conflict presumably ended by a mighty American demonstration of shock and awe at Hiroshima and Nagasaki ... - a demonstration apparently as unnecessary as invading Iraq with shock and awe - a demonstration based on a lie "if we don't drop the bomb, a million American troops will die in an invasion of the Japanese Homeland." - perhaps the real maiden voyage of the cold war lying propaganda that underwrote the runaway growth of the military industrial complex Eisenhower was worried about. Read on .... truthdig.com - Gore Vidal: Reflections on 9/11

Posted on Sep 19, 2006 By Gore Vidal

[Excerpts]

 

The legendary man of letters sees echoes of Rome’s devolution from republic to empire in America’s imperial misadventures since the Sept. 11 attacks.

Thank you Mr. Fish What a difference five years have made! The greatest nation in the country, as an American statesman once termed us, was attacked by a dozen or so Saudi Arabians who had, with astonishing ease, hijacked several airliners and flew two of them into a pair of New York skyscrapers as well as another into one of the five sides of the Pentagon at Washington, the heart of the greatest, most expensive military machine the world has ever known. ... There is a good deal of grim comedy in the words if not the current deeds of the little president. What, someone asked, was my first response? Amazement at how little protected we were despite all the megalomaniacal posturings during that cold war deliberately set in motion by Harry S. (for nothing, as he liked to say) Truman a half century ago with a son et lumière celebration at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is still not known to the American public that every single important commander of World War Two from General Eisenhower in Europe to Admiral Nimitz in the Pacific pleaded with our first really small president not to atomize two cities of a defeated nation desperately trying to surrender. But Truman, and his Metternich, Dean Acheson, wanted to replace Hitler and Fascism with Stalin and Communism. It was under Truman that the ever greater lie came into its glittering own. Despite the unanimous objections of the American military Truman insisted on dropping two nuclear bombs. I was serving in the Pacific theater of operations at the time and we were assured, along with the rest of the world, that 1 million of us would die in the coming invasion of Japan. Did we love the Bomb? Yes, we did. But little did we know that had we invaded as originally planned there was no way that we would have encountered the survivors of the Japanese army from the mainland of Asia as they did not have sufficient transport to return to their home islands. There is a good deal of grim comedy in the words if not the current deeds of the little president. Although he and his co-conspirators relish the use of the big lie (e.g. turning a dull but genuine war hero into a cowardly fraud while ignoring the slackerdom of Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld, who proudly fought in none of our many wars). Now in an attempt to avoid blame for the Iraq war and further confuse the world about why Iran and Syria must be destroyed, Old Rumsfeld and Old Cheney are trotting out dim, garbled images of Hitler and appeasement as they pretend that the antiwar American majority favors Islamic fascism. They pretend terrorism is a demonic person. And if we don’t stop him in Tehran we’ll have to stop him here. This is ludicrous; unfortunately the Junta is as ignorant of history and geography as they believe the public to be. ... Meanwhile, one hopes that some noble humanitarian will finally shut the doors of the temple of Janus, which have not been shut since December of 1941 when we went from one war to another and another without a pause—or thought.

Whose Side is the DLC on?
Topic: Politics

An email from the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) was forwarded to me yesterday. The following excerpts reveal why those in this country who are smart but remain political spectators need to turn off Survivor, Lost, Nascar, Monday Night Football and step onto the playing field.

 

DLC: Idea of the Week: What To Do Now In Iraq While the Bush Administration has committed a long series of mistakes in the aftermath of the removal of Saddam Hussein, America must remain committed to success in Iraq.

 

From Democrats who think they have their fingers on the pulse of everyday working America? The Republicans have yet to define what that success looks like - and much of what they've instigated still smells of a permanent presence in Iraq. If the DLC refuses to tell Americans what that "success" looks like, it sure looks like they are in bed with the Republicans.

A failed state in Iraq would destabilize the entire region, hand our jihadist enemies a major victory and result in a devastating blow to our national security credibility and interests.

Come again? Are you DLC'ers telling Democrats, progressives and independents that if we don't fight them over there we'll be fighting them here? And you supposed politically astute geniuses are flat out stating that "our jihadist enemies" are not primarily trying to extricate a nation from the consequences of America's self-interest at the expense of the national security credibility and interests of Iraqis themselves?

But the right course now is neither to give the terrorists a victory by withdrawing, nor to continue Bush's failed policies. We urge progressives to place maximum pressure on the administration to reverse its mistakes and pursue a new strategy linked to clear benchmarks for success in Iraq and in the broader war on terror.

That is neither the talk of an opposition party nor the supposed wisdom of progressive thinking. No, it's pure unadulterated neocon ideology - the sort of thing we expect to here from the Republican National Committee and the Weekly Standard. But for God's sake, not someone pretending to be the heart and voice of Democratic wisdom. You jokers are not speaking for or with the best interests of the people of this country at heart.

Here are three ways the U.S. can do exactly that: First, we should formally disclaim any interest in permanent U.S. military bases in Iraq; clearly shift the primary responsibility of defending the country to the Iraqi military (with embedded Coalition troops), and adopt a joint military strategy based on proven principles of counterinsurgency. The last point means abandoning Vietnam-style "search and destroy" missions against the insurgency and instead focusing on progressively securing territory where reconstruction can proceed and normal civic life can resume.

Tell me, how is it that we can justifiably recruit our own young flesh and blood and within less than a year train them "adequately", ship them to Iraq right smack dab into harm's way and task them with the primary responsibility of defending the country - yet we have failed to justifiably accomplish the same objective with Iraqis themselves - who have to be more invested in the sacrifice on behalf of their own nation. And why haven't we accomplished this with the more-motived Iraqis also in less than a year? This logic no longer holds water. You DLC'ers are singing a neocon song as we have been aware for some time now.

Second, we should launch a new political strategy aimed relentlessly at winning Sunni support for the new government, and at isolating jihadists. We still have considerable leverage among Shi'a and Kurdish leaders; we should use it to push for confidence -- building measures like the integration of communal militias into the Iraqi army and police forces; a blanket amnesty for former Baathists not implicated in atrocities; and for intensified talks with Sunnis on supplemental protocols to the proposed constitution that would ensure a viable central government and minority rights.

We have lost the ability and justification to accomplish this in any meaningful way. Without your neocon assumptions, this also does not hold water. This situation is Colin's Powell's "If you break it, you own it" philosophy. Except that the real owners have seen that you cannot fix it to the ideal you propagandized before walking into the establishment with shock and awe thinking of flowers in your paths. It is screwed up so badly, they just want and need you to leave.

Third, we should muster all our diplomatic resources to create a more supportive international environment for the new Iraqi government. It should not be that hard to establish a UN-authorized international contact group to coordinate political support and economic assistance.

Now you're talking! ... and that more supportive international environment for the new Iraqi government needs to have ceded to it all authority and credibility necessary to create trust inside Iraq and throughout the Middle East. Neocon's have made of America the mean drunk whose behavior has been so poor that the drunk needs to walk away and stop trying to fix it by making it worse.

We should cash our sizable chits with Saudi Arabia and Egypt to work directly with Iraqi Sunni Arabs, using economic incentives where possible, to undermine support for insurgency and encourage political engagement. These Arab states should also push Syria (in conjunction with potential U.N. sanctions) to finally close off travel routes into Iraq for jihadists.

We should come clean with our own populace as to what those sizable chits with Saudi Arabia and Egypt are - how they became sizable and why they have value. We should come clean with the American public as to what our true investment risk and expected outcome is in these relationships. Our government should come clean about the relationship to oil, torture and permanent bases is in connection with Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the rest of the Middle East.

We should formally push for indictment of chief terrorist Zarquawi for crimes against humanity in Iraq, drawing worldwide attention to the vicious anti-Shi'a ethnic cleansing campaign that characterizes the insurgency. All these steps are politically feasible, but there's no evidence the administration is taking them.

We should do whatever it takes to acknowledge and then take all necessary measures to address the global indictment of our country's indictment for crimes against humanity in Iraq, drawing worldwide attention to our vicious anti-Iraqi nationalist cleansing campaign that characterizes our foolish neocon attempt to impose an American control. These steps are politically feasible but there's no evidence that neither the administration nor the DLC is interested in taking them.

In calling for this new strategy, we acknowledge that we are asking brave Americans to sacrifice still more for a crucial goal under the direction of an administration that has failed so often to pursue that goal competently or honestly. We share the anger of most progressives towards Bush's blunders, even as we urge them not to let that anger obscure the very real national stake we all have in taking every step possible to leave Iraq in a condition where it will not become a failed state and a terrorist base for global operations.

As usual, Tony Blair best articulated those stakes, for our people and his, just this week:

"This is a global struggle. Today it is at its fiercest in Iraq. It has allied itself there with every reactionary element in the Middle East. Strip away their fake claims of grievance and see them for what they are: terrorists who use 21st century technology to fight a pre-medieval religious war that is utterly alien to the future of humankind."

That's a reality that all of us, whether or not we supported the original invasion of Iraq, need to keep in mind, holding our leaders most accountable not for their blunders, but for their willingness to recognize them and change course now.

This is the pot calling the kettle black. Quoting Tony Blair reveals more about whose agenda the DLC supports. The DLC is voicing the ultimate arrogantly ignorant assumption that we can ask brave Americans to sacrifice still more for a goal it (the DLC) has failed to describe as different from the administration's neocon stupidity.

The DLC does not share the same anger as progressives towards Bush's blunders so long as they offer only a better way to break more things and cause more damage worldwide. Deny it as they may, the DLC is assuming that their anger is the true and truly justifiable anger based on their own reasoning - which does not take into consideration the very real national stake we all have in a peaceful future.

Iraq as a candidate for a terrorist base for global operations is not something that has been proven or validated.

Iraq as a failed state of forced American design needs to go through the failed state transition - with the help of a supportive international community before we can understand how any country seeking its own independence is doing so purely out of an intent to become a terrorist base for global operations.

Republicans and the DLC reflect an arrogant assumption that American wisdom, primarily because America entered the 21st century as THE sole superpower, is the best wisdom for global harmony.

It's an assumption based on sustaining those who have the power, Republican or Democrat, who remain part of a minority working to remain permanently in the driver's seat.

Rejection of the DLC is imperative if progressives and liberals are going to unite and take back the country via election of Democratic politicians. If anything, all citizens should see clearly that groups such as the DLC want a status quo that - precisely as the Republican-controlled government, stays on the wrong course.