Mike's Blog Round Up
Michael from The Reaction here -- and here's my penultimate round-up:
One of the major stories from yesterday: The House failed by just 13 votes to override Bush's reprehensible S-CHIP veto. For more, see Echidne and Pamela Leavey.
Mad Kane: Is Rudy's "crazed warmongering" real or a ruse? 9/11... 9/11... 9/11...
Canadian Cynic: Dinesh D'Souza and the wankersphere.
Carl at Simply Left Behind: Shall we play a game? Iran, Russia, and the warmongering of George W. Bush.
Janinsanfran at Happening Here: "[T]he US is currently losing -- actually has lost -- two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... The U.S. launched aggressive wars and lost. Extending the killing and dying won't change a thing, but will increase human misery and U.S. guilt." Very well put.
Aspazia at Mad Melancholic Feminista: Abortion, in real life. A case for reproductive freedom.
Josh Rosenau at Thoughts from Kansas: Funding creationism through a Dobson-friendly Louisiana group. The culprit? Sen. David Vitter of D.C. Madam fame/hypocrisy.
David Pollard at How to Save the World: Caring about nature and income, wealth disparity, and generational class war. A couple of posts to make you think.
See you again tomorrow. mjwstickings [at] yahoo [dot] ca
one
I just want to say 9-11.
-love RG
“Rather than playing politics with children’s health care or scoring points with radio and TV ads, Congress can show the American people that we are here to solve problems,” said Representative Michele Bachmann, a freshman Republican from Minnesota.
What a fucktard. According to the polls yesterday 81% wanted the veto overridden. Only 15% of the country was with pResident nutjob.
So does this mean even the old S-CHIP is soon to end, if no new legislation is passed?
Weaseldog @ 4:
Yep. If no legislation is passed, then the current S-CHIP will not be renewed.
navyswan @ 5:
How many young fathers might consider military service if it means treatment for their medical for their ill children?
Who voted against S-CHIP.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c6xcLBZzQ8
This is bad news and I call on all my C&L friends to HELP!
Harry Reid is threatening to "ignore" the hold Chris Dodd put yesterday on the FISA bill. Harry Reid has shown his true colors. He is in the Senate to represent the Telecom Companies, not the PEOPLE.
I beg all C&L ers' to BOMBARD Harry Reids' office with calls and tell him "HANDS OFF" Chris Dodd's courageous HOLD of the Senate FISA bill which grants immunity for telcos illegal warrantless spying!
Harry Reid's Washington Office 1-(202) 224-3542
I ask C&L to cover this story please and make sure you put Harry Reid's phone number in the headline. Please post this information at every blog you visit today.
SAVE THE 4th Amendment.
I few years ago, I had a one week job at telecommunications company. I would be doing low level protocol work on switches at a major hub. Things seemed to be going swell. Then suddenly, I was let go.
Perhaps my blogging habits had an impact?
Peace @ 8:
He can't legally do that. I believe the only person who can undo a hold is the person who put a hold in the fist place. I am not 100% sure, but that is my understanding of a hold.
Weaseldog @ 6:
I hope none. My husband joined because I have chronic medical problems and we could not find work that had health care. It was the biggest mistake of our lives so far.
Reading Thoughts from Kansas blog... When Vitter's not snorting cocaine off a hooker's tittays while wearing a diaper, he's helping corrupt education with lies and myths.
Bill Hicks on fossils:
At the time that was a joke, but now the lunkhead christian mythologists are really say shit like that.
(I'm opening up a Mozilla trouble ticket to add "tittays" in the spell check dictionary, this is outrageous).
We have a government of the elite, by the elite, for the elite. It doesn't matter that 85% of us want S-CHIP. It doesn't matter that 80% of us are against invading Iran, or that two thirds of us want to withdraw from Iraq. It doesn't matter that an overwhelming majority of Americans would like to see us get off our oil addiction.
Why? Because, contrary to our own Constitution, "we the people" DO NOT GOVERN our country.
This is in large part connected to the concepts pointed out in the David Pollard articles. Why don't we govern ourselves, why don't we take over the reigns on issues of the environment, war, energy, and geopolitics from those whose goals are CLEARLY ANTITHETICAL to ours?
David's analysis in those two articles of why we (I mean here the majority of the non-wealthy classes) don't act to protect the environment, and why we don't rebel against a government - clearly being run by SOMEONE ELSE, NOT US - hit too close too home
I'm sorry to say we most likely will limp along in our habit-bound paralysis until disaster hits, then while we are trying to restore the basics to our existence, there will be the usual rants about WTF happened, why we didn't do somehing before the bottom fell out - etc.
Katrina is currently providing our model of how we deal with a natural disaster (OK, it wasn't all natural, but a result of humans tinkering with the environment and not properly preparing for a known coming disaster), and Iraq is currently providing our model of how we deal with our energy crises (don't get off oil, instead go find some country that has it, bomb them back to the Stone Age, and take the damn oil).
And why we don't protect the environment - sheer FORCE OF HABITS, and mental laziness.
Man, that says awful things about "we the people". But David is telling the truth.
And that truth is painful to admit.
Now we all can say in unisone " Why the hell do Republicans hate children so much?" Don't they realize that they grow up to be soldiers, border patrols, Blackwater guards, radio pundits, KKK members, Kool-Aid drinkers, gun owners, Christians,.......etc.
I LOVE THIS NEW DEFENSE. I SAID THIS, BUT DID NOT MEAN THIS.
"I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," MAYBE, BECAUSE YOU BELIEVE(D) IT
The controvery began with an October 14 interview Watson gave to the Sunday Times, which quoted him saying he was "inherently gloomy about the prospect of Africa" because "all our social policies are based on the fact that their intelligence is the same as ours, whereas all the testing says not really."
Watson also asserted there was no reason to believe different races separated by geography should have evolved identically, and he said that while he hoped everyone was equal, "people who have to deal with black employees find this is not true."
The biologist apologized "unreservedly" Thursday for his comments and said he was "mortified" by the words attributed to him.
"I cannot understand how I could have said what I am quoted as having said," Watson said during an appearance at the Royal Society in London. "I can certainly understand why people, reading those words, have reacted in the ways that they have."
navyswan @ 11:
I am so sorry.
My wife and I talked about this after she suffered heart failure and spent a week in the hospital. We were uninsured and unemployed after the tech industry collapsed in Dallas.
But we saw how Bush was working to squeeze the troops and leave them impoverished. We understood that enlistment would just destroy us as a family. We'd likely lose everything we cared about.
Now I'm too old for enlistment.
Now Bush says I should learn a marketable skill? Something that isn't hi-tech and something a mexican immigrant won't do... Uhm, yeah right...
Weaseldog @ 16:
I see it as conscription through poverty and desperation.
Yeesh. Some times the "dramatic" tone is just enough:
I'm going to call bullshit on that. The U.S. won the war against the state of Iraq lead by Saddam Hussein, destroying its military capability and capturing its leader. Won.
This police action, occupation, imperialist clusterfuck is not the responsibility of our military and thank god. I, for one, am quite glad that our troops aren't suited for running the country military dictator style. The are, however, the best fighting MILITARY on the planet.
So let's get this straight. We won the war in Iraq. Then the politicians fucked up the rebuilding. De-Baathification. Pimply nosed brats from AEI or PNAC playing poly-sci 'what if' games with American lives and America's reputation and future. Don't piss on our soldiers graves for achieving what they were supposed to achieve, and failing to achieve what should not (and was not, really) have been asked of them. Hold the politicians legally accountable for the traitors they are.
I've been railing against this war from the beginning; patently explaining to co-workers why their "rah-rah WMD, kill kill Sadam!" was inappropriate in the workplace and just wrong anyway in 2002 may have lost me my job. The phrase I used was, "There should be no 'maybes'. The reason for going to war means everything, and we still do NOT have a clear, evident reason for war." Apparently making them think offended them... now look where we are.
But the "killing and dying" will NOT end when we leave. It will get worse. How did Somalia work out by the way? Nice this time of year? Get a damn grip. Yes, we should get the hell out, but this kind of talk is insulting and exists only to be inflammatory.
The drama queen wing of the party is why we STILL can't get anything done in Congress to help the country. They'd rather be a victim and hold a press conference about it than just do the damn job we hired them to do. In case you can't tell, that pisses me off. Anyone else?
swarmofkillermonkeys @ 18:
You've gotta be kidding. The war was illegal. You want me to be happy that the military "won" an illegal, immoral war against a country that was never a threat? And you blame the handful of people that say we lost for the clusterfuck that is our congress's inability to do their jobs?
It was wrong to ever go there. We had no right to attack Iraq. We however have "lost" the occupation because there is no winning an occupation.
swarmofkillermonkeys @ 18:
The oil industry is financing what is going on in Somalia, the Sudan and Darfur. You don't have to pay royalties on tribal lands, to dead people.
Mike, thanks for the heads up!
Illegal or not, the mission that the military was tasked with was accomplished. Afterwards saying, "just hang out, get shot at, squint your eyes, click your heels and say, 'There IS TOO a functional Iraqi government'!" is not a valid MILITARY mission. It is a political one. We didn't loose the war, we lost the will of the people after the war. There is no such thing as the "GWOT". The United States is not currently "at war" with any state, whatever the politicians say.
If you read my statement, I don't see any possible way to get: "you blame the handful of people that say we lost for the clusterfuck" out of it. In fact, I'm not sure how I could have been more blunt on the issue of blame:
I'm sorry, but I'm out of my depth here. I just can't use any simpler words to explain it. But to say we lost the war is just plain wrong, and leads us away from the important lesson to be learned there. Yes, I know it is a favorite Republican sentiment, but in this context (crazy as it sounds) it is still correct.
I'm not sure why you are telling be we were wrong to start into Iraqi early either, considering my statement. I said basically the same thing, and put my livelihood at stake to do so. You're arguing with me because you agree?
Oh, the "will of the people" point. Maybe the will of the people was lost because it was an ILLEGAL aggressive war that should have never happened. Wow, great that you said we shouldn't have been there, but you sure aren't speaking like our government broke the law. You seem to be only upset now that our politicians "screwed up the recovery". Well, good. We deserve a cluster fuck over there for attacking a country that never was a threat to us.
I guess my point is that this is fucked up not because the politicians botched to rebuilding, but because the politicians waged an illegal war in the first place. Close to a million people have died over there because of our governments lies.
We went into Iraq to get rid of imaginary WMDs. Then we invented dozens of other reasons to justify staying there.
The military really never had a mission to win. Their job is simply to dig in and stay.
Weaseldog @ 20:
For the most part I agree (but do not discount China's role). It (along with fat defense contracting) was our real priority in Iraq, obviously, rather than protecting the people or their culture.
* * *
But I object to this knee-jerk false-victim whining, "woooo, nooo we lost all the wars, we're helpless, won't somebody save me, I'm so guilty" bullshit. Disgusting. Not just because it is false, but also because:
1. We need to understand that we won against the state militarily. In that alone, there is no guilt. (Though you could argue all war is immoral period.)
2. We failed completely in reconstruction. Permanently. There is no second chance for the U.S. on that. Understanding this is VERY important, as this probably isn't the very LAST time a U.S. soldier will fire a weapon on foreign soil. "Hearts and minds", preventing looting, De-Baathification, mercenaries, encouraging factionalism, allowing the "politician strolls through the market" crap... ALL of these failures should be considered and understood. To just say: "We lost the war" omits the RESPONSIBILITY every U.S. citizen has to do a better job of understanding what, exactly, we really did lose.
(And yes, I know all you have to do is look at the way we treated the Germans after WWI vs after WWII... and the results of each. But apparently that lesson didn't take. So back to the books.)
3. Such a response only INVITES fascism. Learn to think critically in the first place. Just because the Republicans failed at this when dealing with their leaders on Iraq doesn't mean Democrats should make the same mistake now. Why did people think EVERYTHING would be different now with Pelosi and Reid? I'll tell you: because they were the first figures of authority that came along. This is dangerous. Be active, not reactive. Investigate on your own. Or you'll be crushed by the jackboot and take the rest of us down with you. Yeah, I know... "It can't happen in America." Right, as long as we act daily to keep it that way.
I'm sorry if that hurts someone's feelings, but that article linked above was just terrible. The whole thing confuses military tactics with political rhetoric, when the two are very far apart. I don't have a damn thing to feel guilty about with this war, and if you do then that is your problem. I DO believe I have a responsibility to learn more about why Bush was allowed the funding for this war to start with. Why we couldn't wait 2 months for basically guaranteed UN backing. Why Dick Cheney was allowed to rip out parts of the CIA and force them to feed him known false intelligence to trumpet in the media. Why we didn't consolidate our gains and rebuild Afganistan FIRST to apply more pressure to Sadam (not to mention, have full troop strength to kill the rest of the bad guys on the Afgani-Pakistani border). Why there was such incompetence in the management in Iraq from exact end of combat. Why after a YEAR there was not reliable water, electricity, or sewer for the people that were supposed to like us. Why the contracting corruption continues EVEN NOW as Congress sinks us further into debt to pay Middle Eastern companies such as Halliburton. Why obvious and sloppy CIA black ops supplied terrorist organizations with so many weapons, only to be used against us. Why impeachment is "off the table".
I've a lot of questions, and am seeking the answers. I'd humbly suggest my fellow citizens do the same. But this:
Is not hard to understand at all. We didn't loose the war, we lost the peace. There is a difference. Understand it.
Promoting this kind of intellectual laziness is was got us all into this mess in the first place in the form of GWB -- the most uncurious, closed-minded, faith-based president in history. Sorry I've rambled so long. One last thing:
No, I think the will of the people was lost from the looting to when once middle-class people were still having to shit in the ally behind their house 2 years later, then get shot in the back by mercs when driving to work, after having lost all their savings drained after years of U.S. sanctions. Sadam was a monster, but put yourself there. Get old, wouldn't it? How about a couple of your children needlessly dead on top of it? Enough to make you think somebody -- anybody -- should do something about it. And that is exactly what happened. We've been great for terrorist recruiting. All POLITICAL problems, not military. Sometimes people really do just want the damn "trains to run on time".
Wow. And here I thought the line that "liberals hate our troops" was just a vicious lie and smear by slimeballs like Rush. I sit corrected. You DO exist. You are saying soldiers killed while patrolling deserved to die because Sadam was really just misunderstood. Regardless of how this war came about, that is just a real stupid thing to say.
What? Like some kind of karma? What the hell are you talking about? Bush wages an "illegal" (as if wars are about legality) war, so it is good that normal Americans commited (and legally obligated) to follow his orders die. But the rebuilding of Iraq, that part is A-OK? Wow. You have... an interesting perspective. And a really screwed up idea of the real meaning of karma.
Swarmofkillermonkeys, I pretty much agree with you.
First, I never believed the invasion of Afghanistan or Iraq was justifiable.
If we get down to the the reasons that actually turned out to be true, we don't have a good argument for war, as these things are usually issues you handle through diplomacy. But Bush hates diplomacy. As he tells us, with every decision he makes, he thinks of war.
We went after the Taliban, because Ken Lay couldn't negotiate the pipeline deal that he wanted. The Taliban visited the Enron Headquarters before the war and tried to broker a deal for rights to run pipeline across Afghanistan. The talks fell apart. No agreement was reached.
Was Osama Bin Laden actually in Afghanistan? Was he even alive? It doesn't appear that there is any real proof he lived to see the year 2000.
After nine years of bombing Iraq, Saddam seemed to dislike us. He switch oil sales to Euros, and announced that he would kick Halliburton our of the country when sanctions were lifted. He argued that Halliburton was at the center of the oil for food scandal and was cheating Iraq on fuel sales, pumping and selling more oil than they were reporting. Halliburton was appointed as Iraq's official oil corporation by the UN under the recommendation of Bush I. It was illegal for an American corporation to do business in Iraq, so Halliburton operated as a Libyan corporation for this operation. After the war, because Libya was a terrorist nation, Halliburton's funds were stuck there. Bush took them off the list and unfroze Halliburton's funds, which they shipped to Dubai.
When Bush first came to office, Iran began asking for diplomatic talks. They wanted to open up their oil fields to western corporations and build up their industry to take advantage of their natural gas and oil. They were looking for foreign investors. Bush promptly rebuffed them and named them as part of the Axis of Evil.
In the end you're right, our military dominated Iraq's military. We won the offensive. Our troops have done their best to do an impossible job.
But next up is an attack on Iran, with back it up using ground forces. Our troops in Iraq are likely to become overwhelmed when Iran goes on the offensive. We'll take losses and then we'll have to reinstate the draft. Then as we fight Afghanistan, Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran, we might lose altogether. Especially if China and Russia start providing weapons to our new enemies as we did to them in Afghanistan in the 80s.
Bush and friends are madmen when it comes to military policy, but they don't care. They are internationalists, and the USA is just a tool to be used and discarded.
I didn't say that. You have the reading comprehension skills of a squirrel. Rebuilding does not matter because we shouldn't be there. We should never have been there. Since we are there, we should leave and pay for the rebuilding because we screwed them.
No, you are just a stupid asshole. Anyone who disagrees with you either hates the troops or pisses on their graves as you stated in your first post. It must then make your head explode for me to tell you that My Husband Is Active Duty Military.
But, people like you are always so eager to call people troops haters to win an argument. This has nothing to do with the troops. Like you said, it is all political. And politically, we deserve to lose because that is the only way that people are going to care about the fact that this war was wrong. But, it has always been wrong and always will be wrong.
One thing I am not going to do is sugar coat illegal war or the consequences of it to avoid being seen as "hateful" to the troops. Nowhere in my post did I attack any troop, but I did speak ill of the policy. You see what you want to see. You are so eager to seem patriotic that you allow yourself to be brainwashed by the Rush's of the world. But, maybe to you, my husband is one of those 'phony soldiers'. See, I can do it too.
navyswan @ 27:
I'll simply say: rebuilding does (or did) matter, whether you think we ended up there legally or not. Perhaps ESPECIALLY meaningful if we were lied to initially.
You're welcome to your opinion of me. You're also free to disagree with what I actually said. But your statement:
Is what? Expressing your love for American by rejoicing in the deaths of soldiers? I agree that is hard to reconcile with your husband serving active duty. Makes no sense to me why you'd say that in ANY case, that's why I pointed it out. I don't think anyone over there "deserves" to be ripped apart in this meat-grinder because the president is a cowboy jackass. I appreciate your husband's commitment and sacrifice. However, that isn't a cudgel to silence others.
Correct, it IS all political. Now that you've clarified a bit with "politically" that makes a little more sense. However, I still think building a happy, healthy new Iraq AND impeaching the president (perhaps Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld in jail) would be a FAR better outcome than the current mess.
And saying we "lost two wars" makes no sense of the distinction between military action and the severe political failure from the get go. I happen to think that is a very important distinction. Learning the difference is the only way to avoid it in the future. What we are doing over there now... that isn't a "war". By that rational, we "lost" WWI because we failed to establish a permanent, stable government, leading to the rise of Hitler. We didn't. We won WWI, but failed to politically address the humiliation of the Germans as they struggled to survive while being spit upon by the rest of the world. It seems this lead to just a wee bit of resentment. So millions more died.
The next time, we had a good policy and rebuilt.
I don't have any idea what 'it' is that you're doing but go ahead. As to the patriotic, brainwashing stuff. (shrug) That seems a knee-jerk statement. That's kind of what I'm talking about. I'm certainly no Rush fan. I see two failures of communication here: one that you insist I "blame" those against the war (I don't, am against it myself, and clearly laid the blame on failed political 'stratetery'). The other is that you seem to mean, "The president, and vice president should be impeached. Their staff should be investigated for treason in lying to the American people, and knowingly putting personal gain ahead of the welfare of their country in a time of war and Congress should cut funding now." But you are saying something completely different. Or maybe you are somehow agreeing with me in the most confrontational way I've ever seen. Your clarification helped somewhat.
We went to war for the wrong reasons (if you believe there is even such a thing as "just war" -- I don't). We won the war in Iraq. For all that it is worth. There just isn't much to fix on the military side of things. But Mr. Bush (and Cheney, and Wolfowitz, and Rumsfeld...) failed miserably to understand reality, listen to all the career military and intelligence, have a plan, or implement that plan for post-war reconstruction and transition of power. It turns out those things are just as important as a strong military. Then, we still had a chance to fix what we broke once (and even make it better, post-Sadam) with reconstruction before we left, even after the public finally listened to those that were warning them about the neocons. But it was apparently more important to give juicy no-bid contracts to U.S. companies, and rattle the saber at Iran. So that window of opportunity is closed now, too.
Better luck on your choice next time, voters, because that's where this problem begins and ends.
Weas
Why Your Butt Cheeks Will Get A Workout Next Week
Comments are closed on this entry