Like, Jews voting for Hitler. Seriously, it's THAT obvious. The GOOPers actually are getting all bent out of shape because somebody pointed out that a) They've made official oppression of dark-skinned people a Platform Priority Plank ever since the only Good Republican was assassinated at Ford's Theater in 1865. b) A lot of us swarthy folk have actually noticed that fact and c) Calling people Racists for noticing that their Get Outta Our Party! "big tent" has a "No Coloreds" sign at the door, and the only bilingual sign on the tent is at the back door and says Servants Entrance, is kind of Stupid. OK so it's REALLY Stupid. They gun a man down, actually make him lay down on the concrete face down, THEN shoot him, Oscar Grant in Oakland California, the GOOP notice only that people of color say that it's a racist crime, and the GOOP do as they always do, and Back The Badge, say that the Colored Fellow deserved to be shot for talking back to Uniformed StormTrooper Thugs who believe and state that they're "The Law" in their own persons. Rex est Lex, animata et loquens The phrase is Latin and means, "The King IS the Law, breathing and speaking" They'll criticize any "Lefty Elitist" who actually knows the phrase without noticing that the Bush Administration "good ol' boys" resurrected the phrase to describe their own policies. I'll probably be called a Pseudo Intellectual again. See, it's a matter of Words for them. When their Might Makes Right "Let them hate us as long as they FEAR us" Shock and Awe policies, both foreign and domestic, was stated by one Gaius Julius Caesar II, known by his Latin nickname for Bootsie, "little boots" Caligula. And his second cousin Nero... Confronted by that, and that it was their own Elitist "intellectuals" in the PNAC who started calling their policy Oderint dum Metuant they get all huffy and try to talk their way out of it, with what they consider insults. They won't say "Faux Intellectuel" because it's French and they HATE French People so they pretty much have to invent combinations of words, also called "lying" by those who know Engish, they got burned publicly a few times saying just "intellectual" which means literally "intelligent and educated" (Only the GOOP could consider that an insult). They keep bouncing these words and catch-phrases around, trying desperately to make one stick so the people they call "The Great Unwashed" when they're not trying to get them to elect their Faux Intellectuel non-Elite elitist Racist collective Arse back into office. Trying to impress the Working class with phrases like "working class" without mentioning that it would mean that they, themselves, would be automatically the Non-Working class. Social Parasites in other words. What's tragic is that they've gotten quite a few of the TeaBags to buy into it. Now they believe they're going to get Blacks and Hispanics to forget that they're pushing a national law that singles out people who "look" Illegal for special harassment. They say that
Tag: Cowboys
So I’m wondering, you know… When WAS that election held?
This comes up every year with me, along with a rising gorge every time I hear about "America's Team". Who the HELL elected the Arlington Cowboys to be "America's Team"? Have they been given some kind of political power to go along with the title (yes, they have, they really have. God help us...) and just who ran against them? Did the election get carried out using Public Funds?
On the subject of remote kontrol killing
I occasionally raise this extremely bad example from its Undead Crypt. There is, to paraphrase the Tee Shirts, A Ranch in Texas that's missing its ass-kicking, and I really should go back down there and help them find it. It was a mini-storm on the internet about the time of the Bush Cartel starting the Iraq War. A Texas "game" ranch was promoting a point and click kill a deer game online. Very simple, they had a remote-control rifle pointing in the general direction of where the TAME deer or antelope played errr would go to collect their regularly scheduled food ration. With a camera-scope and a robotic mechanism the online "Hunter" could control with his mouse, joystick or paddles, whatever input device, animal would come to the bait and the Wannabee Great White Hunter would lock on to the Target, get the crosshairs close enough to a quick kill and the software would lock on, a little red light would appear on your screen signifying to click or press enter or what-the-Hell-ever input action you chose, and you would blow the deers brains out. Impressive, huh? The "game" ranch owner defended it by saying that it was probably the only way a Handicapped person would be able to enjoy the "sport" of hunting. Two concepts there, the first is that in order for it to be a Sport or a Game both parties to the Game have to realize that it's a game. And speaking as a disabled person, I find the (pardon my French even though it's English) entire concept of using "those poor cripples have to have a chance at Killing for Fun too" to be really Fucking Offensive. Keep your condescending attitude to yourself. If I find myself in a wheelchair again and you try that Pat the Poor Cripple on the Head routine with me, literally or figuratively, I swear by the Lord Jehovah who made me that I'll pull your arm off and beat you to death with your own arm. Why not make the "game" really exciting, put the robot rifle on wheels or tracks and give me or whoever else a chance to go after the ranch owner or staff instead? Why not have the Robotic Drones the Air Force is using to "cleanly" kill a nameless faceless Enemy and, just incidentally, the "enemy's" kids along with him, all from the air-conditioned comfort of some office chair where the "enemy" is reduced to a non-human computer-generated representation of a "target".... with a built in device that would enable the Target to turn the drone around and have the Drone go home and kill its master? Which the Morally Crippled guys in the office chairs laughing and probably celebrating and giving each other high-fives every time they "score a point" in this sick video game, should realize is going to happen. You can't keep the genie in the bottle, Technology wise. Just like the Atomic Bomb, how long did that Top Secret project last? Of course it didn't help the Los Alamos
Opposition to Public Education
Why Republicans HATE Public Education. In the Words of THEIR prophet Hitler "Universal Public Education is the most virulent toxin that Liberalism can inflict upon itself. It only makes the Lower Classes think more highly of themselves than they ought, and leads to discontent with their position in life. Truly, they only need enough education to be Efficient Coolies for our industries" (Liberties taken with the exact English phrases, the Original was in German) We often are accused of "ignorance" when the Anti-Semitic Supporters of Killing Palestinians, for example, or the one who calls him/herself "Friend" posts... publish their reactionary Angry Hate Speech on Not My Tribe. In a slightly backward twist we are often accused of being "intellectual Elitists", but Still ignorant. Or "idiots". Without Public Education we would be left with home-schooling, or Parochial Education. Those of us who weren't born with silver spoons in our mouths would be left out in either case. "Keep 'em Ignorant" And for not just nearly but EXACTLY the same reason American Slaves were forbidden to learn to read and write. I'm sure the Republican't respondents will argue that it's not like that, I'm just spouting Marxist Propaganda again, the Repukelickin' Party doesn't actually engage in class warfare or racism blah blah blah blah... My grandfather was a cowboy. Not like George Bush with his "ranch" and 5 cows bought and maintained by his Trust Fund, a trust fund which I'm once again going to point out came from an enterprise his family engaged in called Slave Trading. They'll say that, Yankee Puritans they claim to be, their family didn't actually own slaves. Nor did their favorite "charity" the Yale Foundation. No, they wouldn't soil their own hands with the whips and chains necessary to "earn" their money for them... They just owned a fleet of Slave Ships. That and Grand-poppy Prescott Bush laundered money for the Nazis, which they don't a) apologize for and b) they're still spending the money they got from BOTH enterprises. No, Grandpa Brown was a REAL cowboy. So was his brother Loy and their brother-in-law Tom. In Texas in those days that meant Impoverished. Cowboys were just then being romanticized in the public IMAGINATION through those new-fangled movin' picture thingies. Uncle Tom wound up being the foreman of the Rolling Hills Ranch in Keene, Texas, until the ranch was sold to Halliburton in the late 70s to make a Game Ranch. Like the one where Former Vice President and Current Active War Criminal Richard Cheney shot his friend in the face while they were "hunting" captive, hand raised "Wild" ducks. They also have or had a website wherein you could with a click of your mouse or joystick "hunt" and actually kill actual formerly live animals (until you put the mouse pointer over them and clicked) Uncle Tom described it as a place where they bought old, diseased "wild" zoo and circus animals dependent upon your actual skill level they would drug the animals or even chain them up for you so you wouldn't miss. That way you could go on an African Safari without ever leaving
seeking refuge in Abbey’s country
Edward Abbey presaged America's current path to tyranny forty years ago and predicted that the end of American democracy would be coincident with the destruction of the wilderness. What's the connection between democracy and wilderness? Personal liberty is a fleeting commodity, according to Abbey, and history has shown that governments invariably move toward totalitarianism. When faced with authoritarian governance, wilderness is crucial because it serves as both a refuge from political oppression and a base for guerrilla warfare. Uprisings in urban settings are too quickly quelled by those with better weaponry, but hidden in mountain, desert or jungle settings, revolutionaries can gain an edge on establishment forces and engage in protracted -- sometimes successful -- battle. Consider Che in the mountains, the Vietcong in the jungle, Osama bin Laden in a desert cave. From Desert Solitaire: Suppose we were planning to impose a dictatorial regime upon the American people -- the following preparations would be essential: 1. Concentrate the populace in megalopolitan masses so they can be kept under close surveillance and where, in the case of trouble, they can be bombed, burned, gassed or machine-gunned with a minimum of expense and waste. 2. Mechanize agriculture to the highest degree of refinement, thus forcing most of the scattered farm and ranching population into the cities. Such a policy is desirable because farmers, woodsmen, cowboys, Indians, fishermen and other relatively self-sufficient types are difficult to manage unless displaced from their natural environment. 3. Restrict the possession of firearms to the police and the regular military organizations. 4. Encourage or at least fail to discourage population growth. Large masses of people are more easily manipulated and dominated than scattered individuals. 5. Continue military conscription. Nothing excels military training for creating in young men an attitude of prompt, cheeful obedience to officially constituted authority. 6. Divert attention from deep conflicts within the society by engaging in foreign wars; make support of these wars a test of loyalty, thereby exposing and isolating potential opposition to the new order. 7. Overlay the nation with a finely reticulated network of communications, airlines and interstate autobahns. 8. Raze the wilderness. Dam the rivers, flood the canyons, drain the swamps, log the forests, strip-mine the hills, bulldoze the mountains, irrigate the deserts and improve the national parks into national parking lots. In a final round of environmental fuck-yous, the Bush administration has offered up significant portions of pristine Utah wilderness to oil exploration. Aside from one notable monkeywrenching incident, the trashing of the American wilderness continues unabated. Shots from my recent cave-hunting trip to Abbey's country!
Is it Rodeo time again? Damn…
Seems like only last year that somebody angrily was denouncing the contention that putting a pull-up cinch around the testicles of a bull in order to make him fight the rider more aggressively somehow causes PAIN to the animal. Ummm... yeah. And the presumably young lady who was so angry about our reporting of it, stating that somehow she knows for certain that a large mammal could not possibly be in pain, even though the bulls seem to be put into a killing rage by the practice, you know, having his ballocks squeezed. I guess a bull told her that, calmly and assuredly, "Why no, little lady, doesn't hurt us at all. We just naturally attack humans and try our level best to stomp their brains out." Before any of you yay-hoo goat-ropers start thinking that I'm some kind of Yankee elitist, allow me to point something out. You have shit for brains. I hear so often (because I grew up in Texas, spent 40 damn years there, also Kansas, New Mexico and Here) that Rodeo is a reflection of ranch-hand work. Must be reflected in one of those Fun-House mirrors at the associated carnivals, I guess. My grandpa, his brother and their brother-in-law, Tom Blaylock, did trick riding for rodeos from time to time. One of their legendary accomplishments was when somebody who was very intoxicated challenged them to ride their horses on the Ferris Wheel. They were also very intoxicated and accepted said challenge. Fortunately their horses were smart enough not to get drunk. They also didn't panic when they got on the ferris wheel. That's a Good Thing. Elseways I would have lost my grandpa and two uncles in the same incident long before I was born. Uncle Tom grew up to become foreman at the Rolling Hills Ranch in Keene, Texas. Ok, in the middle of a trapezoid between Athens, Cleburne, Fort Worth and Keene. Had a Star Route address when they switched over from RFD. He died in 2002. In the summer of '69 I was on the ranch, 8 years old, Woodstock was goin' on but you wouldn't have known it if you were just a kid on a ranch in Johnson County Texas. At the time I had never seen a man with long hair, Bearded men would have shocked livin' hell out of me. So I have plenty of first-hand experience with the Bucolic Lifestyle, plenty of truly rednecked close relatives, most of whom had plenty of experience with both Rodeo Cowboying and the Real Job. The two paths split and get further apart, one really really Far Away From Real Ranch Work issue is that of actually attempting to Ride Cattle. A really important giveaway on that fact is that cattle in general and Bulls in particular just don't have a docile attitude about people jumping on their backs. Especially if they have a Nutsack Cinch applying pressure to their testicles. Now, here's a challenge to all you wannabee cowboys out there... why not, when you're on that bulls back, do it without
9-11 has nothing on 2003
I'm thinking about the buildup to the US invasion of Iraq, an unimaginable aggression that yielded unspeakable suffering, speakably unsurprising. Millions of people took to the streets in 2003, an unprecedented two thousand in this city, in a desperate renunciation of our government's blood thirst. Today as the US war machine mobilizes to demolish Iran, I wonder what has changed, where is the outcry? Where are the double-decker buses rushing to the Gulf to put human shields between the US warships and the Iranian people, lest the cowboys dare bomb white people?! But life was simpler in 2003. We had yet to learn what a drunken, swaggering half-wit would do at the helm of the most powerful military. A half-wit propped up by malicious connivers shifting capitalism's ultimate human-life harvester into irreverse gear. The media likes to talk about how 9-11 changed the world. Nine-eleven was America's first taste of violence brought home, to the tune of a Madison Avenue catch phrase. As it turns out, it was the overture. The world didn't change until 2003. It was a buildup to be sure, of crooked deals in high courts, back room contracts, corporate election tampering, transnational suppression of sustainability, collapse of sovereignty and law serving the people's discretion, and the incomprehensible judicial malfeasance of Guantanamo, culminating in a climax of lunacy and self-deception with Iraq. I believe shock and awe was the dawning of awareness of the new world order: unchecked capitalism bearing arms, baring its steel molars, its black gloves and crew-cutted vacant soul, with nothing any dedicated resistance can do about it. What was becoming evident to globalization's victims about the race to the bottom is that the push has become a shove and they're already trying to throw the dirt in over us.
Super bowl Janet Jackson and Republican morality.
This is something I published a couple of years ago. Every bit as relevant as today. And every bit today as then, some things are timeless.This one contains a "dirty" word, so you might go ahead and set your browser Content Filter to profanity blocking. Better to censor yourself than try to censor me. But now, once again, we are going to have the hyperbole and rampant commercialism pushed onto our senses, over and over and over and endlessly and I bet you thought I was going to say over again and again and again and repeatedly.I don't know the exact date of the Super Bowl. Just that it's about a couple of weeks. I know the Chicago Bears are going to be one team, because of the hype I got as soon as I opened one of my email servers.I am sure everybody is going to get lots and lots of Emails saying Bears or ? you choose... or New Poll: Who will it be Bears or ?There will be jockeying to find out what the commercials are going to be for the half-time show, there will be much breathless wide-eyed awe and stories about what the commercials and so much (ok, I lied, there are more than one "dirty" word in this) all kinds of who-seriously-gives-a-fat-rat's-ass-about-it bullshit, to lead us up to the Big Game.A lot of the commercials are going to be for beer. And other drugs, especially alcoholic drugs. You know the ones, they say at the end of it "(name of brewer/distiller) urges you to DRINK (notice they put this word last) responsibly".It is dope dealing at its finest. The crack house and the opium den and the weed corner are blown away (sick dope reference) by this magnum opus of Purveyance of Demon Rum.And it is on a Sunday, a Pagan holy day, co-opted by Christianity, for worship of our respective God or gods. Pastors in Churches across the land are going to schedule their services, especially the evening services, around this latter-day Circus Maximus. And their morning services too, because the worshipers are going to have to rush to the store after services so they can score their dope and munchies for the BIGGGGG DEALLLLL.......So I got the Super Bowl part embedded in our consciousness, right?Now to the Republican Morality part, for a quick tease, then to Janet Jackson and the Infamous Titty Incident, then back to a slightly longer rant on Republican "Morality".The owners of the NFL teams, virtually all of them, are supporters of the Republican party. And the R's pay it back in spades by supporting legislation that makes the PUBLIC TREASURY pay for the stadia, (yes, I spelled that last word right, I'm practicing my Latin, are you?) the security, the traffic control, and in-stadium dope I mean Beer Sales. That last because some stadia, like the ill-fated Cotton Bowl in Dallas, are in dry precincts. Which is the real reason the Cowboys don't play in Dallas, for decades
Texas football
The Park Cities, University Park and Highland Park, get Dallas city services, water supply, at no city tax cost to the residents. Super rich neighborhood, one of the richest in America. To add insult to injury, the Dallas Police department routinely patrols the “border” of these neighborhoods, to keep out the riffraff from the surrounding townships of Dallas, Oak Cliff, DeSoto and South Oak Cliff. Some of the most dirt poor areas of Dallas County. But the people and businesses in these townships, even though they also have the distinction of being separate municipalities, DO pay Dallas municipal taxes. In Texas, Football is worshipped. It is their lower case g god. They sold the design to the State Legislature, which has to approve taxpayer subsidized business deals such as the New Improved cowboys stadium in Arlington, with a sliding roof over the hole , so God could still look down and watch His team play. One democratic legislator said quote “Well, if God approves of it, who are we to say different?” and voted yes to the proposition. So now the Cowboys are no longer not in Dallas, they aren’t even in Dallas County, they are across the county line in Arlington, Tarrant Co. Texas. Just south of the Ballpark which his royal dumbness forced the City of Arlington to buy. For his team. And the College football teams, and the high school teams, and even the Middle School teams, are considered a farm where the NFL gets to hand raise its candidates for the pro teams. Where one high school team star in a thousand gets a chance to even try out for a professional slot. They worship the oblong ball. There was one Governor, Mark White. He was Attorney General under Republican Bill Clements, until Bush the most active death penalty freak governor in Texas, (mark white helped him along) then lost the next election to Bill Clements. One of the few powers the Governor of Texas actually has is in deciding the school curriculum. What lost Mark White the Job wasn’t his Zero Tolerance, wiretapping, warrantless searches, death death kill them all bwaaahaaahaaahaaa attitude, and laws, no sir. It was football. Specifically the No Pass, No Play law. Which is as simple as it sounds, failing grades, no extracurricular activities. Whut do you-all mean Bubba cain’t play no more football jes cause he’s dumb as a sack of dirt? That’s downright on-American! One thing they used to protest the law was suspending the star player of the Chess Club for failing PE at one middle school. That’ll larn them sissy-boy eggheads not to fuck with our football. But there is one and only one good thing about the way the laws are set up. You know the difference between an Air Force recruiter and a NCAA recruiter? The NCAA recruiter isn’t allowed on high school campuses. The good thing is I get to use that as an example for arguing with people like our good friend Ray. Whoever he is.
Scorched journalist policy
Shall we speculate as to who is killing journalists in Iraq and Afghanistan? (141 to date in Iraq.) Well, the who is documented, much of it labeled "friendly fire." Shall we speculate about the why? Forgive me if it feels like I am connecting the dots with a crayon. A recent documentary interviewed some Iraqi journalists about their inconsistent use of flack jackets. The journalists said they choose not to wear protection around fellow Iraqis because they don't want to be mistaken for working for the occupiers. But walking beside American soldiers the journalists do wear flack jackets because they are fearful of being shot ...by the Americans. Witness to a crime We've all seen it in the movies: the protagonist is accidental witness to a crime and becomes targeted by the perpetrator lest he live to testify. Or the victim begging for life, vowing in exchange not to go to the police. Both victim and criminal know it's an offer the villain cannot risk. Massacres usually intend to leave no survivors because the dead tell no tales. Countless war movies have depicted the war correspondent happening upon a war crime in progress, recognizing immediately that a "stray bullet" will be eminent. Kill Boxes We've learned over the course of two Gulf Wars that our military employs such tactics as "Kill Boxes" and "Free Fire Zones." Both describe a similar US M.O.. The first is Air Force lingo for an area bounded by given coordinates inside of which everything is considered a target. The airmen are tasked with killing everybody in that box. They have the discretion not to shoot something, but they will be held responsible for whatever they leave, authorized as they were to annihilate all. A renowned Kill Box in 1990 was the Highway of Death, where thousands of Iraqi soldiers fleeing from Kuwait were incinerated in their vehicles. (American viewers were spared the graphic images.) The Hague Conventions forbid firing upon soldiers who are no longer attacking you. Even cowboys know you don't shoot somebody in the back. Both the Hague and Geneva Conventions outlaw the indiscriminate killing of civilians and other non-combatants. Free Fire Zones Kill Boxes violate all international conventions. They are as illegal as the US Army's Free Fire Zone in which soldiers are ordered to fire freely at "anything that moves." Civilians are expected to know beforehand to get out of the way. They figure it out when our snipers begin popping their family members' heads off in their gardens. IED detonations now trigger automatic Free Fire Zones around the radius of the blast. An American reputation for ruthless overkill now precedes us. As a result, when IEDs explode, Iraqis have learned to run for their lives. Our soldiers lie to themselves that the escaping figures must be responsible for the IED, and are thus combatants. American Humvees carry extra shovels to plant on the bodies of the slain civilians to paint them as bomb laying insurgents. The US has deliberately shot civilians since the Korean War, though this has only
Animal cruelty at the rodeo
I just learned how they make horses and bulls jump up and down at the rodeo. I must admit I wondered why it was that the animals suddenly leaped about madly (bronc'd) after they got out of the gate and not before, and why did they stop once the rider was thrown? It turns out there's a strap that the other cowboys cinch around the animal's testicles. They yank it tight as they open the gate. Then, once the rider is thrown, attendants chase the animal and release the cinch. This is why animal rights groups protest the rodeo. Oh they may protest the general mistreatment of the animals, and the risk of injury to which the animals are routinely and senselessly subjected, but that strap around the reproductive organs cinches it.
Veteran’s Day parade, part 1
I should say that I had never watched a veteran's parade, I think. Wasn't it supposed to be a parade of veterans? This was a parade of mostly active duty soldiers and soldiers-to-be. It was very disturbing. There was a flatbed trailer, there may have been several of these interspersed, on which stood a current war hero. He straddled the platform, his hands on his hips, striking a valiant pose, his chin held high and to the side. A large placard read: recipient of medal so-and-so. There were marching bands, real young faces. I hoped that as excited as they were to be in the parade, that they weren't thinking of joining the military. I had just met a gentleman looking for legal advice for his daughter who'd recently signed up. She was a promising musician in high school, she played the coronet. A recruiter had told her that the army was in desperate need of musicians. They needed her for their marching band. The recruiter assured her that she wouldn't have anything to do with the fighting, but that she could serve her country in its hour of need, by offering to do something that she loved. She signed on. No sooner was she through boot camp that she learned she was being sent to Iraq. She and her fellow musicians were told: leave your instruments at home, you won't need them. Among the marching bands was a band called the Rampart Regiment, (actually Rampart High School's marching band, and state champions). But their uniforms were terribly unfortunate. They were black, a sort of turn of the century look with high hats, and a large black feather. They looked like Prussians, or what we would recreate in our minds if we were trying to visualize those mercenary Hessians! Their outfits hearkened to a day when the uniforms meant to intimidate. Does anyone remember what distinguished the aggressive from the defensive soldiers in the last world wars? The Allies had the frumpy uniforms because they didn't mind being seen as sympathetic. The aggressive soldiers are the ones who want to scare the bejezus out of their enemies. This has been true since warfare began. White hat versus black hat, it's true for cowboys and hackers. Good guys and bad guys. What was Rampart thinking to dress their band looking like black draped raiders? They look like Cossacks about to swing down and slice you in the back as you try to flee from them. What business do we have trying to glorify the terror of war? I was horrified too by what appeared to be den mothers, preening their little kids in their little uniforms, to salute the passing soldiers. These were not just boy scout uniforms but miniature military outfits. I couldn't help but think these kids were wishing that someday they too could be featured in the parade. At that point I noticed there weren't any wheelchairs in the parade. Top be sure many of the WWII vets may not be so ambulatory nowadays, but their
Vets Day part 2: the 3rd Armored Cav
Before the Guernica that became Fallujah, before our use of chemical weapons in Fallujah, before there were civilians immolated in their beds by white phosphor in Fallujah, before Napalm under the disguise of Mark-77 was used in Fallujah, before our tanks were running over the injured Iraqis in the streets of Fallujah, before our helicopters were killing every last family trying to wade across the Euphrates River to escape the blood bath that was Fallujah, before we were turning back all able-bodied men from the age of 11 to 65 from the lines of refugees trying to leave Fallujah because we didn't want insurgents to escape our pincer movement, forcing them back into the city to make a stand, before we declared that anyone not evacuated from Fallujah would be treated as a combatant, before we declared our determination to make an example of Fallujah. 2. Before we tried to make an example of Fallujah the first time because the world saw what they did to the four contractor mercenaries, but had to pull out because we hadn't yet thought to cut off access to the hospitals from which were escaping horror stories of the atrocities we were committing against the civilians of Fallujah. Before we had thought to ban Al-Jazeera from Iraq for reporting on Fallujah despite our restrictions, before we killed the Al-Arabia reporter who dared to venture into Fallujah. 3. Before the famous desecration of the bodies of the contractor-mercenaries by enraged Fallujah youth who'd often seen contractor-cowboys ride through their streets shooting indiscriminately out the window; before our military tried to cordon off Fallujah with encampments. 4. Before the killing of three unarmed Iraqi marchers, and the wounding of dozens more, who'd assembled to protest a massacre the day before, both times by nervous 82nd Airborne soldiers who thought they had been fired upon first. 3. Before the massacre of schoolboys protesting the occupation of their school by American soldiers. The soldiers claimed to have been fired upon and yet the only bullet holes to be found after the killing of 17 unarmed Iraqi men and boys were from the American guns. 5. Before that time Fallujah had not been occupied. Fallujah remained restful throughout America's invasion of Iraq. It was not until the actions of the 82nd Airborne and the Marine Expeditionary Force that Fallujah erupted into a hotbed for the insurgency and, as a result of American anger, into American war crimes recalling Lidice and Guernica. Throughout this period, and in between the disastrous actions by the 82nd and the Marines, Fallujah and the Anbar Provence were the responsibility of the 3rd Armored Cavalry of Fort Carson, Colorado Springs. To their credit, they were not party to the unfortunate American actions.