LEXINGTON, NEBRASKA- Along I-80, we stopped to see the Heartland Museum of Military Vehicles. While visitors cannot help but be drawn to the tanks and guns, the large collection of jeeps and trucks make clear the tremendous resources and personnel required behind-the-lines to support any combat operations, their function every bit as lethal.
Tag: Headlines
US liberal radicals silent about ‘self determination’ now that South Ossetia and Abkhazia want it
One of the most aggravating things about American (and British) liberals has been how they consistently line up with the US government shouting 'Self-Determination! Self Determination!' every time the Pentagon uses some small nationality against another government. When Australia wanted to split East Timor off of Indonesia, this was their shout. When the US and the Western Europeans wanted to carve up Greater Yugoslavia into nation-lets under their control this was their call. We hear their call again against China as the US government wants to use Tibet to propagandize for the Pentagon and against the Chinese. We hear it in Africa as they use the issue of the fighting in Darfur to move against Sudan. Liberal radicals are always using the issue of 'self determination' to support US militarism while pretending to be doing the exact complete opposite. That is why their silence is so deafening now about keeping quiet about 'self determination' for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Apparently the liberal interventionist American Left is only for 'self determination' when the Pentagon calls for it? This is a sad illustration about the liberal Left's own lack of self examination and their pro US nationalism and pro imperialism that hides behind liberal human rights rhetoric. Some even hide behind Marxism to justify what positions for the Pentagon they take! What about the Ossetians? Once again the Libertarian Right is more honest than the pseudo Marxists and Left liberal 'Progressive' community is. They ask the question about the Ossetians when the phonys remain silent. While the pro Democratic Party liberals/radicals are out cheerleading Barack it is antiwar.com that keeps us informed about the dangerous buildup for war involving Russia and the US. And unfortunately, this constant misuse of the issue of 'self determination' in support of State Department propaganda is often used by many even to the Left of the Democratic Party, too. Shameful. But now they are all silent when it comes to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The real Sandinistas are fed up with Daniel Ortega’s pathetic regime
There is so little hope in the pathetic Daniel Ortega... that Nicaragua's foremost Sandinista musician has withdrawn permission for this sad sack cabal around Ortega, the current Nicaraguan President, to continue to represent itself as Sandinista by using his extremely popular music at their events. See news item, Sandinistas split over revolution hymn Another fitting image about the sad state of affairs in Nicaragua that left an impression one me, was to see capitalist advertising for an American company hanging from the Nicaraguan National Assembly building! It would kind of be like seeing WalMart being allowed to hang its company's advertisement from the White House! Or even worse, having a Chinese bank hanging its banners there. What a vivid sign of how degraded and debased Nicaragua has become from the continued American domination over its national life.
The Spears sisters genetic tree stump
Dumbshell Britney Spears' little sister is having a baby. The clan are mega millionaires, why shouldn't they decide what they please? Clearly they've already decided a premature preteen nose job is fine, even if your face is going to outgrow it. Time for another! Baby at sixteen. Please. A young mother in Bangladesh is on her third by sixteen. Young Indonesian tsunami survivors were starting second families by sixteen. What does the Spears pregnancy say about American teens in general, ill-served by abstinence-only sex-ed, who are finding themselves pregnant? Most of those young mothers do not have media fortunes to fall back on and can expect basically lives of uneducated hardship. Historically, before public education, before the middle class, girls were pregnant as early as nature provided to yield the next generation of workers. Their witless beaus as well were shackled to prospect-less futures. Appropriately enough the Spears celebrity news critics treat this development like it was a stumbled performance on American Idol. What does this mean for the profile-challenged Spears' career? What advice can they offer to improve viewer poll reception in the next round? Will Nickelodeon dump pregnant Jamie Lynn from Zoey 101 because her figure may no longer be believed as a sixteen year old passing as a middle schooler. Oh my God. Forget about dumping the errant Bratz Doll because she presents too skewed a role model to America's preteens. Why are our culture deciders glamorizing White Trash? In other Trailer Park news, a worker at a Lowes store discovers that a coworker is his biological mom who had given him up for adoption. What does that say about genetic self-determination? Even with new parents he couldn't roll further than a mega store aisle from that tree.
Democrats can expunge the good apples
Comedic point man Stephen Colbert has been deprived of his chance to run for office in the state of North Carolina. Both parties voted to keep him off the ballot. The move disheartened a lot of fans but surprised no one. That the Democrats did it is going to surprise my friend George. A friend of mine is an organizer for the Democratic Party. For years I've asked him why the Dems can't excommunicate Lieberman and other Democrat Benedict Arnolds. Apparently the Democratic open arms policy doesn't work that way. Anyone can be a Democrat, all are welcome. It's a critical difference between the Democrats and Republicans. Apparently not. They're both only interested in rotten apples.
Ohm, the katoey
The world press took a brief respite from studying in detail Britney Spears, Hillary Clinton, and Paris Hilton to titillate us all with the grand search for one pedophile. I am surprised that there was time to do this since the OJ Simpson case is also needing reportage time. Still, I am glad that the eyes of the world press did what they had to do, otherwise we would never have been introduced to Ohm, the katoey, the ' hero' in all this! I wonder if he will later publish a book for the world to read? It would be nice to have his story fleshed out some. Oh, and here is some info about how the pedophile got his start as a Canadian military chaplain! Religion and the military are always a fine mix to help build character...
Media Hysteria pushes for US military attack on Iranian people
One of Iran's government leaders visits New York City to attend a United Nations function and the US media uses this as an excuse to rabidly push for a US war against that country. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's right to free speech was so threatening to Bush and Cheney that they had to deny him a visit to the site of the ruins of 9/11 to place a wreath in remembrance of those that died there. Why? The truth is, the US government feared what he had to say, so they censured him by denying him access to the World Trade Center site. It was a simple as that. He did speak at Columbia University though, and The New York Times printed some of that transcript What is noticeable about the media reporting is how all the hysteria comes from the US Right Wing, the US government, and their corporate media lackeys. Ahmadinejad toned down and resisted from what would have been correct in labeling the US government as the main source of world terrorism. After all, this is the country that through the last decades has been responsible for killing millions of Iranians and Iraqis through its promotion of war in the Middle East. That is not even to mention the deaths from US government terrorism that have wracked Lebanon, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, and the Occupied Territories controlled by US backed Israel. Instead, Ahmadinejad spoke out for Peace, something that the US corporate media has a real problem doing. The US media in contrast, has tried to churn up a surge to more war. We, The American People, have to learn how to read between the lines of our corporate media sources and resist their propaganda and its call for yet more bloodshed. Enough is enough. We should understand by now that demonization of the leader of another country is usually the prelude to attacking it.
General BetrayU.S. and Sen BetrayUs Salazar
3/4 of the Senators took time off from their busy schedule mainly promoting and enabling Bush's wars to condemn MoveON for running their tasteful ad about General BetrayU.S. I couldn't help noting how our very own triangulating senator Ken here in Colorado voted on this one. See Senate Repudiates MoveOn
‘Freedom Communications’ tap dances for wiretaps
The Gazette rag today took time out from its campaigning to increase global warming and campaigning to kill off more species of life to laud El Paso County for using wiretaps. See page A3 of Sept 17 'DA defends wiretapping'. The county had 11 times the # of wiretaps of Denver in 2005, but only 3 times that county's amount this year. There just seems to be a great need to listen in on people by the police here according to the District Attorney and Gazette police whore (oh, I''m sorry, I meant reporter), Kim Nguyen. Why the big need, Kim? Terrorism? Meth is terrorizing the community, so civil liberties needed to be shedded from the citizenry, so says the great freedom communicators at The Gazette. I wonder if they got cops over tapping their foots out at the airport, too? Meth, homos, pedos, and Muslims. We need them wiretaps, foot taps, and loads of baloney from the police and press. Otherwise we won't feel secure, now would we? And we need those wiretaps, too, so that elderly ' St Pat's Day parade participants can be stopped in their tracks and then charged with blocking the parade!
Generals among the cherry trees
The Washington Post, uncredited for being a chief jingoist newspaper behind Bush's war making, weighed in on the General Petraeus Westmoreland testimony, indignant that of all things, the general's credibility should be questioned. General Petraeus had an exemplary record apparently, commanding the 101st Airborne. That division may still have cache in recollections of D-Day, but I remember those guys in the news in Iraq. In Fallujah, before we leveled it, the 101st initiated a gunfight with unarmed schoolboys who were protesting the requisition of their school for an American encampment. That was back in the days when individual atrocities, if they got past the media censors, seemed to draw outrage. Before Iraq became one single atrocity too dangerous for reporters to visit, a hand-basket already delivered which General Petraeus will testify, beyond reproach, is still well in hand.
The Godzilla Mac
Want to see the evolution of the Big Mac into The Japanese Mega Mac into the Chici Mac? Actually, I think that burger should actually be named The Godzilla Mac instead... But that would imply that you might be eating too many calories, I guess? Is this Mega Mac- Chici Mac going to be made out of Kobe beef? And how many yen will we have to pay for one of these monsters? Be sure to scroll down at the site for the actual evolutionary pictures of these future Japanese Godzilla burgers. Just last week, too, our editorial clowns at The Gazette here in Colorado Springs, themselves devolved back into the Newt Gringich/ Ronald Reagan dinosaur reigning era with a cartoon they printed once again making fun of America's working poor and lower middle classes. It was the usual picture of starving poor in the Third World with a side by side picture of the overweight poor at home. Ha-ha-ha... The pro-capitalist pigs of the Right Wing just love to laugh about how their junk food chains, 24/7 mega-stressed worker/servant schedules, and impoverished factory food supplies are causing working people to grow out like balloons, which of course leads to death by chronic disease instead of kwashkior. They got such a great sense of humor, these elitist fucks. Capitalism is such a great success! See?!!! Not being a passifist I sometimes get the urge to go out and club these social Neanderthals with some of their own stupid golf clubs. Don't worry though. I am making great progress in my anger control classes. Plus, I will be attending a 3 day forum this month about how to take up non-violence and become all Jesus-like. There, I will be hugging cops (CS police Boss Liars Meyers) and throwing flowers onto their police stun guns to the sound of meditationary-relaxation-Buddhist music and passifist Anababtist encantations.
Fencing in the Free Speech Movement with Uncivil Liberties
In Chicago, the Ditto-headed Right has fired noted scholar, Professor Norman Finkelstein, for being bothersome to Israel. In our very own Colorado they went after and got Professor Ward Churchill canned for being bothersome by his speaking the truth. But certainly things are better out at the University of California farm in Berkeley, are they not? Well, actually... Here at the home of the original Free Speech Movement (Berkeley) that broke the McCarthy Era witch-hunt of the post WW2 times, the Ditto-headed Right has taken on the Left on their own home turf, and literally is fencing in today's Free Speech Movement What the government and its ditto-headed agents won't do to go to stop protest these days! Wall it all off... Hey, here in Colorado Springs they will even drag elderly pro-Peace people across the pavement and then try to prosecute them later with criminal charges for blocking the road! They will wave stun guns and discharge them in menacing manner while dressed in storm trooper fatigues! They will actually apply choke holds on American Association of Retired People qualifying folk, too! And in our nation's capital, D.C., they will break up antiwar press conferences and bash the attending journalists and their cameras. Good thing nobody was there from al Jazeera, since they would have gotten murdered by some sort of air strike or sniper action by National Security robots. Welcome to America the Not So Beautiful. Everyday is becoming a Saint Patrick's Day Parade throughout our great land! Civil liberties have now been replaced with Uncivil Liberties, and it's become a brave new world for our nation's very few nonDitto-heads. Heil Bush! And Heil to our new leader to come, Hillary Giuliani! We march in line, Oh America. Wallmarted is your charm.
Bush’s coming 9/11 speech
The corporate press is already ablaze about the coming Bush speech timed to September 11, and say that the theme will be about Iraq. That is not the most likely scenario though about what the theme of this speech will be about, coming as it is from the 'decider', the aircraft carrier flak jacket dressed strutter, and the man who has played so well, the role, of being Oily Dick Cheney's vice president. The Democratic Party, for their part, has done their part well to make Bush's speech next week a success. They have already endorsed Bush's plan through funding it, propagandizing for it, and to shaking the hands and hugging their supposed political opponents, The Republicans, in mass. The Democrats are not about to now begin to oppose the American oil industry's president either. They, too, dare not oppose Dick Cheney and his mannequin puppet, Dubya. They are not now about to start opposing the US attacking Iran. Just like Saddam Hussein and his non-existent WOMD were made the fall guys for Bin Laden's attack on the Pentagon and Trade Towers, Iran will now be blamed for the mess that The Klan have made of occupied Iraq. It's their fault! Pakistan is to blame, too, for how bad the occupation of Afghanistan is going, and those mullahs in Iran are to blame for why the GIs are not beloved in Iraq. I'm surprised that Middle East Muslims are not blamed for the state of New Orleans today even! Hallelujah Jesus for miracles! This all makes me think back of how 'world Jewry' was once cast as being the cause of all problems German. Those Jews back then looked quite dirty and sinister, just like Osama bin Laden looks today. Actually his most recent press photos look much better than the true picture of his long dead corpse does. But he is alive, of course. This we are never to doubt. Alive for the Pentagon-fed, corporate press bullshitters to parrot to the dumbed down American public about how evil he is with his bad Muhammad pedophile role of constant American hating. Exactly as they are expected to do to get their Murdoch pay checks, these knaves, murderers, and lying Pentagon-fed media whores are doing their constant 'patriotic' part. Green light, yellow light, Red! All fall down, all put your hands over your hearts, and pray and Pledge Allegiance to the American flag... That's the news tonight. The Justice and Peace group here in Colorado Springs just marginally passed even doing anything in protest this 9/11! And most of the officer/office staff/ ministerial staff and church choir may not even go to this activity of protesting the local corporate war dogs! This attitude, too, on the eve of The Pentagon's probable mobilization to bomb the total hell out of
Recasting the shadow of the bomb
Do you know what to make of the B-52 nuclear warhead story? I may have an idea. The reporting of this mishap was leaked, that is all we know. But whether it was an ordnance handling error or pure psych-ops, whether it was an intelligence leak or a whistle-blower putting the brakes on a development of sinister portent, the ball was handed to the corporate media, responsible for reporting to us the actual state of affairs in Iraq. Etc. The understanding Americans were intended to gather from the many possible scenarios, I think, was confusion. Confusion in the company of a bygone boogeyman, the specter of nuclear annihilation. NUKES (Beethoven's Fifth), flown over head, over our homes, over our homeland, NUKES! The same day I heard a report about Yucca Mountain in Nevada, where our armament and energy industries have finagled from Native American lands a sinkhole in which to bury their eternally radioactive waste. The facility is due to go online in 2010, the fight over the sacred mountain has gone on for decades, why was this news today? It turns out someone in Bush's DOE decided the state of Nevada could not withhold its water to impede the progress of drilling into the mountain, even thought a judge had ruled otherwise. The net effect, straight from the horse's ass, American stability is threatened with nowhere to dispose of our hazardous nuclear waste. DadadaDum, Dadadadum, NUKES!
Cindy Sheehan talks about her break from the Democrats
WSWS has an interesting interview on their website with Cindy Sheehan. More than anybody else Cindy Sheehan has come to personify the American Antiwar Movement. We will be hearing a lot less about her views in the press, simply because the Democratic Party wants people not to hear her message even more than George W. Bush himself wants that. She no longer is useful to the Democratic Party liberal voter types in helping them be better Bush bashers. How they suffer from losing Cindy... Not that Bush shouldn't be bashed, but so should the Democrats themselves. Their corporate handlers also want constant warfare just like the Republican do, since it's so very good for business even if not so good for humanity. Thank goodness that Cindy Sheehan has had the courage and honesty to stand up to both these corporate, war mongering parties. Cindy Sheehan interview
Osama bin uncertain provenance
Arch-evildoer Osama bin Laden shows up for his annual gig, as per usual. His reputation proceeds him, but on whose lips? It's not even Sept 11, and here's his entrance: An Islamic website, reportedly a "media arm" of al-Qaeda, announces it will broadcast a video message from Osama. Suddenly the CIA is in possession of the tape, and then some private party called SITE is analyzing it. All before the public has been shown anything but a low resolution frame capture. Are anybody's fingerprints but ours on this message from Osama bin-our-nemesis?
The 2008 election is already over
Yes, didn't you know? Our corporations have already picked the next president of the US for you. Somebody called Hillary Giuliani. The 2112 'campaign' will be starting shortly.
Tucker Carlson sitting in a tree
Do you care whether Tucker Carlson head-bashed a gay man in a bathroom stall, or was on the receiving end, or wants to pretend he could have done it, or that it didn't happen at all? The point is, Carlson described it with a gay-bashing swagger, and his TV colleagues laughed about it like they would have loved to have been there. Gay bashing and laughing about it, is not only not PC, it's not acceptable. Tucker Carlson is a little creep for many reasons, and now for hate speech. Profuse apologies and commitment to sensitivity training or bye-bye. UPDATE: Oh my goodness. For some reason I thought Tucker Carlson and his bow tie were discovered on the Jeopardy Tournament of Champions. It turns out he's not even a graduate of Trinity College, he's connected. His father was a broadcaster, ambassador, head of the CPB, and they're related to the Swansons frozen food fortune.
Not a homosexual, Craig is a hypocrite
When he says "I did nothing wrong," does conservative Senator Larry Craig mean: I did not lead the attack against gay rights as well as carp on and on about Bill Clinton's impropriety? Was Larry Craig peering into your stall in the bathroom? No. He was sizing up a man who appeared to be lingering there while others pooped and went. Smells something of entrapment to me. I can see airport travelers complain about hearing sex acts in neighboring bathroom stalls, but not for fear of unwarranted solicitation. Why are policemen detailed to interrupt a time-honored last resort among few social options for closeted lonely guys? I believe Senator Craig when he says he's not gay. To a homophobic conservative, the idea of a male partner may seem dirtier than a quick lewd act to feed his nagging alter-ego. That said, I'm damn glad he's unmasked for the humanity-hater he is. The GOP plays by no rules. We should celebrate the rare occasion it works for the common good. Here he is calling Bill Clinton a "nasty, bad, naughty boy."
Undercover urinal duty
What's with up with Republican legislators and men's rooms? I love that the media is complicit in trying to limit the damage: disorderly conduct, 'nuff said. Though I also loved the subversively dismissive: what happened was "he said, he said." What are so many undercover cops doing in public men's rooms? If they are following these senators, fantastic. But I rather think they're targeting the usual suspects, gay men. I confess an unnatural aversion to public restrooms. So I didn't know they are out of control. Are they absolutely plagued by lonely homosexuals? Isn't the gay hookup in a public urinal a time-honored tradition? I'd think consensual sex is a rather victimless crime. Or do police departments get the complaint all the time that Boy George is bugging them in the boys bathroom, man can't pee in peace? I've never been solicited in a men's room. Does that mean I have yet to encounter a homosexual, a Republican senator, or it seems more likely, a cop?
Camp Bucca is not in Minnesota
I have done sort of a personal poll recently by asking folk if they have heard of Camp Bucca. Almost nobody has, since after Abu Ghraib Doctor Franken Rummy and Attorney General 'Cinco de Mayo' Gonzalez set out to hide away the continuation of Abu Ghraib from public (and media) scrutiny. Currently there are upwards of 20,000 US held Iraqi POWs held at Camp Bucca out of about a total 25,000 in all. They're all being treated most kindly of coarse since that is the American Way. Camp Bucca
Cindy Sheehan on Afghanistan
“Oh, honey. It must seem like the peace movement in the US has forgotten about our troops in Afghanistan and the Afghani people. I know that I don’t talk about that conflict enough, although I think that it is morally wrong, too. I know that our soldiers are dying and being harmed there, too. As much as the media doesn’t cover what’s happening in Iraq, it pays even less attention to Afghanistan. However, the peace movement is not united on Afghanistan, because many people think that it is a “good war.” I believe no such thing and I promise you that I will be more vigilant about exposing that war crime, too.” Full article can be found at Znet
Botulism erases brand name distinction
Nothing like a little botulism to blow the lid off brand identity. Does it make a difference whose label is on the can? Apparently not. Unless you can visualize factory assembly lines where some cans are prepared with better ingredients than others. Same suppliers, same machinery, same ovens, in this case the same inadequate cooking temperature. Brand label transparency happened just recently with contaminated pet food, many brands it turned out are manufactured by the same company, Menu Foods. Now we have deficiently canned people-product from Castleberry. And lo, they make dog food as well. The problem is with Castleberry's chili sauce. If you don't live on the east coast, Castleberry may not ring a bell with you. But they are responsible for these labels too: Austex, Best Yet, Big Y, Black Rock, Bryan, Bunker Hill, Cattle Drive, Firefighter, Food Club, Georgia, Gold Star, Great Value, Kroger, Lowe's, Meijer, Morton House, Paramount, Piggly-Wiggly, Prudence, Southern Home, Steak N Shake, Thirfty Maid, Triple Bar and Value Time. And the dog food brand Natural Balance. This one looks like it's table scraps. A doggy bag in a can.
Hiring the homeless to picket?
I had tears of both laughter and sorrow in my eyes reading this lament by Bill Fletcher, a long time union radical, concerning the sad state the American labor unions have sunk to when they have to hire the homeless to picket for them. Actually, even worse is when they hire professional organizers to get whipped around the country from one organizing drive to the next, instead of local workers in the industry/ company trying to be organized? So why just point out the Carpenters Union alone for having lost its way? And a note aside.... Me and a comrade doing antiwar street vigils together, out of desperation also began to playfully ponder the idea of doing the same. We knew that we'd never be able to get the already paid (why? I don't know) staff of the Justice and Peace Commission to ever leave their enclosed walls and to publicly carry a sign against the war on a street corner. They can't even get themselves together to drag themselves over to Toons Video to do such with the director of that group (and proprietor of that store), a whole 30 minutes, a Monday or two during the year. These 'leaders' seem to me, much like the 'leaders' of the Carpenters Union. Sedentary. The homeless have more work ethic perhaps? And more sense of solidarity with their membership, than the 'leaders' over at the Justice and Peace pavilion. The Homeless for Peace! The Homeless for Unions! If we wait on the middle class radicals to get their act together, we'll be waitin 'till Hell freeezes over. Tears.... Easier to hire the homeless than to get the 'Peace' crowd to do that work. Less aggravation, too!