It's probably older than Latin. "De mortuis nil nisi bonum" is a propriety imposed at death, as if to offer the deceased a false comfort that, however fraudulent the pretense of their reputation in life, they can take it with them. Well, most commonly, "Don't speak ill of the dead" is a reminder not to rehash petty grievances in the face of another's mortality, death being after all mankind's mutual adversary. It's a pact I suppose that's meant to benefit everyone equally. But the tradition does sort of cement history as written by the victor, where revisionists dare not speak truth to power while that authority is alive. I saw the adage used in a disturbingly upbeat eulogy for Margaret Thatcher in this week's New Yorker. Disturbing because it was fair handed enough, but mired like New York City, insulated by the growing wealth and cultural disparity, in the Western master narrative. I find that not speaking ill of the dead is completely irresponsible with historic figures like Margaret Thatcher and Henry Kissinger. If we are prevented from hanging them to hasten their death, we must at the minimum garrotte their memory before it's set in stone. To beat a dead horse.
Tag: war criminals
Proof Positive that Privatized Parochial Education is Inferior.
The Colorado Springs Christian Schools is hosting a fundraiser, $250 a seat at the banquet, in April, where they intend to award George W Bush, Decider-in-Thief, the Lion's Heart Award. They're giving that cowardly murdering PUKE a medal for being "Courageous". And to add Blasphemy to Insult, they're doing it in the name of Christ. Why not have our own banquet, across the street from The Broadmoor, (of course it's the Broadmoor) invite him to receive the Horses-ass award, serve ChickenHawk Supreme and weenies. I bet he would be too yellow to come to that banquet. Maybe if CSCS actually focused on REAL education rather than Fascist Indoctrination, they would realize that one thing Richard Coeur de Leon and GW have in common is being sponsors of State Terrorism, bankrupting their home countries to fight Middle East wars involving babykilling , torture, murder of prisoners of war and other War Crimes. What they don't have in common is Richard Lionheart actually put his own life on the line to commit his murders. Not necessarily brave, murderers never are, but at least he wasn't a craven coward like Bush.
2 AM, time to piss off the Navy.
So this is the USN "crackerjack" work uniform blouse, from behind. Notice the two stars on a broad field of blue. That's, according to my brother the Sailor, symbolic. The stars stand for the two times the USN fought the Royal Navy, and won. The extra large field is to make room for more stars as needed. A wonderful imperial gesture, yes? "We are mighty, you shall obey us!" Then there's BP. Which was founded as an adjunct to the Royal Navy and had the Royal Navy and even the U.S. Navy fight to secure their supply sources, which, surprise surprise surprise, none of which are actually in England. The propaganda bit they put out when they helped launch World War One, "That small nations might have the same rights as the Great Powers..." purest bullshit. Then as now, it was all about the Rich getting richer and using the blood and labor of the poor to do it. The kicker of it came down this past spring... when British Petroleum, that ol' devilish offshoot of the British Royal Navy, Bitch-slapped the U.S. Navy in American territorial waters. Guess you kids in Uncle Sams Canoe Club should take those stars off? May God have mercy on the next nation who is so unfortunate to discover that they, too, have United States and British oil buried under their sands. They'll be reduced to puppet dictatorships like Iraq and Kuwait and Nigeria and Ghana and Texas and Colorado have. There will be a top social layer of Kiss-Ass Experts like al Maliki and a vast underclass who will either be slaves to the Korporatisch Imperium or hunted, and their children as well, for the "crime" of being insurgents and resisting the Mighty United States and British Military. They'll be "free" do obey, conform, comply.
Violent fight, unholy sight, Machine gun fire lights the night…
screams of the wounded men, writhing in pain. Details work day and night burying the slain.. all their murders done in Christ's Holy Name, Jesus looks down, and He weeps... Jesus looks down and He weeps. Ok, so that story bugs me every year, they tell it ad nauseum, about the British and Germans taking a couple of hours break from slaughtering each other, in the name of God, at the battle of the Somme. From the German trenches comes the melody "Stillich Nacht, Heilig nacht" Then some Tommies in their trenches start singing it in English, more Germans and more Englischers join in... An impromptu Christmas party just congeals in the middle of No Man's Land. They sing songs, exchange gifts, show pictures of their families to one another... And then go right back to slaughtering each other. As you may have guessed, it's time for my annual Christmas on War uncelebration. I go to fetch my e-mail, there's a flash animation of a black Jeep SUK involved in a battle, a dual advertisement because they're also hawking a video "game" called Call of Duty - BlackOps. where the mission apparently is to go in and assassinate as many locals as possible and kidnap their leaders to take them to a CIA dungeon for torture. It's made into a Triple Offense because they're hawking the SUV and the game, As Christmas Presents Happy birthday to the Prince of Peace. Other war toys and Murder Fantasy movies and video games dominate the Must-have list for the Red-suit Elf and his flying reindeer to bring to your kids. The money changers have bought out the Temple and have reduced Christ to just another sales gimmick. What next, have that lizard from the car insurance commercial lying in a manger? and the DumFox Noose Nutwerx is still piling on their bullshit about a "War on Christmas". While following the marketing trend of having soldiers, in foreign countries to kill the citizens of those lands and take the resources of those lands, send "home" video Christmas greetings from Outer VietRaquiStan, as part of the heartwarming Christmas commercials showing people engaged in Traditional Christmas activities like unwrapping the Monster-Huge Screen TeeVee and other gifts too expensive for the regular American to buy. Merry freakin' Cashmas Christless Crassness
War Criminals Bush and Cheney coming to the Broadmoor, Oct 4-5, bring shoes!
Should-be jailbirds Darth Cheney and Dubya Bush are coming to Colorado Springs! Monday Oct. 4 and Tuesday Oct. 5 respectively. Each will be the day's 8:30 AM keynote speaker at the Annual Insurance Leadership Forum held in the Broadmoor Rocky Mountain Ballroom. Coloradans For Peace will host a standing room only reception outside, starting both days at 7:30 AM. If you can't muster tar and feathers, bring shoes! At the very least, call CSPD and demand they arrest the pair for crimes against humanity, murder, treason, fraud --you'd think by now you wouldn't have to explain their rap sheet! Cuff 'em! In a recent interview on Democracy Now, UK senior statesman Tony Benn explained that he didn't need to see ex-Prime Minister Tony Blair put on trial for war crimes. Benn leans toward Archbishop Desmond Tutu's rationale for Truth and Reconciliation, where it's enough to get at the truth to move on. Of course Bush's successor offers us not even that. Where are you on the matter of our previous administration's guilt? I'm inclined to believe that if no one from Bush & Co is brought up on charges, what example have we set for lesser or more maniacal criminals? Is it an utterly selfish fixation to want to see the Neocons held to account for their crimes?
As was long suspected, then reported, and the reporters mocked..
Like when Dr Laura's son was using MySpace to boast of war crimes in which he participated or fantasized about committing, denounced by Ms. Schlesinger and others on the RightWing Lunatic Fringe as being "hacked" onto his account... along with his bits about worshiping Satan... But now it appears there are still more stories coming out of VietRaqiStan of soldiers, good old Red--blooded American Boy Scouts, killing for nothing more than the fun of doing it. But it's true patriot Bradley Manning who's facing a Life Sentence for exposing it, not any of the Murderers. Had there been no war crimes to expose there would have been no exposure. But of course, telling impressionable very young adults, older children actually, that killing is necessary, and fun, training them to do it effectively and to ENJOY the thrill of putting a gun to somebody's head and removing his brain from the skull violently, some way, somehow, would NOT and could not possibly lead to some of them doing it for fun. Especially since the normal Rules of Engagement, the Geneva and Hague Conventions, and the laws both of the United States and the UCMJ (at least the ones which prohibit Murder and other deliberate War Crimes) circumvented by a presidential executive order of non-prosecution, that wouldn't lead anybody to do what they're commanded to do and allowed to do. Laissez-Faire in the battlefield would work just as splendidly as laissez faire in the Marketplace. Well, I'll concede they've had equivalent results. Especially as the former is done to promote the latter. Soon, if the Capitalist BigPigs get anything approaching Victory in Afghanistan, they'll be using the same Killers and the same Killer Methods to indoctrinate Americans into the subservience they demand of Afghans, and Iraqis, and Guatemalans, and Costa Riquenses, and Panamanians, and anyone else living under the "enforced liberty" of the Free Market, backed by Military might if the people object to being treated as "free" market slaves. They already do it at Union actions. Either the Military or the Deputized Constabulary PIGS show up with guns to intimidate the workers to get back in Corporate Line. De Oppresso Liber, Ad Oppresso Ultimo. Which unless my Latin is WRONG that would be the Greenie-Beanie Motto "free from oppression" with "unto greater oppression". Kiss it, SF. It's what you really stand for. That's right, boys, make your Mommas real proud. Just like Dr Lauras son did.
And it will be called “propaganda” that we report this…
Bruce Gagnon, an activist from Bath, Maine, posted this one. The video is from a project called Brave New Films. watch?v=eUvAFx31zCE U.S. forces in Afghanistan kill a 92 year old man in his bed. Shoot him 25 times. Your money at work making us all safe back home - bringing us freedom and democracy. Liberty.....and all that rot. It would not make three shits if it was the Marines, the Army, which battalion/brigade/regiment, if it was Special Forces or Rangers or the Denver Police or the freakin' Boy Scouts. Although the nitpickers will want to do what they do best to try to discredit this. By the way, the Denver Police DID something like this in the summer of 2004. Shot a paralyzed man in his bed because his hand twitched. They were looking for his nephew who had already left the house. Then the PIGS charged the nephew with THEIR murder because he wasn't there. The logic was "If you're not where we expect you to be we get to off any of your relatives and charge YOU with our crime". Like when the Detroit PIGS murdered Alyanna Jones, age 7, shooting into her apartment. And the nitpickers, the ones who say that a murdered 92 year old, a murdered 7 year old, a murdered 50 year old who's paralyzed, a murdered grandmother/grandfather/infant/several people or several dozen people, they don't count unless you can identify clearly, pick out from a lineup, exactly which Uniformed Masked Thug it was who pulled the trigger. You also have to know the exact name of his unit and where each team member grew up, the names of their third grade teachers' Maiden Aunts and what their Yahoo mail password reminders are. The "unidentifiable and therefore not guilty" Alleged Soldiers who Allegedly killed the 92 year old man in his bed, who is also only Allegedly Dead, had members of their Alleged Death Squad standing in the courtyard Allegedly holding the three young grandchildren, hands allegedly bound behind their Alleged backs and with Alleged sacks over their Alleged heads. Smacking and kicking them. Allegedly, Torture Freak PIGS like beating up on people who are Allegedly bound and helpless. Allegedly if the Alleged Victims are Alleged Children it Alleged makes them feel even more Alleged Powerful and of course Sexually Aroused. Yeah, I DID compare that to Child Rape. When one of the Alleged Children said "Grandpa can't hear, let one of us get him to wake up for you" they kicked him again. Then busted in the door and shot the REAL man 25 times because he wasn't getting up fast enough to suit their Piggy tastes. Besides, the 92 year old man committed "Suicide by Cop" by not getting up when the Pig Invaders told him to do so. I've seen such behavior from their Stateside Police State Comrades on more than one occasion, but the nitpickers won't believe that. You have to provide more information than humanly possible, usually from within a jail cell with absolutely no contact with anybody from the outside.
Swiss refuse to hand over Polanski, US upset, still haven’t handed over Bush
Not trying to minimalize or trivialize date-rape or child molesting, but that's ONE count against Mr Polanski and (at least) Hundreds of Thousands of counts of Murder, including and especially children, against Messieurs Bush, Cheney, Rove, Petraeus, McChrystal, Rumsfeld, Prince, McCain, Kristol, "scooter" Libby, Murdoch, O'Reilly, Limbaugh, Hannity, Beck, Dobbs, Mesdames Rice, Malkin, Palin, Bachmann, Coulter and any other Accomplices in the Wars started with, enabled by and continued under the auspices of, blatant acts of Perjury. The charges of War Crimes against these "leaders" and propagandists are consistent with United States policies as expressed during the Nunrberg Trials against officials of the nation of Deutschland and the Vichy Government of France (which had been diplomatically recognized by the U.S.) and "collaborators" including and especially Propagandists, such as Axis Annie, Tokyo Rose and Lord Haw-Haw. Also recognized precedent, in U.S. RECENT history, every single person detained under the vague charge of "unlawful combatant" including those "arrested" in nations with which the United States has no formal extradition treaties nor, indeed, official recognition of their governments as being legitimate. Messieurs Bush and Cheney identified (vaguely) 60 foreign governments who they felt obliged to subject to the same levels of "regime change" imposed on the People of Iraq and Afghanistan. Tit for Tat. What goes around comes back around. When the U.S. "justice" department extradites War Criminals to the Hague, which unlike the Guantanamo Military Kangaroo Tribunals, does NOT have the Death Penalty, then and only then would they even begin to have a legitimate cause for their Crybaby-ass Whining about those bad ol' Europeans not extraditing to the U.S. Concentration Camp/Slave Labor "justice" System. Nationalism explicitly grants sovereignty equally to ALL nations, excluding ANY other nation from that right is not Nationalism, but Imperialism. Under quite a few treaties signed and ratified by the United States Congress and several Presidents, including the U.N. Charter, the Hague Conventions and Geneva Conventions, THIS IS ESPECIALLY AIMED TOWARD THE REPUBLICAN, TEABAG, DOMINIONIST, STATE'S RIGHTS AND OTHER DOUCHEBAG PARTIES who believe they and they alone can interpret the Constitution of the United States, or impose their so-called authority onto other Citizens of the United States or especially onto citizens in Other Nations Article 6 of the Constitution states in the second sentence: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding. Bet Glenn Beck University never told you punks THAT, did he? Or Limbaugh or Michael "the savage" Weiner or Hannity... Did they? Pat Robertson, maybe? No?
there seem to be a few people who have missed this point…
Now, these pictures represent the actuality of the "Fighting for Freedom of Speech and other Rights" that our noble and glorious Military and Police do. These scenes, the one where the cop has an elderly gentleman in a choke-hold, an ILLEGAL chokehold which the Cop denied, despite the fact that the victim is a prominent member of the Community, well, that one was from when our C.S. Gestapo Department assaulted seven members of a group who legally entered a Parade three years ago. Paid "free" speech. One of our number, now gone, Elizabeth Fineron, was dragged from the Bookmobile, our only motorized vehicle in the parade, because she couldn't get out fast enough to please the Pigs errr... "Freedom Fighters" (they DO fight freedom every time it rears its head.) She was then arrested after supposedly dropping the "eff" word. "Fascist" but that's not the one the Bootlicking Pig Apologists cite. By the time the Freedom Fighters attacked Elizabeth, however, their Fascist Forces were already in full-on attack mode. Not to worry, though, oh ye Defenders of Pig Control Freak Tactics, somewhere in there, while the Pigs were already attacking, some witness or witnesses heard the "eff" word, so that makes it all better. Their very action of stopping the entry from participating in the parade, long before the Alleged Use of The Eff Word, was a criminal assault and a planned, deliberate denial of our rights as citizens. But of course, the Cops and the Military Personnel both in the parade and among the spectators, they were "defending" our Right of Free Speech, which only applies, of course, if that Free Speech agrees with what our Masters tell us we can say. And in a lovely twist of logic, they're exporting this same "freedom" to other countries, countries which just happen to have mineral wealth or strategic geographic positions which Our Beloved Rulers want to exploit for their Private Gain, at Public Expense. And, of course, the fact that the entry in the Parade called notice to the illegality of such actions. The line of Heavily Armored and Armed Uniformed Thugs in the second picture are poised to do the same thing to Other Citizens who dare to use Free Speech and Freedom to Assemble in defiance of their Corporate Masters. Yet, SOME WILL CLAIM that this is done in defense of Freedom and not very gently chide us for saying otherwise.
When they say, what they mean
When they say "Your problem is that you can't accept orders" What they mean "My problem is that I can't accept you not obeying MY orders" More thorough translation, the person is a Drama Queen who believes he has such extraordinary Leadership potential that if you don't follow him it couldn't possibly be some failure of his "ability" to lead. Therefore it must be YOUR fault. When they say "You're stupid/ignorant/lazy/crazy/an idiot" What they mean is How DARE you question my obviously superior intellect and judgment by not instantly agreeing with me?" Drama Queen again, if he completely fails to con you into believing whatever bullshit he's selling, it's obviously not HIS fault that he's not a good enough liar, it's YOUR fault for not being gullible enough. When they say "When was the last time YOU were in Iraq?" What they mean is Only those who commit the crimes are capable of understanding why they committed the crimes and therefore nobody else is qualified to pass Judgment on their crimes" Further Drama Queen. Especially when taken with the other two, he means also that people who don't have the experience of Killing in a war, like George Bush, Richard Cheney, Karl Rove (who actually used the word "courage" in the title of his book) Paul Wolfowicz and other Chickenhawk draft-dodger/slash/war profiteers like the dumbass propagandists at Fox, are allowed to agree with his assessment that the war is a good thing, killing is a good thing, lying about it is a good thing. But people who don't have the immediate experience of Murdering Kids aren't allowed to criticize. We're allowed to agree, not disagree. But then there's those of us who Don't Follow Such Orders.... And, when we don't, the wannabee dictators go from Zero to Drama Queen in a matter of seconds. It's entertaining in its own way. When they say "hippie, commie, marxist, socialist, lefty, liberal, fag, nigger-lover, bleeding-heart, do-gooder" What they mean: "We're stupid enough to believe that calling anybody anything other than Right Wing Freak is somehow an insult and will prove Our Bullshit Case and make you hippies shut the hell up!" Again with the Drama Queen notion that they're so superior that anybody who doesn't conform to their program is by necessity an Inferior Non-Person. And that it couldn't possibly be that their "superiority" doesn't actually exist or anything like that.
Gordon Brown says Iraq war “right”
quote: "But the main issue for him was that Iraq was in breach of UN resolutions" AGAIN with the bullshit LIES about WMDs, how long can these ChickenHawk bastards play THAT card? "and that "rogue states" could not be allowed to flout international law." Unless they're Rogue States like the Bush Administration and its Puppets like Britain, Chile, Argentina, Honduras, Spain, Israel,.... "If the international community could not act together over Iraq, Mr Brown said, he feared the "new world order we were trying to create would be put at risk" OH NO! The PNAC and their Satanic "New World Order" wouldn't be rammed down the throatis of the Rest of The WORLD if America and Britain didn't put "rogues" in their place. The Corporate Big Pigs wouldn't be allowed to run the world any way they God-Damned Please! What could possibly be worse?
The “difference” between an IED and a land-mine
Is the difference between a Militia Group (like those commanded by Washington) and the VietMinh or the Taliban "Insurgents" A matter of Semantic Perspective that's vital to propagandists, espicially if the Propagandists don't have anything better. It's the so-called "difference" between "conqueror" and "liberator" , USAF Bomber v Suicide Bomber Decapitation with a sword and decapitation with a .50 caliber round fired frim a Vulcan electric motorized Gatling gun. Waterboarding as War Crime when practiced by the Imperial Japanese Army and waterboarding as "enhanced interrogation" when done by the Imperial American USMC, CIA and DHS. Tianmen Square and the Boston "massacre" or the Honduran "counterinsurgency". The Anschluss and "Regime Change". Genocide against European minority groups and Genocide against American Indians. The list goes on, but the main difference is that Land Mines are forbidden for deployment and the Terrorist States who deployed them mandated to clean them out, destroy them and compensate the Mostly Civilian Child victims of their monstrous use (or their families). In a treaty that the former ChickenHawk President refused to sign on the ridiculous notion that it violated U.S. Sovereignty.... even though the United States doesn't actually deploy land mines or, (as in the case of the terroristic bombing and mining of The DR VietNam, which one of the Major Party presidential candidates from the last election was doing when he was captured) on territory that's recognized as United States Territory. Other than in the Insane Delusional definitions of the U.S. "nationalists" like Bush and his demented disciples. (Special "shout out" to our Homeboys Bob Newman, Dobson and Haggard on that) There are two major parties in our Corporate Dictatorship, one votes as a bloc, no exceptions, and anybody who breaks ranks is called a traitor and shown the door. The "Other Party" currently in the majority in the House, Senate and Executive branch has enough Right Wing extremists, only the Republican Press calls them "moderate democrats" to sway any ratification of the treaty to either vote it down, or have it watered down to a Null Argument, or worse, charge the Children of Afghanistan and VietNam with crimes for destroying United States Government Property by exploding "our" Land Mines. I bet Dobson and Haggard and "Gunny" Bob would love that option. They probably have pictures of little kids with various parts blown off that they use for Porn. "Gunny" Bob is allegedly a Vet, I don't know if he has a collection of human hands harvested from the kids he killed during his "service" but he strikes me as That Type. Yeah, that's confrontational. So is calling the Quakers "Terrorists" because they dared to ask His Royal Lowness to stop lying, and published detailed lists of "Gunny" Bobs lies. A paid Right Wing Propagandist like him would appreciate the "Difference" between a Land Mine and an IED.
Donald Rumsfeld, The War Criminal! War Criminal! War Criminal! Enjoy your evening…
I am not a great fan of Medea Benjamin as a general rule, but she certainly got this one right at the Correspondents Dinner! Medea Benjamin on hand to love former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld