August 28, 2009 archive

Triumph Of The Willfully Ignorant

The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.

-Henry A. Wallace

Now late August in his month of blistering hatred, Ted Kennedy goes in the ground tomorrow, by Sunday the Blue Dogs will be lining up to piss on his grave. The vicious offensive by Astroturf groups that was spliced together with neo Confederates, white supremacists, domestic terrorists like Randall Terry and full blown American Nazis on health care town hall meetings has been an astounding success in driving a spike through any meaningful sort of health care reform. The deals have been cut, the propagandists have earned every penny of their millions for serving as a protection racket for the elite, the public option is dead and the entire sordid mess is soon to be administered last rites. It’s been a month of foulness that hangs heavy in the air, you can breath it in, smell the growing anger, the hate is so thick that it seeps into your pores. Soylent Green is made out of grandma, death panels, eugenics, Stalinism in stars and stripes, they are going to abort the babies and Obama will enslave the white race in labor camps where they will work to pay slave reparations. Were Herr Hitler and Herr Goebbels alive today they would marvel at how much more sophisticated and refined that their model has evolved and developed, God and Glenn Beck willing there will soon be pogroms in the streets, blood in the gutters and then librul huntin’ season will be announced from on high by that doped up and batshit crazy fat man in the EIB Network bunker who brags about having talent on loan from the almighty yet who can’t get an erection without pharmaceutical assistance.

Four at Four

  1. The NY Times reports America’s message to the Muslim world gets a searing critique. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joints Chiefs of Staff lambasted U.S. efforts of “strategic communication” with the Muslim World, “saying that no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behavior overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting.”

    “To put it simply, we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate,” Admiral Mullen wrote in the critique, an essay to be published Friday by Joint Force Quarterly, an official military journal.

    “I would argue that most strategic communication problems are not communication problems at all,” he wrote. “They are policy and execution problems. Each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”

    Despite President Obama’s desire to “differentiate himself” from George W. Bush to the world’s Muslims, “the perception of America as an arrogant oppressor has not changed noticeably, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan, where United States forces remain engaged in war, and in Pakistan, where American-launched missiles aimed at militants from the Taliban and Al Qaeda have killed civilians.”

Four at Four continues with an update from Afghanistan and Pakistan, the FDIC going broke, judge orders security clearance, and big business’ plans to thwart climate change legislation.

FRIDAY NIGHT DISTRACTIONS

I`m a little early today.

I have to go to a beach ceremony for the passing of a friend.

These images are my distracting offerings this weekend.

I do have to thank all those who do comment or ask questions.

The wood carvings of the ladies are those bequeathed to me by a neighbor who took her life.

I put necklaces on them to photograph.

I think I`ll start with an Emerald Scarab.

I found this one a few miles from home, but due to unusual circumstances I did not have one of my cameras.

I put it inside my hat & was bugged all the way home with it wandering around on my head inside my hat.

EMERALD SCARAB

DSCN9327

Wild Wild Left Radio # 33 – Double Standards – Ariel Under Attack

Subtitled: Double Standards by the Haterz on the Right

Tonight we will give a brief tribute to Teddy Kennedy, but that has and will be covered by everyone, so we want to address issues he surely stood against.

While the Right Wing Mainstream Media calls for murder of abortion doctors, while Senators applaud people standing and saying “I am a right-wing terrorist” and then call them “Real Americans<” one of our own is under attack.

Ariel Attack has been arrested for allegedly vandalizing a Democratic Headquarters in Denver. Legalese prevents us from speaking about or speculating about the case. We will, however be pointing out their attempt to demonize her by attacking her left-wing views and using her free speech on a BLOG.

By proxy, our good friends at Queers Against Obama are being slandered as some “terrorist movement” and a spokesperson named “Mary” will be calling in to speak to that issue.

We have invited Ariel to call in, and one of her supporters, we will call “Ben” and hope that the barrage of idiocy from the right doesn’t frighten them into silence.

Besides the obvious attempt to demonize the Left and equate us with the Real Terrorists of the Right, we will speak to the abuses, humiliation and lack of recognition transgendered people are treated with in the media.

If we do not stand together against being branded as terrorist for upholding the right of equal treatment and free speech under our Constitution, we will lose it.

There is no Left in DC anymore folks, so we on the mean streets must support eachother.

Join Gottlieb, Ed Encho and I tonight at 6pm EDT on Wild Wild Left Radio, via BlogtalkRadio, for an interesting hour of Political Reporting and Commentary.

WWL Radio: Free Speech in Practice.

The call in number is 646-929-1264

Listen to The Wild Wild Left on internet talk radio

The live chat link will go live around 5:15.

CHAT LINK:

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/F…

Hey Senators! ROAR Louder For TeddyCare!

Simulposted at Daily Kos

As the much deserved accolades and praise continue for a fallen giant, one cannot help nut wonder…where have all the other Liberal Lions gone?

Who will step up to roar against injustice, inequality, and the oppression of the weak by the strong now?

Who will be the next Liberal Lion, the next Progressive Champion?

Who will stand up to those who have tried to make the word Liberal itself a pejorative and unashamedly Roar?

Eight years of George Bush and the Jingoism of Endless War and Shameful Torture, all accompanied by smirking taunts of “Traitor” and “Unpatriotic” and “UnAmerican” seem to have shouted down our Champions, seem to have cowed them.

The Bush Years seem to have downright SCARED our Democratic Senators into a kind of tentativeness, a subdued silence…a fear of Roaring out what they believe, on the Senate Floor and in the Media.

Only President Obama seems to be championing the critical issue of Health Care, where are our Senators? Are they too afraid to stand up? Too cowed to speak out strongly against the Special Interests, lobbyists ….and their own colleagues as Teddy did?

Are they AFRAID to be Liberals? Are they ASHAMED to be Progressives? Are they trembling too hard in the face of the Republicans and there Corporate Clients to stand up and fight, as Teddy did? Are they too cowardly to stand up and ROAR for what they believe in?

Where have all the Lions gone?

Now that Teddy has passed.

Who IS the Lion protecting the Working Men and Women in the Senate now? Who will Roar for the downtrodden and rail against the power of the Ruling Class now? Who will protect our rights in the lofty chambers of The Senate Elite?

Who IS the Champion of Health Care now that Teddy is gone?

What Senator or Senators will take his place and fill his role?

Who will step up to fill his shoes? Who will take on his mantle of Protector of the weak in the face of the strong? Who will fight for US?

Who will be the NEXT unashamed Liberal Lion in the Senate?

Step up Senators! Support your President, support The People, support what is RIGHT!

Do not praise and honor the Liberal Lion with hollow words. Praise and honor and remember his shining legacy by taking up the torch and running with it, FINISH THE JOB Teddy started.

Roar Louder for TeddyCare!

First Amendment Friday 16 – Lovell V. City of Griffin

Happy Friday and welcome to the 16th in the Dog’s First Amendment Friday series. This series is following the syllabus for the class called The First Amendment and taught at Yale Law School by Professor Jack M. Balkin. As with the Friday Constitutional series this is a layman’s look at the Law, specifically the Supreme Court opinions which have shaped the boundaries of our 1st Amendment Protections. If you are interested in the previous installments you can find them at the links below:

Originally posted at Squarestate.net

Bush Tortured

By David Swanson

It seems almost trivial to accuse someone who launched an illegal war that has killed over a million people of torture.  But if we are going to prosecute the lowest ranked torturers, it makes sense to look up the chain of command.

There is no doubt that George W. Bush conspired to commit torture, cruel and inhuman treatment, and murder.  How do I know?  He said so.

In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union, Bush said: “All told more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries.  And many others have met a different fate.  Let’s put it this way:  they are no longer a problem to the United States.”  

Too vague and wink-wink for you?  Try this:

Maxine Waters, class act, on GOP racism: “Let them define themselves, let them reveal who they are.

Crossposted at Daily Kos

    Last night on Countdown, Keith Olbermann and Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA35) discussed overt Republican racism {specifically her colleauge Rep Lynn Jenkins (Racist-KS2) call for a Republican Great White Hope to thwart the obviosly not white President Obama.}

    As Keith Olbermann so eloquently put it regarding Rep. Jenkins half assed, half apology.

KO:     “The old conditional apology. It’s your fault if you’re offended that an active politician in 2009 should use the most demeaning of racist phrases, vintage 1909.”

    Following that nail on the head statement, Keith defers to Congresswoman Maxine Waters, whom I deeply respect, and can only imagine what it must feel like to be in her shoes, or any other member of the African American caucus in the Democratic party. I would say the same of African American republicans in congress if there actually were any African American republicans in congress, but I digress.

    More, and a transcript of Representative Waters’s response below the fold.

Electronic Resume Shredding

Are you still employed?  My advice is to keep that job because getting another one in this age is like getting waterboarded.  Gone are the simple days of pounding the pavement.  It has been replaced by an impersonal electronic Matrix apparently written by Satan himself.  

The Morning News

The Morning News is an Open Thread

From Yahoo News Top Stories

1 Democrats scramble on health reforms post-Kennedy

By Svea Herbst-Bayliss and Donna Smith, Reuters

Thu Aug 27, 8:03 pm ET

BOSTON/WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democrats scrambled on Thursday to quickly fill the seat of Senator Edward Kennedy, to shore up President Barack Obama’s faltering effort to rally Congress behind an overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system.

Members of America’s most storied political dynasty said a private farewell to the Kennedy patriarch at a Mass in their Hyannis Port, Massachusetts, compound before accompanying his body to Boston for public tributes on Friday at the John F. Kennedy presidential library and for the funeral on Saturday.

Apart from depriving Congress of its most effective champion of healthcare reform, Kennedy’s death on Tuesday cost his Democratic party its essential 60th vote in the Senate, the number needed to beat Republican tactical blocking maneuvers.

Law is for Losers. (MASSIVELY UPDATED!)

Those who obey “laws” are losers.  Those who game the laws are winners.

Law is for losers; Game Theory for winners.

Seems a parsimonious explanation, e.g., Wall Street, War Crimes, eh?

discuss.

I specifically invite IOZ and Greenwald, but please be inclined to a FREE-FOR-ALL.

Please also include human nature, as opposed to “rationality,” as a causal factor.

An intro to “selection pressures versus markets” would also be desired.

Thenk Q.

(Suppositions due by my birthday.)

MASSIVE UPDATE: IOZ’s opening statement:

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration will largely retain Bush era airline safety policies, the White House announced. Officials explained that these old policies were necessary to protect the future from the threats of the past.

“Everything that is currently happening will immediately reach a state of having happened,” said Press Secretary Robert Gibbs. “Therefore, it is in our vital interest.”

In a statement released later in the day, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said that “in an increasingly legal world, we need to take every lawful illegal step possible to ensure that action is taken.”

The civil liberties community gesticulated and made several sounds indicating frustration.

However, administration officials remained committed. “Obviously it is impossible to wage cyberwar against the United States from outside of the United States,” said a spokesman. “But if you can get a laptop physically inside of American borders, all bets are off.”

The Internet could not be reached for comment by press time.

Aced.  15-love (l’oeuf).

(And I wasn’t expecting anyone to even rsvp.)

Muse in the Morning

Photo Sharing and Video Hosting at Photobucket
Muse in the Morning

A Transition through Poetry III

Art Link

The Blues

A Secret

A secret

                      buried deep within my soul

A secret

                      hidden from one and all

A secret

                      too hard for me to tell

A secret

                      complex enough to kill

A secret

                      that cannot see the light

A secret

                      I kept it locked up tight

A secret

                      leaking out so late

A secret

                      determining my fate

–Robyn Elaine Serven

–June, 1992

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