Tag: Cheney

I was sitting on a train headed for the loop at Randolph Station, in Chicago, going to work.  I remarked to myself what an absolutely beautiful day it was — the sky was clear, a bit of crispness in the air and sunny.  A more beautiful day one could not have asked for.

The train was late.  No explanations.  

I arrived at my office and was greeted by my “boss!”  “Barbara, something awful, terrible, the world has gone crazy, I’m so glad you’re here — go watch the TV!”  I had never seen Alan emote this way ever.  I ran to the conference room where the TV was on — I watched, as the second tower was being hit. I viewed that and some re-runs — I think, in my mind, it was so surreal that I believed I was watching an episode from a movie, not something real.  

The 2nd Prudential Building, where I worked, advised us ALL to leave and go home — this was across the street from the building that formerly housed the Amoco Corporation, which later became the Aon Group Building (insurance).  Why?  Because, according to so-called threat knowledges, that building was also a targeted building.

Alan’s son called!  “Tell my dad I want to go home.”  I did, “Alan, you must go home and so must I.”  

I waited an hour and a half for a train to take me home.  There were so many nights that I didn’t sleep, couldn’t eat — as though someone had shot a bullet through my heart, but I was still somehow breathing.  

Then, as I tried to sleep so many nights, I thought of the brave, brave New Yorkers, who witnessed the horrors right in their faces and I could not stop the tears — for weeks on end.

One such individual, Randgrither, a New Yorker and one who worked in one of the towers, who no longer posts here, wrote a most poignant individual accounting:

I can haz cheeseburger  

More by: randgrithr

Mon Sep 14, 2009 at 15:20:53 PDT

Eight years ago today, my husband arrived home early from work. As he walked into the room, I rose from my bed and announced that I wanted to get something to eat.

This was a big deal because I hadn’t eaten anything for three days. I’d spent most of that time laying in bed, not wanting to be alive, not wanting to be awake, trying to wish the nightmare away. Sometimes I would get up out of bed and wander around the house. I’d drink some water and see if anything new was on TV. It wasn’t. I’d stand there for a few minutes watching on the idiot box what I’d already seen with my own two eyes, turn it off, and go back to bed. I slept a lot. I cried more than I care to remember. I’d reassure the cats, who were all expressing the worry and concern of communication-challenged but emotionally astute children.

Most television channels still had footage of the crumbling towers on eternal repeat, but a few were starting to show other coverage. The TV coverage didn’t come anywhere close to the chilling, thunderous sound of the collapses as I experienced them from only a mile away. It was very lost on me, and therefore very easy to walk away from or turn off.

The worst of my horror was the certain knowledge that there was no way the US intelligence community hadn’t seen this coming. I tried to push what I knew to the back of my mind, denying it, unable to deny it, unable to forget it, and unable to share it with anyone. The knowledge of this was kind of like the sound of the towers coming down – it was something you’d never understand unless you’d been there. It wasn’t going to be on TV. Trying to talk about it would get one looked at with the level of sympathy reserved for the insane. That didn’t make it any less real or any less horrifying.

My husband gently asked me what I wanted to eat, fully planning to make it for me. I said I wanted something that we wouldn’t have to cook ourselves. I’m not really a junk food fiend, but for whatever reason I settled on Burger King.

We went to the “Bravo Kilo” as we used to call it in the military, and I ordered my usual, which was a whopper with cheese, no tomato. While we were sitting and waiting for my first meal in three days, a fire broke out in the kitchen. The fire alarm began incessantly shrieking and strobing. Shortly a hook and ladder company came barrel-assing into the parking lot. The other people in the restaurant glanced uncomfortably and sadly at the firemen, still feeling the shock themselves from 9/11. I was quietly laughing like a crazy woman – the last damned time I’d been outside the house there had been the same scene… smoke and incessant sirens. Just what I needed, another overload of adrenaline. Nobody there except my husband would understand why I was laughing, but it wasn’t like anyone could hear me over the siren anyway. Eventually after what felt like an eternity tied to a mast, the husband returned bearing my food.

Three days of not eating won out over the adrenaline. I took my burger to go and we got the heck out of there. I ate it in the car.

Every year on September 14th, rich or poor, sick or well, at home or a hundred miles away from home, I go to my local “Bravo Kilo” and order a whopper with cheese, no tomato.

Now you know why.

You may recall that Richard Nixon’s declared “enemy” was Daniel Ellseberg, who released “The Pentagon Papers” that finally brought to public light the lies, corruption, and futility behind the Vietnam War. Nixon was so pissed about this, that he formed his own private CIA-hit team, called “The Plumbers”, made up of CIA “Bay Of Pigs” assassins (and Kennedy assassination participants), E. Howard Hunt, Frank Sturgis, etc. to go around and ensure that any leaks were plugged up. Of course, the Daniel Ellsberg burglary, and the Watergate break in then followed, which led to Nixon’s own downfall — something today’s Congress would let pass by without a thought, in the today’s unspeakable age where: Human torture and preemptive War are good things in eyes of The United States Government (as long as we’re the ones doing it, or Israel, or the British Oligarchy, or Saudi Arabia).

Well the Pentagon Papers of today, are WikiLeaks, and guess who’s side President Obama is on?  That’s right, the same side as Richard Nixon.

Obama made a public statement to  Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan where he was quoted as:   “Expressing his regrets for the deplorable action by WikiLeaks“.

Link: Obama Lashes Out Amid Calls to Free Assange

Yeah….in Obama’s World, truth-telling is really “deplorable”, and not our criminal and corrupt Foreign Policy, our Worldwide mass-violence, and his utter waste of Trillions of dollars of American citizens money — who must instead, according to Obama, be robbed of their own Social Security lifeline in order to “keep the debt under control” — while he also hands out over $700 Billion dollars to multi-millionaires, and tells the Democratic Party: “take it or leave it”   (who’s the real treasonist here?).

This is a tragic statement about our Country, but hardly surprising since President Obama has also happily agreed with Dick Cheney and George Bush (his Foreign Policy role models) supporting the elimination of Haebeus Corpus, elimination of our Miranda Rights, elimination of the Posse Comitatus Act, support for secret brutal CIA Renditions (i.e. the outsourcing of Human Torture), broad based Government Wiretapping and data gathering on U.S. Citizens that would make Richard Nixon blush, and the right of the executive to now kill and assassinate any U.S. Citizen without any charges or crimes ever being demonstrated … on mere suspicion alone.
This is President’s Obama worldview.

The President also called Mexican President Felipe Calderon as well to make the same statement as well, as part of an effort to put pressure on Foreign Governments to continue to scapegoat, abuse, jail, harass, torture, or possibly assasinate the truth-teller.

Obama has also turned Attorney General Eric Holder loose to prosecute — not the War Crimes committed by criminal government officals whom we all pay the salaries of — but instead to prosecute truth-teller Julian Assange, and by using “all the tools” at his disposal (e.g.: assassination efforts underway).
This is President’s Obama worldview.

___

Support of WikiLeaks may be the most constructive thing that all of us ordinary people can do now, to bring about pressure upon the ruling Elite class, and expose their genocidal and monetary crimes.

I had, as early as 2001, read about the PNAC, when we suddenly switched gears “There’s no targets here,” said Bush.  And the propaganda commenced

Military Project etc.  

Even Soc. Sec.  contemplated — enlarge on this

Nick Egnatz, is a VietNam vet, who has written an essay and is someone with whom I have rallied with, from time to time, here and there.  I am showing the entire essay, because the “thought content” may become lost were I not to do so!  

I reserve my personal comments or thoughts (and, frankly, I’m still mesmerizing over the thoughts he portrays in his diary)!  

I must say, up-front, I do not disagree with the accuracy of the circumstances, as he portrays them to be!  Nor, do I think his solutions absurd, but . . . . . !  We all search for remedies — maybe, Nick’s right and maybe, he’s wrong!  What do you think?

The Progressive Dilemna

The Progressive DilemmaSubmitted by Nick Egnatz on Wed, 2010-09-29 19:49

A self described representative democracy in which the only two political parties are both funded and controlled by elite corporate interests is a contradiction in terms. Control of the population through government propaganda and a monopoly corporate media have made the domination of the American working class and poor by the wealthy corporate elite consensual. The enormity of the crime against true democratic values is so complete that substantive reform of the present system is an impossibility.

A dilemma is a situation in which one is forced to choose between equally distasteful options. That has always been our consignment as Americans when we venture to the polls (either vote for a wishy/washy Democrat or let the even worse Republican win). Every two years we are told that the fate of our democracy rests on our decision. Well it doesn’t because we don’t have a democracy, representative or otherwise. We have a plutocracy (rule by the wealthy). Our two political parties answer out of necessity to the corporate world. No one represents the people and the monopoly corporate media will not allow for a discussion of democratic alternatives.

The chickens have come home to roost from the last 30 years of economic neoliberal globalization policies championed by both political parties. Supply side economics of massive tax cuts for the wealthy and deregulation of the very modest checks on American capitalism necessitated by the Great Depression have made us the most unequal industrial democracy on earth. Imperial wars of aggression and massive bailouts of the very speculators who engineered the financial collapse leading to the Great Recession have allowed both corporate parties to take the stance that there is no money left for the people’s needs. This is poppycock. How can a consumer driven economy recover if the working class and poor have no jobs or money?

To cut spending on social programs with political cover, Obama came up with the brilliant idea of a Budget Deficit Commission made up of bipartisan hacks from both our two corporate parties, representatives from the corporate world of greed and a single union president. Green Party and socialists need not apply and in fact there are no even mildly progressive Democrats (an oxymoron if there ever was one) on the commission. The Commission is not a result of legislation from our Congress. It was formed by Executive Order. This is the way dictators govern, but that’s another issue. The Commission is charged to cut the Budget Deficit by cutting social programs only and leaving the military spending intact. If and when 14 of the Commission’s 18 members agree on policy it will go straight to Congress for a vote with no amendments allowed.

Co-chairman of the Commission Alan Simpson, former Republican Senator from Wyoming received some notoriety recently by referring to seniors on Social Security as “lesser people”, calling Social Security a “cow with 310 million tits” and asking the question of Vietnam veterans “what have they done for us lately?’ None of this bothered our President enough to ask for Simpson’s resignation. Their recommendation is due in December, after the election.

We are expected to accept the government propaganda that the unemployment rate is 9.6%, when that figure does not include those no longer receiving or who never received unemployment compensation, part time workers desiring full time work or workers disdainfully referred to as having given up looking for work. Including all these would bring the unemployment figure to 22%. But that still doesn’t count those working for less than a livable wage, this would easily bring the figure well beyond the 30% range. This assault on the working class has been the goal of the neoliberal globalization policy accepted as gospel by both corporate political parties since Ronald Reagan started selling it in the 70s and 80s when he set out to save the country from the scourge of a prosperous working class. The Great Communicator pushed his dogma of bad government/good corporations with the same smile he used to push Twenty Mule Team Borax soap to TV viewers years earlier.

More than three million families have already been foreclosed and torn from their homes. Another 11 million families are “underwater” (owing more that the home is worth). Research firm First American Core Logic reports that Nevada with 65% of home mortgages underwater, Arizona with 48%, Florida with 45%, Michigan with 37% and California with 35% lead the nation in this foreboding statistic.

The Republicans propose fiscal austerity for the poor and working class and continued tax cuts for the wealthy corporate class to find our way our of the Great Recession. Obama and the Democrats say that economic growth will do the trick. Both so called solutions are illogical. We are expected to believe that if the big bad bankers would just pretty please start loaning money to businesses, the economy will start humming and everything will be hunky dory?

I’m not an economist, but I have been a small businessman and I have been told on more than one occasion that I have half a brain. The road to recovery is both simple and difficult. For businesses to thrive, for the economy to hum, the business owners simply need customers with money in their pockets. The first step is to put our citizens back to work at a livable wage and the economy will flourish. It will be difficult, to the point of impossibility, for corporate politicians to consider the people at the bottom first, but that is what needs to be done.

Looks like much more of the cheney/bush years are continuing to collapse, and All Done In Our Names. This may explain the widespread push, especially from republicans? in Congress, they’re figureheads around the Country and those connected to that administration but not in Government have so forcefully been pushing the fox nation types to rail against closing Gitmo and having No Trials of so called terrorist inside this Country and in our Courts. Courts of a supposedly Lawful Nation!

Truthout has updated an earlier report of what’s coming down.