(fail crosspost from citrus)
I wanted friends. I wanted all sorts of social stuff.
Instead, I got war.
December 2009 archive
Dec 13 2009
Antiwar Left, Right, Screw the Center
Antiwar movements have existed in this country since its beginnings, and have included all wars. There has never been, nor will there ever be, a consensus to kill other human beings. Not all humans are built that way. However, the reasons for being antiwar vary from morality to practicality. Morality is the only consistent reason. Practicality is used of course, when it’s practical.
This country is now on a permanent war bearing. The geopolitical actions that have taken place since WWII have developed into a full fledged imperialist nation seeking to stave off would be successors. The US military has major military commands covering the entire globe, with the latest official command being Africom. Full Spectrum Dominance is the official Pentagon mission now with the aim to control all land, water, and air spaces on the planet..
The country and the world became quite disgusted with the actions of the Bush administration, particularly with it’s extension of the imperial mission. Many were fooled, especially those on the right who followed their leader primarily due to patriotism, party loyalty, and fear. The fear factor, old as the hills. But disillusionment had clearly set in at the end of Bush’s tenure, as indicated by his low twenties approval rating.
Now we have a President that was just awarded the Nobel Peace Prize of all things while he escalates the war in Afghanistan, and continues the Full Spectrum Dominance imperialism across the globe. Most on the right, as with the left, have no fucking idea what Full Spectrum Dominance is or what it means. But, they now have a target, President Obama, to vent at fully without worrying about party loyalty.
The Democratic Party can now be counted out as instrumental to an antiwar movement. No help there, the party and the loyalists will now support the war policies of Obama just as the party loyalists supported Bush. We now have the “Obama Doctrine”, new and improved over the “Bush Doctrine”. The antiwar left has been relegated to the fringe of the democratic party and is seen as a hinderance to the pragmatic, baby step approach the centrists seem to think will work. While more children are killed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan.
So what is the antiwar left to do? Enter the antiwar right. We know the libertarians are antiwar. Whatever their other views, they are antiwar, we can use them. The disillusioned right of the republican party could be of great help. They may not have the same sense of morality concerning war and killing as the bleeding hearts on the left, but they may actually have some common sense.
http://www.amconmag.com/postri…
The American Conservative, “The Return of the Antiwar Right” There ya go, better late than never.
“For eight long years under George W. Bush, conservatives endorsed a don’t ask, don’t tell foreign policy-they did not really ask why their country was at war and Republican leaders did not tell, or bother, Americans with any of the gory details. Missions were accomplished, we fought them over there so we didn’t have to fight them here and troops were supported by simply supporting the wars they fought, with little to no dissent. But why were we fighting? What was “victory?” How many had to die? What was the cost? Conservatives did not ask-Republican politicians did not tell.”
Ya, well fuck that in a way. Why did you support that shit in first place? Then again, I can relate, the democrats appear to be doing the same now. And this:
“The notion of defending one’s country is something patriots of all political stripes can subscribe to. But that every military action our government commits to should automatically be considered righteous and unassailable is a bizarre position for conservatives, given their natural distrust of government in every other sphere.:
No shit Sherlock. I could have told you that, what, eight years ago!
But hey, if it takes a democrat to make these republicans realize that our foreign policies are FUCKED UP, then I can go with it. Let’s get together brothers and sisters and talk, maybe we can find a solution.
Stopping U.S. imperialism, and thus the wars, can’t be done from a democratic party perspective. Certainly not when Obama is the President, which is for over three more years. Many can die in three years. Much treasure will be wasted while it is sorely needed at home. Antiwar is Antiwar whether advocated by the right or the left, whether it’s practical or ideological. It’s time for a bipartisan effort against war, and a cessation of U.S. imperialism.
Dec 13 2009
We Were Sold Out in 2006
After six years of Bush/Cheney, America was getting tired of the “drip-drip” of lies, secrecy, and war. The Democratic Party was poised to regain Congress in the 2006 election.
In 2006, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi were both promoted to majority leaders in their respective houses of Congress. In 2008, with overwhelming majorities, both have been utter failures in leadership on every issue.
It was in 2006 that the sell-out began…
Dec 13 2009
The Economic Bill of Rights — and the long March of History
Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “The Economic Bill of Rights”
In our day these economic truths have become accepted as self-evident. We have accepted, so to speak, a second Bill of Rights under which a new basis of security and prosperity can be established for all-regardless of station, race, or creed.
Among these are:
Dec 13 2009
What a long, strange trip it’s been
A few words on how I got here, old, tired and sick, but truckin’ on. About my focus on tactics, not just tactics in-themselves, but how they are developed.
I was a 60’s kid, brought up white lower-middle-class, believing in the American dream, freedom of speech, civil rights, truth and beauty. In 1964, I supported both Barry Goldwater and Martin Luther King. How’s that? Got to college, and along with millions of others, found out that the American dream was a lie. War in Vietnam was an obscenity. Michigan State University had nothing to do with either truth or beauty. Got active.
Sitting in to support three groovy professors who had been fired at the behest of the Mothers Against Degeneracy. The Akers Hall Kiss-in (hundreds of people kissing in the lounge because they were told they couldn’t. The war. Always the war. Marched, did wild in the streets. Saw it crushed. Friends with broken bones, in jail. Dead. The George McGovern campaign in 1972 picked up the pieces and sold them cheap. I was shattered, broken. Emotionally and political numb.
How did I get through it?
Dec 12 2009
Weekend News Digest
Weekend News Digest is an Open Thread
Now with World and U.S. News. 54 Story Final.
| From Yahoo News Top Stories |
1 Golf world reels as Woods takes ‘indefinite break’
by Greg Heakes, AFP
49 mins ago
| LOS ANGELES (AFP) – After a slew of sex scandals forced celebrity golfer Tiger Woods to announce an indefinite break from the game, the sport’s big-wigs were left pondering Saturday the loss of their biggest breadwinner.
Woods stunned the golf world Friday by announcing a hiatus in professional play and admitting, for the first time, to being unfaithful to his wife. The admission prompted a slew of statements of support from colleagues, but more tepid backing from some of his sponsors, which include Nike, Gillette, Accenture, AT&T and Swiss watchmaker TAG Heuer. |
Dec 12 2009
Copenhagen Ho!!!
The Climate Change summit in Copenhagen is off and running. The Climate Change deniers are going all the way to criminal trying to pretend that scientists debating science and tweaking models means something other than science being science. Climate Change opportunists are going supercritical in their efforts to use the issue as reason to corner the subsidies market for their cash cows. Climate Change Chicken Littles are streaking through the streets screaming hyperbolic inanities nobody in their right mind believes. It’s a regular Big Business these days, no matter where you may stand. Sad truth is that nothing effective can come of this kind of polarization. Which is the point of purposefully engineered polarization, of course.
So I thought it might be helpful to make note of a few observations and a few points of knowledge about where we are today and how we got here, in hopes of clarifying things if that’s possible.
Dec 12 2009
The Left Will Never ‘Win’…..Completely
And we are “ok” with that. Sorta. We ARE only human, after all. We want to “win” as much as the next guy. But at this point…just like in Afghanistan, lol, do we even know what winning is?
After all in the classic definitions, The Left winning would be full on Communism, lol. And I don’t think anyone really wants that!
For now, and for a good long time to come apparently, we on The Left know that the best we can do is influence the center, move the conversation and the Overton Window relatively slowly to the Left and make what Progress we are allowed to make by The Machine.
This is apparently yet another thing that the Centrist don’t get about the Left, we KNOW that there won’t be a Department of Peace, in the US of A. Not anytime soon. We know that the Rich will be allowed to prey upon the Lower and Middle Class, we know that there will be starving children in the richest Empire in history.
Our fight after all, is much bigger than politics. OUR fight is in truth a fight against the worst excesses of Human Nature, when it comes right down to it, when we get to the core of what we are fighting for. Can we EVER truly win that fight?
Dec 12 2009
This Week in Health and Fitness
Welcome to this weeks Health and Fitness.
One morning as a medical student on the surgery service, I learned about a patient who had been hemorrhaging on the operating table the night before. The intern who had assisted during the operation took great pains to describe every detail of the failed efforts of several senior surgeons and the final, ultimately lifesaving, maneuvers of the department chairman. “He came in and just got control of the bleeding,” the intern concluded, waving his hands as if the chairman’s work had involved magic.
Skip to next paragraph“How did he manage that?” one of my classmates asked.
“He’s one of the best,” the intern answered matter-of-factly. “He was a surgeon in Vietnam.”
One of the results of the 80’s and 90’s violent carnage in NYC, ER Doctors, ER Staff, Surgeons and Paramedics got to be very good at what they do best, saving lives. The Wheel Turns.
As is now custom, I’ll try to include the more interesting and pertinent articles that will help the community awareness of their health and bodies. This essay will not be posted anywhere else due to constraints on my time and in January it will be coming to you from Paris, Fr. for awhile. Please feel free to make suggestions for improvement and ask questions, I’ll answer as best I can.
This is an Open Thread
Dec 12 2009
Destroy, Destroy, Destroy: the Obama War Against Pakistan
I want to start with great interview with Webster Tarpley on Bonnie Faulkner’s show on KPFA. First a few things about Webster. He’s one of the more interesting minds (if you pardon that expression) writing and speaking about politics in the world. I’m impressed with erudition and he travels and knows the world very well. His flaw is that he builds a theory and then fits the facts to it. However, the theory he builds are very good and connect with the facts enough to make him very useful. He and Peter Dale Scott seem to understand what is going on as well as anyone. And Tarpley, who I disagree on a number of matters, did call the Obama fraud a fraud before anyone and thus I’m inclined to believe him — plus he wrote the definitive books on the Bush family and has put 9/11 in a firm historical context in his book 9/11 Synthetic Terror: Made in USA.
If you listen to the interview you will see, as most of us here suspect, that we are not in Afghanistan to save Aghani women from harm or to bring democracy or even defeat the Taliban or even “get” Bin Laden and Al-qaida. It is much more interesting and complex than that.