Tag: Democracy

If you visit any of the lists of the KIA’s or Injured in the Iraq Theater one thing you’ll notice, the Only Occupation Forces numbers rising, being Killed and Maimed, are American Forces these last number of months!! I find myself wondering how many are on a first tour, or second, or third, or forth…………………………….., in Both Theaters!!

Something leaped from an internet page today, it was about Bush and his legacy, what he wants it to be or the grand delusion.

“I’d like to be a president (known) as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace;

I diary about Iraq off and on with disappointing results which seems to plague all of us who try to report what is happening there. Many people don’t believe the numbers as evidenced by comments on on another poster’s Iraq diary earlier this week. People actually believe the Surge has worked to the benefit of Iraqis and there is no genocide. For all of you who do not believe the numbers, remember, what you know of Iraq is filtered through the sociopathic delusions of George W. Bush. We don’t do body counts. Why would he mention dead and maimed Iraqis, the very fact we do not count tells you how trivial their lives are in the greater scheme of all things GWB.  George W. Bush has the deranged wish to be remembered for liberating Iraq from the grip of Saddam? Let him and all of us remember this …  

Iraq

If you visit any of the lists of the KIA’s or Injured in the Iraq Theater one thing you’ll find, the Only Occupation Forces numbers rising, being Killed and Maimed, are American Forces these last number of months!! I find myself wondering how many are on a first tour, or second, or third, or forth…………………………….., in Both Theaters!!

Hey! Remember back when Obama was elected and the Democrats swept?

Well, that’s all in the past now. The future lies before us.

What say you? Let’s have the Dems-in-the-DC-Bubble set how that plays out.

Pelosi, Hoyer, Reid, Blue Dogs, … who can doubt that the Dem Leadership is deeply on our side? Who could possibly be more vigorous in protecting the Constitution? In enacting the people’s will? In protecting the people’s interests?

I dunno. Unless it’s the people. ‘Cause come to think of it, the Dem Leadership ain’t been doing that, in the main. Yep, comes down to us people.

So, bearing in mind that “as the twig is bent, so grows the tree”; recognizing that this very day starts the shaping of our future government; how shall we immediately train the emerging government so it bears a beneficient fruit for the people?

Surely, “business-as-usual” among our Electeds has rendered our nation barren, bleak, and endangered. Whatever has been done in the past, can be done no longer. And chief among those things from the past is…

Well, first things first. Let me digress for a moment…

Criminal masterminds come from the strangest places. Look at Harvey “Two Face” Dent. Or Lex Luthor. Or Cat Woman.

Well, you have a new name to add to that list: grannyhelen.

Sure, I may look mild-mannered. I’m a 40 year-old, stay-at-home mom of two young kids whose alias is a tribute to my own great-grandmother. I write about nonviolence and politics in between changing diapers and baking cookies. You’d see me on my walk with my two-year-old and never think to yourself: this is the woman who is rending the fabric of our Democracy.

But you’d be wrong.

is none of the above.

By now we’ve all heard that McCain’s “Joe the Plumber”:

• isn’t a licensed plumber
• won’t pay more under Obama’s tax plan
• his business doesn’t earn close to $250K/year
• isn’t even named Joe

It reminded me of something, but I couldn’t put my finger on it till this morning when 30,000 demonstrated in Baghdad against the US occupation, with the encouragement of the man inevitably described in US media as “anti-American cleric Moqtada Al Sadr“.  So this might be the perfect time to point out that Al Sadr:

• is not anti-American
• is not a cleric
• is strongly pro-democracy
• led the unilateral cease fire that’s made Iraq more peaceful, saving American lives

In short, the only thing our press has been reporting correctly are his popularity and his name.

Iraq

There have been 4,491 coalition deaths — 4,177 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Azerbaijani, 176 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, 1 Czech, 7 Danes, 2 Dutch, 2 Estonians, 1 Fijian, 5 Georgians, 1 Hungarian, 33 Italians, 1 Kazakh, 1 Korean, 3 Latvian, 22 Poles, 3 Romanians, 5 Salvadoran, 4 Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, 2 Thai and 18 Ukrainians — in the war in Iraq as of October 3, 2008, according to a CNN count. { Graphical breakdown of casualties }. The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country’s governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 30,680 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan.

Iraq

There have been 4,468 coalition deaths — 4,154 Americans, 2 Australians, 1 Azerbaijani, 176 Britons, 13 Bulgarians, 1 Czech, 7 Danes, 2 Dutch, 2 Estonians, 1 Fijian, 5 Georgians, 1 Hungarian, 33 Italians, 1 Kazakh, 1 Korean, 3 Latvian, 22 Poles, 3 Romanians, 5 Salvadoran, 4 Slovaks, 11 Spaniards, 2 Thai and 18 Ukrainians — in the war in Iraq as of September 5, 2008, according to a CNN count. { Graphical breakdown of casualties }. The list below is the names of the soldiers, Marines, airmen, sailors and Coast Guardsmen whose deaths have been reported by their country’s governments. The list also includes seven employees of the U.S. Defense Department. At least 30,568 U.S. troops have been wounded in action, according to the Pentagon. View casualties in the war in Afghanistan.

Maybe I’m nuts or unhinged or maybe I’m not. Perhaps its stress or the nerves acting up.  I need to lay off watching the news and politics.  Though something tells me I’m not gonna shake off this feeling I keep getting. Maybe some of you have felt this weird sense of dread too.

Staff Sgt. Alex Jimenez comes home for funeral

A hearse bearing the remains of 25-year-old Staff Sgt. Alex Jimenez came to a halt in front of his father’s house in Lawrence, the scene of a 14-month vigil as the family awaited word of his fate. A memorial shrine with floral arrangements and half-burned votive candles was on the sidewalk. (7-25-08)

While in a discussion in yesterday’s essay We’re Not In Kansas Anymore  NLinStPaul asked me to expand my comments on the fact I believed that democracy cannot function the current cultural atmosphere and that we should hope that the oligarchs that run the joint can be wise.

To me this is an easy statement to make because democracy, as we have come to understand the term, is not a natural or common state of human culture. History and social science has shown us that most people inevitably follow authority and will follow authority. It also shows that power corrupts and that, in many ways, both the powerful and the weak cooperate in a kind of sado-masochistic scene (check out the Stanford Prison Experiment). People want and need norms and authority and will tend to gas Jews or torture prisoners if asked by the powerful to do so (see the Milgram Experiment). People will tend to conform to cultural views of reality even when it clashes with their own direct perception (see the Asch conformity experiments–you don’t even have to read about that to see how it has happened in this country particularly during the lead-up to the Iraq War).