(A travesty that input to our legislators might actually be able to affect. - promoted by devilishadvocate)
"You have to had shed blood by an instrument of war at the hands of the enemy of the United States," [Mr. Bircher] said. "Shedding blood is the objective."
The New York Times reports today that the Pentagon has decided that Purple Hearts will not be awarded to those soldiers suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). Seems that if only your mind got fucked up in battle, that's not worth worth a warm bucket of spit to the powers-that-be.
This much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation,
and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul. ~ Robert F. Kennedy
It is the seventh day of the month, a date that now lives in infamy. On this occasion, she passed. She was killed by an attack that was all too sudden. Her physical presence on Earth did not end in the month of December. The year was not 1941. The events at Pearl Harbor did cause my Mom's heart to stop. Indeed, she only ceased to exist in a form that I can see with my eyes or touch with my hand, less than a decade ago. Truly, it feels as if Mommy just took her leave.
In every moment, she is still with me. All these years later, I mourn my loss. Oh, if only I could bring her back. She enters into my dreams almost daily. Since childhood, I knew, if she were gone, I might not be able to go on. Today, on the anniversary of her bodily discorporation, I mourn, as I trust she would, the casualties in Iraq, Afghanistan, Gaza, Israel, and anywhere that war delays, defers, or denies family time, space, and a proper setting in which to grieve.
Yeah, this guy, the patriarch of Westboro Baptist Church in Wichita KS. The list of other permittees is eclectic. Vide:
The Westboro Baptist Church from Topeka, Kan., will have 15 people at the northeast corner of John Marshal Park protesting military funerals and gays until the parade clears, the park service said.
Thanks to investigative journalist Gareth Porter we know that in January 2006, when Hamas won a 56 percent majority in the Palestinian parliamentary election, the Bush administration initiated actions to overturn the election results. It coerced the UN, the European Union and Russia into demanding that Hamas "disarm" before a political solution could be reached between Palestine and Israel.
This is a signal characteristic of administration's behavior in foreign affairs: require the target to cede its bargaining chips as a precondition of negotiations. In the case of Iran, the "offer they must refuse" is the demand that they give up their UN guaranteed "inalienable right" to peaceful nuclear development. The administration gave Hamas an ultimatum to bare its throat to an armed and U.S. backed Israel, a move that would have been suicidal. Given the overwhelming preponderance of the Israelis' actions and rhetoric over the past three years, I see no way to avoid the conclusion that they consider genocide of a defenseless adversary to be a perfectly legitimate course of action.
And it looks like they can get away with it for at least as long as George W. Bush is in office.
There are HUNDREDS of places in the world where people are dying RIGHT NOW... of starvation... of genocide... of apathy... of dehydration and NONE OF THOSE PLACES get 1/3 the screen time here (or anywhere else on the web) because they're just not "SEXY" in an anger inducing way. And the next Israel vs. Palestine diary that seeks to HELP anyone may be the FIRST of these diaries I've ever seen.
I was referred to THIS DIARY by the Droogester which has some GREAT links for giving aide to the people who are actually suffering in Israel, but then... as if on command... the WHAT ABOUT YOU MIRROR on my computer screen was automatically enabled and suddenly I was staring right at myself.
In an effort to comply with mirrim's request that all front page essays reference I/P, I worked hard to come up with a topic. I thought about writing about I pee, but really, I think one's bladder habits are best kept private, and I have absolutely no interest in reading about your bathroom issues.
I've heard there's some sort of conflict between Israel and Palestine, and considered writing a Question about that, but I'd much rather not waste my beautiful mind on such trivia.
It's entirely possible that I misread mirrim's request; reading the site with these blinders helps me avoid the ugliness, but sometimes things get a bit garbled. Whatever, I'll take inspiration wherever I can find it!
It should always be noted that life isn't always fair ... just ask Britain's own Prince Philip, who stopped to speak with one of his subjects just in front of the logo of the powerhouse football club (soccer team to us) located in north London. It's not known if the Prince supports Arsenal but ... err... umm .....
Ay-yi-yi .... oh well: at least you can stop in for a look at news items outside the headlines, in the arts and sciences; foreign news that generates little notice in the US media and ....well, just plain whimsy.....
In Tuesday's Open Thread durrati chose to honor Alan Watts by quoting this statement of his:
We are sick with fascination for the useful tools of names and numbers, of symbols, signs, conceptions and ideas. Meditation is therefore the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will stop talking when a concert is about to begin.
I find it strange to see a negation of all of the foolish, weak, empty talk that wanders through this blog sitting right at the top of the page.
---snip---
The I/P thing has just about chased me off of here.
And Maryscott replied:
Ideas?
Truly, I am not arguing. I am on the verge of, once again, being chased off my own damned blog.
AGAIN.
By this useless fucking circular argument, where nothing new is ever said and no one ever offers anything useful... Hell, you'd think the people MOST hellbent on swaying opinion might offer something like essays on the HISTORY of the situation, instead of the same old tired screeds... But, no. No. Just blah blah blah.
Which got me to thinking.
I posted a reply and then thought maybe it might be better served as a stand-alone post. So...here it is. Read on.
(It's not what you think. Follow the links, and enjoy! - promoted by mirrim)
Look, I've been as patient as the next guy when it comes to enduring the continual vile spew of this useless back-and-forth "debate" over who started what and who's at fault and all the other bullshit associated with an illegal and immoral invasion. The facts are clear, and anyone who doesn't know the history really needs to shut the fuck up and inform themselves before subjecting the rest of us to their thinly-veiled, slavish boosterism, no matter who they side with-the fascist oppressors and the maniacally dangerous rebels have both committed heinous sins. This is not a time to fall back on ignorance and favoritism, and clinging to well-worn shibboleths will only get your ass rocket-bombed in the end, dude. Fuck that. I won't waste my love on a nation, and I suggest you pay attention, lest you continue to foolishly do so.
I've always been one to refute or pooh-pooh the various convoluted conspiracy theories. No, I don't believe that a secret cabal of Freemasons are controlling us based on their adherence to some archaic code.
I'm fairly certain that humans are so fucked up that they couldn't develop an Illuminati that actually worked.
But I know they're out there. The people whose lives are only fulfilled by 'knowing' that there is a great conspiracy pointed, if not directly at them, then in our general direction.
When you are done looking over your shoulders, to make sure you aren't followed, you can join me below in my safe house to discuss the QOTD.
"We are sick with fascination for the useful tools of
names and numbers, of symbols, signs,
conceptions and ideas. Meditation is therefore
the art of suspending verbal and symbolic thinking
for a time, somewhat as a courteous audience will
stop talking when a concert is about to begin."
I don't know if there's a good guy in the Gaza Strip travesty; if there is one, it sure isn't young Mr. Bush, or Lord Cheney, or Keystone Kondi Rice, or, lamentably, Barack Obama, and it sure as h-e-double hockey sticks isn't Israel.
Speaking of perdition, somebody needs to throw another handful of clean coal in the brazier under Yasser Arafat, and hopefully someone has confirmed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's reservation for the spot next to Arafat's. Bush and Kondi and Lord Cheney and Bad Will Ambassador John Bolton must be looking forward to occupying adjoining rooms with a view of the inferno in the LBJ Hilton, because they appear bent on squeezing in as much last minute evil as they can before a house drops on them.
Never tired of watching its own horror show, the Bush team is reprising the scenario it ran in Lebanon: Cheney goads Bush into giving tacit approval for Israel to launch a military offensive against a group of sand colored people who, in terms of relative firepower, amount to an ant colony. Kondi does her hair up like a fright wig and drags out the ceasefire process until Israel a) has killed all the sand colored people it wants to kill or b) starts getting its tohkes kicked by the sand colored people and wants mommy to make them stop it.
Just days ago, throughout the globe, people celebrated religious holidays. Peace on Earth and good will to all men was the palpable feeling that filled the air. Everywhere anyone turned expressions of fondness for our fellow beings could be heard. People were filled with glee. Then, suddenly, the sound that is the silent hum of joyous laughter was broken. Everything changed. Yet, indeed nothing did. The cycle of violence that has perpetually existed on this planet began again. The qualified quest for justice was once more the people's agenda. In Israel and Gaza, bombs blasted. Bullets whizzed by the heads of frantic, frightened people who sought shelter from another Mediterranean storm. Some died. Hamas was blamed for the initial attacks, this time. As had occurred on other occasions, Israel, in the name of self-defense, fought back. The roles might have been reversed and have been.
This started as a response to fairleft, but I think that it's important enough to warrant a diary.
For a long time, now, I have concluded that anti-Zionism is profoundly counterproductive toward the goal of Palestinian peace and prosperity. The reason for that is that it drives most Jewish people away from the movement for Palestinian justice and no one, outside of Israelis and Palestinians themselves are more invested in the issue than Jews outside of Israel. This is particularly true for American Jews because American Jews, obviously, have significant influence with the American government, particularly when it comes to US I-P policy.
So, since election day I've been searching for a single word to encompass the feelings I'll have on the day in which Barack Obama will be inaugurated.
It's a word that has to connote joy and wonder and the adrenaline charged exhilaration of escape (from the politics of the last eight years) and anticipation and triumph and, well, BOTH "the kit" AND "the caboodle".
For the record, I stand by my loathing and denunciation of Israel's current actions in Gaza.
There are some pretty major disagreements about the history and policy on this issue here at MLW -- but there is also some MASSIVE anti-Semitism coming up because of this current conflagration and I can't tell which issue is making me more sick.
A few people have gone completely haywire, in my estimation, in another thread -- people, by the way, who long ago ceased to call themselves members of MLW -- who actually went elsewhere and have sometimes made a hobby of trashing MLW as loudly as they can -- and seem to have returned with the sole intent of engaging in a flame war about the current crisis in Gaza and about I/P.
The comments made by these returned "MLW exiles," for lack of a better term, indicate the kind of sheer loathing one reserves for -- well, child molesters, frankly. And they do not reserve it for "The State of Israel" -- they do not seem to distinguish in the slightest between Israel, its politicians, its citizens, or Jews in general. THAT is anti-Semitism. It does NOT take a Jew to recognise that, and it does NOT take a ZIONIST to recognise that.
Due to conditions of extreme hostility, I have canceled the Question of the Day. Please do not consider this a Question of the Day, because it is most certainly not a Question of the Day.
This is something else entirely.
What, exactly, I am not certain, but it is not, as some of you will suppose, a Question of the Day.
Perhaps BOTH of my regular readers will possibly recall that I have predicted on countless occasions that as president, Mr. O. probably wouldn't actually cede back to the Congress many--if ANY--of the 'emergency powers' arrogated unto the Presidency by the Busheviks.
"As a US senator and presidential candidate, Barack Obama routinely criticized the accretion of presidential power during the Bush years. But in the run-up to assuming the presidency himself, the President-elect has gone silent on whether he would roll back powers claimed during the Bush years - or support congressional efforts to do so."
As Jerome a Paris has noted, among others, Paulson and others of his ilk have started blaming the Chinese and Germans for our economic woes:
The US Treasury Secretary said that in the years leading up to the crisis, super-abundant savings from fast-growing emerging nations such as China and oil exporters - at a time of low inflation and booming trade and capital flows - put downward pressure on yields and risk spreads everywhere.
This, he said, laid the seeds of a global credit bubble that extended far beyond the US sub-prime mortgage market and has now burst with devastating consequences worldwide.
What a sorry load of ... well, let me go for a better analogy than that ... and then dig more deeply into the whys and wherefores of its load of ...
(Recycled for Sunday, because Saturday's is too fucking full of I/P bullshit. - promoted by Maryscott O'Connor)
"Game, my ass. Some game. If you get on the side
where all the hotshots are, then it's a game,
all right - I'll admit that. But if you get on
the other side, where there aren't any hotshots,
then what's a game about it? Nothing. No game."
(Late in the day for a new O/T may as well recycle...rant on about Gaza under the watchful gaze of peace-nik Stills. Abandon all hope ye who enter... - promoted by durrati)
The original "George W." (Courtesy of Campus Explorer)
Riffing off my comment of yesterday in the mightee Jed L's diary, one asks if Harry Reid, our favorite "Senatorial Grandpa", knows just what he's doing these days.
E.g., even if Reid is not a racist or criminal for arranging for Blag's buddy, black man Burris, to be PHYSICALLY EXCLUDED from the Senate,---does it make for good presentation/theater?
I think Karl "boooo" Rove once said that political commercials made the most sense if you left the sound off, e.g., seeing Ronald Reagan's teeth shining and waving in the breeze like the American flag was more moving to voters than hearing Walter Mondale's brilliant recitation of American textile export stats or whatever. And one must say, doing a possible George Wallace--even just in appearance, not in spirit--on Burris may not be the best for the future of the Democrats, or even the future of Harry Reid.
The results from some tests came back today. I have pancreatic cancer. It is untreatable. I will die in 2009. I am not telling you this for pity, or for whining. I have known this was coming for awhile, and have made my peace with it. I am telling you this to urge you on in your fight for universal health care. And to urge you to continue to fight to support the Obama administration, loudly, whenever you feel you can.
As 
