CINDY CUTS TO THE CHASE -- YET AGAIN

Once again, and to the complete and utter shame of sedentary mouth-breathers like myself, Cindy cuts to the chase. Via Information Clearinghouse:


Betrayed!

How the Democratic Congress betrayed American voters, the troops in Iraq and extended the occupation for at least another 18 months.

By Cindy Sheehan
Gold Star Families for Peace

03/24/07 "ICH" -- -- THE DEMOCRATS ARE FUNDING IRAQ ESCALATION: The Democratic leadership has proposed $100 billion of supplemental funding for an increased troop presence in Iraq. The leadership opted for the "slow bleed" policy over a month ago. This extends the occupation for at least another 18 months, and allows permanent placement of troops thereafter for “training” or “combating terrorism”. It also will permit the Bush Administration to initiate a war with Iran without Congressional oversight. The surge of 20,000 troops recently increased to 30,000 and will likely increase to 100,000 by year-end. Will the hapless Democrats then claim, “If only I knew then what I know now” as they have for the past year?

The “slow bleed” policy has some toothless requirements for presidential assertions of progress like those we’ve heard for the past four years from the Administration; these reporting requirements allow “slow bleed” proponents to make the preposterous claim they are “ending the war” by funding it. Amendments that would require withdrawal of US forces this year, the policy overwhelming favored by Americans, and the troops themselves, are not even being allowed for a vote by the leadership! The shameless short-term purpose of the Democratic policy is to embarrass Republicans with a Senate filibuster of the supplemental, or a presidential veto, and the longer-term aim is to help Democrats in the 2008 election by saddling the Republicans with intervention in an untenable civil war.

In 2002 the Democrats authorized Bush to invade Iraq (or any other country he deemed to support terrorism, for example Iran) in hope he would become involved in an unpopular war which would produce a Democratic White House. The Democrats 2007 policy is equally political, and may have the paradoxical effect of producing Republican victories in 2008. The prolongation of the occupation is now opposed by two-thirds of all Americans; we want our troops safely home by this Christmas, not political chicanery. As a consequence Americans now think even more poorly of Congress than ever; the failure to withdraw from Iraq dropped Democratic support of Congress from 44% to 33% according to the latest Gallup poll. The Democrats failure to stem what has become a Democrats war will be a factor in the 2008 elections.
A year ago 72% of the troops in Iraq said all troops should come home in 2006 but politicians did not heed their message. How much better we would be if our support included listening to them. Not another drop of blood should be spilled to protect cowardice by both political parties.

AMERICANS WANT TROOP WITHDRAWAL: The Democratic leadership has disregarded national polls showing that 60% of all Americans and 80% of Democratic voters oppose the increase troop levels in Iraq. Grassroots progressive organizations overwhelmingly oppose the occupation of Iraq and the recent escalation. One group closely allied to the Democratic leadership, MoveOn, has used antiwar sentiment to triple both its membership and fundraising, but has been AWOL from antiwar activity; its members are prohibited from demonstrations, and only vigils for the war dead are posted as events on their website. A month ago I wrote that MoveOn began efforts to support "slow bleed" while antiwar forces actively opposed it. Recently MoveOn fabricated a biased push-poll in which “85%” of respondents supported “slow bleed”; however, the 96% of the MoveOn members who favor withdrawal, and who were not offered a vote on that option, refused to participate in a sham. Congressional sources report that the spurious MoveOn poll, together with intensive bullying and bribing, was used to erode the principled opposition of congressional progressives.

A reliable poll conducted by True Majority, another group with progressive membership, found that only 24% favored the “slow bleed” policy while 76% favored immediate or near-term withdrawal. A Zogby poll sponsored by CODEPINK found that 90% of progressives/liberals favored near-term withdrawal. 96% of progressives question the push-poll used by MoveOn that gave such contrary results. Antiwar groups that fought for withdrawal (United for Peace and Justice, Progressive Democrats of America, US Labor Against the War, After Downing Street, Democrats.com, Peace Action, Code Pink, Democracy Rising, True Majority, Gold Star Families for Peace, Military Families Speak Out, Backbone Campaign, Iraq Veterans Against the War, Voters for Peace, Veterans for Peace, the Green Party) are irate at the MoveOn duplicity.

MoveOn is now raising funds from antiwar supporters to attack Senate opposition to the supplemental., but the activist community is now aware that MoveOn is not the cathartic needed to address Democratic Party constipation. There is at least one Democratic senator, Russ Feingold, who could oppose the funding farce. MoveOn is an autocratic organization run by a small group of elitist wannabe power-brokers; it cannot be reformed, but you can let their politburo know your feelings eli@moveon.org, Namrita.Chaudhary@gmail.com , tom@moveon.org, and you can unsubscribe! You also can refuse to lend them your name (their petitions are mainly for fund-raising), your efforts, and your money, and instead join with one of the many active progressive and antiwar organizations (check out United for Peace and Justice- UFPJ for a detailed listing of local and national groups, which incidentally does not include MoveOn). None of the MoveOn leadership has served their country in the armed forces; like Dick Cheney and 95% of Congress they had more important things to do, which did not and do not include supporting the troops that are in harms way.

The “slow bleed” strategy favored by the Democratic leadership and MoveOn is an immoral political calculation that will cause more heartache and disaster in Iraq. That leadership should understand that being perceived as “weak on principle” is much worse politically than being “weak on defense”. Democratic politicians need to vote their conscience on the supplemental. On November 7th we voted for an antiwar, anti-Bush policy; make that vote count for peace.

Please tell the Democratic leadership: Bring Our Troops Home Now!

ALLERGIES, BLACK COFFEE, AND GRIDLOCK

Modern society seems to me a celebration of all the things that lead away from the truth, make truth hard to live for, and discourage people from even believing that it exists. And to think that all this springs from a civilization that claims to adore life, but actually starves it of any real meaning; that endlessly speaks of making people “happy,” but in fact blocks their way to the source of real joy.

-- Sogyal Rinpoche, The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying


Sounds reasonable enough to me, given how heavily pickled and warped my cognitive abilities are these days. So -- modern consumerist culture is a shabby, bald-faced lie? We live in the middle of a cockeyed circus, a gonad-rumpling farce, a spleen-rupturing fraud, an infuriating travesty of a society flying off its rails and heading straight down the karmic shitter? What a jaw-dropper.

Please excuse me, my friends. It’s back to expending what little life-force is left, for the ultimate (and largely chimerical) benefit of my evil scum corporate employer. I always seem to sink to new existential lows after again wasting gobs of precious time in commuter traffic, just so’s I can toil away for subhuman tyrants and sycophants who despise me. What a puke-fest.

As a matter of fact, caught within the malignant buzz produced by the unhealthy commingling of black coffee, 12-hour allergy pills, and endless miles of automobiles filled with the stupidest people on the face of the earth, I’ve actually lost track of what I was going to groan about this time around. A common problem, that, especially when you stop to consider -- in general terms -- the overflowing sump of diversion, depravity, and despair that provides so much raw material for one’s ire, complaints, and cantankerous prescriptions. There’s simply too damn much to focus on, too many rat-like scandals and assorted verminous outrages scuttling about in the foreground of things, far too much monkey-motion and empty gestures and contrived posturing and gadget-driven lunacy that doesn’t mean anything ... Which is all by design, I suppose.

***

The distinctly human principle of schadenfreude pretty much requires one to feel a sense of gleeful anticipation at the apparently imminent demise of Torquemada Gonzales, and it would be pleasing to imagine that this business of politicized terminations of US Attorneys is, perhaps, the long-awaited catalyst that finally launches the ponderous but desperately overdue removal of the Bush Crime Family. The extremist unraveling of the Republican apparatus -- sunk to its earlobes in the corrosive, corrupting goo of fanatical religiosity, unfettered and unapologetic corporatism, and the ambitious fantasy of global empire -- conclusively demonstrates its inherent, and highly dangerous, unsuitability in any sort of “leadership” role ... but the evil imp who dwells somewhere near the base of my skull says, So what? Is cashiering Gonzales really so important, when there are equally-qualified thugs clamoring to take his place? Seeing that treacherous asshole thrown off the public payroll would be all fine and dandy, and if he can be used as some sort of leverage against the regime as a whole, that’s even better; but with so many Vichy Democrats expelling so much hot air, tacitly committed to enabling the Neo-Con program, do you seriously believe they’ll actually toss Bush and his lickspittle administration out of office?

Again, apologies all around. This is what I get when the Alavert combines with the caffeine, which usually occurs when the gridlock is at its worst, thereby setting the stage for a uselessly miserable day. Perhaps another quote from a real writer is in order:


And always, if he had a little money, a man could get drunk. The hard edges gone, and the warmth. Then there was no loneliness, for a man could people his brain with friends, and he could find his enemies and destroy them. Sitting in a ditch, the earth grew soft under him. Failures dulled and the future was no threat. And hunger did not skulk about, but the world was soft and easy, and a man could reach the place he started for. The stars came down wonderfully close and the sky was soft. Death was a friend, and sleep was death’s brother. And the stars down so close, and sadness and pleasure so close together, really the same thing. Like to stay drunk all the time. Who says it’s bad? Who dares to say it’s bad? Preachers -- but they got their own kinda drunkenness. Thin, barren women, but they’re too miserable to know. No -- the stars are close and dear and I have joined the brotherhood of the worlds. And everything’s holy -- everything, even me.

-- John Steinbeck, The Grapes of Wrath

FOUR YEARS

Has it really been four years since Our Fearless Leader, the Deserter-In-Chief, the Chickenhawk in a Chimp Suit, launched his foul act of aggression against the hapless people of Iraq? At times it feels more like four hundred years, and this illegal outlaw regime has been on its relentless and wide-ranging rampage of death for at least six thousand ... At any rate, it’s becoming more and more difficult to even remember what the general shape of things was like before the diseased worm of “Neo-Conservatism” unceremoniously hatched itself out of the cavernous recesses of Beelzebub’s back passage, and ascended to the position of dominance it enjoys today.

Four years?

It’s enough to induce otherwise reasonable people to fruitlessly, and idiotically, yearn for the dubious ambiguities of the Clinton era. Or, more accurately, what we think we remember of that particular period, which isn’t very much. But then, not being able to recall clearly almost anything that came before the present Baboon epoch is, obviously, a signature plank in the Neo-Con’s rickety platform. So, whatever.

Yep. Four years of the revolting, rapidly decomposing albatross known as Iraq being hung around our necks, and six-plus years of a Monkey-Man government that was so generous in bestowing it on us. I know that I, and all my brothers and sisters on this particular end of the blogging spectrum -- not to mention the more intelligent, thinking version of humanity generally -- have wondered, have gnawed and gnashed and gummed and basically chewed to pieces the critical but, ultimately, pointless question: How did this happen? Not just the obvious, the violently illegal and immoral manifestations of Neo-Con insanity in Iraq and Afghanistan (and elsewhere), but the tawdry far-right laundry list of murder, destruction, and avarice without boundaries as a whole. What a despair-riddled query to nowhere, as resistant to answers as it is useless.

Four years ... my oh my.

We all know, from unending repetitions of Lord Acton’s dictum, that power corrupts. We are less aware that it breeds folly; that the power to command frequently causes failure to think; that the responsibility of power often fades as its exercise augments. The overall responsibility of power is to govern as reasonably as possible in the interest of the state and its citizens. A duty in that process is to keep well-informed, to heed information, to keep mind and judgment open and to resist the insidious spell of wooden-headedness. If the mind is open enough to perceive that a given policy is harming rather than serving self-interest, and self-confident enough to acknowledge it, and wise enough to reverse it, that is a summit in the art of government.

-- Barbara Tuchman, The March of Folly

(Insert huge SIGH here)

VACATION BLUES

Taking a vacation when you’re virtually destitute would seem, at first glance, to be stupid and pointless in the extreme. You’re far too deep in the financial crapper to actually make an “occasion” out of it; and, at least in horribly plastic wasteland towns like this one, you can’t take three steps beyond your front door without the commuting legions of SUV people zeroing-in on you, as if you were nothing but an ambulatory speed bump with a target painted on your forehead. In reality, that last bit is a problem pretty much all the time -- it’s just during these infrequent job-free periods when you involuntarily witness the true epidemic that it all is.

And, of course, the “epidemic” is not merely that suburban consumerist assholes have an insatiable desire to turn us un-homogenized, monetarily-challenged common folk into bloody smears of raw hamburger -- literally and figuratively -- it’s also, and primarily, the generalized fuck-you attitude of conspicuously self-important ignorance that spawns such deeply ingrained pathologies in the first place.

Alright, yeah, my bloodshot eyeball couldn’t tell the difference between a pathology and a pie crust. OK -- we’ll take that as read. However, I do have capacity enough to recognize carefully nurtured and, ultimately, self-destructive stupidity when I see it. Sadly, I’m given far too many opportunities to exercise said capacity, during every pathetic and useless waking moment practically. All those souls unfortunate enough to be just sufficiently awake are faced with this seemingly insurmountable dilemma of dumbness, this formidable and monolithic Great Wall of prideful ignorance and stylish imbecility -- here at the sour extremity of the scorched-earth mess that is the United States of America, circa 2007.

As I aimlessly tramp around and along and through the somewhat decayed streets of midtown Sacramento, giving dubious vent to the ridiculous pretense of an extremely low-budget vacation, I frequently play a silly little mental game with the multitudinous automobile slaves and passersby with whom I can hardly avoid coming into juxtaposition -- these being mostly the more mobile denizens of this place, the oh so stereotypical “Californians” who’re pompously self-absorbed and deign to acknowledge the existence of strangers only when they’re inconvenienced, pissed-off, or want something (usually for nothing). I try to force eye contact, or otherwise stare at these demi-people so insistently that they get squirmily uncomfortable. Meanwhile, I ask myself silent rhetorical questions about each cell-phone idiot and fashionable mouth-breather and Escalade fuckstick I encounter, pointless queries like Do you suppose this spasmo gibberish-spewer with a telephone bolted to the side of his head gives a shit, or is even the least bit aware, that he’s living in a nascent Christo-Fascist dystopia? or, more to some immediate point, I wonder if the over-priced power-bod bitch sucking down some $6 frou-frou coffee drink while nearly splattering my tired old ass with her Acura realizes that the Democrats just betrayed us to AIPAC? Does she even know what AIPAC is? As I said, it’s a silly game I play -- to say the least. I suppose it’s fortunate that none of these well-dressed arguments for retroactive abortion has yet seen fit to have me busted -- for looking at them, if nothing else.

I wish I knew what the answer was, if there even is one. Sometimes I think I’d rather be back at my sinkhole of a job, but what was that recent poll about dissatisfaction run rampant in the American workplace?

AN ADDENDUM TO MY PREVIOUS POST

"Bush is much more impeachable than Nixon was."

-- George McGovern

Read this here article: McGovern: Cheney Must Go.

Uncompromising attitude from previous post obviously still applies -- IMPEACH.

HOW ABOUT AN IMPEACHMENT THEN?

"Today's testimony signals that it is time to reign in this President and his Administration before they do any further damage to our democracy."

--John Conyers, 7 March 2007

The answer is obvious, isn't it? Impeach the bastards NOW.

WHERE CAN I INVEST IN THIS LUCRATIVE CASH CROP?

You just have to love Raw Story, where any day of the week you can run across well-written stories that remind you, whether you actually want to be reminded or not, that the planet -- its social, political, and economic machinery -- is in a far more desperate state than is generally known, or believed. Here's my current favorite Whe're-Really-In-The-Shit piece:

Afghan Opium Crop Set To Grow In 2007: UN

Afghanistan's opium crop is likely rise again this year after production of the drug saw a record 50 percent jump in 2006, the United Nations warned on Monday in a new blow to eradication efforts.

A United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report also pointed out clear links between the spiralling Taliban insurgency and the drugs trade in Afghanistan, which accounts for 90 percent of the world's heroin.

"This winter survey suggests that opium cultivation in Afghanistan in 2007 may not be lower than the record harvest of 165,000 hectares (407,550 acres) in 2006," the report said.

However "effective countrywide eradication may alter this trend," it added. The government has boosted efforts to plough up poppy fields this year, sparking a handful of often-deadly clashes between police and farmers.

Poppy cultivation would likely increase in 15 provinces and decrease in seven, according to the report based on surveys in 508 villages in December and January.

Among those expected to see an increase were southern provinces worst hit by a Taliban-led insurgency such as Helmand, the biggest opium-growing region.

"The situation is worse in Afghanistan's richly fertile yet highly unstable southern provinces. Bear in mind that this region accounted for more than 50 percent of all opium cultivated in Afghanistan last year," the report said.

There were "clear correlations between insurgency and illicit drug-related activities," it said.

"While this is not new, Afghanistan seems to be the most obvious case in the world of how drug cultivation, refining and trafficking funds political violence, and vice versa."

The UNODC also noted a "new and disturbing" increase in cannabis cultivation.

"The last thing we need is for Afghanistan to switch from one drug to another or -- worse -- to become a world leader in cannabis as well as opium production," its report said.

In 2006 an estimated 50,000 hectares of cannabis was grown compared to 30,000 in 2005, and the figure was likely to rise again this year.

Last year's increase in the cultivation of opium, the raw ingredient of heroin, was a blow to British- and US-backed efforts costing billions of dollars to stop the drugs trade through eradicating poppy crops, cracking down on those involved and offering farmers "alternative livelihoods."

The report found that the main reason that farmers were still growing the crop was that it could earn them 10 times more than a cereal per hectare.

Farmers also felt protected against the authorities by Taliban who earned revenue through cultivation, UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa told AFP.

Much of the problem in the south was related to corruption, including in the judiciary, and the lack of government or military authority, he said.

"Anywhere in the world, not only in Afghanistan, this sort of illicit activity is related to a lack of control of territory by authorities. It's not poverty...," he said, referring to claims by poor farmers that poppies are the most lucrative cash crop.

I sincerely hope they don't mind too terribly my re-printing the whole thing ... The only real question I have at this point is, how can I get a piece of this action? It would seem a profitable backstop to the inherent uncertainties of my 401K, not to mention the pension that I'll never live to see.

THIS IS WHAT I GET FOR JUST TRYING TO GET A GOOD BUZZ ON

Pointless meandering in the rapidly thickening gloaming has, inevitably, led me to the over-familiar corner seat at this seedy midtown Sacramento brewpub ... Amid the appalled fascination inherent in the usual who-gives-a-fuck morons who populate this sad, pestilent dung-hole of mindless alcoholism (which is also kind enough to provide free wireless Internet access), I have the drastic misfortune to come across an otherwise exceptionally well-written piece at Guerrilla News Network, entitled The Spooks of St. Petersburg -- the subtitle gives the tenor: Private intelligence companies are gathering in Florida to plan their global operations with neocon officials in close attendance, as more interventions are planned.

Ick! Puke! Purple clouds of recycled ass gas! How much more of this can normal people swallow without their gag reflex being permanently stimulated into a permanent physiological problem?

I'm just asking.

WELL, OF COURSE

Well, of course wounded vets at Walter Reed have to live with rat shit, mold spores, and who knows how many other manifestations of privatized "care," when the Stalinist freaks they so inexplicably serve operate raj-style embassies, such as this one located in the Halliburton-approved subsidiary otherwise known as Iraq. (If you want, go ahead and read the Washington Post article).

I tell you, friends, this fucked-up catastrophe of a nation -- the United States of America, that is -- has very nearly tipped beyond the point of no return. Maybe that would actually be a good thing, all things considered ... but I doubt it.

*Sigh*

I GUESS WE CAN ALL RELAX NOW

Via Raw Story, which I briefly tripped upon while over-dosing on coffee this morning:

Pentagon's number two suggests terror war will end in Oct. 2008

The Department of Defense's number two official appears to imply in a memo that the Global War on Terrorism will end just in time for the presidential election in November 2008. The contents of the document are outlined in a column in today's Washington Post.

Al Kamen, who writes the Post's 'In The Loop' column, identified a pair of memos written by Deputy Secretary of Defense Gordon England in today's paper. The first memo was written Dec. 6 and sent to top military and civilian officials. It identifies eight priorities for the coming fiscal year, and the first of them is to "Win the Global War on Terrorism."

In a second memo from Feb. 15, Kamen reports that England wrote that "to ensure that warfighters and taxpayers receive maximum benefit from on-going initiatives, it would be highly desirable to complete current projects by the summer/fall of 2008."

England then provides a quarterly grid with the same eight priorities from the December memo, and "expected milestone conclusion dates" for each one.

As Kamen points out, the first priority of winning the global terror war from the earlier memo is included on the grid, and "looks to be over around October 2008."

The next presidential election will occur in November 2008, a month later.

Kamen's full column can be accessed at the Washington Post's website.

The world isn't spinning into the cosmic shitter after all, it seems.

HOW DID WE GET TO THIS PLACE?

How did we get to this place?

It’s a question that often flutters across the jumbled landscape of my conscious mind, or what passes for a conscious mind. I’m sure it occurs to most thinking people, at various times and in widely divergent levels of piquancy. How did we get to this place? What a question -- it completely beggars an answer.

I caught just a few glimpses too many of the most recent elitist pissing contest involving Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, and the question above comes hurling back and washes over my battered skull like a new and improved migraine, this time appended to a further query: Who the fuck are these two artificial, political-machine creatures kidding? I mean, seriously. Such an infantile spectacle, a vile cabaret, a phony made-for-TV time-sucker, all designed by big-money DLC-types to both distract the unwashed masses and provide mountains of raw meat for the sub-human propagandist scum at Fox and elsewhere. So, while overpriced douchebags like David Geffen compete to see which Vichy Democrat can be most thoroughly compromised and co-opted and suffocated in the stale commodiousness of his deep corporate pockets, the Neo-Con machine continues its relentless rampage of death, undeterred and smirking broadly. The repugs stay on message, while alleged “Democrats” stick to their role of ineffectual, self-serving bozos -- solidifying the crucial, and perhaps decisive, part they’re playing in the systematic dismantling of representative government in this pathetic excuse for a country. Unbelievable.

All I’ll say further about this bullshit: assuming that there’ll even be something like a legitimate election a year and a half from now, and assuming also that Clinton or Obama actually contrive to win it, what do you suppose will be the real and true significance of such an unlikely occurrence? The first woman dictator of the United States? How about the first ever African-American despot? Because sure as George W. Bush is the stupidest sock-puppet to ever illegally squat in the sickeningly debased office of the Presidency, if he and his regime aren’t swiftly removed (like yesterday) and the imperial precedents he’s set permanently squashed, that’s precisely what will happen -- the continuation of this disaster, only with a new figurehead fuehrer. Think on that the next time a manufactured story of unabashed political whoring is pounded over your heads, which shouldn’t be too long in coming.

How did we get to this place?

MIGRAINES & MILITARY MATTERS, PART 2

The impenetrable mystery at the center of all life -- that vast, incomprehensibly cheesy wad of existential jello that controls all things, even -- has seen fit to ever so slightly relax the physiological c-clamp of pain that’s been squeezing the piss out of my fat and ugly head lately. Given a day-pass to the land of the living, I pant in exhausted relief and try to remember where I was when last I visited this appallingly seedy waste of time and energy.

Ah yes -- the evil disease of “private military contractors.” Actually, in a forlorn effort to inject at least a smidgen of comic relief into so revolting a topic, I decided to throw away valuable seconds by visiting the website of arguably the most notoriously vile of these parasitical corporate vermin, Blackwater USA. It isn’t meant to be intentionally hilarious, I suppose, nor is it particularly surprising just how the ambulatory chunks of human waste at Blackwater describe their “vision”:

To support security, peace, freedom, and democracy everywhere.

Some things are so opaquely ridiculous, so patently insane, such premier examples of cognitive bastardization, that caustic remarks and pithy commentaries are superfluous at best. The gobbledygook above is a perfect illustration. I guess it’s theoretically possible that there might be a sub-genius (or two) somewhere in the dim bowels of Blackwater who actually believes that this criminally sick gang of corporate thugs has anything to do with “peace, freedom, and democracy” -- presumably in such purported bastions of “democracy” and “freedom” as Iraq or Afghanistan. Or New Orleans. However, the conscious cynicism necessary to the dissemination of these sorts of laughable fictions makes me wonder. I mean, as disgusting and despicable as the alleged “people” at Blackwater are, it’s an unreasonable stretch to imagine that they’re so stupid as to take their own public-relations flackery seriously. But, of course, their bald-faced bullshit is for our consumption, not theirs. Duh.

Whatever. Anyway, it actually gets worse, if that were possible. Blackwater describes its “mission”:

To support national and international security policies that protect those who are defenseless and provide a free voice for all with a dedication to providing ethical, efficient, and effective turnkey solutions that positively impact the lives of those still caught in desperate times.

Blackwater is committed to the foot soldiers -- the men and women who stand on the frontlines of the global war on terror and who believe in a peaceful future for their communities and nations. Whether serving in or out of uniform, Blackwater is committed to providing these men and women with the best in training and tactical support to ensure they are fully prepared to meet current and future global security challenges.

And if you believe such unadulterated hogsnot, more power to you; grotesque images of barbecued Blackwater employees in Iraq instantly, if involuntarily, spring to mind.

Where do “firms” like Blackwater come from? I’m not trying to be cute here, tossing out disingenuous questions that have a multitude of potential, and uninformative, answers -- I’d really like to know what evil genius first “midwifed” this cross-eyed bastard offspring of corporate money and military power. Now, I realize that the corporate world has always been the main beneficiary of the more-or-less war economy we’ve suffered under since at least the late 1940’s, as both the prime concocter of largely mythical “threats” and the recipient of nearly incalculable governmental largess in an effort to “meet” these “threats”; deriving profit from war, or, at most, the idea of war, is an age-old American tradition, grown to new heights of extent and sophistication over the past 50 or 60 years. The difference these days is the corporate incursion into the military’s traditional “front-end,” in a manner of speaking, the overt assumption of military functions and responsibilities by profit-motivated private companies. No longer content with merely amassing enormous wealth by purveying the implements and machinery of death and destruction, now there’s this insane hankering to actually wield the weaponry themselves. For profit.

The privatization of conflict, this fateful injection of financial incentives into the actual waging of war -- not simply within the economic apparatus that makes war possible -- is probably the number one thing about this shoddy Neo-Con era that really curdles my gizzard, which is certainly saying a dripping gobfull. Consequently, the regime will hardly be dissuaded from their quest to establish war as a permanent condition (a Democratically-controlled Congress? Oh, please), so long as it’s profitable to do so. Destroying the profit motive would be a decent first step; dismantling Blackwater and other like-minded vulturine corporations would be even better. Removing Bush and Cheney from the offices in which they’ve been squatting for more than six fucking years would, naturlich, be the best course of all.

Oh, if only I could trip back to my Cold War Germany Air Force days, where we used to laugh so rudely at the commercials on Armed Forces Television which informed us that we -- the grunts, chumps, and hoseheads stationed in Europe -- were at “the tip of the sword,” the brave defenders of western civilization. The claptrap then seemed, well, more simple somehow ...

MIGRAINES & MILITARY MATTERS

The moderately calm trough between migraines finds me thinking -- in addition to realizing that it’s a rather interesting sensation not to be in pain -- about military matters, of all things. I have to say that at least during these moments of relative clarity, when my skull isn’t being shredded from the inside by some inexplicable biological can opener, I can be as calm and dispassionate about such topics as the next person. Well, perhaps “calm” and “dispassionate” are misnomers or mischaracterizations, but whatever. I can manipulate a computer keyboard when my head isn’t exploding, in any event.

Of course, giving thought to the military, and the over-militarized course down which we’re being so relentlessly goaded, runs the risk of re-igniting the seemingly terminal brain-ache that’s been keeping me company these days. Oh well.

Like most normal people, I have a nearly endless catalog of reasons to despise the military, and militarism in general; that being said, let me confuse the issue by pointing out that I am, myself, a veteran of the American war machine -- in this case, the United States Air Force, within which I was an active-duty firefighter during the second half of the 1980’s. This wouldn’t be of any real importance to anyone, I’m sure. I hardly give two shits about it myself, except for the fact that the very conscious decision not to take the GI career path (I would’ve retired toward the end of 2005) spared me a whole slew of insurmountable problems, not the least of which being the advent of the Chimpy regime and the snowballing series of catastrophes it has fostered and engineered. So, much like generations of poor dumb saps before (and after) me, I have played my anonymous bit part in the great and ever-present hoax perpetrated by the corporate-military combine. That gives me at least a partially legitimate basis from which to heap as much criticism and abuse on it as possible -- migraines permitting, naturally.

Two things mainly stand out in glaring relief when military thoughts come pounding through my intellectual transom: the astonishment that anyone would voluntarily participate in this madness, knowing what we do about the present political “leadership” and their program of destruction; and the fact that the infiltration of profit-motivated “private contractors” into traditional military spheres of organization and operations has rendered the present-day Pentagon machine virtually unrecognizable, to my jaundiced eye at any rate.

... As to the first point -- well, regardless of the circumstances or particular period of time, it’s always nothing less than flabbergasting that anybody is willing to quite literally sign their lives, limbs, and gonads over to the tender mercies of a sinister organization predicated on the projection of corporate power and death. Nobody in their right mind would even consider such a thing, you would think. But they do, in surprisingly large numbers. Now, I enlisted during the Reagan years, and while that doddering old fuck clearly was the undisputed prototype of today’s Neo-Con figurehead meat puppet, most of us in uniform who could actually think never once believed that Reagan would -- or could -- launch us all on a catastrophic adventure even remotely comparable to Bush’s messes in Iraq, Afghanistan, and who knows where else. Reagan’s relatively low-key military misfires (relative in contrast to Bush’s, of course), such as Lebanon, Grenada, and Libya, touched only a small fraction of us in the GI ranks. In fact, I was stationed in Germany at what was probably the high-water mark of the Cold War, during the peak of the US military presence in Europe, well before the Soviet-led Eastern Bloc began to collapse under its own dead weight. We never took the “Soviet threat” seriously, ham-handed indoctrination and constant training and war-gaming notwithstanding -- we were compelled to go through the motions, nothing more. Our prime areas of concern involved the universal problems of “peacetime” American GI life, 1980’s version: getting laid, getting loaded, and the difficulties caused by a weak US dollar against the West German mark. Being involved in an illegal war of aggression was literally the last thing that ever entered our crabbed, alcohol-drenched little minds. In fact, it never did.

Maybe it had more to do with the particular branch of the military than anything else, but nobody I knew was pursuing some sacred mission or trying to fulfill an ill-defined ideological agenda by offering themselves up for enlistment. I certainly wasn’t indulging in either of these absurd fictions -- I was motivated by that classic, rather unpredictable combination of youthful irresoluteness, boredom, and incipient poverty. These “principles” are still very much in existence, of course, perhaps even more than ever. But the fundamental implications inherent to the seemingly innocuous act of affixing a signature to the bottom of an enlistment contract are vastly different these days; even a cursory inspection of the Neo-Con program, as well as a passing acquaintance with what the psycho-killers in the Cheney/Rove regime have actually perpetrated over the past six-plus years, should leave absolutely no room for doubt about what’s in store for any nitwit stupid enough to join the military. This is precisely why my attitude towards today’s enlistees is as sourly ambivalent as it is. At less optimistic moments (which are becoming more and more frequent), I can’t help but think: anyone blind and/or dumb enough to mortgage their sorry asses to the Pentagon in this dangerous epoch -- specifically, after the Supreme Court first appointed George W. Bush to the Presidency -- pretty much deserves every horribly fucked-up thing that happens to them.

Yeah, I know -- that’s just a tad bit harsh, maybe even grossly unfair. It’s certainly conflicted. So what? Only a hydrocephalic baboon with a heart condition would be incapable of understanding what the present regime means for the minions caught on the lower rungs of the military’s ladder to nowhere, so bravely volunteering to be some sort of nameless sacrifice on the altar of Neo-Conservatism is, to put it mildly, just utterly ridiculous. Besides, my not-so-disguised contempt for the sick fools who offer up their blood and guts to the Fascist cause actually pales in comparison to that shown by the criminal regime they so guilelessly serve. Whether it’s the denial of benefits for those who literally contribute their pound of flesh for the Fatherland, or the bottom-line spectacle of privatizing the military and its multitudinous and frequently nefarious functions, never has officialdom been so thoroughly suffused with such sheer, unmitigated antipathy and scorn for the uniformed idiots who provide the muscle for their dangerously overwrought ambitions. Having once been counted among said gaggle of uniformed idiots, I can at least speak from experience -- a word that nearly all Repug politicos and technocrats are unable to apply to themselves, as far as military matters are concerned.

Sorry. I was going to comment further on the travesty of “private military contractors,” but my long-windedness has run headlong into the blurry, uncertain stirring of yet another migraine headache. I’m going to get medicated now -- I apologize for wasting everybody’s time.

WHILE EVERYONE WAS OUT MARCHING

While everyone was out marching this weekend, a little tidbit of foreshadowing doom very nearly failed to appear on the radar screens of our awareness:

From Yahoo! News --

The aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan passes two fishermen in their small boat as it leaves for its second deployment in a year from North Island Naval Air Station in Coronado, California January 27, 2007. The Reagan is headed to the Persian Gulf to support war efforts in Iraq. REUTERS/Fred Greaves (UNITED STATES)

(Larisa Alexandrovna’s always razor-sharp insights can be found here)

So, steadily and quietly, the build-up continues for the wider Middle East conflagration to come. In utter, contemptuous defiance of the overwhelming majority of the American public, their weak-kneed opponents in the Congress, and indeed the vast mass of people all around the world, the Stalinist weasels at the controls of the power structure won’t be distracted or deterred from their program of catastrophe. The demands of real people in the streets? Hot air. Smart-mouthed bloggers? Virtual ass-gas. The uncountable billions of poor and destitute, particularly those in the Neo-Con cross-hairs? Who the fuck are they ...?

I realize that this question isn’t especially underivative, and that it sprouts out of a sickening manure pile of despair and loathing, but here it is anyway: what’s the answer to this madness? Remove them from office -- remove them now. There’s no future for anyone so long as the Bushniks retain their death grip on power.

What a storehouse of originality I am.

DC: 27 JANUARY 2007

photo from somebody at Democratic Underground ...

DAWN IN MIDTOWN

Dawn in midtown Sacramento ...

...is, I would imagine, pretty much the same as in any other comparably-sized city: everything looks gray and dingy, there never seems to be any place to park, and the homeless legions are beginning yet another useless day of mere survival, way out on the precipitous ass-end of the Bush economy. The SUV people are doing their thing, of course, plowing through the rapidly lightening streets as if the great mass of us financially indistinct people are invisible; fat morons blabbering into cell phones, smartly-dressed jaywalkers, and police officers on bicycles round off this mildly spasmodic tableau -- this weird snapshot of vague determination and ostentatious indifference.

I have to say one somewhat positive thing about this bland and fuzzy town -- my dear old home town -- at least there’s no overabundance of affection for the Baboon-in-Chief, and the Neo-Con program in general, around these parts. Of course, this situation prevails largely because most people here pay very little attention to anything of importance unless they absolutely have to, and even then it’s usually as brief and superficial as possible. Professional basketball teams owned by Las Vegas billionaires, and fools who drown themselves at the instigation of a gaggle of assholes at a local radio station (as well as the armada of pointless distractions inherent to the disposable California consumer culture as a whole) ordinarily suffice to stretch the leaking brain-bag of your average Valley chucklehead to the bursting point. Very little elasticity remains for warm feelings toward the Stalinist freaks in the Bush regime -- and I guess that’s a good thing, all things considered.

Sigh. I’m going back to bed.

LET'S BEGIN WITH TORQUEMADA

Sinus headaches and the usual overflowing septic tank of unbelievable outrages have conspired to overwhelm my sensibilities this week, even beyond what's ordinarily considered normal. All I have the strength to do right now is to offer this suggestion -- to any thinking people out there, and even to our fearless Democratic "leaders" in the Congress -- how about at least impeaching this titanic asshole?

As I said, it's only a suggestion.

AND TO THINK I'D ACTUALLY CONSIDERED GIVING UP ALCOHOL

Yes, it’s true: sobriety, as a way of life, had been looking more and more like a viable alternative in recent days. Most people who actually know me would never believe this to be the case, and it’s almost impossible for me to buy such a farfetched impossibility. Nevertheless, one queasy stomach too many, stirred into a nearly unbearable uproar by the almost universal indifference of my fellow booze hounds in the brewpubs, was sufficient -- well, all but sufficient -- for me to resolve to forego the dubious advantages of alcoholic over-medication and the questionable influence of zucchini-brained bar freaks. All I had to do was clear the beery cobwebs from my existential ventilation system and purge my synapses of drink-induced rust and torpidity, and the world would suddenly appear slightly less inexplicable and revolting. Like magic.

Then George W. Bush opens his thin-lipped pie hole, and nebulous thoughts of heading in a dry direction immediately fly out of the nearest fucking window.

Seriously -- how does an otherwise rational human come to mental grips with the exigencies of these times without being measurably inebriated? Just consider the tortured sinuosities of what may or may not be going on here, in the context of Bush’s blubber-gummed “speech” on his “new way forward” from the other day. In theory, his most recent babblings concern his misfired adventure in Iraq, a disaster that has no military solution; but, in actual fact, what we had the supreme misfortune to witness was the launch of a psychological warfare operation aimed at preparing the public for a vastly expanded conflict, one that could eventually consume the entire Middle East. So, on the contrived occasion of a ridiculous little talk on what he supposedly has in mind to bring his illegal war in Iraq to some sort of “victorious” conclusion, Bush trowels out the worst possible idea of all -- an escalation -- and issues virtual declarations of war against two more countries, Iran and Syria. The escalation in Iraq serves to obscure the truth behind what’s coming for the Iranians, grumblings about a “mythical” US intention to attack Iran temporarily distract attention from the Iraqi meatgrinder, while both effectively blot out awareness of what the Neo-Cons are up to in Somalia and elsewhere. All the while, the new Democratically-led Congress reacts to these dangerous challenges by having no real will to remove this out-of-control regime ... oh, and by passing legislation to increase the minimum wage, legislation that Bush will eventually veto.

How in the hell can you stay sober under these circumstances?

I DON'T PAY ATTENTION TO RIVERBEND AS MUCH AS I SHOULD

I sincerely hope that Riverbend doesn't mind my re- publishing her last post in its entirety -- we all could learn volumes from her, if we just paid attention to what she says. This is her most recent post, from December 31st:

A Lynching...

It's official. Maliki and his people are psychopaths. This really is a new low. It's outrageous- an execution during Eid. Muslims all over the world (with the exception of Iran) are outraged. Eid is a time of peace, of putting aside quarrels and anger- at least for the duration of Eid.

This does not bode well for the coming year. No one imagined the madmen would actually do it during a religious holiday. It is religiously unacceptable and before, it was constitutionally illegal. We thought we'd at least get a few days of peace and some time to enjoy the Eid holiday, which coincides with the New Year this year. We've spent the first two days of a holy holiday watching bits and pieces of a sordid lynching.

America the savior… After nearly four years and Bush's biggest achievement in Iraq has been a lynching. Bravo Americans.

Maliki has made the mistake of his life. His signature and unhidden glee at the whole execution, especially on the first day of Eid Al Adha (the Eid where millions of Muslims make a pilgrimage to Mecca), will only do more to damage his already tattered reputation. He's like a vulture in a suit (or a balding weasel). It's almost embarrassing. I kept expecting Muwafaq Al Rubaii to run over and wipe the drool from the corner of his mouth as he signed for the execution. Are these the people who represent the New Iraq? We're in so much more trouble than I ever thought.

And no- not the celebrations BBC are claiming. With the exception of a few areas, the streets are empty.

Now we come to CNN. Shame on you CNN journalists- you're getting lazy. The least you can do is get the last words correct when you write a story about an execution. Your articles are read the world over and will go down in history as references. You people are the biggest news network in the world- the least you can do is spend some money on a decent translator. Saddam's last words were NOT "Muqtada Al Sadr" as Munir Haddad claimed, according to the article below. If anyone had seen at least part of the video they showed on TV, you'd know that.

"A witness, Iraqi Judge Munir Haddad, said that one of the executioners told Hussein that the former dictator had destroyed Iraq, which sparked an argument that was joined by several government officials in the room.

As a noose was tightened around Hussein's neck, one of the executioners yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr," Haddad said, referring to the powerful anti-American Shiite religious leader.

Hussein, a Sunni, uttered one last phrase before he died, saying "Muqtada al-Sadr" in a mocking tone, according to Haddad's account."

From the video that was leaked, it was not an executioner who yelled "long live Muqtada al-Sadr". See, this is another low the Maliki government sunk to- they had some hecklers conveniently standing by during the execution. Maliki claimed they were "some witnesses from the trial", but they were, very obviously, hecklers. The moment the noose was around Saddam's neck, they began chanting, in unison, "God's prayers be on Mohamed and on Mohamed's family…" Something else I didn't quite catch (but it was very coordinated), and then "Muqtada, Muqtada, Muqtada!" One of them called out to Saddam, "Go to hell…" (in Arabic). Saddam looked down disdainfully and answered "Heya hay il marjala…?" which is basically saying, "Is this your manhood…?".

Someone half-heartedly called out to the hecklers, "I beg you, I beg you- the man is being executed!" They were slightly quieter and then Saddam stood and said, "Ashadu an la ilaha ila Allah, wa ashhadu ana Mohammedun rasool Allah…" Which means, "I witness there is no god but Allah and that Mohammed is His messenger." These are the words a Muslim (Sunnis and Shia alike) should say on their deathbed. He repeated this one more time, very clearly, but before he could finish it, he was lynched.

So, no, CNN, his last words were not "Muqtada Al Sadr" in a mocking tone- just thought someone should clear that up. (Really people, six of you contributed to that article!)

Then again, one could argue that it was a judge who gave them that false information. A judge on the Iraqi appeals court- one of the judges who ratified the execution order. Everyone knows Iraqi judges under American tutelage never lie- that explains CNN's confusion.

Muwafaq Al Rubai was said he was "weak and frightened". Apparently, Rubai saw a different lynching because according to the video they leaked, he didn't look frightened at all. His voice didn't shake and he refused to put on the black hood. He looked resigned to his fate, and during the heckling he looked as defiant as ever. (It's quite a contrast to Muhsin Abdul Hameed's public hysterics last year when the Americans raided his home.)

It's one thing to have militias participating in killings. This is allegedly the democracy the Americans flaunt. Is this how bloodthirsty and frightening we've become? Is this what Iraq stands for now? Executions? I'm sure the rest of the Arab countries will be impressed.

One of the most advanced countries in the world did not help to reconstruct Iraq, they didn't even help produce a decent constitution. They did, however, contribute nicely to a kangaroo court and a lynching. A lynching shall go down in history as America's biggest accomplishment in Iraq. So who's next? Who hangs for the hundreds of thousands who've died as a direct result of this war and occupation? Bush? Blair? Maliki? Jaffari? Allawi? Chalabi?

2006 has definitely been representative of Maliki and his government- killings like never before and a lynching to end it properly. Death and destruction everywhere. I'm so tired of all of this…

I'LL TAKE CINDY AND SUNSARA OVER PELOSI AND REID ANY DAY

It’s been amusing -- in much the same way it’s amusing to see someone shut their fingers in a car door -- to read some of the anti-Cindy Sheehan sewer spew being upchucked across the web in recent days. Since I never waste my time trolling in virtual wingnut waters (a lowly endeavor that would serve no purpose), I’m referring to a few hit pieces I saw at none other than Democratic Underground. As would be expected of just about any dogmatic adherents to a political party line, whatever that party line happens to be, a few indomitable “DUers” have concluded that Cindy actually is the enemy after all. She has the unmitigated presumption to publicly challenge the Democratic “leadership” to live up to their responsibilities; for political disciplinarians of all stripes, such audacity is the most heinous of heresies. Like I said, it’s all so amusing -- hardy fucking har.

Actually, the author of the one crap post at DU that was sufficient to send my credulity reeling around the bend also characterized Sunsara Taylor and World Can’t Wait as “communist” oriented, or words to that effect. Funny, isn’t it, that a nebulous and largely irrelevant spectacle, such as the Democrats taking control of the utterly compromised whorehouse known as the United States Congress, apparently tends to induce a number of otherwise reasonable liberal types to adopt the attitudes, vocabulary, and pejorative iconography of their erstwhile Neo-Con antagonists. What an interesting phenomenon.

Well, one of the most blandly over-used axioms out there says something about people having a right to their opinions ... even cross-eyed mouth-breathers who use fear and ignorance as existential lubrication for what passes for a thought process. That would have to include individuals who operate under the sad delusion that only Neo-Con Republicans should be rhetorically questioned and excoriated and sometimes physically disrupted, while DLC types, and Vichy Democrats in general, should be magically immune from any criticism whatsoever. I’m not sure what you call this sort of thing: Intellectual dishonesty? Hypocrisy? Brain-dead stupidity, maybe?

Fact is, people like Cindy Sheehan and Sunsara Taylor understand full well that our real opponent is the apparatus, the machine, not merely its Republican/Neo-Con wing. They’re not so blindly naive and drowning in wishful thinking to believe that Pelosi and Reid and Emanuel -- and the entire coterie of “off the table” Democrats they lead -- represent an authentic answer to anything, simply by virtue of not being Republicans. Just like the Repugs, Democrats in Congress are politicians, first and foremost, burdened with all the baggage such a designation entails. Posing as self-righteous alternatives to the corrupt bottom-feeders on the Right, the Dems have to be held to a higher standard; Cindy, Sunsara, and others know this intuitively. Too bad a few well-meaning libs at DU don’t seem to have a clue. Political operatives aren’t going to save this country -- real people like Cindy and Sunsara just might.