The WaPo’s Dana Milbank lets us know about a family that wanted the world to see their son, husband and father laid to rest — but was thwarted by the Pentagon:
Lt. Col. Billy Hall, one of the most senior officers to be killed in the Iraq war, was laid to rest yesterday at Arlington National Cemetery. It’s hard to escape the conclusion that the Pentagon doesn’t want you to know that.
The family of 38-year-old Hall, who leaves behind two young daughters and two stepsons, gave their permission for the media to cover his Arlington burial — a decision many grieving families make so that the nation will learn about their loved ones’ sacrifice. But the military had other ideas, and they arranged the Marine’s burial yesterday so that no sound, and few images, would make it into the public domain.
That’s a shame, because Hall’s story is a moving reminder that the war in Iraq, forgotten by much of the nation, remains real and present for some. Among those unlikely to forget the war: 6-year-old Gladys and 3-year-old Tatianna. The rest of the nation, if it remembers Hall at all, will remember him as the 4,011th American service member to die in Iraq, give or take, and the 419th to be buried at Arlington. Gladys and Tatianna will remember him as Dad.
The two girls were there in Section 60 yesterday beside grave 8,672 — or at least it appeared that they were from a distance. Journalists were held 50 yards from the service, separated from the mourning party by six or seven rows of graves, and staring into the sun and penned in by a yellow rope. Photographers and reporters pleaded with Arlington officials.
"There will be a yellow rope in the face of the next of kin," protested one photographer with a large telephoto lens.
"This is the best shot you’re going to get," a man from the cemetery replied.
"We’re not going to be able to hear a thing," a reporter argued.
"Mm-hmm," an Arlington official answered.
This is part of the Bush team’s strategy of doing their level best to hide the true costs of their war of choice from us. It’s not just funerals that BushCo wants kept out of our sight. Here’s some of what they’re trying to hide:
– The sight of the dead and wounded — on both the US and Iraqi sides.
– Honest and widespread reporting of the continuing bombing campaigns conducted by the US in Iraq (as Siun has mentioned many times, such as here).
– The fact that a big fat bright line can be drawn from our crappy economic situation straight to the trillions spent in Iraq.
– The fact that gas at the pump has doubled in price since the invasion and will keep getting more expensive, not less. (This, by the way, is the opposite of what the Bushies promised would happen back in 2002.)
The Bushies want Americans to think that the war doesn’t really affect them. But it does, and it’s our job to point this out, over and over again. There have been some efforts in the mainstream press (such as this one), but they’re few and far between compared to stuff on the order of "The surge is working!" and "Petraeus is God".
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Good Morning PW…. now to read the post ;)
HA!
A lapel pin for all. Since the magnetic yellow ribbons have run their course, it’s time for something new.
Thank you PW. The numbskulls currently “in charge” of how things are done could not possibly be more wrong. They will pay, one way or another.
That picture showing the yellow rope will speak volumes about this horrid administration. They will NOT be allowed any place to hide their evil deeds.
A parent called in to KPHX radio show “About Face” hosted by the veterans for peace stated their son was going on their 5th deployment to Iraq….
Kid employees at chain grocery store overheard one telling the other that he got a raise….. “a nickel?!” ….. “you got a nickel raise?!” where the other nearly fell down with laughter….. ya a nickel more an hour for a young man …..not going to pay for a lot of gas with that!
On my two mile walk around my neighborhood (usual route) there are 10 homes for sale….. two have been empty and for sale for over a year…..
Please don’t shut out us whites for Obama. We gave him 4 votes from this household, and we will again. Our next door neighbor has Obama sign up. We want one.
I have noticed fewer of the Made In China ribbons on the Hummers lately. And why don’t I see the (in)famous W04 stickers anymore? It’s been months since I’ve seen one of those suckers.
Milbank is a little late to the party.
Maybe if he took the Downing Street Memos a little more seriously, there might be fewer dead in Arlington.
He doesn’t offer much on KO, either.
Keith can do much better.
I see both here in AZ….. usually the W04 stickers are on really BIG SUV’s and likely to run you off the road with the attitude that they own all of it…
My best was a encounter with a driver of a W04 car…. she beat me to a parking space and as I got out of my car….. I asked her…. “so what do you think of your boy?” pointing to the sticker…… it was huff huff ….. “just bought the car and haven’t had time to remove it”….. hahahaha
I laughed the other day, I sad a Rudy O8 sticker that looked like the W04 sticker.
PW. Am I wrong? To me, there’s a horrible stench caused by the quick promotion of the general pet. right after he rolled over and showed his belly for the administration. It screams, “liar, toady, fake, do NOT believe ANYTHING this hollow shell proclaims!”
Hey PW, OT:
Just saw Pat Buchanon on MSNBC still spouting that old saw that Pawlenty is a viable VP candidate for McBush because, “He will deliver Minnesota.” I’ve gotta laugh. He barely eecked out a win against Hatch and wouldn’t have if Hatch’s Lt. Gov candidate would have known what E85 was. And, our bridges have had a propensity for falling down lately. Would Minnesota really support the pencil neck geek in a national effort? I don’t think so, but I have an obvious liberal bias.
Like many, Im one who opposed the war from the beginning. I have to say, in part, because I never could understand what W had in mind, ie. his argument. All that to say….yes, this is the way we honor our dead. Is McShame protesting this secrecy, hypocrisy, desecration of life and service? Let them rest in peace….comfort to their families. Tears for our country and what we are doing.
Another hidden cost, as spelled out by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees – Iraq:
And what’s it like over in Syria right now, for those refugees? Again from the UNHCR:
Click through for more.
PW, I saw this article when it came out. I continue to be amazed at the lengths the administration will go to sanitize this fiasco. I also notice a conspicuous silence from Condi von Ribbentrop since her pronouncements last weekend. Perhaps she’s out shopping for a bigger shovel. That will match her 7-inch spikes, of course.
Here is yet another example of the Bush Administration hidding the costs. The Administration gives money to contractors rather than properly house soldiers.
There are a very few around us, almost all on B.I.G. suvs. The drivers usually look a little anxious and keep their eyes fixed straight ahead, if they can. But they do get stared at by a lot of folk, many sneering, most glaring.
I’ve still got my “Don’t Blame Me. I voted Democratic!” sticker in the drawer. Now is definitely the time to haul it out and slap it on that bumper.
Here is a page telling about the day that Gold Star Mothers and Vietnam Veterans were locked out of Arlington. After this service the Mothers and an Honor Guard hoped to lay memorial wreath but officials decided against it and slammed the gates in our faces. I’ll never forget how that felt and how badly some of us wanted to go over that fence. Cooler heads prevailed and the next day, when we returned, we were allowed in.
Thank you for sharing that, Raven. Very moving service.
Thank you for coming back, in every sense of the word.
You help us stay tough.
LOL. I work with a couple of dyed-in-the-wool Bushites. I ask them that same question and get pretty much the same response you did, “huff, huff, well, um, er, he’s done a lot for the economy, um, er…” I laugh in their face and walk away. I’m going to have to keep an eye on ‘em now that we have the right to take guns to work law here. Man, oh man. Florida’s economy is in the tank and the legislature, in the once a year 60 day session, took up bills to teach creationism in schools, take guns to work, create a Christian license plate, and ban same sex marriage, to name a few. The next state elections are gonna be interesting.
Ugh, I’m still pissed. (I’m just to the right of the mom in the photo with my hands on my knees).
dunno whether to laugh or cry for ya’.
Kudos from OH for yer stamina and smarts! ;->
Good on ya.
That is so sick. Are they doing anything to assure honest voting?
WOW… sounds just like the AZ legislature…. how about the guns in schools bill where a state senator said that “kindergartener’s were sitting ducks”
Again the defining marriage EVEN though it is written into our state consitution one man & one woman …… which was put in there for the FLDS folks up in Colorado city and NOT to prevent gay marriage as some idiots might think… or my state senator with the guns in bars bill … ya sounds so smart….. alcohol and guns in the same place
was just googling the Gold Star families -
Body of War – documentary about veteran Thomas Young
there is a segment where he is at dc protest and encounters Gold Star families – their need to reach out and touch Thomas is beyond heartbreaking (can’t even type about it without tearing up)
A very nice post. For almost all of us, this has been a “war” without sacrifice, but it turns out we can’t toss the whole burden to our grandkids after all.
Most of us here at the lake didn’t want this war, but now it looks like we are gonna start paying for it more and more.
something else that’s being hidden.
i read kevin phillips’ new article in harpers, “Numbers racket:
Why the economy is worse than we know” this morning. he writes about the history of the fed gov cooking the books on unemployment and also inflation and gdp.
he claims that if the measures used to monitor our economy just 25 years ago were used today, our current numbers would be:
unemployment – “9 to 12 percent”
inflation – “as high as 7 or even 10 percent”
for context read part 4 of bernhard’s “fed rate cuts kill people“
This administration, its war and the Surveillance State it has spawned are built on lies. It cannot afford to let the truth in, no matter how many more lies it must tell to avoid it.
As wrenching as it would be for any family in the midst of grief, the only way to get its message out is to invite a small group of reporters – not paparazzi – to speak with them before or after the burial. To share their memorabilia and their memories in remembrance and protest. The point is not to make it harder on them. It’s to make it harder on the majority of Americans who are paying no price, but for a moment’s delay on the roads of Arlington as the funeral procession passes by.
Apart from the family’s pain, we must acknowledge the peer and administrative pressure this administration would not hesitate to impose on any such brave family, still hoping to find out where and why their relative died, where their effects are, and when and how much of the many trailing costs left behind will be paid or taken care of. Retribution, the pettier the better, is Dick Cheney’s stock-in-trade.
Cheney/Bush have not witnessed or officiated at a single military funeral in Arlington of any member of the armed forces killed in connection with their wars in Afghanistan or Iraq. By presidential motorcade, Arlington National Cemetery is five minutes from the White House.
from your link:
bless the musing comrades and all those who are made to suffer.
Appreciate the photo. I can feel the heat from here.
I mopped yer brow for ya. Thank you for being there.
I guess the one thing we have is being stubborn.
They can’t take that away.
These people *have* no concept of honor or decency.
This Administration is stocked with individuals who avoided service in ‘Nam and held up by military brass who can stomach them for a time in the interest of personal advancement.
shhhh, speak not of such things, Laura doesn’t like if we talk bad about her sweet Georgie. and the vibes may put wrinkles in Jenna’s Oscar de la Renta or whateva gown.
George Bush wanted to be president in the worst way. And he is.
left a couple epu’ed comments at the end of the last thread…support your local food bank, be prepared to support it more….
It’s so difficult. Many people become more supportive of the war because they don’t want their love one to have died in vain. It took me 20 years to write to the parents of one of my good friends that was killed and I still felt it was necessary to tiptoe around how I felt about the war, not him. A matter of respect I guess. I guess when I dedicated my dissertation to him and sent a copy of it to them they read how I really felt since it was part of my “theoretical frameowrk”.
W is a sadist, he laughed at TX death row….that is who he is. Laura lied when she said things about him crying that young men had to go to war. He sent them there like toy soldiers he was truly “toying” with. He is without conscience. That must not be very comforting to families who grieve, but it may be worse to have to endure his cruel, lying presence.
I read the story the other day and thought it was pointless fo the Pentagon to do this as many other soldiers are buried in community or private cemmetaries around the country and they are covered by the local, state, or national press.
On the otherhand it does draw unfavoralbe attention to this stupid practice.
So, basically, they offer a couple of cardboard turkeys.
That won’t do it.
HOW can they not know that? How can they not care?
I doubt they’ve heard their last “BOOOOOO!!!!” from an audience.
Now, about that impeachment table….
A little tribute to all the warmongers in our nation who sit at their computers hailing the killing of people in other lands and refusing to sign up to serve the country they say they love:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=7oM8QXdp8wU
That is a hard point to decide around. How do you define died-in-vain? And how many more need die so the others haven’t died-in-vain? We have to say enough, we don’t need more widows or fatherless/motherless children, or broken-hearted parents
OT for folks who were talking about musicians…Salon is featuring a bio about Dylan. Looks interesting; I did not read the piece.
Gov Crist is a moderate R and has done some things in the right direction. FL has constitutionally prevented ex-felons from voting since just after the Civil War. Strictly a Jim Crow device to keep African-Americans from voting. Jeb Bush did all he could to ensure than NO African-American voted in the state of Florida. Ever. Crist simplified the process for returning civil rights until the provision in the constitution can be repealed. The right wing legislature won’t help him, though. Electronic voting machines are history. The legislature voted to move up the primary (which has sorta been mentioned in the news) and it would not have passed if the R’s hadn’t agreed to add the paper ballot requirement. Most counties bought new machines before the 04 election against the wishes of the citizens. The offices of the election supervisors were so mesmerized by the bright new shiny electronic objects that they foisted them upon the public. The Jennings fiasco in Sarasota county was the death knell for electronic voting here. Those are the only two improvements we’ve seen in the system in years. The state is controlled by a few wealthy people of influence. They play the fundies and right wingnuts like a violin so they get what they want. It’s gonna be a hard struggle but even some of the wingnuts see the light at the end of the tunnel and realize it’s definitely an oncoming train.
Someday, 5 years, 10 or 20 from now, Dubya will have a funeral fit for a president.
Turns your stomach doesn’t it?
A recent Economist magazine outlined a reason-vs-intuition decision making process, plus the use of a decoy to influence the outcome. For instance:
Recently, President Carter was visiting Palestine in the interests of peace.
Then comes the decoy, when Condi Rice said, President Carter was warned not to make the trip … immediately compromising President Carter’s peace effort.
Reason tells us Carter’s trip was damn near essential to the peace process.
OTOH the Condi Rice decoy awakens intuition and lazy thinking that makes us question Carter’s trip.
The most powerful lobby in the land, the MSM, uses these damn decoys constantly in furtherance of their X-Crowd agenda.
hope he has to pay the going rate….
i’d rather ask the question – what does it mean not to have lived in vain?
I must go now, pups. Thank you for all the shared thoughts. This is one strong, caring community. Stay strong and safe…
wow – that is perfect description of a local Gold Star mom (her only child!)
and one of 3 our little town has lost
she wrote a long pro surge piece in local paper expressing that very sentiment – debated for some time as to whether to respond or not and finally decided against it for all kinds of obvious reasons but primarily out of respect and sensitivity to her grief and sacrifice – simply hugged her when she came in our place a few weeks later
To all those who drive F U V ’s ,HA.
Otherwise what we need is a constitutional amendment to absolutely insure a nosey press exposes all a corrupt administration would try to hide. That’s it let’s have a FREE PRESS…..
That’s very good.
novel idea…
If the media had any honor, [how’s that for a false predicate?] they would report as endlessly on this as oh-say-Howard Fineman shooting off his mouth on MSNBC about Rev. Wright again.
So wrong, the media are so off the scale wrong…so few shining lights among ‘em.
Going out to cope with the blizzard now. Stay warm, pups, keep the fires of democracy burnin’.
Thank you for the background. The Fla vote is so seared in my memory. My daughter was expecting a first grandchild, and we watched the chads, etc etc etc. Then I will never forget the day when Fla stopped the count; that catch 22 when counting hadn’t been allowed, I think, but then was done too late…something like that. Such a nightmare. I do not recall, even thru Watergate, feeling so cynical about our country, and that vote was only the beginning. Good luck in the Fla struggle. Then there’s always K. Harris. She too will live on; mostly because of SNL. Here we had a local commentator, Im really not his fan, but his take on KH on the first day was that she had to get her hair and makeup done before she could make any comments. He nailed her from the 1st second, even when no one here knew much about her. She had her 15 mins, for sure. Thanks again.
Same here in Athens. That’s why I enjoy reading “An Army of Dude”. The DUDE has his head on straight.
In fact, my friends death was a great part of the motivation of this high school dropout to get a doctorate.
are there legal implications if a station actually does start publishing pictures and stories?
it’s really about time the press stopped respecting these types of orders from this administration, they are destroying this nation and the press has every business reporting this news to our country, that is the only reason they are a free press in the first place
I may have missed it: what was your dissertation topic and when did you write it?
then you are part of his living legacy.
It’s hard to imagine a greater tribute.
Tools to fight the “good” battles.
i’m a little behind you-all as i just watched (actually listened to) bill moyers with jeremiah wright this morning. very, very moving. wish i could have been in wright’s church the sunday after 911, that was a sermon my soul needed to hear (at least judging from the bit of it that i heard from moyer’s). does anyone know if the entire sermon is available anywhere? i haven’t even started looking, though someone here might already have it.
think progress always seems to put something up right on topic as if they are waiting for the right post from the lake
today is no exception to this coincidence;
I wonder how bitter the pro-war Gold Star Mothers and fathers are going to be when they grow older. Or can they maintain the facade that their child died for a good cause the rest of their lives?
Our community radio station is working on showing “Body of War” at the Tampa Theatre, complete with an appearance by Tomas Young. One of our morning show programmers did a lengthy interview with him and it broke everybody’s heart.
No justice, no peace.
I don’t know this for sure, but I think the sermons are kept at the church webpage.
I make sure lots of people know there’s a war going on. Hundreds of thousands of them, every day.
holy cow, I love the new “show text” feature, I don’t have to go back and revue what’s being commented on and I don’t have to read the comment if I don’t want to
very very nice, kudos
I do believe edit post might be comming back some time soon when I see features like this added
well well done
freewayblooger, always a great pleasure to see you here, I love your work and your website
Thanks PW.
Thanks Raven.
found it (i think): complete audio of wright’s 911 sermon.
also, does anyone have a jstor subscription? this is an article i really want to read.
Encountering the Other: Evangelicalism and Terrorism in a Post 911 World
from wikipedia:
If at all possible watch it online just for the videos of Rev Wright’s sermons. The words speak for themselves but seeing them is a whole different ball of wax.
Thank you for your work.
I’m voting for the Democratic nominee for President and consider myself a “big tent,” type. But yesterday, I sent $25 to Golub, who is running against Pelosi in the June primary. Then I called Nancy’s office and told her why I sent Golub the money and that I was prepared to send more.
I’ve posted it before but still think this is an important speech to hear.
Believing the Unbelievable: The Clash Between Faith and Reason in the Modern World; A speech by Sam Harris.
i have the video podcast – was just trying to get some house chores done while listening. ended up standing in the middle of the kitchen barely wanting to breath during wright’s sermon though. wow.
will definitely plan to watch it later. thanks.
Yeah, that was some powerful stuff. I was so mesmerized I let a cigarette burn down to my fingers. Hadn’t moved a muscle until I noticed something was burning me. Scared the hell out of the tigers.
Someone needs to get the names of these disrespectful Republican clowns.
This is the equivalent of spitting on the coffins of the fallen.
Qualitative study of High School GED graduates. Why they quit, why they went back and the meaning they attached to the experience.
well, back to the chores and then hopefully some time in the garden. catch you all later…
1,824 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Phoenix Woman and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
This is a most important post and VERY well written. It places the death of one soldier into the greater context of the meaning of this war and as part of the shared experience of war by all the powerless people effected by it…including all Americans who are not linear relatives of the families of the oligarchy who profit from this crime against humanity.
This is what we citizens need to be doijn’…we need to be shovin’ stories like this in front of everyone and especially in front of our elected Democrats at ALL levels. I wonder if ya couldn’t advance your post to Keith Olbermann’s staff and catapult it into one of his front page stories a special comment. Most importantly, however, we MUST put the heat on our elected leadership to make this story and the greater issue of the war the ONLY political issue from here on out in this election cycle.
We must use this story to force the Democratic Party to call the fascist bluff and defend this war in this supplemental war spendin’ bill. Our congressional leadership, in both the Senate and the House, are preparin’ to cave in on the war supplemental which will effectively get Mrs. McClinton off the hook in the primary and make it hard for Obama to make the war the central issue in the fall campaign. In addition, the fascists with the complicity of the Democratic leadership are fixin ta attach telecom immunity to the supplemental. This is it, Firepups, this is our last chance ta make the war and the deaths of ALL the innocents mean somethin’
KEEP THE FASITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THE FIGHT IS ON!!
Hello, everyone! Sorry I’m late. Had some errands to run.
Yep….
Things are not so good here in ‘God’s Country….’
Maybe we can convince him to go ’save’ someone else….
Or at least convince the army of scamsters ’selling’ the idea of ‘God’ to STFU!
It’s a Mafia-style ‘bust-out’. Our economy is being hollowed out from the inside by Bush’s buddies.
Selise, I believe I know where you are coming from with your statement and it is a good one. The people promoting this Iraq war use the Died-in-Vain to whip the opposition, essentailly makes us cut & runners. I rather say to the people who use this against the war oppostion that it isn’t a question that should be put to us but to the folks in the administration who started the war. It is question for Bush to be answerable for not us. We want soldiers to able to live a life that is theirs not Bush’s.
Thanks for this, Peterr. As bad as it is in Syria, it’s paradise compared to Jordan, which is on the verge of collapse because of the tremendous number of Iraqi refugees flooding this tiny country.
With all due respect, Phoenix Woman, I do not believe there is (at this time) a bright line that can be drawn from our current economic recession to the war and occupation in Iraq. While it is a potentially powerful idea for the Democrats to advance politically, it’s poor economics. There may be transmission routes by which the war and occupation in Iraq makes the economic crisis worse – or, more difficult from which to emerge – but spending in Iraq is not the cause of our current difficulties. Were one to choose a single cause, I think it would be more accurate to point to that which led to the Big Shitpile (tm Atrios). See Krugman, Dean Baker, and Mother Jones, for example.
I was a HS grad but opted for the Navy versus college in 61. I came out of the bush in May 70 to the stories and photos of Kent State. Except for brief periods I’d been in Nam since August 67 and now suddenly a bright light came on. I needed no longer to be doing what I was doing. I needed to further my education. I needed to take my life in another direction. My closest friend in Nam committed suicide in 76. That led me to the mental health field and, ultimately to the VA.
That also perfectly describes Bush, the unacknowledged alcoholic who obsessively keeps driving down the same dirt road at ever higher speed, no matter how many Dead End signs he passes by.
It’s a tribute to him and you brother.
It’s ordinarily called “embezzlement”. When you’ve co-opted the judiciary and the legislature, it’s called a “different priorities”. Something progressives have to hit McSame hard on; his reinforce and worsen those set in train by Shrub.
At some point, someone is still going to have to ask that Gold Star mother what resolution to the conflict/occupation will mean her son will not have “died in vain.”
Otherwise, all she is doing is condemning other mothers to that same pain and hell that she has gone through.
Well said.
Cost of tax cuts for the rich..3 trillion $. Cost of war 3 trillion $. You decide the best direction for the USA.
Curious, what was your reaction the VA muffing the suicide attempt numbers?
I’m not so sure. I wish you were right but I don’t know.
Just got a solicitation from the DNCC, and I wrote that I would contribute when they quit funding the war in Iraq. Isn’t that why they were elected in ‘06. Now the republicans can (rightly) say that the dems are liars.
Gee, that sounds like a six trillion dollar hit to the federal budget and taxpayers’ wallets. The re-engineering of the federal government and the theft of taxpayer resources are likely to be consistent themes described in the legacy that is George Bush. His truth telling or acumen as a war leader? Not so much.
Hi PhoenixWoman. The treatment of LTC Hall’s family is another example of how this Administration “manages” the public perception of this war’s costs. They don’t make us pay for it, they hide the caskets, they lie about the suicides, and they keep the cameras away from the grieving families whenever they can.
Sam Stone
by John Prine
Sam Stone came home,
To the wife and family
After serving in the conflict overseas.
And the time that he served,
Had shattered all his nerves,
And left a little shrapnel in his knees.
But the morhpine eased the pain,
And the grass grew round his brain,
And gave him all the confidence he lacked,
With a purple heart and a monkey on his back.
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don’t stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.
Sam Stone’s welcome home
Didn’t last too long.
He went to work when he’d spent his last dime
And soon he took to stealing
When he got that empty feeling
For a hundred dollar habit without overtime.
And the gold roared through his veins
Like a thousand railroad trains,
And eased his mind in the hours that he chose,
While the kids ran around wearin’ other peoples’ clothes…
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don’t stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.
Sam Stone was alone
When he popped his last balloon,
Climbing walls while sitting in a chair.
Well, he played his last request,
While the room smelled just like death,
With an overdose hovering in the air.
But life had lost it’s fun,
There was nothing to be done,
But trade his house that he bought on the GI bill,
For a flag-draped casket on a local hero’s hill.
There’s a hole in daddy’s arm where all the money goes,
Jesus Christ died for nothin I suppose.
Little pitchers have big ears,
Don’t stop to count the years,
Sweet songs never last too long on broken radios.
I’m seriously considering a tax protest if this war is still going on next year.
I’m not willing to support this fiasco anymore.
The thought of my money going to Blackwater and Halliburton and the Pentagon media blackout machine just makes me sick.
I guess Bush spent his “Political Capital.”
Yeah, it’s a shame that so much of Prine’s early work is still/once again relevant.
Does John McCane wear diapers?
Bet he will during the debates with Obama.
It’s the same as muffling the funerals for the dead. Apart from exposing an enormous gap in VA’s responsiveness to Veterans’ needs — which the VA has no staff or budget to address, a problem it refuses to ask Congress to fix — it increases dramatically the deaths directly attributable to George Bush and his wars.
This administration treats news like that as if it were a factoid shouted out by a heckler at a scripted corporate shareholders’ meeting. The guy at the podium leers at the “usher” from Pinkerton’s, who silently removes the heckler from the auditorium.
Does John McCane wear depends?
fixed!
Nice interview with Prine and Bobby Bare about the song.
It all depends!
Aite, I gotta get of the damn computer, peace out.
Hi PW. What’s going wrong with Al Franken’s candidacy for the Senate in Minnesota? I really like him.
That’s being very nice to the VA.
VA’s figures were intentional. It’s bad PR for things like actual numbers of suicides or attempted suicides to come out. The top brass at VA are not much different than the top brass were at Walter Reed. They refuse to ask Congress for more money for the increase in veterans requiring treatment because that would mean that they didn’t plan for it. Sound familiar? Both the Army and VA’s disability rating system is designed to save money, not help veterans. There are two parts to the VA system. The medical side, which does all it can with what it has, and the bureaucratic side, which is about employee empire building, turf wars, etc. The bureaucracy was the reason behind my quitting in 96. Under this administration, once you’re killed or wounded your usefulness to them has come to an end you are written off. To them it’s no different than a bank writing down a bad investment.
Sure looks like it to me.
Love John Prine.
quantitative, qualitative or both?
l8rs raven
John Prine has a home right down the street from me.
John Prine could sing “Flag Decal” for Obama at Netroots Nation.
My 107 should have been in response of AZ Matt at 90.
Go in peace brother.
ugh… Blackwater’s back.. after being thrown out of San Diego’s east county, they weaseled their way back into an industrial area in the border zone without public review:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/…..black.html
Please help us get rid of them… again.
have to stop by again for a drive-by… listening to the entirety of wright’s 911 sermon now – and believe it or not, the clips that moyer’s showed do not do wright justice. there is no way a any clip can. amazing. just please, if you can – listen to the whole thing. as good as anything i’ve ever heard from mlk (although, i think in that tradition).
and i don’t even subscribe to his faith.
one bit i found quite funny: “they’re not going to put me on pbs after this” (referring to the sermon)
and one negative note – i really hate the last minute. i think i will cut that out of my copy.
I’ll listen to the sermon. Even with all of the media hype of this sermon, I’ve not listened it.
SD–
Didn’t I read that they did some good things? (I rarely read more than the headlines in the local newspaper that disrespects the word “Democrat.”) But I thought I saw we were contemplating getting rid of 1000-1800 prison guards/parole officers. Local university is laying off staff (note: not administrative management). And I saw a hint that perhaps 8000 hospice beds will be disallowed from Medicaid. This should really BOOST our economy, right? Of, yeah . . . we had some property tax cuts, too. SMART!
(please excuse the sarcasm)
Did you ever read “The Unfeeling President,” a short piece by E.L. Doctorow. It is the best description of Bush I have ever read. It was in the Southhampton Star a couple years ago. If you google it, it comes right up.
EPUed from yesterday, and probably late to the party again:
During lunch I was listening to Worldview on WBEZ in Chicago. Jerome Macdonell interviewed Joseph Stiglitz — Professor of Economics at Columbia University; Former Chief Economist at the World Bank; Co-author of The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict; 2001 Nobel Prize Winner in Economics
The blurb on the web site reads:
In the discussion Stiglitz also touched upon some other points e.g. the terrible cost in human lives, the cost of mercenaries, the economic problems we are facing right now. WBEZ posts the audio of these programs. You can listen at this site
http://www.wbez.org/Program_WV.aspx?episode=21244
I also want to suggest that perhaps Stiglitz could be invited here for an online interview or book salon. (True confession: I haven’t read the book.)
The book has already been the subject of a book salon and we were joined by Stiglitz’s co-author.
I just googled “Rev. Jerimiah Wright Sermons” and several came up. You can listen to them in their entirety. You get a very different impression when you hear him preach a complete sermon. He is one of the great social justice ministers like Wm. Sloane Coffin, James Forbes, etc. I thought his relationship with Martin Marty was an interesting facet of the interview. Marty was so awed and respected and Wright spoke of him as a mentor. I wish Moyers would have been two hours. Wright’s life has been dedicated to his congregation, his community and his faith in Christ. The media should be ashamed, but they will either crucify him more by selecting and twisting some tidbit from last night or ignore their evil smears by moving on without a word of contrition.
Taking your advice and downloaded both mp3’s. Will listen later. Thanks.
The R’s in FL are doing all they can to turn the state into one big corporate slave state. The FL Chamber of Commerce is the biggest den of water moccasins I’ve ever seen. The greed here knows no bounds.
I have difficulty entering into the speech. Religion is alien to me.
Sun Tzu’s main lesson is “know your enemy.” I follow none of the man-made religions but I’ve studied them so that I know what I’m dealing with.
No I have not. Thank you.
I do understand that. I equate it with reading the original manuscript of Beowulf.
Or, perhaps, the original text of the master.
Thanks. I thought the Marty connection was really interesting. Ive met him some time ago, so was really listening. I also thought there was a whole different impression from seeing Wright as a young man.
Who is…?
HRC being snarky in Ind.
If nothing else, I see why the neocons have gone into a frenzy over it.
Sun Tzu
i should have stayed around long enough to see your earlier comment – so that i could warn you. you’re right, it probably won’t be very accessible to everyone. i should have thought of that.
religion isn’t alien to me – although i rejected it long ago (even to the point of feeling like i would break out in hives by entering a church or listening to any god-talk), only to take it up again later. this time though, not as a matter of belief, faith or interest in any dogma (yuck).
maybe my encouragement to folks to listen to the whole thing should have been limited to those who were moved by the clips in moyer’s show last night. guess i got a little carried away by my own enthusiasm.
It’s amazing just how small a document “Art of War” is. I have two translations, both of which have voluminous supplemental material with the text. I’d love to read an original but my Chinese is non-existent.
I am still listening. Wright rings true.
Same. I am fascinated by Asian and Arabic script.
I figure the building will collapse or be struck by lightening if I enter a church. Well, I’m going to a hoity toity wedding at a high Episcopal church in June, in a tux no less, so we’ll see what happens. heh heh heh
There’s a pickup with oversized tires and an ‘Offroaders for Bush’ sticker in the parking lot behind the next apartment building.
I still see the occasional W04 sticker.
(One of the people in my building has a Kerry/Edwards sticker.)
if you can get to about 20 minutes in, i think you’ll be ok (yeah, i know that is more than half way through *g*). the next few minutes are a most excellent rant in the form of a sermon.
Is it like the offroaders I see here, with nary a scratch on the paint job? The only off road these things see is the front yard of one of their drinking buddies cuz there’s no room on the street to park.
A lady across the alley from me still has her Kerry/Edwards bumper sticker. She must wash and wax the damn thing cuz it looks brand new.
better make a test while the building is empty. *g*
Aw hell, what’s the fun in that?
I replied IRT Wright in the wrong thread.
Pretty much. It’s jacked up so far it’s pushing illegal for street use. Truck tires. I wonder how they go around corners without rolling over.
The Kerry sticker I see looks new also: a neat trick when it’s outside most of the time.
I think you get an exemption for weddings and funerals because they aren’t really church.
(Heck, my father’s memorial service was in a church he didn’t belong to: it was for all the people who wouldn’t have understood having it in the library meeting room. He wasn’t there anyway – he’d donated himself to the local medical school.)
There’s something about trucks I need a ladder to get in to that makes me not want to ride in them.
can’t see what the fuss is all about. no reason, i think – at least based on this sermon, that anyone should feel the need to repudiate wright’s words. we’d be a better country with more wrights speaking from the nation’s pulpits.
People are funny.
I think it is obvious that the fuss comes from neocons. Beyond that particular message I believe the Wright’s call for a war on racism is profound. The currents administrations’ war of terror is race, as well as faith, based.
The good Rev said it on Moyers last night. These people didn’t miscommunicate. They knew what message they wanted to get out and they were happily assisted by the corporate media. The R’s are going to use the fear of African-Americans, males in particular, to keep their ignorant racist base in tow. Plus the fear of terrorism. I’d call the killing of Sean Bell an act of terrorism on the part of the NYPD. The presiding judge called it just. These people have no shame. To expect them to conduct themselves in a civil manner is naive at best(a general statement, not directed at you.)
No justice, no peace.
neocons – sure. but it seems to go beyond that. i agree that for the neocons the WOT is a race and religious war. but i also think that is true for many of the so-called liberal hawks (see friedman, t. – “suck on this“)
has clinton condemned wright or obama’s association with him? (sorry – i’ve been avoiding the campaigns as much as possible).
sure the Rs are going to use this… but i now want to understand a little of the clinton/obama dynamic this came from. did accusations wrt wright come initially from the clinton camp? if so, was if via surrogates? was it ever clinton herself? stuff like that seems important to me now.
I can only agument your argument with this interview.
I view neocons and neolibs as engaged in duplicity. I should state that more clearly.
Interesting question. I don’t have cable so I didn’t pick up on it until it was well underway and right after that the arguments that the excerpts were all out of context. I was shocked; shocked, I tell you. Well, gee, now I’ll have something to research this weekend. Great thing about living in the computer lab is Yang is always on the desk right next to me so I can just reach over and put goop in her eye. Multi-tasking at its best.
Im not sure “when” you question wants to focus; I think she brought it up during the last debate, if I recall.
Hadn’t it been on the airwaves for some time by that point?
Got to get to the post office before the last pickup. Sayonara.
Peace Love Light
thanks D and RB and tw3k.
Yes..it was already out there.
holocaust_ great or wholesale destruction of life. this is what george bush has done. do the americn people think the iraqis will forget or forgive? i dont think so