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Oh, and a-holes -- can't forget to add they are a-holes:
The military trainers who came to Guantánamo Bay in December 2002 based an entire interrogation class on a chart showing the effects of “coercive management techniques” for possible use on prisoners, including “sleep deprivation,” “prolonged constraint,” and “exposure.”
What the trainers did not say, and may not have known, was that their chart had been copied verbatim from a 1957 Air Force study of Chinese Communist techniques used during the Korean War to obtain confessions, many of them false, from American prisoners.
The recycled chart is the latest and most vivid evidence of the way Communist interrogation methods that the United States long described as torture became the basis for interrogations both by the military at the base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Remember when the right-wing (and some competitors) tried to accuse Obama of lifting or slightly modifying Deval Patrick speeches? Well, here's some real plagiarism for you, George Bush's DOD copied Chairman Mao's little red torture book. A technique used specifically to elicit FALSE CONFESSIONS! Something for the reelection campaign -- surely that's what Jesus would do?
We made much, deservedly so, of the torture methods used by the Russians, Chinese, North Korea and, ironically considering this was done at GITMO, Cuba during the "Cold War". John McCain himself has used the story of his torture at the hands of the North Vietnamese -- using the playbook passed down by the Soviets and Chinese -- as not only a key, but they key, to his life story. And despite the over wrought nature of some of its use of it this week, there's little doubt it is the most compelling and sympathetic thing about him which is why his recent cave on the issue of CIA torture is so disappointing.
And here is the Bush Administration, nineteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, seventeen years after the official end of the Cold War, long after China stopped being the "red menace" and morphed into the capitalist hybrid it is today, using the same torture methods we so vehemently condemned for so long because we were the United States of America!
Well, we still are -- except now, thanks to Bush and company, we are not what we used to be. 9/11 changed everything alright, now we are the country that hypocritically copied torturing communist a-holes. Thanks so very much Dear Leader.
(pic of Mao & Dubya swimming the Yangtze by Teddyone)
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Zed and all.
This is a classic. There was no question as to whether it was torture when the Chinese did it, but now it’s just too difficult for Mukasey to decide. WTF?
situational torture.
Evil is when they torture us. Good is when we torture them.
Elvisevil lives!A technique used specifically to elicit FALSE CONFESSIONS!
Psssst!…The War on Terror is a total scam…Pass it on…
Though the recycled poster is a “gotcha,” the underlying story is not really news. The CIA’s road to torture began with its interest in the Soviet’s apparent ability to secure false confessions for show trials. It is all laid out on pages 21 - 23 of Alfred McCoy’s “A Question of Torture: CIA Interrogation, from the Cold War to the War on Terror.”
“And here is the Bush Administration, nineteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, seventeen years after the official end of the Cold War, long after China stopped being the “red menace” and morphed into the capitalist hybrid it is today, using the same torture methods we so vehemently condemned for so long because we were the United States of America!”
Why not include 70+ years since the the end of WWII, in this list? Many of these techniques where utilized by Nazis and Japanese Imperialist also, before they shot you in the back of the head? Torture permitted/endorsed contrary to well settled law, conveniently forgotten by powerful elites reeks, and is fascism. Congress makes the laws here in America, not the executive as was the case in Nazi Germany! This is and has been constitutional usurpation under the color of law! Many in America have been silent as where the “Silent Germans ” of WWII. The 4th of July is around the corner! Time for some reflection folks. No “Silent American” of German descent here nor are the posters here silent! “Keep Up The Good Work” Attaturk!
Good morning, pups. NPR just now is busy telling me what a great guy McSame is because he really works across party lines, but Obama is just talk… GRRRRRR… Off to scrounge in the NYT.
Good morning again, folks. I shouldn’t have bothered. It’s MoDo, all alone. She typed a thing called “The Wrong Stuff,” and says maybe instead of refighting the Vietnam War the candidates can catch that bin Laden fiend who’s running around free. Think she’s writing about McSame? I have some lovely parting gifts for you…
http://mgpaquin.wordpress.com/
The coffee and tea are ready, and I’ve got some banana bread that just came out of the oven. (Sometimes it’s a good thing when bananas get over-ripe!) Have a great day.
We cannot listen to npr anymore in this household (well there are exceptions such as fresh air and a few other things) we stopped donating to them many years ago. We have two other classical stations that we get very well and enjoy waking up to. My spouse blames gingrich for the demise of what used to be a good station.tffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffffvc.
Cats are only just learning to type.
Unfortunately here the only alternative is a station out of Beaufort, SC that picks up the same feeds, just sometimes airs the programs at different times of the day. Sigh. I can’t wait to hear them “tut-tutting” over everything and anything that President Obama does…
From Boston we get a station, WCRB, that plays classical music all day and night with just two commercial breaks an hour. A few years ago a number of people left Maine NPR in protest at their foolishness (right wing shift) and now work at WCRB.
I see that starbucks is closing a number of stores. I have only been to starbucks once, in San Diego 7 years ago, so have no idea why so many stores opened. I wanted a tea in San Diego and left after it seemed too, too complicated for the person to get hot water and a tea bag. What was the attraction of ten dollar coffee anyway?
we need to stop handling bush and this issue with kid gloves, we need to say things like, “just like his hitler supportering grandfather, the fruit doesn’t fall far from the tree”
these are nazi criminals, they are using as templates nazi criminals, the president’s grandfather is a nazi criminal and these people worship hitler and everything about the man
it is time we took off the gloves, there is enough material to back up every claim;
“we now have documentation that this president copied verbatum nazi techniques we know didn’t work, nazi techniques we sent others to the hague for committing and just like the president’s grandfather who was a nazi supporter, this president is emulating hitler’s disgusting behavior himself”
kids gloves must come off
I’ll tell you what, if we can get progressives to bring hitler, this grandpa bush’s support of hitler and nazi-ism, and the plaguerized works of hitler’s torture camps part of the conversation when talking anything bush, and the demand for impeachment will be overwhelming
and while pelosi is in bed with this president, never the less the cry will be so great obama will roll into office on a white horse
of course then he will dissapoint us yet again, as he did on fisa and “faith base” support
the attraction is the atmoshpere, a place to go that seems like everyone knows your name, and you are not drinking alcohol
a place to go and feel like you are pamering yourself, that’s the attraction
someone brought up a great point yesterday, I wish I could give credit and will try to do later;
reagan and bush have made it almost impssible to go to college for struggling families, the well has dried up
this creates a more friendly envirnment for “enlisting” to achieve the american dream
so they cut education grants to create more fodder for their depravity
Beats me. There was a Starbucks about a block and a half from where I lived in downtown Savannah and I stopped in to get one of those lattes I kept hearing about. Seems to me I used to get the same thing in NYC at the neighborhood coffee shop, but they called it a “light coffee.” Go figure…
the starbucks I go to I am a regular, I sit down, crack the laptop, the staff and customers become friends, the staff invariably bring me refills, sit, converse, along with the customers
it is a place to go and for me, well worth the price of admission.
of course the price of admission at panera bread is much lower but then I usually go off my diet at panera
Yes it is. The MIC needs the US to have a real enduring and vast threat or there is no real need for such a huge defense establishment.
They tried to milk the taxpayers and did successfully for decades that the Russians and the Chinese were out to crush us. At best it was some old fashioned competition for resources, markets, labors and so forth beyond the respective shores of these huge hungry nations.
Rather than trade with others for what we want, our approach is to take it or control these areas through force of the imposition of a local puppet regime. So we have gone around the world like the former imperial powers grabbing as much as we can and at times in competition with the USSR or China lately. We do it with force and other “nasty” means including assassination, bribes, intimidation whatever seems to work expediently.
Corrupt “leaders” in foreign lands will ofter jump at the importunity to be our proxy and willingly participate in the oppression of their own people to have the little power and glory we allow. When they want to much we off them. When they get to independent or try to do something for their nation, we off them.
What all this has done is create oodles of animus among indigenous people around the world once they realize that the US is not out to help them, but exploit them. Doesn’t take long to figure that out and then the issue becomes how to get out from under the oppression.Do they fight against their own despot, and or the symbols and actual forces which oppress them… corporations, foreign military installations on their soil and so forth. It’s a very asymmetrical power arrangement and hence insurgency, and mischief is used to strike at the oppressor. The oppressed want us out of their lives and off their lands and our navy out of their waters.
We call their struggle to rid themselves of US… of oppressive power terrorism. I don’t know how the oppressed can do anything but what they do if they care about their own rights to self determination. Abusive use of power creates terrorism, or rebellion, or insurgency. It’s in the nature of humans to not want to be oppressed. Struggle for rights and freedom is as american as apple pie. We did it against King George the French did it against the crown and every group of oppressed people will fight back at some point. It’s inevitable.
The US has those within who want power and have a lust for wealth that requires exploitation and see that this is a “good thing” very much the way winning at a competition is a good thing. They see winning the spoils of the world as a “good thing” and things like liberty, rights and so forth of people around the world are simply impediments in their quest for power and wealth.
Our nation is no longer about freedom, justice, pursuit of happiness for her people, but a machine for the power and acquisition of the privileged few. Their “behavior” is at the root of not only anti Americanism, but of the “acts of terrorism” which all people become victim to. So a few greedy creeps causes terrorism and all of us are made to suffer and fear it and decry it.
Innocent people need to target the cause of terrorism and rebellion and insurgencies which is the oppression of imperialistic nations and capitalism. Our present national goals couched in phrases like “strategic interests” are the cause of what we call terrorism. Unless and until the US changes its behavior there will always be oppressed people and there will always be terrorism or strikes against power and oppression.
What needs to be revealed is the pathology behind the quest for wealth and power. These are mental diseases, addictions or whatever, but capitalism has somehow made this pathology into supposedly a positive aspect of the human condition - the greed is good and the notion that only with competition and wealth can we advance. Advance? We advance?
The war on terror is so handy for the power elite. It is used to keep the population cowered and compliant. it is used to suck resources to fight wars against it. Terrorism will be there forever as long as there is expressions of power and control and since the US is about power and control terrorism is an artifact of what we have become as nation.
When we were founded a nation we had noble goals and were fighting the oppression of the British crown. Our founding documents speak of freedom, and rights for all, justice and rule of rule. The world saw this and the French revolution as new paradigms for nations replacing monarchies and oligarchies. Even the Russian revolution was about the people’s rights to own what was formally owned by the czar and the oligarchs.
But quickly these noble experiments when sour as the state assembled more and more power and there was less and less democracy or the will of the people expressed and their rights protected. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
The US has become a fig leaf democracy in name only. We are a nation controlled by few handfuls of very rich and power people. We saw this very clearly in the first Guilded Age where the robber barons of industry had more wealth than the US government or more wealth and power than all the people combined!
Here we are again. Now with huge transnational corporations as the apparatus for the accumulation of wealth and power. They control our government, they consume most of our resources in appropriations, they are the MIC, they control our press, they take our sons and daughters to fight their wars of plunder, they have taken our rights and placed themselves outside the grasp of the law, and they have drugged the people into a hollow quest for materialism which has allowed them to create a vast indentured population trapped in debt slaving away to acquire more useless “things” or simply survive.
We have long past the time for the people to strike back against this oppression. Capitalism with its greed motivator has polluted our nation and the world. It robs people of their rights and dignity and gives them the false hope that competition and a level playing field will allow them to enjoy the fruits of hard work. Completely a false notion. There is no level playing field and for every “winner” there are scores and scores of losers. And capitalism doesn’t care about the losers - they deserve the ignominy of losing that’s a motivator for not losing in competition.
We are as a nation numb to what we have become, what has been done to us and unless we wake up and see the big picture and the root causes it will only get worse and worse. Capitalism enslaves workers, exploits them, denies them rights.
America is not a democracy, but a capitalist society. Can’t it be both? Well, when the oppressed demand their rights the capitalists lose their control and their game is over. And this is why unions are a threat to capital and why they are fought against and expressions like “free markets” are tossed out. free markets are about the freedom of capital to do as it pleases not about the freedom of the people to choose. They learned well from Bernays how to confuse us with language even when Huxley and others told us what would happen.
It happened. We are being screwed and the capitalists are screwing the rest of the world too - royally. Of course their will be terrorism, rebellion and insurgency - it goes hand in glove with power, control and wealth.
1,692 DAYZ AND THE KILLIN’ GOEZ ON AND ON AND…
Citizen Attaturk and the Firepup Freedom Fighters:
There is a reason that progressives and especially boomer progressives need to confront Obama and the corporatist political class this year. What we are seeing is a restoration of imperial politics and the rehabilitatyion of the entire Vietnam War experience and the asassination of the successful people’s movement that ended that horrible debacle but at a terrible price to a whole generation. The oligarchy is consolidating corporate fascism behind a replay of the politics of the Vietnam War and the Democratic Party must be stopped cold or there will be no America after November. The torture and war crimes of a generation ago in the fields of Southest Asia are bein’ legitimized and institutionalized by our legal system and by a new generation of “constitutional scholar” who has no concept of the experience of history that went into the document which he is purporting to understand and interperate.
We need to confront the corporatists who use grassroots people’s organizations as scapegoats for their own criminality and who wave the bloody shirt of the 1960’s as an excuse to leave democracy behind. Those of us who are old enough must stand up for our history or there will be no history after November.
KEEP THE FAITH AND PASS THE AMMUNITION, THERE IS NO COMPROMISING WITH FASCISM!!
Good morning.
We expect no less from W. However, note that the only false confessions they managed to get were from al-Libi and KSM (those not yet admitted to be false, but he couldn’t possibly be responsible for everything he took credit for). Once again, we find that W is much less competent than the model he copied from.
Education for the masses is an anathema to the goopers which is one of the reasons they have been “dumbing down” the food. There are so many damn chemicals in foods these days, most I can only imagine, to keep the population dumb and in control. We try to grow most of our own food and that which we cannot we buy from local farmers or certified (by NOFA not by the feds.) organic.
I beg to differ Att [may I call you Att?]…] ’twasn’t 9/11 changed everything, was November 2000.
We gotta get it right in overwhelming numbers this time.
Matalin coming up on Imus…now where did I put my hazmat suit?
Unfortunately, the mocha fraps at SBs aren’t very beneficial diet-wise either. *g*
We have a Panera bread too… There’s some serious yumminess happening there.
sander, as always, I agree with most of your post, I do take issue with this;
I differ, it’s not capitolism that’s the problem it’s the lack of constraing on capitolism
we need protectionism, we need progressive taxes, and we need to madate the size a corporation can be so it does not amass the power of nations
but perhaps capitolism collapses the structure which keeps it viable in the fist place and manages through it’s aqcuired power to eliminate the constraints that must be kept in place
and those constraints then need to be revisited
off to work
my only problem with panera bread is when you walk in, you don’t smell bread
how can you be walking into a bakery and not smell bread?
something is up at panera but I like the place
ESPECIALLY their spinach artichoke soufle
Ain’t that the truth. I think 2006 took them by surprise, and they didn’t have the Diebold machines programmed for a big enough shift. The numbers in 2008 have to be so overwhelming that there can be no possible question.
But then you look at the news from Britain where they WERE growing their own food and, because of the contaminated ingredients needed for growing, they’re still no better off. It has truly turned into a “damned if you do and damned if you don’t” world. :-(
not only the machines, now they have the courts on their side as they turn away democratic voters
they will go so far as to even make believe they sent mail, mail that looks like an advertisement so people throw it away without reading it
and when the mail goes unreturned, the republicans get to take you off the voting eligable
caging, this time not only will they cage, they will even make believe they caged, once you’re off the registered list, it doesn’t matter if you get back on the list after then election, does it
pleas excuse my ignorance, but what the hell is Panera Bread?
Great post Attaturk. One of my most favorite protest signs I saw from the 2007 protest of George Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine read: “THANKS TO GEORGE BUSH THE NEXT 9/11 ATTACK WON’T BE A SURPRISE”. Yep. He’s done enough to mankind to keep the hatred coming at us for years.
They’re restaurants.
I wonder how many PUMAs there really is in our country right now:
http://pandagon.net/index.php/.....gh_murphy/
Capitalism does not like democracy because it hinders its freedom. When democracy is overlaid on capitalism it looks like socialism and we all know how capitalists hate how socialism ties their hands. They will declare without the ability to have unlimited profit and market access and so forth.. why bother? Winning big is everything.
thanks Marion, I don’t live there and I had never heard of them.
We have a rule in our household:
If you can’t smell garlic from at least a block away of a Chinese restaurant, it is a waste of time passing through the door.
Bakeries can be trickier, but I agree that you should smell baked goods inside.
See recent developments at Starbucks (which I detest on principle and personal taste). They found that their brand suffered after introducing egg sandwiches. Loyal customers were disappointed when their coffee shop ’smelled like McDonalds”.
By the way, good morning everyone! Summer is going by way too fast. Can’t stand it. Someone please make it stop!
Last night I did some phone banking with my local Democrats and talked with one old woman in the area for at least 15 minutes (a complete ‘no-no’ but she was wicked old and needed to get a lot off her chest! LOL). She said she couldn’t wait to vote for Obama and then went on to say gas prices is hurting her fixed income. She said she’s eating a lot of canned beans, and I told her how my son and I were eating hotdogs more than usual. I said, “Hey! We should get together some night for beans & hotdogs! We’d have one hell of a meal!”. LOL Gawd didn’t we laugh.
Simple way of distinguishing: Democracy vote is by person; Capitalism vote is by $$. The only way they’re compatable is if govt handles (to use economics jargon) market imperfections intelligently, and moderates skewed income distribution. Otherwise, the two are at loggerheads.
You think it’s bad now. Just finished a book on the U.S. in the Gilded Age. Not only were all the econ probs worse (well, it was boom-bust, so there were good times too, but two depressions in 1873 and 1893), but labor and populist made almost no headway for decades. Sherman anti-trust act was first used against unions. And a series of truly awful presidents and Congresses.
Is that the Keating Five John Mc Cain?
Morning Attaturk and pups,
It’s disturbing enough that the US gov’t is acting like Russians/Soviets, Chinese, North Koreans and Cubans. What’s more disturbing to me is that we the people don’t seem to care. We act like the German populace of the 1930s and 40s. Our blind eye sickens me, and sickens my heart. We are all ready paying for it.
and to top it off, Osama bin Laden just sits back and watches as Al Qaeda accomplishes their goal of destroying US.
Capitalism has given way to unbridled greed and it will continue to get worse without a counterbalancing force i.e. Unions, strong international unions but I fear the only way we will get strong unions again is through a revolution.
And aren’t we rapidly approaching a gilded age divide between the haves and have nots in today’s economy? Or have we passed it already?
Correction: Osama bin Laden is dead and al-Qaida (The Base of the Bush Family & Friends) is accomplishing the goal of destroying the US one day at a time by acting as if he’s alive & well. See? LOL
Citizen nomolos:
Capitalism has not “given way to inbridled greed”, capitalism IS unbridled greed and legal larceny.
hmm, how many who claim to be PUMAs are Rushites?
That makes sense. But capitalists don’t actually vote they manipulate because their power allows them to game the system.
Today we have lobbyists and large campaign donors who have access to gov critters, even write legislation. The one person one vote hardly seems to matter because regardless of who is elected, the elected respond to those who have access to them and that has become “capital”. John and Jane Q Public can hardly get a sit down with their critter the way capital does.
Money talks it doesn’t vote.
Last time I tuned into a union post here at FDL there was a lot of internecine backbiting, pro-Stern and anti-Stern. Unions will get nowhere if they waste their time with that kind of sh*t.
precisely.
Used “vote” wrt to capitalism as a metaphor, not a literalism. Of course, a large part of the influence of money is thru politics, being “bought” not voted for.
Unionism is the only counter balance to capital but it really ACCEPTS the game of capitalism. It’s the exploited trying to amass a bit of power to mitigate their exploitation. It’s not much but what else can workers do?
I bet 98% are Rushites. Just recently there were 60 cars vandalized with anti-Obama messages. Hmmmmmm….*rubbing chin*….now what kind of person could be so evil with a criminal mind and complete disregard of the law when committing such an act? *raising hand* I know! A neocon who supports George Bush, John McCain, and Rush Limbaugh! But, of course. ;-)
More and better creative capitalists needed.
Fewer pigs at the trough.
Welcome. and thank you for that excerpt. Have been reading bits and pieces of Professor McCoy’s book where I can find them. - totally shoots down their sorry attempts at saying they weren’t well versed in these techniques now don’t it?
here is his interview with Democracy Now in case you hadn’t seen it.
Mornin’ All
I don’t have the stats at hand. May search for them at some point. Think it’s fair to say that today’s income distribution is the most skewed in the post-WWII period.
if a novelist were to write just such a novel, which retold the story of this president, it would have been laughed at as trash
that a president would seem to be reading the bin laden play book and doing exactly what needed to be done for bin laden to enjoy more success then his wildest imagination could have hoped
and that we would know it, allow it, and act as if he is not playing for the other team
we have in office a man who took his seat in a coup, a coup accomplished through the legacy of his father and Reagan, fascists in black robes who were there for the purpose of overthrowing our government if the opportunity arose
we are under siege, a government in power through a silent coup and their goal is to dismantle our democracy, to do it silently and from within
they have succeeded already and Obama has shown us, he will not return our constitution even if he does get elected
our children will pay the price for what we have allowed
What’s the name of the book?
sounds like we are there again.
Did you come away from it with ideas of how to end the abuses?
Mr. Sunshine flincked the remote off the Matalin appearance. Sorry, no minilive…
Whew. That hazmat suit was getting heavy…the suit, the gloves, the rebreather mask…
TINA (There Is No Alternative). That, by the way, is a Thatcherism.
never get in the way of an opponent in the process of destroying themselves?
morning All :)
As always Attaturk, great post…
Duggggggg! :)
I am a capitolist and I am neither.
I maintain, it is the lack of orgainized restraint not the priniciple
corporations must be broken up when they diverse too much, they must not be allowed to operate with slave, child, unfair labor, they must pay their own bills cleaning up their air and providing health care for their labor force
and they must NOT be given the right to buy our law through political contributions
these are the problems not capitolism
Sometimes I’ve seen the same thing with progressives. Purity of thought is more to be treasured than getting the job done, it would appear.
Lynching is alive and well in 2008 America.
a new chain of fast food only it’s a bakery, with food as well
bottomless coffee, always a fireplace, free internet and friendly staff
good place to go
You might want to read Marx’ Capital if you really want to understand capitalism.
America in the Gilded Age—From the Death of Lincoln to the Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Sean Dennis Cashman. No easy solutions, in fact a sense of hopelessness about how long monopolists got away with it despite widespread popular antipathy. Legislation and enforcement (courts, including SCOTUS, were pro-business for a long time) eventually caught up, but it took forever. Got the impression that then, as well as today, that in the U.S. there is a deeply pro-business bias, even among workers who are being taken advantage of by their employers. And therefore, abuses of labor must become gigantic before the relevant organization can take place. Of course, business can more easily get together than labor can, so maybe it’s just that.
Dya think?
thanks for the reminder jackie,
BT’s got one almost to 200, hope we can get it to go popular today
digg Six Years Later, McCain Says He Still Would’ve Invaded Iraq
and
digg Christy’s FISA: Now This Is What A Patriot Sounds Like… it’s up to 79
.
and you’re right perris
.
I’m definitely going to read it eCAHN, thanks!
Heh. The quadrennial circular firing squad is always fun…
Coffee’s gone & so must I. Later.
Worth the read. Always helpful to know your history.
What disturbs me about even the discourse on the left is that absence of taking on what capitalism has become and done to our society.
There is a presumption that capitalism is not only neutral but the preferred economic organizing system and it is never questioned. The struggles are all about the behavior of institutions and individuals and not the system which gives rise to these behaviors.
Why don’t we discuss capitalism and educate people about what it is?
Yes, it gradually became apparent to me that the Gilded Age was truly the ideal to which the ruling Republicans want to return. (Cumbersome sentence to avoid prepositional ending.) I heard a review of a book about the Coors brewing family and the author said that the family actually wanted the country to revert to the Gilded Age. The more I observed the Bushies trying to dismantle the 20th century, the more I believed that.
The current administration has shown us the folly of failing to have a good grasp on history.
citzen norske: now that is what i call inspiring. not the pretty content-less words of our so-called leaders or the lies of our so-called enemies… but the passion and wise analysis that comes from experience and honest reflection.
if we are to need leaders, you sir, are the kind of leader i want. where do i sign up?
oops
here’s the Washington Journal lineup
8:00am - Rep. John Larson (D-CT), Democratic Caucus Vice-Chair — Consumer Oil Price Protection Act - H.R. 6264 -PDF
8:30am - Gregory Smith, Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life, Research Fellow — Survey PDF
9:15am - Newspaper Articles & Viewer Calls
Well said.
If you look at the Iraq situation with a capitalist motivation it makes perfect sense. It’s clearly aboit oil, control of energy resources and stealing a resource from inside the earth that nobody owns and makes us all buy it, fight over it and die for it.
Citizen selise:
Your kind words are not lost on this old tatered ego but we don’t need more leaders, in a democracy everyone is a leader…the leaders are informed by the masses as to where the folks wanna go and then they make a bargin to go there with ‘em in return for opffice
As far as energy policy goes oil is the commodity du jour, tomorrow it will be solar, wind and other renewable energy sources. As long as these things are treated as commodities they will be exploited for the benefit of a few.
Yep.
spot on!
Scarecrow’s upstairs…
and McCain who recently confused Sudan with Somalia is really on top of history and current events.
Think Progress
bbl gotta take the dog out
thanks Perris, I’ve never heard of them, but then I’ve never seen or been to a Starbucks either. I’ll be on the road tomorrow and I’ll keep my eyes open for them. But I fear the Starbucks 10$ Coffe is a little rich for my blood. Cafe is about a buck here and a capucino is another 15 or 20 cents. If you go any further than a Machiatto here, they stare and walk away. But the panederias here are where they bake and sell the bread and sweets. I try and steer clear, calories and all that.
The Vietnamese involved in ridding their country of the last vestiges of western imperialism (apart from the aqueducts, roads, sewage systems, bridges and methods of personal hygiene) during what American’s called ‘the Vietnam War,’ conducted war crimes trials of Americans, much to the shock and horror of the latter’s brethren back home, particularly among the government mouthpieces holding forth with the full coöperation of the press we had at that time.
Hoisted by their own petards, the Americans were.
maybe that is why i trust what you write and distrust all the power hungry believe in nothing so-call political leaders. imo, a true leader does not seek control of any kind - but rather seeks to inspire themselves and the rest of us to listen closely to our own moral compasses and then to take up our own responsibility to think and to act.
but putting aside the issue of leadership - i think you are exactly right, “What we are seeing is a restoration of imperial politics.” only this time under the mantle of the Democratic party. how to confront that without causing more hardship, pain and suffering is a question i find difficult to answer.
The powers are not the parties. They ones who pull the strings are the corporations, wall street and the mic… The parties and congress critters just get to play what is a rather useless role of appearing to make it all seem “democratically” decided. It’s a sham.
Without one person one vote and no taxation without representation we don’t have anything that even resembles a democracy. When our courts determine that money = free speech… there is nothing left of democracy. It’s gone. Long gone.
Read Chalmers Johnson’s “The Sorrows of Empire.” It details how America started on its path to an imperialistic power after WWII and up to the present day. Very enlightening book.
(bows) Konnichiwa, SouthernDragon.
you’re preaching to the choir - i’ve read all three: blowback, sorrows and nemisis.
in fact, blowback was one of the first books i read in response to 911 and it has had a serious affect on my thinking - as i kid i lived for 2 years on a military base in the marshall islands and johnson’s descriptions of what our bases meant for the local people who had to live near them rang very true to me.
With regard to the GWOT, or other such abominations, the urge to call it all a sham becomes greater and greater and the feeling that such a belief does not require one’s wearing of aluminum foil headgear.
It makes perfect sense that the “masterminds” were tortured into blithering, blubbering shells of former men with abosolute mush for brains. It makes similar sense that the “tapes” of the interogation were destroyed not so much as to destroy evidence of illegal interrogation methods, i.e. torture, but to destroy the evidence that any real information that was extracted from these poor souls showed the level of complicity of others in the 9/11 attacks.
We are now, finally, able to pull at stray strings and loose threads desparately trying to unravel the incredible mendacity, malfeasance, misdeeds, and massive abuses of power perpetrated by Little Georgie and The Big Dick, along with their Merry Band of Gangsters. Eventually one of those little threads will keep unravelling and unravelling. And another little thread will begin to unravel. Eventually the curtain hiding the enormity of the Bush maladministration will be brought to light, and a few of the criminals will be brought to justice.
However, this will take some time.
The Justice Department has been gutted.
Congressional oversight was squashed, stifled, and silenced for too long.
Internal Controls built into the Federal systems were abused and destroyed.
Functional portions of the Government were purposefully made disfunctional, only to be replaced in place by even more disfunctional, and hugely expensive contractors with ever less oversight.
Hugely expensive contractors give lots (comparatively speaking) of money to Congresscritters. Congresscritters are then loathe to investigate misdeeds perpetrated by their benefactors.
Even so, there are some women and men of principle left. There are some who are willing to fight for the truth. There are some who are willing to fight for justice. And there are some who are still willing to fight for the American way.
The folks here at the Lake are some of those Supermen and Superwomen.
Three cheers for Superman Attaturk!!!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
Three cheers for Superwoman Jane!!!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
Three cheers for Superwoman Christy!!!!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
Three cheers for Superwoman emptywheel!!!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
Three cheers for all the SuperFirepups of Firedoglake!!!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
hip hip hurray!
Now go out there and continue the fight for Truth, Justice, and The American Way!
The confessions that we’ve been told about…
Don’t forget that the tapes were conveniently erased. How much of the actual truth of what happened in the planning and carrying out of the highjackings anc forced crash landings on September 11 was revealed in those erased tapes? I almost feel foolish with such a tinfoil hat attitude, but the scope of Little Georgie’s misdeeds continues to astound me in its enormity.
BTW… Little Georgie likes to be called “W”. You might consider using a more derisive appellation. I prefer to use “Little Georgie”. I believe it would assuredly picqué his petulance.
Selise, which base was that? You didn’t shop at “Macy’s” did you?