Nobody is really in charge. It runs itself. This war machine.

I didn’t watch it. There is nothing that can change my mind about this ridiculous war.
Good morning.

I didn’t watch it either. I think Rachel is great, but I just couldn’t watch last night’s Afghanistan broadcast.

Good morning, early pups. It is another HOT HOT HOT one in NW Indiana, but some t-storm relief coming tonight and tomorrow.

In other news: Where the hell are all of the people who were saying ad nauseum cute little things like “So much for global warming” during the cold snap last winter? They are strangely silent during the east coast heat wave. Although, like the cold spell this is weather and not climate, it follows the predictions of climate scientists who have warned of more extreme weather. Still, I don’t hear Jim DeMint apologizing to Al Gore while his state bakes.

I think Rachel is great, but I just couldn’t watch last night’s Afghanistan broadcast.

Agreed. I just didn’t have the heart to watch something so wrong. I already know too much about it, I didn’t need to spend and hour experiencing the horror last night.
Oh yeah: WB BT :)

Mornin’, BT, pups

Still want to know what we’re going to accomplish in another year.

1. Get a lot of people killed.

2. Spend a lot of borrowed money that our grandchildren must repay.

3. Give politicians and military brass more time to show us how fuckin’ stupid they are.

In other news, the shutdown of the Space Shuttle program in FL in October is estimated to cost 14,000 jobs in the local economy in addition to the 9,000 jobs to be cut from the program.

Not that it makes much difference, but they pushed the final two shuttle launches to Nov. 1st 2010 and late Feb. 2011.

The military/industrial complex: Too big to fail©

For some reason NPR left that part out of the broadcast.

The way I explained it last winter to skeptics, the global warming is characterized by extremes of heat and cold and all other types of weather. This is due to the anthropogenic temperature creep which generates higher energy that fuel weather and the ocean effects (La Niña and El Niño) .

In other news, the shutdown of the Space Shuttle program in FL in October is estimated to cost 14,000 jobs in the local economy in addition to the 9,000 jobs to be cut from the program.

If those little people weren’t so lazy, they could get jobs as McDonald’s cooks, Wal-Mart greeters or many other top flight positions in the services industry….

Preaching to the choir alank. I wrote a Seminal diary touching on that very subject myself.

In other news, the shutdown of the Space Shuttle program in FL in October is estimated to cost 14,000 jobs in the local economy in addition to the 9,000 program jobs to be cut from the program.

Glenn is also advising that we not scuttle the shuttle. For example, let’s say someone gets stranded on the international space station. We’ll just go get ‘em with…um…what, a souped up Edsel? Fuckin’ idiots.

Morning BT, Firepups.

103 degrees here ,in New England . Records for high temps set all along the east coast ,records were set for snow fall amounts in some of these very same cities. These types of extremes in the weather are exactly what climate scientists predicted would happen.
I ask the same question . Where are the global warming deniers now?
And I wonder. Have we already gone past the co called tipping point?

Here’s a link about it: NASA Delays Space Shuttle Program’s End to 2011

Ps the ocean water temps off Cape Cod are already in the low 70′s this is unusual for this time of year it’s only the beginning of the summer.
The warmer the oceans the more severe the storms

Philly broke an all-time record for warmest overnight low – it didn’t go below 83° last night.

And on the west coast, unseasonably cool temps…about 20 degrees under the average, give or take a few. One reason I prefer the term “climate change.”

So where are all of the anti-war demonstrations? Anti-war protestors are virtually non-existent, choosing to give Obama a pass even though Obama is continuing the Bush policies so reviled by the left.

Thanks for writing the diary. I missed that. I’ve been preaching that gospel for years.

MSNBC just called the 2012 Presidential election for Sarah Palin

In reality it’s the military/industrial/media complex.

Wow. Summer’s hot. Who would have thought? No problem…just get yourself to a government cooling center where the freon just keeps flowing.

The STS is aging and needs to be replaced. The Constellation program was mismanaged from the start. This must be laid at the feet of George W Bush but Obama is an idiot for going ahead with retiring the STS without a replacement. Makes as much sense as getting rid of your old but usually reliable car in an area where there is no public transportation and distances are too great for walking.

Now that’s comedy.

Yep. :(

That might be a little premature. I hope, hope, hope. Why, oh why, would they start that spin?

Is that you, mother?

Sit on #18 and spin, Homeboy…

Good Morning Firedoglake.
I almost feel guilty while I’m enjoying this mild weather [where I live], but it’ll heat up later, I’m pretty sure.
Maybe they can send Sarah Palin to the space station.

Whew! That’s a relief. I thought for sure it was gonna be Beck or Gingrich. /s

Maybe they can send Sarah Palin to the space station.

Only if they intend to scuttle the shuttle immediately after she gets there…

I thought that was why he was put in there….too allow us to feel OK for awhile while he lied his ass off to US.
Seems to me The Corporation is stronger than ever.

Morning Joke is talking about the Palin presidency in 2012. by then we won’t be able to leave the country even if we could or wanted to. don’t know why they’d want us, but, you know police states, they don’t make much sense.

I see we’ve got chiggers again.

Happened to walk by the Morning JOkE on my way out the door this morning and caught Chris Mathews giving sarah the 2012 election in a walk. It was incredibly stupid to say the least. To hear them tell it she is the single biggest factor in every mid-term race. Fucking disgusting.

Good morning all.

Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Pinky?
But, where are we going to get a one way ticket to Mars, Brain?

It’s been a relatively mild summer here so far. Of course “relatively mild” in central Texas is pretty damned hot in New England, the Midwest or the West Coast. I got spoiled when I lived in San Diego. Twenty years later, I’m still not acclimated to the heat like I was before I left Texas to begin with.

@19

Come on, “anti-war” demonstrators are hypocrites through and through. They’re delighted to riot when a Republican is in the White House, but when a Dem is in charge, it’s all copacetic.

Same thing with those hypocrites in Congress. In 2000, they were demanding withdrawals from Iraq and Affie every other week. Now they couldn’t care less.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Irak: 4,412

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,159

Iraki and Afghan casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M

US MBS 2010: 23,188 and counting

Crazy Horse

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

Why does anybody watch Morning Joe, not to mention Tweety? Good lord, isn’t this the perfect illustration of how stupid and unconnected with reality they are? Mika’s own father called them “astonishingly shallow” for crying out loud. The only difference between Morning Joe and Fox “News” is who writes the paychecks.

Come on, “anti-war” demonstrators are hypocrites through and through

Care to back up calling me a hypocrite?

In 2000, they were demanding withdrawals from Iraq and Affie every other week. Now they couldn’t care less.

It must be pointed out that we weren’t IN Afghanistan or Iraq in 2000, though I admit that reality has a well known liberal bias.

anti-war protesters don’t get media coverage. media coverage of “protests” is reserved for uninformed, gun-wielding teabaggers

Just another chickenhawk ‘Dragon. You saw them when you got back from Vietnam and when I got back from Persian Gulf 1, I kept hearing people talk about how “we” did this or “we” accomplished that, though I never saw any of them over there.

You know dat’s right!

anti-war protesters don’t get media coverage. media coverage of “protests” is reserved for uninformed, gun-wielding teabaggers

Precisely. Over and over 200 teabaggers get much more coverage than ten, twenty, one hundred times the number of people demonstrating for immigration reform.

I want the [edited by mod] to put up or shut up. We’ve been in the streets for going on 8 years and this [edited by mod] can’t even get his facts straight.

Dragon, have a hypocrite chickenhawk free day, dear.

Good paying jobs with a narrow focused expertise and now few job prospects. Fortunately that money can be repurposed into CEO pay as we privatize this to WalMart and save money by paying the private company employees much less. Or maybe the private NASAs will just have a daily job lottery as is the case with BP. Spread employment across a wider group and possibly select for luck at the same time.

Like all wingers, he/she can’t “get the facts straight” because he/she has no interest in facts. Hell, this person can’t even spell “Afghanistan” apparently. I’ve never seen or heard anybody call it “Affie”.

New post up top…

Not every anti-war protestor is a fan of this administration – quite the opposite. One of the problems is that a lot of the borderline folks that might have joined in are now like deer in the headlights. Also, in case it wasn’t obvious, protests of all stripes are no longer are covered by the U.S. MSM, short of violent acts which always backfire. As well, putting people on a no-fly list has been quite the effective tool in controlling behavior. The times they are a changin.

Oops, may bad. I meant 2008.

That’s not all you got wrong, Sparky.

And, the part where you apologize to our vet who IS an actual war protester? Waiting.

Were you out demonstrating with tens of thousands of others on the Capitol Mall lately?

I thought not.

Oh, only your selected protests and demonstrations count, eh? xin loi

don’t you know that if you cant see the protest, it doesn’t exist?

Well you can call me names and change the subject, but no one has yet refuted what I said.

I think you are playing ‘hard and fast’ for the wrong team. THEY love it when they can get antiwar persons to fight amongst themselves. THEY thrive on divide and conquer.

twolf, thanks for all you do. Hugs.
And, btw, we’re not allowed to use cyber tazers, are we? Thought not. Just checking.

LOL. What are you doing to ease your carbon footprint? Sitting around moaning about the heat while running your AC full tilt?

The left whines and moans and rants…period. When push comes to shove you all bend over, grab your ankles and let the Dem establishment spank you.

“Thank you sir, may I have another.” Then you blame Bush and give Obama a pass on everything…

“Progressives” have no political power within the Democratic party and no spine to stand up to the establishment.

The left denegrates the Tea Party activists but the Tea Party is driving the political debate in this country.

I called you names?

get over yourself

I didn’t mean you individually. I meant “you people.”

Southern Dragon is a Vietnam Vet. Southern Dragon attends anti war protests all the time. What do you want?

So far the only part of your comment that hasn’t been refuted was “@19″…

Looks like name calling and a lie to me.

lol

The left just gets all flushed over the prospect of a Palin persidency but it won’t happen. She is more akin to Limbaugh and will be a strong conservative voice outside the party. The last thing this country needs is another ‘celebrity’ president. The GOP will nominate someone reserved, with a proven record of accomplishment and executive experience, who is willing to get our fiscal house in order and the economy back on track.

But it’s a lovely distraction for all of you ‘progressives’ who think all conservatives are unhinged.

LOL. You know I’m right.

Isn’t she cute? Smart cookie too.

Just another fuckin’ troll. Make that 2.

Http://web.mac.com/ctb3

Your frustration is understandable. Your accusations are not.

Do you simply invent straw men for every comment or are there situations where you actually address specifics from time to time? The whole blind obedience to Team Obama doesn’t play well here, as you know having read comments for quite a while but blithely ignore regularly. The blind hatred thing plays even less successfully.

But I’m not beautiful and talented like demi. ;)

Arguing with this person is a pointless exercise. That’s why I no longer respond to those comments.

do i? Is that what you feel?

Stop! Gah!
Regarding the music thing, I’m practicing to play a flute duet with a tuba player. We’re performing Simple Gifts by Bernstein. Won’t that be interesting?

Proud on ya, for sticking to your promise. (patting you on your head)

She is more akin to Limbaugh

Ain’t that the truth. Maybe they go on South American cruises together as well.
The strength of her message depends upon the mindset that makes blind obedience to the orchestrated messages of Rush and North so appealing. The warmth of conformity to the team and it’s day-to-day goals.

A Tuba/Flute duet? Would that be tubal floutist?

Floubal Tutist. Wow. Maybe I’ll get a friend to record it on his computer and then I can make a youtube and you can hear it. I’ll see what I can do.

I agree usually. Today I suppose it’s because I’m a bit warm, bored and have no intention of every buying an air conditioner. Finding things to distract. Usually my old brick house keeps me nice a cool, that last few days have been a bit much.

It does tend to get hairier around here when it’s really hot outside, or when it’s a full moon, or it’s a boring Wednesday. *g*

Please feel free to distract yourself. I’m not a moderator or anything. Just another commenter on this site. :)

I’d love to hear it. :)

Hunny Bunny, when are you going to write to me?

I guess it’ll be easier now that I have your email address. :)

Sorry. Thought I had given it to you before. Ooooh, now we can really Dish. :)

What is the anti-war movement doing to put media attention on protests? Rachel Maddow? How many viewers does she have…6? All of the cable and networks were covering Cindy Sheehan, et al incessentantly during the Bush administration.

There has been a “collapse of professional integrity among the Washington press corps, which no longer dares to call balls and strikes as it sees them, preferring to say only that the Democrats say it was a strike and the Republicans say it was a ball, and that opinions on the shape of the earth differ.”

CNN whines about the disaster in the Gulf while interviewing countless victims who have been wronged by BP. What did folks expect, that BP was going to come rushing in with bags of cash? Why isn’t CNN asking where is the government direction, coordination and supervision?

Networks let Obama get away with claiming that the economy is improving, telling a Racine, WI audience that they should feel fortunate that unemployment is only 9.6%. The fact is that in Racine, unemployment is 14.2%!

Our federal government is so incompetent, corrupt and inefficient, how can anyone dare support it in its current form?

I’ll send you a short email at some point today and then you’ll have mine. :)

Look, I know that there is no blind allegience to Obama here, but what is Obama’s own party doing to hold him to account?

Barack Obama won the Presidency by convincing independents to break away from the GOP and from John McCain. Independents engaged in the political process had already become disenchanted and now Obama is being marginalized in the demographic that won him the election. the independents who turned out for Obama in 2008 will not show up in 2010. Those who do turn out will show up to vote against Obama and his agenda. There is a high level of disillusionment among independents and they can only demonstrate their anger at that by kicking Obama’s allies out of Congress. Obama had better hope that satisfies them.

Would you let us know when you have copied my addy and then perhaps a kind mod will remove it from the site? Thanking the mods in advance.

I already copied it and sent you an email demi. :)

I want the [bleep] to put up or shut up. We’ve been in the streets for going on 8 years and this [bleep] can’t even get his facts straight.

Now it just sounds like a Daily Show quip ;-}

And demi @48: Henery the Chickenhawk (audio file) comes to mind.

“I’m a liberal blog hawk: I use fightin’ words on liberal blogs, until I’m forced to eat them.”

The intensity of the protestors and media attention focused on the anti-war movement pales in comparison to the last 8 years. Why is that, especially when Obama is continuing so many of the Bush war policies? Margaret and Southern Dragon are the only two here who seem to still be involved. What has happened other than the fact that all is forgotten, forgiven when the beloved Dems are in charge.

I think Rachel can be great, but those times have been fewer and farther between, for me at least. She too often takes the common wisdom foolishness as granted, working within a bogus frame.

I had great hopes for her talent for busting myths, but it doesn’t seem she’s using it on the one that really matters: the myth of American Exceptionalism.

Take Afghanistan. I didn’t watch last night either, but I’ll bet she doesn’t challenge the “war of necessity/we were attacked from there” myth. Can you even imagine her interviewing Pepe Escobar? I can’t.

Real men go to Riyadh

Obama still says Afghanistan is a “war of necessity” – because of the September 11, 2001 attacks. Wrong. The Bush administration had planned to attack Afghanistan even before 9/11. See Get Osama! Now! Or else … Asia Times Online, August 30, 2001.)

“War of necessity” is a polite remix of the same old neo-conservative “war on terror”; blame it on the “towelheads” and exploit public ignorance and fear. That’s how al-Qaeda was equated with the Taliban and how Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was involved in 9/11, according to the neo-con gang.

For all his lofty rhetoric, Obama is still pulling a Bush, not making any distinction between al-Qaeda – an Arab jihadi outfit whose objective is a global caliphate – and the Taliban – indigenous Afghans who want an Islamic emirate in Afghanistan but would have no qualms in doing business with the US, as they did during the Bill Clinton years when the US badly wanted to build a trans-Afghan gas pipeline. On top of it, Obama cannot admit that the “Pak” neo-Taliban now exist because of the US occupation of “Af”.

Taking pains to distance his new policy from the Vietnam trauma, Obama stressed, “Unlike Vietnam, the American people were viciously attacked from Afghanistan.” Wrong. If the official narrative of 9/11 holds, the hijackers were trained in Western Europe and perfected their skills in the US.

And even while he still emphasizes the drive to “disrupt, dismantle and defeat” al-Qaeda and deny it a “safe haven”, Obama is fully contradicting his own national security advisor, General James Jones, who has admitted that there are fewer than 100 al-Qaeda jihadis in Afghanistan.

The myth of al-Qaeda has to be exposed. How could al-Qaeda pull off 9/11 but be incapable of mounting a single significant attack inside Saudi Arabia? That’s because al-Qaeda is essentially a thinly disguised brigade of Saudi intelligence. The US wants to win “the war on terror”? Why not send special forces to Saudi Arabia instead of Afghanistan and knock the Wahhabis – the root of it all – out of power? [Links original, emphasis added. Source: Pepe Escobar, Vietnam-lite is unveiled, Dec. 3, 2009 Asia Times Online.]

and @ 62,91 and elsewhere.

Since I’ve never had nor been on unemployment, self-employed my entire adult life, my budget at the moment is not allowing any travel not related to work or food acquisition. Traveling outside of bicycle range to protest is against my environmental ethics. So I do what I can around the neighborhood.

Perhaps you might consider turning off your computer as an example to all of us of your environmental awareness. Doing that same thing here, shortly, after responding to a work request. Much obliged.

Oh puhleez. Are you seriously asserting that the comments on any given thread are a direct and exact measure of our involvement? There’s a huge sampling bias in your data, if that’s the case.

Not all who are involved comment on every thread, y’know. While I agree that Margaret and SouthernDragon are admirably involved (bowing in your virtual directions), I think you’re overgeneralizing from a unrepresentative sample.

And as for the charge, that nothing has changed except the party in power, there sure is way too much tribalism in our politics, as Glenn Greenwald has been on about for some time now. On that I agree.

But, as you can see above @98, many of us don’t play that “follow the leader” game. In fact, that’s why I hang out here at the Lake.

IMO, your sweeping statements paint with way too broad a brush.

Well said, nonquixote (nice moniker, BTW).

And MrCleaveland, I’m looking at you, too. I can’t believe you use marching at the Capital Mall as a measure. As if we all have equal opportunity to meet that criterion!

I’m on an island 90 miles north of Seattle. You volunteering to pay my airfare?

I thought not.

Oh, thank you mods. You’re the best.

How many protests have you done?

I’ve done over 300, thank you.

If the ” press’ doesn’t cover it was it a protest?

Speaking of busting the myth of al-Qaeda, Greenwald posted this yesterday:

So between Afghanistan and Paksitan combined, there are a few hundred Al Qeada members total. All of this ongoing war and those hundreds of billions of dollars spent and those deaths and the decade of occupation, and those bombings and shootings and drone attacks and lawless prisons and habeas-stripping court precedents: it’s all (ostensibly) for a few hundred extremists total hiding in remote tribal areas. A few hundred. … [Emphasis original.]

I’m wondering how long it will be before Rachel Maddow suddenly goes all-in for the war in Afghanistan…just like President Obama.

I haven’t forgotten Rachel’s epiphany on health care reform, when she suddenly decided that ANY HCR bill was just fine, after months of insisting that the inclusion of the “public option” was simply non-negotiable.

Just what is her front-row, first-class, VIP tour of the Obama Administration’s military surge in Afghanistan ultimately going to cost her?

Are we winning hearts and minds yet?

You guys are hilarious. But your rationalizations and obfuscations do not refute the truth that the anti-war movement is phony.

Welcome, troll. Enjoy your stay here.

Nope, we gave that up, now we’re machining them into submission by remote control, just as BP is doing and Goldman Sachs is doing and who knows who else.

MrCleaveland, you call that a rebuttal? Just because you assert something based in biased sampling, doesn’t make it “the truth.” I’ve gotten better debate from 3rd graders (I used to tutor kids online).

Rachel is career building. She has the assets to become an important voice beyond the traditional hack pundits on Cable T.V. If she intends to stay in media, especially TV, I can see an advantage in not becoming automatically labeled as a narrow agenda partisan, vice serious and fair reporter. I am very impressed with her and her research team’s competence.

So I am willing to cut her some slack in the interest of longer range planning. Only time will prove out. But I like most of you all decided I couldn’t tolerate one more report from Afghanistan, even done by Rachel. They are so controlled by the military and CIA there is no way the reporter is allowed any freedom to speak truth but the depressing truths are paradoxically painfully obvious as a result.

Rachel’s trip to Afghanistan is must-see TV. She and Richard Engel are committing journalism right and left. The stuff they are finding out is new, almost as if there are no other reporters there. I learned what we’re doing in Kandahar (trying to secure the urban core, to prevent Taliban assassinations of government loyalists). It was amazing to find out that the center of Kabul is rarely visited by westerners (but Rachel and Richard took a stroll through the market).

As Rachel said at the top of last night’s program, we owe it to our fellow Americans who are bearing the burden of this country’s longest war. We have to pay attention to events in Afghanistan.

No, I don’t call that a rebuttal. It’s a simple statement of fact based on the disappearance of the alleged anti-war movement the minute Obama took over. If I’m wrong, then show me where all the protests are going on.

Oh that’s just lovely: because we are practicing human sacrifice in the prosecution of a bogus holy war, we owe it them, the lucky stiffs we sacrifice (but not the unlucky stiffs we slaughter by the dozens, that’s their fault for getting in the way of our glorious mission), to swallow swill like you just wrote. Whatever happened to “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda?”

How are we to machine Afghanis into order by remote control from halfway around the globe, when we can’t even rebuild our own nation here at home?

All that “honoring the heroes bearing the burden” crap would be all well and good, if we were actually fighting an actually justified war of self-defense. But we’re not. It’s a war of aggression to dominate the geopolitics of Central Asia, and the policy context is called “full-spectrum dominance.”

So much valor and heroism going to waste in a war we shouldn’t be fighting to begin with (see the Escobar quote @98).

What makes you think you aren’t looking protesters in the face right here and now? What makes you think only street protests measure the anti-war movement?

On second thought, never mind. If you can’t tell the difference between biased assertions, facts, and “the truth,” there’s no point to debating you, we’ll just go ’round in your solipsistic circles.

Pretty good fact-checking there, Homeboy. Your facts were only screwed up on points 1 through 5. Better luck next time. We do have some nice parting gifts for you…

Debating this guy is like trying to teach calculus to a cage full of hyenas. It’s pretty much a futile effort.

Yes the elevation of our trained killers to the status of dem-gods only seduces good intended, mostly poor, young men and women into the military where their wholesomeness is betrayed and perverted. That’s the cause of PTSD and it’s glorification is what drives the blood lust of rich old men and women in power. I blame Rachel and Engle and other in country reporters less than those who demand some such statement of appreciation of the warriors.

This troll hasn’t been around in a while. Guess he’s trying to catch up on his usual one or two line dump and run appearances. It’s always been bullshit anyhow, prove negatives, etc. If he hadn’t called me a hypocrite I’d have ignored him and should have ignored him in any case. Not worth my or your time.

SHOW ME THE PROTESTS!!!

See, you guys have no answer. That’s because there are no protests. The anti-war “movement” is a sham. Why can’t you just admit the obvious and move on?

Man! Say it ain’t so and it will go away. That’s high-chair talk. Like. “There is no global warming and climate change”

Probably off his meds…

The point of our occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq is to provide good cover for the funneling of American taxpayer dollars into the pockets of Halliburton Corporation, Blackwater Corporation, other American war corporations and hundreds of thousands of private contractors.

It used to be, in WWI and WW2 that private companies made money supplying the tools of war making. Now, with the Cheney Bush gangsters and their privatizing of military occupations, corporations can make millions of dollars on the ground. These occupations will be the moment corporate profit is “taken off the table.”

It would seem that most all of the so-called “progressive” commentators on MSNBC are supporting the continuing US imperial occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq. We need commentators, such as Michael Moore and Amy Goodman, on major network or cable/satellite TV shows.

Clearly, the people of Afghanistan know who Rachel is, and have granted her safe passage in her effort to interface with their society.

I can’t wait for the next installment…!

Gotta say that reading this thread is troubling. Seems like a lot of folks on the Left, are suffering from as much *head in sand disease* as those on the Right.

Specifically, all the negative talk about Rachel. The whole MSM is basically a right-wing talking point machine. And because Rachel hasn’t gone full-out far-left, she’s a sellout? A couple of years ago, the Left had nothing in the Media. Now, there’s a few on MSNBC that actually speak from the Left. No, it aint Pacifica, but it’s far better than what it was.

So, you won’t watch Rachel’s report, because you don’t like what’s going on in Afghanistan? That’s following the right-wing ignorance credo.
This braindead doctrinaire garbage, if someone doesn’t show my opinion 100%, they’re not worth my support, is what got us Bush in 2000. Had y’all been more thoughtful in 2000, and less self-righteous, the Bush v Gore election wouldn’t have been as close… and we may not be where we are now. Things take time, and throwing Rachel under the bus, will only lower her ratings & eventually bring back the status quo.

Yeah, Obama hasn’t been who we thought he’d be, but would you really prefer Pawlenty, or Mitt? I know it’s difficult to stay energized, but apathy & demanding 100% purity, will only give back the GOP the majority in Congress. If we stay active & energized, and make November’s outcome different than the MSM’s predicted outcome – - a GOP landslide, we’ll be making the Country better. Or, you can do the GOP’s work, and disengage, and let the *tea-partiers* run the Country. Please wake up, People.
(End rant)

I agree to a degree with the thrust of most of your post.

However

So, you won’t watch Rachel’s report, because you don’t like what’s going on in Afghanistan? That’s following the right-wing ignorance credo

This doesn’t describe me. I am well aware of what is going on in Afghanistan and don’t need to keep peeling scabs off and bleeding. It isn’t seeking denial. It is just too painful and will not motivate me any more than I already am to oppose this and all other violence done in my name to others and by others. I suspect most of those commenting here who avoided the program did for similar reasons.

I understand your point, but honestly, I have such a hunger for real Journalism, and Rachel is just Rachel. I saw a report from her (on her blog) that was on the Today Show. It’s so honest… just what is… real reporting. So, to me, watching her show from Afghanistan is a treat, because I’m seeing what’s real, with no spin.
And of course, watching her show supports her ratings, and to me I don’t want to lose her voice in the MSM. Besides, there was a lot to learn from her take, & what she reported on.

I share your admiration of Rachel. I think she is a super intellect and, as I mentioned previously, she and her team do great research. I just hope she herself stays in the media and don’t worry about her ratings. She will outgrow MNBC and her shoddy companions there first. (Exclude Andrea Mitchell from that grouping — she is also a pro)

That why they try to keep the public in the dark. Remember ‘Nam was the first war fought in front of tv cameras. The media along with the Government want to make sure you don’t see images of dead people, images of dead soldiers, corruption among American and Foreign Contractors, etc, etc, etc.

Its not so much that soldiers want to leave, private contractors don’t want them to leave, that’s the cash cow or golden egg laying goose.

I rather not see it, but I do admit to getting a kick as seeing the US being hypocrites or outright lying to the public which it constantly does.

The sun is setting on our empire, this conversation is not the MSM is having of course. Like all Governments they will cut social programs first before Government officials will cut their own benefits or pay or programs that don’t improve the quality of life.

If Brown doesn’t win, if Prop 19 doesn’t pass, HSR is derailed/cutback/made bad and if 30 in 10 doesn’t happen the next couple of thousand I earn will fund my relocation.

This is ridiculous and I don’t see how most of you stand it and see excuses like age and family. You can always see your family most people don’t live anywhere near their families what’s a few thousand miles more? All the more reason to have a rainy day fund, so you can buy plane tickets whenever you need them.

But I’ll be damed if deal with a reduction in the quality of life in America and fully 50% or so is not even paying attention to help us correct the problem.

When the Shit Goes Down, you better be ready – Cypress Hill

D’oh, my newbie-ness here at the Lake is showing. I knew it was wrong, when I was doing it, but I did it anyway. Story of my life :-/

ShotoJamf @117: Two things:

A) Oh sure, now you tell me! As with SouthernDragon, amigo, I’m just kidding, sometimes it’s fun to draw out the stoopid in those who dare test the waters of the Lake.

B) May I ask, what does ShotoJamf mean? My curiosity, about names, is only excelled by my forgetfulness of them.

TalkingStick @118: I agree, propagandists bear the responsibility for the actions they provoke. In this sense, Maddow and Engle are in league with Limbaugh and Beck. Thanks for reminding me not to blame the victims of the “strategic domestic disinformation campaigns,” in Pentagonese.

Oval… @123: Close, but no cigar: those are side effects. The thrust of it all, as in every rape of persons or nations, is the dominance.

Does economics determine human behavior before we act, or attempt to describe it after the fact?

Also: WTF is up with that gargantuan moniker? :P