The good professor misses the point. The Black Napoleon sends young Americans to die because he’s the Black Napoleon and can do whatever he wishes.

Or the commander-in-chief who sends young Americans to die for a cause in which he manifestly does not believe and yet refuses to forsake?”

It’s that one.

“Black Napoleon”? WTF does race have to do with it?

Uh, what?

As the resident grammar nitpicker, I will please ask someone to fix the caption under the Basevich book salon, which currently reads, “Chat with Andrew Bacevich and his new book.” As far as I know, it isn’t a talking book.

And “Black Napoleon”? Ghostof911, are you smoking something?

The IDF strikes again. IDF personnel decided that they wanted to cut down a tree inside Lebanon and when Lebanese border guards saw them doing so, they fired warning shots over their heads. The Israelis responded by firing artillery at them, killing two and wounding five others. All because the Israelis didn’t like a tree that was growing IN Lebanon. Allying ourselves with Israel at first could be seen as a noble thing but these days, it’s more like publicly supporting North Korea.

4 dead. From Reuters twitter: “FLASH: One Lebanese journalist, third Lebanese soldier die in Lebanon-Israel border incident – security source”

That’s a crazy story. I imagine it’s a story at all because of the example that they’ll use any excuse to claim “self protection”. But, I’m curious about the tree. Was it blocking someone’s view? Did they see it as a source of material for supporting tunnels? Was it infested and being a health hazard?
Good Morning, BT and all
As usual, I arrive with questions.

Hey, it’s Israel, right or wrong (Increasingly wrong, it seems) & by a unanimous vote in the Senate, to boot.

Thanks for the update, grim though it is. No doubt the Israelis will use this excuse to invade Lebanon again and slaughter Lebanese civilians again…and Israel’s defenders will come out of the woodwork and make excuses why they are justified in that slaughter because weapons could have been hidden behind that tree or something AGAIN.

Mornin’, BT, pups

Cue the Israeli apologists in 3, 2…

Black Napolean? WTF, over?

It was a terrorist tree. An evil grower.

Morning BT and Firepups:

Slightly off-topic, but I thought I’d throw in the latest predictions.

Growing phials of cedar fever no doubt.

It was likely interfering with the clear field of fire which they like. You will notice that there is no forestation approaching their borders or walls wherever you see them pictured. It makes good tactical sense, even though it is bad for the scenery.

I think ghost’s mask just slipped a bit.

That merited a coffee spew warning!

Let’s not forget, that tree was INSIDE Lebanon. If they want a clear field of fire, (which is good tactics for a defense), they should set their fortifications INSIDE their own border, rather than right on the frontier and then unilaterally decide the Lebanon has too many trees to support their strategy.

Truthers don’t need masks, their lame slogan t-shirts give ‘em away.

Mask, or hood? Good morning, Margaret.

Maybe they’re playing shifting borders again.

Or was it the hood?

Oooops…great minds;)

Well, Israel believs God gave them the whole area so Israel believes all borders are illegal and all the land in the middle east belongs to them.

Right? Hood apparently. Good morning Deb.

Gah Mawnin’, Bev.
(on a personal ot, the daughter of my friend who passed away called me to tell me that the family wants Me to have her bible. Just, wow.)

International Law applies to the rest of the world. Israel, like the US, is, of course, exempt. I’m surprised that a person of your obvious intelligence (You’re here) didn’t know that!

Good for you…very thoughtful. Thanks

Whoever made up that story, that all the land was their’s, must have had a real inferiority complex. And, they’ve passed that down through the ages and are still trying to get over their big old bad selves.

Off to swim in the great capitalist cesspool.

US KIA Irak: 4,413

US KIA Afghanistan: 1,216

Iraki and AFghan casualties: estimates vary to over 1.5M

US MBS 2010: 26,536 and counting

Universal Soldier

Be good to yourselves, and all other living things.

Namaste

Good morning all.

What a nice gift, demi.

You forgot one:
Lebanese slaughtered by the IDF over a tree: 4

Actually, I do love that story…the land to Abraham and Moses…great story. Yet the new world does require title and boundaries…looks like that got overlooked.

Good morning.

CBL won the pot campaign name contest! Surely riches and fame headed our way now!

‘Morning, eCAHN,
The woman knew her bible more than anyone else I know. I she didn’t take the stories literally, either. We had many long talks about what the stories really might teach. I don’t get it gift until they hold the memorial, still a couple weeks away. Her grandson is still in Japan studying. I’m hope she made notes in the margins or some such. It’ll be a real treasure for me.

And the DEA. *g*

Mornin’

The part of the story I don’t like is that they could use and abuse the tribes that were already inhabiting that land. :(

Just a hold over from the Middle Ages when kings and emperors maintained power by claiming a divine right to do so. Anybody who believes that crap in the 21st century is no different than the young Earth creationists and other science deniers. No different.

Rachel Maddow is too damned smart to believe that after 2011 there are going to be zero US fighting forces/troops in Iraq. Those “not permanent” permanent military installations we are building are not going to be inhabited solely by ghosts.

I like Rachel, but where the Obama admin is concerned, she ought be no more credulous than she was when the Bush admin was running things. I wonder why she is. And I wonder if anything at all can change it.

Oh, wow, cool. Give her a congratulatory hug from me.

D’oh!!

Good morning SoDrag.

True dat.

Gee, I thought the Moses and The Burning Bush happened before the middle ages. I’ll have to reread. :)

I she didn’t take the stories literally, either. We had many long talks about what the stories really might teach.

Exactly the kind of religion I have no problem with. EXACTLY what Christianity likes to think of itself. I wish they could all be like you and her. :)

I didn’t say that. Just that kind of claim was used in the Middle Ages.

That makes it even more personal and wonderful. A real treasure!

The important parts of faith are Love and Service. Not burning the Koran/Quran.

I knew what you meant. Was just trying to tease ya.

Yeah, they’re giving everybody a bad name. Just like the ADL saying that religious discrimination is wrong….until it comes to Mosques.

Doesn’t the bible say that the Hebrews took the “promised land” by force from the “Philistines,” as Palestinians were known in those days?

End results are the same either way yet a fool beats a man acting against his convictions his publicly on the campaign trail convictions anyday.
I just defended Bush thats a first net is spotty might not get in another reply:(

Margaret but a tree is such a great military asset Israel can’t let them have a Tree/s

I once estimated that the Jews had possession of the land now known as Israel for about 70 years in the last several thousand. Now that’s some property rights record for ya. (Don’t hold me to the number; it could be somewhat higher.)

I’m very happy that FDL is going to have Col. Bacevich for a Salon (and am looking forward to reading, and maybe gifting, his book, even if it isn’t a talking book *g*)

I like his question, but my out of the box reactions is, “why do we have to limit ourselves to picking just one?” He’s right, though. A dry-drunk impersonator who operates in a haze of delusions doesn’t quite have the same culpability as the political calculist who is willing to kill off Americans left and right to merely shore up his own re-election possiblities.

And it is so important that he be re-elected, bc what would we do without a president who craters the public option and drug reimportation while handing off mandated coverage to the insurance companies; surges wars; threatens the UK and the rest of the world with consequence if they don’t cover up US sponsored genital mutiliations and other torture; sets up Bagram has his own no-tell hotel judicially authorized torture site; and crucifies whistleblower’s and their families to appease exposed ecutive branch criminals and malfeasors.

You should add in how many Saddam is estimated to have killed over the decades to give us perspective just a thought your daily reminders of our dead are important still one of the reasons we went in was to stop the killing.
If we kill more than Saddam then just why are we in Iraq?
Oil!

All that Christianity stuff is fine as long as you don’t really believe it.

It’s difficult for me to respond to a comment that is so wide Hard to tell what you’re saying.

I wonder if the GOP who support Israel at every turn realize this same logic can be applied to illegal immigrants Aztecs left America for Mexico around the 16th century I believe.
Not 2,000 years ago

Isn’t that what James Watts thought…about those dangerous trees? Must be true.

Ooops. My estimate was pre-WWII. Sorry for not clarifying. Doesn’t denigrate my point, though.

I agree with your point eCHAN no worries:)

The Rapture is coming why worry about the earth? Because its God’s gift and nobody likes it when you diss their gifts?

I think Mr. Bacevich’s last comment needs to be further explained about blaming American voters/populous for the continuous wars and insinuating that some how we are not doing enough. I voted for the Democrats specifically to end the wars. Both my Senators — Durbin and Obama — back in pre – 2006 talked of the needless war that was Iraq and it must be defunded. Apparently, I was naive and stupid enough to believe, and I am specifically talking Durbin now, that he would do as he promised once the Democrats had the majority.

However, Durbin did a full 180 degree turn and continuously voted to fund Iraq — with the disingenuous statement that we cannot leave our troops without money while they are on the ground — as if they would just get stranded in Iraq with no way home if they got defunded. THAT is when I lost all respect for that guy and pinned him as the liar that he is.

I voted specifically for withdrawal out of Iraq in 2006 and the hope that Afghanistan would follow. I endlessly called and emailed both my Senators and Jan Schakowsky to defund the war after the election of 2006. Public opinion is and has been against the war. And yet, they just funded the Afghanistan war AGAIN (though Jan voted no) despite public opinion being against it and all evidence pointing to a useless struggle there.

So I must ask, what would Bacevich want us to do further? If the cowards in the MSM don’t even bother covering the anti-war marches and positions, or the MSM gives credence to the whole notion that one is either a traitor or does not support the troops if they are against the war, or continues to have on “expert military officials” to comment on the war without full disclosure that those same “military experts officials” make gobs of money off the very war they are commenting on, or ignores the lengths the government goes to to squash any protests and to work in tandem with those same cowardly MSM to give protesters a bad name even with peaceful marches, what are average Americans to do?

I ask this in all earnestness because I am at loss to imagine or expect that anything will change. The latest Glenn Greenwald’s piece was about average – though highly computer literate Americans – spying on other Americans’ Internet behavior and it was quite shocking. This is something out of Castro’s Cuba, or the former Soviet Union, or any other number of countries that are ruled by tyrants. But instead of tyrants, we are ruled by corporations that own the politicians — and the most powerful of those are the defense/military industry. So seriously – to heap the blame on the average (misinformed by the government shill MSM) Americans for the continued militarization of America is wrong.

Well said:)

Thanks for the concise analytic and brilliant summation of presidential “performance.”

Durbin has really surprised me. His “Bleeding heart liberal” comments regarding entitlement cuts, which he has made on more than one occasion, couched in the same terms, make one realize the depth of this man’s duplicitousness.

The terrorist fruit does not fall far from the terrorist tree. Isn’t there a talking snake somewhere in this story?

Who is more worthy of contempt? Why in the hell should that matter? There’s plenty to go around for everyone. Contempt (just like war supplimentals) springs eternal.

When I first read that in the NY Times, I could not believe it. I emailed the reporter for confirmation that the quote of Durbin was correct, and once confirmed, I immediately emailed Firedoglake hoping it would get some press coverage — which thankfully Jane was all over it.

Durbin is essentially Obama’s lapdog, replacing Tony Blair as the most famous one. Jan S can be one as well when needed. I think her vote on the war funding was a safe vote for her because she knew it would pass regardless. She got cover to go to her voters and say she voted no on war funding. It is a sad state of affairs.

To prove my point on the government MSM shills, see Casual Observers latest posting on the Iraq War.

Again I ask, with such a disinformation campaign by the MSM and Americans struggling to make ends meet by working extra hours, or two or more jobs, etc., how are we, the public, expected to enact change when the very politicians that we elected to enact change, lied to us and continue the status quo?

Nailed it! It shows the folly of basing ones relationship with the divine on the perfect accuracy of this or that historical narrative.

God is imaged as a man, the biggest baddest man in the universe. To be god-like is to be man-like, and vice versa. Yes, I’m saying, it’s a dick thing. Dicking with Mother Nature is the very epitome of the good life, to these believers in half a cosmos.

Our Father, who art in Heaven, what have you done with our Mother?

From my May 14, 2010 diary.

A basic methodological principle, to be regarded when mythology is being interpreted in psychological terms, tells us that what is referred to in myth as “other world” is to be understood psychologically as inner world (“the Kingdom of Heaven is within you”), and that what is spoken of as “future” is now. At an Anglican wedding ceremony, I once overheard the minister instruct the couple before him to live their life in such a way as to merit in the next, eternal life. Well yes, I thought, but that is not quite correctly phrased. He really should have said, “Live your life, your marriage, in such a way that in it you may experience eternal life.” Eternity is neither future, nor past, but now. It is not of the nature of time at all, in fact, but a dimension, so to say, of now and forever, a dimension of the consciousness of being that is to be found and experienced within, upon which, when found, one may ride through time and through the whole length of one’s days. What leads to the knowledge of this transpersonal, trans-historical dimension of one’s being and life experience are the mythological archetypes, those eternal symbols that are known to all mythologies and have been forever the support and models of human life.

One of the most interesting things about the Bible is that every one of the major Old Testament mythological themes has been found by our modern scholars in the earlier Sumero-Babylonian complex: The serpent-god, the tree in the garden of immortal life, the fashioning of mankind from clay, the deluge, and many others. I think, however, of what has happened as a result: Myths that originally had pointed to the goddess as the ultimate source are now pointing to a god!

This change is highly significant, and it is one of the most baffling things about our tradition. Symbols speak directly to the psyche. One spontaneously knows what they are saying, even if the person presenting and interpreting them may be speaking a different language. He is saying, “This story is telling us of the Father,” while one’s heart is saying, “No, it is of the Mother.” All of our religious symbols are thus speaking to us in double-talk. Since, as even Saint Thomas states in his Summa contra gentiles (book I, chapter 5), “Then alone do we know God truly, when we believe that He is far above all that man can possibly think of God,” it can surely not be proper to think of that which surpasses all human thought either as a male or a female. In our tradition, the problem is further compounded by the image of a male God minus a wife, so that we cannot even think of

divinity as transcending and subsuming sexual opposites. This image of the divine is all very psychologically and socially important. As we now well know, this emphatically lopsided representation of the mystery of God was primarily contrived to support the claim of the superiority of the patriarchal conquerors over their matriarchal victims. [Joseph Campbell, Thou Art That: transforming religious metaphors, pp.25-26. San Anselmo, CA: New World Library. Copyright © Joseph Campbell Foundation.]

I think this alarming discovery, that the myths intended to harmonize humanity and nature have been perverted into a mythology of a war-god who conquers Mother Nature, is at the root of much of what ails us today.

Why are we effed in the head? Why do we make war on everything under the sun–and even under the sea? It’s the mythology!

The only way for these believers to get to their heaven is by standing in the proper relationship to the proper authorities of the proper dogma as preached by the proper church. Absolutely no one must be allowed to question their narrative, or their subsequent land claims will crumble into dust.

Campbell continues:

How do we achieve, however, the required relationship to Jesus? Through baptism and thereby membership in his Church—that is to say within and by means of a sanctified social context stressing certain exclusive claims. These claims depend for validation upon the historicity of certain specific miracles. The Jewish tradition depends on the notion of special revelation to a singular “chosen” people, in a certain place, and a these circumstances in historical time. The documentation, however, is questionable. Likewise, the Christian tradition is based on the idea of single incarnation, the authentication of which is in the evidence of certain miracles, followed by the founding of a Church and the continuity of this Church through time: every bit of this dogma is also historical.

That is why our symbols have all been so consistently and persistently interpreted as referring not primarily to our inner selves but to supposed outer historical events. This emphasis may be good for the institution of the Church or the prosperity of the synagogue, but may not at all contribute to the spiritual health of the unconvinced individual. [Campbell, op. cit.]

IMO, this overemphasis on the accuracy of one and only one narrative, to prop up dubious land claims, has lead us directly to Top Secret America.

Rachel Maddow made two shocking mistakes. First, she bought into Obama’s bullshit story that he is withdrawing combat troops from Iraq. In Obama-speak that means he’s calling the same troops “non-combat” troops. Second, she appears to really believe Obama might withdraw from Afghanistan next July, which absolutely will not happen.

I said I was shocked because I gave her more credit for intelligence, savvy, and sophistication than she obviously deserves. Bacevich also appeared to be surprised, although he concealed it well and he was very polite and gentle reminding her of the political realities.

Bacevich is a real gentleman.

Stop consuming. Stick to the absolutely necessary – food, gas, rent – and do not buy anything else. If you do not like the media, cancel your cable subscription, stop buying newspapers. Take your money away from the banks, and put it in non-profit credit unions. It is called boycott, and it works. It may not be enough, but right now, with a shrinking economy, it will ahve an impact. You will survive longer than corporations do – their half-life is 3 months – one quarter. A Just-In-Time economy will not survive if The People find it in themselves to stop shopping for the war effort for just three months. Postpone christmas – do it in April.

If you think you are powerless, take a look at the people who marched with King. If you still have a job, sure, you have something to loose. If you unemployment has run out, and your savings are gone, you will live the boycott anyway. So start thinking about unemployment and poverty as full-time citizenship – no leisure, no entertainment, no job are between you and your First Amendment rights.

You might think you have a choice. You do not. If there really is no way for the citizens of the US to change their government, then you are already lost. If there is, then it is your job to find it. There will not be a savior. You need to make your representatives understand that their careers will depend entirely on their commercial sponsors, because you *will* end their incumbency. And you need to make the sponsors understand that unless they are selling an absolutely essential good, they will have none of your money to lavish on politicians. If the republic is ruled by gas, food, and pharma, it will still not be pretty, but it will be a much smaller circle of corruption.

Agreed.

Speaking of sponsors, is everyone aware that Target and Best Buy are sponsoring Michele Bachmann and Tom (cut minimum wage) Emmer? Yes, these corporations have dumped $150,000. on two of the vilest politicians the Republicans have to offer.

Boycott them, and let them know that your’re unhappy on their FB website.

Thanks for the info. ewwwwww. I will definitely voice my displeasure and immediately stop shopping at Target fwiw.

You make some very good suggestions, and I agree with you. We have to keep searching for options to voice our opinions and do what we can to enact real change.

But I do concur with ChicagoTodd @62 in his response to Bracevich’s argument putting most of the blame on citizens for what’s happening. For sure, we citizens are responsible and have to make more efforts to see that the corrections are made, etc.

However, focusing or shifting the “blame” to citizens is disingenous at best. Not only did many citizens vote for specific pols based on campaign promises that are then later renigged – and how are we supposed to predict that in advance?? But in many cases, we can vote until the cows come home, and our votes won’t even count – as in the 2000 election, where a bloodless coup led by the el-Supreme-os put W in power. This happens more often than citizens may think or know about, and with elec. voting machines being all the rage, it will happen even more often.

So I agree that citizens can’t just give up, but otoh, I also resent being called out by the Bracevich’s of this world, who do not follow up by explaining what’s really happening, and who don’t bother to point out what’s really happening with corporations running our nation, including the media which has become more and more just propoganda, lies or distracting nonsense.

Bacevich is a stand-up guy who tells it like it is.

Please forgive me if I’ve mistakenly confused you with a yahoo racist.