Friday, June 02, 2006

Haditha was inevitable

Posted by Mickey Z on 06/02 at 05:17 AM
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  1. Walter Cronkite, in an interview he gave to Evan Smith (the vegan editor of Texas Monthly magazine, has a talk show on PBS), said he felt the parallels between Viet Nam and Iraq as wars were “exact”:  “Both are mistakes made because we [sic] wanted to ‘save’ democracy...like either place ever had any!”

    We broke it, though, so we bought it.  This is what I resent.  We’re morally obligated to pay Iraq for the death and destruction we’ve rained on these people.  I’m a bad cold away from homeless and unemployed, and money that should help me and others like me survive the horrors of capitalism is instead going to rebuild a country I care nothing about or for because of the amoral, irresponsible, wrongheaded actions of my “leaders.” (I almost threw up as I typed that word in reference to Bush and Co.)

    CatLady, from last night: It’s that whole rent thing...y’all don’t pay rent, those are the war reparations I’m talking about.  I have 1500 square feet, 3 bedrooms, 2-1/2 baths, and I pay $725 a month.  Of course, I have no public transit and piss-poor social services.  Trade-offs, trade-offs…

    MZ, I personally decided that Expendable Writing Month meant “dedicate time to writing” and have tangible evidence that I’ve done so in the form of fatter computer files.  Queen Matilda’s Tapestry will be the recipient of daily writing attention instead of endless poring over research materials (sound familiar, James?) and making notes.

    What, incidentally, are YOU working on these days?

    Posted by Mudge from Austin, Texas  on  06/02  at  08:49 AM

  2. http://tinyurl.com/p2lxu

    Above links to video of another aberration (sic).

    Great article, Mick.

    Posted by JOS from Chicago  on  06/02  at  08:49 AM

  3. I think Anu Garg of AWAD lurks here. His quotes are most always eerily apt for CO use:

    “Sit down and put down everything that comes into your head and then you’re a writer. But an author is one who can judge his own stuff’s worth, without pity, and destroy most of it.”
    --Colette, writer (1873-1954)

    Posted by Mudge from Austin, Texas  on  06/02  at  08:54 AM

  4. What does one person need with 3 bedrooms and 2-1/2 baths? I’m guessing you share that with other people… just so you know the dogs aren’t the problem here. Neither of my cats would be too mean to them.

    Okay, I understand about stopping with the endless note-taking, but unfortuntely it’s that rent thing I’m working on tody-- got called in for a temp job downtown, have to rush off to it now. Maybe tonight, bye til then!

    Posted by James from Hell's Kitchen  on  06/02  at  09:13 AM

  5. CatLady #4: I share with only one other guy, my nephew, for this month.  I have to find another roommate for 7/1 forward.  But no one needs this much space to him/erself...it’s just nice to have it, what with the necessity of a Virginia Woolf-ian “room of one’s own” to write in.

    Temp well!

    Posted by Mudge from Austin, Texas  on  06/02  at  09:41 AM

  6. Hi Big Country, not ignoring you deliberately...can’t watch video clips on ol’ Bessy here, so I can’t follow the link.  Too bad.

    So what’s your Expendable Writing Month project?

    Posted by Mudge from Austin, Texas  on  06/02  at  09:54 AM

  7. At least room of one’s own is exactly what I have here… do I take it Ms. Wolfe is not part of that list you mentioned yesterday? Off I go now…

    Posted by James from Hell's Kitchen  on  06/02  at  09:59 AM

  8. I guess you know it already, Mudge...I think I might have an ending in mind and then all that is left is to fatten it up with some of the details we discussed oh so long ago.  I am going to try and inject some humor in as well…

    How about you, Mudge?  What’s the project?

    Posted by JOS from Chicago  on  06/02  at  10:04 AM

  9. Hello Expendables. So...Mudge and Cat Lady are here again. I’m shocked, shocked.

    Hey JOS. Thanks for the link.

    Mudge: I’m working on a variety of projects. Two children’s books, a possible collaboration book project, and (at the urging of our mutual friend, CM) a personal trainer memoir (see my story here tomorrow). Plus some articles, etc. The main post today shows you where my head is at with the political articles. More to come along those lines.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  06/02  at  10:55 AM

  10. Mudge, how about you? Got a children’s book on the way? By the way, what’s a “children’s book”?

    Posted by James from work  on  06/02  at  10:59 AM

  11. Mickey, one of your finest articles. And you picked up a great line from the Jensen book:

    “One of the good things about everything being so fucked up-about the culture being so ubiquitously destructive-is that no matter where you look-no matter what your gifts, no matter where your heart lies-there’s good and desperately important work to be done.”

    Mudge, comment one paragraph 2: I had already been thinking of your position on this issue a few days ago, and needed a kick to respond to it. I propose discontinuing the use of the National We in the sense you use it. No more borders, no more national interests. It’s all too damn destructive.

    Your idea that “money that should help me and others like me survive the horrors of capitalism is instead going to rebuild a country I care nothing about” is wrong for two reasons. Firstly, no one’s rebuilding shit. It’s the biggest damnned US embassy on the planet, and oil refineries, and myriad other instruments of enslavement to power and capital getting built up in Iraq. Rebuilding what? Archaeological sites and neighborhood markets and mosques and little streets with houses with flower boxes in the windows?

    Secondly “others like you” have the flesh burned off them and the shit beaten out of them whenever and wherever it’s convenient to power. Today Iraq. Tomorrow your house. Whatever.

    If you and I don’t see those people as ourselves, essentially due the same respect and basic rights---and similar rights to fuck up sometimes---who will? Like you, I don’t care about their country (I don’t care about mine), but I do care about them, as I do care about you.

    If any of that made any sense to anyone that’d be cool but I ain’t holding my breath.

    Posted by Keir from The Hague  on  06/02  at  11:04 AM

  12. Makes perfect sense to me, Keir.  Though I see Mudge’s point as far as the US military shouldn’t have gone over there in the first place.  The government of the united states should not be spending a half a trillion on “defense.” That money should go to help the poor here and there and everywhere and could do a whole lot of good instead of a whole lot of killing.

    Posted by JOS from Downtown Chicago  on  06/02  at  11:37 AM

  13. but who the hell is arguing with that?

    Posted by JOS from Downtown Chicago  on  06/02  at  11:38 AM

  14. Keir #11: I am not holding myself up as an example here.  I am telling the unvarnished truth: I care nothing at all for Iraq, Iraqis, or for the ultimate fate thereof.  I am uninterested how the money that the US Treasury sends there is spent.  I want the flow stopped.  I want the money that Americans have paid in taxes spent inside the extant national borders of the USA until no one therein is hungry, homeless, ill, or desperate in any avoidable way, then shared with everyone else.

    “Secondly “others like you” have the flesh burned off them and the shit beaten out of them whenever and wherever it’s convenient to power. Today Iraq. Tomorrow your house.” Yes.  Exactly.  That’s why I don’t in any way, shape, form or fashion support a military solution to any “problem.” What you posit happens here already because those in power see the preservation of their power as more important than anything else.  This is not new, it’s human nature.  Anarcho-syndicalism will end up in the same fashion.  Humans do’t like sharing, they like killing.  Best we can do is be ready to resist whatever horrors the powerful choose to visit on us with everything we have, and demand of them whatever we can get them to turn loose of out of the treasure they rob us of.

    Posted by Mudge from Austin, Texas  on  06/02  at  12:32 PM

  15. How do you guys like my hip hop style:

    http://wdthu.blogspot.com/2006/06/let-me-school-you-on-why-they-hate-us.html

    Posted by JOS from Downtown Chicago  on  06/02  at  01:05 PM

  16. Of course I agree (JOS) that there should never have been a criminal assault on and takeover of Iraq. That’s not the point.

    I care nothing at all for Iraq, Iraqis, or for the ultimate fate thereof. Hmm. I do care, insofar as they’re people and feel the same pain as you and I.

    I am uninterested how the money that the US Treasury sends there is spent. I’m interested. It’s being sent to kill people and rob them. That’s interesting.

    I want the flow stopped. I want the flow changed.

    I want the money that Americans have paid in taxes spent inside the extant national borders of the USA until no one therein is hungry, homeless, ill, or desperate in any avoidable way, then shared with everyone else. What’s the difference? Why do you maintain greater allegiance to some of your Texan neighbors, the kind that like to tie Black men to pick up trucks and drag them to their death, than you do to ordinary people in Iraq demanding retribution for the crimes your government did them? I really don’t like this idea of...I don’t know..."America first” or whatever. What’s so sacred about your “extant national borders of the USA” anyway?

    Humans do’t like sharing, they like killing. So what am I? Chopped liver?

    Posted by Keir from The Hague  on  06/02  at  01:05 PM

  17. I think Mudge is being his Curmudgeonly self...I can not believe that you would say you care NOTHING for Iraqis, Mudge.

    Posted by JOS from Chicago  on  06/02  at  01:21 PM

  18. New pictures of Iraqi civilians murdered by US forces...many children:

    http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Graphic_photographs_show_bodies_of_civilians_0602.html

    Posted by JOS from Chicago  on  06/02  at  01:39 PM

  19. Mickey, you outdid yourself with this article. It is your greatest. It affected me the same way that the Fisk photos do, and that is saying a lot. Yes, Haditha was inevitable, and it also makes more 9/11’s inevitable.  Then Joe and Jane Sixpack will all wonder again why “they” hate us so much.

    The discussion here today is going along great lines. Keir, I agree that the money is not going toward rebuilding anything except the fortunes of the Haliburtonites. Like I keep saying, It is just the biggest money laundering operation in the history of humanity.
    JOS, I agree.  I think Mudge really cares about the Iraqis but just can’t come to admit it yet.
    James, Good luck with work today. I have a lot lot of respect for temps...was one myself at various times in my career.  Did I ever tell you about the time my daughter had a job as a “head hunter” placing high skilled temps? One night she told me about one of them who was fired from his temp job because he took a day off to attend the funeral of his father. You just gotta love capitalism.

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  06/02  at  01:48 PM

  20. JOS....we were symultyping.  Everyone needs to see those photos. We are war criminals...all of us who stand by silently.  Someone here recently said something like 300 people sitting down are more effective than 300,000 marching. It is time for everyone to sit.

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  06/02  at  01:56 PM

  21. ‘The Haditha Massacre™ was more than horrific...it was predictable. More than predictable, it was inevitable. Equally horrific, predictable, and inevitable is the devious reporting by the supposedly liberal media.’
    Spot-on, Mickey!  And the reporting by the Australian media runs along the exact same lines as in the US.
    And as always, a warm welcome to Mudge, James, JOS from the Windy City, Keir and last but by no means least Rosemarie.  I hope you all have a good weekend. 
    Now I’ll read Mickey’s article ..
    Bye!

    Posted by Helga Fremlin from Daylesford, Australia  on  06/02  at  02:04 PM

  22. Hello again, my friends. Thanks for the kind words and the excellent discussion. I hate to gang up on Mudge but I heartily disagree with his appraisal. The U.S. has helped turn Earth into Hell and must be held responsible for its crimes. As I state in the article, the answers cannot come out of the mentality that has painted all life forms into a precarious corner. We need to embrace and welcome new ideas, new mindsets...not destroy them: http://tinyurl.com/c4bsm.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  06/02  at  02:20 PM

  23. Hi again...this news story does not compare to the Haditha Massacre but it does give a glimpse into life in the good ol’USofA. I think that it explains very well what Mudge is telling us. Since everybody is beating up on him today, I come to his defense (even though I still think we need war crimes trials and reparations.) This news story makes me angry...what an example of man’s inhumanity, and so close to home in a State that so many think is so liberal and progressive.
    http://tinyurl.com/g76f2

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  06/02  at  04:01 PM

  24. “The U.S. has helped turn Earth into Hell and must be held responsible for its crimes.”

    Oh.  Okay.  Then the UK will be paying us for its colonial-era excesses; France is gonna need to transfer a boatload to North Africa and Southeast Asia; the Russians need to send EVERYTHING to their former colonies in Central Asia; and so on.  France’s nuclear industry has a lot to answer for, so there’s some more “making earth hell” money.  Russia’s horrific abuses of the environment mean tons of cash pouring out of a country that has raped Siberia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and many others.  And they can barely feed and heat the population they have.

    Kier, I abhor the behavior of humanity.  They are routinely inhuman to each other.  So the Jasper a-holes live here...the Sudanese ain’t my idea of humaitarians, the situation they created in Darfur.  Do the Saudia need to pay reparations now?  They are, after all, Muslims like the generals.  Or do the Brits foot the reconstruction bill, since they were the colonial power?  Oh, how about the Catholic Church!  After all, there’s a Christian contingent in this “naturally” animistic culture.

    I make no apology for wanting the money that’s extorted from us who live here to support causes that are amoral wished on us by people who are immoral to remain among those whose money it was prior to extortion.

    Arguments about the validity of money economy not entertained without alternatives for its replacement.  It’s very nice to say “things aren’t how they should be” but it’s not useful.  THings have never been the way they should be.  Ever.  And they aren’t gettin’ any closer without some creative minds thinking of useful, practical ways to make them better.

    If the solution is to send lots of money to people I don’t care about whose sufferings are appalling but not resolvable by using money to give them...what? health care I don’t have?, I’m in alignment with Joe and Jane Sixpack...nope.  Don’t like it.  Won’t support it.  Will work against it.

    If instead the solution is to become a sterling beacon of national (that’s what we got, nations, and they’re withering fast under the bootheels of multinational corporations, whose ascendancy is the signal for the REALLY awful stuff we’ll see this century) good housekeeping, okay.  I’m in.  Rein in the evil-doing capacity of Wal-Mart, Purdue, and Union Carbide (random targets in a field rife with good ones) and make them surrender their presently unfettered power and money, I’m all warm and fuzzy with that.  Make them spend a huge chunk on bringing foreign plants they control to first-world standards?  Sure!  Nothing could induce them to pull out of the Third World faster than to make it as expensive as the First!

    At all events, I accept that the Expendables aren’t in agreement with me.  My stance is reasoned and considered, as is y’all’s, and I don’t find myself swayed by anything I’ve heard.  It would seem y’all feel the same way.

    I am horrified by human suffering.  It occurs all day, every day, everywhere, and it’s not all the US Government or its allies’ fault.  To the extent it doesn’t compromise the well-being of people who are my proximity-defined neighbors’ well-being, I think it’s incumbent on us to work to alleviate that suffering.

    Posted by Mudge from Austin, Texas  on  06/02  at  04:59 PM

  25. Mudge, you make valid points. You bring up excesses/injustices in history. I believe that there is a way of dealing with that issue. Maybe a mathematical formula could be agreed to that would give more weight to recent abuses and less weight as you look back in history.
    You also make the “everyone is doing it” argument. Yes, that is probably true but I think that a person has more responsibility for the abuses to which they contribute by participating in the USA war economy, for example...also for participating in this culture of death.
    Also, you seem to say that sending the victims money is not much of a solution. In a way I want to agree with you here but can’t. Sometimes the only thing to send IS money. Oh yes, we could send doctors, dentists, home builders etc but somehow I think that that would be like hiring the vandals to do the home repairs.
    I admire your dedication to ending some of the suffering on the homefront, but I don’t think that compassion should have geographical boundaries or ethnic/national priorities.

    BTW, the news article that I linked to above in #23 is a story about a family in Arlington, Vermont. That is the home town of Norman Rockwell. Anybody remember his famous paintings of how wonderful life was in rural America. Nothing is ever as it appears to be.

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  06/02  at  06:03 PM

  26. Hugo Chavez is speaking on C-span2 right now. Will be re-broadcast many times on C-span and C-span2.

    Posted by RMJ from Churchill 4 Prez Hdqts  on  06/02  at  06:19 PM

  27. Greetings beautiful Expendables,
    Great article Mick!
    Too bad Haditha is just the tip of the iceberg of American war crimes.

    Canada sucks Dick (Cheney)
    As our ambassador to the U.S. gives speeches in front of a backing that reads
    ”U.S. and Canada : Partners in the war on Terror”, and their office takes out ads in Washington newspapers, bus shelters and other mediums depicting Canadian forces rounding up the West’s designated sub humans in Afghanistan while our former military industrial lobbyist turned minister of offence declares (echoes) that “we are not at war” in Afghanistan and therefore do not have to follow the Geneva Conventions to the letter,
    our Neoconservative government is putting the finishing touches on the total integration of Canadian foreign policy into that of your criminal regime.

    As Canada’s so called leaders declare their undying allegiance to Dick Bush the Canadian “consumer” public still has that wonderful disconnect and idiotic notion that we are somehow benevolent peacekeepers and not a party to the degradation, torture and mass murder that America’s war on a noun has wrought globally. 
    Our government sells our soldiers hunting humans in Afghanistan with illusions of elevating women’s rights and the paradox of benevolent gunpoint democracy.
    As Canadian “consumers” wave flags and worship militarism, Canadian citizens begin the uphill battle to reclaim our nation.

    Canada has formally joined the United States as a criminal nation on the global stage just in time for the further incremental revelations of the very common crimes against humanity committed by the coalition of the death mongering patriarchal imperialist occupiers.

    While American war crimes have been evident from day one of the forever war, it seems that the grazing consumers here in the West require a giant splashy tableau of splayed limbs and blood trails in order to even begin to imagine the high crimes of the Western war on a noun. 

    The shame and rage I am experiencing over the end of my nation’s place in the world has rendered me dumbfounded and almost mute.
    We have a lot of catching up to do in order to become the rogue, internationally criminal state that U.S. is but our Neocons are trying to get us caught up quickly.

    Our secret police (CSIS) have declared that “home-grown terrorism” is our greatest threat as they pass the hat and claim that they need more government funding for secret detentions and other black operations against Canadian citizens. 
    (Cue the phone tapping, Muslim bashing, monitoring of internet traffic, even more secret “Security Certificate” detentions without evidence or trial etc. etc. that out lickspittle media will not dare cover.)

    Canada is fast becoming a fucking disgrace under our Neoconservative bootlicks.

    Well enough of that (for now); could you please link to any explanation of what the Ex. June writing month comprises as I would like to participate but am unaware of the parameters.  Blinking on and off of the Internet has left me ignorant of goings on with my favourite websites.

    Stay cool babies!

    Posted by Youngfox from Adanac  on  06/02  at  06:40 PM

  28. P.S.:
    While I absolutely see your points Mudge, none of those other nations you name have staked out the intangible moral high ground of the U.S. with claims of being the most benevolent, generous and pious armed guardian of global morality.

    Not many of them wash their crimes with the retarded notion that their actions are for the sole good of the nations they are taken against.

    When America casts itself as the holy saviour of their hapless designated sub humans and turns out to be yet another patriarchal abuser and destroyer of life and limb in what turns out to be selfish hypocrisy for personal imperial gain, America should be held up to its own lofty, forcefully imposed higher standard of accountability.
    (Unless that is all just wind in sails, a contrived charade for a psychopathic criminal state)

    In the past instances i.e. The British Empire, they seemed to be more about “civilizing” savages with their patriarchal condescension worn on their sleeves.
    They were brazen imperialists swinging the stick of global manifest destiny.
    They never bothered with the lofty and arrogantly pretentious horse feathers of “liberation” and “human rights” as they stood on the necks of their designated sub humans.

    Why are the past atrocities of past empires held up as the template for the behaviour of current empires? Has nothing changed, has nobody learned?

    Do the crimes of past Empires excuse the crimes of modern imperialist hypocrites?
    If the American government goes forth and rapes, pillages and builds twisted puppet parodies of nations in their own image and does it while declaring it is their right as the masters of all men, then such allusions to reparations can be as easily ignored.

    Self-promoting “liberators” and disseminators of this “holy democracy” must be held to a higher standard (the one they hold everyone else to), instead they betray their high-minded and vigorously promoted “benevolent rescuer” self image and sow death, anarchy, and mayhem as the self-appointed representatives of “god” and human liberty.

    The American rationale for the current occupations has been a surreal lofty martyrdom in the name of unprecedented freedom and justice for all.  When that exact opposite occurs, should America not be made to pay for its deceptions and inhumanity? 
    In not offering reparations does not America reveal itself as yet another criminal fronting for freedom while ignoring another’s right to it?

    Posted by Youngfox from Neoconada  on  06/02  at  06:43 PM

  29. I’d pick up one of the many excellent points Youngfox makes (and Keir, com to that ) - maybe half of us expendables are Yanquis, if that. Claiming some border (derived entirely by force, as a student of history like Mudge knows full well) or other as being the border of human compassion...why? Makes no sense to me. To my mind you accept the humanity of every human on Earth - or no-ones. I would never dream of arguing that past British predations justify whoever happens to be the present superpower,

    The wealth given to our governments as tax or consumer spending wasn’t ‘our’ wealth to start with, I know damn well I haven’t done a days work harder than someone in a nation deliberatley either put into debt or held in an anti-popular dictatorship on my behalf. Neither have any of us, truth be told. The claim to a higher standard of life due to our (american & european) ability to command it is based on what kind of morality?

    Posted by Mew from mew's snugglehouse  on  06/02  at  08:18 PM

  30. Good stuff all around. I will watch for Mudge’s reply to Youngfox and Mew.

    Youngfox, as for the Expendable Writing Month, here’s what I think it might be: A kick in the ass for all of us who stain pages with ink to get busy with some serious staining. Perhaps, at some point, we’ll share some of what we conjured up.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  06/02  at  08:31 PM

  31. “:A kick in the ass for all of us who stain pages with ink”

    What a great line! 

    and I really like the Jensen stuff that you use in your article.

    Posted by Fiona from San Diego  on  06/02  at  09:01 PM

  32. What a cool coincidence, Fiona. I was just thinking about how we haven’t heard from you in a while.

    You must have ESPN.

    Posted by Mickey Z. from Astoria  on  06/02  at  09:08 PM

  33. >>>You bring up excesses/injustices in history. I believe that there is a way of dealing with that issue. Maybe a mathematical formula could be agreed to that would give more weight to recent abuses and less weight as you look back in history. <<<
    >>>In not offering reparations does not America reveal itself as yet another criminal fronting for freedom while ignoring another’s right to it?<<<

    What?  money makes it all right?  This was the wergeld concept used in Anglo-Saxon law...every man’s life was worth something to his survivors, based on rank.  Women counted for nothing, nor did children.  I am not best pleased to hear it revived.  And why should elder wrongs count for less than modern ones...which, incidentally, leaves the Russian state liable for a lot of money based on cultural mutilation and the French for environmental horrors of nuclear power and lets the Brits off the hook (because they were openly patronizing, they get a walk?  what?) to a great degree, and let’s not forget the slavery reparations, and how are we to factor in the hate crimes against gay people as recently as last week?

    >>>The claim to a higher standard of life due to our (american & european) ability to command it is based on what kind of morality?<<<

    None.  I claim no moral basis for benefiting from the wrongs committed in my name.  Before we go too far down the “two wrongs don’t make a right” road, let’s examine where that ends.  How does one justify depriving the 44 million (more or less) people without access to regular health care of any hope of this acecss in the name of reparations?  I make this argument because I promise you that it will be made by politicos to resist this idea.

    I go back to: Why does the pain of an Iraqi mother whose children were killed in a firefight outweigh the pain of a mother in Watts whose children were lost to drug addiction and violence?  Why does the awfulness of Diego Garcian displacement mean more than the awfulness of economic displacement by corporate greed?  The moral arithmetic makes not a whit of sense to me.

    >>>To my mind you accept the humanity of every human on Earth - or no-ones.<<<

    When have I ever said anything at all about the humanity of anyone?  Of course the Iraqis are humans.  My unwillingness to spend money on them comes from my unwillingness to see sick, hungry, homeless people --->here<---.

    >>>Claiming some border (derived entirely by force, as a student of history like Mudge knows full well) or other as being the border of human compassion...why?<<<

    Because it’s impractical to imagine that we can save everyone everywhere from all suffering.  I want to alleviate suffering here in my neighborhood.  I’m willing to subsidize that goal.  I’m not anything like that willing to send money/expertise/materiel elsewhere until the problems I see here are alleviated.

    My priority is no less humanitarian than your collective priority.  I disagree with your emphasis as you disagree with mine.  We agree that the current system is anti-human in its aims and its results, so let’s see how we can replace it.  Then I’ll start fighting with y’all about what to do when we’re the farmers and not the animals.  And we’ll end up pretty much where we are now, and always have been...a few have a lot, many have a little, most have nothing.

    Posted by Mudge from Austin, Texas  on  06/02  at  09:30 PM

  34. nice article on historical My Lais and Hadithas. so similar massacres occur and every atrocity is seen as an abberation from the good principles of the U.S.A. to bring peace and democracy to the world. also enjoyed your poem and JOS’s too. Anyway those in charge don’t care about poor folk anywhere. they’ll pretend when it suits them.

    http://tinyurl.com/6crcx the biography on Calley is quite revealing.

    and http://tinyurl.com/gvfc4 I recall seeing a clip of a speech by Kennedy in this movie and I think it was his body language because I forget what he said but it reminded me of Bush and one of his us vs. terrorist speeches. Maybe they’re not so different. they both play/ed (for Kennedy) a part in keeping the system strong for their benefit. 

    for good measure a quote by Goethe: “We do not have to visit a madhouse to find discorded minds; our planet is the mental institution of the universe.”

    Posted by tm from   on  06/02  at  09:55 PM

  35. How awful is this:

    Breaking News
    Iraq’s Ancient Artefacts Still Missing

    Three years after the Baghdad Museum was looted, thousands of archaeological artefacts have still not been accounted for, the museum remains closed and all excavation and research in Iraq has ground to a halt.  ***Visit ECM’s “Science Old & New” page, and “Prophecy and Predictions”.

    from http://www.earthchangestv.com/

    Posted by Mudge from Austin, Texas  on  06/02  at  10:01 PM

  36. Just for the record, I was part of those ganging up on Mudge. But whether that’s because I agree with him or because I was at work all day, I’m not sure. Well, considering that I was busy trying to find a way to pay my rent today, which is more important to me than paying anyone’s rent on the other side of the world, maybe I agree with him. Or just need to go to sleep.

    It’s still raining out!

    Posted by James from Hell's Kitchen  on  06/02  at  11:10 PM

  37. Friend,

    My name is Brandon Landsem, and I’m a Johns Hopkins University student and a member of the high IQ society, MENSA. My cellphone number is 503.740.0272, my fax number is 503.760.3627, my website is <www.ChezBrandon.com> (I am always looking for intelligent and good individuals, such as you, to view it), and my email addresses are <BrandonLandsem@mail.com> and <SocialSciHist@aol.com>. I retain tangible copies of nearly all my records, and my personal references and recommendations can be seen at <www.ChezBrandon.com/qualitative_evaluations_I>. I’m a law-abiding United States Citizen, and I’ve never been arrested, charged, or convicted of any crime.

    I am a rational and smart individual. For example, 1+2=3, the Earth is round, not flat, the President of the United States is George W. Bush, the capital of the USA is Washington, D.C., the capital of the United Kingdom is London, the capital of France is Paris, the United States Senate majority leader is Bill Frist, the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives is Dennis Hastert, the United States Supreme Court Chief Justice is John Roberts, and the United States Supreme Court Chief Justice before him was William Rehnquist. I do not hear voices that aren’t there, I cannot read other people’s minds, others can’t read my mind, and I do not hear voices from inanimate objects, of course. As Victor Ostrovsky, Gordon Thomas, and many other individuals know, elements of the Mossad have a disregard for life, are notorious liars, and are out of control.

    I heard an individual who works for elements of the Mossad, Christine, indicate that those elements knew the cure for bone cancer. Another agent, Paul, indicated that elements of the Mossad knew how to cure AIDS, although he said they didn’t know yet how to cure a newly-mutated strain of that disease, which they were attempting to give me (and found only among a few individuals in New York City; as is the case with Hawaii—I’ve been there three times—the Big Apple is a great place, although I’ve never been there). It is probable, therefore, that elements of the Mossad know the cures to other diseases besides bone cancer and AIDS. Strap me into a lie detector machine: I’ll pass with flying colors. Ask me a logical question and the answer you will get back from me will be logical (for example, 9 times 3=27 or Question: “Who was the first President of the USA?” Answer: George Washington): I’ll pass with flying colors. Say anything, such as “Jack and Jill went up the hill,” and I’ll repeat verbatim what you said, “Jack and Jill went up the hill”: I’ll pass with flying colors. Have a statement analysis expert observe me talking, my rate of speech, et cetera: I’ll pass with flying colors. I tell the truth. The unnecessary chopping off of body parts and organs can be stopped. The unnecessary aging that accompanies cancer can be stopped. The unnecessary sickness can be stopped. Chances are very good that either you and/or a friend and/or a loved one will get cancer. One in four Americans (25%) will die from cancer. As Victor Ostrovsky, Gordon Thomas, and many other individuals know, elements of the Mossad have a disregard for life, are notorious liars, and are out of control. Lives can be saved.

    You know what to do.

    Posted by Brandon from Portland, OR  on  06/02  at  11:20 PM

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