Ten years ago today, Colin Powell went to the United Nations and presented an emperor's-new-clothes argument for raining death, dismemberment, and displacement onto the people of Iraq.
Does anyone across the globe, even Americans, not know in their heart of hearts (granted as molecular as that place seems to be for most Americans) what a MURDEROUS (GENOCIDAL) SCAM FOR PROFITEERING the US-declared ‘War on Terror’ was and continues to be?
The US administration and those bipartisan marriage-made-in-hell partners of neoliberals and neocons (h/t to Obama for that bipartisanship he can believe in) are now lamely declaring victory about Iraq.
The ever-obliging, bottom-feeding media, glue to the American government’s amoral status-quo bullshitting and fascistic matrix, is sentimentalizing it. A faux-Hallmark moment defying the ever-blaring American sirens of cognitive dissonance. Read below the fold...
Where: Freedom Plaza, 13th and Pennsylvania, NW, Washington DC
When: 7pm, Monday, October 24
What: Free dinner
A discussion of what is happening in Iraq and what the withdrawal of US troops means--led by a panel of Iraqis.
Live music by a visiting boys band of Iraqi-Americans (UNT1) !!! Read below the fold...
Disgraced Democratic Politicians Who Have Permanently Discredited Themselves Because they Advocate the Dismantling of Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, or Other Programs that Benefit 98 Percent of Their Constituents.
Part I of a Running Series: Emanuel Cleaver Edition
Why on earth should anyone in Missouri’s Fifth Congressional District who is under the age of fifty-five ever vote for this man, ever again?
Dick Harpootlian, Chairman of the Democratic Party in South Carolina:
I just attended this meeting in Chicago for two days with every member of the Democratic National Committee and big Democrats. There wasn't any Michael Moore there, there wasn't any Paul Krugman there.
The voice of the Democratic Party is far more moderate than you give it credit for. And to pull people like Krugman out and say he is a Democrat or he's a -- somebody associated with Barack Obama or his parties is absolutely wrong.
I am a former prosecutor. I put people in the electric chair. I have a gun. I believe in capital punishment. I believe in this war on terror. And I'm a Democrat.
Seen at a local fair.
Yay! This is the best 9/11 since 9/11!
Be sure to light the candle to celebrate!
After we've all had a slice, maybe we can give a bullhorn to a Texas rooster so he can climb all over it and sing cock-a-doodle doo!
Cock-a-doodle doo!
BEST IN CLASS!
Salon.com has a piece up urging Democrats to dump Obama and go with a candidate who will restore their party to its New Deal era politics. According to the column by Matt Stoller, there are a number of reasons why they should, including: Read below the fold...
When wikileaks did its first document dump of classified material from the war in Afghanistan, we saw a number of pushback efforts. It would cost American and Afghan lives, irreparable damage was done. And then there were the convenient "discredit the messenger" charges in Sweden attacking wikileaks founder Julian Assange. None of this panned out. What the leaks did was confirm with the government's own documents what most of us already knew.
Now the second wikileaks dump, on Iraq, has come out and we are seeing new wrinkles in the pushback. Read below the fold...
At what point do progressives stop being Democrats' whipped dogs and start acting like a movement capable of putting the Dems in their proper place as the party of the people? David Sirota wrote today about Obama's latest call to increase war spending beyond its already ludicrous proportions. Read below the fold...
Given that O's SOTU will propose a vile goulash of war, neo liberal austerity, abridgements of civil rights, foot dragging on climate change, meaningless tax cuts double talk on Wall Street bonuses, vague, but increasingly apparent gestures in the direction of cutting Medicare and Social Security, etc.
Why the hell is there absolutely no organizing or even discussion of massive protests against the slide into barbarism which O is willingly and enthusiastically presiding over? Read below the fold...
Jon Walker over at Fire Dog Lake makes a very effective argument about why learning the wrong lesson from the defeat of Martha Coakley in Tuesday's Massachusetts Senate race will lead to disaster. Read below the fold...
And why did all this happen? Because four Blackwater military contractors were killed. Not only that, but the Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (yes, it's a government committee) "fault Blackwater in Fallujah ambush." (Unfortunately, this report came out 3 years after the fact. We never seem to know these things at the time, or our 'leaders' don't.) So, because four contractors were killed, we basically go into a city use depleted uranium and other toxic weapons and destroy the entire city, killing thousands. This is clearly a war crime, and people need to be taken to task for it. Read below the fold...
It looks like the Pentagon is continuing on its all-out offensive to keep the Guantanamo Bay prison camp open by trying to put cosmetic touches on a prison set up on inherently unconstitutional grounds: indefinite seizure and gaining intelligence by torture.
WASHINGTON, (AFP) – A Pentagon report has found conditions at the controversial Guantanamo prison in line with the Geneva Conventions, but called for the isolation of some inmates to be eased by allowing them more social contact and recreation.
