Delaware Libertarian
Stoopid stoopid Americuns should be borrowing more money while out of work
Let's see....
10.2% unemployment. Check.
Millions more unable to afford health care and afraid they will either lose their homes or their jobs. Check.
Many worried Americans trying to pay off their credit cards, stop buying unnecessary shit, and actually save some money. Oh. No. Sound the alarm:
WASHINGTON -Consumers borrowed less for a record eighth straight month in September amid rising unemployment and tight credit conditions. Economists worry the declines in borrowing will drag on the fledgling recovery.
The Federal Reserve said Friday that borrowing fell at an annual rate of $14.8 billion in September. That's the biggest decline since July and was larger than the $10 billion drop economists expected.
Americans are borrowing less as they try to repair cracked nest eggs and replenish rainy day funds in a dismal jobs market. Many are finding it hard to get credit as banks, hit by the worst financial crisis in decades, have tightened lending standards.
Borrowing by consumers for revolving credit, including credit cards, fell at an annual rate of 13.3 percent in September, the same as August. This category has declined for a record 12 straight months.
Borrowing for non-revolving loans, including auto loans, dropped at an annual rate of 3.7 percent in September after edging up 0.1 percent in August. The August gain reflected the surge in car sales as consumers rushed to take advantage of the government's Cash for Clunkers program.
The $14.8 billion overall decline in borrowing left total consumer credit at $2.46 trillion in September. The 7.2 percent annual rate of decline followed a 4.8 percent drop in August. The Fed's report doesn't include mortgages or other loans secured by real estate.
While economists have worried for years about the low rate of U.S. savings, the concern is that consumers could derail the recovery if they begin socking away too much of their incomes. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity.
This is why it is now necessary for the government to begin spending money it doesn't have--because you won't.
Somebody will, of course, show up here and explain the stimulus and multipliers to me (ignoring the fact that I discussed them in exhaustive detail back at the time), but the most important fact in this story is actually the final short sentence that I quoted: Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity.
This only happens when the State interferes--as it has for decades--with the flow of credit to incentivize more and more people to purchase more and more shit that they don't need and really don't even want in order to (supposedly) provide more other people jobs producing and marketing shit that people don't need or really even want.
Only in this sort of managed (by idiots and Alan Greenspan) economy could we reach the point wherein deciding to live within your means becomes an economic crime punishable by generation-beggaring tax increases, because if people won't spend money they don't have on shit they don't need or want, the government must do it for them.
And I'm not talking about those little dipshit criticisms like we saved 900 jobs with stimulus spending at a company that only employs fourteen peopel, either.
I'm talking about roads and bridges and all that critical damn infrastructure that we all gotta go get shovels and repair.
See, this is the government's plan: over-reliance on foreign oil and the internal combustion engine is ... bad. We need a new economy based on mass transit (especially that yummy light rail nobody actually ever rides) and eating all our food from little organic neighborhood gardens so that we can make all those smelly, carbon-producing highways and bridges that are blighting our country and shrinking the icebergs obsolete.
In ten years we shouldn't need all that infrastructure because we'll be in the new Aquarian age of alternative energy.
So we'll just spend several hundred billion now to rebuild it all so that it will be in good shape when we stop using it, years before we are finished paying for it.
Stoopid Americuns. Stop living within your means. It is unpatriotic, treasonous, actually. Paul Krugman would round you up and lecture you to death except that we need you to have babies to pay the taxes to cover the spending we must do on your behalf.
My theory is that you ought to just say the hell with it and go back to maxing out whatever credit you can find.
That way the government will declare you a hero and you can at least enjoy the useless trinkets until the nice men come and take it all away to send you to debtor's prison.
Now I understand why Bernie Madoff made sense to so many people.
10.2% unemployment. Check.
Millions more unable to afford health care and afraid they will either lose their homes or their jobs. Check.
Many worried Americans trying to pay off their credit cards, stop buying unnecessary shit, and actually save some money. Oh. No. Sound the alarm:
WASHINGTON -Consumers borrowed less for a record eighth straight month in September amid rising unemployment and tight credit conditions. Economists worry the declines in borrowing will drag on the fledgling recovery.
The Federal Reserve said Friday that borrowing fell at an annual rate of $14.8 billion in September. That's the biggest decline since July and was larger than the $10 billion drop economists expected.
Americans are borrowing less as they try to repair cracked nest eggs and replenish rainy day funds in a dismal jobs market. Many are finding it hard to get credit as banks, hit by the worst financial crisis in decades, have tightened lending standards.
Borrowing by consumers for revolving credit, including credit cards, fell at an annual rate of 13.3 percent in September, the same as August. This category has declined for a record 12 straight months.
Borrowing for non-revolving loans, including auto loans, dropped at an annual rate of 3.7 percent in September after edging up 0.1 percent in August. The August gain reflected the surge in car sales as consumers rushed to take advantage of the government's Cash for Clunkers program.
The $14.8 billion overall decline in borrowing left total consumer credit at $2.46 trillion in September. The 7.2 percent annual rate of decline followed a 4.8 percent drop in August. The Fed's report doesn't include mortgages or other loans secured by real estate.
While economists have worried for years about the low rate of U.S. savings, the concern is that consumers could derail the recovery if they begin socking away too much of their incomes. Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity.
This is why it is now necessary for the government to begin spending money it doesn't have--because you won't.
Somebody will, of course, show up here and explain the stimulus and multipliers to me (ignoring the fact that I discussed them in exhaustive detail back at the time), but the most important fact in this story is actually the final short sentence that I quoted: Consumer spending accounts for 70 percent of total economic activity.
This only happens when the State interferes--as it has for decades--with the flow of credit to incentivize more and more people to purchase more and more shit that they don't need and really don't even want in order to (supposedly) provide more other people jobs producing and marketing shit that people don't need or really even want.
Only in this sort of managed (by idiots and Alan Greenspan) economy could we reach the point wherein deciding to live within your means becomes an economic crime punishable by generation-beggaring tax increases, because if people won't spend money they don't have on shit they don't need or want, the government must do it for them.
And I'm not talking about those little dipshit criticisms like we saved 900 jobs with stimulus spending at a company that only employs fourteen peopel, either.
I'm talking about roads and bridges and all that critical damn infrastructure that we all gotta go get shovels and repair.
See, this is the government's plan: over-reliance on foreign oil and the internal combustion engine is ... bad. We need a new economy based on mass transit (especially that yummy light rail nobody actually ever rides) and eating all our food from little organic neighborhood gardens so that we can make all those smelly, carbon-producing highways and bridges that are blighting our country and shrinking the icebergs obsolete.
In ten years we shouldn't need all that infrastructure because we'll be in the new Aquarian age of alternative energy.
So we'll just spend several hundred billion now to rebuild it all so that it will be in good shape when we stop using it, years before we are finished paying for it.
Stoopid Americuns. Stop living within your means. It is unpatriotic, treasonous, actually. Paul Krugman would round you up and lecture you to death except that we need you to have babies to pay the taxes to cover the spending we must do on your behalf.
My theory is that you ought to just say the hell with it and go back to maxing out whatever credit you can find.
That way the government will declare you a hero and you can at least enjoy the useless trinkets until the nice men come and take it all away to send you to debtor's prison.
Now I understand why Bernie Madoff made sense to so many people.
Signs of the apocalypse: Dave Burris and Donviti both back
... and both worth reading.
Dave Burris.
Donviti's The Wage Slave.
Visit often. Comment. Cringe. I will.
Dave Burris.
Donviti's The Wage Slave.
Visit often. Comment. Cringe. I will.
Serious question: will this be considered a racist statement?
In a WaPo story criticizing the Obama administration for a long series of mistakes in Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy, this sentence appears:
Daniel Levy, a veteran Israeli peace negotiator now at the Century Foundation in Washington, summed up the administration's efforts in recent days as "amateur night at the Apollo Theater."
Given that the Apollo Theater is one of the historic landmarks of African-American culture....
On the other hand, you can't lampoon the Century Foundation as rightwing...
And Daniel Levy cannot be written off as some hardline conservative....
So in the good spirits of "see, Hube, I found one before you did [finally]" I have to wonder how this one will be treated by the pundits. If at all.
Daniel Levy, a veteran Israeli peace negotiator now at the Century Foundation in Washington, summed up the administration's efforts in recent days as "amateur night at the Apollo Theater."
Given that the Apollo Theater is one of the historic landmarks of African-American culture....
On the other hand, you can't lampoon the Century Foundation as rightwing...
And Daniel Levy cannot be written off as some hardline conservative....
So in the good spirits of "see, Hube, I found one before you did [finally]" I have to wonder how this one will be treated by the pundits. If at all.
Don't worry if you can't find H1N1 vaccine for your kids: Goldman Sachs has its supply
... courtesy the rest of the government:
To the list of hundreds of schools, hospitals, and community health centers that have received limited allocations of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, you can now add some of New York's largest employers. In the past week or so 13 companies, including Citigroup (C) and Goldman Sachs (GS), have begun receiving small quantities of the vaccine, according to city health authorities....
According to the city, Goldman has requested 5,300 doses.
Obviously a much higher priority than schools, daycare facilities, nursing homes....
[h/t Waldo]
To the list of hundreds of schools, hospitals, and community health centers that have received limited allocations of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine, you can now add some of New York's largest employers. In the past week or so 13 companies, including Citigroup (C) and Goldman Sachs (GS), have begun receiving small quantities of the vaccine, according to city health authorities....
According to the city, Goldman has requested 5,300 doses.
Obviously a much higher priority than schools, daycare facilities, nursing homes....
[h/t Waldo]
Shame on the Diocese of Wilmington
Bankrupt and pleading poor mouth with regard to settling child sexual abuse cases, on 16 July 2009 our Diocese still found $200 to send to Maine for the campaign to overturn same-sex marriage.
Look, the Catholic Church is against same-sex marriage. But to discover that in our cash-strapped Diocese the decision was made to send even a nominal amount to a political campaign multiple states away is shameful.
From what I understand of the economics of our charities, the Diocese just spent enough on that to have fed an additional hundred or so of Wilmington's poor on Thanksgiving.
I guess I should just be happy that we didn't send $50,000--like the Arch-Diocese of Philadelphia did.
Look, the Catholic Church is against same-sex marriage. But to discover that in our cash-strapped Diocese the decision was made to send even a nominal amount to a political campaign multiple states away is shameful.
From what I understand of the economics of our charities, the Diocese just spent enough on that to have fed an additional hundred or so of Wilmington's poor on Thanksgiving.
I guess I should just be happy that we didn't send $50,000--like the Arch-Diocese of Philadelphia did.
Great intel we were getting from that Wali Karzai...
You'd think he might have helped the CIA twig to the fact that most of the American-trained Afghan police force had, uh, been infiltrated by the Taliban:
Following this morning’s incident, in which a long-serving Afghan policeman shot five British soldiers and then disappeared into the Helmand Province, the status of the nation’s police force in increasingly coming under question.
Officials say the police have been successfully infiltrated “at every level” by the Taliban, meaning even seemingly loyal police, today’s attacker served without incident for three years for instance, could be ticking time bombs just waiting for the order to attack.
Corruption and incompetence are long-standing issues with the nation’s police force – as one British soldier put it “we were literally training them how to point a gun on the ranges, and telling them why you should not stop cars and demand ‘taxes.’”
Which is probably the reason why the CIA is so disappointed to be caught having paid of for eight years an opium-dealing scumbag with access to the highest levels of the pot of corruption that passes for the US-puppet Afghan government.
By don't try telling that to anybody around here trying to do the faux outrage bit.
Following this morning’s incident, in which a long-serving Afghan policeman shot five British soldiers and then disappeared into the Helmand Province, the status of the nation’s police force in increasingly coming under question.
Officials say the police have been successfully infiltrated “at every level” by the Taliban, meaning even seemingly loyal police, today’s attacker served without incident for three years for instance, could be ticking time bombs just waiting for the order to attack.
Corruption and incompetence are long-standing issues with the nation’s police force – as one British soldier put it “we were literally training them how to point a gun on the ranges, and telling them why you should not stop cars and demand ‘taxes.’”
Which is probably the reason why the CIA is so disappointed to be caught having paid of for eight years an opium-dealing scumbag with access to the highest levels of the pot of corruption that passes for the US-puppet Afghan government.
By don't try telling that to anybody around here trying to do the faux outrage bit.
Now Here's A Famous Member of Congress's Son Whose US Senate Campaign I Can Support Wholeheartedly
Congressman Ron Paul's son, Rand, has now risen to the top of fundraising and polling in his pursuit of a U.S. Senate seat from that great state of Kentucky.
via Agitator Radley Balko :
Kentucky is definitely a solid Republican state. Rand Paul, if the GOP nominee, would almost surely win in 2010, especially given the anti-Washington, anti-Obama, anti-Democrat momentum building across the country.
But Rand Paul will surely, like his highly-courteous father, run on a largely positive libertarian agenda, without getting into the business of attacking opponents personally.
A U.S. Senator Rand Paul would be, without question, the most libertarian American citizen to ever hold a seat in the United States Senate (in modern times anyway).
Mitch McConnell's head might explode....not to mention the insufferable Lindsey Graham.
I know I will be sending a donation.
via Agitator Radley Balko :
Rand Paul Takes Lead in the Polls
Over at the blog In the Agora, Joshua Claybourn notes that libertarian (and Ron Paul offspring) Rand Paul has taken an early polling lead for the Republican nomination to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.). Paul has already raised far more money than his opponent, Kentucky’s GOP establishment-backed Secretary of State Trey Grayson. But Paul has also been able to convert dollars into poll points. He has jumped 14 points in the last three months.
Claybourn, an attorney and writer just across the Ohio River in Evansville, Indiana observes:
Rand Paul is a strong states’ rights advocate who wants the federal government out of people’s lives. He opposes federal drug laws and says the U.S. government should not outlaw gay marriage because only churches should be in the marriage business. He is skeptical of foreign interventionism and doggedly Constitutional about any engagement. But more than anything he likes talking about fiscal issues and the need to scale back government intrusion in economics and reform the nation’s fiscal policies…
Libertarian intrusions into Republican primaries are nothing new. But what separates Rand Paul from most other libertarian candidates (including his father) is that Rand is not a novelty act. He is a known commodity as a long-time practicing ophthalmologist in western Kentucky. Along with tremendous intellectual heft, Rand is a polished public speaker with a professional presence. In short, he is an ideal candidate for the libertarian cause.
All of which would explain why the national GOP is trying like hell to make sure he doesn’t get the nomination.
Kentucky is definitely a solid Republican state. Rand Paul, if the GOP nominee, would almost surely win in 2010, especially given the anti-Washington, anti-Obama, anti-Democrat momentum building across the country.
But Rand Paul will surely, like his highly-courteous father, run on a largely positive libertarian agenda, without getting into the business of attacking opponents personally.
A U.S. Senator Rand Paul would be, without question, the most libertarian American citizen to ever hold a seat in the United States Senate (in modern times anyway).
Mitch McConnell's head might explode....not to mention the insufferable Lindsey Graham.
I know I will be sending a donation.
David Anderson & Hugo Chavez : Socialist Birds of a Feather
Hey David, it's not just all about economics.
Socialism seeks to socialize a nation (or the world) to mandated norms of behavior and lifestyle, most usually accomplished by state control of economic ways and means.
But we all know such totalitarian statism is never content with, nor limited to, expropriating just your wallet...
CARACAS, Nov 4 (IPS) - One Friday at around midnight, on Villaflor Street, a favourite spot for gays and lesbians in the Venezuelan capital, Yonatan Matheus and Omar Marques noticed two Caracas police patrol vans carrying about 20 detainees, most of them very young.
When Marques and Matheus, who are gay leaders of the Venezuela Diversa (Diverse Venezuela) organisation, approached to find out what was happening and take pictures, they were picked up too.
"Like most of those arrested, our identity documents and mobile phones were taken away, we were beaten, our sexual orientation was insulted in degrading language, and we were refused permission to speak to the Justice Ministry officials and members of the National Guard who were present," Matheus told IPS.
The vans set out for the Caracas police headquarters with their load of detainees, but Marques, Matheus and two minors were left by the main highway crossing the city. They had to walk to the city centre, where they contacted officials at the Ombudsman's Office to file complaints.
This incident in October was one of the multiple arbitrary arrests carried out against the GLBTI (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transvestite, transgender and intersex) community, within the framework of Operation Safe Caracas, a campaign to crack down on crime involving personnel from several police forces and the National Guard, a military body with police functions.
The Venezuelan capital, with five million people living in the metropolitan area, is one of the most dangerous cities in the world; the annual murder rate is in excess of 135 per 100,000 population. In the third week of October alone there were 65 murders, and the central morgue has been stretched beyond capacity several times this year.
"Operation Safe Caracas has meant more insecurity, because it adds police harassment to attacks by common criminals and homophobic citizens," César Sequera of the Venezuelan GLBTI Network, a recently formed coalition of groups defending the rights of sexual minorities, told IPS.
In Caracas and the oil-rich western state of Zulia, where Venezuela Diversa is also active, "so far this year nine transsexual persons have been killed in violence related to their condition, so one of our most urgent claims is proper guarantees for the right to life," Matheus said.
Astrid, a transvestite sex worker who finds her clients among drivers on Libertador Avenue in Caracas, told journalists that "sometimes the police stop us, take our money and even force us to have sex with them under threat of being beaten or dropped off in a dangerous part of the city."
......................
The non-governmental organisation Citizen Action against AIDS (ACCSI) carried out a 2008 survey of 742 people in the GLBTI community in Caracas and the western cities of Maracaibo and Mérida, to investigate negative experiences with the police.
Half the interviewees said they had experienced situations in which their rights had been violated, although most did not report them, out of fear or a sense of shame. The most common behaviours they complained of were verbal aggression (36 percent), extortion (20 percent), physical aggression (12 percent) and deprivation of freedom (11 percent).
"GLBTI persons suffer strong rejection in Venezuela, because of dogma, social prejudice and mistaken medical or psychiatric diagnoses," said Edgar Carrasco, who directed the survey. "And the worst of," he added, "is that the discrimination and impunity is related to the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic."
The depth of this rejection was spelled out to IPS by Fernando, a 22-year-old cookery student who came to Caracas "practically in headlong flight, because if we are excluded in Caracas, where gays gather in large groups to go out or spend time together, imagine what it's like in a small town full of prejudice like Altagracia de Orituco," in the central plains of the country, where agriculture and ranching are the main activities.
Article 21 of the 1999 Venezuelan constitution states that all persons are equal before the law and, consequently, discrimination based on race, sex, creed or social condition is prohibited.
On this basis, the Supreme Court ruled in March 2008 that no individual may be discriminated against by reason of his or her sexual orientation in any way that implies treating him or her in an unequal fashion.
Yet based on article 77 which protects marriage between a man and a woman, in the same ruling the Supreme Court refused to equate the rights of stable homosexual unions with those of heterosexual married couples.
Sequera of the GLBTI Network emphasised that "many of our rights are still being infringed: in the first place, respect for our identity and self-image, and secondly the right to health, since we are often denied access to public and private health care centres, and we aren't even considered as possible blood donors, for example."
Matheus also complained of "employment discrimination in terms of access to jobs and treatment in the workplace, as well as discrimination in schools and educational institutions, where we are harassed by teachers and other students, leading many of us to drop out."
"But police harassment remains a serious concern, because in effect it abrogates our right to freedom of movement, to use the public thoroughfares of this country, or to freely and peacefully go to night clubs or shopping centres to exercise our right to leisure and entertainment, just like everybody else," Matheus concluded. (END/2009)
I hope David Anderson and his homophobic compadres over at "Delaware Politics" are happy to be in league with Hugo Chavez's government.
And lest David come here and try to put gauzy white gloves on his own rendition of the iron fist applied to same-sex couples, splitting hairs that he and his fellow travelers in the U.S. of A. aren't just as authoritarian and troglodytic as Huggy Chavez's regime.....save it, David.
Socialism can, and often does, rise out of (pseudo)-religious underpinnings. I am sure David knows all about so-called "liberation theology".
Arbitrary state denial of equal rights, on the bases of superstition, fear, and/or hatred, is no less abhorrent because it hides behind religion, rather than merely a sick secular desire to control. In fact, to me, using religious faith to such ends is even worse in its blazing hypocrisy....especially from those claiming "Judeo-Christian faith".
Jesus Christ would positively rail against your self-serving ideology of self-validating intolerance and obeisance to state power, as long as it enforces (by majoritarian will) your narrow ends, purely at the expense of others in a vulnerable minority position in society.
Socialism seeks to socialize a nation (or the world) to mandated norms of behavior and lifestyle, most usually accomplished by state control of economic ways and means.
But we all know such totalitarian statism is never content with, nor limited to, expropriating just your wallet...
By Humberto Márquez
CARACAS, Nov 4 (IPS) - One Friday at around midnight, on Villaflor Street, a favourite spot for gays and lesbians in the Venezuelan capital, Yonatan Matheus and Omar Marques noticed two Caracas police patrol vans carrying about 20 detainees, most of them very young.
When Marques and Matheus, who are gay leaders of the Venezuela Diversa (Diverse Venezuela) organisation, approached to find out what was happening and take pictures, they were picked up too.
"Like most of those arrested, our identity documents and mobile phones were taken away, we were beaten, our sexual orientation was insulted in degrading language, and we were refused permission to speak to the Justice Ministry officials and members of the National Guard who were present," Matheus told IPS.
The vans set out for the Caracas police headquarters with their load of detainees, but Marques, Matheus and two minors were left by the main highway crossing the city. They had to walk to the city centre, where they contacted officials at the Ombudsman's Office to file complaints.
This incident in October was one of the multiple arbitrary arrests carried out against the GLBTI (gay, lesbian, bisexual, transvestite, transgender and intersex) community, within the framework of Operation Safe Caracas, a campaign to crack down on crime involving personnel from several police forces and the National Guard, a military body with police functions.
The Venezuelan capital, with five million people living in the metropolitan area, is one of the most dangerous cities in the world; the annual murder rate is in excess of 135 per 100,000 population. In the third week of October alone there were 65 murders, and the central morgue has been stretched beyond capacity several times this year.
"Operation Safe Caracas has meant more insecurity, because it adds police harassment to attacks by common criminals and homophobic citizens," César Sequera of the Venezuelan GLBTI Network, a recently formed coalition of groups defending the rights of sexual minorities, told IPS.
In Caracas and the oil-rich western state of Zulia, where Venezuela Diversa is also active, "so far this year nine transsexual persons have been killed in violence related to their condition, so one of our most urgent claims is proper guarantees for the right to life," Matheus said.
Astrid, a transvestite sex worker who finds her clients among drivers on Libertador Avenue in Caracas, told journalists that "sometimes the police stop us, take our money and even force us to have sex with them under threat of being beaten or dropped off in a dangerous part of the city."
......................
The non-governmental organisation Citizen Action against AIDS (ACCSI) carried out a 2008 survey of 742 people in the GLBTI community in Caracas and the western cities of Maracaibo and Mérida, to investigate negative experiences with the police.
Half the interviewees said they had experienced situations in which their rights had been violated, although most did not report them, out of fear or a sense of shame. The most common behaviours they complained of were verbal aggression (36 percent), extortion (20 percent), physical aggression (12 percent) and deprivation of freedom (11 percent).
"GLBTI persons suffer strong rejection in Venezuela, because of dogma, social prejudice and mistaken medical or psychiatric diagnoses," said Edgar Carrasco, who directed the survey. "And the worst of," he added, "is that the discrimination and impunity is related to the spread of the HIV/AIDS epidemic."
The depth of this rejection was spelled out to IPS by Fernando, a 22-year-old cookery student who came to Caracas "practically in headlong flight, because if we are excluded in Caracas, where gays gather in large groups to go out or spend time together, imagine what it's like in a small town full of prejudice like Altagracia de Orituco," in the central plains of the country, where agriculture and ranching are the main activities.
Article 21 of the 1999 Venezuelan constitution states that all persons are equal before the law and, consequently, discrimination based on race, sex, creed or social condition is prohibited.
On this basis, the Supreme Court ruled in March 2008 that no individual may be discriminated against by reason of his or her sexual orientation in any way that implies treating him or her in an unequal fashion.
Yet based on article 77 which protects marriage between a man and a woman, in the same ruling the Supreme Court refused to equate the rights of stable homosexual unions with those of heterosexual married couples.
Sequera of the GLBTI Network emphasised that "many of our rights are still being infringed: in the first place, respect for our identity and self-image, and secondly the right to health, since we are often denied access to public and private health care centres, and we aren't even considered as possible blood donors, for example."
Matheus also complained of "employment discrimination in terms of access to jobs and treatment in the workplace, as well as discrimination in schools and educational institutions, where we are harassed by teachers and other students, leading many of us to drop out."
"But police harassment remains a serious concern, because in effect it abrogates our right to freedom of movement, to use the public thoroughfares of this country, or to freely and peacefully go to night clubs or shopping centres to exercise our right to leisure and entertainment, just like everybody else," Matheus concluded. (END/2009)
I hope David Anderson and his homophobic compadres over at "Delaware Politics" are happy to be in league with Hugo Chavez's government.
And lest David come here and try to put gauzy white gloves on his own rendition of the iron fist applied to same-sex couples, splitting hairs that he and his fellow travelers in the U.S. of A. aren't just as authoritarian and troglodytic as Huggy Chavez's regime.....save it, David.
Socialism can, and often does, rise out of (pseudo)-religious underpinnings. I am sure David knows all about so-called "liberation theology".
Arbitrary state denial of equal rights, on the bases of superstition, fear, and/or hatred, is no less abhorrent because it hides behind religion, rather than merely a sick secular desire to control. In fact, to me, using religious faith to such ends is even worse in its blazing hypocrisy....especially from those claiming "Judeo-Christian faith".
Jesus Christ would positively rail against your self-serving ideology of self-validating intolerance and obeisance to state power, as long as it enforces (by majoritarian will) your narrow ends, purely at the expense of others in a vulnerable minority position in society.
CIA paying off Harmid Karzai's drug-trafficking brother...
... is what the headlines should read, instead of attempting manufacture phony outrage and comparison with the Cheney/Libby leaking of Valerie Plame's name a few years ago.
Predictably, the two-bit press--both nationally and locally--attempts to make this a serious issue, ala Rasmussen:
Well, last week, The New York Times again published on the front page the name of an alleged CIA-paid undercover asset. This time, it was none other than Ahmed Wali Karzai, the powerful brother of the Afghan president. The Times cited, on background, Obama administration "political officials," "senior administration officials" and others as its sources to the effect that Karzai has been secretly on the CIA payroll for eight years and has been helping the United States with intelligence, logistic and base support for our special forces, and recruiting and running an Afghan paramilitary force on the instruction of the CIA -- as well as being a major narcotics trafficker.
This may well be the most egregious compromise of an extraordinarily valuable and inflammatory secret CIA operative in our history. It was leaked not after the policy was carried out -- as in the Plame case -- but just weeks before the president will be making his fateful strategy and manpower decision for the Afghan war. It is also just days before the runoff election in Afghanistan, which may well be affected by the release of this shocking information.
Let's count the ways this is idiotic:
1) It is our stated national policy in Afghanistan to suppress the opium trade; we have cited all sorts of moral and developmental reasons. Instead, we discover the CIA facilitating that trade by supporting Wali.
2) We have now admitted that far from being guarantors of a fair and free electon in Afghanistan we have been paying off the brother of the man internationally known to have rigged the vote--possibly using funds provided by the CIA.
3) Saying that Karzai had been secretly on the CIA payrol for eight years is NOT (I say again for the theologically impaired, NOT) the same thing as making him an extremely valuable ... secret CIA operative. He is at best a paid foreign asset with no allegiance to the US beyond money, and as such is not covered by the same laws which applied in the Plame case.
4) Rumors about Wali being involved with US intelligence gathering have been circulating for years. What's amazing is that the Rasmussen story converts him into something like a betrayed American patriot when in reality he is operating on the same level as the UN Secretary General's relatives who corruptly profited from the oil-for-food program in Iraq. He's at best a wanna-be warlord that we use for convenience sake, and the risks--if any--he has taken have been for his own bottom line.
5) Finally, given the history of the Karzai family, you have to wonder in the long run how many American GIs might have been killed or wounded based on information this guy was willing to sell to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Most warlords and druglords in that part of the world are quite willing to play both ends against the middle. Nothing known about Wali suggests that he is any different.
Nice try, guys.
Go back to red-baiting; you're better at it.
Predictably, the two-bit press--both nationally and locally--attempts to make this a serious issue, ala Rasmussen:
Well, last week, The New York Times again published on the front page the name of an alleged CIA-paid undercover asset. This time, it was none other than Ahmed Wali Karzai, the powerful brother of the Afghan president. The Times cited, on background, Obama administration "political officials," "senior administration officials" and others as its sources to the effect that Karzai has been secretly on the CIA payroll for eight years and has been helping the United States with intelligence, logistic and base support for our special forces, and recruiting and running an Afghan paramilitary force on the instruction of the CIA -- as well as being a major narcotics trafficker.
This may well be the most egregious compromise of an extraordinarily valuable and inflammatory secret CIA operative in our history. It was leaked not after the policy was carried out -- as in the Plame case -- but just weeks before the president will be making his fateful strategy and manpower decision for the Afghan war. It is also just days before the runoff election in Afghanistan, which may well be affected by the release of this shocking information.
Let's count the ways this is idiotic:
1) It is our stated national policy in Afghanistan to suppress the opium trade; we have cited all sorts of moral and developmental reasons. Instead, we discover the CIA facilitating that trade by supporting Wali.
2) We have now admitted that far from being guarantors of a fair and free electon in Afghanistan we have been paying off the brother of the man internationally known to have rigged the vote--possibly using funds provided by the CIA.
3) Saying that Karzai had been secretly on the CIA payrol for eight years is NOT (I say again for the theologically impaired, NOT) the same thing as making him an extremely valuable ... secret CIA operative. He is at best a paid foreign asset with no allegiance to the US beyond money, and as such is not covered by the same laws which applied in the Plame case.
4) Rumors about Wali being involved with US intelligence gathering have been circulating for years. What's amazing is that the Rasmussen story converts him into something like a betrayed American patriot when in reality he is operating on the same level as the UN Secretary General's relatives who corruptly profited from the oil-for-food program in Iraq. He's at best a wanna-be warlord that we use for convenience sake, and the risks--if any--he has taken have been for his own bottom line.
5) Finally, given the history of the Karzai family, you have to wonder in the long run how many American GIs might have been killed or wounded based on information this guy was willing to sell to Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Most warlords and druglords in that part of the world are quite willing to play both ends against the middle. Nothing known about Wali suggests that he is any different.
Nice try, guys.
Go back to red-baiting; you're better at it.
I pledge allegiance to the United States of Sodom
My friend Waldo first introduced me to the term Christianist, and--for a brief time--I thought it was a derogatory term for Christian. Then I realized that the definition was something more like this:
one who advocates the reordering of society and government in accordance with fundamentalist Christian interpretations of the Bible.
Which explains the following local reaction to the defeat of same-sex marriage in Maine yesterday:
Now let’s get back to marriage. Praise GOD! We are still the USA and not the United States of Sodom. We understand that marriage is between a man and woman not some pc fiction.
USA equals fundamentalist Biblical principles of the type espoused by evangelists like the late Carl McIntyre [hero to the same commenter above], described by First Things' TImothy George as having "a knack for gutter politics," and who was notable for such mainstream ideas as total abstinence from alcohol, a radical apocalyptic eschatology ("he had once spoken of the “Roman terror” as a worse threat to American freedom than communism"), making almost no "distinction between true Christianity and superpatriotic Americanism," and repudiating the Reverend Billy Graham thus:
WHY does Dr. Graham always advise converts to “go to the church of your own choice,” instead of directing them to fundamental assemblies?
WHY is he allowing himself to be drawn into the modernistic ecumenical movement that is gaining such momentum each passing year?
WHY did he allow smoking at the banquet in New York City on September 17, 1956, with prayers being offered by modernists?
WHY did he (as did Cardinal Spellman) recommend a moving picture, “The Ten Commandments”? Does he endorse the theater for believers?
WHY doesn't he wake up to the fact that fundamentalism can't “play ball” with modernism anymore than the USA can with Communism?
WHY this statement, Dr. Graham: “The Catholic Church has been very friendly to me anywhere I have gone”? Tsk! Billy!
Leonard Sweet quite accurately described McIntyre as “a mental and spiritual oaf who presented himself as an absolute rectum of rectitude," one of whose favorite sports was castigating anyone and everyone who disagreed with his theology as a commie or a modernist.
It was McIntyre among others who so reviled the 1952 Revised Standard Version of the Bible that they inspired book-burnings--or should I say "Bible burnings"?--because the RSV editors had the temerity to translate correctly the verses in the origional Hebrew Isaiah 7:14 as "Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." This corrected the mistranslation of the Septaguint [LXX] Greek translation that was in use by the Jewish community during the 1st Century AD; but McIntyre and his ilk considered only the King James Version of the Bible to be infallible Holy Writ, challenging both the Christianity and patriotism of anybody who disageed.
In fact, being anti-Catholic was so tied up with being a fundamentalist that in 1945 McIntyre wrote: "As we enter the post-war world, without any doubt the greatest enemy of freedom and liberty that the world has to face today is the Roman Catholic system."
This is the hero of the local blogger who has no difficulty with red-baiting, and who accuses anybody who disagrees with him of attempting to inaugurate the United States of Sodom.
Sodom is an interesting reference for a Christianist to use, given the literal meaning of Genesis 19:7-8, when Lot is attempting to save the two guests in his house by offering to let strangers rape his daughters:
... 7and said, "I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof."
So by suggesting that same-sex marriage advocates are trying to initiate a United States of Sodom, our local blogger is not just making a political statement, he is arguing by analogy that allowing gay people to marry is the equivalent of child rape.
In what context is Carl McIntyre cited by our local blogger as a hero?
Since I have been recently accused of taking him out of context, let's try the whole comment:
Personally, I have always been a fan of Carl Mcintire and Col. Domer so red baiting wouldn’t bother me anyway. It’s the reds that bother me. She is no more a Republican than the next commie lib and I would appreciate it if she made it official like she is hinting. The party is stronger without a 5th column. That is all I am saying.
OK, we've done with Carl McIntyre, so let's handle red-baiting, beginning with its implications for educators:
During the 1930s financial pressures and political factionalism combined to imperil the principle of academic freedom, by which teachers are free to instruct without the imposition of political or ideological agendas. Conservatives in groups such as the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) repeatedly attacked the schools as bastions of communist propaganda and sought to have school boards restrict the curricula of public schools and require teachers to sign loyalty oaths. After the Democratic landslide in the elections of 1936, conservatives, smarting from wholesale repudiation at the polls, turned their attention to the schools, attempting to turn them into bastions of conservative philosophy. Although historians normally date the onset of "red-baiting," or "witch-hunting" for communists, after World War II, for teachers red-baiting began in the 1930s.
Red-baiting led to loyalty oaths, and inevitably to McCarthyism, which is enjoying a strange resurgence today [and was, truth be told, enjoying that resurgence in terms of the rehabilitation of Joe McCarthy's reputation, long before Barack Obama], which led to massive abuses of personal and civil liberties on par with the worst Patriot Act abuses.
Thanks to the First Amendment [of which Carl McIntyre did not approve]:
You have the absolute right to venerate someone like Carl McIntyre with his robust anti-Catholic prejudices.
You have the absolute right to stand up and say red baiting wouldn’t bother me anyway.
No matter how stupid such positions make you look.
I also have the right to refuse to allow your Christianist [as distinguished from Christian--which to me would include Catholics and others who do not share your insistence that only fundamentalist evangelicals can determine what the faith means] attempts to mischaracterize Americans with different sexualities or different political opinions to stand.
Shorter version: don't expect me not to call you out for acting like a bigoted buffoon.
PS--to donviti: I guess you win. Sorry.
one who advocates the reordering of society and government in accordance with fundamentalist Christian interpretations of the Bible.
Which explains the following local reaction to the defeat of same-sex marriage in Maine yesterday:
Now let’s get back to marriage. Praise GOD! We are still the USA and not the United States of Sodom. We understand that marriage is between a man and woman not some pc fiction.
USA equals fundamentalist Biblical principles of the type espoused by evangelists like the late Carl McIntyre [hero to the same commenter above], described by First Things' TImothy George as having "a knack for gutter politics," and who was notable for such mainstream ideas as total abstinence from alcohol, a radical apocalyptic eschatology ("he had once spoken of the “Roman terror” as a worse threat to American freedom than communism"), making almost no "distinction between true Christianity and superpatriotic Americanism," and repudiating the Reverend Billy Graham thus:
WHY does Dr. Graham always advise converts to “go to the church of your own choice,” instead of directing them to fundamental assemblies?
WHY is he allowing himself to be drawn into the modernistic ecumenical movement that is gaining such momentum each passing year?
WHY did he allow smoking at the banquet in New York City on September 17, 1956, with prayers being offered by modernists?
WHY did he (as did Cardinal Spellman) recommend a moving picture, “The Ten Commandments”? Does he endorse the theater for believers?
WHY doesn't he wake up to the fact that fundamentalism can't “play ball” with modernism anymore than the USA can with Communism?
WHY this statement, Dr. Graham: “The Catholic Church has been very friendly to me anywhere I have gone”? Tsk! Billy!
Leonard Sweet quite accurately described McIntyre as “a mental and spiritual oaf who presented himself as an absolute rectum of rectitude," one of whose favorite sports was castigating anyone and everyone who disagreed with his theology as a commie or a modernist.
It was McIntyre among others who so reviled the 1952 Revised Standard Version of the Bible that they inspired book-burnings--or should I say "Bible burnings"?--because the RSV editors had the temerity to translate correctly the verses in the origional Hebrew Isaiah 7:14 as "Behold, a young woman shall conceive and bear a son, and shall call his name Immanuel." This corrected the mistranslation of the Septaguint [LXX] Greek translation that was in use by the Jewish community during the 1st Century AD; but McIntyre and his ilk considered only the King James Version of the Bible to be infallible Holy Writ, challenging both the Christianity and patriotism of anybody who disageed.
In fact, being anti-Catholic was so tied up with being a fundamentalist that in 1945 McIntyre wrote: "As we enter the post-war world, without any doubt the greatest enemy of freedom and liberty that the world has to face today is the Roman Catholic system."
This is the hero of the local blogger who has no difficulty with red-baiting, and who accuses anybody who disagrees with him of attempting to inaugurate the United States of Sodom.
Sodom is an interesting reference for a Christianist to use, given the literal meaning of Genesis 19:7-8, when Lot is attempting to save the two guests in his house by offering to let strangers rape his daughters:
... 7and said, "I beg you, my brothers, do not act so wickedly. 8 Behold, I have two daughters who have not known man; let me bring them out to you, and do to them as you please; only do nothing to these men, for they have come under the shelter of my roof."
So by suggesting that same-sex marriage advocates are trying to initiate a United States of Sodom, our local blogger is not just making a political statement, he is arguing by analogy that allowing gay people to marry is the equivalent of child rape.
In what context is Carl McIntyre cited by our local blogger as a hero?
Since I have been recently accused of taking him out of context, let's try the whole comment:
Personally, I have always been a fan of Carl Mcintire and Col. Domer so red baiting wouldn’t bother me anyway. It’s the reds that bother me. She is no more a Republican than the next commie lib and I would appreciate it if she made it official like she is hinting. The party is stronger without a 5th column. That is all I am saying.
OK, we've done with Carl McIntyre, so let's handle red-baiting, beginning with its implications for educators:
During the 1930s financial pressures and political factionalism combined to imperil the principle of academic freedom, by which teachers are free to instruct without the imposition of political or ideological agendas. Conservatives in groups such as the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) repeatedly attacked the schools as bastions of communist propaganda and sought to have school boards restrict the curricula of public schools and require teachers to sign loyalty oaths. After the Democratic landslide in the elections of 1936, conservatives, smarting from wholesale repudiation at the polls, turned their attention to the schools, attempting to turn them into bastions of conservative philosophy. Although historians normally date the onset of "red-baiting," or "witch-hunting" for communists, after World War II, for teachers red-baiting began in the 1930s.
Red-baiting led to loyalty oaths, and inevitably to McCarthyism, which is enjoying a strange resurgence today [and was, truth be told, enjoying that resurgence in terms of the rehabilitation of Joe McCarthy's reputation, long before Barack Obama], which led to massive abuses of personal and civil liberties on par with the worst Patriot Act abuses.
Thanks to the First Amendment [of which Carl McIntyre did not approve]:
You have the absolute right to venerate someone like Carl McIntyre with his robust anti-Catholic prejudices.
You have the absolute right to stand up and say red baiting wouldn’t bother me anyway.
No matter how stupid such positions make you look.
I also have the right to refuse to allow your Christianist [as distinguished from Christian--which to me would include Catholics and others who do not share your insistence that only fundamentalist evangelicals can determine what the faith means] attempts to mischaracterize Americans with different sexualities or different political opinions to stand.
Shorter version: don't expect me not to call you out for acting like a bigoted buffoon.
PS--to donviti: I guess you win. Sorry.
If Rolling Stone is correct, then both Generals Petraeus and McChrystal need to go
... because in this country Generals execute the policies of the civilian government, they don't set it.
This article deserves a full read:
In early October, as President Obama huddled with top administration officials in the White House situation room to rethink America's failing strategy in Afghanistan, the Pentagon and top military brass were trying to make the president an offer he couldn't refuse. They wanted the president to escalate the war — go all in by committing 40,000 more troops and another trillion dollars to a Vietnam-like quagmire — or face a full-scale mutiny by his generals.
Obama knew that if he rebuffed the military's pressure, several senior officers — including Gen. David Petraeus, the ambitious head of U.S. Central Command, who is rumored to be eyeing a presidential bid of his own in 2012 — could break ranks and join forces with hawks in the Republican Party. GOP leaders and conservative media outlets wasted no time in warning Obama that if he refused to back the troop escalation being demanded by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander overseeing the eight-year-old war, he'd be putting U.S. soldiers' lives at risk and inviting Al Qaeda to launch new assaults on the homeland. The president, it seems, is battling two insurgencies: one in Afghanistan and one cooked up by his own generals.
First things first: General David Petraeus stands no chance whatever as a Presidential candidate. He would make the McCain campaign appear thoughtful and well organized. Barack Obama's wet dream should be that the GOPers nominate him.
Second things second: General McChrystal has been openly insubordinate and--so far--has not even demonstrated his ability to do anything besides ask for more troops. In fact, since replacing General McKiernan, he actually seems to be losing the war more quickly than his predecessor, despite having thousands more troops under his command.
Third things third: The US military doesn't actually have available the 60-8,000 troops that McChrystal is demanding. At least not without breaking the back of our force rotation.
Final things final: We have no mission in Afghanistan. Even General McChrystal admits there are fewer than 100 Al Qaeda operatives left in the country. We are helping fight out a thirty-year-long ethnic civil war, while destabilizing Pakistan with our ham-handed influence. {Oh, but Al Qaeda could get Pakistan's nukes, the warlords cry. Hey, has anybody actually looked at how unstable and unpredictable the Pakistani government is? They threaten to nuke India roughly every other Tuesday.]
The troops who have continued to fight, die, and be mutilated in Afghanistan are my brothers and sisters, and they are being betrayed by their own Generals, who have now placed their own egotistical stake in winning above what's good for American policy.
This article deserves a full read:
In early October, as President Obama huddled with top administration officials in the White House situation room to rethink America's failing strategy in Afghanistan, the Pentagon and top military brass were trying to make the president an offer he couldn't refuse. They wanted the president to escalate the war — go all in by committing 40,000 more troops and another trillion dollars to a Vietnam-like quagmire — or face a full-scale mutiny by his generals.
Obama knew that if he rebuffed the military's pressure, several senior officers — including Gen. David Petraeus, the ambitious head of U.S. Central Command, who is rumored to be eyeing a presidential bid of his own in 2012 — could break ranks and join forces with hawks in the Republican Party. GOP leaders and conservative media outlets wasted no time in warning Obama that if he refused to back the troop escalation being demanded by Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the commander overseeing the eight-year-old war, he'd be putting U.S. soldiers' lives at risk and inviting Al Qaeda to launch new assaults on the homeland. The president, it seems, is battling two insurgencies: one in Afghanistan and one cooked up by his own generals.
First things first: General David Petraeus stands no chance whatever as a Presidential candidate. He would make the McCain campaign appear thoughtful and well organized. Barack Obama's wet dream should be that the GOPers nominate him.
Second things second: General McChrystal has been openly insubordinate and--so far--has not even demonstrated his ability to do anything besides ask for more troops. In fact, since replacing General McKiernan, he actually seems to be losing the war more quickly than his predecessor, despite having thousands more troops under his command.
Third things third: The US military doesn't actually have available the 60-8,000 troops that McChrystal is demanding. At least not without breaking the back of our force rotation.
Final things final: We have no mission in Afghanistan. Even General McChrystal admits there are fewer than 100 Al Qaeda operatives left in the country. We are helping fight out a thirty-year-long ethnic civil war, while destabilizing Pakistan with our ham-handed influence. {Oh, but Al Qaeda could get Pakistan's nukes, the warlords cry. Hey, has anybody actually looked at how unstable and unpredictable the Pakistani government is? They threaten to nuke India roughly every other Tuesday.]
The troops who have continued to fight, die, and be mutilated in Afghanistan are my brothers and sisters, and they are being betrayed by their own Generals, who have now placed their own egotistical stake in winning above what's good for American policy.
It's funny....
.... when I get a link--either positive or negative--from Delawareliberal I get a noticeable jump in my traffic reports--sometimes a couple hundred extra hits in a day.
But when Delaware Politics notices me .... nothing.
I wondered why.
Here are the current Alexa rankings.
Delawareliberal [rank] 742,247 [sites linking in] 160
Delaware Libertarian [rank] 1,305,533 [sites linking in] 90
Delaware Politics [rank] 4,193,377 [sites linking in] 34
That would seem to explain a lot.
But when Delaware Politics notices me .... nothing.
I wondered why.
Here are the current Alexa rankings.
Delawareliberal [rank] 742,247 [sites linking in] 160
Delaware Libertarian [rank] 1,305,533 [sites linking in] 90
Delaware Politics [rank] 4,193,377 [sites linking in] 34
That would seem to explain a lot.
Time to remove the Diocese of Portland (Maine) tax exempt status
Given that the Bishop of the Diocese instructed Marc Mutty, his Director of Public Relations, to go on leave from the Church in order to run the anti-same-sex marriage campaign in Maine, while continuing to pay his salary from Church coffers.
Funny how that little detail is missing in the latest AP coverage of the story:
Marc Mutty, on leave from a job with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland to run the Stand for Marriage campaign, said in a homestretch appeal for donations that the election "is about the future of marriage in Maine, and thus the nation."
"It is about whether marriage will continue to be between one man and one woman as God intended and human history has affirmed, or if we will plunge our state into a radical social experiment of 'any two will do,'" he said.
The diocese coordinated $550,000 in contributions to the repeal campaign and has criticized Baldacci, a Catholic and former altar boy, for signing the marriage law.
In fact, $23,995.21--or 4.4% of the money raised in collection plates at target second collections while priests asked parishoners to consider What Would Jesus Do? about gay marriage--has gone to pay Mr. Mutty's salary since June.
Mutty denies that any funds come from the church collection plates, but admits that some parishoners might be a bit hacked off at not using the money to, say, help the poor or something....
But Marc Mutty, a leader of the group seeking to repeal the law who is on leave from his work at the diocese, said parishioners should know the donated funds were not taken from the collection plate.
"The money is dedicated revenues that were provided by a donor for causes such as these and money from the collection basket or any of those types of things would never be used," he said....
Mutty said he understands why people get upset when they see that the diocese spent money on this issue, regardless of where the money actually came from.
"There's no question that some would say that it's a shame we have to spend this kind of money on this kind of issue when we should be spending it on the poor or those kinds of things," he said.
It's those damn queers--can't you see that they want to get married specifically to cause poor people to starve because the Church can't run the Food Banks while telling people about the immiment collapse of Western Civilization.
Oh, by the way: it appears that Mutty is simply lying.
From Clerical Whispers:
The Diocese of Portland, Maine has asked parishioners to donate in a second collection on Sunday to raise money to help repeal the state's same-sex marriage law.
Officials said donations like the ones collected at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception will go to pay for television ads aimed at overturning the state law that legislators passed last spring, WMTW News 8 reports.
In fact, the entire sordid affair, in which the opposition to same-sex marriage is in fact being bankrolled by four big religious groups, calls out for a yanking of tax-exempt status for the Diocese.
This burgeoning theocracy is what our local zealot David Anderson represents as his sort of democracy:
The legislature foisted same sex marriage on the voters of Maine as part of the 6 for 6 campaign. PPP shows a majority of it’s voters are not enthused and the traditional marriage measure may have majority support.
And for my liberal friends: President Obama has plenty of time to campaign for New Jersey's Jon Corzine, but other than his usual vague no-timeline swipe at saying he'll allow LGBT Americans to die openly for their country ... someday ... he has done in Maine exactly what he did in California last year: washed his hands of the whole idea of standing up for the rights of some of his strongest supporters.
Yea, yeah, I know. Limited political capital and all that.
Funny how that little detail is missing in the latest AP coverage of the story:
Marc Mutty, on leave from a job with the Roman Catholic Diocese of Portland to run the Stand for Marriage campaign, said in a homestretch appeal for donations that the election "is about the future of marriage in Maine, and thus the nation."
"It is about whether marriage will continue to be between one man and one woman as God intended and human history has affirmed, or if we will plunge our state into a radical social experiment of 'any two will do,'" he said.
The diocese coordinated $550,000 in contributions to the repeal campaign and has criticized Baldacci, a Catholic and former altar boy, for signing the marriage law.
In fact, $23,995.21--or 4.4% of the money raised in collection plates at target second collections while priests asked parishoners to consider What Would Jesus Do? about gay marriage--has gone to pay Mr. Mutty's salary since June.
Mutty denies that any funds come from the church collection plates, but admits that some parishoners might be a bit hacked off at not using the money to, say, help the poor or something....
But Marc Mutty, a leader of the group seeking to repeal the law who is on leave from his work at the diocese, said parishioners should know the donated funds were not taken from the collection plate.
"The money is dedicated revenues that were provided by a donor for causes such as these and money from the collection basket or any of those types of things would never be used," he said....
Mutty said he understands why people get upset when they see that the diocese spent money on this issue, regardless of where the money actually came from.
"There's no question that some would say that it's a shame we have to spend this kind of money on this kind of issue when we should be spending it on the poor or those kinds of things," he said.
It's those damn queers--can't you see that they want to get married specifically to cause poor people to starve because the Church can't run the Food Banks while telling people about the immiment collapse of Western Civilization.
Oh, by the way: it appears that Mutty is simply lying.
From Clerical Whispers:
The Diocese of Portland, Maine has asked parishioners to donate in a second collection on Sunday to raise money to help repeal the state's same-sex marriage law.
Officials said donations like the ones collected at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception will go to pay for television ads aimed at overturning the state law that legislators passed last spring, WMTW News 8 reports.
In fact, the entire sordid affair, in which the opposition to same-sex marriage is in fact being bankrolled by four big religious groups, calls out for a yanking of tax-exempt status for the Diocese.
This burgeoning theocracy is what our local zealot David Anderson represents as his sort of democracy:
The legislature foisted same sex marriage on the voters of Maine as part of the 6 for 6 campaign. PPP shows a majority of it’s voters are not enthused and the traditional marriage measure may have majority support.
And for my liberal friends: President Obama has plenty of time to campaign for New Jersey's Jon Corzine, but other than his usual vague no-timeline swipe at saying he'll allow LGBT Americans to die openly for their country ... someday ... he has done in Maine exactly what he did in California last year: washed his hands of the whole idea of standing up for the rights of some of his strongest supporters.
Yea, yeah, I know. Limited political capital and all that.
... and just in case you thought all those bail-outs were working out ...
From Politics Daily:
The Treasury Department's purchase of nearly $46 billion of Fannie Mae's preferred stock made U.S. taxpayers major owners of the government-sponsored enterprise. This investment so far has not been very profitable for the taxpayer --- Fannie Mae lost just under $40 billion in the first six months of this year. The government has already spent $91 billion propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Not to worry, however, because the Treasury Department North (aka Goldman Sachs) has got its hand out again:
As if $22 billion in bonuses were not enough, Goldman Sachs would now like to obtain another $1 billion in tax benefits from the federal government.
As with the $12.9 billion that Goldman Sachs received from the U.S. Government via payments made to the American International Group, Goldman Sachs would obtain an indirect federal benefit by using tax credits the government provided to Fannie Mae to offset its own profits and thus its federal tax payments. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Goldman Sachs might be purchasing up to $1 billion of Fannie Mae's tax credits.
The Treasury Department's purchase of nearly $46 billion of Fannie Mae's preferred stock made U.S. taxpayers major owners of the government-sponsored enterprise. This investment so far has not been very profitable for the taxpayer --- Fannie Mae lost just under $40 billion in the first six months of this year. The government has already spent $91 billion propping up Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.
Not to worry, however, because the Treasury Department North (aka Goldman Sachs) has got its hand out again:
As if $22 billion in bonuses were not enough, Goldman Sachs would now like to obtain another $1 billion in tax benefits from the federal government.
As with the $12.9 billion that Goldman Sachs received from the U.S. Government via payments made to the American International Group, Goldman Sachs would obtain an indirect federal benefit by using tax credits the government provided to Fannie Mae to offset its own profits and thus its federal tax payments. As the Wall Street Journal reported, Goldman Sachs might be purchasing up to $1 billion of Fannie Mae's tax credits.
Just for the record I proudly allow my children to have sex with demons
... or at least that's what Pat Robertson's CBN says I did when I let the little tykes go out Trick-or-Treating:
Decorating buildings with Halloween scenes, dressing up for parties, going door-to-door for candy, standing around bonfires and highlighting pumpkin patches are all acts rooted in entertaining familiar spirits. All these activities are demonic and have occult roots.
The word "occult" means "secret." The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes. These activities include:
Sex with demons
Orgies between animals and humans
Animal and human sacrifices
Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
Revel nights
Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.
Another abomination that goes on behind the scenes of Halloween is necromancy, or communication with the dead. Séances and contacting spirit guides are very popular on Halloween, so there is a lot of darkness lurking in the air.
I do, however, draw the line at necromancy. [By the way, you moron, necromancy is not "communication with the dead" it is the use of the dead as a source of power for magic. Geez. At least get your f**king heresies straight.]
This page can now only be seen as a cached image, because for some reason Pat Robertson decided to take it down when a few apparent Satan-worshippers started to notice it.
The author and devoted readers of this sort of crap are, I might note, the bulwarks of David Anderson's deeply religious America, and are also the same people sworn to protect us from that evil same-sex marriage if they have to kill off the democratic process to do it.
Decorating buildings with Halloween scenes, dressing up for parties, going door-to-door for candy, standing around bonfires and highlighting pumpkin patches are all acts rooted in entertaining familiar spirits. All these activities are demonic and have occult roots.
The word "occult" means "secret." The danger of Halloween is not in the scary things we see but in the secret, wicked, cruel activities that go on behind the scenes. These activities include:
Sex with demons
Orgies between animals and humans
Animal and human sacrifices
Sacrificing babies to shed innocent blood
Rape and molestation of adults, children and babies
Revel nights
Conjuring of demons and casting of spells
Release of "time-released" curses against the innocent and the ignorant.
Another abomination that goes on behind the scenes of Halloween is necromancy, or communication with the dead. Séances and contacting spirit guides are very popular on Halloween, so there is a lot of darkness lurking in the air.
I do, however, draw the line at necromancy. [By the way, you moron, necromancy is not "communication with the dead" it is the use of the dead as a source of power for magic. Geez. At least get your f**king heresies straight.]
This page can now only be seen as a cached image, because for some reason Pat Robertson decided to take it down when a few apparent Satan-worshippers started to notice it.
The author and devoted readers of this sort of crap are, I might note, the bulwarks of David Anderson's deeply religious America, and are also the same people sworn to protect us from that evil same-sex marriage if they have to kill off the democratic process to do it.
Obama Administration continues to expand Bushco State Secrets doctrine; supporters remain silent
This is what Senator Barack Obama said of the Bush State Secrets doctrine while running for President in 2008 [and defending his own vote for telecom immunity]:
I wouldn't have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush's abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush administration's program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses.
Here, Glenn Greenwald explains, is the stunning reversal in recent Obama Administration DOJ filings on the issue:
The Obama administration has, yet again, asserted the broadest and most radical version of the "state secrets" privilege -- which previously caused so much controversy and turmoil among loyal Democrats (when used by Bush/Cheney) -- to attempt to block courts from ruling on the legality of the government's domestic surveillance activities. Obama did so again this past Friday -- just six weeks after the DOJ announced voluntary new internal guidelines which, it insisted, would prevent abuses of the state secrets privilege. Instead -- as predicted -- the DOJ continues to embrace the very same "state secrets" theories of the Bush administration -- which Democrats generally and Barack Obama specifically once vehemently condemned -- and is doing so in order literally to shield the President from judicial review or accountability when he is accused of breaking the law.
The case of Shubert v. Bush is one of several litigations challenging the legality of the NSA program, of which the Electronic Frontier Foundation is lead coordinating counsel. The Shubert plaintiffs are numerous American citizens suing individual Bush officials, alleging that the Bush administration instituted a massive "dragnet" surveillance program whereby "the NSA intercepted (and continues to intercept) millions of phone calls and emails of ordinary Americans, with no connection to Al Qaeda, terrorism, or any foreign government" and that "the program monitors millions of calls and emails . . . entirely in the United States . . . without a warrant" (page 4). The lawsuit's central allegation is that the officials responsible for this program violated the Fourth Amendment and FISA and can be held accountable under the law for those illegal actions.
Rather than respond to the substance of the allegations, the Obama DOJ is instead insisting that courts are barred from considering the claims at all. Why? Because -- it asserted in a Motion to Dismiss it filed on Friday -- to allow the lawsuit to proceed under any circumstances -- no matter the safeguards imposed or specific documents excluded -- "would require the disclosure of highly classified NSA sources and methods about the TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program] and other NSA activities" (page 8). According to the Obama administration, what were once leading examples of Bush's lawlessness and contempt for the Constitution -- namely, his illegal, warrantless domestic spying programs -- are now vital "state secrets" in America's War on Terror, such that courts are prohibited even from considering whether the Government was engaging in crimes when spying on Americans.
Here's an excerpt from the brief filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of the plaintiffs:
Defendant's argument is breathtaking. If the Executive successfully uses the state secrets privilege to dismiss this case at the pleading stage, there will be virtually no check left upon the ability of an overly-aggressive Executive to violate the rights of ordinary Americans.
Here is the response from all the folks--both locally and nationally--who were so stridently agonizing over President Bush's destruction of the US Constitution:
[source]
I wouldn't have drafted the legislation like this, and it does not resolve all of the concerns that we have about President Bush's abuse of executive power. It grants retroactive immunity to telecommunications companies that may have violated the law by cooperating with the Bush administration's program of warrantless wiretapping. This potentially weakens the deterrent effect of the law and removes an important tool for the American people to demand accountability for past abuses.
Here, Glenn Greenwald explains, is the stunning reversal in recent Obama Administration DOJ filings on the issue:
The Obama administration has, yet again, asserted the broadest and most radical version of the "state secrets" privilege -- which previously caused so much controversy and turmoil among loyal Democrats (when used by Bush/Cheney) -- to attempt to block courts from ruling on the legality of the government's domestic surveillance activities. Obama did so again this past Friday -- just six weeks after the DOJ announced voluntary new internal guidelines which, it insisted, would prevent abuses of the state secrets privilege. Instead -- as predicted -- the DOJ continues to embrace the very same "state secrets" theories of the Bush administration -- which Democrats generally and Barack Obama specifically once vehemently condemned -- and is doing so in order literally to shield the President from judicial review or accountability when he is accused of breaking the law.
The case of Shubert v. Bush is one of several litigations challenging the legality of the NSA program, of which the Electronic Frontier Foundation is lead coordinating counsel. The Shubert plaintiffs are numerous American citizens suing individual Bush officials, alleging that the Bush administration instituted a massive "dragnet" surveillance program whereby "the NSA intercepted (and continues to intercept) millions of phone calls and emails of ordinary Americans, with no connection to Al Qaeda, terrorism, or any foreign government" and that "the program monitors millions of calls and emails . . . entirely in the United States . . . without a warrant" (page 4). The lawsuit's central allegation is that the officials responsible for this program violated the Fourth Amendment and FISA and can be held accountable under the law for those illegal actions.
Rather than respond to the substance of the allegations, the Obama DOJ is instead insisting that courts are barred from considering the claims at all. Why? Because -- it asserted in a Motion to Dismiss it filed on Friday -- to allow the lawsuit to proceed under any circumstances -- no matter the safeguards imposed or specific documents excluded -- "would require the disclosure of highly classified NSA sources and methods about the TSP [Terrorist Surveillance Program] and other NSA activities" (page 8). According to the Obama administration, what were once leading examples of Bush's lawlessness and contempt for the Constitution -- namely, his illegal, warrantless domestic spying programs -- are now vital "state secrets" in America's War on Terror, such that courts are prohibited even from considering whether the Government was engaging in crimes when spying on Americans.
Here's an excerpt from the brief filed by the Electronic Frontier Foundation on behalf of the plaintiffs:
Defendant's argument is breathtaking. If the Executive successfully uses the state secrets privilege to dismiss this case at the pleading stage, there will be virtually no check left upon the ability of an overly-aggressive Executive to violate the rights of ordinary Americans.
Here is the response from all the folks--both locally and nationally--who were so stridently agonizing over President Bush's destruction of the US Constitution:
[source]
Red-baiting and vomit: the new face of David Anderson's Delaware Politics
Having remained silent on the continued drift of Delaware Politics toward loonie-land long enough, two recent David Anderson posts simply cannot be ignored.
The mildest is his reportage on the attempt to roll back same-sex marriage in Maine, which is conspicuous by its absence of reporting the tactics being utiized by the proponents of reversing the legislature. Quoth David:
The legislature foisted same sex marriage on the voters of Maine as part of the 6 for 6 campaign. PPP shows a majority of it’s voters are not enthused and the traditional marriage measure may have majority support.
First, I loved the use of the word foisted. The anti-same-sex marriage crowd complains if the institution is supported by the courts [judicial activism], then whines when it is passed by the elected legislators [foisted on the voters], and then suddenly demands an Anschluss-like plebiscite. The Democratic process is only fair when it returns exactly the result they want.
But here's the plank in David's eye: refusing to acknowledge the lengths to which conservative Christians and their leaders are willing to go to subvert the process. From Waldo:
The Catholic Bishop of Portland has been demanding special collections to fund his anti-marriage campaign even as he is closing parish churches for want of money from his million-dollar mansion.
This is David Anderson's America? Where the churches are closing parishes due to lack of money, while demanding extra collections to reverse the legislative process even as some of their own members object?
What about the Bishop of Portland foisting his priorities on the poor people who now won't find food banks or the other traditional Catholic charities available to them because their leaders have decided it's more important to get into politics, and justify their actions by actually asking What Would Jesus Do?
In other news, David has now proudly stooped to Red-baiting other American citizens running for political office, characterizing former the former GOP candidate in New York's 23rd Congressional District as a Commie Lib and opining fatuously:
When you have a card check, gay marriage supporting, tax hiker, big spending, government health care, cap and trade, abortion funding candidate, you have someone that is anathema to the America I love. If you tell me that person is a Republican, you just make me vomit.
Let's check out what makes you anathema to David Anderson's America--stopping first to note the interesting use of that religious reference (Anathema=a formal ecclesiastical curse accompanied by excommunication).
Do you support labor organizing? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Do you believe in same-sex marriage? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Did you agree with the stimulus? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Do you support health insurance reform? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Do you support cap and trade? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Do you support abortion rights? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Ironically, there are several items on the above list that I do not personally support. But to suggest, as folks on the extremes of the Far Left and Far Right are now doing, that to hold a different political opinion somehow makes you less of an American, is not just to fail to understand the Democratic process, but to be actively attempting to subvert it.
Over the past year I have called out people on the Left who have stepped across that line, and I call out David Anderson now.
You have moved into the same dangerous ground so proudly held by extremists of every philosophy that you are the one endangering that which you say you seek to save.
The mildest is his reportage on the attempt to roll back same-sex marriage in Maine, which is conspicuous by its absence of reporting the tactics being utiized by the proponents of reversing the legislature. Quoth David:
The legislature foisted same sex marriage on the voters of Maine as part of the 6 for 6 campaign. PPP shows a majority of it’s voters are not enthused and the traditional marriage measure may have majority support.
First, I loved the use of the word foisted. The anti-same-sex marriage crowd complains if the institution is supported by the courts [judicial activism], then whines when it is passed by the elected legislators [foisted on the voters], and then suddenly demands an Anschluss-like plebiscite. The Democratic process is only fair when it returns exactly the result they want.
But here's the plank in David's eye: refusing to acknowledge the lengths to which conservative Christians and their leaders are willing to go to subvert the process. From Waldo:
The Catholic Bishop of Portland has been demanding special collections to fund his anti-marriage campaign even as he is closing parish churches for want of money from his million-dollar mansion.
This is David Anderson's America? Where the churches are closing parishes due to lack of money, while demanding extra collections to reverse the legislative process even as some of their own members object?
What about the Bishop of Portland foisting his priorities on the poor people who now won't find food banks or the other traditional Catholic charities available to them because their leaders have decided it's more important to get into politics, and justify their actions by actually asking What Would Jesus Do?
In other news, David has now proudly stooped to Red-baiting other American citizens running for political office, characterizing former the former GOP candidate in New York's 23rd Congressional District as a Commie Lib and opining fatuously:
When you have a card check, gay marriage supporting, tax hiker, big spending, government health care, cap and trade, abortion funding candidate, you have someone that is anathema to the America I love. If you tell me that person is a Republican, you just make me vomit.
Let's check out what makes you anathema to David Anderson's America--stopping first to note the interesting use of that religious reference (Anathema=a formal ecclesiastical curse accompanied by excommunication).
Do you support labor organizing? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Do you believe in same-sex marriage? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Did you agree with the stimulus? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Do you support health insurance reform? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Do you support cap and trade? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Do you support abortion rights? David suggests you are a commie lib and not an American.
Ironically, there are several items on the above list that I do not personally support. But to suggest, as folks on the extremes of the Far Left and Far Right are now doing, that to hold a different political opinion somehow makes you less of an American, is not just to fail to understand the Democratic process, but to be actively attempting to subvert it.
Over the past year I have called out people on the Left who have stepped across that line, and I call out David Anderson now.
You have moved into the same dangerous ground so proudly held by extremists of every philosophy that you are the one endangering that which you say you seek to save.
Here's a question for you
First, the set-up about Goldman Sachs' potential violations of securities laws via McClatchy:
WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.
Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.
Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.
Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.
The details are fascinating, and you should read them.
But here's the question:
Since Goldman Sachs is now effectively the US Treasury Department, will it have to waive sovereign immunity for the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute the corporation?
Just asking.
WASHINGTON — In 2006 and 2007, Goldman Sachs Group peddled more than $40 billion in securities backed by at least 200,000 risky home mortgages, but never told the buyers it was secretly betting that a sharp drop in U.S. housing prices would send the value of those securities plummeting.
Goldman's sales and its clandestine wagers, completed at the brink of the housing market meltdown, enabled the nation's premier investment bank to pass most of its potential losses to others before a flood of mortgage defaults staggered the U.S. and global economies.
Only later did investors discover that what Goldman had promoted as triple-A rated investments were closer to junk.
Now, pension funds, insurance companies, labor unions and foreign financial institutions that bought those dicey mortgage securities are facing large losses, and a five-month McClatchy investigation has found that Goldman's failure to disclose that it made secret, exotic bets on an imminent housing crash may have violated securities laws.
The details are fascinating, and you should read them.
But here's the question:
Since Goldman Sachs is now effectively the US Treasury Department, will it have to waive sovereign immunity for the Securities and Exchange Commission to investigate and, if necessary, prosecute the corporation?
Just asking.
The DEA and elderly patients in nursing homes: Government living down to my expectations
You know the Drug Enforcement Administration has for years interfered in the ability of patients in chronic pain to access medical marijuan, but did you know that our Drug Gestapo also interferes in the delivery of prescription pain medication to your elderly relatives in nursing homes?
WaPo:
Heightened efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration to crack down on narcotics abuse are producing a troubling side effect by denying some hospice and elderly patients needed pain medication, according to two Senate Democrats and a coalition of pharmacists and geriatric experts....
The DEA has sought to prevent drug theft and abuse by staff members in nursing homes, requiring signatures from doctors and an extra layer of approvals when certain pain drugs are ordered for sick patients.
The law, however, "fails to recognize how prescribing practitioners and the nurses who work for long-term care facilities and hospice programs actually order prescription medications," Kohl and Whitehouse write. They conclude that delays can lead to "adverse health outcomes and unnecessary rehospitalizations, not to mention needless suffering."
Most nursing homes do not have pharmacies or doctors on site, adding to delays for patients who fall ill late at night or in transition from a hospital.
Yeah, I'm glad we spend bazillions of dollars on a Federal agency to prevent the victimless crime of providing Percosett to senior citizens in completely controlled residential medical environments.
The idea that an occasional nurse might steal a bottle of pain meds is obviously far more important than relieving the pain of tens of thousands of old people.
WaPo:
Heightened efforts by the Drug Enforcement Administration to crack down on narcotics abuse are producing a troubling side effect by denying some hospice and elderly patients needed pain medication, according to two Senate Democrats and a coalition of pharmacists and geriatric experts....
The DEA has sought to prevent drug theft and abuse by staff members in nursing homes, requiring signatures from doctors and an extra layer of approvals when certain pain drugs are ordered for sick patients.
The law, however, "fails to recognize how prescribing practitioners and the nurses who work for long-term care facilities and hospice programs actually order prescription medications," Kohl and Whitehouse write. They conclude that delays can lead to "adverse health outcomes and unnecessary rehospitalizations, not to mention needless suffering."
Most nursing homes do not have pharmacies or doctors on site, adding to delays for patients who fall ill late at night or in transition from a hospital.
Yeah, I'm glad we spend bazillions of dollars on a Federal agency to prevent the victimless crime of providing Percosett to senior citizens in completely controlled residential medical environments.
The idea that an occasional nurse might steal a bottle of pain meds is obviously far more important than relieving the pain of tens of thousands of old people.
Military SF author David Drake on Afghanistan (sort of)
If you don't know who David Drake is, you don't read science fiction. He is a Vietnam vet (with the Blackhorse) whose experiences there caused him literally to recreate military science fiction based on his experiences there. He is the creator of Hammer's Slammers, which is [if its not an oxymoron] some of the most realistic combat writing about wars that never happened that you will ever find.
Recently I have been reading a Baen books reprint of some of Mark Geston's classic SF that has an introduction written a few years back by David Drake. Drake is making the point the he first encountered Geston's work on returning from Vietnam, which causes him to take a four paragraph detour into Vietnam as an American experience.
What strikes me about this piece is what would happen if you changed the names.
Vietnam = Afghanistan
Eisenhower = Bush
Lebanon = Iraq
JFK/LBJ = Obama
McNamara = Gates
Westmoreland = McChrystal
Here's the original; you make the changes yourself:
When I entered college in 1963, the Vietnam War was a squabble in a distant place. There'd been similar squabbles in my memory--rather a bad one in Lebanon, for example--but that had been with Eisenhower as President. Now our president was Kennedy and shortly Johnson; and perhaps more important their Secretary of Defense was Robert S. McNamara, a technocrat and a monster.
By the time I got my undergraduate degree in 1967, Vietnam was a storm that had broken over America and the world, shredding society and bodies. Tens of thousands of Americans had died, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese.
That war was building without plan or purpose. Each previous failure was used as the reason for a further, greater effort; which would fail in turn, as by then everybody knew it would fail.
General Westmoreland announced light at the end of the tunnel, shortly before the tunnel collapsed on him in the form of the Tet Offensive. Politicians lied--to themselves, first, I believe, but to everyone else as well. And the war went on and would go on, and on. There was no end, and no hope.
What struck me most about this segment was
1) We have not yet withstood the Taliban's version of the Tet Offensive, which was ultimately North Vietnam's greatest military defeat and greatest political victory. We may not see one in that form because the Taliban insurgency is a somewhat different kind of opponent than North Vietnam. But I think it would be foolish to assume that if President Obama decides on a massive escalation of the Afghan War that we will not see some military response designed to kick in before the reinforcements arrive. It may actually have already started, but our media is far worse at war reporting today than it was in 1968. Strange, huh?
2) I think that the defense/industrial establishment learned more lessons from Vietnam than the anti-war movement did. What we see in Afghanistan, and how it is packaged for us in the corporate media is a result of those lessons learned, and intentionally keeps slaughter in that part of the world from becoming as visceral a part of the American consciousness as did Vietnam unwinding on the evening news in 1967-72. When people question why there is no strong anti-war movement today, I think the simple answer is that a strong anti-war movement depends on at least the silent support of a significant portion of our citizenry, which is achieved by constant access to the major media outlets. The new anti-war movement by and large doesn't understand that it was castrated before it began, and seems not to realize that media coverage of demonstrations is more important than the demonstrations themselves [a lesson, ironically, that Tea Partiers understand quite well. How times change.].
Recently I have been reading a Baen books reprint of some of Mark Geston's classic SF that has an introduction written a few years back by David Drake. Drake is making the point the he first encountered Geston's work on returning from Vietnam, which causes him to take a four paragraph detour into Vietnam as an American experience.
What strikes me about this piece is what would happen if you changed the names.
Vietnam = Afghanistan
Eisenhower = Bush
Lebanon = Iraq
JFK/LBJ = Obama
McNamara = Gates
Westmoreland = McChrystal
Here's the original; you make the changes yourself:
When I entered college in 1963, the Vietnam War was a squabble in a distant place. There'd been similar squabbles in my memory--rather a bad one in Lebanon, for example--but that had been with Eisenhower as President. Now our president was Kennedy and shortly Johnson; and perhaps more important their Secretary of Defense was Robert S. McNamara, a technocrat and a monster.
By the time I got my undergraduate degree in 1967, Vietnam was a storm that had broken over America and the world, shredding society and bodies. Tens of thousands of Americans had died, and hundreds of thousands of Vietnamese.
That war was building without plan or purpose. Each previous failure was used as the reason for a further, greater effort; which would fail in turn, as by then everybody knew it would fail.
General Westmoreland announced light at the end of the tunnel, shortly before the tunnel collapsed on him in the form of the Tet Offensive. Politicians lied--to themselves, first, I believe, but to everyone else as well. And the war went on and would go on, and on. There was no end, and no hope.
What struck me most about this segment was
1) We have not yet withstood the Taliban's version of the Tet Offensive, which was ultimately North Vietnam's greatest military defeat and greatest political victory. We may not see one in that form because the Taliban insurgency is a somewhat different kind of opponent than North Vietnam. But I think it would be foolish to assume that if President Obama decides on a massive escalation of the Afghan War that we will not see some military response designed to kick in before the reinforcements arrive. It may actually have already started, but our media is far worse at war reporting today than it was in 1968. Strange, huh?
2) I think that the defense/industrial establishment learned more lessons from Vietnam than the anti-war movement did. What we see in Afghanistan, and how it is packaged for us in the corporate media is a result of those lessons learned, and intentionally keeps slaughter in that part of the world from becoming as visceral a part of the American consciousness as did Vietnam unwinding on the evening news in 1967-72. When people question why there is no strong anti-war movement today, I think the simple answer is that a strong anti-war movement depends on at least the silent support of a significant portion of our citizenry, which is achieved by constant access to the major media outlets. The new anti-war movement by and large doesn't understand that it was castrated before it began, and seems not to realize that media coverage of demonstrations is more important than the demonstrations themselves [a lesson, ironically, that Tea Partiers understand quite well. How times change.].
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