No Dictation

When the Bush administration talks about “immunity”, it is themselves they are worried about. Most of the “detainees” are innocent people picked up randomly, or as in this case, turned in for cash or favors. Even when their innocence has been accepted and confirmed by our own intelligence services, the American torture system does not know what to do with these traumatized people.

It is coming out and it is ugly. Any American citizen that still fools themselves that Guantanamo only holds “bad actors”, as Cheney likes to say, must be deliberately planted head first in sand… or too distracted, texting in their choice for American Idol.

Only the delirium of nationalistic fever could create this nightmare.

The war on terror is hogwash, and the evening news is like coming attractions for Orwell’s Hate Night.

“Radical Shia blah blah blah” “Radical Insurgant blah blah blah”…

Angry men with guns? Yes.

What if the Iraqis freed us from Bush? He does have weapons of etc. etc., he is an eminent threat. What if they built a green zone around Washington?

What would they be calling you?

I would be “Radical Jewish Catholic Female”…

The biggest impediment to war is the compassion of the American people. That compassion has been exploited and misdirected. The war must be kept noble and worthy until the Oil Law is signed, OOPS I mean the BENCH MARKS… the bench marks have been reached. Once that happens the entire narrative will be different.

Dick Kazan, on his blog The Ramblings of a Sane Man (www.SaneRamblings.com), writes an excellent scenario of what the story would look like if it were reversed.

I added a new page to the left below the bumper stickers. It has the newest 10 videos from the real news site.

I heard an interesting insight the other day on some show. The Right Wing keeps talking about spreading Freedom and Democracy. Well this person cleared up the disconnect between those of us who see Freedom and Democracy as: Freedom, meaning freedom from tyranny, and Democracy meaning having Constitution, a democratically elected government, a Bill of rights etc.

WRONG! The Right Wing means Freedom as in the freedom to do what ever business wants or needs to do to make a profit, with no over sight or regulation. Democracy means unfettered capitalism. Government leaves you alone if you are making huge profits which pay for election campaigns, and the government uses the tax payers money to bail you out when it all goes horribly wrong on Wall Street. That is what the Right Wing wants to spread. Now their concern about spreading Freedom and Democracy makes sense.

With Democracy you have these well behaved citizens who keep paying their taxes and providing a steady cash flow. That kind of freedom also works well with Dictatorships/Fascism/Corporatism which is why we love China and Saudi Arabia, but the Bush loyalists wouldn’t enjoy saying we are spreading Freedom and Fascism.

I hope we don’t go the way of some of the Democracies where we exported our brand of freedom. There was so much freedom, things like electricity and water got privatized/corporatized. Citizens get ugly when they can’t afford to drink water. Ugly citizens don’t deserve Democracy, so until they can behave, dictators get supported—to preserve freedom. Not the ‘Freedom from Tyranny’ kind of freedom… the other kind.

John Perkins in Economic Hitman laid it all out, I just didn’t get it that “Freedom and Democracy”, depending on your political outlook, could be so distorted.

Speaking of John Perkins, I found a series of lectures on Veterans for Peace. I put them on their own page. Perkin’s book and Naomi Klein’s, Shock Doctrine force you to observe world events as they unfold, in a more inquiring way. It becomes impossible to unquestionably digest the the thin gruel narrated by the TV News.

Great Music Video that grows on you

Only Barack could inspire this…

I am sorry but this song was actually stuck in my head the other night as I was cleaning up after work. Has there ever been a candidate that gets us to be this silly? We all want him to be everything…

Barack Obama at The Cooper Union Building

Obama with concrete policies and … surprise, eloquence!

Finally it is on line. I was lucky to catch most of it live on CNN.com, but heard from the blogs that the beginning was great. Oh by the way, this crap that Bush is spouting, check out Juan Cole’s blog for the middle East. It is on the Blogroll to the left.

Obama Yes We Can Music Tribute by Will.I.Am

Obama speech set to music

This is old news, but I am waiting for the speech Obama gave today on Economics to be put up on line. I came across the parody of this video. The one based on one of McCain’s speeches instead of Obama’s and decided to post both of these videos.

McCain- Parody of the Yes We Can tribute to Obama

Like Hope but Different

No you Can’t

One more parody

Phil Donahue on the War Coverage by the Corporate Owned Media

Brought to you by The Real News.com

Phil Donahue had an award winning show. The first real talk show that dealt with controversial issues. His show was cancelled when he became the only voice on network television to speak out aginst the Iraq war. Donahue and Ellen Spiro have also produced a documentary about a wounded veteran that was preveiwed on Bill Moyer’s Journal. You can hear them talk about it here:
Body of War on Bill Moyer’s Journal

Bill Richardson

Chris Mathews getting it!

Teaching art all week, so a little news starved. Here is a link to Richardson before his endorsement of Obama. He is at a University and tells a nice story about the debates and being on stage with Obama:Bill Richardson informal talk

Barack Obama: ‘A More Perfect Union’

A speech on Race

Anyone who doesn’t get EVERYTHING that Obama brought up in his speech on the 18th is deliberately not getting it. No one can really be offended by any of it and I think the pundits who pick it apart, scattering blood for the sharks are idiots. But, even worse are the people who parrot their opinions without the respect of a listen. HOW can someone have an opinion about it if they haven’t heard it for themselves?!?

The bobbleheads on 24 hour news channels talk about mistakes to any guest they can invite. There were no mistakes in this speech. Would they look for mistakes in the Gettysburg address? The “I have a Dream” speech? This speech is like that. Written by the man himself, delivered to a whole planet at a time of great need. This is so beyond politics.

Reverend Wright

Here is the speech in full, have the courage to listen all the way through:

People who say Obama’s former pastor was talking hate should listen to Rev. Wright’s whole sermon. If one is not looking for blood, one can hear that he is saying God never changes. God doesn’t change even to suit the governments of countries. Fact: Governments DO change and fall and have done so since the beginning of time. In that context he is saying that God doesn’t bless a country that is killing innocent people. No matter what the justification of us mere mortals. No! Instead God damns all injustice. In that context you have the “God Damn America” that was played all over the news.

People can say “God bless” all they want, but God doesn’t change. If you believe in God  which I will leave alone in this post  then you might understand that there are no exceptions made by God.

Some Americans hide behind nationalism and exceptionalism to justify bad behavior. To those Americans the Reverend’s words are difficult to hear. They believe America is always right and Americans are super heros that are always good. To those Americans the words would seem hateful. Even though grasping more than one concept at a time is a skill the politicians think we lack, most Americans can recognize the good in America while still having a strong desire to right what is wrong.That is not hatred of America, that is passionate hatred of injustice. Rev. Wright is RIGHT When heard in context…

Maureen Dowd thinks she is being pithy when she called the Reverend a “Wack-a-doodle” in her column (article). How dare she?

Here is a great link for a better look at the wonderful UCC church Trinity:
truthabouttrinity.blogspot.com

Here is a letter Reverend Wright wrote to the NY Times after an interview in which he thought they were doing a “spiritual biography” of Barack Obama, about who he said “For two hours, I shared with you how I thought he was the most principled individual in public service that I have ever met.” They wrote a hit piece based on 5-7 minutes of conversation which they distorted. (Read the letter)

note:

Jerry Falwell— so respected by the white community and  treated as a spiritual leader—  said this in reference to the towers coming down:

“I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way all of them who tried to secularize America I point the finger in their face and say you helped this happen.”

Now that is hatred!

just sayin