Stars And Stripes Salute To The Troops

by: Foiled Goil

Peek-a-Boo Politics

by: Dark Wraith

Too Good to Pass Up

by: blackdog

Just spoke with Farmer Bob and life seems a bit better. So I offer this, I know I may have worn this out some but so what, this is a pretty neat ending.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BD55AUdfcc

The whole mini-series followed the book rather well, usually a rare thing.

Spoke with a mule earlier, that was great as well, didn't know I could speak mule.

Everyone have a great holiday, whether you like it or not. Deb's tomatoes should be ripe by now.

Yeah, I know, I've worn it out, but this just may be the best part of the whole show, I think it's simply beautiful.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FpecbDRyHLQ&feature=related

And if I don't get some fried squash and onions tomorrow, then there will be hell to pay! A deviled egg or two would be nice as well, I only eat them if prepared by family, or very close friends, or me. And several big fat slices of beefsteak tomatoes, with some potato salad thrown in, maybe a chunk of ham. That's not asking too much, is it?

I must be hungry, the Woof has lots of chow, but I've been surviving the last few days on peanut butter and crackers. I've actually been looking into his bowl with envy lately.

I Started This as a Comment

by: Minstrel Boy

and it seems to have turned into a post. I'm stuck at the Mazda dealership while the ride gets some nicks in the windshield and a blinking warning light (warning of what has yet to be determined) get tracked down and fixed.

The previous post on torture and SERE training has been provoking some great responses. Thank you for your thoughts. It's good to hear from people like Mike that SERE training has evolved. It's still something that sorrows me when I realize that something that was designed to train people in resisting maltreatment has become the basis for our own behavior.

That goes against the wisdom of men like Pericles, who warned the Athenians at the beginning of the war with Sparta that if they allowed the war to change who they were as a city and a people that the Spartans would be the victors regardless of any outcomes on the battlefield.

It goes against the wisdom and actions of great leaders and generals like Grant (let 'em up easy, was his watchword with the defeated southerners), and Sherman (not many folks know that the legendary "40 acres and a mule" policy was Sherman's. He did not have the supply lines capable of dealing with former slaves, now liberated who wanted to tag along with his army sweeping through the south. Sherman's policy was to first burn the great houses, and then divide the property up among those slaves who had worked it for the profit of others. Rough justice indeed, but very just to my thinking).

Mike: so what really needs to be taught? In a combat situation folks should already be aware that there are people who will fuck with them. It wasn't so much the lessons, but the relish with which the guys in the opfor conducted them. that was the most disgusting part. Also, these lessons were given to prepare us to resist some of the vilest motherfuckers on earth. The men who did these things in Pongyang, Hanoi, Haiphong, Laos and other shitholes of despair were the pure banal face of evil. My outrage also rests with Ranger, in that these assholes are now doing this to others in our name.

Torture and mistreatment produces lies. It hardens the resolve of the enemy and ensures that any of ours who are captured will be treated with all the violence at the command of angry and wronged people. When they know that they will be raped with brooms and plumbing tools in Abu Ghraib or disappeared into a vacuum of offshore dungeons or third world battery shops no soldier with an ounce of will would ever surrender. My main lesson from SERE was that there was no fucking way in the blue eyed world that I would ever allow capture. I would not assume the passive, get along/go along stance that they tried to instill. I would fight with every loose limb, every last tooth, I would make it easier for them to fucking kill me. I would do that fast, hard, and unceasingly. That's where torture took me. Right fucking there.

Washington, by taking his stand, proved that point. During the battle of Long Island and New York, the Hessians especially, were brutal and violent to captured or wounded Continental soldiers. They tormented them with shit like heated bayonets, tying them naked across the barrels of artillery pieces which were then fired, the report of the guns would permantly deafen the unfortunates while they were horribly burned by the brass barrells. Often, a wounded soldier would be hauled to a sitting position and spiked to a tree or a wall with a bayonet and left hanging there to die painfully and slow.

Needless to say, when a Hessian surrendered, the captors often felt like they possessed a justified and reasonable agenda to give back the same treatment.

We were all, as a people and nation, lucky that among Washington's favorite books was Thucyides' The Pelopponneisian War. Washington could cite passages from that work. He could quote Pericles' warning to the Athenian Assembly. He would cite the passages that showed how the Athenians time and again ignored that advice to their own detriment and damage.

Washington issued orders forbidding the torture or mistreatment of prisoners. He established a system for the Hessians which would allow them to lay down arms and move onto the then frontier of Western Pennsylvania where there were already communities of German speaking settlers and farmers.

Word travels fast in war. When it spread among the Hessian rank and file that there was land for the asking, decent treatment and aid in establishing a new life as a property owner from the rebels, the next flogging dealt out by a drumhead court, or the next beating from a Sergeant began to weigh heavy. The Hessian privates began to ask themselves "Why should I endure these hardships for the profit of a Duke I have never met?" Hessian squads and companies began to desert en masse as units, bringing their arms and stores. Their descendants still populate the hills of Western Pennsylvania and the entire Ohio valley.

Think what might happen instead if we were to not just stop the tortures, but repudiate those who did the torturing, those who commanded the tortures be done. These people need to be hauled out of their dungeons into the light of the bar of justice. This needs to be done for all the world to see.

I doubt that it could be something done under the U.S. legal system. That might have been already too degraded and too hopelessly corrupted. Our own system of legal justice might not have any credibility left in the eyes of the world. I would suggest that the torturers and their bosses be arrested and turned over to the World Court of the Hague. Let justice prevail.

That is the only way out of this for our nation. I doubt that any among us have the moral courage, much less the will to do the dirty work of drawing the lines and taking the stands for what used to be simple human decency.

I truly grieve more than I rage. Something that was a thing of beauty and spirit has been discarded.

harp and sword

In The Spirit Of '76

by: Foiled Goil

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government.


In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

McSame Ol' Doubletalk Express

by: Foiled Goil

So... McCain denies that he ever said he doesn't understand economics??

Umm... Yo, Johnny:

McSame is Getting More Same

by: Konagod

I told myself I was going to ignore politics for the rest of my life during my 5-days off, but this just gives me heart a flutter. McCain has put Steve Schmidt in charge of day-to-day operations in the midst of the 2nd campaign shakeup in a year.

Mr. Schmidt is a veteran of President Bush’s 2004 re-election campaign and he worked closely with Karl Rove, who was Mr. Bush’s political adviser. His installation at Mr. McCain’s headquarters sharply diminished the responsibilities of Rick Davis, who has been Mr. McCain’s campaign manager since the last shake-up nearly a year ago.

This next bit just cracks me up.

The shift was approved by Mr. McCain after several aides, including Mr. Schmidt, warned him about 10 days ago that he was in danger of losing the presidential election unless he revamped his campaign operation, according to two officials close to the campaign.

And now, another step in the direction of Bush 2004 is going to save his ass?

Wow. Just when I was getting pissed off at Obama for various and sundry things, suddenly all is forgiven.

Crossposted from konagod

They Don't Even Plagiarize From the Best

by: Minstrel Boy

This really isn't big fucking news. In The Torture Team, Philippe Sands explains in great detail how the current techniques of American Torture were mostly cribbed from the SERE training from the Armed Forces. As someone who went through SERE, let me speak from experience. It was sadistic bullshit run by sick fucking bullies. It was some real REMF puke sons of bitches getting their jollies off by acting like a bunch of swaggering pieces of shit. It accomplished jack fucking shit. It didn't train anybody in any kind of knowledge except that there were a lot of pissant low rent bastards who wore the same uniforms as us. Fuck SERE. Fuck their instructors. Fuck the shitheel dog breathed pissants who thought it up, fuck the horse they rode in on, the mail they carry, and the stamps they sell. It was nothing but a waste of time.

Oh, and by the way, it was developed to combat the torture leading to False Confessions that was done by the Communist Chinese, the North Koreans, and the Vietnamese.

Still, it was fucking bullshit. Worthless fucking bullshit.

Now, we find that our own Dear Leader did not take George Washington as his guide for Commander-In-Chief. Washington hated torture and absolutely forbade it. George Washington insisted that the Continental Army treat its prisoners with dignity and the honor that is due to fellow soldiers. George W. Bush didn't take MacArthur for his guide. Bush didn't model his policy toward prisoners on the policies of Grant, Lincoln, Pershing, Eisenhower, Marshall, or Patton. No, George W. Bush thinks that all those great Americans were stupid, weak pansies. He models his policy on the deeds of Mao Zedong

He doesn't even have the stones to model the best. Consider Tomás de Torquemada. Now that motherfucker knew how to fucking torture! He got folks, mostly women, or people of property that he wanted the fucking property, to confess to all kinds of beautiful stuff. Dancing with the devil in the pale moonlight, fucking demons, blowing goats just like Mickey Kause.

Tomás de Torquemada could get anybody to say anything and did. One of his most pure expressions of mercy was to promise to strangle the penitents before the fires were lit to save them from the horrors of burning and then not do that.

Who says he didn't have a wickedly sophisticated sense of humor on top of everything else?

I thought I had exceeded my limits of outrage and disgust with the current state of affairs in this country.

I. Was. Wrong.

I don't even want to know what's next.

harp and sword

Happy Blogversarry to Group News Blog!

by: Minstrel Boy

Group News Blog has been carrying on the spirit and mission of the late Steve Gilliard.

Gilly was one of my biggest inspirations in writing and blogging. He was a polymath who was into everything. He did so many different genres with wit, style, and most of all beauty. He was a bigtime, A-list, top of the line blogger, who took the time to respond to personal emails.

Gilly was, to use the apache, Itisgoh (he who is given honor).

Jesse Wendell, Hubris Sonic, Sara and Evan Robinson, The Littlest Gator and the absolutely brilliant and impressive LowerManhattanite have not filled Gilly's shoes. No, they have done one better. They have put on their own shoes, filled them very well, and kept up the fight.

They have been given Press Credentials for the Denver shindig. You can hit a PayPal button to help the fund this.

It would be worth a few bucks just to see what happens live blogging the Nancy Pelosi Question Time.

Please, give them a shout of encouragement. Toss some cash if you can. If you can't they will understand. Encouraging words are always welcome. Discouraging words are against the Code of the West and will not be tolerated, just like rudeness.

harp and sword

Mortar Man

by: Dark Wraith

I went to the shoe store in town, this evening. That's where a former student of mine works. He promised to give me a great deal on some shoes The ones I'm wearing I've had for about three years, and it's getting hard to glue what's left of the soles back on.

This former student of mine is in the National Guard. He had told me late last Spring his stint would be up in early September. He's been working hard to finish his Bachelor's degree and get down to living a good life with the woman he's planning to marry. She's a CPA, and the two of them are quite a sight together: she's just as pretty as a model and so sweet; he's handsome and muscular, with a boyish grin that hasn't disappeared even though he's killed more than his share of people in several tours of duty in Iraq.

So I went into the shoe store looking for him. The manager recognized me and came right over. He's seen me in there a few times; I like to stop in where former students work just to see how they're doing, and this manager got to know me while we all stood around chatting. (A few of my other former students work there, too.)

The manager, John, said, "Looking for Steve?"

"Is he here tonight?"

John had this serious look on his face, almost a frown. "Steve got stop lossed. He's about to be deployed."

For a few seconds, I was dumbfounded.

John stood there, arms folded, looking down. I found my tongue and almost snarled, "Where?"

"Dunno," John answered, "I'd like to say he's heading back to Iraq."

"Iraq? Steve's a glorified cannon cocker. He's good — But short stuff? Now?" I protested.

John shook his head: "Steve's scared."

I leaned a little bit toward John and said, "This is about Iran."

"All I know is, Steve's scared," John insisted.

I sort of turned toward the big front windows of the store and grumbled pretty loudly, "Steve's a mortar specialist. What the Hell, man?"

"Guess they're short on rocket shooters," John snorted.

"Mortars don't go all that far," I said.

John perked up a little: "Hey, I was a grunt. Mortars fly farther than bullets."

"Either way, you're not talking about airstrikes," I grumbled.

"Well, someone's got to do the real fighting once the flyboys have done their show," John added.

After that exchange, we both just stood there looking out those big front windows.

John finally said, "Hey, listen, why don't you look through the clearance shoes back in the back and see if there's anything you like. I'll do you a good deal on 'em."

I thanked him and went back there. Unfortunately, the only pair in my size looked like pimp-daddy specials.

I went back up front and thanked John for the offer. He told me they'd have some more shoes on clearance this weekend.

I walked out through the big front doors and stopped at the sidewalk. I swear, I thought about turning around to see if Steve would be standing in the store with that big, boyish grin he always had when he saw me coming in. He seemed to figure he was getting a chance to give me a deal on shoes to thank me for getting him through all his math classes. He wasn't very good at math, but he never failed a test if I gave him an hour or two of tutoring the day before.

Steve is a loyal fellow: loyal to his friends, loyal to his God, loyal to his President, loyal to his country.

He's about to walk into what might be the jaws of death. Apparently, he knows it, but he's still going to do it.

That makes him a damn fine soldier.


I think I'll keep these shoes I'm wearing for a while longer. Three years ago, Steve gave me a really great deal on them.

---

A Weak Moment

by: blackdog

Still playing escape, so far it's working.With all the bullshit out there I find solace in places like this.



Once upon a time things were better, a rabbit and I watched this with rapt attention with all kinds of critters and had a great time, even though ray-gun was idiot-in-chief.

Where has our sense of humor or for that matter our sense of intelligence gone?

Sorry for the shitty quality of the pics, but right now I'm damn lucky to even be on line at all.

For better or worse I sent this to the rabbit, her 'puter is even more worse off than mine, so it may be a while before she sees it. But it seems important to me at this time to make these contacts with her.

I tread gently. And as a gentledog.

And I do so much recommend the book.

Pt2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hr2d1JElPgI&feature=related

Pt3. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ad2mLHC5ZiM&feature=related


I leave the rest to all of you, but this was more in the spirit of Ray Bradbury than anything else put to film.

Bradbury is one of the best, and to get his magic, his nuance and innuendo on film is a very impressive feat.

The magic of a young person's imagination, when it is still a special and wonderful thing, pure and questing for truth in a forest of deceit.

It was so wonderful to imagine that life like ours existed maybe on Mars and Venus back in the 50's and even into the 60's, until better scientific information from the Mariner and Viking probes told us otherwise. Observational evidence was also accumulating, but it was more difficult to provide proof at the time. Amazing how things have changed.

Now I'll shut up for a while.

Poof! Went the hopes and dreams of one little fellow.

On the RadarCalifornia Having Hard Time Killing People; Supreme Court Having Hard Time

by: Missouri Mule

Duly Noted

California now takes between 20 and 25 years to kill off one of their many pesky death row inmates. (The state also has 30 prisoners who have been there more than 25 years.) Still, sooner or later they get 'em—after all, the average age of arrest is just 28. (Really takes the fun out of it though, when they're all old!) In short, California is finding that it is not spending enough money to kill people and so the whole system is lurching into a shambles. But it's good news for the rest of the country!

The Supreme Court ruled back in April that lethal injection was so totally not cruel and unusual, and so a killing spree began across the nation. Whee!

Except it turns out the Court don't read so good. And a couple of academics show up on the Washington Post editorial page to dispute the Court's reckless misreadings of research:

A prominent line of reasoning, endorsed by several justices, holds that if capital punishment fails to deter crime, it serves no useful purpose and hence is cruel and unusual, violating the Eighth Amendment. This reasoning tracks public debate as well. While some favor the death penalty on retributive grounds, many others (including President Bush) argue that the only sound reason for capital punishment is to deter murder.
And:
Justice Stevens argues, "In the absence of such evidence, deterrence cannot serve as a sufficient penological justification for this uniquely severe and irrevocable punishment." Perhaps. But the absence of evidence of deterrence should not be confused with evidence of absence.
Got that? Nobody knows yet if killing people keeps people from killing people. Except, you know, after they're dead. Dead people don't kill people ever.

Sometimes I Think That I Might Be

by: Minstrel Boy

A better commenter than blogger. It's a more immediate forum. It's quicker, sometimes, more personal. When I read something and feel compelled to comment it is often a rush of emotion, or a product of quick critical thinking.

Case in point, Lisa and Ranger Jim at Ranger Against War chose to take a comment I made and turn it into an entire post.

I was responding to a Thank You post that Jim made.

Jim and Lisa have been doing yeoman service at their blog in Florida. Jim is also a combat veteran of both special ops and Vietnam. He thinks in a very different manner than most rank and file. No wonder I like him.

Thanks for the recognition. Thanks for the notice.

Thanks for the good work ya'll are doing.

Carry on.

harp and sword

WTF?

by: Foiled Goil

Bush praises McCain for Expansion of the GI Bill that he had no part in: Say, what?

John Amato:

What the heck is Bush smoking? [...]

This is rank dishonesty by Bush and maybe the straight talker will correct the record for Bush. You know, since he’s such a straight talker.

Here's Countdown with Senator Jim Webb and Keith Olbermann discussing the New GI Bill:




And here is more of the great MSM coverage of the truth:

A Mean Kind of Justice

by: Minstrel Boy

A song by Carrie Newcomer has been running through my head.

My usual techniques for when a song gets stuck haven't had any success. When I was hard into the jingle whoring I found that if I had a song, and it happened all the time, one of those incessantly intrusive advertising jingles would climb into my head and torture me like I was an Arab from Jordan who was stupid enough to have a two year old passport stamp from Pakistan and then tried to go through US customs. The most effective technique is to play it all the way through. Then, I'd repeat that the same way I would repeat holding my breath to handle a case of hiccups.

Not lately. I read something in the paper, or the web, or catch a snippet of dialogue from the TV or radio and I hear Carrie's harsh and beautiful lyrics. I can't find a downloadable or uploadable (I get so confused sometimes anyway the upshot is that I can't fucking post the song here) version of this song. I urge you to do some looking. Give Ms. Newcomer a listen.

Here's what's been happening.

I read Preparing the Battlefield by Seymore Hersch, about how Bush and Cheney are trying to cement their legacies by starting yet another, this time bigger, and probably more disasterous war. Then I hear Carrie start singing. . .

There's a ring around the moon,
There's a chill in the air.
There's a mean kind of justice,
Coming down coming down.

Then I read about how John McCain is all butt hurt because Wes Clark questions whether or not simply getting your ass shot down and being captured is really a qualification for being President. Frankly, I've questioned the same thing. McCain always brings up his record as a Naval Officer, and with the exception of his time as a POW, it's not anything to shout about. He was an indifferent student who used family connections to get into the academy, his performance while a middie would have gotten anyone else who wasn't the son and grandson of admirals sent for a four year tour of chipping grey paint in the fleet. McCain graduated near the bottom of his class and got jets. His position of highest command was as a prisoner. I don't hold the fact that he made a "confession" or even the video tape he made under extreme duress against him, I would defy anyone to hold out as long as he did. I know, everybody breaks. His performance as a prisoner under horrific conditions shows me where his heart was. I'll give him props, sailor to sailor, he did the best he could in a situation where a great many did worse.

Does that alone qualify him to be President?

Nope.

Angels wring their hands and put ashes on their heads.
There's a mean kind of justice coming down.
It don't ever stop a thing,
An eye for eye, tic for tat.
And I've never seen nobody truly satisfied like that.
It just rolls around the head eating holes in your heart.
There's a mean kind of justice coming down.

Then I make my weekly stop at James Howard Kunstler's blog on the economy Clusterfuck Nation and read about how there's a good chance that the coming economic meltdown will make 1929 look like a bush league game.

There is a goodness on this earth
That will not die will not die.
It bears all, and seen it all, and still it survives.
I know that we have failed,

After all, Barclay's Bank is losing faith in the Federal Reserve.

But I I've seen that we can fly.
There's goodness on this earth that will not die.
Oh no, forgiveness never sleeps.
But the devil wants its due and says human life is cheap .
When we give up any hope we could ever change the past ,
Then at last. . .

Then, all it takes is to see another made-up furor in the political realm and I'm off into the chorus, repeat and fade. . .

There's a ring around the moon,
There's a chill on the breeze.
There's somebody with their hands clasped,
Down on their knees.
Angels hold their breath for what might set them free.
There's a mean kind of justice coming down

I encourage you to track this song down, drop a few pennies into Carrie's purse and get it for your own.

harp and sword