Memorial Day Meditation

Dick
Seriously. I heard that when I was a kid and thought it was ridiculous. Who would purposely make themselves a martyr?

I could never take it further than defending our shores & even that can lead into paranoid ideation (like the Militiamen).

Defending corporate interests? Maybe. But defending our "way of life"? Against Communism? (& now Terrorism?)

All it ever did was make me curious about "the enemy."

It made (& makes) no more sense than taking literally the snake in the garden or lining up animals (but no dinosaurs or germs) into a boat. In both cases, the only surviving people are related to each other which means incest.

No way.

You can imagine I got into alot of arguments with my parents, teachers and especially ministers. & now I don't even bother to argue with people who hold such beliefs.

First of all, most of the things I associate with Freedom, Peace, Liberty and Justice are becoming illegal! & Democracy as we theorize (but no longer recognize) does not fit in with the cultural mindset of the whole world.

It is physically and spiritually impossible to impose democracy.

You cannot "spread" freedom, liberty etc. like peanut butter.

The comment I'm responding to, to me, is what the public and especially the military personnel are brainwashed with.

We "liberate" ourselves.

More civilians shot by US military - this time in Afghanistan Iran, recently not months ago with investigation, & now riots complete with "Death to America."
http://www.metimes.com/articles/normal.php?StoryID=20060529-073423-1748r

Tragic (3 pages). We are in big trouble now.
http://today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-05-29T130413Z_01_ISL233894_RTRUKOC_0_US-AFGHAN-PROTEST.xml

Descent into anarchy. Military having to go into bunkers. Convoy drove into dozens of vehicles, went out of control. Convoys have reputation for reckless driving.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/29/AR2006052900284.html

Number casualties disputed but the damage is done. Imagine middle east/world media!
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,1785358,00.html

"Crowd wanted to skin us alive" - on the spot report.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2201946,00.html

Also see Jason Leopold (last thread) on Bush links to Enron.

Considering the fact that American freedoms have never been, strictly speaking, materially at risk in any of the conflicts that it has become militarily engaged in since the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, the phrase is either intellectually dishonest or the product of an overly romantic mindset.

Even the Japanese had no serious intention of "invading" and "occupying" the United States, or restricting Americans' freedoms (but rather the goal of enlarging their own sphere of influence in the Pacific).

The tragedy for me is that a substantial segment of the American public has proven itself incapable of critical thinking, and of separating romantic notions and paranoia from facts.

Watch Al Gore "live" at 11 PM PST
http://books.guardian.co.uk/hay2006/algore

It's not surprising that governments try to cloak war-making with a coat of glory. But tributes to glory hide a deeper question: why did any particular war take place in the first place?

Even a "good" war like World War II can't escape this question: why did we end up in a place where the only solution was a conflict that killed tens of millions of people? What was it about the way the governments of the world handled the run-up to the war that made the carnage inevitable?

Barbara Tuchman's The Guns of August shows in detail how governments made one stupid decision after another until World War I became almost inevitable.

What was so wrong in Europe and the U.S. that no one countered Hitler's war-making preparations?

I am grateful for everyone who fought against Hitler, once he got out of the box. But their bravery and sacrifice is no substitute for the bravery and intelligence of leaders who keep us out of unnecessary wars.

Well my dad fought the Japanese (they called them "the Japs").
I asked why we needed to kill civilians by thousands at Hiroshima & Nagasaki, with atomic bombs! He said it was either them or us. We argued about this endlessly & never resolved it.
I told him he had been brainwashed.

Meanwhile, I was always trying to imagine how some sneaky Communist subversives were going to somehow infiltrate and convince people to give up their stuff and live communally, in America. & of course, lived with Mutually Assured Destruction, always thinking about the two leaders with their finger on the red button, & scenarios of who would blow up whose city first, leading to destruction & irradiation of the whole planet.

When the Berlin Wall fell, when US & the Soviets descaled their nukes somewhat, when our wars were on/off - it seemed maybe things were trending better. There was awareness about the environment, human rights. Sometimes I dared to think our children might have it better.

"The War To End All Wars" - more mythology or propoganda.
"Lessons Learned from Vietnam" - where?!

& yes - how did Hitler build the war machine with no one stopping it?

History repeats itself.

There goes a CBS film crew. Iraq, this time.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/29/AR2006052900436.html

Where are all these "milestones" & "progress" we hear about?!

Excellent question by Monkey; food for serious thought.

Inadequate in seriousness , but at least broadly on the same theme, I call attention to this week's top-ten conservative-idiot list
http://www.democraticunderground.com
which has some particularly good zingers: chris matthews deservedly heads the list; W. is #2 (with apt comments by Tony Blair). Be sure to check out the key: the icon-definitions alone can serve as a partial answer to Monkey's important question.

Here is what we are fighting for:

http://realestate.theemiratesnetwork.com/developments/dubai/world_islands.php

Watch the video.

US out of the middle east. That means Halliburton too.

FOCUS | Stewart Nusbaumer: Kabul Erupts in Gunfire
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906Y.shtml
Today in Kabul the veneer of national progress was ripped off, leaving several Afghanis dead and many more wounded and sending this capital city into a lockdown. Four and a half years after the US military-led offensive successfully overthrew the Taliban government, which was protecting Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda, Kabul has erupted in gunfire, leaving citizens shattered and their confidence in the future shaken.

War occurs when Governments Fail in their duties. Iraq is no different, we have an incredibly weak Congress, nobody with courage to stand and Deliver. Combine this with a President who is Delusional and also politically shrewd...we have instant middle East War.

I was thinking about WW2, after reading Mathews Post ( good post)....in 4 years Franklin Deleanor Roosevelt kicked Japan in the butt and sent them right back to their own territory, liberated Italy, landed in France and began shoving the Nazi war machine back into the Bottle, helped to liberate Africa and Asia. At the same time manufacturing went from a trickle to a massive surge across the board.

what the Heck has George Bush accomplished in 4 years...invaded an Incredibly weak Nation and is caught in a Civil War, has lost 4 trillion dollars, is operating massive deficits, has lost control of his own Government, is spying on members of congress and citizens...

You dont know how bad a leader is until you compare him to a good one.

Freepers vs Phelpsers face off outside Arlington Cemetery

Monday's observance at Arlington National Cemetery was not a funeral, so demonstrators were free to speak their minds at the site. And several did.

Approximately 10 people from the Washington, D.C., chapter of FreeRepublic.com, a self-styled grass roots conservative group, held signs at the entrance of the cemetery supporting U.S. troops. A large sign held by several people said, ``God bless our troops, defenders of freedom, American heroes.''

They were faced off against a handful of anti-gay protesters who stood across a four-lane highway as people headed toward the national burial grounds.

The FreeRepublic.com group was trying to counter demonstrations by the Kansas-based group, led by the Rev. Fred Phelps. He previously had organized protests against those who died of AIDS and gay murder victim Matthew Shepard.

In an interview at the time the House passed the bill that Bush signed Monday, Phelps charged that Congress was ``blatantly violating'' his First Amendment rights. He said that if became law, he would continue to demonstrate but would abide by the law's restrictions.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,,-5853091,00.html

Toolmaker
Bush compares himself to Truman and the "war on terror" to the "Cold War." strange

On-topic:

There are probably a lot of things that I could say today... but not one of them would/could be as meaningful as something else that I didn't say today.

================

AN ARMY OF ONE
by Louise Erdrich
Published: May 29, 2006
New York Times: http://tinyurl.com/m5hoz

MINNEAPOLIS -- I first noticed that he was unusually polite when I brushed by him to get into my middle seat on the plane out of Los Angeles. Then I saw the rose at his feet. It was a long-stemmed red rose. I'd nearly stepped on it. I showed him how to roll it in a magazine and we put it safely in the seat pocket. He looked at my newspaper and said he was interested in Iraq.

"Why?" I asked, though I could tell by now.

"I just came from there."

His eyes were a clear, pale, unusual green. His cheeks thin and sunburned. He could not keep still. His fingers fluttered, his eyes darted to each person who entered the aisle. He told me that he'd graduated two years ago from his high school outside Seattle on a Friday and that he had enlisted on the following Monday. "Because I'm sort of patriotic." With a shy squint he pulled up his sleeve to show that his arm was tattooed with a brilliant Stars and Stripes, a mint-green Statue of Liberty and a frowning eagle, all woven together.

He had just returned from the Sunni Triangle near Falluja and was stationed now in the West. His roommate had been killed -— as well as a friend on his third tour of duty. At another point, a Humvee he was riding in had been half-melted into the street by a roadside bomb.

Though there was e-mail, the whole battalion would curtail its communications with the outside world when there was a death, so that the two men in dress uniform could be the first to deliver the news to the family back home.

"Sometimes I get mad when my family says I'm changed," he said carefully. "But they have changed, too. While I was there we caught lots of bad guys, right? I don't want to go back and start all over. A Pennsylvania Guard unit has taken over our work and so far they're getting hammered. Back when I left, I didn't have a girlfriend ..."

I looked at him and thought there was no way they wouldn't send him back. He looked at me; then whatever he saw made him quiet. The plane landed in Seattle. He carefully retrieved his rose. "I brought her a whole big bouquet last time," he said, "but by the time I landed it was all messed up, so this time I just got her one."

"One is more eloquent," I said.

He got up. "After you, ma'am." So I left first. In the terminal, I saw him once again. He was bent over his backpack, hitching something onto it. He straightened and put his cap on backward, bill down his neck. He was carrying a skateboard on his back, a red rose in his fist, and the war.

===============

there have all the flowers gone,
Otter

Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war

I dreamed I saw a mighty room
The room was filled with men
And the paper they were signing said
They'd never fight again

And when the papers all were signed
And a million copies made
They all joined hands and bowed their heads
And grateful prayers were prayed

And the people in the streets below
Were dancing round and round
And guns and swords and uniforms
Were scattered on the ground

Last night I had the strangest dream
I ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war

(P. Simon / A. Garfunkel, 1964)

Thank you Otter.

Bring 'Em Back Alive
by Frieda Payne

Fathers are pleading, lovers are all alone
Mothers are prayin', send our sons back home (tell 'em 'bout it)
You marched them away, yes you did now, on ships and planes
To a senseless war facing death in vain

Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
(Why don't you) Turn the ships around
(Everybody oughta) Lay your weapons down

Can't you see 'em marchin' 'cross the sky?
All the soldiers that have died
Tryin' to get home
Can't you see them tryin' to get home?
Tryin' to get home
They're tryin' to get home

Cease all fire (tell 'em 'bout it) on the battlefield
Enough men have already been wounded and killed

Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
(Why don't you) Turn the ships around
(Everybody oughta) Lay your weapons down
(Mothers, fathers, and lovers, can't you see them?)

Tryin' to get home
Can't you see them tryin' to get home
(Have mercy)
Tryin' to get home
Tryin' to get home

Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring the boys home (bring 'em back alive)

What they doin' over there now (bring 'em back alive)
When we need 'em over here now? (bring 'em back alive)
What they doin' over there now (bring 'em back alive)
When we need 'em over here now? (bring 'em back alive)
Bring 'em all, bring 'em all home (bring 'em back alive)
Bring 'em all, bring 'em home now (bring 'em back alive)

Otter
Thanks for posting Louise Erdrich. I am not really a fiction person but I will say that Louise Erdrich & Margaret Atwood are about my favorite writers!
_______________________________________________________________
To All
This diary is by my friend Bert in Minneapolis, who is a Vietnam War vet. Please read it, comment & recommend it.

Happy Memorial Day -- or is it?
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/5/29/141956/917
_______________________________________________________________

This is the most shameful & terrible Memorial Day I remember.
I was driving home, thinking about how my dad had shock treatments after his post-traumatic stress & couldn't even recognize us for awhile. He had to quit teaching & start hauling garbage, because he couldn't take stress.

I was thinking about Andree in France, who is a Vietnam war orphan. Then I read Bert's story, which is a Vietnam story of loss, about a personal friend. & then on my radio, I heard an announcement of an upcoming story about an Iraq vet, & it was wrenching to hear his father crying.

Now all these, not to mention stories this morning of civilians killed in both Iraq & Afghanistan (through reckless, callous, never-heroic behavior), as well as embedded media casualties.

Iraq Veterans Against the War | Memorial Day 2006
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906A.shtml
Iraq Veterans Against the War will spend this Memorial Day in its true meaning of remembrance and not in decadent celebrations of the three-day weekend, barbeques, discount sales events, and flag-waving that has come to replace the image of fallen service members in the minds of most Americans.

Garett Reppenhagen | One Soldier's Story on Memorial Day
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906B.shtml
Garett Reppenhagen: "Memorial Day is a painful reminder of our failed mission in Iraq. My experiences there changed my view of this war. Before I was deployed, I - like many other Americans - thought that military intervention was the only way to protect America's security. But after I spent some time in Iraq, I came to question our reason for being there. I came to realize that this war is not making America a safer place."

Bloody Scenes Haunt a Marine
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906C.shtml
Lance Cpl. Roel Ryan Briones says he is tormented by two memories of November 19, 2005, in Haditha, Iraq. The first is of the body of his best friend and fellow Marine blown apart just after dawn by a roadside bomb. The second is of the lifeless form of a small Iraqi girl, one of two dozen unarmed civilians allegedly killed by members of his Camp Pendleton unit - Kilo Company, 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, 1st Marine Division.

For Soldier, Pacifist, a Marriage of War and Peace
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906D.shtml
For the warrior, the badge is an insignia that he saw action and risked his life for his country. The anti-warrior feels just as proud - and patriotic - when she borrows his cap and wears his badge on her long march for peace.

Iraq War Widows Seek Strength Amid Loss
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906E.shtml
Those who lost husbands early have been living their grief, raising children without fathers and building futures with memories of hard men who turned soft with children. For those recently widowed, grief chokes out the hope.

On the Homefront: War Takes Its Toll on Overburdened Military Families
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906F.shtml
Two new books about the Iraq War have given a 21st-century recasting to the war wife. Stacy Bannerman's "When the War Came Home" and Kristin Henderson's "While They're at War" provide vivid descriptions and heart-wrenching details of the way war reaches into every aspect of the lives of soldiers' spouses.

Last Week's Military Deaths
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/052906G.shtml
The Defense Department last week identified American military personnel killed in Afghanistan and Iraq or who died at a US hospital of their injuries.

When I Came Home: Fighting for Homeless Vets

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5436699

from Alan, who has also fought for many years for homeless vets. & even at the Folklife Festival, at the entrance was a disabled Vietnam Vet, selling roses.

Monkey,
I think of several thoughts about this great day...
Between both of my parents’ families, I had eleven uncles including my father who served in WWII. One uncle was captured on Wake Island and spent the rest of the war in the Manchurian mines. My dad was set to be in the lead attack bomber group for the invasion of Japan in November. Chances of survival; zero. I thank Harry Truman every day. All survived and all had troubles dealing with civilian life later. We weren’t a very pretty family.

There are 23 names on the VN Memorial that are friends of mine. I have children of friends in Iraq now; or soon to be deployed there. This is not one of my favorite holidays.

The roots of Memorial Day lie in the Civil War, another conflict that had much to do with what Bush called “the mentality of our country.” In 1868, three years after General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General Ulysses Grant, Gen. John Logan of the Grand Army of the Republic issued the following order: “The 30th day of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in the defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village, and hamlet church-yard in the land.” That is why, nearly 140 years later, we have Monday off, though too few of us will pay our respects or murmur a prayer of thanks for those who, in Lincoln’s phrase, gave the last full measure of devotion to the American cause. “We should guard their graves with sacred vigilance,” the 1868 order said, and “gather around their sacred remains and garland the passionless mounds above them with the choicest flowers of springtime.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12498581/site/newsweek/

Bush Gets More Bad News From Iraq

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/1151AP_Bush_Bad_News.html

Nedra Pickler of AP does a pretty good summary.
This covers 1) the Haditha massacre that Bush has not commented on, 2) the riots following out-of-control convoy in Kabul (& spreading) that Bush has not commented on, & 3) the spreading hunger strike in Guantanamo that Bush has not commented on.

Meanwhile, China & India (former enemies) are meeting to figure out more ways to work together militarily.

Thinking about Civil War -

My son asked, "Why is it that in some states people still fly Confederate flags, but then think it's terrible when Mexican-Americans have Mexican flags? & why do they consider themselves such Patriots when they once fought against the US and tried to secede?"

I do not know.

I Didn't Raise My Boy To Be a Soldier

Words by Lena Guilbert Ford
Music by Ivor Novello

Ten million soldiers to the war have gone
who may never return again.
Ten million mother's hearts
must break for the ones who died in vain
Head bowed down in sorrow in her lonely years,
I heard a mother murmer through her tears:

"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
to shoot some other mother's darling boy?"

Let nations arbitrate their future troubles.
It's time to lay the sword and gun away.
There'd be no war today if mothers all would say,
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier"

What victory can cheer a mother's heart
when she looks at her blighted home?
What victory can bring her back
all she cared to call her own?
Let each mother answer in the year to be,
"Remember that my boy belongs to me!"

"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier,
I brought him up to be my pride and joy.
Who dares to place a musket on his shoulder
to shoot some other mother's darling boy?"

Let nations arbitrate their future troubles.
It's time to lay the sword and gun away.
There'd be no war today if mothers all would say,
"I didn't raise my boy to be a soldier"

Today for Memorial Day, my 17-year old son and I watched "The Secret Garden", a film we both loved when he was little. I have been craving the past; a time when love could resolve so much, and the metaphor of growing a garden resonates in me and breaks my heart.

In the movie, Mary tells Colin a story from India about a rajah who is very special; when he opens his mouth, the whole universe is inside his throat. Colin argues that that cannot be, but when he sees the secret garden, he understands.

"The whole world is a garden," Mary points out at the end.

I want to live in a world in which we all understand the richness of a lily, and how much is to learned from taking care of the planet and each other.

My memorial day is in honor of everyone who understands that yearning. And thanks to my son for sharing this day, and who will never be a soldier for any man's gain, but who will be a teacher of peace and justice.

Karen
That is cool! Once I took my son Gabe & his friend Eric. They loved it. As we came out of the theater, Eric was all wide-eyed and said, "Wow - I thought it was going to suck!"

I just saw "Huldfolke" - Icelandic for "hidden people" - about how Christianity tried to wipe out the connection with the earth & hidden dimensions but was unsuccessful. Just as 80 percent of Americans believe in angels, 80 percent of Icelandic believe in elves. It was really beautiful!

In Iceland, roads are made so as not to disturb the elves in the rocks. If they failed to do so, their bulldozers malfunctioned or stopped cold. If they're right, we are going to have hell to pay with our bunker busters and atomic tests like Divine Strake!

Perhaps the earth is not our dominion to destroy and we really are supposed to keep the balance intact. If so we will pay and in fact we already are (wars, disease, global warming, pollution).

Very beautiful, special film & have to be up at 6 AM so had better head off!

Remember. You never want to cross an elf.

http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-ueEeHnYlc6.RH7Fx2W6OSnA_mfDZYqjb9Ip62yZm6bE-?cq=1&p=464

Speaking of elves, how about devas...

http://www.findhorn.org/about_us/display_new.php

"Not for fame or reward,
not for place or rank,
not lured by ambition or goaded by necessity,
but in simple obedience to duty as they understood it,
these men suffered all,
sacrificed all,
dared all,
and died."

quoted without comment,
Otter

http://www.prwatch.org/pdfs/NFNPDFExt6.pdf

I dont know if this will Paste ok, but it is a story regarding the planting of fake news stories by the Bush Administration
It appears far wider, and tied to the abramoff scandel as well.
It takes a minute to load, but worth the wait. It is a PDF and relatively well researched adn written

Fuel for the impeachment

Fuel for the impeachment

Posted by: Toolmaker at May 30, 2006 08:07 AM

... and it's good for the environment, too!

monkey query:
Tell me what goes through your mind when you hear Memorial Day references like "they gave their lives so you may enjoy the freedoms you have today"?
Posted by dickbell at May 29, 2006 10:24 AM

First, I cringe.

I know perfectly well no war that has been fought since I was born the year after the end of WWII has involved defending this nation against 'enemies' who have attempted invading our shores or any country who has attacked us with their armies, and since that's the case, no military person or military employee has died for, been wounded, or fought on my behalf (or anyone else's behalf) to "preserve, protect, and defend" the Constitution or any rights and liberties we have (er... had, before 2000, at least).

I get the reasons for the Revolutionary War. Ancestors of mine fought and died in that one (and one branch went to Canada as Loyalists). I get the reasons for the US helping allies stop Hitler in WWII (and he did need to be stopped), and I get the reasons for fighting back in the Pacific theatre after Pearl Harbor (mostly, at least). Relatives and ancestors served in those wars.... I've had to think about war, causes for war, what's a just or unjust war, and as a genealogy researcher I've tried to re-imagine myself in the footsteps of ancestors who fought in wars, and the first question I ask is 'why?' There was apparently a reason to go into Afghanistan, but once Osama Been Forgotten was let go when he was cornered at Tora Bora, there is now no good reason to stay there. The US military presence is a destabilizing influence in both Afghanistan and Iraq and our military presence only makes things worse, not better (and I still maintain that the US cannot "win" a war that was an illegal war crime in the first place, on top of being unjust, immoral, unethical, and dishonorable - to say otherwise is to speak nonsense - not that that ever stopped Mr. AWOL in the past...).

I've never quite understood most of the reasons for most other wars, and think whatever problems there were could have been solved by diplomatic means (including the Civil War). I have less than zero understanding about why the US attacked and invaded in Korea, Viet Nam, and both times in Iraq. I'm all for making a profit from honorable pursuits that keep a roof over one's head and food on the table for one's family, but corporations take top prizes for monetary greed, and I don't see why they need more than reasonable profits - billions in profits while killing people is just obscene. It's my fervent wish that munitions factories go bankrupt for lack of profits and lack of employees to make weapons.

When I hear the terms 'war on terror' and 'terrorists' I cringe for the ignorance of the people who blindly, without understanding the definitions of the words or phrase, repeat those words first uttered by our "leader" to start the brainwashing to convince the sheeple of this nation to support his LYING "justification" to invade Afghanistan and attack and occupy Afghanistan and Iraq.

The sheeple have no perspective. The hijackers were CRIMINALS, not "terrorists." Terrorists is a word oft-repeated to keep the sheeple scared, as though to repeat it often enough will make sure the population of this country stays terrified to enable our "leaders" to more easily manipulate the sheeple. Anyone who's ever been the victim of a crime feels terrorized afterwards, and terror is a by-product of being the victim of a crime; it's collateral damage, if you will - and most crime victims get over feeling terrorized in due time (with or without counseling - one can't stay terrorized for an indefinite amount of time without going mad, just as one cannot grieve an indefinite amount of time without going mad). There is no "war on terror." That's a completely bogus notion. If anything, it's barely a war against crime and criminals, if that (and the biggest criminal offenders are the "leaders" of this nation for instilling fear in people of this nation with threats of 'terrorists' out to 'get us' - at least in our "leader's" paranoid mind - while their corporate cronies rob our treasury).

Perspective is lacking...!!! Sheeple are afraid of being afraid.... and as FDR said, "we have nothing to fear but fear itself." People who are not afraid and haven't the foggiest idea where Iraq and Afghanistan are even located on a map vote for their favorite reality TV personalities... but they don't vote in elections.

I see war as impotent old men sending their children and other impotent old men's children off to die in immoral and illegal wars as a form of infanticide, and the people who buy into the reasons for the war and do the fighting (those who really want to fight, that is) as committing a form of fratricide. I do not subscribe to the notion: 'Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori.' I value living for one's country and contributing something positive to life as the more noble aspiration.

So, I cringe. I cringe every time a bandwagon patriot utters meaningless phrases about heroes who aren't heroes because they murder other people for aimless "victories" while killing innocent people as they enrich the corporations who profit from the war and carnage and destruction of civilizations. I cringe because our values as a nation have been compromised because of the illegal wars, the illegal detention of people in concentration camps, and I cringe because our "leaders" have compromised our values as a nation while condoning those horrors in our names. I cringe for the ignorance of the people who utter those meaningless patriotic slogans without knowing the definitions of the words and phrases they utter. I cringe because, deep down, I know that our military personnel are not fighting and dying to preserve, protect, and defend our Constitution, or our freedoms and our liberty. I cringe because that's reality.

Dahr Jamail: Countless My Lai Massacres in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/053006Z.shtml

Dahr Jamail argues that "just like Abu Ghraib, while the media spotlight shines squarely on the Haditha massacre, countless atrocities continue daily, conveniently out of the awareness of the general public. Torture did not stop simply because the media finally decided, albeit in horribly belated fashion, to cover the story, and the daily slaughter of Iraqi civilians by US forces and US-backed Iraqi "security" forces had not stopped either.

The following are some of the things we heard today about Llyod Bensten today at his funeral here and in our local and Hearst newspaper about him. While not in the progressive mold he was a true Gentle Man and so much the antithesis of Rove and gang we see today that it brought a tear to my eye to see him pass. He is the kind of Texan that truly reflects Texas values and showed the kind of decency as a politican that my family and I grew up with here. he was a leader who could truly have fit in the oval office. He will be missed.

snip

"Despite his long history in Texas politics, the country knew him best as hapless Michael Dukakis' 1988 running mate and President Clinton's first Treasury secretary.

In the former role, he quickly demonstrated that the Democratic ticket should have been reversed; he was clearly the stronger candidate of the two. Unfortunately for the Democrats, people don't vote for vice presidents — they vote for the top of the ticket.

"Then-Vice President George Bush, the GOP nominee, ran a mean-spirited, trivial campaign that lambasted Dukakis as a liberal, unpatriotic coddler of criminals. Bentsen repeatedly urged Dukakis to fight back, but instead of heating up his campaign rhetoric, Dukakis stopped taking Bentsen's calls."

snip
"The vice presidential nominee was particularly galled by a Bush charge that Dukakis was unpatriotic to veto a Massachusetts measure compelling students to recite the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms. Dukakis failed to defend his stand, although Bentsen noted to friends the response was obvious: Would Bush jail teachers who failed to comply?

Finally, a frustrated Bentsen dropped his sedate public campaign style and in mid-October launched into the sort of elegant but tough stem-winders that preserved his Senate seat for 22 years. He accused Bush of turning the campaign into "a carnival sideshow of nonsense and negativism." Bentsen continued: "They've said things about Dukakis that we wouldn't say in Texas about a rattlesnake on the lawn at a church picnic. They don't seem to mind if what they say is untrue ... if it sounds good, say it."

One of his best lines:

"Debating George Bush is like trying to eat Jell-O with a fork. It keeps slipping off, sliding off, and when you finally get a bite there's not much substance to it."

But Bentsen's new tough guy act was too late. The damage had been done. The ticket was doomed.

Yet Bentsen did get revenge on his vice presidential counterpart during their lone debate. He had been angered by Sen. Dan Quayle's frequent attempts to compare himself to an equally youthful Sen. John F. Kennedy.

When Quayle did it once again during their debate, Bentsen was ready. In one of history's most famous retorts, he said in a calm but stern voice, "I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you're no Jack Kennedy."

Afterward, he mused to friends: "Did I look too mean?" And then he smiled.

snip

"He was legendary for his emotionless self-control, a trait for which we Danes are famous. But when aroused, he could be a tiger. He beat President Bush the Elder in 1970 for his Senate seat by running as a fiscal conservative to Bush's right, a lesson the then-moderate Bush later said he never forgot.

He was not your typical Texan. He preferred well-polished loafers to cowboy boots. And he often demonstrated a frisky side by picking up his wife, called B.A. (for Beryl Ann), tossing her fondly over his shoulder at parties and walking out of the door with her. The stunt ended after it threw out his shoulder one night."

snip
"My late husband Warren Weaver was assigned by The New York Times to cover Bentsen's vice presidential campaign and he felt the candidate was one of few that he had studied who was genuinely qualified for the presidency. Bentsen was never touched by major financial or moral scandal, he was reasonably truthful with the press and he was intellectually curious. Warren liked Bentsen a lot, and so did I."

and finally Sen Bensten was truly a scholar and a businessman and a corporate type who appreciated the value of a balanced budget and knew how important well paying jobs were to reduce poverty. He and Bob Rubin were primarily responsible for Bill Clinton's booming economy. Texas has lost a giant.