In These Times

It’s emblematic of the turbulent and Orwellian times we live in that you choose to write about "comedy" while the US/Israeli Axis wipes Lebanon off the face of the earth. It's easy these days to see who is on the side of the AIPAC and who is on the side of humanity.

Posted to In Politics, Comedy is Central

Hi Tina, Paul Craig Roberts, the Assisstant Secretary of the Treasury under the late, great President Reagan said ' During Bush's presidency the US has experienced the slowest job creation on record (going back to 1939). During the past five years private business has added only 958,000 net new jobs to the economy, while the government sector has added 1.1 million jobs. Moreover, as many of the jobs are not for a full work week, "the country ended 2005 with fewer private sector hours worked than it had in January 2001." ' This is what I have been writing for …

Posted to GOP Trashed in Special Elections

I'm sorry but I think that organized religion has shown itself to be just large, another corrupt institution. The only voice heard from "Christianity" has been that of the Christian Taleban. The problem was well addressed by Doris 'Granny D' Haddock in her essay We Are Resolved to Follow Our National Dream ' Where authority and power flow down from above, from heaven to the White House to husbands and ayatollahs, the free and joyful living of people can be quite the enemy. ' And that's what organized religion is about... authority flowing down from above, and the resultant self-oppression …

Posted to Organizing the Religious Left

When I was young one’s religious beliefs were one’s own private business. And that’s the way it must become again if America is to stumble back from the shocking, awful reality if has willfully abandoned itself to. No “progressive religion” for me thanks. I think religion is great stuff. It's the institutionalization of it all that kills the spirit, that fosters the tax-deductible, top-down degeneracy that passes for religion wherever the fanatics gain control, whether it be in Afghanistan, Israel or the USA. And the silence of the "mainstream religions" is deafening. If they don't stand up against racism and murder, …

Posted to Organizing the Religious Left

Tony Benn makes a very good point about media as religion at Democracy Now. Amy Goodman as Martin Luther. It doesn't get better than that.

AMY GOODMAN: Perhaps one thing that has changed more than most other things has been the power of the media. What role do you see it playing now, as the sword or the shield? TONY BENN: Well, I'm an old broadcaster myself. My first job was in the BBC as a producer in the North American Service in 1949, and I think the media have replaced religion, because, in the old days in Britain, …

Posted to Organizing the Religious Left

cabdriver... "Anything to dump H. Hyde! " that was John Kerry's mantra, remember. I fell for it once. Never again! If that bought off pol had one we'd be right where we are now vis a vis Iraq, vis a vis the flobalization "race to the ottom", vis a vis the colossal deficit and gravy train for the war profiteers. The Demoplican Party is the enemy of the people. They are clever operators, just as Karl Rove is. I'm not sure a vote for Cegelis is a real vote to end the war. You probably need another up-front "troops home NOW!" …

Posted to In an Illinois Primary, Threes a Crowd

Salon’s Juan Cole, however, cautions against viewing Miller as a puppet of the neocons. He writes, “In the end, it seems that Miller will go down in history not so much as a true believer as a useful idiot.”

I hate to think of Juan Cole as Salon’s Juan Cole. I recognize your quote and was puzzled by it when I first read it on Juan Cole's site myself. Judith Miller's masquerade as a reporter did not go undetected as the NYTimes. The only reason she's had such a long run is because she is under the personal …

Posted to Lies Judith Miller Told Us

Bring the troops home NOW!

History will record the spring of 2004 as a time when the Bush administration was not forthcoming about the outlook for American troop deployments in Iraq. Such duplicity has continued.

You bet it's continued. And now it is the DLC Demoplicans setting the US up for a draft so they can send more troops to Iraq and "fight the war right".

Posted to Beyond the Vietnam Syndrome

Natalie:

There were national elections, 2002 and 2004, the results of which were to increase the power of the party most forcefully advocating the policy.

The Reichstag fire in 1932, like the mass murders of 9/11, worked "to increase the power of the party most forcefully advocating the policy" as well. Almost all of us wish that other parties and factions had been more forceful in advocating power thereafter. I know I intend to do so.

I have zero patience for people who demonstrate and protest against their government’s official foreign policy when troops are in harm’s way. …

Posted to Exiting Iraq

pick of the litter: 'They must think to themselves...hmmm.....half of America is on my side.' Actually that's correct. The half that voted for George W Bush are in favor of dictatorship. Bring on the Great Man on the White Horse and let me get back to business, back to sleep, back to my TV...

Posted to Exiting Iraq

wolf :

“You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism.” You have a large place to hold the Jews?

I was speaking of the territories Israel first occupied in 1967 as those which Israel must evacuate. Actually what is required of us Americans is that we stop financing the occupation of those territories, stop financing the construction of subsidized housing in Israeli enclaves within the territories, and stop financing the Apartheid Wall built upon occupied land and partitioning the West Bank into what have been compared to South Africa's Bantustans. It …

Posted to Exiting Iraq

Yes of course I want my country to succeed in Iraq Natalie. No fancy html. The only way to do that is cease hostilities and bring the troops home immediately. The mistake we made in allowing "our" government to invade and occupy that nation cannot be undone. But the mistake can be ended sooner rather than later. Every day we delay means more Americans and Iraqis murdered and maimed, more debt accumulated and passed on to the next generation of Americans, more enemies made for ourselves and the next generation, not to mention more shame for us and our children. Success …

Posted to Exiting Iraq

Stop the presses: The truest, most cogent response to Tom Hayden's proposal is now available at Stan Goff's site in the form of Stan Goff's reply to Tom Hayden's reply to Stan Goff's reply to Tom Hayden's proposal. Please read it and join me in a mediatation on just exactly what is at stake here. Bring the troops home NOW! is the only possible answer to the monstrous mess that the "professionals", Demoplicans and Republicrats alike, have got us into, and are now doing their best to keep us from getting OURSELVES out of. Stan Goff served in Viet …

Posted to Exiting Iraq

Natalie, I know you dislike the blockquotes, but quotes are confusing.

But then you went on to describe a policy that almost surely would lead to failure.

No Natalie, I then went on to describe a policy that will end the daily loss of innocent life due to America's presence in Iraq, that will strive to put right as much of the wrong we have done there as possible, that will make sure that we do not repeat the same mistake we have already made twice in my lifetime. That policy is inconsistent with the policy you espouse which …

Posted to Exiting Iraq

Now you tell me Rabbitvoz. Waste of breath singing to the choir and a sole government employee here.

Posted to Exiting Iraq

Rabbitvoz, Googling Lt Colonel Roger Helibig brings up news of this Air Force employee's work as a "minder" or enforcer for the DOD lie about Uranium Munitions in direct contravention of US Army Regulations and Orders How was he outed on ITT? How were you able to identify him this round?

Posted to Exiting Iraq

It is ironic that the only defense for the present regime's lies about Iraq, deadly lies that are killing Americans and Iraqis alike right this moment, is a professional liar. A man from the Department of Defense where they lie even when they don't "have to" just to keep in practice, pretending to be a woman, Natalie, and various other supporting roles. Could there be anything more certain to upset this shocking, awful tower of babel built of cards than the spectacle of the Wizard of Oz, the little man behind the curtain with the smoke and gongs and the big …

Posted to Exiting Iraq

This article has three parts; the religious far-right's upcoming role in Iraq, the practical result as the actual goal of the invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the persistence of the neoliberal economic agenda embedded in the TAL and Iraq's new constitution. The second part struck me like a thunderbolt. Destruction of Iraq and the residual chaos there have not come about as an unforeseen consequence of a failed policy. They were the goal to begin with. The Mad Max world in Iraq was the goal to begin with.

The violence and the role of the U.S. presence in it …

Posted to Echoes of Oslo

I, and most other Americans, think g-love and Liberal are right. But the entire American political class which includes the corporate media is arrayed against justice in the Middle East. Cindy Sheehan said : "You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you’ll stop the terrorism." Let's keep repeating that until, welling up as one voice, it redefines reality.

Posted to Will Withdrawal Make Gaza a Frontier Ghetto?

g-love: "But, as long as there’s a U.S. presence in Saudi Arabia, there will still be terrorism a la Al Qaeda. Plus, there’s sick people all over the world; if they’re not blowing themselves and others up for one thing, it’s for another." There certainly are people who would rather destroy things than build them up. The point is that these small collections of violent, murderous people can only accomplish their goals with the acquiesence of a large number of the population in which they live. Chairman Mao said something like "The people are the sea in which the revolutionaries swim". …

Posted to Will Withdrawal Make Gaza a Frontier Ghetto?

g-love: I guess the 'g' in 'g-love' stands for genetic? You seem to have a pretty racist view of the world. There are plenty of Americans cheering on George W Bush from a religious position that I might characterize as "backwards, ignorant and flat-out stupid" in terms of its results. Christian terror, Jewish terror, Muslim terror... terror is a common human failing. The Human Race ain't what it's cracked up to be. I don't know that there still is an American presence in Saudi Arabia. I thought that ended when the "Mission Accomplished" sign went up and Haliburton and Bechtel began …

Posted to Will Withdrawal Make Gaza a Frontier Ghetto?

chopper: Yes, Commondreams is a collector of news and views from the left, but I think that the two essays I linked to were centrist in their perspective. Or do you disagree?

Posted to Will Withdrawal Make Gaza a Frontier Ghetto?

Fuji - One last time on my point. It is not Al Qaeda that is the real problem. Yes, they are the efficient cause of mass murders. Yes these mass murders would not have occurred without Al Qaeda's efforts. And no, no one anywhere deserves to be murdered for the acts of their government. Not Americans, not Britons, not Iraqis, not Afghans, not Palestinians, not Israelis, not ... not, not. But Al Qaeda, and groups like Al Qaeda which will always be with us in some form, cannot be successful without the acquiesence of the sea of humanity in which they …

Posted to Will Withdrawal Make Gaza a Frontier Ghetto?

g_love: ' Lee, please show me where I wrote ANYTHING that could be even remotely construed as “racist.” ' What? ' The gene pool is polluted enough already, time to clean it up! ' That looks racist, sounds racist, smells racist. I realize that racists are now trying to shift their hateful racial rhetoric to religious slurs. "Islamofascist" is a favorite. The present Pope was a member of Hitler Youth. No one calls him a "Christofascist". No one calls Ariel Sharon a "Judaeofascist". But Lt Gen William "Jerry" Boykin, the newly promoted deputy undersecretary of state of defence for intelligence, said …

Posted to Will Withdrawal Make Gaza a Frontier Ghetto?

g_love: Peace brother. I'll try and do as you do and remember that we're all one big family and that any one of us is as liable to fall into the same old predictable errors as any other. And that I often do. It's not what I am but what I do. And it is always possible to change my behavior when it starts to impinge upon another's rights or just their reasonable expectations.

Posted to Will Withdrawal Make Gaza a Frontier Ghetto?

chopper: In "Pax Americans" I was looking at :

Our government now openly defies international law, invading other countries in violation of the UN Charter, and torturing prisoners in violation of the Geneva Convention. Our foreign policy is based on military force, intimidation and exploitation. 'The secular ruling ideology would collapse without the support of its religious base. Since it reflects Nihilistic and relativistic values that are the antithesis of Christian values, why do Christians support it? '

In "Such a Thing as 'Too Late' " I marked the references to Martin Luther King Jr and to Dietrich Bonhoeffer …

Posted to Will Withdrawal Make Gaza a Frontier Ghetto?

Dear Jan Schakowsky, Thanks for your pep talk. I'm more concerned about the lack of an opposition party at this dreadful point in our history than I am about anything else. We presently have two war parties in the United States of America. Where do you stand? Will yoh vote to fund the war the next time you're asked to? If your answer is yes... you have to go. Democrats like Bayh, Clinton, Feinstein, Kerry, Lieberman and others came out for increasing the numbers of American troops in Iraq the other day! They are pro-war, regardless what words come out of …

Posted to Democratic Dos and Donts

Liberal, 'It should be clear by now that lurching farther to the right IS NOT the way to win future elections. ' But it is the way to protect your sinecure from the multinationals and the AIPAC. These DINO Demoplicans aren't being paid to win elections, they're being paid to take up all the space and breathe up all the air a real opposition party, one representative of the American people, would need to functon while at the same time steadily moving the "mainstream" political conversation further and further to the right. They must be defeated in primary elections... perhaps wooden …

Posted to Democratic Dos and Donts

I wonder if johnny-in-central-tx isn't part of the DLC/RNC campaign to grab the Democratic Party. It seems they're making a concerted effort to merge their neo-liberal forces with the neo-cons and eliminate any other force in American politics. They'll be successful if we don't take the Democratic Party from these DINOs. They voted more money for Iraq, they voted for the PATRIOT Act. Bayh, Clinton, Kerry and the rest of the Demoplicans have come out in favor of MORE troops for Iraq. They will only continue the Republicrat Al Qaeda recruitment efforts. They are clearly in the thrall of the AIPAC …

Posted to Democratic Dos and Donts