Denouncing torture is not enough. We should all be actively persuing impeachment and trial for war crimes. Anything less makes us seem complicit.
Posted by Morgaine Swann at May 10, 2008 05:09 AMGod bless Teddy Kennedy, the famous Delta 88 Submarine Commander for pointing out that Hillary lacks the leadership and nobility to even be considered for VP.
This act of courage should have a big effect on the much needed Hillary healing.
Posted by TIKI AL at May 10, 2008 05:18 AMDenounce? Denounce? Are you kidding me? We need prosecutions followed by hangings.
We hung Germans and Japanese for Crimes against the Peace. Our 'leaders' deserve no less.
Posted by Moses at May 10, 2008 06:06 AMGod bless Teddy Kennedy, the famous Delta 88 Submarine Commander for pointing out that Hillary lacks the leadership and nobility to even be considered for VP.This act of courage should have a big effect on the much needed Hillary healing.
Posted by TIKI AL at May 10, 2008 05:18 AM
It's not any different than losers like Wil Wheaton and their "hillary clinton: the psycho ex-girlfriend of the democratic party" posts. And his bullshit "no, I'm not a sexist, I'll laugh at you if you say it" crap. Yeah, no doubt some of his best friends are black, too. And he had one over for dinner just last year...
Jenna Bush is getting married today. I've come to gain some respect for her and I wish her the best.
Posted by CG at May 10, 2008 06:49 AMI believe Wheaton's best work on Star Trek was when he played the Tribble that wet its fur when the Enterprise approached warp speed.
Posted by TIKI AL at May 10, 2008 06:58 AMWE'VE been outraged, for years. The ordinary boob is not and cannot be made to be outraged, obviously. Complacency rules, the MSM says everything is really great and these endless Bushco scandals are all fake "he said/she said" molehills. No need to pay attention.
No one is listening. The constitution has failed and the intelligentsia are powerless. The media is in on the racket. That's what the Bush Era has shown---and the people simply don't care, or are insensible or are oblivious---take your pick.
The country is falling apart. There is no basis for the economy, it doesn't create jobs, the people are awash in debt, the currency is doomed to collapse, the federal government is bankrupt, and the national debt has increased from 5.3 trillion to around 9.4 trillion, with this year's deficit estimated at over 500 billion.
Bush will leave office with a national debt over $10 trillion, effectively doubling it in 8 years. This is beyond unsustainable, and that's why the dollar is crashing, which it will continue to do.
As a result of the Fed's shenanigans, the world's wealthy have created bubbles in the commodity markets, resulting in massive global inflation in food and oil. Hopefully this will destroy the economic prospects of the American Boob and end his complacency. What other hope is there? What the boob does when he "wakes up" is another matter.
Posted by euzoius at May 10, 2008 07:06 AM"Hopefully this will destroy the economic prospects of the American Boob and end his complacency"
euzoius, nothing will shake the "American Boob out of his complacency. We have had eight years for the Boobs to wake up, and yet millions will go to the polls and vote for another Fascist Boob. One has to have passion and a strong belief in their standards and values to become irate. Evidently what has/and is happening to this Country isn't as important as tuning in to American Idol.
I know one thing for sure, George Walker Bush II would never have survived the 60's. He would have been impeached within the first two years, because the people would have demanded it.
Posted by JudithOne at May 10, 2008 08:24 AM"People who supported Bush are actually complicit with and enabling Bush’s madness in a co-dependent, self-reinforcing feedback loop that is ‘closed,’ which is to say it is insular and not open to any feedback from the ‘real’ world."
Don't we know that by our sick trolls. These are the same people who will go to the polls and vote McCain.
Posted by JudithOne at May 10, 2008 08:39 AM"It is self-evident for all who have eyes to see. If we don't look at what’s happening, if we turn away, ignore it, and contract against it, we are lying to ourselves. Then we’re colluding with and unknowingly feeding the disease. Our looking away is a form of blindness. Our looking away is a form of ignorance. Our looking away, our contraction, is itself the disease. Our resulting complacency and inaction is, in fact, an expression of our lack of compassion. To quote Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. "One who passively accepts evil [allowing it to happen] is as much involved in it as the one who perpetrates it."
"Genuine compassion is not passive. It propels us to act for the benefit of all beings. True compassion demands us to be willing to consciously step into our power, mediated through the heart, and to find the courage to speak our true voice."
If interested, this is a good article.
http://baltimorechronicle.com/011305PaulLevy.shtml
Euz, lets be somewhat accurate...the national debt. was at 5.9 trillion when President Bush was sworn in.
Gore's telling moment came on that Larry King show where he debated former presidential candidate Ross Perot over NAFTA. He supported it wholeheartedly and Perot thought it a wrong direction to lead this country. Gore was wrong then wasn't he? NAFTA's been wrong. He's just as wrong on Global Warming.
Posted by peter at May 10, 2008 09:09 AMPeter, have you read this?
Environmentalists' Wild Predictions.
Just a reminder about how nutty these folks have been over time.
(But you have to respect Al Gore for figuring out a way to make $100,000,000 off of it.)
Posted by Muck at May 10, 2008 09:25 AMI know one thing for sure, George Walker Bush II would never have survived the 60's. He would have been impeached within the first two years, because the people would have demanded it.
I truly believe that the only reason Bush hasn't been impeached is because Clinton was and "we" (the American people) didn't want to get in the habit of impeaching every president.
Posted by CG at May 10, 2008 09:39 AMMary says this:
"Umberto Eco says that we need to at least declare outrage."
But then there is this in the very next topic.
"Were I President Obama, the first thing I would do is launch a stealth attack against the corporate media. Nothing can be moved forward unless that obstacle is removed.
Posted by Don Beal at May 10, 2008 08:34 AM"
What, no outrage at a suggestion for "President Obama" to censor the press? So liberals are all about freedom unless it is the 1st amendment? Let's just have "President Obama's" government secure our freedoms by launching a stealth attack on the media. Great idea.
Posted by at May 10, 2008 09:40 AMThat last post about Don Beals suggestion that the government attack the media was from me, manapp99, not May as is posted. Not sure how that happened.
Posted by manapp99 at May 10, 2008 09:45 AMThat's your foolish interpretation of Don's comment, mancrapp00. He said nothing about censorship. New regulations on media ownership and consolidatation are quite necessary, as well as a return to the fairness doctrine on ALL political commentary in all forms of media.
And peter, we're both wrong---national debt at Bush's inauguration was 5.7 trillion. I'll remember in future. But my point still stands, and of course you can't argue it.
Posted by euzoius at May 10, 2008 10:14 AM"When the world has so many horrific things going on (Tibet, Dafur, Burma), what is expected of us (especially those of us who are privileged Americans) to right the wrongs?"
Fascinating. Out of all the horrific things going on in the world, you left out the one ongoing catastrophe for which the United States is directly responsible.
The very, very least that should be expected of privileged Americans, and particularly those who are among the socially and politically aware, is to acknowledge with your country is doing to Iraq and its people.
How disappointing.
Posted by Shirin at May 10, 2008 10:32 AMI am watching in amazement as life just seems to go on in this country, as though everything were normal -- when we are torturing people. When our president is personally supervising the torturing of people. When we keep people in cages (remember the tiger cages of vietnam?). I always wondered how the nazis did it -- took over the government, put people in concentration camps. Now I know. I wish I were in Lafayette Park holding a sign -- but I'm not giving up my comfortable home (while I can manage to hold on to it) so I guess I know. Like everyone else I'm keeping my head down and hoping things change. Hope means you think something is going to happen that you can't do anything about. I weep for our country, and for the all the life on this planet.
Posted by boomerg'ma at May 10, 2008 10:42 AM"That's your foolish interpretation of Don's comment, mancrapp00. He said nothing about censorship. New regulations on media ownership and consolidatation are quite necessary, as well as a return to the fairness doctrine on ALL political commentary in all forms of media."
You are the fool if you want to have government interference on media content. To have a "fairness doctrine" would have to have someone determine what is fair. You really want the government to decide that for you. There are plenty of media outlets from which the populice can get their information. All with some kind of a bias. Let the people decide what is fair. Perception is a funny thing. What you call fair and balanced is likely to be different than what you neighbor sees as fair. It would be a major infringment on your rights to let your neighbors vision of fair become what you get to see/hear/read.
Posted by manapp99 at May 10, 2008 10:42 AMNo boomer, what did Democrats do while the Bob Doles were out fighting the Nazi's? How were the Japanese Americans treated here...even some Germans. Did you know we had German POW camps here? My father was in one. No mistreatment inferred at all, just wondering. But Democrats and those Japanese Americans...all was OK to round them up and place them in confinement, take their property ownership away, take their Constitutional Rights away. The average citizen knew nothing of this and accepted it as they found out. Democrats and imprisoning, Vietnam and WWII, both under Democrats orders. It's history before re-visioning.
Moses, I'll see you one loser, and raise you a jealous, self-aggrandizing miserable sonovabitch.
That would be your miserable ass.
The growth Wil Wheaton's endured since he was despised for being the nerd weenie of the graduating class is a testament to the effect of grace in a person's life. You can disagree with him, you can despise his labeling, you can utterly skin him alive for his words - that's fine.
But you need to get a fucking life and stop posting to alt.news.wesley.crusher.die.die.die.
Posted by idiosynchronic at May 10, 2008 12:27 PMPeter, you're right. Way back in the '60s when I was sitting in and marching no one among us had any trust at all in the Democrats; they were the party of war. I just had allowed myself to believe -- wishful thinking -- that things were different. If nothing else, the results of the 2006 election have shown me what's up. No impeachment, no investigations of Guantanamo, or of executive abuse of powers. I gotta shake the dust off my eyes.
Posted by boomerg'ma at May 10, 2008 01:17 PM"I truly believe that the only reason Bush hasn't been impeached is because Clinton was and "we" (the American people) didn't want to get in the habit of impeaching every president."
CG, well that makes a lot of sense. Try to impeach a president for a tilly tally in the Oval Office, but let's not impeach a president who is a murderer and criminal. They are lying when they say the average intellegence quotient is 100.
or maybe a 'dilly" and then a dally.
Posted by JudithOne at May 10, 2008 02:49 PM
Jenna Bush is married, y'all and to a Virginian who will be working in an ENERGY corporation, Constellation Energy in Baltimore, while Jenna trolls the best bars in Fells Point. He'll be working with my nephew, ugh!
Aren't we glad we're spared another Tricia Nixon wedding in the White House? Jenna is a cool drunk and able to know instinctively, that if she dared sullied the White House with her wedding, many angry, gasoline-debauched, foreclosed upon and jobless folk would've really got PISSED!!! But I doubt if she's that sensitive.
I give the marriage two weeks.
Has anybody noticed that lately Bush's face has morphed into looking more like a wet vagina not belonging to his wife.
Posted by Nanci at May 10, 2008 06:19 PMTwo weeks? That long?
Posted by JudithOne at May 10, 2008 06:52 PMWhere is that peter fuck!!
McCain convention chief quits after past ties to Burma revealed
The PR executive John McCain just tapped to help run the GOP convention quit today after a report that his firm once represented the Burmese junta that is now doing little to relieve its people from the devastation incurred by this week’s cyclone.Posted by Seven of Six at May 10, 2008 07:10 PMDoug Goodyear, CEO of the DCI Group, said in a statement issued by the convention committee that he was resigning “so as not to become a distraction in this campaign.”
Asked whether he made the decision to quit or was asked by the campaign, Goodyear said: "My decision."
"[It was] unambiguously the right thing to do," he said in an email to Politico.
In a piece posted online today, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff reported that DCI represented Burma’s military regime in 2002.
DCI is a well-regarded firm in the Republican orbit, but has been known to represent some politically controversial clients.
Given McCain’s ardor for campaign finance reform and the number of lobbyists and PR gurus who comprise the senior ranks of his campaign, his aides are acutely sensitive to appearances.
peter... you at the wedding or what?
John McCain is using his "sugar mama's" plane for campaign business.
...Federal Aviation Administration records indicate that she appears to be using her personal wealth to help his campaign, through the continued use of her corporate jet... critics have argued that Mrs. McCain is effectively subsidizing her husband’s campaign because either she or her company has to make up for the difference between what his campaign pays for the jet’s use and what it really costs to operate it.
BTW, Jenna should be serving in Iraq!
Posted by Seven of Six at May 10, 2008 07:45 PMNo Seven...not on that short list...Rats.
Lets see, she went to South Africa to help teach there and now she's been teaching in the DC school system. Yeah, maybe Iraq would have been the safer job, somebodies got to teach those in DC.
Posted by peter at May 10, 2008 10:02 PMNancy Pelosi - who backs Obama (who is for post partisan relations) - took impeachment off the table a long time ago. If Obama makes it as the nominee and the WH, I wouldnt expect anything happening regarding war trials, impeachments or even an immediate withdrawel from Iraq.
Posted by the young Judith at May 11, 2008 01:51 PM