....I can't even imagine......

Spent a little time with a vet last night, and I cannot go on without saying something about it. How he goes on with his life is the title of this piece.

He didn't really talk about what he's seen much, he didn't have to. It was written all over his face, in the figurative sense of looking into the eyes of a man who has seen thinks worse than any nightmare. But also in the literal sense as you see the scar above his eye, or the way he can't move his hands as well as he should from nerve damage due to the shrapnel in one hand and the other that was crushed. He's not a close friend of mine, I went to high school with him we may have had a class or two together. He couldn't recall if we had either but he had the excuse of having taken a round to the face and has forgotten half of his childhood as a result. Then theres the PTSD, which must be exasperated not only by the chaos in the streets, but also by the only vaguely organized chaos that is our own military. Plus the fighting within our own soldiers, he says that they don't even have each others backs anymore, then backtracked and said when shit really hits the fan they are there, but thats it. It's amazing how resilient people are, I would expect them to break long before this point. This war cannot continue, it simply cannot. No one should be asked to live like this, no one.

He is a very good friend of a good friend of mine and she filled in some of the things he didn't say to me. He's a good soldier and he keeps going back, hes done 4 or 5 tours, because its his job, but he suffers no delusions that there is anything to accomplish, that might be the only thing left he isn't suffering from. Good luck my friend

(he'll be back in Iraq in a few weeks, if you think thats as fucked up as I do then do something about it, don't pray for him, write to congress, do something, and most of all be there for the troops, just be there for them)

Liberals Hate The Troops

I'm an uppity college liberal who hates the troops, yup, hate my friends so much that I tried to prevent them from being dragged into an unwinnable conflict. Now with the help of the revolutionary wing of the leftist media (everything but FOX) we can target individual soldiers whom we hate. Case in point, that prince fella from England. Not really sure why but I hate that bastard too, probably just because he's rich and powerful and yet he wants to go to war anyway. Doesn't he know that one of the many perks of being rich is sending other people to die for you? I mean even Ozzy understands that. Those silly brits need to take another lesson from us, just look at our president, he knows better than to allow his kids in harms way. And he's at least theoretically accountable to the people, England's monarch can't be impeached why are they kissing the poor peoples asses? So when William decided to go fight we knew we couldn't allow it, if a prince can fight they might start expecting other rich people to make sacrifices in a time of war. So the liberal media did what it does best and pulled a Plame on him, first they yelled and screamed when he was about to go to Iraq, and so he didn't. So the cheeky bastard snuck off to Afghanistan, where there is apparently some other war going on, when no one was looking. Then bribed the media not to tell. Luckily the champion of the people outed him like a queer republican senator. Boo-ya!

Wait what? It wasn't a liberal that put Prince Harry in harms way? It wasn't the New York Time? Oh my it was actually The Drudge Report. But that goes against all those claims of supporting the troops. Does this mean Drudge is a raving hypocrite? Maybe.... It's also possible there was some sarcasm in this post, but who knows for sure?

More War Hating

I just found out another friend is about to ship out. She's in the reserves and she'll be leaving Friday to go to several months of training prior to 9 months in Afghanistan. I hate this war.

I hate this war

This is not abstract to me. I hate this war. I haven't been there, I do not toil under the hardships the troops do. But it's not faceless to me. I have friends there, they don't want to be. Some of them used to come back with hero stories or lies they were told that they believed but now I hear nothing good. They want to know when they can come home to stay. They see no light at the end of the tunnel. To those who say we must continue the war please remember all of the children who won't see their fathers or mothers for over a year, some will never meet their fathers. Remember those who fought for your imaginary ideals only to have you turn your backs on them when they said they don't feel right, and now have killed themselves. Remember the shattered lives that cannot be counted, then tell me what we're fighting for.

I have to cut this short, I'm leaving work early so that I can go console a friend. She was talking with a very good friend of hers (I know him but not as well) who recently left for his third tour of duty. She was talking to him when his based came under attack. He is ok, but she is shaken and needs a friend. I wish I could do the same for him.

Fuck this war, and fuck anyone who still supports it.

Actual Atheists in Actual Foxholes

Ok for those who follow the world of online atheism this is old hat despite being an important and ongoing situation. I'm just slow to report it. The quick of it is that a soldier decided to have an atheist/ freethinkers meeting at his military base in Iraq. This was approved in the same manner any other meeting would be. Unfortunately when it actually came time for the event a commanding officer came in and ruined a good time. The soldier is now suing for discrimination, and has been receiving death threats for his fellow soldiers, to the point he now has a body guard to protect him from those on his side, while fighting the enemy.
This is an important issue and maybe in the future I'll give it more of the time it really deserves.
Good Luck Soldier.

His Own Little World

I'd like to thank my local newspaper, The Star- Gazette for one of the saddest yet most amusing headline juxtapositions I've ever seen. These were all found on the same page under War in Iraq. Unfortunately someone threw out the paper and these aren't in the online edition, so these are paraphrases of the headlines.

GOP Skeptical of Patraeus Testimony

Abizaid says it could be several years before Iraq is stable

US Garrison Attacked

U.S. Rep. Kuhl encouraged by progress (only avaiable for one week, sorry)

We call this democracy.
I'd have more to say but I'm outta time, our internet was down all day today and half of yesterday.

Take A Stand

We held the culminating event of the summer last night. I got there early and set up the sound equipment, that went perfectly despite the fact that Ive never set up a PA before. It's pretty easy when there's only one mic. Then it got close to the hour and people started filing in. We had no food and no music and we had a decent crowd, we were getting nervous. I was quite hot from lack of a/c and carrying heavy sound equipment so I walked down to the nearest store for a drink. When I got back the food was unloading and some kid was jammin' on the piano. So that all worked out. I was quite surprised at how full the place was, my guess is around 50-70 people were there. I got to see some old friends, like the folks from Democracy School, which was very nice.

After some music and food we sat down and our first three speakers who had actually pre-written things spoke. It was good, the crowd was getting into it fairly well. Then we opened the mic to anyone who wanted to talk and probably half the audiance came up at some point to speak their mind. I was one of the early ones. I fumbled a bit at the start, I'm not sure why I got nervous, I think I need more practice with public speaking. The person before me spoke of the apathy of her generation, I continued with that theme pointing out how odd it is that my generation is so sadly apathetic considering its people my age that are fighting and dying. I pointed out how I don't like the term "leaders" when talking about politicians, in a democracy the elected officials are not the bosses they are the servants of the people, we are the bosses and if we don't like the job they are doing then we should fire them. The next guy picked up that ball and ran with it with a great sound bite. He said, "if Kuhl won't meet with us now then we'll meet with him in November." Overall the speakers were great, one person who's a Vietnam vet and usually full of fire couldn't stop talking about Lee Iacocca's book. I thought it distracted from what he was trying to say by the repeated references but it did make me want to read the book. We had one conspiracy guy who wanted to tell us all about how bush planned 9/11, I'm all for a real independent investigation but lets avoid the conspiracy theories folks. One person genuinely pissed me off by bringing up religion and how bush manipulated it so much, which is true no anger there, then she said shes a woman of faith and that the opposite of faith is not doubt it is fear, and how we must not sucome to fear. It reminded me of Patrick Swayze in Donnie Darko. Well fuck you very much my lack of faith has nothing to do with fear, the opposite of faith is reason. But we were in a church, and I was surrounded by people from Pax Christie and other groups like that so I let it slide. Again I want to say again that this whole event was very good its just that I seem to be recalling the parts I disliked much better than the good. Probably because the good was exactly what you would have expected, anyway I'm now going to focus on the part that I simply hated.

From out of nowhere a guy who has been instrumental in this whole thing came up and led the group in some crappy as old worn out hippie song, it wasn't kumbaya but it was close. He asked everyone to stand, I was expecting him to lead a prayer, he is the chaplain at a local college, but no he wanted to sing... I stood up not knowing what I was getting into. I expected the heads to bow while I held mine high with eyes open. Thats an interesting metaphor right there, the religious close there eyes while the doubters look for truth, but thats unrelated. The chaplain tried to get me into the front circle but I sure as fuck wasn't down for that, then the person next to me grabbed my hand, luckily I was on the end, but there I was in a crowded room full of old people joined in circles singing hippie songs swaying back and forth. It was horrible. It made me instantly aware of why the general public can never take the peace movement seriously. The majority in this country are against the war but the vast majority is not involved in working towards peace, besides apathy which is the biggest reason, second has to be that peace activists are weird people. Normal Americans don't want to stand in a circle singing songs that could put you to sleep, its not cool. I wanted to kick my way to the mic and say heres one from my generation and start in with some Anti-Flag. Some will say that I'm making too big a deal out of this but I don't. I think those who engage in this type of activity in an environment where we are trying to reach out to a wider audience are doing very real harm to the movement. Shit I'm part of the movement and it made me uncomfortable. The video will be up at some point, I know I'm in it a bit, I'm the fat guy with chops standing still while everyone else sways not singing and trying not to look at the camera. I had earlier talked about trying to get young people out to events. If I had managed to get any of my friends to go I would have been humiliated, they sure as hell never would have come back, I would have been a laughing stock. That part is not an exaggeration which is why I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that this crap hurts the peace movement as a whole.

So to finish up the meeting went better than I expected, a good time was had by all, just don't ask me to sing, unless you've got a punk band.

Henry Rollins at Mother Jones

Mother Jones has ans interview with Henry Rollins, I shouldn't need to tell you who he is but he's the former front man for Black Flag and has done a bit of everything since then. He's a busy dude.

HR: No. [The war] was a bad idea. It never was a good idea. It's an illegal war. We're not there for the purposes that George W. Bush says. He has a perfect situation there because if you leave it now, you leave these people who did not ask for your incursion; you leave these people in worse shape than when you got there. And so no, I don't think anything different about it, I just feel it more acutely, and at this point it's now more of a personal thing. I get letters from the wives saying my husband died. I get letters from the moms. I got a letter from one mom who wants me to write a letter to her son to try and talk him out of joining the Army. I get letters from wives who miss their husbands, moms what to tell me regretfully that their son, who loved my DVDs, and his friends, who all love my DVDs, and they all listen to my CDs out there, he died two days ago and she had to tell somebody. A guy who shot and killed a child mistakenly, he writes me and asks me to give him good reason why he shouldn't kill himself. These are the letters I get, and I get them pretty often. So this thing is a very personal experience for me. It's more than just something I see on the news.

Attempting Democracy

I'm in a local paper today. The-Leader ran the story, I'd provide a link but their website sucks and only includes two articles a day, I think its a decent paper I just don't like their website. I didn't get quoted which is fine by me, but I'm in the picture, the big guy to the left in stripes, thats Me!

We have grown tired of being ignored by our representative, a group of us left our info at his office several weeks ago and have heard nothing back. We have called, left messages, e-mails, one woman wrote an old school paper letter. One member did have a meeting scheduled for yesterday but it was canceled by Kuhl so we decided to go anyway. All we were planning to do was to formally invite him to a meeting we are holding as a part of the Take a Stand campaign.

I can't claim we were total innocents as we felt like throwing in a visual joke at Randys expense, we wanted to get bullet proof jackets in response to his flap about "packing" to defend himself from peace protesters. Unfortunately no one had one and when one person attempted to buy one they were warned that bullet proof vests are illegal in New York. So to try to make the joke anyway the purchased a couple of paint ball chest protectors, which always seem to have cheesy batman-esce muscles sculpted into them. It looked particularly stupid on a guy my size. Oh well.

Now on to what happened, we stood waiting around the corner from the office about a block away on the main street as our group gathered and a couple members of the press got ready. Then a police officer came around the corner and began by telling us he has not authorized a parade permit. At this point I need to explain the scene as I haven't been sent the photos yet and the couple I took on my phone don't feel like transferring to my computer at the moment. Its about 6-8 people standing on the sidewalk the only thing that makes us obvious is the silly vests and one guy carrying a white flag to go along with the joke. No one was carrying signs or anything that could be called a protest, we weren't yelling out, no music, nothing just oddly dressed citizens talking amongst themselves. Two of the guys immediately explained to the police officer that we had not filed for a permit because all we were doing was delivering an invitation to a meeting to Mr. Kuhl. We wanted to talk to him if it was possible then we would leave, if there was press around we would speak with them. We were not there to protest. He allowed us to do that, which is good because we were well within our rights and I'm sure some would have left in cuffs rather than be chased off by over reaching police. The officer then went back to his spot directly across from the office.

A few minutes later we had everyone, we had to wait as one person purchased a new memory card for their digital camera. We walked down the street and up to the door, which was locked as we knew it would be. The secretary we met the last time opened the door a few inches and asked us what we wanted, the pleasant persona we encountered the last time was gone. We explained that we simply wanted to invite him to an event, then explained how we have tried to set up meetings with him and have gotten no where. The secretary said she would pass on the invitation and she passed the blame saying she doesn't set the schedule without telling us who does. We talked for a minute, two at most then turned around. We then asked permission from the police officer if we could stick around just for a couple of pictures. At this point a couple men in suits came out of the office. Pictures were taken and I promise they will be up at some point, then we walked away, and as we did a second cop car with two officers showed up. Back-up for us unruly citizens. A woman from The Leader then asked us questions, we had her walk with us to the end of the block as to keep things kosher with the po-po. I was more than a little concerned about the angle when her first statement was about how we should have gotten a permit. A permit to talk to an elected official, Fuck That! She talked to a few of us and I think the article was ok, there was one "quote" that I don't recall in the least and I was standing next to the person quoted, hopefully it was my bad memory and not hers as it was a fairly volatile comment.

We then stood on the street and made some quick little videos of our reactions, I'm guessing mine is pretty lame, public speaking isn't really my thing, but the others like my finish. So that how I spent my thursday lunch break, how was yours?

Cheney was right?

Holy crap! MoveOn.org is sending around a video that explains exactly why it would create a quagmire if we invaded Iraq in 1994. It lists exactly what would and has gone wrong, the fun part is its Dick Cheney doing the talking, guess he should have listened to himself.

Scary Constituents

Ok I mentioned this before but my local Representative recently had a brush with democracy when a merciless band of antagonists stormed his office and needed to be arrested before they would leave, or at least thats what he and the local paper would have you believe. The reality from people who were there, I was not, is that a group of peace protesters walked into his office, many being senior citizens others brought their children, and refused to leave until they were able to talk to Kuhl, as expected it was a sit-in and after a few hours it was the end of the work day and so they called the police who arrested those who planned on being arrested. Its civil disobedience, its a sign of a healthy democracy. So in typical republican fashion Randy calls for increased security, locked the doors to his office and said he may begin carrying a gun, or to be cool like him, he may begin "packing." Obviously Kuhl hasn't learned the lesson they you can't kill an idea with a bullet or a bomb, only with better ideas. Part of me finds it pathetic that our elected officials are frightened of the people they work for , another part of me loves it, in the words of V for Vendetta, People should not be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people. From that angle I love it, it's not the reaction we wanted but its a reaction, it means that he knows were are out there and we aren't going to go quietly into the night any longer. So obviously a few people are upset about his reaction, and some have created YouTube video responses. I'll just put up my favorite of them here. But if you like to see more heres the links. 1, 2, 3.

Faith in the Glen

Every now and then its nice to take a step back and point out that while I consider religion itself as something of an enemy I absolutely do not lay a blanket claim that the religious are my enemies, some are but definitely not all. Here are some that I'm down with protesting against the war last week in Watkins Glen. Which was well covered by what seems like a great local blog I just learned about called Granola Box, yeah he's a hippie. I think it gets into an awkward spot when religious leaders speak out against this war because to their benefit people seem to listen to religious leaders and it gets better turn out than your run of the mill hippie protest, but on the other hand I cannot imagine that christianity can be helpful in stopping the sectarian civil war between two muslim sects, a strong christian presence would simply make it a three (or would that be four?) way battle. Thats not their problem though, these people aren't trying to convert muslims so I guess thats an unfair assessment, these folks are simply trying to use there authority positions to do some good in the world, I can hardly fault someone for that. Anyway it was supposed to have been quite good with about 25-30 people showing up, not bad turnout for the middle of the day in a small town, they were happy. Not we just need the war to end and we'll be even happier.

Peace.

The bombs bursting in air....

Yesterday was the anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The massacre of innocent people of any race any religion should always be mourned, mourned not only for those who died, not only for those who survived but barely, but we must also mourn for the sake of humanity because we as a species are showing how despicable we can be.

This was a city of about a quarter of a million people, it had intentionally been left alone so that it would be clear to the world that we wiped this city off the map in one fell swoop it was not preexisting damage. I cannot fathom the sort of mind that thinks that way, it makes me wonder if we deserve to survive as a species.
I won't show the pictures of the victims, I probably should but I can't, they were similarly obliterated. The view as described by survivors was of people walking very slowly down the street arms held out with flesh falling off. Hearing the full description I could only think of one thing and that is, and I want to pause for a moment because this is going to sound like a light hearted reference and by comparison it is but what wouldn't seem light in this context? It reminded me of an old zombie movie slowly moving people with arms held out and dripping skin, but it makes sense the level of pain along with the shear shock and terror I must assume that normal thought processes stop and you continue on essentially instinct alone, which is exactly what movie makers are going for with the idea of zombies.

what scares me most of all is not the fact that we posses the capability to inflict this horrific death and destruction upon every living thing on this planet several times over. I've come to grips with that, its been true my entire life, my fear is from the fact that there are those who would like to see us create more. The idea of tactical nukes is beyond appalling, hate is a word I use rarely but I think its fair to say that I hate anyone who supports the use of tactical nukes, or the re-armament of our nuclear force. I can think of nothing more deserving of hatred than nuclear war and by association those who support it.

Cost of War

Here is an odd little "abnormality" that I just noticed.

	&&&&&&&&&&&&&&01.&&&&&01	California	&&&&&&&036457549.&&&&&036,457,549
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&02.&&&&&0	&&&&&&&&&&&&&&02.&&&&&02	Texas	&&&&&&&023507783.&&&&&023,507,783	&&&&&&&&&&&&&032.&&&&&0	&&&&&&&&&&&&&034.&&&&&0	&&&&&&&&&0734618.&&&&&0	&&&&&&&&&0691405.&&&&&0
&&&&&&&&&&&&&&03.&&&&&0	&&&&&&&&&&&&&&03.&&&&&03	New York	&&&&&&&019306183.&&&&&019,306,183

So Texas has roughly 4 million people more than New York, or New York has 82% of Texas's population.

Also of importance is the GDP per state,

		Texas	989,443
		New York	957,873

So Texas still beats New York in GDP but the gap has narrowed to New York having almost 97% of Texas's GDP.

So by these two numbers it would be safe to assume that New York has spent between 82 and 97% as much as Texas for the war, and Texas being so gung ho I would presume towards the low end, but I would be wrong dead wrong,

According to the National Priorities Project

Texas has spent about $36,660,000,000
New York has spent about $40,208,000,000

(these are running tallies so they will change, hence I rounded to the nearest million)
New York has spent over 109% of what Texas has contributed. Or you could say 4 million fewer people and 4 billion dollars more towards supporting our troops. Funny how those who oppose the war end up footing the bill.

Oh yeah and Fuck Texas.

More Protesting

I was leaving work late and passed the monday evening anti-war protesters. Normally I'm not on that road and I get out earlier so I rarely see them. But yesterday I saw them and even saw my former english teacher that I think very highly of so I said what the hell, I've got nothing going on. So I stopped and chatted for a few, then grabbed a sign. As I would have expected the vast majority were indifferent, but there were far more honks, waves, thumbs up and peace signs being thrown than I had expected. There was also more negative feedback than at the last event. Some we could simply laugh at like the guy who yelled, "watch the news, we're winning!" as he drove away. I turned to my former teacher and said, "you can no more win a war than you can win an avalanche." She liked it and I admitted it wasn't mine but could not recall who said it. I then realized that I think the quote was earthquake not avalanche but it doesn't really matter. And for the record it is earthquake and it was said by Jeannette Rankin, although I don't know who she is/was.

The only negative feedback that was tough was the guy who said his cousin had been killed in Iraq then sarcastically thanked us for supporting him.This is a view I simply can't wrap my head around. I know people want to think that their loved one died for a good cause but sadly thats not the case, allowing more people to die doesn't make the cause any greater it only makes the pain greater.

On a total side note I find great irony in the fact that when looking at quotes on war at the bottom it has the previous subject as Violence and the next subject as Wealth. It's only because of the order of the alphabet but its still disturbing how those go together, but not for the same people.

Call me Oblio 'cause I'm going back to the point, those who claim that leaving would be an insult to those who have died seem to miss the fact that the wrong doing is not those who struggle to prevent unnecessary war but those who send others to fight in war that was never justifiable. Your friend and relative was not killed by peace activists, nothing we do can change the sacrifice that they made, but we can prevent others from having to go through what you've been through.

One thing that always pisses me off but I understand why its done is how we always have to talk about the sacrifices of our troops first then if you want mention the Iraqi children killed. To be fully un-PC about it I care a whole lot more about the innocent people in Iraq being killed than the soldiers, I know its blasphemy to our nationalistic fervor to say that but its the truth. As a humanist I care about people I don't give a shit about granfalloons, so when an innocent child is killed I care, when a soldier is killed fighting in a war they chose to be a part of then I still care, but not as much. Some will argue that most of the soldiers did not chose to be there, well they joined the military, even if they did it during peace and only wanted the military to pay for college they still made a conscious decision and joined the military. It's sad that I know there are places where I would be threatened with violence for the mere suggestion of what I just said.

I'd catch hell for that last paragraph but.... Ah the joys of low readership, I can say whatever I want. In the words of Mitch Hedburgh, "They said you can swear on XM radio. No shit, ’cause nobody can hear it. You can swear in the woods, too."

Letter to the Editor

My first ever Letter to the Editor was published, ok I did one almost a year ago but that one was rejected because something I had as a central point became dated before it could even get to print, oh well. This one made it though, and I have some good intel that something else I wrote recently will make it to press. It makes me happy.

July 27, 2007

There was an article about Iraq gripped by fear in the July 20 paper. I couldn't help but be amazed that despite a surge since January, we are being told that we need to continue to wait and that even the September report by Lt. Gen. David Petraeus will be too early to judge the effectiveness of the new strategy.

How long must we wait? How long are we expected to sit back and be told that it's almost over and we're about to turn a corner when every corner simply hides another roadside bomb. I am also forced to think about the words of Rep. John R. Kuhl Jr., who said that he is deffering judgment on Iraq until he hears Petraeus' report.

Why Kuhl would listen to that report but not to the Iraq Study Group or the countless other reports? In September are we going to be told that it's still too soon and that we need to wait until November? And what will we be told in November?

Please, Rep. Kuhl, bring our troops home. It's been long enough. You should have an opinion of your own on this issue by now. Bring them home.

Bath NY, Protest

So this weekend was my first ever protest. A few of us went up to Bath for a protest with, Americans against the Escalation of the Iraq War, or something like that, because thats the nearest office of our representative, Randy Kuhl. We had about 14 people in attendance and I was even given the task of speaking to the media.

Now the reality of it and then the positive. Kuhl's office is down a side street where the only traffic was the beer truck supplying the shady bar across the street, a couple folks leaving the bar at noon, and finally the two homeless/crazy people that seemed to be alternately following and leading us. We had a poster with Kuhl's "Report Card" on the war so it was decided that we should have "students" hand him his report card. We had two very nice corning residence come who were 19 and 20 and lacking anyone else under 50 save for the organizer that left only yours truly as close enough to a student. And it was decided that I should speak first, ugh. luckily the "media" was about as intimidating as the crowd, we had one guy show up from the local bath weekly paper, the Courier Advocate. Not that I'm complaining, every little bit helps. Then we entered Kuhl's office, we wasn't in, and we all left our contact info with the secretary who was very pleasant which actually surprised me a little. We are going to have a group meeting with Kuhl at some point, that should be fun. So the protest itself, honestly not terribly impressive, but it was great and I'll explain why.

Bath is a town of about 5,000 people and its the county seat that should be enough to explain the region were talking about, this is small town stuff, AKA it might be NY but we do have rednecks. To really drive that point home we went and had lunch after at the local dinner, as soon as we walked in I noticed the "freedom isn't free" and "welcome to america, now speak english" stickers in the window, then looked up at the anti-war shirts of the two people I was walking in with and a couple dirty looks from patrons. But thats the worst we ever got a couple of dirty looks, and to be honest for all I know thats just what that guys face normally looks like. So now on to the positive we walked along the main street of the small downtown of one of the most republican areas of NY carrying signs about ending the war and we received a few honks with arm pumps of support from smiling drivers, other shouts of yeah! from cars and several people we walked passed stopped us to talk, all in support of what we were doing, this is what really gave me hope. If people who probably don't have any significant spanish only families in their community but still put up signs saying "Speak English" have turned against this war then maybe we can create enough pressure on our government to change. Of course it's sad from the stand point of even if we end this war we still have a massive uphill battle against stupidity. Hope you all had a great weekend.


Oh and this is my 800th post, congrats to me!

Straight from the front

I saw this little post over at Salt On Everything, which is a site I'd heard of quite a bit but it hasn't been posted on in a month so I'm not sure whats up with it. Anyway the last post was a good one, even has a link to the onion.

Where is our spirit? (this might be one of my better writings, let me know)

The American spirit that is. Why are we terrified or self-sacrifice? Why don't we take back the freedoms that we have given away, and it was given because we did not hold on to it. These thought come while reading an article ghost written by Captain Obvious about how America was fairly well respected and even liked for the most part around the world so little as 6 years ago and how the change in that perception is a direct result of our current foreign "policy."

In my own travels abroad, the attitude I always encountered was that while occasionally the US would elevate a truly despicable leader like Ronald Reagan or Bush the First to power, people made a distinction between “America” and Americans. That distinction is fading away. Increasingly the attitude I get from friends in other countries and readers outside the US is, “If you guys hate George Bush so much, why aren’t you doing anything about him? He flouts your laws, he has ordered the invasion of a nation who never attacked you, he has subverted human rights and dignity around the globe. Why aren’t you rioting in the streets? Where is your famous American bravery now?”

Where is our bravery, why aren't we rioting in the streets? And I do mean rioting, not organized "protests" where people walk down a closed off street then listen to music after making sure that they have permits from the police I mean democracy, in the form of ten thousand people in the streets blocking traffic and getting right in everyones faces. Flying rocks, burning cars, police beating civilians, you know riots. Its easy to ignore a protest, but if you burned down K Street it'll make the news. We've tried the other options that may have worked in the past but clearly are now ineffective.

So why don't we? Well because we are too comfortable. No matter how much you hate this war it probably isn't really hurting you, unless you or a loved one are in Iraq, directly. Chances are that if you have enough energy to really pay attention to the world then you don't have major stresses in your life. Probably have a decent job or still in school and really your life ain't too bad. Again I'm assuming based on the fact that you have time to screw around and read blogs then your probably not out in the street trying to figure out how your going to eat next, fair enough? So are you going to risk being arrested thrown in jail, sent to prison, beat by police, possibly killed to maybe help to stop something that you know is wrong but doesn't really affect you?

There are days when nothing would make me happier than to be in a mob of people rushing like crazed wildebeests towards a line of riot police, throwing my molotov cocktail at whatever seemed appropriate at the time. Crashing against the shield like so many Persians at Thermoplae (300) but while we know we will lose the battle, (because how can you win a riot?) it will turn the tides of the war. If people in this country became willing to risk their lives to defend our constitution and its principles then we the people could move ourselves in whatever direction we see fit. But we don't, and neither do I. Those feelings happen but they pass quickly, to riot alone is madness, and to build large enough support to do anything would get you caught and arrested before accomplishing anything. Plus as salt in the wounds if you did create a group with strength to be a threat and were caught then the government would use that as reason to remove even more civil liberties. But at the end of the day it's just easier to do nothing, or maybe read a little and get excited, join a peace group, shout a bit, sign things maybe go to a protest but all without risk. But nothing can be gained without risk.

Take this how ever you want, if you think I am a violent rebel then obviously you missed the part about me being a lazy bastard, and if you think I'm un-american for wanting to see the government over thrown then I suggest you read some Thomas Paine. If the original George W. was here he'd be whipping the shit out of our current George, or maybe he wouldn't. Maybe he'd be the real modern Washington, checking his portfolio on his phone while listening to a podcast about the war while getting a tan at the beach saying, man we should really do something about that asshole Bush.

Good news, sorta

The wife of a soldier who was captured by Al Qeada forces will not be deported. Not theres a statement you don't ever plan on saying. I'm quite disgusted by the fact that deportation was ever on the table. Ok she was here illegally but she was married to a soldier, a soldier that is fighting in Iraq, a soldier that is now captive.

Now that it appears she will not be deported we can breathe a little easier, although the life of her husband is still very much unknown.

Here is the Rude Ones take on this matter, this was prior to the announcement that she would be able to stay.