It's on

Because they haven't killed and maimed enough Palestinians yet, Israel has begun the land invasion of Gaza.  And your taxes are going to fund their war of terror.  Ugh.  I fucking hate Zionists.

Guns don't kill people, insane soldiers with guns kill people

Tell me again why we are still in Afghanistan? Are we there so we can murder more innocent civilians?

Bush/Obama's war on Afghanistan is bankrupting us financially and morally. It's 10 years past time we left that hell hole.

How do women at a rave feel about the Afghanistan troop drawdown?

"We're not still in Afghanistan? Are we? Really? We are?"

"You know, I bet if we brought all those troops home, I bet they'd want to stare at my tits. My parents must be bursting with pride right about now."

"Obama is the most totally awesome President ever. I hope he keeps bringing troops home so they can stare at that other girl's tits."

"Our brave men and women need to stay in Afghanistan until the women of Afghanistan can dress and rave like we do here in the USA! Freedom! 9/11!"

Memorial Day

Let's remember all we've lost in the past 10 years:

• civil liberties
• locally owned non corporate media
• free and fair elections
• the right to dissent
• protection for whistleblowers
• the EPA, FEMA, FDA
• union power
• hundreds of thousands of Afghans and Iraqis
• political parties that once worked for the people and not corporate America.

Just imagine how pissed off all those dead soldiers would be if they found out all they had fought for was now being pissed on and taken over by corporations and religious nut jobs.

It's world AIDS Day again so here's what I have to say about that:

Fuck AIDS and fuck HIV. If we put one third or one quarter of the money we've wasted on Iraq and Afghanistan into curing HIV/AIDS, then we'd have it cured by now. But since it's mostly gays, blacks, and drug users who contract HIV/AIDS, the government doesn't give a shit. It's more important that we prosecute an illegal immoral war on brown skinned people who live in an oil rich part of the world than curing a disease that hits gays, Africans, and drug users.

You can't make this stuff up

I just heard that our 'esteemed' Sec. of State Hillary Clinton said that continuing US military operations in Afghanistan were in the best interests of the Afghan people. Funny, I'm old enough to remember when the Soviets said the same thing when they occupied that country.

We've learned nothing from history. Nothing.

Has it been ten years already? Gosh, it seems like it's been a hundred!

My country invaded Afghanistan ten years ago and all we got was mountain of debt added to our budget deficit that used to be a surplus before the war.

My country invaded Afghanistan ten years ago and all this guy got was a traumatic brain injury that changed him forever. Oh yeah, he also got post traumatic stress syndrome too.

My country invaded Afghanistan ten years ago and all these people got was the loss of their homes, their families, and their livelihoods.
My country invaded Afghanistan ten years ago and all this kid got was burns all over his body from fires caused by our bombs. He may get cancer later from the shells that we used that contained depleted uranium.
My country invaded Afghanistan ten years ago and all we got to show for it was more terror attacks, the loss of civil liberties, FBI raids on the homes of anti war protesters, international hatred and mockery, and an anti Muslim backlash.

My country invaded Afghanistan ten years ago and the people who ordered the invasion that led to the deaths of thousands of people, the destruction of homes, the physical and mental injuries that will never heal, get to play golf and have fun:
My country invaded Afghanistan ten years ago and the man we elected to get us out of that quagmire, the man who won the Nobel Peace Prize for not doing a god damn thing that was peaceful, also plays golf while millions of dollars and countless lives get wasted in that rat-hole of a war in Afghanistan.
My country invaded Afghanistan ten years ago and it's time to get the fuck out!

Keeping us free

It's not the military dead or wounded that keep us free here in the USA. It's not active duty or reservists who help keep us free during the year and on Memorial Day.

No, the people who do the most to keep us free and who safeguard our rights are the ones who push the boundaries of the freedoms granted to us in the Bill of Rights in our Constitution. So given that, it's not the terrorists in the far off lands who we need to be fighting, it's homegrown terrorists like those in Operation Rescue, the right wing militias, activist conservative judges who make up new laws on the fly, and Christians who want us all to follow their interpretation of their fairy tale who we need to be on guard against.

The pissed off guy in Iraq/Afghanistan/Pakistan who's country we're occupying has every right to be pissed off at us. The children who's parent's we slaughtered so we could make sure the oil keeps flowing out of the Middle East have every right to be pissed off at us. The Palestinians who we keep under the oppressive thumb of Israel have every right to be pissed off at us. The men, women, and children who live under the harsh oppressive governments that we prop up so we can treat the world as our object to be plundered so that we can live 'high on the hog' can and should be pissed at us. That's where most of the military they want us to glorify today is stationed.

And they have no right to be there.

And I'm not going to support them while they are being used in this fashion.

And I'm not going to celebrate or remember them on Memorial Day.

Instead I'm going to remember people who tested the limits of our freedoms and who landmark Supreme Court cases made us all a little more freer than we were before.

UPDATE: Great minds think alike.

War is hell

Disappointed

I'm disappointed beyond words in the Obama administration for the following reasons:

• They have continued the Bush era practice of invoking national secrecy when it comes to letting those 'enemy combatants' having a free and open trial. (For the record, I don't think any of those people we've been holding indefinitely mean me or mine any harm. They are not my enemies. My enemies are the ones who ordered the torture of others and who plunged this nation into a never ending war.)
• They have not repealed the idiotic 'Don't ask, don't tell' rule. Despite what right wing and homophobic people and pundits say, letting homosexuals serve openly in the military will not lead to homosexual orgies in fox holes and on military bases, pedophilia, or the breakdown of our national defense. Limp wristed lisping effeminate men wearing gauzy scarves and pink leisure suits are not going to lead our nation's military if 'don't ask, don't tell' is repealed. What were going to get instead is some of the most willing men and women who have the best and brightest minds are going to be retained in our armed forces and others who thought about serving but who were afraid to do so will now serve willingly and openly. What homophobes have failed to realize is that if you sign up to join the military, duty and service comes before base bodily urges.
• They have frozen out single payer health insurance advocates in the national health insurance debate.
• And most egregious to me personally is the fact that President Obama's EPA has just approved over 40 permits to let mountain top coal removal mining begin again. For those of you who are unfamiliar with mountain top removal coal mining, the gist of it is this, the coal companies take pristine mountains like these:

and they blow off the tops of them with explosives and they remove all the coal. What's left is this:
This type of mining ruins not only the mountain range, it pollutes the water all around the mountain, the chemicals used in and brought up as a result of the mining infect the area in and around the mines, and it devastates the land and the people who live on it, it makes the land uninhabitable and unusable. The water that used to be absorbed by the tree and plants now runs off the barren mountains and into huge holding ponds that are filled with a toxic sludge that is made up of rock dust, coal dust, and chemicals like arsenic and mercury. And that sludge seeps into the ground water and it then flows and contaminates ground water in surrounding communities. So, unless you're an idiot, you can see why this practice of mountain top removal coal mining is short sighted, hideously wrong, and needs to be stopped.

I may be wrong but I think candidate Obama said he'd stop doing these things if we elected him President. Well sir, we did what you asked, so it's time you did what you promised you do. And if you don't, then you're driving me and others like me into the arms of real progressive candidates who will do something about these injustices. I didn't vote for you to become my President just so you could act like a god damned Republican.

Oh snap!

Beacause Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki has backed Senator Obama's withdrawal plan he's now been placed on a terrorist watch list, axis of evil list, list of appeasers, and he's being called a real "doodyhead" and "Mr. Poopy Pants," by high sources in the Bush administration.

Upon hearing this news after he woke up from his nap, Sen. Bush McCain said that he had supported this plan all along except for the times when he did not support it. He was then reminded of the fact that he wants American troops to be stationed in Iraq for the next one hundred years. Senate Republicans leapt to McCain's defense claiming that no Iraqi has the right to tell us what is best for their country.

Seriously, someone tell McCain that Obama pwned him on this issue and that no amount of "I was a POW in Vietnam" bullshit is going to save his confused doddering old ass this time.

Try to remember

While the corporate media keeps harping on stories like how bad Sen. Obama is for opting out of public financing for his campaign and Bush McCain is a maverick for opting out, that Michelle Obama is a bad angry black woman for saying she was really proud of her country after she saw how white people embraced her husband's candidacy and how Bush McCain is a good guy for admitting that he wasn't proud of America until he was stuck in a POW camp, where incidentally he was broken and said jeebus knows what under torture, and how Cindy Bush McCain is such a great gal despite the fact that she was involved with the Keating savings and loan scandal in the 1980's and she used her own charity as a front so she could steal prescription drugs to feed her pill popping habit, while they report all those "stories," they are neglecting the biggest story of all: the clusterfuck in Iraq.

Yes people, the Iraq war is still going on. People are still being bombed by US forces in Iraq. Innocent people are still being terrorized and made homeless because Bush the Idiot wants to avenge his doddering old daddy and make the middle east safe for western corporations. Iraqi's are still with out decent medical care (hell, so are most Americans), without electricity, without schools, without roads, without farms, while a billion dollar embassy/compound/playground is being built for American diplomats in Baghdad.

We're still making a generation of Iraqi children look like this:A generation of Iraqi parents are doing this: Americans, Brits, and others are still coming home looking like this:
While more and more of our men and women are coming home like this:
So remember all that when you hear Bush McCain, Bush the Idiot, and Traitor Joe claim we're winning in Iraq and that we'd win easily if and when we bomb Iran. And as food and gas prices creep ever higher as we march toward the general election in the fall, remember which candidate said that it would be okay with him if we stayed in Iraq for a hundred years (in case you forgot, it was the one who called his wife a cunt) and who is being advised by the people who are behind the high corporate profits and high prices being brought to you by those same corporations.

Out of Iraq now, end the war now, corporate oversight now, vote Obama in '08.

Happy Father's Day

That's my dad on the left making the face and that's my Uncle Bob on the right trying to look all "Joe Cool" in this photo from the late 1950's.

Happy Father's Day to all you dad's out there, especially to the fathers who have sons or daughters serving in the war for corporate dominance and to children who have lost their fathers in the war. I hope one day that the fathers who took us into this useless war will face justice for the lives they took and the destruction they caused.

Let's hear it for these five great American jurists!

Yay Supreme Court! Yay another smack down for of the illegal and immoral way the Bush junta has treated prisoners! Let's hope the US Congress does not cave in and try to pass a law that takes away prisoners rights again.

Those men in Gitmo and other US backed prisons worldwide are not my or your enemy. They are the enemy of the far religious right and their corporate pay masters and the reason they should have the same rights as you or I do in the US courts is that all people no matter who they are deserve equal protection in our courts. That's one of the many reasons why people want to come to this country. If the Bush junta, or whichever corporate approved cabal is in power, can take away your rights by labeling you as an enemy combatant then what's to stop them from calling any one of us who disagrees with them an enemy combatant? Now a little thing called thousands of years of legal precedent is stopping them and so is this Supreme Court decision as well.

As I said, those men who Bush/Cheney/Blackwater/Amway/WalMart want to keep in prison forever are not my enemy. My enemy is anyone who makes war on innocent people just so multi national corporations can take over their countries. My enemy is any multi national corporation that works hand in glove with the thugs who run the governments that help them take over countries. My enemy is any religious extremist, be they Christian, Muslim, Jew, Hindu, etc. My enemy is anyone who denies any man or woman their basic human rights and who oppresses any other human.

So let's hear it for five out of nine Supreme Court Justices. And for those former Hillary supporters out there who are dead set on voting for McCain, I'd like to remind you that Bush McCain will nominate justices just like the four who voted to take away those prisoners rights, and by extension your rights as well. So you embittered people remember that come election day.

And now here's word from our Idiot in Chief:

Lord Cheney got yet another one wrong

The callous cancerous tumor we call our Vice President got yet another one wrong in a recent interview with ABC. He said that President Bush had it worse than the 4000 dead American soldiers because the responsibility of sending them to war rested on Bush's shoulders.

How delusional is that uncaring unfeeling old bastard?

To say that Bush has it rough in this illegal immoral war is an impeachable offense in and of itself. Bush doesn't have to put on a uniform and go fight for the multinational corporations like he's made thousands of our men and women do. He won't ever get shot or killed on a field of battle and he certainly won't ever suffer from a disabling wound. He won't come home paralyzed from the neck down and he won't ever be severely injured and made little more than a vegetable as a result of having to go fight a war that should never ever have been waged in the first place. Neither Bush nor his family will ever have to suffer him going off to countless deployments to hold people hostage in their own country while they suffer through a civil war that we caused. Barbara Bush won't ever have to worry if her son's war wounds were exacerbated by being exposed to weapons that contained depleted uranium. Laura Bush won't ever have to worry if her husband comes home in one piece or not. Jenna and Not Jenna will always have their daddy around in one piece and they certainly won't have to worry about him suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for the rest of his life.

But you know what? Thousands of military families will have to suffer through all that. Thousands of our soldiers will have to suffer and possibly die because Bush and Cheney sent them to war.

And let's think of the Iraqi people for just a minute. I'm willing to bet they're suffering a hell of a lot more over this war than George Fucking Bush ever will. He's got a nice house to live in, he's got his family around him, he's a got a job, all his ill gotten wealth, he's got his future ahead of him, what have the Iraqi people got? They've got no electricity, little medical care, little fresh water or food, they've got terrorists in their country that weren't there until we illegally invaded. They've also got the US military holding them hostage so that Bush and Cheney can rake in millions of dollars in war profits.

You know what Lord Cheney? I'd say Bush and yourself have it pretty fucking easy in this war. All either of you have to do is to order more death and dismemberment so you and your pals in Haliburton, KBR, and Blackwater can rake in millions more in blood money. You know what else Lord Cheney? If you chickenhawks have it so rough, how about you try putting on combat fatigues and going to fight in Iraq. Your "boss" says if he didn't have to run things over here he'd love to be in Afghanistan, maybe if and when you two ever leave office you'll both go do your patriotic duty and go fight over there. And while we're at it, you can take all the war hawks in Congress, all the corporate media war cheerleaders, and all the folks in the military industrial complex who were war boosters with you and then you maybe our young men and women can come home.

You are an international disgrace Lord Cheney and you can't be gone from office soon enough to suit me.

Takin' it to the streets

After psyching our selves up by listening to our favorite pre-protest music, which for us these days is the song Not Ready to Make Nice by the Dixie Chicks, we arrived at the preapproved site for yesterday's Iraq war protest. It was a sunny day with temps in the low 60's but since the wind was blowing it felt more like the high 50's when the wind gusted. Somehow we put up with the cruel indignities the weather tossed at us.

We got our signs and we met up with Snad and John, the stalwarts behind Concerned TN Citizens. We chatted for a moment and then we took our places on the corner and we began brandishing our signs and waving to the people who drove past us in their cars. In very short order others joined us on the corner and the protest began in earnest. We may be mad as hell over this insane war but we're not stupid, so that means we basically want to let others know that not everyone in this conservative are of east TN/southwest VA/western NC supports our Idiot in Chief and his petulant little unconstitutional war so we protest by holding our signs and showing our support for sanity and peace. We shy away from being confrontational and from shouting inflammatory slogans.

The response we got yesterday was generally very positive, which frankly in this conservative area always surprises me but it really shouldn't because when you think about it most people in this country don't support the war so I'd say that most people around here don't support it either but they are just too afraid to speak out and say so. Of course we had some people drive by and show us they thought we were #1 by showing us their middle finger and we had a few that shouted things like, "Go home!" or "Kill all the rag heads!" at us. Others simply ignored us and drove by in their gas guzzlers. One woman shouted at us, "I'm proud my son is in the army!" If I had had the chance I would have told her that we had nothing against people like her son and that we were probably proud of him too. I would have told her our problem was not with her son but with the people who are his commanders who lied to us in order to drag us into a war that is bankrupting our country and causing the deaths of millions of others.

It's rare at our protests when someone get so angry at us that they get out of their car and say something to us, but yesterday was one of those rare times. Some guy ran over to Rev. John and a guy who was standing next to him and he started jabbering about how we were cowards and criminals for daring to be against the war. He insisted that we had no right to protest if we had not been to Iraq or Afghanistan. I'm never one to miss an opportunity to get my nose in someone else's politics, and neither is my friend Snad, so she and I went over to talk to the little bald dude. He got really mad when we told him it was our Constitutional right to speak out and to protest, we not so gently reminded him that the Bill of Rights says that we not only have freedom of speech in this country, we also have freedom of assembly too. He started screaming about the American rights in Iraq and Snad reminded him that there is no such thing as American rights in Iraq and that Iraq was a sovereign country that we invaded illegally. He kept sputtering that we were cowards who had no right to question the war or the men who run it and we kept telling him that it was not only our right, it was our obligation as patriotic Americans to do so. In the end he finally walked away.

Despite that guy's little display of ignorance and the others who flipped us off, I was heartened by the hundreds of people who drove by and honked in support of us and who gave us the thumbs up in support of our position. The tide out here is turning even more against the war of terror on Iraq and Afghanistan and hopefully that tide will be a tsunami that will wash out more pro war politicians in November. All in all it was a good day to protest because the roads were full of people, I'd say at least 1500 people saw us out there. All in all it was a good protest too because I'm sure that someone who was against the war but felt afraid to say it saw us out there and they now know that they are not alone in opposing the war.

And now lets meet some of the 30 some people who were out on the firing line yesterday:

I never can remember the lady in the foreground's name but she's been to a bunch of demonstrations and I'm pretty sure she goes to Rev. John's church. The lady in the purple jacket is also a veteran on the local protest scene.

Speaking of the man, the myth, the legend that is Rev. Shuck, there he is in all his agitating glory.

And that fat bastard is me.


The skinny guy is Snad's husband John and I forgot the woman's name who is next to him.

These fine looking male speicmens name's are Ron and JW. They both had nice things to say about me and my blog so you know I'm not just blowing smoke when I say that they're two of the finest human beings I have ever met and they will go down in history as two of the most intelligent critical thinkers of this or any other time.

There's one of my heroes, Miss Francis. If I'm half as sharp and on the ball as she is when I get to be her age then I'll be doing damn good.

I didn't meet all these people but I was damn glad they were out in the wind with us yesterday.

And finally here's a shot of Sand, she's on the right, and her brother Mike. They, along with Snad's husband John, have been the engines that have driven the anti war movement in this area for the past year and I'm glad to know them and glad to be their friend. If it hadn't been for them Sparky and I would never have become as active in the movement and we would have never met such great folks like Rev. John, Joseph and Vanessa, Miss Francis, Keith and his sons, and all the other folks who are committed to ending the war and to making this country a more just and peaceful place.

Hey Chimpy

Q: How's that war to bring democracy to the Middle East going?

A: Not so good. Seems nobody wants to end up like Iraq.