Have a great 4th of July weekend suckers!

Hey did your town or locality cancel fireworks, lay off cops, teachers, or discontinue any service that most sane people would consider necessary? Did they do it because they said they couldn't afford it? They're probably lying, just like our federal government lies.

See, the feds keep telling us we have to cut back, freeze spending, and discontinue things like Medicaid, student loan programs, fixing schools, bridges, and highways. They keep saying there's not enough money for that stuff. But you know what they find plenty of money for? The god damn war in Afghanistan.

Oily Leon Panetta and General Betray-us say that Al Qaeda in Afghanistan number less than one hundred. If that's correct then my question is why the fuck do we need to spend $30 billion more on the fucking war? Why are we sending more troops over there? Why are we paying Blackwater and Haliburton to keep doing whatever they're doing over there? Hell, give me a month or two and one million and I'll put together and army of evil rednecks who will go over there and clean out those few Al Qaeda that are left and my boys will do it all for case of beer each, a new rebel flag tattoo each, and a garbage bag full of meth to split between all of them. So why do I need a million? I'll need to it pay off the mortgage on their trailers so they'll have some place to live when they get back, I'd hate to see people who fought for our country go homeless, which puts me one rung higher than the Republicrats on the compassion ladder.

Nine fucking years, less than one hundred of the enemy left to kill, and they need $30 billion more of our money? Where's the teabagger outrage over the war cost? Bush/Obama's wars are the cause of our spiraling deficit. Those out of work lazy bastards who want more unemployment money didn't run our deficit up, it's not those senior citizens who keep on living and sucking down Social Security like Ted Haggard at a glory hole that's putting us in the poor house, it's the fucking wars of terror that corporate America and the prison/military industrial complex want us to wage that's busting our budget.

And you know what? The next person who says that freedom isn't free and that we should all give a soldier a blow job for keeping us free can kiss my ass. No soldier in Iraq or Afghanistan is doing a god damn thing to keep me free. They are there for corporate America and to keep the great American Empire going.

Fuck the war. Fuck pissing $30 billion more away. And most of all, fuck Obama for keeping this shit going. What happened to the anti war candidate who was going to end this shit if we just got off our asses and worked our fingers to the bone to get him elected? Where's that guy? If you find him let me know because I bet he'd love to kick the ass of the current occupant of the White House who is keeping the war going for no good reason at all.

Happy fourth of July America, there's no money for Social Security, for teachers for your kids, for fixing the shit that's broken, for getting us off our addiction to oil, for arts education (which study after study has shown helps kids more than anything), but there's always a stray $30 billion or two for a corrupt quagmire of a country that we're going to occupy for fucking ever.

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, what is it good for?

Absolutely nothing.

Happy Memorial Day from all the men, women, and children who have died in the wars of terror and in the wars for corporate dominance. Go wave your flag at their graves while you're out waving your flag.

Sacrifice

Sacrifices must be made in war time.  

Our men and women in the military have sacrificed their lives for our war of terror on Iraq:

We citizens of the USA have sacrificed our civil liberties and our tax dollars for the warwithoutendAmen:
Laura Bush has sacrificed what was left of her drug addled mind to support her insane drunken husband:
Jenna sacrificed her sobriety and her self esteem to support her deranged daddy and her arranged marriage to Karl Rove's ex aide:
But perhaps the biggest sacrifice was made by our Chicken Hawk in Chief:
No, he did not give up drinking.  No, he did not give up listening to the voices in his head that he claims are really his god talking to him.   What our idiot President has sacrificed is his golf game for the war.  He stopped playing golf while the war has been going on.  What a noble compassionate man he is for giving up playing golf so that he can play executioner to millions.  I'm sure the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, the thousands of dead American and British soldiers would rather he had stuck to playing golf and that he had left something as serious as war to those who knew what the fuck they were doing.  I'm sure it's little consolation to the millions of injured and displaced people that he stopped playing golf so he could "focus" on the war.  

Every dead soldier, every dead Iraqi, every family torn apart by his treachery in causing this illegal war and keeping it going with no end in sight all wish that the Democrats in Congress would develop some back bone and move to impeach Bush and Cheney both.  We've got to stop the war this minute and we've got to make sure that warmongering Bush McCain and Hillary Clinton do not get elected to replace our current Abortion in Chief.

And now some former and currently disgraced members of Congress talk about the war

Rep. Tom Delay (ousted from Congress due to the fall out of the Abramoff scandal and for being an asshole): "We've got to stay the course in Iraq for one reason and one reason only, the baby Jesus told me we had to. And I do everything the baby Jesus says to do, I am a model Christian."

Rep. Bob Ney (ousted from Congress in the wake of the Abramoff scandal and for being a sloppy drunk): "Holy shit, are we still at war? I could have sworn that my bartender told me we won that damn thing a few years ago."

Rep. Mark Foley (ousted from Congress in the wake of a sex scandal involving underage boys and for being a hypocrite): "Does anyone know how I can get in touch with Michael Jackson? He seems like a nice guy with a lot of young friends. I like young mens, oops, I mean young friends. Yeah, that's it young friends."

Former Speaker of the House rep. Jim Wright (ousted from Congress from influence peddling and being a cranky Texan): "I've got a secret plan to end the war in this purse thingy, you'll get it only when I get the sweet release of death. O ye dark gods that bore me, why am I still alive? Come down Baal and take your servant's life, I beg you O dark one."

Rep. Duke Cunningham (ousted from Congress due to bribery charges, influence peddling, and being a nuisance): "Young people today need to go and fight for my freedom. Hahahaha, I'm kidding. I'm not getting my freedom back for another year or so, so I could care less what happens in Iraq."

Sen. Larry Craig (needs to be ousted from Congress for being a lying sack of hypocritical shit and for being a gutless liar): "I need to go to the restroom. Maybe Mr. Foley would like to accompany me. Nudge nudge wink wink."

Rep. Newt Gingrich (ousted from Congress due to financial irregularities and for poking Hasidic Jews with sticks): "The war must continue at all costs! KBR, Blackwater, and Halliburton have not made enough money yet! Stop whining America and give us your minority sons and daughters so that they may die on the battlefield so that we can live our lavish planet ruining lifestyles! Zeig heil ya'll."

Former Sen. Bob Packwood (ousted from Congress for sexually harassing any female who had a pulse and who was in his field of vision): "I have a plan for subduing Barbara. First I get her drunk, then I grope her, then I make her take her clothes off, then I stick her head in a corner and I fu.... What's that? Basra? Not Barbara? Oh, in that case I have no clue and I never ever stuck a woman by the name of Barbara's head in a corner while I tried to frak some sense into her."

Former Speaker of the House Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (ousted from Congress for check kiting and for eating too much at the House of Representatives all you can eat pizza, salad, and dessert bar): "Woo hoo, I have no idea what I ate that made that fart smell so bad but I'm telling you it stinks worse than Chris Matthews breath after he got done servicing the late Tip O'Neil. Say, can you loan me five bucks? I'd like to get some lotto tickets and a bottle of cheap wine."

Sen. David Vitter (should be ousted from Congress for lying about patronizing a hooker and for being a jack ass): "The longer we can stay in session and debate the war the longer I can avoid my wife and this whole hooker scandal. I'm in deep shit either way I go, my wife hates me and this hooker trial is only going to make things worse at home for me. So please for the love of all things holy, let's just focus more on the war and less on where I paid to stick my dick."

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.

I'm proud to say I know a Winter Soldier

While I'm proud and glad that former soldiers who served in the fiasco that we know as the war of terror on Iraq and Afghanistan are speaking out, I'm even prouder to say that I know Jason Hurd, the soldier featured in these videos. I met Jason one morning on a trip to meet with my local douchebag war mongering Congressman. We went to my Congressman's office to ask him to stop supporting the war, the trip was organized by my friend Snad and Rev. Shuck and a couple from his church joined us as well.

Jason also joined us in our march against the war last September and he has, as you can see, not stopped speaking out. Let's all keep speaking out and demanding that we get the hell out of Iraq and Afghanistan and that this country puts an end to war as an instrument of foreign policy.

Winners?

So it's now been 5 years of the war of terror on Iraq and Afghanistan and we've got over a million people dead, millions more displaced, and we're not any safer than we were before Bush took us into this mess.

Who's winning this war?

The Iraqi people?Nope. If you ask them they'll tell you they're worse off since we invaded. They'll tell you they don't have electricity, hospitals, schools, or a sense of safety like they had before. They are hostages in their own country and they want us out now.

Are our troops winners in this war?
Nope. They've been lied to and shit on by everyone in our incompetent administration. Our troops need real support, they need to come home now.

Are US taxpayers winners in this war?
Nope. The war is a huge drain on our economy and it's responsible in part for dragging us into the recession we're in now. We've had to pay billions for a war that most of us never wanted while they tell us that national single payer health care for all is too expensive.

So who's winning this quagmire?
Yep. The ass hats who got us into it are winners because they and their pals in corporate America are all making money hand over fist off this debacle. Ain't that a bitch?

5 years of senseless slaughter is 5 too many.

It's time to end this war the only way we can, let's impeach Bush and Cheney both. We'll be the winners when those two are made to pay for all the death and destruction that they have wrought.

The question is, am our Preznit be learnin'?

And the answer is yes! Well, maybe I'm being a little optimistic since he thinks what he learned applies only to Africa, but at least it's a start.

Maybe we'll get lucky and he'll learn that we should get out of Iraq before there are more of these:

And more of these:

But I have a feeling that we're going to see a shitload more of these:

And more of these before our Idiot in Chief learns that his war was a giant fuck up.

The lunacy of all this is that 19% of the people in this country still support him. I can only hope that a majority of us in November vote for a Democrat for President and we don't let Bush McCain continue the failed war of terror on Iraq and Afghanistan.

And now here's a few words from some kooky looking models

"I'd like to remind you that people are still being killed, maimed, and scarred for life both physically and mentally in Iraq and Afghanistan. The war hasn't gone away you know."

"Oh la la, she's right you know. Millions of dollars are still being wasted over there. Halliburton, KBR, Blackwater, and many more companies you never heard of are raking in millions of your taxpayer dollars while children over here are deined basic preventative medical care."

"I'm a sax, blow me."

"If we really wanted to bring democracy to the Middle East we'd stop propping up corrupt regimes like the ones in Suadi Arabia, Egypt, and Israel. Every day that we exclude Iraqis and Afghans from assiting in the rebuilding of their own countries is another day we make more enemies and we keep true democracy from flowering over there."

"You know, if they let the Iraqis decide what they really want, they end up with an economy that does not include the western multi national corporations that are raping them now. They'd vote for a mixed economic and political system, one where there would be plenty of state owned businesses that would employ lots of people. They would kick out the western multi national corporations in a heart beat if they had control of their own country. And they'd nationalize their oil industry and use the profits to help one another. Why, I bet you didn't know that they already voted for all those things but Paul Bremer voided that election because it clashed with the Bush/Cheney vision for the future of Iraq."

"Pretty much everything Bush and his gang of thieves have said about Iraq has been a lie and it's no wonder those people hate us now. And if you think John McCain will do anything differently than Bush, then you're sadly mistaken."

"Meep zorp, goog fragprip dooplee doo."

Question of the day

Today's question comes to us from bird chick/political blogger extraordinaire DGuzman. She wants to know: Why do the reichs come to our blogs and waste space?

Sappy Boi and Croc69 out on a play date.

Excellent question my friend!

The biggest reason they come to our blogs is because none of us ever goes to theirs so they have to try to use our comments sections to spread their bull shit. It kills them that we don't read them and try to bait them like they do us so they try to engage us on our blogs. I'm taking the high road however and I'm doing what my Mother taught me to do when someone was being an ass when I was a kid, I'm ignoring them. They have every right to write what they like on their blogs but here I decide which comment stays and which corporate apologist Reich wing comments go.

Another reason they lurk on our blogs is they hate it that we use them to spread our views and opinions. It also infuriates them beyond belief that we are using our blogs to organize against their candidates and the corporations and to spread the news stories that the corporate media will never tell. So they're coming over here to spy on us and to keep tabs on what we are doing. They realize deep down in their cold little hearts that true change begins from the bottom up, and gawd knows Bush and the corporations have done their best to keep us all down for years, so they want to be able to see what changes are in store for them in the years to come.

If any of you want to respond to them that's fine, but I'm going to delete their inane comments as soon as I see them. I could leave them on and they might give someone a good laugh but hey, I write the jokes on this blog, not them. Also be warned that if you do respond to them they will follow you to your blog and they'll start leaving long unhinged messages there as well as here. It happened to Ed at Enriched Geranium. Ed was much nicer to Sappy Boi than Sappy Boi deserved, but that just goes to show you what a nice guy Ed is.

Thanks for the question DGuzman! You rock!

Do you have a question you'd like to see me answer? If so then send that question to monkeymuck(at)gmail(dot)com. I'll pick one a day to answer all this month.

A lesson in history for Glen Beck

Glen Beck had himself a nice lil' sit down interview with the President, well I say "sit down" but it was probably more like he had his nose up the Presidential ass while he asked his softball questions. What struck me as funny about this interview was that afterwards Beck says that Bush has a Lincolnesque honesty. I laughed my monkey ass off when I first read that. But then I got kind of sad because I figured that either Beck was joking again, like he did that time when he said that the fires in California were fine because they were burning down the homes of America "haters" or that he just didn't know who Abe Lincoln really was.

I'm in a charitable mood, this being the holidays and all, so I figured I'd use my blog for good this time instead of evil and I'll explain the difference between Abe Lincoln and George W. Bush to Mr. Beck and all the rest of his minions.

• Abe Lincoln gave his life for this country.
• Abe sought to keep our union together.
• Abe freed the slaves.
• Abe governed this nation in the interest of all the people not just a select few.
• Abe surrounded himself with people who disagreed with him so he could see all sides of an issue.
• Abe has two memorials to him, one in Washington DC that is a magnet for freedom loving people the world over and the other in South Dakota.

• George Bush refused to fight for his country when he had the chance to as a young man. He used his father's influence to get him into a cushy deployment with the Texas National Guard. And he didn't even finish that commitment.
• Bush took this nation to war over nothing and he used faulty intelligence to justify it.
• Bush has governed this nation with the interests of the white ruling elites in mind. He has shown himself time and time again to be on the side against the poor, the working class, and the middle class.
• Bush has placed himself above the law with his many "signing statements." In a nation that is governed by laws our President has exempted himself, wrongfully so, from many of them.
• Bush has refused to listen to voices of dissent from within his own administration, from the heartland of this country, and from the world in general. He refuses to speak in front of crowds that are not pre-screened and determined to be loyal to him.
• Bush has cut taxes for the wealthiest people in this country while rolling back services and programs that help the biggest majority.
• Through his war of terror on the people of Iraq and Afghanistan he has succeeded in creating more terrorists and causing our once staunch allies to hate and shun us.
• Bush has, through his refusal to sign the Kyoto accords and to do anything substantive about climate change, condemned millions of people to death and disease.
• Bush seeks to enslave millions of us to the multinational corporations and to the credit card companies.
• There will never be a memorial statue tribute to George W. Bush, or to his weak kneed milk toast of a father for that matter, because memorial statues are never built to commemorate colossal failures.

Mr. Beck, I hope that clears things up a bit for you on the difference between Lincoln and that thug who currently occupies the office of Commander in Chief.

Now there's some gals we can get behind

(Many thanks to my friend Joseph F. for sending me this photo and the 1-800-ARM-Y photo.)

Video from our war protest march and rally

Someone shot and edited this great montage from our anti war march and rally that we held last month. It's almost ten minutes long but it's worth seeing. I'm the fat bastard holding the WHO WOULD JESUS KILL? sign. Our friends Joseph and his lovely wife, the smartest woman in the world, Vanessa are also in it, she's the one standing on the bucket and bossing, oops, I mean telling us where to march. Our friends John and Sandra are also in the video, you'll recognize Sandra from the many photo's I've posted of her on this blog. Also in the video is a few seconds of the Feral Throes, and this time you can see what a hottie the lead singer is! The rabble rousing Rev. John Shuck is also in the video and you can see snippets of his great message to us that day. Watch the whole thing and then go out and do something to end this insane war in your area.


Many thanks to Concerned TN Citizens blog for posting this video, that's where I stole it from!

Protest March Video

Someone shot some great video of our anti war protest march on 9-22 and my pal Sandra over at Concerned Citizens put it up on her blog, go by her place and say hello, would it kill you?

When you watch it you'll be able to see the guys from Chickenhawk Thunder roll past us on their phallic symbols as they try to menace us into keeping quiet. You can also see the giant Bush puppet that was made for the march.

Our march may look cheesy to some but it will remain one of the proudest moments of my life. I was proud to have helped organize it and to have marched side by side with those two hundred plus people.

Alas Monkey lovers, I closely checked both videos, (see the other shorter video at the link above) and you can not see me in the throng of peace loving anti war protestors.

Woo hoo!

The day of our anti Iraq/Afghanistan war protest march has arrived. I'll give you all a full report later with pictures.