Safe?

Serial liar and delusional former President Bush Jr said recently, "In terms of accomplishments, my biggest accomplishment is that I kept the country safe amidst a real danger."

My question is what country is he talking about?
The worst terrorist attack in our history took place under his watch.
Then he used that attack as a pretext to go to war where hundreds of thousands of people got killed, maimed, and psychologically damaged.
And because he took us to war extremists all over the world stepped up their terror attacks, thereby making the world a much more dangerous place. So he didn't keep this country safe. Nor did he keep our allies countries safe, both the bombings in Madrid and London were a result of the wars of terror on Iraq and Afghanistan.
Iraq isn't safe. Even after years and years of war.
Afghanistan isn't safe after ten years of war.

Oh wait, there is one group of people who Bush Jr did protect and keep safe, his base of obscenely rich white men.
Murdoch and his billions are safe.
Lying murderous Amway thug Eric Prince CEO of Blackwater/Xe and his billions are safe.

Pat Robertson and the Christian Taliban are safe.

The rest of the world and the working man and woman, not so much. History will show time and time again that Bush was the worst President ever. I wish there was a hell for his lying murdering delusional ass to burn forever in.

This is what democracy looks like (part 1)

Well my little snickerdoodles, I'm back from the anti war march and rally that I helped organize and let me tell you something kids, it was a smashing success. I honestly thought that if we got 50 people out on this bright warm sunny Saturday that we'd be doing good. But wouldn't you feckin' know it, we ended up with over 200 people at our little anti war/truth surge soiree!!!!!

The idea for the march was cooked up a few weeks back at my friend Sandra's house. She had a bunch of us from TN Concerned Citizens over to her place for a pot luck, and I need to apologize to those fine people for my sorry ass casserole that I brought that day, I promise I'll make it properly the next time we do the pot luck thing. Anyway, a new monkey friend Travis and I got to talking about the upcoming progress report from General Betrayus and we felt like we needed something to counteract the swill he was going to spew, so we cooked up the idea for a truth surge march and rally. We knew too things right off, one was that we were on to something, and the second was that we had to have help, major help, the kind of help only one person could provide, so we called over organizer extraordinaire and all around woman of the year, our hostess that day, Sandra.

Your pal and mine, the rich transplanted Minnesota goodness that is Sandra G.

Travis and his beautiful wife. This picture does not do her justice, she is one beautiful woman, and to be fair, Travis is not so bad himself.

Micki.

Sandra quickly brought in Micki, a super chick in her own right, Frank, an older dude who went to high school with my gf's mom (small world huh), Jim, the owner of The Acoustic Coffeehouse, and some others and we hit the ground running. We spread the word through fliers, the local media, the interwebs, and through most means of communication except smoke signals.

Being the stressed out worry wort I am, I fretted over our turnout all this week. Which is why I was so happy to see all those people who showed up for our march.

Ready to roll.

Please do not feed the protesters or they will follow you home.

Peace loving people from Asheville, NC who rode over to join us, how cool are they?

"C'mon, let's get going, this war won't protest itself."

The guest of dishonor, our Idiot in Chief, King George The Worst.

Just before we were all ready to get going I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned around and this nice guy said to me, "You're the guy who writes that Monkerstein blog, right?" Let me tell you folks, I nearly pissed my self with surprise that I had a reader, besides Sandra and Joseph, who lived so close to me. His name is Keith and not only did he come to protest the war but he brought his two young sons with him to help protest. Keith's son Cameron. Would you look at the sign he's holding? How much do you love that kid? Ladies, I'm not sure but he may be "available" if you know what I mean.

Not interested in Cameron you say? Well how about Keith's other son Quinn. His shirt pretty much sums up my life, "It seemed like a good idea at the time." If you marriage minded parents want to lock in good looking progressive boys for your daughter, then I'd suggest you give Keith a call before someone snaps up his sons.

Seriously, it was an honor to meet you Keith and your kids, especially since you had such nice things to say about this blog and since you all got out to help us protest the war. I've got a feeling we'll run into one another at more progressive events sometime soon.

A little bit after 1:00 PM Miss Vanessa, or as I refer to her as, The Smartest Woman In The World, laid down the law, I mean, she spoke softly to us about the rules of the march, no marching in the street, no provoking anyone, no jaywalking, no walking against the lights, and no littering. That's her husband Joseph, or as I refer to him as, The Super Intelligent Husband Of The Smartest Woman In The World, who was a speaker at the rally, on her left. After Vanessa's kind words we began our 2 mile march to the campus of East Tennessee State University.

On the march for peace and to end the insane war for oil.

Keep it moving folks, there's a war on.

Check this cutie and her great sign out. How cool is she?

I loved this kid and his sign, "Find a President with a real brain." Man what a kid! His whole family was at the march.

And here they are! I showed that younger kid my sign, which also said, "No more war!" and I said, "Hey dude, we're like related or something." He gave me one of those 'Why is that idiot talking to me?' looks.

Hey, what's Notsoccermom's son doing here in east TN? Ahh, who cares? He's working that sign!

For part of the way I marched beside this cute woman. My camera skills did not do her justice, she is as cute as a button.

I may have been too shy to ask her her name but I wasn't too shy to ask her to hold my sign so I could take more photos.

After marching beside Brown Dress Gal I spotted one of my favorite people in east TN, Miss Frances. She's one of my heroes because she's an older gal, lets just say she's been able to become an AARP member for quite sometime now, who is at every progressive event in my area. She's an agitator from way back and I found out today she also writes a weekly column on environmental issues for a local paper. She is orignially from Germany and now she lives in our area, I think we're lucky beyond belief to have her in our midst. I hope I'm still hitting the bricks to make the world a better place when I'm her age.

Okay, this has been one long ass post and we still haven't gotten to the ETSU campus yet. So, I'm gonna bust up the full report into two parts and I'll post about the rally tomorrow. I promise more pictures, more pithy comments, and more monkey love in part 2 of "This is what democracy looks like."

Depleted Uranium Conference Report, or DU you want to save the world or not?

We just returned from possibly the most disturbing conference we have ever attended. It was called DU: from Appalachia to Afghanistan to Iraq. For those of you unfamiliar with, and honestly we were in that group until just a few hours ago, what DU is, we'll give you the short version now. DU is short for Depleted Uranium. Though in reality, there is no real difference between depleted uranium and regular uranium because they both contain radioactive elements that will give you diseases (like cancer), cause serious birth defects, or just kill you out right.

Pre-current war on Iraq DU map.

Certain ordinance made for the US military are coated with DU, or they are made out of DU entirely, though we are no experts on all the hows of how they make all the DU bombs. We do know that they do put it in penetration bombs, those are missiles they shoot at tanks and the like. It is also used in what are known as bunker busters, these are super heavy bombs that weigh up to 5000 pounds and are dropped on buildings and on inground bunkers. And finally they also use DU in cluster bombs, which are dropped on areas that have a high population density. The conference was held here in Johnson City, TN because one of the manufacturers of DU ordinance, AeroJet, is located a few miles from here in Jonesborough, TN.

The depleted uranium is used in the manufacture of ordinance for mainly two reasons. The first because uranium is a very heavy metal, much heavier than lead or other metals they used to make bombs out of and the second, as we stated before, is because the uranium contains radioactive particles.

When the DU infected bombs are dropped on targets the uranium explodes and is transformed into a dust that is spread everywhere. The DU dust goes into the air, the topsoil, the soil under the topsoil, into the ground water, and into people, plants, and animals. It causes an incredible amount of damage to anything it comes into contact with.

Perhaps you may have heard of the 'Gulf War Syndrome.' This is the name given to the many illnesses of the troops who fought in the first Gulf War. The syndrome covers everything from respiratory problems, to skin diseases, to cancers, to the children of some veterans siring children with severe birth defects. What has become clear is that all of the illness that make up 'Gulf War Syndrome' can be traced back to excessive uranium exposure from bombs that were made out of DU or coated with DU.

During the first Gulf War the United States military dropped 320 tons of DU infected ordinance on Iraq and Kuwait. Now as bad as that is, what they have done to us here at home is even more frightening. Since 1945 the Department of Defense has dropped over 457 tons of DU infected ordinance on US soil. They claim they had to do it in order to see if the bombs worked, in other words they bombed us first to make sure that the bombs would work when it came time to bomb someone else.

When a DU infected bomb is dropped and the dust that results from the explosion infects the soil nothing can ever be grown in that soil again, ever, never ever. When that soil is picked up by the wind and spread around, the uranium is spread around as well. So what that means is that bombs infected with DU that are dropped on Iraq will spread their radioactive pollutants ultimately where ever the wind takes the infected soil. And that could be to places like Saudi Arabia, Taiwan, Japan, New Zealand, Nigeria, Togo, Spain, Ireland, Canada, the USA, and right to your back yard.

In the current war of terror on Iraq and Afghanistan these DU infected bombs are being used like they are going out of style. The DU penetrator missiles, the cluster bombs, and the bunker busters are all being used with brutal frequency. Now, bear in mind that anywhere one of these DU infected bombs is being dropped the land on which it was dropped is totally useless for growing food, raising livestock, or building homes. Bear that in mind and then remember how little arable land there is in Iraq and Afghanistan. What we, and I use we with a heavy simian heart knowing that it is my government that is dropping the DU infected bombs on Iraq and Afghanistan, are doing then is destroying the very land of the people that we are supposed to be saving and bringing democracy to.

Not only are we destroying their land forever, we are inflicting upon them all the cancers, the birth defects, and the radiation related diseases that come with the use of atomic weapons. And let's be honest here, DU infected bombs are atomic weapons. We are destroying the land forever, we are killing a generation of people with these bombs, and to top it off we are destroying future generations of Iraqi's and Afghani's by fouling their soil forever.

(The following photos are of babies born with birth defects caused by DU weapons. We apologize if they are gruesome but trust us when we say that there are far more gruesome photos of children with DU birth defects online.)

(These children and others like them who suffer with birth defects caused by DU infected weaponry live brief pain filled lives, in some cases those children who are born with their internal organs on the outside of their bodies only live for seconds before dying.)

Of course all that is taking place a half a world away so it really doesn't concern us does it? Well since the uranium infected dust is spread in the wind, then hell yes it does concern us. We breathe in dust that contains that uranium and so do your kids and your pets. Our troops over there breathe it in in much higher concentrations, as do the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan, and they are suffering from the same respiratory and health related problems as did the soldiers who fought the first Gulf War. And the children born to our troops are suffering with the same defects that are plaguing the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The speakers at the conference included a US Army whistleblower who was forced into retirement and has been hounded beyond belief since he chose to courageously speak out about the effects of DU bombs, Major Douglas Rokke. Major Rokke has been smeared by people in the Army for doing his duty as a citizen by speaking out about DU, has been stripped of certain benefits, been called a 'kook,' been shot at, and yet he has not wavered in his attempts to bring the horrors of DU to light. He can produce signed orders warning about the downside of using DU, as well as orders that state quite clearly that the Army must pay for the medical bills of anyone infected by a sickness caused by a DU infected bomb.

Also speaking at the conference was a courageous woman named Cathy Garger who has done mountains of research into the world of DU. She also has been smeared and labeled as a nut by people in the US military, yet she chooses to continue to speak out and to warn others of the idiocy of using these types of weapons.

Finally one of the most moving speakers at the conference was Dr. Mohammed Daud Miraki. Dr. Miraki is a native of Afghanistan who has written a book entitled Afghanistan After "Democracy" which can be purchased here. Proceeds from his self published book will go to rebuilding his native country and not to the NGO's that are raping Afghanistan.

We'll post more about Dr. Miraki's talk tomorrow, but right now we want to leave you with this thought, if you care about your fellow man, your family, your kids, your planet, then get off your asses and demand that the US military stop using depleted uranium weapons, work to end the war, and work to dump anyone from public office who opposes those two things.

From bad to worse

Hey everybody, remember these two guys?
The Idiot in Chief and...

his Veep Dickhead Cheney? You remember them? Well, do you also remember that neither of them served in Vietnam? And remember how they took us to war in Iraq? Remember that?

Well, as bad as that shit was, their newest wrinkle in the war with out end amen is an outrage.

From Think Progress: “Troops don’t need bigger pay raises, White House budget officials said Wednesday in a statement of administration policy laying out objections to the House version of the 2008 defense authorization bill. … Bush budget officials said the administration ’strongly opposes’ both the 3.5 percent raise for 2008 and the follow-on increases, calling extra pay increases ‘unnecessary.’“

You understand that right? The guys who refused to fight for their country during the war of their youth, who then sent the youth of today into an ill conceived, poorly executed, reckless war with out end, now do not want to give those troops a fucking raise for their efforts.

We here at Monkey Muck HQ shudder to think of what the troops might do with a few extra pieces of silver.

Why they might go out and buy those expensive prosthetic limbs or something.

Or they might blow it all on signs.

Or garish Hawaiian shirts.

Or they might piss that raise away on hats, hats that they wear to funerals, funerals for soldiers, soldiers who died in the war of terror on Iraq.

Or they might use that money to travel to interesting places and to do fun things.

Or they might use that raise on music lessons.

Well, we'll never know. Because you say they don't need a raise. Nope, no sir, no raise. Why, do you know who would suffer most if our fighting men and women got a raise?

It's time. You know it, we know it, and they know it too. It's time to impeach the bastards who stole our country, took us into war without end, trampled our Constitution, killed hundreds of thousands, and who refuse to take responsibility for their crimes.

Join us here at Monkey Muck and with the Honorable Rep. Dennis Kucinich in calling for their impeachment and for the building of a new more equitable America for all, not just for rich white men.


Kucinich in 2008.

Educating Mitch

We caught Mitch McConnell on CNN this morning here at Monkey Muck HQ and out of all the startlingly out of touch with reality statements he made, the one about him and the rest of the Congressmen and Senators from the Republican Party being seriously upset with the Iraqi government hit us the hardest. He said that he had no idea what their problem was and why the heck could they not get it together and do something to prove that they and their citizens were behind us in the war of terror in their country.

Please Mitch, let us here at Monkey Muck HQ educate you, okay?

Here we go Mitch, you pay attention and don't get distracted by any loud sounds or bright shiny colors while we teach you a thing or two.

Imagine, if you can Mitch, that a country is being led by a hateful dictator who was thoroughly despised at home and abroad.

Sorry Mitch, heh,heh, heh, we know you were thinking of this other guy:

Now, Mitch, imagine that the people in this country that is being led by a hated dictator have electricity 24 hours a day, plenty to eat, a relatively safe neighborhood, and as long as they abide by the laws then they are pretty much left alone.

You follow so far Mitch?

Now imagine that someone from across the world attacks that country based on lies, overthrows the dictator, installs a "democracy," and then proceeds to allow his buddies in big business to plunder and rape that country.

Now imagine that you are a citizen of that country and that you no longer have electricity, food, or access to decent medical care. Imagine, if you can, the anger and rage you would feel if you saw foreign corporations steal your country's assests and screw you out of rebuilding your own country. Imagine how you would feel when you saw private armies that are accountable to no one and yet who work along side the occupiers in keeping you and your counrtymen and women down.

Then imagine how you would feel if the occupiers got pissed at your legislature for not passing laws that rape you and your country. Imagine how you would feel if some pompus rich white asshole from the state that is known as pimple on the ass of the South, Kentucky, went on a Sunday morning TV show to bitch about how ungrateful you and your lawmakers were for not doing anythng and everything that the occupiers wanted them to do.

Now Mitch, imagine all that and then you maybe can figure out why the Iraqi people and their legislature don't ask, "How high?" when you and your President say, "Jump you damn ungrateful brown skinned bastards."

You know what Mitch, if you actually could imagine all that we bet this would be your reaction to what is going on in Iraq:

Happy Mother's Day Laura Bush, or That's not banana in your pocket and I know damn well you aren't happy to see me

Ah Laura, it's that time of year again, that time of year when you get to celebrate being a mother. It's nice that you have such a lovely family.By the way, how are Jenna and The Other One? We hope they're fine and that our little Mother's Day greetings find you doing well as well. Honestly Laura, we just want to wish you a happy Mother's Day. And we are so sorry that you and Georgie Jr. suffer so much over the war.

Oh yeah, we nearly forgot, we also wanted to show you some people who will not be having a good Mother's Day and who we think suffer a hell of a lot more than you do over the fucking war your husband dragged this country into. So here we go sugar, you pay close attention now, ok Laura?

This British woman lost her son in the war. We'd be willing to bet she suffers everyday over losing her child.

This woman lost her son in the war on Afghanistan and then some guys who work for your husband covered up the facts surrounding his death. We doubt she's going to have a good Mother's Day. And her suffering over the war will probably be just a tad more than yours.

This Iraqi woman won't be having a such a nice Mother's Day either. Her son got killed in crossfire between US troops and insurgents. And that was after your husband declared that the war on Iraq was over and that we had won.

Here's a few more Iraqi women who won't be having a good Mother's Day. Their family members got killed in the war.

And we're not sure if this kid even has a mother left.

And we're pretty damn sure that the women who gave birth to the soldiers in these coffins will be having a lousy Mother's Day. And we're pretty certain that their suffering is off the charts compared to yours.

But we are nothing if not magnanimous here at Monkey Muck HQ, so we hope you don't suffer too much over the war this Sunday and that you have a super duper Mother's Day with the your family. And thank goodness that none of them have been brutally murdered in a misguided war.