Limpness

Pic courtesy of Zen Comix.

Heh . . .

Again, from the Sister:

. . . I just dare Karl Rove to tell either The Fixer or Gordon to his face that liberals aren't patriots and don't care about defending their country. Go ahead, Karl. I double dog dare ya! . . .

Yeah, me too.

Well said

Driftglass via AOB:

[. . .]

The Chaffes, the McCains, the Snowes...they slink in the shadows, drawing their tattered Small Government rags around them, playing out some ghastly, humiliating, Norma Desmond/Sunset Boulevard charade, pretending that they're still Big Shots in a wholly imaginary Republican Party that is long, LONG dead in everything but name.

But since they have neither the honesty nor the integrity to acknowledge that the Party they once loved is a corpse - murdered by the very vampires they themselves invited in - they're reduce to scampering around out in the cold like some out-of-favor pet that no longer amuses a tyrant child. Listening hungrily for the dinner bell, hoping that they can scrape together one last shred of their dignity to barter away for whatever greasy scraps fall off of Karl Rove's plate.

And like a Gilbert and Sullivan version of "The Stand", the spawn of the wraiths who now dress up and dance in the Dead Flesh of the Party Once Known as Republican are gathering in Las Vegas next week to plot their various mini-me evils. Mostly trying to figure out a way to Whitewash the fact that they are vociferously cheerleading a war based on what we in the Real World call LIES...while scattering like roaches when the Recruiter Man come around.

[. . .]

Yes, indeed. The Republican Party I belonged to so many years ago is dead. It's why I left when I saw the writing on the wall in '92. Best political move I ever made.

Cold War Rehashed

Just as Bush's war against Iraq is compared against the Vietnam war, so is the War on Terror compared to the Cold War by Robert Scheer.

The "war on terror" is turning out to be nothing more than a recycled formulation of the dangerously dumb "domino theory." Listen to the way President Bush justifies the deepening quagmire of Iraq: "Defeat them abroad before they attack us at home." If we didn't defeat communism in Vietnam, or even tiny Grenada, went the hoary defense of bloody proxy wars and covert brutality in the latter stages of the Cold War, San Diego might be the next to go Red.

We fight in Iraq today because Bush listened to a band of right-wing intellectual poseurs who argued America could create a reverse domino effect, turning the Middle East into a land of pliable free-market, pro-Western "democracies" through a crude use of military force. This is rather like claiming a well-placed stick of dynamite can turn a redwood forest into a neighborhood of charming Victorians.

Does this mean Fixer will come out west and go into the home construction business? Shit, he'll make a pile, pun intended.

For four years the White House has framed the war on terror as an open-ended global battle against a monolithic enemy on many fronts, rather than employing a modern counterterrorism model that sees terrorism as a deadly pathology that grows out of religious or ethnic rage and must be isolated and excised.

But why has the White House pursued this nonsensical approach over the loud objections of the country's most experienced counterterrorism and Islamic experts? Because it allows the administration all the political benefits the Cold War afforded its predecessors: political capital, pork-barrel defense contracts and a grandiose sense of purpose.

And because the war on terror has no standard of victory, it can never end - thus neatly replacing the Cold War as a black-and-white, us-against-them worldview that generations of American (and Soviet) politicians found so useful for keeping the plebes in line. It's a one-size-fits-all bludgeon.

The former general who led us in World War II warned of the dangers of an unbridled militarism. "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex," said Eisenhower, a Republican, in 1961. "The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist. We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes."

In a related article, Daniel Ellsburg, of "Pentagon Papers" fame, claims to have written Bush's war words - in 1965.

Later, mates

Via the Sister:

The Ministry of Defence has drafted plans for a significant withdrawal of British troops from Iraq over the next 18 months and a big deployment to Afghanistan, the Financial Times has learnt.

In what would represent the biggest operational shake-up involving the armed forces since the Iraq war, the first stage of a run-down in military operations is likely to take place this autumn with a handover of security to Iraqis in at least two southern provinces.

[. . .]

While the MoD insisted that no decision had been made on Afghan or Iraqi deployments, John Reid, defence secretary, said yesterday that Iraqi forces could begin to take charge of security in their country within a year. [FT.com]

[. . .]

So where are we gonna get the troops to make up the difference? I'm hoping the Iraqis can take over from the Brits, but somehow I think the insurgents will move in as soon as the British leave and we'll have more U.S. troops bogged down there.

Snowed

Granny pointed me to this yesterday. Now that I'm sober I could read it:

A Strategy of Lies: How the White House Fed the Public a Steady Diet of Falsehoods

Colonel Sam Gardiner (USAF, Ret.) has identified 50 false news stories created and leaked by a secretive White House propaganda apparatus. Bush administration officials are probably having second thoughts about their decision to play hardball with former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Joe Wilson is a contender. When you play hardball with Joe, you better be prepared to deal with some serious rebound. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

This is illegal, ladies and gents. Another count to add to the indictments.

Amazing

This is the first year in memory where I didn't blow anything up on the 4th. It was a nice, sedate little gathering in my backyard, just my brother- and sister-in-law and my niece joinng the Mrs. and myself. I did celebrate my ass off though and now I dread going in to the shop this morning, hungover and knowing there'll be a line of cars waiting that got broken over the long weekend. See ya lata, if I live though it. Ha!

Cool Off A Little...

Well, I'll be dipped, you should pardon the pun! It actually works!

Click to embiggen

Patriotism

This is a good day to reflect on this stuff, but we should think about it all the time. From the LATimes.

Patriotism consists of multiple, positive actions on behalf of the United States - registering voters, working in an AIDS hospice, volunteering at a disadvantaged school or raising questions about the Bush administration's full-throttle militarism. Almost no one today discusses the idea of national service that would require young people of different ethnicities and economic backgrounds to come together for community projects, not military ones. The most disturbing aspect of the New Patriotism is its suggestion that dissent about the war in Iraq - or even a simple questioning of progress there - is unpatriotic.

In Viroli's account, the good patriot makes sacrifices, works hard to preserve republican values and participates in civic life. This version of patriotism emphasizes positive freedom - our ability to act on our own behalf for the sake of the freedom of the republic - as opposed to negative liberty - passively allowing the state to protect us and in the process rob us of our liberties. The patriot works aggressively to defend the freedoms that make a people a republic.

We should reflect on these earlier traditions in American history. Although appeals to patriotism are almost always used for repressive purposes, a patriotic position should not be simply grounded in a citizen's reflexive acceptance of fear and surveillance. It is also an active involvement in civic life.

I hope blogging my ass off qualifies as part of "civic life".

A nation of morons

So much for the day off. Via Cookie Jill at Skippy's:

WOODSTOCK, Ont. (CP) - Ontario workers are well-trained.

That simple explanation was cited as a main reason why Toyota turned its back on hundreds of millions of dollars in subsidies offered from several American states in favour of building a second Ontario plant.

[. . .]

Several U.S. states were reportedly prepared to offer more than double that amount of subsidy. But Fedchun said much of that extra money would have been eaten away by higher training costs than are necessary for the Woodstock project.

He said Nissan and Honda have encountered difficulties getting new plants up to full production in recent years in Mississippi and Alabama due to an untrained - and often illiterate - workforce. In Alabama, trainers had to use "pictorials" to teach some illiterate workers how to use high-tech plant equipment.

"The educational level and the skill level of the people down there is so much lower than it is in Ontario," Fedchun said. [my emphases]

[. . .]

And how does being an ignorant moron make us a better nation? If the Jesus freaks, Wal-Mart, and (p)resident C-student finish their job on our economy and educational system, we'll be a Third World toilet in 20 years, doing nothing more than providing unskilled, manual labor for India and Europe. Being stupid isn't something to aspire to.

Just this

Came across this from DemVet:

[. . .]

It's a shame that it takes an unfortunate event like the Mess in Mesopotamia to get the attention of guys who write for the CSM [Christian Science Monitor]. Back in the day, my young enlisted men were working 16+ hours a day on the "roof", and having to get food stamps to provide for their families back home. Pay and allowances for the hardest working and most vulnerable of our troops has long been a sore point with me. No US serviceman should have to resort to living hand-to-mouth, ever while in the service of our country, but yet the politicians who extol their virtues rob them of their pride and dignity with the same breath. And it's still going on, in spades.

If I had a single wish, it would be to educate the members of the military about the voting records of their members of congress on all matters that dealt with their pay and allowances and once a quarter lock them in a room with some of these soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines to explain their votes. In detail, and with no bodyguards. Oh, and hand out the congresscriminal's pay and benefits sheet to each attendee as they arrived in the room.

[. . .]

Hear, hear.

Born on the 4th of July

The nation and this blog share a birthday today. The U.S. is 229 and the Brain is 1. Happy Birthday to both. I'll probably be taking the day off unless something happens. To all our readers, commenters, and fellow bloggers, have a safe and happy 4th.

High Crimes and Really Stupid Moves

Got this From the Wilderness while cruisin' Wolcott. This is the best article I have read to date that ties the whole Plame deal together as a teeny little part of a much larger whole. It is much, much deeper than I thought. The article is quite long, but the whole deal is very complicated and takes a lot of words to sort out. Please, please, please, pretty please with sugar, go read this one. Here's a little teaser. Did I mention I'm a bitch? Ha!

The CIA Director's job by definition, whether others like it or not, is to be able to go to his President and advise him of the real scientific data on foreign resources (especially oil); to warn him of pending instability in a country closely linked to the US economy; and to tell him what to plan for and what to promise politically in his foreign policy. In light of her position in the CIA's relationship with Saudi Aramco, the outing of Valerie Plame made much of this impossible. In short, the Bush leak threatened National Security.

These jerks are doing real damage to their masters' interests.

There are a multitude of signs that the Bush administration is being "swarmed" in what is becoming a feeding frenzy as opposition is surfacing from many places inside the government, including the military. The signs are not hard to find.

Journalist Wayne Madsen, a Washington veteran with excellent access to many sources has indicated for this story that the Neocons have few remaining friends anywhere. All of this is consistent with a CIA-led coup.

It is one of the greatest ironies of the Plame affair that the Bush administration, spawned and nurtured by oil, might have committed suicide by vindictively, cruelly and unthinkingly exacting personal retribution on an intelligence officer who had committed no offense, and who was, quite possibly, providing the administration with critical oil-related intelligence which the President needed to manage our shaky economy and affairs of state for a while longer to squeak through to re-election. In our opinion, nothing better epitomizes the true nature of the Neocons.

Please report back with comments. Here's mine: I LIKE IT!

Update: Fixer found many good links. In light of the big story this week, I especially like this one.

Not to blow our own horn, well, not too much anyway, one thing I've noticed about our hook-up is that either one of us can pour lead downrange while the other spots targets and feeds the belt.

Bust Bob

If you like the "Douchebag For Liberty" as much as me 'n Fixer, go see this. Thanks, firedoglake.

Why?

Why hasn't the MSM been all over this?

SCOTUS fight

Melanie:

Gang, I just got off a conference call with the Vast Left Wing Conspiracy--they are learning to do what the right does so well, and are now coordinating with the blogs. We have a job to do in this SCOTUS nomination season. We know that, that's why we have blogs. We are going to be coordinating on each step of this fight, and the one we are all looking down the road to: Rehnquist's retirement, probably later this summer. We're going to be getting their oppo research, their talking points. About damn time.

I'm glad to say that Just a Bump and Judging the Future are going to be part of the fight to preserve individual rights, the freedom to determine your own values and to uphold human rights.

Sorry, that's classified

Via Pudentilla blogging at Skippy's:

WASHINGTON, July 1 - Driven in part by fears of terrorism, government secrecy has reached a historic high by several measures, with federal departments classifying documents at the rate of 125 a minute as they create new categories of semi-secrets bearing vague labels like "sensitive security information."

A record 15.6 million documents were classified last year, nearly double the number in 2001, according to the federal Information Security Oversight Office. Meanwhile, the declassification process, which made millions of historical documents available annually in the 1990's, has slowed to a relative crawl, from a high of 204 million pages in 1997 to just 28 million pages last year. [my emphasis]

[. . .]

And whatever incriminating that wasn't classified has already been shredded.

Conscience

Paraphrasing Sen. Chuck Hagel on MTP:

I saw 58,000 get chewed up by Vietnam and I'm gonna ask the hard questions so it doesn't happen in Iraq.

Maybe he has trouble sleeping at night? He also stood by his statement earlier in the week.

"Things aren't getting better; they're getting worse. The White House is completely disconnected from reality," Hagel tells U.S. News. "It's like they're just making it up as they go along. The reality is that we're losing in Iraq."

Good on him. Let's hope a few more moderate Repubs have an attack of conscience. Chris Dodd was good too.

Update: 14:10:

The essential PSoTD has more detail on Ol' Chuck.

Cool stuff

Thanks to Victoria for the link.

Breaking even

Matt Ruben has two interesting statistics.