Subdivided We Stand Meets Marathon Man

That Was Then...

Dick Cheney, 1994:

Gotta hand it to him, the guy had incredible foresight.

Elections

Bob says:

Another election day is upon us, it seems.  Every time I vote, I'm reminded of the old Bloom County cartoon, where Opus is seen in a voting booth, trying to decide between the candidates.  (For the record, I think it was Bush the First vs. Dukakis, or as Opus called them, "wimp" vs. "shrimp.")

Eventually, Opus chooses -- and the voting machine opens up and smacks him in the face with a pie. 

That's certainly how I feel about this particular election.  We may, in fact, finally be ridding ourselves of the pestilence that is Rick Santorum -- but does anybody truly feel better about Bob Casey?  We're about to throw a blank slate into the Senate.  My guess is that in six years we'll be trying to pull a Lieberman on him.

And as for Rendell vs. Swann -- well, the less said the better.  I think the pie-in-the-face we're getting there may well be made of something less pleasant than banana cream.

But go vote anyway. 

Somebody forwarded Kevin Tillman's letter to me, and while it's been widely distributed, I felt it was worthy of being reproduced here.  Here's some background on Pat Tillman, for those who are unfamiliar with his story. 

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It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we got out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman, Kevin Tillman

They Report (Incorrectly): You Decide (That They Suck)

Bob says:

Gee, see anything wrong with this image from Faux News?

Nice to see that Fox won't let a little thing like facts stand in their way of demonizing the Dems.  They used the (D-FL) identifier three different times, apparently.

Speaking of Fox, when are they going to report (and allow us to decide) on the War on Halloween?  I for one am tired of the wingnuts doing their best to rob our children of this cherished holiday.

Subversion of Liberties

In her ruling, which declared Bush's NSA spying program to be unconstitutional, U.S. District Judge Anna Diggs Taylor cited an opinion written nearly 40 years earlier by Supreme Court Justice Earl Warren:

Implicit in the term ‘national defense’ is the notion of defending those values and ideas which set this Nation apart. . . . It would indeed be ironic if, in the name of national defense, we would sanction the subversion of . . . those liberties . . . which makes the defense of the Nation worthwhile.

I have nothing to add to that.

But how long do you suppose it'll take for the right-wing propaganda machine to start smacking Anna Diggs Taylor around?  And who do you suppose takes the first shot?  Rove?  Rush?  Hannity?  Look for Judge Taylor to be swiftboated by this afternoon, if she hasn't already.

Arrest the Traitors

Lost amidst the wreckage of more important news, such as yesterday's Steelers' loss and Saturday's big Penn State win over a truly awful Northwestern team was this:

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05269/577883.stm

Think the support for our efforts in Iraq is waning, just a little bit?  I mean, c'mon, the wingnuts could only manage to get 400 people to attend their little rally?  Heck, they managed to get more of their own office staffers to show up to protest the Gore/Bush recount.

But my favorite part is that some of the nutjobs were demanding that the 100,000 or so who showed up to protest the war be arrested as traitors.  So in other words, we're in Iraq to promote democracy and freedom -- but by God, anybody who actually USES one of those freedoms back here at home needs to be put in the clink. 

Attention Alannis Morrisette:  A black fly in your chardonnay is NOT ironic, it's just something that sucks.  See the paragraph above for a better definition of irony.
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In other news, congrats to the new Mr. and Mrs. Comics Curmudgeon!

On Second Thought

Spent an hour and a half last night, putting together a lengthy political-based diatribe that managed to weave its way from the flag to "Support our Troops" magnets to suburban high schools that won't allow military recruiters to talk to their kids to the morons at the Republican convention who mocked John Kerry's war wounds by wearing little band-aids with purple hearts on them.

I polished up the venom real good, and just when it was nasty enough, I clicked the button to make it "live."

Nothing.

Clicked again.

Nada.  Zilch. 

Went through the process four times, and came up empty each time.

Ultimately, I chalked it up to the lords of cyberspace deciding that there's enough political yammering out there without my contributions.  I still have the original, and maybe it'll get published some day, but we're all probably better off if it isn't.

I'm a wuss.

Happy Independence Day.   This is a great nation.

Yeah -- What He Said

This is lifted directly from Comments From Left Field -- from a speech by Dr. Robin Meyers, given at an Oklahoma University Peace Rally on November 14:

As some of you know, I am minister of Mayflower Congregational Church in Oklahoma City, an Open and Affirming, Peace and Justice church in northwest Oklahoma City, and professor of Rhetoric at Oklahoma City University.

But you would most likely have encountered me on the pages of the Oklahoma Gazette, where I have been a columnist for six years, and hold the record for the most number of angry letters to the editor. Tonight, I join ranks of those who are angry, because I have watched as the faith I love has been taken over by fundamentalists who claim to speak for Jesus, but whose actions are anything but Christian. We've heard a lot lately about so-called "moral values" as having swung the election to President Bush. Well, I'm a great believer in moral values, but we need to have a discussion, all over this country, about exactly what constitutes a moral value -- I mean what
are we talking about.

Because we don't get to make them up as we go along, especially not if we are people of faith. We have an inherited tradition of what is right and wrong, and moral is as moral does. Let me give you just a few of the reasons why I take issue with those in power who claim moral values are on their side:

When you start a war on false pretenses, and then act as if your
deceptions are justified because you are doing God's will, and that your
critics are either unpatriotic or lacking in faith, there are some of us who
have given our lives to teaching and preaching the faith who believe that this is not only not moral, but immoral. -- When you live in a country that has established international rules for waging a just war, build the United Nations on your own soil to enforce them, and then arrogantly break the very rules you set down for the rest of the world, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that Jesus is the Lord of your life, and yet fail to
acknowledge that your policies ignore his essential teaching, or turn them on their head (you know, Sermon on the Mount stuff like that we must never return violence for violence and that those who live by the sword will die by the sword), you are doing something immoral.

When you act as if the lives of Iraqi civilians are not as important as
the lives of American soldiers, and refuse to even count them, you are doing something immoral.

When you find a way to avoid combat in Vietnam, and then question the
patriotism of someone who volunteered to fight, and came home a hero, you are doing something immoral.

When you ignore the fundamental teachings of the gospel, which says that the way the strong treat the weak is the ultimate ethical test, by giving tax breaks to the wealthiest among us so the strong will get stronger and the weak will get weaker, you are doing something immoral.

When you wink at the torture of prisoners, and deprive so-called "enemy combatants" of the rules of the Geneva convention, which your own country helped to establish and insists that other countries follow, you are doing something immoral.

When you claim that the world can be divided up into the good guys and the evil doers, slice up your own nation into those who are with you, or with the terrorists -- and then launch a war which enriches your own friends and seizes control of the oil to which we are addicted, instead of helping us to kick the habit, you are doing something immoral.

When you fail to veto a single spending bill, but ask us to pay for a war
with no exit strategy and no end in sight, creating an enormous deficit that hangs like a great millstone around the necks of our children, you are doing something immoral.

When you cause most of the rest of the world to hate a country that was
once the most loved country in the world, and act like it doesn't matter
what others think of us, only what God thinks of you, you have done
something immoral.

When you use hatred of homosexuals as a wedge issue to turn out record numbers of evangelical voters, and use the Constitution as a tool of discrimination, you are doing something immoral.

When you favor the death penalty, and yet claim to be a follower of
Jesus, who said an eye for an eye was the old way, not the way of the
kingdom, you are doing something immoral.

When you dismantle countless environmental laws designed to protect the earth which is God's gift to us all, so that the corporations that bought you and paid for your favors will make higher profits while our children breathe dirty air and live in a toxic world, you have done something immoral. The earth belongs to the Lord, not Halliburton.

When you claim that our God is bigger than their God, and that our
killing is righteous, while theirs is evil, we have begun to resemble the
enemy we claim to be fighting, and that is immoral. We have met the enemy, and the enemy is us.

When you tell people that you intend to run and govern as a
" compassionate conservative," using the word which is the essence of all religious faith -- compassion -- and then show no compassion for anyone who disagrees with you, and no patience with those who cry to you for help, you are doing something immoral.

When you talk about Jesus constantly, who was a healer of the sick, but do nothing to make sure that anyone who is sick can go to see a doctor, even if she doesn't have a penny in her pocket, you are doing something immoral.

When you put judges on the bench who are racist, and will set women back a hundred years, and when you surround yourself with preachers who say gays ought to be killed, you are doing something immoral.

I'm tired of people thinking that because I'm a Christian, I must be a
supporter of President Bush, or that because I favor civil rights and gay
rights I must not be a person of faith. I'm tired of people saying that I
can't support the troops but oppose the war -- I heard that when I was your age, when the Vietnam war was raging. We knew that that war was wrong, and you know that this war is wrong -- the only question is how many people are going to die before these make-believe Christians are removed from power

This country is bankrupt. The war is morally bankrupt. The claim of this
administration to be Christian is bankrupt. And the only people who can turn things around are people like you--young people who are just beginning to wake up to what is happening to them. It's your country to take back. It's your faith to take back. It's your future to take back.

Don't be afraid to speak out. Don't back down when your friends begin to tell you that the cause is righteous and that the flag should be wrapped around the cross, while the rest of us keep our mouths shut. Real Christians take chances for peace. So do real Jews, and real Muslims, and real Hindus, and real Buddhists -- so do all the faith traditions of the world at their heart believe one thing: life is precious. Every human being is precious. Arrogance is the opposite of faith. Greed is the opposite of charity. And believing that one has never made a mistake is the mark of a deluded man, not a man of faith.

And war -- war is the greatest failure of the human race -- and thus the
greatest failure of faith.

There's an old rock and roll song, whose lyrics say it all: War, what is it
good for -- absolutely nothing.

And what is the dream of the prophets? That we should study war no more, that we should beat our swords into plowshares and our spears into pruning hooks. Who would Jesus bomb? Indeed How many wars does it take to know that too many people have died? What if they gave a war and nobody came? Maybe one day we will find out.

Time to march again my friends. Time to commit acts of civil disobedience. Time to sing, and to pray, and refuse to participate in the madness. My generation finally stopped a tragic war. You can too!

"Only when it is dark enough, can you see the stars.” Martin Luther King,

Fooled

We'll be fighting in the streets
With our children at our feet
And the morals that they worship will be gone
And the men who spurred us on
Sit in judgement of all wrong
They decide and the shotgun sings the song

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again

The change, it had to come
We knew it all along
We were liberated from the fold, that's all
And the world looks just the same
And history ain't changed
'Cause the banners, they are flown in the next war

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
No, no!

I'll move myself and my family aside
If we happen to be left half alive
I'll get all my papers and smile at the sky
Though I know that the hypnotized never lie
Do ya?

There's nothing in the streets
Looks any different to me
And the slogans are replaced, by-the-bye
And the parting on the left
Is now parting on the right
And the beards have all grown longer overnight

I'll tip my hat to the new constitution
Take a bow for the new revolution
Smile and grin at the change all around
Pick up my guitar and play
Just like yesterday
Then I'll get on my knees and pray
We don't get fooled again
Don't get fooled again
No, no!

Meet the new boss
Same as the old boss

Call Me, Call Me Anytime

Rudy, Rudy, Rudy....I thought we had something.

All those tender moments we spent on the phone. You wooing me with your promises. Me contemplating your sexy bald head, and the masterful way you made the homeless just disappear. Did you really want me? I wondered. I know the fickle history of your loves, Rudy. I know all about your past...unfaithfulness.

But all those phone calls, Rudy -- they made me feel -- special. They made me feel -- alive.

But now...nothing.

I don't care if you ARE America's Mayor, Rudy. Your soft words to me on the phone were meant to seduce me -- to win my heart. And it worked, Mr. Rudy, it WORKED! I'm YOURS. Yesterday, as I closed the curtain -- when I was all alone, all I could hear in my head was your voice. And I pulled those levers just the way you told me to, Rudy. Do you hear me? I DID IT YOUR WAY! (At least as far as you know, anyway.)

And now the election's over. You got what you wanted from me.

And now you stop calling.

I feel so cheap. So used. Well it's OVER between us, Rudy. Don't even bother trying to call again. I've had my number disconnected.

At least now when my phone doesn't ring, I know it's by my choice, not yours.

Fiddle Dee Dee...

...tomorrow's another day.

But still....AAAARGH.

The worst part is going to be watching that smug, sanctimonious bastard and his army of the self-righteous now that they feel they have a mandate.

There's an old maxim, attributed, I think, to Tip O'Neill, that all politics is local. For the next four years, at least, we need to remember that, and act on a local scale. Watch you school board races, your state rep races, your County Council races. Especially those school board races -- the loony religious right has a way of sneaking their nutjobs into school boards. Starting today, we begin working towards expelling our Santorum.

I had more, but erased it. Hold your heads high, my friends. We're right, and history will prove it.
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On the bright side, though, Iris seems to be handling Tommy's return to prison pretty well, all things considered. She appears to have comforted herself by stealing his snappy blue sansabelt trousers.