The Glass Teat, October 25, 1968

The "Generation Gap".

Whatever happened to that phrase?

Ellison has a lot to say about the profoundy conservative attitudes of TV at the time, in that their main appeal seemed to be to the generation that grew up in the 30's and 40's and ignoring their younger audience. Which didn't mean their programming was any more mature - it merely meant it was dominated by the kind of entertainment popular back in that period.

Variety shows, especially - a form of TV that seems to have disappeared. These shows featured a mix of comedy skits and musical numbers, much like a cleaned-up version of the old burlesque shows. These had no interest for the younger audience, so they failed to watch - and in a vicious circle the younger audience was shut out in favor of their elders. And so on.

These days, instead of the mere three channels (plus public television) that we had back in '68, we have a proliferation of cable channels that feed that same kind of need for nostalgia - TV Land and Boomerang being only two, plus channels especially for older shows from the 50's and 60's. The "free market" has won and we can all indulge in our respective nostalgias in peace, never having to be bothered with programming we don't understand or like.

I don't know if that's a good thing or not.

Then again...

maybe we're the new Khmer Rouge.

David Corn points out how Pol Pot and his merry band of agrarian Communist thugs thought waterboarding was really peachy keen effective.

It'd be interesting to hear what the pro-torture righty bloggers had to say about that.

All we need now is some Trabis and we're set

Well, we are now pretty much officially the New East Germany - what with the torture and the shiny new border fence. We're on the INSIDE, though, so that kinda sucks.

And the Doughy Pantload That Roared goes off the deep end into the vasty depths of insanity by justifying torture on the grounds that a fictional TV character does it:

If torture is a categorical evil, shouldn't we boo Jack Bauer on Fox's "24"?

And a notable right-wing legal blogger decides that commenting on the legal implications of torture is partisanship:

Given the complexity of the text under discussion and the legal issues it generates, it is quite resistant to serious blogging by a law professor. Failure to blog should therefore be read as a sign of the law professor's distance from partisanship.

'Cause it's ALL SO FECKIN' COMPLEX, donchaknow. Couldn't just say "some things are inherently wrong". That would be bad.

Unless of course you're the sort of person who finds things bad when they're fictional but not when they're real:

The clip led many of the evening's TV news reports, replete with anti-video-game-violence commentary spawned by Sen. Lieberman's earlier observations on the product: that it was set in a sorority house, where the object was to hang women on meat hooks. "These games teach a child to enjoy inflicting torture," said Lieberman.

I guess if someone now comes out with a video game where you hang women on meat hooks to save Americans from a terrorist nuke, IT'S PERFECTLY OKAY.

But, then again, we're really not like East Germany, seeing as we've got a really big army and all kinds of cool gadgets to blow stuff up with. Which means, with the passage of the "Iran Freedom Support Act", we'll soon have a shiny new war to distract us from all the bad things going on in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Oh, and that Iraq thing?

It's no longer legal for the press to "publicly insult" the government:

Currently, three journalists for a small newspaper in southeastern Iraq are being tried here for articles last year that accused a provincial governor, local judges and police officials of corruption. The journalists are accused of violating Paragraph 226 of the penal code, which makes anyone who “publicly insults” the government or public officials subject to up to seven years in prison.

[snip]

“It is the right of the Iraqi government, as it combats terrorism, to silence any voice that tries to harm the national unity,” said Mr. Sadr, of the Iraqi Media Network.

So nice to see that "democracy" thing working out so well there.

Idiot in Chief

2009 can't come fast enough for me:

"It will stop all the speculation, all the politics about somebody saying something about Iraq; you know, somebody trying to confuse the American people about the nature of this enemy," Bush said.

Yeah, god knows that "somebody saying something about Iraq" is just SO AWFUL.

Whatever that means.



(EXPANSION: I suppose it would be JUST TOO DAMN MUCH to expect the Leader of The Free World (or whatever we've got) to say something on the order of "We feel this will help address some of the questions people have had about the content of the NIE with respect to the situation in Iraq and terrorism" or some such talk.

I suppose that would be just too much to expect.)

But THEY'RE the ones who support the troops

Republicans are pretty much in total control of our government at the moment, especially where The War Against Those Bad Guys is concerned.

So what's the deal?

Sept. 25, 2006 — The strain on the Army from the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan has become so great that top officials are now privately saying the only long-term solution may be to make the overall size of the Army bigger, adding as many as 60,000 troops, ABC News has learned.

[snip]

There are currently 501,000 troops with the level expected to reach 512,000 by the end of next year. To add an additional 60,000 is a costly proposition that Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has consistently opposed.

Aaaaaannnnd... where are they going to get those kind of numbers?

Increasing the size of the Army would take time and money, so to deal with the strain in the short-run, officials are also considering another costly and unpopular idea — using more National Guard troops in Iraq.

I.E. robbing Peter to pay Paul. Hurricane season lasts until November - let's hope it continues to stay quiet, this year at least, 'cause the National Guard troops will all be over in Iraq.

Not that the White House doesn't have options. Private enterprise to the rescue!

But it's not just people where they're falling short:

The strain has also spread to the equipment, with the Army now saying it will cost $17 billion a year to repair and replace equipment in Iraq. Right now, some soldiers in the U.S. don't have all the tanks, artillery and other equipment needed to train because when they return home, units deployed to Iraq leave their equipment behind in that country for their replacement units.

Hell, that doesn't matter. We'll just give 'em wooden guns and cardboard tanks and they'll be good to go! What more would you expect from the most powerful nation on god's grey earth?

These challenges are about to hit the taxpayers hard. The Army is pushing for a big increase in its next budget of, perhaps, more than $20 billion a year.

And here comes the military for ANOTHER handout from the taxpayers. Why not just have a new tax, like was done in Vietnam, if it's so important?

Oh, wait, TAXES BAD. Never mind.

Of course, $20 billion is peanuts compared to the $50 and $75 billion "supplimental spending" allocations Bush keeps going back to Congress for. (What the HELL have they been doing with THAT money, by the by?)

But I suppose it's all John Kerry's fault, or Hillary's, or something. Sure as hell can't blame the people in power, after all.

Uh, Rep. Pelosi?

For future reference:



This is a thug.



This is a thug.



This is a thug.



This is a thug.



This is a thug.



This is a thug.



This is a thug.



This is a thug.



This is a thug.

Any questions?

Situational Ethics

Found this in doing research for the previous post; Alan Keyes defending Rep. Tom Coburn's whining about the movie Schindler's List being shown on TV:

When a film of great merit like Schindler's List is made to bow before the standards of public decency, its merits argue forcefully for the idea that there are some lines of human decency that we simply may not cross, no matter how plausible the motivation.

How the right has changed in these last few years.

(Note: Though Keyes was on the wrong side in the Schindler's List case, he decried his fellow conservatives' attitudes toward the torture at Abu Ghraib. Credit where credit's due.)

The Glass Teat, October 18, 1968

Ladies and gentlemen - welcome to violence!

This column discusses violence in the media, from the coverage of the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago to the gratuitous violence of westerns like Gunsmoke where "Little Joe Cartwright shoots down seventeen faceless hardcases" and we don't blink an eye 'cause they were Bad Guys and Got What They Deserved. In between, Ellison points up the fact that sometimes for the sake of the story violence is necessary (referring specifically to Herman Melville's Billy Budd.)

Media today seems to be more scared of sex than of violence (as long as it's the "safe" violence as in Gunsmoke - all the killing and only 10% the blood). It's more acceptable to show a violent movie than a sexual one - and what gets cut when the film makes its debut on network TV?

More interesting, though is the comment at the end of the column, about the proclivity even then of news reporters to exploit tragedy:

"Or doesn't it disturb anyone to see a video newsman shoving his hand-mike down the gullet of a grieving widow on her knees before the burned body of her seven-year-old son?"

Little did we know then that the explotiation of tragedy would turn into a full-time obsession for news outlets, from the initial minute-by-minute reporting, complete with reckless speculation, to the obligatory anniversal (is that a word?) references.

TWA Flight 800. John F. Kennedy, Jr. Princess Diana. Jon-Benet Ramsey. Chandra Levy. The DC sniper. School shootings. Luby's cafeteria. San Ysidro McDonald's. Jim Jones. Waco. Oklaholma City, 1995. Ex-employee massacres. Postal worker shootings. And, of course, the biggie, 9/11.

I'm ashamed to be American today

Deal on suspects closes GOP rift

um... yay?

KEY POINTS IN THE DEAL


• Defines acceptable treatment of prisoners. Permissible techniques remain classified. Identifies abuses such as rape and maiming as war crimes

Rape is out of the question, at least. "Maiming"? Well, I guess if your cuts aren't too deep and don't remove limbs or anything it's okay. And thank god the techniques that have been okayed "remain classified" - god knows it'd give aid and comfort to our enemies to know what we could do to them. And for us to know what's being done in our name.

• Bars conviction based on evidence withheld from suspects.

So we'll convict them on something else, then.

• Bans the use of evidence obtained by torture. Judge decides if coerced testimony can be admitted.

"Torture" evidently meaning the "anything less than rape and maiming" criteria from above. And if the judge decides "coerced testimony" can't be admitted? Well, obviously then he's one of them liberal activist troublemaking judges who should be thrown out for endangering the lives of Americans in sabotaging bringing to justice those who want to KILL US ALL!

Democrats appeared likely to back the compromise. "It is time to make the tough and smart decisions to give the American people the real security they deserve," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada.

Yeah, thanks for nothing, Harry, you sorry-ass piece of rat excrement. "Opposition party" my fat ass. Nice to see the Dems dig in their heels and stay firm on this important matter of the moral face America presents to the world.

Boy, that sure as hell inspires ME to vote Dem this November.

Doremus, Buck Titus, Perefixe, and Falck were for a time too gloomy for speech--so possibly was the dog Foolish, as well, for at the turning off of the radio he tail-thumped in only the most tentative way.

R. C. Crowley gloated, "Well, all my life I've voted Republican, but here's a man that--Well, I'm going to vote for Windrip!"

Father Perefixe said tartly, "And I've voted Democratic ever since I came from Canada and got naturalized, but this time I'm going to vote Republican. What about you fellows?"

Rotenstern was silent. He did not like Windrip's reference to Jews. The ones he knew best--no, they were Americans! Lincoln was his tribal god too, he vowed.

"Me? I'll vote for Walt Trowbridge, of course," growled Buck.

"So will I," said Doremus. "No! I won't either! Trowbridge won't have a chance. I think I'll indulge in the luxury of being independent, for once, and vote Prohibition or the Battle-Creek bran-and-spinach ticket, or anything that makes some sense!"
(from It Can't Happen Here (and, as Reverend Falck says, the hell it can't!) by Sinclair Lewis)

America the Uptight

We are wound SO DAMN tight in this country where sex is concerned.

Don't believe me?

Here you go:

MONROE, N.Y. Sep 18, 2006 (AP)— School officials apologized after an X-rated font was used on a third-grade spelling packet handed out to parents. The font showed male and female stick figures in provocative poses to form the letters of the alphabet.

Some idiot at a school in New York pulls an alphabet off the InterNetTubething for his/her/its third-grade students, and WHOA NELLY it was discovered that the letters were actually stick figures doin' things you can get arrested for here in the South even in these modern times. (And notice it was handed out to PARENTS - not kids!)

In the broadcasting of the story, of course, the local New York ABC affiliate fuzzed out the letters.

Let me emphasize this. They fuzzed out, not live high-detail pictures of real humans bumping uglies, but STICK FIGURES.

STICK. FIGURES.

'Cause, it was, you know, stick figures. Having sex. With all that that implies.

Next in America: Banning those damn sexually explicit orchids! You know, those flowers are really sex organs, and you know, kids MIGHT GET IDEAS...

The Glass Teat, Oct. 11, 1968

Saturday is Friday at Carvel! *

Anyway, in the main this column discusses the beginnings of the entertainment media's process of turning minorities into spokesmen for the Establishment, specifically in the context of having black actors speak and act in ways Ellison felt totally incongruous, given what was going on at the time.

Some context: This was just a couple weeks after the disastrous 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago where protestors had been assaulted by police, six months after the assassination of Martin Luther King, and during the beginnings of both the massive student actions against the Vietnam War and the civil rights "riots" in major American cities.

Just a few weeks after this column "Star Trek" would show the first interracial kiss on national TV and thereby earn the wrath of TV stations in the South who refused to broadcast the episode. So it shouldn't be suprising that Ellison mentions the case of an episode of a show called "The Outcasts" in which (white) actor Don Murray "gets the girl" while (black) co-star Otis Young gets to sit and cool his heels. Young couldn't, after all, have been expected to "further the plot" with the young lady, as Ellison phrases it. It wouldn't do.

Similarly Ellison objects to a speech in "Mod Squad" in which one of the show's protagonists encourages a girl, with much "hip" slang and inspiring talk about Robert Kennedy, to stay in school.

"Did I mention that Mr. Williams and Judy Pace, the actress who played the girl friend, were black? I didn't? Perhaps it was because they didn't sound like any blacks I ever heard. They sounded like The System, and The System is white, so there must have been something wrong with my set's color control."

Thank god TV's so more enlighted these days.

*(You may only get this joke if you're from the NY/NJ/CT area.)

An apology

A couple days back I did a post on LETTERS FROM THE FRONT LINES , and recieved the following comment on the post:

Just read this recent blog. I actually wrote chapter two of the book and was dissapointed you found it a "Pentagon effort to put a better face on the Iraq conflict." While I haven't read the book (so don't know its tenor), I hope my chapter at least presented a reasonably balanced account of life in Iraq. In fact after the excerpt you quote from me I go on to explain my view of why Iraqis feel such mixed feelings toward the US. The full excerpt reads as follows:
"For me, Saddam’s capture created such intense feelings because it was the first time in many months I let down my normally cautious guard and allowed myself any real feeling of optimism and hope. The greatest frustration we’ve felt over these last 9 months in Iraq is that our soldiers really want to be appreciated and liked by the Iraqi people. Whatever the politics, our soldiers on the ground don’t have grand or nefarious foreign policy objectives. They spend their days building schools, paving roads, training policemen, trying to catch ‘bad guys,’ and working to improve the lives of local Iraqis. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard soldiers complain that 'these people don’t get it,' or question 'why Iraqis don’t understand we are trying to help them.' In frustration, I have probably expressed similar sentiments myself. Prior to Saddam’s capture many of us clung to this wishful, perhaps overly-idealistic belief, that once Iraqis no longer feared Saddam they would be more welcoming of U.S troops, and peace and stability would follow. Of course the truth is a good deal more complicated, and even after Saddam’s capture Iraqi resentment toward Americans remains high. Iraqis have understandably mixed feelings toward U.S. soldiers. The most rewarding part of training Iraqis border guards, policemen, and soldiers is I get to witness Iraqis undergo an attitude transformation from resentment and distain for the United States to respect and appreciation. Iraqis are amazed that our troops follow orders, and accomplish missions without resorting to fear, threats, and physical violence. They are awestruck that we treat all people, even their ‘lowly’ privates, or suspected criminals, with respect and dignity, and are amazed when we train them to do the same. It is refreshing and gratifying watching the satisfaction these Iraqis feel simply by being treated humanely. At the same time, our other daily missions of conducting raids to route out 'extremists' and 'terrorists' is a very imprecise art, at best. As a result innocent Iraqis are often swept up in our arrests and subjected to degrading treatment at our hands. Having their doors kicked in and being pulled from their houses in handcuffs and blindfolds, or being shot at a traffic control checkpoint for driving too fast can’t help but harden Iraqis hearts in the same way that roadside bombs and suicide attacks continue to harden our soldiers’ hearts against the Iraqi people."

Anyway, like I said, can't vouch for the whole book but I too will be dissapointed if it turns out to be a propaganda machine either for or against the war. I know my letters were not intended for that purpose and hope they don't convey that message. Thanks Brian

Well, Capt. Baldrate, I'm sorry for making you sound like an apologist for the war. I was basing my comments on a pre-publishing email I had recieved as well as the book's press kit. What I quoted was what the press kit had quoted from your letter; given their selection of a relatively positive section as opposed to the later comments about hearts being hardened, combined with some of the other sections I had quoted in the post, seems to me to be a choice on the publisher's part to serve a propaganda purpose. Maybe I'm reading too much into it; maybe it's just good P.R. for a new book. I don't know - I'd like to see the finished product, but from what I can see in the press kit it doesn't look good.

Given what we've done to Iraq over the last three and a half years, not to mention the thirteen-some-odd years of sanctions, it's a suprise to me they're willing to cut us ANY slack. It's good to hear they reciprocate kindness with kindness; maybe ten years from now we can go back to Iraq, as some have done with Vietnam, and they'll recieve us as freinds and forgive us what we did. I don't know. (I'm still suprised the Vietnamese are as forgiving as they are, considering what we did to THAT country.)

I'm not one of these mythical leftists who rejoices at the idea of American soldiers being killed. I don't cheer when our troops die, as some assert - I'm tired of the bloodshed on both sides and, quite frankly, we had no cause to be there in the first place. I'm for pulling the troops out and trusting the Iraqis to take charge of their own destiny. I don't want to "see America defeated", but frankly that's the way it's looking, and I don't see many clear assertions of what victory would entail. (And if you can't articulate what "victory" means, don't tell me I'm for "defeat".)

As I said, I'm sorry for making you out to be something you're not, and I hope also the book takes more of the even-handed approach you've expressed than the gung-ho attitude that the press kit seems to present. We'll see.

10:00 am, Sept. 11, 2001 (harsh language)

About this time, five years ago, I was sitting in blissful ignorance playing a game of Diablo when the phone rang. It was Mom, calling from Atlanta where she had been for the last day or so for a business conference. She sounded almost hystercial, saying she had called "just to make sure I was okay". The hell I knew why - I figured at the time she had had one of those dreams where something horrible happens to someone you know (I wasn't thinking why that should be the case some 4-5 hours after she had woken up.) She said something to me on the order of "You don't know? Turn on the TV!" and I went out to the family room and did so.

Not good, I thought. Very not good.

In between calling my sister and father, doing the same kind of base-touching that so many others did that morning, I thought about what was going on. I wasn't shocked or outraged, more just with a kind of feeling of sick inevitability, that I knew this kind of thing was possible and (again, like so many) thinking that it was just too surreal to be happening.

I don't remember if I saw the towers collapse live; it's all blurry in retrospect and the things I remember most clearly are the (fortunately false) reports of a car bomb outside the State Department, and Lawrence Eagleburger asserting that we were at war and needed to find someone to bomb ASAP.

I recall I flipped back and forth between the coverage on CNN and that on BBC America until I had to go to bed around 12:30 pm or so. That night, I went to work at a subduded Wal-Mart, where understandably nobody felt like shopping. They played an audio feed of CNN over the PA system, including their coverage of the tape they had been sent of the first plane impact, complete with the "HOLY SHIT! Holy SHIT!!" of the cameraman. One of the very few amusing aspects of that night, considering where I was.

We all know the rest. I'm sure I wasn't the only one who cringed at the sound of jet engines for the next couple weeks. We all stood together, except for the ones who decided to shoot and/or harass anyone with "Middle Eastern" looks. Everyone supported Bush, except for those of us who knew goddamn well he would exploit what had happened. But we were "blame America first" types, of course.

And over the last five years we've found out so much about how they knew goddamn well that SOMETHING was up and that "the system was flashing red" and that Bush's expression that morning in the Emmy Booker classroom was not one of grimness (as they said on CNN this morning) but the expression of a student who's been told the test he's about to take counts for 50% of his grade, after he spent the night watching "South Park" instead of studying. One of "jeez, maybe I should have LISTENED closer".

They've milked this for everything they can. I sometimes think Bush can't open his damn mouth in public without mentioning 9/11 ("Please pass the 9/11 salt"). And are we safer? Hell, no! They'll CLAIM we are, at the same time they're willing to issue politically-motivated terror warnings and use the horror of that day as a defense of everything from national ID cards to the occupation of Iraq. And if it happens again? Well, they'll be hiding out in their bunkers the way they were five years ago, and innocent Americans will pay the price for their sociopathic international "policies" and then their corpses will be once again used by these amoral ghouls as "proof" of the need to invade Iran. Or whereever.

Al Qaeda is still "in business", bin Laden's still loose, the Taliban is slowly retaking Afghanistan, Iraq's the new terrorist training ground they claimed they didn't want it to become, the anthrax mailer's still loose (Remember?), modern-day Know-Nothing nativists like Lou Dobbs and Pat Buchanan use the threat to justify their fear of dusky hordes of furriners, the Preznit's crapped all over not just domestic and international law but the Constitution, and the FBI seems more concerned with "security threats" from vegans and anti-war Catholics than real terrorists.

Five years and we've learned nothing except to be afraid. Well, fuck that. I was afraid for the first few days. Now I'm pissed. And I remember the 9/11 that really happened, not the fake sham "Bush as Hero" 9/11 the GOP and ABC and the warbloggers want me to remember.

The best way to commemmorate this anniversary is to remember not the self-serving assholes who looked at the burning towers and thought about how they could link this to Iraq, but to remember the construction workers, police, fire fighters, and EMTs who ran TOWARDS Ground Zero not because they were Americans but because they were HUMANS helping fellow HUMANS. The mere fact that they were located in region "A" instead of region "B", scribbles on a map, didn't matter. They saw people hurting and they responded the way any decent human would.

That's the legacy we should remember today.

Harlan Ellison's The Glass Teat

Back in 1970, Ace Books printed a compilation of writer Harlan Ellison's TV review columns for the Los Angeles Free Press - the column and the book both titled The Glass Teat.

I've decided what I need to drive myself to post here is a weekly theme - so mine will be taking a column from Ellison's book every Friday and commenting on it, seeing how it reads almost 40 years later. (GOD I FEEL OLD NOW)

Anyway, of course it couldn't relate to our situation now, right? After all, that was back when we had a paranoid security-obsessed President sending America's youth overseas to fight in a ill-conceived war in a foreign country for not-clearly-specified aims, a divided nation, a shallow thrill-obsessed media, biased news reporting, threats of domestic terrorism, and a right-wing B-movie actor as Governor of California.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

Anyway, let's begin with the first column: October 4, 1968. Main section of the column is about an appearance by Dr. Benjamin Spock, pediatrician, social activist, and Vietnam War protestor on a show called News Conference, Sept. 4, 1968. Halfway through the show, a commercial was shown featuring a soldier in Vietnam encouraging the purchase of U.S. Savings Bonds, and at the end of the commercial, a voice-over was evidently cut in at a later date asserting that the soldier we had just seen "just extended my tour over here in Viet Nam for another six months, because all of us guys believe in what we're fighting for over here".

Immediately after, on retuning to the show, the next question directed to Dr. Spock was "Why do you feel we should be out of Viet Nam?"

Ellison points out Dr. Spock was dead meat from there on in. The juxtaposition of that particular PSA with Dr. Spock's appearance defused his point of view, reduced it to what I suppose these days would be called "cut & run liberal whining". What could he have said that could have balanced out an apparent assertion from a guy on the firing line that the war needed to be fought and that everyone there believed in their mission?

The war on dissent Ellison refers to is MUCH less subtle now. If Dr. Spock had been put before the public now, and there's no guarantee he would as opposed to, say, a videotape of a speech he had given, with no face-to-face opportunity to challenge any comments made about what he said, he would inevitably be paired with some rabid right-wing guest as "balance" - as if the media was inherently centrist and every partisan assertion needed "balance". Which is demonstratably false.

Catapulting the propaganda

There's a new book coming out:

LETTERS FROM THE FRONT LINES
by Rear Admiral Stuart Franklin Platt
(Granville Island Publishing, ISBN: 1894694481, $24.95, hardcover, September 2006)

See war through the eyes of our soldiers with this remarkable account of the lives and experiences of Americans serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. These letters were written from the heart, and tell the truth about life on the front lines, as well as life on the home front.

Interestingly, Granville Island seems to be a vanity publishing house - not that there's anything wrong with that, though one thinks a book about letters from soldiers in Iraq could, given the American public's concern about Iraq, attract the attention of a major publishing house.

Looking at the press kit [PDF file], though, it sure seems as if this is yet another Pentagon effort to put a better face on the Iraq conflict:

MANY OF US HOWEVER are curious about what these soldiers have seen, felt, and done while fighting in the epicenter of fundamental Islamists and terrorists.

Huh, I didn't know Iraq counted as one of the "epicenters" of terrorism. If (as it seems) we should assume "terrorism" = "al Qaeda", they weren't there until AFTER we invaded. And as far as fundimentalist Islamism, that sounds more like Saudi Arabia to me. But let's keep going.

MANY also talk about being there for the opening of a new criminal court system, explain the differences between Shiites, Kurds, and Sunnis, comment on the UN’s lack of support, share what it’s like to train the Iraqis to be self sufficient, and speak of pride when a soldier recalls seeing Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld come to the “sandbox” to rally the troops.

I'd say the bits about "UN lack of support" (Why SHOULD they support Iraq, when they were nothing more than a forum to be used for Bush's press to war?) and the "pride" about seeing the man who put them into Iraq without body armor and without a plan for the occupation kind of give away the game, here. Given the raw deal Rummy's handed them, I'd hardly be inclined to be proud of him flying in in secret for yet another Pentagon pep rally. And "train the Iraqis to be self sufficient"? WTF? Isn't that JUST a slight tad patronizing? Seems to me the country was pretty damn self-sufficent before being invaded, and could be again if we'd just leave them the hell alone.

You forget for the moment why they are there or even without thinking about the inevitable truth that the US will prevail, and you just imagine how you would survive under the conditions our soldiers exist in. The letters bypass the bias and filters of the news media and talk to us as if WE WERE engaged in a private conversation.

Yep, "US will prevail", even though it sure as hell doesn't look like it. But that's only because you're looking through "the bias and filters of the news media"! It doesn't SAY "liberal bias", though that's self-evident in cases like this. (And let's fersure forget why they're there - the damn justification for war keeps changing almost weekly, so the fact that they went there originally to defend America from Saddam's non-existent WMDs - water under the bridge, baby!)

“I must say, despite the difficult road ahead for the Iraqi people, I am as proud as I have ever been to be here at the birth of a republic. The weight of history is spread evenly across the shoulders of the soldiers and the Iraqi people, as we forge forward with a new path for Iraq and the Middle East.”

Oh, come ON! That's right up there with "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life". There's NO way a soldier in a war zone would write something like that unless his CO was leaning over his shoulder.

Platt believes the wars of the Mid East are about the survival of freedom and that “we have no choice but to see it through.” The collection of letters clearly reflects this fighting spirit.

Yup, no "defeatism" here, folks. No questioning our mission (what IS "the mission", anyway?) or suggesting that we shouldn't be in Iraq. No voices of opposition in this roundup. No sympathizing with the people of Iraq -in fact, quite the opposite:

"[. . .]I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard soldiers complain that “these people don’t get it,” or question “why Iraqis don’t understand we are trying to help them.” In frustration, I have probably expressed similar sentiments myself. Prior to Saddam’s capture many of us clung to this wishful, perhaps overly-idealistic belief, that once Iraqis no longer feared Saddam they would be more welcoming of U.S. troops, and peace and stability would follow.”
-- Captain Brian Baldrate, 3d ACR U.S. Army, Al Anbar Province, Iraq

Funny how when you invade a country on flimsy justifications and outright lies, kill thousands of its citizens, neglect protecting the country's cultural heritage in favor of defending the local natural resources, seize aforementioned natural resources, delay rebuilding of the country's infrastructure, hire thousands of unaccountable "security contractors" who make a sport of shooting at civilians, let hundreds of tons of high explosive be looted (undoubtedly to be used in IEDs), treat racism and murder of civilians as "entertainment", then allow the destabilization of the country to the point where the "democracy" you supposedly wanted to create is no longer a valid option and the issue of just redrawing the borders of said supposedly sovereign country is raised, people of said country get a bit irritated with you. Funny how that happens.

Posts that speak for themselves (more or less)

Bush, September 5, 2006:

Over the past five years, we've acted to disrupt the flow of weapons and support from terrorist states to terrorist networks. And we have made clear that any government that chooses to be an ally of terror has also chosen to be an enemy of civilization.

Raw Story, September 5, 2006:
Major General Shaukat Sultan Khan, press secretary to the president of Pakistan, tells ABC News that -- if found -- Osama bin Laden won't be arrested, as long as he promises to behave like a "peaceful citizen."

(ADDENDUM: I would have posted the original ABC News blog post link, however it seems to have been sent down the memory hole, as both ABC and Pakistan fall all over themselves trying to stay on the White House's Christmas card list:

The requested URL /theblotter/2006/09/bin_laden_gets_.html was not found on this server.

Oops! Nope, nope, never said that. Nope, didn't say that. Nope!)

Update your scorecards

Bush: Bin Laden's intentions as clear as Hitler's

so, I guess bin Laden is the NEW "New Hitler". Thanks for clearing that up, George.

Oh, and by the way?

For example, Bush cited what he called "a grisly al Qaeda manual" found in 2000 by British police during an anti-terrorist raid in London, which included a chapter called "Guidelines for Beating and Killing Hostages."

Found in 2000.

A year before the attacks here.

Thank god Bush was all over that al Qaeda thing back then.

Squeal like a piggy

(image borrowed from zine/blog The Sneeze)


Brain-dead pigman who's never missed a meal worries about food stamps:

LIMBAUGH: I think you might then say that the obesity crisis could be the fault of government, liberal government. Food stamps, all those -- you know, I'm gonna tell you people a story. I -- just, well, the government, you could say, is killing these people because we know obesity kills, and the government's killing the poor. The Bush administration is killing the poor with too much food.

Oh, yeah, back when I was on food stamps I clearly recall with the total of about $28 per week in food stamps, I was doin' some REAL GOOD EATIN'! DAMN! (and maybe they'll even start giving out cheese again, like Rush's idol R*O*N*A*L*D R*E*A*G*A*N did! Whee!)

You can only make mind-numbingly ignorant comments like that from the sanctity of a world where you're always sure of a full stomach, always sure of a full refrigerator, you pay someone else to do your shopping for you (NO generics - ONLY brand names PLEASE!) and $28 is what you dump on one course of a meal, much less an entire week of meals.

What a tool.

Kids, don't try this at home

Only properly trained professionals should attempt this level of stupidity:

DOLE: And I just want to say — let me just mention that the tools that are needed to fight the war on terror, such as the PATRIOT Act — now, there are a number of the Democrat candidates who are against the PATRIOT Act. Sherrod Brown, for example, who’s running against Mike DeWine in Ohio. I could name any number — um, Bob Menendez, I believe, voted against the PATRIOT Act. The Terrorist Surveillance Program, many of the Democrats have raised concerns about this particular tool, which enabled, the same kind of tool enabled the British to come across the plot to bomb airplanes, and the Bank Surveillance Act, and missile defense system, the Democrats have been against the missile defense system.[emphasis added]

Somebody's obviously forgotten over the last five years that 19 (NON-IRAQI) men managed to kill almost 3000 people with domestic airplanes and box cutters, not frickin' ballistic missles.

But how're Boeing and Raytheon going to make a profit off of intercepting box cutters?

This is "reaching out"?

Our notably humble Secretary of "Defense" gives the Democrats the opportunity to approach and apologize for the comments HE made the other day:

In a letter to Congress's top Democrats, Rumsfeld said recent remarks he made during a speech in Salt Lake City were misrepresented by the media, including by the Associated Press. Rumsfeld said he was "concerned" by the reaction of Democrats, many of whom called for his resignation and said he was treading on dangerous territory.

"I know you agree that with America under attack and U.S. troops in the field, our national debate on this should be constructive," Rumsfeld wrote Friday.

Translation: I know you wouldn't want to criticize our Glorious Leader and our Noble Struggle in THIS TIME OF WAR... if you know what I mean (*coughTREASONcough*)

"Thought and careful preparation went into what I said," Rumsfeld wrote in the letter. "It is absolutely essential for us to look at lessons of history in this critical moment in the war on terror." I was honored by the reception my statements received from our veterans.

Yeah, let's look at history. Let's look at the lame comic-book version of history, not the real version where we might learn from the British occupation of Iraq or the French experience in Algeria, much less parallels with The War That Must Not Be Named:

9. In the spring of 1966, a journalist interviewed an Air Force general in Saigon:
Journalist: Let me ask you a philosophical question. What is your reply to those who say we ought to stop our bombing-both North and South-and that would bring us closer to negotiating an end to this
General: Well, we were sent out here to do a job, and we're doing it, and we'll stay here until it's done.
Journalist Thank you.

I think it further proves the arrogance of these people that, once again, their idea of "reaching out" consists of "let's agree that I'm right". They're never wrong. They never compromise. To them, negotiation, to paraphrase Grover Norquist, is date rape.

More on the lie of "Islamic fascism".

The "F" word

You know, Bush and Rumsfeld can just lick me where I sit, thank you.

I see they're making a big deal out of the simplistic concept of "Islamic fascism", and they're dragging out all the old World War 2 cliches of a united country and a looming menace and "appeasement" and yadda yadda ack gag fart spew in the service of their The War Against Terror rhetoric.

Well exsqueeze me, folks, but these are the same people who called the Islamic radical mujaheddin "freedom fighters" back when their anger was directed at the Soviets. These are the same people who cozy up to dictators of Islamic countries such as Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. These are the same kind of people who saw Mussolini as a "strong leader" and "good for business" and forced the men and women of The Abraham Lincoln Brigade to sneak out of the country and into Spain to fight fascists in 1936 because America decided to sit on her hands rather than fight fascism before she was forced to. (And there were those even during WWII who refused to fight -- so much for that "LEMME AT 'EM" image of enthusiastic farmboys just itchin' to stick a bayonet into a Japanazi.)

As far as "appeasement", how could you get more appeasement-ing than Prescott "Doin' Business With Der Fuherer" Bush?

Saddam's the New Hitler. Qadaffi's the New Hitler. Ayatollah Khomeini's the New Hitler. Oh, wait, it's Saddam again. Nope, it's Ahmadinejad. No, it's Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. No, Ahmadinejad again. Nope, Hassan Nasrallah. Well, there IS no New Hitler, but it's JUST LIKE WORLD WAR TWO, I tells ya! And, of course, analogy with WWII leads to certain parallels that perhaps should not be paralleled. (And who gets to play the Soviets this time around?) So shut up, sit down, and clap louder while civil rights for certain minorities go down the toilet.

Just like in 1930's Germany.

It's just more projection from the clueless sociopaths who're working to impose their own "friendly" fascism in America while claiming to fight some kind of nebulous "Islamofascism" overseas.