WORKING CLASS, WAR SLAVES FOR WAR HAWKS

Today's posting will be a thumbnail sketch of the ANATOMY OF WAR.

Homo sapiens have been at war with each other since THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION. The main reason for this from my point of limited view is GREED. I have repeated over and over that I believe the seeds of war are cultivated by the insatiable lust for MORE. Whether it be real estate, goods, money or power, there is never a "just right" everything always "taste like more".

Ordinary people, you, me, who live within small frames or spheres, such as, family, friends, earning a decent living and having an occasional laugh or two. We unequivocally, without a doubt DO NOT WANT WAR.

We do not want the killings, annihilation and utter sadness that comes with war. It does not matter what continent we come from or country we live in, war to the ordinary, is equivalent to the fear of death, except that dying is an inevitable reality we have to live with, war is NOT! We do not want the darkness of thought and the obscene reflections in our face. Even if it is far away from us, and the warmongers make laws prohibiting images of death and mutilation to be published. You cannot hide or escape from the visions of war. They ooze out from cracks in the blockades of prohibition and seep into your very soul.

War is a game that leaders play and enjoy but they can't implement it without tools. They need materials of war to indulge in this lustfully pleasurable sport of the wealthy and powerful. They need weapons, cannon fodder and a whole slew of cash.

Where do they get their inventory of war?

We all know the answer to this, THEY TAKE IT FROM US, the common folk who would rather just go on making a living, raising a family and have a laugh or two now and then. But first they must suck us in, make us believe we must indulge them their schemes and battle plans. How do they draw us in to their game plan for war?

Simple, THEY LIE TO US!

Lies about protecting us, lies about helping others, lies about creating a better world and demonizing lies about the enemies they have chosen for their contest.

The article below says it best and hopefully will open a few eyes or minds to how the working class, those on both sides of a war equation are used by the war hawks, without we, the common folk, they could not entertain their delusions of war.

It is time to stand up to the WAR-MONGERS and tell them we refuse to be used to fight and kill those we do not know and do not have any feelings of hatred or animosity towards. There are billions of us and only a few of them, you do the math... It doesn't make sense to continue to be used by those who never really have any skin in the game. If we put a stop to the desires, the lust, the insatiable appetence for power from those who stir up war, there would never be a war again. Oh, if only it were that simple, maybe it is. thinkingblue

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

WAR HAWKS SHOW CALLOUS DISREGARD FOR WORKING-CLASS TROOPS
By Cynthia Tucker
Sat Mar 25, 8:06 PM ET

"If I didn't believe we had a plan for victory, I wouldn't leave our people in harm's way. ... I understand people's lives are being lost." -- President Bush, March 21, 2006

The average American understands that soldiers who fought in Vietnam were unfairly blamed for a war they did not start, for lies they did not tell, for mismanaged battle plans they could not salvage. So we're determined not to make that mistake again. This time around, most of us salute our soldiers.

Even determined peace activists, for the most part, are committed to two things -- ending American involvement in Iraq and honoring the soldiers who volunteered to serve there. In a bitterly divided country, the vast majority of us agree that rank-and-file troops should not be held accountable for the politics that led to the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Ironically, there is something else most of us agree on, whether in red states or blue: We don't want our loved ones to go to war. Three years ago, when the invasion of Iraq was still widely supported in the United States, the prospect of a military draft was not. Whether Democrats, Republicans or independents, most Americans -- especially among the affluent classes -- were virulently opposed to the idea that their sons and daughters might be forced to serve the nation's military. We still are.

The politics of discussing a draft became this weird during the last election cycle: Conservatives savaged anybody who suggested the possibility of military conscription as a whiny appeaser who really wanted to end the war. OK. Let's unravel that. If it is a given that a draft would have been so unpopular that it would have ended support for the war in Iraq, what does that say? Doesn't it suggest that many of those who so easily supported this war in the beginning did so because it didn't affect them or their families?

Military recruits are pulled largely from the nation's working class -- from those whose economic prospects are less than stellar, from high school graduates who know they have little chance of affording college tuition, from young parents whose civilian jobs don't come with health insurance. Enlisted men and women tend to come from households earning between $32,000 and $33,500, according to a 1999 Defense Department study. (The median American income is $43,300.)

This is not a truth the middle class is eager to confront. Each time I write a column about the disproportionate burden borne by our working-class men and women, I get countless angry letters and e-mails -- tirades from the affluent denouncing me for fomenting race-consciousness (I've said nothing about race) or class warfare. Others write to me that they know somebody whose son or daughter or nephew or co-worker is a college graduate who volunteered to serve. (That's the exception that proves the rule.) We don't want to admit that we've left the burden of defending an affluent nation to those who enjoy less of its affluence. That's too ugly to think about.

Ah, but they volunteered, you say. Yes, they did. All the more reason to honor their commitment by making sure they aren't cannon fodder in a dubious cause. They took to heart the common platitudes and easy slogans
about duty and honor and service while many who are wealthier did not. Soldiers shouldn't be ill-used simply because they believed in their country and its leaders.

And they have been ill-used. They were sent to fight on a false pretext -- that Saddam was linked to Sept. 11 -- by civilian leaders who refused to plan for anything but quick and certain victory.

Of course, combat veterans were rare among the armchair hawks in Congress and the White House who rallied the nation for war. Vice President Dick Cheney has said he had "other priorities" during the war in Vietnam. And President Bush ... well, that story is well-known. Even if you credit him with conscientiousness and brilliance as a National Guard pilot, he never left the United States.

Their callousness about other people's children aside, it's not just Cheney and Bush whom I hold responsible for the deaths of more than 2,300 hundred Americans and tens of thousands of Iraqis. It's also men like Sen. John Kerry and former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Vietnam veterans who had seen young men die in combat. They knew better than to take the
nation to war on the wings of a lie.

That they did was not only unjust; it was immoral.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cynthia Tucker is editorial page editor for The Atlanta
Journal-Constitution. She can be reached by e-mail: cynthia@ajc.com.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Peace Odyssey 2001
Anatomy of War
War is a women's issue. Women are
doomed by their sex to endure many of the greatest horrors of war. Thousands are forced into sexual servitude, or compelled to bear the children of rape.

War is a poverty issue. World military expenditure exceeds $750 billion a year while one fifth of the world's people go hungry every day.

War is a development issue. Real dollars spent on defense have more than doubled since 1965. In developing countries, where one of every three people lives in poverty, military
expenditure as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) is even higher than in industrialized nations -- three times greater in terms of annual income.

War is a refugee issue. One in every 200 people worldwide is a refugee or displaced person. Seventy-five percent of these are women and children.

War is an environmental issue. The world's nuclear stockpile is the equivalent of 1.8 tons of explosive power for every man, woman, and child on earth. Used, it would destroy
the world. Unused, it presents an almost insurmountable cleanup problem. Toxic waste -- much of it military waste -- pollutes vast tracts of land, making them unfit for agriculture or human habitation.

War is a legal issue. International law already prohibits weapons or practices that
indiscriminately kill civilians or cause inordinate damage to the environment. Strengthening and implementing existing law would provide a solid foundation on which to build.

War is a humanitarian issue. Every fifteen minutes -- of every day, every year -- someone falls victim to a landmine. At the current rate of clearance, it will take about 1100 years to clear the landmines that have already been laid, but only if no new mines are laid beginning in 1996!

War is a conservation issue. Energy used by the world's armies equals that of all the energy used in Japan.

War is an economic issue. The developed countries spend as much on the military every year as the poorest 2 billion people on earth earn in total income. The poor countries spend $130 billion a year, money that could be redirected to social needs.

War is a health issue. Many countries spend three times as much on arms as they do on the health and education of their people, and have twenty times more soldiers than doctors. In 1991, 2.5 million died for lack of immunization for measles, tetanus and whooping cough. The cost of saving them would have been $15 a child. Arms spending worldwide costs $49 a person.

War is a moral issue. Until we create a culture of peace, until we define limits, until we substitute outrage for compliance, we will not end war.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ideologies at War Ralph Zuljan
The imperialist world order died on the battlefields of the Great War. From its ashes arose three forms of socio-political organization that would, in the span of twenty years, initiate an even bloodier war aimed at determining which of the competing ideologies would govern the
post-imperial world. Under the banners of democracy, communism and fascism, armies once again marched into battle. Although the Second World War is sometimes seen as a continuation of the First World War, and is implicitly considered a sequel, the issue at the core of World War II was the form and substance of this new world order and that makes it a radically different war from World War I which began with fairly broad, if tacit, agreement about the existing order.

At the start of the twentieth century most of the world was divided up into a small number of great empires competing for power on the world stage. Each had some level of popular representation, but in essence these empires were ruled by a privileged elite of land owners with aristocratic origins, or pretensions. An emerging capitalist class was gaining in influence everywhere. For all of the slight differences between those empires, there was a remarkable level of conformity in form and substance.

Meanwhile ever greater numbers of the masses toiled in the factories that were slowly displacing peasant farms as the backbone of civilization and employment. The new industrial economy thrived on peaceful production, trade and consumption. Warfare seemed to promise nothing but mass destruction. It was at this time that ideas about the end of war first arose.

Within twenty years, three of those great empires disappeared into the dustbin of history and two more were shaken by the experience of world war. A radically new communist model of social organization emerged in place of the shattered Russian Empire and proclaimed a world revolution. Democrats promised to impose their worldview as well. Britain and the United States were the surviving representatives of the new deal democracies which, while having experienced no governmental overthrow as such, had been transformed during the twenties and thirties. In Italy and later Germany, fascist governments arose and they demonstrated dynamism that also promised a new world order. Of all the great powers, only Japan retained even a semblance of adherence to traditional imperialism.

At issue among the competing ideological positions were questions such as governmental form, in which the communists and fascists adopted a one-party dictatorship in opposition to the multi-party, rotating, rule found in the democratic countries. Fascists and democrats agreed on private ownership for the means of production while communists favored state or public ownership. Democrats and communists accepted the principle of individual freedom (though they derived rather different conclusions from it) while fascists did not.

Long-term accommodation among the competing ideologies proved impossible. Fascism and communism initially aligned in opposition to democracy before the outbreak of World War II however, a realignment during the war produced a temporary alliance between communism and democracy for the purpose of defeating fascism. Such pragmatic short-term decisions later led some observers to conclude ideology was irrelevant but in the long-run it was all that mattered. The alliance between communists and democrats broke down before the fighting stopped. It seemed to last only long enough to ensure that fascism was defeated and discredited.

Fascism suffered defeat because of the evident inability to effectively mobilize the populations and industry under its control. Production statistics, that were later used as some sort of proof of the inevitability of the "allied" victory, certainly demonstrated the miserably poor performance of the fascist states in comparison to the overwhelming efficiency achieved by democratic and communist countries. By the time the war ended there was relative clarity about the need to have either dictatorial state ownership or multi-party private ownership of the means of production in order to achieve efficiency.

There was no certainty, however, about which of the two remaining ideologies would ultimately prove itself superior to the other. There could be little doubt about the fact that communist planned industrialization in the prewar Soviet Union - the first communist state, for all of its inherent brutality, managed to produce the conditions necessary for the USSR to survive the fascist challenge (albeit with democratic help). It is doubtful that the democratic model could have done the same. A "cold war" broke out between democrats and communists in the wake of the devastation produced by the world war. Neither side sought a final reckoning; a neo-imperialist competition was rationalized instead.

For forty-five years, the more-or-less peaceful ideological competition continued. Communist growth rates easily outpaced those of the democracies in the first postwar decade and this was reason enough to believe that communism would ultimately "bury" democracy. Early communist successes in the military, political and economic arenas proved ephemeral. By the beginning of the last Cold War decade the balance had already swung inexorably in favor of the democracies. Communist military and economic policies proved untenable and calls for the abandonment of the commitment to communism began to arise from within those states which adhered to it. In 1989 the Berlin Wall came down -- one of the last vestiges of the allied victory in the Second World War -- and the following year, the American president declared victory at the "end of the Cold War" and announced a "new world order". No one could realistically argue against the fact that democracy had "won" the war against both fascism and communism, although some bitter adherents to the other ideologies tried to do so.

Thus, at the end of the twentieth century, once again, the world powers are united in a relatively uniform worldview. This time, the end of history, as well as war, has been declared. A new and poorly defined technocratic elite is emerging that shows all the signs of supplanting the established capitalist elite in wealth and power -- much as the capitalists had done with aristocrats around the end of the nineteenth century.

Originally published in "World War II" at Suite101.com on July 1, 2000. Revised edition published in "Articles On War" at OnWar.com on July 1, 2003.

More reads on war:

Seeds of Abu Ghraib

Lessons of Iraq War Start With US History

Saving Civilization in a War Zone

THE DAWN OF CIVILIZATION

Thought for the Day: The difficulties of the United States are quite different. It has provided well for most of its working people until recently. It is now becoming a two-tiered society, which is not generally conducive to a peaceful and stable milieu, as the French, Russian and Iranian revolutions attest. It has followed a pragmatic foreign policy based on power projection and self-interest and there is nothing politically wrong with that. The problem is it has preached a benevolent altruist behavior from a moralistic pulpit of human rights, while unilaterally interfering where it suited its interest. It refused to sign the land mine treaty, Kyoto treaty, CTBT, submission to the jurisdiction of the International Court of Justice and yet indicts others as war criminals. This to someone not wearing blinders elicits some objection, amused tolerance or benign contempt and is consistent with the behavior of most human beings, in wishing to portray themselves as being far better, than they truly are. What really incenses many countries and persons is not the lascivious guru, mullah, rabbi or bishop seducing the poor ignorant, innocent barmaid parishioner, but his constant sermon that his act is motivated by general benevolence to mankind and is essentially for her salvation. click to read more

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

SEE AMY GOODMAN'S INTERVIEW WITH NOAM CHOMSKY

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

CAROLYNCONNECTION

THINKINGBLUE.ORG

Warning very Graphic REAL PICTURES OF WAR

CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I'm going to use it!
ThinkingBlue blogspot
BlogRankings.com
Email Me At: iamthinkingblue@yahoo.com

CONSPIRACY CONCEPTS & SIGNING STATEMENT SECRETS!

On "Democracy Now TV" March 27, 2006
See an Amy Goodman Interview with Charlie Savage, who works as a reporter for THE BOSTON GLOBE. He with his excellent journalist abilities, not to mention his gargantuan youthful chutzpah, reports on a little known dirty secretive tool of the NEOCONS AND BUSH. An almost illegal maneuver to help them break the back of our Constitution called a "SIGNING STATEMENT". TALK ABOUT CONSPIRACY! Which brings me to the first reason for today's posting...

911 CONSPIRACY THEORY

Please read Mark Morford's take on the 911 Conspiracy Theory. Then scroll down to watch Amy Goodman's Interview with Charlie Savage. The young man who broke the "SIGNING STATEMENT" Story. Thank you, thinkingblue

PS: Please read these excerpts from INSIDE SCOOP ON 911 CONSPIRACY THEORIES:

Circle one was labeled patsies, comprising “dupes,” “useful idiots,” “fanatics,” “provocateurs,” and “Oswalds.” Included here were the demonized bin Laden and alleged lead hijacker Mohammad Atta.

The second ring, marked MOLES, contained “government officials loyal to the invisible government,” such as Paul Wolfowitz, Tony Blair, Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, and, of course, George W. Bush.

The third circle, PROFESSIONAL KILLERS, encompassed “technicians,” “CIA special forces,” “old boys”—the unnamed ones who did the dirty work and kept their mouths shut.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Your "HOP" Level In his paper "What Is Your ‘HOP’ Level?" Nick Levis, who co-coordinates the N.Y. 9/11 Truth meetings with Father Morales and Les Jamieson, categorizes the basic narrative theories about September 11. The options essentially boil down to four.
(A) The Official Story (a.k.a. "The Official Conspiracy Theory"). The received Bushian line: Osama, nineteen freedom-haters with box cutters, etc. As White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said, there was “no warning.”
(B) The Incompetence Theory (also the Stupidity, Arrogance, "Reno Wall" Theory). Accepts the Official Story, adds failure by the White House, FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. to heed ample warnings. This line was advanced, with much ass-covering compensation, in The 9/11 Commission Report.
(C) LIHOP (or "Let It Happen on Purpose"). Many variations, but primarily that elements of the U.S. government and the private sector were aware of the hijackers’ plans and, recognizing that 9/11 suited their policy goals, did nothing to stop it.

(D) MIHOP ("Made It Happen on Purpose"). The U.S. government or private forces planned and executed the attacks.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Long Live The 9/11 Conspiracy!
Anyone still care about the heap of disturbing, unsolved questions surrounding Our Great Tragedy?

By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, March 29, 2006

Here is your must-read for the month. Here is your oh-my-God-I'm-sending-this-piece-to-every-smart-person-I-know hunk of outstanding, distressing, disquieting media bliss.

Here it is: an absolutely exceptional inside scoop on the white-hot world of Sept. 11 conspiracy theories, writ large and smart by Mark Jacobson over at New York magazine, and it's mandatory reading for anyone and everyone who's ever entertained the nagging thought that something -- or rather, far more than one something -- is deeply wrong with the official line on what actually happened on Sept. 11.

See, it is very likely that you already know that Sept. 11 will go down in the conspiracy history books as a far more sinister affair than, say, the murky swirl of the Kennedy assassination. You probably already know that much of what exactly happened on Sept. 11 remains deeply unsettling and largely unsolved -- or to put another way, if you don't know all of this and if you fully and blithely accept the official Sept. 11 story, well, you haven't been paying close enough attention.

But on this, the third anniversary of the launch of Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq by way of whoring the tragedy of Sept. 11 for his cronies' appalling gain, what you might not know, what gets so easily forgotten in the mists of time and via the endless repetition of the orthodox Sept. 11 tale, is the sheer volume, the staggering array of unanswered questions about just about every single aspect of Sept. 11 -- the planes, the WTC towers, the Pentagon, the fires, the passengers and the cell phone calls and the firefighters and, well, just about everything. It is, when you look closely, all merely a matter of how far down the rabbit hole you are willing to go.

Verily, Jacobson, in his New York mag piece, encounters crackpots and fringe nutballs and those who think Sept. 11 was connected to aliens and electromagnetic fields and the Illuminati. It can, unfortunately, get a little crazy. But there is also a very smart, grounded, intelligent and surprisingly large faction -- which includes eyewitnesses, Sept. 11 widows, former generals, pilots, professors, engineers, WTC maintenance workers and many, many more -- who point to a rather shocking pile of evidence that says there is simply no way 19 fanatics with box cutters sent by some bearded lunatic in a cave could have pulled off the most perfectly orchestrated air attack of the century. Not without serious help, anyway.

Whose help? This, of course, is the biggest question of all, one which many of the more well-researched theories go a surprisingly long way toward answering.

You have to sift and sort. There are disturbing questions about collapse speeds and controlled demolitions and why the towers fell when the all-steel infrastructure was designed to easily withstand the temperatures of any sort of fire, even burning jet fuel. There are questions of the mysterious, media-documented blasts deep in the WTC towers that took place after the planes hit. There are questions of why there was such a short-selling spree on shares of American Airlines and United Air Lines the day before the attack, huge doubts about the failures of NORAD and the FAA, the bizarre case of the missing plane in the Pentagon crash, and also the downing of Flight 93 where, according to the coroner, no blood or major plane wreckage was actually found. There is, ultimately, the stunning failure of the entire multi-trillion-dollar American air-defense system. Just for starters.

There is also the very big question of what happened to 7 WTC, the only building not hit by anything at all, but which collapsed anyway, in a perfect controlled-demolition sort of way, for no reason anyone can sufficiently explain. But which just so happened to contain vital offices for the IRS, the Department of Defense, the CIA, the Secret Service, the Securities and Exchange Commission and more.

But perhaps Jacobson's article is insufficient for you. Perhaps you have heard much of it before, or you're more of the visceral type and need to actually see the proofs in order to delve deeper, have them laid out like gruesome body parts in a mesmerizing autopsy. Fair enough.

For you, we have the surprisingly compelling indie documentary "9/11 Loose Change" (Google it), freely available on the Internet and produced by three very astute and very young and very strong-willed dudes who managed to cobble together a truly astounding array of proofs and interviews and evidence, a full 1 hour and 20 minutes' worth of mesmerizing footage you will not be able to easily forget.

Or maybe you should peruse one of the countless Sept. 11 conspiracy sites, many of which link to relevant video and one of which -- scholarsfor911truth.org -- claims to be "a non-partisan association of faculty, students, and scholars, in fields as diverse as history, science, military affairs, psychology, and philosophy, dedicated to exposing falsehoods and to revealing truths behind 9/11." Start there.

Now, it's very true that some of the more specious conspiracy claims have been largely discredited and proved false. Some of the more radical "evidence" gathered by theorists is quite suspect and easily placed in the category of no-way-in-hell. This is valid. This is as it should be. You have to chew through a lot of skin and gristle to get to the real meat.

But oh the meat. The overwhelming quantity, the bloody, deadly stench of it. Fact is, it is quite impossible to watch the entire "Loose Change" documentary and not come away just a little shaken, a little awed by the sheer number of perversely interrelated facts and aberrant coincidences-that-aren't-coincidences, shaking your head at how it all seems to irrefutably prove there is far, far more to the Sept. 11 tragedy than just crazy Osama and his band of zealots, as you begin to sink into a sighing morass of rage and frustration and suspicion and mistrust. You almost can't help it.

Of course, there is another option. There is another way out. You may, as is the standard cultural default, simply ignore it all, scoff and roll your eyes and shrug it all off because it's just too bleak and distasteful to entertain the idea that the dark Sept. 11 thread winds all the way through the NSA and the FBI and the White House and the Project for the New American Century and Dick Cheney's mangled soul and God only knows where else.

But then again, no. You have to look. You have to try. Knowledge is power, and while the truth may be spurious and slippery and messy and deep, the pursuit of it is just about the only thing we have left. Give that up, and all that's left is spiritual numbness, emotional stasis and death. So what are you waiting for?

---

Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.

SF Gate Culture Blog.
URL:

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/03/29/notes032906.DTL
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

If the above article isn't enough to make you bellow HUH?

WAIT UNTIL YOU READ AND VIEW THE BELOW INFORMATION FROM DEMOCRACY NOW thinkingblue

PS: The next time I want to take out a loan... will I be able to sign a SIGNING STATEMENT claiming, "I DO NOT HAVE TO ADHERE TO THE STIPULATIONS IN THIS LOAN AGREEMENT, I CAN CHOOSE TO NOT PAY IT OFF WITHOUT CONSEQUENCES"? I think NOT!

Monday, March 27th, 2006
Bush Signs Statements to Bypass Torture Ban, Oversight Rules in Patriot Act

When President Bush signed a law banning torture he quietly signed a statement saying he could bypass it. Earlier this month, Bush signed the USA Patriot Act but signed a statement that said he did not consider oversight rules binding. We speak with the Boston Globe reporter who broke the story.

The USA Patriot Act was re-authorized this month after a lengthy bi-partisan effort to include new provisions safeguarding Congressional oversight. The new provisions mandated President Bush to brief Congress about how the FBI was using expanded authorities to search and monitor suspects. But shortly after he signed the bill into effect, Bush quietly issued what is known as a signing statement in which he lays out his interpretation of the law. In this document Bush declared he did not consider himself bound by the oversight provisions. Bush wrote he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosing it would harm foreign relations, national security or his duties as President.

This was not the first such statement to come from the White House. When Congress passed a bill outlawing torture of detainees last year, President Bush quietly released a signing statement in which he affirmed his right to bypass the law if he felt it jeopardized national security. Democratic Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont said the President's latest effort represents "nothing short of a radical effort to manipulate the constitutional separation of powers and evade accountability and responsibility for following the law."

• Charlie Savage, reporter with the Washington bureau of Boston Globe
  who has written several articles exposing Bush's signing statements. Related Links:

"Bush Shuns Patriot Act Requirement" (Boston Globe)

"Bush Could Bypass New Torture Ban" (Boston Globe)
Related Democracy Now! Coverage:
An Imperial President?
Bush Claims Right To Ignore New Law Banning Torture (DN!,

ALSO VIEW THE FANTASTIC MOVIE by Chris Hume:

"MARCH TO NEW ORLEANS"

ALL THINKINGBLUE LINKS CLICK HERE

click here to go to The Democracy Now show on American Theocracy

Democracy Now's Interview with Kevin Phillips
CAROLYNCONNECTION.COM
GRaphic REAL PICTURES OF WAR

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

There’s reality, and there’s illusion,” says William Rodriguez.

“When illusion becomes reality, that’s a problem; 9/11 is a giant illusion.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DO YOU STILL FEEL SANE? IF NOT CLICK HERE TO CALL THE FUNNY FARM

YOU CAN BEAM ME UP NOW, SCOTTIE. Thinkingblue

Flash Animations - No Bravery, Only Sadness in Your Face

CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I'm going to use it!

ThinkingBlue blogspot

BlogRankings.com
Progressive Women's Blog Ring
Powered by RingSurf

FLASHES FROM FILMSTRIP INTERNATIONAL

APRIL"CHILD ABUSE AWARENESS MONTH"

APRIL IS CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION MONTH Today, I am going to digress from my usual political postings! April is just around the corner and it will mark a month of happenings to promote public awareness of the fact that too many children are victims of abuse, brutalized and molested, in their homes or elsewhere. They, being so young and innocent are victimized too often by adults, sick, deranged or victims of abuse themselves as children, thus creating a cycle of abuse. They beat, mentally abuse or sexually molest young ones, in their care or who just happen to cross their paths in some way. This is one subject so difficult to make comment on because of the horrific fact that we have such predators amongst us who are capable of committing unimaginable, unspeakable acts of brutality on little children. Young juveniles who should be protected and allowed their childhood years of purity without encountering some of the ugly side of adulthood. A young woman, Jayne Sachs wrote a song about a sad case of sexual molestation of a young girl who liked to dance as a ballerina. This song depicts what happens to young children when left alone with an adult pedophile. The story is fictional but the reality unfortunately is not. Jayne Sachs' song "Twisted Ballerina" has been selected for the grand prize in the John Lennon contest and could win "THE SONG OF THE YEAR" in the Pop catagory. Please read the information below and go to the John Lennon Awards site and vote for this young woman and her very dark song with a poignant message for us all. Thank you, Thinkingblue PS: After clicking the site http://jlsc.com/vote.php Click the "Pop" section and choose Jayne Sachs "Twisted Ballerina" you will need to have your email verified. When you receive the verification click the link they send you and vote. Please do not try to listen to her song there it will take you to a plug-in and you won't be able to vote. Click here to hear a condensed version of the song on a wav file or go to her site and listen to it there. (Click the Jayne Sachs album cover.) CLICK HERE TO GO TO THE THINKINGBLUE SITE 'TWISTED BALLERINA" ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Jayne Sachs wins grand prize in Lennon Songwriting Contest By Rick Bird Post staff reporter Little girl Little twisted ballerina Little steps Little twisted ballerina pirouettes across the floor to the window where her daddy watches from the corner of his eye and her uncle watches her thighs Little girl Little twisted ballerina Dance Well her mom's at work down at the hospital today and her daddy decides to cash his paycheck today and her uncle says "Sure, I'll watch your ballerina dance." Well she's heard those words before She's seen that look before She's smelled his breath before She's felt his weight on her before This ballerina And when her daddy leaves and when they're alone he's says "I just bought a ticket to your show." Little girl Little twisted ballerina Dance "I just bought a ticket to your show." Little girl Little twisted ballerina Dance Dance dance dance Got to dance got to dance got to dance got to dance got to dance got to dance Dance And she dances out the bedroom And she dances down the hall And she dances down the steps And out the front door And she goes up to the clouds that's where she find her stage And she does the dance that’s twice her age How did he get here? Who let him in up here? Who let him in down there? I was dancing here I was dancing here Little girl Little twisted ballerina Little steps Little twisted ballerina pirouettes Little twisted ballerina pirouettes ```````````````````````````````````````````` A friend of mine sent me this email: thinkingblue This message is going out to everyone on my e-mail list. I will not normally be sending out messages to you (unless you want me to) but I felt this time the message was worth it. I hope you'll agree and help spread this message out too. From Dave, my friend Jayne Sachs is one of the two pop music grand prize winners in the John Lennon Song writing contest. Her song, Twisted ballerina, is a rough, moving account of child abuse. "Twisted Ballerina" is a song that some child protective service agencies believe is helping spread awareness about child sexual abuse. She'll be playing the song live for hundreds of social workers (who deal with this harsh reality everyday) to kick off April being national Child Abuse Prevention Awareness month. So we need your help! We need your vote. If the song can get passed this on-line voting battle and go on to possibly win "Song of The Year", there would be that much more awareness being spread. Information about the contest and the site to vote is at: http:// jlsc.com/vote.php Information about Jayne and her song is at: http://www.jaynesachs.com/ To hear the song on-line... http://www.sonicbids.com/JayneSachs click on "audio" at top of page and also on lyrics to read along. The contest is world wide, so please send this out to all your lists. I think there is only one vote allowed per e-mail address, so spread the word. When you go to vote, you will be asked for some information, because they want to make sure that there is only one vote per e-mail address. The voting started March 15 at 11:00, and continues until April 26th. If you are having problems voting (especially if you DON'T get the confirmation email/voting pass BACK from the Lennon people within minutes... you may want to check your spam filter settings and put it on low or less to allow the email to come through... also you should have spam go into a folder instead of getting deleted automatically. And right after you vote, you can switch their settings back. MESSAGE FROM JAYNE: Also, as a last resort for people who can't vote for whatever reason due to something in the process, I'm asking people to email me with the email address that they tried to vote with and also who they voted for. I will collect all of these and send to the Lennon people for inclusion if they'll agree. Because everyone's vote SHOULD count. Thanks.Peace dave ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ When I woke up this morning, I knew that she was mad; Cause she was crying awful hard, And yelling at my dad. I tried my best to be real good, And do just what she said; I cleaned my room all by myself, I even made my bed. But I spilled milk on my good shirt, When she yelled at me to hurry; And I guess she didnt hear me, When I told her I was sorry. Cause she hit me awful hard you see, And called me funny names; And told me I was really bad, And I should be ashamed. When I said I love you mommy I guess she didn't understand; Cause she yelled at me to shut my mouth. Or I'd get smacked again. So I came up here to talk to you, Please tell me what to do; Cause I really love my mommy, And I know she loves me, too. And I don't think my mommy means, To hit me quite so hard; I guess grown ups forget. How really big they are. So Teddy, I wish you were real, And you weren't just a bear; Than you could help me find a way. To tell mommies everywhere. To please try hard to understand, How sad it makes us feel; Cause the outside pain goes away, But the inside never heals. And if we could make them listen, Maybe they'd understand; So other children like me, Wouldn't have to hurt again. But for now I guess I'll hold you tight, And pretend the pains not there; I know you'd never hurt me, So good night Teddy Bear... Poem From: http://www.starrlyn.com thinkingblue.org CAROLYNCONNECTION.COM REAL PICTURES OF WAR CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I've going to use it! ThinkingBlue blogspot BlogRankings.com Women's Blog Ring Powered by RingSurf

A PICTURE THAT SAYS A 1000 WORDS, all true!

A PICTURE THAT SAYS A 1000 WORDS, all true!

Today I came across a blogger's sarcastic take on anti-war protesting. He goes out amongst the anti-war protesters, takes pictures and makes fun of them and their signs. What a silly hobby. I had to comment on his work (below) and also thank him for the Picture that says a 1000 words. All true (at least I am hoping it will become true!)Thinkingblue

Dear Age of Hooper, Why do you have nothing better to do with your time, then go out amongst the anti-war protestors and make fun of them and their signs? Why aren't you over in Iraq fighting in Bush's war since you think it funny to protest against it. But I do want to thank you for this picture on the right. Which you sarcastically commented:
"Contrast that (literally) with this one. Grayscale. Hard to read. Much too busy. Are those chains on Bush? You really have got to get close to this one to get much out of it. The message is murky ... too much being said. What is this, an essay? It's a protest sign for cripes sake. Keep it simple. Aren't these people supposed to be the "smart" and "creative" ones? Sheesh."

I am posting this on my
thinkingblue.blogspot.com today.
IT
SAYS IT ALL!
Thanks again, thinkingblue

PS: I had to append Cindy Sheehan's eloquent recent words of truth to this posting. She, losing a son or rather knowing her son murdered by Bush and his merry band of Neocons, is and should be so offended by Bush's scandalous WORDS, DEEDS AND ACTIONS... making the above picture project an even greater return to reality if it were to be actualized. Please read the below article of grace and wisdom written by this corageous woman, Cindy Sheehan.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Print This Story E-mail This Story
What do you think? The t r u t h o u t Town Meeting is in progress. Join the debate!
Volunteers for Endless War By Cindy Sheehan t r u t h o u t Perspective
Thursday 23 March 2006
Being on the road constantly and being in the trenches for peace leaves me little time (and, if truth be told, little inclination) to keep up with George's dishonest and often incoherent ramblings; nonetheless, this week, two of his more calculated comments caught my attention.
The first comment was on the White House lawn on Sunday, March 19th, the 3rd anniversary of the invasion. By the way, the White House website has entitled this speech "The President's Remarks on the Third Anniversary of the Liberation!!!! (italics and exclamation points added by me) of Iraq." A few sentences in his short remarks were:
Ours is an amazing nation where thousands have volunteered to serve our country. They volunteered to - many volunteered after 9/11, knowing full well that their time in the military could put them in harm's way.
Notice how many times George says a variation on the word "volunteer:" three times in one sentence. This caught my eye because right-wing warniks who don't want to take any responsibility for supporting George's war of terror and it's accompanying mayhem are always reminding me that Casey "volunteered." And you know what? The warniks got me there! Casey did volunteer. He volunteered in May of 2000, to, first of all, serve his country and, second of all, get the benefits that his recruiter deceived him about. The biggest lie that Casey's recruiter told him was that "even if there is a war, you won't see combat ... you scored so high on the ASVAB test, you will only go to war in a support role." The tragic thing about this false promise is that Casey, a Humvee mechanic, was killed in combat five days after he arrived in Baghdad. The truly alarming and upsetting thing about the false promise made to Casey, though, is that recruiters are using that same lie today to potential volunteers while our country is in the middle of an occupation where many of our troops are being deployed for their third and fourth tours of duty.
I believe another aspect of George emphasizing the word "volunteer" so many times in one sentence is that he would love to absolve himself of the mortal sin of sending our troops to die and kill innocent people immorally, while still reaping (in his mind) the so-called benefits of being a "war president." George Bush wants to play-act at commander in chief, but thinks he can wash the gore of over 2,300 brave human beings off of his hands by resting assured that they "volunteered."
I have so many other problems with this volunteer rationale, too. For instance, if one volunteers to be in the military why can't one just "un-volunteer" if he/she doesn't find the lifestyle suitable; or say, if they don't find the mission compelling enough, or legal and moral enough, to go fight, perhaps die and kill innocent people for?
What about the people who volunteered after 9/11? Whatever reason they volunteered for: revenge, patriotism, a sense of duty, a sense of hopelessness - they all volunteered to protect America - not be sent to die for the war machine. They volunteered to wear the uniform of our country, which most of them didn't know or realize is the identical uniform of the war profiteers, and that they would soon be asked to invade and occupy a country that was no threat to the USA, and neither did they truly comprehend that the very thing they enlisted to prevent was being engineered by the neo-cons.
Even more exploited than our regular military are our states' National Guard units, which comprise almost 40 percent of the forces in Iraq and a disproportionately high amount of the casualties. I have spoken to many of our families who have had a national guard soldier killed in Iraq and they feel so betrayed because their family member did not sign up to go to Iraq - they volunteered to guard the nation.
In my opinion the most loathsome piece of George and the warniks who support the immorality in Iraq, while pardoning themselves for the deaths without doing any penance, is that what they are saying is essentially this: your loved one got what he/she deserved for volunteering to join our armed forces. If we want to have a military to defend our country, then it is our responsibility to elect leaders that the entire world can depend on to use our military as an absolute last resort to protect America - not as a first option to solve invented problems to fulfill their lust for mammon.
The solution to the problem of our troops being sent to die for George's war is obvious and simple: no one should volunteer to be cannon fodder for this cowardly commander in chief and the war machine. Soldiers who don't want to go to die for George should also volunteer to stay home. According to the Uniform Code of Military Justice, a soldier does not have to obey an unlawful order. The occupation of Iraq is unlawful by all standards, including our own constitution.
I don't know what the American public expected when a silver spoon failure was "elected" to be our leader: a sub par student who failed at every business attempt he made and who had to be bailed out of his failures and the Vietnam War by Daddy and his friends over his entire lifetime. We are all human and make mistakes or do some things that we aren't proud of. I don't have a problem with George being a failure, as long as his mistakes are localized - as most people's are.
Now George, who as the head of the corrupt and failed ship of our state, has failed in Iraq in huge, D.W. Griffith epic proportions and has left the solution and the bail-out to some "future" president. Recently, George said in his last, unfunny stand-up comedy show, which he likes to call a "press conference," in response to a question about some undetermined, future, non-timetable-ish day when there will be no American troops in Iraq:
That, of course, is an objective, and that will be decided by future presidents and future governments of Iraq.
This is another way for George to be bailed out of his failures and to again wash his hands of the flesh and blood that he is up to his elbows in. We should all be appalled, horrified, angry and up in peaceful arms about this statement. George just admitted that the occupation of Iraq is lasting at least almost another three years.
The answer to this problem is glaringly obvious: we need a new president, ASAP. We need someone else who is willing to ask directions and change course when it is so apparent that the course is not only wrong, but damaging our country in palpable ways. Only a delusional, self absorbed, irrational person would stay such a misguided and murderous course.
It is also conspicuously evident that even if George had the will to leave Iraq, he doesn't have the tools to get out of the chaos he has gotten everybody into there. The bull can't put the china shop back together again and the destruction won't stop until the bull gets out of that china shop.
We can't wait for future presidents. We can't wait for November 2006: people are dying every day for volunteering - and the innocent men, women and children of Iraq did not volunteer to be liberated by being killed by the thousands.
George, and every person in his administration that lied to us, needs to be impeached, removed from office and held accountable for the crimes of Iraq and the crimes against Americans.
We can't allow them to get away with murder.

Cindy Sheehan is the proud mother of Specialist Casey Austin Sheehan, who was KIA in Iraq on April 4, 2004, and Carly, Andy and Janey who hold down the fort; founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and author of Not One More Mother's Child.

Ever-Growing Number Of Iraq Veterans Campaign Against The War Wednesday, March 29 2006 00:15:48 PST Posted by Intellpuke http://freeinternetpress.com/
Intellpuke: "They are a publicity nightmare for the U.S. military: an ever-growing number of veterans of the Iraq conflict are campaigning against the war. To mark the third anniversary of the invasion this month, a group of them marched on Katrina-ravaged New Orleans. Guardian correspondents Inigo Gilmore and Teresa Smith joined them. Their report follows: "If you start looking at them as humans, then how are you gonna kill them?"
At a press conference in a cavernous Alabama warehouse, banners and posters are rolled out: "Abandon Iraq, not the Gulf coast!" A tall, white soldier steps forward in desert fatigues. "I was in Iraq when Katrina happened and I watched U.S. citizens being washed ashore in New Orleans," he says. "War is oppression: we could be setting up hospitals right here. America is war-addicted. America is neglecting its poor."
A black reporter from a Fox TV news affiliate, visibly stunned, whispers: "Wow! That guy's pretty opinionated." Clearly such talk, even three years after the Iraq invasion, is still rare. This, after all, is the Deep South and this soldier less than a year ago was proudly serving his nation in Iraq.
The soldier was engaged in no ordinary protest. Over five days earlier this month, around 200 veterans, military families and survivors of hurricane Katrina walked 130 miles from Mobile, Alabama, to New Orleans, Lousiana, to mark the third anniversary of the Iraq war. At its vanguard, Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW), a group formed less than two years ago, whose very name has aroused intense hostility at the highest levels of the U.S. military.
READ MORE CLICK HERE

Democracy Now's Interview with Kevin Phillips

thinkingblue.org

CAROLYNCONNECTION.COM

Graphic
REAL PICTURES OF WAR

CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I'm going to use it!

ThinkingBlue blogspot

BlogRankings.com
Progressive Women's Blog Ring
Powered by RingSurf

AMERICA THEOCRACY by Kevin Phillips

Today on "Democracy Now TV" March 21, 2006 See an Amy Goodman Interview with Kevin Phillips who wrote the book "American Theocracy" Please scroll down and view this tape for an eye opening experience into what the neocons and the radical religious right have been bringing about for years. Mr. Phillips, a conservative, lays it on the line. "In an era of best-selling jeremiads on both sides of the political divide, "American Theocracy" may be the most alarming analysis of where we are and where we may be going to have appeared in many years." To buy the book Click Here or on book below. THINKINGBLUE Democracy Now's Interview with Kevin Phillips ALL THINKINGBLUE LINKS CLICK HERE CAROLYNCONNECTION.COM Graphic REAL PICTURES OF WAR CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I'm going to use it! ThinkingBlue blogspot BlogRankings.com Progressive Women's Blog Ring Powered by RingSurf CLICK PICTURE BELOW TO SEE ...

3 Years NO BRAVERY ONLY SADNESS

NO BRAVERY ONLY SADNESS

CLICK HERE TO HEAR THE SAD SONG "NO BRAVERY ONLY SADNESS"

No Bravery Only Sadness
After three years of turmoil and sickening mass horror...When should we again use pre-emption to go to war? Bush took this powerful tool of last resort and
turned it into something viewed as a self indulgent ideology, ego maniacal
drive towards aggressive militarism and staunch unilateralism, USA imperial
globalization and greedy excessive desire to possess the world's waning supply of oil.

Bush's Iraq war has made us weaker! If ever we will need to use the "strike first" strategy to protect ourselves against a REALTHREAT it will be seen not as a "best defense is a good offense" but as just another BULLY MANEUVER FROM THE SIMON LEGREE AMERICANS.

Please read the short article below on this Sunday March 19, 2006, the third anniversary of Bush launching his Bush Doctrine of preemptive war, an ideological plan to take sovereign countries and make them a part of the Neocon imperialist vision of "corporate globalization".

Thank you, thinkingblue

When should U.S. attack first?
Only as last resort. Fri Mar 17, 6:58 AM ET
A year after Sept. 11, 2001, the USA was still smarting from the horrific blow, and the national mood was one of apprehension. Even though the United States had successfully routed the Taliban regime from Afghanistan, along with the al-Qaeda training camps they harbored, mastermind Osama bin Laden had gotten away. Fear of terrorists striking again on U.S. soil was high.

Into this heightened sense of vulnerability, President Bush introduced what would become known as the "Bush Doctrine" - the idea that the United States should strike at enemies before they strike first. As in sports, Bush said, the best defense is a good offense.

That idea, known more formally as "pre-emption," had always been a part of the U.S. defense arsenal. But rather than keep it where it needs to be, as a rarely mentioned and rarely used alternative, Bush made it central to his approach to the world. He trumpeted it, in September 2002, in a wide-ranging review called the National Security Strategy.

What happened next was a blunder of historic proportions that has made Americans less, not more, safe. The Bush Doctrine became the rationale for invading Iraq, a foe unrelated to al-Qaeda, three years ago this weekend. Better strike at Saddam Hussein, was the message, before he could strike at us with the weapons of mass destruction that, the intelligence showed,
he was developing.


As the world now knows, the intelligence was wrong. Saddam had neither ties to bin Laden nor weapons of mass destruction. The cost of this misapplication of pre-emption - in U.S. lives, money and credibility - has been incalculable.


So what has Bush learned?

Officially, at least, not much. On Thursday, the White House published its first National Security Strategy since the one that enshrined the Bush Doctrine. Perhaps not surprisingly for an administration loath to admit error, the document casts Iraq as a pre-emption success. "With the elimination of Saddam's regime, this threat has been addressed once and for all," it declares. The pre-emption policy "remains the same."
Talk about learning the wrong lessons.

The Iraq invasion, far from being a success, provides a cautionary tale about just why strike-first needs to remain, as in the past, the final option. In Iraq, it vaulted to the top of the agenda. Key administration figures - notably Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - had been itching for a war with Iraq long before 9/11. After the terror attacks, they asserted links between Saddam and al-Qaeda where there was none. Because the administration rushed into war without building alliances, few countries joined in.

After three years of turmoil, Iraq stands on the brink of civil war. Al-Qaeda operatives who weren't in Iraq before have gone there to fight U.S. forces. Neighboring Iran is increasingly influential with Iraqi Shiites, compounding the nuclear threat Iran presents.


Worse, because of Iraq, the U.S. ability to use pre-emption in the future, when it might really be needed, is weakened. Most of the world sees the USA as a global bully and its intelligence as suspect. U.S. forces are overstretched. And getting backing for a new pre-emptive attack from a public made wary by the Iraq experience would be difficult.

Bush's trademark is to stick to his guns. Changing his approach now, at least publicly, is not his style. But there are signs that he might, in fact, have learned some of the lessons from Iraq.

The influence of the Iraq hawks is waning. A pragmatic secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, is guiding a broad diplomatic charm offensive. And beyond the defensiveness over Iraq, the new security strategy emphasizes diplomacy.

In Iraq, the Bush Doctrine has been much like that Wild West dictum: Shoot first, ask questions later. Now it's time to return pre-emption to its proper place in U.S. foreign policy: for use only when the threat is imminent, the intelligence is bulletproof, and the use of military action is the last resort, preferably with allies on board. Then make sure you have a plan for what to do next.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

ALSO READ:

The "Bush Doctrine" is the bald neoconservative justification of U.S. global military domination...

Globalization: Good or Bad?

Are War and Globalization Really Connected?

Three Years Of Happyfun War! 1,100 days of brutal violence and death, grinding you down to a numb little nub. Thanks, Dubya!

- By Mark Morford, SF Gate ColumnistFriday, March 24, 2006
You've endured three more birthdays. There have been three Academy Awards ceremonies, three new Super Bowl champions, three full winters and three summers, three complete cycles of jean styles and hemlines and pleat cuts in the fashion world and there has been the rise and very quick fall of roughly 146 horrible TV shows you never even saw.

Your skin has changed. Your teeth have worn down. Your bones have shifted in their sockets. Your fingernails grew another 4 inches and you consumed roughly 5,850 pounds of food and 600 pounds of meat and your hair grew about a foot and a half.

There have been killer hurricanes and earthquakes and devastating tsunamis, heat waves and cold fronts and dramatic shifts in the general temperament of the Earth. Ice caps are melting more rapidly. Billion-year-old stars finally gave up and blinked out. Young wine has aged nicely. Babies born three years ago are now walking and eating with utensils and uploading digital photos to their MySpace pages via their cute little Nokia cell phones. Times, of course, have changed.

But through it all, through your life for the past 1,100 days like an undercurrent of cold black blood, like an unshakable stench deep in your nostrils, like a disturbing stain you simply cannot get off your shirt, our country has been at war. Endless, raw, insidious, interminable.

Body bags filling up every single day. Death tolls rising. Hundreds of billions of your tax dollars hurled into a gaping sewer of death and destruction. Thousands of dead American kids, many more on the way. Corruption and scandal and gross war profiteering, Halliburton and the Carlyle Group and Lockheed Martin and the insidious dumbing down of military recruitment standards (because we're running out of disposable soldiers) to go along with Donald Rumsfeld's black-eyed sneer. Endless.

Do you remember the sweet little halcyon moment way back when, when America was slightly more globally respected and Iraq seemed like a bad but temporary dream and even the most hawkish Bush-gropin' war proponents were saying, Hey America, don't you worry your confused fear-addled little head, we'll be in Iraq for absolutely positively mark-my-words no more than three months, maximum -- OK, maybe six. Remember when they said that there was simply no way this war could run us more than about $10 bil and maybe cost, at the very most, a couple of dozen U.S. casualties? Wasn't that cute?

Do you remember the time of pretty brainwashed thoughts and insidiously patriotic dreams? Before the darkness and the disgust, before 20,000 killed, maimed and disabled American soldiers, before we illegally detained thousands and brutally tortured hundreds of Iraqis, before the wiretapping and the Patriot Act and the disgusting lack of accountability and before America's reputation in the Muslim world was turned to rancid hummus?

And now, here we are. March 20 marked the three-year anniversary of the start of our quick-'n'-cheap, three-month Iraq occupation/invasion. It is a moment to reflect on what we have accomplished. We have accomplished this: global contempt and colossal debt and a culture of death and intolerance. How very proud we are. Thank you, George.

The threat of terrorism is higher than ever. Iraq's vicious fundamentalist factions are on the verge of civil war. The Middle East is more volatile because of our president's God-sucking warmongering than Saddam or Osama could have ever wet-dreamed. There is a song by Bright Eyes called "We Are Nowhere, and It's Now." Dead on.

Have you heard all this before? Of course you have. It has become our national refrain. It is the subtext to all we do. It is printed on our nation's bloodstained business card.

And now, a sort of bleak but bitterly livable numbness has settled in. We are like a person with a ghostly fatal disease, limping around with a hacking cough and blood in our eyeballs and an awkward forced smile, pretending all's well and we'll make it through A-OK when deep down we know something has been permanently torn and shredded and incapacitated and there is no medicine for it except maybe wholesale sociopolitical revolution.

Ah, but there is little value in hammering Bush for his gross incompetence anymore. He now has the third lowest approval ratings of any president in American history. The vast majority of Americans, from liberals to heartland GOPers, are disgusted and fed up. From the grossly miscalculated war to the grossly incompetent Katrina response to enough scandals and misprisions to make Nixon look like Jimmy Carter, Bush's mark in our history books is guaranteed to be nothing but a vulgar child's scrawl. With a cross.

But it doesn't really matter. Bush is still immune, blind and dumb and still refusing to admit a single mistake, and yet he cannot be punished or impeached, if for no other reason than those who would do the impeaching are of his own party and they are simply loath to admit how very severely wrong they were about just about everything. Hey, that sort of thing is what costs you elections.

The bad news is, even the most liberal estimate says we are locked in. We cannot leave Iraq, not now, not in a few months, perhaps not for years and years, not if we don't want the region to instantly devolve into a worse hell pit than it already is. The quagmire is too deep, the mess too wide, our supposed allegiances too shaky and the region sliding so quickly to the precipice of civil war that to exit now would be disastrous beyond even what Saddam could've accomplished on his worst day.

All we are left with is the larger question: Can we possibly learn anything from this? Is it possible to mature and progress as a nation, as a humanitarian force, as a result of our horrible mistakes, of our ability to be so easily misled and beaten down by a cabal of sneering neocon leaders who would just as soon shoot you as give you a handshake and a cigar?

After all, Vietnam taught the Powers That Be, well, nothing at all, except how to better crack down on dissent and manipulate the media and inject huge gobs of unwarranted fear into the bloodstream of the populace so they may launch their vicious and inhumane wars without so much damn hassle.

America has a notoriously short memory. What happened to all that hair you cut? What about all that food you ate? Where are all the bodies we've burned and blown up from Afghanistan to Baghdad? What sort of legacy is this? Will you simply be reading this column again in exactly one year, at the four-year marker of our ongoing happyfun death march, wondering where the time went?
These might sound like rhetorical questions. Maybe that, after all, is the problem.
Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive of past columns, which includes a tiny photo of Mark probably insufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts.

As if that weren't enough, Mark also contributes to the hot, spankin' SF Gate Culture Blog.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2006/03/24/notes032406.DTL

---

Flash Animations - No Bravery, Only Sadness in Your Face

James Blunt is a gifted British musician that has seen war himself. He wrote a song called "No Bravery" while he was stationed in Kosovo. "Billy Pilgrim" uses that music in this powerful animation that captures the anguish of the war, and ends with the photo of Blake Miller. See it here. Another excellent flash animation, is done to the same song by the young woman who created PeaceTakesCourage.com. Check out Ava's Work.

THINKINGBLUE.ORG

CAROLYNCONNECTION.COM

Warning very Graphic REAL PICTURES OF WAR

CAROLYNCONNETION - I've got a mind and I'm going to use
it! ThinkingBlue blogspot

BlogRankings.com
Email Me At:
iamthinkingblue@yahoo.com

YOU CAN BEAM ME UP NOW, SCOTTIE. Thinkingblue