Sunday, September 30, 2007

PHONEY LIMBAUGH on PHONEY SOLDIERS this guy is sick!

I do believe that Rush Limbaugh's Frontal Lobes are hanging on by a bloody thread. What else can make him sputter and spew his bigoted, hateful messages so vigorously? Please watch the youtube video featuring this repugnant critter spouting out at the mouth once again. Thinkingblue

PHONEY SOLDIERS by Rush Limbaugh

WHEN IS THE REPUBLICAN PARTY GOING TO WISE UP TO THE FACT THAT RUSH LIMBAUGH IS NO FRIEND OF THEIRS. PEOPLE ARE WAKING UP AND REALIZING THAT WHAT RUSH COUNTS ON FOR FAME AND FORTUNE IS HATE. HATE WORKS FOR A WHILE, ESPECIALLY WHEN PEOPLE ARE HURTING AND THERE IS NO ONE TO BLAME. LIMBAUGH WILL DIRECT THEIR PAIN IN THE DIRECTION OF THE "REAL" ENEMY THAT HE CONJURES UP IN HIS DAMAGED FRONTAL LOBES. BUT LATELY, IT'S NOT WORKING VERY WELL. IT WON'T BE LONG WHEN POOR OLD BRAIN FOGGED RUSH WILL HAVE NO FRIENDS LEFT. EXCEPT FOR MAYBE, THOSE OTHER BRUTISH, SIMON LEGREES, AT FOX. thinkingblue

READ ON:

Rush Limbaugh still getting kid-glove treatment on FOXNews.com (WHAT ELSE IS NEW)Reported by Chrish - September 28, 2007 -

As noted this morning, FOXNews.com was not covering the story of Rush Limbaugh's insulting comment, calling some US troops who criticize the Iraq war or call for an end to it "phony soldiers" who show up "out of the blue." Read full background at MediaMatters.org.

As of 7pm EDT there are two links to stories on the FOX webpage, but note that although they are titled differently and have seperate links, they are the same AP story and are entitled to shift focus to Democrats: Dems Criticize Limbaugh's Comments and Democrats Criticize Rush Limbaugh's 'Phony Soldiers'

Remark.Seeing as this is Friday night, fully expect FOX to ignore all weekend (no special on this one!) and dismiss as old news by Monday, unlike with the MoveOn ad, when there was round-the-clock outrage for two weeks with a weekend special to keep the story alive.

FOX doesn't have talking points in place for this - what could they say? "Taken out of context" just doesn't fool too many people when there is a transcript and audio recording, although Limbaugh did try to defend himself today with an edited tape. Keep diggin', maybe he can keep it alive over the weekend all by himself! But expect FOX to continue to ignore, partisan hacks that they are. This is a great example of how they are unfair and unbalanced - having Kirsten Powers on with Michelle Malkin is meaningless window dressing. This gatekeeping of what gets covered is the real meat of the matter.

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Thursday, September 27, 2007

WACKY WIKIPEDIA or WIKIPEDIA WACKOS

This is interesting, Wikipedia information being changed to suit corporate vanity or worse corporate proselytizing. Now we all realize media propaganda goes into our brains daily to persuade us to think this way or that way. But our on-line gateway to immediate, accurate knowledge on reality being hacked by the likes of Fox Noise, Diebold Election Systems and even the CIA, is there nothing to be trusted in this Whacky World of ours? You've got to see this Keith Olbermann segment of "Countdown", it will help you to keep in mind that although, technology has given us dimensions, we still must be heedful of the fact that the vulnerable human mind is still behind the controls.

"How many legs does a dog have if you call the tail a leg? Four; calling a tail a leg doesn't make it a leg. - Abraham Lincoln
clipped from youtube.com

Wacky Wikipedia: Fox Noise Channel and internet cleansing

Wicky Wackipedia. It would be one thing if Fox just changed their own entries to make themselves look better. Instead, they also felt it necessary to change the entries for Olbermann and others who are critical of the Faux Noise Machine. Then they do a report on Wikipedia and although they mentioned something about making themselves look better on it, they leave out the fact that they were changing and making disparaging remarks of other newscasters and networks.

http://clydestuff.blogspot.com/
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Wednesday, September 26, 2007

HOUSE VOTE TO EXPAND SCHIP FOR KIDS. PRES. VOWS TO VETO!

Well, Mr. President, seems to be standing alone on not wanting children to have health insurance. Almost alone, except for his staunch, true-blue disciples, who take up space, on capital hill. In fact, 159 morally bankrupt Republicans, don't mind turning their backs on the many children who may become very ill or even die because their families won't be able to carry the financial load if something medically serious happens to them. Oh, by the way, funding for the Iraq war could surpass $1 trillion, at a rate of a mere $200,000,000 A DAY! That's OK with Bushie, but allot money to help lower income families have peace of mind and this dullard of a man, we call pres. POUNDS HIS CHEST AND DECLARES HE'LL VETO IT! Sending people's children into an unnecessary war and now giving a thumbs down to bring some daylight into the lives of the financially strapped Americans, makes me wonder. Will his daddy shed some tears for his malevolent son over this one? thinkingblue
clipped from news.yahoo.com
The House voted Tuesday to expand health insurance for children, but the
Democratic-led victory may prove short-lived because the margin was too small to
override President Bush's promised veto.
the House voted 265-159 to expand the State Children's Health Insurance Program,
or SCHIP, by $35 billion over five years.
Bush says he will veto the bill due to its cost,
SCHIP is a state-federal program that provides coverage for 6.6 million children
from families that live above the poverty level
expansion
would add 4 million children to the rolls
The bill drew support from 45 House Republicans

It hardly matters that the expansion would be expensive or a step toward socialized health care, Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., said during the House debate. When lawmakers go home, he said, "the question is, Were you with the kids or were you not?"

The Senate appears poised to pass the SCHIP
Despite the expected veto
Democrats welcomed the SCHIP debate
president finds himself isolated
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http://nationalpriorities.org/costofwar/flash/counter_white_bg.swf

Monday, September 24, 2007

SIGN PETITION TO TELL CONGRESS TO SIGN "LETTER OF PEACE".

I have blogged similar petitions before but it is so important that we not allow Bush and his henchmen to drag the Iraq war on for the sake of saving face, by handing it off to another in 2009. Please join me in telling Congress they must act now, no more excuses. The life you save WILL be someone's daughter or son.
Click this link http://www.democrats.com/peoplesemailnetwork/115 I DID! read below:
This is a request, NO IT'S A DEMAND, from a voter, to urge you Democrats and Republicans alike, to join the 81 courageous members of Congress in bringing an end to this horrible, grisly, deplorable and ILLEGAL war, once and for all. No more pussyfooting around, jeopardizing the lives of our young heroes. No more lying, we the people, are sick to death of the lies about Iraq. You Congress members of the United States, for too many years of this ugly occupation in Iraq, have shirked your responsibility to hold the Republican administration, accountable for their felonious war. NO LONGER! We, are mandating that YOU, our so called leaders, LEAD us to PEACE! Warmongers, peaceniks, pacifists and the belligerent alike are joining me to prompt you in putting an end to a war that never should have started. YOU HAVE THE POWER AND WE KNOW IT! Once, we woke up and were on to the fact that this Iraq war, was never about terrorism. It was about a naive pipedream of those who flaunted their ill-gotten power to play warfare games, in order to attain a world dominance through force. All the while, they themselves, could sit safely on the sidelines, sending others to die and be maimed in their ad-libbed war. Urging you once again, to join your brave members of Congress, who are unafraid of the Republican Power Machine. Who are beholden to their constituents because they realize, we are the ones, they really work for. Sign, the open letter to be delivered to President Bush that states: "We will only support appropriating funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of all our troops out of Iraq before you leave office." thinkingblue
clipped from www.democrats.com
Please join the 81 Members of Congress who pledged in an href="http://pdamerica.org/articles/misc/2007-07-20-07-59-11-misc.php"
target=_blank>open letter
delivered to President Bush: "We will only
support appropriating funds for U.S. military operations in Iraq during Fiscal
Year 2008 and beyond for the protection and safe redeployment of all our
troops out of Iraq before you leave office
."
The U.S. occupation of Iraq is the primary cause of the violence there. U.S.
intelligence agencies have reported in multiple National Intelligence Estimates
that the occupation of Iraq is recruiting more terrorists worldwide. Every
dollar we spend in Iraq is making America less secure and taking funds away from
urgent needs at home and abroad.
54% of Americans want Bush to bring U.S. troops home within 6 months,
73% of Americans want U.S. troops home in a year.
The single largest group (40%) want Bush to bring U.S. troops home within 6
months using funds Congress has already given him for Iraq
. Read the full
results at:
_target="blank">http://democrats.com/iraq-poll-1
Constituent info
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Saturday, September 22, 2007

THE PECKSNIFFERY OF KING GEORGE W. BUSH.

I watched LIVE, George W Bush do lip service on TV to condemn the moveon.org ad criticizing General Petraeus for beating the drum for Bush's War to continue. What a hypocrite! For the president to declare guilty, this organization for calling it like it is and remain silent when his own right winged groups tried to destroy the reputations of two war heroes, Max Cleland and John Kerry, is pathetic beyond belief. When will the pecksiffery stop? I guess it will never cease as long as we settle for unethical and dishonest politicians who blatantly lie and get our votes anyhow.

THE PECKSNIFFERY OF KING GEORGE W. BUSH.

The statement by Bush on September 20, 2007 about the MOVEON.ORG ad was so hypocritical, it needed a retaliation. A like for like. Thank goodness for Keith Olbermann, the detector of hypocrisy, he is a warrior for an honest democracy.

Below are the names of the Democrats who voted with all the Republicans to condemn the moveon.org ad.
Senate Condemns MoveOn Ad!

No Republican voted AGAINST condemning the MoveOn ad. All 25 votes against the amendment were Democrats. But these {craven} Democrats voted with Republicans to condemn the MoveOn ad:


Baucus
Bayh
Cardin
Carper
Casey
Conrad
Dorgan
Feinstein
Johnson
Klobuchar
Kohl
Landrieu
Leahy
Lieberman
Lincoln
McCaskill
Mikulski
Nelson, Ben
Nelson, Bill
Salazar
Tester
Webb

One interesting note: Some of the senators who won the greatest support from the netroots in the last election, like McCaskill, Tester, Klobuchar, and Webb, voted to condemn the ad.
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FROM URBAN DICTIONARY Pecksniffery - Noun.- Synonym for Hypocrisy

1) XXMistaMechXx (real aim name) committed Pecksniffery

2) The fact that XXMistaMechXx is against pecksniffery is a load of pecksniffery

BRING THEM HOME NOW

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

YOU CAN BEAM ME UP NOW, SCOTTIE. Thinkingblue


Thursday, September 13, 2007

Life in Iraq Under U.S. Occupation

Dr. Dahlia Wasfi gives a compelling speech on the Iraq occupation by the USA. She tells us the stark reality of the suffering that is going on inside the borders of Iraq and the lack of compassion by the powers who ordered this imperialist takeover under the guise of democracy. She does not mince words and some of what she speaks of is horrifying. Another must see youtube video. thinkingblue
clipped from www.youtube.com
shortages; lack of electricity; potable water; tanks rolling through the streets night and day; gunfire and explosions. Iraqi health care in shambles. 200 bodies turn up daily in the Baghdad morgue. For Iraqis, it's 9/11 every day.
Socialism 2007 conference
Chicago, June 16, 2007
www.socialistworker.org
Filmed by Paul Hubbard
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Wednesday, September 12, 2007

awh...You're shittin me... Maybe FREEDOM NEXT TIME.

awh...You're shittin me...
THAT IS WHAT I SAID TO MYSELF WHILE WATCHING THIS MUST SEE FILM of John Pilger speaking about his book, "Freedom Next Time". If you have just a speck of respect for today's journalism, Pilger will knock it right out of you! And he is quite believable. To put it on youtube the user PHubb had to break it down into two parts (it gives you time for an intermission but you will quickly want to get back to your seat in front of the computer to see the 2nd half) click here to see his site: http://www.youtube.com/user/PHubb and watch: Dahlia Wasfi - Life in Iraq Under U.S. Occupation

Pilger talks about Journalism and Democracy in today's world. The incredible speaker John Pilger will give you (liberal and conservatives) an incite to what is happening in our fragile 2 party system of democracy. The lies and propaganda that is spoon fed to us as truth and the absurdities we on both sides of the political divide are led to believe. THIS IS TRULY A MUST SEE VIDEO... It should be played in every school in America and every school around the world. We the people of this universe are the ones who should decide our fate and we the people have the power. Let's all join the one group who will help us survive, the group called THE HUMAN RACE. Corporate power has grown into a behemoth, weighted down with superfluous entanglement that even the ones at the top seem to have little control over. It's time for us who feed this power to say enoughs, enough. Oh, it sounds so simple in words, if only it were. But with enlightenment comes strength and with super intellectual beings like Pilger to open our minds, there is hope.
Thanks, thinkingblue
PS: The first step is to tell Mainstream Media "TO TAKE NOTE, we will never naively view you, without suspicion again!"
And a special thanks to http://clipmarks.com/search/thisnamecantbetaken./ for clueing me in on this video from her clipmark of Sept 11, 2007

PART ONE

PART TWO



John Pilger's new book, Freedom Next Time (Bantam Press, 2006; http://www.johnpilger.com/) has just been published. Containing chapters on Diego Garcia, Palestine, India, South Africa and Afghanistan, it is a devastating indictment of brutal state-corporate power, and a heartening account of how people around the world are challenging that power.
In a recent review of Freedom Next Time, Mark Curtis wrote: "The array of interviews with the voiceless and abused provides an indispensable corrective to the litany of disinformation we are fed by the media." (http://books.guardian.co.uk/review/story/0,,1788937,00.html)
The section on Palestine - The Last Taboo - is one of the most powerful, compassionate and courageous we have seen on the issue anywhere. It is a 100-page antidote to what former BBC Middle East correspondent Tim Llewellyn has called "the tyranny of spurious equivalence" in media coverage. This really is must-read journalism.
We asked John Pilger if we might publish the moving extract below as a guest media alert and he has very kindly agreed. We recommend it and the book to our readers unreservedly.
Best wishes
The Editors

THE LAST TABOO

The Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish, an opponent of all kinds of attacks on civilians and a persistent voice for Israeli–Palestinian co-existence, wrote: ‘We have to understand – not justify – what gives rise to this tragedy ... Palestinian people are in love with life. If we give them hope – a political solution – they’ll stop killing themselves.’57 The following are lines from his poem ‘Martyr’:
I love lifeOn earth, among the pines and the fig treesBut I can’t reach it, so I took aimWith the last thing that belonged to me.
For Rami Elhanan, an Israeli graphic designer, the sacrifice by a Palestinian of ‘the last thing that belonged to me’ caused the death of his fourteen-year-old daughter, Smadar. There is a home videotape of Smadar that is difficult to watch. She is playing the family piano, and throwing her head back and laughing. She has long hair, which she cut two months before she died. ‘It was her way of making a statement of her independence,’ Rami told me with a smile. ‘Her brothers used to tease her because she was such a good student. But she knew what she wanted. She wanted to be a doctor, and she loved to dance.’58
On the afternoon of September 4, 1997, Smadar and her best friend, Sivane, had auditions for admission to a dance school. Smadar had argued that morning with her mother, Nurit, who was anxious about her going to the centre of Jerusalem to buy books she needed for school. ‘I was worried about the increase in suicide bombings,’ said Nurit. ‘But I didn’t want to row, so I let her go.’
Rami was in his car when he turned on the radio at three o’clock to listen to the news and heard reports of a suicide bombing in Ben Yehuda shopping precinct. Three Palestinians had walked into the crowd and turned themselves into human bombs. There were nearly two hundred injured, and several dead. Within minutes, Rami’s mobile phone rang. Nurit was crying. She had received a call from one of their son’s friends, who had seen Smadar making her way into the Ben Yehuda mall shortly before the bombs went off. For hours, Rami and Nurit toured hospitals, looking for her. ‘Finally,’ he said, ‘a policeman gently suggested we go to the scene of the bombing, where we were referred to a morgue.’59
Their ‘descent into darkness’, as Rami describes it, was also the beginning of an inspirational campaign for peace. I have not met anyone like Rami, and the interview I conducted with him in the sunny sitting room of his Jerusalem home moved me deeply. Sometimes, solutions to apparently intractable political problems seem closer at hand when there is a Rami Elhanan engrossed in them, saying the unsayable.
‘It’s painful to acknowledge, but it really is quite simple,’ he said. ‘There is no basic moral difference between the soldier at the checkpoint who prevents a woman who is having a baby from going through, causing her to lose the baby, and the man who killed my daughter. And just as my daughter was a victim [of the occupation], so was he.’
On the shelf behind him was a photograph of Smadar at the age of five, holding a placard. ‘Stop the occupation,’ it said. Rami calls her ‘a child of peace’. Her parents were both brought up to believe that the establishment of Israel as a Jewish national homeland was an act of self-preservation. Rami’s father had survived Auschwitz. His grandparents and six aunts and uncles perished in the Holocaust. Nurit’s father, Matti Peled, a general, was a hero of the 1948 war. Rami describes him as ‘one of the true pioneers of making peace with the Palestinians’. He was among the first Israelis to visit Yasser Arafat in his exile in Tunisia. Nurit herself has been awarded the European Parliament’s peace prize.
Rami dates his own 'awareness of the truth we dare not speak' to his time as a young army conscript. The 1967 war had just happened and was not, he says, the 'divine intervention' it was portrayed as in Israel, particularly among the 'settlers' who built their illegal fortresses on newly occupied land. He describes it as 'the beginning of a cancer at the heart of Israel'. Later, as a soldier in the 1973 Yom Kippur war, he said he realised 'I had blood on my hands, too.'
Rami and Nurit are among the founders of the Parents' Circle, or Bereaved Families for Peace, which brings together Israeli and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones. They include the families of suicide bombers. They jointly organise educational campaigns and lobby politicians to begin serious negotiations. When I met Rami, they had just placed one thousand coffins outside the United Nations building in New York, each draped in an Israeli or Palestinian flag. 'Our aim', he said, 'is not to forget or forgive the past, but to find some way of living together.'
I asked him: ‘How do you distinguish the feelings of anger you must have felt as a father at losing your daughter from the feeling of wanting to reach out?’
‘Very simple. I am a human being; I am not an animal. I lost my child, but I didn’t lose my head. Thinking and acting from the guts only increases an endless circle of blood. You have to think: our two peoples are here to stay; neither will evaporate. We have to compromise in some way. And you do that by the head, not by the guts.’
‘Have you made contact with the parents of the suicide bomber who killed Smadar?’
'That was tried once; someone wanted to make a film about it, but I wasn't interested. I am not crazy; I don't forget, I don't forgive. Someone who murders little girls is a criminal and should be punished, and to be in personal contact with those who did me wrong, it's not the point. So you see, I sometimes have to fight myself to do what I'm doing. But I'm sure what I'm doing is right. I certainly understand that the suicide bomber was a victim the same as my girl was. Of that, I am sure.'
‘Have you made contact with the parents of other suicide bombers?’
‘Yes. Very warm and encouraging contacts.’
‘What is the point of that?’
‘The point is to make peace, and not to ask questions. I have blood on my hands, too, as I said. I was a soldier in the Israeli army ... if you are digging into the personal history of each and every one of us, you won’t make peace, you’ll make more arguments and more blame. Tomorrow, I am going to Hebron to meet bereaved Palestinian families. They are living proof of the willingness of the other side to make peace with us.’
‘Isn’t the public mood in Israel quite different?’
‘I have a friend who says that what I am doing is like taking water out of the ocean with a spoon. We [in the Parents’ Circle] are very few, it’s true, and the world is being led by very stupid people: that’s also true. I’m talking about the American President and my own Prime Minister. To take this word “terrorism” and build everything around it, as they do, you only make more misery, more war, more casualties, more suicide bombers, more revenge, more punishment. Where does that go? Nowhere. Our task is to point out the obvious. George Washington was a terrorist, Jomo Kenyatta was a terrorist, Nelson Mandela was a terrorist. Terrorism only has meaning for those who are weak and who have no other choice, and no other means.’
‘What has to be done to end this suffering?’
‘We have to start by fighting ignorance. I go to schools and give lectures. I tell the children how the conflict began by asking them to imagine a house with ten rooms where Mohammed and his family are living in peace. Then, one stormy night, there’s a knock at the door, and outside stands Moshe and his family. They are sick, beaten, broken. “Excuse me,” he says, “but I once used to live in this house.” This is the whole Arab–Israeli conflict in a snap; and I tell the kids that the Palestinians gave up seventy-eight per cent of the country which they are sure is theirs, so the Israelis should give up the twenty-two per cent that was left [following the 1967 war].’
He shows the schoolchildren maps of the offer Prime Minister Ehud Barak made to Yasser Arafat at Camp David before the 'peace process' broke down. The maps reveal that swathes of the West Bank were held back from the Palestinians and kept for Jewish settlers. 'This was the greatest secret of all,' he said, 'because Barak never allowed any [official] maps to be made. He was proposing something he knew the Palestinians would not, could not, accept.'
‘What kind of reaction do you get: in schools, at public events?’
‘I watch the faces of the kids when I show them the maps and tell them that we had seventy-eight per cent, and the Palestinians had twenty-two per cent, and that’s all the Palestinians want now, and I see ignorance lift. You know, in Israel, the bereaved are said to be sacred. People give them respect because they have paid the price. I am due that respect, but of course there are people who don’t want to hear what I say.’
Every ‘Jerusalem Day’ – the day the modern State of Israel celebrates its conquest of the city – Rami has stood in the street with a photograph of Smadar and sought to persuade people of his mission for peace. The last Jerusalem Day, he stood in front of crossed Israeli and Palestinian flags, and people told him it was a pity he wasn’t blown up, too. ‘That is the dimension of the problem,’ he said.
‘Will you do that this Jerusalem Day?’
‘Yes, and I will be spat and cursed at by some, but I know that’s only one part of the human equation; it’s the other part we must solve, and I and other parents are making a start.’
‘What is the price that a society pays when it runs a military occupation?’
‘It’s an unbearable price. The list begins with moral corruption. When we don’t let pregnant women through checkpoints, and their babies die, we have reduced ourselves to animals and we are no different from the suicide bombers.’
‘What do you say to Jewish people in other countries, like Britain: people who support Israel because they feel they must?’
‘I say they should be loyal to real Jewish values, and support the peace movement in Israel, not the state at all costs. It’s only pressure from outside – from Jews, from governments, from public opinion – that will end this nightmare. While there is this silence, this looking away, this profane abuse of our critics as anti-Jew, we are no different from those who stood aside during the days of the Holocaust. We are not only complicit in a crime, we ensure that we ourselves never know peace, and our surviving children never know peace. I ask you: does that make any sense?’
‘But they might say the Jews are in danger of being pushed into the sea by the Arabs, that Israel must stand firm?’
‘Pushed into the sea by whom? We are the most powerful power in the Middle East. We have one of the greatest armies in the world. In this latest operation [Sharon’s attack on the West Bank in April 2002], we sent four armoured divisions against some five hundred armed people. It’s a laugh. Who will push us into the sea? Who can push us into the sea?... The real issue is played out every day at the checkpoints. The Palestinian boy whose mother is humiliated in the morning will be a suicide bomber in the evening. There is no way that Israelis can sit in their coffee houses and eat and drink while two hundred metres away desperate people are humiliated and Palestinian children are beginning to starve. The suicide bomber is no more than a mosquito. The occupation is the swamp.’
The chairman of the Parents’ Circle is Yitzhak Frankenthal, whose son Arik, a conscripted soldier, was kidnapped and killed by Hamas. His generosity of spirit was expressed in his address to a peace rally in Jerusalem. ‘Let all the self-righteous who speak of ruthless Palestinian murderers take a hard look in the mirror,’ he said.
[Let them ask themselves] what they would have done had they been the ones living under occupation. I can say for myself that I, Yitzhak Frankenthal, would have undoubtedly become a freedom fighter and I would have killed as many on the other side as I possibly could. It is this depraved hypocrisy that pushes the Palestinians to fight us relentlessly – our double standard that allows us to boast the highest military ethics, while the same military slays innocent children ... As much as I would like to do so, I cannot say the Palestinians are to blame for my son’s death. That would be the easy way out [for] it is we who are unwilling to make peace with them. It is we who insist on maintaining our control over them. It is we who feed the cycle of violence ... I regret to say it.60
Israel’s dissidents are among the bravest I have met. Apart from the remarkable Mordechai Vanunu, who spent nineteen years in prison, mostly in solitary confinement, and who today lives under effective house arrest, most of those who take on the Israeli state remain in the community, where their punishment is often unrelenting. To many, they have betrayed not only their country but their family and their Jewishness and the memory of the victims of the Holocaust.
Shopkeepers refuse to serve them; lifelong friends cross the road rather than speak to them. Without warning, they are shouted at and spat upon – like Rami with his flags.
At the time of writing, 635 Israeli soldiers have refused to serve in occupied Palestine. Hundreds have been sent to prison. Others have made public declarations that have worried the regime; they include paratroopers, tank officers and members of the Special Forces, Sayeret-Matka. In September 2003, twenty-seven air force pilots, including Brigadier-General Yiftah Spector, a hero of the 1967 war, announced they had refused to carry out ‘illegal and immoral’ raids ‘on civilian population centres’. The majority are young conscripts who must serve three years with the military. Their organisation is ‘Courage to Refuse’.
I spent an afternoon with one of them, former Sergeant Ishai Rosen-Zvi, an orthodox Jew. We met in a Tel Aviv park, away from unfriendly eyes. I asked him what had made him a ‘refusenik’.61
‘It took me longer than I wish to think. When I arrived in Gaza with my unit, I could see what we were doing was horrible, but I did my job; I felt uneasy and embarrassed, but I did my job. On leave, at home, I never talked about it; I became a kind of Jekyll and Hyde character. Then I began to realise I was on the wrong side of the checkpoint, the roadblock we had to man day after day. The real story of the occupation is there at the roadblocks. Your job there is nothing, you stand around, and you think that if you could phone home, you would say, “This is boring.” Then it dawns on you what this nothingness really is. It is keeping thousands of people in frustration, in humiliation, in hunger, in anger.
‘Imagine it. You are standing there and it’s five in the morning, and you see their eyes – some of the people could be my grandfather – and you glimpse the humiliation and the hatred. You want to take them aside and say, “Look, I’m a good guy; I’ve got nothing against you.” But of course that has no point. For them, you are the occupation. And +nobody+ gives you their liberty for nothing.’
I said, ‘The government insists the roadblocks are there to stop the suicide bombers coming.’
‘The roadblocks were there thirty-five years before suicide bombing began. They are there to control, always control.’
‘Did Palestinians waiting under your control ever want to debate this with you?’
‘You have all the power; they have no power. You can, at any moment, take their ID, and then they have nothing, because without ID, they can be arrested at any time. So they take no risks; they don’t debate; they may even be deferential, but that’s not how they are in their hearts.’
‘How do other Israelis regard you, people you meet every day, who know you are a refusenik?’
‘Some look on me as an extreme leftist, which is funny, because I am a religious person. For them, the whole question of morality doesn’t come into it; they think I am twisted in the head. One of my best friends told me, “OK, it’s a stupid war, but it’s a war, and we’ve got to fight it.”’
‘And your family?’
‘We don’t talk about it, or we try not to. My wife is speaking all the time about other things, because it’s too hard...’
‘So you’ve done this on your own?’
‘Yes. I am alone on this.’
‘What is the price you’ve paid?’
‘I am no hero, believe me. I am a hurt person; I am hurt when I am in the market and someone I don’t know says, “I read in the newspaper what you’ve done. It’s horrible. People like you are ruining our country.” That is like a knife attack and I am plunged into a personal battle in my head and heart; how do I say it...?’
‘You mean you have to keep explaining it to yourself?’
‘Yes, yes, and not just explain; I have to reassure myself. I have to say, “Ishai, you are +not+ a traitor.” It is hard saying this to yourself, on your own.’
‘What do you say to those Jewish people abroad who associate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism?’
‘Well, this is a huge bluff. It is the worst kind of propaganda. Jewish people in Britain, all over the world, who play this game of bluff are perpetuating the occupation and all its horrors. They should not contribute to such a device that desecrates the memory of Jewish suffering, and use it to justify the oppression of another people. It is profane.’
‘What would you like to say to your compatriots?’
‘I would like to say they should think hard about patriotism, because criticising our government on this issue is the +only+ patriotic thing we have left.’
Notes:
57: Cited in ‘Profile’, The Review, Guardian, June 8, 2002.58: Toomey, Sunday Times magazine, March 3, 2002.59: Ibid.60: Extracted from a speech by Yitzhak Frankenthal, Jerusalem, July 27, 2002. Cited in Guardian, August 7, 2002.61: Interviewed Tel Aviv, May 2002. For an update on refuseniks, visit ‘Courage to Refuse’, www.seruv.org.il/defaulting.asp.
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Tuesday, September 11, 2007

9/11 THE SEPTEMBER TAP DANCE ON IRAQ:

Gen. Petraeus testimony...
"eerily similar to Westmoreland and Vietnam..."

Rep. Ackerman asks Petraeus, the BIG question

My question is while we wait for this to happen, how much more blood should we invest? If it takes another four years, I'd like to know from each of you your best, realistically optimistic view of where Iraq will be in those four years.
And if it is, that we spend during that time another 4,000 American lives, creat another 20,000 plus people maimed for life, spend another 600 billion dollars, see our military further decimated more than it has been already, will...this...be...worth...it? (more)
clipped from www.youtube.com

9/11's 6th Anniversary THE SEPT. TAP DANCE ON IRAQ

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HEY DICK, ANYMORE BRILLIANT IDEAS, DICK?

Recently, I received this message via my youtube account: "Our family band turned my wife Susan's Protest Sign for Cheney - Hey Dick! Anymore Brilliant Ideas? - into a rock song here is the link http://www.thejkirks.com/music-31.html (cut and paste into browser.) Its straight up rock which I thought some of the folks you know might enjoy and maybe there would be some interest in using the song somehow. What if we had a chance to interrogate Cheney? How would we approach it? What Would Cheney Do? Enjoy. John"
I downloaded the song from their site: http://www.thejkirks.com/music-31.html and thought it interesting. I knew I would be able to use it soon and today I came across an article calling for Congress to filibuster and end this dreadful Iraq war. THINKINGBLUE
http://www.filibusterforpeace.org/ THE PETITION READS:
"We should start now to talk about filibustering for the saving of lives and of our country." John Kerry, 1971

Petition calling on the U.S. Senate to filibuster and end the war in Iraq
We the undersigned call on each and every United States Senator to participate in a filibuster to end the war in Iraq. It only takes 41 votes to sustain a filibuster and prevent funding requests from the Bush administration from coming to debate or a vote. The Bush administration would then have to return with a funding request that is satisfactory to the 41. That bill should include funds to bring all U.S. forces home quickly and safely but no money to prosecute the war in Iraq. Pro-war Senators used this tactic twice in February to stop non-binding resolutions condemning the so-called "surge." If pro-war Senators can use this tactic, then anti-war Senators should use it also. Right now the filibuster is the only way to end the war in a veto-proof fashion. We call upon each and every Senator to join a filibuster effort to end the loss of life and save our country.
Please scroll down to sign this petition.
(Fields with an asterisk are required.)
http://www.filibusterforpeace.org/

Number of signers as of 09/10/07: 6455
clipped from www.youtube.com
Recently, I received this message
via my youtube account: "Our family band turned my wife Susan's Protest Sign for
Cheney - Hey Dick! Anymore Brilliant Ideas? - into a rock song here is the link
href="http://www.thejkirks.com/music-31.html" target=_blank
rel=nofollow>http://www.thejkirks.com/music-31.html
(cut and paste into
browser.) Its straight up rock which I thought some of the folks you know might
enjoy and maybe there would be some interest in using the song somehow. What if
we had a chance to interrogate Cheney? How would we approach it? What Would
Cheney Do? Enjoy. John"
I downloaded the song from their site: title=http://www.thejkirks.com/music-31.html
href="http://www.thejkirks.com/music-31.html" target=_blank
rel=nofollow>http://www.thejkirks.com/music-31.html
and thought it
interesting. I knew I would be able to use it soon and today I came across an
article calling for Congress to filibuster and end this dreadful Iraq
war.
href="http://www.filibusterforpeace.org/" target=_blank
rel=nofollow>http://www.filibusterforpeace.org/
THE PETITION READS:
"We
should start now to talk about filibustering for the saving of lives and of our
country." John Kerry, 1971
href="http://www.filibusterforpeace.org/" target=_blank
rel=nofollow>http://www.filibusterforpeace.org/
signers as of 09/10/07: 6455
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Monday, September 10, 2007

41 votes by the USA Congress can stop the Iraq war.

Please sign this petition to make Congress bring an end to this horrible, grisly, deplorable and ILLEGAL war once and for all. No more pussyfooting around, jeopardizing the lives of our young heroes. No more lying, we the people, are sick to death of the lies about Iraq. Click here to see the list of signers: http://www.filibustersigners.org/eis-cgi-bin/9180/dps?rtempl=list.html Click here to sign http://www.filibusterforpeace.org/ The Congress of the United States for many, many years has shirked its responsibility to hold this administration accountable for this felonious war. NO LONGER! We must DEMAND that our so called leaders LEAD us to PEACE!
clipped from www.opednews.com
It only takes 41 votes in the U.S. Senate to end the Iraqi occupation.
Yet the Democrats and the establishment media keep telling us that 60 votes are needed.
They are lying
visit FilibusterForPeace today and let the Senate know you're aware of their filibuster option for bringing the troops home. By signing the filibuster petition, you're politely informing the Democrat-controlled Congress that, while they may have fooled many voters in 2006, they won't get away with it again. Your signature says to people like John Kerry and Hillary Clinton: Okay, it's time to put up or shut up! Do you have the courage to stop this atrocity or don't you?
join the more than 6,300 patriotic Americans who are publicly calling on the U.S. Senate to filibuster against any further funding of the Iraqi occupation. Sign the filibuster petition today.
For background on FilibusterForPeace.org, read the article by co-founder John V. Walsh that inspired the creation of the website earlier this year.
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Thursday, September 06, 2007

Tucker Carlson, Enraged by flirtation... HUH?

This is so typical of Tucker. His 'Locker Room' mentality permeates throughout his whole show. Tell me, "Why the hell did they throw, Phil Donahue off and put the likes of this immature idiot on?" Could it possibly be, that the average viewer of MSNumbedBC has the same EQ (emotional intelligence) as the likes of Tucker? If they would rather watch Carlson's banal rhetoric than spend an hour of intelligent conversations and great knowledge brought forth by someone like Phil, I guess we all know the answer to that question. Yet, this sometime bow-tied, sometime neck-tied schmuck should at least, keep his spew non-violent. When he crosses the line of civility and advocates on-the-air, that gays who go into men's rest-rooms should be battered if they are construed to look at you cross-eyed, then, even those who somehow enjoy his clownish conduct should object! THEY THREW DON IMUS UNDER THE BUS FOR LESS THAN THAT, at least Imus, was just an obnoxious clod and didn't champion brutality!

Tucker Carlson: Apologize Now for Comments Condoning Violence!

During a discussion Tuesday night on MSNBC Live
with Dan Abrams
about Sen. Larry Craig's (R-ID) arrest for "lewd conduct"
and eventual guilty plea, Tucker Carlson described to fellow MSNBC hosts Dan
Abrams and Joe Scarborough his assault on a man who he said "bothered"
him in a Washington D.C. public restroom
.

MSNBC has replayed some of the segment, but cropped out Carlson’s comments
that he "…went back with someone I knew and grabbed the guy by the --
you know, and grabbed him, and ... [h]it him against the stall with his
head."
Carlson's comments, coupled with laughter from Abrams
and Scarborough
, suggested to viewers that physical violence is an
appropriate response to an unwelcome overture. This is dangerous and wrong.

MSNBC has yet to acknowledge Carlson's comments.
Tucker Carlson should apologize immediately and
condemn acts of violence against gays and lesbians.
Sign and add your comments
now telling
MSNBC
they must state
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NOW WATCH BILL MAHER, BRING TUCKER'S ASS OUT OF THE CLOSET OF NINCOMPOOPERY

Keith Olbermann special comment "Bush Is Playing Us On Iraq!"

Bush's increasingly tenuous hold on reality
by Adrian Hamilton (source: Independent)
Friday, August 31, 2007

One explanation for President Bush's rant against Iran this week, following on from his extraordinary speech comparing Iraq with Vietnam last week, is that the pressure is finally getting to him. US presidential history, from Woodrow Wilson to Ronald Reagan by way of F D Roosevelt is replete with presidents who on grounds of failing powers shouldn't really have been allowed to go on. Beseiged by events, cast down by the opinion polls, isolated by the loss of his closest advisers, it would not be surprising if this particular US President was now losing it.

http://www.campaigniran.org/casmii/index.php?q=node/2817
clipped from youtube.com
WARBush just playing us with
'troop withdrawal'
'Revelation' contradicts every other rationale offered in
the last 500 days
Mr. Bush probably did not know that, with his own words, he had already proved
that he had been lying, is lying and will be lying about Iraq.

He presumably did not know that there had already appeared those damning
excerpts from Robert Draper's book "Dead Certain."
"I'm playing for October-November," Mr. Bush said to Draper.
And there it is. We've caught you. Your goal is not to bring some troops home,
ou are, to use your own disrespectful, tone
playing at getting the next Republican nominee to agree to jump into this
bottomless pit with you, and take us with him, as we stay in Iraq for another
year, and another, and another, and anon.
One explanation for President Bush's rant against Iran last week, following his
extraordinary speech comparing Iraq with Vietnam the week before, is that the
pressure is finally getting to him.
president was now losing it.

Sept. 15
March
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