Just Another Excuse Not To Shop On The Day After Thanksgiving

There is something terribly wrong with the greed that has engulfed this country. At a time of year when people who profess to be Christian fight each other without regard to safety and well being of each other all to be the first to acquire material posessions that they can share with loved ones in Jesus' name, it boggles the mind. That this happened at Wal-Mart is bad enough, but this is my hometown, good old conservative Christian Grand Rapids, MI . I offer this up as yet more proof that the Christian celebration of the birth of Christ has been replaced by the Capitalist celebration of the acquisition of more and more material things. It's easy to see how some can justify a war to take the oil from the people living directly above it when this kind of unrepentant greed is so prevalent in our society (you should see these fuckers line up for a church sale).
Update: At the laundromat this morning, I heard from the attendent that her daughter was there at the time. This didn't take place at the Grand Rapids Wal-Mart (as I do believe there are no Wal-Marts within the city limits) but at the Cascade Wal-Mart, which is on 28th Street. Cascade is an affluent suburb of Grand Rapids, 28th Street is ten miles of nothing but suburban shopping pleasure. Also, another source for the video is here .
Now the shoppers are laying responsibility for the fracas on Wal-Mart, and as much as I dislike Wal-Mart, and feel that a bit of the blame can be placed at their feet, my belief is that the shoppers themselves bear most of the responsibility. Greedy, materialistic folks who cherish a bargain more than civility are to blame. If they themselves hadn't put such a high price on the acquisition of bargains and felt it necessary to elbow and shove each other out of the way, none of this would have happened. But, as most of us already know, the sheeple are unable to think outside of the herd mentality and can never take any responsibility for their actions. This is symptomatic to the me-first attitude that permeates our society.
The laundromat attendent also mentioned that her daughter, who got up early and waited in line, didn't even get what she had gone there to get.

Another Neocon Nazi Nutjob

One wonders what goes on in the mind of Ann Coulter as she spews her venom in the name of "family values" and "compassionate conservatism", two folksy ideas no longer in the Republican lexicon, as no one in the party seems to actually practise them. How can someone who makes her living by responding to the news be so woefully misinformed. It's as if she and Bill O' Reilly and other propaganda shills for the Neocon Nazis in charge are following the old Nazi party idea that if you repeat a lie enough times, people will believe it.
Once again, I must repeat this, but Saddam had no weapons of mass destruction. He destroyed all he had following the first Gulf War to be in compliance with UN mandates. The only way he could have had any was if Brewster Jennings hadn't stopped that shipment through Turkey that the military was planning on planting to be conveniently found (more "fixed intelligence" as per the Downing Street Minutes). In the almost three years since the invasion of Iraq, they have yet to find any evidence that Saddam was holding any chemical weapons. The only one who had any chemical weapons was the United States, who used napalm on the citizens of Fallujah.
There was also no ties to alQaeda, a fact the Bush administration was aware of two days following 9/11, of which Iraq had no part in either.
The war in Iraq is part of the Neocon agenda, put forth by The Project For A New American Century. In order to dominate world both with our economic policies as well as our military, we must be able to control the world's remaining oil resources. To that end, we must then cause regime change in the countries of the Middle East where the world's remaining oil lies, and install regimes friendly to both American military ideals as well as American oil companies. All that was needed to start this plan was a catastrophic event " a new Pearl Harbor" which conveniently took place as soon as possible once the Neocon Nazis (Cheney, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, etc) were placed in power (by a judical coup). That their goals are one and the same with the goals of the Third Reich (or the Worldwide Communist Conspiracy, for that matter) makes them more dangerous than the bunch of religious fanatics aiming to get the foreign interlopers from their homeland that they Neocon Nazis have use as an excuse to fight a never ending battle.
Now of course, the bets are on for their next target. Syria, or Iran. Having successfully gotten rid of Saddam (and with him the edict he signed taking only euros for his oil), our troops have been kept in position until a case can be made for an invasion of either country, depending on which one they can best market to the American people. Given that we've sent forces into Syria , my money is on that war.

Don't Buy Anything Day

Long ago, when Christian priests were trying convert the Pagans, they converted the Pagan holidays into Christian ones. One such was the celebration of the winter solstice, which was converted into a holiday celebrating the birth of Christ. Now the High Priests of money have successfully done the same thing with this Christian holiday, converting a day celebrating the birth of Christ into a celebration of materialism and greed. Nowhere is that greed more prominently displayed than on the day following Thanksgiving, where thousands of brainwashed consumers hop into their sport utility behemoths (the better to hold more purchases), drive out to the malls where they will while away the day in a spending frenzy, using paper and plastic to dig a hole that they will have to refinance their houses to get out of, all because they just have to get that someone something because they will be getting them something and it's all about giving. So they buy something stupid, but that doesn't matter, it's the thought that counts, for someone that they really don't know all because they feel a sense of obligation.
The stores, aware of this sense of guilt, will offer up some cheap trinket to get the people to line up early in the morning to be one of the first fifty shoppers in the store. "Here's something made by slave labor in China that you can reward yourself with for being so gullible that we got you out of bed early on your one day off before the holidays to open your checkbook up here first!"
To that end, some people are now spending the day after Thanksgiving, not buying anything, in a day they call, appropriately enough, National Don't Buy Anything Day. It's an idea whose time has come. What kind of maniac would want to fight the crowds in a feeding frenzy "because of all the bargains" when the truth of the matter is, if you wait until a few days before the holidays, stores so desparate not to be stuck with excess inventory start marking down items in an effort to get it off the shelves.
The past few Christmases have been dismal for retailers and if you used your head, you'd see why. All the money spent on crap made overseas means that the money that used to go to Americans for these products means that the money is going somewhere else. The price hasn't gone down, so therefore this means a bigger profit in the pockets of the Capitalists who glory in this season because they don't have a mansion in Wisconsin yet and would like to purchase one next year before the deer hunting season starts. And if you want to see their definition of sucker, just look at the news reports (and they do on every year) of the feeding frenzies at the malls and see if you can glimpse any soul in the eyes of the shoppers as they parade up and down the aisles of the local Wal-Mart looking for that one gift for Gladys in accounting who got them that nice candy dish (now safely tucked away in the cupboard above the fridge) last year and they didn't get her anything.
This why I don't care too much for Christmas, not just because I don't believe in Jesus, or because I won't be getting anything this year (I'd prefer to get nothing as opposed to the crap I had to pretend to like over the years). It's because the original point of giving something special has been replaced by giving anything to any vague acquaintence because of a sense of obligation. Or over stimulating children by giving them so much stuff that they can't really soak it all in and they don't appreciate any of it because their siblings or cousins got one too and it's not really special.
I remember one Christmas, when I was married, my youngest son, Nelson really wanted an Ed, Edd, & Eddy as that was his favorite cartoon. My wife and I searched all over, stores, the internet, looking for anything to do with that show. There was nothing. Finally, I cut some figures out of a piece of wood, spent hours sanding the edges, painted each character on the pieces of wood and gave them to him, from Santa. He loved those toys! he took them everywhere with him, even to bed. They were his favorite toys because they were special, made with love, not by some Chinese dissident. And that, to me, symbolized the whole holiday spirit. So I will be getting my boys stuff for Christmas this year, I just won't be buying it on the day after Thanksgiving.

I Fear Bill O' Reilly More Than I Fear Al Qeada

I was just reading Bill O'Reilly's talking points about former CIA agent Michael Scheuer's article in the washington Times (there's a bastion of journalistic integrity) about how we don't have what it takes to win the war on terrorism. Excuse me, but isn't that the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism? Any time I read some one drop the phrase "Islamofascist" I automatically think Christianazi,as we are over there trying to impose our belief system on a group of people happy with theirs and only wish to get us the fuck out of their countries. really. that's all they want. If you would have read the alQueada posting immeduiately following 9/11 (which they blamed on Israel, they never took any credit for the act except in a crudely made video tape showing a fake Osama laughing at a television screening of the planes hitting the towers), you would see that their main objective is to rid their countries (Saudi Arabia, Iran, Afghanistan, etc.) of all the outsiders who wish to force their influence on said countries. They don't want to take over the world, that's the aim of the Neocon Nazis in the Bush administration.
According to Bill, our press is more concerned with Valerie Plame, an act of treason that he considers no big deal, than it is with the war on terror (which, I guess Bill needs to be reminded, has been changed to the Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism) of which Iraq had no part in and was in fact monitoring terrorist organizations which Saddam saw as a threat to his secular regime. Sure, he was sending checks to the families of suicide bombers, but hell, we're sending checks to the government that ran Rachel Corrie over with a bulldozer (repeatedly) as she tried to prevent the destruction of a Palestinian doctor's house.
US scientists have recently reconstructed the 1918 Spanish Flu virus that created a pandemic, and one wonders: what is the purpose of this, since bio-weapons are illegal under international law? I mean, why are we spending time and money and energy developing a weapon that should never be used? And if you think that it's safe in the hands of the US, remember that's where the anthrax used in the anthrax letters came from, a US bioweapons lab. Al qaeda doesn't have these resources, they just a bunch of cave dwelling religious wackos who distrust science as much as the Religious Right.
And so, let me remind you that the most violent extremists in the world right now are the neocon nazis in the Bush administration. They use torture. They use chemical weapons like napalm on civilian populations. They invade countries under false pretenses. Any one who supports these lunatics are a threat to the American ideal (well, we did wipe out the Indians, but if we don't mention that then we can feel so much better about ourselves) and should be feared more than anybody in al Qaeda. I mean, the guy downstairs is Middle Eastern, gone frequently and keeps odd hours, but I feel better livng next to him than I do if I lived next to Bill O'Reilly.

No Exit

When Valerie Plame was outed by the Bush administration, many assumed it was because of her husband's criticism of the Bush administration manipulating his report following an investigative trip to Niger to look in to claims that Saddam was trying to purchase "yellow cake" uranium there for the purpose of developing nuclear weapons. As a result of this act of treason, the company that Ms. Plame worked for, Brewster Jennings was effectively put out of business as a world wide monitor of WMD. But
apparently Ms. Plame was outed in retaliation for Brewster Jennings intercepting a shipment of VX nerve gas being shipped through Turkey into Iraq by the military to be planted in Iraq as evidence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction.
I remember the first time I saw James Howard Kunstler on C-SPAN (I think) giving a critique on the poor design of public places in the US. It was a fascinating speech, and I had no idea who this guy was but in the middle of this he offered his opinion on why we were heading for Iraq. "We need oil, and we need to put a police station in the Middle East to insure that we keep getting that oil." That was all I heard from this guy until I discovered the Clusterfuck Nation Chronicles while visiting What Really Happened and started viewing the eyesore of the month at kunstler.com that I put the two together. But that's why we are in Iraq. In order to continue our wasteful lifestyle of more and more useless materialism, we need to keep the oil coming into this country and to that end, we will not be leaving Iraq until every drop of oil has been sucked dry from the vast oil reserves there. Kuwaiti wells are beginning to run dry (that's why Saddam invaded Kuwait in the first place, they were slant drilling under his oil fields) and so we need a "friend" in the Middle East to keep the oil flowing.
And that's why Cheney chose Bush to be his pigeon. Here's a guy who can't even find his way out of a hotel following a press conference for Christ's sake, how is going to find his way out of a quagmire like Iraq? Then there are the beer swilling flag waving brain damaged monkeys who in their misguided machismo think we ought to stay until every Iraqi citizen or American soldier is killed which will happen right about the time that all the oil is gone at current consumption rates. Add to that all that the scripturally demented Bible thumpers who think if we secure the MidEast for Israel then Jesus will come back and they shall all go to Heaven no matter how many deaths they have caused doing so, and you have a good picture of why we're never leaving Iraq.
And you can't really paint this as a Republican-Democrat thing because according to a
Newsweek survey 74% of Americans support an immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq, while the House voted 403 to 3 in favor of keeping the troops there with no exit strategy. So we have no represenative government any more, but I'm sure that if most Americans knew that in order to pull out of Iraq they'd have to give up their sport utility behemoths, they'd want to stay the course no matter how many lies were used to trick them into supporting the invasion.

Who Gassed The Puppy?

Somewhere, some place at some time someone is manufacturing some evidence designed to trick the American people in to supporting an invasion in some Middle Eastern country at some time in the not too distant future. We were fed so much disinformation that was manufactured in the run up to the invasion of Iraq, that I'm sure that some of it was forgotten by the majority of Americans with attention deficit order from spending too much time in front of the television. One question that you should ask yourself is, who gassed the puppy?
You remember that cute little puppy, gassed on video tape and used as proof that Saddam had and/or was testing chemical weapons? Since we now know that Saddam had no chemical weapon program, than you must ask yourself, who gassed the puppy? Was it the CIA, who then passed it on to the White House, or was it the Mossad, who then passed it on to Larry Franklin, Israeli spy in the Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon, who then passed the information to the White House, in exchange for secret information that was then sent back to Israel? Was it Michael Ledeen, accused by the Italian government of forging stolen Niger documents that were cited by the Bush administration of Saddam's intent on starting a nuclear weapons program?
The question one should ask themselves is who benefits? Cui bono? Did the American people benefit from the invasion of Iraq? Did we get cheap oil? A sense of security from smiting a tyrant who was no more of a threat to our country than the Taliban? Did we gain any important information about WMD from the Abu Ghraib detainees we tortured to death?Did the Iraqi people gain anything after losing much of their potable water and reliable electricity? How about the citizens of Fallujah, victims of a chemical weapon attack with banned chemical weapons (including napalm) used by the United States?
But whoever gassed the puppy is not done. There are more wars to be fought and the Bush administration is willing to spread the lies to send our troops to kill and die in these wars. The Korporate media, several owned by defense contractors looking to line their pockets. There are those who are spinning the US around and pointing at Iran. The US will not benefit at all from this war and stands to lose much more as both Russia and China have pledged support with Iran as it seeks to acquire nuclear power capabilities.
And then there is Syria. Linked to the assassination of former Syrian minister Hariri by one Zuhir Ibn Mohamed Said Saddik, a convicted swindler who bragged that his testimony to UN commission investigator Detlev Mehlis made him "a millionaire". Given that Hariri had stepped down from his post in protest of Syria's influence over the government in Damascus, what would Syria have to gain in assassinating him? Who gassed the puppy?
Then we get to the Jordanian Hotel bombing. We are led to believe that this was carried out by a suicide bomber with ordinants strapped across his chest and the convenient confession of his wife after photos surfaced showing the damage coming from the suspended ceiling above the room, while no traces of what would have been a suicide bomber splattered against the wall. That the Palestinian head of intelligence plus several other Palestinian officials just happened to be there when it went off, coincidentally so were several Chinese defense officials have nothing to do with early reports that Israelis at the Hotel were giving a warning to evacuate before the bombs when off (much the same as Binyahmin Netanyahu had received advance notice of the London 7/7 terror bombing and been told to stay in his Hotel room, not to mention employees of Israeli owned Odigo receiving instant messages two hours before the planes crashed in to the Twin Towers on 9/11). Who gassed the puppy?
Clearly there is something amiss in the Congress when they vote 403 to 3 to continue the mission in Iraq ( a mission the idiot president said was accomplished on May 02, 2003, almost three years ago) while the majority of Americans, with the exception of a few beer swilling brain damaged monkeys, say we should be pulling out. Veterans who actually served in battle are called cowards by politicians who voted against assistance programs for the disadvantaged while voting themselves a $3,100 raise. The people in the Bush administration who support the war are the same people who took military deferments to stay out of VietNam and now have no family members fighting in Iraq, as do neither side of the aisles in Congress. And, to ensure their re-election, will gladly send even more American troops to die in Syria and Iran while the media runs flag waving graphics behind stories based on manufactured evidence. But don't you want to know, who gassed the puppy?

Dick The Dictator

The other day, Dick(head) Cheney made perhaps one of the first true statements of his Vice-presidency. "The administration did not manufacture evidence to trick the country into war." And he's right. According to the Italian government, it was Michael Ledeen who forged the Niger documents that said Saddam was trying to purchase uranium. And it was Israeli spy and Pentagon OSP head Larry Franklin who passed most of the questionably manufactured evidence on to the administration that they used, knowing, one would hope, that it was falsified.
Mr. Cheney seems to have acquired an unusual place in the government. Although he is only vice-president, he seems to have placed himself above the law. First there were his secret energy meetings, which he fought to keep secret and what little was disclosed following a lawsuit by Judicial Watch was maps of Iraqi and Saudi Arabian oilfields.
Now, he feels he does not have to follow the law and disclose all the places he travelled on the taxpayer's dime! I know he raised a stink locally when he visited former Republican party chairman Pete Secchia to attend his birthday party, the overtime pay that went for all the police and deputies who had to cover every driveway, sidestreet and overpass was in excess of $46,000, which was eventually paid by Mr. Secchia, but who paid for the use of the secret service, the plane that flew him here and home? We'll never know because Mr. Cheney is unique to vice-presidents, he seems to have even more power than the president.
But what really qualifies Dick as a dictator is his undying battle to allow the US to use torture. I mean, wasn't that what made Saddam such a bad dictator in the first place, was that he tortured his people? And he is also the reason there seems to be a reluctance to impeaching Bush. Can you imagine who much we'd all be screwed if that bastard ever became president?
In the words of the doctor at Dick's hurricane Katrina photo op, "Go fuck yourself, Mr. Cheney."

Is It Time For The Right Wing Dirty Trick Squad?

In a recent GOP memo another terrorist attack on US soil is touted by party insiders as a way to salvage the parties falling political fortunes. Some insiders see this as a way to unite the people behind the president and his policies in Iraq. Other suggestions include an economic turnaround (good luck) or successful termination of the war in Iraq (not a victory).
Last Tuesday's elections have proved that the GOP can no longer ram it's reactionary agenda down America's throat. Bush's appearance at a late Monday rally for the Republican gubernatorial candidate put him down three points in a race that was neck and neck prior to that appearance.
Looking at the media today, you can see the ramp up to beginnings of war in Syria and Iran. A report on a pipeline that could be built from Iraq through Syria to the port of Haifa in Israel in order to get the oil to the petroleum addicted American people is just another paving stone on to the road to war with Syria. Another is the alleged assassination of Lebanese ex-minister Hairiri by Syria. That Israel is the main benefactor of both events isn't even mentioned. It is also Israel who is pushing for the invasion of Iran, who is seeking to build a nuclear power plant with help from the Russians. Another terrorist attack would help along that agenda as well.
In the days preceeding 9/11, Bush's numbers were incredibly low as word of stolen elections spread throughout the country (but not by the mainstream media, who barely reported the fact that Gore won Florida). The country was divided by those who felt that Bush was instated in a judicial coup and Bush supporters who felt that we should just move on. After that tragedy, Bush's numbers went up higher than any other sitting president had the luxury to enjoy, and he used it to push a reactionary agenda through the congress, including the Patriot Act, which in fact had been composed the terror attacks.
There are those who feel that 9/11 was in fact a "false flag" operation, carried out by the Mossad, or the Mossad/CIA, others feel that it was allowed to happen, that a neocon within the Bush administration looking for a "new Pearl Harbor" gave the stand down order to NORAD that allowed three planes to fly over the most heavily guarded airspace with impunity. There are those who don't believe in "conspiracy theories" who fail to acknowledge that the official government story on 9/11 is in fact, a conspiracy. The Valerie Plame scandal, is in fact, another government conspiracy, called Plame-gate by some, in honor of that other government conspiracy, Watergate, the latter two connected by the involvement of the Republican dirty trick squad.
Would the ditry trick squad allow another terrorist attack on US soil? Given the fact that Karl Rove sent Bush to Virginia against the wishes of others within the party, they might. They are too myopic to see that the damage to Bush would be devastating, given the passage of the Patriot Act, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the torture of detainees were all designed to make us safer at home. We are fighting them over there so we don't have to fight them over here is the call of the dwindling war supporters. These are the soulless brain damaged monkeys who support the use of torture and have little regard for human life outside the realm of the ruling elite. "Pat" Robertson has sworn God's vengeance on Dover PA for voting out the school board members who wanted to introduce intelligent design (a/k/a creationism), and Bill O'Reilly has wished for an attack on the city of San Francisco for banning recruiters at local schools. Bothn of these are American cities, populated with American citizens, some of whom did not vote with the majority. But as we have seen in Fallujah, even those who don't support the "evil" that surrounds them are punished.
The GOP is desparate. The 2006 elections are right around the corner and they stand to lose control of the House as well as the Senate. Many of these opportunists, such as Rick Santorum, who cozied up to Bush when his numbers were high, are now distancing themselves from Bush. The only thing that could possibly save Bush is the capture of Osama Bin Laden, or the proof of his death , which could be quite an embarassment as he must have spoke from the grave in October 2004 when he threw his support behind Kerry. Or was that the dirty trick squad again?

Does Marion "Pat" Robertson Have White Phosphorous

My evenings generally go like this. I get home from my second job, turn on the computer, make a little dinner then go on line to find out what's happening in the world. My home page is SBC/Yahoo by default and they have four stories that they rotate, mostly celebrity bullshit, with one or two outrageous comments made by the imbeciles on the right. One day, for instance, it was Bush's "We do not torture" statement, and that will set me off, so I go to What Really Happened to see what is really going on in the world then it's off to my dashboard to create a post.
Tonight, I read the outrageous statement by Marion "Pat" Robertson about God striking down the good people of Dover PA who decided they didn't need a bunch of right wing nuts imposing their narrow world view on the students of that town. Then, of course, i went to whatreallyhappened to trace the evolution of the Jordan Hotel Bombing, which started out being reported as a bomb hidden in the ceiling to becoming a story about a suicide bomber. Isreali citizens at the Hotel getting advanced warnings to evacuate before the bombs went off to stories about them evacuating after the bombs went off. You, the truth, followed by the spin. There was also several links to the Italian video about Fallujah, plus other stories of interest, you know, how Bush and Cheney and Rumsfeld want to be able to torture people, or the secret Republican memo that stated another "terrorist attack" will hep them retain Congress in 2006 (so wait for it, as they also need an excuse to nuke Iran and invade Syria).
After that, I read my emails, just two nice notes form Greenlilly including one directing me to the Daily Kos and a wondeful picture of a small Iraqi child whose skin had been melted off by the White Phosphorous used in Fallujah. And all this information started me to thinking.
What if "Pat" Robertson had white phosphorous? Would he hesistate to rain down on the good citizens of Dover and claim it was God's will? Why is he more outraged by democracy than he is about genocide? Or torture?Is Mr. Robertson a citizen of Dover? Why doesn't he just mind his own fucking business (or businesses, as he owns quite a few, making him millions from donations given by the gullible to the 700 Club)? Of course, the Fallujah story is being ignored by the Korporate media, which means it's about time for Ol' Lew to write a letter to the local paper with a link to the story like I had to do when I wrote them a letter about the Downing Street memo because the editor hadn't heard of it. Such is the sorry state of professional journalism today. Which is why I get my news from the internet.

Two Words:Haw-Haw

Back in the last decade of the last millenium, Republicans were so desparate to gain political power that they decided to initiate term limits in hopes of ridding the state government of electable Democrats. Which was successful, except then they had a problem, their electable candidates would lose their seats as well. What to do?
Harold Voorhees (R-Wyoming) came up with a good plan. After his two terms were up, his wife would run for his seat, serve her two terms, then their son would run, turning his district in to his own little fiefdom. But after being out of politics for awhile, Ol' Harold decided he needed the perks, power and prestige that come from holding public office, so he decided to run for Mayor of Wyoming, as a Republican.
A little background is in order here. Wyoming is in Kent County, one of only two counties in the whole state to go for Bush in 2004. As long as I can remember, there has not been a Democratic represenative from this district. So Harold probably thought he was a shoo-in.
Wrong!
Mr. Voorhees lost, not only to a Democrat, but a Democratic woman! Pro-choice people won seats on the Grand Rapids City Commission. All across the country, the fallout from the disaster of the Bush administration's corruptness and incompetence is starting to turn people away from the republican party and only instituting more electronic voting can save them. Arnold's four measures in California failed to pass, two Democrats won Governor's seats and this was an off year election! 2006 is only a year away and it looks like Bush is getting ready to start another war (or two).
But he won't be able to sell it with out media co-operation. And the Korporate media has issued mea culpas for unknowingly (they claim) helping the Bush administration to sell the lies for Iraq. And you wonder what the American people will think when they find out about the chemical weapons we used in Fallujah, if the media decides to report on it honestly (I'm not holding my breath) instead of acting like the shills they did in the build up to the (illegal) Iraq invasion and put out the "officail government story" which is always a bunch of horseshit.
In the meantime I think of Ol' Harold having to go out and get a real job (good luck, old man) and two words spring to mind: Haw-haw!
Nelson Muntz couldn't have said it better himself.

Post Number 100: Who's the Bigger Idiot?

Well, I was going to post a story here about how the US, in it's infinite cruelty, bombed the city of Fallujah with phosphorous, which is akin to the chemical weapons that Bush claimed Saddam had ready to use (which he didn't), and how the story is getting out all over the rest of the world but the US "liberal" media seems to be ignoring it, much the same way they ignored the rest of the world when they printed the administration's claims that Saddam had WMD, as well as ties to al Qeada and links to 9/11. Phosphorous is an illegal weapon (much the same as the invasion of Iraq was an illegal action) which melts human skin and bones on contact. Our wonderful leaders killed one reporter who was filming at the time and jailed another in an attempt to prevent the story from getting out.
But no, I gotta do another post about torture for it seems that the moron in the White Hosue made the bold statement the other day "We do not torture!" Either he's drunk, an idiot, both, or thinks the American people are too stupid to figure out that because Dick (head) Cheney is fighting a bill going through Congress sponsored by John McCain that prohibits torture by US forces (I guess the War Crimes Act of 1996 isn't enough) that they must enjoy the use of torture. Of course, the Republican controlled senate is too busy looking into how the story got out that we were actually using torture to actually go after the guys who authorized it.
So instead of doing a post about the Avian Flu, and those Tamiflu shots (which don't stop the spread but merely help with the systems) that Bush is advocating are made by a company(Gilead) whose majority stockholder is, wait for it, Donald Rumsfeld, and how he's safe from any lawsuit due to adverse side affects thanks to, yep, the Republican Party, I have to do another post about the secret torture prisons that are so bad, the International Red Cross can't visit them. Hell, even the Nazis and the Commies let the Red Cross in. There's something to think about the next time you jump into your Sport Utility Behemoth and drive down to the corner grocery to buy a six pack to watch football with, how many Iraqis were vaporized or tortured so you didn't have to trade that SUB in for a more fuel efficient car or even get off your fat American ass and use your legs and walk the four blocks there yourself. That makes you the idiot that George W Bush (and even myself) think you are.

The Consumer Fed War Machine

I just came back from the Clusterfuck Nation Chronicles where Mr Kunstler lays the blame for the war on all of us. We all want that nice home in the suburbs, away from the exaggerated crime in the city. We've all mortgaged our future for easy oil and the belief that the supply is endless. And one truth that Bush has spoken, this war is about the American way life and preserving it in all it's foolishness.
So unless you're willing to give up that commute in the pack of metal lemmings solitarily driving in the same direction with all the other gadgets and gizmos that keep us isolated from each other, unless you're willing to stop supporting the box stores and strip malls selling cheap crap made by slave labor in China that you just can't seem to live with out so badly that you took out a second mortgage to finance it, you are in fact supporting the war. But nobody wants to be unfashionable and we all need that sense of superiority knowing that no one of questionable ethnicity lives more than ten miles away from us, because as much as we pretend to be open minded about that sort of thing, deep down we know that they frighten us and God knows, we have enough things in this world that we can't control to scare the shit out of us, we don't need that big black guy in front of the grocery store living next door.
Yes, this war is the only way we can continue the drivethru culture, one where we never have to leave our car, not even to watch a dvd or have a meal, and the only way to end it is to stop supporting the twentyfour hour media disinformation culture that feeds the war machine. Unfortunately, too many of us are addicted to convenience that we have no idea how to survive with out the useless pointless and soon to be obsolete consumerist society that we have become.