While you have many good things to offer for our consideration, why do you have to be so inconsiderate and address Aycharych with pussy arch? That kind of accusation only sidetracks our important discussions and greatly irritates many who are disgusted by the way you have used pussy.

-- Retired Military Patriot

Are you saying that the word "pussy" offends you and that I should have said, "its the teenage sex, arch"?

If using the word pussy offends you then I am sorry. I could have phrased it differently. But, if you read that as me calling arch himself a name then one of us needs English lessons as that was not the intention of the message.

So, which idea are you calling me out on?

"...I want to know why this is, why some relatively few people never stop wanting answers and the rest don't care? ..."

The rest care, but life itself is more interesting than a lot of things. For many young lads, the chasing of skirts is all important, for others it is fishing. For most it is raising a family and "fitting in" with their crowd.

Most like to learn, it is just that they are interested in other things than we are; and they often take the easy way out on where to get their "learning" from. The local newspaper was never a great place to learn history for example.

And TV? Oh, Lord!

By Teri Weaver, Stars and Stripes

Pacific edition, Sunday, May 11, 2008

TOKYO — The U.S. Navy air wing commander for the USS Kitty Hawk’s strike group was relieved of duty Friday after an admiral said he lost confidence in the commander’s ability, according to a Navy spokeswoman.

Capt. Michael P. McNellis was relieved as commander of Carrier Air Wing 5 by Rear Adm. Richard B. Wren, commander of Commander Task Force 70, the Navy said in a news release.

The admiral’s mast, a nonjudicial punishment proceeding below the level of court-martial, was held Friday at sea aboard the Kitty Hawk, according to Cmdr. Jensin W. Sommer, CTF-70 strike group spokeswoman.

Sommer declined Friday evening to give any details about the circumstances leading to McNellis’ nonjudicial proceeding.

Sommer described Wren’s findings as a removal from command “due to a loss of confidence, not a punishment.”

McNellis left the Kitty Hawk on Friday, Sommer said. McNellis, who graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1982 and trained as an EA-6B Prowler pilot, was preparing for retirement, she said.

Capt. Michael S. White, the former air wing deputy commander, assumed command, Sommer said.

McNellis took command of Carrier Air Wing 5 in September 2006 from Capt. Garry Mace, who commended McNellis at the time for his experience.

“Since I started working with [McNellis], he’s always been a moral compass for me, keeping me pointed in the right direction,” Mace said in 2006. “I’m sure as a leader, he’ll do great things for this air wing.”

The air wing is based at Naval Air Facility Atsugi and includes seven aircraft squadrons and two smaller aircraft detachments, consisting of about 70 aircraft and 2,000 people. It is part of the Kitty Hawk’s strike group, the largest in the Navy.

The USS Kitty Hawk Carrier Strike Group is conducting training and operations in the Philippine Sea, Sommer wrote in the news release.

He took that post in late 06 and was lauded as one of the best. Could he have been apposed to the planed destruction of Iran? We may never know, or we may know after it is too late.

Then again, perhaps it is nothing but a pilot who beat his boss too often at cards.

I think it's also important to keep in mind that this story is just one manifestation (among many) of the larger sickness of militarism that continues to grip our media and political establishment.

We cannot separate the psychology motivating these media outlets to showcase propaganda "force multipliers" from the overall psychology that got us into the Iraq War and its attendant abuses in the first place.

-- DCLaw1

Yes.

The country has militarized police, churches, clubs, citizens, news outlets, car bumper stickers, and many more. Maintaining an empire will do that to a society. It makes the propaganda job all that much easier if the rube, ah, citizen is already half-way to believing that others should be killed.

The issue highlights the fact that liberals cry that the press is an arm of the Republican Party, while conservatives cry that the press is "liberal" and favors the Democrats. The press favors who is perceived to be the power at the moment. Let the Democrats take the next election in a landslide and control congress and the whitehouse and we will see that "liberal" press reappear --- well, perhaps only in the minds of the Republicans.

The problem is that the military should not be the most powerful branch of government --- don't think they are? Well, they get the most money out of the budget. The founders saw that a standing army would lead to this perversion of our system.

" ... communist and anarchist cousins. ... "

The communist system as immortalized by the USSR is the polar opposite of anarchy. Only the world's most stupid (or disingenuous) commenter could confuse the two.

Communism, fascism, and modern America are all cousins in the way you meant; and most posts here by Greenwald highlight that fact by showing rule by propaganda and force.