I thank GG for sifting through several years worth of lies regarding this story, so we don't have to. A classic case of how one simply can't trust anything this government says, nor most of the media.

I take it that Wilson and Plame are continuing to go after various high level administration officials in civil court--and hope this will have a positive impact on that. Wouldn't it be great if revelations from that trial caught (or "re-caught") Fitzpatrick's attention. This particular road appears to lead to Cheney, and Mr. Fitzpatrick knows it.

The real question for me is how do you deal with an opponent who cares nothing about the truth and who believes he is above the law when the institution charged with enforcing the former lets them get away with lies and the institution charged with enforcing the latter is headed by Alberto Gonzalez, who takes his orders directly from Turdblossom?

I don't know what we can do about institutional problems, but the public's perception of the facts can clearly be influenced.

It's time to expect the adults in America to act like adults, to not just spit out the first viral inanity that pops into their heads ('we have to fight them there so we don't fight them here'), and to actually have the self-respect to use their brains.

People should feel bloody well ashamed to publically deny the plain facts, they should feel stupid when they're caught acting stupid. I don't want to ever judge someone for their general beliefs or political orientation (although I do like to debate!) but you better believe I'll judge someone for lying to themselves and ignoring the truth just because it gives them warm fuzzies. And so should everyone else.

"In the context of the Lancet study controversy, it was conceded that arguing from ignorance isn't vindicated if later information comes out that proves your guess to be correct."

Pudgeboy's is the same logic responsible for the phenomenon of people who have been wrong about every single thing with regard to Iraq, and yet are still treated respectfully as authorities on what to do next. No one could know for an absolute certainty whether Saddam had WMD, so those who said he didn't have any were just as wrong as those who said he had tons of them, even though he turned out not to have any. (Who knew?) The dirty hippies just got lucky. It's the logic by which Bush sleeps easy at night, figuring we'll all be dead by the time history sorts out whether he did right or wrong. No one really knows how shit will turn out, anyone's guess is as good as anyone else's, so why not keep surging?

Sure, if we flip a coin and I call heads and you call tails, I'm not "vindicated" if it comes up heads. But, as you point out with respect to the "covert" issue, very rarely are questions debated in a perfect vacuum of equal ignorance. There is almost always at least some available evidence to which people apply their logical faculties in the context of their experience and worldview. And when the same people keep being wrong about everything, it ain't just bad luck.

...didn't mean to offend.

I enjoy your healthy blazing red anger.

If Benedict (no broken bend-dick-yuck-blossom) Spinoza or Blaise Pascal would wager it is best NOT jump into a hot-as-blazing-hell white-bowl of scalding hot-black-prunes with maple tree syrup, I'd agree.

'The greatness of man/women is so evident, that it is even proved by his/her wretchedness.

For what in animals is nature we call in man wretchedness; by which we recognize that, his nature being now like that of a beast/animal, and fallen from a better nature which once was potential and his (could have been, 'spirit-pneumatikos).

I must go get scolded, and thanks.

I would also suggest that people need to learn not to be afraid of the truth. There's so much fear wrapped up in all of this: fear of "bad guys" (take your pick), fear of appearing "unmanly," fear of losing empire, fear of looking like cut-and-run-surrender-monkeys, fear of due process, and on and on.

It's a hard thing, though, to learn not to be afraid of the truth. But it's critical. The nation needs not to be afraid to learn that administrations can do wrong, and that it's o.k. to learn that your nation isn't being led by the best people for the job, and that it doesn't hurt your nation to acknowledge that and set about trying to make things right, and that it doesn't make you more vulnerable to attacks from the "bad guys" to maintain things like freedom, and oversight, and due process, and the rule of law, and so on.

Gotta get the word out and call people on their b.s. as prunes noted, and also gotta not be afraid of the truth, and not be afraid to look at ourselves as a nation. It irks me to hear monarchial apologists claim that scrutinizing ourselves and our behavior and our institutions and so forth as a nation somehow equates with hating the nation. What horseshit! We need to learn that we must scrutinize our nation precisely because we love it. We love it enough to know when it has to change, and what about it has to change to make it better.

No kings,

Robert

"No shock is forthcoming. These falsehoods are never acknowledged, let alone retracted, because they are a critical part of the role they play."

It IS what they are and do.

There is no flag that is large enough

To hide the shame of a man in cuffs

You switched the signs, then you closed our blinds

You changed the channel, then you changed our minds

The remainder is an unjustifiable, egotistical power struggle

At the expense of the American dream.

The Memorial Day Massacre was on Sunday the 30th of May, 1937.

Exactly 70 years ago. There are still a few survivors.

Tom Girdler, the organizer of the murderous conspiracy, was never indicted.

http://www.youngstownsteel.com/littlesteel01.html

Big Steel, Little Steel, and C. I. O.
By Benjamin Stolberg
. . . The independent steel barons of course hate the "irresponsible" John Lewis and the Steel Workers Organizing Committee with murderous bitterness. Still, they hate Lewis as Capone might hate a hard-hitting district attorney . . .
- - The Nation, July 31, 1937

Drew Pearson, now frequently spinning in his grave, was Brit Hume's mentor's mentor:
http://dspace.wrlc.org/doc/get/2041/17902/b03f01-1121zdisplay.pdf

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 1937
THE WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND
(Trademark) By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen
. . . Although little appears in the papers about them, some important casualties of recent labor strikes have been the lawyers who defended the unions. This has been especially true of C.I.O. lawyers, Most important cases are: Sidney Grant of Lewiston, Maine, sentenced to six months in jail for advising shoe strikers of their rights. N. D. Davis of Cleveland, suspended for a year, for advising the unemployed how to avoid court eviction notices. Edward Lamb of Toledo, faced with disbarment for his defense of C.I.O. shoe workers striking against the Williams Manufacturing Company in Southern Ohio. Lamb's case is the one immediately pending.

Carefully picked by the C.I.O. because he had a background of Dartmouth, Harvard, and an Ohio family of good standing, Lamb first got into hot water when he subpoenaed Tom Girdler, President of Republic Steel, to testify regarding his purchases of tear gas, machine guns and other strike-fighting equipment.

The courts found grounds to excuse Girdler from testifying . . .

http://www.kentlaw.edu/ilhs/republic.htm

. . . One man, in particular, stood out in the vehemence of his anti-union stance, Tom M. Girdler of Republic Steel.

Girdler had worked his way up through the ranks of management for 30 years to become in 1930, the Chairman of the Board of the newly-formed Republic Steel Corp. Girdler totally controlled the operations, and sought to dominate the employees as completely. Through an Employee Representation Plan, or company union, Republic sought to divert the employees' away from true collective bargaining.

Republic used espionage, firing of union men, and hiring of strikebreakers. It built up a stockpile of industrial munitions, including guns, tear gas, and clubs.

. . . Despite the fact that no disturbance had taken place and despite a legal opinion to the effect that police should not interfere with peaceful picketing, the police under the orders of Captain James Mooney moved out through the gate into the street and forcefully broke up the picket line. They pushed it two blocks from the plant gate to 117th Street between Buffalo and Green Bay Avenues, arresting 23 persons when they refused to move.

With this action, the police abandoned any role as impartial law enforcement officers and in the eyes of the strikers became parties to an industrial dispute as agents of Republic Steel.

A strike headquarters was established in Sam's Place, an abandoned tavern and dance hall, at 113th and Green Bay Avenue, about six blocks northeast of the plant gate. A token number of pickets, usually six to eight, were allowed in front of the plant gate by the police, who had further identified themselves with Republic Steel by eating and sleeping in the plant, and by helping to unload supplies for the scabs. It was later learned that they also armed themselves from company stockpiles.

. . . Suddenly, policemen in the front ranks drew their revolvers and fired point blank into the retreating marchers. Approximately 200 shots rang out. Within 15 seconds the shooting had ended, but the violence was not over.

The entire police line now moved forward wielding billy clubs against any in the their path. Marchers who had dropped to the ground to avoid the bullets were struck repeatedly by policemen. Even women suffered from these indiscriminate beatings.

. . . Four marchers had been fatally shot and six others were mortally wounded. Thirty others had suffered gunshot wounds. Twenty-eight required hospitalization for lacerations and contusions, and about thirty others received some sort of emergency medical treatment. The gunshot wounds of the dead were all back or side wounds . . .

. . . Reactions to the Massacre occurred immediately following the event. Sympathetic protestors clogged the business district in South Chicago and angry strikers were almost ready to proclaim war against the police. The Chicago press, particularly the Chicago Tribune, branded the marchers as Communists . . .

- - The Illinois Labor History Society

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,850363,00.html

Girdler Writes a Book

Tom Girdler's autobiography, told with professional Saturday Evening Post briskness, is more than the story of steel — more than another Horatio Alger success story.

. . . Says Tom Girdler:

"From that moment until now I have been unable to see how we could have prevented the clash. It happened only because the Communist leaders wanted it to happen. We had, literally, no part in it."

- - Time Magazine, September 27, 1943

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,840582,00.html

Died. Tom Mercer Girdler, 87, chairman of Republic Steel Corp. from 1937 to 1956, a tough-talking engineer . . . of a heart attack; in Easton, Md.
- - Time Magazine, February 12, 1965

To paraphrase H. Rap Brown:

Unaccountability is as American as Cherry Pie.