Just as Barack Obama is accused of not being 'serious' in the foreign policy arena, so it is with John Pilger who is accused of not being 'serious' in the journalism arena. Seems to me that the two go hand in hand. People need to be aware of what is being done in their name. These days we need more people to speak truth to power and believe nothing until it is officially denied.

I know about Japanese Middle School, although they don’t really have an equivalent, but their culture is so different and tightly controlled that I don’t think it would add to the discussion. The need for intervention has to start first at home and with the community. The macho thinking about respect is at the heart of the problem. If you “dis” me, I have to maintain my honor by coming back at you or you will be able to bully me. All the death because of gangs is done on this simplistic basis as is teaching a child through force. Don’t learn to think, just learn the code of your community. Don’t walk in the shoes of your adversary because it might weaken your resolve. Don’t address your internal feelings; shove them down until they burst out through anger and violence.

Too many schools also support this thinking or they ignore the bullying and pretend they either can’t see it or do anything about it. It’s obvious that too many of our citizens remain trapped by this same thinking and carry it on into adulthood and in dealing with other cultures and nations. Yes, you do have to stand up to a bully and that is exactly what most of us are doing through this and other blogs. The most dangerous bullies are not those that use physical force but those who use propaganda and preying on the uninformed and weak psyches.

Notice; A mutt named Lucky ran off from Camp David's Mountain Top presidential suite.

@ 9:34, yes, as ondelette said, George W. Bush is wonderful, ain't he and Condi-- The secret Service can't even keep a secret, right?

*Lucky: Lucky ran off and split from Barney. Lucky has one ear, one nut, one leg, and Lucky has porcupine quill-needles stuck in his gums and nose-snout. Those needles hurt worse than rusted fish hooks.

Lucky has buck teeth.

I believe in Miracles.

After court the thunder,

And rain fell mercifully.

_

I may come back if I find a old underlined literary piece that once encouraged me/though: 'the scruffy field hand, a clown, a king, and an felon accused of trespassing in a predator Bank wer treated with NO shame, but are treated equally'...And I loved Judge Ambrose today.

I was amazed at the congregated police's beautiful hilarity.

I talked to a few Lawyers and respected who were straights, IBHO, "straight" in that they were bad-weird. I say the structures for government order is established in place in the skeletal framework.

tHE rOVES NEED TO BE HAUNTED BY THE DECEASED SPIRIT OF mARY mCRORY'S STYLE OF critical inside-the-beltway journalism ( the caps did stick. It was a mistake. I'll leave the errors there for personal reasons- I use to talk to Mary before she became ill and died).

I did prosetylize about the Greenwald's Law post @ www.Salon.com

I need to be discreet.

I thank everyone for the enriched belief that a normal citizens, clowns or prince, can make wonderful change and difference.

I still need to address Bankers Fraudulence and "a bit of courtroom minor fumes of flatulence?"

O, I need to bustle to the muddy carrot patch to fill a restaurant order. The baby carrots for soup, too, are very heavenly!

recipe: stew carrots overnight to soften a straw conical hat in a big pot.

mix carrots, celery, tomatoes, chard, and shake the hat until all forebodings go away.

_

Where is Lucky? Is Lucky a terrier awaiting to hatch a dog terrier magic hat trick for liberty, democracy, freedom, and Justice too...

...if I ever get a chance, I'll study Law just to defend Judge Ambrose? If she gets fired from District Court... Serious, hush, and thanks!

OT, but always relevant, a criticism of Grover Norquist and his ilk, by Robert Elisberg at Huffington Post, inspired most recently by the collapsed bridge in Minneapolis, but by a number of other equally telling events as well:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-j-elisberg/grover-norquist-gets-his-_b_59806.html

Especially satisfying was his conflation/comparison of 1960's-era protesters with the fruits of Norquist and Company:

As upsetting as protests might have been to conservatives, it's the conservatives themselves who actually dismantled government and did the damage.

But even if those who voted for it (and have since expressed regret for their vote) did not do any research, did not examine their premises, did not look at the character of the people urging them on>

While I'm not going to sit here and exclaim that 9-11 changed everything, I will point out that it did make a lot of people who were reasonably secure suddenly feel helpless. There was a lot of importance to the idea that we DO SOMETHING even if what we did didn't bear any particular relationship to the causes of our discomfort. Whenever the subject comes up, I always like to remind people what happened to the Dixie Chicks. The reaction to Natalie Maines's comment can be described many ways but rational is not among them.

We were led into Iraq because at the time we were ready to be led anywhere and Bushco saw an opportunity in our confusion. To this day, they're still trying to exploit the confusion (see AQ vs AQI) but we're slowly waking up and people aren't buying it anymore.

It's not too surprising to me that the FP community accepts CIA torture, as the reference to the Digby article indicates.

This sort of torture engaged in by the CIA is STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE for the entire United States prison system, county, state and Federal.

You think US correctional officers don't make inmates stand for long periods? You think US correctional officers don't strike inmates in the kidneys with batons - even when the inmates are not violent? You think US correctional officers don't force feed inmates on hunger strikes as they are doing now at Guantanamo? You think US correctional officers don't put inmates in unsanitary cell conditions?

In the fall of 1995, there were riots in several Federal institutions. Inmates who were already in solitary confinement for various institutional regulation violations in some prisons were cuffed, removed from their cells, sprayed with Mace, beaten, thrown down stairs, slammed headfirst into walls, and forced to lie in their own blood and excrement by US correctional officers. Videotapes of this behavior taken by correctional officers were given to the FBI, who proceeded to damage the tapes, thus eliminating their value as evidence in court cases brought by the injured inmates.

In another case at the Oklahoma City Federal Transit Center, two correctional officers beat an inmate to death. The facility refused admittance to the Oklahoma coroner until he got a court order. Then the FBI took the bloody garments of the inmate, stuffed them in the trunk of a car, then had the agent drive around with them until he complained they were "stinking up" his car - ruining them as evidence. Meanwhile, the DoJ threatened the state with a cutoff of Federal law enforcement funds unless the investigation was dropped.

Abu Ghraib was not an "aberration". Abu Ghraib was organized and conducted by military personnel who had experience in the United States correctional system.

Look to what the United States does to its own citizens as an explanation of what it does to non-citizens.