Letters to the Editor
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apologies Glenn
Happy Yesterday's Veterans Day. I ask the entire pro-war gang of thugs to go drink red ketchup at the Veterans Grave Yards.
Count all the tombstones. Thank all the dead who made the Modern World neocon era possible.
It's another cold bath day again.
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I feel so damn foolish and stooped.
I wish I had a hibernated black snake to take into the bathtub with me.
O, lonely.
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@ bebop
Listening and watching Pete Seeger makes me want to storm the barricades-- singing all the way. Steve Martin once observed that you can't be sad and depressed while playing the banjo, and I think that just may be the secret to Seeger's unending optimism.
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Gasp!
Thank all the dead who made the Modern World neocon era possible.
What is the emoticon for being doubled over in shock - that moment before the brain registers pain from a punch to the solar plexus?
I suspect that is the answer to Q: Are we mature enough as a country to thank those who risk their lives on our behalf while voicing our outrage at the actions of the politicians who put them in harm’s way?
I'm sure I'll start breathing again any moment now. Thanks, Bebop, for clearing that up for me.
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I'm sure everyone's heard about this Asshat this a.m...
WASHINGTON --As Congress debates new rules for government eavesdropping, a top intelligence official says it is time that people in the United States changed their definition of privacy.
more stories like thisPrivacy no longer can mean anonymity, says Donald Kerr, the principal deputy director of national intelligence. Instead, it should mean that government and businesses properly safeguard people's private communications and financial information.
Kerr's comments come as Congress is taking a second look at the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.
http://tinyurl.com/yo6jx7
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Why can't we do anything about it?
Literally nothing we have tried so far has had a discernable affect on The Government. Our actions -- whether in the streets or on the internets or in other ways -- have profoundly affected the People's perceptions of what's going on, and the real dangers we face. And those perceptions have been translated into votes. And then... nothing; things are the same as they ever were; things are worse. Nothing is better.
Now there are those who argue that we must gird our loins for the long haul, we can't turn the ship of state on a dime, yadda, yadda, and endless yadda. Thus, the absence of progress, indeed the continued and accelerating reversals of fortune should not be seen with too much alarm. It just takes a long time to change things...
But we're going in the wrong direction. Hello!
Despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of The People are deeply opposed to this regime and the course it has set for the ship of state, public opposition to the course we're on translates to Full Steam Ahead on the bridge.
DiFi and Schumer are only two of many "helpers" on that bridge acting to keep the Ship on course -- for whatever horror we know awaits.
Turing it around in 40 years is too late.
It may be too late now.
But why has it been impossible for the American People -- who are overwhelmingly opposed to the course we're on -- to do anything about it?
Why is The Government so insistent on its own course, despite the opposition of the overwhelming majority of the People, and why has everything we've tried so far to halt or change the course failed?
By "The Government" we must include both the Bushevik usurpers and sqatters and the elected representatives in Congress Assembled -- Democratic and Republican and Independent, and we must also include the co-ordinated and synchronized military and bureaucracy. They are all on the same side, aligned against the Will of the People.
They believe they are not accountable. None of them will face "serious consequences."
There will be no impeachments, recalls, war crimes trials, criminal indictments, none of it. Oh, a handful of the apparatchiks along the margins may fall by the wayside, like sloughing off barnacles, but the Ship of State will continue on without regard to them, or much of anything but its own forward motion.
70%, 80%, 90% of the People can be screaming "STOP!" and the Powers That Be won't listen. Have no interest. Are bent on their own course of destruction no matter what We, The People have to say about it.
Why do they believe so very sincerely that they need pay no attention?
Two things come to mind:
1) We have demonstrated that -- as a People -- we do nothing to them to MAKE them pay attention. It's not so much passivity as it is ineffectiveness. We DO things, plenty of things, to try to get their attention, but what we do does not affect them. Our tax money continues to flow, our labor continues to be applied to the tasks at hand, our consumption continues apace. In other words, everything they need to keep their wheels in motion is assured. Why should they have the least care for what We, The People, have to say?
2) Having discovered that we will do nothing that they need to pay attention to, they find their tribe among one another, and it is a simple thing to cut themselves off from the rest of us, following their own internal dynamics and powerplays.
A divorce, as it were; the People and their Government are no longer on the same side. They have become rivals for Power. And right now, The Government (which of course includes its corporate sponsors) has ALL the Power and is using it irresponsibly and destructively.
Howard Dean made a name for himself when he chanted "You have the Power!" back in '03, and it appears he was wrong, for even then, The People had little or no effect on the course of Government -- despite the largest demonstrations the world had ever seen.
If WE have the Power, Howie, why is it so useless? And why, Howie, are your Party Leaders and stalwarts so eager to denouce and dismiss the Will of the People?
No, we don't have the Power -- unless we are prepared to seize it back from those who stole it in the first place.
And I don't think anybody here is prepared to do that.
So, better to make the best of it, pipe down, and get back to work.