June 28, 2014

The Dumb War

Now there’s a meme applicable to the current Iraq debate, huh?

I recently attended my Congressman’s Town Hall Meeting, where Iraq 2014 was the agenda.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025142323

Congressman Larson’s opinion on the 2003 Iraq Invasion; The policy makers did the most appropriate thing given the intelligence available to them at the time, is a laughable and embarrassing position to make in public, given the easily accessible historical record available in 2014.

“The case for war wasn’t wrong, it was a lie.” – Rachael Maddow, 6-27-14

The show, in Rachel’s normal MSNBC time slot on June 27, 2014 ,was a repeat of her production of “Hubris”, with an important and noteworthy addition; The commentary by Rachel at the beginning was recorded recently, in the context of the recently renewed “how to fix Iraq this time” national debate. The people that lied us into this ill-conceived and stupid-well-beyond-the-point-of-treason invasion still walk free and are still a part of polite society. If not life in prison, they should at least be ostracized from all of civilized society.

The tricky thing about this video is that it is not very easy to find and play, compared to most TRMS shows. So I do my part to prevent her profound preamble from slipping into an easily forgotten rabbit hole. My personal transcription of part of that is below. If somebody can find this or put this on youtube, that would be great! At least the first five minutes or so.

http://now.msnbc.com/show/The%20Rachel%20Maddow%20Show/291312707660/0/TRMS%3A%20Hubris%20June%2027%2C%202014

The Rachel Maddow Show
TRMS: Hubris June 27, 2014
Season 2014 Episode 140627 Aired 6-27-2014

@1:35 – “...... it's more important than that even to remember that they just weren’t wrong. The Iraq war gets shorthanded now as an intelligence failure. U.S. policy makers were just acting on bad information. That is not what the Iraq war was. It was a deception and this is important; it was the deliberate manipulation of intelligence in order to deceive and it worked and a decade later we owe it to ourselves to not only learn from our mistakes as a nation so we do not repeat them, we owe it to ourselves as a nation to hold to account and treat accordingly the voices that snookered us into that war in the first place. Especially since they are now trying to drag us back in. Investigative reporter Michael Isikoff and Mother Jones’ David Corn co-authored a book called Hubris that detailed exactly how that war was sold to the American people. How intelligence was purposely distorted to make the case for war. The case for war wasn’t wrong, it was a lie."

How's that "We must look forward, not backward" doctrine of War Criminal forgiveness working out for yah, fellow Americans?


-90% Jimmy

June 24, 2014

thanks radiclib

If I have posted worthwhile things on DU, it's because I have stood on the shoulders of DU giants. To be self critical, most of my stuff I consider to be mediocre regurgitation of ideas and info found elsewhere.

As I strive to channel the writing styles of Frank Zappa and Hunter S. Thompson, I adhere to FZ's approach to his career; "First don't stop. Second, keep going."

And one thing I recently understood better is the Nazi/Fox News BIG LIE technique of repeating something enough times and it becomes true. If that can work with lies, imagine the impact when you do the same thing with truth, reason and facts!

And there's so much that bears repeating. I think I repost George Carlin's "Corporations Own You" every six months and it always scores over 5 rec's every time.

And I've learned that such profound classic thinking is not necessarily included in the set of root concepts every DU member includes in their core P.O.V. So it's lot more constructive than I realized that there's so much info out there that bears repeating and reinforcement.

And DU is preaching to the choir, so I've recently been doing a lot of DU type posts over at Facebook, where some of my best friends are Conservative. And I try to engage those types in the manner of Thom Hartmann, respectful and dignified but firm on where I stand. Which results in comments like this: "Jim...you're one of the few liberals I've engaged who can conjure a critical thought and write it down...I think the others can agree...which is why we're engaging you." I'm sick of the divide and conquer tactics of the Oligarchs and it's my belief we have more in common than our differences.

And, as long as I'm blathering, one of the most hurtful things I experienced on DU was when I posted a link to a drudge or a newsmax type item to discuss oppo research. And I was shut down 5 to 1 by a DU jury. Tried and convicted by a jury of my peers for being a right wing troll. My feelings were really hurt by that one, as it happened less than a year ago, after I'd been here perhaps nine years. Like I spent nine years and 4,500 posts to go deep undercover so I could slip in one subversive piece of righty propaganda.

And while I'm being so self absorbed, one thing I'm most proud of with my half assed activism is when I went to the September 10, 2009 Tea Party Rally at the state Capital in Hartford carrying a sign that read; "Tea Baggers are astroturf puppets of fascist corporations." That could not suck enough, as I did not run into one single counter protester. And I have never seen a pic of myself on the internet. I was hoping to become the right wing version of the "Get a brain Morans!" guy.

And I was happy to go see Chris Hedges speak at Central CT State University in New Britain last March. I spoke to him after the talk, and as disappointed to find out, although he was there reporting the Czechoslovakia Velvet Revolution, he had no awareness what so ever of Frank Zappa's role in helping that revolution come to be in the first place. Oh, well. At least Frank got to pal around with Vaclev Havel for a while.



A very interesting point about Chris speech. During the Q&A, (which was not part of this recording) a lawyer spoke to Chris about why the legal profession is utterly impotent about righting any of the legal wrongs that have been piling up over the years. He had participated in some Occupy cases, and he got the word from somebody up high in the Bar Association, or whatever Guild all lawyers belong to, with the chilling message that was something like; "Nice law practice you have there. Wouldn't want anything to happen to it if you continue to represent these OWS people, would you?"

And I mention that because doesn't the legal profession have an important Constitutional Role to insure checks and balances are working properly to keep our Democracy a Democracy? Most of the legal profession has remained utterly mute as our Constitutional rights have continued to be rendered inoperative since 9-11. Just one more of the checks and balances dismantled over the last thirty years as the Oligarch's reshape our country into a Middle Ages Paradise for the elites, and drudgery and suffering and hopelessness for the rest of us.

Chris has covered Revolutions and he said all that's needed is for one percent of the population to be engaged in the profound change that triggers a revolution. So if us Revolutionary 1%'ers want to git 'er done, we better bone up on Chris' body of work. He's got the roadmap.

-jim

June 24, 2014

Congressman Larson's West Hartford Town Hall on Iraq, Sunday June 22,2014

I did more prep for attending this Town Hall than usual. I implored the DU community for some insight on things I could not find answers to on the internet, and here’s the link for the always high quality DU responses.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025125650

I also PM’ed Octafish here, cuz he knows everything and sources it well. And he helped me. I’m passionate about the current state of Oligarchy and all the sociopaths running and wrecking everything, so it’s hard to focus on what others had to say. So I sound more self-absorbed than usual here, cuz it’s all about what I had to say, only.

I said that if you were to take fifty of the best geopolitical minds in the world and lock them together in a room for a month, their recommendations stand as much success as where we are at now. My point being that all the wisdom in the world ain’t gonna fix this.

Which leads into; how did we get here in the first place? I said I remember being in that very town hall back in late 2002 or early 2003, before the invasion, telling John the White House rationale for invasion was bogus, and I would have preferred to have the people that run the MAFIA in the White House, because they are more honorable than the GWB lot at that pre-invasion time.

John had said earlier that the invasion was the result of well-intentioned people that acted on the best intelligence they had to work with at the time. I told him they knew they were lying and the lot of them should be tried for war crimes, crimes against humanity, and prosecuted for murder. I told him I also said that to him at a previous TH meeting in Bristol, CT last winter. I have to write his office and substantiate that, because he is so on the wrong side of history on that it’s embarrassing. Here’s some recent vids that are just a portion of the thousands of hours of pre-war proof-of-mendacity these freaks got away with.

http://billmoyers.com/content/buying-the-war/

He praised the Keystone Pipeline, so I shared my understanding of it; It will provide America with fifty jobs total after it’s up and running, and the refined oil will be shipped out of the Gulf and will do almost nothing to satisfy America’s thirst for oil, and will benefit nobody except Big Oil Corporations. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t understand how either John or I could get it so wrong???

Which lead into my comments on global climate change. It’s too late. It’s over. The world is doomed and the only question is when do the mass extinctions start and how long humanity can survive on this planet. Global warming is a runaway train that humanity is trying to stop with a butterfly net. And we aren’t really doing even that. We’re just starting to consider it as the first solution slightly better than nothing.

Lastly, I asked him what I asked on DU – just who is ending up with the oil rights, and, thanks to the responses from my DU post, I told him if the citizens of Iraq exercise the possibility of nationalizing the oil and taking it away from the big oil multi-national, America would reinstate the draft and start a hot war to get it back. (Wasn’t Gulf War 1 really about Saddam going off the dollar for the dinar, which means we could no longer simply print more money to buy more oil? (A concept I got from a wiser DUer))

FWIW. What else can a poor solitary little half assed activist do, anyway? Not much, except in the words of my hero Frank Zappa; “First, don’t stop. Second, keep going.”

From the article;
Although the event started calmly with a brief opening statement by Larson, tensions rose in the room during the question period, with those who said they oppose intervention repeatedly shouting down those who suggested they might be in favor of it. <There was shouting. But it was provoked by a speaker that monopolized the floor with stale debunked talking points for a lot longer than average manners would allow>

Others rose to offer their speculations on topics ranging from the Quran to conspiracy theories involving American foreign policy in the past two decades, <a speaker recited some Alex Jones claptrap> including repeated calls for various American leaders to be tried in international courts on war crime charges. <And I was one of them among many>

It amazes me to see people recite a list of anti-Obama talking points, as if there was some sort of factual basis for them. There were maybe 2 out of the 15 or so points on the Fox viewer’s laundry list of grievances against the President that had factual merit. The other points would have made Darryl Issa beam with pride.

http://www.courant.com/news/politics/hc-larson-iraq-hearing-06-20140622,0,2271908.story

And how about those comments after the article. John seems despised among his Constituents. I don’t think he’s that bad a guy, as far as career politicians go. He deserves a lot of credit for being so gracious sincerely responding to questions I would find loathsome and beneath contempt. John did get amped up about Sandy Hook and the resultant lack of new background check laws, which he said were favored by 91% of America. (Which is true. BUT, such laws were not passed because Dems overplayed their hand and thought they could do a sweeping overhaul of a bunch of related laws in that brief moment of opportunity, and thus played a lousy game of political chess.)

John was also fired up on Republican obstructionism – just give us a vote, he implored. I’m amazed that Republican obstructionism is actually working out quite well for them. They prevent anything from getting done and then blame Obama for it. And the quagmire in DC as Obama’s fault seems to be the conventional wisdom in all of America. It’s like only DU readers know the first thing about the back story of DC intransigence! Well played, Republicans. You do seem to be fooling most of the people most of the time.

-90% Jimmy

June 19, 2014

thanks, trumad, you totally nailed it

If I, as an average DU reader, had access to enough good journalism that I knew the war justification was bullshit, then our fucking representatives in Congress should have known too.

I think they got their political calculations wrong the same way I got it wrong. I thought this would be another adventure like the first Iraq invasion back in the early 90's. In and out real quick with a hell of a lot less loss of American Servicemen. I think we lost 300 soldiers in that one? And we came and went in less than a year? (It's relative. 300 dead sucks, but 4,500 plus 1,000 to 2,000 in Afghanistan is a hell of a lot worse. And what of the thousand or so contractors that also made the ultimate sacrifice? They are lost to history. In much the same way as the people that died stateside in our factories making war materials for WW2.)

I think the cynical and self serving politicians that decided it was politically expedient to do the cowardly thing and support the war because of overwhelming support of the propagandized public still reeling from the attacks of 9-11, did not realize the magnitude of incompetence and corruption that was the branding of this second US-Iraq conflict. I bet they all thought it woulda been in and out real quick like the first one. (apologies for the run on sentence)

I try to make my Congressman John Larson's town halls. The last one I went to, perhaps 6 months ago in the Bristol Connecticut town hall, I told him that the GWB White house was full of traitors that committed war crimes and should be tried for treason. I get amped up when I do that, cuz I'm pretty passionate about that point, and his answer, as near as I can recall, was that they were sincere in their efforts and just got real bad intelligence. Well, shucks, anybody can get it wrong.

I found that answer unacceptable, and I am almost giddy the collapse of the country we couldn't fix after over a decade, is bringing to the forefront the question of why the fuck did we go in the first place.

Lastly, the first anti-war protest I ever attended in my life was on the Washington Mall in January 2003*. Remember? Of course not. Our American MSM had a full blown news blackout on all the anti war protests taking place all over the world, especially throughout Europe. The meme I took from that is that this time period produced the largest gathering of protest in the history of humanity. Who cares if most American don't even know that.

-90% Jimmy

*and I was draft age in 1972 and I didn't participate in any war protests, in spite of my life being on the line. If Nixon had not abolished the draft and I had to serve, I would not have survived, physically and emotionally. I'm a crappy lover and my fighting is even worse.

PS - my FB post of yesterday - It's perversely delightful to watch these vampires in hindsight. Because we now know unequivocally that they were lying through their teeth and they knew they were lying when they were catapulting their propaganda.

Here's two video's from the "architects" of the 2003 Invasion. It's very important to note there is no opinion or analysis or talking heads. It is the GWB cabinet in their own words. And the written commentary is silent, so this is pretty doggone objective. Utterly devoid of sinister lefty spin, except for the unspoken and brief written commentary.

The biggest benefit of the invasion for me is I learned a new word; "mendacity".

June 16, 2014

Here's three Frank Zappa Country western songs I'm aware of

Harder than your husband, Lonesome Cowboy Burt, and Truck Driver Divorce.

Zappa family friend Beverly DiAngelo sang Harder than your Husband in the movie, Daddy's Dead, who's got the will.

It is very important to recall those dark ages of the run up to the 2003 invasion. A repressive McCarthy-ist vibe cloaked our entire country, along with the other stupid countries that supported this in progress for eleven years with no end in sight clusterfuck.

With Iraq descending into civil war and anarchy, will the multi-national oil companies still have access to the oil the invasion provided for them? You know, the way they partitioned Iraq during Cheney's pre invasion Secret meetings with oil execs? Since that was what the invasion was really all about, it would be sad to have sacrificed so much human life for nothing.

-90% jimmy

And Zappa covered Johnny Cash' Ring of Fire. Johnny would have sung it with the band, but got sick that night, and they performed it w/o Johnny. Mike Kennealy filed in for Johnny on vocals just fine.

June 13, 2014

Dont be too hard on Bushco

Since we invaded Iraq, our borders have been completely free of smoking guns in the form of mushroom clouds.

See, the invasion did indeed make us safe.

-90% Jimmy



PS - I remember the times after 9-11 when GWB was hell bent on invading, A Joe McCarthy-esque iron curtain draped our country and we all became very watchful of what we said, cuz if you ain't with GWB, yur with the terra wrists! It was so creepy because the entire MSM was in fascist lock step with what ever GWB wanted to "get the people that did this to us."

June 4, 2014

Some thing I found interesting about public opinion of our government from July 2014 Consumer Report

"..........., and 58 percent of respondents to our survey said the were worried about government spying by the National Security Agency."

First it brings to mind the Jefferson quote about governments should fear the people, the people should not fear their government.

Secondly, to specify the NSA as a source of fear and loathing is absolutely remarkable. Thank you Edward Snowden and it looks like American's are more aware of their totalitarian total information awareness police state government than I give them credit for.

So what the hell are all of us that love the ideals this country was founded on* gonna do about it, huh?

-90% Jimmy

*as opposed to our current state of anti-democracy Oligarchy