RSJ, your presuppositions about my life follow the same pattern of disinformation you've become accustomed to in your blind allegiance to Obama and the Democratic Party: all that matters is your own personal bias, likes and dislikes, mired as it is, in an inflexible ideology of self-righteousness that you display ad nausea.

You introduce Hayden's jail time as a pompous schema to repudiate my life trajectory presumably to bolster your own intentional misinformation as though you are an expert on the issue. The underlying presupposition is that it assumes that the only people, who have ever engaged activism, also have name recognition. Under this rubric, anyone who disagrees with you cannot possibly have committed their lives to the progressive values you claim to endorse.

Regarding your second paragraph, I was drafted. I was a fresh kid, age eighteen. The only thing I knew at the time was the propaganda disseminated by people more sophisticated than me and masters at twisting truth to suit their own narrow ideologies. (Something, I am sure you know a great deal about as a chief cheerleader of the Obama campaign.)

I grew up on the mean streets of Detroit, and unlike Hayden or George Bush, my parents did not have the money to buy my way out with a free pass to college or the National Guard. My Dad was a mechanic who worked 14 hour days to provide the meager life style we had. (College and grad school came much later for people like me: we earned it with the GI Bill, and our own personal sweat; I worked a full time job while also carrying a full time course load - after I finally got there.)

In your third paragraph you note the following:
"Obviously, you make more stringent demands on politicians than you did of yourself in the Vietnam era. Tom Hayden knew the war was wrong, and came out against it. Where were you on that subject while you were toting a rifle 'in country'?"

It is precisely because on my experience in Vietnam that led to a life of service on behalf of others. I suspect that most Viet vets would tell you that Vietnam was a transformation experience. I remember walking the streets of Siagon on Tudo Street, with hundreds of men women and children living in the gutters. I've seen children blow themselves up to kill an American, and that is something I have to live with until the moment I die.Most people don't know this, but over one hundred and fifty thousand Vietnam vets took their own life since the war ended. That statistic represents over three times those actually killed in the war itslf.

Having also worked in the non-profit world for over thirty years, one does not take up non-profit work for social causes or the environment for the money. You do it out of conscience, maybe even out of love, but you don't do it for the money.

Most Viet vets (including myself) were sympathetic to the anti war movement despite the vicious accusations and blame placed on us by cultural elites of the moment, who never walked in our shoes. Thirty eight years after the fact, we still are being accused, disenfranchised, and rhetorically spate on in our contemporary moment.

As an environmental and social activist, I have been arrested eighteen times. Everything from blocking logging roads for Earth First to chaining myself to the gate of the School of the Americas. (And as a historic rejoinder, Bill Clinton never closed the School of the Americas despite being the president for eight years, and despite numerous appeals by progressives walking their talk instead of paying lip service to their ideology.

A dear friend of mine was assassinated in Brazil: Sr. Dorothy Stang. Dot Stang and I were at the Rio Conference at the same time as Hayden in 1992 or 1993.

Over the last thirty years I've lived in so many places, I cannot remember them all. I own nothing save for my cloths. I have not owned a car for over eighteen years; instead I use public transportation, ride my bike, or walk. So I hardly need a lecture on hypocrisy by a great progressive such as you.

Vote for whoever you want, but don't lecture me (or anyone else who disagrees with you) on voting etiquette.

So, wait a minute, Huck -- you were roaming the Mekong Delta with a rifle in 1968? Let's assume that's true -- you didn't have the balls to quit the military and take the heat? You would rather kowtow and carry a rifle and shoot at Vietnamese than protest against an illegal war? Tom Hayden was trying to get you out of there, but what -- did you not know that Vietnam was a 'bad war,' or did you know it and participate anyway to save yourself from going to jail?

It has to be one or the other: you either entered the service, because you were drafted or you enlisted. If the former, why didn't you refuse to go, if you believed the war was wrong? And if you didn't think the war in Vietnam was wrong, why didn't you? Tom Hayden did, and he took risks to show it.

Obviously, you make more stringent demands on politicians than you did of yourself in the Vietnam era. Tom Hayden knew the war was wrong, and came out against it. Where were you on that subject while you were toting a rifle 'in country'?

I have read your comments where you consistently denigrate anyone who isn't perfectly 'progressive' according to your definition. Yet it seems at one time in your life -- during a war, no less -- you weren't perfectly progressive yourself. Where the hell do you get off criticizing anyone else for hypocrisy?

For anyone still wasting their energy on Hayden's nonesense I invite you to read the following Common Dream article proving once again that the Democrats have more in common with the Gestapo than they do with solving problems for the disinfranchised. Anytime someone offers a more comperhensive wisdom, activism not married to corporations (like Nader) the thought police who run things strike back with an authoritarian thunder to crush any point of view not in keeping with their political orthadoxy. One need only follow RSJ and Hayden's disciples to affirm this for themselves: if you offer a outside the beltway view, they accuse you of being a troll or an agent of the neo cons. Anyone who thinks for themselves is trashed, marginalized, and invited to leave for not exhibiting the correct level of personal purity to their liking.

Read the following to see what the sheeple are upholding:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/24/9856/

Thank you RSJ for the unrequited existential angst that pours out. And thank you for pointing out that in 1968 Hayden was protesting at the Democratic Convention. It is the closet he has gotten to a protest against the Democrats since.

In 1968, I was roaming the Mekong Delta in a Recon Unit. Had I played it safe, I would have surely been protesting the Democratic convention too. The difference is that I am still protesting the Party while the only thing you or Hayden can offer is a Democratic apologetic. Your missive mirrors your displaced and dysfunctional emotional leanings (which by the way are teetering on hysteria) while taking refuge under the rubric of a "real world" politic while capitulating to those values you argue against.

Typical of the white inside the beltway, status quo yawn, you deliver with such zeal, and bordering on the same ferocity that one finds with religious fundamentalists.

Chris Hedges gets it right in his latest outside the beltway view. Is Hedges also a troll in your view working for the neo con establishment?

A view, by the way, light years ahead of the tripe you regularly dispense by your handlers in both the Obama Campaign and the corporate world triggering your latest hysteria.

As far as the rhetorical tool that I use, you can take it anyway you want. Maybe when you reach puberty, it might hold some actually meaning for you. In the meantime, you have my permission to keep disseminating tripe to the sheeple following your latest apologetic.

Huck [June 21st, 2008 11:42 am] wrote: "...Democratic Congress and Senate have "still support[ed] this palpable disaster in Iraq" by avoiding, ignoring, and talking around it. Another Obama supporter that does not want to tell you that Obama and his corporate handlers intend to be in Iraq for a very long time. He may take some troops out, but full withdrawl is OFF THE TABLE as noted by one of his advisors who was recently dumped for telling the truth."

Ah, Huck, once again your anti-Obama fanaticism clouds your thinking. Not all Dems in Congress have voted to support Bush's war in Iraq, and in January 2007 Obama proposed a bill to stop the surge and limit funding for it. In fact, on his website, Obama spells out how he will withdraw all combat troops from Iraq within 16 months and close all forward bases there. His advisor was fired because he contradicted Obama, not because he told 'the truth' as you allege.

Huck [June 21st, 2008 11:47 am] wrote: "People who take refuge in denial like RSJ noting the absence of votes for impeachment is the larger dysfunction from which these people suffer. Precisely my point. You and you ilk keep electing those who do not follow the will of the people. If Bush bombs Iran we can thank the milk toast progressive wannabes like you and Hayden for widening the war in the middle east for the next hundred years."

Seems to me that you're the one in denial. You refuse to even read Obama's website and respond to what is posted there. Instead, you toss around right-wing talking points against Obama and scurrilously insult Tom Hayden. What's the point in that -- I thought you were supposed to be a progressive? 'Milquetoast' Hayden was in Chicago in 1968 demonstrating in the streets against a previous unjust war and the Democrats pursuing that war, getting chased by the cops, arrested, and followed by the FBI. What did you ever do, how did you did you ever risk yourself physically, Huck, to promote your form of progressive politics? Pounding out angry diatribes against liberals in these comment threads doesn't count.

Huck [June 21st, 2008 3:34 pm] wrote: "Actually, my friend, methinks you need a refesher course in honesty, integrity, and authenticity. Our system was established by the founders as a system of checks and balances. Impeachment (while difficult) provides the means against unchecked power, whether it is successful or not."

Actually, I don't know you, Huck, so I'm not your friend, and I think you need to grow up and think like an adult. And, considering the pure horsepucky you have attempted to spread in your comments, I don't think I'll take any courses from you in honesty, integrity or authenticity. As I've posted many times before at CD, if you have the perfect progressive candidate who has a realistic chance at being elected, I'll vote for him or her. Back in the real world, though, it's either Obama or McCain. In the current situation, the Libertarian Party's Bob Barr is the only third party candidate with any hope of being elected in 2008 -- Nader and McKinney, last I checked, weren't even on enough state ballots to theoretically garner the required number of electoral votes to win, so they have no chance, popular vote counting for nothing, as Al Gore can testify.

If you really think Obama would be just the same as McCain in such matters as Supreme Court appointments (McCain has already promised another Alito), corporate regulation (McCain has vowed he'll impose none, Obama will), health care, the environment, foreign policy in the Middle East, and the economy, then you're too delusional to even sensibly discuss these issues.

If you want to know where Obama stands, go to www.barackobama.com/issues and then argue against what he actually proposes, but don't just continue to repeat misleading and deceptive right-wing talking points ad nauseum.

BTW, impeachment has been proposed on the floor of the House, but there were not enough votes to get it out of committee -- yet, anyway. Would you also toss out the Dems who voted for impeachment in your bizarre holy war against the Democrats?

Huck [June 21st, 2008] 3:34 pm: "Maybe someday you will wake up to this fact rather than spew stale air for the sake of your handlers. I assume you are either a friend of Hayden's or a paid political operative for Obama heaping enough bombast and bullshit to shift attention away from Obama's move to the center and his cozyness with the forces of our demise."

Let me respond to this via itemized list so that it may penetrate into your brain, Huck:

-- I have no handlers.

-- I have never met Tom Hayden, nor have I ever been in communication with him on any level.

-- I do not work for the Obama campaign in any capacity, paid or otherwise. I have a friend who is related to Obama, and I have met Barack on two occasions -- once before he entered politics, and again about two years ago. However, I initially supported Edwards in the primary; when Edwards was out, I shifted to Obama. I wish Obama were more progressive on some issues, and I have no illusions about him, but he'll still be a damn sight better than McCain as president. Incidentally, as far as party affiliation, I am an Independent who has voted for Ralph Nader and Green Party candidates in the past.

-- I defend Obama as I would defend anyone who is being speciously attacked. I would even defend McCain if someone were spewing what I knew to be outrageous distortions about him. We've had eight years of overt spin and egregious lies -- it's time we got back to reality and did our best to tell the truth.

-- As we have seen in the primaries, candidates like Kucinich and Edwards are not going to be elected this year. Obama is being a smart politician by appealing to the white lower- and middle-class and people like Dennis unfortunately scare some of them. You take the position that Obama will be similar to Bill Clinton and shift to the right once elected; I think it will be just the opposite. You cannot prove your position, but I have evidence from Obama's terms in the Illinois State Senate and the US Senate to support mine.

Atexan [June 21st, 2008 7:37 pm], I'll respond to your accusations with a similar itemized list:

-- Bombing Pakistan: Obama has said he will only attack Al Qaeda hideouts in Pakistan if the Pakistani government doesn't arrest them, as they have promised. He is not going to bomb the country at large nor innocent civilians.

-- Iraq: In his speech on October 2002, and in speeches since, he specifically said that invading Iraq was a bad idea and that it was a stupid war. He did not assert that he could have 'done it better' at any time.

-- Voting Record: Read it here, it's mostly pretty progressive:
http://factcheck.barackobama.com/factcheck/2008/01/14/obamas_strong_record_of_accomp.php

-- Israel: Yes, he did make a speech to put AIPAC at ease. He's trying to get elected president and if AIPAC turns against him, he won't have a chance. But he still maintains he would like to see a peaceful resolution of differences between Israel and the Palestinians.

-- The Difference Between Obama and McCain on Foreign Policy: Obama has committed to talking with Iran; McCain to bombing them. Obama has committed to withdrawing from Iraq; McCain to staying there. Obama has committed to lowering our use of foreign oil and converting to green energy technologies; McCain wants to drill offshore. Every one of Obama's senior foreign policy advisors were against the Iraq invasion prior to March 2003; every one of McCain's advisors were promoting it. Those are the major differences between the two concerning Middle East policy. For more, read his website.

-- We Have a Single Big Money/Business Party and Nothing's Going to Change: That's exactly what many people said in the early 1930's when Franklin D. Roosevelt was elected. FDR then cracked down and regulated Big Business, Wall Street and the banking industry, as well as instituting other progressive changes that helped the average American over the wealthy corporate elite.

We'll have a much better chance with Obama of having a revived 'New Deal' -- we'll have absolutely no chance with McCain.

What the Hayden's of the world will never get. If your interested Hayden read the voice of a true progressive not bought and paid for: courtesy of Chris Hedges

"Being a courtier, and Obama is one of the best, requires agility and eloquence. The most talented of them can be lauded as persuasive actors. They entertain us. They make us feel good. They convince us they are our friends. We would like to have dinner with them. They are the smiley faces of a corporate state that has hijacked the government and is raping the nation. When the corporations make their iron demands these courtiers drop to their knees, whether to placate the telecommunications companies that fund their campaigns and want to be protected from lawsuits, or to permit oil and gas companies to rake in obscene profits and keep in place the vast subsidies of corporate welfare doled out by the state.

We cannot differentiate between illusion and reality. We trust courtiers wearing face powder who deceive us in the name of journalism. We trust courtiers in our political parties who promise to fight for our interests and then pass bill after bill to further corporate fraud and abuse. We confuse how we feel about courtiers like Obama and Russert with real information, facts and knowledge. We chant in unison with Obama that we want change, we yell "yes we can," and then stand dumbly by as he coldly votes away our civil liberties. The Democratic Party, including Obama, continues to fund the war. It refuses to impeach Bush and Cheney. It allows the government to spy on us without warrants or cause. And then it tells us it is our salvation. This is a form of collective domestic abuse. And, as so often happens in the weird pathology of victim and victimizer, we keep coming back for more."

Gentling, it is obvious that you and I live in two seperate universes. You note you angst about corruption by upholding the corrupt. You decry environmental degradation by supporting a candidate that contributes to it. You recognize the problem of lack of leadership by rewarding your vote to a guy void of it. You mimick outrage but submit at the same time. You recognize the problem by succumbing to it. Yes, that is an impasse, but methinks with your own reasoning process.

My final advice to you and Hayden is read Hedges latest piece on this site:

http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/06/23/9822/

The difference between your angst and empowerment. Do with it what you will.

Huck,

I have not advocated biofuels or nuclear energy. In fact, I first demonstrated against the building of a nuclear power plant in Mississippi back in 1975. Now I live 10 miles from one in another state. They have recently announced plans to add 2 more units to this facility. I am not pleased. I currently live in the midst of a newly operational field of natural gas and have the opportunity to observe daily the plundering of our environment. I am outraged by the total lack of leadership, as well as the lack of individual responsibility, regarding conservation and I do believe the biggest danger we are all facing is the unsustainable lifestyle we have created.

I will vote for Obama because I am willing to offer him a chance to make some improvement in a vastly corrupt system. I would rather have Obama than McCain or Hillary. I also know that things are not all black or all white. I do not believe that participation in the voting process defines a person as some kind of ideological prostitute or one who is lacking integrity or wallowing in denial. I refuse to live my life focused on my own cynicism and judgement of others, with no hope for improvement, even though I realize the seeds have been cast and we are indeed in for a very bumpy ride, regardless of who becomes our next President.

So it appears that you and I have reached an impasse and must agree to disagree. May you and I both be agents for productive change.

"By involvement I mean that each citizen must take the responsibility to educate oneself and to actively and regularly hold our paid representatives accountable."

Ok, gentling, I will play along.

Tell me how endorsing Obama (or even voting for him) will achieve the ends you advocate or even how that is responsible? It is precisely my own responsibility that leads me to repudiate ever thing Obama stands for.

Obama's environmental policy (as Ive noted above) avoids responsibility by failing to uphold authentic renewable sources. Nuclear and Bio Fuel are NOT sustainable options. Consensus expecially exists on bio fuels noting they cause as much problems as fossil fuels. Educated voter? Responsibility? It is clear you operate out of an entirely different context of both of those subjects, than I do. Any authentically 'educated' person not married to the 'team mentality' or status quo sentimentality would recognize this propostion: i.e., "the best solutions we have to work with." May I remind you that your 'so called' solutions like Bio Fuel and Nuclear are NO SOLUTIONS at all. You might do research in the area of psychology to get a better understanding of your sentiments: a concept and matrix known as denial.

Huck,
By involvement I mean that each citizen must take the responsibility to educate oneself and to actively and regularly hold our paid representatives accountable. Now, granted, that's huge, very idealistic and probably (definitely) impossible within our current cultural context. However, unless a revolution totally destroys our current system (or something else does) and until this system is replaced by something better, my obligation is to seek to support the best solutions with what we have to work with while aiming for that higher level within myself and in the way I influence others. I don't agree with your interpretation of pragmatism. What will you do?

pragmatism |ˈpragməˌtizəm|
noun
1 a pragmatic attitude or policy : ideology was tempered with pragmatism.
2 Philosophy an approach that assesses the truth of meaning of theories or beliefs in terms of the success of their practical application.
DERIVATIVES
pragmatist noun
pragmatistic |ˌpragməˈtistik| adjective
ORIGIN mid 19th cent.: from Greek pragma, pragmat- 'deed' (see pragmatic ) + -ism .

Gentling,

"The founding of our country was called the 'grand experiment'. Seems like we've lost our way and need to go back to the drawing board. Personally, I believe the most significant failure has been the lack of real participation and involvement by the citizens. Most of us became spoiled and lazy and didn't do our job."

Agreed! I just take it further: Hayden has been involved, Nader is involved, and at the risk of hubris, Ive worked in the non profit realm for over thirty years (although in the last two, Ive went in a different direction) the question in my mind in not involvement but in what direction the involvment takes us. Heydan has hitched his wagon to the status quo. Obama's ever shifting moral compass is misguided. Take the latest example as a case in point. He now says he supports the FISA law and will vote for it despite the legal protection under the act shielding the Communication Industry from legal accountability. This is just another hypocrisy Obama now embraces as he sells his Soul to corporations.

Pragmatism = the selling of one's soul in my view. My soul is not for sell. Obviously, Hayden sold his a long time ago and it has produced inimical standards that has taken us to the precipice.

Gentling: using religious metaphors like "evil" reminds me of another often used phrase. And people like you and Hayden and his disciples "see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil" when it comes to your political preferences. Hayden's contribution is nothing more than an obfuscation to shield the incompetence of the people he marches lock step with. As far as "Saviors" go the concept turns on behalf of Obama supporters who think significant change is on the way. And if you honestly believe that then vote for him. My vote will be a protest vote, and unlike you and the religious zealots following your lead, I hold absolutely no unrealistic ideals about what my vote will achieve. This is the difference between us. You think you are changing the world, when if fact the world is changing you. Does the man change the system, or does the system change the man. If you look objectively at Obama's record, his rhetoric, his actions, the answer is obvious. But more importantly, lets take this conversation up in four years if he gets elected and then discuss the promises he has asserted like withdrawing ALL troops from Iraq, and then see the reality. Lets look at his environmental policies measured against the continuing demise of our Earth MOther and conclude if those policies have taken us in another direction or merely continued the downward spiral.

So the question is: what positive dynamic have you and I exercised today to counter the evil that has kidnapped our once great country? Mr. Hayden has done us a service by adding more information. To expect every messenger and every candidate to be some kind of savior or magician is absurd. Turn your rage into something productive. We can spend hours blogging our rage or we can do some small thing to create.
Yes, I'm angry, too, but only a positive focus will take us where we want to go

RSJ: I thought you offered a most insightful posting, and while I think OBAMA is only marginally better than McCain, there's no doubt the man IS intelligent. I think he still has a soul. It's always a thin line between playing with the power forces and maintaining one's integrity. No one but Obama knows the extent to which he's compromised that "line." I am far from thrilled with recent evidence of his pandering to special interest groups, BUT... with time of the essence, I'm just not sure this is a wise time to put the bet on the 3rd party race horse. Due to our media's pollution in the form of overt and covert propaganda infusions, NOT ENOUGH citizens are really awake or in possession of the understanding that would connect all the dots. Soundbyte theater aiming culpability at convenient targets rather than exposing corruption to establish genuine accountability has thrown public opinion off course. It's like speaking to people who have been drugged with one opiate (of the peoples) or another for some time. Waking up is hard to do!

ALOHA !!

We live in a "two party aristocracy" not a democracy or a republic. Over the past 50 years all we do is just vote for which party will be KING! Which party will rule us?

ON WAR
Both parties are responsible for millions of war deaths in Vietnam(Kennedy started/Nixon finished) and now WAR ON TERROR(like the WAR ON DRUGS, forever). How serious can a WAR ON A NOUN be? The USA got into the Vietnam War in 1959 and we exited in 1975. That's 16 years and four Presidential terms. We are now only 5 years into the Iraq War, so we aren't even half way yet! Now we measure the WAR ON TERROR(WW3) in trillions of dollars not billions like Vietnam. Anyone in that DRAFT age group in Vietnam War days recalls the term "Domino Theory". That was the theory that if Vietnam was allowed to go Communist then all of Asia then the rest of the World would become Communist. Yet now China and Vietnam(both Communist)are our biggest trading partners and our biggest "creditors"! If 58,000 US kids and millions of Vietnamese in the North and South didn't die it would be laughable! Here we are being ruled by two of the biggest "draft dodgers" of the Vietnam War era(Bush and Cheney)and I wonder how the hell can TOM HAYDEN sink any lower with all this dribble he spews forth? He is so totally off base and all I can think is that he must have a nice little spa in his bathroom that has fried his caviar!!!

ON FIAT MONEY
HAYDEN pull your head out man!!!! You're about as relevant and insightful as mud! You talk of SYMPTOMS ... not SOLUTIONS!

The two parties are DEAD! They are the exact same! They always have been! Read some Baron Amschel Baer Rothschild(founder of all modern banks)quotes and go to the store at KLUES-R-US and buy one! Buddy, you've gone soft ... you're bought and paid for and you don't even know it! Well, don't feel too bad about that since 99% of we Americans are bought and paid for! We all have our SUV and flat screen and "green bottles bruddah" and the decadence is thick as the hot steam in a Roman bath house! We orgy on the corruption and despair our reserve currency brings onto the most destitute in the World. If we, as WE THE PEOPLE, do not revolt soon over this monetary sin then the Third World will ... and by the looks of things the rioting is spreading. Not from the streets of Chicago or New York or LA, but from Harbin, Johannesburg, Buenos Aires and Mexico City.

If you vote Dem ... if you vote Rep ... if you vote GREEN ... It does not matter! Nothing changes until we rid ourselves of the corruption of our monetary system that makes endless wars and endless death and destruction possible. We were sold out as a Nation back in 1913 when the US Federal Reserve Bank was allowed to exist.

We must now follow the path of the most radical revolutionaries that this country ever created ... no not the ones from the 1960s ... the ones from 1775 like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Adams, Madison and the rest of our Founding Fathers. They deposed the KING OF ENGLAND and installed liberty and freedom, we need to restore those values. Invading Iraq is valueless and only teaches the World that America has lost its way ...

All real solutions will emanate and take root only when we restore honest money to our Nation. Not before ...

ITS THE MONEY STUPID !!!

GOVERNMENT IS ONLY AS HONEST AS ITS MONEY ...

To RSJ,
You wrote: "but I trust Obama, who has shown an intelligent grasp of the situation over there, will not fall into the bloody trap set by the likes of David Kilcullen."
How you judged that Obama has that "intelligent grasp". Did not Obama
said he will bomb Pakistan. Did he come and said anything against attacking Iran. Did he say the attack on Iraq was a mistake ??!! or he
he just said he would had done it better. What about his voting record??!!
Did not he make customerily pilgrimage and genuflecting toward AIPAC and Israel??
There is NO REAL difference between McCain, Obama and Bush foreign policies and a matter of fact domestic policies. They are all the same. Any difference is just make belief and theatrics. We have a single party
and it the party of big Money/Business.

RSJ offered the following:

"Perhaps you need a refresher course on how our Congress works — it's not that easy to impeach a sitting president, and the Framers of the Constitution intentionally designed it that way."

Actually, my friend, methinks you need a refesher course in honesty, integrity, and authenticity. Our system was established by the founders as a system of checks and balances. Impeachment (while difficult) provides the means against unchecked power, whether it is successful or not. Since Clinton was elected president we have seen a joint HIStoric movement that has diminished the progressive cause. Competence - a concept that you are apparently unfamilar - dictates investigations and the threat of impeachment to inhibit further action and to render illigetimate the neo con agenda. People like you and Haydem only embolden the neo conservative cause by avioding it. You offer platitudes and obfuscation against the Democrats doing their job. Reponsibility is another aspect of Impeachment proceedings regardless of the outcome. Twisting rhetorical positions serves no one save the people you hate. Maybe someday you will wake up to this fact rather than spew stale air for the sake of your handlers. I assume you are either a friend of Hayden's or a paid political operative for Obama heaping enough bombast and bullshit to shift attention away from Obama's move to the center and his cozyness with the forces of our demise.

People who take refuge in denial like RSJ noting the absence of votes for impeachment is the larger dysfunction from which these people suffer. Precisely my point. You and you ilk keep electing those who do not follow the will of the people. If Bush bombs Iran we can thank the milk toast progressive wannabes like you and Hayden for widening the war in the middle east for the next hundred years. Wake up, lad.

RSJ notes this:

"Kilcullen suffers from the same mental defect that afflicts Bush, Cheney, some of the Pentagon top brass, and the entire raft of neocon 'intellectuals' still supporting this palpable disaster in Iraq — they arrogantly believe they can hoodwink the primitive Arab bumpkins over in Asia Minor once again — as the British did in earlier times — just as they have been putting it over on the bovine ignorati at home, with the help of the cooperatively-embedded US corporate media."

This statement suffers the same myopia Hayden is infected with. It avoids noting that the Democratic Congress and Senate have "still support[ed] this palpable disaster in Iraq" by avoiding, ignoring, and talking around it. Another Obama supporter that does not want to tell you that Obama and his corporate handlers intend to be in Iraq for a very long time. He may take some troops out, but full withdrawl is OFF THE TABLE as noted by one of his advisors who was recently dumped for telling the truth.

In the 1960s, conservatives used to carp about 'Ivory Tower' liberal intellectuals, the description intended as an insult to academics who sat behind a desk weaving theoretical social policy when they had little experience with, or understanding of how it would operate in, the 'real world.'

Now we have the 'Black Tower' neocon intellectuals like David Kilcullen, philosophical descendants of Leo Strauss who comfortably reside behind a desk at some corporately-funded think tank and spin out intricate hypotheses to basically enslave the desert tribes of the Middle East with apparently little experience of the reality there, or understanding of the populations they wish to hoodwink with these fetid plans like the updated Phoenix counterinsurgency program.

Back when naive Mr. and Mrs. America were ensconced in front of the tube imbibing the patriarchal moral lessons of "Father Knows Best" along with their Swanson frozen TV dinners, Iranians were well aware that the CIA had used 'the black arts' to depose Iran's democratically-elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh in 1953. The blowback from that benighted affair led to the fall of the loathed US-backed puppet Reza Pahlavi, the Iranian revolution, and the current fundamentalist Islamic government there.

Similarly, the Iraqis, from five years of American occupation, if nothing else, know full well the devious iniquity to which we will stoop to install our puppet government and secure their oil to what's perceived by the neocons as our advantage. While there may be debate about refining the details of this policy in the US op-ed pages and think tanks, there is no debate among the majority of Iraqis and they, Sunni and Shia alike, want us to leave --immediately. Even our former friends the Kurds, angry that we have turned a blind eye to Turkish attacks across their border and denied them sovereignty, are nearly ready to bid us good riddance.

Kilcullen suffers from the same mental defect that afflicts Bush, Cheney, some of the Pentagon top brass, and the entire raft of neocon 'intellectuals' still supporting this palpable disaster in Iraq -- they arrogantly believe they can hoodwink the primitive Arab bumpkins over in Asia Minor once again -- as the British did in earlier times -- just as they have been putting it over on the bovine ignorati at home, with the help of the cooperatively-embedded US corporate media.

The two largest factions in Iraq, the Sunni Muslims and the Shia Muslims, both have this in common -- they hate America and want us to leave. This updated Phoenix program will only serve to push them further into uniting together to accomplish that goal. If that happens, and I'm certain it will, the fall of Saigon will look like minor skirmish in comparison -- it will be a bloodbath of Biblical proportions, part of it enacted by members of Iraqi law enforcement and the Iraqi Army whom we have conveniently trained and armed.

Back in Washington, as the evidence of this Iraq massacre becomes undeniable and we are forced out of the country at gunpoint, smug neocon strategists such as Kilcullen will no doubt publish furious exculpations of their role in the massive catastrophe, and rise another rung up the ladder of the Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute or some other demented right-wing edifice, for their steadfast loyalty to the ideals and practice of violent stupidity in pursuit of an imperialistic fast buck, still worshipping at the feet of foreign policy heirs Lord North and Joachim von Ribbentrop.

I doubt the details of this subject will be covered in any debate between Obama and McCain -- it doesn't have the soundbite sparkle of mass media political infotainment -- but I trust Obama, who has shown an intelligent grasp of the situation over there, will not fall into the bloody trap set by the likes of David Kilcullen.

McCain on the other hand...

Huck [June 20th, 2008 2:48 pm] there aren't enough votes for impeachment in either the House or Senate. Kucinich has already proposed articles for the impeachment of Bush and he can't even get the votes to move it out of committee. Perhaps you need a refresher course on how our Congress works -- it's not that easy to impeach a sitting president, and the Framers of the Constitution intentionally designed it that way.

5280 [June 20th, 2008 3:22 pm]: vote for candidate Nader; repent under President McCain.

Thought this article was gonna be about Barack Obama.

Should have been.

One more thing. Having lived with Native Americans for many years, my native friends have a phrase to describe a guy like Hayden: he speaks with a forked tounge. I call speaking outside of both sides of his mouth. Maybe someday the sheeple will wake up before the entire enterprise of our Earth Mother collapses.

People like myself, Nader, Hedges, Kucinich, Moyers, along with a growing chorus of voices on this site - however marginal - are dissident voices. And we all know what happens to people who offer a polemic narrative to countrer the wave of sentiment which repudiates the status quo line. We don't accept the state sponsored tripe disseminated by a guy like Hayden. As one person noted, Hayden avoids Obama's assertion of bombing Pakistan or his current cozyness with the Israeli lobby. But why are people surprised by the sword rattling? Those who pay lip service to progressive values but embody inimical standards that conflict with those very standards? Hayden is a case in point, so is Flanders, so is Katrina, so is Hartmann. They offer up milk toast assertions without any authentic bite. Hayden calls himself an "environmwental leader" while endorsing a guy whose environmental plan pivots on the Nuclear and Bio Fuel industries. Both inimical to the Earth. As more airable land transitions to the higher paying crops producing bio fuels, substituting food crops, prices will soar and world wide starvation increase. Nuclear avoids addressing the spent fuel problem of nuclear waste. The political solution bury radioactive waste in containers that the radioactivity will outlive by 500 years. The concommitant problem of radioactive sources leaking into ground water supplies goes ignored by a great environmental leader like Hayden. My God, he is begining to believe his own mythos. Or is it pathology?

Geoffrey
" So Maori were never fond of other dark races who gave up and got ripped off… never pity the man who won't take a stand for himself}"

I know that many Maori look down on Aborigines because they didn't sustain a fight against the whites compared with the Maori. Well it was possible for Maori peoples to unite when facing the whites...much harder for Aborigines to unite for various reasons.

There WERE deliberate policies to take aboriginal kids away and it did have the purpose of splitting the Aboriginal peoples - Divide and rule takes many different forms in the colonial enterprises all around the world. White kids out of wedlock were often given up for adoption - no comparison with what was DONE to Aboriginal children systematically and with the intent to divide the people. Much white propaganda went along with that process and it has been a long process to counter that inside people's heads. How much childhood propaganda have you still got inside you Geoffrey?

Geoffrey

I would no way call the African American husband of my niece "Nigger" even in the most affectionate way. This is not because I'm oppressed by "political correctness" but because I know he would be really upset if I called him that. I doubt if he would still generously throw another shrimp on the barbie or pass me another tinnie. He might even show me his house starting with his front door (and out).

The French President can say whatever he likes about himself, but, even though I don't like a lot about him, I don't feel any value in joining him by using language that highlights his looks. Policies and practices are what it's about. Sorry to be such a party pooper...but I really don't find your style helpful to genuine communication.

"Pure bloods" hate "half-breeds" - balonie!
(Aboriginal people do not use those terms by the way).

Many if not most city aborigines identify with land somewhere and have their "country" in other places where their "mob" still live.
.

Hi Jan

I disagree with your account of the reason that SOME aboriginal children were removed from their parents.

There has been an awful lot of propaganda about it recently - most originating from 'yeller-feller' mulattos and quadroons who have never lived outside a major urban centre... and who are HATED by purebloods (aboriginal society is obsessed with racial purity - half-breeds used to be killed as infants and had no standing in tribal law).

They saw that there would be BUCKETS of money for ATSIC (which is run by yeller-fellers from a very specific regional group). The whole "A White Man Stole My Baby" story, where all the kiddies were purebreds (most were half'n'halves) and the mothers were all loving caring hausfraus of the Norman Rockwell variety. Hogwash.

As someone who spent my first years in Australia (aged 7) in Tennant Creek, I can tell you that (a) I still have fond memories of the place; and (b) black society was really very violent (more so than even the miners in the region). And I LIKE aborigines, on the whole - except for the urban welfare-absorbing 'professional abos', who are as much aboriginal as I am Maori (I can legally call myself that).

{Side note: Maori used to hate pretty much every other dark race... after all, the Maori fought Whitey to a standstill and signed a Treaty of Equals with HM Government (the Treaty of Waitangi)... when Whitey broke the Treaty the Maori re-declared War THREE TIMES. So Maori were never fond of other dark races who gave up and got ripped off... never pity the man who won't take a stand for himself}

As I mentioned, I don't condone what was done (in fact I utterly reject the idea that the political classs has the right to remove children from their home environment, EVEN IF that environment is unhealthy).

I think people fail to understand the societal context of the time - white (Anglo-Saxon) Australian society was full to bursting with self-righteous peseudo-Christians who were desperately keen to save folks from themselves. As Mencken might have said, they were on the lookout for anyone who might look like they were enjoying life.

WHITE single mothers were victims of this, as were children where the father was someone other than the chap to whom the mother was married... as were kiddies whose mother was white and Daddy was not (which pretty much meant the same thing - unwed mother or unfaithfful wife - since there was little mixed-race marriage in Australia at the time).

And at root the whole enterprise stemmed from the tyranny of good intentions - the mindless Christiann nutzoid idea of saving people from Perdition... be it by 'civilising' the darkie, or by putting bastards into foster care or religious homes (the better for them to be buggered by pedophiles). Cultural genocide is a story that may have its origins in the missions (those Christian nutzoids again), but the child protection policy was (a) Australia-wide; and (b) NOTIONALLY race-neutral.

As to language...

We Strayans (proper Strayans, not urban folks who want to pretend to be lower-middle class Pom Sunday-School teachers) are given to colourful expression.

Darkie (doesn't have a 'y' in the singular by the way), Frog, Kraut, Pom, Canuck, Jaapie, Nip, Wog, Itie, Bubble (rhyming slang - Bubble 'n' Squeak for Greek), Boong, Coon, Abo, Kiwi, Gook, Slope, Chink, Kike, Curry-muncher, Red-Sea Pedestrian, Forbie (four-by-two... Jew)...

and Poofter, faggot, Dyke, Muncher-of-the-Furry-Pie, Bum-bandit...

and RedMuff, Ginger, Blue, Bloodnut...

and Grunt (Infantry), Med-head (MPs wear red berets and Meds are tampons), Dropshort (for Artillery), Turret-head (Amoured)...

Point is, Blind Freddie knows that annything is acceptable if it is said without rancour or malice. Even 'nigger'.

You don't get people to abandon hatred by trying to marginalise their slang (i.e., behaving like a middle aged female schoolteacher). You get them to abandon their hatred by DILUTING the effectiveness of that slang.

That's why poofs took back 'gay' and inner-urban black Americans now own Nigger.

To paraphrase (using some argot)- that shit works like a mu'fukka, J... now niggers got they own brand and broke-ass crackers tryna be niggers, but they buggin'.

Australian English has within it a beautiful argot which is both comic and expressive, and which political correctness cannot hold down. As my mate Matéki'Tonga Ata'ata would say... why you Whities always obsess with dis bullshit??

Maté is not a pet darkie... he was my second-year Economics tutor.

And as for the Nasty Hook Nosed Dwarf who currently resides in the Palace... that boy ain't right. He got picked on at school (failed his entry exams for the Grands Ecoles, by the way) and carries a chip on his shoulder the size of a Douglas Fir. That's why he is obsessed with having other rich men's cast-offs (e.g., Carla Bruni), Bulgari watches and such. Short man's syndrome is hard to achieve in a land where the average chap ain't but 5 foot 7, but L'il Sarkoleon gets it done. And his nose would take pride of place in the Mavromatis family portrait (and the Mavromatis family - the family of one of my best friends - aren't Jews, in case you thought I was unleashing The Anti-Semite Within).

One wag once said that Sarko's reasoning was as follows

"Regardez-moi! Même si je suis assez court, et je suis un peu moche, je peut quand même draguer un top-model si elle est un peu agée"

"Look at me! Even though I'm pretty short and a bit ugly, I can still pull a top model if she's a bit old."

Cheerio

GT
France

GeoffreyTransom June 21st, 2008 2:43 am said about Australian Aborigines:
"nobody ought to pretend that theirs wasn't a culture in which life was nasty, brutal and short."
There have been assessments that the indigenous population in the areas first settled by the British were healthier and better fed than say an average Londoner was.

Then Geoffrey goes on: "like all good hypocrites, as soon as we gave our darkies the tiniest set of rights, we started playing holier-than-thou towards South Africa…"
In reality the same sorts of people fighting for Aboriginal rights were also fighting for black majority rule in South Africa. The Australian Government only came around to the anti-apartheid position as the rest of the world did.

"in yet another example of pandering to a faux-righteous religious whackball minority"
It had nothing to do with religion. The whites were breaking up the aboriginal families in order to commit cultural genocide.

Also "Neglect" was not the reason given for the childen's removal in most cases.

These days black Americans and black Africans generally report that most Australians are very friendly and do not behave in a racist way to them.

PS Geoffrey, I don't warm to your use of terms like "darky", "frogs" and "Nasty Hook Nosed Dwarf" in your otherwise somewhat reasonable account of race relations.
.

Tom Hayden forgot to mention that Barack Obama wants to bomb Pakistan. I'm sorry to keep bringing that up all of the time, but it seems like no one thinks it's such a big deal, or worth mentioning.

Right now, the CIA with its Predator drones are busy killing families in Pakistan. Why will Obama's bombing be different from Bush's bombing of that country?

The pattern of these essays by Mr. Hayden seems to be:

1. Write a reflection of some sort.

2. Add a plug in the final paragraphs for Obama.

I find this tiresome.

The truth is, on the subject of war, the two Parties are not far apart. If you need proof, just measure the dollars allocated for the wars by both Democrats and Republicans over the years - it's exceeding $400 billion now, I think, but I've lost count.

Will Tom Hayden say that Obama's call to Bomb Pakistan is as odious (and illegal) as McCain's and Clinton's call to bomb Iran? Will Hayden say it's a war crime to threaten another nation?

This is a terrible omission in Mr. Hayden's essay. The American public needs clear reasons to vote for Obama. Hope represents the belief that you have in times of uncertainty. However, there should be no reason for the American people to "hope" for an end to these wars. It should already be understood by now that Obama will end them at a specific date. They fact that we don't have that understanding at this late stage in the campaign cycle is highly disturbing.

Ask yourselves: Are you going to vote for a candidate that is vague about ending the wars? With one million dead Iraqis and 4,000 dead GIs and a senseless war going on with no end, why vote for a candidate that can't be clear on this basic issue? That's not hope you're feeling - it's called fooling yourself. Worse still, it ensures four more year of war, at least.

Hey there Penscot

I think it's unfair to say that large swathes of the world take a dim view of Australians. They take a dim view of the actions - past and present - of the Australian Federal Government perhaps (but largely that is not true either). Same is true for Americans (although Americans are usually pre-judged as likely to be pushy, overbearing, and chauvinistic... and unlikely to want to speak the language of the country they are visiting - that is to say, that they behave like lower-class Englishmen).

And the fact that Australia has produced a Neocon jerkoff - someone who thinks that everybody ought to kiss the whip - shouldn't be too much of a surprise. Australian society is
pretty tolerant - even cockheads like this wanker Kilcullen aren't strangled (but I bet you Sydney to a brick that he is about five foot eight and got picked on at school.... and might even be a Ginger). And anybody who is prepared to kiss the arse of Bush and Co, gets paid like a mu'fukka - this dick is just prepared to be a politician's bitch for a living - ain't no thing.

I think you've got your date wrong for the referendum that changed the status of aboriginals in the Australian Constitution; that was 1967, from memory.

It is also (again, from memory) the only referendum in Australian history that got the required majority of votes in the majority of States. And like all good hypocrites, as soon as we gave our darkies the tiniest set of rights, we started playing holier-than-thou towards South Africa...

Prior to that, Aborigines weren't defined as fauna - they just weren't included in the census. Like pretty much all indigenous populations that came under our yoke ('us' being Whitey), they were treated terribly for over a century. And at the time there was all manner of scientific 'evidence' that purported to show that they were inherently incapable of adopting a full measure of integration into western society (in other words, they were INCAPABLE of thinking like us).

Of course, that is hogwash - they are perfectly capable of integrating, although at the time their socialisation was utterly diffferent to ours, and nobody ought to pretend that theirs wasn't a culture in which life was nasty, brutal and short.

I do not defend the taking of children from their parents by government (even if those children are being maltreated by their biological parents), but it must be noted that during the so-called 'Stolen Generation' there were thousands of children (e.g., those of unwed mothers) who were also forcibly removed by order of the government of the day, in yet another example of pandering to a faux-righteous religious whackball minority. It wasn't just the children of blacks (and it wasn't every black child - there had to be what Americans would refer to as 'probable cause'... the system did not ASSUME neglect).

Anyhow...

Here in Deepest Darkest Auvergne, the locals love Australians (and not just because they Australian government sent our youth to France to be killed in the tens of thousands... after the Frogs capitulated the two Big Shows of the 20th century). We're white, we speakie their pointlessly-complex lingo, and we're 'bien élevé'... and besides there's only two of us in a sixty kilometer radius.

All these attributes - plus our shared hatred of The Littlest Tsar, King Sarko the Nasty Hook Nosed Dwarf - are things that combine to make us much-loved.

If instead we were shiftless, and were prepared to be coddled by a welfare system that made fewer demands on us than on the majority, and we carried a sense of intergenerational injustice (despite being at least two generations removed from any genuine grievance) then the local Frog might take a dimmer view.

The Government of Australia has quite a lot to aplogise for as regards the folks who inhabited the place before we got there, and Aboriginal Affairs was never an electoral issue (because the two-party system decides the issues). But by comparison with Ammerican Indians, the current generation of Australian aborigines has a far better set of initial conditions - genuine institutional restraints which impeded their advancement have been dismantled. I am confident that, like all people who are given the opportunity to try and build a better life for themselves, many of them will do so. A lot of them won't - life is like that.

Cheerio

GT
France

Conveniently enough, Mr. Hayden forgets to mention that the Democratic Party leaders, and most DP members of the Congress, never hesitate to help fund these sorts of programs. In Vietnam, and now globally. Nancy pelosi is the purse behind the new Doctor Strangelove.

susanparker - Just a small factual correction about one of the greatest books I have ever read, it's John Gerassi not Tom who wrote The Great Fear in Latin America.

And although it is certainly out of date, it would still be well worth a read for anyone who hasn't read it. Especially for its deconstruction of how it all works, all the nasty little techniques with innocent sounding names. Those truths are applicable right now and in many parts of the world.

80 Democrats just voted to give Bush $162 billion more in funding for the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

WILL YOU, TOM HAYDEN, FINALLY HAVE THE COURAGE TO SEE THAT YOUR PARTY SUPPORTS THE AFGHANISTAN/IRAQ OCCUPATIONS? IF YOU STAY WITH THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, WILL YOU AT LEAST DO WHATEVER YOU CAN TO GET THESE 80 DEMOCRATS KICKED OUT OF THEIR OFFICES(PERHAPS YOU CAN VERY VOCALLY SUPPORT GREENS, SOCIALISTS OR INDEPENDENTS RUNNING AGAINST THESE 80 LOSERS)? IF NOT, YOU ARE JUST ANOTHER TEAM PLAYER, WITH NO MORALITY.

I HOPE YOUR NEXT ARTICLE DEALS WITH CONDEMNING THE VOTES BY THE 80 PEOPLE WHO ARE ON YOUR TEAM.

These days I feel like I'm caught in a toxic cloud of psychological warfare pumped at me and called "news" on of current affairs and climate change.

We are being bombarded on a number of levels with fear mongering and left to our own devices as to how to respond - with agression, vision or emotional collapse.

I feel like I'm back in the 1980s when Thatcher and Reagan ruled - I don't think we can afford to have the rich rape us all again.

MORDECHAISHIBLIKOV

you've excelled yourself tonite...............i don't think my knickers will ever dry.!!!!!!

I have a conservative friend who thinks of himself as progressive because he listens to NPR news.. National Public Radio. Whenever I remind him that the President of NPR (Kevin Klose) was the former director of all CIA worldwide broadcasts (Radio Free Europe, Radio Free Iraq, Radio Free Afghanistan, Radio Free Cuba, etc.) he get's angry, combative, and hangs up the phone.

Scott McClellan was my friends hero, until two weeks ago. Now he bashes his favorite mouthpiece, as the media instructed him to do so.

He also called me a liar when I said I had very interesting document. It's a casting notice from NPR looking for actors with regional accents to record the radio sound bites of first person witnesses. Let me say that again- a casting notice to have ACTORS read the lines of FIRST PERSON WITNESSES.

This man, Kilcullen, gets quietly out of bed at 2 AM, careful not to wake his wife who probably works on Wall Street and makes $250,000 a year, and pads quietly into the guest bedroom where he dons fatigues and a couple of ivory handled pistols, a la Patton, then goes into the bathroom and stares at himself in the mirror. He draws the guns and points them at himself, saying things like "I'll kill you quick, you piece of raghead, terrorist trash", or "Drink leaden death, you stinking wogs". And so on and so on. These are the kinds of people running this country now. This is PNAC. This is Bloody Bill Kristol. This is Douglas Feith. This is Dick "Fat Death" Cheney. This is George Wanker Bush. The scum of the earth dressed in their perpetual Halloween costumes, actually murdering people with their cap pistols.

Hey, Tom Hayden, you got get out more often with all this "surprise" about US mainstream media being cheerleaders for weird war mongering policies. Do read Norman Solomon's "War Made Easy" or watch the DVD of the documentary. It ought to be a real learning experience!

As a rule you've been with the program, but here you just don't seem to grasp what so many find to be all too obvious about our military, industrial, media, national security complex.

What is the difference between what is proposed here, and what has already been done and is still being done? The 'counter-insurgency' does have some rationale and logic behind it, in the same way that German bureaucracy managed incarceration and extermination of Jewish people. But it can be seen as a mad evil system from the outside. US Iraq is a large prison system, with its US guards brainwashed into thinking they are defending democracy, liberty and free markets, while daily they go about their murder and suppression business of depriving Iraqi people of liberty.

Abu Ghraib is now the entire US Iraqi nation. The hage overflowing real gaols of Iraq are means of more certain confinement, but are they any different in people abuse? If not in physical gaol, where they can be mistreated unseen, the real prisoners of Iraq are people with no legal rights. They are allowed to starve and die from lack of medical care freely. They are bombed and shot at. Iraqi casualties are labelled insurgents and not counted. The US counts dead Iraqis as nothing. David Kilcullen and Gen. David Petraeus are just trumped up prison guards, their minds ensnared by an evil system that pays them to practice more evil. Not for nothing does the US run the largest prison systems of the world. US prisons are numerous and over-filled. Gitmo and hidden systems of incarceration and torture dot the world. The worlds goalers live in Washington. Much of the rest of the world is developing a prisoner mentality. It is about time the US recognized its deep descent into pure evil.

... um, how bout' a national price cap for gas! for God's sake!…

exactly ... how about our "leaders" asking us to conserve gasoline to essential driving only ... and directing us to the ALREADY EXISTING resources for those interested in public transport, ride-sharing and corporate benefits?

How about expanding some of the existing services for the elderly and the handicapped?

Internet and catalog sales save gas!

=========================================================

Yes, about Dr. Strangelove ... was this before or after we imported Negroponte and his death squads into Iraq? Before or after that "great American public servant" John Bolton?

The various Iraqi factions have been pointing their fingers at us as the source of several notorious bombings ... is every skeptic a conspiracy theorist?

as far as I can tell most folks today don't even take the initiative to "turn on, tune in, and drop out" and grow themselves -- much less actually get off the couch, out from behind the wheel of their cars to take anything to the street.

I keep hoping some of this newly mobilized and politicized youth will find the chuzpah to actually get ANGRY ...

Where is the OUTRAGE?

I remember when BushCo announced "regime change" for Iraq -- I was appalled that they felt they could openly do today what the CIA did covertly back in the 1960's and 1970's --

Gee, we don't like your leader, we're brokering a hostile takeover ...

I keep meaning to catch up on Africa (but I just don't wanna know) ... there's a new book out on South America (profiled on TomDispatch) I plan to check out. I remember Agee's CIA Diary. That and Tom Gerassi's The Great Fear in Latin America shaped my world view of AMERICA

If Tom Hayden was for real he'd be in the Green Party by now as would the the last few progressives in the Democrat Party that that are up against the combined forces of half of the Democrat Party, all the Republicans and the multi-national corps that control both the big "two parties" and most of the popular media.
But with no brakes on the rising cost of oil (um, how bout' a national price cap for gas! for God's sake!... the oil companies can sure afford to survive a freeze on gas prices considering the tens of billions in profit they are currently making every 3 months since last year!!!) thus higher food and energy bills all over the planet ...even the Greens will not be able to do much by the time the nation wakes up / gets over/ kicks it nasty oil addiction and maybe sees the "Green light" to better living.

The Democratic party is part and parcel of the problem. It is and was
an active participant and enbler of all what Bush did. So when a Democrat
like Tom Hyden is putting all hope on next election, it is nothing but theatrics and pure bull-shitting.
Tom Hyden is laughing all the way to the bank.!!!

"This is Crunch Time, Final Exam Time for the human race"

Too bad we haven't studied all semester.

Sounds a lot like a little place called Central America.

here's how I ended my post on another thread:

The wealthy elites are going to scratch each others backs and prepare to inherit the earth after The Great Collapse, coming to a planet near you. How many times do you have to see Pelosi sell out and Bono and the Dalai Lama hang out with Bush (and refuse to criticize the slaughter in Iraq!) to finally realize that we, the people are screwed, all the heroes are dead and we are on our own?

I tried to bring this up with David Korten after he came to Commondreams and challenged some of us critical of one of his articles that appeared here. I had said that I thought he was naive and living in comfortable denial if he thought that Empire was on the run and we were turning to *earth community*.

Look at the level of political and philosophical discourse in this country - it is sssooo immature it is beyond belief! Obama forced to kiss the asses of regressive redneck fundamentalist christians while Hillary shamelessly pandered to them, and then they both shamelessly pandered to the Israeli Lobby.

Or the media love fest over power elite stooge Russert. Russert represents the pinnacle of political and philosophical intellect? He asked the *tough questions?* What a joke!

If we were truly turning to a whole higher, more intelligent way of life, you would see evidence of this in a level of philosophical, political media discourse that would be light-years beyond the present level in terms of maturity and vision.

Where is the progressive Richard Mellon Scaifes, the wealthy sugar daddys that keep the Ann Coulters and William Kristols in business? Rove is now on Fox and Kristol is not only on Fox but has a gig at the NY freakin Times! They certainly dont look like people who fear that their power and the power of their elite clique is going to be challenged anytime soon.

But I am sure that Hartmann and the gang will be asking us all to buy another book that will tell us that a world of compassion, truth, justice and earth community is just around the corner if we all just really really really believe it. Regards, Kitaj

Yeah, and as I added on another thread, what about the Dalai Lama accepting a Congressional Gold Medal from Bush and Pelosi but refusing to criticize the slaughter in Iraq much as Bono and Geldof refused to criticize Bush and Blair or once point to transnational-corporate exploitation as a main part of the tragedy and disaster in Africa.

What kind of message to Iraqis and the world does that Dalai-Bush-Pelosi photo-op send? Is he blind to how he is being used? Or does he like the money and help he gets from the US, and so is willing to overlook the truth. And I used to admire him.

Kitaj, methinks you answered your own question. People like Hayden are ridding a wave of what they did in their youth while hunkered down currently in their own comfort zones. It has been a long time since Hayden stood on the precipice of authentic transformation and change. These Cats walked away from the edge a long time ago for the refuge of their status. In this regard, they cling to the status quo like Obama to insure their own self importance; in Hayden's bio he characterizes himself as a leader of the environmental movement. Ive worked in the environmental movement for over thirty years, and Ive never read anything this Cat has written that speaks to 'leadership' on behalf of our Earth Mother. He likes to publish books about the issue like many of his elitist friends: Matt Fox and Hartmann, come to mind. The problem obvious: they believe their own narratives and mythology about their own lives, and have long since walked away from the EDGE: instead they choose their own hubris over authenticity.

I had some faith in Obama, now its clear he's not any different from the rest of the warmongers. Sorry, I really was interested, but it looks like its another Nader vote in '08.

The Rovian disinformation campaign continues with Huck, who once again tries to deflect responsibility for Bush and Cheney's policy disasters to the Democrats.

I used to see a poster on another board who would respond to every criticism of Bush by whining that no one should complain about Bush until after he had listed every other despot and tyrant on the face of the globe.

Posts such as Huck's are always the same ad hominem attacks on an article's author with some pisant observation about airplane fuel costs, personal expenditures, or - in this case - book publishing.

The Bush crazies are still there; they're jus
t wearing different masks this time.

jj

ANNE FAITH

you don't have to be on meth to concoct this scenario............

Bozodriver, brilliant! (Just curious: you on meth?)

Hey Huck

Ive been wondering the same thing about all *power progressives*. This is Crunch Time, Final Exam Time for the human race - why arent they putting their vast fortunes on the line in a truly revolutionary fashion?

If these power progressives networked and pooled their wealth and their access to global media platforms, they could challenge the regressive elites and blow their cover-ups to pieces in front of the whole world.

They could create and distribute feature-film level exposes that would make Moore's Farenheit 911 look like a ten year old Girl Scout's home movie.

They could fund a third party, pour millions into alternative media to counter the Regressive Media Noise Machine, create legal defense funds for whistleblowers in the government, fund huge marches on Washington...etcetc

Meanwhile millions of progressives struggle, broke, to pay the bills, using whatever spare time they have to just basically stay informed about what the insane regressive elites are getting away with next, with maybe a little spare time left to come to a website like this one and talk about The Situation....while nothing ever changes.

BANDIDO

well if you're not a fan of mel brooks i can understand your confusion....

BOZODRIVER

nice one............

I would like to know what Hayden did to move the party toward Impeachment of Bush? Had the Democrats done their job and protected the constitution, this would not be an issue. Interesting how Hayden frames his positions as though this is all because of Bush and his neo con handlers. Quite the contrary, any bombing campaign will be the result of people like Hayden and his Democratic Handlers who shift ground faster than a jack rabbit to avoid responsibility, collect fees from their corporate handlers, pay lip service to the environment while publishing books that diminish the ancient forests. Hayden as always been a part of the problem and a solution to nothing save his own personal bank account.

I read "Inside the Company - A C.I.A. Diary" by Phillip Agee shortly after it was published in 1975. He was the first C.I.A. agent to become so disgusted with the C.I.A.'s activities that he became a whistleblower and named names.

A good part of his book details the lengths to which the C.I.A. went to subvert the free press in Quito, Ecuador, where Agee was stationed.

When I read his book in 1975 I said to myself, "If they are doing all this to control the press in Quito, Ecuador, what must they be doing in places like Chicago?"

But even with complete media control and total brainwashing and NSA blanket wiretapping, it is possible to fail, and the policies of this U.S. government are so wrong headed the only question appears to be "How bad is the collapse going to be?"

"The end of history?" I don't think so . . .

Proves that under the past 20 years of regimes, Australia has come to be as fascistically lunatic as this one. Of course, this from a country that treated aboriginals as fauna -- animals -- through the 1972 census, and held to a White Australia policy through the seventies.
If the terrorists hate us, in large parts of the world they hate the Australians for much the same reasons.

Perhaps a more apt predecessor of this nutcase is French General Paul Aussaresses who "publicly admitted, even boasted, that he supervised torture, summary executions, and assassinations during the bloody 1954-1962 Algerian war of independence."

what was that all about? Hi Tom, thanks for the analysis, that's just the kind of secret disruptive wars corporations need to continue heavily protected resource extraction, perhaps with a new generation of robotic weapons.

Dear Mr. Brooks,

Hey Mel! If you've 5 minutes, have I got a pitch for you.
How about making another sequel? "History of the World - Part III (The Final Chapter!)"? Only......and get this....instead of a comedy, .....we make it.... a tragedy!.... Hmm?!?!...... Ya see, I met this talent agent fella down by the crossroads yesterday at midnight, and he's got some second rate actor folks lined up (non-union of course) that are positively Shakespearean! You might have seen some of their work recently, if you've been to the DC area. They're known locally as the "Brat Pack", and although Georgy, Dicky, Donny, & Condi are not exactly Saturday Night Live material, they have been VERY successful, in their own minds ...I mean in their own right, not only nationwide, but they have a HUGE following worldwide. AND.... they are already THE broadcast media darlings, so PR will be a piece of cake! Top 40! #1 with a bullet! Hot! Hot! Hot! .... Although, ....you may want to hire some extra security when they're around the set,.... not just to keep out the hoi-poloi, and those pesky paparazzi (Oh! your a ..."reporter"....really?), but mainly because stuff tends to ....ummm....disappear?... when they're around the set,... even if it's nailed down! (like cameras, petty cash, civil liberties, small countries....). I did have a couple of heavy duty real estate and hedge fund rock star investors lined up to produce, but they kind of flaked out at the last minute for some reason. Now, I've got these Saudi dudes that are hot to maximize a few extra Euros, and as long as we have a few gratuitous beach scenes with say... maybe.... a few nubile California girls, scampering gayly,... well..... you get the picture,... we can get all the money we need. PLUS, we can make a ton o' money on product placement. Forget Coke and GM. We can get some killer shots of Raytheon, Lockeed, Hummer, and other cool boy toys strategically situated throughout the film for maximum impact. We could also realize increased marketing and licensing fees for the action figures (go with Mattel or Colico - not as much lead), soundtrack recordings (Randy Newman, T. Bone Burnett, or Yani?), and on a Nike "signature" casual wear line, at Wal-Mart this holiday season. If we act now (got a 90 day lead time from China normally, and what with the Olympics, floods, earthquakes, food riots, fuel and shipping costs, et al... it might add a few extra days to delivery, impacting our ability to have product on retailer's shelves during the all important pre-holiday season in July/August/September/October/November. I could possibly "expedite" those orders if you just happen to have a few extra Yen, laying around in small demoninations. We can also get some screen writers pretty cheap. This agent guy (what IS that smell?.... sulphur?) said he also knew a few good ole' boys named Karl, Scooter, Scott, and Alberto who are pretty good at manipulating the old luingua franca, and are currently between situations. To be honest, they're not very funny, but again, remember this IS a tragedy, or possibly a black comedy, so it might work out. The basic plot might seem a little similiar to an old novel by some hack named Dante', but my lawyers assure me, it's not a problem, because the guy's a foreigner (not the band, dummy), aaaaand.... he's DEAD! By the way, everyone in this picture, except for the protaganists, dies too, but, unlike in those fakey Tarantino flicks, this is for real, so we don't need no over priced stuntmen, special effects, or CGI either. All we need is just some cheap-ass liability insurance, and a couple of slimeball litigators. We could do it in black and white to further reduce the costs and appeal to the art house crowd, or we could go all out and do it in full color and 3D so the blood and gore comes through with real power, especially during all the battle scenes, and we can then nail down the drive-in, NASCAR crowd (make that 3 orders of chili fries, 4 corn dogs, 2 chicken Nachos with extra cheese and jalapenos - got any breath mints?...and 3 Extra Jumbo Super Freeze, Double Mocha, Blueberry Mango Slurpees). I can probably get a deal on some extras that also have their own props and costumes, because I have a friend, who's brother knows a guy, who's sister-in-law knows somebody, that works at this company called Blackwater, that can probably fill in for the "cast of thousands" when it come to the battle scenes. They'll also come in handy, when we do the final "Apocalypto Now!" scene.... (ready when you are, Mr. deMille!). Production costs would also be pretty low, because we could shoot on location in any number of third world countries like Burma, Indonesia, Darfur, Haiti, Iowa, or New Orleans, for the disaster scenes, for a lot less than the expense of having to build studio sets using union labor (well...immigrant labor). I haven't decided on which ending to use yet....the one with the multiple nuclear detonations, or maybe just the long single tracking shot of an exquisitely shaped mushroom cloud rising over some former metropolis (personally, I prefer Boston, but that's just because the place is lousy with hemp smoking, hemp wearing, grass eating, queers, lesbos, inT-TEL-LEK-CHu-allS, and "elitists",.... and also because the damned Celtics creamed the Lakers again). I suppose we could include several alternate endings on the DVD release (let's do the directors cut in HD-DVD, mostly because I was stupid enough to NOT buy the Blu-Ray player). I once went skiing in Utah, so I might be able to have Bobby get us into Sundance, otherwise, I can just about garauntee us as the feature film at the Pocatella Cinema Extravaganza in mid-January, just in time for the Oscars. It's the premier venue for non-mainstream (and non-Michael Moore) documentaries and films, that emphasize the importance of spiritual influences, family values, and racial purity in movies and television (oops! did I say that out loud?). Disney, GE, and Rupe are vying for distribution rights, if we are amenable to just a few script changes, and the new 9000+ series Mercedes they are willing to throw in for us, has the coolest new personal Super hi-tech LED/HDTV/DVD/Dolby/wide screens for each passenger AND... the driver too. I want mine to be one of those Lee Raymond Limited Edition models in"Arctic White", pimped out with the matching polar bear fur seat covers, gold trim, and lighted curb feelers. I have also secured exclusive rights to all bootleg versions of the movie manufactured in China, or India, including Blu-Ray, DVD, MP3, VCR, 8MM, 8 track, and thirty three and a third. It was quite inexpensive really, because the those government officials typically have a discount for cash payments,.. however, they usually prefer Rubles, in a Versace case (of course), or a wire tranfer to their Grand Cayman account. I'm sorry if my presentation isn't a little more professional, but I got this laptop for fifty bucks from a junkie down at the river where I park my camper and stay with my 3 dogs, 2 cats, boa constrictor (oops, make that one cat) and my son BillyBob who's just back from the war (and just between you and me...he don't seem quite right lately, and then there's them dreams he has,...... and the people down at the VA say that they can't do nuthin'....), and I ain't yet figured out how to download the $10.00 version of MS Office, with the Powerpoint presentations, that I found on the Internets..... (this Starbucks must have small tubes). I think this picture is sure to be a MEGA! MEGA! BOFFO! Box Office Hit! Even hotter than a Jessica Alba movie! I just know you and your associates will be thrilled to embrace this venture, and would be the perfect choice to produce and direct this ...this.... your.... "piece d'resistance!". (I probably shouldn't mention this...but.... Stevie, Jimmie C, and Clint have been all over me about them wanting to make this little item, but,... you, SIR,.... are a true artist, and capable of making this a "True Cinema Classic". (Are you out there listening Ted? cuz, I could really use those royalty checks.)

In the immortal words of the great philosopher and humantiarian, Marx .....(Groucho) "The secret of life is honesty and fair dealing, and if you can fake that, you've got it made."

P.S. I promised my girl friend I'd get her a part, so if there's an opening for a hand maiden, trollop, or piss-girl, could you squeeze her in? (drumroll here)

Have your people call my people, and we'll do lunch. Chow! (sorry, can't resist bad puns)
Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!
Bozodriver

(We're ALL Bozos On This Bus! - thank you, Firesign Theater)