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The Gang Rape and the Republicans
Behold, 30 U.S. senators who don't give a damn about battered women
The world's tallest domestic dog? Adorable. The world's biggest newborn baby? Sad and disturbing.
Waterless urinals in every new building in Los Angeles? A positive step. Canada's disgusting oilsands and Coal Country, a new documentary detailing the environmental atrocities in Appalachia? Heart wrenching and depressing.
Jimmy Page showing Jack White and the Edge how to play "When the Levee Breaks" in It Might Get Loud? All flavors of awesome. Garth Brooks coming out of retirement? Anesthetizing.
See, it's all a matter of perspective. It's all a matter of context and spin, into which bin we toss the delightful refuse of our culture to recycle and re-use it another day.
It is with this wonky filter in mind we turn our gaze to the gaping hellmouth that is the U.S. Senate, that drab cauldron of grumpy old men, defeminized women and tiny handful of rebellious dissenters, all of whom claim to have your best interests at heart but mostly only really give a damn about which lobbyist will help them best make their next boat payment.
Do I sound a little bitter? I cannot imagine why. Let us watch the senate and see if we can figure it out.
Look at them shuffle and sneer, hem and haw! Watch as they willingly eat their own souls with a ice pick and some turpentine, then step up to the media microphones and try to sound ennobled and magnanimous when in fact they only make everyone within earshot feel lost and fatalistic. So cute.
It's the same old spectacle, isn't it? There they go, tossing around the health care reform issue like it didn't affect millions of humans every single day, throwing in massive compromises and snags just so the GOP can fellate its pals in the insurance industry and a gaggle of aggrieved Democrats can get their egos fluffed and you still won't be able to get a decent dental plan for your family.
But now, just for fun, let's take it a step further. Or rather, darker. Let's go ahead and step right onto one of those large, rusty nails sticking up from the senate floor, so painful as to make your stomach turn, a bit of your lunch jump back into your throat.
It's a story from the dark political underbelly that makes you question the entire setup, rethink humanity, and lean out your window and scream: what the hell is wrong with these people? Who are they, really? Why do we give them power?
Here is freshman Minnesota senator Al Franken's first-ever legislative action, a relatively simple, almost laughably surefire bill requiring the Pentagon no longer do business with any contractor -- hi, Halliburton! -- that requires its employees to agree that she cannot sue said contractor if she is, oh let's just say, gang raped by its employees.
You read that right. It's a can't-sue-us-if-you're-raped clause. In a U.S. government contract. Aimed squarely at Halliburton. Thanks, Dick Cheney!
First, you are required get over your initial disgust that such legislation is even necessary, that such clauses even exist and that the Pentagon is already doing business with such contractors (hi, Halliburton/KBR!), and that there has already been a truly horrible case validating it, wherein a 20-year-old female employee was allegedly gang-raped by contractors, locked in a shipping container, abused every way from Sunday, and found out later she was unable to sue.
Let us pause to imagine if, say, Wal-Mart had such a clause. Or maybe Toys 'R' Us. Starbucks. Let us imagine the appalled outcry. But Halliburton? Dick Cheney's vile little spitwad of shameless war profiteering? No problem. Hey, it's Republican-endorsed military contracting. No one said it was ethical.
But that's not most the repellant part. Ready?
The most repellant part is the 30 U.S. senators -- Republicans each and every one -- who just stepped forth to vote against the Franken amendment, essentially saying no, women should have no right to sue if they are sexually abused or gang raped, Halliburton and its ilk must be protected at all costs, and by the way we hereby welcome Satan into our rancid souls forevermore. God bless America.
Let us repeat, for clarity. Franken's amendment passed with a vote of 68-30. Meaning 30 U.S. senators voted against the elimination of the rape/sue clause. Meghan McCain, call your dad. He's one of them.
Here is where you try and do it. Here is where you bring in the filter mentioned above, try to figure out where to slot such wretched information, how to make even the slightest sense of it.
And then you discover a horrible truth: you can't. Turns out, when faced with such vileness, all filters fail. All balance is thrown off. You thought you had some sort of way to process and attain perspective? You are proven wrong.
So perhaps all we can do is ponder how pathetic and sad these various senator's lives must be, how these bitter old men will now go home at night and announce around the dinner table that, yes, today they worked very hard to help improve the welfare of the nation by essentially enabling rape and sexual abuse, tried their darndest to prevent women who've been viciously attacked from having much legal recourse. And lo, Satan will chuckle happily.
Then maybe these senators will try and hug their wives, or their daughters. And maybe, if there's any justice in the universe, their wives and daughters will slap them as hard as humanly possible, lock them in a shipping container, and never let them touch them again.
P.S.; Would you like a complete list of these 30 senators' names? Right here.
Why look, there's grandpa McCain. There's disgraced man-child John Ensign. Hooker-lovin' David Vitter. Saxby Chambliss. Inhofe. It's a veritable welfare-state who's who of Dick Cheney's sanctum of oily fluffers, and many more who would love to be. Shall we write a nice letter to them? Or maybe their wives and daughters?
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50 Comments so far
Show AllThe Rape-ublicans are only looking out for their own interests! Give 'em a break! http://www.republicanoffenders.com/ Welcome to AmeriKKKa!!!
I wonder whether we can now start calling them the "Rape-ublicans" or a shortened version such as "Rapelicans"?
The Repub scum are different from the dems, even worse. I honestly don't know why CD cannot handle that notion. Is a serial killer a greater evil than a serial rapist?
We can philosophize, but every rape victim pleads for their life-the loss of which is a GREATER EVIL.
As elections draw close, it'd be nice to hear some cogent thoughts-not get fellated one mo time with people whining about lesser evils b4 and after the elections. that is just having sex w/ one's self-it might feel good, but ONLY touches your SELF. forjoyforjoy
thanks MM for another witty look at our realities
"oily fluffers" Magnifico !
Repugs/U.S. Chamber of Commerce types won't sign off on any bill that allows companies to be sued. Instead, the aggrieved party at most gets a right to submit to "binding arbitration." How'd you like to arbitrate with the people who raped you? Or with the company that employs the rapists and wants you to just go away? This is "tort reform," taken to its logical (illogical) end.
I want to credit either Olbermann or Madow or Stewart for this observation, and can't remember which. But the irony beyond irony is that the same senators who claimed we shouldn't regulate private contracts (which are in fact government contracts, but that was indeed their rationalization for allowing rape); those very same senators were the ones who successfully destroyed all the government contracts with ACORN because they allowed a hypothetical, instead of a real, evil, to occur.
Republicans are the evil of the Earth. Everything they do is right. Everything one that tries to hold the scumbags accountable is wrong. Even the low lifes on the Sorpreme nazi court agrees with them.The Surpreme court does not go by the law, they suck up to the azzhole that put them there.
They are so vile. Did you see where Rush Limbahhhh blamed his not getting a piece of the Rams on the "liberals?" Sheesh, the teams are owned by rightwingnuts and even they won't touch him with a ten foot pole. He went so far as to say the nation is declining because HE couldn't buy into an NFL team. Me, me, me. The blovating piece of dog shit thinks the world revolves around him. Sorry motherfu&kers.
This article is--outside of Olbermann, of course--one of the most bile-fueled, angry, no-punches-pulled spew of abhoration against members of the US Congress I have read in a very long time.
In the words of Oliver Twist, "more please, sir?"
Surely someone out there's gotta have the chops to deliver this kind of smack-down to legislators on other issues, right? RIGHT??
--------------------------------------------------------
If you don't ask yourself why, you know nothing.
The main reason as to why the 30 Rape-publicans voted against the bill was of the section over-turning one of corporate America's favorite "cost control" devices: contracts with binding arbitration clauses.
Binding arbitration has become a favorite weapon in the corporate arsenal to protect corporate managers & the companies themselves from the consequences of their actions. These binding arbitration hearings are totally private, can not be appealed to any court, and heavily weighed in favor of the companies, whom pay the arbitrators fees. It has proven to be a successful way of avoiding the costs & risks that comes with actual court cases (one of the betes noires of corporations are trial lawyers).
Senator Al Franken was very clever to force this issue into the public realm (including this site, which had not covered it all that much) by legislating against it's most repugnant manifestation, Haliburton.
Hopefully, this piece of legislation is the beginning of the push back against the extreme privatization of the government undertaken by Dubya, Cheney, & Co., because as the Haliburton employment contracts with binding arbitration clauses demonstrate; government work may suck, but doing the same under the aegis of a private corporation is worse.
Legalizing gang-rape in the US themselves comes next, I guess. I wonder which politician will have the balls to introduce this bill? And I wonder what it must be like to be female, related to such a, probably church-going, 'human being' and having this creature around without giving in to the urge to neuter it with a very blunt knife.
Something nobody has ever explained to me: why all the time and taxpayer money wasted on investigations of pre-presidential Clinton scandals (such as "Whitewater"). Immediately thereafter Dick Cheney anointed himself the vice-presidential candidate. Once in office, coming directly from Halliburton, his former company was awarded any number of no-bid contracts. Yes, there was mention of this in the media, but outrage--not much.
Myopic paranoid projection. The rightwingers keep their eyes fixed on their opponents who they claim are "out to get them", so they can avoid looking in the mirror to address their fear of themselves.
This is one of the best, hardest hitting articles I've read in a long time. Where are more?
Anyone know if this vote and the list of immoral criminals made the corporate media in any form?
I can't imagine re-election for these low-life's or the Baucus crowd but, hey, I've always been a dreamer; look at my user I.D.
Technically - JS from Wed's TDS:
http://tinyurl.com/yjwu778
One of the best, hardest hitting articles ? geeezzzz....It is a lie.
The bill had absolutely nothing to do with the young lady who may have been raped. It does absolutely nothing for her. Her case is in the legal system and will take years to resolve. She is in the legal system because she does not want to be bound by the binding arbitration clause in her contract. Franken's bill had nothing to do with her case. It is about future contracts with the government. The author thinks you are too stupid to google this story to get the truth. He is, unfortunately, correct
"First, you are required get over your initial disgust that such legislation is even necessary..."
Won't. Can't.
The whole world still admires us more than any other country, do they? Well, just how f@#ked up IS the situation in all those other countries?
US Americans always need a measuring stick for morons to tell us how we are stacking up against other countries. Ask any psychologist and they will tell you without fear: America and Americans are violent people. Got That. WE ARE VIOLENT!!!
We manufacture our violence abroad and here on our own turf.
These Senators who voted against this bill are proof postive they have no common sense left in their old-timers brains. The Violent Corporate Military Industrial Complex Fear Machine rules, and that's the name of that tune.
I think a major reason those 30 Republian voted against Franken's bill was just to be against ANY Franken bill. Just like they want Obama to fail at everything, just so they can say "Look, he failed!" So what if it is vile, costs money, lives, honor, whatever. What matters to the Rs is that the Ds lose.
After all, that's really the extent of what they have to offer these days isn't it? Less than nothing, unless you are in the top 1%.
They are cutting off their noses to spite their faces. I hope their opponents remind women voters of this bill in their next re-election bids. Also remind the fathers, grandfathers, brothers, uncles and sons of women.
Of course . . . Republicans wouldn't be protecting corporate contractors like
Blackwater or Halliburton, KBR ... would they?
Especially when Blackwater has sunk so low they've changed their name --
and are under investigation for murder?
These are all GOP crony-corporations - military Treasury busters - fiends living
off perpetual war.
.
"According to all myth, the female - not the male -- gives life"
Great Article! The Cream of the Crop. The best America has to offer. Makes one proud to be an American. Ever listen to chatter at a kindergarten sand box? Sort of goes something like this..."We are not gonna play nice and you can't make us!" Grown, bitter, old men reverting to juvenile behavior. Group Alzheimers? Or maybe collective jealousy? Whatever, they are thirty of the most pathetic old farts on the planet, an embarrasment to the nation. Makes you wonder if Tom DeLay is still hammering, even from the dancefloor.
"Makes you wonder if Tom DeLay is still hammering, even from the dancefloor."
Hey!!! Maybe prayer does work. Mr. DeLay wound up with stress fractures. Remember?
I'm just a ferriner so help me here.
1 The crime was committed in another legal jurisdiction. Why isn't it being prosecuted there?
2 How is possible for a civil contract to negate legal rights under criminal law?
3 Aren't crimes always prosecuted by the state, why is this even a civil matter?
4 Does it now mean that legal recourse from other crimes,like murder and kidnap, can now be signed away?
1>Under Paul Bremers authority the US made US Contracters immune to prosecutions by the Iraqi Government.
2>Under the Current Iraqi Government , dominated by Shiite Fundamentalists the Victim of the gang rape would likely have been declared the guilty party and a stoning of her ordered.
The USA "liberated" them you see.
Congratulations on not being a Murican.
Well i'm not a lawyer but...
1) The USA has insisted that US people in these wars (Afghanistan, Iraq, etc) are immune from prosecution under the laws of these countries. i do not know the current status of "legal" agreements between the countries, and i know there has been uproar in Iraq over the supposed non-prosecutability of US contractors who commit crimes. i believe some efforts have been made to prosecute contractors for crimes committed on the job in Iraq, don't have details in the front of my brain but could Google it. Obviously the ENTIRE CONCEPT of a legitimate "contract" between an invading occupier and the occupied country is absurd...
2) It SHOULD be unconstitutional to contract away your rights - the US Constitution has a provision that states that no one can sign away their constitutional rights - but practically, we sign away our rights in "legal" contracts all the time.
One example is the extremely common "plea-bargain" in which the accused agrees to not pursue their right to a trial, in exchange for promises by the prosecution to bring certain specific (often reduced) charges, and an understanding with the Judge that a particular sentence will be given. i think they finesse the constitutional ban on signing away constitutional rights by framing the plea-bargain as NOT a binding contract, and i believe there are instances in which the Judge does not abide by the agreement, and there is nothing the other parties can do about it.
The practice of a powerful corporation insisting that a puny individual must sign away certain rights in order to contract with the corporation is very common, in all kinds of ways, from trivial to extremely important. For example, any credit card or telephone contract inevitably contains clauses allowing the corporation to unilaterally change the terms of the contract in the future, but granting no such right to the individual.
Once, in the dentist's chair, i was asked to sign a form releasing the dentist from liability if i died or went into seizure or coma during a tooth extraction. i signed, and i did not die.
At my place of work, we have a standard form for members who participate in our events, releasing our business from liability if anything should happen.
i think that the concept of "negligence" or of purposeful bad intent would negate these liability waivers - if my dentist purposely injured me, the waiver would not protect him from me suing.
One more illustration - my co-worker at a conference recently asked me if he could plug his I-phone into my computer to charge it. i said OK. When we plugged it in, his phone brought up a screen on my computer which asked me to sign a waiver which (when i read it) would have allowed the Apple corporation to remotely access my computer files without telling me. i clicked "no", and his phone charged just fine, but i assume many people, when connecting a phone to a computer, or doing all kinds of other electronic connections, downloads, etc, just reflexively click "OK" without actually reading or thinking about the "contract" they are signing.
3) These are civil liability waivers, and do NOT eliminate criminal prosecution, only civil lawsuits. Participants in a gang rape should still be up for criminal charges. It seems stunning that it would be considered "legal" to sign away your right to file civil claims for gang-rape by coworkers. i can't believe i am writing these sentences. But our culture is SO degraded by subservience to corporate power (see above about myriad ways we "sign away" our "rights") that i am not really surprised a corporation - especially a particularly evil military contractor like Halliburton - would be so crass as to dare such an outrage, or that "we the people" would typically either not even read the contract we are supposedly agreeing to, or if we did read it would still sign it, not being able to imagine living any differently than subservient to corporations. The article refers to workers who were unaware that they had "signed away" their civil rights.
4) Well i do not doubt that corporations will happily continue to bend society to fit the needs of their own power. The entire construct of "the corporation" is purposefully designed as a protection from liability for the persons who would otherwise be criminally liable for the acts of the business they operate. They will push their dominance and lack of accountability absolutely as far as we let them. Things are (obviously) gone very far already.
We really need to dethrone corporations from rule in our entire culture, not just in the USA but on Earth. We need a global revolution AGAINST corporate power.
That's a big task, that requires consciousness of what we are up against, what is wrong with the present structure of the economy and society, and a widely shared willingness to work together across differences, to build structures of accountability and democracy into our economic system. We have a long way to go.
True.
Both of the previous are good comments.
As for the article, the sarcastic tone does not work for me. Here's what I wonder. Was there other, legitimately objectionable legislation attached to the anti-rape stuff? Was Franken or someone else trying to push other legislation through under the cover of the anti-rape premise, thereby tarring anyone who voted against it? It sounds too incredible that legislators, even Republicans, would be pro-rape. Because of its tone and shallowness I don't trust this article, but I will check out the legisation for myself and amend this comment.
"Why do we give them power?"
Because they dispense our opiates. What we need to do is start a nonviolent Third Opium War. The Opium Wars were all about the British addicting the Chinese to British supplied opium. Same thing is going on in the "good ol USA" today. Can we muster up the discipline to take our country back from elites like the Chinese took their country back from the British?
Also why should San Francisco residents be mad about this stuff when they voted Pelosi, guardian of the status quo, in for another term when they could have elected a true progressive, Cindy Sheehan? I think San Francisans like to ride the gravy train while cursing the driver.
Right wingnut Rape-publicans hate Morford with incredible venom. That is how I know he is exposing the truth. His regular column for the SF Chronicle is revered by the open minded but reviled by the closed minded (Rape-publicans).
These 30 senators represent evil incarnate and I don't believe in hyperbole. They are examples of wretched, degraded humanity. Thye are purveyors of Republican right wing values of venality, greed and perversity of all kinds. What bothers me the most about them though is that they believe American culture has fallen so low and is so depraved that this vote of theirs will be laughed off and forgotten by tomorrow. It is our responsibilty to make sure that doesn't happen!
Okay, but what is a defeminized woman?
A defeminized woman is a woman in full military regalia trained to kill on command!
Well the republican party now has a new name "The Repugnance Party". What these individuals did was just plain disgusting. But they have no shame. Remember them the next time you vote people. Picture your daughter, niece, godchild, or friend suffering such abuse while they stand on the steps of the capitol, dressed in their $2000 suits, puffing up their chests, spouting basically what we all know is bullshit, to justify their actions.
Gang rape is wrong as is any kind of rape. Thank you Al Franken and thank you Mark Morford for bringing this to our attention. Thank you senators who voted yes. Those of you who voted no I ask do you have sisters, mothers, grandmothers, aunts? Is it okay with you that they get gang raped with no redress?
Amendment I to The Constitution of The United States:
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free excercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or right of the people peacably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of greavance."
Maybe I, as a naturalized American, do not understand the last clause correctly: isn't it unconstitutional, under any circumstances, to deny citizen's right to "petition the Government"? Didn't Republican Senators vote against the Constitution and shouldn't they be sued for undermining it in the name of protecting corporate interests?
There is a serene symbolic in this affair: America, you are being raped by corporate/political cabal and you are denied the right to complain about it.
Relax and enjoy the best democracy money can buy!
Does this law cover the gang rape of Iraq and AfPak?
I keep hearing that the Democrats had better watch out, or they will face defeat at the polls. Its hard to believe that Americans are so ignorant that they would vote the Republicans back into power, after the catastrophic crimes of the past eight years of Bush and co. No matter how poorly the Democrats do, they will always do better than the Republicans. Anyone who would vote for the Republicans of today, is either filthy rich or very stupid. (Emerson said that we live in an insane asylum, but we don't know this because the grounds of it are so large.)
Of course,the author's account is a complete misrepresentation of the amendment, but I understand that is how the liberals present their arguments-- pretend that Republicans are in favor of things like rape.
Here is the truth of this matter:
The young lady alleges she was raped. I am not making any argument as to whether she was or was not, since I do not know the facts. (Not having all the facts does not stop liberals, but it does slow down the rest of us).
She had an employment contract with Haliburton which required her to submit to binding arbitration instead of suing in court. Many companies have such contracts.
The reason that 30 Republicans voted against Franken's amendment is that the amendment is written to end the bar on legal action by prohibiting government contracts to companies who insist on arbitration.
The Republicans are opposed to the government dictating the terms of legal employment contracts. It is an ideological argument-- once again about whether government should be telling everybody how to run every aspect of their life.
Presenting this matter as though Republicans are in favor of rape is a lie.
I hear you. This article represents us liberals like Glenn Beck represents you conservatives. Not well. Demonizing your opponent works well in war, but not in civil society.
Peace
Thank you for an intelligent and thoughtful response. I was just about to give up hope for this site.
I read articles and columns by liberals all day. Some are very impressive, and I greatly appreciate hearing both sides of an issue presented fairly, without distortions or lies by ommission.
The responses (prior to yours) were insane rants. The article is a lie by ommission. The author did not respect the intelligence of his reading audience enough to tell the truth of the situation. If he had, he could have then made his case as to why the Republicans were wrong in their vote. I would appreciate that viewpoint. Instead, it was presented in a dishonest manner, just to take a cheap shot at Republicans. I don't like it when Hannity does it to Democrats, and I don't like it when a liberal does it.
Thanks again for your decent reply.
That's right.
They aren't actually in FAVOR of rape.
They just think it's DANDY that corporations can impose restrictions on your civil rights.
Oh, i know - that contract is a FAIR CONTRACT between EQUAL PARTIES. Both submit "voluntarily" to the terms. i mean, what worker in their right mind WOULDN'T sign away their civil rights in a contract with a BENEVOLENT corporation? It's for the good of all!
Heck, i bet if a prospective employee of the corporation asked to negotiate different terms, or write in some terms of their own, more favorable to the worker, why that good-hearted corporation would negotiate in good faith with that worker!
"The Republicans are opposed to the government dictating the terms of legal employment contracts."
In the first place, FALSE. The Republicans are HAPPY for the government to dictate THESE terms. Contract law could entirely legitimately be constructed differently. THE CURRENT CONSTRUCT IS A CONSTRUCT, it is not some "natural" phenomenon the those dastardly Liberals are trying to pollute.
By your own argument, the government and Halliburton are both "free parties" to their contract, and if Halliburton is not happy with certain provisions they are FREE not to sign.
Anyway, what babble is "The Republicans are opposed to the government dictating the terms of legal employment contracts." Are you saying that the government does not have any business considering what provisions are or are not agreed to in contracts the government signs? Who negotiates contracts between the government and Halliburton? The government "has no business" insisting on certain provisions of these contracts? The government cannot demand any standards of treatment of workers by contractors? The government is ENTIRELY FREE to insist on such provisions in contracts it agrees to sign with corporate contractors.
Your "logic" is not. It is "ideologic".
Do all of you liberal fools just rant and talk in circles ? I am trying to decipher this response you wrote, but it is jibberish. Nonsensical. What the hell are you talking about ? Are you stoned ?
Did you write this in some other language and then use translation software to put it in English ? Honestly, take a remedial writing course or two.
You are pretty bright yourself. Thanks for your contributions.
Since you do not reference any specific thing i wrote that is supposedly so difficult to comprehend, but just rave unintelligibly, i take your nonsense as nonsense.
Want to give a specific citation of my "jibberish" (sic)? So i can explain it to you? It's not very complex, i'm sure with some support you can grow to understand it.
Yeah, if Cheney's Halliburton employees want to rape women, who is guvmint to tell them they can't, especially offshore. Why, that would be guvmint telling everybody how to run every aspect of their life! And if Halliburton wants to defend the USA by locating in Dubai, and extorting the hell out of the American people via war profiteering, and letting their employees rape and be raped, well, why should the damn guvmint be telling them how to run their bizness? And of course an 'employment contract' is so much more sacred than life itself.
But by the way, there is no 'pretending'- Republicans ARE in favor of rape; rape of women, of government, of countries, of the environment, of the working class, of the entire planet -NO LIE. Nomolies just does not want people to know this, to keep people confused, thinking they must be 'fair and balanced'... hey, Nomolies, are you Frank Luntz?
Nomolies, you of course, know 'the truth' of the matter and obviously you of course just "KNOW that is how 'the liberals' present their arguments"... unlike the logical and correct arguments presented by those kindly old flag-waving models of politeness and togetherness, the conservative right-wingers.
Given Nomolies riposte here, however, Nomolies seems to be a lying no-good corpo-fascist stooge, a right-wing troll. Of course, for Nomolies, the wonderful corporations can do no wrong, and it is the 'liberals' who are at fault, as the liberals are what is wrong with America. Nomolies hates liberals so - for, as you know, they are so unlike "the rest of us (Nomolies and the Real Americans)". Sadly for you, Nomolies, YOUR not having all the facts will definitely not stop them damned liberals.
No, the Republicans have shown everyone over the past decades of wrecking this country, and its government, that they are not to be trusted ON ANYTHING and are sure bets to be vile and wrong about any issue. And to appease Republicans, and show them any sympathy about how they are now so 'misunderstood' and want to cooperate, is to wind up like Obama- trying to please, placate, and get along with Assholes that will continue to shit all over the place until they are corked.
It is now evident that we will have to improve the planet WITHOUT ANY help from Republicans; nay, we will have to do this OVER their corrupt prostituted bodies blocking the way forward. So NO MORE understanding until ALL the guvmint-hating, bullshit-tossing, corpo-fascist Repbublicans now in Congress are gone, baby, gone.
Wow. This is just a stupid rant. There is nothing more to say
Brilliant argumentation.
Where are Valerie Solanas and SCUM (Society for Cutting Up Men) when you need them?
Actually we should reconstitute that revered body as SCUBORWA (Society for Cutting Bits Off Right-Wing Arseholes).
I refer the forum to this in an article by Colonel Ann Wright, a retired US army reserve officer and former diplomat (http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/04/28/8564/ ) — the story of Private Lavena Johnson, who was found dead in her tent in Iraq in 2005. Her parents eventually extracted from the investigative record a CD of photographs which
"… revealed that Lavena, a small woman, barely 5 feet tall and weighing less than 100 pounds, had been struck in the face with a blunt instrument, perhaps a weapon stock. Her nose was broken and her teeth knocked backwards. One elbow was distended. The back of her clothes had debris on them indicating she had been dragged from one location to another. The photographs of her disrobed body showed bruises, scratch marks and teeth imprints on the upper part of her body. The right side of her back as well as her right hand had been burned apparently from a flammable liquid poured on her and then lighted. The photographs of her genital area revealed massive bruising and lacerations. A corrosive liquid had been poured into her genital area, probably to destroy DNA evidence of sexual assault.
Despite the bruises, scratches, teeth imprints and burns on her body, Lavena was found completely dressed in the burning tent. There was a blood trail from outside a contractor’s tent to inside the tent. She apparently had been dressed after the attack and her attacker placed her body into the tent and set it on fire,"
Private Johnson’s death was classified as “suicide”!!!
And for the fellow non-'Mer'kan who asked about prosecution, the situation is that the US government 'negotiates with' - read 'forces upon'- those countries upon whose territories it decides to plonk its bases what are called Status of Forces' Agreements (SOFAs), which indemnify US personnel from prosecution by local authorities. Only US personnel are to try US personnel, which of course makes it easy to spirit the culprits out of the country - this is one of the perks of being 'the World's Only Remaining Superpower (TM). See "Good Reasons to Liquidate Our Empire — And Ten Steps to Take to Do So" by Chalmers Johnson in TomDispatch, 30 June 2009.
Thanks for your post - hard to read - and thanks for referencing Col. Wright's work. She is a genuine hero, resigning her position to resist the Bush wars, and since then working tirelessly to disclose the crimes against women that are horrifically standard practice in the US military.
Got this in e-mail:
"I checked to make sure that the 30 Republican Senators who voted against Jamie Leigh Jones' anti-rape bill two weeks ago had wives and daughters. Most of them did. But their love for defense contractor PAC money is obviously greater than their love even for their own daughters. The Senate bill was simple to follow: if a contractor like KBR has an employee who is sexually assaulted on the job, that employee has a right to have a jury hear and decide the facts of the case. If the contractor denies the victim that right, then the U.S. government won't do business with that contractor. In 2005, Jones, a KBR employee, was gang-raped in Iraq by KBR workers. After she was gang-raped, KBR security held her prisoner inside a 5' x 6' shipping container to make sure she kept her mouth shut."
http://airamerica.com/ringoffire/blog/10-30-2009/ringoffire1030/