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More on the “War on Terror” lie

An update from Firedoglake, fast becoming my favorite blog.

Ever since Pach launched his broadside against the War on Terror and the cover it has provided for a whole host of executive sins, the comments section on that post has looked like Chickamauga: The Morning After.

Wingnuttia came unglued. …

Jane quotes Kung Fu Monkey on ths subject:

The problem is, these yahoos have managed an ugly trick. They have turned criticism of the policies of Bastards in Suits into criticism of The People in Uniform Getting Shot At. [...] . If the history of modern warfare has taught us anything, it’s that the Bastards in Suits spend an awful lot of time working the kinks out of plans involving The People in Uniform dying unpleasantly. They often screw that up. When they do screw up, it is incumbent upon Bastards in Suits to suffer criticism and fix the situation, as by comparison The People in Uniform are suffering shattered skulls, missing limbs and death. Which is, on my scale, exponentially more traumatic than criticism.

And Digby summarizes for us:

[I]t is long past time for people to start the public counter argument, which has the benefit of appealing to common sense. Many Americans are emerging from the relentless hail of propaganda that overtook the nation after the traumatic events of 9/11. Iraq confused people for a while, but that confusion is leaving in its wake a rather startling clarity: the “war” as the government defines it is bullshit. It will take a while for this common sense to become conventional wisdom, but it certainly won’t happen if nobody is willing to say it out loud.

This WOT insanity must end. We are losing everything to it, everything civil and decent about our culture and society. It is almost too late. Wake the fuck up, people! Open your eyes and step into the light.

There Is No “War on Terror”

Firedoglake – Firedoglake weblog » Memorial Day Truth: There Is No “War on Terror”

Terror is an emotion. Emotions are part of human nature and cannot be eradicated. A “War on Terror” is therefore a war on humanity. The Bush administration has exploited the fear and shock of a nation in the wake of a surprising and dramatic act of violence to whip national fear and paranoia into a constant boil. Why?

The evidence suggests the whole point has been to seize power and steal money. We are witnessing a creeping coup in the United States, the overthrow of the idea, promulgated by our founders and by writers like Tom Paine, that the “Law is King:”

[...]

Bushco has enslaved Americans into a psychological reign of “War on Terror” that amounts to a criminal protection racket. We are told we must be afraid. That is, we are told we must live in terror. This is to protect us from. . . terror. Then, because we feel terrified, we must give up our freedom – freedom to write what we believe without fear of reprisal, freedom of due process and habeas corpus protection, freedom from secret intrusion into our private lives by government.

Today is Memorial Day. Today we remember countless patriots who died and fought for those freedoms our president tells us we must abandon. . . in the name of “freedom.”

A worthwhile read. I agree with Pachacutec. A commenter also provides an illustrative quote from history:

“Of course the people don’t want war. But after all, it’s the leaders of the country who determine the policy, and it’s always a simple matter to drag the people along whether it’s a democracy, a fascist dictatorship, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism, and exposing the country to greater danger.”

— Herman Goering, at the Nuremberg trials

Myself, I am not afraid of terrorists. The numbers game alone, is in my favor; and anyway, they can only kill me — and still they will not achieve their goal. But Bushco and the neocons can make my life unhappy — and we do have a right to pursue happiness, remember — by restricing my freedoms and lessening my safety. Here’s another pertinent quote that should be applied: “Give me liberty or give me death.”

Update: John Avarosis weighs in.

The Shape of Days: Resigned

Wow.

Nothing demonstrates character more than the ability to admit a mistake and apologize. This is a message from a man with a great deal of character:

The Shape of Days: Resigned

I recommend reading back two or three posts as well.

The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time

Amazingly, IE is ONLY number 8 on this list.

AOL is number 1, and deservedly so. Unfortunately, there are still some rural folks who have no other affordable choice but AOL dialup to get online. This is unforgiveable in the “most advanced nation on Earth.”

However, if those folks also use IE, they have no one to blame but themselves. PLEASE people, love yourself enough to get Firefox.The 25 Worst Tech Products of All Time – Yahoo! News

1. America Online (1989-2006)

How do we loathe AOL? Let us count the ways. Since America Online emerged from the belly of a BBS called Quantum “PC-Link” in 1989, users have suffered through awful software, inaccessible dial-up numbers, rapacious marketing, in-your-face advertising, questionable billing practices, inexcusably poor customer service, and enough spam to last a lifetime. And all the while, AOL remained more expensive than its major competitors. This lethal combination earned the world’s biggest ISP the top spot on our list of bottom feeders.

AOL succeeded initially by targeting newbies, using brute-force marketing techniques. In the 90s you couldn’t open a magazine (PC World included) or your mailbox without an AOL disk falling out of it. This carpet-bombing technique yielded big numbers: At its peak, AOL claimed 34 million subscribers worldwide, though it never revealed how many were just using up their free hours.

Once AOL had you in its clutches, escaping was notoriously difficult. Several states sued the service, claiming that it continued to bill customers after they had requested cancellation of their subscriptions. In August 2005, AOL paid a $1.25 million fine to the state of New York and agreed to change its cancellation policies–but the agreement covered only people in New York.

Ultimately the Net itself–which AOL subscribers were finally able to access in 1995– made the service’s shortcomings painfully obvious. Prior to that, though AOL offered plenty of its own online content, it walled off the greater Internet. Once people realized what content was available elsewhere on the Net, they started wondering why they were paying AOL. And as America moved to broadband, many left their sluggish AOL accounts behind. AOL is now busy rebranding itself as a content provider, not an access service.

Though America Online has shown some improvement lately–with better browsers and e-mail tools, fewer obnoxious ads, scads of broadband content, and innovative features such as parental controls–it has never overcome the stigma of being the online service for people who don’t know any better.

[...]

8. Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 (2001)

Full of features, easy to use, and a virtual engraved invitation to hackers and other digital delinquents, Internet Explorer 6.x might be the least secure software on the planet. How insecure? In June 2004, the U.S. Computer Emergency Readiness Team (CERT) took the unusual step of urging PC users to use a browser–any browser–other than IE. Their reason: IE users who visited the wrong Web site could end up infected with the Scob or Download.Ject keylogger, which could be used to steal their passwords and other personal information. Microsoft patched that hole, and the next one, and the one after that, and so on, ad infinitum.

To be fair, its ubiquity paints a big red target on it–less popular apps don’t draw nearly as much fire from hackers and the like. But here’s hoping that Internet Explorer 7 springs fewer leaks than its predecessor.

Happy birthday, CenTex MCC

I started getting the Waco Trib this week (well, the weekend editions anyway) and will try to write about more local issues on this blog. There are not too many lefty blogs in the Heart of Texas, so it’s a necessary public service.

Today there’s an article about the local MCC church, a gay/lesbian friendly denomination that, in conservative towns like Waco, are usually the core of the GLBT community.

I’m not Christian, or even religious, but I appreciate what MCC does for gays and lesbians, giving them a place where they can express their spirituality without shame or guilt, and of course it also provides social activities, resources for community service and even on occasion a political nudge. It’s a black eye on the rest of the Christians that this ghettoization was necessary in the first place, but overall it’s been a good thing for gays and lesbians by changing the focus of the community’s attention, to some extent, from the bar scene (and other even less productive venues).

The Waco church is having a celebratory reception for MCC founder Troy Perry — whom I met in Florida a few years back — even as I type this, and a dinner tonight which I will try to get to.

I do have one small criticism of CenTex MCC, though. They should have named themselves HOT (Heart of Texas, as the greater area around Waco is known) MCC, because that would be a lot more fun than CenTex, which sounds like a type of stretchy fabric or a condom brand. Seriously, it sounds very corporate, not religious. I’m betting the boys in the church have a much better, affectionate, nickname for their church. If I go tonight, maybe I will find out what it is!

Atrios’ media matters book list

Backlash and more…

(Which reminds me, Wendy, would you please return my copy of Backlash? — not that you read this blog, or even know where to send it to now, but just putting it out there.)

Media bias against progressives

Not a new premise, but Jamison Foser calls bullshit on the media, in the wake of the tabloid-style expose this week in the NYT (which led me to unsubscribe to their email alerts and demand my account be scrubbed from their database).

What was new to me was the info on Bush’s questionable stock sale that never got attention when he was running in 2000. Gee, how convenient was that!

Throughout this article is the use of the word “progressive” as an antonym for conservative, a much broader definition than I use, but looking at the Wikipedia entry, perhaps it is I who is wrong. Hillary Clinton is a liberal only because the political landscape leans so far to the right. I consider her, at best, a centrist Democrat. If she is a “progressive” then what is Russ Feingold? What is Cindy Sheehan? What is Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky?

But if the media are going to put candidates’ personal lives on the table, it’s time they do so for all candidates. If common decency and the shame that should accompany behaving like voyeuristic 10th-graders aren’t enough to convince the David Broders and Chris Matthewses and Tim Russerts of the world that the Clintons marriage is none of their damn business — or ours — then basic fairness dictates that they treat Republican candidates the same way. Because the only thing worse than a bunch of reporters peering into bedroom windows of candidates is a bunch of reporters peering into the bedroom windows of only one party’s candidates.

Clerk for judge

The Senate is, as I write this, voting, and likely will confirm, the appointment of a law clerk to the second highest court in the land. Brent Kavanaugh is a Bush idolator who was also an assistant to Ken Starr.

Well if a faux rancher, failed businessman, ex-cokehead, emotional cripple can be president, why can’t this joker be a judge? How much damage can the wrong person in an important job really do?

Okay, he was just confirmed. 37 against, which was better than yesterday, but still nowhere near all the Dems, who again pathetically rolled over for Bush’s dictatorship.

Cindy Sheehan: Mother of a Movement?

Good story in the Nation about Cindy.

Her trajectory to activism is a morality tale she regularly relates, especially during her frequent speeches on college campuses. “What kept me from speaking out in the beginning was the sense that I couldn’t make a difference,” she says, noting that she saw millions of people around the world protesting the war in February 2003. “And George Bush responded by saying, I don’t have to listen to ‘focus groups,’ and marched into Iraq.”

Now she puts her apathy into a larger context. “I think the people in power want you to feel helpless, because if we all find our voice, our power, we really can make a lasting difference in this country,” she says. “I think we have almost two-thirds of Americans opposed to the war today, and these people just need to find their voices.”