(The desecration of Martin Luther King--especially around the time that his birthday is celebrated--is one of my major objects of antipathy and scorn. I'll have more to say myself on Monday. This gift just fell into my lap. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
According to the Pentagon's lawyer, Martin Luther King Jr., if alive today, would view the US war on Afghanistan as both the act of a Good Samaritan and as necessary self-defense.
Jeh C. Johnson, the "Defense" Department's general counsel, said, on the one hand:
"I believe that if Dr. King were alive today, he would recognize that we live in a complicated world, and that our nation's military should not and cannot lay down its arms and leave the American people vulnerable to terrorist attack."
On the other hand, he also said this:
"I draw the [Good Samaritan] parallel to our own servicemen and women deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, away from the comfort of conventional jobs, their families and their homes. [They] have made the conscious decision to travel a dangerous road and personally stop and administer aid to those who want peace, freedom and a better place in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and in defense of the American people. Every day, our servicemen and women practice the dangerousness -- the dangerous unselfishness Dr. King preached on April 3, 1968."
Now, when President Barack Obama in 2009 gave a Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech, he had the decency to admit that he was disagreeing fundamentally with King's position:
"There will be times when nations -- acting individually or in concert -- will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified. I make this statement mindful of what Martin Luther King Jr. said in this same ceremony years ago: 'Violence never brings permanent peace. It solves no social problem: it merely creates new and more complicated ones.'...But as a head of state sworn to protect and defend my nation, I cannot be guided by [King's and Gandhi's] examples alone."
To understand just how bad the 112th Congress, elected on November 2nd and taking office on January 3rd, is likely to be for peace on Earth, one has to understand how incredibly awful the 110th and 111th Congresses have been during the past four years and then measure the ways in which things are likely to become even worse.
And have you noticed that even when they are "in Session" they throw away most of Monday and Friday with traveling? And have you noticed that from Tuesday to Thursday Senators are rarely on the floor, so they are spending more time having Quorum Calls than they are debating?
Have you noticed that when they are debating neither side ever seems to be actually "debating" with the other side... like they don't respond to each others' comments and queries? And have you noticed that even when they do comment on a question from the other side they never really provide an accurate answer?
ACORN is shutting down because of a fraudulent video pimped by the corporate media. U.S. forces in Afghanistan have heroically laid seige to and conquered a fictional city, helping build the case for further escalation. A cable news channel has created a right-wing mass movement by pretending it already existed. Congressman Dennis Kucinich voted for a health insurance bill he believed would deprive more people of healthcare (and wealth and homes), because fraudulent reports had convinced his constituents of the opposite. The peace movement was defunded in November 2008, because of a fraudulent presidential election campaign. 71% of Americans believe Iran has nuclear weapons. 41% of Americans think the quality of the environment is improving. Has the power of the corporate media to overwhelm all before it begun to sink in yet?
My voice is getting hoarse from yelling at the television today when the Republicans debating the Health Care BHill make statements which are patently untrue. The primary statement is one Boehner and his biddies keep making, that the majority of Americans have come out against this bill.
Now where is it that this has been shown, John? The various polls for weeks have shown the majority of Americans for this reform. Especially, they have shown a strong favor of the Public Option, something you keep saying all Americans are against.
Obama joined the leaders of Britain and France in accusing the Islamic republic of clandestinely building an underground plant to make nuclear fuel that could be used to build an atomic bomb. Iranian officials acknowledged the facility but insisted it had been reported to nuclear authorities as required.
Obama should try reading intelligence reports, like 2007's National Intelligence Estimate (the combined consensus report by all sixteen known U.S. intelligence agencies), which stated quite clearly that there is no concrete evidence of a weapons program in Iran. In July and August of this year, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) confirmed the lack of evidence although it refuses to state anything definitively. Yet still Obama, the D.C. political establishment, and the corporate media continue to lie to the contrary.
We've already been lied into one failed war, lied into ramping up another failed war, are so hurting for fresh soldiers that the Pentagon is now actively accepting white supremacists, yet still the establishment seeks to lie us into another conflict. And some people have wondered why my signature now has an image of Obama and Bush morphed into one unholy beast. Now you know.
Sarah Palin Resigns In A Mega-Blizzard of Lies--Revealing A Crucial Difference Between Libertarians and Liberals
It was a slow newsday, Friday before a holiday, so why shouldn't Sarah Palin suck up all the oxygen in five continents? If only that stupid Michael Jackson fellah hadn't died the week before, she could have totally pulled it off. As it was, she did pretty damn well for a couple of hours there. Her big secret? Same as it ever was: she lied. Seven ways from Sunday. She lied about being cleared in all the Alaska investigations; she lied about their cost; she lied about wanting to serve the people of Alaska; she lied about fulfilling her goals; she lied about people attacking her son Trig; she lied about being like a point guard; she lied when she said "and" and "the". She spoke, therefore she lied.
Why does Sarah Palin lie? She lies to get out of trouble; she lies to shift blame; she lies to get even; she lies to get ahead; she lies to hurt her enemies; she lies to amuse her friends; she lies to relieve boredom; she lies to have some fun; she lies because truth is bother; she lies as a key to strategy; she lies because she has no plan; she lies to confuse anyone trying to keep track; she lies to make sense to those not keeping track; she lies for power; she lies because lying works for her; she lies just for the hell of it; she lies because she can; she lies because that's how she expresses her freedom--a very libertarian idea of freedom, I might well add.
Liberals and libertarians are both about freedom, but their concepts of freedom are radically different, and Sarah Palin's compulsive, multipurpose lying is as a good a way as any to approach understanding the differences between them.
In sharp contrast, liberals characteristically express their freedom by telling the truth, inconvenient truths, as Al Gore put it. Truths about racism and war, such as Martin Luther King told, when speaking truth to power. Truths about the social order and tradition that are not supposed to be said.
In May 2005 we launched AfterDowningStreet.org to publicize the Downing Street Minutes. By June we'd had great, if fleeting, success. During the following months and years, mountains of new memos and statements emerged on the Iraq War lies, many of them more damaging than the Downing Street documents. But increasingly nobody cared, because evidence of crimes was less interesting once Congress had dropped the pretense that it might take action. The single most powerful, and yet largely ignored, document yet to emerge, might, now in 2009, finally, produce results. And, of course, it is our friends over in England who are, as always, two steps ahead of us.
The LA Times ran an article today that revealed a memo sent to the Bush cabinet members and higher-level staff entitled "Speech Topper on the Bush Record." The two-pager included items that he President expected to be pushed in public summing up the last eight years of his administration and claiming a variety of successes and triumphs that Bush wants to be remembered by.
Anonymous Liberal, who some of you may remember from his occasional pinch hits for Glennzilla, makes a point worth highlighting, The Media's Moment of Truth:
This election is a test of the political media in this country. If journalists can't find a way to dissuade the use of flagrant dishonesty as a tactic, they will have failed this country miserably.
Why are outright false ads even allowed to be aired? Even after they are debunked as false, they continue to air, the longer the run, the more (in both quality and quantity) voters at large become convinced it is fact.
I take it to mean that they are telling LIES. In an interview with Keith Olbermann he said:
"For them to run an ad that doesn't basically present an accurate record of their positions on issues. I think, should raise some issues on how they would run an administration," said Obama, referring to the ad where the claim is made that Palin was behind canceling Bridge To Nowhere funding.
So the McCain campaign has been lying with near impunity. Josh wonders:
The McCain campaign's ability to frame their message around a series of demonstrable lies is only possible because most of the press takes an agnostic position on whether his messages and ads are true or not. But if the press won't, don't we need to stop relying on the mainstream press to make that point?
ST. PAUL - Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska introduced herself to America before a roaring crowd at the Republican National Convention on Wednesday night as "just your average hockey mom" who was as qualified as the Democratic nominee, Senator Barack Obama, to be president of the United States.
Ms. Palin's appearance electrified a convention that has been consumed by questions of whether she was up to the job, as she launched slashing attacks on Mr. Obama's claims of experience.
"Before I became governor of the great state of Alaska, I was mayor of my hometown," Ms. Palin told the delegates in a speech that sought to eviscerate Mr. Obama, as delegates waved signs that said "I love hockey moms." "And since our opponents in this presidential election seem to look down on that experience, let me explain to them what the job involves. I guess a small-town mayor is sort of like a 'community organizer,' except that you have actual responsibilities."
STATE BLOGS
