Late Summer and the Collapse of the Neocon Illusion

July 16, 2006

  • Whither the Home of the Brave? The U.S.-Israel axis of aggression is quite symmetrical in some ways. The aberrant leadership of both countries like to play the child's game of "If someone attacks me, I'll attack someone else." So Lebanese civilians and internationals are taking the brunt of Israel's mad lashing out at Hezbollah by attacking civilians in Lebanon. How do they think this will ultimately help their cause? Are they really concerned with their survival, or have they gotten so wrapped up in the cycles of violence they see the violence itself as the goal and not the objective it was originally intended to produce, which is some sort of security.

    How absurdly short sighted is it to attack people who have done nothing to you when you have real threats to deal with? What is the point of unleashing all this military destructiveness which will arouse deep and wide hatreds against you that will not be quickly forgotten, and certainly not extinguished? Do these power elites in Washington and Israel really think their military might is strong enough to make unnecessary to have allies? Do they really believe they can trample the world? It sounds like a very naive world view fitting for a spoiled rich kid from Texas who had the means to travel the world and barely ever bothered leaving the country his whole life.

    Both the U.S. and Israel are fear-based countries, in different ways and for different reasons. In the U.S. tyrannically inclined leaders have found it easy to arouse fear in a population under the sway of a materialistic, capitalist culture that offers little security, either physical or spiritual security. For Israel it is the deep terror engendered by the holocaust on top of a history of persecution before that. All this aggression from both countries is fear-based. The Bush cabal has gleefully used the latent fear at the root of the American culture to whip the country into shape behind its war agenda, which is sold to the population on the basis of supposed security for them that will allegedly come from the wars and conquests.

    This mad lashing out of both countries with attacks on other sovereign countries because of what has allegedly been done by terrorist groups plays to the most fundamental fears of the population.

    Can Americans rise from their fear and boldly take back their country from the tyrants? Who knows? If there is another horrific attack, which way will Americans turn. Will they submit to curfews? To wide-ranging round ups, internments in camps? These are unfortunately questions that should be considered because these kinds of contingency plans do exist, and many of them are enabled legally by the Patriot act.

    July 17, 2006

    World Leader to Oblivion -- As Israel continues its assault on Lebanese civilians, attacks the city center of Beirut, casualties and outrage mount and George Bush mutters repeatedly a dull mantra: "Israel has the right to defend itself. Thanks a lot to the leader of the free world for coming forth when a word of sanity and moderation is desperately needed from someone with the authority to make a difference and Bush offers: Nothing. Thanks George. Who's got his balls in a vicegrips? What happened to the big tough guy who was going to save all those poor Iraqis from oppression?

    July 18, 2006

    How absurd it is, how tragically absurd the public dialogue we are supposed to accept as rational. Yesterday in conversation I mentioned something I had seen in hundreds of headlines in preceding days, Israel widens its attacks on Lebanon. The person I was speaking to said, "You mean both sides, don't you?" There were a couple of ill-fated rocket attempts by Hezbollah that received a lot of attention and were seized on as a way to report the "battle" as if it were symmetrical, two sides at war.

    Actually representing it as "two sides" is misleading, and misleading in a matter that leads to inaction while mass slaughter and destruction are being carried out.

    Actually it is one government, a vastly powerful state with one of the world's most sophisticated and well-equipped military organization versus a small group of enraged and hateful people who have managed to scrape together some primitive weapons. Since the government, its military and its spy organizations are unable to find the militant group that is attacking it, it is throwing a massive tantrum and killing the people and destroying the infrastructure of the country in which the militant group operates.

    Lebanon is not even fighting back. It's just sitting there getting pulverized while some glorified street gang shoots off some pathetic rockets that land wherever they happen to land. Somehow this is all passed off to us by our halfwit leaders and media as being rational, somehow justified for all these innocent people to die, to be terrorized, to see their cities pulverized by a modern, well-financed military. If it weren't so deeply tragic, it would be hilariously ridiculous. Oh what a strange beast is man!

  • Bad Words -- Meanwhile the mainstream media's got its panties all up in a bunch over an alleged "expletive", a "scatological profanity" uttered by George Bush. (see Chicago Tribune) They don't want to mention the actual words themselves, playing this little schoolgirl game that "we can't say it it's so bad", yet dancing all around it gleefully because it's so naughty and exciting. Of course Bush is a vulgar, foul-mouthed, vicious man and any time a mike is on that he doesn't know about it's going to catch him being himself.
  • Run the Tape -- By chance, because the leader of the free world in a public forum did not have the discretion or the wits to presume he was being watched and listened to, the world was exposed to a supposed "private" conversation between to "world leaders", two very powerful men, not necessarily too bright, certainly not dignified. (Chicago Tribune) We catch Bush saying he doesn't like Kofi Annan's attitude, he doesn't like the "sequence" of Annan's proposal for peace in Lebanon. The sequence is ceasefire first, then negotiate some kind of resolution. Bush doesn't like that idea. Why stop killing first? Bush, like his father, likes to project this tough-guy "we never negotiate" attitude. We're too tough to negotiate. We're being run by psychologically fixated morons.
  • Infantile Aggressiveness -- Think of civilization for a minute like you think of highway driving. Remember "defensive driving"? When someone pulls up on your tail like a banshee and you're in the fast lane, you just pull over to the next lane, let him by. When you're in an alternate merge, you take turns. If you're a defensive driver, you show some courtesy, some consideration for the needs of others. You don't have to always be first, always plow through ahead of everyone else. You don't have to assume the rules apply to others but not to you. Now think of George Bush. On the highway, his behavior would be antisocial, maniacal, dangerous. People would get killed on the highway. Why is it that when it comes to international politics and war, this kind of behavior is presented as rational and acceptable.

    July 20, 2006

  • Candid Bush -- The candid conversation of Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair, with the heads of Russia and China is an incredible document, an amazing glimpse into Bush as he really is, not the carefully scripted public relations product that the public is usually fed.

    It's really amazing. Bush does not fail to live up to his reputation as a vulgar bore. He sits chawing on a lump of bread with his mouth open while he talks to the British prime minister, two world leaders having a private conversation. Bush really looks and behaves like a halfwit. (See for yourself. At this CNN link you can see the actual video of much of The conversation. The LA Times article prints most of the first part of the transcript. The BBCprint what they call the full transcript of the Bush-Blair conversation, but does not include the part with Putin and Hu.)

    "Yo Blair!" Bush says to the prime minister. Can you believe it? It's very much like you might imagine this Forrest Gump cracker to sound like in conversation with other world leaders. But who could have imagined he would play the part of royal dunce so perfectly. In the complete transcript, Bush speaks to the Chinese President Hu Jintao and makes small talk about their respective flights home. He tells the Chinese leader that "this" -- St. Petersburg, Russia -- is "in your neighborhood". St. Petersburg is about as close to Beijing as Rome is. But in Bush's infantile Texas-centric universe, they're "in the neighborhood". The Leader of the Free World says, ""Where you going? Home? This is your neighborhood. Doesn't take too long to get home?"

    Then Bush says, "Russia's a big country and you're a big country."

    In most of the CNN clip, it's Bush talking to Blair. Bush is obviously not listening to Blair, cuts him off in mid-sentence. And Blair stares stunned and speechless in the silent moment after Bush drawls, "What they need to do is get Syria to get Hezbollah to stop doing this shit and it's over."

  • Robert Scheer, commenting on the candid Bush conversation, said "Bombs were exploding and innocents dying, from Beirut to Haifa to Baghdad, and yet George Bush managed to pose for yet another photo op, smiling as he gave the thumbs up at the close of the G8 summit. Thanks to an unsuspected open mic, however, we could also glimpse the mindset of a leader unaccountably pleased with his ignorance of the world. What seemed to interest him most at that farewell get together of leaders bitterly divided over a disintegrating Mideast was not some last-minute proposal for peace but rather the fact that it would take China President Hu Jintao eight hours to fly home from St. Petersburg to Beijing."Truthdig
  • 'Why should the U.N. pay for Israeli outrage?' asks the Gulf News
  • The picture of Bush carried in China Daily shows him looking like a buffoon.

    July 21, 2006

    They Should Know Better -- In case anyone should wonder because of my expressed loathing of what is going on in Lebanon, let me be clear. I love the Jewish people as I love the Arab people. Both cultures have made immeasurable contributions to civilization, and the world is much better for their existence. Let's not resort to accusations of racism or prejudice to defend indefensible policies.

    The current destruction of Lebanon has no justification. The logic that is being put forth to justify this barbarism is an insult to intelligence. Hezbollah's actions, no matter how bad they are, do not remotely justify the destruction of this beautiful country, the killing of innocent people and the terrorizing of the survivors. There is no way to justify it.

    Anyone who uses accusations of racism as a way of discrediting someone who opposes these barbaric policies, that is, to accuse anyone who opposes these policies as being prejudiced or hateful toward the ethnic group of those who enact the policy, is doing a deep disservice to those who have really suffered from racism. To use that name-calling ploy as a way to drown out criticism of indefensible, inhuman actions, is to commit crimes against those millions of victims of real racial hatred.

    These violent, destructive, primitive policies are not acceptable in the 21st Century. This paroxysm of violence and destruction in response to Hezbollah's kidnapping of Israeli soldiers is the application of a certain primitive logic of force that cannot be applied beyond a very limited field of activity without disastrous consequences.

    Now because its perceived enemy has crossed a line in the sand, the Israeli government has thrown down the gauntlet on all rational restraint and set on a course that can only have disastrous consequences on an inconceivable scale. It's the reductio ad absurdum of this tough-guy ultimatum, "If you cross this line, pardner, yore dead." Now they've left all sense of rationality, of proportion behind and are throwing a giant fit on the world stage, destroying all in their path. Hezbollah, presumably, is standing aside watching in satisfaction as Israel digs itself deeper and deeper into a hole with its intransigent clinging to an unworkable premise. Israel is now destroying its credibility in the world community much as the U.S. has for itself in Iraq. And the Lebanese people, not Hezbollah, are suffering.

    What is happening in Lebanon is not acceptable behavior by a civilized nation and it should not be accepted by a supposedly civilized world community. If this is all the better humanity an do in a time when our survival is threatened by real problems, then the species deserves the extinction it is bringing about for itself.

    The destruction of Lebanon is a primitive, knee-jerk reaction of people who apparently are unwilling to come up with real solutions to their real problems. Killing Lebanese and destroying their civilization will not achieve anyone's goals. It will create deep hatred and rage that will have repercussions for a generation or more. This behavior of the Israeli government, like that of the U.S. government in Iraq, is not acceptable for a civilized nation in the 21st century.

    A civilized society may have to take tough measures to deal with criminals and killers. It does not have to become criminals and killers. It does not have to drop to the level of the thugs it opposes. It is deeply disappointing to see this reversion to barbarity by a nation that has such tremendous potential and that really should know better.

    How long will the madness go on? Does Israel really plan to follow through on its threats to launch a ground invasion? What is this supposed to accomplish? When Israeli soldiers start to die, will this somehow make things better? Will it improve the lot of the soldiers who were kidnapped? Will it show the world that Israel is so tough that you'd better not mess with it, thereby securing Israel forever? Are you kidding? Will all this madness make Israel safer? Being at war with all its neighbors -- is this going to lead to its security? This is madness, pure and simple. Israel's leaders have failed its people as the U.S. leaders have failed its people. It's a failure of imagination that these leaders of these advanced societies can come up with nothing better than raging destruction as a way to achieve their goals and lead their countries. Pathetic.

    July 22, 2006

    Tear Down That Wall!

  • War Crimes -- The top UN human rights official and former chief prosecutor of Slobodan Milosevic said the killing of civilians in Lebanon could constitute war crimes, reports the New York Times . “The scale of killings in the region, and their predictability, could engage the personal criminal responsibility of those involved, particularly those in a position of command and control,” said Louise Arbour, the high commissioner for human rights. “International humanitarian law is clear on the supreme obligations to protect civilians during hostilities,’’ she said. That same obligation exists, she added, in international criminal law, which defines war crimes and crimes against humanity. “Indiscriminate shelling of cities constitutes a foreseeable and unacceptable targeting of civilians,” she said in a statement released by her Geneva office. “Similarly, the bombardment of sites with alleged innocent civilians is unjustifiable.” Meanwhile the U.S. continues to block moves toward a ceasefire. John Bolton would rather let the killing go on while the rest of the world discusses things. “Among other things,” he said, “I want somebody to address the problem how you get a cease-fire with a terrorist organization.” Talk of a cease fire is "simplistic" he said. This "conventional thinking" may not work, he said. He refrained from calling the Geneva Conventions "quaint" as Attorney General Gonzales did.
  • An article in the Louisiana paper The Advertiser, says, "Israel appeared to have decided a large-scale incursion across the border was the only way to push back Hezbollah after nine days of the heaviest bombardment of Lebanon in 24 years failed to achieve that." So bombarding the cities of Lebanon and reducing them to rubble did not achieve the goal of "pushing back" the militant group? Gee, what a surprise? Why was that so hard to see? Did that strategy ever look like it had any relationship to its stated purpose? Now that leveling the country, killing hundreds of its citizens and breaking the morale of its population has not succeeded in bringing Israel any closer to its objective of stopping Hezbollah, they are going to push farther in the same senseless direction, toward greater brutality, more killing and it will no doubt be just as useless, but the damage will be incalculable.
  • From the Front -- The BBC has posted some statements of people from the battle zone. See how all this madness affects real people. "I live in an area that's half Jewish and half Arab. We really live together, we have no problems," says an Israeli in the north near the Lebanon border. "Somehow Nasrallah [Hezbollah leader] is trying to destroy that. He's trying to destroy a society that can live side by side." And tragically, the Israeli leadership is playing into his hands.
  • Ellsberg warns of possible staged terror attack -- According to Infowars.com, Daniel Ellsberg, former military analyst who released official documents that came to be known as the Pentagon Papers, "stated his concerns that criminal elements of the US government were psychologically capable to have carried out 9/11. He warned that within days after a US military strike on Iran that Bush's handlers would probably stage some type of terror attack in the West to legitimize the new war." Ellsberg said in an interview, "If there’s another 9/11 or a major war in the Middle-East involving a U.S. attack on Iran, I have no doubt that there will be, the day after or within days an equivalent of a Reichstag fire decree that will involve massive detentions in this country, detention camps for middle-easterners and their quote 'sympathizers', critics of the President’s policy and essentially the wiping-out of the Bill of Rights."
  • Robert Fisk from Beirut -- "They look like us, the people of Beirut. They have light-coloured skin and speak beautiful English and French. They travel the world. Their women are gorgeous and their food exquisite. But what are we saying of their fate today as the Israelis — in some of their cruellest attacks on this city and the surrounding countryside — tear them from their homes, bomb them on river bridges, cut them off from food and water and electricity? We say that they started this latest war, and we compare their appalling casualties — more than 300 in all of Lebanon by last night — with Israel's 34 dead, as if the figures are the same. And then, most disgraceful of all, we leave the Lebanese to their fate like a diseased people and spend our time evacuating our precious foreigners while tut-tutting about Israel's 'disproportionate' response to the capture of its soldiers by Hezbollah. I walked through the deserted centre of Beirut yesterday and it reminded me more than ever of a film lot, a place of dreams too beautiful to last, a phoenix from the ashes of civil war whose plumage was so brightly coloured that it blinded its own people. This part of the city — once a Dresden of ruins — was rebuilt by Rafiq Hariri, the prime minister who was murdered scarcely a mile away on February 14 last year."

    July 26, 2006

  • Eye for an Eye -- According to The Australian, "Nobel peace laureate Betty Williams displayed a flash of her feisty Irish spirit yesterday, lashing out at US President George W.Bush during a speech to hundreds of schoolchildren... 'I have a very hard time with this word "non-violence", because I don't believe that I am non-violent,' said Ms Williams, 64. 'Right now, I would love to kill George Bush.' Her young audience at the Brisbane City Hall clapped and cheered. 'I don't know how I ever got a Nobel Peace Prize, because when I see children die the anger in me is just beyond belief. It's our duty as human beings, whatever age we are, to become the protectors of human life.'" And that ain't all she said. Check it out
  • Follow Him Down -- Bob Herbert writes, "The United States had complete command of the moral and ethical high ground in the immediate aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001. Most of the world was with us. For some reason, the Bush administration deliberately abandoned those heights to pursue policies that were not just morally questionable, but reprehensible. Administration officials have fought like tigers to retain the right to torture. They have imprisoned people willy-nilly, without regard to whether they had actually committed offenses against the United States. They set up a system of kangaroo courts at Guant‡namo Bay, Cuba, that was such an affront to the idea of justice that it should have sent shudders of shame down the spines of decent Americans. In fact, most Americans never bothered to notice."

    July 25, 2006

  • Tearing Down the Geneva Conventions -- As the US stands aside and condones the perverse logic of killing of the Israeli government, it fairly well completes the effective destruction of the Geneva Accords. There can be no further doubt that it is the Bush administration's intent to render the "quaint" rules of war inoperable. With the torture issue, they danced around it, advocated it, but claimed it was not "the policy". But with this, there is nowhere to hide. The US has made its stand and it is on the side of a government to massacre defenseless women and children. The United Nations Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland,said, “The war, the terror, the attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure has to stop – in Lebanon, in northern Israel as it has to stop in Gaza. Too many children, women, elderly and other civilians have already lost their lives or are struggling to survive from their wounds ... Killing and maiming, the denial of humanitarian access for children as well as attacks on schools and hospitals are considered grave violations of children’s rights by the Security Council,” said Radhika Coomaraswamy, Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, expressing deep concern for the situation in Lebanon, Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories." UN.org
  • A Plan Hatched by and Idiot -- A New York Times headline reads "Border Clashes Intensify as Israel Hunts Militants". The article talks about "Some of the most intense clashes so far between Israeli troops and Hezbollah militants". A policy based on blind rage and paranoia is beginning to look like a colossal blunder, from the standpoint of what the action is supposed to accomplish, which is Israel's security. Public opinion is always a factor in war. Now it is shaping up that as the Israelis start to invade Lebanon by land, the only thing protecting the people from the Israeli attack, is Hezbollah! The Israelis are making the Hezbollah the defender of life and liberty. What kind of long-term benefit is such a result supposed to bring? Israel is making itself a villain in the eyes of the world. And of course it is doing it with the support of the United States, with weapons made in the U.S., paid for by U.S. taxpayers and given to Israel as aid. A nasty little merry-go-round. What is the advantage of turning the world against you, of defying all human kindness and justice and igniting righteous anger in people who may have never taken a position before? A very bad move.
  • The World According to Attila the Hun -- "Just my luck," writes Eugene Robinson . "I go away on vacation and it happens to be the week when George W. Bush's strategic view of the current world situation is revealed: Russia big. China big, too. World leaders boring. Lady world leaders need neck rub. Terrorism bad. Elections good (when the right people get elected). Israel good. Time to go home yet?" Washington Post

    July 27, 2006

  • America Bums Out -- An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll shows the public is extremely pessimistic. Nearly two-thirds don't believe life for their children's generation will be better than it has been for them, and nearly 60 percent are doubtful the Iraq war will come to a successful conclusion. One of those who conducted the poll said, "This is just a horrendous set of numbers," and that the mood is "as dank and depressing as I have seen." According to the MSNBC article, "This isn't good news for Bush and the Republican Party, say the pollsters who conducted this survey, because it means that "outside of an extraordinary event" the political environment is pretty much locked in as we head into the November elections." So once again, we find that another catastrophe like 9/11 would be in the Bush administration's interest. And they are the only ones who have the power to stop one.
  • Misery Index -- The latest CBS/New York Times poll shows 31% approving of Bush, and 68% believe the country is worse off than before Bush took office.
  • The Rape of Lebanon -- Condi is "rushed" to Lebanon 11 days after the carnage began with nothing whatever to offer but a photo op and some empty words. The neocons stand aside in tacit approval, supply weapons for Israel's destruction of Lebanon, don't even utter a word of protest. Mohammed A.R. Galadari, writing in Dubai's Khaleej Times, says, "My heart goes out to them and all the people of Lebanon who have suffered in this pointless and mindless war. My prayers are with all those who have lost their loved ones in this war in Lebanon. May God bless all those men, women and children. I also sympathise with the innocents who died in the Palestinian Territories and the Israeli side of the border with Lebanon."
  • Lieberman's Last Days? -- Things not looking good for Joe. His support of Bush, of war, are catching up to him as he looks upon the possibility of losing his office in the Democratic primary. According to the Arkansas Democrat Gazette, Irving Stolberg, former speaker of the Connecticut House and a longtime Lieberman ally, endorsed Lieberman's opponent in the Hartford Courant, writing that LiebermanŐs Ňblind support of the Iraq war, begun illegally and a continuing catastrophe, is monstrous,Ó and his Ňdefense of an incompetent president, a vice president who fits the dictionary definition of fascism and an extremist administration that has perpetrated torture, illegal eavesdropping and a general shredding of the Constitution is insulting to the people who elected him in the first place.Ó
  • The Defenseless and the Dead -- As Israel ramps up to expand its pummeling of Lebanon, and Bush stands aside savoring the savagery, shipping more weapons to help facilitate more of it, the toll of innocent civilians killed reaches 600. Shame shame, shame on America. AP

    July 28, 2006

  • Neoconservatism 101 -- "Dick Cheney's Song for America". Find out what it's all about. "The Plan is for the United States to rule the world. The overt theme is unilateralism, but it is ultimately a story of domination. It calls for the United States to maintain its overwhelming military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge it on the world stage. It calls for dominion over friends and enemies alike. It says not that the United States must be more powerful, or most powerful, but that it must be absolutely powerful."
  • Stop Sunset Commissions -- Action Page to Stop The Secret Plan To Gut Our Environmental Laws.

    July 29, 2006

  • Flipping -- Seeingtheforest.com is posting a letter from a Republican elder who is advocating returning control of Congress to Democrats until the Republican party is no longer controlled by corrupt and unethical forces. He makes a very strong case against some Republicans and does it from the standpoint of an old Republican.

    MEDIA ROULETTE

    July 30, 2006

  • Sobering Up -- Tom Friedman, New York Times columnist, long-time reporter on the Middle East and author of From Beirut to Jerusalem, is finding his way to a more sane position, after flying way off track in his early, exuberant support of Bush's war on Iraq. On May 13, 2004, in his New York Times column, Friedman admitted his mistake in supporting the war, saying his biggest mistake was believing the Bush administration was sincere in its stated aims. Now Friedman has returned from a trip to Lebanon and Syria and appeared on Meet the Press saying that Israel must stop its destruction of Lebanon, that it can't work even if you totally accept Israel's stated objectives. Because of the actions of the BUsh administration, the U.S. has no moral authority to bring to bear on a situation such as the current conflagration in the Middle East, Friedman said. As a result, the Bush administration has taken from the world the idea of America, the idea of an America that represents hope, not fear as it now does. This is an important idea for the world, Friedman argues, not just for Americans, who are extremely demoralized now, as recent polls have shown vividly lately.
  • Tough Guy Bolton -- Sunday morning C-SPAN is showing John Bolton's confirmation hearings in the senate. Bolton is nothing short of bizarre. His reputed intransigence is broadcast boldly in his body language. He bobs his head when he talks similarly to how Bush does, like a guy bickering in the preliminary scuffling in a street fight. He looks pissed off as these Senators ask him questions, as if the imposition is barely tolerable and he can barely restrain himself from leaping over the table and grabbing his questioner by the neck. They spurned him once and he has a big chip on his shoulder now as he faces them with indignation and arrogance in his facial expressions and gestures. He's an uncompromising personality. He wants to win every point, yet he can't possibly prove that he's a good diplomat as he snaps defensively at every question. If part of his objective is to show the Senators he's a good diplomat, he's not even in the ballpark. If he wants to show what a tough guy he is, okay. He accomplishes that.
  • Tony's World -- Tony Blair has abandoned practically everyone in Britain in his quest to be George W. Bush's most loyal friend. Tony and George had one of their little tandem press conferences the other day. They have the format down pretty well now, both tripping down their parallel walkways, almost skipping gleefully together, timing their arrivals so they both arrive at their respective podiums at the same moment. Then they took questions from reporters, some of which were pointed and challenging about the ongoing catastrophe in the Middle East. It was their job to twist logic around to make the barbarism sound as though it has some civilized rationale. Tony formulated an explanation of how stopping the killing would not work because that would be just a "quick solution" and instead they were in favor of continuing the slaughter of innocents a little longer because that somehow would lead to a better long-term solution. Watching him explaining his ideas, weaving words together in a way that could eloquently convince that black is white, he had a sparkle in his eye, a distant look, as though he were looking at a vision that was invisible to those present. He seemed enamoured by his own words. He looked as though he had almost succeeded in convincing himself that it made sense, that the neat symmetry of his words would somehow force reality to conform to his simplistic, false notions. Almost.
  • Joe's Final Curtain -- Lieberman now trails his opponent in the Democratic primary 47% to 51%. He leads only among those over 65, those making under $30,000 a year, and those without college degrees. What caused him to take such right wing positions that would force this bitter end upon him? Did he considered a primary challenge impossible and therefore want only to shore up his right wing positions against a Republican challenger? Is he just too far in the pocket of the neocon forces to be able to budge? He got Clinton to come help him, Bill that is. Lieberman was the first Democrat to jump on the attack bandwagon when Clinton was revealed to have had an affair. Now Clinton comes out in support of Lieberman and urges voters to put aside their opposition to the war when voting for Lieberman. What is that supposed to mean? This guy supports a catastrophic policy that is draining the country of money, people, morale, moral authority, and Clinton is telling you to ignore that and support him anyway? What issues does Clinton think are important, if not that. Vote for Joe, he's nice. He's got a nice smile. He screwed me, now is my chance to show what a magnanimous guy I am. Abandon your principles, abandon humanity, the poor in Iraq, Lebanon and the U.S. who have to die for these insane policies of the rich and comfortable, and vote for Joe anyway. For some reason, I can't remember what it is now. But one Connecticut voter who supported Lieberman three times in the past but won't this time, has an answer for Clinton. "The war is the big piece. I don't think it can be minimized. All of our tax dollars are going there. It's killing Americans. It's killing Iraqis. We went there on lies." CBS News
  • Throw the Bums Out -- MSNBC is running an online poll on impeachment. Bush's folks aren't coming out too well today. The forces for impeachment are winning 87% to 11.4% who say no. And of course there are always the "don't know"s. Why did they bother to log on to answer the poll?
  • Post Apocalyptic New Orleans -- Abandoned New Orleans, the foundations of its civilization washed away, struggles to maintain the basic support system for civilized life. This weekend, six shootings. Reuters
  • Twisted Coulter -- Ann Coulter, the feral sex kitten of the rabid right, what is her deal? She puts a photo of herself in a halter top on her book, in which she speaks like the possessed child in The Exorcist. She plays the sex angle, and talks like a cold-blooded killer. Who is she? What is she? What is she trying to do, besides sell lots of books and get richer? Her latest charge: Bill Clinton is a homosexual. YouTube.com

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