Category: General

I’ve been reading a book of short stories by Neil Gaiman titled Smoke and Mirrors and it contains a story called “The Goldfish Pool and Other Stories”. It’s about a trip to Los Angeles where the behavior of the inhabitants is nicely summed up by an observation about goldfish: They are so damn stupid that they swim around the pool thinking “I’ve never been here before” and so even things they have done a thousand times seem new to them. The thing is, the story isn’t just about Los Angeles and the cult around the movie industry; it applies to everyone in this country. If it didn’t, George W. Bush wouldn’t think for a moment that he could pull off yet another Big Lie. It’s really unbelievable that he is trying this again… If you have the memory of a goldfish and have forgotten that the same tactic was used on the topics of WMDs and the supposed Saddam/Al-Qaeda link. Follow the link below, and try to remember what you see and read on Election Day.

Think Progress » Bush: ‘We’ve Never Been Stay The Course’
Bush: ‘We’ve Never Been Stay The Course’

During an interview today on ABC’s This Week, President Bush tried to distance himself from what has been his core strategy in Iraq for the last three years. George Stephanopoulos asked about James Baker’s plan to develop a strategy for Iraq that is “between ’stay the course’ and ‘cut and run.’”

Bush responded, ‘We’ve never been stay the course, George!’.

Why on earth isn’t the President of the United States bald-face lying to the American people an impeachable offense? I’m pretty sure it was considered one when Clinton was in office…

-Chris

I don’t do this often, but I copied this in its entirety from Truthdig. It’s worth reading.

Truthdig – Reports – After Pat’s Birthday

After Pat’s Birthday

Posted on Oct 19, 2006
Pat and Kevin Tillman
Courtesy the Tillman Family

By Kevin Tillman

Editor’s note: Kevin Tillman joined the Army with his brother Pat in 2002, and they served together in Iraq and Afghanistan. Pat was killed in Afghanistan on April 22, 2004. Kevin, who was discharged in 2005, has written a powerful, must-read document.

It is Pat’s birthday on November 6, and elections are the day after. It gets me thinking about a conversation I had with Pat before we joined the military. He spoke about the risks with signing the papers. How once we committed, we were at the mercy of the American leadership and the American people. How we could be thrown in a direction not of our volition. How fighting as a soldier would leave us without a voice… until we get out.

Much has happened since we handed over our voice:

Somehow we were sent to invade a nation because it was a direct threat to the American people, or to the world, or harbored terrorists, or was involved in the September 11 attacks, or received weapons-grade uranium from Niger, or had mobile weapons labs, or WMD, or had a need to be liberated, or we needed to establish a democracy, or stop an insurgency, or stop a civil war we created that can’t be called a civil war even though it is. Something like that.

Somehow our elected leaders were subverting international law and humanity by setting up secret prisons around the world, secretly kidnapping people, secretly holding them indefinitely, secretly not charging them with anything, secretly torturing them. Somehow that overt policy of torture became the fault of a few “bad apples” in the military.

Somehow back at home, support for the soldiers meant having a five-year-old kindergartener scribble a picture with crayons and send it overseas, or slapping stickers on cars, or lobbying Congress for an extra pad in a helmet. It’s interesting that a soldier on his third or fourth tour should care about a drawing from a five-year-old; or a faded sticker on a car as his friends die around him; or an extra pad in a helmet, as if it will protect him when an IED throws his vehicle 50 feet into the air as his body comes apart and his skin melts to the seat.

Somehow the more soldiers that die, the more legitimate the illegal invasion becomes.

Somehow American leadership, whose only credit is lying to its people and illegally invading a nation, has been allowed to steal the courage, virtue and honor of its soldiers on the ground.

Somehow those afraid to fight an illegal invasion decades ago are allowed to send soldiers to die for an illegal invasion they started.

Somehow faking character, virtue and strength is tolerated.

Somehow profiting from tragedy and horror is tolerated.

Somehow the death of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of people is tolerated.

Somehow subversion of the Bill of Rights and The Constitution is tolerated.

Somehow suspension of Habeas Corpus is supposed to keep this country safe.

Somehow torture is tolerated.

Somehow lying is tolerated.

Somehow reason is being discarded for faith, dogma, and nonsense.

Somehow American leadership managed to create a more dangerous world.

Somehow a narrative is more important than reality.

Somehow America has become a country that projects everything that it is not and condemns everything that it is.

Somehow the most reasonable, trusted and respected country in the world has become one of the most irrational, belligerent, feared, and distrusted countries in the world.

Somehow being politically informed, diligent, and skeptical has been replaced by apathy through active ignorance.

Somehow the same incompetent, narcissistic, virtueless, vacuous, malicious criminals are still in charge of this country.

Somehow this is tolerated.

Somehow nobody is accountable for this.

In a democracy, the policy of the leaders is the policy of the people. So don’t be shocked when our grandkids bury much of this generation as traitors to the nation, to the world and to humanity. Most likely, they will come to know that “somehow” was nurtured by fear, insecurity and indifference, leaving the country vulnerable to unchecked, unchallenged parasites.

Luckily this country is still a democracy. People still have a voice. People still can take action. It can start after Pat’s birthday.

Brother and Friend of Pat Tillman,

Kevin Tillman

Congress fell into marching step with our infamous leader, passing a law that by its very nature defies the constitution and its protections of Freedom. In order to fight an enemy without borders, our supposed representatives, and the man who is president, passed a law that plunges the United States of America into a darkness that hasn’t been seen since Medieval Europe. Once a person is declared an enemy combatant, or an illegal alien, they are now legally denied a court hearing to determine if that claim is just. Nobody is safe, not legally, from this possibility. You are now at the mercy of the ethics of our government, and hte hope that they will not abuse the blank cheque they have been given. I don’t know about you, but I do not feel secure anymore. Our government is now the largest terrorist organization in the world. Keep in mind that a ‘Terrorist’ is any person or organization that uses fear and terror to force change. Al-Qaeda may have launched the attack, but our government used the fear of that event to force a change that has effectively destroyed the Freedom for which the United States once stood.

Almost immediatly this law was wielded as a club:

Court Told It Lacks Power in Detainee Cases – washingtonpost.com : Moving quickly to implement the bill signed by President Bush this week that authorizes military trials of enemy combatants, the administration has formally notified the U.S. District Court here that it no longer has jurisdiction to consider hundreds of habeas corpus petitions filed by inmates at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

It would appear that the legislative and executive branches of our government have fully embraced the descent into a police state. Our only hope is that the Supreme Court will strike down this law. How confident of that are you?

-Chris