Any Remaining Questions On How The U.S. Government Has Blood On Its Hands?

When Barack Obama ran for president, he vowed his "unwavering support" for Israel.



Congratulations, Mister President.  Consistency at last.

IN MEMORIAM:  SECOND ANNIVERSARY OF THE AMERICAN-FUNDED ISRAELI MASSACRE OF GAZA, DECEMBER 27, 2008 - JANUARY 18, 2009 

Come On Everybody -- It's High Time We Rally 'Round The Flag With Those Fun Freedom Lovin' Americans.....And Darlene!

Are you, by any chance, an Amurrrrr-i-can fur freeeedumb?

Don't get me wrong.  I'm not some drooling left-wing fanatic who enjoys bashing God and nation.

But I am put off by people shamelessly mangling the definition of freedom.  I'm not the slightest bit inspired by those parading around with American Exceptionalist flags, wanting to take the United States even deeper into a consumer crazed, militaristic, right-wing dystopia.

I don't want my country laying waste to other places in some mindless Nation Building Crusade that further radicalizes others while creating legions of weeping orphans and widows, as the military-industrial complex cheers and rakes in endless profits.

 
Anyone know Patrick Behan?  He's the one in the first photo, when he was serving our country or whatever war monger may have been running the place at the time.  He's currently a member of the "Americans For Freedom" (AFF) band of merry men & women.

You can find Pat and the rest of them on Facebook.  That's right.  Their "American Core Values" mission statement vows to "speak out in favor for Equal Opportunity, Liberty, Freedom, Capitalism (not Corporatism), Free Markets, to have the right to be honest, save, invest and work hard so we are financially independent of the Government, without the Government sponsoring income class and religious hate against our citizens.....to speak out against Progressive Socialism / Marxism in our schools, colleges and government....."


And here's their calling card, folks. I have a sneaking suspicion it may have been recycled, with some minor changes that included a previous patriotic quote from Sen. Joe McCarthy.

[Caption]  With the Patriot Act firmly in place, it is time to establish the Patriot Card as part of the gold standard for society. It already exists behind the scenes. This way it is voters ID too and helps address fraud. Integrity and Character still matter.

Impressive, oh yeah.  But nothing compared to AFF Warrior Behan's fire & brimstone message right under his Rambo portrait:

"A MOST NOBEL CAUSE. BUT WE NEED TO HOLD ELECTED OFFICIALS IE: CONGRESSMEN & SENATORS ACCOUNTABLE FOR TREASON WHEN THEY PROVIDE AID & COMFORT TO OUR ENEMIES DURING A TIME OF WAR WITH THEIR REMARKS AGAINST THE UNITED STATES AND THE U.S. ARMED FORCES AS A WHOLE. 60 YEARS AGO THEY WOULD HAVE BEEN HUNG FOR THEIR CRIMES. THE HARRY RIEDS-KENNEDY-MURTHA-PELOSI AND ON AND ON. AND IN COHESION WITH THE MAJOR NETWORK MEDIA, IM TALKING ABOUT THE DEMOCRAT SOCIALIST PARTY WHO UNDERMINED THE COMMANDER IN CHIEF GEORGE W. BUSH FROM THE VERY OUTSET OF THE WAR.

HIGH CRIMES & TREASON PUNISHABLE BY DEATH. AND THEY ARE GUILTY WITH OUT QUESTION OF THESE CRIMES. UNBELIEVABLY THEY HAVE NOT BEEN TRIED. BUT STILL HOLD OFFICE. THIS COUNTRIES BRANCHES NEED TO RE-INSTATE THE U.S. CONSTITUTION THEY HAVE SO BLATENTLY IGNORED AND BROKE WITH OUT END. WE HAVE A RUNAWAY OVER STEPPING THEIR CONSTITUIONAL POWERS IN ALL THREE BRANCHES OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT. AND THE LONG TERM REPUBLICAN SENATORS BETTER GROW A SPINE AND HOLD THESE TRAITORS ACCOUNTABLE. OR DONT THINK FOR A SECOND WE WONT VOTE YOU OUT EITHER AND REPLACE YOU WITH ALL TEA PARTY MEMBERS. MEMBERS OF THE U.S. CONSTITUION. RET. IN THE LINE OF DUTY."

Got that rat, Patriot Pat.

If anybody can stop those traitors from "over stepping their Constituional powers," the Tea Party & Americans For Freedom can.

And Darlene McBride, too......she'll help us rescue Lady Liberty from ruin.  Sing it, Darlene!

With A Rasp And A Hiss, That Snake Has Given Us Some Vicious Bites

Our wildly voracious ruling class--corporations, millionaires, and the like--continue their feeding.

This rodent rampage always takes its toll.  And if that weren't bad enough, consider the devastating bite from one of these creatures.

The saw-scaled viper.  Never, ever turn your back on 'em.  Unquestionably one of the most lethal snakes on the planet.  In some regions, its bite kills more than 80 percent of its victims.  This viper's venom is "hemotoxic," meaning it'll make your wound bleed like crazy while excruciating pain gallops all over your body.

So why the name "saw-scaled"?  It's because of some serrated scales on its lower flanks that, when poised to strike, are dragged across each other producing a rasping sound, made all the more frightening with a loud, sinister hissing.

Too many of our politicians remind me all too much of the saw-scaled viper, but a special one that invariably harms the public and protects its rodent pals.  The worse part about this is how we so often get fooled into believing that viper, which always promises to protect us from those ravenous rodents, would never turn on us who took him in.

New York Times writer William Rivers Pitt had the same feeling almost exactly a year ago today when he wrote the following:

"I've been thinking a lot lately about the old story of the Lady and the Snake.  One day, so the story goes, a lady was walking down the road when she came across an injured snake.  The lady picked up the snake, brought it home, and nursed it back to health.  Over time, the lady and the snake became the best of friends.  One day, the lady was in her garden with the snake, when the snake lunged forward suddenly and bit her in the throat.  As the lady lay dying, she looked at the snake and said, 'Why did you kill me?  I was your friend! I took care of you!'  The snake looked at her and said, 'Lady, you knew I was a snake when you picked me up.'

This is how I'm feeling about the President of the United States these days."

Join the fast-growing club, pal.  Now consider that Pitt wrote this at the end of 2009, just after Pres. "Yes We Can" Obama had shamelessly lied about sticking with us in the fight against a blood-sucking medical/industrial complex which has turned health care into a criminally negligent, profit-crazed racket.

Obama was more than willing to settle for a few pitiful crumbs and then had the audacity to hoot over the "great victory."  Ah-huh.  Pitt continued:

"But I really don't like getting lied to, especially after everything this country has been through, after everything that was done by millions of Americans to clean house and get this ship of state back to some semblance of stability.  Obviously, a politician telling a lie is not big news - my personal theory, based on vast personal experience, is that if you've heard of a politician, odds are that person is a creep you wouldn't want to be in the same room with - but Obama's public option canard was exceptionally rank."

I can only imagine what Mr. Pitt has to say about yet another colossal Obama betrayal a year later, when he rolled over and doled out even more corporate welfare windfalls.  I know how Global Research writer Larry Chin reacted to it earlier this month.  With about as much joy as Pitt had over Barack's health care cut-and-run:

"Obama’s Orwellian embrace of all things corporate and politically rightward has been deliberate, forceful and consistent throughout his career; not the product of cowardice, weakness, incompetence, naïve idealism, or bad timing.  This is Barack Obama, as he has always been: a servile facilitator and protector of the political establishment; an insidious capitulator and “consensus man”; a sellout who piously sits back and lets others fight (while railing against their “bickering”), and then accepts whatever deal is politically expedient -- no matter what morals or principles he violates, no matter who or what he betrays.  To the pious, sanctimonious and self-serving Obama, it is wrong to be a “purist”, but good to be “impure”; a muddler.  A sellout."

Double ouch.

Hmmm, can't argue with either of them.  And I have little doubt there's more and more of us Obama voters now falling fast into the realm of the disillusioned and disgusted.

Which leads us back to the issue of this duplicitous saw-scaled viper.

What will he do--or not do--next?  Continue to sit idly as the Palestinians are massacred and cleansed from their homeland?  Make excuses while climate change ravages the earth to the point of no return?  Carry on Bush's insane $12,000,000,000 a month losing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq......and perhaps gear up for a suicidal third war against Iran??

"I'm no radical," remarked Pitt, "I just believe with all my heart in the idea that is America, an idea that has been poorly served for the entirety of this thankfully dying decade, an idea that has once again been sold down the river by another lying politician. That idea deserves better, as do we all, and if the Obama administration keeps this despicable behavior up, they are going to find themselves squared off with a legion of newly-radicalized people who will wonder why they ever picked this snake up in the first place."    
 Yeeeeppp.  That blasted snake.  

Oh what the hell, people.  This is Christmas week and it's a time for music and more music.  How about a song to get everybody singing along?

Here's a 1968 Al Wilson classic that will fit.  The melody's nothing short of mesmerizing and Wilson's vocal prowess has real, well, bite to it.  As it should.

"If he were here now, I think he would have shouted so we can all hear it......"

"This year would have been the 70th birthday year for John if only he was here. But people are not questioning if he is here or not. They just love him and are keeping him alive with their love. I’ve received notes from all corners of the world to let me know that they were celebrating this year to thank John for having given us so much in his forty short years on earth.

The most important gift we received from him was not words, but deeds. He believed in Truth, and had dared to speak up. We all knew that he upset certain powerful people with it. But that was John. He couldn’t have been in any other way. If he were here now, I think he would have shouted so we can all hear it. That truth was important. Because without knowing all the truth of what we did, we could not achieve world peace.

On this day, the day he was assassinated for being a truth seeker and a communicator, what I remember is the night we both cracked up drinking tea.....my memory of us is that we were a couple who laughed."

                                     -- Eulogy from Yoko Ono
                                         December 8, 2010

11:07 tonight, exactly thirty years ago, from an emergency room in a New York hospital, he departed.  Like so many others, I remember where I was and how I got the news out on the West Coast:  The shrill yet palpably sad voice of Howard Cosell, who made the shocking announcement from his booth in the final minutes of Monday Night Football.

The whole world stopped in that moment.  What were we to do?

Like a big part of us had been torn right out.  Pain and grief and indescribable loss.

Yet one of those days that followed in that bleak December, weeping as I was driving, a familiar song that Lennon wrote hit a nerve that I'll never, ever forget.

You know the one.  About letting go.

Little by little, the grief slowly eased.  And the music continued, as it has since that awful night three decades ago.  Still, I sure do miss you, John.


 

When Will This Consecrating of Fanatics Left & Right Ever Come To An End??

Extremists are the bane of our existence.

Sadly enough naive people get taken in by their messages marketed by special interests, usually commercial ones craving for a buck.  A Republican mouth organ network grandstands crazed Glenn Beck, reeling in  ratings and fat profits.

Meanwhile left-wing directors and T-shirt companies hawk images of "heroic" communist gangsters.  You've seen those flashy red shirts with the noble face of Comandante Che Guevara.  Buttons, too.  There was also Steven Soderbergh's "Che," a 2008 biopic that shamelessly lionized this ruthless killer.

We well know about the twisted ideology of the far right.  But the far left is guilty of equally obscene promotions.  It's just that they seem a bit more problematic to expose.  Maybe it's the glamor of the "radical chic" making it harder to resist.  The Che Worship merchandise, however, is just as repugnant as those Saint Ronnie Reagan calendars on sale at the local mall.

The biggest point about this is the simple reminder about two wrongs never making the right.  In the case of Cuba, nothing justifies communism's murderous excesses and tyranny that followed the demise of murderously excessive right-wing tyrant  Fulgencio Batista.

Guevara may have been a brave guerrilla fighter but the glory ended when he joyfully worked overtime as Castro's drooling, hyperactive mass executioner.  Notably he was also was an amazing bumbling nitwit when it came time to mismanage the "new & improved" Cuba.

"The cult of Ernesto Che Guevara", observed Slate magazine's Paul Bermen, "is an episode in the moral callousness of our time. Che was a totalitarian.  He achieved nothing but disaster....The present-day cult of Che--the t-shirts, the bars, the posters--has succeeded in obscuring this dreadful reality."

I see enduring salutes to this psychopath in places like Facebook and wonder just how many more people will be taken in.  Perhaps this report by Libertarian "Reason TV" will disabuse those of the myth.

I fervently disagree with Libertarians and their crackpot notions of "functioning anarchy."  But this presentation is dead-on correct,  unmasking the preposterous glorification of blood-thirsty despots, Marxist or otherwise.

See if you agree.

The Joys Of "Doing Everything Possible For Those Hands".......

Anyone remember those delightfully inane ads about the magical green liquid that "softens hands while you do the dishes"?

There's a video some call "seriously creepy" now sweeping cyber space that seriously reminds me of the antics of our memorable "Madge."

But in this case, she's for real.  Take a peek and see what it does to your creep-out meter.

Those are some "look good naked" features, Ellen.  But that's not quite all.

After seeing this, alarm bells went off.  Yeah, that episode.  The one with George, perhaps most hilarious of everyone in "Seinfeld." 

George "I've Got Hand" Costanza now has honors.

The question:  Who in fact has the truly "look good naked" hands??  You decide......