In Memorium: 63 Years Ago Today, A Village Destroyed, Nation Annihilated

The Islamic soul must be broomed out of [the Land of] Israel."
                              --Ze've Vladimir Jabotinsky

Jabotinsky

He was one of the more pernicious Zionist figures and, not surprisingly, the first commander of one of the movement's most rabidly terrorist wings,  Irgun Z'vai Leumi. But Russian-born Jabotinsky died in 1940, too early to be able to savor the triumphant "brooming" of Palestine in 1948.

Nor would he witness his doctrine's most shocking fallout take place in early April that fateful year, when his Irgunists joined another terrorist group, the Stern Gang, in brutally murdering Palestinian women and children at the village of Deir Yassin.

   Thus commenced Zionism's monstrous ethnic cleansing of Palestine.

     The Deir Yassin Massacre is an unmistakable symbol of Israel being  steamrolled into existence over six decades ago.  It was by no means the only massacre, as has been revealed in recent years when the Israeli military archives were finally opened up. The disinherited Palestinians, quite naturally, wanted back their homes and villages that the plundering new owners obliterated, like hundreds of Lidices.

1948, year of the Nakba:  Palestinians families being ethnically cleansed

Is it really that hard to see why terrorizing and dispossessing the Palestinians would condition them to lash out against their persecutors?

     A vicious cycle of terror-begetting-more-terror has thus continued for over the past half-century between armed Palestinians and heavier armed Israelis.  The window dressing U.S. "road map" peace plan that was pitched years ago for this bloodied sliver of land has continued to go nowhere.  There's of course no escaping the reality of having to pursue a two-state solution, since Israel is a permanent, long-established fact.

     But also a fact is that the final peace accord must be truly just, not based on the current insidious scheme to relegate the Palestinians to either permanent refugee status or life in a serious of Bantustans.  Half-measures that perpetuate continuing injustice against the disenfranchised Palestinians will only sustain the carnage in these killing fields.

     The war criminals running the Israeli regime continue refusing to remove those Israeli colonies ("settlements") from the mutilated 22 percent of what was Palestine (West Bank and Gaza).  Moreover, as long as the Israelis continue ignoring the refugee nightmare they created in 1948, this tragedy of millions of displaced Palestinians suffering in camps will continue fanning the terrorist brush fire.
 

Zionist squatter camps in remaining Palestine

                                             
The proverbial insult to all this injury is the spectacle of those insufferable Israeli mouthpieces that promote revisionist drivel on this conflict's origins and subsequent chapters.
  
     Some commentators, for instance, have given glowingly accounts of then-Israeli Defense Minister Sharon's savage 1982 invasion of Lebanon.  Amazing, considering the Orwellian-titled "Peace for Galilee" aggression resulted in an estimated 50,000 dead & wounded Lebanese and Palestinians, culminating in the Sharon-sponsored Sabra and Shatilla massacres.  The ulterior motive, an Israeli attempted reordering of Lebanon's political universe, ultimately failed.  One would hardly suspect foul play, however, if they believed these twisted yarns about Israel's "ethics" and "purity of arms".

     Some voices come from the Golda "There are no Palestinians" Meir mindset.  Incredibly, like the fanatics that deny the Holocaust, they go as far as trying to pretend the Deir Yassin Massacre never happened.
   
Now that's genuine chutzpah.

Begin

Shamir

In light of the fact that an astounding 95 percent of all the English language books (162 out of 170) classify Deir Yassin as a massacre, it would be no surprise to have the deniers jerry rig their arguments with "authoritative" sources, e.g., the two capos--Menachem Begin and Yitzhak Shamir--that ran the gangs carrying out the slaughter.  Notably, Begin and Shamir later went on to run future Israeli governments, so, no, Ariel Sharon was not the first  and only terrorist to be elected prime minister.

      One of the many things that easily exposes these shameless, fraudulent claims about Deir Yassin being a mere "battle" and not a massacre is the fatality count.  There were 107  Palestinian men, women, and children left dead, and 12 more wounded.  This killed-to-wounded ratio of nine to one reveals much, because it's an appalling contrast to typical ground combat-incident figures.

     This 90 percent death ratio, characteristic of systematic killing, can be placed almost squarely between two of history's other infamous massacres:  just above Wounded Knee (85 percent dead) and just below My Lai (99 percent dead).  And a notable third massacre falls into the very same 90 percent death ratio.

     It took place also just outside of Jerusalem, near Mt. Scopus, only four days after Deir Yassin.  Arab terrorists, shouting the village's name, slaughtered a convoy of Jewish medical and military personnel, leaving 75 dead, and 6 wounded.  The vicious cycle was spinning out of control. But who in their right mind would try to title this the "Battle of Mt. Scopus" and expect to be taken seriously?

The village of Deir Yassin, circa 1930's

                                                                           
The killed-to-wounded ratio is just for starters.  Question: Was Deir Yassin a threat to the Zionists in April, 1948?  How could it be, since it was faithfully honoring an agreement made with the Haganah (the Jewish community's mainstream armed force, albeit remarkably efficient ethnic cleansers) to avoid any hostilities with nearby Jewish areas, in exchange for being protected from Jewish attack?  Moreover, reconnaissance conducted by both the Irgun and Stern Gang confirmed its peaceful status.

     Villagers also provided intelligence to the Haganah and had repeatedly kept Arab soldiers from infiltrating Deir Yassin.  A HaganahDeir Yassin's capture that its villagers had remained "faithful allies of the western [Jerusalem] sector".  Yona Ben-Sasson, the Haganah commander in Givat Shaul (Jewish Jerusalem's western suburb), later stated "there was not even one [hostile] incident between Deir Yassin and the Jews."

     So much for any of this bunk about the the village being a "threat".  Why, then, would the Irgun and Stern Gang not only target Deir Yassin for capture but also carry out a massacre? Because, simply, their criminal nature was no different from any other terrorist groups, past or present--they specialized in murdering civilians, to further a goal.  In pre-attack discussions, one Stern Gang proposal recommended "liquidating" the villagers "to show the Arabs what happens when the IZL [Irgun] and the Lehi [Sternists] set out together."

Irgun recruiting poster

                                            
At 4:45 a.m. on April 9, the beasts moved in from three different directions and descended upon the men, women, and children of the village.  The approaching blitzkrieg included an armored car with a loudspeaker to announce their arrival but as it turned out, the vehicle crashed into a ditch outside of town and remained stuck there.  How many Palestinians, therefore, were ever warned?

     True, villagers took up arms and returned fire for several hours, but who wouldn't defend their home and family against marauding thugs?  As for the women, children, and elderly, they took shelter in their homes, in desperate hopes the Stern and Irgun terrorists would be driven off.

     It was to be a tragically forlorn hope.

     By about 7:00 a.m., the villagers' brave resistance, in combination with the dismal Irgun/Stern combat performance, brought out the full fury of the beast.  "We had prisoners," recalled Irgunist Yehoshua Gorodenchik, "and before the retreat we decided to liquidate them. We also liquidated the [Arab] wounded."  Ben-Zion Cohen, another Irgun killer, later confessed:  "We eliminated every Arab we came across up to that point." 

Palestinians of Deir Yassin, murdered by Jewish terrorists

                                                 
It's more than a stretch to try to rationalize the unfolding SS-style blood bath because some villagers were supposedly faking surrender or some males disguised themselves as women.  The terrorists’ goals of "liquidating" the villagers exceeded nearly all expectations.

Sure, not all the villagers were slaughtered;  the Irgun/Stern killers forced some village women into being human shields, to transport their wounded.  (Which brings up yet another compelling ratio:  The average Israeli 1948 combat death ratio was 1 in 6.  But, lo and behold, those courageous “Jewish Underground” had a ratio of 1 in 26 at Deir Yassin.  Some "battle.”)  The Haganah also had plenty blood on its hands, having sent in one of their units at one point to provide tactical support, despite no reports of their soldiers executing villagers – that would take place at other locales.

The testimony of those Palestinians that managed to survive is horrifying.  Some villagers were shot down as they tried to escape or help injured neighbors, while others were lined up against walls and mowed down with gun fire.  Haleem Eid witnessed "a man shoot a bullet into the neck of my sister Salhiyeh, who was nine months pregnant" and then brutally stab the body.  Villagers continued hoping for miracle, taking refuge inside their houses and crowded into corners, only to be gunned down or blown to pieces with hand grenades by the rampaging terrorists.

 

                                         

The fever of the massacre began waning around mid-day.  But there were still a few final touches.  The Irgun/Stern gunmen decided to load the surviving villagers onto trucks and parade them around Jerusalem's Jewish quarters.

Haganah broadcaster Harry Levin recorded this final degradation, watching "three trucks driving slowly up and down King George V Avenue bearing men, women, and children, their hands above their heads, guarded by Jews armed with Sten-guns and rifles" and that one prisoner was "a young boy, a look of anguished horror bitten into his face, his arms frozen upright."

Brings to mind a devastating photo of another young boy taken captive in 1943, after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.     

Warsaw Ghetto, 1943

But the macabre Palestinian parade ended when they were dumped somewhere in East Jerusalem to become a part of an ocean of dispossessed victims of a heinous crime.  If escaping with only one's life was the sole criteria, they were the lucky ones.  An earlier parade of an estimated 25 Palestinian prisoners was returned to Deir Yassin.  All of them were then slaughtered by the “freedom fighters” in the town quarry.

The following day, Saturday, April 10, the ravaged village was inspected by Haganah operations officer Eliyahu Arbel, who related: "I have seen a great deal of war, but I never saw a sight like Deir Yassin," littered with "the bodies of women and children, who were murdered in cold blood."

The Haganah's Gadna youth brigade made up the final burial crew, but the carnage was so terrible that younger brigade members were sent away.  In several houses, Gadna commander Zvi Ankori discovered sexually mutilated bodies.  Another crew member, Shosanna Shatai, found the body of an apparently pregnant woman with a smashed-in abdomen.

International Red Cross representative Jacques de Reynier also inspected the bloodied village.  At the very first house he entered, Reynier described what he saw:

"Everything had been ripped apart and torn upside down. There were bodies strewn about.  They [Irgun/Stern terrorists] had done their 'cleaning up' with guns and grenades, and finished their work with knives, anyone could see that."  He goes on to tell of seeing movement in the shadows, bending down, and discovering the "little foot, still warm" of a ten year-old girl, barely alive.

Palestinian murder victims of the Irgun and Stern Gang

The total number of Palestinians massacred at Deir Yassin was for years an exaggerated figure of 254.  But this didn't originate with the Arabs. No, it was made up by Irgun commander Mordechai Raanan in a post-battle press statement, who later explained: "I told the reporters that 254 were killed so that a big figure would be published, and so that Arabs would panic....across the country."

Imagine how much this success story must have inspired Slobodan Milosevic when he launched his own ethnic cleansing campaign in the 1990's Balkins.  Things might very well have been different if he just had a lobby colossus like AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) manipulating our U.S. Congress like so many hand puppets.

Perhaps one day Hollywood will give actual equal time to the Palestinian people.  After all, reprehensible Israeli propaganda blockbusters like "Cast A Giant Shadow" and "Exodus" only glamorize the same Zionist myths regurgitated by Israel's media minions.  But a cautionary note; any challenge to their revisionist snake oil is sure to provoke the warn-out ad hominem attacks smearing critics as “anti-Semites.”   At the same time, hope remains whenever some important message flows out, even in the midst of a grotesque film such as the distorted "Exodus".
 

                                                 
There's a riveting scene just before a young Holocaust survivor (played by Sal Mineo) is inducted into the Irgun, when he's forced to retell the horrors of his experience in a Nazi death camp.  He pleads with the Irgun not to have to relive it, sweating and shaking.  After finishing a story that cannot help but wrench the heart, he weeps pitifully.  The Irgun chief then administers the gang's seal of approval: an oath, conducted with their two hands sandwiching a gun.

The victims then became ruthless, murderous victimizers.  Not convinced?  Go and ask practically any of today’s four million Palestinian refugees.

Deir Yassin's legacy

                           

The former residents of an extinct village near Jerusalem, naturally, would be a good start.


Rest In Peace, Deir Yassin.  
  




أنت لن تكون منسية
 .

Let The Call Go Forth Again: "Don't Stop Boycottin'" The ZioNazi War Criminal Regime

Big brave Israeli Occupation Forces sure know their craft.  Using human shields as they blitzkrieg their way through Palestine.

Brutalizing Palestinian women at their countless "check points."

Bulldoze-style ethnic cleansing of the remnants of Palestine.

Roasting Gaza's civilians with white phosphorus.

Celebrating with their "hunting trophies."

Enough already.


Turns out that just last weekend in New York City some people literally took another step to break this lethal handshake, by shaking, swaying, and belting out an appeal to end the madness.  The BDS Flash Mob has done it again.  Hopefully, it is one step closer to extinguishing Zionist apartheid and aggression.

Until the decisive stone hits the mark on that AIPAC Goliath lording over U.S., the Boycott/Divest/Sanction battle will rage on.

With unmistakable style & rhythm, of course!

Drifting Somewhere Between the Dark and the Aquarion Ages......

Ever driven by one of those gas-guzzling SUV's and spotted a sticker reminding everyone about the "cost of freedom"?  It would hardly be surprising to find one of these military wives behind the wheel.  They are wearin' the buttons and seem damn proud about the noble mission of "keeping the promise" to Iraq. 

What's really insidious is how this little catchphrase is exploited.  We know it isn't free -- but who is it that decides how much to pay, in what ways, and where does the country pay?  Moreover, what exactly are the dimensions of this "freedom"?

  Increasingly it appears we are paying more and more to get less of it, and the only real beneficiaries are the profit-crazed corporations sponsoring all this foreign adventurism.  In the last presidential administration, the very worst we ever had, a sitting vice president made a killing in profits for his company by helping to orchestrate the killing fields of Iraq.

Now under a supposed "change" president, the troops are once again being sent into another oily mess, Libya.  As much as I sympathize with its people and their right to be rid of a monstrous dictator, the blatant reality of what propels this "humanitarian mission" is as sickening as the same real reason why the United States is still squandering $12,000,000,000 each and every month in Iraq & Afghanistan.

All this, and meantime one disgusting right-wing governor after another is telling the people of their state that "sacrifices must be made."  This is too much.  Too depressing to even imagine how much worse it's going to be if the national public doesn't get galvanized.  It's as simple as this:  Confront the corporatocrisy or  continue allowing it to bring complete ruin to America and much of the rest of the planet.

Turn off that damn Fox News channel and wake up, people.

Beyond brain death, the only other end result to this Age of Stupid will be the ultimate death of us all.

Please, please wake up.  

Oil, Hypocrisy, and the Beast: What will be the fate of the Libyan People?

The men, women and children of Libya are desperate.

For over 40 years they've suffered in the claws of a monster.  The big question: Are they any less deserving than the already liberated Tunisians and Egyptians?

Of course it's that sweet oil supply that's brought those American and European powers in to help the revolution rid the nation of sadistic, crazed dictator Muammar Gaddafi.  Absolutely right. Obama and the rest of 'em sending in the missiles and war jets ARE hypocritical.  Human rights had not a damn thing to do with blasting Muammar's assassins to smithereens.

Obviously if that were the case, the big powers would be out "protecting lives" in Bahrain, Yemen, Gaza, and other places where people are fighting for their lives.  It's all the more vile since the U.S. govt. supplies the very weapons its "client regimes" are using to slaughter civilians and crush the freedom wave.

In spite of all this, I can't help but still be sympathetic to the Libyans' struggle and want to see them freed from this gargoyle Gadaffi, in spite of the duplicity of their self-serving rescuers.    

There's more than enough evidence to show just how bad things have gotten there.  One of the voices came from an unnamed (for obvious reasons) Libyan, who was interviewed just a few days ago.  He is the only survivor of 25 detainees arrested after a peaceful protest on February 17 in Benghazi.  He told about the horrific torture carried out by Gadaffi's gestapo, which left him crippled and confined to a wheelchair.

The full account:

Victim: They hit us on our faces, hit us with rope as we entered the center[HQ security building.]

Reporter: Where did they hit you with the rope? On your bodies?

Victim: Yes, on our bodies, where ever the blows landed.  We were 26 people.  Not all were youth because there was an old man with us, probably 75 years old who was also beaten up. They took us to the center for the internal security forces. They tortured us in various ways.

Reporter: What ways were that?

Victim: They would say ‘’So you are the ones causing the rebellion’’ and hit us in our genitals.  They told told us they wanted to make it so we could not reproduce and create (more) ruffians like us.  Afterwards, they used electric wire and electrocuted us in our genitals and then on our backs, to our spinal cords.  They would turn the power on and we would begin to convulse, and fall down, unable to pick ourselves up.  They proceeded to hit our legs, backs, and hands until we were dizzy.

They pulled the old man's beard fiercely with their hands. They would spit in our faces and would step on us, walking back and forth on top of us.

They then took us to the police station in ‘’Gawarsha.’’ Before going, all our bodies were bound together.  Other people’s blood was all over me and mine all over them.  No body part could move, only my eyes were open and not properly.  The blood of others was on me to the extent that it crusted and I eventually couldn't even open my eyes.

Reporter: They put you on top of each other?

Victim: Yes, on top of each other.  As they transported us place to place, we were put on top of each other.

Reporter: Even the corpses?

Victim: Yes, even the dead.

Then they started to throw urine on us.  I was thirsty and thought it was water.  It was torture.  My lower body does not move.  My left leg has no feeling left.  My right leg, the slightest move of it feels like electricity which rushes to my head.  From the severity of the beating my stomach is in constant pain and knots.

A lot of people are understandably outraged over the self-serving American/European motives.  Concerned that these outsiders are pulling another Iraq fiasco, with oil being their one and only real interest.  Furious at the cost, worried it may drag on and kill more civilians than save them.  And especially livid that nothing is being done like this for the other Middle Eastern freedom fighters.

All very compelling arguments.  

But in the final analysis, as with the NATO intervention in stopping the Serbian slaughter of the people of Kosovo, the desired outcome--even if it is secondary--may just be the rescue of at least one more nation struggling to free itself from a maniac.

BBC it might be, but this following report makes a pretty strong case.

Jackson's Prayer: "Wake Her Up This Time"

Deep political consciousness.  Lots of angst.  Delivered in that unmistakeably rich voice, Jackson Browne's message resonates deeply for those that hear it.

This Rock and Roll Hall of Famer has sold over 17 million albums in the United States alone.  Easy to see why.  One of his best ones was the 1986 masterpiece "Lives In the Balance," which tore to shreds the Big Lie that was Reaganism, exposing the suffering the Ray-Gun's military aggression was inflicting on Central America.

And, yet, here we are once again.  

Message lost, lesson still unlearned.  Twenty-five years later it's more of the same, the trademark grand deception that keeps our country embroiled in never-ending foreign aggression. 

It's for this reason that Browne is truly one of the greatest patriots, a real one, who gives enough of a damn about our troubled condition to put the spot light on the hypocrisy and dishonesty that has caused so much pain to us, and "them."

"For America" (lyrics below) is one of the most powerful ballads he's ever done.  Reveals such a deep love for his country that he goes all-out to ring the alarm, again and again, to get U.S. to snap out of it.  Of course this was written a generation ago and they're still not listening in Washington.

Is it too late already to find her conscience? 

"As if I really didn't understand
That I was just another part of their plan
I went off looking for the promise
Believing in the Motherland 

And from the comfort of a dreamer's bed
And the safety of my own head
I went out speaking of the future
While other people fought and bled

The kid I was when I first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom that found wasn't quite as sweet
When the truth was known 

I have prayed for America
I was made for America
It's in my blood and in my bones
By the dawn's early light
By all I know is right
We're going to reap what we have sown

As if freedom was a question of might
As if loyalty was black and white
You hear people say all the time--
"My country wrong or right"

I want to know what that's got to do
With what it takes to find out what's true
With everyone from the President on down
Trying to keep it from you

The thing I wonder about the Dads and Moms
Who send their sons to the Vietnams
Will they really think their way of life
Has been protected as the next war comes?

I have prayed for America
I was made for America
Her shining dream plays in my mind
By the rockets' red glare
A generation's blank stare
We better wake her up this time

The kid I was when I first left home
Was looking for his freedom and a life of his own
But the freedom that he found wasn't quite as sweet
When the truth was known 

I have prayed for America
I was made for America
I can't let go till she comes around
Until the land of the free
Is awake and can see
Until her conscience has been found....."

What Kind Of Love Is This?

Is love a concept, a feeling, or an action?

That was the question posed by psychologist Paulette Sherman, author of a book on the laws of attraction.  She then proceeded to answer this with multiple definitions in what she called her "stream-of-consciousness associations." 

 According to Dr. Sherman, there are approximately 15 types of love, as follows:

"Infatuation - Loving feelings towards a love object that are largely based upon fantasy and idealization (instead of experience). Often when partners get to know each other, infatuation diminishes.

 

Romantic Love - An abiding love for a partner with whom you feel passion, attraction, caring and respect.

 

Eros - A passionate love usually involving sexual feelings for a love interest.

 

Companionate Love - Feelings of warmth towards a friend with whom you love to spend time

 

Unconditional Love - A type of affection and caring that is so strong that you feel it consistently, regardless of what that other person does

 

Conditional Love - A love that requires specific actions or conditions in order to be maintained. For example, at its extreme, a parent who gives very conditional love would only love his child when he gets straight A’s, becomes a surgeon and has two children. The love is based on outside conditions and when they do not occur, the love is withdrawn.

 

Puppy Love - A childish, innocent temporary crush on someone that you don’t know well.

 

Maternal Love - This term usually connotes love that is nurturing, accepting and protective. In actuality this love can also be given by a father etc.

 

Paternal Love - This term connotes love that involves guidance and some authority. Paternal love usually prepares a child to be ready for the outside world. Again, in reality this type of love is not gender specific.

 

 

Soulmate Love - This type of love is described as a love that has survived multiple life times. Not everyone believes in this concept.

 

Spiritual/Divine Love - This type of love recognizes the Divine light in everyone and everything. Love is given to everyone as an act of loving God.

 

Love of your country or patriotism - This is love for the place you live or the place that were born. It is a type of loyalty and a special feeling of belonging that you attribute to that specific geographic location.

 

Self-Love - This is a positive feeling that you have about who you are and what you deserve. It often is expressed by treating yourself well, respecting yourself, wanting yourself to be happy and expecting others to respect you too.

 

Brotherly Love - This term connotes having a feeling of love for your neighbor, because all humanity is considered to be part of a larger family of human beings.

 

Tough Love - This term is used to describe a love that is expressed by setting boundaries for the good of the other person. So for example, a parent may send their teenager to rehab if he is drug addicted, even if he does not want to go. They feel that this is an act of love because it stems from a desire for their son’s ultimate good and happiness."

 

It's been estimated that over 60 percent of all songs today revolve around the heat of love, the romantic sort but of course.  The book of Corinthians has a well-known take on the subject.  Always been my favorite.  

 

Always will. 

Harmless Little "Surveyor's Symbols".......So What's All The Fuss About??

Sadly, the majority of pundits on both sides of America's political aisle have scrambled like good team mates to make feeble excuses for last Saturday's massacre in Arizona.

The savagery in political rhetoric that's incubated this violence, brought to us by right-wing media's talking heads, politicians, and their Teabagger hordes, has been conveniently dismissed by too many.  I can understand the Republicans' desperation to have everyone pay no mind to their elephant rampaging in our room.

But progressives too??  This is just the kind of collective denial all but guaranteeing more of the same savage status quo spawning the kind of violence and oppression that makes the rest of the civilized world roll their eyes at this country.

Writer Patrick Martin bluntly sums up the problem.

All the cop out explanations from the other side, writes Martin, exposes "the political cowardice of the entire Democratic Party and liberal media establishment. They want to avoid any comprehensive exposure of a process that has been under way for more than three decades in American politics: the integration of the Republican Party with elements of an ultra-right and semi-fascist character....and hostility to democratic rights.
 
These right-wing elements exercise a degree of influence in American political life out of all proportion to their actual support in the population, because it serves the interests of the financial oligarchy to build them up as a means of shifting politics ever more to the right.....the Democratic Party is complicit in this process, even when the latest phase in this process―the media promotion of the Tea Party―culminates in direct violence against a Democratic Party officeholder."

The Huffington Post reported the interference being run by Sarah Palin minion Rebecca Mansour, easily the most absurd of all the fairy tales offered to explain away the ideologue burners they keep cranking up, throwing just enough itch in the trigger fingers of the fringe of their fringe crowd.

""We never, ever intended it to be gun sights" she said in an interview with talk radio host Tammy Bruce Saturday. "It was simply cross hairs like you'd see on maps." Bruce suggested that they could, in fact, be seen as "surveyor's symbols." Mansour added that "it never occurred to us that anybody would consider it violent" and called any attempts to politicize the Arizona tragedy "repulsive."

No, Rebecca, of course not.  How could ANYBODY on earth look at that "SarahPAC" map and possibly mistake that "surveyor's symbol" smack on top of Democrat Gabrielle Giffords's district as a gun sight??  Nonsense.  What an utterly repulsive thought indeed and, yes, insulting to the integrity of conceivably the next president of these disunited states!

Of course, it wouldn't be fair to just pick on the Mama Grizzly.  No, with as much star power as Palin might have, she needs to share credit where credit is due.  So many, many thank yous to dole out.  I believe one of the most inspiring of our great media patriots is someone, albeit with a rather savage reputation, that would instantly fire up the kind of smile we see on Assassin Jared "Uncle Fester" Loughner's face.

Yes, there's Limbaugh and there's Beck, and O'Reilly, Hannity, Coulter and so many more.  But none could really stoke a lunatic's smoldering heat into flame throwing (and bullets flying) mode quite like the inimitable network-provided voice of The Savage Nation.



Think Loughner ever had a "Michael Savage" bumper sticker on his car?  Some people actually do.  It's chilling to know that people listen faithfully to such a brutal, hate spewing monster, day after day after day.  But this savage is only slightly less refined--like opium is to morphine--than the raving reactionary demagogues offered up on the ratings rich Fox News Network.

Yeah, these "compassionate conservatives" have bounded about like piranha caught in a barrel, chomping away with every damn evasion under the sun.  It's just not fair, not the least bit logical, to assume their endless river of hate propaganda would ever nurture today's toxic, murderous political landscape.

 Comedian/Commentator Bill Maher provides insight gutting these ridiculous, fishy arguments like few others can.

But even more powerful is a commentary by Truthout.org writer William Rivers Pitt, offering an appropriate measure of outrage at our right-wing riff raff.  In this sad week where we'll all watch the funerals of victims that include someone's nine year-old daughter, Pitt's impassioned words fit.

Let them stick to the accountable until the day that they die.  Hopefully, it won't be by the hand of a riled up political assassin.

To:       Palin-lovers, Fox News" the "mainstream" media, and the Far Right, et al.

From: William Rivers Pitt

Date:   Monday 10 January 2011

Re:       The blood on your hands

At the time of this writing, Rep. Giffords is lying in a hospital bed in critical condition. The God you Bible-spewing frauds love to flog the rest of us with must have been in that supermarket crowd with her on Saturday, with His hand on her shoulder, because it is nothing short of a full-fledged miracle she survived at all. Doctors are actually cautiously optimistic that she will survive, though the degree to which she will ultimately recover is still sorely in doubt.

She can respond to simple commands, according to her doctors, and is marginally able to communicate. If she survives her wound, it is wretchedly certain her life will never, ever be the same.

I just thought you should know a few things about the people you helped into their graves and hospital beds this weekend.

Yes, you.

You false patriots who bring assault rifles to political rallies, you hack politicians and media personalities who lied through your stinking teeth about "death panels" and "Obama is coming for your guns" and "He isn't a citizen" and "He's a secret Muslim" and "Sharia Law is coming to America," you who spread this bastard gospel and you who swallowed it whole, I am talking to you, because this was your doing just as surely as it was the doing of the deranged damned soul who pulled the trigger.  The poison you injected into our culture is deeply culpable for this carnage.

You who worship Jesus at the top of your lungs (in defiance of Christ's own teachings on the matter of worship, by the way) helped put several churchgoers into their graves and into the hospital. You who shriek about the sanctity of marriage helped cut down a man who was about to be married. You who crow with ceaseless abandon about military service and the nobility of our fighting forces helped to critically wound the wife of a Naval aviator who fought for you in a war. You who hold September 11 as your sword and shield helped put a little girl born on that day into the ground.

You helped. Yes, damn you, you helped.

The "mainstream" media is already working overtime playing up the "Disturbed loner" angle with all their might. There is no doubt, from the available evidence, of Mr. Loughner's transformation into a disturbed individual. But here's the funny part: all the crazy crap he spewed, about the gold standard (a favorite of Glenn Beck, the master of Fox "News" fearmongering...so he can sell his gold scam to suckers) and government mind control and everything else before going on his rampage, is straight out of the Right-Wing Insanity Handbook. His personal YouTube ramblings were a mishmash of right-wing anti-government nonsense...the kind that attracts sick minds like Loughner, the kind that only reinforces their paranoia, the kind that finally pushes them over the brink and into the frenzy of violence that took place on Saturday.

The kind that the likes of you have been happily spreading by the day.  He did not act alone. You were right there with him. You helped.

I'm talking to you, "mainstream" media people, who created this atmosphere of desperate rage and total paranoia out of whole cloth because of your unstoppable adoration for spectacle, and ratings, and because the companies that own your sorry asses agree with the deranged cretins you helped make so famous and powerful. It was sickeningly amusing on Sunday to watch Wolf Blitzer bluster and bluff on CNN about how the media owns no responsibility for this disaster. It was like watching a ten-year-old try to explain how a lamp got broken while he was running through the living room, but no, it wasn't him. It was, in reality, a pathetic display...but that is what you generally get whenever Wolf is on your screen.

"Mainstream" news personalities like David Gergen and John King bent over backwards warning people not to blame Sarah Palin and her ilk for this calamity.  It was a sick man who did this, they said. Bollocks to that.  I hate to break this to the "mainstream" media know-betters, but words matter.  When people like Palin spray the airwaves with calls to violence and incantations of imminent doom, people like Loughner are listening, and prepared to act. The "mainstream" media lets it fly without any questions or rebuttal, because it's good for ratings, and here we are. Words matter. Play Russian Roulette long enough, and someone inevitably winds up dead.

Remember the run-up to the Iraq invasion, and the subsequent occupation? "WMD everywhere, al Qaeda connections to 9/11, plastic sheeting and duct tape because we're all gonna die!" was the central theme of the majority of your broadcast schedule for years...until it was all proven to be a lie.  You helped the liars, you were the liars, but you knew that.  You also got your spectacle, and the corporations that own you got paid a king's ransom, so everyone was happy, except the dead. 

Tell me this is any different, I dare you.  For the spectacle, the ratings and the pleasure of your owners, you ran names like "Sarah Palin" across the sky in lights, even after she should have faded into well-deserved obscurity, and helped this blister of right-wing rage fester until it finally burst. This was your show, and in perhaps the most wretched irony of all, I would bet all my worldly possessions that your ratings are through the roof right now. You got what you wanted.  I hope you are pleased.

 

 And yes, I'm talking to you, Sarah Palin, you unutterably disgusting fraud. You pulled it off your ridiculous website, but it's out there: you put cross-hairs - literally, cross-hairs - on Rep. Giffords, you blithered about "reloading" instead of "retreating," and you made this country more stupid and violent with every breath you took. Well, congratulations, you failure, you quitter, you inciter of mobs. You put the cross-hairs on her, and someone finally pulled the trigger. Run from it all you like, Lady MacBeth, but this blood will never be washed from your hands.

I'm talking to you, Sharron Angle, you walking punch-line, who talked about "Second Amendment remedies" being necessary if you didn't get your way on health care reform during your failed Senate campaign.

I'm talking to you, Rush Limbaugh, and Sean Hannity, and Bill O'Reilly, and Michael Savage, and Ann Coulter, and Laura Ingraham, and to every other right-wing tripe-spewing blowhard blogger and Fox News broadcaster. 

I'm talking to you, Koch Brothers. Your money to create and spread this disease was well-spent; you now have one less Democrat in the House to worry about, at least for the foreseeable future. 

 Congratulations, you un-American sacks of filth. 

And I'm talking to each and every one of you who listened to these traitors and believed the nonsense they spewed at you for no other reason than to pick your pockets for campaign/organization contributions. I'm talking to you who wore your silly fatigues and carried your badly-spelled fact-deprived signs to protests with pistols on your hips and rifles on your shoulders. You who threw bricks through the windows of politicians you disagreed with. You who shot out the windows of Rep. Giffords' office not even a year ago.

You worked very hard to create exactly this atmosphere in America, and now it has come to be. We have entered the age of the Wrath of Fools, and we now must again exist in an America where the word "assassination" has become all too relevant.

You helped this happen. You.

You know it. I know it. Have the guts to admit it, even if only to yourselves.

I know many Republicans and conservatives, and consider them to be dear friends. The single most influential person in my life (aside from my mother) was a rock-ribbed conservative Republican, and there is no person I respected more than him. I do not count these people, and those like them, among those whom I address here. They are as sickened and repulsed by you as I am.

 This is not the end of the story, but is just the beginning. The good people of the United States of America, the true patriots, have finally seen you with your media-painted masks ripped off. They have seen what comes to pass when hate, venom, ignorance and violence goes unchecked and unanswered. You have been exposed, and the fact that it took such an unimaginably horrific act for that exposure to take place only increases the fierceness with which you will be answered. You will be repudiated, not with violence, but with the scorn and rejection you so richly deserve.  Spin it as you will, scramble all you like. You are found out, and you have nowhere to hide.

Oh, P.S., if anyone reading this is operating under the delusion that the overheated right-wing rhetoric that went a long way towards almost getting Rep. Giffords killed, and had a strong hand in putting six people in the ground, is some sort of new Obama-era phenomenon, well...

"I tell people don't kill all the liberals. Leave enough so we can have two on every campus - living fossils - so we will never forget what these people stood for."

- Rush Limbaugh, Denver Post, 12-29-95

"Get rid of the guy. Impeach him, censure him, assassinate him."

- Rep. James Hansen (R-UT), talking about President Clinton

"We're going to keep building the party until we're hunting Democrats with dogs."

- Senator Phil Gramm (R-TX), Mother Jones, 08-95

"My only regret with Timothy McVeigh is he did not go to the New York Times building."

- Ann Coulter, New York Observer, 08-26-02

"We need to execute people like John Walker in order to physically intimidate liberals, by making them realize that they can be killed, too. Otherwise, they will turn out to be outright traitors."

- Ann Coulter, at the Conservative Political Action Conference, 02-26-02

"Chelsea is a Clinton. She bears the taint; and though not prosecutable in law, in custom and nature the taint cannot be ignored. All the great despotisms of the past - I'm not arguing for despotism as a principle, but they sure knew how to deal with potential trouble - recognized that the families of objectionable citizens were a continuing threat. In Stalin's penal code it was a crime to be the wife or child of an 'enemy of the people.' The Nazis used the same principle, which they called Sippenhaft, 'clan liability.' In Imperial China, enemies of the state were punished 'to the ninth degree': that is, everyone in the offender's own generation would be killed and everyone related via four generations up, to the great-great-grandparents, and four generations down, to the great-great-grandchildren, would also be killed."

- John Derbyshire, National Review, 02-15-01

 I could go on, and on, and on, and on, but you get the gist.

Most Disrespectfully Yours,
William Rivers Pitt

  

Christina, Dorothy, John,

Phyllis, Dorwin, and Gabe.

REST IN PEACE