First Draft

You Have No Rights Here

Not once somebody says the word "terrorist," anyway: 

The National Defense Authorization Act covering $662 billion in defense spending for the next fiscal year includes a provision requiring military custody of a terror suspect believed to be a member of Al Qaeda or its affiliates and involved in attacks on the United States.  
 
 A last minute amendment allows the president to waive the authority based on national security and to hold a terror suspect in civilian rather than military custody. But the bill would deny US citizens suspected of being terrorists the right to trial, subjecting them to indefinite detention, and civil libertarians say the amendment essentially is meaningless.

For all our jokes these days about how Libertarians are essentially Republicans who like pot, they are in the absolute, complete and utter right on this: 

"If the president thinks you are a terrorist, let him present charges and evidence to a judge,” Libertarian Party Chair Mark Hinkle said in a statement Friday. “He has no authority to lock you up without any judicial review, just because he and Congress believe he should have unlimited power. That is the kind of power held by tyrants in totalitarian regimes. It has no place in the United States.”

The shock and horror of Republicans, meanwhile, continues to be darkly amusing.

Echoing arguments against federal government power made by his father, presidential candidateRep. Ron Paul (R) of Texas, Sen. Rand Paul (R) of Kentucky spoke forcefully against the measure: “We are talking about people who are merely suspected of a crime, and we are talking about American citizens. If these provisions pass, we could see American citizens being sent toGuantánamo Bay.”

Where exactly did you think we were going with this, fellas? In case you haven't been paying attention at the meetings of the local Asshole Promulgation and Knitting Society, this is pretty much exactly the substance of their every resolution from like Nixon on outward. American citizens with unwelcome or inconvenient or just plain yucky political beliefs being sent to Guantanamo Bay isn't some unintended and tragic consequence of this bill or of any of our insane national security policies of the past 10 years; IT'S EXACTLY THE PLAN. So don't act all shocked and appalled and you a fucking virgin, now; you felt the rails humming long before you heard the train. 

A. 

The Healing Process

Sweet blueberry Jesus, I hate this stupid therapy language and the people who use it when it doesn't mean anything other than SHUT UP SHUT UP SHUT UP:

The UC-Davis Chancellor responsible for the pepper-spraying of her students, Linda Katehi, today went on Good Morning America and explained why she should not resign or otherwise be held accountable: “we really need to start the healing process and move forward.” On a radio program in the afternoon, she expanded on this view by saying: “We need to move on.” 

That's it. That's all it means. It means go away. It means stop talking about how I hurt you. It means stop talking about the wrong done and the reparation due, the action taken and the appropriate consequences. It means I am sick of hearing you whine. It means I want to leave you and your mistreatment and your issues behind on the road and who cares if you're still bleeding, because at least I stopped hitting you and really, what more do you people want from me? Just heal already, so that I can forget.  

Once and for all time, the person hurt is the person who decides when it's time to move on. The person affected is the person who decides when the "healing process" starts, and what the healing process even IS. It is not up to the perpetrator to determine what course of action the victim needs to take. 

I personally think it would start the living hell out of everybody's healing process if Katehi resigned before she was sued into next week, but again, that's not up to me. Until one of the students pepper-sprayed in the face for the outrageous crime of sitting on the sidewalk tells us all what needs to happen for the healing process to begin, I think we can consider this whole thing officially un-healed. 

A. 

David Brooks: I Am An Asshole, and Therefore Secretly So Are You

David Brooks cannot bear how superior everyone sticking up for victims of child sexual abuse is these days: 

First came the atrocity, then came the vanity. The atrocity is what Jerry Sandusky has been accused of doing at Penn State. The vanity is the outraged reaction of a zillion commentators over the past week, whose indignation is based on the assumption that if they had been in Joe Paterno’s shoes, or assistant coach Mike McQueary’s shoes, they would have behaved better. They would have taken action and stopped any sexual assaults.

Unfortunately, none of us can safely make that assumption. Over the course of history — during the Holocaust, the Rwandan genocide or the street beatings that happen in American neighborhoods — the same pattern has emerged. Many people do not intervene. Very often they see but they don’t see.

First up: Advocating for action to stop sexual abuse as it occurs, and then strenuous laws aimed at preventing it from ever happening again, comes across as morally superior BECAUSE IT IS. If it's now out-of-bounds smug to say we should as a society better protect the powerless from those who prey upon them, smug sounds pretty good to me.  

Second: It's entirely possible to say that someone in such-and-such position should have done something, while also acknowledging that in that same position, you don't know what you would have done. 

But even if you can't say precisely what you would have done, you should at least know what should be done. And every time you say it out loud, you move us all a little farther away from the place where we riot in favor of an institution that enabled sexual abuse. The entire point of talking about the people who didn't see, or saw and didn't act, or acted but not strongly enough, is to reinforce the idea that passivity in the face of evil is not okay. 

So of course along comes David Brooks to talk about how that's just a normal human reaction, so, you know, whatevs. It's interesting that he assumes that all outrage on the part of "a zillion commentators" (obviously not this very good one that makes the same point without the smarm and judgment) comes from a place of vanity. What else could possibly motivate such outrage? 

Commentators ruthlessly vilify all involved from the island of their own innocence. Everyone gets to proudly ask: “How could they have let this happen?”

The proper question is: How can we ourselves overcome our natural tendency to evade and self-deceive. That was the proper question after Abu Ghraib, Madoff, the Wall Street follies and a thousand other scandals. But it’s a question this society has a hard time asking because the most seductive evasion is the one that leads us to deny the underside of our own nature.

Brooks prefaces this, his oh-so-brave contrarian stance, with a few grafs that blither on about how we used to acknowledge our sinfulness but now kids have self-esteem so we can't do that anymore. Or something. 

As to David's other examples: The problem in the wake of our torturing innocent people in secret prisons was not insufficient self-examination. It was that we were torturing innocent people in secret prisons and needed to not ever be doing that. David Brooks, now so concerned that we turned away from our inner angels, spent much of the past decade studiously not mentioning the innocent man shipped off to Syria to be tortured. 

I assume he didn't say anything at the time because he didn't want to appear superior. 

A. 

Failures of Leadership

I don't like generational sniping. First of all, there's no contest to win Greatest Generation, pace Tom Brokaw. Second, I think it obscures complexity and makes it easier for us to fetishize the good old days while dismissing the contributions of the young (and thereby letting the young off the hook in the process), but there's something in this otherwise messy piece that I've talked about a lot: 

We looked to Washington to lead us after September 11th. I remember telling my college roommates, in a spate of emotion, that I was thinking of enlisting in the military in the days after the attacks. I expected legions of us -- at the orders of our leader -- to do the same. But nobody asked us. Instead we were told to go shopping.

The times following September 11th called for leadership, not reckless, gluttonous tax cuts. But our leaders then, as now, seemed more concerned with flattery. Then -House Majority Leader and now-convicted felon Tom Delay told us, “nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes.” Not exactly Churchillian stuff.

Those of us who did enlist were ordered into Iraq on the promise of being “greeted as liberators,” in the words of our then-vice president. Several thousand of us are dead from that false promise.

We looked for leadership from our churches, and were told to fight not poverty or injustice, but gay marriage. In the Catholic Church, we were told to blame the media, not the abusive priests, not the bishops, not the Vatican, for making us feel that our church has failed us in its sex abuse scandal and cover-up.

I can see where you'd read that and say, look, don't wait for a leader, just be one, it's not magic. I think a lot of our problems have come from the idea that we have to sit around and wait until just the right, perfect, sinless person comes along and THEN we'll get off the couch. THEN it won't be a risk of any kind to do what we've known for years we should do, which is fight for the powerless against the great. Just get off your entitled ass already, Generation X/Y/Whatever. 

This is speaking to something else, though, and it's how the leaders we do have underestimated us at a critical point in our history. They took people who were, by and large, willing to do just about anything after 9/11. Those who weren't taking the opportunity to be bigoted assholes and burn down Pakistani-owned gas stations were as ready as anyone sitting by the radio listening to FDR to be called upon to serve. And when no such moment came, the adrenaline and energy went directionless, turned inward, became exhaustion and fear and despair. 

We fear asking great things of others because we're afraid we'll lose them. If you grab your pennant and jump on your horse and yell, "This way!" and no one follows you, you'll look like an asshole, right? Better to mill around in the field with everybody else. I think, and I know how ridiculous this sounds because how much power do these people have, that they're actually afraid to lead. Look at the way Democrats always back down, at the first sign of opposition. "Ooh, it's about to go bad, better cut our losses now." Even look at the way Republicans always run back to the safest parts of their orthodoxy, to old ideas that even they know won't accomplish a fraction of what they say they want. 

And it's HORSESHIT. You never lose people because you ask too much of them. You lose people because you ask too little. Eventually everybody's going to get sick of camp food and sleeping outside in the rain and go home, if nobody says, "this way!" and sounds the call to arms. 

Hell, if nobody follows you at least you're going somewhere. 

A. 

Victories

We'll take them where we can get them.

A.

The War's Never Over

All Saturday's headlines were about the war in Iraq being over.

Which means it's a great time to start another one!

A.

 

"Exiled as a 'Security' Threat, Former Orland Man May Soon Return"

I broke this story when I was still reporting for the Daily Southtown, eight years ago. As part of a 9/11 retrospective I was asked to look in on the case, and this was the update:

A suburban Chicago Muslim leader exiled from the United States after 9/11 could be back as early as this fall after a federal judge declared the government's argument for keeping him away "totally asinine."

Sabri Samirah, formerly of Orland Park, has spent the past eight years in his native Jordan. In 2003, he traveled there to visit his sick mother and on his way back was stopped by immigration authorities, informed he was a "national security risk" and barred from returning to America.

Today, his lawyer is negotiating the terms of his return to America. Samirah is hopeful he will be back before the end of the year.

A.

 

Nitwits Assume Everyone Is Just Like Them

Oh, GOD, the Chicago Tribune editorial board:

These alternating epochs arrive unannounced and elbow one another aside. During one morning's aeronautical attack in 2001, this nation discarded the carefree holiday from history that traced to 11/9 — the date in 1989 when dispirited communism gave up on the Berlin Wall — for the combative era of 9/11. It was just that fast: One day Americans assume they're invulnerable; the next day warriors armed with knives and ailerons are murdering them by the thousands.

Guys? I know it's hard to bestir yourselves from Morton's, but attempt for two minutes to realize that from where you are sitting you can chuck a rock and hit three or four neighborhoods where absolutely nobody had then or has now any illusions of invulnerability. Not everybody needed the crash course in coping with disaster that they got after 9/11. Not everybody needs to be told by the TV news how to talk to their kids about things that suck.

Even if we're only talking terrorism, a bunch of people wrote this book report called BIN LADEN IS GOING TO KILL US ALL FOR REAL, and that the president shrugged and went back to his pudding doesn't mean nobody else gave it a thought. I realize noticing the people who noticed this sort of thing requires us all to feel stupid for not listening to them, but feeling stupid for not listening to people who were right is kind of a required thing.

A.

There's That National Unity I Remember

"These are foreigners that run that place, you know."

The message “9-11 Go Home” was spray-painted on the exterior wall of State Line Grocery, heavily damaged by the fire reported at 2:40 a.m. [EDT] on Wednesday, Clay County Sheriff Vic Davis told Hatewatch. The convenience store, reportedly owned by a Sikh family, is located three miles south of Hayesville, N.C., in Clay County, on State Highway 69 near the Georgia border. It was closed at the time of the fire. Arvinder Singh, who operates the store and lives nearby, was not injured.  He could not be reached for comment.

“There’s a possibility,” the sheriff said when asked if the arson fire appeared to be a hate crime. “What leads us to believe it may be a hate crime is what’s written on the side of the building,’’ the sheriff said. “These are foreigners that run that place, you know.”

There is this sentimentalized picture of us, after 9/11, baking cakes for firefighters and donating blood and deciding to be nicer to our neighbors for about a week. We remember it that way because we have to, because it's human to want to justify something so frightening. It made us better people! It made us stronger! Which, as I said earlier, places responsibility on the wrong party, on the thing that happened, rather than on ourseves.

We made us better, we made us stronger, we made us braver.

We made us this, too:

Since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Sikhs increasingly have been the targets of hate crimes. In March, Surinder Singh, 65, was shot and killed in Elk Grove, Calif., while walking with his friend, Gurmej Atwal, 78, who was critically wounded and later died. Both men were wearing dastars [traditional Sikh turbans] and long beards common to men of that faith.

There have been no arrests in that double-murder investigation.

VIa Maitri and Sepia Mutiny.

A.

9/11: His Death Was His

If your child is musical

don't study piano

and if he's dying

stay off his turf

So begins a poem Charlotte Mayerson wrote after her son died of AIDS. Her book about losing him, The Death Cycle Machine, clarified the way I felt about a lot of things, but this most of all: Ownership of another's experience, and how violently opposed to it I am. Someone else's suffering is not yours, it's not for you, and while you can be profoundly changed by things that have happened to others, you can't forget who those things happened to.

I had to be slammed to the ground

A thousand times

Before I figured out

Whose tragedy it was

People said this stuff all the time, in the days following 9/11, and they're saying it again now, in the relentless waves of anniversary coverage. "This has reminded me of how short life is." Umm, okay? Great? For you? I'm sure every single dead person is grateful for the chance to give you a little psychic kick in the ass? "This has made me love my family more." "This has made me go back to church." "I'm going to learn more about the world now." Awesome! But wasn't it kind of a lot of pressure to put on New York, on its still-smoking skyline, to teach you a lesson?

Who is today for? I did not lose anyone on 9/11. There was a friend in Washington we didn't hear from, for a few hours, but he was fine. This 10-year anniversary is not prompting me to react with post-traumatic stress (unless the overwhelming snappish anger toward treacly remembrances counts). This isn't mine. It's not for me. There is no hole in my horizon. I've been to New York twice, liked it both times, love many people there. I've visited DC, seen the Pentagon before and since the attacks. But these places aren't my home, and I can't claim it as such. I wasn't breathing dust and ashes. I didn't hear the planes, or feel the ground shake.

Back to Mayerson again:

That, broken heart or no

I'd one day sip

Condolence tea with honey

While he would choke

On snow.

Maybe if I had lost someone, I would be grateful for an entire country of strangers honoring him with their thoughts, today. But part of me says that's not what we're doing, right now. My doctor's office runs The Today Show no matter how much I complain, so Friday while I waited to be seen I was stuck listening to Matt Lauer and his cast of pretty twerps telling us all how to feel, as if feeling is primarily what we're supposed to be doing here.

There was this rage-inducing Bush interview [video], where he was asked about what it was like "to be commander in chief on that day." Because primarily what we're concerned about here is how the costume felt. Not, why did you respond the way you did, not, why did you drag America into two unwinnable wars and fail to kill or capture the man responsible, not in what possible way did any of your justice department's failed prosecutions of suspected terrorists help keep us safe at all, but what was it like to be playing a real-life war games scenario? What was it like, in Presidential Candyland? The barely suppressed excitement, in that question, as if that moment was not the breaking apart of thousands of lives but the beginning of a grand adventure.

And why not, really? It's not as if we drew any profound connectedness from these events, after day three or so. Bush told us to go shopping and carry on like nothing had happened, and in large part we did that, those of us for whom this was something we watched from afar. Even now, it's like, "What wars?" We thought it was awesome that Obama managed to have bin Laden killed but then we went right back to trying to make the mortgage.

If any part of this belongs to the country, if any part of this belongs to "us" as a whole, it's in what came after. In our complicity in the wars, in how we failed to stop so much of the hysteria and fearmongering from taking us over. In our willingness to take anything and everything off at the airport and our steadfast refusal to consider a change in how we deal with the rest of the world. In how we made enemies of allies, fought wars basically to make our pundits feel good about themselves, keep electing people who can't solve problems ... that's what we all own. That's what we all did, and didn't do.

But that's not a spectacle. That's not a show. And that pales, doesn't it, next to the voice mail message someone can't erase, because then he'll never hear her voice again.

Today doesn't belong to "America." It belongs to the dead and to their families. To those who tried to stop it, and those who succeeded, and those who failed. That the rest of us watched it like a movie, that can't be avoided, but we can avoid being absolutely gross about it, pretending that gives us admission to the show. Someone's father is dead ten years today. Someone's mother would have had a birthday, seen a grandchild born. Someone's husband, someone's wife, someone's brother, someone's friend, someone's son, someone's daughter. Ten years of holidays, trips to the beach, missed. Ten years of aching loss.

Not mine. Theirs. Yours, maybe. You have my condolences.

Never forget, people will say today. Not thinking about how lucky they are, to be able to even consider the option. Thousands of families don't have to be told.

A.

These People Should Be Vilified, or Shunned

This is exactly the kind of treatment Rumsfeld and those like him are due.

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - Religion Of Peace edition

Ok campers - a little change in protocol today - we're going to have to inspect the Freepertude from perspex windows outside the iso chamber - it's too crazy and dangerous to go in there just now.

You see - Norway happened.

Oslo explosion - live coverage
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/blog/ ^ | 7/22/2011

Posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:50:05 AM by cll

Edited on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:53:53 AM by Admin Moderator. [history]

 A man disguised as a police officer began shooting where youth were attending a Labour party conference at Utoya, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg has just confirmed.

1 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:50:10 AM by cll

.

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To: cll

For a country under 5 million people this is their comparison to 9/11. Not to diminish 9/11 but this is horrible.

I have many friends in Norway, some posting on Facebook already. They have spoken often of Muslims not integrating into Norwegian society at all. But mostly everyone felt safe.

Possibly because they actually knew some Muslims, as opposed to reading about them in places like FR, or seeing them as cartoon creations?

Rude awakening today for them. Shall be interesting to see how this enfolds.

6 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:53:45 AM by alisasny

Yes it will, won't it?

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To: cll

In my travels working with troop movements, I have been to Oslo on occasion. Fine city, wonderful people. God be with them in spirit and courage, strength and rage be with them in the flesh.

These bastards are evil and sick, and their religious beliefs are beneath contempt.

14 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:57:13 AM by Cap74 (You can disagree with me. You can attack me. Do not lie to me.)

Bookmarked.

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To: cll

Time for Western Civilization to Rock the Casbah again.

On THEIR turf.

15 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 11:58:05 AM by EyeGuy (2012: When the Levee Breaks)

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To: cll

This will not stop until a real war on islam begins... and we all know that it is muslim demons that are doing this.

LLS

23 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 12:09:21 PM by LibLieSlayer ("GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH"! I choose LIBERTY and PALIN!)

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To: alisasny

Most of the older Norwegians do not like what has been happening in their country but they do like their cradle to grave benefits

Horrors! How dare they??

so they haven't said enough.....the younger generation (under 40) have been raised to worship at the twin altars of “tolerance” and “diversity”.

Those BASTARDS!!!

Hopefully, this will be a wake-up call for them, as well as the other European countries who have welcomed the wolves into their sheep folds and are now surprised to discover “what sharp teeth” they have!

29 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 12:16:04 PM by VikingMom (I may not know what the future holds but I know who holds the future!)

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To: cll

Must be the Amish or the Mormons again.

Must be.

Norway needs to get a clue that an immigration policy which is driven by political correctness is suicidal.

37 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 12:35:46 PM by American Infidel (Instead of vilifying success, try to emulate it)

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To: dfwgator

“This is a new kind of, a new kind of evil. And the American people are beginning to understand. This crusade, this war on terrorism, is going to take a while. And American people must be patient.”

George W Bush, September 6th, 2011.

Anybody really think he used the word “crusade” accidentally? I don’t.

That's because you're a dumbass, too.

Ezekiel 39?

46 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 12:54:53 PM by RobRoy (The US today: Revelation 18:4)

Proverbs 14.7

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And then...

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To: All

Police have a suspect in custody. Looks like it was a right-wing Norwegian native trying to take members of the ruling Labor Party.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2017851/Named-The-blond-Norwegian-32-arrested-holiday-island-massacre-linked-Oslo-bomb-blasts.html?ito=feeds-newsxml

146 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 7:45:27 PM by Endo

.

....for about half an hour.......

.

then:

To: Endo

So much for all the comments on every Muslim that exists!

147 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 8:15:18 PM by toldyou (Even if the voices aren't real they have some pretty good ideas.)

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10 minutes later:

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To: Endo

Hmmmm....silence here...can it be that everyone jumped to conclusions?

148 posted on Friday, July 22, 2011 8:20:27 PM by toldyou (Even if the voices aren't real they have some pretty good ideas.)

They're thinking.

 

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To: cll

It wasn’t a muslim attack. It was a home-grown white boy.

150 posts of muslim hate and it wasn’t even a muslim.

152 posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 1:56:54 AM by Prairie Rat

They're still thinking!

Yosemite Sam: All right! Don't rush me. I'm a-thinking... and my head hurts.

.

Finally.....

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To: Prairie Rat

Still, it could have been muslims,

Well, there you go.

so just let that
rage out , let it go, and think how much better you’ll
feel knowing that it’s gone.....til the next time.

154 posted on Saturday, July 23, 2011 2:09:37 AM by tet68 ( " We would not die in that man's company, that fears his fellowship to die with us...." Henry V.)

I'll keep that in mind, fuckmonkey.

I'd like to say it gets better, but after the jumpola...we have Bachmann.

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Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - "Ashes in their mouths" edition

Good morning, everyone!

You know, I almost - almost - feel sorry for the Freepers.

First the birth certificate, and now this.

Rumsfield Chief of Staff tweet: Osama Bin Laden Killed (Confirmed!)
Twitter - Keith Urbahn (Rumsfield's COS)

Posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:43:12 PM by ph12321

Chief of Staff of Donald Rumsfield tweeted OBL has been killed. Perhaps this is Obama's new speech coming soon?

1 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:43:14 PM by ph12321

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To: ph12321

Why is the first thing I think is: How convenient?

Good if true.

It's true. This man is a moron.

3 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:45:02 PM by CommieCutter (Promote Liberal Extinction: Support gay marriage and abortion!)

.

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To: ph12321

well wag the dog,
this will cover the fake birth certificate!!!!

5 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:45:07 PM by 9422WMR (Illegal is not a race. Obamacare is a crime)

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To: ph12321

That would be great news to be sure! Watch the marxist girl child try to take credit.

11 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:46:16 PM by fuzzybutt (Democrat Lawyers are the root of all evil.)

For what? Reactivating the Bin Laden desk at the CIA after Dubya de-activated it? Perish the thought!

To: ph12321

The death certificate has been faked. Check for chromatic aberration.

14 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:46:37 PM by ClearCase_guy

Heh.

To: ph12321

“Chief of Staff of Donald Rumsfield”
Your first clue this is BS.

24 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:48:11 PM by 9422WMR (Illegal is not a race. Obamacare is a crime)

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To: freebilly

Hope it’s true....

Seriously?! I can't stand the thought of this pretender taking credit for OBL's death. Ugh ... the left will go nuts over this.

33 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:49:18 PM by al_c (http://www.blowoutcongress.com)

There you have it, folks - Freepers would rather Bin Laden was still alive than killed at the order of President Obama.   Priorities.

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To: freebilly

Are you sure?

I mean Obama kinda looks like him without the beard.

And we’ve never seen them in the same room together at the same time.

47 posted on Sunday, May 01, 2011 9:51:08 PM by Jonty30

The downward spiral continues after our jump into the mouth of madness,,,

A Nation of Busy Bodies

This is, in a way, a followup to Athenae's post this morning. Over my lifetime, we've increasingly become a nation of busy bodies. The right wants to tell women they don't have control over their own bodies and gays that they should neither smooch nor have sexy times. My brothers and sisters on the left have spent the last few days telling people how to react to the death of Osama bin Laden; including trotting out a quote from MLK that was only partially accurate. The sub-head on Joan Walsh's post at Salon sums up my reaction quite succinctly: "The frenzy over a "fake" quote reveals our desire to outsource our moral decision-making to someone else." Joan is a smart woman.

Everyone is entitled to their opinion but no one is entitled to tell other people what to think or feel. I didn't do the boogaloo in the street when I heard about the demise of the master criminal bin Laden but was tempted to do so when *my* personal bete noir Slobodan Milosevic died. I hope that if Hitler had died in 1938 that folks wouldn't have berated the people he persecuted-Jews, Gypsies, Lefties to name but a few-for being glad he was dead. Yes, Osama was a piker compared to the Fuhrer BUT the anaology is still applicable.  

My late mother was a kind person who was always willing to help others BUT she's the one who taught me to mind my own business and not offer unsolicited advice. She once said: "They call it unsolicited advice because you weren't asked. If you're asked, be honest and straight forward but nobody likes a Nosy Parker."

I never quite knew (or cared) who Parker was and why he or she was so bloody nosy but it was sound advice then and just as sound in this era of social networking. In short, mind your own beeswax and don't be a fucking busy body:

 

May Day for bin Laden

I'm Greek so I understand vendettas and the desire for vengeance. The Greeks aren't as obsessive about revenge as the Sicilians but try ordering Turkish coffee in any Hellenic eatery. If you do so, prepare to duck because some crockery may be headed your way. Smash.

I had a Greek-Greek relative who was convinced that everything good was invented by the Greeks: it was like hearing a Stalinist insist that Russians had invented the telephone, telegraph and Tina Turner's dance moves. I once asked this Uncle (a third cousin but every guy who's older than you in a Greek family is called Theo or Uncle) to explain why baklava was made throughout the former Ottoman Empire if it was strictly a Greek dish. His answer: it was spread by itinerant Greek chefs who fed phylo to the Turkish phillistines. (Okay, that last bit was embellishment.) He went on to remind me that if it was Turkish, it was skattah (shit.) I didn't buy it but I enjoyed busting the old boy's chops.  

That was a circuitous way of saying that, while I don't plan to dance in the street to celebrate bin Laden's demise, I'm not shedding any tears for a mass murderer. Slaying that particular bearded dragon doesn't really change much but I've enjoyed observing the political contortions of folks on both the far left and far right; all of whom are determined to fit this unwieldy narrative into an ideologically tidy box. Forget about it, y'all. The world is not only a mess, it's messy.

Even before May Day, Osama bin Laden was yesterday's man. I'm far more interested in seeing if we yet again send the Pakistanis to bed without supper and then throw another a few billion dollars at them. Spare the rod, spoil the Pakstani security forces. It's clearly time to put them on a starvation diet since Osama was hiding in plain sight not far from the Pakistani version of West Point. What does it take for us to get properly pissed off at the Pakistanis? If this doesn't do it, nothing will. I suspect, however, that our abusive relationship with Pakistani will continue...

And Then

First of all, I have zero interest in scolding anybody for being happy today. For dancing or singing or spraying champagne. For celebrating for the TV cameras, for Twitter, or just for themselves. For cracking jokes. We grieve how we grieve, and make no mistake, this is still grief. It's impossible to get an A in it, and it's grotesque to try. Lecturing others on how to do it right is just a way to draw attention to yourself, to make you the Virtuous Voice of Truth. I've never liked that voice. Ever.

But let me ask you this: Read this and tell me, could we have done this before now?

In an interview at CIA headquarters two weeks ago, a senior intelligence official said the two proud groups of American secret warriors had been “deconflicted and basically integrated” -- finally -- 10 years after 9/11. Indeed, according to accounts given to journalists by five senior administration officials Sunday night, the CIA gathered the intelligence that led to bin Laden’s location. A memo from CIA Director Leon Panetta sent Sunday night provides some hints of how the information was collected and analyzed. In it, he thanked the National Security Agency and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency for their help. NSA figured out, somehow, that there was no telephone or Internet service in the compound. How it did this without Pakistan’s knowledge is a secret. The NGIA makes the military’s maps but also develops their pattern recognition software -- no doubt used to help establish, by February of this year, that the CIA could say with “high probability” that bin Laden and his family were living there.

Could we have had the champagne at Ground Zero, could we have had the dancing and the singing, the silence and the reflection, the closure and the open wounds, without the past 10 years of pointless death in Iraq and Afghanistan? There were no military casualties from killing bin Laden, the president said, and it hit me like a fist in the gut. Could we have done this, brought justice however brutal, without killing another American soul?

There are times I go to a Pat Robertson-type place, I really do, and think about the karmic bitchslap we are so utterly due for what we've done. And I pray, almost, an argument, "lots of us tried to stop it." Tried, of course, meaning nothing to the dead. 

So this morning the wars continue, because after all they weren't about bin Laden. If we had done this 10 years ago, would it have been enough? The president talked about how united we were on 9/11; I was working that day and every day thereafter, not too far from where he was, and he is telling us a pretty story, a pretty lie. We were not united. We were fractious and enraged, and quite a few Sikh and Indian men, quite a few innocent Muslim women, can attest to that if we choose to listen to them. In that furious fear-driven anger, would this have been enough?

Look at the pictures. Look at the joy and sorrow. You tell me.

A.

 

The Posh Boy & The Merchants Of Death

British Prime Minister David Cameron was the first Western leader to visit post-Mubarak Egypt. He said all the right things about democracy and yadda, yadda, yadda. Initially, I was impressed until I saw this:

David Cameron's efforts to promote democracy in the Middle East by becoming the first foreign leader to visit Cairo were overshadowed as it emerged that he will spend the next three days touring undemocratic Gulf states with eight of Britain's leading defence manufacturers.

After a hastily convened stopover in Egypt, where he spoke of being "inspired" by protesters, the PM began a long-scheduled trade mission by landing in Kuwait, a key military ally. Britain has approved 1,155 arms export licences for Kuwait since 2003, worth a total of £102.3m, according the Campaign Against the Arms Trade.

There was a shitstorm over the timing of the trip. One good thing that's come of it is this:

Britain faced embarrassment over the weekend when it was forced to revoke arms export licences to Bahrain and Libya amid fears that British arms may have been used in the violent crackdown on protesters. Cameron, who is seeking assurances that no British arms were used against protesters, insisted that Britain has some of the toughest rules on arms exports in the world.

They do? Really? As an American, I suppose I should be relieved that not all the shit being thrown at protesters was made in the USA. But I'm horrified that the UK allowed any sort of arms sale to Libya; especially now that Gaddafi's personal role in ordering  the Lockerbie bombing has been confirmed by one of the rats scrambling off the demented dictator's sinking ship. So much for being tough on terrorism. Of course, the Posh Boy will turn around and blame the Artful Dodger and the Labour Government. So it goes.

As for Cameron, the mask of moderation that he donned when in opposition has proven to be a poor fit. In power, the Posh Boy has turned into a regular old member of the nasty Thatcherite party as he gleefully takes an axe to the National Health Service. He, however, has the Liberal Democrats as useful idiots, patsies and fall guys. The Posh Boy may be a malaka but he's no fool.

Cameron's merchants of death tour of the Middle East has made me think of George Bernard Shaw's classic play Major Barbara. The title character joined the Salvation Army as a way of rebelling against her arms merchant father, Andrew Undershaft. It's well worth a read and the next time the 1941 film version pops up on TCM check it out. It features stellar performances by Wendy Hiller as the title character and Robert Morley as her odious albeit witty father who was part of the original MOD Squad. No, not the campy Sixties teevee show, the MOD Squad from Thank You For Smoking: Merchants Of Death. The Posh Boy is now their teaboy...

What Opposing Torture Looks Like

Thank God for at least one judge who understands the law:

I have read letters and statements from many individuals who were not called to testify at trial but wanted to be heard. Those statements, and they have all been made available to you, of course, those statements describe brutality at your hands or those under your supervision or command, some even more appalling than the torture the witnesses here have testified about.

One remarkable thing about the statements was how many came from outside the Chicago area. These people say they had to leave Chicago because they were terrified that the police would do this to them again.

One statement from a prisoner, however, will probably haunt me the longest. This man reports that he has been in prison for 30 years. He stated he was 17 when he was arrested while walking down the street and brutally tortured until he confessed to a murder. He said, I had the body of a man but I was a child inside.

He remains in prison for a crime he insists he did not commit, being abandoned by family and friends who trusted that the police would not have charged him had he not done the crime.

The grandmother, who stood by him, died while he was in prison, a graying, middle-aged adult. Imagine the loss.

I also point out the statement Mr. [Anthony] Holms made yesterday as particularly moving. He said, I remember looking around the room at the other officers, and I thought one of them would say, “that’s enough,” but they didn’t.

Now when I hear your attorney implying that if someone did the crime, no harm, no foul, they deserved it, I am frankly shocked. Even if counsel only means to say that none of these people can be believed because they are criminals, the mountain of evidence to the contrary completely belies that position.

[snip]

The freedom that we treasure most of all in this country is the right to live free of governmental abuse of power. Those who represent the government and hold power over other citizens are the embodiment of the principle that we live by — the rule of law. The rule of law holds us together as we live out our great social experiment known as the United States of America.

Maybe hearing that would have engaged Eric Zorn's emotions.

A.

Our Noble, Peaceful Politics

This line of thinking is starting to get on my goddamn nerves:

The great miracle of American politics is that although it can tend toward the cutthroat and thuggish, it is almost devoid of genuine violence outside of a few scuffles and busted lips now and again. With the exception of Saturday's slaughter, I'd wager that in the last 30 years there have been more acts of physical violence in the stands at Philadelphia Eagles home games than in American politics.

You know, that's fine, the last 30 years. How about a few years before that? It's not like there aren't still people alive who can't remember this:

James Meredith, the first black man to brave the colour bar at the University of Mississippi, has been shot and wounded after entering Mississippi on a civil rights march.

Police have arrested a 41-year-old white man named Aubrey James Norvell from Memphis on suspicion of carrying out the shooting.

I'm really about done with us congratulating ourselves on how awesome we are now, as if all of that was 3,000 years ago. As if it was Elizabethan England. As if it was ancient history. And also, really? Really? "With the exception of this latest round of dead people, it's not that bad?" That's what you're going with? What the blue-arsed Christ.

Here's the thing: There is lots and lots of political violence in this country. We kill people with our politics every single day. When we consign them to poverty, when we keep them from places of learning worthy of their aspirations, when we declare their needs invalid, when we find a way, any way, in our desperate avoidance of giving a shit, to ignore the sick and downtrodden, that is violence.

Just because nobody's firing a gun doesn't make it any less deadly. Or any more moral.

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - "It wasn't us!" edition

 

Good morning, gentle people - well, you knew that there wouldn't be much introspection over at FR over the Tucson shooter, but you probably couldn't imagine the trip down De Nile that the Freeperati are taking.

I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you all to double up on iso suits, gloves, and booties. It's a mess in there.

Here's what passes for soul-searching in Freeperville:

Not "Should we quit screaming hate at public servants?", but rather "This wouldn't have been so bad if numerous people in the crowd had pulled out their own handguns and started blazing away!"

Let's face it, if this had been a Republican event-VANITY
Me | 1/8/11 | self

Posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 8:43:23 PM by SonofReagan

If this had been a Republican event in Tucson today there would have been just one death, the gunmen. Several in that kind of a crowd would have pulled their weapons and aeriated him immediately.

Leftists! You started this war and one of your own contiunued it today.

1 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 8:43:23 PM by SonofReagan

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You're not a son of Reagan, you're a son of a bitch - and a stupid one, at that. This isn't a fucking movie. If five people pull handguns in a crowd of people and attempt to shoot one of them, two things will happen:

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1. More then half the shots fired will miss, hitting bystanders, and the other would-be heroes.

2. The bullets that do hit the shooter will overpenetrate and hit bystanders, and the other would-be heroes.

But hey - it works in the movies, so what the hell.

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To: SonofReagan

Ditto that...especially here in Texas!

5 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:10:23 PM by NYTexan

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Someone stole your brain and replaced it with a ditto machine.

"And posting 'Me, too' like some brain-dead AOL'er"

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To: NYTexan

Democrat or Republican, here in IN the thumbstraps going off would have sounded like popcorn.

8 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:19:10 PM by tumblindice (Henry Fonda won a Bronze Star, his daughter won our contempt)

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And the bodies hitting the ground would have sounded like a platoon dropping their duffle bags on the tarmac.

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To: SonofReagan

I have attended five Tea Party events; first one, concealed carry, the rest open carry.

Always got a positive response, and usually an admission of carrying themselves.

I don’t know if no one else would have been wounded, but I can guaran-damn-tee you the perp wouldn’t have survived.

10 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:23:36 PM by IYellAtMyTV (Workday Forecast--Increasing pressure towards afternoon. Rum likely by evening.)

.

Check the handle - I imagine he does a lot of yelling.  At his TV, at clouds, at kids on his lawn... Rum will do that to ya. This imbecile needs to have his CCW permit folded until it is all sharp corners and inserted up his ditto-hole.

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To: SonofReagan

Can you imagine what would have occurred had this been Sarah Palin? Outside of the jokes that would have been made of course. They are quick to blame the Tea Party, who are as docile as 55 yr old white folks that the MSM bill as terrorists. What worries me is that some smart ass Liberal Attorney will have this guy change his story and have him confess to being on the Tea Party payroll. With the current AG I have a greater worry that something will be covered up.

21 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:45:58 PM by Bringbackthedraft (The candidate they smear and ridicule the most is the one they fear the most.)

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Pic of 55-year old docile white folk:

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Of course, there's the occasional Freeper that is suddenly very sensitive:

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To: SonofReagan

Maybe it's just me but the bodies of the dead aren't even cold yet. There will be time for a more sober analysis later perhaps. The tone of this just seems a bit harsh this soon after a 9 year-old (and 5 others) was blown away.

Like I said, maybe it's just me.

3 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:05:32 PM by muir_redwoods (Obama. Chauncey Gardiner without the homburg.)

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To: muir_redwoods; SonofReagan

It’s not just you. This kind of crap makes us all look bad. Would not be surprised if it the thread shows up on some other site.

14 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 9:35:56 PM by NucSubs

.

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An appeal for reason:

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To: SonofReagan

I think it is hyperbole to call this “war” .....maybe its ok to say “culture war” or “political war”

After all Dems did relinquish control of the House....and in January of 2013 if those on the right are able to convince enough people to vote accordingly, Obama will also relinquish control ....and no “war” is called for

26 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 10:08:23 PM by woofie

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Quickly dealt with...

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To: NucSubs

You’re in a war you fool. You’re on this site and should know that. Shut up.

28 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 10:25:09 PM by SonofReagan

.

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To: montanajoe

You’re in a war you fool. You’re on this site and should know that. Shut up.

29 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 10:26:20 PM by SonofReagan

.

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To: douginthearmy

You’re in a war you fool. You’re on this site and should know that. Shut up.

30 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 10:27:27 PM by SonofReagan

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I guess it was too confusing to write your rant one time and just address it to all the traitors, huh?

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To: crescen7

Thanks for letting me know I’m not alone in this. Every thread I read includes this rhetoric, and it’s incredibly upsetting. On one thread, a commenter said Ms. Giffords was “a full blown kook shot by one of her own team members”. It’s sickening.

35 posted on Saturday, January 08, 2011 11:06:24 PM by TexNewMex

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You're just now finding out that you'reposting on a site full of belligerent nutcases???

Welcome to reality.

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Next up - the original shooting reaction thread (what the mods didn't scrub, anyway).

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Both Sides Now

I was out all day, so I came home and Oh Holy Shit, and in reading across the various AP reports there's this:

Giffords also was among about 20 Democrats opposed in last fall's elections by Sarah Palin, the 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee. Palin's Facebook page in March posted a U.S. map with the cross-hairs of a gun scope imposed over each of the 20 Democrats' districts. Gun imagery appeared in various ways in the campaign, often not connected at all with gun rights.

"We're on Sarah Palin's targeted list," Giffords said at the time. "The way that she has it depicted has the crosshairs of a gun sight over our district. When people do that, they've got to realize there are consequences to that action."

Palin's Facebook page had the following comment in the hours after the shooting:

"My sincere condolences are offered to the family of Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and the other victims of today's tragic shooting in Arizona."

Ferocious comments, and even occasional violence, certainly animate American politics from time to time; witness the bloody drive for racial equality and desegregation, and the antiwar protests, of the 20th century.

Emphasis mine.

How about "witness the bloody reprisals against those fighting for racial equality and desegregation, and the wars of choice, of the 20th century?" How about phrasing it that way? Instead of making it out that yes, ten hippies got the fuck out of hand and so it's a sort of general "political rhetoric" that's violent, and not one goddamn party in service of its vicious goals?

You want to talk about violent political rhetoric? As if it's new? As if it's recent? How about the violent rhetoric that says that people deserve to die because they're poor, because their parents are undocumented, because they're black, because they should have moved out of the 'hood, because they were walking where they shouldn't have been? How about the violent rhetoric that says that children should be doomed to schools that are like demilitarized zones because their parents have committed the crime of not being wealthy? That kind of thing isn't new.

How about the violent rhetoric that told terrorists to bring it on, that said a war in another country would be a cakewalk, that said of looting and violence that it was merely "untidy," that asks whether Arabs and Muslims deserve freedom, that wonders at the lack of gratitude families show for bombs dropped on their wedding parties? We've been hearing that for a while.

How about the violent rhetoric that asks if the devastating earthquake that destroyed half of Haiti would have been less devastating if those poor Haitians would just "internalize responsibility?" How about the violent rhetoric that declared that American cities could drown for all we cared, because those people had big-screen TVs and were stupid for living there anyway? That's going on six years now, we've been hearing that kind of thing.

Before we talk about people at anti-war protests with very rude signs, maybe we could get through the last 40 years in which one party's violent rhetoric and even more violent actions have created the society in which we now live. A society dominated by economic nihilism, threaded through with suspicion and fear, all of it wrapped in a very nice red, white and blue goddamn bow, shoved in a gun barrel and shot into the sky.

We've been tolerating political rhetoric that is unspeakably violent since long before Sarah Palin started spewing her nonsense on Facebook. If she never spoke again, if she never said another word, we would still have a society in which it is totally okay to call some people expendable because they're unprivileged, evil because they're idealistic, and irredeemable because they have the gall to say that the way things are isn't the way things have to be.

Sarah Palin and her Facebook page are just a little cruder about expressing it, is all. And nobody really minded all that much until some lunatic started shooting.

A.

Far Be It From Me to Praise Don Imus ...

But he does kind of make a good point here:

THUNE: The difference I think with the tax bill is there is a deadline, Jan. 1, we have to get this done, taxes go up on Jan. 1, that’s a matter of law. We need to get the issue addressed for the firefighters and the 9/11 victims and we will. But again there’s a right way and a wrong way to do this, and there’s a way in which you can pay for these things, and try and get this thing to where it doesn’t cost quite as much, where it doesn’t provide as much exposure, as much liability – there are some things in this bill that we think can be improved upon. We need an opportunity to do that.They want to rush through all these things at the end of the year, without debate, without amdendments, with the opportunity to go through a normal process. And I think we can do that, we can do many of these last-minute initiatives they’re trying to push through, we can do them next year.

IMUS: I know there’s a deadline on the tax situation, but there’s also a deadline on the health of these firemen and these police officers.

Procedure is great. Proper civility and pinky fingers extended and the right fork and I can't tell you how many moronic meatspace conversations I have in my life that go like this, where the thing itself is ignored in favor of how my voice went up a decibel higher than some whiny ponce thought was proper, but PEOPLE ARE DYING. I'm sorry if that interferes with Senate calendars or whatever the fuck Thune is on about here, but could we cut to the goddamn point already?

Blah blah blah there's a way to do stuff. Yes. There's been a way to do stuff for ten fucking years with these people. It started with not lying to them about the air quality at Ground Zero, and it continued with not making them beg Congress for what we really really ought to be presenting them on a silver platter in between foot rubs from Penelope Cruz and Clive Owen, and it's now to the point where just shut the fuck up, okay? Seriously, it's embarrassing.

There was a way to do stuff when we decided to shove cash out of airplaines at two countries we now a decade/seven years later demonstrably don't give a fuck about, and there was a way to do stuff when we decreed that the budget surplus should go back to everybody but most especially to really rich people, and there was a way to do stuff when we decided to give Thune, who really is a repulsive bologna pony, an office and a staff. If we can't afford one thing it stands to reason we can't afford something else, and so while we're picking and choosing I demand that Thune generate his own electricity because paying for it is just silly when we're in a budget crisis.

And by the way, what this is really all about? "Exposure and liability." So sorry you might actually have to pay somebody whose life got ruined in service of this country as selfless as any we've ever seen in our history the approximate amount you would gladly blow on hookers, if only you could find one in DC desperate enough to touch you with more than the tip of her umbrella.

Schmuck.

A.

An Actual War on Christmas

Well, this shouldn't freak anybody out:

CORVALLIS, Ore. -- Anger over a Somali-born teen's failed plan to blow up a van full of explosives during Portland's Christmas tree lighting ceremony erupted in arson on Sunday when a fire damaged an Islamic center frequented by the suspect, authorities said.

Police don't know who started the blaze or exactly why, but they believe the Islamic center in Corvallis was targeted because terror suspect Mohamed Osman Mohamud, 19, occasionally worshipped there.

Yosof Wanly, the imam at the Salman Alfarisi Islamic Center, said he was advised by friends to take his family out of their home because of the potential threat of hate crime, and members decried the alleged arson attack. No one was injured, and the fire was contained to one room.

That's gotta help, right? "They" were gonna blow up your Christmas tree, so you have to set fire to their mosque. Because that ends well, all the time. That never, ever creates any kind of bad situation. Don't these people at least watch movies? Plus, not to mention the general wisdom-free nature of that decision, the supposed terrrorist wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed:

A Somali-born teenager plotted to carry out a car bomb attack at a crowded Christmas tree lighting ceremony in downtown Portland on Friday, but the bomb turned out to be a dud supplied by undercover agents as part of a sting, federal prosecutors said.

So now you've got a story that should be about the FBI successfully foiling a terrorist attack attempt they set up, which is amusing in its own way, I mean, people need something to do all day, but you've gone and turned it into an escalating religious war and scared some people trying to pray. Good job, genius. The next step is the theft of some baby Jesuses from manger scenes across the land, after which it will clearly be time to nuke Iran.

A.

Travel Day Sexytimes

Yick.

Most of what we go through in airports is fucking stupid. Metal detectors, sure, okay, and dogs and let's make sure nobody's bringing a warhead on. But as others have pointed out, the shoe thing and the underwear thing and the liquid thing and all the rest of it is just trying to prevent somebody attacking in the same way an attack has already failed once. I know most terrorists aren't the brightest bulbs on the Christmas tree, given how many of them seem to get caught with stuff in their shoes and panties, but COME ON.

An airport's the dumbest thing to hit right now. The truly dangerous and unsecured sites in America are where anybody gathers in large numbers to do things we think of as ordinary. Suburban shopping malls are more worried about teenage shoplifters than about terrorism, but tell me that isn't your nightmare scenario. Nobody would ever leave their houses again. There's no X-ray, metal detector, pat-down process at an NFL or MLB game. Community centers, most city buildings, a clipboard and a confident wave will get you way farther than you ought to go. Lest anyone think I'm giving terrorists ideas, this is just the stuff pulled from last night's crime procedurals on cable.

We're scared of flying because it's what happened last time. We should be scared of what's going to happen next time.

A.

The 9/12 Project and National Unity

This photo, from the Daily Southtown, was taken in Bridgeview, Illinois, during a rally for America that turned into a march on the region's largest Islamic center. It was taken on September 12, 2001.

Does it look familiar?

Here, watch this:

How about now? Now does it look familiar?

When Glenn Beck and his teatard followers first jumped on this idea of returning to the America we were on 9/12/01, all I could think of was that photo up there. Because that's who we were, a lot of us, on 9/12/01 -- assholes, painting our chests red, white and blue and high-fiving our drunken buddies while we beat up Sikh cabdrivers and yelled. That's who a lot of us were, and boy, were we ever grateful, weren't we, for Osama bin Laden giving us an excuse for a self-important hoedown.

That's the kind of thing my colleagues and I were spending our days covering, and it's why I have ZERO tolerance for hazy 9/11 unity nostalgia. Things were fucking scary for a large number of people, and not just Muslims and people who looked like Muslims, but people who wanted to go to the grocery store without running into a giant, angry mob of hopped-up aggro racists looking for some helpless Ay-rab ass to kick.

I know a lot of people have memories of examples of kindness and decency from those days; all I have is notes of phone calls from people talking about yet another container of pig's blood smashed on a mosque doorstep (CLASSY) and some dipshit accosting me at a rally yammering about how the "dune coons" were taking all our jobs away. It was high-level horrific, because Lower Manhattan was still actually burning, the entire country pretty much hadn't slept, and here come these people.

And in Bridgeview, Ill., a suburb of Chicago, police stopped 300 marchers as they tried to march on a mosque. Marcher Colin Zaremba, 19, told The Associated Press, "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have."

I used to think Beck and his wannabes like Geller were just remembering that period completely wrong. I used to think they were as deluded as every maker of every soul-stirringly horrid 9/11 Tribute You Tube is, and not recalling all the truly horrific things that were done. I mean, it wasn't like that everywhere. In New York, for example, people actually were extraordinary and kind. So I used to think this whole 9/12 Project was just based on wanting to be something we never were, as a country.

Now, seeing that video, I think Beck and Geller and all the others actually remember this thing right. They want us to be exactly, EXACTLY, who we were the day after 9/11. And damn if we aren't getting there.

A.

'Imperfect but reasonable'

Fuck the whole world, today:

In town-hall-style meetings in recent weeks, the federal judge presiding over the cases, Alvin K. Hellerstein of United States District Court in Manhattan, has urged the plaintiffs to accept the settlement as imperfect but reasonable.

In letters to clients, lawyers for Worby Groner Edelman and Napoli Bern, the firms representing more than 9,000 of the plaintiffs, spell out how costly the cases could prove if they go to trial.

“Your trial-related costs are likely to be in the range of $50,000 to $150,000, not including attorney’s fees,” each plaintiff’s letter says.

Many have pinned their hopes on a third alternative: a bill in Congress that would pay $7.4 billion for health care and monitoring programs and for reopening the September 11 Victim Compensation Fund, which awarded money to workers who got sick before the fund closed in 2003. But that legislation was voted down in the House, and its future is highly uncertain. “It happened in New York City, and personally I think the rest of the country could care less,” Mr. Carrano said.

As a result, many plaintiffs consider the settlement their best hope.

Tyree Bacon, a senior court officer with the New York State criminal court who volunteered at ground zero, said he was taking the settlement — in his case, about $11,000. To him, the legal battle was never about the money but about calling attention to the health consequences suffered by those “who stepped up to the plate” after the terrorist attacks.

A.

Thank God They Didn't Register Black People to Vote

Or they'd be screwed:

"[Blackwater] provided a bid that was underbid everyone else by about $26 million. And a panel that we had said that they can do the job, that they have shaped up their act. So there really was not much choice but to accept that contract."

(More in a bit on whether Blackwater, now known as Xe, has really shaped up its act.)

The CIA contract follows the news this month that the State Department awarded the company an 18-month, $120 million contract to protect consulates in Afghanistan. And even that's not all. In December, a Blackwater official told a contracting commission appointed by Congress that the company has training and security contracts as well as a "drug interdiction unit" working for the Defense Department in Afghanistan.

And in a must-read story published Sunday, McClatchy reported that the Obama Administration has opted not to pursue criminal charges against Blackwater for possible violations of sanctions in the company's long campaign to sell services to the government of Southern Sudan.

Right. Not much choice. Couldn't do anything else, like, say, NOT GIVE THEM THE FUCKING CONTRACT. Totally inevitable.

So amazing how that works.

A.

This Excuses Israel How?

Explain this, people:

Weakness always begets aggression, and, like clockwork, Obama's repeated signals that he is weakening America's commitment to Israel are emboldening the Jewish state's enemies.From Syria to Iran to Lebanon, from Hezbollah to Hamas and the PLO, the wolves smell blood and are trying to gauge whether they can get close enough for the kill.  

We heard some of this last week, too, about how Obama was so mean to Netanyahu and that completely made it okay to board a ship and shoot activists in international waters because ... WELL JUST BECAUSE OKAY SHUT THE FUCK UP. This argument basically states that Israel's government can commit heinous acts if our president appears to be rude, and that members of Hamas and Hezbollah are sitting around waiting for his secret bat signal to be fuckholes in their turn. I don't know how, exactly, this makes things better for Israel. I don't think this is the argument you want to seize on as a defense.

A.

Joey the Drama King

WHAT IS THIS I DON'T EVEN:

Washington (CNN) -- A bipartisan group of legislators on Thursday introduced legislation in Congress to strip citizenship from any American found to be involved in terrorism.

If the Terrorist Expatriation Act passes, an American would lose citizenship if found to have provided material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization -- as designated by the secretary of state -- or participated in actions against the United States.

Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Connecticut, and Scott Brown, R-Massachusetts, co-sponsored the bill. An identical bill is being introduced in the House by Reps. Jason Altmire, D-Pennsylvania, and Charlie Dent, R-Pennsylvania.

"As the attempted terrorist attack on Times Square showed us again, our enemies today are even more willing than the Nazis or fascists were to kill innocent civilian Americans [in WWII]," Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, told reporters. "Our enemies today are stateless actors who don't wear uniforms and plot against Americans abroad and here in the United States."

Okay.

If we're gonna do this can we start with child molesters? I'm not talking about somebody who believes a 16-year-old who says he or she is 18, I'm talking about those fuckwads that like 7-year-olds, the ones who will find a kid to molest no matter where you maroon them, the ones who can't be monitored closely enough to prevent them sneaking into a Brownie troop meeting. The ones with boxes of kiddie porn under their beds and a list of victims ten miles long.

If we're gonna do this, I vote we start with those assholes, and we not only strip them of their citizenship, we shoot them in the back of the head immediately following conviction. No chemical castration, no registry online, no electronic monitoring, nothing. Bullet, back of the head, immediately, because given five minutes those fucks will be chasing after the court reporter's toddler. Just strip them of their citizenship, declare them enemies of America (BECAUSE THEY ARE) and kill them. Maybe electrode their balls a little first. Let the parents of their victims do it.

I say shit like this all the time and then I remind people, who look at me like I've lost the plot, that shit like this is why I'm not in Congress. It's a sign I am irrationally squirreled up about certain things and should be talked out of my tree and bungee-corded to a chair until I chill. And somebody needs to do that with Joey here, because what he's talking about is just as deliciously tempting to the worst of our instincts and just as bugfuck crackers insane.

Somebody needs to bungee-cord Joey to a chair and tell him as much as he and his friends might like jacking off to the idea of stripping suspected terrorists of their citizenship, WE DO NOT DO THAT HERE, no matter how much fun it sounds like in their warblogger fantasies. What a stupid fucking country this is becoming, really. This commenter pretty much nails it:

Know what it's called when a U.S. citizen breaks the law? A crime.

Know what it's called when a U.S. citizen attacks the U.S. Government? Treason. Know what treason is? A crime.

Know what we do with people who commit crimes? We try them, and if we find them guilty, we sentence them. We don't take away their citizenship. That's not part of the fucking process, people.

But those punishments aren't extra-special enough for the extra-special crimes of terrorism! Or something! 

A.

Thank God '24' is Ending

I don't think I can take much more of this.

A.

Law Enforcement & Terrorism

This tidbit is buried in today's dose of WHOASHIT:

In 2005, al-Qaida terrorists used the area to fire Katyusha rockets at a U.S. warship docked in the port there.

The rockets missed the ship but hit a Jordanian army warehouse, killing a Jordanian soldier. Eight al-Qaida terrorists were arrested and later received prison terms ranging from seven years to death sentences.

Arrested? Prison terms? Who do these Jordanians think they are, coddling the terrorists like that? Jack Bauer would be ashamed. 

A.

Never Forget

It will be 15 years on Monday. She should be old enough to drive.

Doc

Not That We Haven't Always Done This Batshittery

But it is starting to become seriously disturbing:

Sara Howard, a spokesperson for Congress Russ Carnahan, confirmed tonight that a coffin was left on the front lawn of the Carnahan's home residence in the St. Louis area.

Mark your calendars for Wingnut Christmas:

Given that 19 April is the date on which both the Waco conflagration and the Oklahoma City bombing occurred it's probably not a coincidence that the gun nuts have chosen that date to stage a "Second Amendment March" on the nation's capitol.

I've said this before, but: I have zero issue with gun ownership. I have a SERIOUS problem with blowhard showoffs who think waving their guns around is some kind of stupendous act of courage in a society that not only permits gun ownership but positively worships violence, like, oooh, it's about as subversive as driving your car. Way to go against the grain there, Brave Patriot. Fucktards.

And the passive-aggression of wingnuts is starting to get on my goddamn nerves. Just sack up and admit that you want to threaten and intimidate. Don't be all, "Yeah, I put a coffin on your lawn, but I didn't mean for you to be upset by it or anything. Just expressing my opinion, man." Sure, I posted the wrong address for a congressman and got his brother's home vandalized, but hey, I wasn't telling anybody to do anything really. There's a fine line between plausible deniability and just generally being a puss, and these people are on the wrong side of it. Not that the other side would work for them either.

Schmucks.

A.

Given that 19 April is the date on which both the Waco conflagration and the Oklahoma City bombing occurred it's probably not a coincidence that the gun nuts have chosen that date to stage a "Second Amendment March" on the nation's capitol.

I've said this before, but: I have zero issue with gun ownership. I have a SERIOUS problem with blowhard showoffs who think waving their guns around is some kind of stupendous act of courage in a society that not only permits gun ownership but positively worships violence, like, oooh, it's about as subversive as driving your car. Way to go against the grain there, Brave Patriot. Fucktards.

And the passive-aggression of wingnuts is starting to get on my goddamn nerves. Just sack up and admit that you want to threaten and intimidate. Don't be all, "Yeah, I put a coffin on your lawn, but I didn't mean for you to be upset by it or anything. Just expressing my opinion, man." Sure, I posted the wrong address for a congressman and got his brother's home vandalized, but hey, I wasn't telling anybody to do anything really. There's a fine line between plausible deniability and just generally being a puss, and these people are on the wrong side of it. Not that the other side would work for them either.

Schmucks.

A.

Department of Defense Mechanisms

Via the Crack Den and It's Not a Crack House, It's a Crack Home, I bring you news that Ross Douthat is a solipsistic prick, basically:

Life is so unfair to warmongers, is it not? Then again, the reason our debates are so poisonous and our nation so divided might have something to do with the existence of utterly unaccountable members of the political class that can launch such a war, suffer no real consequences, and then reliably expect to be defended as “decent” and “well-intentioned” people who made understandable mistakes. The unfortunate truth of our existence is that villains do not have to come out of central casting for comic book movies. They are ordinary, “decent” people who commit grave errors and terrible crimes for any number of reasons. Many great evils have found their origins in a group’s belief that they were doing the right thing and were therefore entitled and permitted to use extraordinary means.

I disagree, actually. Not with the part about Douthat having absolutely no experience in the world that exists outside the combination Grand Theft Auto/porno that plays in his head. But with the idea that there has been insufficient tragic drama lent to the Bushian storyline in modern revisionism. I think there's been entirely too much. 

Bush was a great leader, misunderstood. His compatriots were loyal, loving men who were misled. Someday the world will bow down in gratitude to anyone who ever called himself Republican, when it becomes clear that they were right all along, yet so beset by criticisms monstrous and numerous it is a wonder they were able to persevere at all. Think of those billboards: Miss Me Yet?

I understand the need to cloak the past decade in grand terms. After all, if these were ordinary, ugly, animal mistakes, then any of Douthat's friends could make them. Any conservative, ideologically driven, Heritage Foundation Future Douchebag of America could step into Doug Feith's or Marc Thiessen's or Ari Fleischer's or George W. Bush's shoes and fuck everything up exactly the same way they did.

So those douchebags want there to be something spectacularly sympathetic about the Bush folks because if there isn't, why, then little poncey lordlings like Douthat would have to ask themselves why all the stupid shit that happened couldn't have been stopped. They'd have to face the fact that it all could have been stopped, and many many people simply didn't want to do so.

They put up these walls, and talk in Shakespearean terms about the Fall (and reach for Shakespeare when they really mean Aristophanes, the historically illiterate fucks), in order to distract themselves from the blame they bear. It's nothing but a way to cope with how terribly easy it was, in hindsight, to completely wreck the world. 

A.

Today on Tommy T's Obsession with the Freeperati - recycler edition

Good Monday morning, gentle people - I always have a hard time deciding which putrid little nuggets from Freeperville to share with you, and often skip scrutiny-worthy threads for something gaudy and new to dangle before your eyes. 

This week's offal offering is going to be older stuff from Free Republic that didn't make the cut for one reason or another, but sometimes old cheese is the best cheese.

First of all - a piece of smackdown heaven I originally posted on the Great Orange Satan few weeks ago.

An oldie but such a goodie it bears repeating:

.

Washington. Rep Geoff Simpson smacks Freeper down HARD!

.

Well, the Freeperati finally got the smackdown they deserve, and it's a thing of beauty.

Freepers are always sending letters to Congresscritters demanding this or that or the other thing, and they're generally just filed in the appropriate receptacle by the Congresscritters staff, along with the pleas for more UFO research. This time they got a personal response.

I think someone should send this Representative a thank-you note, if not some bucks.

Oh - and this is a first-time diary, but I just had to share this one with you :

Washington State Rep Smears Tea Party.

Email Request For An Apology and His Response.
Orbusmax.com ^ | February 22, 2010 | Jim Walker
Posted on Monday, February 22, 2010 10:28:26 PM by jonrick46
DATE: 02/22/2010

RE: WA Rep. Geoff Simpson Response For Using Porn Term 'Teabagger' During Televised Debate Of I-960 Suspension
After repeated attempts to contact WA State Rep. Geoff Simpson for an apology/retraction for using a porn term during televised debate on TVW last week, I finally receieved an email response. You can read the exhange below. At the bottom of this page, I have included links to the TVW video, and the email address for Rep. Simpson. 

------------------------------------------------------------ 

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Subject: Re: Your comments on I-960 From: orbusmax@orbusmax.com Date: Mon, February 22, 2010 10:24 am To: simpson.geoff@leg.wa.gov
Still waiting for an apology from you, sir, for using a pornographic word during televised debate, to describe patriotic Americans. In addition, you also need to apologize for describing the Tea Party as racist and sexist. You obviously have never been to a Tea Party rally, or else you would have not made such a slanderous, idiotic statement.
Also, still waiting from the leadership (Reps Chopp and Debolt). The leadership shouldn't condone this language, and should take necessary action to censure/reprimand.
Rep Simpson, please apologize for both slurs ASAP. If you issue a statement of apology, I will be happy to post it.
Thanks,
Jim Walker Orbusmax.com

He got a reply, all right - probably not the one he was expecting:

Subject: RE: Your comments on I-960 From: "Simpson, Rep. Geoff" Date: Mon, February 22, 2010 10:57 am 

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Dear Jim -
I don't think it's patriotic to fly airplanes into buildings as one of your tea party members recently did.

(Tommy sprays coffee onto keyboard/monitor)

I find your movement to be infected with the same selfish, hate-spawned and dangerous ideas that have plagued civilization from time to time, only to be quelled when appeals to man's more patriotic attributes of selflessness, kindness, compassion and peace have prevailed.

I was puzzled by your objection to my recounting the words of my 90 year old decorated WWII veteran constituent until I heard the more obscure alternate meaning associated with the term teabag. I believe my friend was using the term to describe angry, predominantly white, anti-government individuals who have recently been made prominent by the media highlighting their hate-filled rhetoric toward all things progressive.

Indeed, it is well documented that the originators of your movement themselves adopted the names "teabag" and "tea bagger" to describe their anti-government antics. Your manufactured outrage toward me for using the term that the fathers and mothers of your movement coined for themselves is tiresome.

I will apologize to you for recounting my friend's puzzlement about the selfishness of your movement when you apologize for your hatred, your selfishness and your lack of compassion toward others.

Thanks,
Geoff

That is definitely not gonna buff out.

More recycled raunch after the flying leap...

Steny Hoyer, Newspaper Commenters Fight For Title of Today's Biggest Jackass

First of all, Steny Hoyer is an asshole:

WASHINGTON -- As Obama administration officials discussed a possible mid-2011 opening of Thomson prison as a federal facility, a key Democratic lawmaker said today that the president would have a fight on his hands to secure funding for the prison, which would house terrorism suspects.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., spoke in answer to a reporter's question on whether Obama would have a "steep, uphill fight" to get the millions needed to buy the Illinois prison and move Guantanamo Bay detainees there.

Hoyer said yes.

"I think the administration realizes that this is a difficult issue, and I think that they are assessing where they are and where they think we ought to be," Hoyer said. "And I think that's appropriate, and I look forward to discussing it with them."

Apparently there is nothing you can't get Hoyer to say, so long as it's damaging to a Democratic agenda. His flack tries to walk it back later in the story, but ... yeah, damage done.

The commenters are hysterical, though. Full of ideas about fiscal responsibility, murderous fantasy, and detailed instructions as to how terrorist attacks could be carried out in order to fuck over some sheep in the deep country:

Take all these Gitmo prisoners for a ride to their native countries in 747's hold trial on the plane's and release them all at 10,000 feet over the Ocean out the cargo door. That saves 300 million plus the cost of feeding and guarding them. That is fiscal responsibility. You know if the table 's were turned they would chop our heads off and show it on worldwide TV. Dropping them in the Ocean may deter future terrorist acts. "I'm just sayin"

This guy has GI Joe figurines on the top of his bookshelves.

[[All of the tough talkin' keyboard commadoes are afraid to house some terror suspects ...]]

They are captured combatants. They shouldn't be "suspects" for anything.

We're allowed to hold combatants, without charge or legal representation, for the duration of the hostilities in which they were captured. For as long as the A'stan war is going on ... we can hold them.

Furthermore, if they were fighting out of uniform *improperly*, then we can accuse them of being saboteurs or mercinaries, give them a military lawyer, give them a military hearing, and then execute them.

They totally deserve a fair trial before we convict and killinate their asses!

Illinois doesn't want this!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Leave them in Gitmo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Is anyone listening?????????????????????

Try a few more exclamation points. That might help.

While the federal govt may have to react to any terrorist threat, it is the local property owners who bear the risk. This is because, for several year now, federal laws have allowed all U.S. insurance policies to exempt policy holders from coverage for terrorist acts. A dam breech could flood hundred of farm acres and rural homes, causing millions upon millions of dollars of damage. Similarly, federal laws mandate that we, farmers, destroy all our own livestock and crops if there is any nuclear leak and exposure. There is no insurance coverage if that leak is terrorist created. And, the risk is already significant enough for us to get yearly federal reminders and siren towers in our fields to warn of that risk.

Listen, if you get attacked by terrorists, you will in fact be taken care of. It seems we only hate Americans who were in the path of hurricanes, floods, broken-down infrastructure and general crime. You'll be fine.

A.

The Unanswered Question

I haven't been following the Christmas Day underwear bomber wannabe story that closely. I'm numb to wingnut hissy fits, lies and fear mongering; it  just doesn't irk me as much as it used to. In short, I'm an irk shirker...

There is, however, a pressing question for the underwear bomber guy that needs to be answered: boxers or briefs?

Malaka Of The Week: Rudy Giuliani

Yeah, I know: Rudy is overqualified for malaka of the week. His malakatude is eternal but it's particularly egregious this week. My original plan was to kick Rudy around for his opposition to trying that furry mass murderer, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad, in Manhattan after having favored terrorism trials there before. Also, if he were still a US Attorney he'd be demanding the right to more trial headlines in Noo Yawk. The *real* reason that Rudy 9/11 is malaka of the week is that he's injected himself back into the public discourse in a big way this week. I hadn't thought about this cut rate Mussolini for quite some time and I resent having to do so again. That's the essence of malakatude, y'all.

Rudy has also been in the news because of his flirtation with running for office in Noo Yawk. He considered running for Governor since David Paterson is a sitting duck but opted out because Andrew Cuomo seems ready to go and the mean Cuomo (as opposed to his gentlemanly father) would be a prohibitive favorite. Then, there was a flurry of ersatz excitement when the Daily News reported that Rudy might run against Senator Tracy Flick Kirsten Gillibrand in the 2010 special election and use it as a springboard for another futile run for the Presidency in 2012. That trial balloon landed like the Hindenburg and the story was denied to Ben Smith of Politico, which is the home of journalistic malpractice as well as malakatude.

So, Rudy get the fuck out of my face, go off and make buckets of blood money giving inflammatory speeches, visit Bernie Kerik in jail but please go away. I'm tired of your ugly mug but I do miss your old hairdo, I loved calling you Mayor Combover and your new 'do took away the only pleasure you ever gave me. You, sir, are a festering pustule of a malaka; slink off into a corner you fucking asshole and shut the fuck up.

Holy shit, I sound like the love child of Jude and Ashley Morris. Fuckin' A. Hmm, does the A stand for Athenae? 

It's Never Over

This is why I'm always hesitant to sum up the war that's still going on:

BERLIN (Nov. 17) — A former SS sergeant who worked unnoticed for decades as a train-station manager was charged with 58 counts of murder Tuesday after a student doing undergraduate research uncovered his alleged involvement in a massacre of Jewish forced laborers.

University of Vienna student Andreas Forster was working on a project about the slaying in a forest near the Austrian village of Deutsch Schuetzen when he stumbled across Adolf Storms' name in witness testimony.

Forster then obtained files from federal archives in Berlin that enabled him to link the former sergeant to the massacre, his professor Walter Manoschek told The Associated Press.

Manoschek visited Storms, 90, at his home in the city of Duisburg several times last year after finding him in the phone book. The professor conducted about 12 hours of interviews in which Storms repeatedly said that he does not remember the killings.

Forster and Manoschek notified authorities and state prosecutors near Storms' hometown in the industrial Ruhrgebiet region of western Germany filed the charges against him Tuesday.

The last war almost anyone living can remember isn't over yet.

A.

It's Always Worse Than You Thought

Always:

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The CIA provides hundreds of millions of dollars to Pakistan's spy service, including payments for the capture or killing of wanted militants, a US newspaper reported, citing unnamed officials and former officials.

The CIA's financial support accounts for as much as one-third of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency's budget, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday.

When contacted by AFP, the Central Intelligence Agency declined to comment Monday on the report.

The clandestine program that offers bounties to the ISI for the capture or killing of militants has prompted fierce debate within the US government, officials told the paper, as ISI is suspected of retaining ties and providing support for Taliban and other Islamist extremists in Afghanistan.

The payments were first approved by former president George W. Bush and have continued under President Barack Obama, the report said.

A.

Oh, GOOD FOR YOU

Because there hasn't been enough of a backlash already:

Politicians, Muslims, and law enforcement are concerned about a 'backlash' against Muslims. Now is the time for a professional and legal backlash against the Muslim community and their leaders. Muslims know what materials are being taught in their mosques and they know many of the materials instruct young Muslims to kill innocent people who do not adhere to Sharia law. If Muslims do not want a backlash, then I would recommend a "house cleaning." Stack every Saudi, al Qaeda, Pakistani, Taliban, Hamas, and Muslim Brotherhood piece of material from their mosque and have a bonfire. Tell the American, Jewish, and Muslim community this hatred will no longer be allowed in their mosques.

Boy, this is just this little be-overall-ed fuckwit's moment, isn't it? He's just ready to seize on the death and destruction to make his point that his book is awesome and we should all listen to him.

NOW is the time for a backlash? What the fuck do you think the past eight years have been, pal? Maybe you were reading Little Green Footballs at the time but War Preznit mouthed a few words of conciliation shortly after 9/11 and then left his slavering hordes to their own devices while they broke windows and beat up Arab shopkeepers. Paint your chests red, white and blue, boys, and vote Republican, because terrorists are in your base pwning your noobs. The president's a terrorist. Nancy Pelosi's a terrorist. That Sikh dude that lives down the street and shovels your snow sometimes, he's a terrorist too. Muslim jokes are hilarious. It's never a bad time for a good old-fashioned Quran burning in Middle America.

And every time we think things have calmed down, and maybe we'd be able to respond to tragedy like adults and prosecute those responsible instead of turning into a community theater production of The Crucible, here comes some dickwad to make out like every shopping mall in Nebraska is full of jihadis. Now's the time for a backlash. As if the backlash had ever stopped.

A.

Worth It

Susie, writing about real things:

During remarks at the American Enterprise Institute recently in Washington, Tedeschi said some servicemembers found the changes in their lives so profound after combat, they expressed gratitude for having gone through it — even if it cost them permanent physical damage.

“They’d felt they’d changed as people in ways they otherwise wouldn’t have,” Tedeschi says. “At the same time, as this trauma separates them from other people, it also allows them to maybe see themselves as more human than they ever were before, have a closer connection with what it means to be a human being .”

You know, I don’t doubt this happens. After all, people have a tendency to try to integrate their experiences for growth. But there’s a fine line between that voluntary process and being cajoled by the Army into pretending you don’t have problems.

I used to write about this stuff all the time when I was writing about Galactica, and 9/11, and all the horrible shit my friends and I put each other through once upon a time:

That which does not kill us takes away our best friends, our arms and legs, our hair and eyes and lungs and hearts. That which does not kill us pushes us onward. Come out of the chrysalis and you can tell yourself you're more beautiful, if that makes it better, if it soothes your sting. I don't care, particularly. Does the pain really make us who we are, or is that what we tell ourselves in order to survive it? Can we ever see the worth of the race at the finish line? Or do we need another hundred thousand years?

Because otherwise, if it's not Meaningful and Necessary, it's burned and blackened and stupid, empty, half a bridge to nowhere on a deserted, bombed-out world. Otherwise it's just what you dreamed of, destitute and lost, the thing you bought at the cost of your miserable soul.

I'm too involved with my own coping strategies these days to slam anyone else's, except to say that it's so, so, so easy to confuse "necessary" and "okay." Most of us do it all day long anyway, because shitty things that happened to you have to be necessary in order that they no longer be shitty. For the story to make sense in retrospect, for it to fit inside where you need to keep it, you have to trim the hard edges off. Repeat something often enough, like your story about the hard times, and it starts to seem less real, and more like a movie you once saw.

But we only ever tell the story in retrospect. Poverty is a useful lesson, once you're wealthy. Hunger may make the feast seem sweeter but there has to be a feast for you to taste first. Nobody says, while hurting, this pain is teaching me something. It's only afterward, when the pain is gone. It has to be over, first, before it can become A Moment, and that's where the idea that one should be grateful for one's misfortune becomes the worst kind of condescension. Kids today don't know how rough you had it. They only know how rough they have it, because that's all any of us know. 

So don't tell me my pain will be useful someday. And don't ask someone else to endure something you think will be good for him. The only lessons you're responsible for are your own. You can't tell me what was worth it. You have no idea. None of us do.

A.

Nation-Building At Home

Herbert:

Whether it’s Newark, Detroit, parts of Chicago, South-Central Los Angeles, Camden, N.J. — take your pick — we’ve looked the other way for decades as the residents of hard-core inner-city neighborhoods struggled with overwhelming, life-threatening problems and a chronic shortage of resources, financial and otherwise.

We’re having an intense national debate over whether to move ahead with nation-building in Afghanistan and to continue protecting the population in places like Kabul and Kandahar while all but ignoring the violence that is consuming the lives of boys and girls in Chicago, America’s third-largest city.

Dozens of boys and girls of school-age and younger are murdered in Chicago every year. One hundred were killed there last year, according to the police. The blood of the young is spattered daily on the stoops, sidewalks and streets of American cities from coast to coast, and we won’t even take notice unless, for example, we can engage in the ghoulish delight of watching the murder played over and over again on video.

A few years back I did a story; can't find it on the Southtown site now, about a group of ministers from the South Side neighborhood of Englewood who wanted to get terrorism prevention funds from the government, on the grounds that drugs and gangs and guns were killing more people in their community every year than supposed weapons of mass destruction elsewhere. It was a genius move, really; turn the conversation around. Naturally the downtown and national press yawned: How quaint. How silly. How naive.

They knew how the world works, you know. A lot of the disgusted commentary that comes from pundits who treat everything like a joke has this tone, like, "Oh, you silly idealists, you don't understand." They knew the only shot they had at getting their problems made a priority was to make the conversation what the powerful wanted to hear. It's because idealists know how the world works that they know what can be fixed and how to fix it. It's not a willful disregard of the facts, it's a cold assessment of them: The only way anybody's going to care about us is if we have the word "terrorism" attached to our problems. And for that sincere attempt to get something done the only way they could, they got laughed at.

The money never came. No army of nation-builders ever arrived to support those who wanted peace and fight thoe who wanted violence, any more in Englewood than they did in NOLA or Cedar Rapids or anywhere else struck by disaster in the past eight years. The debate continues about how much we should spend building a world half a world away. How much should we spend building a world right here? Our national conversation never comes near the question anymore.

A.

National Unity

DIscussion of our perfect national unity on 9/11 make me crazy. I was at work on 9/11 and at work every day or just about thereafter, and while the TV news was covering heroic efforts to save the dying and recover the dead or sweet stuff about schoolkids writing letters to firefighters, all we were writing about was this kind of stuff:

On the afternoon of Saturday, 2001-SEP-15, a gunman killed the 49 year old owner of a gas station in Mesa, AZ. He was a Sikh. His family believes that he was killed because he "looked Middle Eastern." Additional shots were fired at a Lebanese clerk and at the home of an Afghan family.

On the evening of Saturday, 2001-SEP-15, a gunman killed a Pakistani Muslim store owner in Dallas, TX.

Adel Karas, 48, an Egyptian-American grocer was shot and killed near his International Market store in San Gabriel, CA. He was a Copt -- neither Muslim nor Arab. No money was taken. Police are investigating the murder as a possible hate crime.

A man drove his car through the front entrance of Parma Mosque in Cleveland OH.

Also on Saturday, a Christian of Egyptian origin was shot dead in California.

Near Chicago, IL, there was a march in which about 300 anti-Arab youths waved flags, shouted "USA, USA," and attempted to march on a mosque in Bridgeview, IL -- a suburb southwest of Chicago. Colin Zaremba, 19, said: "I'm proud to be American and I hate Arabs and I always have." Three demonstrators were arrested.

In Chicago, a Molotov cocktail was thrown t an Arab-American community center. There were no injuries and little damage.

In Huntington, NY, Adam Lang, reportedly a drunken driver, 75, allegedly tried to kill a Pakistani woman with his car. He later followed the woman into a store and threatened to kill her for "destroying my country."

In Gary, IN, a man wearing a mask pumped over 20 bullets from a high-powered assault rifle at a Muslim, Hassan Awdah. He survived. Hassan is a U.S. citizen, born in Yemen.

In Lynnwood, WA, a mosque was vandalized.

In Suffolk County, NY, a man allegedly made anti-Arab threats and pointed a handgun at the employee of a gas station. He was arrested.

In a prison in Washington state, two inmates fought over an anti-Muslim slur.

A gasoline bomb was thrown into the home of a Sikh family in California.

Two mosques were firebombed with Molotov cocktails during the weekend of OCT-20-21. They are located in Burlington and Mississauga, near Toronto ON Canada. Kendrich House, 35, from Oakville ON has allegedly been charged.

Yeah, Glenn Beck, let's totally go back to the people we were immediately after 9/11. Let's paint our bare chests red, white and blue and go beat the shit out of some brown people. Which ones? Doesn't really matter. What matters is that we're united as a country.

A.

Must-see TV

I may have, on occasion, professed that I rather like Rachel Maddow, and I've more than once posted here about her.  This one, though, isn't just fangirl squee, trust me.

Maddow knocked it out of the park last night with this Tom Ridge interview. If you haven't seen it yet, it's worth your attention. The clip below is one of three, the other two are on her show site. She devoted over half the program to the conversation with Ridge, starting with the topic of whether politics influenced DHS terror alerts, whether Ridge has  backtracked on statements to that effect made in his new book, then moving on to Iraq intelligence and the failured FEMA response to Katrina.

It's a remarkable bit of broadcasting, not just for what Ridge says or doesn't say, and not just for Maddow's tenacious questioning. What really struck me as I watched it was that something real was happening here, something we don't see very often. By "real" I obviously don't mean Ridge is telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but. Rather that, as the interview unfolds, there's a palpable sense that we, along with Ridge, really don't know where it's going to end.

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What if it Saves Us?

Richard Cohen:

This business of what constitutes torture is a complicated matter. It is further complicated by questions about its efficacy: Does it sometimes work? Does it never work? Is it always immoral? What about torture that saves lives? What if it saves many lives? What if one of those lives is your child's?

It's not, actually. It's not complicated by questions of its efficacy because torture isn't effective. Read your own newspaper. Jesus tits.

Next?

Seriously, what if it saves the life of YOUR CHILD? What a dickhead. I regret not having children because without them I can't tell RIchard Cohen to keep his ideological ugliness to himself and stop using them as an excuse to be the asshole he really wants to be. 

There are many things to which this argument could be applied. What if universal, absolutely free, single-payer health care (which indisputably works, wingnut myths about Britain and Canada notwithstanding) saved lives? What if it saved many lives? What if one of those lives is YOUR CHILD'S? Then do we have a moral imperative to provide it regardless of how many Republicans sign on to support it? I mean, if we're going to raise the incredibly stupid idea that anything that saves YOUR CHILD is therefore worthy of consideration, let's spin the argument out to its absolute bitterest end.

And not for nothing, but let me be cold here for a moment. Of course you're in favor of saving your children. Of course you are. And what you say in that scenario is that you'd sign on to any bloodthirsty thing on the planet in order to make your children okay. That's what you're supposed to do. That's your job as a parent. It's not, however, your job as a politician, an interrogator, or a journalist. There's a reason we don't let the families of murder victims pronounce sentence on the murderers of their loved ones. There's a reason we institutionalized some balance of power in this country, to give ourselves the necessary distance to make decisions like this. Not that anyone remembers that now.

Don't shove your shit onto me with pronouncements about YOUR CHILD and dark fantasies about what kinds of threats would let you waterboard some imaginary terrorist. Cohen and his ilk like to talk about liberal pussies who prize "our national soul" and "the idea of America" over their hysterical concept of AMERICAN LIVES ARE AT STAKE when it comes to talking about national security. As if it's the height of courage not to refrain from insane behavior in the face of terror but to give in to every wild impulse they've ever had. Don't you care about YOUR CHILD? That isn't the argument.

If it saved MY CHILD? Absolutely, I would want to torture everybody on the planet.

So?

A.

They Called Us Traitors

All us filthy hippies:

Among the headlines promoted by publisher Thomas Dunne Books: Ridge was never invited to sit in on National Security Council meetings; was “blindsided” by the FBI in morning Oval Office meetings because the agency withheld critical information from him; found his urgings to block Michael Brown from being named head of the emergency agency blamed for the Hurricane Katrina disaster ignored; and was pushed to raise the security alert on the eve of President Bush’s re-election, something he saw as politically motivated and worth resigning over.

Because that's what we were, back in 2004, we Kerry-voting Bush-doubting hippies who couldn't do anything right. We just wanted to undermine the president and so we'd suggest monstrous things, like maybe we weren't in danger of being attacked on the eve of the election, like maybe Bush was quite often talking out his ass when it came to these "terror alerts" and having himself a little funny at the expense of the whole world. Who could even think such a thing? Surely our sick imaginations had their limits.

Apparently my sick imagination did have its limit because while I personally imagined Bush would manipulate the terror alert system for his own political gain, I never imagined him doing it obviously enough to piss off Tom Ridge. You'll notice the manipulation and incompetence had to be blatant to get Ridge riled up. It had to be, you know, not just upping the alert level on the basis of some oldsauce intel from three years ago, it had to be not just fucking up the workdays of like five thousand flight attendants and those poor TSA fuckers and grinding the airports down to a slow trickle, it had to be doing it right before an election.

So fuck Ridge in his ear. It was worth resigning over but not worth saying anything about until now, when he could make a buck off it selling books? Releasing that book on Sept. 1? Why not Sept. 11? Why not go all the way in? What an asshole. He can join a long line of former Bush administration whores at the sink all out damned spot. I mean, you tell us this NOW? Instead of in 2004, when it could have fucking helped? When it was actually happening? Four years more of that chewy little jerk, you gave us, and don't tell me this wouldn't have turned the tide, it was a close election, anything could have turned it, four years in which countless people died and oh, yeah, a whole fucking city drowned, and you could have stopped it?

And you come to us now? Now, when we're this? When we're this shell-shocked, retina-burned national kicked puppy jumping a mile every time the phone rings? When we're unable to open our mouths on TV without eating each other alive? When we can't have a civil debate about anything because a third of us are too cowardly and a third are too stupid and a third are exhausted and just want some ice cream and a nap? You wait until we're this to tell us what you have to tell?

For what possible purpose? To be absolved? Not a chance, you son of a bitch. Nobody who stood around while this crap happened and waited five years to speak up gets to say shit that isn't an apology. I don't care how horrifying Tom Ridge found it all at the time. He kept his mouth shut and he stayed indoors and yeah, maybe he quit, but he sure as hell didn't do it fast enough. I have zero respect. They called us traitors, and we were right, and he and many many others knew it, and didn't say a damn thing till now, when it's just too late for it to do any good.

Schmuck.

A.

Have People Changed Their Font Colors Back Yet?

In case anybody's curious Iran's still all fucked up.

The reason I got so cynical about the AND THE BLOGOSPHERE SHALL BE GREEN FOREVER type of thing, by the way, is that I know from bitter experience how hard it is to keep up interest in a story when everybody's flittered on over to the next topic. When people have promised you their eternal support and devotion and attention and said, "Hey, we're all over this until whatever the bitter end might be" then bugger off to chase the next shiny object they see, it's discouraging. So I tend to be suspicious of bandwagons simply because most of the people jumping on board them will be bailing onto the next one that passes.

And look, nobody's particularly obligated to care about a thing forever. What we choose to care about is called our lives and our lives change fast. People are allowed burnout. People lose interest in things and move on. I can't say I care unequivocally about every single thing I used to care about ten years ago. It happens.

But knowing that it happens is just one more reason NOT to use your eternal fealty to something — your warblogger intensity — to shame anyone who doesn't appear to care as much as you say you do. Not even stones, goes a line from one of my favorite books, are always and forever.

A.

Take Them at Their Word

Why is it that if you actually assume everything Bush-Cheney et al say is true, it makes things worse, not better?

It was asassinations of Al Qaeda operatives. Okay, awesome! Who doesn't want to hunt down and smoke out and hang high our nation's fearsome enemies? Tell Congress all about it! It's not like any of them have Osama on speed dial, no matter what Rush says, so for fuck's sake, what's the problem here? Right after 9/11 congressmen were falling all over themselves (and most of them still are) to cross the finish line of Most Hardcore first. You really think they'd have had an issue with it?

It was even more illegal spying than the illegal spying we already knew about. Well damn, hooker, shit. That clearly would have been tough for Congress to accept, considering that they totally gave retroactive immunity to everybody who went along with the illegal spying we knew about and have prosecuted exactly no one for any of the previous lawbreaking. A little more might have pushed them over the edge? Honestly? They might have used adjectives in their sternly worded letters? You might as well tell Congress basically as a DARE.

I realize that I am presently arguing that Congress is such a bunch of stupendous pussies that it really doesn't matter what sick and twisted shit Herr Cheney was up to in his secret bunker, that they would have agreed to it completely. Yet, no one who has been paying attention could argue this wasn't the case.

Sure, a couple of speeches might have been given, and Feingold might have told the entire U.S. Senate to suck him once your mom was done, but in the end anything and everything would have been authorized lest Bill O'Reilly make fun of Democrats or some imaginary voter living in Chris Matthews' head have concerns you might be the kind of pansy who drinks the wrong thing at the diner. They should have just owned up to it. Nobody would have stopped them.

Even with this major scary new revelatory whatever, no matter what it ends up being about, in about two weeks we're going to have a resolution declaring it's all okay, and nobody needs to go to jail or apologize or anything. I'd love to be proved wrong, by the way, but I don't think I will be.

A.

Rule of Journalism, Politics, World in General

It is always worse than you think:

President George W. Bush authorized other secret intelligence activities — which have yet to become public — even as he was launching the massive warrentless wiretapping program, the summary said. It describes the entire program as the "President's Surveillance Program."

The report describes the program as unprecedented and raises questions about the legal grounding used for its creation. It also says the intelligence agencies' continued retention and use of the information collected under the program should be carefully monitored.

I suppose that is AP-speak for "the report basically had a whole page that said SERIOUSLY GUYS WHAT THE SEVEN HELLS?" And I love this paragraph:

Many senior intelligence officials believe the program filled a gap in intelligence. Others, including FBI, CIA and National Counterterrorism Center analysts, said intelligence gathered by traditional means was often more specific and timely, according to the report.

Many people think it was great, except the FBI, CIA, NCC, NSC, all three branches of government, the military, the SEIU, Donald Duck, some dude in a tinfoil beanie waving a sign around, your mom, Paris Hilton, and Bo the First Dog. Other than that, it was universally praised.

The Bush White House acknowledged in 2005 that it allowed the National Security Agency to intercept international communications that passed through U.S. cables without court orders.

AFTER THE NEW YORK TIMES EXPOSED THEM FOR THE LIARS THEY ARE. It wasn't like Bush got up one day, went out into the Rose Garden, stretched, belched, and said, "Just so you all know, I've been breaking the law for years heh heh heh."

Five former Bush administration officials refused to be interviewed, including former CIA Director George Tenet and former Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The others: former White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card; former top Cheney aide David Addington; and John Yoo, who served as a deputy assistant attorney general.

Perhaps they can address questions for Yoo to the Philadelphia Inquirer.

The report suggests Yoo ignored an explicit provision in the FISA law designed to restrict the government's authority to conduct electronic surveillance during wartime. And it said flaws in Yoo's memos later presented "a serious impediment" to recertifying the program.

SO AWESOME. Way to be, PI!

Dodd hasn't weighed in on this yet, according to his site, but Feingold, who back during the FISA immunity fight said basically, "I know all this stuff and trust me, it's worse than you think," has beseeched the rest of Congress and the White House to BITE HIM SO HARD:

“This report leaves no doubt that the warrantless wiretapping program was blatantly illegal and an unconstitutional assertion of executive power.  I once again call on the Obama administration and its Justice Department to withdraw the flawed legal memoranda that justified the program and that remain in effect today.”

A.