Saturday, December 04, 2010

Not in the damn mood today

I don't claim to be a nice person. I do, however, try to bite my tongue from time to time. I'm not in the mood for it today.

We're pulling Veterans Today from the links. They're a Democratic Party organ as opposed someone committed to veterans issues. Time and again, we get Democratic Party propaganda from them.

That became very obvious due to VT's obsession with the Tea Party -- unnatural obsession. They just can't let it go. A War Hawk published a book this month and some glommed on it. Many more on the left had the good sense to back away. We backed away.

I know Dana Perino and what she and the publishers were hoping for was a huge outcry from the left that would fuel constant news coverage of the book and turn it into a mini-scandal thereby attacting book buyers who would ignore it otherwise and forcing the dedicated right-wingers to buy the book in a show of solidarity. It was quite a plan and it would have worked if everyone on the left had dropped everything and spent weeks and weeks obsessing over the published lies of a well known liar.

The smartest thing for those of us on the left to do was to ignore that book. It has sold. It hasn't been the success they'd hoped it would be because they truly thought they could use the left to sell the bad book via intense media coverage of the 'angry left.'

Related, if you're not in the Tea Party, why are you so damn obsessed with them?

Let's, for a moment, assume that all your demented ravings about the Tea Party are true. In the end, how are they different from the Republican Party? They're not. It's hilarious to read the whines from Katrina vanden Heuvel and others about how the Tea Party gets all this MSM press attention while they refuse to acknowledge that multi-posts daily at The Nation magazine, Veterans Today, et al on the Tea Party fuel the media obsession with the Tea Party.

Today Veterans Today offers the cultural warrior Ashraf Ezzat telling us that the Iraq War is over. Would a real left site do that?

Hell no.

Only a propaganda organ for the Democratic Party would.

And how the hell dare they call themselves "Veterans" Today and print that damnable lie.

I'm not in the mood. One consistent from those serving in Iraq has been that the danger isn't over. (Which is why combat pay continues for those serving in Iraq.) So how dare a so-called "Veterans" news outlet print that lie.

Shame on them.

But they aren't about reality, they're about whoring for Barack Obama. It's why there's so damn little coverage of veterans issues at Veterans Today but so much about pushing the Obama agenda.

I'm sick of it. I'm not in the damn mood.


Roger Hodge is the author of The Mendacity of Hope: Barack Obama and the Betrayal of American Liberalism which he discussed on the latest Law and Disorder Radio. Excerpt:


Heidi Boghosian: Roger, you actually sort of sum up it up in talking about health care by saying: "The health bill is of a piece with Obama's general approach to governance which is to make loud, dramatic claims about his purportedly reformist agenda -- claims that both his supporters and his enemies almost always take at a face value -- while working behind the scenes to make sure that no major stakeholder in his coalition of corporate backers will suffer significant losses." And that could sum up most of what he's done.

Michael Smith: Yeah, that was an outstanding passage in the book, I thought

Roger Hodge: Thank you. Thank you. And we see it again and again. We see it with detentions --

Heidi Boghosian: Guantanamo.

Roger Hodge: Guantanamo. We see it with --

Michael Ratner: State secrets.

Roger Hodge: -- Afghanistan. We see it with Iraq. Supposedly the war in Iraq is over. People take that at face value. 'Oh, he ended the war in Iraq.' Well he didn't.

Michael Ratner: He just said he did.


He didn't end the war, he just said he did. That's reality. For an outlet called "Veterans" Today to declare the Iraq War over, while, not only are US troops still there, but they're still being sent there (a send-off ceremony took place in Dighton, Massachusetts today for members of the National Guard deploying for a year-long tour of Iraq), is outrageous. Grasp that the world does not have the time necessary to provide the remedial training to correct your errors. You aren't helping anyone but Barack Obama. May you breathe deeply from the crotch of Obama and pleasure yourself -- but don't pass of your soft-core porn fantasies for information, truth or actual help.

That was an article published today. For days I've been biting my tongue about the nonsense at Veteran's Today. In addition, I've been biting my tongue about an insulting piece of crap supposedly about Iraqi women.

Boys and girls, America never needed Do-Me Feminism. Yes, it was popular with the (male dominated) press in the US and certainly Esquire's thrilled to have any reason to talk women into posing for pictures in bras and panties. But Do-Me Feminism lifted up nothing other than the breasts squeezed into those push-up bras.

And yet we're left with them, these Do-Me Feminists who don't know a damn thing. Katha Pollitt is the Charlotte Rae, Facts of Life, den mother and Naomi Wolf is their big sister. You'll notice no great intellect is attached to the shopping craze (don't call it a movement) because thinking isn't a fashion accessory.

So these Mud Flap Gals debase the feminist discussion each and every day, lower the standards, obsess over pop cultural trivia and accomplish not a damn thing except the further dumbing down of the country. (And, as Keesha noted, when confronted with their silence on real issues -- like the gang-rape and murder of 14-year-old Abeer -- they immediately whine they're too busy to blog -- while offering 26 posts on trivia masquerading as "feminism.")

Exhibit A, Sophia who cites/praises Jessica Valenti and other mental midgets of the shopping craze. At her blog, why bitch is the new black, Sophia decided she could write about Iraqi women -- she couldn't -- and wraps up her bad article with this concluding -- AND INSULTING -- paragraph:

If the status of women is the indicator of a country's political and economic stability, Iraq is doing poorly. Hopefully, in the future, more women like Mohammed will have the courage to express their views openly, fight for their rights, keep the Personal Status laws in place, and pressure the government into providing women greater protections. The future of Iraq will depend on its women.

Little girl, step away from the make up counter and grow the hell up.

How dare you write of the assault on Iraqi women and include, "Hopefully, in the future, more women like Mohammed will have the courage to express their views . . ." First, you're an uninformed idiot. Any real protest -- as opposed to a Nouri staged protest -- in Iraq will feature Iraqi women. It was, in fact, Iraqi women who took to the streets in 2005 protesting over the Constitution. I'm real sorry that the vast amount of time you spent checking out lip gloss and trying to find a pair of jeans that didn't make your ass look fat failed to inform you of Iraqi women and what they've done for the last seven years and counting of this illegal war.

They have been targeted, they have had their legal rights stripped away, and still the Iraqi women persevere. How dare you, from the safety of the mall you call home, imply that Iraqi women lack "courage," that they need to find "the courage to express their views . . ." Not only have Iraqi women shown tremendous courage, they've done so in a war zone. In the future stick to writing the Team Edward posts that mental midgets like yourself can almost manage or go ahead and pursue your dream of being part of lab coat brigade at the Clinque counter.

Again, I am not in the damn mood for this ___ today.

This site's focus is the Iraq War. I can disagree and ignore you (as I did Marc Lynch last week). But when you're lying -- implying Iraqi women need to find some courage is lying, stating the Iraq War is over is lying -- I can't afford you. I don't have time to correct your errors or to undo the damage that you've done.

The following community sites -- plus Cindy Sheehan whose latest we'll quote from in the next entry -- updated last night and this morning:




And we'll close with Debra Sweet who knows a thing or two about feminism, truth telling and standing up to War Hawks. This is from her "12/3/1970: Confronting Nixon 40 Years Ago" (World Can't Wait):

There’s a longer story to be written here, but for now I’m glad to put this off because there are contemporary heroes making immediate contributions to stopping the current wars, and we are busy defending them and digging into what’s coming out every day in the leaked US cables from Wikileaks. So, today– the brief version of what happened to me 40 years ago, tomorrow…

I was an activist in my high school years, for which I got a series of awards, leading up to receiving the Young American Medal for Service of 1970, annually given by the US President. I learned of that in June, 1970, while I was at The Hague in Holland, attending the World Food Conference, as part of a rag-tag US youth delegation. We had just disrupted a US event there with an anti-Vietnam war protest, “embarrassing” the ambassador and getting us nearly booted. At first I thought the letter from The White House must be a joke, but no, the Department of Justice had called my parents, and was trying to set up a date for the family to come to Washington.

My immediate response was “hell no…I won’t go! Why would anyone take an award from a war-monger like Richard Nixon?” I was conflicted, ambivalent, and irritated to be put in that position. As the months went by, and the event kept being re-scheduled, I thought I might get to skip it. But suddenly, on December 3, 1970, me, my family and friends were flown to Washington. We were escorted into the office of the Attorney General John Mitchell where there was small talk. In shuffled J. Edgar Hoover, and the whole strange experience got very real, very quickly.

Back into the limo and up to the door of the White House, into the Blue Room with what seemed to be the entire world press corps and a million cameras. For the kids getting the awards? No, because this was the first time the press had gotten to see the (well-hated) Nixon in months. I still didn’t know what to say. Then Richard Nixon made it easy. He went on a rant about how these kids are the “good” ones, they’re not out protesting, they’re for America. I thought, with my 19-year-old brain, “Oh no, you just slandered my generation. We are about changing the world, and taking it away from people like you.”

The drill was a simple hand shake with Nixon, present the medal, pat the kid on the arm, smile for the cameras. I was the last of 4 recipients, and it was almost over, when he grabbed my hand. What came out of my mouth: “I can’t believe you’re sincere in giving this award for service, when you’re killing millions of people in Vietnam.” We weren’t miked, and I spoke quietly. Nixon, despite make-up, turned completely white, and stammered, “We’re doing the best we can.” Then he pivoted, looked at his watch, muttered something about an appointment, and walked out.



The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.











thomas friedman is a great man






oh boy it never ends










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