Lawless George's Little My Lai: Civilian Massacre in Haditha

"I watched them shoot my grandfather, first in the chest and then in the head," one child was quoted by Time as saying. "Then they killed my granny."

RESIDENTS SAY BODIES IN VIDEO FROM US RAID

A video provided by Hamourabi Human rights group shows covered bodies, which Hamourabi says are of a family of 15 shot dead in their home, possibly by US Marines, in Haditha, Iraq. A video of civilians who may have been killed by US Marines in an Iraqi town in November showed residents describing a rampage by US soldiers that left a trail of bullet-riddled bodies and destruction. (Full story here.)

A copy of the video, given to Reuters by Iraq's Hammurabi Organisation for Monitoring Human Rights and Democracy, showed corpses lined up at the Haditha morgue. The chief doctor at Haditha's hospital, Waleed al-Obaidi, said the victims had bullet wounds in the head and chest.

Most residents interviewed by Reuters in Haditha echoed accusations by residents in the video that US Marines attacked houses after their patrol was hit by a roadside bomb.

They said the Marines opened fire on houses. "I saw a soldier standing outside a house and he opened fire on the house," said one resident, who did not want to be identified.

Time magazine has published allegations that US Marines killed civilians in Haditha after one of their comrades was killed by a roadside bomb. It published detailed accounts by people in the town, west of Baghdad. A criminal inquiry into those deaths was launched last week. . .

On November 20, US Marines spokesman Captain Jeffrey Pool issued a statement saying that, on the previous day, a roadside bomb had killed 15 civilians and a Marine. In a later gun battle, US and Iraqi troops had killed eight insurgents, he added.

US military officials have since confirmed to Reuters that that version of the events of November 19 was wrong and the 15 civilians were not killed by the blast but were shot dead. . .

The video given to Reuters shows bodies piled in the back of a white pickup truck outside the morgue. Among them was a girl who appeared to be about three years old.

One man wept and leaned against a wall as he identified a relative and other residents inspected bodies in the morgue. One man's face had been torn apart by bullets, while a blackened corpse was missing legs and forearms.

Leaders perforce establish the tenor of their times, whether it be a "peace and prosperity" outlook, like Clinton's and Carter's, or the aggressive, fake macho, feckless, reckless, gloves off, anything goes outlook of Lawless George Bush.

When torture is ok, then massacres become ok. Ok?

Your tax dollars at work.


(Current WaPo story here.)
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How Many Chappaquid-Dicks Does it Take to Screw in a Lightbulb? Hell, Cheney Can't Even Turn the Lights ON by Himself

Once again, I'm not making this up. I don't even have to.

The list below, courtesy of the Smoking Gun, outlines the very personal needs of our very Big Dick Cheney.

The lights need to be turned ON.

The TVs need to be turned ON. To Fox News. All of them.

If poor in America have no bread and no jobs and no health care but must have government-forced maternity and no housing or hope, why then, let Mrs. Big Dick suck down some cheese-eating-surrender monkey Perrier water!
Oh, and the Little Emperor is quite willing receive "gifts." Seems to expect them, even.

Ohh?
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Cheney
GOP=Greedy Old Pricks

Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude

Yeah, ok, we're having a lot of mental health interludes. So sue me. These are dark times. Better yet, watch Will Ferrell on TransBuddha as Bush.

Will Ferrell - Bush on Global Warming on Transbuddha

This Just In: Buddhism is "Satanic"

"Satanic." Yep. Thus spake the President of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary. I can't make this stuff up. I don't even have to.



[above: A statue of the Buddha, a statue not unlike the Buddhas of Bamiyan, Afghanistan, prior to the other Taliban fundamentalists blowing it up for being oh, well, you know, Satanic or something. Go figure.]


Southern Baptist Theological SeminaryVets
Rev. Al Mohler
Christian grace
PTSD

New Bushist Money-Saving Tactic: Send Vets With PTSD Right Back Into Battle

Gee, why would the Defense Department send depressed, suicidal, suffering vets with post-traumatic stress disorder back into battle?

So they'll die, and then they'll save money by not having to pay any more for physical and/or mental health treatment? Can you say--heinous?

How about this? How about higher-ups instructing doctors to underdiagnose deliberately--so troops can be sent back for another tour, and then later be denied proper mental health care.

(We've seen this before: see, First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You. It's Hard Work, here. Oh and then there's "You Break 'Em, You Fix 'Em -- Unless You're a Bushist," here.)

Besides bringing antibiotics and painkillers, military personnel nationwide are heading back to Iraq with a cache of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications. . . The redeployments are legal, and the service members are often eager to go. But veterans groups, lawmakers and mental-health professionals fear that the practice lacks adequate civilian oversight. They also worry that such redeployments are becoming more frequent as multiple combat tours become the norm and traumatized service members are retained out of loyalty or wartime pressures to maintain troop numbers.

Sen. Barbara Boxer hopes to address the controversy through the Department of Defense Task Force on Mental Health, which is expected to start work next month. The California Democrat wrote the legislation that created the panel. She wants the task force to examine deployment policies and the quality and availability of mental-health care for the military.

"We've also heard reports that doctors are being encouraged not to identify mental-health illness in our troops. I am asking for a lot of answers," Boxer said during a March 8 telephone interview. "If people are suffering from mental-health problems, they should not be sent on the battlefield."

Stress reduces a person's chances of functioning well in combat, said Frank M. Ochberg, a psychiatrist for 40 years and a founding member of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies.

"I have not seen anything that says this is a good thing to use these drugs in high-stress situations. But if you are going to be going (into combat) anyway, you are better off on the meds," said Ochberg, a former consultant to the Secret Service and the National Security Council. "I would hope that those with major depression would not be sent."

. . [m]edical officers for the Army and Marine Corps acknowledge that medicated service members – and those suffering combat-induced psychological problems – are returning to war. And anecdotal evidence, bolstered by the government's own studies, suggest that the number could be significant.

A 2004 Army report found that up to 17 percent of combat-seasoned infantrymen experienced major depression, anxiety or post-traumatic stress disorder after one combat tour to Iraq. Less than 40 percent of them had sought mental-health care.

A Pentagon survey released last month found that 35 percent of the troops returning from Iraq had received psychological counseling during their first year home.

That survey echoed statistics collected by the San Diego Veterans Affairs Healthcare System. The system has found that about 33 percent of Iraq and Afghanistan veterans suffer from schizophrenia, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.

The various studies apparently didn't consider the effects of multiple combat tours, though psychiatrists agree that the greater people's exposure to combat, generally the higher their risk of suffering mental illness. . .Joe Costello, a mental-health counselor at the Vista Veterans Center, said emotionally scarred troops are routinely redeployed and that most want to go back to the war zone.

"I see it every day," said Costello, who mainly treats reservists.

Buttressing the idea that large numbers of service members are medicated, more than 200,000 prescriptions for the most common types of antidepressants were written in the past 14 months for service members and their families, said Sydney Hickey, a spokeswoman for the National Military Family Association. . .

Mental-health care for service members and the Defense Department's efforts to keep the mentally ill in uniform are becoming national issues, said Steve Robinson, director of the National Gulf War Resource Center in Silver Spring, Md.

Robinson said three Army doctors have told him about being pressured by their commanders not to identify mental conditions that would prevent personnel from being deployed.

"They are being told to diagnose combat-stress reaction instead of PTSD," he said. "That does two things: It keeps the troops deployable and it makes it hard for them to collect disability claims once they get out of the military."

Robinson contends that the Pentagon is trying to control its spending on mental-health disabilities.

Between 1999 and 2004, disability payments to veterans with post-traumatic stress disorder rose to $4.3 billion from $1.7 billion nationwide, according to a report by the Department of Veterans Affairs' inspector general.

Overall, service members' mental health is a hot-button subject because it goes to the cost of the war in dollars and lives, said Joy Ilem, an assistant national legislative director for the organization Disabled American Veterans.

"The (Department of Veterans Affairs) is very worried about the political implications of PTSD and other mental issues arising from the war," Ilem said. “They are talking about early outreach and treatment, but they are really trying to tamp down the discussion."

Cmdr. Paul S. Hammer deals with such issues daily.

Hammer, a psychiatrist, is responsible for the Marine Corps' mental-health programs during this deployment rotation. He confirmed that Marines with post-traumatic stress disorder and combat stress are returning to Iraq, though he would not say how many.

Hammer said deciding who is deployed is often anguishing.

Persons in power sending others into combat who lack combat experience: Preznit Toad-Exploder, Five Deferments Cheney. Those lacking empathy: Toad-Exploder, Cheney, Rummy. Those leading the US further and further into moral and fiscal bankruptcy: all of them. All of them.


Full story here

Photo: agony of war, Vietnam, 173 Airborne.
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Alice Miller: The Origins of Torture

Exerpts from an article by world-renowned author and psychologist Alice Miller:

Many people have claimed to be appalled by the acts of perversion committed by American soldiers on ADULT people, Iraqi prisoners. . . .
It is definitely a good thing that light has been cast on the situation and that the media have exposed this lie for what it is. Basically it runs as follows: We are a civilized, freedom-loving nation and bring democracy and independence to the whole world.

Under this motto, the Americans forced their way into Iraq with devastating results and still insist that they are exporting cultural values. But now it turns out that alongside their bombs and missiles the well-drilled, smartly dressed soldiers are carrying a huge arsenal of pent-up rage around with them, invisible on the outside, invisible for themselves, lurking deep down within, but unmistakably dangerous.

Where does this suppressed rage come from, this need to torment, humiliate, mock, and abuse helpless human beings (prisoners and children as well)? What are these outwardly tough soldiers avenging themselves for?

And where have they learnt such behavior? First as little children taught obedience by means of physical "correction," then in school, where they served as the defenseless objects of the sadism of some of their teachers, and finally in their time as recruits, treated like dirt by their superiors so that they could finally acquire the highly dubious ability to take anything meted out to them and qualify as "tough."

The thirst for vengeance does not come from nowhere. It has a clearly identifiable cause. The thirst for vengeance has its origins in infancy, when children are forced to suffer in silence and put up with the cruelty inflicted on them in the name of upbringing. They learn how to torment others from their parents, and later from their teachers and superiors.

It is nothing other than systematic instruction by example on how to destroy others. Yet many people believe that it has no evil consequences. As if a child were a container that can be emptied from time to time. But the human brain is not a container. The things we learn at an early stage stay with us in later life.

In my recent book . . . I pointed out that in 22 American states children and adolescents can be beaten, humiliated, and sometimes exposed to outright sadism without this having any legal consequences. . . The scandal in Iraq shows what becomes of these children when they reach adulthood. The perverted soldiers are the fruits of an education that actively instills violence, meanness, and perversion into young people.

The media quote psychological experts who contend that the brutality displayed by the American soldiers is a result of the stress caused by war. It is true that war unleashes latent aggression.

BUT TO BE UNLEASHED IT HAS TO BE ALREADY THERE.

It would be impossible for individuals who have not been exposed to violence very early, either at home or at school, to abuse and mock defenseless prisoners. They simply couldn't do it. We know from the history of the last World War that many conscripted soldiers were able to show a human face, even in the stress of war, if they had grown up without being exposed to violence. Many accounts of the war and the conditions in the camps tell us that even such extreme stress will not necessarily turn adults into perverted individuals.

Perversion has a long, obscure history invariably rooted in the childhood of the individual. It is hardly surprising that these histories are usually concealed from the eyes of society. People who have been taught to obey by having violence inflicted on them have very good reasons to avoid being reminded of the sufferings they went through in childhood and prevent the suppressed facts from ever emerging into the light of day. . .

It is not true that we all carry in us the "beast," as some psychological experts claim. Only people who were treated in a perverse way, but deny the fact, will seek scapegoats on whom they can unconsciously take out their rage, telling in interviews they did it only "just for fun" (exactly as their abusing "innocent" parents might have declared). Or they destroy themselves by taking substances to ease the pain.

Children, of course, are unable to bear the pain of their victimization or understand that crime is being committed to them. But as adults they can learn to sympathize with the wounded child and, by becoming conscious, they can free themselves (and the world) from the "beast" within.

Preznit Toad-Exploder, Rummy, Cheney. Lynndie England. Dogbeater Dobson. Graner. What have they all in common?




Alice Miller is the author of many books, translated into 21 languages, including For "Your Own Good: Hidden Cruelty in Child-Rearing and the Roots of Violence". Complete article here.
[photo: dying horse in Iraq nomorebush.premiumfinder.com]
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Father Wants To Divorce his Little Daughter

From the Sydney Morning Herald, here:

Father wants to divorce his seven-month-old daughter

SEVEN-MONTH-OLD Elizabeth Wells has never been held in her father's arms, and if he has his way she never will be.

In what could be a landmark case in the US, Matt Dubay, a computer programmer, is asking the courts to absolve him of all the responsibilities of fatherhood.

Mr Dubay's lawsuit has the backing of the National Centre for Men, activists who say that equal opportunities have swung too far in favour of women.

For Mr Dubay, 25, news that he was about to become a father was an unwelcome shock. It followed a night spent with a student, Lauren Wells, who he claims told him that she was infertile and using contraception. The apparent contradiction of those remarks did not fully hit Mr Dubay until several weeks later, when Ms Wells, 20, told him she was pregnant.

While the relationship soon foundered, his former girlfriend said she was keeping the child and, when the baby was born last August, she began legal proceedings to ensure that her former boyfriend paid his way in bringing up their daughter.

Faced with a court order for $US500 ($690) a month in child support, Mr Dubay said not paying was his constitutional right.

"I don't believe men have any say … [they are] simply ignored," he said from his home in Saginaw, Michigan. After learning that Ms Wells was pregnant, Mr Dubay said he talked to her about an abortion or having the baby adopted, but she ruled out both. "I painted a very clear picture at that point that I was not ready to be a father," he said. "I was not ready to be a part of the child's life."

His lawsuit, filed in a federal court, says that men who face fatherhood without their consent should be able to opt out of their responsibilities. While it does not seek to force women to have an abortion or give up their babies for adoption, it claims that women have the right to pursue either option if they do not want to bring up a child on their own.

The founder of the National Centre for Men, Mel Feit, said: "Men are routinely forced to give up control, forced to be financially responsible for choices only women are permitted to make, forced to relinquish reproductive choice as the price of intimacy.

"A man must choose to be a father in the same way that a woman chooses to be a mother," Mr Feit said.

Ms Wells said in a statement through her lawyer on Saturday that "my focus is on providing a nurturing home for our baby".

Saying that she was disappointed in Mr Dubay's decision, she added: "I believe that life begins at conception and blossoms. I take responsibility for my acts and will do my best as an adult and mother to protect and provide for our daughter."

Mr Dubay has met his daughter just once, when both attended a clinic for blood tests that proved he was her father. He admitted it was "difficult to look away" when the baby was in the room, but he believes it would disrupt her life if he assumed any other duties of parenthood. "I still, to this point, believe that it isn't right to be part of the child's life. An unwilling parent is not good for a child."

I agree that an unwilling parent is not good for a child, so he may as well just stay out of the little girl's life. I see no reason why he shouldn't foot his part of the bill, however, for this unintended pregnancy. He didn't have to carry the child to term, placing his own life at risk, nor, apparently, will he be doing any of the rest of the work of child-rearing. His initial participation was certainly equal.

Presumably Mr. Dubay understands in general the law of cause and effect?


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Official No Blood for Hubris Mental Health Interlude

Day after day. Samsara. (Not the perfume). Torture, war, poverty, stupidity, hubris, blah blah birth, death, sickness, old age, passion, aggression, ignorance. Sometimes one just needs a break.

"Last night, Jessica Simpson turned down an invitation to meet President Bush at a fundraiser. Yeah, Bush said he invited Simpson because he likes being around people who challenge him." --Conan O'Brien

"President Bush was clearing brush at his ranch when he was scratched by a tree. That's a switch, a tree harming a Republican, when does that ever happen? I guess Bush has cut down so many trees they're starting to fight back now" --Jay Leno

"President Bush's approval rating is not good. A new Gallup poll puts it at just 36% which is a new low for his presidency. He is just slightly more popular than herpes now." --Jimmy Kimmel

"I know the country has been mired in deficit spending and it's been terrible burden on the country in terms of interest payments. Good news today out of Washington. They haven't paid down the debt or come up with any program to do so. What they did is raise the limit of debt we can go to to $9 trillion. It sends a great message to the kids: Hey, are you getting an F? Don't study harder, make the grading curve go out to K. Then your F looks like a C." --Jon Stewart

'In response to a request by the 9/11 commission, the White House agreed to declassify the president's daily intelligence briefing from August 6th titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States." The commission also wants to see the August 20th briefing, "No Seriously Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States," and also from August 26th, "Mr. President, Please Put Down the Game Boy, Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States."' —Tina Fey

"Earlier today, the Pentagon launched the biggest air attack in Iraq since 2003. The White House said the attack will continue until President Bush's approval rating goes above 40%." --Jay Leno

"We're coming up to the third anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. I'm not sure how Bush is going to mark the occasion. I think we can rule out landing on an aircraft carrier and declaring mission accomplished." --Jay Leno

"Mexican President Vincente Fox announced that they have discovered oil under the Gulf of Mexico. In a related story, President Bush accused Mexico of having weapons of mass destruction." --Jay Leno

"Rumors are that the reason Dick Cheney didn't say anything about the hunting accident for about 24 hours was because he had been drinking. And I'm thinking, well jeez, he was probably drinking when we planned the invasion of Iraq." --David Letterman

"President Bush said that Bill Clinton has become so close to his father, he is like a brother. Which is great because it gives the first President Bush the smart son he never had." --Jay Leno

Bubble Boy's Big Bad Karma: His Legacy "Will Please Only Bin Laden"

The following are excerpts from an interview with As'ad AbuKhalil, professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus, and visiting professor at the University of California at Berkeley.

The repercussions of the Iraq debacle are very likely to affect more places in the Middle East, not less. There is now an explosion, literally, of militant fanatical groups that are bent on destroying the ties of amity and brotherhood between Sunnis and Shia. One can see that this was effective.

The latest International Crisis Group [report] points out the cynical and destructive ways by which the US administration manipulated Iraqi social, sectarian, ethnic, and tribal divisions for its own sake.

Bush, far from being remembered for establishing democracy in Iraq, will most likely be remembered as the man who brought ayat allahs' rule to Iraq, next door to Iran.

Ironically, the model of "democracy" and "secularism" that [George] Bush and the neo-conservatives were planning in Iraq had degenerated into a model of mayhem, pillage, and plunder, and the ayat allahs rule in all but name.

Bush, far from being remembered for establishing democracy in Iraq, will most likely be remembered as the man who brought ayat allahs' rule to Iraq, next door to Iran.. . .Far from seeing evidence of rejuvenation of democracy, one can argue that authoritarian rule in the Middle East has been consolidated due to Bush's doctrine . . . .

One also notices that in all three cases that the Bush administration focused on as showcases of the Bush doctrine - Lebanon, Palestine, and Iraq - societies are standing on the verge of civil war. . .

I have no doubt years from now people in the West and East will look back and remember George Bush as the most incompetent and most unwise US president ever.

[Bush's] legacy in the Middle East will grow more horrifically. It will be seen that he has unleashed destructive forces in the Middle East, and has consolidated the rule of most authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. . . . He has also contributed to the rising conflict between Arabs/Muslims and Western governments.

His contribution in that regard will only please Osama bin Laden.

Why are we unsurprised?



Full story here.

Also see, here,"Bubble Boy Wastes Blood and Treasure to Install Medievalist Islamic Theocracy" and "Bubble Boy Brings Back Burqas" all the way from last August, here.

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Photo: Reuters

While We're On the Subject of Hurting Others

The "Reverend" James Dobson beats his own dachshund and recommends whipping toddlers. With real whips. Does that work for you?

(Extra credit: what's the name of the Dachshund Dobson proudly beat? For what crime was the puppy beaten?)













Here's what happens to an unwanted, unloved infant. More here. Does this outcome work for you?

Whaddaya think? Are children better off wanted, or unwanted? Does adding another baby with about as much forethought as if one were picking up an extra carton of milk work for you?


Here's Democracy on the march, below. Read all about it--in the complete Abu Ghraib files--the Salon story here.

Does this work for you?











The Naziest part of these last three photos is that the American troops--who by the way are installing Democracy in Iraq--are deliberately causing painful wounds, then stitching them up, all ready to inflict the painful wounds again.

And giving a big thumbs up, and a hearty grin!


Spread that democracy, girls and boys! Spread it far and wide!


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Mad Cow, Alabama

ALABAMA COW TESTS POSITIVE FOR MAD COW DISEASE

WASHINGTON - A cow in Alabama has tested positive for mad cow disease, the Agriculture Department confirmed Monday, the third case in the U.S. . .

A routine test last week had indicated the presence of the disease. Results were confirmed by more detailed testing at a government laboratory in Ames, Iowa, Clifford said.

U.S. investigators have found two previous cases of mad cow disease. The first was in December 2003 in a Canadian-born cow in Washington state. The second was last June in a cow that was born and raised in Texas.

Different types of tests indicated the presence of mad cow disease. Two versions of the initial "rapid" screening test suggested the cow had the disease, and a more detailed Western blot confirmed that finding.

Full story here.

Now, why am I thinking that if we had a government that didn't have a death-wish by Grover Norquistian bathtub drowning, maybe there would have been strict regulations in place that would have prevented these THREE cases of mad cow in the United States? And however many more to come?

And if we had a party in charge that believed in regulations and the rule of law, as opposed to believing in the Conservo-American Idol, Deregulation, which pretty much means believing in greed-fueled lawlessness? As in Enron, and, all the rest of the windfall profits over people industries? Ring a bell?


Oh, but that would be a nannystate, and we don't want to be pussy girlie nannystaters, do we? No, we prefer the every man for himself, social Darwinian (although we don't believe in Darwin), survival of the fittest, cull the weak from the herd (unless they're braindead and on life support), muy macho, I don't need no stinkin' regulations culture of life "'n" death from preventable diseases.

(Pound on chest here, making simian noises).

People who don't believe in government--all the neo-con krypto-anarchists--shouldn't be in government.

"If they have no wonks, why, then--let them clear brush!"


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Grover Norquist

Somebody Fix This Guy Up, Quick

Soulful-looking, thoughtful (well, kinda) blue-eyed, libertarian male conservative NY Times columnist who once dated funny centrist NY Times redhaired single female columnist writes column suggesting that if gay marriage can be furthered by the acceptance of polygamy, then polygamy's ok with him.

And if the specter of legalized polygamy is the best argument against gay marriage, let the wedding bells ring.

Hunh? Can you say "non sequitur"?

Is he still pining for Maureen Dowd, or what? Does he need a vacation in Hawaii?

Why is he obsessed with unmarried college-educated females?

What does gay marriage have to do with polygamy?

Please, shouldn't we all, having had his sore plight pluck at our heart-strings, take up a collection to get John Tierney a contract with some nice professional Jewish matchmaker (see below)? To find him Ms. Right, so he can get over Maureen? So we don't have to read any more wierd columns?








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The first round of voting for the Koufax Awards closes tomorrow, March 13. Link with Wampum, above, to vote. (Full disclosure: this blog has been nominated in these categories: Best New Blog, Best Blog Deserving of Wider Recognition, and Best Post).
John Tierney

Censure Bush? Nah. A Scolding's Just Not Good Enough. Send him to Club Gitmo.

Senator Russ Feingold is calling for the formal censure of Preznit Toad-Exploder.

"What the president did by consciously and intentionally violating the Constitution and laws of this country with this illegal wiretapping has to be answered."

He added, "Proper accountability is a censuring of the president, saying, 'Mr. President, acknowledge that you broke the law, return to the law, return to our system of government.'"

Mr. Feingold, who spoke on the ABC News program "This Week," said he planned to introduce legislation on Monday that would censure President Bush and condemn his authorization of the eavesdropping program.

We respectfully disagree. A simple scold just doesn't go far enough. Torture, on the other hand, which Bubble Boy has made as American as apple pie, would go far enough--too far--because that's what torture's all about.

We've said it before, and now we're saying it again--send the guy to Gitmo. For good.

It's the least he can do to atone for his sins. You know, driving the country into moral AND fiscal bankruptcy. Plus the torture thing, the breaking the law spying thing. Hey--it's Lent. Let's get on with it.

Clueless on Compassion

Roman Catholics I admire: Thomas Merton, Pope John XXIII, St. Francis of Assisi, among others.

Roman Catholics I don't admire: Torquemada, church pedophiles, church homophobes, cruel nuns and priests who created and ran the Magdalene homes, William A. Donohoe, that blowhard from the Catholic League, and the guy above, the president of Catholic Charities of Boston, whose religious sensibilities are more offended by other people's sexuality than by the carnage of the Iraq war.

This latest story is just so bizarre: rather than allow gays and lesbians to adopt children, the Roman Catholic Church-affiliated Catholic Charities in Massachusetts is SHUTTING DOWN ITS ADOPTION SERVICE.

What a frickin' joke.

For their church members they forbid birth control, they forbid abortion (though this has nothing to do with their priestly and nunly labor shortage--no one is really interested in cheap labor, are they?). If the Catholic Church had its way, we'd all be bowing to their religious dictates--think Griswold vs. Connecticut.

Now the church is letting us know that they'd rather have kids languish in foster homes than give up their phobias about homosexuality. Compassionate? Christian?

Meanwhile, the very same Catholic Church is still hiding their long history of harboring and cosseting pedophile priests who sexually abused defenseless children over decades.

Theme: protecting pedophile priests, that's ok. Cruelly abusing and mistreating kids in slave-like conditions, that's ok. Intruding into the private lives of adults, that's ok. Helping abused and neglected children find adoptive homes, not ok.

Perverted, is it not?

I'm glad they're getting out of the child welfare system. I trust their abilities in caring for children about as far as I can spit.

What would Jesus say? I mean, He was so BIG on homophobia, and so SMALL on, like, love thy neighbor as thyself, was He not? He liked the Old Testament stuff so much that that He never bothered to create a testament of His very own, now, did He?

Never mind.

It all reminds me of one of my favorite Betty Bowers bumper stickers:

MY PEDOPHILE PRIEST SUPPORTS TRADITIONAL MARRIAGE

Full story here.

CATHOLIC CHARITIES TO HALT ADOPTIONS OVER ISSUE INVOLVING GAYS

BOSTON --The Boston Archdiocese's Catholic Charities said Friday it would stop providing adoption services because state law allows gays and lesbians to adopt children.

The social services arm of the Roman Catholic archdiocese has provided adoption services for the state for about two decades, and said it would discontinue once it completes its contract with the state. It said that the state law allowing gays to adopt runs counter to church teachings on homosexuality.

"The world was very different when Charities began this ministry at the threshold of the 20th century," the Rev. J. Bryan Hehir, president of Catholic Charities, and trustees chairman Jeffrey Kaneb said in a joint statement. "The world changed often and we adapted the ministry to meet changing times and needs. At all times we sought to place the welfare of children at the heart of our work.

"But now, we have encountered a dilemma we cannot resolve," they said.

The state's four Catholic bishops said earlier this month that the law threatens the church's religious freedom by forcing it to do something it considers immoral.

Eight members of Catholic Charities board later stepped down in protest of the bishops' stance. The 42-member board had voted unanimously in December to continue considering gay households for adoptions.

Catholic Charities has been involved in adoptions for about a century, but has had a contract with the state for the past two decades. Its contract with the state expires June 30.

In the past two decades, Catholic Charities has placed 720 children in adoptive homes. Of those 720 children, 13 were placed with same-sex couples, Catholic Charities said. Since 1977, the state Department of Social Services has contracted with Catholic Charities to provide special needs adoption services to children with severe emotional and physical needs.

"We recognize the complexity of the issue, and we are aware of the debates which have swirled around it, Hehir and Kaneb said in the statement. "As an agency, however, we simply must recognize that we cannot continue in this ministry."

Fine by me. I'm all for a little more separation of church and state.



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Free Speech? What Stinkin' Free Speech?

PROFESSOR BELIEVES FBI GRILLED HIM FOR HIS POLITICAL BELIEFS

What? There must be some mistake. Democracy's on the frickin' MARCH, dude!

Full, lovely story, here.

A Pomona College professor who is an outspoken critic of U.S. policy in Venezuela was questioned yesterday by two agents from the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department and the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in what he calls an act of intimidation.

The detectives visited Miguel Tinker-Salas during his office hours at about 2:40 or 2:45 pm Wednesday. They questioned him for about 20 minutes in his office at Pomona College in Claremont, Calif. The detectives identified themselves but their names are being withheld at the request of the FBI. . . .

"They were fishing,” says Tinker-Salas, "to intimidate and silence those who have a critical analysis of U.S. foreign policy."

After they left, several students outside Tinker-Salas' office told him the detectives had asked them about his background, his classes and his politics, and even took note of the cartoons on his door.

Tinker-Salas says the detectives told him this was part of a larger policy to interview people on various campuses. . . . He says the agents who visited him did not interview the other Venezuelan-born professor at Pomona College. . .

A Latin American and Chicano histories professor, Tinker-Salas believes he was targeted as a result of his outspoken politics regarding the U.S. policy toward Venezuela and Latin America. . . .

According to the ACLU of Colorado, the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force, which operates across the country, is violating First Amendment rights by equating nonviolent protest with domestic terrorism.

"The FBI is unjustifiably treating nonviolent public protest as though it were domestic terrorism," said Mark Silverstein, Legal Director of the Colorado ACLU, following the release of new documents obtained from the FBI under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) on Dec. 8, 2005.

"The FBI’s misplaced priorities threaten to deter legitimate criticism of government policy while wasting taxpayer resources that should be directed to investigating real terrorists."

Once again, ladies and gentlemen, major dudes and dudettes: YOUR TAX DOLLARS AT WORK.


FBI
freedom of speech
Bush

Unpacking the Backpack of Sexist Privilege

A game about who said what, on Blog Against Sexism Day:

"Feminism is hated because women are hated. Anti-feminism is a direct expression of misogyny; it is the political defense of women hating."

"Women should remain at home, sit still, keep house and bear children."

"I beg you to speak of Woman as you do of the Negro —- speak of her as a human being, as a citizen of the United States, as a half of the people in whose hands lies the destiny of this Nation."


"Uncle Charlie: The cities are full of women, middle-aged widows, husbands dead, husbands who’ve spent their lives making fortunes, working and working. And then they die and leave their money to their wives, their silly wives. And what do the wives do, these useless women? You see them in the hotels, the best hotels, every day by the thousands. Drinking the money, eating the money, losing the money at bridge. Playing all day and all night. Smelling of money. Proud of their jewelry but of nothing else. Horrible. Faded, fat, greedy women.

Charlie (his niece): They’re alive. They’re human beings!

Uncle Charlie: Are they? Are they, Charlie? Are they human or are they fat, wheezing animals? Hmmm? And what happens to animals when they get too fat and too old?"


"The misogyny that shapes every aspect of our civilization is the institutionalized form of male fear and hatred of what they have denied and therefore cannot know, cannot share: that wild country, the being of women."


"The souls of women are so small that some believe they have none at all."


"Women are taught that their main goal in life is to serve others—first men, and later, children. This prescription leads to enormous problems, for it is supposed to be carried out as if women did not have needs of their own, as if one could serve others without simultaneously attending to one’s own interests and desires. Carried to its 'perfection,' it produces the martyr syndrome or the smothering wife and mother."


"They have the right to work wherever they want to--as long as they have dinner ready when you get home."


"A pedestal is as much a prison as any other small space."


"A woman, especially, if she have the misfortune of knowing anything, should conceal it as well as she can."



The candidates: Anonymous Woman; John Wayne; Ursula K. Le Guin; Martin Luther; Thornton Wilder; A. Dworkin; Samuel Butler; Susan B. Anthony; Martin Luther; Jane Austen; Jean Baker Miller

Happy blog against sexism day.



Kudos to vegankid, whose brainchild this is.

blog against sexism day

To Those Wanting More Unwantedness

The notorious South Dakota bill to protect the all-important right of rapists to breed, and to ensure future generations for family pedophiles is raising eyebrows and blood pressure. Mine, too. It's also raising questions.

Is pregnancy resulting in giving birth to unwanted children a suitable punishment for sex?

Does an unwanted child live a life of gaiety and happiness?

Do wanted children wind up as shown here, as sweet little babies with two black eyes?

When the government forces maternity on a woman who has already decided she is unable properly to care for the child, what happens to the kid? And why don't rightwing blowhards care?

Because they're greedy selfish bastards, really. Which is why when I ran into one rightwinger's blog here that tried to spin this thing the other way, it was pretty darn funny. Well, sorta.

He insists that planning a family is "selfish."

Now, I'd bet that this person is probably a conservative Roman Catholic, and if that's how he wants to live, that's fine with me.

My problem is his attempt to dictate to me and others how we must live--which is according to his religious rules.

I'm Buddhist. I'm not after his mousetraps. I'm not ridding his house of Raid. I don't use mousetraps, and I don't use Raid. But I'm not in this guy's face about it, and he definitely is in mine.

Trying to make laws to force women into having kids that won't be well-cared for is irresponsible, and cruel. Making laws that support childbearing in loving conditions is hardly selfish, but responsible. Suggesting, like Preznit Toad-Exploder, that that feti should have health care that expires upon birth is reprehensible.

The radical right wants to suppress the data that unwantedness leads to criminal behavior, but it's out there all the same: "estimates suggest that legalized abortion can account for about half the observed decline in crime in the United States between 1991 and 1997." {The Impact of Legalized Abortion on Crime, Quarterly Journal of Economics, May 2001).

Where do child abuse and child neglect come from? Outer space?

From "The History of Child Abuse," here:

The Child as Poison Container

The main psychological mechanism that operates in all child abuse involves using children as what I have termed poison containers--receptacles into which adults project disowned parts of their psyches, so they can control these feelings in another body without danger to themselves.

In good parenting, the child uses the caretaker as a poison container . . . A good mother reacts with calming actions to the cries of a baby and helps it "detoxify" its dangerous emotions.

But when an immature mother's baby cries, she cannot stand the screaming, and strikes out at the child. As one battering mother put it, "I have never felt loved all my life. When the baby was born, I thought he would love me. When he cried, it meant he didn't love me. So I hit him."

Rather than the child being able to use the parent to detoxify its fears and anger, the parent instead injects his or her bad feelings into the child and uses it to cleanse his or herself of depression and anger.

One must wonder--just how many of those hysterically active in the forced maternity movement were themselves unwanted?

How many of those screaming for women to remain barefoot and pregnant have the slightest interest in improving economic and social conditions, so that children can be well-cared-for? How many are devoted to improving parenting and education? To improving the social climate?

As historian Lloyd deMause asks:

If war, social violence, class domination and economic destruction of wealth are really revenge rituals for childhood trauma, how else can we remove the source of these rituals? How else end child abuse and neglect? How else increase the real wealth of nations, our next generation?

How, indeed?

[update: this law has now been signed, story here, by the Governor, who is Catholic. South Dakota, The Coathanger State]


planned parenthood
child abuse
unwantedness
South Dakota abortion ban

2005 Koufax Awards Voting Opens at Wampum

The polls are open at the Koufax Awards for best lefty blogs in many categories, here.

No Blood for Hubris was nominated for Best New Blog, and Blog Most Deserving Wider Recognition. (Also, for Best Post: here and here.)

It was an honor to be among the nominees.

Quoth Wampum:

From our point of view, the important work of the awards is mostly complete. We view the nominating process and the posting of links to all the nominated blogs, posts, and series as the core of the awards.

If the idea is to build community and honor people who have provided free information, enlightenment, and entertainment over an entire year (and it is), that job is mostly done.

Wampum has done a great job of community-building; if you are able to offer them some financial support to encourage their efforts, please please do so.

What? You mean, them Gitmo sub-humans have names? And maybe rights? YUH. As IF.

I don't know what this country is coming to.

We have these "people" who have been held virtually incommunicado in Cuba, at Guantanamo Bay, of all places, and have been subjected to Fearless Leader knows what, and now, after four long years, we're finding out that they actually have NAMES?

Who said they could?

All this pansy spoiled-brat Club Gitmo (see Amerikins in Club Gitmo T-shirts, left; see Amerikin prizners in Gitmo, right) stuff what with four squares a day, by torture if necessary, just makes me want to SPIT. As an Amerikin. Read all about it here.

So what if they're mostly goat-herders and chauffeurs and total nobodies? Just because they weren't responsible for anything, aren't they responsible because they were THERE?

Wherever they were, they were there.

So there.

Look at these stories.

Detainee [Qari Esmhatulla]: They asked me where I had come from and I told them I came from Rhohaniesha (ph) the shrine. They replied with rage and force and ordered me to say that I had come from Shahi-Kwowt. I don't know it nor did I come from there. When I repeated that two or three times, the beatings started and after receiving a few hard kicks and punches I told them it was fine.

Whe the first group put me in the hands of the second group of Afghani soldiers, and the second group heard about Shahi-Kwowt, they delivered me a couple of butt strokes and demanded that I say that I carried this and that (the grenade and radio).

Assisting Military Officer: Sir, I'd like to interject one thing. The term butt stroke means that "he was hit by the butt of a rifle".

Somebody has to take responsibility.

But no one is. Gitmo's a damn pussy palace.

The food's too damn good. The justice is too damn good.

Take the gloves off, Bush, wilya?

Shee-it.

Vets
PTSD
Club Gitmo
Bush

You Break 'Em, You Fix 'Em -- Unless You're a Bushist Fascist Pseudo-Conservative

OK, it's the middle of the work week, I don't have time to do justice to the whole subject now, but I wanted highlight a particularly repulsive op-ed in the New York Times today by a little lady with a big fat axe to grind.

Oh, I forgot, you can't get there from here--here's the little intro to silly Sally Satel's piece: it's really so stupid it's not even worth reading--but it's certainly worth ridiculing.

Silly Sally's silly take: "For Some, the War Won't End: More rigor in diagnosing post-traumatic stress disorder will conserve resources for veterans who are truly deserving."

"Truly deserving"? What, like Bubble Boy?

Dickensian deserving? As in, "Please sir, can I have some more"?

"Rigor"? As in--anyone who admits to PTSD symptoms must be a pussy?

Oh, goodie. Silly Sally's got her spin on all those troops who suffer yet are undeserving.

Yes, we have the deserving poor and the undeserving poor, the deserving wounded, and the undeserving wounded--because, why would we want to pay for the damage we've caused?

I've written several times previously on the Bushist administration's penchant for exposing troops to conditions that engender PTSD, and then trying to change the rules so as not to have to actually pay for the treatment of PTSD that their splendid little war caused: see here "First We Maim Your Minds, Then We Dump You: It's Hard Work," with links to prior posts.

Their first attack on Veterans' benefits didn't succeed.

But--they're at it again.

Pigs.




Vets
PTSD
Sally Satel
New York Times

Happy Tibetan New Year 2133

Tashi delegs -- auspicious excellent bliss -- to one and all on this first day of Losar, Tibetan New Year, the Year of the Fire Dog.

(Yo, that means you, too, Bubble Boy. You look like you could use some auspicious excellent bliss, what with your approval ratings down to 34% and that of Chappaquid-Dick down to 18%, oh, and the Iraq war approval rating thing down to 30%. Tashi delegs. Big-time.)

Photo: Andreas Neumann, carto:net.

Pass the Cherry Kijafa, I'll Drink to That

No, on second thought, keep the cherry stuff, but you can pass the Havarti.

From a recent pro-free speech rally in Washington, DC, outside the Danish Embassy, via Corsair.

SERFIN' U-S-A!! . . . (an appreciation of Corporation Appreciation Week, for the CorruptCo Blogfest)

How do we love thee, Bushist fascist corporate corporations of America?

Let us count the ways:

We love thee for pimp-slapping us out of the very notion of pensions.
We love thee for pimp-slapping us out of the very notion of job security.
We love thee for pimp-slapping us out of the very notion of health benefits.
We love thee for pimp-slapping us out of the very notion of a single job being enough to support anyone, much less a family.

We love thee for destroying unions and making us love you for it lest we lose our jobs.

We love thee for disabusing us of the notion that "factory workers at successful companies can achieve a secure, relatively prosperous middle-class life for themselves."

We love thee for creatively creating useless products like Coke and Pepsi which have no nutritional value and yet make beeg money.

We love thee for creatively creating and selling useless products like Camels, Marlboros, etc. etc., totally unecessary & addictive items which actually ruin health and/or kill and yet make beeg money.

We love thee for creatively creating and hypnotically selling products like McDonald's and Burger King and Wendy's junk food made out of junk which contribute to obesity and illness and yet make beeg money (see Left of Center's Corruptco post here on high fructose corn syrup and bring your barf bag).

We love thee for successfully poisoning the natural environment and getting away with it, so far.

We love thee for buying and installing Preznit Toad-Exploder who has never actually held an actual job, like both his daughters and I think his mother, and who therefore is able to slap an innocent lady citizen on the back as congratulations to her for her good luck to be living in a country like America where she can hold three jobs--three!--at once.

We love thee for buying and installing Preznit Toad-Exploder who exploded toads in his youth.
We love thee for buying and installing Preznit Toad-Exploder who thinks that invading Iraq and thus making money for Halliburton, the Carlisle Group, and KBR and the rest of the military-industrial complex is way more important than the actual lives of actual troops or the actual lives of actual citizens.

We love thee for always putting profits before people and therefore providing us a sense of security in this impermanent world.

We love thee for your iron grip on corporate media, and your continuing hypnotic hold on the American populace.

We love thee for Enron's happiness at successfully stealing money from little old ladies in California.

We love thee for replacing the notion of American labor with the notion of American serfdom; for replacing noblesse oblige with pure greed and ego; for replacing three classes with the classic two: haves and have -nots--and for blaming the have-nots for not having.

We love thee for not giving a shit about anyone but yourselves.
We love thee for thinking that giving a shit about anyone but yourselves is somehow "quaint," not unlike the Geneva Conventions.

Not only do we love thee, but we worship thee and we bow down.

Ha.




-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This post is part of the CorruptCo Blogfest, created by LosetheNoose.

Bolton Pot Blasts U.N. Kettle: Sex Still Troubles Our Swinger Ambassador?

This story troubles moi, aussi:

BOLTON BLASTS U.N. "SEX AND CORRUPTION"

NEW YORK - The U.S. ambassador to the
United Nations said Saturday that the world body is hobbled "by bad management, by sex and corruption" and a lack of confidence in its ability to carry out missions. . .

"We find an organization that is deeply troubled by bad management, by sex and corruption and by a growing lack of confidence in its ability to carry out missions that are given to them," Bolton told an audience at a Columbia Law School symposium held by the Federalist Society, a conservative law organization.

Say, isn't that the society that John Roberts didn't remember he belonged to, and Samuel Alito didn't remember he belonged to? Funny. I can't remember.


Well, ok, I can't remember that, but I do remember this, via meat-eating leftist:

JOHN BOLTON: NECOCON, APPOINTEE, WIFESWAPPER?

Larry Flynt of Hustler infamy has recently claimed that John Bolton frequented the famous swinger's club Plato's Retreat in the 1970s and coerced his ex-wife to perform in group sex while he watched.

Corroborated allegations that Mr. Bolton’s first wife, Christina Bolton, was forced to engage in group sex have not been refuted by the State Department despite inquires posed by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt concerning the allegations. Mr. Flynt has obtained information from numerous sources that Mr. Bolton participated in paid visits to Plato’s Retreat, the popular swingers club that operated in New York City in the late 1970s and early 1980s. . .

If this is true, on the one hand, its another example of a neocon doing some nasty things behind closed doors. On the other hand, well, its just a hilarious story. The soon-to-be ambassador to the UN watched his wife having sex; it does not get any better than this.

I dunno about that. It could get better if it turns out that Bolton is the leaky source for the Traitorgate Plame name, could it not?

On the other hand, it gets way worse when one realizes that Ambassador John Bolton has, significantly, mistaken problems with "rapes" for being problems with "sex."

How sick is that?




John Bolton
U.N.

Hero Ohio Senator's Bill Will Bar Republicans From Adopting Children: Egos Too Big to Parent Well

Finally, an Ohio lawmaker after my own heart, complete story here.


PLAN WOULD BAR OHIO ADOPTIONS BY GOP

If a Youngstown lawmaker's proposal becomes Ohio law, Republicans would be barred from being adoptive parents.

State Sen. Robert Hagan sent out e-mails to fellow lawmakers late Wednesday night, stating that he intends to "introduce legislation in the near future that would ban households with one or more Republican voters from adopting children or acting as foster parents." The e-mail ended with a request for co-sponsorship. . .

Hagan said his legislation was written in response to a bill introduced in the Ohio House this month by Rep. Ron Hood, R-Ashville, that is aimed at prohibiting gay adoption. . .

Hagan wrote . . .that `"credible research" shows that adopted children raised in Republican households are more at risk for developing "emotional problems, social stigmas, inflated egos, and alarming lack of tolerance for others they deem different than themselves and an air of overconfidence to mask their insecurities."

However, Hagan admitted that he has no scientific evidence to support the above claims.

Just as "Hood had no scientific evidence" to back his assertion that having gay parents was detrimental to children, Hagan said.

"It flies in the face of reason when we need to reform our education system, address health care and environmental issues that we put energy and wasted time (into) legislation (Hood's) like this," continued Hagan, who has been in the Ohio Senate nine years. Before the Senate, he served 19 years in the Ohio House.