This week on #thepete #podcast: how #society is #failing us

This week in #thepetepodcast I go into how American #society is failing to do what it is there to do. It is breaking its #Social contract with #WeThePeople. #HealthCare, #housing, #innovation, #war are all ways it fails us. Listen to find out how!

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From Jay ThePal: Your Puppet News Brief! Crisis in Crimea! Find out the puppet's perspective!

http://instagram.com/p/ls9iQVQ8hm/

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Ballpoint Adventures for January 21, 2006: Billy Doesn't Like Apologists

Yeah, apologists for the Iraq War are only slightly better than people who believe in "honest" rape. >_<  (#ronpaul2012)

amodernmanifesto:

cognitivedissonance:

Cost of one Tomahawk cruise missile: Approximately $756,000-$2,000,000 per missile

Congress appropriated $6,734,000,000 for WIC in fiscal year 2011.

Let’s compare these numbers for perspective:

When Operation Iraqi Freedom began, more than 725 Tomahawk cruise missiles had been fired into Iraq by early 2003. That’s an approximate cost of $548,100,000 to $1,450,000,000 - nearly 20% of WIC’s 2011 budget in a matter of weeks.

War is expensive, but for some reason, it’s easier to to write those costs off than the costs of helping families in need. War is also profitable, whereas assisting the impoverished, well, not so much.

This quote is truth.

This quote makes me so angry.

….but then, so does the truth.

Keep It Classy, USA! (very graphic, messed up pic of USGI and victim)

newyorker:

Seymour Hersh on the Der Spiegel “Kill Team” photos:

“Why photograph atrocities? And why pass them around to buddies back home or fellow soldiers in other units? How could the soldiers’ sense of what is unacceptable be so lost? No outsider can have a complete answer to such a question. As someone who has been writing about war crimes since My Lai, though, I have come to have a personal belief: these soldiers had come to accept the killing of civilians—recklessly, as payback, or just at random—as a facet of modern unconventional warfare. In other words, killing itself, whether in a firefight with the Taliban or in sport with innocent bystanders in a strange land with a strange language and strange customs, has become ordinary.”

It think it’s time for a war movie marathon of “Das Boot” and “Saving Private Ryan” for all Americans (ESPECIALLY OUR POLITICIANS!!).  Seriously, kids.  This is fucked up beyond all measure. 

If you’re capable of doing this, someone needs to tell you to STOP.

Wikileaks Adventures Comics: US Admiral Accuses Internet Superheroes of Bloody Hands; Mrs. Irony

Today on Democracy Now, they played the following quote from Admiral Mike Mullen who spoke out against Wikileaks and their huge document-release:

ADM. MIKE MULLEN: Mr. Assange can say whatever he likes about the greater good he thinks he and his source are doing, but the truth is, they might already have on their hands the blood of some young soldier or that of an Afghan family. Disagree with the war all you want, take issue with the policy, challenge me or our ground commanders on the decisions we make to accomplish the mission we’ve been given, but don’t put those who willingly go into harm’s way even further in harm’s way just to satisfy your need to make a point.

via democracynow.org

The huge irony here is the part I italicized. I’m sure, if there’s one thing Admiral Mike Mullen (or any other military mucky-muck) knows about, it’s what it’s like to have blood on your hands. What a child to think that sort of argument would work against someone like Assange.

And check it out—if Assange ends up being to blame for the deaths of anyone, doesn’t it follow that it’s really the military that should be blamed since they put those soldiers and those Afghan families in harm’s way in the first place? Let’s take that one better—let’s blame the guy who put the military in a place where it could then put those soldiers and Afghan families in harm’s way. It’s the Commander-in-Chief. So really, it’s George W. Bush who may have the blood of “some young soldier or that of an Afghan family” not Jim Henson’s Wikileaks Babies.

Give me a break, Mullen.

Everyone knows people die in war!! The news media and the military has done a great job of cynically reminding us of how there’s nothing new in the docs that were Wikileaked. So, why the hell would Assange and his supporters hesitate to release docs that could result in deaths when so many on both sides have died already?

Oh really? “Some young soldier” might die? Well, maybe if he hadn’t been ordered to invade a country, he wouldn’t have died.

Stupid, useless argument.

And how can the military and it’s propaganda wing have the gall to ignore the rich, choco-flavored irony of accusing Assange and Pals of having blood on their hands???

Seriously—is there not a sane brain in the American government today?

This war is unjust, it’s costing too much, people continue to die for nothing and we all know it—WHAT IS THE DEBATE HERE?

US Military: you’re following orders, we get that, but this war (and the one in Iraq) is a dead dead dead end. We can’t fix it and are only responsible for the latest round of messed-up-edness there. That “country” has been messed-up for thousands of years. Let it go.

And let our soldiers come home.

Yes people will die because we left, but they’ll die if we stay. And we shouldn’t have gone in the first place. If we had sent in an elite, light-weight task force to track down ObL, I think we’d have gotten a lot closer to our goal there. But that’s an alternate reality now… or is *this* the alternate reality? >_<

Are the Lies the Lying Government Officials tell actually lies? Or...?

newsweek:

“What does it mean to tell the truth about a war? Is it a lie, technically speaking, for the Administration to say that it has faith in Hamid Karzai’s government and regards him as a legitimate leader—or is it just absurd? Is it a lie to say that we have a plan for Afghanistan that makes any sense at all? If you put it that way, each of the WikiLeaks documents—from an account of an armed showdown between the Afghan police and the Afghan Army, to a few lines about a local interdiction official taking seventy-five-dollar bribes, to a sad exchange about an aid scam involving orphans—is a pixel in a picture that does, indeed, contradict official accounts of the war, and rather drastically so.”

—

The New Yorker: Wikileaks and the War

  (via southpol)

So, they are lying?

Like it even matters.

Who freaked out in 2000 when it was obvious to anyone paying attention that there was no clear winner in the election?  Or that it’s Congress’ job to settle ties, not the Supreme Court’s?

What public rose up to demand impeachment when it became obvious the Bush Administration’s USG had violated international law several times over, least of all by invading countries unprovoked?

Every single one of us wander the streets of our cities and towns knowing full well that the cash in our pockets isn’t worth anything tangible, yet we just keep pretending that’s not true.

We, The People, are used to dealing with lies—all the time.  Whether it’s God, Santa, our money, our government or the fact that Diet Coke is really no better for you than regular Coke.  We lie to each other and ourselves all the time and this shock that the USG is lying to us about war is, you guessed it: a lie.  This one, like many of them is to make us feel better.

No one in the USG should worry.  Both endless wars can continue. We have no ability to stop them from doing so and even if we did we wouldn’t use that ability.

And that is no lie.

TimesOnline.co.uk says Israel Preparing for Potential Attack Iran

TimesOnline.co.uk says Israel Preparing for Potential Attack Iran, originally uploaded by thepetecom.

TimesOnline.co.uk is reporting that Israeli warships are positioning themselves in the Suez Canal in preparation for a possible invasion of Iran.

Speaking strictly as the fiction writer and the observer of world events that I am, I must say the timing of this does make some amount of tactical (if I'm using the word correctly) sense from the Israeli standpoint. Iran is a mess after its government cracked down, rather oppressively, on protestors (mostly students, apparently). There's been talk for the past month of a complete revolution in Iran--the leaders can't seem to decide if their recent election counts or even if the ballots were properly counted and it's not the easiest thing to get an accurate account of the state of things inside Iranian borders due to a crackdown on foreign press.

So, with that kind of chaos--a stumbling government and a rather large contingent of their citizens feeling pretty rebellious, Israel may have picked a perfect time for invasion--one that just might catch the Iranian military at a place where they simply will not have their shit together enough to defend against an attack.

The theory before the recent Iranian crackdown was that even though the populace didn't seem to generally care for the leadership, said leaders could still rally the Iranian people to rise up and defend the country from any outside attackers. After showing such bloodthirsty instincts on it's own people, Iran's leaders just might find it harder to get support from those people--at least, that's what I bet Israel is thinking.

Does this mean an Israeli attack on Iran is moral or even legal? No and no--not from my perspective, anyway. Iran would have to attack Israel in order to make an attack on Iran legal in the eyes of the UN Charter (aka international law). On a moral level (think the Golden Rule) Israel can't invade a country that may be talking shit, but isn't doing shit to mess with them--so how could Israel feel the need to attack? But then, Israel is the country that's been occupying a people for decades for no easily discernible reason, so anything is possible.

No, I don't hate Jews, nor do I hate Israel. I just don't like what their government is doing. Drawing first blood is never a good thing--end of story. PR, rhetoric, even blatant threats do NOT justify an attack on another country. ONLY an unprovoked attack from that country justifies an attack on it.

Let's hope Israel is just going for a sail.

Fingers crossed!

OK, For the LAST TIME, Israel Needs to CHILL.

Discover Simple, Private Sharing at Drop.io Read the latest as of this blog post at CNN.com here.

So, here's the deal.

I've been writing about this shit going on in Israelistine, or Palestisrael (which ever you prefer), for many, many years. So, let me break it down to the simplest terms I can think of:

Israel can bring peace if they want to.

That's it. Now, please, consider the following:

1) Is Hamas, or anyone in the occupied territories a real threat to Israel? Or are they just a bunch of pissed off people with crappy, unreliable weapons.

No and yes.

2) Did Hamas even exist before Israel occupied the occupied territories?

No.

So, doesn't that mean Israel is the root cause of this strife?

Let's keep going:

3) No one ever asks the question: What does Israel want by occupying these chunks of land?

Jerusalem? They have it. Now what are they doing with all of those Palestinians?

3) Does anyone really think pounding a house, a mosque, or even a neighborhood with weapons like the kinds Israel can afford will do anything but make people hate them more?

Terrorism is the result (generally) of a person or people feeling they have no other options--they have no voice, no control and think hurting people or destroying things is the only thing they can do. Keep reacting that way and you'll never stamp out terrorists--but you will create dozens more.

In fact, some might see the Israeli government's actions as part of a terrorist-making machine. In fact, if I were a corrupt leader who was more interested in keeping my citizens rallied behind me and less with their well-being, I'd say "kudos" to the Israeli government for doing what the Nazis did by giving the citizenry a unified enemy to always be afraid of. Well done!

So, in the end, who has the real power to create peace here?

The Palestinian terrorists who keep shooting their useless little rockets into Israel killing almost no one? Or the big guys with the undisclosed nuke program?

Israel can take her lumps--that's all they'll ever be. Hamas and anyone else in the occupied territories have limited resources. They'll never be a formidable foe or threat to Israel. So, the violence stops when the government of Israel stops acting like an abusive parent and starts acting like a civilized governing body. They need to treat the handful of terrorists in the territories as criminals because that's what they are.

When hundreds are killed in the name of stopping a handful, you have to wonder: who is worse?

GREAT DICTATOR (1940)

Click to buy the 2-disk set!

Positive Experience/Entertaining? This is a truly impressive film. I had always heard good things about this movie, but the film largely does live up to the hype.


Technically any good? While I've never been a fan of comedians speaking gibberish in a way that it both sounds fun and sounds like another language, the film makes up for this in spades. To be honest, I did find myself laughing at the gibber-speak, but still felt like it wouldn't be done in a comedy, today.

The acting was a solid as you'd expect--that is to say, not great, but perfectly reasonable, for sure. The story is very solid, following a sort of "prince and pauper" vibe as silent movie comic actor/director/auteur Charlie Chaplin plays both the prince (a very Hitler-esque dictator) and the pauper (a Jewish barber). The setup is clearly absurd, but entirely brilliant. This is seriously amazing film making.


How did it leave me feeling? Seriously moved--there's a wonderful speech at the end that nearly brought tears to my eyes--it was disturbingly resonant in today's war-filled culture. I could not believe that something from sixty-eight years ago could still be true--and since it's about war and profit, how depressing is that? VERY.

Good on you, Mr. Chaplin! It's a shame you're dead. You'd be wishing you were, anyway. :(


Final Rating? GSN - Go See Now--this is a cinema classic for a reason. It's also a perfect double feature with To Be Or Not To Be. TheWife and I both agreed that George W. Bush should be forced to listen to Chaplin's big speech every morning before breakfast.

Didn't They Already Have a Say?

Grabbed this screencap from Google News in the early hours of 7/9 and just had to shake my head.

I mean, REALLY.

A bipartisan panel wants the government to play a bigger role when a president decides to go to war.

Uhhhhh, YEAH.

You know what, Mr. or Mrs. Bipartisan Panel?

THEY ALREADY HAVE A BIGGER ROLE.

They just turned over that role to Bush in the lead-up to the Iraq Attack--or did you guys not study very hard in school?

I mean, any kid who paid attention in history class (or for me, Social Studies class) knows that it's Congress' job to authorize military force. Before we invaded a sovereign member of the UN (Iraq) back in 2003, the US Congress told Bush that he could swing his ability to declare war around like a huge penis in order to scare Saddam into fessing up about his WMD.

Of course, no amount of penis-swinging would get Saddam to admit something that wasn't true, so Bush got to use his war powers. Of course, if Congress hadn't been lied to by the White House, they'd have known Saddam had nothing to declare as we threatened to cross his border.

They trusted the guy in the White House. It's my impression that the Founding Fathers didn't want the guy in the White House to have the power to invade a country--so why did Congress defy that interest of the FF? Especially to a man like Bush who was such a great leader he let 911 happen, invaded a whole country and then couldn't even capture the guy who was behind 911.

This was a guy who didn't even have the decency to make sure he won the 2000 election.

Hey, did you know that when there's a tie in a presidential race the US Constitution states that it's *Congress* that votes on who the president should be?

Yeah, apparently the Supreme Court hadn't heard that either. By I digress!

The USC(ongress) should never have given Bush the ability to shoot his military load into Iraq to begin with, so essentially, since Bush "took office" the Supreme Court, Congress and the White House all let us down. That's all three branches, isn't it?

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Bush in TheNews: What's Wrong with this Picture?

OK, this is getting seriously out of control.

BUSH is scolding CONGRESS about Iraq???

HOLEEE Moley.

This isn't America, it's BIZARRO AMERICA. After the incredible mess Bush, himself, has caused in that country, he has the GALL to scold CONGRESS?

It would be one thing if he were saying something like: "Why did you guys vote to give me the power to go to war? Don't tell me you didn't think I'd screw it all to hell, now! We had African tribesman yet undiscovered by modern society sending emails to the White House telling me not to invade, but you guys let me do it anyway!"

However, here's what a March 27, 2008 article from http://AP.org/ and http://MyWay.com/ (here: http://apnews.myway.com/…RRLO0.html ) reported Bush saying:

Bush derided calls from Congress for troop withdrawals or deadlines so that the military could focus more on the anti-terror battle elsewhere. "This argument makes no sense," he said.

...

Bush suggested that Iraqi officials were able to make more progress than the U.S. Congress.

"They got their budget passed," the president said. "Sometimes it takes our Congress awhile to get its budget passed.

"Nevertheless some members of Congress decided the best way to encourage progress in Baghdad was to criticize and threaten Iraq's leaders while they're trying to work out their differences," Bush said.

...

"They're trying to build a modern democracy on the rubble of three decades of tyranny, in a region of the world that has been hostile to freedom. And they're doing it while under assault from one of history's most brutal terrorist networks," Bush said. "When it takes time for Iraqis to reach agreement, it is not foot-dragging, as one senator described it during Congress' two-week Easter recess. It is a revolutionary undertaking that requires great courage."

...

But, he countered, "If America's strategic interests are not in Iraq, the convergence point for the twin threats of al-Qaida and Iran, the nation Osama bin Laden's deputy has called the place for the greatest battle, the country at the heart of the most volatile region on earth, then where are they?"

Yeeeeah.

That last part is what you call a "straw man argument" and the Bush Administration uses them all the time. It's like using "rape" or "Hitler" in your argument--it's a fairly sure sign you *have* no argument. In case you're not familiar, a straw man argument is when you rephrase the issue in a way that makes it easier for you to beat.

For instance, Bush is waging a war on a concept (terrorism) where our enemy is a few-thousand strong (which got that strong thanks to his foreign policy). So, rather than admit that Al Qeada is a tiny, minuscule threat to America (especially when compared to something like cancer, AIDS or even car accidents) he says something like "Don't you want to protect America against the people who hate our way of life?"

How can you say "no" to that?

He sets up the straw man and then knocks it over--paraphrasing Shakespeare:

...it is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing.

Of course, what's really disgusting, to me at this point, is the way Congress is behaving through all of this. It's bad enough Bush has lied and bullshit his way into wars that are making his friends filthy rich(er), but Congress has the Constitutional authority and obligation to stop him. Yet, they've instead acted like a bunch of sheep, allowing themselves to be herded around by the good shepherd George.

I hope we all vote against our incumbent senators and congresspeople the next chance we get because every single one of them has let us down. Sure, some have tried, but none have stopped Bush from continuing this mess.

The whole thing makes me laugh like Chuck Heston in "Planet of the Apes."
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Not Exactly World War III, But...

So, the other day I, more or less, said that [http://thepete.com/just-not-enough-wars-going-on/|World War III had officially begun]. I decided to make sure of that by looking up the definition of "world war" at Websters.Com. Here's what they say:

Well, considering America is really the only principle nation of the world left, any war the US enters into can be considered a world war based on Webster's definition. And America is the only principle nation left--I mean, what? Is there another nation who is willing to stand up against the US? I don't think so.

What's really funny is now former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich says, according to [http://blog.seattletimes.nwsource.com/davidpostman/archives/2006/07/gingrich_says_its_world_war_iii.html|a July 16, 2006 editorial] at SeattleTimes.Com, that:

America is in World War III and President Bush should say so.

Well, when America is in a "world" war, isn't that a bit of a given? I mean, what else does "world" mean?

Regardless, things have only gotten worse since last week. The USG has sent evacuation teams to Lebanon to get the roughly 25,000 US citizens out of the country (if they wish to leave). That's according to [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/16/AR2006071600226.html|a July 16, 2006 article] at WashingtonPost.Com from AP.org. According to [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/5184946.stm|a July 16, 2006 article] at http://News.BBC.co.uk the UKG is planning for the evacuation of any Britons in Lebanon who wish to leave as well.

We all know Israel doesn't pull any punches and they are a nuclear power, so things could get rather tense.

What's even funnier is that the USG and the RG don't agree. Who is the RG? Oh yeah--we haven't really heard from them in a while--the Russian Government. Putin apparently doesn't like the USG's policy on this whole thing. Here's a clip from [http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0715-03.htm|a July 15, 2006 article] from AP.org available over at CommonDreams.Org that explains things pretty well:

In a chilly summit prelude, President Bush blocked Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization on Saturday and President Vladimir Putin mockingly said Moscow doesn't want the kind of violence-plagued democracy the United States has fostered in Iraq.

OH, NO HE DI-UNT!

More from the article:

Alternately joking and poking at each other, the two also showed differences at a news conference on the explosion of violence in the Mideast.

Bush held Israel blameless for its punishing attacks in Lebanon and said it was up to the militant group Hezbollah to lay down its arms. Putin was critical of Israel's use of force and said the violence "should stop as soon as possible."

Yes, three Israeli soldiers have been "kidnapped" by outside forces (1 by Hammas/Palestine and 2 by Hezbollah/Lebanon) but those outside forces have a bit to gripe about regarding Israel. Lebanon was occupied by Israel and Palestine still is.

So, imagine this scenario:

You and your big sister are sitting at the kids' table on Thanksgiving. You reach over and steal some of that delicious Turkey skin. Before you can even eat it, your sister slaps your face, and grabs an entire turkey leg off your plate. She also grabs a turkey leg from your brother's plate because he, too, tried to steal some skin. Then you both decide to get your turkey legs back, but your sister is holding them both too high for you to reach. So, you both go for her baked potato. She then drops her turkey legs, throws back her chair and begins to punch the living shit out of both of you.

So, both sides are wrong for what they did at various stages of the game, but big sister Israel is DEFINITELY overreacting now.

But anyone who thinks that this isn't a world war we're in right now is fooling themselves.

1) Israel is a nuclear power.

2) World War I began when a single important person was assasinated.

Three soldiers have been kidnapped and Israel is blowing up buildings and highways, killing civilians in the process (which is internationally illegal).

I'd just like to say "thanks" to all the folks who thought the Iraq Attack was a good idea. I'd also like to say "thanks" to the folks that thought Bush in the White House was a good idea.

You know, we did have a chance for someone ELSE to be in there, but SOME people were too busy calling other people "Sore Loserman".

Well, it's not to late to impeach!

Though, if WWIII gets any more heated it just might be too late to impeach and then Bush will have gotten away with it all.