November 11, 1918 etc.

So today is Veteran's Day. Big whoop. People congratulate me for serving in a (neo)colonial war half a world away, and tell me that I was there defending freedom (some add peace, but that is a little much to even comment on).

Sorry, I call bullshit. Eisenhower said that he kept the South Vietnamese from voting in 1958 to make sure that they didn't vote for Ho Chi Ming, which he knew they would. Some freedom. So I was no more defending freedom and democracy there and then, then the people in the service are now.

The guys who are busy being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan and now it looks like there will be even more are fighting for what? Not freedom in Iraq certainly. In Afghanistan, gee we got a recent election that is so corrupt that the opposition "party" pulled out of the run off. On top of that one half of the population are being denied any rights at all (would you care to guess which half that is?) Given what just happened with the Sputak amendment, I would think that the democratic party probably has not problem with that at all.

I thought I was busy defending the world from the communist menace. Of course, keeping these mostly brown people from electing their own government was simply schooling them in real democracy. I really believed that at the time.

Seeing the affect we had on the people there the way we corrupted an already corrupt government (in Thailand) the affect on me was kind of like a cold shower. Why was I there, what was I doing? I grew up at 22, apparently our rulers have yet to get to that level of development.

At any rate I was supporting an entirely corrupt government that was not in any real way representing it's people. I guess that could refer to either the South Vietnamese or the good old USofA.

You can't do that on a continuous basis over seas (ever since about 1948) and expect that what you will end up with here at home is going to be anything, but a corrupt government which in no real way represents it's people.

The founding fathers understood that we could not have a large standing army and a republic. It's interesting that we knew so much more than we apparently do 200 years later. Now look at us. At any rate you cannot continue to support dictatorships everywhere else (no matter what Orwellian phraseology you might use to justify it) and not expect that kind of thing to start to be reflected in the government here.

So celebrate each one of us who helped support a corrupt and vile government (take your pick) whose only purpose is now to take money from the middle class and lower classes and give it to the wealthiest here in this country, it was always their purpose to do that in other countries.

P.S. Oh yeah, I've wondered since I could wonder why we insist on "celebrating" Veteran's Day on November 11. After all, the only thing that happened on November 11 (well except for the execution of the Haymarket Martyrs and Nat Turner) was the armistice in WWI, which merely paused the Great War. Our peace with Germany came much later after all the other parties had signed the Versailles Treaty and the Versailles Treaty simply set the stage for another war. We've actually ended at least one war since then, and stopped all our colonial wars without any formal ends. I suspect that there are no living WWI veterans left in the USofA. (As an aside I did meet a WWI veteran once. He had been stationed in south Texas during the entire war and spent the entire time chasing Mexicans and Indians, never seeing one, he said.)

Sunday Animals

Sonny and Ming taking a much needed rest.

Loki with his new stuffed toy.

Loki sleeping with his new stuffed toy. He doesn't want to be separated from it and doesn't trust us not to steal it from him.

Bad Treaties

I honestly do not think that there is any reactionary piece of crap that this administration will not sign off on. A secret treaty that will apparently (dare I say with any luck) decimate the internet. I understand that those who are in power, of course want to limit the real input of those of us out of power. The same type of thing happened with the introduction of the printing press. I would guess that it is important to keep these kind of things out of the hands of the radicals.

JWMcD? Just what would McCain have done? Let's us do it too.

Stupid Piece of Shit

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his job depends on not understanding it, Upton Sinclair

An interesting timeline, one that is I suspect correct and one that is right in it's implications. Rahm would not want to learn anything that would interfere with his preconceived notions. The idea that we've got to suck up the the corporatists and the big money people in order to win certainly isn't new. The fact that you can't screw up enough to lose your job. Is probably not new either. If you insist that the things to do are very conservative things to do.

Now by job I mean the money that comes in from their corporate backers. That would include all writers for the MSM. It would also include all most all elected and appointed officials. One can of course lose one's elected position, or the people who appointed one can also get voted out, but then one will get to go back to the right wing welfare trough, or a nice lobbying position which would probably provide even more money than one got working for the government.

Elections

It is too bad the democrat won in NY-23, since a win by the republican would have meant that the crazy right wing would have been emboldened in republican primaries.

I'm kind of happy that the democrat lost in Virginia, because it shows what happens when we run a republican clone and the base stays home.

It is a tragedy that the marriage equity lost in Maine. How sad indeed. Why is it that we can't let everybody have those rights? Plus it would mean more business for divorce lawyers.

And then there is Ohio, the three constitutional amendments all passed with money from industry pouring in. So the second one was the worst. Now we have another bureaucracy of appointed people who will be able to set the conditions for more factory farms. The small farmers (those who are left) were convinced to vote against their interests as they (and other middle class and poor people) have so frequently in the past. Now the animals will have their lives made even more brutish and miserable. And the ground water run off from these places with their poisons, and antibiotics will contaminate the water we all drink, and especially those few family farmers left.

Health Care Crap

Among other's.

Now this is something that I should not have just learned. I guess that it would just be too much to expect that American doctors, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies make a reasonable amount of money.

Democracy Wins

Wow, just wow. We congratulate Karzai on steeling the election so efficiently that no one will run against him in the run offs. Too much danger. Why is it that I am not supposed to think of Vietnam when I think of this place? Is it because there are no jungles there, cause there are certainly enough incredibly corrupt loser politicians that we are backing to make the whole thing seem like a case of deja vu all over again.

How stupid are we not only do we congratulate the guy, but also the British government and the U.N. How is it not like Vietnam? No jungle, so it's much cleaner and oh yeah, we are only losing about a fifth as many soldiers per week as we did during Vietnam. So I guess that means that we can continue on for thirty years or until we or the Chinese run out of money. Or we run out of unmanned drones.

H1N1 or Swine All About It

Now this is interesting, thanks Sue. I wonder what the deal is with the Indonesians? Well assholes abound.