The Reaction -- by Michael J.W. Stickings
ByI remember standing outside the Federal Courthouse during the and talking to another demonstrator who saw this whole movement as the wave of the future that would sweep away the war mongering and the anti-democratic and totalitarian evils that accompanied it.
He was sure that in our children's time, it would be a brave new world. My reply was that no, they would simply go around us and propagandize our children and make us into the enemy and so they did. Now, in my grandchildren's time, I think I can say with sadness that not only did it work, but it still works and they're still doing it.
Behold the man. Dick Cheney, pictured with his arm raised like Hitler, addressing the graduating class of the United States Military Academy at West Point. While many have been concerned that the officers of tomorrow already take a dim view of the Geneva Conventions, Cheney and make his appeal to the growing contempt for morality amongst the ever more radically fundamentalist military.
"Capture one of these killers" said the worm Cheney, assuming that everyone captured is a demon, " and he'll be quick to demand the protections of the Geneva Convention and the Constitution of the United States. Yet when they wage attacks or take captives, their delicate sensibilities seem to fall away."
Indeed, those whose country we occupy by force are not only the "enemy" but sub-human demons and that absolves us of being moral; that justifies any evil we might enjoy in the quest to bring American, Judeo-Christian traditions to the heathens.
"The terrorists know what they want and they will stop at nothing to get it. By force and intimidation, they seek to impose a dictatorship of fear, under which every man, woman, and child lives in total obedience to their ideology." And indeed that's just what they say about us and that's what Cheney wants of us.
And just who the hell is "they," Dick? would it be the civilians beaten, raped, tortured and killed in your dungeons and in their own homes? Would it be the victims of your shock and awe?
Would it be the millions forced to flee and the millions living in fear and hunger and disease and heat and cold and poverty now that we have changed their regime? Is everyone objecting to your imperialist thievery a "terrorist?" and what the hell is the moral difference between a terrorist who tortures and kills and a sick, corrupt maggot like you who does the same thing in the name of "freedom?
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It's not often that I am a complete loss of adequate words to describe the moral abomination that is Dick Cheney and his gang of murderers, liars and barbarians. No biblical prophet ever execrated any man or act thoroughly enough to suit the crime of his very existence. No advocate of Satanism ever was more eloquent in setting forth his case than he.
I fear to live in a country whose Army is pressed into the same mold as Hitler's Waffen SS. I loathe living in a country where standing up for morality, ethics, decency, liberty, democracy and all I hold to be the foundations of civilization are considered by our leadership to be unpatriotic. Our constitution, our laws, our beliefs about the inherent rights of man; our traditional values, our aspirations to be moral leaders - none of these things mean anything but as objects of contempt for Cheney and not only is he the least moral of anyone pretending to be an American; not only is he the Devil's advocate and propagandist, he's guilty of more high crimes and misdemeanors against our laws then any loathsome invertibarate ever to hold public office.
Dick Cheney is a malignant and aggressive cancer that cannot be removed soon enough. Impeachment and a lengthy jail sentence in some filthy sewer of a prison would have been his fate years ago if this country were worthy of any of the things it still brags about being. Cheney must be impeached and removed from office or we have no reason to exist.
(Cross-posted at .) posted by Capt.
Fogg at Put, not find
ByNational Security Advisor Stephen Hadley took a turn in front of the press today and was questioned as to why the administration "civil war." Hadley, ignoring the fact that the very NIE he himself quotes calls the deteriorating situation in Iraq a civil war, stated that the administration does not use the term "because it’s not an adequate description of the situation we find ourselves."
Leaving aside the whole civil war thing, that's not what this post is about, Hadley sounds like the "situation we find ourselves" comes as some sort of a surprise and is not a product of their own incompetent policy--a policy that mainly consists of wishing on shooting stars and praying at the .
Mr. Hadley, we did not find ourselves in this situation, you put us into this situation. Never forget it, because the people certainly won't.
For the visually inclined, Think Progress has the . For more , the Carpetbagger runs down the rest.
(Cross-posted at .
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Guest post byI've really been trying to keep my mouth shut because as a married man I'm not supposed to bother with opinions about children and relationships. But Mary Cheney has got to be the most self-righteously clueless woman on the face of the earth.
From :
The decision to become pregnant and raise a child with her female partner was not political, Mary Cheney, a daughter of Vice President Dick Cheney, told a Barnard College audience.
"This is a baby," Cheney said Wednesday at a forum sponsored by Glamour magazine. "This is a blessing from God.It is not a political statement. It is not a prop to be used in a debate by people on either side of an issue. It is my child.
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Mary quite contrary is desperately using her unborn child as a foil to change the subject because it reveals blind spots and inconsistencies she'd rather not face.
Lest we forget, her dad CNN's Wolf Blitzer for presuming to ask about the political inconsistency created by GOP homophobia.
Some people are trying to be understanding.
For example,
observes:Many feel that a child thrives when raised by a stable, loving family; the controversy lies with what sexes comprise that family life. Focus on the Family has been of Ms. Cheney's pregnancy due to her unmarried status.(Ok, so let her get married, then. No, wait, you don't want that either..
.) During a CNN interview, Wolf Blitzer took a cheap-shot at Vice President Dick Cheney, asking if he cared to respond to the criticism. Mr.
Cheney rightly refused to comment on the personal matter.
But it's not quite that easy. The question wasn't about Mary’s baby, but about the GOP's small-tent politics.How does Big Dick manage to sleep at night knowing he's enabling a culture of destruction that guarantees his grandchild will never have married parents, never have the stability that comes from equal protection under the law, and that endeavors constantly to consign his own daughter to second-class citizenship. Mary's own participation in this sorry state of affairs borders on the pathological.
catches it succinctly:
4,000,000 or so fundamentalists who voted your father and Mr.Bush into a second term do not agree with you.
The question is one of party philosophical hypocrisy. Women in your position are, every day, facing discrimination which is but an academic question for you.With your father's wealth and access to power, you will never have to worry about your or Heather's or the child's welfare.
It's good to have the support of the family. You and your father should be working so all committed same-sex couples should be able to enjoy.
You can't look at the Cheneys here and not be reminded of Mel Brooks' History of the World. "It's good to be the king." All is well; meanwhile, the little people get screwed.
Or as
I've not always agreed that every aspect of Mary Cheney's lesbian life should be subject to political scrutiny, but there doesn't seem to be any option here other than that she's being willfully obtuse. She notes that contrary to the hysterics of the religious and social conservatives, "Every piece of remotely responsible research that has been done in the last 20 years has shown there is no difference between children raised by same-sex parents and children raised by opposite-sex parents; what matters is being raised in a stable, loving environment."
Of course, her father's political cronies and supporters have been busily running around the nation erecting state constitutional roadblocks the preclude stable, loving environments.The sheer audacity of Mary Cheney, whose political connections and familial wealth serve to insulate her from many of the effects of the exceedingly harsh anti-gay amendment in her own state of Virginia, declaring that it's off limits to ask her father about the apparent conflict (or, better yet, hypocrisy) between his political actions and personal life should be enough for the entire gay and lesbian community to write her off as hopeless.
It's true, the rich are different.
Other voices: , , , , and .
(Cross-posted at .) posted by Michael J.
W.
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