Impeachment…We Really Have No Other Choice At The Moment.

IMPEACHMENT…WE REALLY HAVE NO OTHER CHOICE AT THE MOMENT.

Each year the unnecessary killings about the world seems to weigh heavier than at some other times. I guess I really would have a world at peace, a world where we could be doing so much more for our brothers and sisters in humanity, rather than destroying the fabric of a generation worldwide and watching our nation slip into a dark abyss far removed from any semblance of Democracy, an abyss from which I am not sure we can return. It is all very sad.

We have a Government wherein our cherished system of checks and balances has been abandoned. We have a people suffering from a dark malaise that they cannot put their finger on. We have folks rushing around in frenzy over the 2008 elections, while others have no use for any candidate whatsoever. We have a nation during this festive and religious season that is deeply depressed and folks who profess to be Christians are marching around not in a spirit of toleration and compassion but in quest of imposing their will, their beliefs on everyone else.

This nation is not well of heart or mind and that is a most serious condition.

AND I FIND MYSELF ASKING; JUST WHAT DO WE BELIEVE IN THIS COUNTRY TODAY?

DOES THIS NONSENSE EVER END?

The Bush administration has offered the former World Bank president a new public service position.
By Michael Isikoff NEWSWEEK
Dec 10, 2007 Issue

Don't ever say the Bush administration doesn't take care of its own. Nearly three years after Paul Wolfowitz resigned as deputy Defense secretary and six months after his stormy departure as president of the World Bank—amid allegations that he improperly awarded a raise to his girlfriend—he's in line to return to public service. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered Wolfowitz, a prime architect of the Iraq War, a position as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, a prestigious State Department panel, according to two department sources who declined to be identified discussing personnel matters. The 18-member panel, which has access to highly classified intelligence, advises Rice on disarmament, nuclear proliferation, WMD issues and other matters. "We think he is well suited and will do an excellent job," said one senior official.

Wolfowitz, now a visiting scholar at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, will replace former senator Fred Thompson, who quit over the summer to run for president. Although officials declined to say how Rice came to choose him, Wolfowitz began his government career in the 1970s in the State Department as an arms-control expert; he forged a relationship with Rice during the 2000 presidential campaign, when they both served as top foreign-policy advisers to the then candidate Bush.

But his selection has raised more than a few eyebrows within State because he'll be providing advice on some of the same issues that critics say the administration got spectacularly wrong when Wolfowitz was pushing the case for the Iraq War at the Pentagon. (One of the department sources called the appointment "amazing.") At least Wolfowitz, who did not return calls seeking comment, will have like-minded company: other panel members include Robert Joseph, the former National Security Council official in charge of Iraq WMD intelligence, and ex-CIA director James Woolsey, both strong allies during the Iraq debate.

The sources said Wolfowitz has already accepted Rice's offer to fill the part-time position, though it won't be announced until the completion of a standard check for conflicts of interest. But he won't have to worry about any complaints from pesky Democrats. The position doesn't require Senate confirmation.

I GUESS IN TODAY’S WORLD OF POLITICAL GYROSCOPIC SPIN; WE WOULD HAVE TO CALL THIS IRAQ-SPEAK!

http://www.newsweek.com/id/73126
IRAQ
Slogans of War

The Iraq conflict has given rise to some peculiar turns of phrase. A guide to strategic linguistics—and what it tells about the U.S. military message.

If war is the continuation of politics by other means, the language of war is the continuation of thought by other means. In Iraq you can pretty well track the progress of the conflict by the catch phrases and jargon you hear from U.S. military commanders. Early on it was robust and muscular. "Shock and awe" set the tone; verbs were strong, simple and always in the active voice. But as the situation worsened, there was much less talk about "victory over antiregime elements" than about "achieving our mission" in Iraq.

Perhaps there is some department of strategic linguistics buried in the Pentagon that invents these phraseologies and then has commanders in the field promulgate the quote for the day at their morning prayers (i.e., the daily briefing commanders give to subordinates). More likely, though, it's an organic and semiconscious process in which phrases and metaphors are thought up by high-ranking officers and spread by repetition and emulation through the ranks and out into the news media wilds. Some of their neologisms even escape into the vernacular.

In the beginning there was much talk about how coalition troops were going to "kill or capture anti-Iraqi forces" and "destroy high-value targets." The enemy comprised "terrorists, criminals and regime dead-enders," supplemented by foreign jihadis. America's mission was to "create a secure and stable Iraq" or create the "conditions for security and stability" so that the "political process could move forward."

After the country's elections in January 2005, though, the "kill and capture" formulation fell into disfavor. The military began focusing on training the Iraqi police and military in what became known as "standing up the Iraqi security forces." Subsequent rhetoric also promised to "stand up" Iraqi ministries and local government agencies, as if they were all a bunch of pieces on the board that had toppled over (which is sort of what happened with the invasion). That transitivization of the verb to stand up will soon be in the dictionaries—if it isn't already. And later came a recognition, in a phrase uttered by one general after another and now heard right down to captains and literate lieutenants, that "the enemy gets a vote too."

Throughout it all, the American military continued to "own the battle space" or at least "dominate the battle space," even when a lot of people were getting killed in it by rival factions. And officers started routinely talking about distinguishing between "kinetic operations" (i.e., blowing people away) and "nonkinetic operations" (i.e., winning their hearts and minds—never a popular phrase in Iraq). Occasionally the slogan making would backfire badly, as it did with the brass's campaign to brand 2006 "The Year of the Police." Saying it is so doesn't make it so and 2006 instead became the year the very police that the United States had stood up started standing up the death squads. More often, though, sloganeering gives a framework to the propaganda effort, and a unity to the message, that often proves very effective. No one has been foolish enough in this war to talk about destroying villages in order to save them.

Lately there have been some new coinages particular to the new reality. Once Sunni volunteers started coming over to the American side and fighting against Al Qaeda, the term they themselves chose for this movement—the Sawa, or Awakening—sounded a little too close to the radical terminology favored by the enemy, which many of them in fact had been (though apparently not the dead-ender part).

The U.S. military's term for this was the Concerned Local Citizens, which inevitably spun off a new acronym: CLCs. That sounds unfortunately like a threat to the ozone and sits so poorly on an Arabic tongue that many Iraqis pronounce it "CRCs." More significantly, the military command became concerned that the Iraqi government wasn't taking advantage of the "breathing space" that had been created by the relative decrease in violence. And at last count, I've heard no fewer than four generals, six colonels and innumerable junior officers talk about the "window of opportunity" that has been created for the Shiite-led government to reconcile with Sunnis. Typical specimen: "A window of opportunity has opened for the government to reach out to its former foes, but it's unclear how long that window is going to be open," in the words of Lt. Gen. Raymond T. Odierno, the U.S. military's ground forces commander in Iraq.

My favorite, though, is another 2007 coinage, and perhaps it shows how much the military has learned on the job. "Iraq is like playing three-dimensional chess in the dark." A common variant adds "while being shot at." Sometimes there's a beat, followed by "That would be easy compared to this war." At first it seemed like an individual general's well-turned phrase, until we heard it from a couple of other generals, and then "3-D chess" started showing up on right-wing blogs, which perhaps only goes to show that great minds (and small ones) think alike.

THIS ARRIVED IN MY EMAIL AND I GUESS SOMEONE THOUGHT I QUALIFIED… THERE ARE THOSE WHO REMEMBER THE PRICE WE HAVE PAID BEFORE.

If you got a few grey hairs, ya gotta read this!

TIME TO MOUNT UP AND RIDE

By Vincent L. Guarisco

'Drag your tongue across the sugar cube and hope you get a taste. It’s like smelling the food but you're not allowed to touch the silverware. Fascism you can vote for, how sweet.' ~’Omegg.’ Just a small entertaining taste of poetry with a twist, from the rock band ‘Stoned Sour.' (a great rant when heard in its entirety)

12/03/07 --- - Dear citizens of a crumbling nation, have you even noticed our country is being demolished all around us? Haven’t you noticed the pillars shaking, the foundation cracking, and debris falling everywhere? I certainly hope so, because the Bush administration’s wrecking ball hasn’t quite finished swinging yet, so keep your equilibrium stable and your stand-post securely firm, because before it's over, there may not be much of anything left standing, or worth saving, and I don’t want to lose you.

What a waste! It really hasn’t required much effort to see what the hell has been happening here. It’s been getting steadily worse every day, for a very long time. All that was ever needed to see it daily was a simple common-sense compass pointed in any direction. Had we not been asleep, we could have easily prevented the carnage in every sector. But since we gullibly continue to believe the lying corporate news media blowhards about how damn great everything is, and since we put our trust in leaders who repeatedly lie with every word they utter, we now find ourselves in a bloody OZ wonderland -- a screwed-up place where everyone considers all Americans fair game at home and abroad. So hunker down, my tar-and-feathered friends, hunting season is in full swing, and we’re headed for the endangered species list. That’s right sleepyhead, we’re a perishable item confined within the construct of our own self-destructive borders.

And since so few of us now hold the key to what little flicker of hope remains, I ask you this – do you know what your post entails? Well, do you? Do you 'serve a purpose,' or just 'purposely serve'? Our fate, our future (if there is one), depends on how we answer and what we do today. We need to get off our asses and get busy!

After years of having my sensory modem continually assaulted from every direction and, with the future not looking too bright these days, sometimes I find strength and courage by searching the past for helpful solutions on how to inspire myself and others. Knowing the heavy burden we all must bear, I can honestly say with no disillusionments, 'I know what my post entails.' My purpose is to assist others, when possible, to help them find their weary way in order to solidify a combined awareness to birth a unified force to extend peace and justice with real checks and balances for a more deserving journey in life.

True patriotism is an on-demand wildcard that needs to be played from time to time. We have a solemn constitutional responsibility as American citizens to serve, protect and safeguard this great nation from all enemies foreign and domestic. America is NOT a squatter's patch for lazy, brain-dead do-nothing zombies to sit on their asses while everything falls apart around them. Aside from improving our daily life, our obligation includes removing any and all crazy tyrants residing at the White House, as well as those spineless rubber-stamping idiots that foul the very air they breathe in both Houses of Congress.

I am invoking an age old citizen call-to-action. Consider yourselves drafted modern-day minutemen, obligated to awaken the masses for battle to fight the true monster at bay, the enemy within. Welcome aboard brothers and sisters, let's give the devil his due...

We've done it before, and we can do it again. Just remember the good ol` 60's hippie days. An exciting LSD era when the youth of this nation popped its cork in front of Richard Nixon and God, and actually did something positive to change our wicked ways. A better day existed when groovy strands of long hair served as some sort of crazy miracle potion empowering the strength of men. The longer it grew, the more you became a freak-flag Samsonite. We belonged to a kind of 'hip' Lord of the Rings fellowship that saved the day -- at least for a while -- and everyone knew without question what their post entailed.

And all the other colorful mojos didn’t hurt the process either -- bell-bottom pants, psychedelic shirts, Mexican serapes, Navajo headbands, luminous body paints, mini-skirts, love-beads, love making, wake-up bells, feathers forever in all shapes and colors and flowered friendliness that definitely changed the way the whole world thought about teenagers. A thrilling time when virtually everyone seemed to find their own voice. Gee, I sure miss the good ol' days...

Many people have different ideas of how hippies came to be. It was a serious counterculture party-wave that swept America off its feet as the largest generation of young people were coming of age. Mostly from middle and upper class, they came from everywhere with a well-deserved sense of dignity and self-respect for what they believed in. They valued peace, love, and personal freedom in a way that reached far beyond the confines of establishment rules.

Ah, 1967 -- the summer of love, a culture extravaganza overflowing with honorable people who felt the world should live as one in peace and harmony. It was a compassionate calling for all segments of our society to come together as one to resist and prevent the cycle of war, violence and modern day slavery. However, as history has proven time and again, nothing is ever earned or given without its fair share of blood, sweat and tears with a lot of hard sacrifice. And the sixties movement was no different in terms of 'paying its dues.'Berkeley University is only one example of some of the most violent student protests that happened during the Vietnam War.

And the uproar was not limited to just ending the war. The middle finger was directly pointed towards University administrations as well, for a variety of legitimate reasons. The Berkeley Free Speech Movement resulted in many arrests in its struggle. In fact, it had the largest number of student arrests in United States history. Like an army of hungry vultures, 700 angry policemen wielding clubs and spraying mace descended on the University during a peaceful day of protest and instigated a full-blown riot, assaulting dissenters (and news anchors) whose only crime was simply exercising their constitutional right to peaceably dissent in a public forum. Many were beaten unconscious in this shameless display of unnecessary violence. Only one day of many to remember in our nation's history.

Sometimes, I can still hear the echo of the words afterwards. Don Brice, President of The News Director Association, rightly accused the Oakland police of being the real culprits who started the riot on purpose. In response to Brice, actor/Governor Ronald Reagan said, 'The work of the Oakland Police Department was in the finest tradition of California’s law enforcement agencies. The officers displayed exceptional ability and great professional skill. The taking of alleged grievances to the streets cannot and will not be tolerated.' To this day, It’s still hard to imagine Reagan later became President.

The Vietnam War was protested throughout the 1960’s and 1970’s. Protests, rallies and demonstrations occurred across the nation and covered many different social issues -- civil rights, women’s rights, etc. All of this happened in the midst of the harsh reality that any day we could all be drafted into a war we venomously opposed. It was a time mixed with fear as well as culture and social change that shocked the world.

We are now at yet another defining moment in our nation's history -- moments such as the Vietnam War, Cuban Missile Crisis, TET offensive, the fall of both the Berlin Wall and of Saigon, Watts Riots, Berkley Free Speech Movement, Women’s Liberation Movement, Black Panthers, presidential assassinations, Civil Rights killings, Apollo Space Missions, Mickey Mantle, Woodstock, Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Jimmy Hendrix, The Doors, The Rolling Stones, Zippo lighters, Zig Zag rolling papers, Black Light Posters, High Times magazine, Cheech and Chong, Hippies, fashion lords, culture shocks, art -- you name it, you got it! The 'be here now' generation filled America's ocean to its absolute brim...and rocked the planet. In fact, if you look real close, you can still see the Watermark left on the Crest from an everlasting journey. Whew...WHAT A FREAKIN RIDE!

Okay, my wise old gray haired friends, I know it’s a little hard to recapture that same nostalgic spark with just a quant 60's butterfly kiss, but the next time you go to shave your head (the new style these days), you may want to throw on John Lennon's old album 'Imagine' for inspiration. It's better than doing nothing while waiting for a cup of porridge with ankle irons strapped on at a FEMA camp.

Please tell me the hopes of yesterday have not all gone up in smoke. Take notice old flowered ones, the times are a’ changing, and for the worse. Our nation needs us, and our reputation at home and around the globe is as dry as dry can get. So either get with the program and find your patriotic post, or punch me in the dead-spot until I die. Because I refuse to sit idly by and do nothing while waiting to get rounded up as an 'enemy combatant' by jack-booted Blackwater mercenaries and have a microchip shoved up my ass. So...Lose the kick-stand and Reeve-up the motors, It’s time to mount up and ride...

Vincent L. Guarisco is a freelance writer from Bullhead City AZ., a contributing writer for many web sites, and a lifetime member of the Alliance of Atomic Veterans. Reprint permission is given as long as article content is not altered or changed and credit is given to the author. Replies welcomed at: vincespainting1@hotmail.com

CULTURE PROJECT UPDATE

http://www.worldcantwait.net

http://www.ivaw.org/wintersoldierstatementofsupport

http://www.couragetoresist.org/x/content/view/499/89

Dear Supporter,

I'm asking you to support and sign two statements backing up the resistance of US military against the war today.

If you sign and forward these messages now, we can:

Get thousands more letters to the government of Canada in favor of sanctuary for war resisters at a time when the Supreme Court of Canada is refusing to hear their appeal.

Give early support to the March 2008 "Winter Soldier" investigation of Iraq Veterans Against the War, putting testimony on the reality of the war crimes before people living in this country.

WE SUPPORT THE TROOPS WHO OPPOSE THE WAR

Sign the statement of support for Winter Solider: Iraq & Afghanistan

On the weekend of 13-15 March, 2008, Iraq Veterans Against the War will assemble history's largest gathering of US veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as Iraqi and Afghan survivors. They will provide firsthand accounts of their experiences and reveal the truth of occupation.

We support Iraq Veterans Against the War and their Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan Investigation. Join us in supporting the effort to reveal truth in the way that only those who lived it can.

In 1971, over one hundred members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War gathered in Detroit to share their stories with America. Atrocities like the My Lai massacre had ignited popular opposition to the war, but political and military leaders insisted that such crimes were isolated exceptions. The members of VVAW knew differently.

And In Our Heart Of Hearts We Know Differently Today. We Know The Flagrant Abuses Of This Administration Must End. We Know That Impeachment Of Cheney And Bush Is Justified. We Know That Indictment And Prosecution Of Other Administration Officials And Players Is Warranted. We Know That The Congress Of This Nation Has Abdicated Its Responsibility And Trashed Their Oaths And That Somehow We The People Are Left Holding The Bag And Left With The Task Of Righting The Course Of This Nation. That Is Not How Things Are Supposed To Be!