The Terrorists Won

by Pa Rock
Social Commentator

The War on Terrorism ended when the United States lost its focus, quit worrying about Osama bin Laden - the man who plotted the attack on our country - and went charging off into Iraq to fight an unrelated war for oil. When our government made the inexplicable decision to pump our troops and our treasury into a global war with no defined objectives except to remove a leader who had been a personal embarrassment to our leader's father, the terrorists had won. Suddenly we were not out to right a monstrous wrong, we were invading and occupying a country that had not been involved in the attack on the World Trade Center.

Remember George Bush deliberately lying to America about Saddam Hussein hiding weapons of mas destruction in Iraq? That was the premise for the unnecessary war on Iraq and the expanded "Global War on Terror." The weapons, of course weren't there, but Bush and his enablers needed for us to think they were. Bush was very fond of comparing his mean-spirited oil war to World War II, and he wanted the country to be completely senseless with patriotic fervor.

Valerie Plame, a CIA operative (spy) sent her husband, Joe Wilson, a former ambassador with impeccable credentials, to Africa to check out the administration's claims that Niger was sending materials (yellow cake uranium) to Iraq to help make nuclear weapons. He came back and reported publicly (because Bush and company didn't want to hear it) that those claims were false. The response from the Bush team - specifically Vice President Cheney - was to leak the fact to the press that Ms. Plame was a spy for the CIA, effectively ending her spying career. If you, or I, or any other ordinary citizen had outed a U.S. spy, the crime would be treason, and the punishment could be death. But for Darth Vader...er...uh...Dick Cheney, it was just another day at the office. We lost the war to the terrorists when a functioning CIA operative was made useless due to Dick Cheney's petty revenge - you betcha we did!

The war was no longer about terrorism when our nation, the greatest national bastion of democracy and democratic principles on the planet, sent the murderous thugs of Blackwater into Iraq and told them to do whatever they damned well pleased. That scary outfit, under the direction of their wealthy and politically connected Christian fundamentalist leader, Erik Prince, apparently was fighting a religious jihad with a goal of eliminating Muslims from the face of the earth - a goal that fit in fine with the world view of Bush and Cheney. When Blackwater was loosed on the Middle East with the funding and official blessing of the United States government, the terrorists had won.

When young, naive, American servicemen and women at Abu Grahib Prison spent weeks and months humiliating Muslim prisoners by making them strip naked and endure inhumane humiliations, with at least tacit approval of their superiors, we as a nation had definitely lost, and the terrorists had won.

The terrorists won when we began waterboarding prisoners and practicing tortures that were expressly prohibited by the Geneva Convention. We had given up the high moral ground and taken up residence in the gutter - a very poor location from which to wage a war. And now, when our troops are captured (God forbid), they are likely to be tortured in the same manner thanks to the old schoolyard adage - "He did it first!"

When America began to turn away from its own Constitution and ignore basic American values like the right to a fair and speedy trail - or any trial at all for that matter, the terrorists had won.

When our politicians began to feel they could they control elections through raising and lowering the color levels of the national terrorist alert systen, the terrorists had won because their actions resulted in us being the simplest of pawns to these shameless political hacks. When we have to take off our shoes at the airports and make sure that we have the proper amounts of toothpaste and deodorant stored in the proper sized sandwich bag - who has won? The terrorist have won!

And now we are fighting two wars, wars that show signs of never ending, and paying for them with our children's and grandchildren's future - and by passing that burden along, the terrorists have defeated our kids and grandkids as well as ourselves.

It is well past time to start refocusing on our true strengths and American values - things like liberty and justice for all, compassion and caring for the needy, universal education, affordable health care that is available to everyone, religious tolerance, and basic human rights - and it is also well past time to quit dancing to the terrorists' tune and letting them define us. We have a far better face than the one we have been showing to the world for the last several years. We aren't Blackwater, we aren't racist or homophobic morons, we aren't religious extremists - we are Americans, plain and proud. Let's start to act like the good people we are!

She Wants Her Country Back!

by Pa Rock
Amused Observer

There is a video circulating on the Internet that is as funny as it is scary. It is a clip of Congressman Mike Castle's (R-Del) recent town hall meeting. One very angry (and bizarre) woman gets the floor, begins angrily waving a document that she says is her birth certificate, and explodes that President Obama is refusing to produce his birth certificate (not true) because he was actually born in Kenya (also not true). The elderly Republican congressman appeared to be mortified by the crazy woman, but a group of hillbillies whom she probably collected at the local tavern on her way to the town hall hooted and hollered and cheered her on.

The authenticity of the Presidential birth certificate has been has been verified by several sources - including factcheck.org - which is where I viewed it. The document says quite clearly that he was born at 7:24 p.m. on August 4, 1961, in Honolulu, Hawaii. But Nutbag Lady and her Hillbilly chorus were having none of that. She stated adamantly that he was born in Kenya. Where is the proof for that?

The most telling part of the scene occurred as she was winding down. She dropped her head, began rocking sadly from side to side, and said, "I just want my country back!"

Implied, but not stated: She just wants her "white" country back.

Sorry, Honey, but that ain't gonna happen. I spent eight long, miserable years "wanting" my country back from George Bush, Dick Cheney, and their gang of thieves, war mongers, and environmental rapists, but I had to sit politely and wait the bastards out. Many of us had serious doubts about whether Bush was actually elected either time, but we didn't go psycho over the issue because the government had to function.

A major difference between Obama and Bush (and there are many!) is that Obama was clearly and decisively elected.

This noise about the President's birth certificate is very reminiscent of the GOP's campaign against the Clinton's that lasted throughout Bill's eight years in office. It was a cheap and tawdry effort that succeeded only in keeping his popularity ratings unusually high. The Republicans spent eight years slinging crap, and the American people didn't like it. And now it's starting again!

The Republican's did manage to make a comeback, barely, in 2000 with the questionable election of George Bush. But they are so fragmented and self-marginalized now that a comeback in the foreseeable future is unlikely. The most viable Republican presidential candidate at this time is Mitt Romney, a Mormon. How's that gonna play with their hate-riddled Christian fundamentalist base?

The Republican Party appears to be hellbent on self-destruction - from the Palin's, to the Cheney's, to Joe the Plumber, to the religious right, to the loony birthers. I wish them God-speed in their race to become totally irrelevant!

Got Soul?

by Pa Rock
Barstool Philosopher

Sunday's foray into the metaphysical left me thinking about the concept of the soul. When I sit and ponder, I wonder:

Let's say, for the sake of argument, that humans have souls. If that is true, does it necessarily follow that all humans have souls? People also have arms and legs, for the most part, but some do not. Not all humans possess the sense of sight, but most do. If the soul exists, is it necessary equipment, like a brain, or can a person function without one? Are we born with souls or do they develop as we mature?

Years ago a young man and I were talking about human life being created in laboratories, something that was well within the realm of possibility even then. He grudgingly admitted that scientists might be able to manufacture sperm and an egg, and thus produce life through chemistry, but he was adamant that such a laboratory creation would be born without a soul. So sex is necessary for the creation of a soul?

How would one know if an acquaintance had a soul or not? What would a soulless individual look like? Would he resemble a movie zombie, stumbling through a decaying cityscape and ripping the heads off of innocent bystanders? Or would he be a suave and charming sociopath like Ted Bundy, equally capable of flattery or butchery?

Is it possible for a soul to detach itself from the individual before death? Could a creature with a soul be a serial killer like Bundy or Jeffrey Dahmer? Could a creature with a soul avoid service in a war (Bush, Cheney, Rummy, or Wolfowitz) and then cavalierly send the children of others, less privileged than themselves, off to the sands of slaughter? Could a person with a soul harbor that much evil?

Can a soul be consigned to Heaven or Hell for eternity by some overgrown hall monitor with a pulpit? What is Heaven? What is Hell?

Does conscience trump soul, or complement it? Or are they the same?

Is living well the best revenge?

Suicides Temporarily Shut Down Ft. Campbell

by Rocky G. Macy
Licensed Clinical Social Worker

As a former mental health provider at Ft. Campbell, KY, I was saddened, though not necessarily surprised, to learn about the rash of suicides that has plagued the post over recent months. According to news reports this week, the 101st Airborne Division (basically all of Ft. Campbell) has suffered eleven confirmed or suspected suicides recently, including two in the past week.

This week, in an effort to take a breather and examine the problem, and hopefully stem the tide of this horrific dynamic, the base commander, Brigadier General Stephen Townsend, announced a three-day stand-down to focus on the problem and look for solutions. Regarding the rash in suicides, Townsend told his troops, "It's bad for soldiers, it's bad for families, bad for your units, bad for this division - and our army - and our country - and it's got to stop now. Suicides at Ft. Campbell have to stop now!"

Yup. Brigadier General Stephen Townsend has ordered the suicides to stop. That ought to get the job done - after all, the man has a star on each shoulder.

One hundred and fifteen U.S. soldiers took their own lives in 2007. That number rose to 128 in 2008, and this year it is already at 64 and on track to beat last year's total. Sadly, of all the army units, Ft. Campbell is in the lead.

I worked as a mental health provider at Ft. Campbell from 2005 to 2007, so I have some understanding of what is happening. First. like most military units, Ft. Campbell has a shortage of mental health professionals. And even if every slot for social workers, psychologists, and psychiatrists was filled, it would still be an uphill struggle to evaluate and monitor every soldier who has gone through the trauma of one, two, three, four, or even five long tours of duty in Iraq or Afghanistan.

One tour can ruin a marriage and destroy a family. Loneliness and infidelity take their toll both at home and in the combat theatre. One tour can take a happy, well-adjusted young person and return him (or her) with emotional and psychological issues that will impact the veteran for years - or longer. And that's just one tour.

Multiple tours take all of the risks and dangers of one tour and increase them exponentially. If one tour doesn't wreck a family, two very well may. Fathers and mothers return from the desert to discover that their children have grown up and away from them. The parent who had remained at home has become the decision-maker, the go-to person when something needs to be approved or accomplished. It takes months for the family to re-group as it was prior to the deployment, and by the time it does, the next deployment has rolled around.

I've harped on this before, but it needs to be explained again - so bear with me. Numerous deployments are a product of the dishonest way this war has been waged. Bush, Cheney, and Rummy didn't want to institute a draft - because each of the three had clear memories of the social upheaval that resulted from the draft for Vietnam and did not want to see the country get that fired up over their oil war. (They also undoubtedly remembered all of their own artful dodging to keep from going to Vietnam, and did not want to put today's children of privilege in that same predicament.)

So having a draft was out of the question. Bush, Cheney, and Rummy did not want to do anything to create and stoke public resentment to their Middle East misadventure. Where, then, were the troops going to come from to fight their war?

One way was to recruit soldiers from the general population. Recruiting quotas were increased and recruiters were forced to scrape the bottom of society's barrel in order to meet those quotas. The minimum enlistment age was raised to forty-two, and recruiters routinely told marginal applicants how to pass drug exams and falsify other entrance requirements. Steven Green, also a member of the 101st Airborne Division at Ft. Campbell, was brought into the army with no difficulties, even though the young man had obvious psychological issues - issues that led to the slaughter of an Iraqi family.

The other method was to not let soldiers out of the army when their terms of enlistment expired (a back door draft called "Operation Stop Loss"), and to keep pumping them into the combat zones over and over.

In a line obviously stolen from a social worker, Brigadier General Townsend said, "Suicide is a permanent solution to what is only a temporary problem."

It's not a temporary problem, General, it's a recurring problem. Something has to be done to get these young people off the combat merry-go-round.

General Townsend, you and your brother generals need to step up to the plate and let the Defense Department and the President know that the mental health of your troops is being worn away. The casualties from Iraq and Afghanistan are not limited to the battlefields. Many of those brave men and women appear to be fine when they march into the hangars at your base for reunions with their families, but they are often ticking time bombs (or land mines, or IED's) that will suddenly go off weeks, months, or even years after the welcoming bands have played their last happy notes.

Good mental health is not something that can be "ordered" to occur. For our troops to have even a semblance of a chance for a future of good mental health, multiple deployments must come to an end. If these are wars that have to be fought, bring back the draft and share the burden with those who couldn't be bothered to volunteer to serve. And maybe thirty or forty years from now when we are on the verge of some other major military operation, our country will have the leadership of people who actually went to war and understand its reality.

The men and women at Ft. Campbell are in my thoughts and prayers.

The Bush Legacy

by Pa Rock
Angry Citizen Journalist

I don't want to write about Army Sergeant John M. Russell, the soldier accused of killing five American troops at a mental health clinic at Camp Liberty in Baghdad. There hasn't been much hard news released on the sad event, just a lot of surmising and second guessing. So I really don't want to write about it until I have a clearer understanding of what actually happened out in that mean desert. I don't want to write about it...but I can't help myself!

You see, for the past five years I have worked in military mental health clinics - so this shit is personal - very effing personal!

Every man or woman who does a tour in a combat zone is negatively impacted - every single one, no exceptions! No, they don't all go on a killing rampage, but they suffer physical hurts - and psychological injuries that may not manifest themselves for months after the troop returns home. And their relationships with loved ones suffer also. It's damned hard to keep a marriage together after one partner has spent twelve or more months living in close proximity with a group of strangers - people who tend to become more like family than the actual families as the stress of war takes it toll.

That's after one long tour. Sgt. John M. Russell, 43, of Sherman, TX, was on his third tour in Iraq. Why, one would wonder, would anyone have to serve three tours? (I know some Special Forces troops who have been to the desert five times!) Vietnam required one tour, and a person could volunteer for a second tour if they wanted an opportunity to get out early.

Why three or more tours? Our troops were forced to do multiple tours because chicken hawks like George Bush, Dick Cheney, and Don Rumsfield (who all declined to take part in Vietnam, but were not too proud to send your kids off to the Middle East) wanted in the worst way to avoid a draft. They were spared Vietnam tours due to family privilege, but all were in college during the draft protests of the sixties - and none wanted to see those types of events soaking up valuable newsprint or television air time. That was not the story they wanted told. "Stop Loss," the practice of not allowing soldiers to exit the service when their enlistments were up, was another form of this back door draft.

Sgt. Russell's unit apparently did everything right. According to some news sources, his superiors recognized signs that he was losing it. They took his weapon and had him escorted to the mental health clinic. Once inside, the angry sergeant got into a loud disagreement and was told to leave. Somewhere outside of the clinic he acquired another weapon, reentered the clinic, and opened fire. Where did he get another weapon? Hey, it's Iraq, a country where guns are as ubiquitous as grains of sand.

Two of the casualties were supposedly doctors, one Navy and the other Army. I've known several Army doctors (psychiatrists) who served in Iraq, as well as countless combat soldiers from Ft. Campbell, and I am, quite obviously, hoping that none of my friends or acquaintances were among the victims - but whoever died, they were friends, and relatives, and loved ones of many, many people.

I can't bring this to a close without folding in the case of Steven Green, a former Army private who was convicted last week of masterminding the murder of an Iraqi family and the rape of their young daughter. Green was only on his first tour of Iraq, but he obviously did not have the psychological strength to deal with it - a fact that should have been caught as he was trying to enlist. But we had quotas to meet - and an honest draft to avoid.

And I have to take one swipe at Texas, the home of record of Sgt. John M. Russell and Pvt. Steven Green. Texas is pure testosterone - a place where any seven-year-old boy who isn't a sissy is expected to be learning how to play football, and every ten-year-old male has at least two guns and an NRA membership card. Football and killing things. If there are any better indicators of emerging manhood, I'd like to know what they are. (Somehow George Bush missed the macho boat, though. He went to college and became a cheerleader, and then graduated and hid from the war.)

The killings at Camp Liberty this week marked the fifth incident of the Oil War in which one of our own has gunned down his comrades. The gun advocates will quickly point out that guns don't really kill people (and other assorted horse shit), and the fuzzy headed liberals will argue with equal fervor that those young people are not responsible because the war is so damned loud and wrong and stoked with machismo that no one could hear their cries for help.

So, if they guns can't be held responsible, and the shooters were themselves victims, who then is to blame?

My vote goes to the chicken hawks: Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfield! Boys, you broke it, and damn you all - now you own it!

Peace, brothers and sisters. It's the only real answer!

Arrest Cheney and Haul His Sorry Carcass to The Hague!

by Pa Rock
Public Citizen

Dick Cheney needs to crawl off into a hole and pull the hole in after him. One would assume that after eight years of systematically dismantling the Constitution of the United States and shaming his country as no other Vice-President has since the days of Aaron Burr, The Dick would have the decency to just shut up and go away. But one would be wrong.

This morning as I was getting ready to go paint, I had the CBS news program, Face the Nation, playing for background noise. Cheney was the guest, and he was in full attack mode.

The former Vice-President is very pissed that President Obama released the torture memos and shined a light on the crimes of the previous administration. Cheney is going at it hammer-and-tong trying to rewrite, or at least justify, the history of his glory days. He has very good reason to be in attack mode: he doesn't want to be the subject of civil suits that could put a dent in all of those Halliburton millions that he piled up while he was supposed to be serving America - and he doesn't want to go to prison - even one of the country club prisons frequented by Republicans and the business classes.

I used to agree with President Obama that nothing would be accomplished by dredging up the past and trying to punish the Bush administration officials for their stupid, dangerous, and treasonous acts. But that was then and his is now. If The Dick is insistent on flaunting himself in front of every available camera and microphone and bloviating about how much safer he made America, then I say let Congress, and the Courts, and the Spanish judges, and The Hague have him - and let the cow chips fall where they may!

America doesn't owe Dick Cheney squat, but he owes us for destroying our national pride and our reputation for fairness and honesty. Cheney and his minions managed to decrease our national integrity to a level comparable to that of North Korea in just eight short years. The Dick owes us for the deaths of over four thousand of our finest young people (and the senseless mangling of countless thousands of others) in a futile and needless war - while letting our true enemy, Osama bin Laden, a relative of Bush and Cheney's Saudi oil buddies, get away. He owes us every corrupt dollar that was funneled to Halliburton, Blackwater, and Kellogg, Brown, and Root for those scurrilous no-bid contracts. And lest we forget the thousands of dead and mutilated Iraqi children, their blood is on his hands as well. All of those bills need to be paid.

But, the former Vice President did not really come up with anything new or newsworthy until near the end of the interview when Bob Schieffer asked him about the leadership of the Republican Party, and, in particular, should the party be looking for leadership from a moderate like Colin Powell or a firebrand like Rush Limbaugh. Cheney took the bait and ran with it.

Cheney said, "If I had to choose in terms of being a Republican, I'd go with Rush Limbaugh." He then went off on a mean little tirade about the renegade Powell supporting Barack Obama over McCain in the November election.

Translation: Colin Powell was a good nigra back when he was steppin' and fetchin' and carrying water for the Bush team - telling their lies to the United Nations with a straight face, but now that he has developed a spine - well...the Republican party doesn't need any nigras that have the ability to stand tall. Rush Limbaugh is a more representative face of the Grand Old Party.

How sad is that?

The Worst Person in the World

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Keith Olbermann has a regular segment on Countdown where he identifies the three worst people in the world. Each day three new individuals are selected for this honor based on their crimes, outrages, or dumb comments. Usually Bill O'Reilly of Fox News (whom Keith refers to as "Bill-O the Clown") makes the daily top three, accompanied by a couple of other buffoons like Rush Limbaugh ("Comedian Rush Limbaugh" or, more recently, "Boss Limbaugh"), Sean Hannity, Sarah Palin, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney, or any other easy mark.

And while it would be nice if those Neanderthal jugheads were the worst people in the world, clearly they aren't - well, with the possible exception of Cheney.

My nominee for Worst Person in the World is Steven Dale Green. The twenty-two-year-old Green was serving with the United States Army in Iraq when he and three of his buddies decided that breaking into an Iraqi home and raping a young girl would be an entertaining way to spend an evening.

According to at least one of the attackers, the four had spotted the fourteen-year-old girl while working at a checkpoint. They found out that she lived close by. The girl's mother, fearing that he daughter had attracted the interest of some unsavory U.S. soldiers arranged for the daughter to sleep at a neighbor's house. The problem didn't come that night, though, it happened late the next afternoon.

Private Green and his friends had spent that afternoon playing cards, drinking whiskey, and hitting golf balls. At some point after they began to get their drunk on, Green brought up the idea of breaking into the Iraqi home and raping the girl. One of the gang later described Green as being persistent about wanting to rape the young girl. At some point the group gave in to Private Green. They put on dark clothing, painted their faces, and proceeded to the girl's house.

One of the men related that after pushing their way into the home, Green took the parents and the five-year-old little sister into a bedroom and gunfire was heard. When Green emerged alone from the bedroom he said simply, "I just killed them. All are dead." Green and one of the others then got what they had come for. They raped the fifteen-year-old. After they were done, Green reportedly shot her in the head two or three times. They finished off the evening by burning the girl's body.

When the murders were discovered, the Army was quick to blame it on insurgents, even though the locals suspected that it had been committed by American soldiers. The FBI was brought in to assist with the investigation. A few months later two soldiers were abducted from Green's platoon by Iraqi insurgents. When their mutilated bodies were discovered, some felt that they had been murdered in response to some outrage committed by the Americans. One of the men who had been with Green that day was overcome with guilt for his dead comrades, and blurted out the story of the killings of the Iraqi family.

By the time the story of that awful evening in Iraq came to light, Private Steven Green had been honorably discharged from the Army after being diagnosed with a "personality disorder." The three who were still in the Army were tried for murder and rape in a military courts-martial and received sentences ranging from 27 months to 100 years in prison.

Steven Green, by virtue of no longer being in the military, was tried in a Federal Court in Paducah, KY. This past Thursday he was found guilty of murder, rape, conspiracy, and obstruction of justice. The penalty phase of his trial will begin on Monday, and it is likely that he will be sentenced to death.

The four young men who committed this awful crime were part of the Army's 101st Airborne Division out of Ft. Campbell, KY. I didn't know Mr. Green or any of his gang, but I was at Ft. Campbell during the time they were there. And while I never met, and probably never even saw, Steven Green, I feel like I do know quite a bit about him.

Though it has not been reported in the press, be assured that Steven Green was seriously abused as a child, physically without doubt - and probably sexually as well. Children aren't born bad - ever. They are often taught to behave badly by those who are entrusted with their care. A brutalized child learns to cower in weakness or to lash out against anything that gets in his way. A child who is repeatedly raped learns to fear sex, or use it to survive, or to use it as a weapon. Every child, and each of us, is a product of our life experiences.

Steven Green grew up flawed - and then he joined the Army. He became part of a large enterprise that valued violence, an organization that saw Iraqis as something less than good Christian humans. His deeply flawed character became immersed in the military and the occupation of a foreign country, and the result was almost inevitable. He was an open can of gasoline sitting in a room full of burning candles.

Society failed Steven Dale Green, and society suffered his rage for that failure. How many more Steven Greens can we bear before society completely breaks down? We need to be watching our children and listening to what they tell us. We need to be respecting our children and celebrating the fact that they are our future. When it comes to children, we truly do reap what we sow.

And we need to be highly selective about who we allow to serve in our military. Psychological tests are available that would have weeded out Steven Green - but some recruiter was hard pressed to make his quota. By the time he was weeded out with a "personality disorder," two innocent children and their parents had lost their lives.

So is it fair for the government to take the life of Steven Dale Green if he is indeed the product of forces beyond his control. Of course it isn't. If he is sentenced to prison for the rest of his life, can he be rehabilitated and be of any use to society? Probably not. Green who grew up in Midland, TX, the same affluent community that produced President George W. Bush, will either be killed for his crimes or warehoused.

Death or warehousing? Two bad choices, but what other choice is there?

We're Having a Heat Wave...a damned desert heat wave!

by Pa Rock
Survivor

Arizona is supposed to have another three or four weeks of pleasant weather before the insufferable summer heat sets in, but Mother Nature has a penchant for unpredictability. Yesterday the temperature in the Valley of Hell hit a roasty-toasty 102 degrees! This August when the daily highs will be on the uncomfortable side of 110 or even 115 degrees, me and all of the other desert varmints will undoubtedly look back on the current heat levels with a degree of longing – but for the time being, firmly anchored in the here-and-now, it’s hot – damned hot!

I know how things work, even the weather, and while it may sound a tad cynical, it is not coincidental that that this heat wave hit at the same time that I am moving, carload by carload, from one hovel to another. It is the predictable result of global warming brought on by the corporate excesses of the Bush administration, planned and implemented over the course of many years with the primary aim of giving me heatstroke as I run my little convertible up and down Litchfield Road with the top down while moving my book cases, floor lamps, and yard art!

That’s right, Cheney! I know this sudden heat wave is all your evil doing. Somewhere there is a CIA memo covering the elimination of Pa Rock by scorpions or sunstroke, and when that memo surfaces, there’s going to be hell to pay! The scorpion died, but I’m still here – and the Arizona sun is making me tougher than an old boot. So, you bald, beady-eyed buzzard, bring on your sinister machinations. I will defeat them all! I’m a survivor!

And I’m mad…damned mad…and getting madder! It must be the heat!

The Tea Party Mentality

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

Today marks the deadline for paying 2008 income taxes, and the public citizenry from coast-to-coast marked the occasion by holding symbolic "tea parties" created to form some link with the American patriots who dumped the British tea in Boston Harbor over two centuries ago. The original protesters were defiant because they were being taxed without representation in the British Parliament. While today's rabble are represented in Congress, many feel powerless to stop government from engaging in practices and programs that they personally oppose. The way to defeat the beast, they figure, is to starve it by not paying taxes - or at least by calling attention to their concerns through dramatic action - like tea parties. The mobs were intense and vocal.

And they also had a lot of fun mugging for the cameras - and Fox News was absolutely giddy putting up wall-to-wall coverage of their political antics.

And then there was poor Texas! First Chuck Norris threatened to run for President of the Republic of Texas, and today the Lone Star's crackpot governor, Rick Perry (the one with the great hair!), played the enabler to Norris's egomaniacal ambitions by talking about leading the state into secession! Even Texas deserves better than those two bozos!

I am old enough to remember well when Ronald Reagan was President. Most of today's protesters revere Reagan as somewhere to the right of God. Reagan "lowered" taxes several times, and each time that he did, my taxes went up. He was lowering taxes, just not mine. The business classes and the very rich did very well under Reagan, but their tax windfalls never did trickle down to those on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder.

My take home pay has actually increased with Barack Obama's tax cuts. His new tax cuts really do cut taxes - for everyone making less than a quarter of a million dollars a year. Tax cuts that cut taxes - what a concept!

In fairness to democracy's foot soldiers and their tea bags, they are also fired up about the zillions of dollars going out of the treasury to try and help pump up the economy. I don't like it either, especially when monster banks like Bank of America take the free money while raising interest rates on credit cards (even to their good customers) - and while plotting the overthrow of America's unions.

Yup, that sucks. But know two things: 1. We are in this mess because America put George Bush in the White House (kinda sorta), and he spent eight years deregulating everything. The result was an unfettered economic system that overdosed on its own greed and avarice. 2. We have a much better opportunity of surviving the Bush mess with the powerful intellect of Barack Obama at the helm of the ship-of-state. I may not like the plan, but I am willing to give it a chance.

A good portion of today's protesters probably are genuinely concerned about the massive debt that we are piling on our grandchildren. I certainly am. But I have been concerned for a long time. I was concerned when we went charging off to Iraq without provocation. I was concerned when stories started making the news about pallets of currency being moved around in Iraqi warehouses by forklifts, and those forklifts were operated by private companies with names like Blackwater, and Kellogg, Brown, and Root. I was concerned when Dick Cheney clearly showed us the arrogance of the executive branch by running the war and the economy in secret, revealing the identity of a CIA covert agent for political payback, and telling an inquisitive and respected member of the United States Senate to "go fuck yourself." That wasn't my America.

I voted for Barack Obama to get my America back. It was once a decent place that stood out as a bright and shining example of democracy and civility. The Bush administration of crooks and liars threw our greatness into the crapper. The rich got richer, the poor got much poorer, and hate became the order of the day. That must change, and suddenly there is hope that it can change.

But I came of age in the sixties, and I appreciate a good national protest as much as anyone!

Make tea, not war!

Animal Science

by Pa Rock
Futurist

Scientists have a long history of experimenting with animals in order to benefit the human race, and while that practice is often controversial, especially where it harms or kills the animals, it can be seen as the practical alternative to the use of human subjects. The following is a collection of stories involving animals and science that have appeared in the press over the past few months. Some are clearly aimed at the advancement of human health, while others are more frivolous in nature. This poor typist is not an advocate, only a reporter of strangeness.

The BBC recently aired a report of cloned calves from the United States that produce human anti-bodies. Four calves have been produced so far that have extra DNA which contains the genes for part of the human immune system. The antibodies, several different types, are expected to be useful in killing infectious disease agents.

Science Fiction in the News, a web outlet that compares new science with the older science fiction that spawned the ideas, had a report on human-pig hybrids that have been approved in the United Kingdom. The concept is to remove skin cells from humans who have a mutation for certain types of heart disease, and transfer those cells into pig eggs after the chromosomes have been removed. They will then make embryos from which stem cells will develop - leading to research on heart disease through the new stem cells.

Another story from Science Fiction in the News discussed goats that have been bio-engineered so that they produce an anti-clotting protein in their milk. The protein is for use with human patients. As someone who has raised little goats, I am glad that they finally have a purpose in life beyond rampant head-butting and eating expensive rose bushes.

And science also messes with animals just for the fun of it. The same web-site that reported on the pigs and goats, had a story before the holidays about modified zebra fish that glow in red and green. California had a ban on bio-tech household pets, but they were reportedly reconsidering their haste to push for public safety when the wife of one of the commissioners began pressuring her husband to change it because she wanted some of the glow fish for her aquarium - proving once and for all that it's not what you know, it's who you sleep with!

Science Fiction in the News also reported on professors from University of California at Berkeley who have developed radio-controlled rhinoceros beetles. These insects have their wings "and other body parts" wirelessly controlled and can carry a package of up to 1.3 grams on their back and still fly. This one scares me. I can imagine some evangelical potentate with the humanity of Dick Cheney loading up a squadron of beetles with nano-nukes on their backs and releasing them on an unsuspecting world. Calling Dr. Strangelove!

But my favorite animal research story has been kicking around in the popular press for several months now. Scientists in Japan are working with the frozen remains of a male woolly mammoth. The goal is to come up with frozen sperm DNA and use that to impregnate a female elephant. With luck, the scientists believe that they could develop a creature that is 88% woolly mammoth within the next fifty years. My guess is that commissioner's wife in California will want one of those, too.

I would be satisfied with a little dog, but with the charges that Palm Valley Luxury Rentals want to tack on to my monthly rent for a tiny Chihuahua, I could easily raise a woolly mammoth!

President Barack Hussein Obama!

by Pa Rock
Proud American

Today has been glorious! George Bush was packed up and flown out of Washington (sadly sans tar and feathers!), Dick Cheney was pushed away from the world's power center in a wheelchair, and Barack Hussein Obama placed his hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible and a few brief words later became the leader of the free world! The symbolism was huge!

America, at long last, was able to breathe a massive sigh of relief!

Like most of America, I watched the inauguration on television. Unlike most of America, however, I viewed the ceremony from a military installation with uniformed service members sitting in the room. And even though Republicans like to behave as though our military is their own personal property, I'm here to tell you that just ain't so. Many young troops are just as excited about the promise of a President Obama as their civilian counterparts. Surveys taken before the election, in fact, revealed that a majority of troops serving in the Bush's Oil War supported the election of Barack Obama.

Will this be a pro-active government? For a quick answer to that question, check out this site: www.whitehouse.gov The Obama team had it completely converted to their administration within minutes of their man taking the oath of office. What a joy to have a government that cares for us and is eager to make change!

That's all! I'm so happy tonight that I can't think or type! What a glorious day this has been!

The Goldwaters of Arizona

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

My daughter, Molly, lived in Arizona for a decade before I moved here. A couple of years ago while she was working in hospice care, Molly asked me if I had ever heard of some guy who ran for President named Barry Goldwater. Molly had learned this antiquarian name while working with an older lady who had been one of the good Senator's last caretakers.

Barry Goldwater was the Republican candidate for President in 1964. He was solidly trounced by the incumbent President, Lyndon Baines Johnson. I remember him well. I was sixteen that summer, and I was a Goldwater supporter. That's right. Liberal old Rock was once an enthusiastic partisan for Barry Goldwater, a.k.a. "Mr. Conservative." I even gave a speech in his behalf at a high school mock political rally. (I'm actually not ashamed of that. Another Goldwater supporter that year was a 17-year-old girl in Chicago by the name of Hillary Rodham.)

Goldwater was a political freak, so outside the mainstream of American politics at the time that those who supported him were routinely were laughed at and ridiculed. A week before the election he was given a modicum of respectability through a thirty-minute television speech by an unemployed actor named Ronald Reagan. Goldwater wound up winning his home state of Arizona and five states in the cracker belt of the American south. Two years later Ronald Reagan was elected governor of California, and went on to an even better job in January of 1981. Barry Goldwater went on to serve a couple of more decades in the United States Senate before returning to Arizona for his final days.

The Goldwater family has been in the news this week talking about politics, and from their public pronouncements, they seem to be divided along generational lines similar to those that affected the Macys and the Rodhams and many other families in 1964. Senator Goldwater's niece, C.C. Goldwater, declared yesterday that she and her siblings, and most of her cousins, were supporting the candidacy of Barack Obama. She said clearly:

"Our generation of Goldwaters expects government to provide for constitutional protections. We reject the constant intrusion into our personal lives, along with other crucial policy issues of the McCain/Palin ticket."

She added:

"My grandfather (Paka) would never suggest denying a woman's right to choose. My grandmother co-founded Planned Parenthood in Arizona in the 1930's, a cause my grandfather supported."

C.C. Goldwater also said, in discussing the current campaign, that

..."the Republican brand has been tarnished in a shameless effort to gain votes and appeal to the lowest emotion, fear."

But no good deed goes unpunished, and today Barry Goldwater's son, Barry M. Goldwater, Jr., took issue with his niece, saying that she should work within the Republican party to promote the values that her grandfather stood for. He went on to declare that he supports McCain.

I'll cast my lot with C.C. Something tells me that the man who authored Conscience of a Conservative would not be pleased with the massive debt incurred by the Bush administration. I doubt that Senator Goldwater would be impressed with our Dear Leader abdicating his duty as Commander in Chief and allowing "yes" men in uniform complete latitude in conducting the abysmal war. And I don't really believe that a man whose central philosophy was that the government should intrude in people's lives as little as possible would give two damns about what people did in the privacy of their own bedrooms!

Barry Goldwater was a giant of the times. Bush, Cheney, McCain and Palin all claim to be conservatives, but they are just bungling dwarfs not fit to stand in his shadow. It is time that they all piled into their clown car and drove off into the sunset - because a new day is fixing to dawn in America!

Banned Books Week: Day Two War: What Is It Good For?

by Pa Rock
Cultural Commentator

I can vividly recall the most difficult book that I ever read. Joseph Heller's Catch-22 was so bewildering with its many quirky characters and numerous time shifts that I abandoned the effort to complete it twice, each time after finishing a couple of hundred pages. The third attempt was just as mind-muddling, but I resolved to stick with it and master the complex book just so that I could understand what all of the hype was about. And it was in the final hundred pages or so where all of the plots, sub-plots, snippets, and varying time perspectives came together to reveal a meaningful tale about the senselessness of war.

Joseph Heller was a bombardier with the Army Air Corps on an island just off the coast of Italy during World War II. After the War he spent the next six years writing his masterwork, Catch-22, a war story that revolved around Captain Yossarian, a bombardier for the Army Air Corps on an island just off the coast of Italy during World War II.

Heller's book was a tragic, yet humorous, examination of the horrors and shenanigans of war. His Captain Yossarian wanted nothing more than to go home. Each time he came close to completing the required number of bombing missions needed to get sent home, his colonel, who desperately wanted to be a general, would increase the requisite number of missions. (A bait-and-switch gimmick much like the one used by George Bush in the Oil War to keep troops from leaving the service after their time was up through a back-door draft called "stop-loss.")

Milo Minderbinder was the mess officer for Heller's fictional outfit. Milo saw war as a profit making venture. (Think Dick Cheney and Halliburton.) He bought and sold goods on the black market and formed a syndicate of war companies in which he and all of his friends held shares. Milo sold opportunities, and once arranged for the Germans to bomb his own unit - for a fee, of course.

And there were dozens of other strange individuals populating Yossarian's island. Woven together they told a tale of the uselessness, tragedy, and universality of war, albeit in somewhat of an absurd manner. Joseph Heller did not view war in a particularly patriotic light, and that attitude has resulted in Catch-22 often landing on lists of banned books.

Another war book that should be equally objectionable is Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a story of the U.S. military in Vietnam. Like Catch-22, The Things They Carried was also semi-autobiographical in nature, with the central character being an Army company clerk named Tim O'Brien. It is the story of O'Brien's year in Vietnam and the people and situations he encountered. This book is much more readable than Catch-22, and every bit as good - if not better. Both books define war in less than heroic terms. I have not seen The Things They Carried on any banned book lists yet, but it is so good that I'm sure that honor will be forthcoming!

Of Pots and Kettles and Pygmies

by Pa Rock
Citizen Journalist

What really scares me about Sarah Palin being one heartbeat away from the Presidency is that I consider her to be George Bush's equal in the realm of foreign policy. When he was first elected President, Mister Bush had been to three foreign countries and was not overly focused on world events. He didn't have to know where Spain was (incidentally, he still doesn't!) because Cheney and Rummy would be there to handle all of that international stuff anyway.

Today in another stunning Bush foreign policy failure, North Korea announced that it is resuming its nuclear program. There's no reason why we should be surprised by their insolent attitude toward the United States. Why, in a fit of diplomatic buffoonery, our Dear Leader once referred to their Dear Leader as a pygmy! Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Mister Bush, himself, is mighty short of stature, whether the focus is on ability, wisdom, conscience, or height!

Ms. Palin, with her saber-rattling and ferocious Christian righteousness, looks and sounds an awfully lot like our last national embarrassment. Surely eight years of a bad joke is enough for anyone!

We are better than that.

Selling Out Our Veterans

by Pa Rock

I am a fan of the G.I. Bill, and moreover, I am even a product of the G.I. Bill. After serving four years in the United States Army in the early 1970s, I got out and went back to school. For the next forty-eight months the government gave me a check every month to help with my school expenses. That money provided me with the opportunity to earn two additional degrees and also put a lot of food on the table for my family. I didn't look on those monthly payments as a gift from my government, rather I saw them as deferred income. When I entered the service I did so for a complete package of benefits that included things like salary. medical and dental benefits, 30 days vacation a year, and assistance with college expenses. I gave the military four years of my time, and in return I had an expectation of collecting all that they promised me.

Congress cut back drastically on the G.I. Bill after the Vietnam debacle was over, and new enlistees were offered a much more meager package of college benefits. Congress and the President usually forget the veterans quickly once the crisis has passed.

Over the past few years the Bush administration has appeared to be absolutely inhumane in their treatment of veterans returning from the Oil War in the middle east. Many tried to get out after their enlistments were over, only to learn that they were being drafted into continued service through the back door with a program called "stop loss." Stop Loss allowed the military to keep individuals from leaving service because they were still needed for the war effort. That way Dear Leader could prance around bragging that we didn't need a draft (drafts are messy affairs that attract public demonstrations and outrage) while keeping the military ranks full by holding veterans against their will.

And when they got out, veterans were routinely hit with poor medical care in inferior facilities (Walter Reed Army Hospital, Ft. Sill - to name a couple). And then the news media began finding veterans of Dear Leader's wars living under overpasses and out on the streets. If our government had been treating dogs and cats the way it managed the needs of our brave veterans, the public outcry would have closed the capitol!

So some in Congress, seeing that the current administration was too dumb and uncaring to do right by our veterans, decided that Congress would take the lead in changing things. One idea that turned into legislation was to fund an effective G.I. Bill. Oddly enough, the hawks, those who are always ready to send other people's children into war, fought the plan. George Bush (who didn't go to Vietnam even though he let his government train him to be a fighter pilot - and who can't remember where he was in 1972) opposed it. Prick Cheney (who used five or six student deferments to stay out of Vietnam - and then managed to get Lynn pregnant so that he could also use a family deferment) opposed it. Even John McBush (who did go to Vietnam and whose son did fight in the Oil War) opposed the new G.I. Bill. And the Veteran's Administration, the agency that is supposed to look after the needs of our veterans, opposed it. (VA honchos are appointed by the President - see how that works!)

So why did these public servants oppose legislation that would be of enormous benefit to people who had actually put their lives on the line for their country (unlike Bush and Cheney)? Their stated reason was that the new G.I. Bill was too good and would cause people to get out of the service so they could go to college. (If somebody could get that load of crap trucked to the Midwest, I would like to have it spread over the pasture at my little farm in the Ozarks!)

Long story short (sort of): The bill passed and has been enacted into law. So our veterans can all rest easy knowing that they are in for some quality schooling. Well, don't hold your breath waiting for that to happen! Yesterday, in a stupefying case of passive aggressive behavior, the VA announced that it would be privatizing the implementation of the new program. They are hiring private companies to manage the G.I. Bill. (And we all know what a stellar job private companies did in managing the Oil War!)

So troops, when you are safely out of harm's way and out of uniform, and you think that you have bent over for Halliburton and Black Water for the last time - think again! They're back!

Hurricane Gustav Whips Up On the Candidates

by Pa Rock

I received an email from Obama this morning suggesting that I send a donation to the Red Cross to assist with the disaster relief in the aftermath of Hurricane Gustav. I will send a donation, and so should you. But consider sending it to the Salvation Army instead. They will spend it, quickly and effectively, on helping the victims of Gustav. The Red Cross, as clearly outlined in a post several months ago, has a dubious track record on getting aid to where it was intended to go.

McBush and Gidget the Eskimo have visited a disaster relief station in Mississippi, safely out of the reach of Gustav. And the Republicans are going to extremes (supposedly) to tone down their convention out of respect for the victims of this natural disaster. Are they just a bunch of opportunistic toadies, or do they finally get it? My money is on the first option.

Dear Leader and Prick Cheney have both cancelled their convention speeches tonight so that they could more closely follow news of the hurricane. Who says a hurricane can't be beneficial? A lot of GOP party bosses are breathing easier this evening!

Redirection

Every few decades America undergoes some basic realignments, usually under the direction of a President who understands, with uncommon clarity, the importance of leading with a vision. We have had three such leaders in my lifetime:

John Kennedy challenged us to make America and the world a better place by focusing on others instead of ourselves. We weren't about greed, we were about giving. Kennedy gave us the Peace Corps, which is still a force for good in the world nearly fifty years later. He also redirected our national focus toward the stars, or at least the moon, and began a serious effort to strengthen math and science education in our schools.

Lyndon Johnson was thrust into the Presidency early in what should have been the Kennedy period. LBJ used his unparalleled power with Congress to create a massive Civil Rights program and anti-poverty agenda. It was under Johnson that many of America's most disadvantaged first began to realize that they, too, could gain entry into the system. Some of the jewel's in LBJ's crown of accomplishments include the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Volunteers in Service to America (VISTA - a domestic Peace Corps), Medicare, Medicaid, and Headstart - programs that radically changed America for the better.

Society is a pendulum. When Americans feel that government has gone too far to the left or to the right, they begin looking for someone who can bring the pendulum back in the other direction. There were American's in the sixties who resented what they saw as government's appropriation of their tax money for use with the people that demagogues assured them were too lazy to work. It was time for a shift, someone with a new vision.

Ronald Reagan came to the White House in 1980 with the vision of refocusing America from the "us" of Kennedy and Johnson, to the "me". Insteading of concentrating on what we could do for our country, Reagan asked us to focus on what we could do to make our own lives better, and let our poor neighbors fend for themselves.

And America has been on this "me" track now for almost thirty years. Even an eight-year democratic respite under the Clintons saw little done to enhance the lives of the poor and needy. The North American Free Trade Act (NAFTA), in fact, proved to be a critical factor in increasing unemployment and poverty in the United States during the Clinton years and throughout the presidency of George Bush.

George Bush has taken the pendulum so far to the right that it appears to be stuck. Our treasury has been sacked by Bush and Cheney's cronies, otensibly to fight a war that has drug on for five years and that we have zero (ZERO!) hope of winning. Our national prestige is in the crapper thanks to our unwillingness to negotiate or even be civil with other nations. We let bin Laden escape so that the President could rush into Iraq and prove something to his father, and then have a moment of glory prancing around the deck of an aircraft carrier. George Bush has stood, like the proud little peacock that he is, snapping orders as America digs the biggest hole in the history of the world, and he won't let us stop digging!

It is time for a change. It is time to begin redirecting our national energies in a more positive, and world-friendly direction. It is time that we begin to care about every mother's son, or daughter, and not just what is good for the stockholders of Halliburton, Blackwell, and Raytheon. It's our America, and it's time to bring it home!

There are three candidates left in the race for the presidency of the United States. John McBush, who states that he does not understand economics and is willing to stay in Iraq one hundred more years. McBush is a cranky old man (with an eye for blondes) who wants to serve out George Bush's third term. Billary Clinton wants to take us back to the good old days of the 1990's when our factory jobs went to Mexico and the assets of the wealthy went to the Caymans. She clearly wants to serve Bill's third term. Barack Obama wants to focus on people, and to provide us with a hope of regaining our stature in the world through diplomacy and good deeds rather than with bombs and braggadocio. Of the three, Obama is the only one who offers any hope for change.

Obama '08! It is time for a change!