[girltrouble]

as if to prove my point about his corruption:
obama revives military tribunals getting rid of the tribunals was the first things obama did, and while he says they will have new legal protections, but all the same he's taken on so many of the things he (and most dems) hated.

it's just disappointing. i know it's a tough job, but what exactly does he stand for anymore? and with his avoidance of war crimes prosecution, i really wonder.

[girltrouble]

i find it kind of ironic that he keeps talking about american values all the while short circuiting them. more and more i see him being corrupted. he said he was going to take us out of iraq, but he has listened to the military. we have no purpose in Afghanistan, even the guy he had in charge of it said that al qaeda is no longer there. yet he has no plans to take us out. and having those pictures released was something he ran on.

no, as this goes on i am more and more disappointed by him. and the way he's treated the banks.... someone pointed out that those are his friends. after all he went to harvard, as did many of those bankers. he was a prof, there, so some of them might have been his students. he has been so gentle with them. not so with the auto industry...

i wanna believe in the guy, but his whole white wash of the bush administration scares me. his choosing to push forward with some of the bush administration choices with detainees and wiretaps of americans.... they are just shocking. particullarly for one who pays so much lip service to the constitution and the rule of law. this wound needs to be cleaned. right now it is a blue print for any administration after his to commit war crimes, and even create fascism on our soil. it can't be brushed under the rug.

speaking of which, as if to prove my point: it's now legal for the police to plant gps devices on you. no warrant required. thanks courts! great work!

[stargazer]

GT, I was just going to post the same article! I was wonderin' what you were thinking about this development.

*shakes head* Yeah, I do not think he should withhold the showing of these pictures. I think a responsible leader is one who can acknowledge the wrongdoing of others, such as misconduct and inhumane treatment of others at the hands of the military. Pres. Obama is wrong in his belief that not showing the pictures will keep Anti-American sentiments at bay. Unfortunately, I believe the government's denial and refusal to acknowledge this treatment as only encouraging more Anti-American sentiments.

[girltrouble]

i'm disgusted with obama (again) he has changed his mind, and is going to try to block the release of more photos from abu ghraib. at a time when we are starting to actually look at the war crimes perpetrated by the bush administration, he's decided to blink. his excuse is that it would put the troops in harm's way, but honestly, if that is his concern, then the thing to do is to bring them home. the choice about the photos is not his to make. a judge ordered them released after a lawsuit. obviously the judge has seen the photos, and the administration is aware of them, and it's well known that they are not as bad as the first wave that we saw years ago, so state secrets is not a good excuse. i do hope he takes his head out of his ass. because holding up/obstructing war crimes investigations actually makes obama a war criminal too. as annoyed by many of his actions as i am, i do think he is better than a war criminal.


i do, however, LOVE that rumsfeld is being publicly shamed, by a couple of brave women shouting that he's a war criminal. that is real heroism.

[anarch]

Debunking the claim that "half the intelligence re what we know about Al Qaeda came from torturing, oops, I mean Enhanced Interrogation Techniques"

via Obsidian Wings

[girltrouble]

interesting....

watching countdown, and they just announced that ed schultz will be given his own show on msnbc starting monday.

looks like they are using air america as a farm team. while i think it's great to have more liberals on tv, particularly to counter the increasingly paranoid rantings taking place on fox. how funny, or rather, ironic, that they are all running around crying "fascism" because of a few semi-nationalized banks. where were they when bush was tapping american's phones, arresting people with no charges, and according to reporter sy hersh, the vice president was running assasination squads. but that's besides the point.

it's not that i don't like ed schultz, he's ok, he sounds vaguely like rush, and he's the most listened to liberal talk show host. so he's on the right (or rather left) team. my problem with him, is that he doesn't add much to the equation. yeah, he's the working every man, blue collar to the core, and i am so down for that, but i wonder why they don't get one of the two hosts i'd personally love to see from liberal radio-- randi roads or thom hartmann. both of them are whipsmart, super articulate, and know their shit. i can't take anything away from rachel maddow, the other host they got from air america. she knows her stuff, hell, she's a rhodes scholar. i just have a hard time watching her and olberman because they cover the same material.

i like randi, because she spits fire. never afraid of a verbal scrap, she always sees thru more bs than anyone else. and if i'd trust anyone's take on an upcoming bill i'd pick her over policy wonk, maddow. she's more street smart. she figures out the angles before the other people even get out of bed.

with hartmann, he just knows history. he's a lamb, in a way, because he'll interview republicans and never raise his voice, but if you bring up some crackpot notion of what the founding fathers wrote or thought, he will set you straight. that's what makes him stand out. in a industry of amnesia, he's the polar opposite-- he knows how to set up the context, quickly, concisely filling in the background info, and giving his listeners the info to make the story make sense.

[anarch]

leaked International Red Cross report confirming torture of detainees transferred from "black sites" to Guantanamo.

obsidianwings commenters debate and critique how the Obama administration is handling the situation

[girltrouble]

i heard that. press can take pix-- with the families' ok.

still makes no sense to me that you would need to get a family's permission for what is essentially an anonymous box with a flag on it. it's not like anyone would be able to tell one from the other.

[stargazer]

Coffin Ban Reversed

[girltrouble]

this whole idea that somehow, we shouldn't know the ugly truth about war-- because it steps on someones toes only contributes to the next war, and the next, and the next....and i honestly don't get why we should be complicit in the government's lies (by ommission). when we throw up the families right to privacy as dividing line, it is a straw dog, a false argument. no one is talking about paparazzi bursting into funeral homes, kicking over caskets and snapping photos of bodies. what we are talking about is something much more honest-- not at all sensational, and much more tragic: the horror of a pointless war. the terrible shredding of lives, the terrible human cost on both sides, the naked uglyness of the damage done by our "clean, surgical" smart bombs, the ways that we try to skirt international law....

that we should sacrifice a truth on the altar of decorum that would save the lives of those future soldiers, the heart break of those future families, to me is nonsensical. it only contributes to the rather stunted knowledge we have of war in general. we torture people and half the population thinks we are right to do so. we have been so corrupted by the hollywood version of things, that we can no longer see that it's no longer the nazis that are the monsters, it is us. indeed, even our new president hides behind the fallacy filled arguments of bush and company, which are simply a cheap parroting of the ss' excuses at nuremberg. our atrocities grow by the day, yet even the suggestion that we look at them squarely is decried.

ETA:

things like Hostel and Grand Theft Auto desensitize people. Do you think that seeing graphic images from this war might not do the same thing? I just wonder if people in bloody images would cease to be *human* in the mind of the viewer after so long.

it may be true but the knowledge that it is not a game, that it is real is the thing that shocks the conscience. look at some of the photos of vietnam, they still shock. no video game can compare to the evil men do in the name of war.

[jsmith]

If the American public can stand seeing abject violence (Albeit fake) in shit like Hostel or Grand Theft Auto for *entertainment*, I think they NEED to see the *reality* of what is happening to our family members & countrymen abroad. To know that WAR isn't a GAME. That people are DYING. Just because it isn't in our backyard doesn't mean it isn't happening. I'd like it to be a wake-up call.

Mmmm, good point. I may be wrong about this, but things like Hostel and Grand Theft Auto desensitize people. Do you think that seeing graphic images from this war might not do the same thing? I just wonder if people in bloody images would cease to be *human* in the mind of the viewer after so long.
Cause you know, too many people think this war is justified, and if myriads of lives are lost in the acquisition of victory, oh well, at least we won. In my little part of the country, the prevailing attitude is "If we don't fight the war over there, we'll soon be fighting it here!" which I think is bunk, but I seem to be in the minority here in the gut of Texas. I'm starting to think you'd have to change the ideology of the people, which would definitely not be easy. I don't know anymore if statistics and images would be enough.

[chachaheels]

I don't know, AP, but you certainly did a brilliant job of talking politics there.

And describing how it's affected your relative--that's something else not many of us know, and we're kept from knowing.

My parents both lived through the second world war, which was fought all around them, not in some "overseas" place where the only thing you saw about it came in on newsreels before your movies started. My mother's family actually suffered from having their food and property plundered, my mother's brother was incarcerated for over a week with no food and escaped back to his family...after that, everyone in the town actively hid deserters and worked against the Italian army because they too had experienced these kinds of events. They figured they'd been starved, robbed, and abused so much by their own troops that there was little else they could be made to endure if they were caught retaliating.
On top of that, my mother's house was actually used as a base by German soldiers, and they entered the house with guns. They were hungry and ordered my mother, at gunpoint, to find some food and cook it. My mother was 17 at the time, my aunts 12 and 6 at the time. 3 girls in an empty house, all held at gunpoint by soldiers: my mother never told me all of the story, but you can guess the rest. My mother's war experiences changed her life and they haunted her. Same with my father. He remembers running from falling bombs, knowing that the seashore was unsafe and he'd be shot, and, of course, starvation, gathering any edible plants they could find because food couldn't be grown and the armies were given almost all of it. Coming home and wondering if you'd lost your mother or sister or brother that day because they'd been in the wrong place at the wrong time. He was a child at the time, imagine knowing that kind of fear on a daily basis. This stuff really damaged them, and they were civilians who'd survived. This was part of their daily reality for years.

None of that happened on site, here, in North America. People lost relatives or went through the horror themselves as part of the armies--and that is just as horrifying if not worse, but it wasn't discussed because it was considered "indecorous", not fitting conversation. People were meant to feel inferior if they were harmed by their experiences--they still are. In terms of history, we think that the Viet Nam war is the first war that ever raised public discontent--but it wasn't, many people protested the first and second world wars and refused to fight as conscientious objectors. We're not really told the truth about what people went through during those times because of censorship, we're told a great big lie about "right" wars and "wrong" wars when really they're all the same and they're all about someone's greed, at massive human expense.

So the more truth about war we can know, the less likely we are to allow it to happen. That's why censorship (by banning photos and film of actual events, or even banning real casualty counts as the US has been doing now for several wars) has become vital to the success of the war. This Afghani/Iraqi/Iranisnextyouwait is meant to be never ending--it's really meant to become the new economic foundation, globally. That can only be achieved if people never realize what it actually means, when they're funding it: instead of the reality of what's going on, we're bombarded with Jennifers and Brad and Angelina and their squadron of children, another go-round at the "Welfare Queen" myth, plus the big lie about economic bail-outs for corporations and banks. Among other things. Anything nonsensical so long as we don't notice what's really happening out there, and to us and our role in making it all happen.

[auralpoison]

I ain't defending anybody here, I'm just dropping my .02.

If the American public can stand seeing abject violence (Albeit fake) in shit like Hostel or Grand Theft Auto for *entertainment*, I think they NEED to see the *reality* of what is happening to our family members & countrymen abroad. To know that WAR isn't a GAME. That people are DYING. Just because it isn't in our backyard doesn't mean it isn't happening. I'd like it to be a wake-up call.

My cousin is a Marine sniper that did a few tours in Afghanistan & Iraq. He KILLED people, people tried to KILL him. He can't sleep at night. He sleeps on his back with his left leg up, right thigh crossed over it so he wakes up every fifteen minutes. Back on our shores he works as a recruiter. And it KILLS him. He doesn't lie, but he has to make the Marines seem like a good idea to a bunch of impressionable kids. He HATES it.

The sick thing is, is that the people that were NON-MILITARY (Or got out of it due to political influence.), long-term, internationally fat & happy before the war started are still long-term, internationally fat & happy. It's why we started this shit in the first place. We were sold a bill of lies on the basis of 9/11. Iraq had nothing to do with it. But heaven for fend we start shit with the Saudis.

My cousin joined for before things went nuts. But realistically . . . he didn't have a lot of options. His folks didn't have college money, he didn't fit criteria for grants.

I suck at talking politics even if I understand them, so sorry. I come from a simple place.

[stargazer]

Thanks Jsmith for the link!

[jsmith]

Stimulus Watch See what's proposed in your area.
Some of this looks very beneficial. Some of it looks.... well.... frivolous. In Laurel MS, for example, they're wanting $99,600 for DOORBELLS. Because knocking is just too hard.

[girltrouble]

i don't see the point in that star:

1) j smith agreed with my original post (although she wants the "nerf" version)
2) after whining about my tactics, she stooped to calling names and played herself
3)she blocked me
4)i'm not interested in a meta debate

the way i see it, set game, match.

ps, Jsmith...who exactly is foaming at the mouth? lol. it certainly isn't me.

[stargazer]

ND proposed abortion bill.

gt and jsmith, Please Take It Outside.

[jsmith]

this discussion was originally about publishing photos of anonymous flag-covered coffins and body bags, actually. The fact that it's now accepted as normal to NOT publish these, as if public viewing of anonymous coffins and body bags = disrespect (!!!), indicates to me just how politically effective that ban was. Yikes.

"It's that the images are being spared to ensure our uninformed consent." Exactly.

Well, to get back to the original discussion, I personally think images of flag-covered coffins and body bags should be shown. It can give the public an idea of the numbers involved here, while still protecting the families.

[jsmith]

j, honestly, you haven't begun to see me spit venom, and you know that. i will argue my point passionately, i expect the same of you, but i find a debate of tactics, of what is fair and not fair, to be extremely tiresome boring and tiresome. if you find my phrasing/wording uncivil (sorry, i find your carping, yes, carping, silly as silly can be) then by all means, block me, ignore me, or whatever you need to do. but to complain about my posts with your knowledge of my usual terse name calling, well, come on, it screams distraction.....particularly when you never really rebut my points. after all, you seem to think we are being bombarded with the gore of war, tell me where. if you find virtue in censorship of the horrors of war, make your case. if you think the families privacy trumps the pubic's need to know, then state it, and tell me why, but spare me the meta argument.
debate your point, ignore me or start a debating debates thread.

Oh yes, I'll argue my point passionately - with someone who can show a little decency. If someone lowers the argument by using disrespectful language or generally acting like a jerk, that's it, discussion over. One can't reason with a rabid dog, they just don't listen. You obviously don't get it.
"after all, you seem to think we are being bombarded with the gore of war, tell me where. "
You obviously aren't completely reading and understanding my posts, either. The ban is still in place, is it not? Where is this gore you seem to think I'm seeing?
".....particularly when you never really rebut my points." Well, normally I agree with you. I agree with most of the sentiments expressed here. When I disagree, I do make my points and say why I think the way I do. In this instance, you haven't made any points that I can see. All you've been doing is screaming foul.

You know, I don't know why I wasted so much space bandying with a troll. But I won't do it anymore, it's boring and tiresome.
Trolltrouble, I didn't want to see the "substitute" and now I don't want to see the original, so yeah, I'm about to put your name on my ignore list. You just can't seem to contribute to a discussion without foaming at the mouth and treating those who disagree like they're stupid. But I'll bet this is another notch in your belt, eh? Since you take such pride in acting like a colossal ass, and all.

[anarch]

this discussion was originally about publishing photos of anonymous flag-covered coffins and body bags, actually. The fact that it's now accepted as normal to NOT publish these, as if public viewing of anonymous coffins and body bags = disrespect (!!!), indicates to me just how politically effective that ban was. Yikes.

"It's that the images are being spared to ensure our uninformed consent." Exactly.