Friday, October 07, 2005

Feeling Better

Good evening. Feeling a lot better today so I think I'm over the cold or flu or whatever that junk was. Let's start off with Democracy Now!

Bush: God Told Me To Invade Iraq, Afghanistan
As President Bush announces his renewed war on what he calls radical Islam, a new BBC series is revealing new details about President Bush's own perceived religious mission. According to the BBC, Bush told Palestinian ministers in 2003 that God had told him to invade Afghanistan and Iraq - and to create a Palestinian State. In the BBC program, Palestinian Prime Minister Abu Mazen and foreign minister Nabil Shaath describe their first meeting with President Bush in June 2003. Shaath quotes Bush as saying at the time QUOTE "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq …" And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it,'" Shaath quoted Bush as saying. The White House denied Bush made the comments, calling them "absurd."

Oh, God made him do it.

That's how you know he's not all that Christian. A Christian makes a mistake and says the devil made him do it. A Bully Boy makes a mistake and says "God made me do it."

So now Bully Boy wants to pin his lies on Jesus. It's shameful.

Rove Faces Grand Jury for Fourth Time
Washington is abuzz with speculation today about possible indictments coming down against multiple senior administration officials over the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame. On Thursday, the special prosecutor heading the investigation summoned senior Bush advisor Karl Rove to appear before the grand Jury--for a rare 4th appearance. Rove appears before the Grand Jury with no offer of immunity with the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, informing Rove in writing that he could face indictment later. Meanwhile, the LA Times reports: "In Washington, talk of imminent indictments -- of Rove alone or with others as part of a conspiracy -- was overheard in the corridors of the FBI, Justice Department and White House." The New York Times is reporting that prosecutor Fitzgerald will likely call on several other White House officials to return to the grand jury to testify about their actions in the case. The Grand Jury expires October 28. In addition to Rove, Fitzgerald is also reportedly re-examining grand jury testimony by Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Who will be frog marched? I'd like to see them all frog marched. But I know that probably won't happen. (Though if Bully Boy keeps blaming the Good Lord for his own lies, who knows what wrath may come down from the heavens?)

Karl Rove is the type who would whine and cry for days. And he's soft so you know the other guys would just beat the crap out of him. After all the racist tactics that Rove's used in elections, it would be really hilarious for him to have to come face to face with African-Americans who aren't named JC Watts. :D

I could see them ordering him around like crazy. "Shut up! You're a dumb mother ___. Say 'I'm a dumb mother ___.'" And Karl would do it too. He's only a tough guy when he can hide behind someone else. I think prison would be educational for Karl.

Now let me say thank you to Rebecca. I was out of it yesterday. Ma brings up some soup after I finished posting and I was like, "Thank you, this is great." And Ma goes that she didn't make it, Rebecca did. Rebecca dropped by to bring soup over. She came up to the room with Ma and I was sleeping hard, snoring like crazy, Ma says. So they didn't wake me.

That was so nice and Ma said, "You better thank her." I will thank her Saturday. But I'll also put it up here so everyone can know that when you have a friend like Rebecca, you're lucky even when you're sick. She made that soup from scratch (and it was good soup), hopped on the ferry, came into Boston and over to my house with it just because I was sick, without being asked. She really is a great friend and a great person.

Let me do some e-mails because I wasn't in the mood for any yesterday and I did do one in the post that got lost Wednesday.

Mara wanted to know if I was "one of those boys who when he's sick expects the whole world to stop and everyone to wait on him" like her ex-boyfriend.

I don't think so. In fact, I told Nina to stay away so she didn't catch what I had. I also told Ma not to worry about me. I pretty much stayed on the bed unless I was puking or pissing. I really wasn't good company and didn't think I would be. I woke up one time when my cell phone was going off and cussed out whoever called. (It was Tony who laughed about it today before class.)
I don't want anyone around me when I'm sick. I just want to be alone so I don't think I'm like Mara's ex-boyfriend. I wish I was. I'd probably be nicer when I was sick if I was wanting people to drop everything and wait on me. Instead I'm like a bear and if you come to close, I'll growl and snarl.

Carrie writes that when she's sick she doesn't even want to think about sex and wondered what I was like because her husband can be sick as a dog and want to have sex. I was sick as dog and I didn't think about sex at all. My balls hurt the first night and that might be part of it. But I really don't want anyone around when I'm sick so I don't think I'd ever be wanting to have sex while I'm sick.

I'd be too worried about throwing up on the woman in the middle of it but mainly, I don't want to be touched when I'm sick. I don't want my space invaded, I just want everyone to stay away.

I also don't shave or shower when I'm sick. So I don't think any woman would say, "Oh he's puking and he's stinky, I want to sex him up bad!" :D

But I'm feeling better today and will note a thing by Dave Zirin that's called "Barry Bonds Laughs Last:"

And it's not just sex, I don't even want to turn on ESPN when I'm sick. If I try to watch a football game or anything, I just get sick cause it's like they're moving too much for me. I'm really a grouchy bear when I'm sick. No one who knows me wants to be around me when I'm sick for the most part because they know I'm just surly and short tempered.
His state of mind seems miles from the Bonds six months ago who seemed on the verge of retirement when he said to reporters, "I'm tired of my kids crying... you wanted me to jump off a bridge, I finally did. You finally brought me and my family down... so go pick on a different person." That Bonds was a defeated person, guilty before proven innocent. He was treated like anabolic carrion by a cadre of media vultures. The sports radio harpies, who know less about medicine than Dr. Pepper want Bonds buried. [I'm not saying steroids aren't harmful. I just believe we need to stop treating "Mike and the Mad Dog" like they represent the American Medical Association.] This should be an affront to every fan in the game. They want to bury the only living player with 500 home runs and 500 stolen bases, a player who averaged a 30/30 for the entire decade of the '90s; a player who has never failed a drug test; a player whose home town fans in the Bay have his back by the thousands; a player without peer. They want to bury him, but Bonds is proving to have more lives than Freddie Krueger. Now every spiteful reporter, congressional jock sniffer, and - it must be said - racist "fan" who doesn't want to see the mean Black guy pass the Babe, gagged on his late season success.
The icing on the cake was the comment from Dave Marin, the spokesman for House Government Reform Committee chairman Tom Davis, who is leading the congressional steroid media circus. Marin heard Bonds' comments and said, "It's the type of response folks on Capitol Hill hear all the time from those who wish attention was focused on other things," Actually, Mr. Marin, it's the type of response that is desperately needed. It's frankly criminal that your attention is not "on other things." A government able to destroy and occupy other countries but unable or unwilling to repair levees should probably get their heads out of the damn sports pages. If there is any justice in the world. we will see George W. Bush under the congressional hot lights long before Barry Bonds.

Dave Zirin is a great writer and he wrote my favorite book of the year called What's My Name Fool? and if you haven't checked it out, you should. It's great and if you like sports, you'll love the book but if you don't like sports but are someone who likes people standing up you'll still love the book. Great, great book.

From C.I.'s indymedia round up last night, I'll note this:

Coy e-mails to note atx imc's "Students March Against Militarization of Education" (Austin Indymedia):
Over 100 youth, students, parents, and community members converged in Austin to protest military recruiter presence in area middle and high schools, particularly in low-income and people of color public schools. See Photos here. Read Students Not Soldiers Speech given during the rally.
There was also a contingent of Iraq veterans and Non-Military Options for Youth activists attending the demonstration. The city of Austin has also recently set-up an Austin GI Rights Hotline
The protest was principally organized by young people most affected by recruitment. A major organizer of the march, Youth Activists of Austin, is an organization of students working against the militarization of schools and peace-building alternatives in schools.On November 17, International Students Day, youth and students from around the country (and hopefully in Austin) will be working against “the invasion of military recruiters and JROTC programs in our schools” in the first nationally coordinated day of action for and about young people! NOT YOUR SOLDIER!
organize

I think the counter-recruiting movement is just going to get stronger and stronger. I see people in my area and they are so against the war and if they are young enough to be bothered by recruiters or know someone who is they are just really really angry.

And we saw it last month at the protests in DC. Which is my turn to quote some from "Why Are You Here" and "What's Changed" by The Third Estate Sunday Review. I helped on that and so did a lot of people. I'll put the credit at the end of the quotes but like just read over some of thse voices:


48) Jack, 53, electronic repairman: I got 15 year-old, twin grandsons. I'm here for them. This war has to end or all our kids and grandkids will be over there. The change, for me anyway, is that it's not abstract any longer, it's not something that we think, "Oh, these young adults." We're starting to realize, after we hear that we'll be over there for ten years, that it's not just the ones who are there now but the kids who aren't even dating yet that are going to be asked to give their lives for a war of choice that was built with lies and that has no real goal other than to secure and control the oil fields of Iraq.

52) Caleb, 17, high school student: I'm here because this is an issue that's become one of the big ones in my life and most of us at my high school, all our lives. You can't help but follow the war now because you got recruiters bugging you on the phone, bugging you at school, bugging you when you're just trying to cruise the mall. They've put this war front in center in our lives. And a lot of us wouldn't be thinking about it probably. I'm going to college. If I don't get an atheletic scholarship, my parents already have it figured out. So I guess I could just float on through high school and be thinking, "Man, that's pretty screwed up, all the bombs going off in Iraq" or whatever. But when you got the recruiters breathing down your neck even when you're saying, "Not interested, quit calling," you start paying attention and like I'm not any good at geography but I can list probably ten big cities in Iraq and I can show you where it is on the map. That's all stuff I wouldn't have paid attention to if it weren't for the recruiters. I guess I thought, "You signed up for it, you're over there doing what you agreed to." But I mean, I've heard stuff from cars to special bases where you just file papers and get suntans and it's really made me think about what other people get promised and it also made me face how not everyone's going to be like me where they can say a strong no. There are people who don't have that option and when some recruiter comes along with the moon towed behind him and he's telling you that it's all yours if you sign up, I don't think they get what they sign up for. So that's had me thinking and other things have come up and I might not pay attention to them if it weren't for the recruiters. Like Bush lied. That's something that really caught my attention. We're over there for no real reason. So the ironic thing is, if they weren't trying so hard to pressure you to join and all I probably wouldn't be paying attention and my friends and I wouldn't be talking about it and following it.

60) LeRoi, 21, college student, English major: They're going after high school drop outs now! The whole "few bad apples" defense, which I never bought, was about how they didn't have well trained, well vetted people working in the prison. Now they're lowering the standards instead of raising them and that's because no one wants to sign up. They can't meet their quotas and they're behind for the year. So what's going to change? You think when we hit the fourth year of this quagmire people who've said no way are going to change their minds and say, "Okay, when it was a quagmire at two, I wouldn't sign up but now it's a four year quagmire so I'm all jazzed!" We get out or we get a draft. Maybe a draft would wake a lot more people up but it would probably also mean a lot more going over there because you don't start a draft to meet your minimum requirement. You don't reinstate something that controversial just to do the bare minimum. So a lot more lives will be at stake. And every month we get more deaths so you have to start asking, "Where does this end?" I think it ends here. Not by sunset, but when we all carry back our stories to our friends, when we're all sharing with the people we know who weren't able to be here. The change is this, we've got the seeds in our pockets, we just all need to go home and plant them.

73) Terri, 40, mother of two: "Mothers unite! Stand up and fight!" That's my cheer. These are our kids. Because they signed a paper, George W. Bush has the last say? Don't think so. We carried these kids, we gave birth to them. That trumps the thirst for oil and war on the part of the administration. If every mother, no if only a portion of them, if they said, "You are my child and this is wrong. You should not be sent overseas to fight a war with a reason that changes every other month" the war would be over in a matter of minutes. "Mothers unite! Stand up and fight!"

87) Benny, 17, high school student: For the first time it feels like maybe a difference can come. We're studying about government and it really seems wild and out there but it's about us and I guess Cindy Sheehan drives that point home to me. So I am here for that reason and the change is that people wake up and you can see it in my class. We're debating and discussing what does free speech mean and what are your duties to be an American and stuff that I have never taken time to think on and it just seems real and connected to me. Maybe it's selfish and all too because we got the guys on campus going, "Sign up and we'll take care of you. Free college." All these promises and you ask about war and like injuries and they don't talk about it. They brush you off or say, "You just watch out for yourself and you're fine." And I bet the 1900 men and women who are dead were watching out but that didn't save them. So it's just a lot to think about and maybe having government this year drives it home.

Here's the credit for that article:

Last time "we" included The Third Estate Sunday Review's Dona, Jess, Ty, Ava and Jim, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Betty who was on the verge of starting Thomas Friedman Is a Great Man and C.I. of The Common Ills and The Third Estate Sunday Review. This time we're joined by Kat of Kat's Korner (of The Common Ills), Cedric of Cedric's Big Mix, Mike of Mikey Likes It!, Elaine of Like Maria Said Paz, Ruth of Ruth's Morning Edition Report and her granddaughter Tracey.












Posted by at