The Power of a Word

A word is so powerful that one word can change a life or destroy the lives of millions of people. Some years ago a man in Germany, by the use of a word, manipulated a whole country with some of the most intelligent people. He led them into a world war with just the power of his word. He convinced others to commit the most atrocious acts of violence. He activated people's fear with the word, and like a big explosion, there was killing and war all around the world. All over the world humans destroyed other humans because they were afraid of each other. Hitler's word, based on fear-generated beliefs and agreements, will be remembered for centuries.

The human mind is like a fertile ground where seeds are continually being planted. The seeds are opinions, ideas, and concepts. You plant a seed, a thought, and it grows. The word is like a seed, and the human mind is so fertile! The only problem is that too often it is fertile for the seeds of fear.

Karl Rove knows this universal truth only too well. So does Dick Cheney. And they told George Bush and now he knows it too. The seed they plant is always fear based. They told the nation that if they elected a Democratic president back in 2004 there would be hell fire to pay. They told the nation again before the recent midterm elections if you elect a Democratic congress terror will reign.

So the nation was manipulated by the power of a word and the nation elected a Republican president in 2004 and terror still reigns. Terror rules our sky and our hearts and our minds every day and a mission that was supposed to be accomplished in Iraq 3 years and 7 months ago proved to be an outright lie. Just as the reasons put forth to the entire world congress citing why we had to invade Iraq was an outright lie.

Our current administration understands the impact of a single word, and what it means to plant a seed of fear and then water it and care for it so that the seed develops and grows sturdy, deep roots with branches that expand out all over. Our current administration understands what any mobster mentality does. The only way to rule is by utilizing fear based tactics. Since they cannot literally hit each and every citizen of this country over the head, they do break each and every one's mental kneecaps by constantly reminding them that if the Republicans aren't in power, there will be no one to protect them.

The newly elected Democratic majority has an enormous mandate to carry out. They have to prove to us that they are more powerful than the bogey men. They have to prove that they have the courage and the means to protect us. Otherwise there will be another Republican president elected in 2008 to remind us that their club is bigger than the other guys'.

Ref: Video of Bush Giving You the Finger

Ding Dong The Witch is Dead

Okay class, who can explain to me the difference between pulling down that huge statue of Saddam Hussein over in Iraq and what happened here after the midterm elections went democratic?

" Yes Harold, I see you've got your hand up, what do you see as the main distinction?"

"Well Saddam Hussein was a vicious, cruel dictator and our country is a place where freedom rings."

"Thank you Harold for that illuminating insight, but I'm sorry, that is not the correct answer here. You see, you've failed to see the much larger picture that's emerged."

The answer class is there is no difference. Yes Iraq was under the thumb of a violent despot but why did it take this election for the democrats and our news reporters and our media and all the honest common folk of this great country to finally find the nerve to stand up and say what's been on their minds all along.

We have been and continue to be under the thumb of one of our most damaging, dictatorial presidents ever to roam the Oval Office, and no one before now, after six scary, scary years, has had the statesmen temerity to stand up to Bush and his Senator McCarthy like tactics.

Now that our country is back supposedly in the hands of sane, rational men and women who aren't sexually inhibited to the point they turn into Dr. Jekyll by day and Mr. Hyde by night, and can walk and chew gum at the same time, and understand the mandate put forth by our forefathers about keeping church and state s-e-p-a-r-a-t-e.... NOW, all of a sudden everyone has discovered they have their own mind and a mouth to speak what is on their mind and not what they think they have to say to stay in the good graces of King George.

Where were all these cowards before the election? I'll tell you - hiding behind their false tongues, afraid of being beat up after class by the school bully. As much as I wanted to see our congress blueagain, I am ashamed for these people - who are now first coming forward - and proudly facing the cameras and readily speaking what should have been said a very long time ago.

The juxtaposition of watching Saddam Hussein's statue come tumbling down as a symbol to the people of Iraq urging them to finally come of their hiding places and see for themselves there's no longer any reason to be afraid or scared, and recently watching all the house and senate Dem's gingerly walking over to a reporter's microphone and standing up straight and saying what he or she really wants to say to this country is at the very least, quite jarring to my sense of what is all wrong and all right about our government's system.

As I was saying yesterday... not one good exit strategy proposal has come out as yet from the government, military, defense department, or think tank. But a news journalist asked a man on the street in Iraq the other day what he thought should be done. Ibiza responded by saying that it is no good for the Americans to stay in Iraq and it is no good if the Americans decide to leave Iraq. Exactly! I couldn't have said it better. Thank you Ibiza for articulating the problem at hand so clearly and concisely.

The Legend of Pandora's Box

Gen. John Abizaid, together with Ambassador David Satterfield, Senior Advisor to the Secretary of State and Coordinator for Iraq appeared before the Senate today and warned the Democratic Senators today not to hamper the military. Imagine what level of brass ball cockiness is being shown here when this comes directly on the heels of Rumsfield's firing last week.

Their mission clearly was to turn the heads of the dem 'defeatists turncoats' around to the old guard Republicans way of thinking. Although they agreed with Senator Clinton that "hope is not a strategy", Gen. Abizaid suggested that "despair wasn't a strategy either."

Great. So while the Iraqi people continue to get mugged, murdered, slaughtered, blown up, and most recently, kidnapped, a 'intervention' more commonly known as the Iraq War has come down to a tit for tat tea party. People are dying, children are being used as target practice, families are being destroyed and literally threatened to the point they have to abandon their homes, and our administration sends in the clowns to say to a newly energized, confident Congress, now just hold on a minute here, there's no need to go crazy and bail out while we're just getting started there. Simmer down you all. If you just approve sending more money and more troops I know we can lick them. You can see we have them on the run now, just be patient, they'll come around to our way of thinking, I'm absolutely sure of it.

It was positively scary listening to the two of them address Senator Clinton's questions that way. And poor Hillary, purposely hiding her disdain from the camera's eye by keeping one hand over her cheek, had no option except to make nice and listen to their stale and utterly shameful manifesto to stay the course. How could they show up at congress with nothing better than let's just keep on keeping on. It's preposterous in light of the botched job we've spectacularly accomplished over there.


Our defense department has no idea how to end the savagery that is occurring in Iraq. Our government had no right to go in in the first place and never had an exit plan ever, our congress had no backbone when they should have to stop what was going down from every happening, and now four years later not one person in our government or military has a clue as to what to do. And the country tunes into the news everyday with the intent that somebody somewhere has to have the answer and yet....nothing.

At the very same time the congressional hearing was going on, Al Franken at Air America was talking with Michael O'Hanion, who is a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution where he heads up the Iraq Index Project. He was suggesting along the same lines of Senator Joe Biden's proposed planforIraq in which Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds can decentralize to pursue their own interests, which goes against everything Abizaid and Satterfield were pushing down the throats of congress today.

For a whole lot of historical sociopolitical reasons there may not be a workable plan to end the inhumanity that exists in that region right now. When Bush's shock and awe bombing first went down that awful night back on March 21, 2003 he violently ripped opened Pandora's Box. From the minute our boots touched down on Iraqi soil we have done nothing but cause immeasurable suffering and atrocities to both our troops and the Iraqi people.

Taken from The Legend of Prometheus and Pandora's Box -
No sooner had the gods spoken, than the elements obeyed: the winds blew; the rain fell in torrents; lakes, seas, rivers, and oceans broke their bonds; and terrified mortals, forgetting their petty quarrels in a common impulse to flee from the death which threatened them, climbed the highest mountains, clung to uprooted trees, and even took refuge in the light skiffs they had constructed in happier days.

Their efforts were all in vain, however; for the waters rose higher and higher, overtook them one after another in their ineffectual efforts to escape, closed over the homes where they might have been so happy, and drowned their last despairing cries in their seething depths.

And The Race Is On .....

The midterm elections are history now and Democratic presidential wannabes were caught this past weekend officially enrolling in the electoral system, a process better known in certain high places as 'attending a fundraiser.' There they were, all dressed up in their Sunday best doing the down home meet and greet.

Even though in this point in campaign forecast time, it looks like Hillary Clinton may be the big, ole elephant in the room and Bill the fly on her back, American voters still tend to have this thing for conceptualizing how a candidate looks bellying up to the bar, or wearing their favorite team's cap, or simpy sitting in a football stadium.

It just seems wrong then, since women in so many other parts of the world have long been elected heads of state soley on their political merits, that Hillary will have a lot of male oriented posing to make up for in order for her to be taken seriously by middle America ticket punchers, and invited on board the next presidential express.

Who's Minding the Store?

Who within our current administration is actually the one driving the wheel? Does anyone really know? Or more to the point - does anymore even care? During previous administrations the country had a pretty good hunch who was calling the shots, and if they were wrong, well we were certainly the last ones to know. With no around the clock cable news outlets, and no slobbery - get a life hyena lurking about in his basement - always ready to suddenly swoop down and pounce on every crooked eyebrow raised, the country had no way of knowing what went on behind sealed doors except for what a handful of news people reported back to them.

Yet today we have every kind of communication skill possible to help get us information from nearly every point in this entire globe, and still we have no real sense of what is happening. This speaks to all the creme de la creme leaders in our country. Not just the president and his personal henchmen provided by daddy. This speaks to all the senate and house people as well. No matter how much you may listen to a Chris Matthew or a Ted Russert, and watch them as they strive to get a real pulse from the people they're interviewing, at best all you'll hear back is another stale rendition of their party's finest talking points.

Sure this belt loosened slightly last week when all the townspeople of this great nation finally got together on the same page (and praise the Lord that they did!) but in a few more hours that fine bravado will change back to superficial speak. We constantly want to forget that underneath all that rhetoric and smooth sound bites there beats the heart of a politician. And the end game of any politician is to be re-elected, and if any man or woman wants to run for president you know that their ego matter is not cut from the same cloth as your average Joe or Josephine. Their ambition and drive is so much more superior to yours or mine they can easily spin out of control. And the friction from all that metal hitting metal spontaneously combusts them - think Al Gore dramatically kissing his wife in front of the entire world, or John Kerry when he stood back and said absolutely nothing to refute those disgusting swift boat ads. What were these guys thinking??? Answer: they weren't. Their campaign managers and handlers were doing all the thinking for them and they were just as much out of touch with reality as the candidates themselves were for hiring and listening to them in the first place.

Our forefathers did not live in an ivory tower when they were busting their behinds to bring this country together. They led very hard lives and so did their families. They actually rolled back their sweaty sleeves and did scarifice to be where they were. Their souls were not with the lobbyists or their next campaign fund raisers. They were fastly connected to the moment and they had to push themselves to their endurance to do what they thought was right at the time, and obviously they didn't all that bad because we're still a country and our country's constitution, not counting Ann Coulters' perverse influence, is more or less still intact

Maybe it would help all politicians, regardless of rank, to stay grounded more if it was required that once a month they had to privately view the 1972 movie The Candidate with Robert Redford. Oh for the good old days of bird flu and mad cow disease. I'll even take the cuban missle crisis over what is happening today. At least there are photos and footage of JFK and his brother Bobby in real angst while they deliberated over how to manage that dire situation. Now we have Armageddon again waiting in the wings and footage of Bush flaming the flames.

Our Finest Citizens

In honor of our fallen heros and to pay tribute to our current servicemen, President Bush in his Veteran Day speech yesterday praised our brave soldiers serving all over the world as 'our finest citizens.' Certainly no one would argue with his commendation. The armed forces are asked to pay the highest price, and their moral principles and courageous actions exemplify the very best part that humanity has to offer. When a soldier is brought into a combat hospital he or she wants nothing more than to be patched up as quickly as possible so they can be sent back to be with their company. Senior officers have been known to collaspe after collecting the fragmented appendages and brain matter of one of their men. But to have our most valient and trusted men and women praised by a president and by an administration that has so carelessly and recklessly sent our sons and daughters, husbands, wives, sisters and brothers into harm's way is a travesty to our nation's conscious.

As an American citizen I cannot be more proud of the men and women who serve overseas. Knowing how dangerous their job is and recognizing the horrific fact that their lives are being threatened every single second, of every single minute, of every single hour, of every single day they serve in Iraq and Afganistan is more frightening to imagine that anything else I can conjure up in my anxiety ridden mind. Every step they take could be their end. Every person that comes into their radius could be their executor. Every road trip they take could be their last. Their heart thumping guard can never be down. The stress level these men and women live with is constantly held at the highest alert. If they survive their tour of duty their mindset in civilian life will never be the same again. The numbers of returning veterans who have lost limbs and eyes, faces and hands have reached staggering proportions and as I write these words I know the number climbs.

Evidence has shown that our president's national reserve duty was no hardship by any stretch of republican fantasy. And as for our war hawk VP, apart from his short tours of hunting duty, and his 'friendly fire' event, Vice President Dick Cheney accidentally shot and injured a man during a weekend quail hunting trip in Texas. Cheney sprayed Whittington, 78, with shotgun pellets on Saturday at the Armstrong Ranch in south Texas, said property owner Katharine Armstrong. he should be humiliated for how many times he managed to escape serving in the military at all. And yet these men show no remorse or regret for taking away lives and loved ones for an unjustified 'war'. Right after 9-11 our troops belonged in Afganistan. Had they sent in enough troops and stayed the course there, the course of our country's history might have been better served, plus the military morale code of our Department of Defense might have been preserved.

But everyone says it is too late to change what has happened. It is too late to correct what was done wrong. And unfortunately they are right. All we can do at this most unforgiving point is to move forward and plan what our next step should be. Well, while we are speculating on what strategy will best serve our fighting forces, the ravaged country of Iraq, and the people left behind to fight there are highby serving only one purpose - they act as a gold mine for corporate greed and capitalistic theives. Real blood is being shed to bring in those dollars to feed Haliburton. Real people are terrified to leave their homes and go about their business in Iraq. Real people are suffering with the loss of their home, their livelihood and their family members.

The terror that Bush has wrought upon Iraq has turned into a debacle of enormous proportions for both our country as well as Iraq, and Laura Ingraham and Ann Coulter and all the rest of the media savvy, bleached blonde bitch bimbos who have steadfastly supported the war in Iraq from day one, and continue to support it even when the man behind the curtain has been shown to be a man without a country behind him, should finally enlist in whatever branch of the military they see fit to serve in. How dare these nazi feminist bullys (colloquial credit goes to Rush Limbaugh) demand someone else perform the ultimate scarifice if they don't have the courage and the guts to do it themselves.

Doesn't anyone else question why the Republican presidential candidate who was a coke head and alcoholic and got regularly wasted got voted in, not once but twice, and gets to salute the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at the same time his closest staff members have ridiculed and demeaned the service of Congressman John Murtha and Senator Max Cleland, as well as the last two Democratic presidential candidates who both volunteered for active duty during a time of war? I understand and accept the merits of advertising and marketing and hype and spin, but I will never understand or accept how the kind and gentle people of this great nation permitted Republican myth to trump Democratic might.

Bush's New World Order

Who would have thought even twenty four hours ago that Nancy Pelosi would be holding a press conference with Bush congratulating her as the new Speaker of the House. Better yet - who would have thought even fourteen hours ago that Bush would appear calm , cool and genuinely gracious in his remarks as he warmly greeted Nancy into her new post. Of course Nancy made it easy for Bush to be so gallant. As always, she looked supremely elegant, she spoke supremely eloquent and had a confident, controlled air about her. This in complete contrast to a president who cannot stand behind the podium without one of his legs always moving, who cannot string a grammatically correct sentence together without his head writer drafting it for him first, and who cannot govern a country without his fanatical sidekicks and hardnoses behind the scenes orchestrating all of his decisions and directives for him.

Yes America, Bush has given us a new world order. For the first time in six years he can appear serene and confident because the fate of the world has been removed from his hands. The dems have taken over that responsiblity from him and his republican cohorts and he can now sit back, put his feet up, watch football and forget about saving the world from burning itself down. The problems of running this vast, unscripted country has finally been removed from his agenda. Albeit prematurely, but Bush knows that as long as he plays ball with the dems and lets them fall on their faces on their own terms he's out of trouble. The dems promised him they wouldn't drag his sorry ass into any impeachment trail as long as he plays nice with them. That was all Bush wanted at this point in time. He pulled the rug from under his fan base. He cut and ran as soon as the final vote was announced. He instantly knew as soon as the final vote was announced which side to stand on. When the dust settled there was only one person Bush was concerned about and that was himself. As long as he was protected he didn't care how many bodies had to be carried out of the senate and the house. Bush didn't even throw a bone to his dog, Barney.

Bush at his Best

It was difficult to watch Bush squirm his way through yesterday's press conference. In light of last night's tumultuous turnover you couldn't help but hear the deafening crowd screaming out their mandate. The uproar though provided the press corp with the mental fortitude and confidence they needed to press the nervous president to answer their petulant questions. When? they demanded, when did Bush first decide to give Rummy the heave ho. They wanted to know, they wanted to understand what was going on the president's head. Everything was happening so fast. But the president told them it was this way, and then he told them it was that way and he kept contradicting himself so much that the reporters became dizzy from the speed and just sat back down and took notes. And it was frightening as well to watch Bush's nose grow longer and longer the longer he remained at the podium. Whether or not Bush gave Rummy the thumbs down before or after the election will probably never be known before Woodward writes the last book in his Bush trilogy, but as far as the public was concerned it was enough that the SOD was leaving.

But the reporters were still not up to the task of pinning Bush down. When Bush made sure to point out to the press that the dems were now the ones to head up all the committees and push through legislation, it should have become instantly evident that Bush had finally come up with his exit plan for getting out of Iraq.

By holding off on announcing that Rummy was gone he deliberatly allowed his republican candidates to hang themselves. By holding off on announcing that Rummy was gone he hung all his cronies out to dry. It became obvious in that moment that he had wanted all along for the dems to win both houses. This way it would be the dems who would take over the reins, it would be the dems who would take over control of America's direction. It would be the dems who would now take all the flake. Let the dems screw up and then worm their way out of it. Let the dems come up with a strategy plan and hope they fall flat on their face when they try to execute it. Bush will let the dems take the lead and when they fail to accomplish the impossible, hip hip hooray!! Bush will be able to say with his arrogant smirk spread all over his pompous face, hey, don't look at me! It wasn't me at the helm of this big old ship. It was the dems, off with their heads! I'll just sit back and let history write itself the way I call it. Generations from now will not be able to remember what happened to my plan. I had no exit plan. But that fact will get swept up in all the dirt that's going to be cleaned up by this election. It will be the dems exit plan that gets graded. It will be the dem's exit plan that will have to take all the heat. I'm damn smart. Possibly too smart for my own country's good.

Let Them Eat Cake

Karl Rove had to personally call Bush last night to inform him that the new Speaker of the House of Representatives would indeed be ordering new drapes for her office. This obscure statement made by a white house reporter for CNN last night made it painfully clear what the country suspected all along - Bush is not the one running our country. He isn't even able to grasp the significance of the electoral returns by himself. Someone else had to do that for him. In this case it was Rove who had to carefully spoon feed him the bad news.

Bush has been telling us for the past two years that being president is 'hard work'. I can only guess that he told Rove last night that he would work harder tomorrow.

Even beyond Bush's catastrophic decision to invade Iraq and proclaim victory after the first five minutes, a disaster by the name of Katrina should haunt Bush for the rest of his life. As the entire world could only stand by and watch in horror as hundreds of lives were swept away, his let them eat cake demeanor set a storm upon his dynasty the likes of which he has never recovered from. Nor have the people of New Orleans.

Theatre of the Absurd

This is a moment in American history that demands honest, revolutionary thinking. We've all been witnesses to the enormous damage six years of Bush's administration has done to this country. It is certainly not for the faint of heart to try and imagine what another two years is going to bring.

Liz Smith ran a column back in 2000, way before Bush was put into office by our fair minded Supreme Court Justices. In it she reported from an article ran in the Texas Monthly which asked, "Is George W. Smart After All?" and then answered, Yes. And He Can Win! But You'll Be Sorry. The George W. Bush story which noted that Bush was running ahead of Al Gore in the polls rounded up some very timely quotes that still ring true today.

From John Sharp, the former Texas comptroller: "When the economy goes bad, you better not have that kind of a governor - and you better not have that kind of president. You'd better have someone who knows how to pull the levers of government and get the state, or the country, out of trouble."
From Ann Richards, the former governor of Texas: "George W. is a disciplined campaigner. He stays on message...he talks about faith-based this and that...this is a shield for what is actually taking place, and that is a delivery of influence over every aspect of our lives to the Religious Right."
From Garry Mauro, former land commissioner and failed Texas gubernatorial candidate: "I have never met a politician with less passion for the issues...He has no core. He flip-flops 100 percent because he doesn't care...How can you run for president when your state, with a large surplus, won't pay for health insurance for teachers?"
From Jim Hightower, former agricultural commissioner: "First, the smirk. His is not a facial tick. This is from within. It reflects a spoiled brat's sense of entitlement and a mean streak we've seen flair up. Two-down deep, this guy is shallow...Three, he is ...a loyal performer for fat cats...a hired hand for corporate interests. That's not what the general public wants its president to be."
From Ben Barnes, former lieutenant governor: "He can't distinguish between no new taxes on the one hand and surpluses on the other.
From Paul Begala, political consultant: "He's lighter'n than my grandma's biscuits. He has the weakest, thinnest, briefest record in public life of any major party nominee in American history...He was a businessman!? I love that...with only his family's fortune and a trust fund, he started an oil company and ran it into the ground...bailed out by his father's wealthy friends."

This thin, weak facade of a nominee, who has by some utter Karl Rove miracle, won not one, but two presidential races, still casts a dark, ominous shadow in print each time the press exposes just how smart Bush really is. I say smart because how hard would it have been for any sub list political consultant of Kerry's to check out the following facts so that it could have been included in every single campaign speech. Forget about a good horse. How about my kingdom for a good fact checker.

First, six dates: February 1962; March 20, 1963; July 23, 1963; October 14, 1964; November 1, 1965, and January 19, 1966. The first of those dates is when Richard Cheney, then 21 and a student about to leave Yale because of poor grades received his 1-A classification; the next five are the dates of application for continuing deferment. Yet, it was John Ashcroft who was the king of all deferments, topping out at seven.

Second, when Bush's first chief of the postwar operation, the retired general Jay Garner, was replaced by Paul Bremer and recalled from Iraq in May 2003, he was taken by Rumsfield to the White House for a farewell meeting with Bush. Garner held a forty-five conversation with Bush with Cheney and Rice sitting in for second half, yet the president never asked Garner any pointed questions about what it was really like in Iraq or what problems lay ahead. Juxtapose that to 1991, when Garner, returning from northern Iraq, was made to answer questions for almost five days about the efforts he led to save Kurdish refugees after the Gulf War. I guess that shows that sometimes the apple can fall very, very far away from its tree.