Today, Veteran's Day, A Gentle Reminder...

Remember Those That Gave All
(Image Courtesy of Doug Kidd )
d.

Happy Birthday Marines!

229 Years of Service With Honor!
(Image courtesy of Doug Kidd )

A Message From The Commandant Of The Marine Corps
(pdf warning)


Last night I attended the 229th Marine Corps Birthday Bash at Cookie's Tavern at 10th & Oregon Streets in Philadelphia. I had intended to meet some buddies earlier in the day, however, those plans were shelved due to an emergency at work. Every year I swear that I will not allow anything to interfere with the Birthday and yesterday was no exception. Until I recieved numerous messages from the Union Hall that a certain employer was in a tight jam due to a "shoot schedule revision" and was asking for me by name. The Union Rep told me this individual had said to him, "If anybody can get this done in time, it's that Old Jarhead!" How could I refuse?

Let me say that this individual is a great guy and has hired me frequently. He respects my abilities and opinions and is a pleasure to work for. There was no way I could refuse, and so to New York I went. Needless to say, I finished the job way ahead of schedule, was given permission to leave early, was paid for the entire 10 hours (with the last two hours at time and a half), and was booked again for Friday and Monday, and still made the party by 1900 hours!

The down side was, I couldn't find my buds! Yet as I surveyed the throngs outside Cookies, faces young and old, I realized that my "buds", no, my Brothers and Sisters were all there. More and more younger Vets are turning up. Vets of the current War in Iraq. Young, cocky, carefree, confident. Marines. And as I looked upon their young faces, flushed from the chilly evening air, I was struck by their eyes. I found myself looking into the same eyes I see in the mirror every morning. They may be young, but they are Men and Women of Steel. They will do whatever needs to be done. They are Marines.


Women Warriors - Roses & Daggers!
(Image courtesy of Doug Kidd )

And so to All Marines, of All Ages:

Happy Birthday Brothers & Sisters!

Semper Fidelis!

d.

(Photos will be posted at Any Which Way shortly)

Another Quiz...

You are the Black Knight. Always lookin' for a
fight, you NEVER know when to quit...even when
you've had your arms & legs cut off.."'Tis
but a scratch!"


Which Monty Python & the Holy Grail Character are you REALLY?
brought to you by Quizilla

(Stolen from Mad Mikey!)

d.

And I Looked, And Behold A Pale Horse...

Prepare To Meet Allah For We Are Coming...

And I looked, and behold a pale horse: and his name that sat on him was Death, and Hell followed with him. And power was given unto them over the fourth part of the earth, to kill with sword, and with hunger, and with death, and with the beasts of the earth.

Revelation 6:8

Whether or not you agreed with the decision to invade Iraq, the simple fact is that we are there. Our fine young men and women have been cast into the fight of their lives. I am compelled by my conscience and my love of Corps and Country to support them in any way possible.

As they prepare to assault Falluja, my hope and prayers go with them. My only regret is that I cannot go with them.

Go then, Marines! In the Highest Traditions of our Beloved Corps, Bring unto them the death and destruction they have sought by turning away from Peace! Fight like the Devil Dogs you are! Fear not death, for in the immortal words of R. Lee Ermey,

"You may die, but the Marine Corps will live forever! Therefore, YOU will live forever!"

Commanders Give Marines Pep Talk in Iraq

Semper Fidelis.

Hell is coming to Falluja.

d.

One Last Shot...

(Thanks to By Beauty Damned for the Photo)

One final shot before I drop the whole election thing and get on with life. I just thought these two items summed up how I feel better than most. The above picture, which I found on By Beauty Damned, and the following piece, posted by Ruthie, which I found in the Forum at Any Which Way.

Most of you know Ruthie and scroff from Any Which Way. Hey, scroff's mebrudder, Ruthie's his Lady, it's family. If you don't know them, look them up, click on the link, great stuff going on over there.

I came across Maria recently, via Mad Mikey. I've been meaning to link to her for some time now but my schedule has been so brutal I barely had time to post. Anyway, she's a real Hellcat and a great read. Check her out.

And now, on to my final post (hopefully) on the 2004 Presidential Election, courtesy of Ruthie from Any Which Way!


Thursday, November 04 2004 @ 08:06 PM EST

I thought this was pretty good...ruthie


A Letter to Incredulous Friends Around the World
November 3, 2004

Dear friends:

I'm sorry. I really am.

I know it must be impossible for you to understand the choice the American public made on November 2.

It's almost impossible for me, too, and I've lived here all 46 years of my life.

Why would Americans choose, by a margin of more than 3,500,000 votes, to return George W. Bush to office after all that he's done?

After he pulled out of the Kyoto Accords?

After he trashed the ABM Treaty?

After he ignored more than 40 warnings about the looming danger of an attack by Osama bin Laden?


After he failed to capture bin Laden?


After he circulated false information about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and Saddam's alleged links to bin Laden?

After he bullied the United Nations with slurs of irrelevancy?

After he violated the U.N. Charter by launching the Iraq War?

After he bungled the occupation of Iraq and dishonored America with the Abu Ghraib scandal?

After he promised billions of dollars to fight AIDS overseas and chose to fight condom use instead?


After the ranks of the uninsured at home rose to 45 million?


After he sided with the interests of huge corporations every step of the way?


After he was the first President to lose jobs in 70 years?


And after he redistributed wealth-to the top 1 percent of Americans?


Let me try to offer you an explanation, and then, perhaps, a ray or two of hope.


First, some brutal honesty: A large chunk of the public here doesn't give a damn about what anyone else around the world thinks about the United States. In fact, for many people here, it is a point of pride to ignore the wishes of the rest of the world. Bush played on this nativism by saying, "We don't need a permission slip from anyone" before defending the United States. In the post-9/11 era, this pitch was an especially effective one.


Deep in the psyche of the American mind is the myth of exceptionalism: that we, somehow, are the greatest country on Earth, a shining beacon on a hill, placed here by God himself. This is the American superiority complex, a profound affliction that distorts our perceptions and enables manipulative Presidents to give the marching orders.


Bush himself suffers from an aggravated case of this superiority complex. In fact, he has elevated it to national policy, a policy I call messianic militarism. He actually believes that God has placed him in the Oval Office. And he believes, as he put it earlier this year, "God is speaking through me." God evidently speaks the language of war.


An illustration: According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Bush told Palestinian negotiators, in that fleeting moment when he decided to involve himself in their issue, that God had told him to go to war against Afghanistan, and God had told him to go to war against Saddam Hussein, and now God was telling him to make peace between Israel and Palestine. (God must subsequently have told him to forget about it, because that's what Bush did.)


Another illustration: In his 2004 State of the Union address and in his acceptance speech at the Republican Convention, Bush used variations of the line: "We are delivering the gift of freedom to the people of Iraq. But it is not America's gift. It is the gift of God Almighty." Bush is delivering that gift by the bomb load right now.


Yet his invocation of the Almighty falls on receptive ears in the United States, one of the most fundamentalist countries in the world, as Noam Chomsky has noted. About 90 percent of the American public believe in God, and about 40 percent identify themselves as born-again Christian. Three quarters of the born-again Christians tend to vote Republican. This is Bush's base, and he and his political adviser, Karl Rove, did everything they could to expand that base and bring it to the polls on November 2.


That is why, in one of the debates, Bush signaled that he would appoint anti-abortion justices to the Supreme Court. That is why he came out for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, and why Rove engineered referendums in eleven states on the issue. In each state, the referendum banning same-sex marriage won by a lopsided margin.


These issues are a great distraction from the everyday concerns of working people. But it was magic for Bush, persuading people to vote against their material interests. In Ohio, Bush prevailed in the county with the greatest unemployment, even though his policies helped to create that unemployment. He was the boss who threw the workers onto the street, but the workers voted for him anyway. Their unemployment represents the revenge of empire upon its own citizens, but they saluted the emperor nonetheless.


The churches played a huge role in driving their followers to the polls. Never in modern American history have the churches intervened so blatantly in an election.


When people weren't getting the message in church, they were fed it intravenously by Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV and talk radio. This diet of misinformation was not good for the brain: A majority of Bush supporters said they still felt the war against Iraq was part of the war on terror, even after all the evidence showing no link between bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.


This is the geography of Bush's victory.


But despite all that, Bush won by only a small margin, with 55 million Americans voting to turn him out.


55 million Americans said no to the Iraq War.


55 million Americans said no to Abu Ghraib.


55 million Americans said no to Halliburton.


55 million Americans said yes to working with the rest of the world.


We are with you in your concern for human rights.


We are with you in your concern for the environment.


We are with you in opposing the Iraq War.


We are with you in abiding by the U.N. Charter.


And people here on the progressive side are trying to translate these commitments into power. The broadly defined liberal and leftwing community in America was more impassioned, more determined, more organized, and more united than I've ever seen it before. People here know the stakes. And as citizens of the empire, almost all progressives felt an obligation to consider the harm that Bush was doing to you, the victims and subjects of the empire, and so they redoubled their efforts.


It was not enough, not this time.


But the coalition of forces-unionists, civil rights groups, environmentalists, activists of all stripes, from the old school and from the Internet-will not disintegrate. It will continue to cohere.


And there's another good sign: The alternative media here is stronger than ever before, with "Democracy Now" and "Air America" reaching tens of millions of Americans on the airwaves.


Plus, we can now exchange our messages on commondreams.org and buzzflash and Truthout and MoveOn, thus giving us the capacity not only to communicate but organize instantaneously.


Media activism is also at an all time high, with a new mass movement tugging at the trunks of the conglomerates.


And a cultural insurrection is under way: from Michael Moore and John Sayles to Bruce Springsteen and Eminem and Margaret Cho and Jon Stewart.


We are finally getting our act together over here. We are finally getting our message out. And there is a seriousness of purpose, an urgency to regain power, that is amazing to behold.


No one is rolling over dead.


Like the Red Scare of the 1920s, like the McCarthy period of the 1950s, like the Nixon years and the Reagan years, this too will pass.


And so there will come a day when you and I alike can once again recite the line from Neruda, "America, I do not call your name without hope."


In peace and solidarity,


Matthew Rothschild
Editor,
The Progressive magazine
Madison, Wisconsin

It's Over...For Now...

Thanks For a Hell of A Ride, Guys...

Well, America has made Her choice. Now Americans will have to live with it. Frankly, the Right beat us at our own game, quietly organizing voters and building a grass-roots "get-out-the-vote machine" from Day One. There are many lessons here for those of us on the Left to learn if we ever again want to have any significant say in the way our country is run.

To begin with, the Right always knew who their candidate would be. That is an advantage of being an incumbent with a Second Term up for grabs. As such, they were able to focus on getting their candidate re-elected from the beginning of the First Term. The Left, on the other hand, had to wade through countless primary candidates all attacking each other while the Right continued to quietly out- organize the "ultimate organizers" on the Left: Unions and Grass Roots Groups such as MoveOn and ACT.

Seems the Right learned a thing or two somewhere along the way. They aren't as stupid as we thought. At least their leaders aren't.

Their leaders have lied to the American Public all along. On Iraq. On tax Cuts. On "No Child Left Behind". On Overtime pay. On "Weapons Of Mass Destruction". On Abu Gharib. On paying for the war with Iraqi oil money. On the Coalition of The Willing. On the environment. On countless issues.

On Tuesday, November 2, 2004, the Majority of American Voters bought their lies, lock, stock and barrell.

Why? Because the Republican leadership was able to convince voters that these lies were either insignificant in the overall scheme of things or were actually true. So it wasn't the Leadership of the Right that was Stupid, it was the millions of mindless minions who bought the sound bytes. Any one of whom will tell you that "Kerry was a Flip-flopper". (It means something here to note that the three areas of the United States that have actually been attacked by terrorists, Pennsylvania, New York and Washington, D.C., all went for John Kerry!)

And that's where we failed. We failed to recognize that their Leaders were smart enough to start their 2004 campaign the day after Bush was sworn in in 2000 and that most Americans were either too stupid or too lazy to look "behind the curtain" and see the Truth.

That Right Wing Mis-information Machine is still there and still hard at work. There has been some speculation as to who will head the Republican ticket in 2008 since it is unlikely Cheney will run due to age and health concerns.

I already know.

Jeb.

Possibly paired with Colin Powell. But definately Jeb. Why not? He has the same qualifications his brother had four years ago, and he's a Bush. The dynasty will continue. Who else can the Neo-cons trust with their "Project For The New American Century"?

What I don't know and need to know NOW, is who we will be running.

There's a lot of hard work to do and we need to start as soon as possible.

deuddersun

It's Our Country, Dammit! Let's Take It Back!

Like Father Like Son... One Term And Done!

Brothers & Sisters,

Is this what we really want? Four more years of lies, deceit, incompetence and bold, unabashed arrogance?

Bush talks to God. And God answers back. Not in the usual way. Not in the way most of us receive guidance from the Lord, but directly. According to Pat Robertson, God told Bush that there would be no casualties in Iraq. Who was wrong, God or Bush? Now Robertson predicts a Bush landslide victory. According to God, Bush will sweep the election. Funny, I didn't know God was a Republican.

Apparently neither does Usama Bin Laden. Bin Laden thinks God is a Muslim. Bin Laden believes that God will punish us for aiding the Jews in 1982 in Lebanaon. The Jews also think God is on their side. Not Jesus, who according to the Jews was a Rabbi went wrong, but Yahweh, the only true God, who will lead the "Chosen" to the "Promised Land". Which brings me to another point: let's do away with "dual citizenship". Either you are a Loyal American or you aren't, okay? I don't want the considerations of any other country influencing the politics of my country, and neither should you!

I think God should be left out of this. If anything, God has got to be shaking His/Her Almighty Head at the chaos being done in His/Her Name. Fact is, God doesn't take sides, folks. That's the point of "Free Will". He left us to sort it all out for ourselves, a kind of test, to see who was worthy and who was not. Anyone who claims to have God on their side, therefore, is full of shit.

So let's leave God out of the equation. Granted He's watching. He may even be keeping score. But by His own Words, He's a non-participant.

So, what does that leave us with?

A liar. A man. Only a man, who knew there were no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq but who persued this current fiasco anyway. A man who had no real plan other than to kill or capture Saddam Hussein for the political capital it would gain him. A man who succumbed to the greedy ambitions of others as evidenced by the fact that our troops secured only the oil fileds in our blitzkreig across Iraq, letting museums, National Treasures and Real Munition dumps stand unguarded, hence the missing 380 tons of high explosives Bush and his cronies would have you believe were gone before we got there. What did Rumsfeld say when the pictures appeared on your TV of looters raping the Iraqi people of their history and dignity? "That's what Freedom is, some folks are going to loot." Or some such nonsense. Bullshit.

Bush lied and thousands died. For nothing. This war was supposed to be about 9/11. Bush and his cronies have morphed that into "we freed the Iraqi people". Ask any ordinary Iraqi how he likes his new "freedom". So far the only "freedom" the average Iraqi has experienced is Freedom from electrical service, clean water, ample food, jobs and a hell of a lot more "security" than he has now! This war was supposed to be about Usama Bin Laden and preventing the kind of catastrophe that occurred on 9/11. A catastrophe that we are now learning could have been prevented had Bush and his Neo-con advisors listened to the evidence presented to them by the Clinton Administration. ( And Bush says, "I don't think about Bin Laden very much. He's not a priority.")

Oh, wait. Clinton got his dick sucked by an intern! Forget about the Budget Surplus. Forget about stopping the Millenium Plot. Forget about winning in Kosovo without losing one American life. Clinton got his dick sucked! Baaaaaaaaaad man! Clinton lied ! (What married man wouldn't?) Isn't that something that should have been left to Bill and Hillary to sort out? What business was it of anybody-else to "investigate" it at the cost of millions of taxpayer dollars? If we spent as much time and money investigating Halliburton half of the Bush Administration would probably be brought up on criminal charges.

And that's what really scares them. If they lose and the Democrats take over there will be Hell to pay. A lot of folks may end up in prison. They need to win by any means possible to clean up their mess and destroy the evidence of their crimes. But, then, if they win, we will be on a road that will negate any possibility of that ever happening.

Aside from all of this, their assault on the average American has been decimating. They will boldly stand in front of a TV camera and swear that they are for the Middle Class while at the same time they abolish overtime pay, give no-bid contracts to drug companies, raise the cost of Medicare the day after they finish their Convention, give Corporations another large tax break only days ago, reward companies for off--shoring work - all the while smiling at you and telling you how much better things are!

They will stop at nothing to win. Even John McCain called their tatics dishonorable. He should know, he was a victim of the Bush Machine himself. They will crow that John Kerry only served four months in Viet Nam and earned three Purple Hearts, a Bronze Star and a Silver Star. They will say this is laughable in such a short period of time. What they will not say is how much time they spent in Viet Nam. I would like to ask these Chickenhawks how much time in combat is required to earn their undeserving respect. Jerry McGuire was "in-country" six weeks when a sniper shot him in the head. Try telling his family he was a poser and a fake.

They will tell you they are for "Family Values", yet seek a Constitutional Amendment to prevent Gay Marriage. (If you don't like the idea of Gay Marriage- don't marry one!) They will howl like hyenas' if someone mentions Dick Cheney's Gay daughter while protesting that being Gay is nothing to be ashamed of, (provided the friggin' queers don't seek the same protections offerred straight couples!).

They will tell you to "support our troops" while they close VA Hospials and cutback combat pay and send troops into combat ill-equipped and insufficiently trained. They will promise you they will not re-institute the draft while they employ a "back-door draft" by executing "stop-loss" orders and ignoring the completion of contractual obligations by those serving. Where, prey tell, will they get the man-power to replace the troops currently in action? Recruiters haven't been exactly overwhelmed by new recruits anxious to sign up for duty in Iraq in spite of the many loud mouthed Protest Warriors who claim to be serving their country here at home, (read "safe". Isn't it so much easier to stay here and run your mouth while others do your fighting and dying for you?) At one point we had 500,000 troops in Viet Nam fighting the same kind of war with what results? Bush would have you believe we can achieve success with the same 138,000 who were part of the initial invasion!

They will tell you that John Kerry and the "Liberals" in Congress are weak on Defense while it was their Guru, Ronald Ray-gun, who denied the United States Marine Corps a chance to even the score with Islamo-terrorists after the bombing of the Marine Barracks in Beirut kelled 243 United States Marines by pulling them out immediately and five days later sending them off to invade Grenada, a "real" threat to the security of the United States.

They will tell you that they are strong on "Homeland Security" yet 98% of all containers entering our ports are uninspected and could easily house terrorist weapons. Our chemical and nuclear plants remain easily accesible and our airlines constantly load uninspected, un-exrayed luggage into the bellies of the planes we fly on. Illegal immigrants flood across our borders daily, some 3,000,000 a year! - who's to say at least some of them aren't coming here to do us ill? Do you feel more secure?

They will tell you that abortion is wrong and immoral yet how many of these righteous, Right Wing Men have ever been pregnant?

This Tuesday I am going to ask you to look at the facts. The real facts. Look in your hearts. Ask yourselves, "Can we really afford four more years of regression, oppression, and suppression of reality? Are we really better off now than we were four years ago?

Do we really have anything to lose by giving John Kerry a chance to restore this great Republic to it's former glory?

Vote on November 2, 2004. Vote your conscience. Vote for John Kerry and John Edwards.

Good night.

deuddersun

For The Eight...

Always Faithfull


Go now, and take your places at the Table of Warriors with the Blessings of The All Father, Odin, One-eye, for you have, by your blood and steel, earned nothing less than Eternal Honor amongst the Heroes of Valhalla.

d.


The Final Inspection

The Marine stood and faced his God
Which must always come to pass.
He hoped his shoes were shining
Just as brightly as his brass.

Step forward now, O' Devil-Dog,
How shall I deal with you?
Have you always turned the other cheek?
To My Church have you been true?

The Marine squared his shoulders,
said, No, Lord, I guess I ain't,
Because those of us who carry guns
Can't always be a saint.


I've had to work most Sundays
And at times my talk was tough,
And sometimes I've been violent,
Because the world is awfully rough.

But, I never took a penny
That wasn't mine to keep...
Though I worked a lot of overtime
When the bills got just too steep.

And I never passed a cry for help,
Though at times I shook with fear,
And sometimes, God forgive me,
I've wept unmanly tears.

I know I don't deserve a place
Among the people here,
They never wanted me around
Except to calm their fear.

If you've a place for me here, Lord,
It needn't be so grand,
I never expected or had too much,
But if you don't, I'll understand.

There was a silence 'round the throne
Where saints had often trod
As the Marine awaited quietly,
The judgment of his God,

Step forward now, My Fine Marine,
You've borne your burdens well,
Walk your post on Heaven's streets,
You've served your time in hell.

Saepius Exertus, Semper Fidelis, Frater Infinitas

White House Of Horrors!

Lizards Of Oz

(Once again, thanks to Ruthie at Any Which Way! If you haven't already, check them out for a good dose of Common Sense and Lefty Humor!)

White House of Horrors
By MAUREEN DOWD

Dick Cheney peaked too soon. We've still got a few days left until Halloween.

It was scary enough when we thought the vice president had created his own reality for spin purposes. But if he actually believes that Iraq is "a remarkable success story,'' it's downright spooky. He's already got his persona for Sunday: he's the mad scientist in the haunted mansion, fiddling with test tubes to force the world to conform to his twisted vision.

After 9/11, Mr. Cheney swirled his big black cape and hunkered down in his undisclosed dungeon, reading books about smallpox and plague and worst-case terrorist scenarios. His ghoulish imagination ran wild, and he dragged the untested president and jittery country into his house of horrors, painting a gory picture of how Iraq could let fearsome munitions fall into the hands of evildoers.

He yanked America into war to preclude that chilling bloodbath. But in a spine-tingling switch, the administration's misbegotten invasion of Iraq has let fearsome munitions fall into the hands of evildoers. It's also forged the links between Al Qaeda and the Sunni Baathists that Mr. Cheney and his crazy-eyed Igors at the Pentagon had fantasized about to justify their hunger to remake the Middle East.

It's often seen in scary movies: you play God to create something in your own image, and the monster you make ends up coming after you.

Determined to throw a good scare into the Arab world, the vice president ended up scaring up the swarm of jihadist evil spirits he had conjured, like the overreaching sorcerer in "Fantasia." The Pentagon bungled the occupation so badly, it caused the insurgency to grow like the Blob.

Just as Catherine Deneuve had bizarre hallucinations in the horror classic "Repulsion,'' Mr. Cheney and the neocons were in a deranged ideological psychosis, obsessing about imaginary weapons while allowing enemies to spirit the real ones away.

The officials charged with protecting us set off so many false alarms that they ignored all the real ones.

President Bush is like one of the blissfully ignorant teenagers in "Friday the 13th'' movies, spouting slogans like "Freedom is on the march'' while Freddy Krueger is in the closet, ready to claw his skin off.

Mr. Bush ignored his own experts' warnings that Osama bin Laden planned to attack inside the U.S., that an invasion of Iraq could create a toxic partnership between outside terrorists and Baathists and create sympathy for them across the Islamic world, that Donald Rumsfeld was planning a war and occupation without enough troops, that Saddam's aluminum tubes were not for nuclear purposes, that U.S. troops should safeguard 380 tons of sealed explosives that could bring down planes and buildings, and that, after the invasion, Iraq could erupt into civil war.

And, of course, the president ignored Colin Powell's Pottery Barn warning: if you break it, you own it.

Their Iraqi puppet, Ayad Allawi, turned on Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush this week, in a scene right out of "Chucky.'' Mr. Allawi accused coalition forces of "major negligence'' for not protecting the unarmed Iraqi National Guard trainees who were slaughtered by insurgents wearing Iraqi police uniforms. Iraqi recruits are getting killed so fast we can't even pretend that we're going to turn the country over to them.

If you really want to be chilled to the bone this Halloween, listen to what Peter W. Galbraith, a former diplomat who helped advance the case for an Iraq invasion at the request of Paul Wolfowitz, said in a column yesterday in The Boston Globe.

He said he'd told Mr. Wolfowitz about "the catastrophic aftermath of the invasion, the unchecked looting of every public institution in Baghdad, the devastation of Iraq's cultural heritage, the anger of ordinary Iraqis who couldn't understand why the world's only superpower was letting this happen.'' He told Mr. Wolfowitz that mobs were looting Iraqi labs of live H.I.V. and black fever viruses and making off with barrels of yellowcake.

"Even after my briefing, the Pentagon leaders did nothing to safeguard Iraq's nuclear sites,'' he said.

In his column, Mr. Galbraith said weapons looted from the arms site called Al Qaqaa might have wound up in Iran, which could obviously use them to pursue nuclear weapons.

In April 2003 in Baghdad, he said, he told a young U.S. lieutenant stationed across the street that H.I.V. and black fever viruses had just been looted. The soldier had been devastated and said, "I hope I'm not responsible for Armageddon.''

Too bad that never occurred to Dr. Cheneystein.

NY Times


Happy Halloween!

Vote Kerry-Edwards and the Entire Democrat Ticket on November 2nd! It's time to send the Lizards Of Oz packing!

d.

Thoose Damned Liberals...

(Thanks to Ruthie at Any Which Way)

Sunday, October 24 2004 @ 12:54 AM EDT

Contributed by: Ruthie

I recieved this in an email from my mother tonight. It was so good that I felt it was front page material.

author..unknown.

ruthie

Joe gets up at 6 a.m. and fills his coffeepot with water for his morning coffee. The water is clean and good because some tree-hugging commie liberal fought for minimum water-quality standards.

With his first swallow of coffee, Joe takes his daily medications. His medications are safe to take because some evil lefty bomb-throwers fought to insure their safety and that they work as advertised. All but $10 of Joe's medications are paid for by his employer's medical plan because some fire-breathing lazy union workers fought their employers for paid medical insurance - now Joe gets it too. Never would he turn it down.

He prepares his morning breakfast, bacon and eggs. Joe's bacon is safe to eat because some girly-man liberal fought for laws to regulate the meat packing industry.

In his morning shower, Joe reaches for his shampoo! His bottle is properly labeled with each ingredient and its amount in the total contents because some crybaby liberal fought for his right to know what he was putting on his body and how much it contained.

Joe dresses, walks outside and takes a deep breath. The air he breathes is healthy because some environmentalist wacko troublemaking militant fought for laws to stop industries from polluting our air.

Then Joe walks to the subway station for his government-subsidized ride to work. It saves him considerable money in parking and transportation fees because some fancy-pants limp-wristed freethinking idiot fought for affordable public transportation, which gives everyone the opportunity to be a contributor.

Joe begins his work day. He has a good job with excellent pay, medical benefits, retirement, paid holidays and vacation because some fire-breathing Viet Cong-loving union members fought and died for these working standards. Joe's employer pays these high standards because Joe's employer doesn't want his employees to call the union in. So Joe benefits from what others have gained.

If Joe is hurt on the job or becomes unemployed, he'll get a workers
compensation or unemployment check because some stupid pinko troublemakers didn't think Joe should lose his home because of a temporary misfortune.

At noontime Joe needs to make a bank deposit so he can pay some bills. Joe's deposit is federally insured by the FSLIC because some godless liberal red wanted to protect Joe's money from unscrupulous bankers who ruined the banking system before the Great Depression. He can thank that Stalinist Franklin D. Roosevelt for that.


Joe has to pay his Fannie Mae-underwritten mortgage and his below-market federal student loan because some elitist pointy-headed liberal decided that Joe and the whole society would be better off if he was educated and earned more money over his lifetime. That's okay, but the bastards tricked him because he has to pay taxes. Bush will fix that, he tells himself.

Joe gets home from work. He plans to visit his father this evening at his farm home in the country. He gets in his car for the drive. His car is among the safest in the world because some America-hating liberal fought for car safety standards.

He arrives at his boyhood home. His was the third generation to live in the house financed by Farmers' Home Administration because bankers didn't want to make rural loans. The house didn't have electricity until some big-government New Deal Stalinist liberal stuck his nose where it didn't belong and demanded rural electrification.

Joe is happy to see his father, who is now retired. His father lives on Social Security and a union pension because some wine-drinking, cheese-eating Marxist made sure he could take care of himself so Joe wouldn't have to.


Joe gets back in his car for the ride home, and turns on a radio talk show. The radio host keeps saying that liberals are bad and conservatives are good. He doesn't mention that over the decades the beloved Republicans have fought to defeat every protection and benefit Joe enjoys throughout his day.

Joe agrees with the talk-radio loudmouth: We don't need those big-government liberals ruining our lives! After all, I'm a self-made man and a good Republican and I believe all Americans should take care of themselves, just like I have!

Thanks again Ruthie! If this doesn't say it I dson't know what does!

d.