Warless Commander In Chief, President

It may be hard to believe, but some of the Presidents of the United States did not partake in wars during their time in office.

Here is a list of non-wartime Commanders In Chief whose military was at-ease, yes, U.S. Presidents who could focus on helping their own people, their own nation, at home:

* John Adams (2nd)
* John Quincy Adams (6th)
* Zachary Taylor (12th)
* Millard Fillmore (13th)
* Franklin Pierce (14th)
* Andrew Johnson (17th)
* Ulysses Grant (18th)
* James Garfield (20th)
* Chester Arthur (21st)
* Grover Cleveland (22nd)
* Benjamin Harrison (23rd)
* Grover Cleveland (24th)
* Theodore Roosevelt (26th)
* William Taft (27th)
* Calvin Coolidge (30th)
* Herbert Hoover (31st)
* Jimmy Carter (39th)

(Wikipedia). This is roughly 39% of those holding that office.

Which means that roughly 61% of the time U.S. Presidents are influenced by war, which James Madison (2 yr War of 1812, 4th President) called our greatest enemy.

Equally of note is that since Jimmy Carter left office, on January 20, 1981, we have been involved in wars.

That is about 28 years in a row with presidents involved in war and the war ideology, our worst enemy.

As we proclaim to the world that we are the exceptional nation of peace, our war budgets involve more war money than all of the rest of the nations of the earth combined.

Is it any wonder that we have a serious credibility problem?

Obama Is No James Madison

In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize, the good father, good American, good husband, and good politician Barack Hussein Obama said that he was Commander In Chief of the military of a nation.

He went on to indicate that his situation in that role mandated what he had done, escalating the war in Afghanistan, a war already having gone on longer than WW I and WW II put together.

He then rationalized his war escalating mentality with the abstract "because there are just wars" obfuscation, the context arguing that his Afghanistan war escalation was just.

He mentioned those who had won the peace prize before him, like Martin Luther King, Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi, then indicated he could not be a head of state and be one of the likes of them at the same time.

Thus, he projected a false choice wrapped in an illusion all at the same time.

James Madison is called the "Father of the Constitution", was a Cabinet Member, was a Congressman, and was the 4th Commander in Chief, the 4th President of the United States.

President and Commander in Chief James Madison said:

"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded, because it comprises and develops the germ of every other [enemy of public liberty]. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes; and armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended; its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied : and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force, of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war, and in the degeneracy of manners and of morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare. Those truths are well established."

(Toxins of Power, emphasis added). Clearly by his own words President Obama is no James Madison nor Martin Luther King, Jr.

By his own choice to escalate that war President Obama chose to kowtow to the military oil complex he says he commands.

By his own choice to escalate that war President Obama chose to reject the will of his people, who he says command him.

War Is Peace (When We Do It)

When you go to accept a prize for peace then glorify war in your newspeak, you are bound to please the intellectual warmongers.

Warsters tell us that war is peace when we do it, war is just and holy when we do it, because there is evil in the world (evil defined as whatever we are opposing) because we are real.

(Our forefather was not real when he fathered the U.S. Constitution?)

Warsters say we are also exceptional, inerrant, and resistance is futile.

Whoopee doo hey la di la my BORG friend's back and there's gonna be trouble.

The Orwellian doublethink continues, only it is in a different colored package with "NEW" stamped on it:

And one of the striking features of the modern period is the institutionalization of that [propaganda] process, so that we now have huge industries deceiving the public — and they're very conscious about it, the public relations industry. Interestingly, this developed in the freest countries—in Britain and the US—roughly around time of WWI, when it was recognized that enough freedom had been won that people could no longer be controlled by force. So modes of deception and manipulation had to be developed in order to keep them under control.

And by now these are huge industries. They not only dominate marketing of commodities, but they also control the political system. As anyone who watches a US election knows, it's marketing. It's the same techniques that are used to market toothpaste.

(Chomsky, emphasis added). Congratulations when you are spreading insanity in the world as if there was such a thing as a just, holy disease? No, no congratulations.

The question is not whether or not there are just, holy wars in the abstract, the question is whether the war one is fighting at a given time is a just, holy war or not.

As any war continues it becomes increasingly unjust, even if it began as a just war, so it is unlikely that any war, which had no exit strategy when it began, can be called a just war.

Somebody X kills 3,000 men, women, and children in Somebody Y cities, so in what Somebody Y calls a just, holy war Somebody Y kills 10,000 men, women, and children of Somebody X and Somebody Z for each 1 person killed of Somebody Y? Because Somebody Y is more just and holy than Somebody X and Somebody Z?

Face up to it, your endless wars are not endlessly just, are a mad cow disease that engenders doublespeak, newspeak, and all the other germs dangerous to a free people as James Madison said.

Of course it does not matter in a military oil complex governed nation, because freedom is simply nothing left to lose.

Political Limbo - How Low Can You Go?

Politics (a.k.a. "justice") once lagged behind the old limbo song by Chubby Checker, which had the lyrics "how low can you go".

But lowliness of the corrupt kind is now taking over the race to be the number one low life in America. The Department of Just Us having been resurrected following the election, is leading the way by now seeking to protect John Yoo, one of those mentally impaired from time spent in the new department that now draws the worst of humanity to it.

And what used to be an impeachable offense, one president having been impeached thereby, is now not enough to impeach even a governor who stole state funds while doing it, then lied about it as well.

How far we have fallen, from a president that would have put Cheney in jail, to one that dances when Cheney sings.

United States Of Spend & Spin

When times are good the Senate, House, and President want to spend, because "it is the thing to do now".

When times are recession bad the Senate, House, and President want to spend, because "it is the thing to do now".

Even though that is a united state, still there is insufficient understanding of economics in our government.

That united state is spin (propaganda) and spend which is touted as a panacea but it is obviously not a panacea.

Keeping healthy laws on the books that will punish errant bankers or errant militant generals is not on the table, no, that good wisdom that was always on the table has now been put in the garbage.

The economists are hand picked yes-men or yes-women who only want to spend OUR money against OUR will on absolutely stupid senseless wars that waste, waste, waste, finally destroying our reputation, finally eradicating our prosperity.

We have pointed out record massive spending bills unleashed by the republican president and congress just before the great recession hit us. We have criticized continuation of that policy without stopping the wars since the democrats have been given the congress and the presidency.

This is the age of The Plunder Barons, and we will not recover from their excesses unless we vote them out of office.

They will pay in 2010 and 2012, because a get rid of incumbents moment has arisen.

Not Really Mr. President

I have been asking a question in two posts recently, and I hope the president did not answer when he said:

"We avoided the depression many feared," Obama said in a speech at the Brookings Institution, a Washington think tank. But, he added, "Our work is far from done."

(Yahoo, NPR). Lately when he says "we" he is also talking about right wing idealists he kowtows to, calling it "bipartisanship". No it is kowtowing.

So, I don't know who the "we" is, but his predecessor was a right wing idealist who did not prevent the recession.

Just before Obama took office, in economic effect terms, "the most expensive public works legislation in U.S. history" was passed to "create jobs until 2009" by "we" the government.

The last two presidents both like war, and spending like a drunken sailor, not realizing that the wars of forever are causing the problem in the first place.

Dick Cheney may have run things for Bush II, but it looks like Secretary Gates is running things in two administrations. Running things into the bloody ground of war.

In Defense of Andrew Sullivan

One of the reasons Andrew Sullivan criticized neoCons is their climate change denial rhetoric.

He says: "I cannot support a movement that sees climate change as a hoax and offers domestic oil exploration as the core plank of an energy policy."

It is an important time that Mr. Sullivan chose to make his statement, because the Copenhagen summit is upon us.

As many as 56 newspapers in 45 countries are making a unified statement to encourage a successful conference.

Here is an excerpt from the joint statement:

Climate change has been caused over centuries, has consequences that will endure for all time and our prospects of taming it will be determined in the next 14 days. We call on the representatives of the 192 countries gathered in Copenhagen not to hesitate, not to fall into dispute, not to blame each other but to seize opportunity from the greatest modern failure of politics. This should not be a fight between the rich world and the poor world, or between east and west. Climate change affects everyone, and must be solved by everyone.

The science is complex but the facts are clear. The world needs to take steps to limit temperature rises to 2C, an aim that will require global emissions to peak and begin falling within the next 5-10 years. A bigger rise of 3-4C — the smallest increase we can prudently expect to follow inaction — would parch continents, turning farmland into desert. Half of all species could become extinct, untold millions of people would be displaced, whole nations drowned by the sea. The controversy over emails by British researchers that suggest they tried to suppress inconvenient data has muddied the waters but failed to dent the mass of evidence on which these predictions are based.

(Editor & Publisher). The oil barons are behind a massive campaign to generate denial of the global weather reality.

They have lost in the courts, lost in the EPA deliberations, and have lost the people too.

Sunday-Monday, Can't Trust That Day

Todd Palin purchased his lovely wife a pocket Tazer for their anniversary, then submitted this:

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Last weekend I saw something at Larry’s Pistol & Pawn Shop that sparked my interest.

The occasion was our 15th anniversary or so, and I was looking for a little something extra for my wife Sarah.

What I came across was a 100,000-volt, pocket/purse- sized tazer.

The effects of the tazer were supposed to be short lived, with no long-term adverse affect on your assailant, allowing her adequate time to retreat to safety??

WAY TOO COOL! Long story short, I bought the device and brought it home. I loaded two AAA batteries in the darn thing and pushed the button. Nothing. I was disappointed.

I learned, however, that if I pushed the button and pressed it against a metal surface at the same time; I’d get the blue arc of electricity darting back and forth between the prongs. AWESOME!

Unfortunately, I have yet to explain to Sarah what that burn spot is on the face of her microwave. Okay, so I was home alone with this new toy, thinking to myself that it couldn’t be all that bad with only two triple-A batteries, right?

There I sat in my recliner, my cat Gracie looking on intently (trusting little soul) while I was reading the directions and thinking that I really needed to try this thing out on a flesh & blood moving target. I must admit I thought about zapping Gracie (for a fraction of a second) and thought better of it.

She is such a sweet cat. But, if I was going to give this thing to my wife to protect herself against a muslim, I did want some assurance that it would work as advertised. Am I wrong?

So, there I sat in a pair of shorts and a tank top with my reading glasses perched delicately on the bridge of my nose, directions in one hand, and tazer in another.

The directions said that a one-second burst would shock and disorient your assailant; a two-second burst was supposed to cause muscle spasms and a major loss of bodily control; a three-second burst would purportedly make your assailant flop on the ground like a fish out of water or a holy roller gettin' healed.

Any burst longer than three seconds would be wasting the batteries by sending them muslims to the place they collect their 70 virgins. All the while I’m looking at this little device measuring about 5” long, less than 3/4 inch in circumference; pretty cute really and (loaded with two itsy, bitsy triple-A batteries) thinking to myself, ‘no possible way!’ What happened next is almost beyond description, but I’ll do my best?

I’m sitting there alone, Gracie looking on with her head cocked to one side as to say, ‘don’t do it dipshit,’ reasoning that a one second burst from such a tiny little ole thing couldn’t hurt all that bad.

I decided to give myself a one second burst just for heck of it. I touched the prongs to my naked thigh, pushed the button, and ... OILAH AKBAR! ... WEAPONS OF MASS DESECRATION ... WHAT THE HELL ...

I’m pretty sure Jessie Ventura in priest robes ran in through the side door, picked me up in the recliner, then body slammed us both on the carpet, over and over and over again. I vaguely recall waking up on my side in the fetal position, with tears in my eyes, body soaking wet, both nipples on fire, testicles nowhere to be found, with my left arm tucked under my body in the oddest position, and tingling in my legs like when I got saved the second time.

The cat was making meowing sounds I had never heard before, clinging to a picture frame hanging above the fireplace, obviously in an attempt to avoid getting slammed by my body flopping all over the living room.

Note: If you ever feel compelled to ‘mug’ yourself with a tazer, one note of caution: there is no such thing as a one second burst when you zap yourself! You will not let go of that thing until it is dislodged from your hand by a violent thrashing about on the floor. A three second burst would be considered conservative? IT HURT LIKE LOSIN' A 'LECTION!

A minute or so later (I can’t be sure, as time was a relative thing at that point), I collected my wits (what little I had left), sat up and surveyed the landscape. My bent reading glasses were on the mantel of the fireplace.

The recliner was upside down and about 8 feet or so from where it originally was. My triceps, right thigh and both nipples were still twitching. My face felt like it had been shot up with Novocain, and my bottom lip weighed 88 lbs. Like John Boy McCain, I had no control over the drooling.

Apparently I pooped on myself, but was too numb to know for sure and my sense of smell was gone. I saw a faint smoke cloud above my head which I believe came from my hair. I’m still looking for my nuts and I’m offering a significant reward for their safe return!

P.S … My wife, can’t stop laughing about my mavericky experience, loved the gift, and now regularly threatens me with it!

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What ever happened to that comic strip called "There Outta Be a Law"?