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Giving a shout out to my church…even if they are somewhat unreceptive to out of the closet small “l” libertarians like me. At least this is an issue some of the members of this ministry and I can agree upon.
3-1 odds says that the people that toted the “Bush Lied, Many Died” signs will not give O’Bummer the same treatment. It’s the convenience politics that Gustavo was talking about in a previous post that is prevelant among many a Democrat and Republican in the Orange Curtain. Especially in the tightly coiffed confines of Boss Agran’s/Donald Bren’s Master Plannedistan. Never mind the Patriot Act, the unconstitutional wars, the rumblings of intervention in Libya and the continued business as usual at Gitmo. There’s nothing to see here or that’s what we’ve been told since we’ve been sold a bill of goods on “hope and change.” Or as they say in Irvine, we’re “living the dream.”
Maybe I’ll show up with my Flip video camera and you can see the evidence of the “convenience politics” for yourself right here in Master Plannedistan. While we’re at it, someone should ask Cindy Sheehan how good the food was at the last Democratic Party fundraiser. As if she hasn’t been thrown under the bus by those who used to stand with her against these unconstitutional wars.
Oh well, here’s the information for this anti-war rally from the Irvine United Congregational Church Newsletter.
Irvine United Congregational Church will hold a
& to DEMONSTRATE for
PEACE
Northeast corner of Culver & Alton
(by the baseball fields)
Sunday, March 20
6:00 – 8:00 pm
Nice to see a Smedley Butler pic on the blog!
Every year I mean to do a special piece on him on his birthday, every year I forget… This July 30 don’t let me!
“War is a racket. It always has been. It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small ‘inside’ group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes…
“I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”
General Smedley Butler was the definitely the original American gangster. The Gambinos and Gottis got nothing on ol’ Smedley. Which makes me wonder since this vigil in the heart of Master Plannedistan. Who is Donald Bren’s General Smedley Butler? Boss Agran? Madame Krom? The Irvine Company security guards?
To paraphrase the late John Lennon, Instant karma gonna get them.
At last year’s vigil, I handed out stickers from Antiwar.com, the best antiwar site on the Internet, to all of the attendees there. My fellow church members and other assorted vigil participants gobbled them up quickly. (Wow, it says anti-war! It must be cool.) I think I have a number of them left. Which makes me wonder if they actually read the essays on the site or just took the stickers for vain window dressing to show how cool they look. Since MasterPlannedistan is all about outward appearances with various shades of beige and the anti-war movement has been rendered impotent by those hypocrites who now look the other way with O’Bummer in office, I’ll opt for the latter.
The Flip camera will be in tow…if I go.
And John Lennon’s greatest biographer – the one who uncovered John’s FBI files – is an Irviner, UCI prof Jon Wiener!
Anteater Nation has its share of interesting personalities which brings some color to the bland beige existence of MasterPlannedistan. I can’t say the same for the merry band of Missouri Synod Lutherans at Concordia University-Irvine. Although if Spanky had his way, MasterPlannedistan would be like CUI with Donald Bren’s help.
Since we are on the subject of war, one of the most insightful civil libertarians and Constitutional scholars in this country isn’t afraid to call out O’Bummer on his bullshit disregard for the Constitution when it comes to committing the nation to war.
Obamapologists….meet Glenn-zilla
http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2011/03/18/libya/index.html
I don’t believe that most “liberals” are happy about Obama’s continued militarism, but I do think we know what kind of country we live in.
This is a nation of warmongers, we spend 700 billion dollars a year on our military and god-damn it, we want to use it.
It takes VERY LITTLE to get the nuts in this country convinced of the “need” to NUKE the shit out of some “foreign” land ( as I remember all too well from the lead up to our attack on Iraq, when men in big trucks would scream that at me as they swerved dangerously close to where I was standing with my anti-war sign). Only some one with stars in their eyes would think that ANY American President would get away with being a pacifist.
The reality is that Obama is NOT a flaming liberal or progressive and he certainly isn’t a “socialist”, “communist” or any of the other nonsensical names the right-wingers in this country are calling him, he’s a moderate centrist. This country has been pushed so far to the right, that anyone who isn’t a fascist (and I use the term fascist in this context; Fascists; those who seek to organize a nation according to corporatist perspectives, values, and systems, including the political system and the economy) or doesn’t have fascist leanings is called “far left”.
I also don’t believe that Obama would stand a chance of re-election if he were to end the war in Afghanistan in his first term, the military and the military contractors would not stand for it. The war mongering nuts in this country would go crazy (I can hear the cries of “surrender monkey” already) just look at the criticism Obama is getting for not taking the “lead” in Libya, he’s “dithering”, “America should be out front”, etc.
After all, Americans don’t want a pussy for a president, they want to be #1 and they sure as hell don’t want to hear about the “limits of American empire”.
As Glenn Greenwald points out in his article, war mongering has become a rite of passage;
“After George H.W. Bush ordered the invasion of Panama, New York Times correspondent R.W. Apple wrote that starting new military conflicts is “a Presidential initiation rite,” that “most American leaders since World War II have felt a need to demonstrate their willingness to shed blood,” and that Bush’s order to attack tiny, defenseless Panama “has shown him as a man capable of bold action.”
But I believe that it’s NOT an OPTIONAL “rite”, the American right DEMANDS it, war mongering is a requirement, it’s an homage that must be paid to our military.
The right-wing nut jobs in this country really don’t care about “other” people or reality, but they DO dictate the dialogue and that’s why so many anti-war liberal types like myself know that to end the war in Afghanistan, Obama will have to be re-elected and do it in his second term, when it won’t matter if he’s called a “traitorous surrender monkey”.