END THE WAR..LIKE NOW, MAN

Here's a letter on the opinion page that provoked a response from me...

I have never written anything on the Opinion page or voiced my opinion before concerning wars and conflicts. But I have read several articles about American soldiers being court-martialed for killing Iraqis. Duh! What is the point of American soldiers being over there if not to kill the enemy?Wake up, U.S. leaders and politicians who are inflicting this travesty on American soldiers. Why don't you yellow bellies in government go over there if you think you could actually do a better job?

Why not invite some more attacks on U.S. soil and kill more American citizens while you're at it.

Our soldiers face an almost impossible task because the enemy looks just like every John Doe over there. I know our weak leaders will no doubt keep on punishing soldiers who make mistakes, but they should be rewarding soldiers for killing the enemy.
Wake up, politicians, war is for killing the enemy.

Let the soldiers do their jobs and return to their families.

Wow...who does this guy like? Other than soldiers...he hates politicians because they abuse soldiers, he hates Iraqis because they keep trying to kill our guys and we can't help but kill more of them than we mean to because after all they all look exactly alike (just like the "gooks" and the "niggers"), he hates peace because instead of trying to end fighting, he wants to encourage more death.

This joker is off his friggin' rocker. He starts off with this "aw shucks/humble southerner" routine--I ain't never raised my voice about nothin'...Then he all but says the Iraqis are our enemies and deserve death, that they all look the same and "our leaders" are weak and wrong in every way. If he's talking about George W., he couldn't be more right. But I have a feeling he ain't...Then he wants soldiers to be rewarded for killing more people...I mean, should they get a trip to Cozumel for every ten "sand people" they "liberate?"

Support Our Troops?

I'm almost positive that this guy is a no-holds-barred, yellow-ribbon-magnet-sporting, SUV-piloting Bush backer, but I'm not 100% sure. The only reason I'm not sure is that he is critical of "U.S. leaders." You have to understand that people from where he's from may or may not be aware that the Republicans are in control of the entire gov't. So he may think that he's really sticking it to the liberal elite cabal without being aware that the cabal is totally sitting on the sidelines nursing its wounds.

Anyway, I'm almost certain that this guy is a hardcore "support our troops" guy. I mean, literally every other car in this area has at least one yellow ribbon magnet sticker and most usually have 3 or 4. You know, you gotta support the troops--when they shoot wounded Iraqis in the head, when they abuse prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and whatever else it is they do.

"Support the troops"--there's no qualifiers. Support them regardless of what they do. That's this guys' problem. He thinks that even if our soldiers commit atrocities and violate the laws of war, they should be allowed to get off scot free because they're Americans, damnit. Americans are only capable of doing good. Americans can never be evil.

Ugh, you get my point...I attempted several responses and this is what I eventually sent in (via email and the paper's drop box):

William R. Johnson is upset ("Let soldiers do their jobs," December 17, 2004) because he feels that soldiers should not be court-martialed for “killing the enemy.” He says that instead, soldiers should be “rewarded” for killing the “enemy,” a word he uses interchangeably with “Iraqi.”

However, he doesn’t cite a specific case of a court-martial that he thinks is unjust.
One has to assume then, that he thinks all the courts-martial he’s referring to are unjust, because after all, the cases only involve Americans heroically killing Iraqis. And killing the people we’re told we’re “liberating” is to be encouraged, because hey, what’s the point of having this awesome war if we don’t get to kill anybody, right?

I do, however, agree with Johnson that our troops should come home and the sooner the better. Rather than agitating for rewards for more death and destruction, let’s call on the President and our fellow citizens to end this illegal and immoral war immediately.

Roger Ailes is a disgusting fatso and not cause he's fat

He was on the new Q & A program on C-Span today. He said that Columbia School of Journalism's reading list is 100% anti-American. Brian Lamb asked him to clarify, and Ailes said that the books were railing against capitalism.

My point: being against the ravages of unbridled capitalism is not anti-American. In fact, Roger Ailes is anti-American precisely because he is for the ravages of unbridled capitalism (just look at the guy--he is the ravages of capitalism incarnate).

Does it say anywhere in the Constitution that the United States shall be a capitalist society and shall pursue profit above all things? No, it doesn't--therefore capitalism isn't inherently "American" and socialism isn't inherently "anti-American." Roger Ailes and Fox News and the right wing smear machine are a bunch of anti-freedom, anti-Christian, anti-American haters.

Oh, and he was really hung up on parties and restaurants (again, look at the guy--I ain't the thinnest guy on the block, but c'mon). Lamb was asking what Ailes perceived the "media establishment" to be--which Ailes implied Fox News isn't a part of--and Ailes repeatedly mentioned certain parties and restaurants that the so-called "media establishment" types go to and that's what makes them the media establishment.

And then of course, he talked about how goes to the same parties. But wants to be seen as separate from the establishment. But yet has the most popular cable news network there is. But is most definitely, absolutely not part of any media establishment. You know why? Because of parties and restaurants.

This guy is an ape and thinks everyone else is a baboon.

I missed this exchange, but it seems fairly pregnant with, shall we say, um...utter bullshit:

LAMB: How would you define journalism?

AILES: Journalism is a collection of stories, editing them and presenting them to the people in some fair manner with as many facts as you can muster to get it through to people. It’s a pretty simple craft. It’s not brain surgery. It’s simple but it’s not easy. And to do it right is hard work.

Egad...if you look at the transcript, most of the stuff I'm talking about is almost at the end...

Stuff I watched and listened to

Saw "Maria Full Of Grace" this weekend. Good movie--real insight about how poverty perpetuates the drug trade (and hot mules!). Not exactly what I expected, but that's a good thing. Also, saw "Badder Santa"--goddamn that fuckin' movie has some fuckin' cursing in it. But I liked it too.

My biggest discovery was the show "Signifcant Others" on Bravo. Friggin' hilarious!! I don't know a thing about it so I'm off to search for a website. OK...here's one. I didn't realize it was improvised...very nice.

Listened to "Sacred Steel Instrumentals" a pretty good bit. Those guys really make those steel guitars sing. I mean, every now an again, you almost can't really tell that it's not a human voice singing. Aubrey Ghent's version of "Just A Closer Walk With Thee" is what stands out right this second, but everything on there is worth checking out.

Also recently been digging Hawkwind. I'm really into a band like that that has a whole universe built around them. The album I liked most so far is "Hall of The Mountain Grill." Never had heard Hawkwind much and really just knew that Lemmy from Motorhead used to be in the band. But damn, they've really got some awesome space rock--the keyboards are very nice and are a high point, but frankly the songwriting is also quite good.