strained psyche

from president bush:

"These are challenging times, and they're difficult times, and they're straining the psyche of our country."

wow. it's a good thing "our country" is not iraq. i bet the collective national psyche of iraq is pretty strained. four years of uninvited destruction and bloodshed can wreak havoc on the mind (not to mention the body). four years of bombing, machine-gunning, search-and-destroy missions, and shock and awe. four years of having uninvited guests trample your towns and cities. four years of anarchy. four years of cultural and civil destruction.

every single death in iraq in the last four years is the work of one man. no, not saddam, not an agent of al-qaeda, but george w. bush.

i remember a picture from last year i think. a little girl was screaming; she was splashed and spattered with the blood of her parents. her arents' car had "failed to stop" at a u.s. occupation checkpoint and the american troops let loose with their trademark destructive force. the parents were killed. the little girl, well, she escaped with...a strained psyche.

it's time to stop this madness.

the new anti-imperialists?

here is an eye-opening interview with hassan nasrallah, leader of lebanon's hezbollah, by a turkish socialist newspaper.

http://www.emep.org/docs/press/nasral.html

self-defense

I think nuclear weapons are immoral. Heck I think AK-47s are immoral. Tanks, jet fighters, hand grenades, mines, improvised explosive devices, pistols, bayonets, machetes, bombers, rocket launchers, cluster bombs, flame-throwers: all of them too, there's really no difference.

But I have to say this: when terrorists are throwing their weight around dictating terms to nations (and by terrorists I mean the united states government) it's hard to blame countries for needing things to protect themselves.

The islamic republic of iran needs nukes. not to blow israel to smithereens, but to keep the united states from attacking. (why, one wonders, would iran be interesting in nuking israel when that would doubtless kill muslims and damage islamic holy sites is a good question anyway: I think ahmedinejad has said as much). The nutso north korean dictatorship has kept the u.s. terrorists from attacking by having nukes.

One suspects iraq was attacked precisely because the bush dictatorship actually knew that saddam had no nukes.

There weren't israeli commando raids or genocidal bombings into lebanon when syrian troops were there. So interesting to me that the u.s. terrorists were all so "syria must get out of lebanon" and then--surprise!--the israelis invade. So heck, syria needs nukes too.

One nation has used nuclear weapons, and we know which one that is. One nation continues to use nuke-ish weapons in the form of depleted uranium shells which have long-term health effects on cuvilian populations. Frightening as it is to contemplate, maybe nukes are the only deterrent for nations now threatened by the bush-ite terrorists.

Alternatively, we could all just get along.

Salaam. peace.

the carpetbagger

i'm quite happy that recent polls have found incumbent democratic connecticut senator joe lieberman to be falling behind his primary challenger. seems joe's embrace of republican agenda points like iraq and the late terri schiavo have caught up with him: said challenger's campaign has apparently even issued buttons with the kissing lips of betrayal, an allusion to a peck and embrace mr. lieberman received from president bush.

sadly, our own incumbent democratic senator hillary clinton has not yet been called to task for her own embrace of the republican agenda. it seems there will be an anti-war democrat as a primary challenger but his campaign has not caught the momentum of lieberman's challenger.

you know, I wanted to like hillary. she bravely campaigned for national healthcare during her husband's presidency until she was crushed by that vast right-wing conspiracy. she had a bad rep smeared all over her like so many powerful women playing second fiddle to powerful men: somehow even in the relatively insignificant monica lewinsky so-called scandal hillary was tarred with the same brush applied to her husband. sad, really. for all the defects of mr. clinton's presidency it seems like paradise in retrospect.

when mrs. clinton moved to new york to be senator, at first i thought, "cool." her opponents called her a carpetbagger and i thought, well, she's a progressive and wants to represent a relatively progressive region; no problem there.

well ok a, hillary is not a ball-busting shrill harridan uppity cold bit**h bulldagger, which is really what the republicans were accusing her of being. but she is, apparently, a carpetbagger.

a very intelligent woman, well aware of symbols, she has made anti-flag burning amendments her own cause celebre. she has embraced the israeli lobby at its worst. she has failed to distance herself from the war. and while she was tragically far from alone in voting for bush's war at the beginning, she has had many opportunity to join the democrats leaping from that sinking ship and express her regret. no go. she used the platform provided to her by new york's progressives to further her own right-of-center agenda. she betrays the feminists and progressives who see in this outspoken and strong woman the hopes shattered back in the day of geraldine ferraro.

her campaign brags how she now focuses so much attention on the needs of upstate new yorkers. beware, I say. apparently mrs. clinton feels that if she can get herself reelected to the senate with a stronger showing among more conservative upstaters, she can use this to deflect critics who--shockingly--portray her as some kind of unelectable ultra-leftist should she run for president in 2008. in the end she's just using upstate new yorkers as she once used those of us in the city.

i am really not in the mood for president rudy giuliani and the apocalyptic police state he would foist upon us. let's get rid of this carpetbagger hillary rodham clinton now before we open that bag and find a very nasty surprise.

ten things that make life worth living

please note, not a comprehensive list.

1) hot sauce
2) sweeping disco strings
3) iced cafe du monde coffee
4) conga drums
5) marie laveau
6) my cat henry
7) the new york times
8) the color red
9) home computers
10) houseplants

sorry. bang. sorry. bang. sorry.

so the whole world is shocked--shocked!--at the death of innocents in lebanon. even bush says it is "awful." thank God israel has apologized. "sorry we killed your children. sorry we killed your sisters. sorry we killed your mother. sorry we killed your grandmother. so sorry." in further news, israel announced it would also kill your brother, your father, your son, your neice, your nephew. "we will apologize, i'm sure," said a government spokesperson.

a rabbi--and i'm not making this one up--said that the death of the innocents in kfar qana was the 100% responsibilty of hezbollah, not israel.

funny, when I was a child, and did something bad, "he made me do it" wasn't a very good excuse. I was taught that "i'm sorry" needed to be followed by the intention not to do whatever i had done again.

israel is very sorry. again.

peace for palestine/peace for the world

sorry. the problem is the state of israel. a bunch of settlers from europe and the united states can't hop on over to the middle east, steal some land, and expect gratitude.

establish the united republic of palestine, in all of pre-1967 israel, gaza and the former jordanian west bank. (golan goes back to syria). here's the rule: one person, one vote. separation of church and state. (hey it works most of the time everywhere else). right of citizenship and return for palestinian arabs and their descendents evicted in 1948. right of citizenship and return for jews in the diaspora. no evictions from property legally transferred to the current owners in the past sixty years. capital in jerusalem. move the united nations to jerusalem with guardianship of christian, jewish and muslim holy places. constitution with guaranteed multi-national character and prohibition of discrimination based on ethnicity, national origin or religion. banning of private militias and armies. dismantling of israeli defence force. establishment of national constabulary with mandated equity across ethnic and religious lines. ten-year truth and reconciliation commission. mandatory national service for all residents at age of 18, no exception.

woo-hoo. no more war.

peace for iraq

divide iraq into three independent parts:

republic of kurdistan in the north: heck, they can even have us bases there if they want to prevent attacks by iran or turkey.

republic of mesopotamia in the center: put saddam hussein back in power and let him fight it out with al-qaeda. us troops would leave immediately.

islamic republic of south iraq: give the rest from karbala to basra to the shi'a. us troops would leave immediately.

done. nobody's happy but i bet there would be peace within a year.