Great article, Lurker; thanks.
Posted By: no msg. - Starcat on 2006-06-12
In Reply to: For liberals only. - Lurker
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Lurker, was it this article?
We Won't Be Quiet. If so, I read it. It was fantastic!!! The other link was about Iraq. I will repost the link.
http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0901-28.htm
Great idea, Lurker.
weren't any responses at the other board? As you say, they were/are gung ho about the war. Could it be some soldiers get more support than others? Would they be so supportive of these soldiers as well?
Gotham Gazette - http://www.gothamgazette.com/article/immigrants/20030501/11/368
Immigrant Soldiers
by Chaleampon Ritthichai
01 May 2003
Even though his coffin was draped with the American flag, U.S. Marine Staff Sergeant Riayan Tejeda, 26, was not a U.S.citizen. Tejeda, who was killed in combat in Iraq, was a native of the Dominican Republic.
Eight years ago he joined the Marines after graduating from George Washington High School.
“I hope the United States will remember that my son died for this country,” his father Julio Tejada told Newsday.
Tejeda’s death has brought attention to stories of immigrants who fought for the U.S. military throughout history and the current controversy over their immigration status.
For immigrants, joining the military could lead to a faster track to citizenship, which allows them and their immediate family to reap the same benefits as native-born U.S. citizens.
In early 1990s, immigrant soldiers became eligible for citizenship after three years of legal residency, two years less than civilians. More than 3,600 immigrant soldiers became U.S. citizens from 1994 to 1999.
Last July, President Bush signed an executive order that temporarily allows immigrant soldiers to apply for citizenship immediately. Nearly 5,500 military personnel applied and some already got their citizenships.
There is no law prohibiting illegal immigrants from joining in the army but the armed forces representative says anyone without proper documents is rejected, according to a report in the New York Times.
Tejeda and at least six other U.S. servicemen killed in the war in Iraq had not yet become citizens. Six of these immigrants were granted citizenship posthumously but their relatives did not receive the benefits that would normally go to the families of the citizens.
“It is an honorary status in commemoration of the valor and the sacrifices of the deceased,” the Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services explained in the memo.
More than 36,000 service members are non-citizens, making up about 5 percent of active duty service members. About a third come from Mexico and other Spanish-speaking countries and the rest are from China, Vietnam, Canada, Korea, India and other countries.
In New York City alone, 40 percent of Navy recruits were immigrants, 36 percent in the Marines and 27 percent in the Army.
Many are surprised by the number of non-citizens serving in the U.S. military but others say immigrants have always been a part of the military.
“Basically, both immigrants or non-citizens have served in the military since at least the Revolutionary war,” said University of Michigan Professor Cara Wong, who has been studying immigrants and war.
There were over 500,000 immigrants who fought in the Civil War. They were allowed to form their own units, elect their officers and speak their native tongues. “The Germans are true and patriotic,” said President Abraham Lincoln about the German immigrants volunteering to fight for the union army.
Some immigrant soldiers were even honored by the army for their bravery. During WWII Mexican born soldier Marcario Garcia, whose company was pinned down by the Nazis, fought his way out and, though wounded, was able to return with captured prisoners. Garcia was promoted to staff sergeant and awarded the Medal of Honor.
“The distinction between legal and illegal immigrants was non-existent until well after the Civil War,” said professor Wong.
The situation of non-citizen soldiers has caught the eyes of lawmakers in Washington D.C. Some are introducing bills that would shorten the waiting period to two years for foreign-born soldiers and others even argue for immediate citizenship for all immigrants on active duty in the armed forces.
But that did not happen soon enough for Tejeda. At his funeral, hundreds of people gathered to honor him at St. Elizabeth’s Church in Washington.
“He may never have been made officially a citizen of our nation,” said Mayor Michael Bloomberg. “But we are proud he was a citizen of New York.”
Spokesmen for Senator Charles Schumer and Representative Charles Rangel said that they are seeking citizenship posthumously for Tejada if his family desires.
An immigrant from Bangkok, Thailand, Chaleampon Ritthichai is the editor of The Citizen.
I think perhaps you read a different article than the one posted by Lurker.
nm
Great article
Great article by Noonan. LOL, she is one of the people the right wingers just love and love to quote her articles..Guess they wont be quoting much from this article. I love it. I sit back and laugh when I see conservatives, staunch Bush supporters, speaking out against decisions he has made and then the ones who are still trying to defend this total screw up person, LOL.
Great article here
I think he is on the money on this one. Flame away, flame away. I have my fireproof suit on.
Great article - sm
I, like the poster below, knew she would do well and this proved it. She's one smart lady and this goes to prove the diplats believe so too.
Can't wait to see her in the debate.
Great article. nm
s
Great article! Very well written.
As I've suspected for a long time now, he's deaf and *dumb*!!
Thanks for posting this. 
This is a great article, Marmann........ sm
Thanks for posting it.
Way back when the primary caucuses started, I mentioned Chuck Baldwin on this board but I don't think there was a single reply, good or bad, to my post. I wish he had had a little more exposure during the campaigns and was on the ticket in all states. He was not on the ticket in Texas.
To be honest, I really believe that the reason there is so much noise being made about Obama and none about what Bush has done while in office is that most people, myself included, are not aware of all the intricacies of the US Constitution. It is a very intricate document and most American people are only aware of what they had been taught in high-school or college civics classes and not tne entire document along with the US Code which is the law that helps fill in the spaces and further explain the Constitution. Even if there was an awareness on the part of the majority of the people, most would have been reluctant to bring any law suits against Bush due to the fact that we are (were) mired in Iraq and facing challenges on our homefront as well. Bush managed to get us through 9/11 in a way that made us all feel safe. While things might have gone kind of downhill after that with his administration, most people likely did not want to rock the boat and risk showing America as being weakened by the impeachment of her President. This is not said to excuse Bush's actions but just rather to explain how this American feels about the whole situation, and I doubt I am really alone in my feelings.
Now that a precident has been set with the Obama B/C situation, Americans seem to have awakened and started paying more attention to what is going on in our government and researching and finding out what the Constitution really says and not just what the media tells us. Maybe in 2012, Baldwin (or another Constitutional Party nominee) will step up to the plate and campaign more aggressively and win the presidency. It's time someone started running this country the way it was intended to be run.
Great article. Thanks for posting it....sm
I had a feeling she'd do well talking with them.
You could make a great article with that (sm)
What you just wrote above would make a great magazine article. People were so tough back then, weren't they? I wonder what we would do? Most of us would not even begin to know how to do any of the things people used to do to survive.
What a great article...thanks for posting it, ms!
:)
Great Mark Morford article
The guy can write and he's right on as usual.
Fun Bits About American Torture
In many ways, the U.S. is now just as inhumane and brutal as any Third World regime. Oh well?
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, December 16, 2005
We do not torture. Remember it, write it in red crayon on the bathroom wall, tattoo it onto your acid tongue because those very words rang throughout the land like a bleak bell, like a low scream in the night, like a cheese grater rubbing against the teeth of common sense when Dubya mumbled them during a speech not long ago, and it was, at once, hilarious and nauseating and it took all the self-control in the world for everyone in the room not to burst out in disgusted laughter and throw their chairs at his duplicitous little head.
Oh my God, yes, yes we do torture, America that is, and we do it a lot, and we do it in ways that would make you sick to hear about, and we're doing it right now, all over the world, the CIA and the U.S. military, perhaps more often and more brutally than at any time in recent history and we use the exact same kind of techniques and excuses for it our numb-minded president cited as reasons we should declare war and oust the dictator of a defenseless pip-squeak nation that happened to be sitting on our oil.
This is something we must know, acknowledge, take to heart and not simply file away as some sort of murky, disquieting unknowable that's best left to scummy lords of the government underworld. We must not don the blinders and think America is always, without fail, the land of the perky and the free and the benevolent. Horrific torture is very much a part of who we are, right now. Deny it at your peril. Accept it at your deep discontent.
Torture is in. Torture is the tittering buzzword of the Bush administration, bandied about like secret candy, like a hot whisper from Dick Cheney's gnarled tongue into Rumsfeld's pointed ear and then dumped deep into Dubya's Big Vat o' Denial.
The cruel abuse of terror suspects is sanctioned and approved from on high, and we employed it in Abu Ghraib (the worst evidence of which -- the rapes and assaults and savage beatings -- we will likely never see), and we use it in Eastern Europe and Guantánamo and in secret prisons and it has caused deaths of countless detainees. And Rumsfeld's insane level of Defense Department secrecy means we may never even know exactly how brutal we have become.
Torture is right now being discussed in all manner of high-minded articles and forums wherein the finer points of what amount of torture should be allowable under what particular horrific (and hugely unlikely) circumstances, and all falling under the aegis of the new and pending McCain anti-torture legislation that would outlaw any and all degrading, inhumane treatment whatsoever by any American CIA or military personnel at any time whatsoever, more or less.
All while, ironically, over in Iraq, our military is right now inflicting more pain and death upon more lives than any torture chamber in the last hundred years, and where we have recently discovered the fledgling government that the United States helped erect in Saddam's absence, the Iraqi Interior Ministry, well, they appear to be so giddy about torture they might as well be Donald Rumsfeld's love children. But, you know, quibbling.
There is right now this amazing little story over at the London Guardian, a fascinating item all about a group of hardy hobbyists known as planespotters, folks whose solitary, dedicated pastime is to sit outside the various airports of the world and watch the runway action and make intricate logs and post their data and photos to planespotter Web sites. It's a bit like bird-watching, but without the chirping and the nature and with a lot more deafening engine roar and poisonous fumes.
These people, they are not spies and they are not liberals and they are not necessarily trying to reveal anything covert or ugly or illegal, but of course that is often exactly what they do, because these days, as it turns out, some of those planes these guys photograph are involved in clandestine CIA operations, in what are called extraordinary renditions, the abduction of suspects who are taken to lands unknown so we may beat and maul and torture the living crap out of them and not be held accountable to any sort of pesky international law. Fun!
It is for us to know, to try and comprehend. The United States has the most WMD of anyone in the world. We imprison and kill more of our own citizens than any other civilized nation on the planet. We still employ horrific, napalm-like chemical weapons.
And yes, under the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld regime, we abuse and torture prisoners at least as horrifically as any Islamic fundamentalist, as any terrorist cell, to serve our agenda and meet our goals -- and whether you think those goals are justifiable because they contain the words freedom or democracy is, in many ways, beside the point.
Go ahead, equivocate your heart out. It is a bit like justifying known poisons in your food. Sure mercury is a known cancer-causing agent. Sure the body will recoil and soon become violently ill and die. But gosh, it sure does taste good. Shrug.
Maybe you don't care, maybe you're like Rumsfeld and Cheney and the rest who think, well sure, if they're terrorists and if they'd just as willingly suck the eyeballs out of my cat and rip out my fingernails with a pair of pliers as look at me, well, they deserve to be tortured, beaten, abused in ways you and I cannot imagine. Especially if (and this is the eternal argument) by their torture we can prevent the deaths of innocents.
Maybe you are one of these people. Eye for an eye. Water torture for an explosive device. Does this mean that you are, of course, exactly like those being tortured, willing to go to extremes to get what you want? That you are on the same level morally, energetically, politically and, like Cheney and Rumsfeld, you are dragging the nation down into a hole with you? You might think. After all, fundamentalists terrorize to further a lopsided and religious-based agenda. We torture to protect ours. Same coin, different side.
It is mandatory that we all acknowledge where we are as a nation, right now, how low we have fallen, how thuggish and heartless and internationally disrespected we have become, the ugly trajectory we are following.
Because here's the sad kicker: Torture works. It gets results. It might very well save some lives. But it also requires a moral and spiritual sacrifice the likes of which would make Bush's own Jesus recoil in absolute horror. Yet this is what's happening, right now. And our current position demands a reply to one bitter, overarching question: What sort of nation are we, really?
Thoughts for the author? E-mail him.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate and in the Datebook section of the SF Chronicle. To get on the e-mail list for this column, please click here and remove one article of clothing. Mark's column also has an RSS feed and an archive of past columns, which includes a tiny photo of Mark probably insufficient for you to recognize him in the street and give him gifts.
As if that weren't enough, Mark also contributes to the hot, spankin' SF Gate Culture Blog.
URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2005/12/16/notes121605.DTL
©2005 SF Gate
No flames. I thought it was a great article. nm
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This is a great article written by Jim Cramer...
he is the money guy on CNBC. We listen to him sometimes, have read a couple of his books, and because of watching his show in Sept or Oct of last year, we pulled our money out of the stock market, which was the BEST idea. It is an interesting artcile to some, maybe not to others.
http://www.mainstreet.com/article/moneyinvesting/news/cramer-my-response-white-house
I agree. Great article. Thanks, LVMT for posting it.
To m: LOL. No problem. It's very easy to do on this board. 
Great and really informative article, but the reasons we find the economy in this problem....sm
is all the banking deregulation that has taken place over the past 9 years or so....without any regulations at all, the banks have had free reign to wallow in their greed, invest their investor's money in very speculative and dangerous deals trying to make as much quick money as possible, and when it all blew up in their face, we all are expected to rescue these despicable creatures because the econmomy and wellfare of the nation, its homeowners, small businesses, etc., will just be the true victims suffering every greater losses. Yes, I agree that soem of the article's highlighted practices are very frightening for us, but right now we are facing an unprecedented financial tragedy in this country....blame all the banking deregulation, and those who proposed/allowed it as "free enterprise (interpreted=unbridled greed and robbery) as the horrid lesson here.
Great post, great insight, great analysis, thanks!..nm
nm
Each brown place in the link takes you to a different article that supports this article...nm
x
Thank you, Lurker!
I can't stop laughing and emailed this to everyone I know, as well as added it to my favorites.
This is priceless! Thanks.
Thank you, Lurker.
Now THERE'S a post full of kindness, understanding, tolerance, and love. I wish there were more people like you in this country right now. I was starting to feel very angry and in the midst of letting them drag me down to their level, but your post just lifted me up from all that (even sans the beads). You must be very proud of your heritage. I would love to learn more about it.
Thank you again for your post.
Thank you, Lurker nm
nm
Thanks, Lurker.
This was a great read and sums up very well the impression Ann Coulter has given me of herself and her so-called values.
Yes, I will do this Lurker.
well aware of the hardships endured by native Americans as well as their many contributions, such as the Navajo codetalkers in WWII as only 1 example. That's what gets me about some of the rabid illegal immigrant bashers...**they're illegal** blah, blah blah. Yeah, we need to secure our borders, etc., but some of the arguments made by these people make me sick. If ANYONE got a raw deal it's the native Americans; except for them, we are ALL here illegally. I love the many wonderful traditions and meaningful ceremonies of native Americans; I will support this.
Thanks, Lurker.
I hardly have any, as well.
Oh, come on now Lurker. sm
You post on the C board, too. This is all silly.
Lurker?
Yes, I've posted on the conservative board a couple times recently. Didn't take me long to realize it wasn't the place for me, and I don't plan on posting there any more.
However, I continue to read the posts there, note your ongoing confusion and truly hope you get back to school soon so they can teach you that the 9 in 9/11 indicates the month of September, not August. I do applaud you for getting the 11 in 9/11 correct, though.
Another point of confusion: I'm not Lurker. I'm Liberal.
But Lurker,
will all due respect, your posts ooze hatred. I don't think you might be aware of it, but they do.
Lurker. sm
You are the only one who has ever posted here, more than once, about AG and I and who we *really* are. So it's more than reasonable for me to equate that kind of post with you.
Lurker...
just a simple question. You have read the posts. Do you think I deserved the *fool*, *I feel I have been defecated upon,* comments? Do you think that because they come from a *liberal* that is okay? I have not said I am done with you, you are delusional to anyone. Yet Teddy has said I was mentally ill, have I taken my meds, am I nuts, and on and on and on. Why is acceptable to you, and you champion her, and let castigate conservatives for saying similar things to you?
It appears I was wrong about you. I thought you were above all that. But...alas...I guess I was wrong.
thanks for sharing this, Lurker
Kudos to those brave ladies.
Another one attacking Lurker...and on and on
Unacceptable answer for word verbiage. Do people actually let you get away with that?
[Post a Reply] [View Follow Ups] [Politics] --> [Liberals]
Posted By: ? on 2006-03-03,
In Reply to: Find it yourself... - Lurker
You must run in really tolerant debate circles. Best stay in them. This kind of behavior is not tolerated in most political circles I know of. But it is a good example of how far we have slipped into the he said/she said atmosphere of debate in this country. Just say anything and never have to prove it. It works well for the MSM, of which you seem so fond. Well, should have known better. I am off for greener pastures and debate fields where people actually have to prove what they say. Imagine that!
I don't see this as an attack and obviously neither did Lurker. sm
Please look to your own back yard.
Bravo, Lurker.
Excellent post.
No, Lurker, you are mistaken. sm
by *beyond you* I meant it was in God's hands, not yours. I am done talking to you about it. You are determined to be offended no matter what I say. I have never quoted scripture or even interpreted it except to say that God will be the judge and that matter is between President Bush and God. Walking the walk and talking the talk....well, I don't know what you mean by that. Another insult I suppose, but since you don't know me, that would be hard for you to *judge* but maybe not, since you seem fond of judging. As far as mistakes, well, I don't really know what you mean by that either. Mistakes like drinking alcohol at one time? Mistakes like stepping on an ant? Mistakes like spending too much? Hardly offenses to keep him out of heaven. You have added many insults in your post. I am glad I did not stoop to that level.
Bravo, Lurker...very well said.
*China is big* and *Russia is big* is the best our esteemed leader can come up with. Yep, it's hard work being the decider. Only demonstrates (yet again) he is a spoiled, uninformed adolescent with a simplistic view of the world. I've seen 7-year-olds with better table manners and a better grasp of geography. Ironic, also, that he and his puppetmasters show such disdain for the UN and Kofi Annan and yet Bush wants Annan to *give them a call*. God help us....but it's like we've suspected and feared all along: They seem to WANT WWIII. Yet they continue to get away with all kinds of stuff because there are people still fixated on Clinton's sex life. javascript:editor_insertHTML('text',' ');
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Lurker, you are not that obtuse. sm
Seems to me, you and Lydia are talking about totally different things. Win what? The spread of communism for one thing. And the fact is, the US Military was not allowed to win that war and the antiwar movement had a lot to do with it, as I have said time and time again, and alot of innocent people died when we left Vietnam. It's a funny thing to me that some people are so concerned with the innocent civilians dying in Iraq but not a tear was shed or a word uttered about the millions and millions who died at the hands of Pol Pot and North Vietnam once we left. Selective memory must be wonderful.
On second thought, you are right, Lurker. sm
It's about MJF being used as a pawn to relay false information about stem cell research, 99% of which is false and unfounded. It's about misrepresenting what embryonic stem cell research really is and what it will be. So you are right, it's about a whole lot more than MJF. It's dirty politics and the Democrats used MJF's affliction for their gains. Shame on them.
Lurker, there is hope yet ....sm
Reports vary on the total number that showed up, anywhere from 500,000 to 750,000, for the rally in Washington today. There are two parts to the video from CNN. There were about 40 protestors there that were pro-war :)~ Also of note, the state of New Mexico has now filed articles of impeachment, so I guess that is a message to Pelosi that it is not off the table.
http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/video/us/2007/01/27/vo.dc.anti.war.protest.cnn
Lurker never said a thing about being set up...
until someone else said it for her, and then she pick it up and ran with it. That is typical of the left.
Thanks for your reply, Lurker
Thought I'd switch back over to this board.
Thanks for your reply to my question about your leaving Florida. It sounds like a big transition in many ways, both geographically and emotionally. I had inquired because I have similar thoughts myself and so far I keep moving farther and farther north and away from civilization. Anyway, good luck and it would be good to hear when you're settled in.
So does someone's comment at the end of the article, discredit the whole article??
Unbelievable.
Hey Lurker, you're in crazyland over there, come back over here!!
Well, yeah, it's kind of crazy here, too, sometimes. But less toxic, much more sane and more welcoming. I kind of like it overall.
Nice to see you posting again.
I believe Lurker asked if she would go to help rebuild. sm
and MT said that she would if possible. Try and keep up.
I head the same thing, Lurker!
And I'm ecstatic!!! I heard Craig Crawford say that Bush isn't the radical evangelical that some of his more rabid followers think he is. Maybe Bush isn't as bad as I thought he was. Maybe he IS choosing a woman who is *reasonable.* Maybe he's finally waking up and realizing his numbers are going down because he's ignored the majority of the people in this country while trying to cater to the whacky radical minority who want use the GOVERNMENT to force their religious views and imagined moral superiority down everyone's throats.
I didn't even start out being this left-sided. It seemed the more right-sided he leaned, the more left-sided I became, almost an involuntary reflex type reaction in rebellion. With the nomination of Miers and the subsequent disapproval by Krystal, Buchanan, etc., I feel as if I can relax a little bit and finally feel there might actually be HOPE for America. This is indeed a happy day!
Thank you, Lurker; you're right on the money.
There are people you would jump off a cliff at the command of this administration; I guess that's what I find so difficult to believe. King Georgie can do no wrong no matter what. Where I get a little hot under the collar is when the rest of us are supposed to be happy to get dragged through the muck along with the rest of them. Hypocrisy and corruption apparently have no effect on the Kool-Aid drinkers. Yes, what does it take? Where is the outrage?
I agree the Lurker's above post is right on...
My post was to say that the pat answer of Reps to Dems who disagree with Bush is to call them nuts, morons or haters. That's all I was saying. For Heavens' sake, Lurker is most definitely RIGHT ON! Do you think any of these rednecks would take this from Clinton!? Hell NO!!
Excellent post. Thanks, Lurker.
Fear and ignorance. The only way Bush knows how to lead.
Bravo, Lurker! Prrrrrrrrrrrrrrr
Agree with you, Lurker {{{{applause}}}}
Thanks Lurker...very good read..Add this too...sm
**And for those who don't know already, Ann Coulter is a Conservative apologist who has just released a new book, and while promoting her future Best Seller, she made some off-the-wall comments just so she could get some publicity for said book. She claimed that the windows of 9/11 are milking their husbands deaths, and called them broads who are enjoying their million dollar status. To me, she isn't an alien, just another person trying to XXXX somebody else over in order to make some chump change. I don't believe for a second she means a word of what she came out with, but is just trying to drum up interest in her new product, which is for sale. And according to Amazon.com's book rankings, she's accomplishing her goal. Shrewd businesswomen? Yes indeed. On her way to becoming Satan, halfway there!**
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