I agree. Great article. Thanks, LVMT for posting it.
Posted By: Marmann on 2008-12-10
In Reply to: This is a great article, Marmann........ sm - m
To m: LOL. No problem. It's very easy to do on this board. 
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Great article. Thanks for posting it....sm
I had a feeling she'd do well talking with them.
What a great article...thanks for posting it, ms!
:)
I'm sorry LVMT........ credit should have gone to you for posting! My bad! nm
x
Great. Thanks for posting.
/.
It is a good article. Thanks for posting !
nm
Good article, thanks for posting....sm
Heard Cheney on Rush the other day. Good man, probably the most intelligent VP we've ever had.
Excellent Article! Thanks for posting.
It boils down to the feds weren't forcing bad loans on the banks, the lenders were forcing the bad loans out of greed.
This is an excellent article - thanks for posting
x
Great response. Thanks for posting.
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Great post, A. Thanks for posting.
Too bad more don't see the bigger picture for what it truly is in this case.
I just couldn't resist posting this article.
When I read it, my first thought was "how fitting this would be for those to read who are firm in pro-life, pro-war and its contradiction".
Let’s Count the Ways We’ve Sacrificed for the Iraq War
by Mary Conroy
As children, we learned about Santa Claus — a pleasant, harmless myth. As adults, we’re being taught another myth — that ordinary people haven’t sacrificed anything during the Iraq war.
But the sacrifice myth isn’t an innocent belief we shed before adolescence. And the more people accept it, the more dangerous it is.
So let’s count our sacrifices. One of our biggest came at the start of the war, when we gave up freedom of the press. Media outlets agreed they’d only send journalists who’d be embedded with the troops, so everything we’ve read or seen has been censored.
Worse yet, in 2006, new media rules from the Department of Defense stated, “Names, video, identifiable written/oral descriptions or identifiable photographs of wounded service members will not be released without service members’ prior written consent.” Just when should an embedded journalist hand out consent forms?
Photos of dead or wounded Americans in Vietnam swelled the number of anti-war protesters. Back then, we saw horrific images of GIs writhing in pain. We also saw dead GIs, not in coffins, but bloody and dismembered in the field.
Even before the new media rule began, embedded photographers rarely pictured dead or wounded GIs, according to Pat Arnow of Extra, a publication of Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. Instead, most of our media’s coverage of Iraq has pictured the injured GIs who can sit up in bed without grimacing to receive a Purple Heart. The few pictures of dead GIs haven’t shown blood or gore; they’ve shown funerals.
Photographers get close to the soldiers they’re embedded with and self-censor pictures of them. If they send their editors explicit photos, the editors declare the images “too graphic to publish,” like the Washington Post did on Jan. 7, 2007.
Embedded journalists also censor pictures of dead Iraqis. “Those pictures overwhelmingly show only one kind of victim — people and things shattered by their fellow countrymen, not by U.S. troops,” Arnow says.
When we do see a photo of an Iraqi killed by U.S. troops, the media distances us by labeling the dead Iraqi “an al-Qaida-linked militant,” or “a militiaman loyal to Osama bin Laden.”
Remember that photo of a terrorized naked Vietnamese girl running from a napalm attack? Today she would be called “a Vietcong guerilla” or “a Ho Chi Minh militant.”
But freedom of the press isn’t the only sacrifice we’ve made. Last month, Congress released “The Hidden Costs of the Iraq War,” a report showing the war’s cost so far at $1.3 trillion. That figure includes direct costs plus interest on the money borrowed to wage the war.
The money we spend on Iraq in one day could fund 9,300 teachers for a year, or 14,200 police officers, or 163,700 college Pell Grants, or 58,000 children’s tuition for Head Start, or 513,000 children’s health insurance. We’ve sacrificed all of those and more.
Worst, we’ve sacrificed human life. In September, the Opinion Research Business firm’s study of Iraqi households found that 1 million Iraqis have died due to violence since the U.S. invasion. We know of 4,000 American military who’ve died, but rarely does anyone ask about American civilian death counts.
And we’ll never know what the world lost when each of those people died. Each life was full of possibility. Who knows what contributions each person could have made to the workplace and the world, to their friends and to their families?
Mary Conroy is a Madison-based freelance writer.
That's a good, fair article. Very well stated. Thanks for posting the link!....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, Lurker; thanks.
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.
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.
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
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.
post the link only, not the whole article and the link. See rules for posting.
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Wow....I agree with you. Good article,,,,sm
Can't believe I actually agree with you, but I do!! Very good explanation of all who are at fault which is actually....EVERYONE!!
I agree, they did great, very classy
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I agree 100%. Other great examples of....
socialism...Cuba and Venezuela. See how it is working for them. Ends in dictatorship nearly every single time. People buy into class warfare and by the time they realize the middle class they were trying to save is truly gone and all you have is the "government" and everybody else...all the populace in the lower class. The handwriting is on the wall...and the socialist party of the US (the DNC) has us in its crosshairs...brought to you courtesy of George Soros and his vision of one world government. Hellooo.
I agree with you. As my great aunt always said
It is that simple.
What a great post!! I totally agree with everything you said.
Anyone who knows me personally knows that when Bush was running for President in 2000, I told everyone I know that if he's elected, we'll find ourselves at war with Iraq. Nobody believed me.
It's ironic that the reason DIDN'T vote for him in 2004 was the very same reason I didn't vote for him in 2000: I was against war with Iraq.
What is particularly troubling about all this is that Bush appeared to use the tragedy of 9/11 to justify his war against Iraq.
It wouldn't surprise me one bit to find that this war will eventually be deemed as an illegal war.
We don't know what al Quaeda will do next. Wouldn't surprise me to discover that they were part of the "hacking" team that got ahold of everyone's credit card numbers the other day.
If Bush cares so much about America, he could begin to show it by monitoring our borders. He's been incredibly negligent in that regard.
He promised he would not impose a draft. Yet, recruitment goals haven't been met for several months now. If I had a child of that age, I certainly would try to talk him/her out of joining the military. The government has proven they lie to soldiers, hold reservists hostage, fail to provide adequate equipment to protect soldiers, etc., etc., etc! He will have to bring back the draft, and we can add that to the gazillion lies he's told.
I think your post was great, and I particularly enjoyed the one regarding Hitler that you wrote above. You nailed it!!!
Yes, I agree she gave a great response.
Great post, Chele. I agree. Besides,
parents have to consent to ANY OTHER procedure for the child, why would this be any different?
Abortion is a horrible, horrible thing that is used by Planned Parentood to make money and used as birth control.
Great post, MT! I totally agree with you,
nm
Agree...great post. Please come back and share...sm
your ideas.
Great post, Chele... totally agree.nm
nm
I agree, Kaydie. Great post!!! Thank you for serving
the USA. My family and I appreciate you!
I agree, great quote! I am amazed that for the 2+ days ...sm
that this has been posted, you did not get a single response. The only way we are going to get anything accomplished is to work together as Americans. I guess some just don't get it.
For Pete's sake, I agree. Let me say, CARE PACKAGES ARE A GREAT THING TO DO!
Let's all send care packages. I will check out the web site you provided and if it's legit my heart and pocketbook will lead me. Trust me, to your surprise I'm not a stingy old witch sitting here not willing to give a dime to the troops but yet preach about how much I love them. Don't believe that, well then it only rains under your cloud.
Where the disconnect is, is that you think that people are not allowed to be against this war, against this administration, and still be for the troops. When you come here and tell us what the troops are asking for in the form of care packages, it ticks me off even more with this administration for putting them in this situation, but you have reminded me that they are with needs and wishes and for their sacrifice we all should give to them.
In discussing this, our conversation can not be limited to care packages. Let me applaud you in all sincerity for being proactive and on top of sending the packages you have put together. I know you will make someone in Iraq's day brighter, a big hats off to you! I just happen to think they shouldn't be in this predicament anyway and on that we may never see eye to eye and that's fine.
To LVMT
I just saw this for the first time today. If you haven't seen it, I'd definitely recommend it because I think you might find it interesting.
http://freepressinternational.com/FPI/nfblog/mit-engineer-breaks-down-wtc-controlled-demolition
LOL! Thanks, LVMT.
I had missed that one. Amazing. Seven guys who study the BIBLE and don't have enough money between them to buy a Happy Meal. Softball team would be a start, no? LOL!
Thanks for the link, LVMT;
alone in wondering about the timing of all of this....just like when the terror alerts disappeared after the election. Fear in all its forms(including eternal damnation) has always been useful in pacifying/controlling/manipulating the masses, no?
Worked for me; thanks, LVMT
Thanks for the link, LVMT (nm)
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Great post, great insight, great analysis, thanks!..nm
nm
Thanks for the nice words, LVMT.
But do yourself a favor. Don't say anything nice to me or about me on this board. If you do, you will be immediately hated and attacked, as well. I don't want to see anyone else have to deal with their crap. Life is just too short and they are just sooooooooooo not worth it.
Link is missing LVMT...nm
Hope you get up to speed soon LVMT... nm
Good luck, LVMT
All jobs take a while to get used to. I'm sure you'll do very well in a very short time. Hope you come back soon.
Look LVMT, you look up all the little definitions you want. You are still wrong. sm
Very very wrong. Christopher Hitchens is hardly a neoconservative. Neither am I and neither are most of the other conservative posters here.
Thanks, LVMT; yup, propaganda is the word, alright.
You just wonder how much more damage will be done before more people see through it.
Please refer to LVMT post on neoconservatism
You will have to scroll down a bit to find it. It kind of got lost in the debris of all the other posts. I think it is a very valuable piece of information and addresses a topic that gets brought up frequently by the posters on the other board and is something I was unclear about until I read this.
Thanks for your research!!
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