I was watching C-Span on October 21, 2009. Big party at Union Station in Washington, DC. 20th Anniversary Dinner to name the new “ Keeper of the Flame.” Frank Gaffney, Founder and President of Center for Security Policy was speaking and he mentioned that Donald Rumsfeld and Sen. Jon Kyl had been awarded this dubious distinction in past years. This night Dick Cheney got the award and became the new “Keeper of the Flame”.
I listened as he tried to downgrade President Barack Obama (which is nothing new) because he was not accelerating the war in Afghanistan fast enough to suit him and the rest of the warmongers and referring to all the great things they did during their years in charge. Seems they want to keep the wars going with another big military buildup and are upset because President Obama wants to eliminate the nuclear arsenals.
Mr. Cheney is still trying to prove everything he and Bush did during their reign of terror was for the good of the American people. They are both still trying to build a legacy on a bunch of false statements. In fact the whole Republican Party is trying to keep their “Flame” alive. After listening to their stupidity and watching them stumble all over each other up on the little stage, I thought “20th anniversary”??? They must have started this little special club in 1989, after Reagan left office. Are they trying to keep alive the reign of Reagan, as the great savior of the Republican Party?
“Keeper of the Flame?” That sounded familiar----my mind started racing back through the years to where I had heard it before. Then it dawned on me---a movie in the 1940’s ---“Keeper of the Flame”. This was about a big American Icon who everyone admired and looked up too. Millions thought he was our greatest hero. He was a famous civic leader who, prior to his death, had secretly planned a coup d’etat against the government of the United States. A journalist planned on writing a flattering biography of the dead man, only to unearth a plot to cover up his true plans. This man was an industrialist who founded a wildly popular patriotic boys club known as the Forward American Association. The widow is the “keeper of the flame” honoring her husband’s memory, and is determined not to let anything damage her husbands reputation.
The Widow finally breaks down and tells the journalist that her husband was a fascist who was plotting with veterans’ organizations and the Forward America Association to overthrow the government of the United States. She had just found out the day before he died—accidently. The widow shows the journalist papers that revealed how her husband (backed by ultra-wealthy, power-hungry individuals) planned to use race hatred, anti-union feeling, ethnic hatred, and anti-Semitism to turn various groups against one another in the U.S. in order to create the chaos that would let him seize power. He died in an accident (he could have been saved by the people who really knew him--but they knew America would be better off with him dead) people came from all over to his hometown to mourn. The people involved with him were trying to keep his legacy as a great wonderful person alive. But it was discovered he really was a terrible person, a member of the fascist movement or party. (Fact and fiction are often very similar).
Many critics gave the film a positive slant like, “truly provocative in that it was one of Hollywood’s first forays into imagining the possibility of homegrown American Fascism and the crucial damage which can be done to individual rights when inhumane and tyrannical ideas sweep a society through a charismatic leader and clearly links wealth and fascism and points out the ways in which patriotism may far easily be turned toward fascist ends.
I had to go to the dictionary for a description of fascism and fascist: A totalitarian governmental system led by a dictator and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism, militarism and often racism--and has extreme right-wing views, a perfect, description of the majority of the Republican Party and definitely of Bush and Cheney. This is where a parallel of fact and fiction meet.
The ones that are no longer in office, like Bush I and II, Cheney, Gingrich, Armey, Gramm, DeLay, Thompson and their corporate buddies who would like to control the world one way or the other are out there trying to keep the flame of their fascist republican party shining bright. These people hate everyone that is different than they are. They are racist up to the hilt. They do not represent any of the citizens of this country that do not believe as they believe. People of their ilk have been conquered before and it is time to do it again. We need to get rid of all the old politicians that no longer believe in a government run for the people and by the people. The states need to get rid of the governor’s, that are running the states to suit themselves in lieu of running the states for the betterment of the citizens of that state. We also need to clean up our Supreme Court. They do not follow the constitution and they judge cases by what the people that put them in office believe and want. Dishonesty abounds in all facets of our government.
Dick Cheney now is the “Keeper of the Flame” for a year. I hope someone puts his fire out soon I’m tired of looking at him. When the Attorney General of the United States gets to show and published all the records from the last 8 years of the Bush Administrations reign of terror, then the citizens of this country will know what they are really like. Actually we know about Nixon but he and many friends tried to keep his façade going. A lot of bad things started with Reagan and Bush 1 (Iran-Contra, I remember it). The majority of all our politicians are dishonest, all parties.
I quote again what my husband said on March 20, 1994, “The worst enemy that the people of any country has, is its government and leaders.”
Thursday, November 19, 2009
Useless Wars
Vietnam was under Chinese control for a thousand years before becoming a nation-state in the 10th century. Successive dynasties flourished along with geographic and political expansion deeper into Southeast Asia, until it was, colonized by the French in the mid-19th century. WW11, Japan invaded, ran the French out. Japan retreated and set Vietnam free. The French tried to come back. Vietnam asked the US for help, they said NO. Vietnam asked Russia for help, they said YES. France asked the US for help, they said YES. US sent advisors, US sent troops. The Vietnam Conflict (War). So we weren’t there to protect the United States, we were there to help and protect the French. France and the US set up a Democratic President in South Vietnam to justify their presence. And the war went on and on, our country lost so many of our wonderful soldiers and Vietnam lost their soldiers and citizens; another useless war. No ruler of any country should have the authority to send there military in to a war to fight someone else’s battle to take over another country. I can see giving them help in other ways, but not the lives of our children, husbands and fathers.
9-11 happened. We head to Afghanistan. As we were told that was where Osama bin Laden who supposedly was head of this terrorist plot was. I don’t think anyone ever talked to him we just had messages stating it was his idea. So in we go to another useless war. How many times has this poor country been over run by other countries for years and they never succeeded in conquering it? We fought for a while and ran some of the Taliban out. Seems Delta Force was going after bin Laden. To kill him, not bring him back alive. They got pretty close, but orders changed, they didn’t know whether the orders were from Central Command all the way up to the president of the United States, and they didn’t get an explanation. I always felt Bush didn’t want bin Laden brought in, as they were big friends of his family in Saudi Arabia. So we start the POLITICAL war in Iraq, by Bush and his warmonger buddies. All eager to make a killing on big contracts and they thought they could take over the oil production for our American corporations. Now we head back to Afghanistan. The warmongers and the military Generals want more troops and to keep the war going. They are after their job security so are the big war machine manufacturers. I would love to see who has stock in these big companies and whom they pay under the table.
Ask any peace loving Muslim and they will tell you we are fighting a losing battle, as the people will never change. They haven’t in thousands of years. No one has ever really conquered this country by fighting wars. Check your history; ask the people who have fought in that country. If we can’t find a way to get along with the people diplomatically it is a lost cause.
9-11 happened. We head to Afghanistan. As we were told that was where Osama bin Laden who supposedly was head of this terrorist plot was. I don’t think anyone ever talked to him we just had messages stating it was his idea. So in we go to another useless war. How many times has this poor country been over run by other countries for years and they never succeeded in conquering it? We fought for a while and ran some of the Taliban out. Seems Delta Force was going after bin Laden. To kill him, not bring him back alive. They got pretty close, but orders changed, they didn’t know whether the orders were from Central Command all the way up to the president of the United States, and they didn’t get an explanation. I always felt Bush didn’t want bin Laden brought in, as they were big friends of his family in Saudi Arabia. So we start the POLITICAL war in Iraq, by Bush and his warmonger buddies. All eager to make a killing on big contracts and they thought they could take over the oil production for our American corporations. Now we head back to Afghanistan. The warmongers and the military Generals want more troops and to keep the war going. They are after their job security so are the big war machine manufacturers. I would love to see who has stock in these big companies and whom they pay under the table.
Ask any peace loving Muslim and they will tell you we are fighting a losing battle, as the people will never change. They haven’t in thousands of years. No one has ever really conquered this country by fighting wars. Check your history; ask the people who have fought in that country. If we can’t find a way to get along with the people diplomatically it is a lost cause.
IRAQ FIASCO
Now this is my own opinion about this fiasco. We attacked this country for no reason, other than greed. We weren’t good buddies with Iraq, especially after the gulf war incident in 1991, when we ran over to protect Bush 1’s friends in Kuwait and Saudi in their fight with Iraq. We left that country in a mess then also. Bush 2 and his friends wanted to conquer Iraq and take over the country. Bush and his buddies wanted to go into that country for their oil and they made any excuse they could to get there. They wanted nothing less that complete control. A lot of the guys that Saddam had kicked out of Iraq helped the Bush gang find excuses to go after Saddam. After the 9-11 attack they used that, but you know there was not an Iraqi in the bunch. Saddam did not like Osama bin Laden and he wasn’t anywhere in Iraq. Shows to go you!!! We are a gullible people to have believed the Village Idiot and his warmongering cohorts. Terrorist! Terrorist! And the majority of our politicians signed whatever that sucker put in front of them. Well we went and broke that country and now you think they ought to fix it. I don’t. I think every money grubbing SOB that went to that country to make money, all of Bush’s friends, Cheney’s affiliates and the big corporations that made money off this mess ought to pay for it.
These are quotes from an article called: “Who said the War would pay for itself. They did! Complied by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky.
“Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will.”
Richard Perle, Chair, The Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. July 11, 2002
“The likely economic effects (of a war in Iraq) would be relatively small….Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits.” Lawrence Lindsey, White House economic advisor. September 16, 2002
“It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars.” Kenneth Pollock, former director for Persian Gulf Affairs National Security Council. September 2002
“The cost of any intervention would be very small.”
Glenn Hubbard, White House economic advisor. October 2, 2002
“Iraq has tremendous resource that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own construction.” Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary. February 18, 2003
“When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community.”
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense. March 27, 2003
“There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be US taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are talking about a country that can finance its own reconstruction relatively soon.”
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense testifying before the subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. March 27, 2003
“The United States is very committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will require sustained aid.” Mitchell Daniels, Director White House Office of Management and Budget. April 21, 2003
“The Allies (have contributed) $14 billion in direct aid.”
Dick Cheney, vice presidential debate with Democratic candidate John Edwards. October 5, 2004
Actually only $13 billion was pledged, and on the date Cheney spoke only $1billion had arrived. As of October 28, 2007, the National Priorities Project estimated that the share of Iraq War costs that had been borne by American taxpayers exceeded $463 billion. –C.C.&V.N.
Where are these big mouth jerks now? Some are still messing around in politics shooting off their big mouth.
These are quotes from an article called: “Who said the War would pay for itself. They did! Complied by Christopher Cerf and Victor Navasky.
“Iraq is a very wealthy country. Enormous oil reserves. They can finance, largely finance the reconstruction of their own country. And I have no doubt that they will.”
Richard Perle, Chair, The Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board. July 11, 2002
“The likely economic effects (of a war in Iraq) would be relatively small….Under every plausible scenario, the negative effect will be quite small relative to the economic benefits.” Lawrence Lindsey, White House economic advisor. September 16, 2002
“It is unimaginable that the United States would have to contribute hundreds of billions of dollars and highly unlikely that we would have to contribute even tens of billions of dollars.” Kenneth Pollock, former director for Persian Gulf Affairs National Security Council. September 2002
“The cost of any intervention would be very small.”
Glenn Hubbard, White House economic advisor. October 2, 2002
“Iraq has tremendous resource that belong to the Iraqi people. And so there are a variety of means that Iraq has to be able to shoulder much of the burden for their own construction.” Ari Fleischer, White House press secretary. February 18, 2003
“When it comes to reconstruction, before we turn to the American taxpayer, we will turn first to the resources of the Iraqi government and the international community.”
Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense. March 27, 2003
“There is a lot of money to pay for this that doesn’t have to be US taxpayer money, and it starts with the assets of the Iraqi people. We are talking about a country that can finance its own reconstruction relatively soon.”
Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense testifying before the subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee. March 27, 2003
“The United States is very committed to helping Iraq recover from the conflict, but Iraq will require sustained aid.” Mitchell Daniels, Director White House Office of Management and Budget. April 21, 2003
“The Allies (have contributed) $14 billion in direct aid.”
Dick Cheney, vice presidential debate with Democratic candidate John Edwards. October 5, 2004
Actually only $13 billion was pledged, and on the date Cheney spoke only $1billion had arrived. As of October 28, 2007, the National Priorities Project estimated that the share of Iraq War costs that had been borne by American taxpayers exceeded $463 billion. –C.C.&V.N.
Where are these big mouth jerks now? Some are still messing around in politics shooting off their big mouth.
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