Saturday, August 27, 2005

Reuters photos Pro-bogus-war-and-pro-death wingnuts in Crawford, Texas, today. Memo to the wingnuts, who like to dress -- and act -- as though we were still living in the Wild West: It's 2005. Two-thousand-fucking-five. Try to keep up with the rest of us, mmmmmK? Wingnut idiots attack their own This account from The Associated Press about the showdown between pro-bogus-war-and-pro-death wingnuts and anti-bogus-war-and-pro-life progressives in Crawford, Texas, today is pretty fucking funny: There also were some heated moments at the pro-Bush rally when Bush supporters mistakenly identified two people as war protesters. The two walked in with a sign that read "Say No to War -- Unless a Democrat is President."* Many Bush supporters only saw the top of the sign and believed the men were war protesters, so they began shouting and chasing the pair out. One man tore up their signs. When Will Marean of Minneapolis kept repeating that he was on the Bush side, one Bush supporter shook his hand and apologized. Tore up their signs. Mind you, these are the same fucking idiots who insanely claim that almost 2,000 of our troops have died in Iraq to protect free speech here in the U.S. of A. Yeah, free speech is really a value that is close to their fucking little hearts, as exemplified also by this portion of the AP story: Bush supporters gathered for an event marking the culmination of the "You don't speak for me, Cindy!" tour, which started last week in California. The crowd of about 1,500 chanted, "Cindy, go home!" "You are giving hope and encouragement to the enemies of America," said former California Assemblyman Howard Kaloogian, a Republican who co-founded the group that coordinated the rally. "Cindy, go home!" means "Cindy, shut up!" And uber-fascist Kaloogian clearly would stifle all dissent against the Bush regime and Gulf War II if he could. So much for the First Amendment. (What a piece of work Kaloogian is. The name of the wingnut group that Kaloogian co-founded that the AP mentions is Move America Forward, which, like the Bush regime's No Child Left Behind and the Clean Skies Initiative, Orwellianly actually stands for the exact opposite of what it claims to stand for. The Move America Forward wingnuts are like the Taliban -- they want to drag us, kicking and screaming, back to at least the 1950s, when we were still paranoid about commies and only straight white "Christian" men had civil rights. The Neanderthals who comprise Move America Forward should call themselves The American Taliban or perhaps Move America Backasswards, because that's what they really stand for.) Anyway, I'm thinking -- hoping -- that perhaps the wingnuts, in their stupidity, hostility and paranoia, will all kill each other so that the rest of us can begin the long, hard work of cleaning up the Bush regime's many, many messes and move America forward. *Of course, "Say No to War -- Unless a Democrat is President" as a pro-Bush, pro-Gulf War II slogan doesn't even fucking make sense. I think the wingnuts with the sign meant to say "Say No to War -- If a Democrat is President" or "Say Yes to War -- Unless a Democrat is President." Wingnuts are notoriously linguistically challenged. 8:50:04 PM    Comments []

Rall, right and wrong I love cartoonist and columnist (and author and blogger!) Ted Rall. If I were to become a stalker, he'd be on my short list of stalkees. (Don't worry, Ted: I don't have the time, money or energy to stalk anyone, so you're pretty safe. Besides, you're on the other side of the country. It would be a lot of work and I'm pretty lazy.) In his current column, Rall talks about the loss of information and culture to future generations that we're going to have because so much of our information and culture exists only in digital format, which is quite fragile. I can't agree more that my blog, being wholly digital, being lost to future generations is something akin to the destruction of the Royal Library at Alexandria that Rall mentions in his column. Rall's books kick ass, and most of his 'toons do, too, such as this one: This 'toon beautifully illustrates Bushlogic, which I recently discussed. But every once in a while, Rall gets it wrong. Like the time he suggested that the Democratic presidential primaries be canceled and Howard Dean just be coronated as the nominee already. Yikes. And this cartoon: Now, Cindy Sheehan isn't a sacred cow. Rall may criticize her all he likes, but I think that he should back up his criticism with facts and sound reasoning, and I don't see that he has done that. I e-mailed Ted regarding this 'toon, which reminds me of Ann Cunter's anti-Cindy column. I wrote: Ted, you rock, but I don't understand the comparison of Casey Sheehan to Pat Tillman* -- the "he was stupid enough to enlist" remark. Casey Sheehan enlisted in 2000, before the Bush regime's "war on terror" began. And can we not give a 20-year-old kid a break? What does a 20-year-old really know? (OK, at 20 years old I never would have put myself in the position of possibly having to kill someone, but not everyone is as intelligent as you and I are.) I saw Cindy Sheehan speak twice here in Sacramento earlier this year, before she became a national media celebrity. She struck me as quite grief-stricken but intelligent, sane and sincere. If you had seen her speak or met her (I'm assuming that you haven't), she wouldn't be just an abstraction to you, like she is to Ann Cunter, and I don't think that you would have produced that cartoon. Thanks for listening and thanks for doing what you do. I wasn't really expecting a response -- I imagine that Ted's a busy guy, what with all of the stalkers out there and everything -- but he did reply. He wrote: Dear Robert, I appreciate your thoughts, but if you examine the cartoon you'll see that this one works on several levels -- most notably as a bookend to 2002's "terror widows." Back then the right repeatedly lambasted me for mocking widows who used their spouses' deaths on 9/11 to promote Bush's agenda. Now they're doing the same thing on Sheehan, and in a way they've got a point. What is it with this cult of death, anyway, that only people who've lost someone have a "right" to speak up? It's ridiculous. As a political cartoonist, my job is to expose stupidity wherever I find it. Sometimes that's on the left, and sometimes from a woman with whom I empathize politically and otherwise. Best, Ted [Ted further discusses the "terror widows" thing here.] Ted's reply left me, um, unsatsified. So I wrote him back: Ted:   While I have no doubt that you don't want to go back and forth on this -- I don't, either -- I don't see how Cindy Sheehan is "stupid." If nothing else, she is bringing the public's attention to the pointless deaths in Gulf War II, something that neither the Democratic Party nor the mainstream media have been doing for the past two-plus years.   You seem a bit nihilistic, Ted: You would blame the Dems for not doing anything about the war, but when someone on our team bravely stands up against the war, you call her "stupid." No wonder so few on the left speak out publicly -- because they are savaged even by (self-professed) members of the left.   Who ever said that "only people who've lost someone have a 'right' to speak up"? Where did you get that and "cult of death"? Is it your position that anyone who loses a family member should keep his or her mouth shut, lest he or she be encouraging a "cult of death" and/or politicizing a loved one's death? You make no distinction between someone using a loved one's death to promote Bush's pro-war-and-pro-death-for-profits agenda and Cindy's using her son's death to try to stop the war and the death? There is no such thing as good and evil for you, Ted? Or at least right and wrong? Or at least beneficial and harmful? Everything is all the same to you? Again, I don't understand your apparent nihilism.   Finally, I'm guessing that most people who read your Cindy 'toon won't know the background that you mentioned in your e-mail and in your blog about the "terror widows" of 2002. One of the basic things I learned in earning my journalism degree is to never assume that the reader knows what the hell you're talking about -- because many if not most readers don't.   I still don't understand your assertion that Cindy is stupid, and I think that your cartoon regarding her is way off the mark, but I agree with you most of the time and I remain a fan.   Robert I haven't heard back from Ted and I kind of doubt I will; I suspect that one e-mail is all you get from people who are as busy as Ted probably is, and that you're lucky to get that one e-mail. But if he does reply, I'll update this with his reply. *Rall's infamous cartoon regarding the late Pat Tillman is here. 7:07:25 PM    Comments []

Greg Pruett, pictured in Kirkuk, Iraq on CNN.com Greg Pruett (?) speaks Most people find my blog through google or another search engine, and I've been getting a lot of hits from people searching for "Tammy Pruett," so I'm guessing that this comment left on this post is legit: I am one of the sons of Tammy Pruett currently serving in Iraq and think that your comments are rather degrading to [my?] family. You do not know my family or our beliefs and stances other than we do support this war. I first want to tell you that I am proud to be here in Iraq defending your right to say whatever you want about my family. First of all I think you should know that the person that "squealed" as you say was NOT my mom but was my sister Emily. But I guess you just wanted to say whatever you wanted to degrade my family without knowing the facts. Secondly, 5 out of the 6 members of my family that are in the guard joined before Bush took office. Third, my parents and I disagree with some of Bush's policies but do agree with the war and his decision to liberate Iraq. Fourth, the only reason Bush learned of my family is because one of his interns saw my family on CNN. We had already been on national TV several times before they learned of my family. My mom is proud of us and did not ask for the President to say anything about us. So before you go trashing my family you may want to get the facts straight. Have a nice day and God bless America. Greg Pruett • 8/26/05 I reply: Assuming that you are who you say you are: 1. You are NOT in Iraq to defend anyone's rights in the United States. That is Republican propaganda that is necessary, I suppose, because the war profiteers have to make our young men and women believe that, should they be maimed or die while in service, they won't have been maimed or have died for nothing. You are in Iraq to make rich men even richer. Dick Cheney's Halliburton and other war-profiteering corporations that are buddy-buddy with the Bush regime can't profit unless there is a war, so the Bush regime delivered a war to them. Iraq posed no threat whatsoever to the freedom of speech in the United States, and therefore, your being in Iraq is doing nothing for the freedom of speech in the United States. I am sorry that you have been so brainwashed that you actually believe the crap about "patriotism" and "freedom" and the "liberation" of the Iraqis that you spew forth. (If the Bush regime really gave a shit about the Iraqis, it wouldn't have killed so many thousands of them in its illegal, immoral, unprovoked and imperialist invasion of their nation. All that the members of the Bush regime want from Iraq is $$$ -- and you and the other members of the military are only tools for them to get it. To the members of the Bush regime you are EXPENDABLE. That might be painful, but it's the truth, whether you wish to face it or not.) 2. That you and your family support this war, in which thousands of people have died unnecessarily for the Bush regime's fucking lie that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, says an awful lot about your family, doesn't it? (That your family lives in Idaho, one of the reddest of the red states, also says a lot about your family...) 3. The "squealed" remark came from the news story that I quoted. You say that your sister made the noise. If so, the record stands corrected. (However, that was hardly the crux of my post.) 4. The point of the post was not to degrade your family, but to show George W. Bush for the shameless piece of shit that he is. I'm still waiting for him to send his daughters to Iraq, since his "cause" is so fucking noble. 5. I honest to God hope that you and your other family members fighting in this unGodly war are not injured or killed, but come home safely and in one piece. I think that you and your family members, in supporting Bush and Gulf War II, are woefully misguided, and I believe that some wars (like World War II) are worth fighting, but certainly not this one. However much I might disagree with your family's political views, however, yours and your family's well-being and lives aren't worth wasting for the war profiteers you think actually give a shit about you. 6. I agree. God bless America. With the maniacs running this country into the ground, we need all of the divine intervention that we can get. 7. I am not in awe of the whole military thing. The truth is the truth and the facts are the facts. I'm not going to pretend that Gulf War II is a just war out of some nostalgia, and I'm not going to talk to you any differently than I would anyone else because you are in Iraq. I wish that you weren't in Iraq, because neither you nor any other of our military personnel ever should have been sent there. 8. I mean what I said in No. 5. Robert • 8/27/05 OK, so the Idaho remark was probably out of bounds, but I mean, please -- Idaho. If you're living in Idaho and nothing seems wrong to you, there's probably something wrong with you...       Update (Sunday, Aug. 28, 2005): OK, I googled "Greg Pruett," which I should have done earlier (duh), in order to find out more about him. From a FOX-like jingoistic story on CNN.com I learn that he and three of his five brothers, pictured above (he's at the far right in the photo on the left), are in Iraq right now and that Spc. Greg Pruett, 23, [who was] a Mormon missionary in Idaho, now serves as a communications expert in violence-plagued northern Iraq. His new Home is the former summer residence of Ali Hassan al-Majid -- known as "Chemical Ali" for allegedly gassing Kurdish villagers in late 1980s and early 1990s. With Hassan in prison, Greg says he sleeps near where the former Iraqi leader hung and tortured people.   At work, he repairs antenna and other equipment pivotal to sharing information among coalition forces. In so doing, Greg often listens to reports of attacks. "When you hear about things happening, you get a queasy feeling.... Hopefully, my brothers are OK." CNN.com reports that Greg and his three brothers have six more months in Iraq.   Since our communication above Greg and I have exchanged a couple of e-mails, which I would share except that I haven't asked him for permission to do so. (Indeed, he has yet to answer my last e-mail.)  Greg talks a lot about FREEDOM (TM), yet I have to wonder how much freedom he has had in his relatively short life. I mean, he was born into a Mormon family and lives in Idaho. What if he had refused to go on a mission, as all Mormon young men are expected to do? What if, as a soldier, he refused to obey an order, even if it were a bad order? I mean, I surmise that since he was born Greg has been surrounded by people telling him what to do, or at least pressuring him to do what they want him to do, and that the penalties for refusing to comply have been or would have been considerable. Yet he thinks he's free?  What a mindfuck that burdens so many Americans, to think that they are free when in reality they're quite enslaved. If they think that they're free, they should try stepping out of line. They'd quickly find out how free they really are. Anyway, had I known that Greg is 23 and grew up in a Mormon family I would have understood better where he was coming from and I would have been a bit gentler in my communications with him. Although I diametrically oppose his politics, I don't think that he's a bad person; I think that, given the circumstances of his life, he just doesn't know better -- which is probably a lot better than what he thinks of me... 2:54:54 AM    Comments []

Parody White House news release from whitehouse.org (pretty much what I said, only funnier):   For Immediate Release - Office of the Press Secretary - August 25, 2005     PRESIDENT ADDRESSES SLAVISHLY ADORING SOLDIERS TO PROVE HIS LOVE OF PRO-DEATH, WARRIOR-DISGORGING MILITARY MOMMIES Remarks by the President THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, thank you. At ease, men. Wow, it's great to be addressing a military audience again. These days, with my approval ratings cruising around with the Ty-D-Bol Man, you guys are the only crowd left where I'm 100% guaranteed a warmer welcome than Ron Reagan Jr. on Fire Island. (Applause.) So what say we start out with a little pro-Iraq war cheer, fellas? Gimme an M! Gimme an I! Gimme an N! Gimme a C! Gimme an E! Now gimme another M! And another E! And an A! And a T! What does it spell???! YOU! (Laughs.) (Applause, Knowing Laughter.) Now as you may have heard, word on the boob tube is that I don't respect you boys' mommas enough, on account of how I've been ignoring that Cindy Sheebop bitch who's been cramping my style all month. (Boos.) Yeah, I know it. She's really spitting in you all's faces by saying how she doesn't want you to get killed over a lie, isn't she? The gall, right? I must admit though – you gotta give Cindy points for pure determination. Hell, she's still at it even after I called in a favor and had my pal Jesus give her momma a stroke! (Laughter.) That's why today, I am extra pleased to give that hippy-drippy Big Bird a super-sized "fuck you" by taking two whole minutes to meet with other mothers instead of her. Because I DO respect them. After all, where else would I get fresh Arab killers if it weren't for horny young broads extruding them into the waiting talons of predatory military recruiters? (Applause.) One of the mothers I met with was this chunky red-haired lady, who's here with us today. Can you stand up for the cameras, toots? There you go. Looky there. A bona fide mommy. And you know what? She's sent FIVE boys and a husband over to Iraq – unlike Cindy Sheehan's measly ONE boy. Do the arithmetic. This broad is like a million percent more momtastic than Cindy could ever dream of being! And you know what this lady says? She says – and I quote – "I know that if something happens to one of the boys, they would leave this world doing what they believe, what they think is right for our country. And I guess you couldn't ask for a better way of life than giving it for something that you believe in." Now THAT'S what I call motherly love: having the courage to regurgitate whatever fascist death cult talking points Karl Rove has slipped Sean Hannity that day – then smile vacantly while I slowly feed her entire family into the meat grinder. (Applause.) Mind you, I should state at this juncture that in the event the aforementioned family meets with a modern-day "Saving Private Ryan" type situation, I will NOT be available for a follow-up heart-to-heart. (Applause.) And there you have it. Military mommy crisis averted. So let's get back to kicking some FREEDOM® ass in Vietraq! (Applause.) Thank you, and God Bless America! ### 1:21:47 AM    Comments []