Friday, May 16, 2008

THIS JUST IN! BARACK DISRESPECTS WOMEN!

BULLY BOY PRESS & CEDRIC'S BIG MIX -- THE KOOL-AID TABLE
 
SENATOR SWEETIE AGAIN REFERRED TO A WOMAN AS "SWEETIE" TODAY.  IT'S THE SORT OF DEMEANING GESTURE HIS CAMPAIGN HAS MADE REPEATEDLY TOWARDS WOMEN.
 
THE SILLY (AND IN THE TANK FOR OBAMA) LOS ANGELES TIMES TRIES TO TREAT THIS INCIDENT, WHERE HE CALLED A REPORTER "SWEETIE" AS SOMETHING NEW WHEN IN FACT, BARACK SWEETIE OBAMA HAS BEEN CALLING WOMEN THAT ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL FOR SOME TIME. 
 
 
10) What is a grown man doing calling women "sweetie"? Do you go out of your way to come off sexist? As a follow up, having used homophobia in your campaign -- putting homophobes on stage at a campaign event, doing 'gay' jokes in a debate when AIDS testing came up -- exactly why should any American trust that you give a damn about gay rights?
 
THAT WAS APRIL 4TH.  TODAY THE JOKE THAT IS THE LOS ANGELES TIMES WANTS YOU TO BELIEVE THAT THIS IS THE FIRST TIME IT HAPPENED.  WHICH MUST MEAN THESE REPORTERS ARE PSYCHICS TO HAVE KNOWN ABOUT TODAY'S INCIDENT NEARLY 30 DAYS IN ADVANCE.  WE'RE OFF TO PLAY THE PONIES, ON OUR GUT HUNCHES.
 
 
 
 
Passion and empathy: Why is it that it takes a harsh reality to kick in your own front door, grab you by the scruff of your own all too relaxed neck, before you really cry again.  Maybe its cancer, a hurricane, a drunk driver, somebody gone crazy with a gun on campus, in a shopping center, on the job, on the freeway, or maybe a kid with a gun in a war, a soldier, your kid, like mine PFC James Burmeister.  
He is not a kid anymore.  When he joined the army, he was a typical poor kid, naive kid, painted himself in a corner kid.  A typical young man high on testosterone low on common sense, he brought the recruiter's line of crap and fine-print flim flaw, and was coached on how to assure his induction despite medical conditions that would have disqualified him.  
So the army trained him how to kill efficiently in urban warfare situations and shipped his naive butt over to Baghdad to carry out the orders of his commander and chief, the Warrior Prince Bush, our president, brave military veteran of Vietnam.  So my son was forced to take part in and was witness to acts of human cruelty beyond his wildest imagination.  He killed other young men just like him.  In another place in another time, they could have been friends, they could have worked side by side and shared their dreams, now their ghosts will haunt his dreams, like the dreams of this brand new generation of "winter soldiers".  For the matter of a few feet, or maybe even a few inches, my son's brains would have been spilled out on a Baghdad street.  My nightmare of a soldier's dad, of cradling my son's blown up head in my lap while I try to put it back together, it would have become reality like the nightmares of the families of those soldiers who have already died, and those who will die next week, next month, and next year.  
So now my son sits in Army custody, brain injured by a roadside bomb and struggling mightly with PTSD while he awaits court-martial for desertion, because he refused redepolyment to combat in Iraq in May 2007 in protest over the war crimes he was ordered to engage in.  He married a fifty-caliber machine gun atop a hummer providing perimeter security for one of the now infamous small kill teams.       
With the help of war resistance groups in Canada, on the eve of his re-deployment, he went AWOL and has lived in Canada until March 4th of this year when his worsening mental and physical condition, his homesickness and his family responsibilities left him little choice but to turn himself in to the Army at Fort Knox Kentucky.   
 
Maria Hinojosa interviewed James Burmesiter and Agustin Aguayo for NOW on PBS (here for a/v, here for text).  And while we're noting NOW on PBS and Hinojosa, their "Child Brides: Stolen Lives" report  won the 2008 Edward R. Murrow Award for Best TV Documentary and the episode can be viewed online here.  As Hinojosa's report explained, after being injured by a bombing resulting in PTSD, Burmeister was placed on medication and ordered to serve another tour of duty in Iraq. Burmeister explained his reaction: "I got back home -- talked to my wife.  You know, I said, 'I think I'm gonna leave.'   It was like a 15 minute decision that I'm -- I'm gonna leave -- I'm gonna leave the army." 
 
Now he awaits word on what the military is going to do?  Are they going to court-martial a wounded veteran, on medication, who they were trying to redeploy to Iraq for another tour?  No one knows.  But his Erich Burmeister is asking for people to "Drop my son a card of encouragement!" and the address is: PFC James Burmeister, HHC Bldg 298, Gold Vault Rd, Fort Knox, KY 40121. 
 
Those war resisters who are in Canada need support as well as they wait to see if the motion for safe harbor is going to come to the Parliament floor.  You can utilize the following e-mails to show your support: Prime Minister Stephen Harper (pm@pm.gc.ca -- that's pm at gc.ca) who is with the Conservative party and these two Liberals, Stephane Dion (Dion.S@parl.gc.ca -- that's Dion.S at parl.gc.ca) who is the leader of the Liberal Party and Maurizio Bevilacqua (Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca -- that's Bevilacqua.M at parl.gc.ca) who is the Liberal Party's Critic for Citizenship and Immigration.  In addition Jack Layton, NDP leader, has a contact form and they would like to hear from people as well. A few more addresses can be found here at War Resisters Support Campaign. For those in the US, Courage to Resist has an online form that's very easy to use.         
 
There is a growing movement of resistance within the US military which includes Matt Mishler, Josh Randall, Robby Keller, Justiniano Rodrigues, Chuck Wiley, James Stepp, Rodney Watson, Michael Espinal, Matthew Lowell, Derek Hess, Diedra Cobb, Brad McCall, Justin Cliburn, Timothy Richard, Robert Weiss, Phil McDowell, Steve Yoczik, Ross Spears, Peter Brown, Bethany "Skylar" James, Zamesha Dominique, Chrisopther Scott Magaoay, Jared Hood, James Burmeister, Jose Vasquez, Eli Israel, Joshua Key, Ehren Watada, Terri Johnson, Clara Gomez, Luke Kamunen, Leif Kamunen, Leo Kamunen, Camilo Mejia, Kimberly Rivera, Dean Walcott, Linjamin Mull, Agustin Aguayo, Justin Colby, Marc Train, Abdullah Webster, Robert Zabala, Darrell Anderson, Kyle Snyder, Corey Glass, Jeremy Hinzman, Kevin Lee, Mark Wilkerson, Patrick Hart, Ricky Clousing, Ivan Brobeck, Aidan Delgado, Pablo Paredes, Carl Webb, Stephen Funk, Blake LeMoine, Clifton Hicks, David Sanders, Dan Felushko, Brandon Hughey, Logan Laituri, Jason Marek, Clifford Cornell, Joshua Despain, Joshua Casteel, Katherine Jashinski, Dale Bartell, Chris Teske, Matt Lowell, Jimmy Massey, Chris Capps, Tim Richard, Hart Viges, Michael Blake, Christopher Mogwai, Christian Kjar, Kyle Huwer, Wilfredo Torres, Michael Sudbury, Ghanim Khalil, Vincent La Volpa, DeShawn Reed and Kevin Benderman. In total, at least fifty US war resisters in Canada have applied for asylum.

Information on war resistance within the military can be found at The Objector, The G.I. Rights Hotline [(877) 447-4487], Iraq Veterans Against the War and the War Resisters Support Campaign. Courage to Resist offers information on all public war resisters. In addition, VETWOW is an organization that assists those suffering from MST (Military Sexual Trauma).
 
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Turning to US presidential nominations.  Rick Klein (ABC News) reports on Hillary supporters who state they will boycott if Barack Obama is the nominee and not Hillary Clinton.  A surprise to the MSM perhaps but this community decided last week that if Hillary doesn't get the nomination, Ralph Nader gets the vote in the November.  Klein notes that the nonsense group of crybabies making up NARAL (include Kate in that, I still laugh at Kate's crying in the Senate -- still and always) deciding to endorse Barack yesterday has had a reaction: "Emily's List is furious.  Anad Martha Burke" expresses "It feels like they are abandoning a known ally for a less committed candidate because they want to jump on a bandwagon.  I think the pro-choice community should stick by a woman who has stuck by them."  Taylor Marsh points out that local NARAL chapters are saying (basically), 'Don't blame us, the national leadership kept us in the dark and didn't even consult us." Jo Mannies (St. Louis Post-Dispatch) quotes the Missouri chapter's president, Pamela Sumners stating, "In our membership demographic, a lot of longtime women's rights supporters are strong supporters of Hillary Clinton.  If we had been consulted, we would have said, 'Let this play out'."  Plus don't support a man who regularly insults women.  Klein earlier noted that a woman finally got an apology from Obama for his referring to her as "sweetie" ("Hold on one second, sweetie . . .") but then, she's a reporter.  He's called women "sweetie"s over and over.  "Little Miss" is probably next. Delilah Boyd (A Scriverner's Lament) compiles a list of men who could call her "sweetie" and Obama's not on it. As Michael Regunberg (Boston Globe) noted yesterday, "When the history of the 2008 presidential campaign is written, we may find that Gloria Steinem was right.  In a column in The New York Times that appeared between the Iowa caucuses and New Hampshire primary she wrote, 'Gender is probably the most restricting force in American life, whether the question is who must be in the kitchen or who could be in the White House.'  Fast forward six months and Steinem looks downright prescient.  We didn't know then just how biased the media would be against Hillary Clinton, a woman running for president.  But the 'boys on the bus' (and a good number of women as well) have had a tough time with Clinton and criticized everything from her pantsuits to her laugh, things they would not excoriate a man for.  What's worse, they get away with it . . . they use her as a punchline."  Punchline?  That would includes 'cracks' made by self-loathing lesbian Laura Flanders (be sure to read Marcia's "Laura Flanders the self-hating, disrespecting lesbian") who felt Gloria and Robin Morgan were missing the point.  What point was that, Laura?  That you're a semi-closeted lesbian or a Brit playing Democrat when you were raised a Communist?  That is, after all, why you do NOT vote Democratic.  Step out of your closets, self-loather. You could write about all the Communists mentioned in this article because your family was tight with all of them.  (Self-loathing lesbian Laura especially took offense at Robin's  "Goodbye To All That (#2)."  Probably the notion of saying goodbye to illusions scared the sexually and politically closeted Flanders.) 
 
 
Gene Lyons (Arkansas Democratic Gazette) is far kinder than I am, he calls them "progressives."  Yeah, they tried to hide behind that label before as well.  There's no reason for a Communist to be in the closet today (and young ones are not) unless you're trying to trick and decieve.  The way Flanders did the night/early morning of the 2004 election when she pretended she understood the anger and upset, when she pretended she'd voted Democratic.  Maybe all these 'progressives' wouldn't have so much influence if the Democrats they're trying to steer knew how many of them weren't Democrats.  It's not "red-baiting."  It goes to honesty.  Lyons:
 
There's no denying that her candidacy has encountered what a friend calls a "perfect storm" of progressive idealists merging with Clinton-hating celebrity courtiers in the "mainstream" media. And yet she keeps chugging along like the Little Engine That Could, defying increasingly shrill demands to quit.         
Weeks before the Indiana primary, Obama described it as the potential tiebreaker. Then he went out and lost it. Nevertheless, all but openly gloating, NBC's Tim Russert took it upon himself to announce, "We now know who the Democratic nominee's going to be, and no one's going to dispute it." Reaction among some Obama supporters was less polite.
 
Maybe Marie Cocco (same column as yesterday but link goes to the Washington Post) had those types in mind when she wrote: "I won't miss reading another treatise by a man or woman, of the left or right, who says that sexism has had not even a teeny-weeny bit of influence on the course of the Democratic campaign." Meanwhile snippy little Ryan Corsaro (CBS News) declares of Hillary leading in the popular vote: "Clinton only leads in the popular vote if Michigan and Florida's primary votes count, which they currently do not, because of Democratic Party rules."  As Ava and I noted in March:
 
One offered, "She's thousands behind! If you don't count Florida and Michigan." Thanks for the add-on but shouldn't a press be aware that a presidential election in November will take place in all fifty states? Shouldn't a press not be concerned with the talking points of the Obama campaign and report the facts which is Hillary isn't behind due to Florida and Michigan?       

If there's a re-vote, by all means, replace the votes. But there was a vote in both states and Hillary won both primaries. While it may not be in the Obama campaign's best interest to include those totals, the press is supposed to report what happened and what happened in those states' primaries was that Hillary won. "If you don't count"? Why wouldn't the press count them? They took place, millions voted. More people voted in the Florida primary, for example, than took part in all the primaries and caucuses before Florida combined. If you're the press, not the Obama campaign, and you're talking about the popular vote, there's no reason not to include Florida and Michigan. The press reports what happened. What happened is that Florida and Michigan voted. The delegates may be in dispute but there's no question that voters in both states showed up at the polls and no question about who won.
 
 
The popular vote is the popular vote. Primaries took place in Florida and Michigan. Whether the DNC seats, or doesn't, the delegates, the primaries took place and news outlets shouldn't pretend otherwise. Reporters are supposed to report what took place and, fact, primaries took place in both states and Hillary won.  
John Dickerson -- whose outlet created a Hillary Death Watch and likened it to their Saddam-Meter, so therefore really shouldn't be invited on to comment on the Hillary campaign -- was whining that "the arithmetic we were taught in school" didn't allow for including the primaries. Actually, John, it did. Math exercises had you count apples and oranges. You weren't allowed to determine whether a national grocer would carry those apples and oranges before you were expected to count them. You were told there were X number and you added them. The same way that the primaries in Michigan and Florida are part of the popular vote.
 
The race isn't over.  Yesterday Hillary received the endorsements of former governors of Kentucky Wendell Ford, Paul Patton, John Brown and Julian Carroll.  Guessing they matter a bit more to Kentucky then John Edwards' nonsense.  The race isn't over and, unless one of them drops out, goes to the convention floor.
 
 

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