The elephant in the room

[colorado thinker]

I'm so tired of every news broadcast, talking head program, newspaper editorial, ad nauseum solemnly stating "We're a nation at war" to justify all their lame opinions.

We are NOT a nation at war. We are a nation enmeshed in an occupation the Bush administration created based on lies and falsehoods.

We are a nation that experienced a terrorist attack, albeit an horrific one. Why is it, when the Brits were getting bombed regularly by the IRA, they didn't cry "We're at WAR" but realized it was really just illegal psychopathic behavior by a small group of fanatics? They used their law enforcement to fight it. We bomb the crap out of a country that wasn't involved.

The magnet-carrying mindless masses buy in to these false patriotic platitudes and use them to attack anyone who dares to think critically about the mess we are in. It's like a verbal tranquilizer, "how dare you think, question, dissent, speak out, don't you know we are at war?"

Forgive my rant, I just saw this line used again in an editorial slamming the teacher here in Colorado who unforgivably tried to set up a scenario that would make his students think.:grr:

[ThoughtCriminal]

1. If they want to call it a war

They should follow the Constitution and Declare war.

[fooj]

2. This bunch of rat bastards has DECLARED A WAR on its own people!

They have destroyed Iraq and now they are working on anyone else they can get their hands on...including us.
:cry:

[fooj]

3. BTW- welcome to DU!

Peace.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

4. I thought you meant this:

[colorado thinker]

6. No, but that's good, too

We need to deprogram the whole damned country. Mostly!

[MadMaddie]

5. Rant on.....my friend....

Welcome to DU:hi:

The Media is responsible for much of this mind set in the US....I think that somehow the media needs to be held accountable somehow.....

There is something interesting about the IRA and the bombings in England - The news didn't glamorize the war.....My dad was Air Force and I remember we were stationed in England in the early 70's....as a child I remember watching the news...the camaras showed the carnage....they didn't glamorize the attacks...like the US media....

These neocons thrive on fear....I blame the * cabal for that...a teacher can't ask their students to think critically and think for themselves....

The Neocons hate America....for it's Freedoms....

<snip>
It's like a verbal tranquilizer, "how dare you think, question, dissent, speak out, don't you know we are at war?"
<snip>

[samdogmom]

7. Maybe things would be different if the war was here!

Can you even begin to comprehend day-to-day life in Iraq??? We jump into our cars, run errands, pick the kids up from school, etc. with no second thought as to whether or not we'll be arriving safely back home at some point. I don't think this is the thought process in Iraq. I can't imagine living even one day under this strain--what has our country done??? Why doesn't anybody in Washington have a conscience and want to put an end to all of the misery we are causing in Iraq?

[Sooner75]

8. Good point.

Remember the Democratic Congressman in Fahrenheit 911 (sorry, don't recall his name...from WA, I believe) who said that the color coded Homeland Security levels would NEVER go below Amber because the uneasiness is politically useful. That Congressman is also a psychiatrist, I believe, and he knows a thing or two about psychology.

Also, remember the perpetual state of war in Orwell's "1984"? There were always evil outsiders who were trying to destroy Oceania, but Big Brother protected everyone from them. Quite handy for Big Brother, don't you think?

Finally, think about when ALL of America was truly at war in WWII. Gas rationing, rubber and metal drives, etc. It touched everyone every day. Later on, the Vietnam War was not as pervasive an influence on daily life, but it's ugliness came through our TV sets nightly. The draft was still in place. That war still touched a lot of people. Now, this elective Iraq thing touches a small segment of our society. After Vietnam, it took decades to re-build our military into the all-volunteer, highly professional career military caste that we have now, and the Army and the Marine Corps are being strained to the breaking point in a hideously expensive no-win situation in Iraq. Some of those fine people are now on their third tour in Iraq. Marriages are breaking up. More and more of them are dying or sustaining life-changing injuries. I personally feel that we are sending a powerfully negative message to our brave warriors about their chosen career. How long do you think we'll be the world's leading superpower with just corporate suits and no one willing to lock and load and go into battle?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

9. Welcome to DU!

I like the way you think!

[Peace Patriot]

10. The "elephant in the room" is "TRADE SECRET," PROPRIETARY programming

code--code so secret that not even our secretaries of state are permitted to review--in all the new electronic voting systems, which are owned and controlled mostly by two rightwing Bushite corporations, Diebold and ES&S.

Non-transparent elections are not elections. They are tyranny.

The war profiteering corporate news monopolies won't talk about it. The Democratic Party leadership (with some notable exceptions) won't talk about it. The Republicans, of course, won't talk about it.

It is the dark secret that is destroying our democracy.

While I agree with you, wholeheartedly, about this "we are a nation at war" tripe, I have to point out how it is that a president who lied and deceived us into war is still in office, when 58% of the American people opposed this horrendous and illegal war from the beginning--way back before the invasion (Feb. '03)--and something like 80% oppose it today, and also when the great majority of the American people oppose every major Bush policy, foreign and domestic, way up in the 60% to 70%, in poll after poll, over the last several years.

While the Bush junta was trampling over us to have their oil war, slaughtering tens of thousands of innocent people, illegally torturing prisoners, illegally spying on us, robbing us blind, and destroying our democracy, our rights, and our Constitution, Bushite crooks Tom Delay and Bob New were meanwhile planning the destruction of our election system with the so-called "Help America Vote Act"--a $4 billion electronic voting boondoggle to enrich their supporters at Diebold and ES&S and to corrupt election officials across the land, with lavish lobbying and heady control over large sums of money and over "trade secret" vote tabulation. They accomplished their purpose in a short period of time (2002-2004). Result: our election system has become NON-TRANSPARENT, and we have essentially lost our right to vote--the very mechanism of our sovereignty as a people.

The two things go together--illegal, thieving war and non-transparent elections. We have TWO elephants--and both of them stink to high heaven.

-----

Some resources:

www.votersunite.org (MythBreakers - easy primer on electronic voting--one of the myths is that HAVA requires electronic voting; it does not.)
www.verfiedvoting.org (great activist site)
www.UScountvotes.org (monitoring of '06 and '08 elections)
www.solarbus.org/election/index.shtml (fab compendium of all election info)
www.freepress.org (devoted to election reform)
www.TruthIsAll.net (analysis of the 2004 election)
Sign the petition (Russ Holt, HR 550, great bill-has 169 sponsors). http://www.rushholt.com/petition.html
www.debrabowen.com (Calif Senator running for Sec of State to reform election system)
www.votepa.us (well-organized local group of citizen activists in Pennsylvania, where important legal issues are at stake, including state's rights over election systems)

Also of interest:

Bob Koehler (-- four recent election reform initiatives in Ohio, predicted to win by 60/40 votes, flipped over, on election day, into 60/40 LOSSES!--the biggest flipover we've seen yet; the election theft machines and their masters are now dictating election policy!)
www.tmsfeatures.com/tmsfeatures/subcategory.jsp?file=20051124ctnbk-a.txt&catid=1824&code=ctnbk

Amaryllis (Diebold, ES&S, Sequoia lavish lobbying of election officials - Beverly Hilton, Aug. '05)
www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=203x380340

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Throw Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor' NOW!

:think: :patriot: :woohoo: :patriot: :think: