Warmongers - "did not serve"

[I found this nifty little list at http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2008/04/375092.shtml posted by "Ben Waiting"]

Democrats:

* Richard Gephardt: Air National Guard, 1965-71.
* David Bonior: Staff Sgt., Air Force 1968-72.
* Tom Daschle: 1st Lt., Air Force SAC 1969-72.
* Al Gore: enlisted Aug. 1969; sent to Vietnam Jan. 1971 as an army journalist in 20th Engineer Brigade.
* Bob Kerrey: Lt. j.g. Navy 1966-69; Medal of Honor, Vietnam.
* Daniel Inouye: Army 1943-47; Medal of Honor, WWII.
* John Kerry: Lt., Navy 1966-70; Silver Star, Bronze Star with Combat V, Purple Hearts.
* Charles Rangel: Staff Sgt., Army 1948-52; Bronze Star, Korea.
* Max Cleland: Captain, Army 1965-68; Silver Star &Bronze Star, Vietnam.
* Ted Kennedy: Army, 1951-53.
* Tom Harkin: Lt., Navy, 1962-67; Naval Reserve, 1968-74.
* Jack Reed: Army Ranger, 1971-1979; Captain, Army Reserve 1979-91.
* Fritz Hollings: Army officer in WWII; Bronze Star and seven campaign ribbons.
* Leonard Boswell: Lt. Col., Army 1956-76; Vietnam, DFCs, Bronze Stars, and Sol dier's Medal.
* Pete Peterson: Air Force Captain, POW. Purple Heart, Silver Star and Legion of Merit.
* Mike Thompson: Staff sergeant, 173rd Airborne, Purple Heart.
* Bill McBride: Candidate for Fla. Governor. Marine in Vietnam; Bronze Star with Combat V.
* Gray Davis: Army Captain in Vietnam, Bronze Star.
* Pete St ark: Air Force 1955-57
* Chuck Robb: Vietnam
* Howell Heflin: Silver Star
* George McGovern: Silver Star &DFC during WWII.
* Bill Clinton: Did not serve. Student deferments. Entered draft but received #311.
* Jimmy Carter: Seven years in the Navy.
* Walter Mondale: Army 1951-1953
* John Glenn: WWII and Korea; six DFCs and Air Medal with 18 Clusters.
* Tom Lantos: Served in Hungarian underground in WWII. Saved by Raoul Wallenberg.

Republicans

These are the guys sending people to war:

* Dick Cheney: did not serve. Several deferments, the last by marriage.
* Dennis Hastert: did not serve.
* Tom Delay: did not serve.
* Roy Blunt: did not serve.
* Bill Frist: did not serve.
* Mitch McConnell: did not serve.
* Rick Santorum: did not serve.
* Trent Lott: did not serve.
* John Ashcroft: did not serve. Seven deferments to teach business.
* Jeb Bush: did not serve.
* Karl Rove: did not serve.
* Saxby Chambliss: did not serve. "Bad knee." The man who attacked Max Cleland's patriotism.
* Paul Wolfowitz: did not serve.
* Vin Weber: did not serve.
* Richard Perle: did not serve.
* Douglas Feith: did not serve.
* Eliot Abrams: did not serve.
* Richard Shelby: did not serve.
* Jon Kyl: did not serve.
* Tim Hutchison: did not serve.
* Christopher Cox: did not serve.
* Newt Gingrich: did not serve.
* Don Rumsfeld: served in Navy (1954-57) as flight instructor.
* George W. Bush: failed to complete his six-year National Guard; got assigned to Alabama so he could campaign for family friend running for U.S. Senate; failed to show up for required medical exam, disappeared from duty.
* B-1 Bob Dornan: Consciously enlisted after fighting was over in Korea.
* Phil Gramm: did not serve.
* John McCain: Silver Star, Bronze Star, Legion of Merit, Purple Heart and Distinguished Flying Cross.
* Dana Rohrabacher: did not serve.
* John M. McHugh: did not serve.
* JC Watts: did not serve.
* Jack Kemp: did not serve. "Knee problem," although continued in NFL for 8 years.
* Dan Quayle: Journalism unit of the Indiana National Guard.
* Rudy Giuliani: did not serve.
* George Pataki: did not serve.
* Spencer Abraham: did not serve.
* John Engler: did not serve.
* Lindsey Graham: National Guard lawyer.
* Arnold Schwarzenegger: AWOL from Austrian army base.
* Ronald Reagan: due to poor eyesight, served in a non-combat role making movies.

Pundits, Preachers & Hollywood

* Sean Hannity: did not serve.
* Rush Limbaugh: did not serve (4-F with a 'pilonidal cyst.')
* Bill O'Reilly: did not serve.
* Michael Savage: did not serve.
* George Will: did not serve.
* Chris Matthews: did not serve.
* Paul Gigot: did not serve.
* Bill Bennett: did not serve.
* Pat Buchanan: did not serve.
* Bill Kristol: did not serve.
* Kenneth Starr: did not serve.
* Antonin Scalia: did not serve.
* Clarence Thomas: did not serve.
* Ralph Reed: did not serve.
* Michael Medved: did not serve.
* Charlie Daniels: did not serve.
* Ted Nugent: did not serve. (He only shoots at things that don't shoot back.)
* John Wayne: did not serve.

Dave Barry on the Economic Stimulus Payment

"This year, taxpayers will receive an Economic Stimulus Payment. This is a very exciting new program that I will explain using the Q and A format:

"Q. What is an Economic Stimulus Payment?
"A. It is money that the federal government will send to taxpayers.

"Q. Where will the government get this money?
"A. From taxpayers.

"Q. So the government is giving me back my own money?
"A. Only a smidgen.

"Q. What is the purpose of this payment?
"A. The plan is that you will use the money to purchase a high-definition TV set, thus stimulating the economy.

"Q. But isn't that stimulating the economy of China?
"A. Shut up."

For 9-11 Truthseekers

There will be a West Coast Convergence in San Francisco May 10th & 11th. Go to truthaction.org for more details. Hope to see you there! :)

Also, Professor Steven Jones et al were finally published in a peer-reviewed Civil Engineering journal, details here: http://911blogger.com/node/15081

This is a major breakthrough. Congratulations, Prof. Jones!

Also, kudos to We Are Change (UK) for this telling interview with BBC news anchor Phil Hayton about the BBC's foreknowledge of the collapse of WTC 7: http://911blogger.com/node/15209#comment

Spraying the people

The California Department of Food and Agriculture wants to spray San Francisco (they aren't going to spray any actual agriculture, mind you, just the populated areas) with an untested chemical that hangs around for as much as 30 days (in plastic "microcapsules") to "eradicate" the light brown apple moth. Excuse me, how are you going to wipe out an insect without targeting the places that you say you want to protect from it? Experts say the light brown apple moth is only a minor pest, and it's so widespread it would be impossible to get rid of it anyway. What the hell are these guys trying to put over on us?

This has already been done to other cities in California, including Monterey. It has caused serious health problems, including sending this guy's baby boy to the emergency room:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=YxXFZkVd0To

One woman reported the day after spraying, half the rabbits she was raising were found dead in their hutch. WTF? There are much better, tested ways of targeting the moth, like twist ties. Why are they doing this? As you can imagine, San Franciscans are pretty outraged.

But you know what? This nation as a whole has been sprayed without our knowledge or consent for quite some time. Check out this video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5F4yQlMcibU&eurl=http://educate-yourself.org/lte/chemtrailgressrootrevolt19apr08.shtml



(Note: I've already posted a video this blog from one CBS affiliate that actually *has* reported on chemtrails -- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okB-489l6MI )

Parasites

Our world is full of parasites. We all know about mosquitoes and tapeworms, but I'm talking about intelligent parasites -- what we've mythologized througout the ages to be bloodsucking vampires and what we know today to be international bankers, the Federal Reserve and the like. People who feed off human fear and ignorance. They who thrive in the dark and wither in the light.

I was just reading the first passage in the book Soul Stories by Gary Zukav. It was a masterful description of how the author's sister was in an accident and his mother, a hundred miles away, stood up and announced, "something's happened to Gail!" And I, who has long experienced and been fascinated by phenomena like this, sat up and exclaimed, "we *know* these things to be true! Yet we've been trained to disbelieve them!" Why? For what purpose?

Because, I answered myself, it would remind us how much power we have, how much more than our fragile bodies and five senses we really are, and that would take away from the power of those who would hold us as slaves.

Where did the idea of eternal hellfire come from? The idea that you need a bunch of fancy-pants rituals and middlemen to connect you with God, the universe, and anything else that's worth existing for?

Parasites. Bloodsucking parasites that feed off of other people's misery.

There are those (among these self-same parasites) that would have people think that feeding the poor and helping the weak amounts to a host/parasite relationship. They're wrong! There's a huge difference between charity and parasitism: awareness and intent (not to mention scale!). When you give an old lady a Thanksgiving meal, you know what you're doing and you can feel good about it. When you give Exxon-Mobile a couple thousand bucks in extra profit, you don't know that you've done it, you don't know what they're doing with it, and if you did I doubt you'd feel good about it.

There are some things I've become pretty sure of, and I wish others would become aware of as well, as this awareness would shine some light on these bloodsuckers (the first step towards getting rid of them!):

a) death isn't nearly as scary or as final as we've been led to believe
b) we are more powerful than we can imagine

We have a choice as to how we're going to live our lives. We might not control the weather, but we can adjust our sails to reach our destination. We might not be able to do it alone, but we can help each other. We don't need parasites to tell us where to go and how to get there.

Weird suicides

I found this recent article about a peace activist found in a lake, bound by the hands and legs with tape over his eyes, rather disturbing:

Man found in Lady Bird Lake was teacher, FBI target
Police said that victim, who taught at a Southwest Austin middle school, may have committed suicide.

Why does this remind me of Gary Webb, who shot himself in the head twice? Or Mephis coroner O.C. Smith (who performed the much-awaited, controversial autopsy on microbiologist Don Wiley) found wrapped in barbed wire and left lying in a stairwell of the medical examiner's building with a live bomb strapped to his chest?

Forgive me, I have a morbid fascination with mysterious deaths. That's why I did the above linked radio commentary about journalist Gary Webb, and this one about microbiologists.

Just wanted to share ...

I haven't had but about an hour a day to keep up with what's going on with the world via the Internet (I'm only allotted an hour at the public library, the rest I have to scrabble from other various places). So sorry if I never get to what I wanted to write about the Olympic torch run, it really was an amazing event, but I'm caught in the slipstream of life and time marches on. So here's a couple of cool things I wanted to share. The first is the idea of a whole village in England deciding to turn away from Supermarkets and grow its own food. You know what? If I were British I think I'd move there.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=559580&in_page_id=1770

Here's a quote I particularly liked from this article about a theory about conspiracy theories:
"Believe those who are seeking the truth. Doubt those who find it." -- Andre Gide

I hope to write a real blog entry soon, when I can find the time!

San Franciscans throw cold water on China's Olympic torch run

Whew! I've been on my feet all day and most of yesterday, too. Yesterday hundreds of people calling for a free Tibet gathered at UN plaza in the morning -- after a long rally, we marched to City Hall (mayor Gavin Newsome came out to look at us from his balcony) and then to the Chinese consulate and back again. There was a candlelight vigil later that night with even *more* people, because Bishop Desmond Tutu and Richard Gere were scheduled to speak. Bishop Tutu was so awesome -- the man bubbles over with love and joy.

But the most amazing events were yet to come -- the Olympic torch protest was absolutely *huge.* Of course it would be, because not only were the Tibetan supporters, Burma supporters, Darfur supporters and basic human rights supporters there, there's a sizable Chinese American population in San Francisco and for some reason there were a lot of people waving Chinese flags in support of China. I don't know why people who left China would want to support the Chinese government who would arrest anybody at the slightest hint of free speech, but I'd be remiss if I didn't mention there were a lot of Chinese flags as well.


At any rate, there was no way the torch run could have proceeded as planned. There were way too many protesters -- and very committed, serious protesters at that. It's been a long time since I've seen dedication like that from all but the most committed peace activists. One guy kept leading chants like "Shame on China!" "China lies, people die!" for literally hours. These people were not the types to put in their two hours and then go home. I was very heartened to see that kind of commitment to a cause. This was not an abstract idea for them -- their spiritual leaders are being killed and tortured right now. To be so dedicated and yet committed to peaceful non-violence ... why can't America's peace movement be more like them?


Yet there were so many others just like them, from the Burmese, people from Eastern Turkmenistan (a situation like that of Tibet), the Vietnamese, those protesting China's hand in the genocide of Darfur ... what a privilege to be with these people. BTW, it was absolutely gorgeous outside.


In a surprise move, an official Olympic torch bearer (I didn't get her name, she was a young African-American woman) pulled out a Tibetan flag. She later came over and spoke to the Free Tibet contingent of protesters, who of course lionized her as they did the 3 young people who scaled the Golden Gate bridge to drop a "Free Tibet" banner a couple days ago.


I'm running out of Internet time, but I'll update this post and add more pictures later.

Take Action April 11

(from http://911blogger.com/node/14762#comment)

Join us in action on every eleventh... until justice
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Video by Bruno of We Are Change LA
The Eleventh Day of Every Month

Bank failures, empowering the Fed, and other horrors

I watched a movie today ("Monsieur Verdoux") that referenced the bank runs of the Great Depression. It showed a brief montage of some very angry people breaking windows at the bank, unable to get their money out, people jumping out of windows, etc.

How far are we today from a similar situation? Well, let's look at some headlines ...

Banking industry to lose 200,000 jobs

IMF Says U.S. In Worst Economic Crisis Since Great Depression

FDIC beefs up bank failure unit

And now it seems Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson wants to completely overhaul our banking system by giving the (privately owned) Federal Reserve even more authority. Why does this remind me of how we gave Bush authority to create the Department of Homeland Security, in reaction to a crisis that he himself was responsible for?