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It Has to Stop!

by: OPOL

Sat Dec 20, 2008 at 10:43:35 PST        
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( - promoted by buhdydharma )

I think some the angst I'm feeling comes from my fear that, even with our historic victory, that too little will change in time to make a difference.  Generals always want to fight the last war, while politicians want to wage the last campaign.  It's easy to look backward and hard to look forward, and far too few seem to realize the extent to which the stakes have been raised.  Our circumstances have really become quite dire.  That doesn't sink in easily for the many who want to pretend that the world is always going to be the way it's always been.

The politics of yesterday are not going to serve us any longer.  We need more than change.  We need more than a mid-course correction.  We need the crazy to stop.

And I don't mean just slow down a little, or be a little less crazy.  I mean it has to stop.  We have to reverse course in this damned country, not just modify it somewhat.  

the-end-of-humanity

OPOL :: It Has to Stop!
We cannot continue to put up with the ruthless exploitation of the American people by George W. Bush's base, the haves and the have mores.  And yes I know that Bush is on his way out, but the ignorant greedheads that infest Washington and Wall Street are going nowhere.

We have to deal with these guys...and not by making nice with them.  These people are dangerous.  Our laws are meant to protect us from people like this, and we need to see that they do.  This is no time to look the other way.

Do I want truth and reconciliation?  No sir!  I want trials and convictions.  We can talk about reconciliation after we've settled a few accountability issues.  How about someone taking responsibility for a change?

Progressives aren't getting a seat at the table, it has been suggested, because no one wants to deal with an angry mob on the far left.

My response is that if you're not angry, what good are you?

Am I angry?  Fuckin' A I'm angry.  But it's not like I'm angry without reason.  Don't do something horrible to me then point the finger at me for getting pissed off about it.  The right-wingers have stolen everything, not just from us but from our children and grandchildren.  People SHOULD be pissed, and they should NOT be getting over it.  People who don't want to have to deal with angry mobs shouldn't go around robbing people blind and fucking people over in every conceivable way.

PE Obama has said that both sides have good ideas and that we've ignored that.  That seems a reasonable proposition, or it does until one tries to identify just exactly what the good ideas of the American rightwing might be.

Reagan's trickledown proved to be just another piss-on-you program.  Deregulation?  A tragic, catastrophic failure.  Tax cuts to millionaires and billionaires?  Corporate welfare?  Outsourcing jobs?  Union busting?  Mercenary armies in America?  NAFTA?  CAFTA?  SHAFTA?

FISA?  Domestic spying?  Secret Presidential signing statements?  Double-super-secret everything?  Extraordinary renditions?  Gitmo?  Abu Ghraib?

Aggressive war?  Torture?  War on the environment?  Looting of the treasury?  Religious intolerance?  Bigotry?  Insulting our allies?  Subverting science?  Denying global warming?  

Doubling down on the drug war when they should be ending it?  Is THAT their big idea?

Outing CIA agents?  Locking up citizens at a higher rate than any other country?  Stationing military troops inside the borders of the USA?  

Pissing all over the Constitution of the United States of America?  Bankrupting us all?

What IS their good idea?  WTF is it?  Small government?  Please.  Until Wall Street needs a bailout, right?  Fuck Katrina.  Fuck New Orleans.  Fuck Detroit.  But Wall Street can have it all just for the askin'.  They don't even have to explain it to us or tell us where it's going.  What a huge bottomless pit of unmitigated bullshit!

And these stupid wars!  Is THAT the good idea?  That we are continuing to bomb the shit out of people who have done us no harm?  Ripping families apart?  Murdering babies?  Is THAT their good idea?

That we've bankrupted the nation, needlessly sacrificed the blood of our youth, killed millions of innocent people and destroyed our military by fighting foolish wars for foolish reasons?  Is that the good idea?

War crimes?  Could that be it?  Letting heinous criminals skate Scott free without so much as a sternly worded letter of disapproval?  Is THAT their excellent idea?

Class warfare?  Ruthlessly screwing over the poor and middleclass?  Distorting and perverting the once honorable practice of medicine all for the sake of a buck?  Destroying public education?  Politicizing the Justice Department?  Billions in bonuses for the greedheads who stole our money and wrecked our economy - on top of the unaccounted-for bailout money?

Maybe it's just me but I'm not seeing any good ideas here.  I just plain don't fucking see it.

Obama said he wasn't against all wars, just dumb ones.  What's so smart about Afghanistan?  It may be arguable whether or not it was EVER a good idea, but after seven long years it has certainly become just another very bad one.

But now we're escalating it?  Sending in twenty thousand more troops?  With Obama's blessing?  

Why is this sane?  Why does this make any sense at all?  Why is this not totally fucked up?  

Does nobody care about the suffering of the Afghan people?

Compassionate conservatism.  Yeah, maybe that's their big idea.

Obama has recently spoken about 'stomping out terrorism'.  When will we get it, that the more 'stomping' we do, the more terrorists we create?  Terrorism doesn't happen in a vacuum.  It happens because we keep giving people good reasons to hate us.  Ahmed is a 'terrorist' because we tortured his father, bombed his mother or attacked his uncle's wedding party.  They do NOT hate us for our freedom - they hate us for good reasons that we keep serving up to them on a silver platter.  The only reason we do it is to placate the military industrial complex whose backers are making a killing off of the killing.  

That's the only reason.  These people, the Afghans, the Iraqis are no threat to us - or they wouldn't be if we'd quit fucking with them.  But we have allowed war profiteers to drive our foreign policy.  We let death merchants drive the damned boat and they have gone all over the world starting bogus wars in our names, torturing, killing, maiming, raping.  Thanks to these gi-normous assholes, we are the biggest bullies on the planet - hands down.  It's insane.  Surely THIS is not the good idea.

Or maybe it's Bush's final fuck you to America that's so damned charming.

Bush's Final F.U.

The administration is rushing to enact a host of last-minute regulations that will screw America for years to come

RollingStone

It has to stop.  This madness has to turn completely around for us to even have a chance.  And it's not just because people like me want it to.  It's because if it doesn't we're fucked.

The big melt: 2 trillion tons of ice gone since '03

Scientists say NASA satellite data on global warming 'should alarm people'

MSNBC

Things have simply gotten too serious for us to be able to afford continued tinkering with national policy by those whose motives are unpure.  Period.

Barack Obama is no doubt going to change a lot of things in America.  I do not mean to minimize any of that - it will all be as welcome as it is desperately needed.  My fear is that for all the change that will surely come, one still will not have to scratch too deeply beneath the surface of things to find the same asshattery and dimwittery at play.  That has little or nothing to do with Obama.  It is all about the deep reality of who controls what in America.  The 'big money' players who control so much from behind the scenes are still going to be with us - and they will be trying desperately to keep us from turning things around.  It might cost them a buck or two to save all of our asses...and of course they can't have any of THAT.

We have to stop these ignorant assholes, their blind running greed, their tons of cash and the influence it buys from killing us all.

If we don't get focused on real problems like climate change, alternative energy, sustainable agriculture, etcetera and stop being distracted by these stupid and destructive wars, humanity itself will soon go into epic fail mode.

We don't need change we can believe in, we need change we can count on.  And it can't be just a little change.  It needs to come in a steady stream and in huge boatloads.

The madness has to stop.

And yes, I know he's not president yet, but he still deserves to hear from us.  He NEEDS to hear from us.  Dissent is our duty - now more than ever.

Peace-and-survival-takes-brains

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It Has to Stop! | 41 comments
Tips for survival... (4.00 / 38)
and for doing the right thing.

"The truth shall set you free - but first it'll piss you off." Gloria Steinem

Join the International Criminal Court (4.00 / 9)
Put ourselves and our leaders within their jurisdiction. Bust ourselves and turn ourselves in. Yeah, I know - it only helps with the war crimes part. At least it's a start.

Posted this before dawn today and it doesn't seem to have seen much light - ICC Now. Probably bad manners to link to it but I think it's a solution to some of what ails us.

The Class War is a whole other story. And the climate change is beyond the tipping point. We're in adapt or die mode right now. There's nothing we can do to stop what's being born there.

As always, tips and ponies for a great post. If words and passion solved our problems, we'd be home free by now. Unfortunately, it seems like some action will be needed. Non-violent, massive peaceful action.

Maybe someone could hack Fox's satellite uplink for a day or two. That'd make for some great space theater. ;-)

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the Sun, the Moon and the Truth." Buddha


[ Parent ]
you are goddamn right!!! (4.00 / 5)
Thieves, liars, murderers and they must be punished.  Flat out.  No exceptions.  We live in a time of slaughter and greed.  Fuck them!  Fuck their cluster bombs.  Fuck their toxins in my drinking water.  Fuck their bribes to make dumb ass middle management idiots go around defending them.  Fuck them BECAUSE THEY ARE FUCKING US EVERY SINGLE DAY!!!

-gadfly

"Sunlight is the best disinfectant" - Louis Brandeis


[ Parent ]
DOcumentary film - "The Warning" (4.00 / 1)


"Three things cannot be long hidden: the Sun, the Moon and the Truth." Buddha

[ Parent ]
Oops. Hit the return key twice... (4.00 / 1)
Found a link to a it at the RawStory last night. The film is:

Comprised of interviews with authors Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. ("Crimes Against Nature"), Naomi Wolf ("The End of America"), Naomi Klein ("The Shock Doctrine"), Chris Hedges ("American Fascists") and Joe Conason ("It Can Happen Here"), 'The Warning' plumbs deep the frightening, totalitarian advances seen in US governance since the appointment of George W. Bush, and the threats these new executive powers pose in the coming years.

I've read Naomi Wolf's End of America. Excellent and comprehensive and very scary. Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine is on my reading list. If it's anywhere near as good as Wolf's it will be worth the time.

Sottile's film avoids cinematic flare in favor of an 85-minute, focused, heavily researched diatribe that caustically categorizes the Bush administration's most egregious abuses.

"One of the reasons for the rise of alternative press on the Web is because people are turning off their TVs," said Sottile, expanding on his reasons for breaking away from televised journalism. "They don't trust the media. The American people regard the media pretty much the same way they regard lawyers. I think the fact that important questions have not been asked by the media after 9/11, in the lead-up to the Iraq war, people are reacting to that."

We need to know the exact nature of our enemy and their tactics. History provides a lot of examples. If we don't fully educate ourselves and respond then we will end up with what we deserve. And like it or not, we deserved Bush and Cheney for what we've let happen. Our children and grandchildren deserve better.

My 27 year-old son seems to think that Obama will make it all better and there's no need for him to read Wolf's book now. Wrong. The Repugs are just licking their wounds for now. They'll be back like the zombies they are. The nightmare is not.over.yet.

You can download the film from the producer's site.

Satya.

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the Sun, the Moon and the Truth." Buddha


[ Parent ]
"Dissent is our duty." (4.00 / 16)
Precisely.  Thanks bro.

Visit The Dream Antilles, a Lit Blog.

shhhhh... (4.00 / 12)
...have some freshly printed money.  

Spend it quick.


you speak the truth again (4.00 / 14)
brother opol. Good to see you today, great essay.

Thanks FireCrow. (4.00 / 10)
Always good to see you brother.  

"The truth shall set you free - but first it'll piss you off." Gloria Steinem

[ Parent ]
Peace takes brains. (4.00 / 18)
And moderates have to start moderating their moderateness.

The politics of yesterday are not going to serve us any longer.  We need more than change.  We need more than a mid-course correction.  We need the crazy to stop.

Radical is the moderate, and the sane thing to be, now.

Some people believe we shouldn't complain too loudly, protest too vigorously or argue too passionately - the theory being that if we appear too leftist, too radical or too seriously committed to our beliefs that people who don't share those beliefs will be offended and therefore unlikely to become seriously committed radical leftists themselves one day.  Well I have big news; those dim bulbs are not likely to ever shine - certainly not in response to our stifling ourselves.  For once, let's let the smart people have their say.
...
One does not compromise with Straussians, neocons, chickenhawks or clueless bastards.  People who still support George W. Bush, torture and war profiteering at this late stage of human history are beyond reason or persuasion.  There is no point whatsoever in worrying about how such people see things, what they might say, or how they might characterize our actions or arguments.  These people should not be appeased or wooed, they should be marginalized and driven back under the rocks from which they have slithered.

-- No Time Left To Compromise With Evil, OPOL



LOL! (4.00 / 9)
Now who wrote that?  :-D

"The truth shall set you free - but first it'll piss you off." Gloria Steinem

[ Parent ]
Heh! I wondered if you'd (4.00 / 11)
remember writing that. I did! And I've quoted it more times than I can remember.

It's one of the most succinct statements I think I've ever seen, OPOL. Great pice of writing, man. :-)


[ Parent ]
heh! I am easy going (4.00 / 13)
peacenik love groovy everything's cool man don't harsh my buzz liberal DFH.

HEAR ME ROAR!!!!!

These people should not be appeased or wooed, they should be marginalized and driven back under the rocks from which they have slithered.

Any questions?


[ Parent ]
Actually, I beg to quibble a bit (4.00 / 1)
If possible, educate.

If not, incarcerate.

I greatly look forward to the day when no one who supported the Bush regime will be able to hold their head up high or keep the shame from their eyes.

Bring the truth to light. All of it. ALL OF IT!

That is the worst thing anyone could ever do to them.

Anyone who fails to see the historical parallels between Blackwater & the Nazi SS, or the DHS & the Gestapo, needs a serious reality check.


[ Parent ]
Thanks for placing that back before us, Edger! (4.00 / 9)
I put something up on DailyKos the other evening trying to get New Yorkers there down to the New School to support the students who had taken over a building. Most of the responses were favorable but some reminded me of why Phil Ochs felt compelled to write "Love Me, I'm A Liberal"--not you, OPOL--and if we want the crazy to stop, it's up to us...

[ Parent ]
Pray on the Solstice (4.00 / 16)
For a better world and a better country. And then work, each of us in the way we serve best, to make it happen.

Good to "see" you OPOL!! I hope life is being kind to you.

"It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counter-culture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness." -Jerry Garcia


Thanks US. (4.00 / 7)
Kind enough I suppose...all things considered.  Best to you US Blues.

"The truth shall set you free - but first it'll piss you off." Gloria Steinem

[ Parent ]
Thank you (4.00 / 9)
Turning inward as the shorter days are here, and finding the good stuff inside.

I also have a wonderment- we know what doesn't work, but what is it that will work, on the scale of existence that we have reached?

I have noticed over the last few days here and other places that there seems to be a malaise that has taken hold of people. Lots of diaries and stories of what no longer works. I am looking for the stories of what does work, of where real hope resides, of where the human spirit still burns like a bright flame.


"It's pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counter-culture is, in reality, just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness." -Jerry Garcia


[ Parent ]
yes (4.00 / 2)
I am looking for the stories of what does work, of where real hope resides, of where the human spirit still burns like a bright flame.

pretty much perfectly described what i am doing as well, US Blues.  thanks.  :-)

No ponies, but
"Please pass the lotus flower..."  


[ Parent ]
Something else that needs to be addressed: THE MURDERS (4.00 / 10)
All the "suicides", all the "deaths under suspicious circumstances", all the "accidents" of which THIS is the latest.

A cabal of organized criminals has been allowed to run completely amok, both here and abroad. I've written about this before, and the body count just keeps going up.

Anyone who fails to see the historical parallels between Blackwater & the Nazi SS, or the DHS & the Gestapo, needs a serious reality check.


methane should be everybodies primary concern at this time (4.00 / 8)
yet it is buried under the current economic crisis

Cow farts and bullshit (4.00 / 5)
Definitely our two biggest problems. ;-)

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the Sun, the Moon and the Truth." Buddha

[ Parent ]
Methane is released (4.00 / 3)
from decaying matter when the permafrost melts, releasing it into the atmosphere...and aggravating global warming.  I can't find the story the NYT did about this a couple of years ago (their search engine sucks), but imagine: permafrost in Siberia, Alaska, Canada, Greenland, etc. all melting at once, releasing tons of methane (a greenhouse gas), thereby accelerating global warming.  I think that's what theevolutionarysieve is referring to.

One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope.--Molly Ivins

[ Parent ]
Ronald Reagan and/og GHWB blamed the excess methane on cow farts (4.00 / 4)
From the feedlots. Then again, Reagan declared that trees cause 80% of pollution. I must be getting confused between science that is right and science that is real. Probably because I keep asking myself "Can this be for real?" whenever the latest GHB news comes out. These things can't possibly be right.

Cosmic Q - if there's a far right is there a far real? I life is a reality show, can this be the last reel?

Happy Yule.

"Three things cannot be long hidden: the Sun, the Moon and the Truth." Buddha


[ Parent ]
lol...Reagan also (4.00 / 4)
thought that catsup is a vegetable.  And created the roots of our current economic implosion with "piss-on-you" economics and beginning the destruction of the manufacturing economy that was the backbone of our strong economy.  GOP scum, all of them.  Don't get me started...my head might explode.  The "fucking fuckers" comments would be heard all over the intertoobz, even by people whose speakers aren't working....

One function of the income gap is that the people at the top of the heap have a hard time even seeing those at the bottom. They practically need a telescope.--Molly Ivins

[ Parent ]
"Cow farts and bullshit....Definitely our two biggest problems." (4.00 / 2)
You forgot Republicans. They add billions of tons of toxic "gas" to our atmosphere.....

"The modern conservative is engaged in one of man's oldest exercises in moral philosophy; that is, the search for a superior moral justification for selfishness." -John Kenneth Galbraith

[ Parent ]
I refer to 450 giga tonnes of methane from the permafrost (4.00 / 1)
and another 7000-10000 giga tonnes from calthrates under the no longer ice covered arctic ocean

by comparison we have only put about 200 - 250 giga tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere in total

methane is between 15 to 20 times more heat  retentive

do the math

carbon dioxide no longer is running the heat curve on mother earth

we could all disappear tomorrow and the temperature of this world will still now go through the roof

this world will experience not an average 6 degree or so rise in temperature but something more like 15 - 20 degrees for a decade or two

consider this the next time you watch a program like 6 degrees on tv

that program suggests that 6 degrees of average temperature rise will be catastrophic

so what I ask what will 20 degrees look like

I smell smoke is that all of the northern temperate forest burning


[ Parent ]
Once again dear Opol... (4.00 / 10)
...muchas gracias for a great diary.  It surely reflects my mood.

If ever a species deserved to be replaced, we do!   Isaac Asimov

Right on, OPOL. (4.00 / 10)
My response is that if you're not angry, what good are you?

Over on dkos yesterday, there was this silly diary on rec list by Jeff Lieber telling people to act right because dkos folks, yes, the ones most of whom are moderates or sligly left of center, are seen as the "far left."

SCARY!!

They wouldn't know far left if it sat on them.

It won't change unless we change it.  And if it does not change, it will only get worse.

We need more OPOLs and fewer accomodationists.

Damn right we're angry!  

In Solidarity, brother.


My comment wasn't specifically directed at Jeff Lieber. (0.00 / 0)
We have some differences in style and approach but for the most part we are simpatico.  He's actually a pretty great guy in my estimation.

I do generally agree with your approach to things though Tom.  I think the ways in which we differ from some in our community may be generational.  Some of the youngsters haven't seen some of the shit we've seen.  I don't know how fair or accurate that is...just my take on it.

"The truth shall set you free - but first it'll piss you off." Gloria Steinem


[ Parent ]
both of you (4.00 / 1)
influenced my essay today, though, intentional or not :)

Visit me @ The Wild Wild Left! Crossposting is good for us all!

[ Parent ]
All the things that I have mulled over, over and over (4.00 / 7)
and my feelings attached to those thoughts you have summed up to a tee.  Now, you're a mind reader?

Super diary, OPOL!  Thank you!

Say "YES" to Generation We  Go there, read the Petition and sign, if you agree!   Say "YES" to GENERAL STRIKE


I saw an essay (4.00 / 4)
that suggested we "cannot be dealt with" and thought exactly what you have written.

I'm not ready to make nice.



Visit me @ The Wild Wild Left! Crossposting is good for us all!


The tradedy is that (4.00 / 3)
the the so called left has been so demonized by the propaganda and the pols themselves, that they give away any power they have. They give it to the same assholes over and over. Arguments about where the 'center' is and how not to offend the pig ignorant 30% who still seem to be the preferred  'demographic' and cooked up culture wars, are totally insane at this point. I'm sitting in a blizzard in OR. is this because God is mad at us? To bend to this much stupidity and call it unity or politics is the craziest thing yet. Why? The smart people won but the pols are still pulling the same fucking strings. The so called left just rolls over and believes it's some kind of necessary ploy we have to accept, because were extreme?  

How can we as citizens, let alone humans, allow our government to continue with this sham. The bamboozles are not from the right wing or the left wing, they are from the ones in power regardless of party. Power is in the hands of the dangerous killers who are living in a delusional world they seek to exploit while making it uninhabitable. The real insanity is we march to their tunes of what is center or left or reality. Dragging God into this is insult to injury. Look out your windows folks there is the reality. Surreal to be still doing this after all that has happened. Kool aid comes in all flavors as it's a corporate concoction, full of chemicals and sugar with no nutritional value and is well known for making poison palatable.    


On denial of global warming (0.00 / 0)
yes I don't deny the weather is getting scary.

I do however consider Big Al Gore's "solution" as THE top Satanic meme of this century.  Back in 1993 when China and India were not major "carbon" polluters they were named "carbon emissions" exempt.  That was before "carbon" and it's most ugly cousin "carbon trading" became major household words.  

Well what happened.  China and India, free from unions,EPA regulations were both free to do as they pleased.  The financial houses of the western world responded in kind and financed an industrial Gold Rush of unbelievable proportions.  Big bucks in the exploitation of cheap labor.

These very same financial parasitic scumbags are now taking government bailout money to invest in guess what?

Carbon Trading Scams.
I'm going to cease recycling.

"Last Summer Before Armageddon!"


We have to stop it (4.00 / 1)
That's been the slogan on the Iraq Moratorium website since it started:  "It's got to stop.  We've got to stop it."

"It" is the war, of course, but the same is true of the whole list of atrocities you cite.  Now is not a time for activists to take a break and bask in post-election complacency.

If change is gonna come, we've gotta make it happen.

Another Vet for Peace


It Has to Stop! | 41 comments
 

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