mob museums and war criminals
las vegas is building a museum formally called the las vegas museum of organized crime and law enforcement but will be known by one and all as the "mob museum". yesterday, our mayor, oscar goodman who was a lawyer specializing in defending mob guys, modeled the new t-shirts:
it is white with black lettering:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MOB MUSEUM NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN THERE.
i love this town.
re: previous post. one of the writers sent me a bunch of quotes from various politicians from both parties that said saddaam had weapons of mass destruction. they were all wrong. they were politicians playing to their audiences and, as such, they were and are just as guilty (or close to "as guilty") as gwb. clinton bombed iraq for his entire 8 years in offices and his cowardly punk-assedparty hacks had to tow the party line...they didn't want to call their beloved president a murderer but he was one. the united nations inspectors, however, called for more time because they could find no evidence of wmd's but bushie jr. had to have his little war. if the united states were to fall and war crime tribunals were to be set up then many on both sides of the aisle would be in the dock.
after the first gulf war (which, incidentally was a set up by bushie I...check out the days before s.h. invaded kuwait he came to our ambassador (don't remember her name but this is also public record) and told her that he was thinking of invading kuwait because, in the iraqi mind, kuwait and it's oil and port were actually part of iraq. over the years, iraq had gone to the u.n. to voice their point and the good ol' us of a used the veto power to block iraq's claims. our ambassador then told him that we would look at this as an "internal matter" and would not intervene. iraq invades. and then so do we. (incidentally since i have MANY iranian ((persian, as they prefer)) friends and several of them travel back and forth to the middle east and they tell me and rhonda that the kuwait people think of us, the usa, as their servants.) and, by the way, how many kuwaiti troops are in Afghanistan or iraq helping our troops? but anyway, after that war which was right after the iraq/iran war saadaam's war making powers were depleted to almost nothing. he could not, however, let this be known. why? well obviously it would make his enemies feel that they could engage him in another war and by winning, divvy up his vast oil reserves. as a result of this, s.h. had to keep up a front of being armed and dangerous but the fact of the matter is he was militarily impotent. hell, how many dog fights were there over baghdad when we invaded THIS time? none. why? he didn't even have any planes much less icbm's. AND WE KNEW THIS AND SO DID THE U.N.
over these past two years of blogging i have made it clear that i blame every single one who voted for the iraqi war responsible for the murders of thousands. we have one party, the war party and i have said that before. so, for you critics out there who post anonymously, read all of the posts before you make your claims about my partisanship.
all of this leads to why i support senator barack obama: he was against this war. i believe that he is our best hope to end the stranglehold that our military industrial complex has over our government. f.d.r. once told a group of activists, "i agree with everything you say; now go out and make me do it!" obama is new. he is not beholden to the m.i.c. and i believe he is operating out of a firm desire to make america better, to lead us back to what our founders had in mind, a country that was willing to trade with all but never to involved in foreign affairs by not allying ourselves with any other countries other than our immediate neighbors. i plan on holding his feet to the fire as much as i can. i do not agree with all his positions nor ideas but he does not seem to be in the warmongering mode of john mc cain. i realize that i could be wrong and if i am, then god help us because eventually the world will unite against us.
as far as Afghanistan goes, we should never have called this a "war" but instead called it a "manhunt" for a criminal gang. we, obviously, cannot let a criminal such as osama bin laden to attack us and then do nothing about it but attacking countries is not the way to bring him to justice and is not the way to bring peace to any region. it is patently ridiculous to say we are bring peace and democracy at the barrel of a gun.
what did Afghanistan do to us? their only sin was to say that they would not turn over osama bin laden based on just our president's say-so that he was involved. would we do it the same way if the situation was reversed? say someone was here legally and a foreign country, say russia, said that someone had done something horrible to russians but they offered up no proof other than putin's word...would we turn over that person? i don't think so. Afghanistan is not really a "nation" as much as it is a group of warlords each controlling a given part of the "country". in my opinion, now that we have invaded, what we should do is concentrate all of our energies on capturing o.b.l and once that is accomplished get out of dodge. let that hellhole of a place sort their own problems out. it is not our concern.
none of those places in the middle east would be our concern if we were energy independent. you talk about national security then come up with something other than middle east oil to fuel our country. we can do it if we put our time and energy and money into making it happen.
each party has it's own group (for lack of a better word) that it caters to; the republicans are the party of corporations and the democrats are the party of minorities. neither is really the party of the middle class. obama can change that, john mc cain cannot. will obama do it? i hope so but don't know so. what we need is a government of all of us. we need to unite. we need to get the hacks out of washington but our present system is money driven and when money is involved favors are expected. obama has raised tens of millions from ordinary people, he has many more individual contributors than mc cain does. he therefore is more beholden to large groups of just plain ol' people and i hope and pray that he remembers that when he gets into office.
while i am in this frame of mind let me also say that, once again, in my opinion, the republicans are much more culpable in this financial mess than the democrats are but neither party is blameless. the republican's mantra of less regulation and no government interference in the market led to this free for all but many democrats went along. that is what hacks do, they go along instead of being a person of conscience and following their own heart and mind.
almost every politician who runs under the banner of the two parties has compromised themselves in various and sundry ways. if you want to see how this works in the extreme then watch louisiana politics...lol. they are so corrupt they are laughable. once i heard a radio commercial for one of them that basically said "i am a better crook than my opponent!" gads!
but on murder, there is no forgiveness, there is no excuse, there is no legitimate reason. iraq had never done anything to us. they were not a threat. they could not hurt us if they tried. there were no weapons of mass destruction. we did not take every avenue to let the u.n. finish it's work. we rushed to war. our representatives did not even read the intelligence report that the war was based on. (well, 9 did but hillary and johnny mac were not among them and the 9 that did read it, 8 voted against the war). the Nuremberg trials faced this issue and some, but not all, of the so-called politicians of germany, were held accountable. some were excused because they were fairly low level and did not really have any power to stop hitler. very few german politicians of that day had the moral courage to stand up for what is right and because of their silence, germany paid a horrible but fully deserved price. you think it can't happen here? that is what they thought. (i once sent out a letter with the german translation of "it can't happen here" but i can't find my copy...)
now here is the thing about america; if you don't like my views...don't read them. but, on the other hand, if you do disagree and want to comment, keep it to the post involved and i would have a lot more respect for you if you included your real name and your email address; if you don't want others to know it you can send it to my hrshock@cox.net address and i won't post it on my blog. see, when i put these things out there, you have my real name, my real address and you can find my real telephone number if you tried. i do not hide behind false names, i am not afraid of my fellow man. i stand on a stage with just me and a microphone and make people laugh for a living both conservatives and liberals. i call all men my brother and all women my sister. be they black or white or brown or yellow or iraqi or russian or american or mexican or ..
and if i make you angry, then so be it; consider it a "family" fight.
sorry scotty, but go dodgers. if they, by some miracle, make the world series i will cancel gigs and, someway or another, come up with tickets and go to my first world series game. i have been to bowl games and a super bowl and mlb divisional playoffs but never to a world series or a ncaa regional (much more fun than final four) and before i die, by god, the dodgers are going to get to one and i will be there! (if the cubbies come back and beat the dodgers, i will be pulling for them to go all the way)
rock and roll and peace to us all.
it is white with black lettering:
THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A MOB MUSEUM NOR HAVE I EVER BEEN THERE.
i love this town.
re: previous post. one of the writers sent me a bunch of quotes from various politicians from both parties that said saddaam had weapons of mass destruction. they were all wrong. they were politicians playing to their audiences and, as such, they were and are just as guilty (or close to "as guilty") as gwb. clinton bombed iraq for his entire 8 years in offices and his cowardly punk-assedparty hacks had to tow the party line...they didn't want to call their beloved president a murderer but he was one. the united nations inspectors, however, called for more time because they could find no evidence of wmd's but bushie jr. had to have his little war. if the united states were to fall and war crime tribunals were to be set up then many on both sides of the aisle would be in the dock.
after the first gulf war (which, incidentally was a set up by bushie I...check out the days before s.h. invaded kuwait he came to our ambassador (don't remember her name but this is also public record) and told her that he was thinking of invading kuwait because, in the iraqi mind, kuwait and it's oil and port were actually part of iraq. over the years, iraq had gone to the u.n. to voice their point and the good ol' us of a used the veto power to block iraq's claims. our ambassador then told him that we would look at this as an "internal matter" and would not intervene. iraq invades. and then so do we. (incidentally since i have MANY iranian ((persian, as they prefer)) friends and several of them travel back and forth to the middle east and they tell me and rhonda that the kuwait people think of us, the usa, as their servants.) and, by the way, how many kuwaiti troops are in Afghanistan or iraq helping our troops? but anyway, after that war which was right after the iraq/iran war saadaam's war making powers were depleted to almost nothing. he could not, however, let this be known. why? well obviously it would make his enemies feel that they could engage him in another war and by winning, divvy up his vast oil reserves. as a result of this, s.h. had to keep up a front of being armed and dangerous but the fact of the matter is he was militarily impotent. hell, how many dog fights were there over baghdad when we invaded THIS time? none. why? he didn't even have any planes much less icbm's. AND WE KNEW THIS AND SO DID THE U.N.
over these past two years of blogging i have made it clear that i blame every single one who voted for the iraqi war responsible for the murders of thousands. we have one party, the war party and i have said that before. so, for you critics out there who post anonymously, read all of the posts before you make your claims about my partisanship.
all of this leads to why i support senator barack obama: he was against this war. i believe that he is our best hope to end the stranglehold that our military industrial complex has over our government. f.d.r. once told a group of activists, "i agree with everything you say; now go out and make me do it!" obama is new. he is not beholden to the m.i.c. and i believe he is operating out of a firm desire to make america better, to lead us back to what our founders had in mind, a country that was willing to trade with all but never to involved in foreign affairs by not allying ourselves with any other countries other than our immediate neighbors. i plan on holding his feet to the fire as much as i can. i do not agree with all his positions nor ideas but he does not seem to be in the warmongering mode of john mc cain. i realize that i could be wrong and if i am, then god help us because eventually the world will unite against us.
as far as Afghanistan goes, we should never have called this a "war" but instead called it a "manhunt" for a criminal gang. we, obviously, cannot let a criminal such as osama bin laden to attack us and then do nothing about it but attacking countries is not the way to bring him to justice and is not the way to bring peace to any region. it is patently ridiculous to say we are bring peace and democracy at the barrel of a gun.
what did Afghanistan do to us? their only sin was to say that they would not turn over osama bin laden based on just our president's say-so that he was involved. would we do it the same way if the situation was reversed? say someone was here legally and a foreign country, say russia, said that someone had done something horrible to russians but they offered up no proof other than putin's word...would we turn over that person? i don't think so. Afghanistan is not really a "nation" as much as it is a group of warlords each controlling a given part of the "country". in my opinion, now that we have invaded, what we should do is concentrate all of our energies on capturing o.b.l and once that is accomplished get out of dodge. let that hellhole of a place sort their own problems out. it is not our concern.
none of those places in the middle east would be our concern if we were energy independent. you talk about national security then come up with something other than middle east oil to fuel our country. we can do it if we put our time and energy and money into making it happen.
each party has it's own group (for lack of a better word) that it caters to; the republicans are the party of corporations and the democrats are the party of minorities. neither is really the party of the middle class. obama can change that, john mc cain cannot. will obama do it? i hope so but don't know so. what we need is a government of all of us. we need to unite. we need to get the hacks out of washington but our present system is money driven and when money is involved favors are expected. obama has raised tens of millions from ordinary people, he has many more individual contributors than mc cain does. he therefore is more beholden to large groups of just plain ol' people and i hope and pray that he remembers that when he gets into office.
while i am in this frame of mind let me also say that, once again, in my opinion, the republicans are much more culpable in this financial mess than the democrats are but neither party is blameless. the republican's mantra of less regulation and no government interference in the market led to this free for all but many democrats went along. that is what hacks do, they go along instead of being a person of conscience and following their own heart and mind.
almost every politician who runs under the banner of the two parties has compromised themselves in various and sundry ways. if you want to see how this works in the extreme then watch louisiana politics...lol. they are so corrupt they are laughable. once i heard a radio commercial for one of them that basically said "i am a better crook than my opponent!" gads!
but on murder, there is no forgiveness, there is no excuse, there is no legitimate reason. iraq had never done anything to us. they were not a threat. they could not hurt us if they tried. there were no weapons of mass destruction. we did not take every avenue to let the u.n. finish it's work. we rushed to war. our representatives did not even read the intelligence report that the war was based on. (well, 9 did but hillary and johnny mac were not among them and the 9 that did read it, 8 voted against the war). the Nuremberg trials faced this issue and some, but not all, of the so-called politicians of germany, were held accountable. some were excused because they were fairly low level and did not really have any power to stop hitler. very few german politicians of that day had the moral courage to stand up for what is right and because of their silence, germany paid a horrible but fully deserved price. you think it can't happen here? that is what they thought. (i once sent out a letter with the german translation of "it can't happen here" but i can't find my copy...)
now here is the thing about america; if you don't like my views...don't read them. but, on the other hand, if you do disagree and want to comment, keep it to the post involved and i would have a lot more respect for you if you included your real name and your email address; if you don't want others to know it you can send it to my hrshock@cox.net address and i won't post it on my blog. see, when i put these things out there, you have my real name, my real address and you can find my real telephone number if you tried. i do not hide behind false names, i am not afraid of my fellow man. i stand on a stage with just me and a microphone and make people laugh for a living both conservatives and liberals. i call all men my brother and all women my sister. be they black or white or brown or yellow or iraqi or russian or american or mexican or ..
and if i make you angry, then so be it; consider it a "family" fight.
sorry scotty, but go dodgers. if they, by some miracle, make the world series i will cancel gigs and, someway or another, come up with tickets and go to my first world series game. i have been to bowl games and a super bowl and mlb divisional playoffs but never to a world series or a ncaa regional (much more fun than final four) and before i die, by god, the dodgers are going to get to one and i will be there! (if the cubbies come back and beat the dodgers, i will be pulling for them to go all the way)
rock and roll and peace to us all.
posted by Ron Shock | 10:05 AM
3 Comments:
It is nearly impossible for ordinary people, or even congress to analyze intelligence data--A picture of a fuzzy lump can be plausibly explained as nearly anything-Is that a grain silo, a scud, or a chimney? I think that most of the people who voted for the war did so in the honest belief that there were weapons of mass destruction, and that Saddam was likely to use them. I seem to recall that there was some expectation that Saddam knew our process well enough that felt safe UNTIL congress authorized invasion, and that once they did, he'd back down immediately. Bush was expected to use some restraint--Obviously before we knew him as well as we do now.
Once we invaded, Bush did a good job of using the troops as hostages to continue funding. "They are going to be there no matter what you vote, if you cut off funding, they won't have the equipment they need to protect themselves"
Obama probably does think he knows what's best, but that appears to be more government control. Big government is an example of the road to hell being paved with good intentions. We haven't really tried "minimal regulation" in a very long time--instead we get regulation controlled by political interests, often to restrict competition and protect existing large businesses. People with the best lobbyists get the regulations and loopholes that they want. Complex regulations typically favor big business, they can more efficiently deal with complexity than a small business can.
In some ways, Sevesteen is actually less anonymous than my real name--There are nearly 30,000 of my real name in the US alone, but I've yet to run into another Sevesteen anywhere on the internet. If you see a Sevesteen, it is probably me.
It’s pretty obvious that Sarah Palin totally kicked Biden’s butt in the recent vice-presidential debate. She was gorgeous, articulate, and highly professional. Although historically the VP debates have had minimal impact on the election (recall Lloyd Benson’s inconsequential demolition of Dan Quayle), this could well be an exception.
Joe Biden looked absolutely pathetic. He had nothing of value to say, and then he kept giving Sarah Palin those phony, toothy grins. Apparently he has the gift of gaffe, for he is well-known for making inexplicable blunders. Obama keeps talking about changing the future of America, yet he picked this political manikin as his running mate.
They should let Palin debate Obama. She would certainly put that garrulous shyster in his place! Good job, Sarah!
sevesteen, good post and you are right on in regards to bush and how he "played" all of us including s.h.
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