It's Those Little Things

by Larry Every relationship has its ups and downs. Every experience has been filled with a series of mishaps and milestones. It's those little things both good and bad that add up. Perhaps Bobby Goldsboro spoke best of love with these lyrics.

Little things that you do make me glad I'm in love with you.Little things that you say make me glad that I feel this way.The way you smile, the way you hold my hand,and when I'm down you always understand.You know I love those little things in my ear, that you say when there's no one near. Little things that you do, let me know that your love is true.

The way she cooks his favorite meal, the way she makes his dreams seem real, the way she makes a dollar last, the way she always forgets his past, it's those little things.

It could also be the way he ignores her every word, the way he makes her feel so hurt, the way he spends and never saves, the way he takes but has never gave, it's those little things.

As we live another day, we can always remember that those little things always add up, both good and bad. Some little things add up to make someone love their spouse even more. Other little things add up to make the spouse learn to abhor. There are little things in all walks of life.

The way he lied the country into war, the thousands of deaths, and there will be more, the massive debt that we now owe, that we will reap what he will sow, yes it's those little things.

The way he took away our rights, the executive orders signed into the night, the way he uses the fear of terror, the way he overlooks every Presidential error, it's those little things.

The millions of jobs he sent overseas, the millions of Iraqi's just wishing he would leave, The levels of corruption that lay at his desk, the hundreds who've been tortured simply at his bequest, it's those little things.

The way he overlooks each and every law, the lives he has left so torn and raw, the military funerals he refuses to attend, the Katrina victims stranded as help he will not send, it's those little things.

Yes Mr. Bush, everything that you do, it's never me but always you, you are never wrong but always right, you say we're weak since we won't fight, you wonder why your ratings are low, we want you out but you refuse to go, it's those little things.

Maybe soon we'll have our say, that you'll be impeached everyday we pray, for all our freedoms that we have lost, those who have died at wars great cost, as we add our losses this we know, It's those little things, Mr. Bush, that make America detest you so.

THE BEAUTY OF AMERICA on MEMORIAL DAY

If you missed it Saturday, you can hear our interview with Presidential candidate Mike Gravel by clicking on BASHAM & CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK Just click on 'archives' and you can hear all of amazing guests, including: Congressman Rangel, Brian Katsulis; Media Matters' Paul Waldman, Eric Boehlert, Karl Frisch, Dennis Yedwab; Mikey Weinstein; Former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega; and other bestselling authors, scholars and political leaders.

SATURDAY MORNINGS TUNE IN LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS and LOS ANGELES to our show BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK
from 9 - 10 a.m. We broadcast live on KLAV -- or go to our website and click on the link to hear the entire show in the archives.

MIKE GRAVEL, 2008 Democratic Presidential candidate and the MAN WHO STOLE THE first DEMOCRATIC DEBATE. We did a 45 minute interview with Gravel, who served 2 terms in the House and was a Senator from Alaska. He is primarily known for ending the draft following the Vietnam War, and for having put into the public record, the Pentagon Papers in 1971!

Gravel is a hero of mine; he is the only cadidate committed to telling the truth and standing for his convictions. He has nothing to lose and no one to impress — but his conscience. He passionately speaks for the majority of Americans, but the mainstream media is focused on dumbing us down with 'celebrities-gone-wild' gossip and obsessive Clinton-bashing.
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Military Coffins: The Photos You're Not Supposed to See
"Not to See the Fallen..." by mcjoan at thinkprogress.org

While memorializing those fallen today, don't forget the 143 journalists and media support workers, the most in any major conflict, who have been killed in Iraq.

If there's one thing the hapless war planners and conducters in this administration managed to do right, at least by their calculation, it's been to manage the media's access to and coverage of the actual story on the ground. Since the war began, they've made the increasingly instituted more stringent rules on what can be covered.

Since last year, the military’s embedding rules require that journalists obtain a signed consent from a wounded soldier before the image can be published. Images that put a face on the dead, that make them identifiable, are simply prohibited.

***********************

From blogger MCH1968:
On Memorial Day, people frequently will say "Thank You" to those who gave their lives for our freedom, and certainly I give my thanks to those who perished in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, World Wars 1 & 2, and so on ...

For those who have died in this Iraqi war, thank you doesn't seem to quite fit. Instead, all I can say is "I'm sorry."

I'm sorry it came to this. I'm sorry that the president didn't value your life enough to keep you alive. I'm sorry you aren't still here to help keep us safe from our nation's true enemies. I'm sorry that those in charge treasured their pride, money, greed, and political ambitions too much that you're considered expendable. I'm sorry that lies and deceit was all it took to have you killed. I'm sorry I didn't fight hard enough or effectively enough to keep you home.

To the 3455 (and unfortunately still growing) service men and women who have died for a reason other than our freedom -- we miss you, we love you, may you rest in peace.


Here is a great article posted by Larry:

THE MYTH OF A HERO

On May 26, 1907 in a one bedroom home in Winterset Iowa, America's hero a thirteen pound Marion Robert Morrison was born. This was the same town that George Washington Carver lived and worked before he achieved greatness. This quaint little town was also a stop for the Underground Railroad.

Today in Winterset, the town will show three films that the towns most famous citizen has starred in. These films will be shown free to residents of Winterset because the star of all three films is Marion Morrison.

Marion Morrison wore a hairpiece for most of his life, a tidbit very few know. He made his last film in 1976 and he died of cancer three years later. He made action adventures and war films, but he was best known for his westerns.

This maker of such hits at True Grit,(his only Oscar) El Dorado, Rio Bravo, Stagecoach and the Sands of Iwo Jima, and his last film The Shootist were classics in the days when the term hero was more than a political catch phrase. Marion Morrison was in reality John Wayne.

Many are unaware that John Wayne was a staunch conservative. Wayne was a vocal anti-communist and at one time was President of the right wing Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. Critics say Wayne was a racist.

John Wayne was also an outspoken supporter of the Vietnam War and he openly criticized anti-war protesters. Few knew that John Wayne himself was reported to have sought and received numerous deferments to avoid serving in World War II.

John Wayne was a hero to millions on screen, and an ultra-conservative off-screen. John Wayne criticized those who were against the Vietnam War, when in fact his refusal to serve himself was telling of the real Republican John Wayne.

In 1979, John Wayne released an album of narration of which two of the cuts were hits, and it is only fitting that during the weekend of his 100th birthday celebration that we remember the myth of John Wayne instead of the truth. The following prose was one of John Wayne's hits of 1979.

America, Why I Love Her
Written by John Mitchum Poet/Actor
You ask me why I love her? Well, give me time, and I'll explain...Have you seen a Kansas sunset or an Arizona rain?Have you drifted on a bayou down Louisiana way?Have you watched the cold fog drifting over San Francisco Bay?

Have you heard a Bobwhite calling in the Carolina pines? Or heard the bellow of a diesel in the Appalachia mines? Does the call of Niagara thrill you when you hear her waters roar? Do you look with awe and wonder at a Massachusetts shore...Where men who braved a hard new world, first stepped on Plymouth Rock? And do you think of them when you stroll along a New York City dock ?

Have you seen a snowflake drifting in the Rockies...way up high?Have you seen the sun come blazing down from a bright Nevada sky?Do you hail to the Columbia as she rushes to the sea...Or bow your head at Gettysburg...in our struggle to be free?

Have you seen the mighty Tetons? ...Have you watched an eagle soar?Have you seen the Mississippi roll along Missouri's shore?Have you felt a chill at Michigan, when on a winters day,Her waters rage along the shore in a thunderous display?Does the word "Aloha"... make you warm?Do you stare in disbelief When you see the surf come roaring in at Waimea reef?
From Alaska's gold to the Everglades...from the Rio Grande to Maine...My heart cries out... my pulse runs fast at the might of her domain.You ask me why I love her?... I've a million reasons why.My beautiful America... beneath Gods' wide, wide sky.

FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF WAR

FORGOTTEN VICTIMS OF WAR: THE CHILDREN
There have been many innocent victims resulting from George W Bush's war on Iraq. The U.S troops are obvious victims, as were the brave U.S troops who lost their lives in Iraq. The thousands of Iraqi's who have been killed since Bush's invasion, are all victims of this senseless war, as are the remaining Iraqi people.

One group of victims that are seldom noticed are the children. The children's agency of the U.N better known as UNICEF says that insecurity in Baghdad and other parts have caused schools to close, and left hospitals and clinics nearly impossible to gain access to.

UNICEF reports that only 30% of Iraqi children have safe drinking water as damaged sanitation systems increase the threat of diseases such as cholera and diarrhoea, which is the second highest cause of childhood death in Iraq.

The constant bombings and kidnappings have claimed the lives of many Iraqi parents leaving the children susceptible to abuse and exploitation. Iraqi children seldom receive the help and support they need to cope with such anxiety and fear.

Of the four million Iraqi's who have fled their homes since Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, one million of those are children. Some two million of those Iraqi's who have fled have remained in Iraq. The remaining two million have fled to Jordan, Syria and other countries in the region, where they live in extreme poverty.

The Iraqi children are not alone. Thousands of U.S children whose parent have been assigned to the war lines of Iraq are also in need. Many military spouses live in poverty as the spouse is left to help make ends meet and raise their children.

Those thousands of U.S soldiers who were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan left spouses and children behind to cope with grief and life. This has brought added stress on an already heavily troubled life of a child.

It is of great question as to whether or not the Bush administration has taken into consideration how their actions have affected the children in the U.S and in Iraq. One has to wonder if the emotional devastation of a child's life was ever even a forethought.

As George W Bush shouts the servitude of sporadic altruism, he heartlessly ignores the effects of his military actions on the children of this war. Mr. Bush has decided to remake the world in his image, the very image of a man the world has grown to abhor. The life of a child is priceless, and the desires of madman are worthless. You Mr. Bush have proven to be worthless.

"The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man."

George Bernard Shaw

BUSH's ILLEGAL WAR IN IRAQ IS FINANCING DEATHS OF AMERICANS

RUN, RUSH, READ Keith Olbermann's riveting special commentary on Wednesday May 23. Bush , he says is the most shameful president in history, and he is "financing the deaths of Americans" in this illegal, heinous war. To paraphrase, Bush has manipulated Congress into thinking the troops will not get armor or protection, whereas a good president -- any honest leader, would never shame Congress and use the troops as barter. A good leader would cut Halliburton's profits — beg, borrow or steal from other "pork" projects before he'd cut troop funding. The American people have spoken, and Bush, in his arrogance has put Democrats between a rock and a hard place.

On the other hand, the Democrats must NOT BACK DOWN. We must end this war.

I received this disturbing news item from my friend Garth Bixxo:

This little known National Security Presidential Directive NDPD #51 of May 9th, essentially gives Bush the authority to take over the country --- like a dictator. I believe it has to be approved by Congress -- and pray that they quash it immediately.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/print/20070509-12.html

When the Cold War began in the 1950s, Directives were written and put into place in case of an atomic bomb attack on the government. These directives are still in effect---- meaning that #51 is not need, and is merely a power grab by Karl Rove and-or whoever directed it be written.

Here's how www.truthout.org states it:
Bush Anoints Himself as
Ensurer of Constitutional Government
in Emergency
Scary 'eh---sounds like we'd better impeach him before he implements NSPD#51.
Every concerned citizen should call, write their Congressperson and Senator to say STOP

Here's the Truthout.org write-up---by way of an Executive Summary which reads between the lines.

Bush Anoints Himself as the Ensurer of Constitutional Government in Emergency
By Matthew Rothschild

In a new National Security Presidential Directive, Bush lays out his plans for dealing with a "catastrophic emergency."
With scarcely a mention in the mainstream media, President Bush has ordered up a plan for responding to a catastrophic attack. Under that plan, he entrusts himself with leading the entire federal government, not just the Executive Branch. And he gives himself the responsibility "for ensuring constitutional government."

He laid this all out in a document entitled "National Security Presidential Directive/NSPD 51" and "Homeland Security Presidential Directive/HSPD-20." The White House released it on May 9.

Other than a discussion on Daily Kos led off by a posting by Leo Fender, and a pro-forma notice in a couple of mainstream newspapers, this document has gone unremarked upon.

The subject of the document is entitled "National Continuity Policy."

It defines a "catastrophic emergency" as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government function."

This could mean another 9/11, or another Katrina, or a major earthquake in California, I imagine, since it says it would include "localized acts of nature, accidents, and technological or attack-related emergencies."

The document emphasizes the need to ensure "the continued function of our form of government under the Constitution, including the functioning of the three separate branches of government," it states.

But it says flat out: "The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government."

The document waves at the need to work closely with the other two branches, saying there will be "a cooperative effort among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of the Federal Government." But this effort will be "coordinated by the President, as a matter of comity with respect to the legislative and judicial branches and with proper respect for the constitutional separation of powers."

Among the efforts coordinated by the President would ensuring the capability of the three branches of government to "provide for orderly succession" and "appropriate transition of leadership."

The document designates a National Continuity Coordinator, who would be the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.

The document gives the Vice President a role in implementing the provisions of the contingency plans.

Please check out http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2007/05/print/20070509-12.html

Gas Wars

Kucinich to Speak for Full Hour on House Floor on Iraq Oil LawMay 22nd, 2007

May 22nd, 2007
We encourage you to comment on this press release, and the impact this may have on the presidential race for 2008. This is the first time Congress has had a full discussion on the privatization of Iraq’s oil since the beginning of the war. http://blog.pdamerica.org/?p=1117
WASHINGTON DC - WEDNESDAY, MAY 23, 2007 - At approximately 11:00 a.m. today, Congressman Dennis Kucinich will invoke a rarely used procedure to offer a privileged motion claiming one hour of time to speak on the floor of the House of Representatives about current legislative plans to privatize Iraq’s oil.
This will be the first time in Congress that there has been a full discussion of the covert efforts to accomplish privatization of Iraq’s oil through the supplemental spending bill.
Kucinich has alerted his colleagues to this concern in the past. Today he will do so on the floor of the House.
Kucinich argued against invading Iraq prior to the 2003 vote that authorized it. He published his case against it and helped persuade many of his colleagues to vote No. Kucinich challenged the legality of the war in court in an effort to prevent it. He proposed a detailed plan to end the occupation of Iraq over three years ago. His current plan is found in his bill HR 1234, which includes these findings:
“Any attempt to sell Iraqi oil assets during the United States occupation will be a significant stumbling block to peaceful resolution. There must be fairness in the distribution of oil resources in Iraq.”
Kucinich has voted against every new funding bill for the occupation, including the recent Supplemental. He supports using the power of the purse to end the war. He opposes any attack on Iran and proposes formally forswearing the use of so-called preventive war. He has proposed the creation of a Department of Peace to address international and domestic violence.
As with all House sessions, this speech will be televised on C-Span.

The increase in gas prices has cost U.S consumers an extra twenty billion dollars so far this year according to the Government Accountability Office. This added cost has taken money out of the economy that normally would have been spent on consumer products.

The GAO told Congress that a large amount of oil refining capacity and lower inventories have led to the rise in gas prices. Many feel the Iraq war has caused oil to be withheld from U.S consumers. Gas prices have risen $1.05 since early February. U.S gas prices are at an all time high and getting higher.

The Energy Departments reports that gasoline prices have risen 50% since January, which ranks as one of the largest ongoing increases recorded in U.S history. The high price of gasoline has hurt retail as sales have fallen 1.5% week by week.

Many are calling for the breaking up of oil companies and undoing the mega-mergers which may bring about more competition within the industry. Calls from consumers and business alike have fallen on deaf ears in the Bush administration.

Americans have watched oil prices rise as the Texas Oil Man became President. They have watched Exxon and Chevron rake in record profits while gasoline prices continue to rise. They have seen the economy increasingly slow to a limp, while U.S Corporations continue to flourish.

One of the many promises the Bush administration made when they overtly invaded Iraq, was that gas prices in the U.S would be much lower. These promises along with many other insincere boasts have never stimulated into truth.

If gasoline prices are to ever return to affordable levels, Congress must stop the Iraq war, force U.S oil companies to lower prices and limit profits that oil companies can make without major relief to the consumer.

The most crucial thing Americans can do to bring gas prices down rapidly is to simply remove the current "Commander In Chief and his catalog of corruption from office. The final step will be to keep oil men from residing at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

UNIFIED FIELD

PROFILE OF A PUBLIC SERVANT: Audrey Hepburn has always been my favorite because of her elegant spirit and her humanitarian work. Of the current crop, I admire Angelina Jolie because of her huge heart — as well as her work with Genocide Prevention in Darfur. She is a U.N. Goodwill Ambassador. She was at Cannes Film Festival last weekend. Jolie, who plays the widow of slain Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl in "A Mighty Heart," said she was overwhelmed by Mariane Pearl's inner strength and her ability to let go of hatred. MORE BELOW, but first a few thoughts on Einstein's Unified Field...

You can be attractive even if you're not "good looking" because if you radiate love, you attract people. Enthusiasm and courage actually change your brain waves, changing the molecular structure around you. I personally have always believed that science proves God. The proof is in life itself - the multitudinous objects of beauty and creation. Thought is molecular, bringing objects we form (with our thoughts) into view. But the creative force in the universe is love, which can be proven as an energy. Einstein was just short of admitting what he already suspected, that the unified field is love. And by the way, there is no linear time. Step outside the race belief, outside the man made box of space and time. - Lydia

Why this scientist believes in God
By Dr. Francis Collins
Special to CNN

Editor's note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the Human Genome Project. His most recent book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief."

ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views.

As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan.

I did not always embrace these perspectives. As a graduate student in physical chemistry in the 1970s, I was an atheist, finding no reason to postulate the existence of any truths outside of mathematics, physics and chemistry. But then I went to medical school, and encountered life and death issues at the bedsides of my patients. Challenged by one of those patients, who asked "What do you believe, doctor?", I began searching for answers.

I had to admit that the science I loved so much was powerless to answer questions such as "What is the meaning of life?" "Why am I here?" "Why does mathematics work, anyway?" "If the universe had a beginning, who created it?" "Why are the physical constants in the universe so finely tuned to allow the possibility of complex life forms?" "Why do humans have a moral sense?" "What happens after we die?" (Watch Francis Collins discuss how he came to believe in God Video)

I had always assumed that faith was based on purely emotional and irrational arguments, and was astounded to discover, initially in the writings of the Oxford scholar C.S. Lewis and subsequently from many other sources, that one could build a very strong case for the plausibility of the existence of God on purely rational grounds. My earlier atheist's assertion that "I know there is no God" emerged as the least defensible. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

But reason alone cannot prove the existence of God. Faith is reason plus revelation, and the revelation part requires one to think with the spirit as well as with the mind. You have to hear the music, not just read the notes on the page. Ultimately, a leap of faith is required.

For me, that leap came in my 27th year, after a search to learn more about God's character led me to the person of Jesus Christ. Here was a person with remarkably strong historical evidence of his life, who made astounding statements about loving your neighbor, and whose claims about being God's son seemed to demand a decision about whether he was deluded or the real thing. After resisting for nearly two years, I found it impossible to go on living in such a state of uncertainty, and I became a follower of Jesus.

So, some have asked, doesn't your brain explode? Can you both pursue an understanding of how life works using the tools of genetics and molecular biology, and worship a creator God? Aren't evolution and faith in God incompatible? Can a scientist believe in miracles like the resurrection?

Actually, I find no conflict here, and neither apparently do the 40 percent of working scientists who claim to be believers. Yes, evolution by descent from a common ancestor is clearly true. If there was any lingering doubt about the evidence from the fossil record, the study of DNA provides the strongest possible proof of our relatedness to all other living things.

But why couldn't this be God's plan for creation? True, this is incompatible with an ultra-literal interpretation of Genesis, but long before Darwin, there were many thoughtful interpreters like St. Augustine, who found it impossible to be exactly sure what the meaning of that amazing creation story was supposed to be. So attaching oneself to such literal interpretations in the face of compelling scientific evidence pointing to the ancient age of Earth and the relatedness of living things by evolution seems neither wise nor necessary for the believer.

I have found there is a wonderful harmony in the complementary truths of science and faith. The God of the Bible is also the God of the genome. God can be found in the cathedral or in the laboratory. By investigating God's majestic and awesome creation, science can actually be a means of worship.

ANGELINA JOLIE AT CANNES...
Jolie, Pearl and Brad Pitt, the movie's co-producer, were at the Cannes Film Festival on Monday for the premiere of the movie about Pearl's abduction and murder in Pakistan in 2002 while researching a story on Islamic militants.

The film, shot in a naturalistic documentary style, recounts the search to find Pearl's kidnappers and his widow's struggle to come to terms with his death.

"For me, so much of why this film was important to do is because I highly doubt there is anybody in this room who has more reason to hold hate inside herself than Mariane, and she doesn't," Jolie told reporters.

"That is, I think, a lesson for all of us," the

I NEED TO KNOW?

The Way to Divinity

If anyone speaks ill of you,
Praise them always.
If anyone injures you,
Serve them nicely.
If anyone persecutes you,
Help them in all possible ways.
You will attain
immense strength.
You will control anger and pride.
You will enjoy
peace, poise, and serenity.
You will become divine.

- Swami Sivananda
Hindu

(Jesus says the same thing in his Sermon on the Mount.)



CATHERINE CRIER from COURT TV had to reschedule. Today, Doug and I wing it with a mix of politics and non-political comedy.

SATURDAY MORNINGS TUNE IN LIVE FROM LAS VEGAS and LOS ANGELES to our show BASHAM AND CORNELL PROGRESSIVE TALK
from 9 - 10 a.m. We broadcast live -- or go to our website and click on the link to hear the entire show in the archives.



The following thoughts are from my beautiful sister Kathy.

Here's my opinion.

I hate this kind of thing. The film is simplistic and sentimental
tripe. It addresses a non-issue. Who is this film aimed at? No one
blames the soldiers! No one hates them for "doing their job" or
doesn't "support our troops". The premise of the film is a fiction.
It is propaganda.

This film and "patriotic" statements like it completely sidesteps the
fact that none of those soldiers had to die, because they should not
have been there in the first place. It's selling an old idea that to
die in war is honorable.

If you have a family member serving in Iraq, of course you are proud
of them! The rest of us are just disgusted and ashamed at our
government that even one American has had to die over there. No one
blames the soldiers for fighting an immoral and unjust war right now.
They are just doing the government's (dirty) work.

Also. Don't try to tell me how to feel! I don't have to feel "proud"
of the American soldiers. I can feel that they are very brave, and
strong, and feel very sorry that they are there. I can feel angry and
sad. But no, I'm not particularly proud. I feel afraid, worried,
upset, sorry and sad and deeply angry at my government for creating
the mess we find ourselves in in Iraq where so many beautiful lives
have been cut short on all sides of the conflict. I want all
non-Iraqi troops to get to go home, where ever they are from.

War is not inherently just or good. War is a human tragedy on a grand
scale. It should be considered a last resort. I believe it is only
justified to stop a genocide. But war is more often a strategic game
of the elite - a machine created by the powerful to divide and
re-divide wealth and power amongst themselves.

The idea of patriotism in a time of war is inherently propagandistic.
If you buy into it, then you probably also believe that things go
better with Coke or that Winston tastes good like a cigarette should.
Who benefits the most by selling these ideas to the public?

Can you imagine this type of film coming from the jihad point of
view? Sentimentalizing the self-sacrifice of the suicide bomber,
complete with heart-tugging strings? We would all be spitting angry,
and see the suicide bombers themselves as pawns of an evil elite.

As a nation we have absolutely nothing to be proud of in the current
war in Iraq. Our leadership has destroyed our reputation worldwide
and our economy at home, making the world a much more dangerous place
than it was before and right after 9/11. I don't blame the soldiers
for this, or hold it against them. I'm smart enough to make the
distinction that to hate this war is not the same thing as hating the
people fighting it.

The Newshour with Jim Lehrer is the only news show that still honors
the fallen soldiers every night at the end of the newscast. Why do
you think the other networks stopped doing so years ago? The Newshour
uses no sentimental music - only complete silence, with portraits,
names and home towns. This is a thousand times more powerful to me,
because it isn't trying to manipulate my emotions the way this piece
does.

I do admire men and women who
join up and go off to war when everyone in the country is contributing,
and when we've actually been attacked -- but when the rich keep getting
richer and no one else is expected to make any sacrifices, etc., etc.
-- well, it really is propaganda. Also, I do not like the idea of
mercenary forces, where people are paid to do all the fighting and the
sons and daughters of all the warmongers (and the chicken hawks
themselves) avoid having to serve.

Thanks for letting me express my reaction!

k


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