Monday, March 28, 2011

4 Dead in Ohio


This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper

--The Hollow Men
, T.S. Eliot


What you do speaks so loudly

that I cannot hear what you say

--Ralph Waldo Emerson


All the stories have been told

Of kings and days of old,

But there's no England now.

All the wars that were won and lost

Somehow don't seem to matter

very much anymore

--Living on a Thin Line
,
The Kinks


If I listened long enough to you

I'd find a way to believe that it's all true
--A Reason to Believe, Tim Hardin
________________

While U.S. warplanes are supporting Libyan rebels, democracy is shriveling to a husk on Pennsylvania Avenue:

"More than 100 anti-war protesters, including the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers {Daniel Ellsberg], were arrested outside the White House in demonstrations marking the eighth anniversary of the U.S.-led war in Iraq."

"Hundreds of protesters attended the rally and marched around the White House, but the crowd — which included many military veterans — thinned considerably as the U.S. Park Police warned that they’d be arrested if they didn’t move. As officers moved in with handcuffs, one protester who clutched the gates outside the White House shouted, 'Don’t arrest them! Arrest Obama!” and “You’re arresting veterans, not war criminals!'"
(Anti-war activists arrested near White House as they mark 8th anniversary of start of Iraq War.)

Ellsberg, former military analyst who leaked what became the Pentagon Papers in 1971, participated in a similar protest last year, but the MSM decided it was not important enough to cover, and the story was covered only by foreign press, NPR and blogs.

U.S. taxpayers are buying bombs which support Libyan rebels defying their government via armed rebellion -- a fact alone which betrays democracy in action.
The rebels are part of the violence equation, and the U.S. is amping up that violence, hardly a definition of peacekeeping.

The hypocrisy is deafening.
The U.S. became involved in airstrikes over Libya ostensibly to protect innocent civilians. This has now morphed into possibly providing these rebels munitions with which they may kill members of their sovereign government. What sense is that? Killing is killing.

We support a revolution abroad, while arresting U.S. citizens at home for exercising the rights of free citizens. The right is that of peaceful assembly to express a legitimate viewpoint -- that of anti-war sentiment. Peaceful protest is punished, but damn the torpedoes for violent protest.


Why do we commingle with the violence of the Libyan rebellion while denying rights to our own citizens?

8 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Things that go "boom" are much more fun to cover and up the ratings more than anything else.

    I wrote somewhere way down below that I thought that this upcoming summer wouldn't be particularly quiet among the homefront.

    Gas prices are going up and likely to stay very high, and you know, very well do we know, that's the Great Worry of our Political Class.

    That's why we're giving the OK for more deep-water Gulf drilling without any improvement since the Gulf Gusher last summer.

    The Brits are filling their streets and raising a ruckus over their conservative government giving them the finger and little else.

    What do you think will fill our streets with angry rabble, and do you think action like that is effective?

    bb

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  3. BB,
    The streets would be filled with angry mobs ONLY IF MARCH MADNESS WERE CANCELLED.
    Why go to the streets? Democracy is already dead, and marching won't revive it.
    Thanks for commenting.
    jim

    ReplyDelete
  4. Despite his...brash manner, Ranger, I think you'll enjoy RudePundit's take on it all...

    http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/

    3/29/2011
    Grappling With the Libyan "Intervention":

    ReplyDelete
  5. Well, a surer sign of the impending doom of our former Republic turned Empire is a little to the north of where I live in Florida....

    State Police have applied for a warrant to arrest a Connecticut Superior Court Judge.

    Investigators want to file coercion and hindering a criminal investigation charges against Judge Corinne Klatt, according the Republican-American in Waterbury.

    Klatt presides in Bantam Superior Court. She has refused to sign an arrest warrant for a man in Salisbury accused of attacking another man who was communicating with his former girlfriend. The incident took place at the West Main Cafe in Salisbury. Klatt won't sign the warrant unless she also gets an arrest warrant application for the victim in the case, the paper reported.


    http://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/local/Trooper-Says-Judge-Breaking-the-Law-118646839.html

    What kind of Bizarro world have we found ourselves in where a Cop wants a Judge arrested for failure to sign a Warrant? What's next, arrest a Judge for failure to sign 'a valid Search Warrant'?

    ReplyDelete
  6. BRL,

    I agree that this is a weird case. Yes, its a bit weird that the State Patrol wants to try to arrest a Judge. It's even weirder that the Judge wants to issue an arrest warrant for the victim. Obviously there's more to the case than has been reported.

    Another interesting point is that there is only news source for all the articles, something called the Republican-American, an organization which I'm not familiar with so I can't judge their reliability.

    ReplyDelete
  7. To all,
    In closing, i'm most disappointed that we can do a heated discussion of what's happening in Libya, but ignore what's chewing on our asses.
    jim

    ReplyDelete
  8. To all,
    I must add- chewing on our asses - right here in the ole US of A.
    jim

    ReplyDelete