And just when George was likely driving down the road to see her!

Cindy Sheehan had to leave her antiwar camp this afternoon to go to her ill mother.
Quick, cue the batmobile -- so the right wingers can now say that Bush WOULD have talked to her if she had just BEEN there.

If we don't remember the past, are we doomed to repeat it?

The CTV headine says CMA supports parallel, private health system, the Globe says CMA backs private care, and the CBC headline reads CBC News: Doctors support parallel private health system at CMA meeting in Edmonton> Now, I didn't think that the doctors themselves were really quite as definite as these headlines imply, and indeed the CBC story also reports that the incoming Canadian Medical Association president Dr. Ruth Collins-Nakai said the motion "merely reflects a recent Supreme Court decision, which upheld the right of Quebecers to turn to private health insurance if the public system fails them."
But when headline writers can so blithely write off the public health care system, it does indicate that our beloved system is losing the public relations battle.
These headline writers, and reporters, and I think most of the doctors too, likely do not remember a time when medicare was not available.
I do. Or, at least, I remember the doctor's strike in July of 1962 in Saskatchewan. I was a teenager at the time, and I remember how scared we all were without doctors. And a baby died of meningitis because his parents couldn't find a doctor to care for him. I remember my parents, both CCFers, talking about how important it was that the government hold fast and keep up the fight.
According to a doctor in Prince Albert, who was one of the few at the time who supported medicare, the first summer medicare was in force he saw dozens of people with medical conditions they had neglected for years, because they couldn't afford a doctor and had been too proud to ask for charity.
We need to remember all of this -- how painful and dangerous and humiliating it was to be unable to afford a doctor; and how hard it was to bring medicare into existence. We simply cannot loose it just because we take it for granted now.

Cindy leads the way

New York


Nebraska


Kansas City


Portland, Oregon


Los Angeles


Las Vegas


Washington


Jackson, Miss.


Milwaukee


Philadelphia


Durhan, North Carolina


Pawtucket, Rhode Island


Notice how many of these protesters were my age and older?
Like I said before, it's the parents who are leading the anti-war movement this time. We now know a bright shining lie when we hear it.

All we are saying is give peace a chance

An AP story which, for a change, gives sympathetic coverage to anti-war protests: Vigils Calling for End to Iraq War Begin"More than 1,600 vigils were planned Wednesday from coast to coast by liberal advocacy groups MoveOn.org Political Action, TrueMajority and Democracy for America. A large vigil was also planned in Paris . . . Some 200 people joined a peace vigil in Cincinnati's Fountain Square. Demonstrators softly sang "Give Peace A Chance" and lined one side of the square with signs, drawing honks of support from some passing motorists."

It was all Poland's fault!

In The Steam is turned on Rigorous Intuition has created a brilliant and chilling post.
He quotes William Shirer's journal entry for August 10, 1939:

How completely isolated a world the German people live in. A glance at the newspapers yesterday and today reminds you of it. Whereas all the rest of the world considers that the peace is about to be broken by Germany, that it is Germany that is threatening to attack Poland over Danzig, here in Germany, in the world the local newspapers create, the very reverse is being maintained. (Not that it surprises me, but when you are away for a while, you forget.) What the Nazi papers are proclaiming is this: that it is Poland which is disturbing the peace of Europe; Poland which is threatening Germany with armed invasion, and so forth. This is the Germany of last September when the steam was turned on Czechoslavakia. For perverse perversion of the truth, this is good. You ask: But the German people can't possibly believe these lies? Then you talk to them. So many do.

RI then notes that Shirer also said most Germans were opposed to the war, feared it, and didn't really expect it to come. But it came.
As RI points out, it only takes a few people in key positions to make a war happen, regardless of how insane a misadventure it seems to everyone else. "I've seen nothing to suggest that real men no longer want to go to Tehran."

And now for something completely different

Ok, lets lighten up! Here, just for fun, is the Yawn of the Tiger:

Enormous, mendacious, disembodied . . .

The Poorman is the funniest person on the internet, left OR right. On Sunday, the internets rocked with his "Lying asshole" tune -- he created it in response to right-wing blogger John Cole calling him a lying asshole because he defended Cindy Sheehan after RedState's calling her a media whore -- follow that?
Anyway, just sing this to the tune of “Kokomo”:

Enormous, mendacious, disembodied anus
You rectum, fifth column, objectively pro-Saddam
Half-Swedish, pro-moorish, deceptive chocolate starfish
On the internets
There are lying assholes
And they say I said all these things I never said at all
Dead body in the sand
If his mom don’t like it she’s a “media whore”
Hey don’t you dare get mad
It’s just a metaphor!
You lying asshole
CHORUS
Ooo I really hate those lying assholes
They say I’m all talk
Because I won’t go to the recruiter
That’s cuz I’m fighting on my computer!
Lying assholes
Nine eleven, a little slice of heaven
Guantanimo Bay
Is a luxurious get-away
Eat lemon chicken in the Sun all day
They call me a wingnut
Because my party bashes faggots
I’ve got an answer for that:
Michael Moore is fat
Lying asshole
CHORUS

And then today he writes The Parrot Sketch :

When the Bushies should have been putting together a national security strategy, they decided to put on an ad campaign for the war. (This is an administration, after all, that has Karl Rove crafting policy.) Fortunately for them, none of their supporters understand the ass-elbow distinction between policy and talking point, so, even though the case never got much penetration into the wider public, it was enough to get the war started. But, as time drags on, and the casualties and costs keep mounting, the ad campaign is starting to feel a bit hollow. (Why, then, was the war fought? Good question. Really, really, really good question. Go hang out with Cindy Sheehan down in Texas and maybe the President will deign to give you an honest answer. But pack your big suitcase.) The American public was sold a dead Norwegian Blue nailed to its perch. The people who sold it to them have endless excuses for why it's not really dead - and have you noted the beautiful plumage! - but they are starting to reach levels of absurdity that even the most gullible and trusting among us can recognize as bullshit. Cindy Sheehan is banging the parrot's stiff corpse against the counter, screaming in its ear, and about to reel off a very long list of synonyms for 'dead'. This war is an ex-parrot.

Just a small war, really

One thing we must all remember is this -- you don't need many troops to fight a nuclear war.
In 'Social Security Lessons' Krugman identifies two looming Bush iniatives: Iran, and tax cuts. He thinks tax cuts are on the horizon but about Iran he blithely writes: "Despite the tough talk about Iran, I don't think [Bush] can propose another war - there aren't enough troops to fight the wars we already have."
But you don't need troops to fight Iran, not really -- all you need are bases close enough to allow quick, decisive and massive bombing runs, using small, tactical nuclear weapons to utterly destroy as much as possible of Iran's military capacity and uranium enrichment facilities.
Now we have those bases built in Iraq.
As discussed in a comment thread downstream, I think America would have used nuclear weapons against Hanoi to "win" in Vietnam except that the strength of the anti-war movement at that time in the US convinced the armed forces leadership and Nixon that they could never get away with this.
Now we have the Bush administration, who don't care what anyone does, says or thinks.
So the stage is set, just waiting for a script, and a cast and crew.
At the end of July, we had a short but scary note in Pat Buchannan's American Conservative magazine, when former CIA agent Phillip Giraldi describes the main elements of the script -- how Cheney has decided that the next terrorist attack on the US will be the excuse for an attack on Iran:

The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack - but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

Nice to know that so many senior military officers put their own careers ahead of hundreds of thousands of lives, isn't it?
Anyway, the information about the cast and crew is contained in a rather odd publication called the Executive Intelligence Review, where self-described intelligence expertJeffrey Steinberg notes that on inauguration day Cheney had appeared on the Imus show: "Using language identical to his earlier lies about Iraq, Cheney accused Iran of pursuing "a fairly robust nuclear program" and of sponsoring terrorism. "That combination is of great concern," he declared, warning that Israel could be expected to launch preventive bombing attacks on Iran's alleged nuclear weapons sites, if the Iranians don't abandon those supposed nuclear efforts." Steinberg also notes a number of other relevant events:

[In November, 2004] Dr. Jerome Corsi, a leading player in the Karl Rove-inspired dirty-tricks apparatus known as Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth, suddenly emerged as the new head of the Iran Freedom Foundation (IFF), promoting regime change in Tehran. Corsi was touted by Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) as being the driving force behind the Iran Freedom and Support Act of 2005, which calls for $10 million in funds to be handed out to Iranian dissident groups . . . In March 2005, Corsi published another propaganda book, Atomic Iran, peddling scare stories about Iran's imminent possession of nuclear bombs. From May 15 to May 18, Dr. Corsi led an "Iran Freedom Walk" from Philadelphia to Washington, where a rally was addressed by neo-con Richard Perle, and where Corsi was congratulated, in a written statement, by Dick Cheney. In April 2005, Regnery Publishing, Inc. released another fractured-fairy-tale propaganda piece, promoting pre-emptive war on Iran, this one by Rep. Curt Weldon (R-Pa.). Sources familiar with the book report that Weldon was snookered by ex-CIA Director and leading neo-con war party operative James Woolsey, and self-proclaimed "universal fascist" Michael Ledeen, into buying fake intelligence, pushed through a former Iranian minister under the Shah, who has more recently been a business partner of discredited Iran-Contra gun dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar. Representative Weldon concealed the identity of his high-level "source," referring to him only as "Ali." But "Ali" was soon identified as Fereidoun Mahdavi, a former commerce minister, who fled Iran shortly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution, and never looked back. In an interview with The American Prospect's Laura Rozen, Mahdavi professed shock and outrage that his "information" had formed the basis for Weldon's shrill book. He confirmed that all of the information he passed on to the Congressman had, in fact, originated with Ghorbanifar, a notorious disinformationist, and Iran-Contra ally of the Washington neo-cons. Weldon's saga with "Ali," as recounted in his book, Countdown to Terror-The Top-Secret Information That Could Prevent the Next Terrorist Attack on America ... And How the CIA Has Ignored It, began in March 2003, at the very moment that the Bush-Cheney regime was about to launch its Iraq invasion. In late June of this year, Kenneth Timmerman, a propagandist for the neo-cons and for right-wing Israeli circles around former Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, published another book, Countdown to Crisis: The Coming Nuclear Showdown With Iran, which makes a string of preposterous claims, all based on information provided by the Mujahideen-e-Khalq, an Iranian exile group on the U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations. Timmerman asserted that: Iran was behind the 9/11 attacks; Iran is safehousing Osama bin Laden inside the country; and Iran has all of the elements to produce nuclear weapons, and possibly provide them to terrorist cells already infiltrated into American cities.
When the Timmerman book was published, the Washington Times ran three days of excerpts, along with an editorial touting the book and calling for action against Iran. If all of this sounds remarkably similar to the propaganda run-up to the Iraq invasion of March 2003, that's because it is. The same Michael Ledeen/Richard Perle/Dick Cheney circles that brought you Operation Iraqi Freedom, are aggressively pushing war against Iran. But this time, with 170,000 American troops bogged down in Iraq, Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, et al. are now pushing their decade-old plan to conduct pre-emptive nuclear strikes.

Horrifying, isn't it. And what would the world do? Is there any way to stop this madness?
Just how much can anti-war supporters in the US expect Cindy Sheehan do all by herself?

Look foolish and leave

It's pretty clear now that the US is just trying to declare victory and leave. But the more Bush babbles about defeating the terrorists and all that, the more foolish he looks. He had better develop a grasp of reality and leave before the world laughs him out of Iraq.
Frank Rich at the New York Times, in his column Someone Tell the President the War Is Over says:

What lies ahead now in Iraq instead is not victory, which Mr. Bush has never clearly defined anyway, but an exit (or triage) strategy that may echo Johnson's March 1968 plan for retreat from Vietnam: some kind of negotiations (in this case, with Sunni elements of the insurgency), followed by more inflated claims about the readiness of the local troops-in-training, whom we'll then throw to the wolves . . . Thus the president's claim on Thursday that "no decision has been made yet" about withdrawing troops from Iraq can be taken exactly as seriously as the vice president's preceding fantasy that the insurgency is in its "last throes." The country has already made the decision for Mr. Bush. We're outta there . . .

And here's page one of the Washington Post:

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say . . . Washington now does not expect to fully defeat the insurgency before departing, but instead to diminish it, officials and analysts said. There is also growing talk of turning over security responsibilities to the Iraqi forces even if they are not fully up to original U.S. expectations, in part because they have local legitimacy that U.S. troops often do not. "We've said we won't leave a day before it's necessary. But necessary is the key word -- necessary for them or for us? When we finally depart, it will probably be for us," a U.S. official said. Pressed by the cost of fighting an escalating insurgency, U.S. expectations for rebuilding Iraq -- and its $20 billion investment -- have fallen the farthest, current and former officials say.

And here's the result of it all -- the US president has shot himself in the foot in Iraq and so has squandered the capacity to play a leadership role in setting the world's military agenda.
Earlier this week, Bush told Israel television that he wouldn't rule out war with Iran. The reactions to Bush's comments found by Antiwar.com indicate that Bush made a fool of himself, in the world's opinion, by saying this and he is simply not being taken seriously as a military leader anymore. The BBC quotes Germany's Schroeder:

"Let's take the military option off the table. We have seen it doesn't work," Mr Schroeder told Social Democrats at the rally in Hanover, to rapturous applause from the crowd. Mr Schroeder said it remained important that Iran did not gain atomic weapons, and a strong negotiating position was important. "The Europeans and the Americans are united in this goal," he said. "Up to now we were also united in the way to pursue this." Mr Schroeder reiterates his views in an interview to be published Sunday in the German weekly Bild am Sonntag, labelling military action "extremely dangerous". "This is why I can with certainty exclude any participation by the German government under my direction," Mr Schroeder tells the paper.

And the Times has the British reaction:

The Foreign Office reacted swiftly. “Our position is clear and has been made very, very clear by the foreign secretary,” a spokesman said. “We do not think there are any circumstances where military action would be justified against Iran. It does not form part of British foreign policy.” So soon after the invasion of Iraq, which has led to so much political turmoil for Tony Blair’s administration, [British foreign secretary Jack Straw] is anxious not to be seen trying to talk up any future forays.

With a bag on their head and the noise machine blaring

In general, people expect governments to be responsive to things they care about. Its not a perfect system, of course, but the usual pattern is that reporters will write stories about the outrage of the day and then the local or provincial or federal government takes notice, and, if enough people are upset, then the appropriate government starts taking the issue more seriously and maybe it even gets dealt with.
In Canada, this is still the way things work because our governments are, for the most part, willing to listen to what people care about. Ideology can always have a distorting effect of course, as can lopsided elections. But in general we perceive a limit to how much government can ignore the concerns of its citizens, and how heavyhanded it can be in implementing its own agenda.
One of the scary things about the Bush administration is that they don't work this way. They govern with a bag over their heads, and the earphones blaring the right-wing noise machine. The media doesn't seem to have realized this yet. Reporters could save themselves a lot of work if they just stop bothering to write "outrage of the day" news stories about all of the things which the Bush administration doesn't care about. Here's the list so far, in no particular order, of the things to which the US can wave bye-bye:
- Teaching evolution in high schools
- Allowing women the right to choose abortion in the US
- Restricting political activity by ministers and religions
- Permitting or requiring equitable treatment of gay people or gay couples
- Developing or enforcing government regulations to prevent pollution, protect wildlife, conserve energy, or save the environment
- Regularizing the status and/or preventing the exploitation of illegal immigrants
- Decriminalizing any drugs
- Enforcing any government regulation which would promote unions or restrict the ability of companies to decertify
- Allowing any part of the Patriot Act to expire.
- Responding to Freedom of Information Act requests
- Complying with international trade regulations which disadvantage American businesses
- Permitting equal rights for women in Iraq and Afghanistan
I even wonder if its worthwhile for anyone to blog about these issues anymore -- they're just so gone.
The world will be lucky if it can get the US out of Iraq, stop them from starting a new war with Iran, and maybe convince the US to follow its own constitution and close down Guanatnamo and its secret prisons. I think that's the best we can hope for.

Were you there?

Live-blogging Cindy.
A woman who was with Cindy Sheehan on the first weekend of the encampment writes a powerful and moving description of what she experienced, posted at ePluribus Media Community:

Cindy Sheehan's trip to Crawford to talk to President Bush started out as just a small idea Wednesday evening. None of us thought for even a minute that it would snowball into the media and historic event that it has now become. Cindy, Dede and I thought the journey would be made by the three of us and maybe some veterans from the Veterans for Peace convention we were attending. Saturday morning we boarded the VFP Impeach Bush bus, along with a platoon of vets sent by VFP to go with us. A caravan of cars followed behind, filled with vets and others who had come to support us. The vets on that bus are some of the most inspiring, honorable and heroic men I have ever met. They inspired me and helped to heal my broken heart. These are people I had to explain nothing to because they know how I feel. They've been there. They've buried their buddies and seen the worst of humanity. I will forever have a warm spot in my heart for them . . . The local Sheriff of Crawford escorted us to the location for our demonstration . . . They made us walk in the bar ditch in knee high weeds full of bugs, fire ants (really nasty little things) and possibly snakes. The walking was hard. The sun beat down on us in the 100 degree Texas heat in the middle of the day. Conditions were miserable. But we pushed on. Cindy, Dede and I were in the front, leading our supporters. I don't know for sure how far we walked, and I've heard various reports from a half a mile to a mile. I couldn't help but feel we were the peasants going to the castle to ask for an audience with King George, only to be stopped and told the King wouldn't see us. So, we protested. We shouted. I met a mother who had come to support us whose son is in Iraq. We hugged and I told her I hope he comes home safe and whole. We cried together . . . Saturday night [Aug 6] we camped out in our cars, in tents, in chairs, on the ground. Wherever we could fall asleep, we slept. I think that when I went to bed there were about 5-6 people with us. We watched as Secret Service vehicles drove by going 50 mph all night long. Some other traffic came by, locals probably. We always knew the locals from the Secret Service because the locals slowed down when they went past us. We heard, via our cell phones, reports of bloggers keeping the pressure on the media and politicians. They blogged for us and about us all night long. We heard reports of candle light vigils, people lighting candles in their windows and on their front porches across the country. We felt the love, the energy and the prayers sent our way. It was comforting out there under the big star-filled Texas night, in the middle of nowhere, knowing that people around the world cared about us, watched us the best they could. None of us felt alone . . .

Liveblogging is also being done by William Rivers Pitt at Truthout where these photos are posted:

2 sons lost: Cindy Sheehan with Bill Mitchell at a Crawford, Texas, vigil. Both have lost sons in the fighting in Iraq. (Photo: Jason Reed / Reuters)
Other images from Camp Casey:



The Bush motorcade.

On Joe Trippi's blog, a post from former Dean campaign organizer Japhet Els from earlier today.

In the last 24 hours over 600 people have arrived at #43’s vacation retreat. The Crawford Peace House is a buzz with volunteers, organizers, veterans, republicans, democrats, greens and everyone in between. During the night, exhausted activists crowd the floor as the tiny air conditioner pumps out what little cool air it can. During the day signs are perpetually being made, banners painted and buttons and schedules passed around. The sign in sheet at the front door resembles a rough draft of a thesis paper as pages are tacked together for new arrivals. And there is a line forming behind it. People are pouring in from San Diego to Boston, Portland to Miami and everywhere in between. A guy just rolled in from Argentina ready to give us the shirt off his back. Its hot. Its humid. But the enthusasim and energy are rampant.

And Trippi is apparently taking on O'Reilly on Monday night. Give 'em hell, Joe.
All I can think of is this song: "Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble"

Good Better Best

Good

Cam Cardow, Ottawa Citizen

Better


Best

Both from Raeside, Victoria Times-Colonist

And this is why its a party now

Stirling Newberry on BOP has a pretty good analysis of why the Cindy Sheehan story is so big right now:

The real story is that the Neo-cons have just lost the 'everyman' narrative. Before 'everyman' was an enraged patriot - angered at 911, and angry that such a villian as Saddam was left unpunished. The loss of that narrative is what makes Cindy Sheehan a story, or rather, what makes her story a story . . . Never have fewer Americans supported Iraq . . . only recently has the option of 'withdrawal all' been the largest single preferred choice. Most damningly - the 'has made the US safer' number is sinking like a stone. Since the Bushite program was 'connect everything to 911', this means that the political line of support that he relies on, is now fraying to a thread. What this means is that 'cut and run' is now the growing wave of consensus. The people who want to send more are now a tiny minority, the people who want out are a majority . . .

It strikes me there is a horrendous disconnect growing, and its going to happen quite differently from the way the Vietnam war protests happened. In the New York Times, Bob Herbert writes about the Bush administration's increasingly blatant lying:

Administration types and high-ranking members of the military have recently been teasing the media and the public with comments that are designed to give the impression that substantial numbers of American troops could be brought home next year. Not only are these comments hedged with every imaginable caveat - if the transition to a permanent government goes smoothly, and if the Iraqis prove capable of providing their own security - but they are coming at a time when the U.S. is planning to increase American troop strength in Iraq in anticipation of elections scheduled for December.

Like, what are they THINKING? Don't they realize that people will notice? With Vietnam, the protests began with the young people facing the draft, who said that America's leaders were lying about the war. It was several years before their parents realized that the kids were right.
This time, the protests are beginning with the parents, who are mostly people who grew up during Vietnam themselves, and who already know that governments can lie.

The party this summer is in Crawford

Norman Lear, Tom Hayden, and Gary Hart, among many others, are blogging today on The Huffington Post blog about Cindy Sheehan's Crawford vigil. Its a Sheehan-fest.
AfterDowningStreet.org manager David Swanson writes:

. . . Crawford, Texas, is where the party is. By calling it a party I don't mean to make light of the seriousness of the mission or the horrible grief of Cindy Sheehan and other military families there to protest this war. Rather, I mean to say that through the sadness and the hardships and the thunderstorms, it comes through on every voice my telephone line has carried from Camp Casey that no one will leave there without having been enriched with a sense of solidarity. . . . Going to Crawford will be fun. It will also be effective. At this point, Bush's stubborness is influencing his stupidity. He doesn't think that he, the President!, should have to speak to anyone he doesn't feel like speaking to. This is a very bad PR move for him -– at least as long as Camp Casey continues to grow. An arrest will be a disaster for Bush. A growing crowd through the month will be a disaster for Bush. His only way out -– given his refusal to meet with Cindy -– is to hope that people get tired and go away. Don't let Bush off the hook. Join Cindy in Crawford. You'll love her and the people with her, and they will welcome you as family.

It reminds me a bit of the Terry Schiavo pilgrims -- perhaps the teenage girls will have "Peace" on the tape across their mouths, rather than "Life", though "Life" would also be appropriate, I think.

Great line of the day

Well, its a little more than one line, but I think its pretty good.
Here's the setup. In What Will We Have Wrought? Digby notes a "shameful column" by the Washington Post's David Ignatius which makes the "increasingly common rightist argument" that someday things will probably work out in Iraq so everything the US did will have been right in retrospect. As Digby then says

Similar logic would have one believe that because Czechoslovakia is now a thriving democracy, the invasion of Hitler in 1938 was all for the best. And hey what's 30 years of human suffering? Eventually things will probably get better --- as long as the "national identity" survives. Dear God. This argument reveals something very fundamental about the way that the war hawks see this as a game of Risk rather than a catastrophic upheaval in which actual human beings are being killed and maimed and in which the everyday lives of those who live on that piece of land are affected in the most consequential ways possible. Who but the most arrogant, spoiled, pampered, elitist American could write such a thing?[emphasis mine]