September 2011
215 posts
“If you don’t expect too much from me, you might not be let down.”
—Gin Blossoms, “Hey Jealousy” (via crisfdez)
WIL WHEATON dot TUMBLR: in the shadowplay acting out your own death →
wilwheaton.tumblr.com
I want to know why Congressional Republicans are so determined to cause so many millions of Americans real, prolonged, unnecessary suffering, so multi-millionaires and multi-national corporations can have even more money in their pockets. I want to know why so many millions of our fellow…
A lawsuit between two aviation companies concerning a couple hundred thousand dollars in unpaid expenses has inadvertently led to the publicizing of a great deal of information about the CIA's extraordinary rendition program. - salon.com →
salon.com
The program involved the illegal transport of thousands of terrorism suspects to secret CIA prisons in foreign nations and then to countries where suspects could be tortured. It is basically “kidnapping” followed by “torture” but the CIA did it so no one went to jail for it.
We learn that one the planes used to transport a suspect (Abu Omar, captured in Italy and tortured in Egypt) was owned by the co-owner of the Boston Red Sox. The plane sported a Red Sox logo on the tail. I mean a Yankees plane might’ve been more poetically apt but either way it seems like such a pat symbol of America’s behavior in the wretched first decade of the 21st century that I’d roll my eyes at it if it turned up in a piece of fiction. An executive’s private plane, sporting the logo of a rich baseball team and carrying an Imam captured overseas by the CIA, touches down in Egypt, a nation led by an American-backed strongman, where the Imam is to be tortured. What preachy liberal hack dreamed up that one? (The executive also owns part of Liverpool FC, because we can’t forget Great Britain’s help in all this.)
This is appalling. America is not the good guys, no matter how loudly and stridently our pundit class declares that to be the case. There should be trials, and the people who did this should go to prison for the rest of their lives.
Atrocious, disturbing.
Barack, can we talk? - dailykos.com →
dailykos.com
It’s me. I’m here in the Democratic base. It’s been a little testy between your people and my people lately, and I’m concerned that things might get out of hand. Worse, I worry that you don’t understand why.
It’s not that we don’t understand how government works, or that democracy runs on compromise. And it’s not that we thought you were some kind of messiah, who could turn the country around just by pointing in a new direction. (That slam on us was originally a Republican talking point, remember?)
Let me try to explain how it looks from our point of view.
(Read full article here)This is absolutely brilliant, well-written, and perfectly explains why I’m so disappointed with President Obama. I hope that his advisers and reelection team somehow see it, internalize it, and act on it.
