Thursday, November 09, 2006

Post Election Catch-Up

First, congratulations to all the Democrats -- both candidates and workers -- who showed that, despite Bush's best attempts, democracy is not dead yet.

Second, I would like to take this opportunity to reach out to our Republican brethren, in the spirit in which they reached out to us in 2000 and 2004:

YOU LOST! WE WON!!!!
GET OVER IT!!!
LOOOOOOOO-SERS!!!!!

Third, on a more sedate and appropriate note, many bloggers have pointed out that our work has just begun. My good friend, Mr. Conservatard, reminds us:

I am sure that quite a few questions will be going thru every Americans head next week, and the Democrats better have answers. The questions will probably look like the following examples. Now that the Democrats have some power in the government, what are they going to do with it? What is the best way to fix the mess of Iraq? What are the Democrats plans to help the economy? What are the Democrats plans to reverse six years of the Bush regime’s attack on the Constitution? How are they going to reverse the ecologically devastating policies of the Bushtard/Big Oil cabal?

None of these questions have simple answers. If the Democrats are smart they will be open with the American public about the complexity of the problems and that any solution will not be perfect. The conservatards have spent a lot of time and money to fool the American public into allowing them to use the military as a tool. A tool called “The War on Terror” that was in reality a tool to help the conservatards advance their neo-conservative imperialistic agenda. You can take it to the bank that the conservatards and their masters will not easily put the crack pipe of power and money down without a fight.

Mr. C is quite right in his assessments (I especially like the phrase "the crack pipe of power"). Of course, Mr. C is not the only one to advance such cautions: Kos and company, Digby, Atrios, Billmon, and many others have said similar things.

They are all 100% correct.

Now is not the time for gloating (at least, not too much). Now is the time when we as Democrats, with our newly-minted majority*, have to reach out. I'm not saying we have to suck up to the Republicans, but neither can we show their arrogance and disdain for "non-believers."

And like Georgia10 at Kos, I'm having kind of a hard time wrapping my head around the idea of victory. Of course, I'm considerably older ("older than dirt", as my son says) and remember handing out flyers on the streets of NYC for Johnson, Humphrey and Kennedy. But after 12 years of Republican rule on capitol Hill and six years of Bush's phony-cowboy hell, it'll take some time to accept that the grown-ups are back in charge.

*And while our majority is slim, remember that Bush and his sycophants claimed 51% was a "mandate" (No, Mehlman, not that kind of man-date. Idiot.)

2 comments:

  1. Thanks for the quote and the link 618. A little gloating is fine. The conservatards deserve it. However, like you have pointed out we can't let the Dems become the the conservatards.
    There is a reason that in 1994 the Republicans swept the house and senate. The Democrats became fat and lazy. Perhaps not as bad as the Republicans became. However, majority of the public thought that they were crooked then. Hopefully 12 years of exile will humble this new lot of politicians and remind them who they really work for.

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  2. Speaking of the "war on terror"...

    One thing that struck me as odd in the days after 9/11 was Bush saying "We will not tolerate conspiracy theories [regarding 9/11]". Sure enough there have been some wacky conspiracy theories surrounding the events of that day. The most far-fetched and patently ridiculous one that I've ever heard goes like this: Nineteen hijackers who claimed to be devout Muslims but yet were so un-Muslim as to be getting drunk all the time, doing cocaine and frequenting strip clubs decided to hijack four airliners and fly them into buildings in the northeastern U.S., the area of the country that is the most thick with fighter bases. After leaving a Koran on a barstool at a strip bar after getting shitfaced drunk on the night before, then writing a suicide note/inspirational letter that sounded like it was written by someone with next to no knowledge of Islam, they went to bed and got up the next morning hung over and carried out their devious plan. Nevermind the fact that of the four "pilots" among them there was not a one that could handle a Cessna or a Piper Cub let alone fly a jumbo jet, and the one assigned the most difficult task of all, Hani Hanjour, was so laughably incompetent that he was the worst fake "pilot" of the bunch. Nevermind the fact that they received very rudimentary flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station, making them more likely to have been C.I.A. assets than Islamic fundamentalist terrorists. So on to the airports. These "hijackers" somehow managed to board all four airliners with their tickets, yet not even ONE got his name on any of the flight manifests. So they hijack all four airliners and at this time passengers on United 93 start making a bunch of cell phone calls from 35,000 feet in the air to tell people what was going on. Nevermind the fact that cell phones wouldn't work very well above 4,000 feet, and wouldn't work at ALL above 8,000 feet. But the conspiracy theorists won't let that fact get in the way of a good fantasy. That is one of the little things you "aren't supposed to think about". Nevermind that one of the callers called his mom and said his first and last name, more like he was reading from a list than calling his own mom. Anyway, when these airliners each deviated from their flight plan and didn't respond to ground control, NORAD would any other time have followed standard operating procedure (and did NOT have to be told by F.A.A. that there were hijackings because they were watching the same events unfold on their own radar) which means fighter jets would be scrambled from the nearest base where they were available on standby within a few minutes, just like every other time when airliners stray off course. But of course on 9/11 this didn't happen, not even close. Somehow these "hijackers" must have used magical powers to cause NORAD to stand down, as ridiculous as this sounds because total inaction from the most high-tech and professional Air Force in the world would be necessary to carry out their tasks. So on the most important day in its history the Air Force was totally worthless. Then they had to make one of the airliners look like a smaller plane, because unknown to them the Naudet brothers had a videocamera to capture the only known footage of the North Tower crash, and this footage shows something that is not at all like a jumbo jet, but didn't have to bother with the South Tower jet disguising itself because that was the one we were "supposed to see". Anyway, as for the Pentagon they had to have Hani Hanjour fly his airliner like it was a fighter plane, making a high G-force corkscrew turn that no real airliner can do, in making its descent to strike the Pentagon. But these "hijackers" wanted to make sure Rumsfeld survived so they went out of their way to hit the farthest point in the building from where Rumsfeld and the top brass are located. And this worked out rather well for the military personnel in the Pentagon, since the side that was hit was the part that was under renovation at the time with few military personnel present compared to construction workers. Still more fortuitous for the Pentagon, the side that was hit had just before 9/11 been structurally reinforced to prevent a large fire there from spreading elsewhere in the building. Awful nice of them to pick that part to hit, huh? Then the airliner vaporized itself into nothing but tiny unidentifiable pieces no bigger than a fist, unlike the crash of a real airliner when you will be able to see at least some identifiable parts, like crumpled wings, broken tail section etc. Why, Hani Hanjour the terrible pilot flew that airliner so good that even though he hit the Pentagon on the ground floor the engines didn't even drag the ground!! Imagine that!! Though the airliner vaporized itself on impact it only made a tiny 16 foot hole in the building. Amazing. Meanwhile, though the planes hitting the Twin Towers caused fires small enough for the firefighters to be heard on their radios saying "We just need 2 hoses and we can knock this fire down" attesting to the small size of it, somehow they must have used magical powers from beyond the grave to make this morph into a raging inferno capable of making the steel on all forty-seven main support columns (not to mention the over 100 smaller support columns) soften and buckle, then all fail at once. Hmmm. Then still more magic was used to make the building totally defy physics as well as common sense in having the uppermost floors pass through the remainder of the building as quickly, meaning as effortlessly, as falling through air, a feat that without magic could only be done with explosives. Then exactly 30 minutes later the North Tower collapses in precisely the same freefall physics-defying manner. Incredible. Not to mention the fact that both collapsed at a uniform rate too, not slowing down, which also defies physics because as the uppermost floors crash into and through each successive floor beneath them they would shed more and more energy each time, thus slowing itself down. Common sense tells you this is not possible without either the hijackers' magical powers or explosives. To emphasize their telekinetic prowess, later in the day they made a third building, WTC # 7, collapse also at freefall rate though no plane or any major debris hit it. Amazing guys these magical hijackers. But we know it had to be "Muslim hijackers" the conspiracy theorist will tell you because (now don't laugh) one of their passports was "found" a couple days later near Ground Zero, miraculously "surviving" the fire that we were told incinerated planes, passengers and black boxes, and also "survived" the collapse of the building it was in. When common sense tells you if that were true then they should start making buildings and airliners out of heavy paper and plastic so as to be "indestructable" like that magic passport. The hijackers even used their magical powers to bring at least seven of their number back to life, to appear at american embassies outraged at being blamed for 9/11!! BBC reported on that and it is still online. Nevertheless, they also used magical powers to make the american government look like it was covering something up in the aftermath of this, what with the hasty removal of the steel debris and having it driven to ports in trucks with GPS locators on them, to be shipped overseas to China and India to be melted down. When common sense again tells you that this is paradoxical in that if the steel was so unimportant that they didn't bother saving some for analysis but so important as to require GPS locators on the trucks with one driver losing his job because he stopped to get lunch. Hmmmm. Further making themselves look guilty, the Bush administration steadfastly refused for over a year to allow a commission to investigate 9/11 to even be formed, only agreeing to it on the conditions that they get to dictate its scope, meaning it was based on the false pretense of the "official story" being true with no other alternatives allowed to be considered, handpicked all its members making sure the ones picked had vested interests in the truth remaining buried, and with Bush and Cheney only "testifying" together, only for an hour, behind closed doors, with their attorneys present and with their "testimonies" not being recorded by tape or even written down in notes. Yes, this whole story smacks of the utmost idiocy and fantastic far-fetched lying, but it is amazingly enough what some people believe. Even now, five years later, the provably false fairy tale of the "nineteen hijackers" is heard repeated again and again, and is accepted without question by so many Americans. Which is itself a testament to the innate psychological cowardice of the American sheeple, i mean people, and their abject willingness to believe something, ANYTHING, no matter how ridiculous in order to avoid facing a scary uncomfortable truth. Time to wake up America.

    Debunking Popular Mechanics lies:
    http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=6880
    someone else debunking Popular Mechanics crap:
    http://www.serendipity.li/wot/pop_mech/reply_to_popular_mechanics.htm
    still more debunking Poopular Mechanics:
    http://letsroll911.org/ipw-web/bulletin/bb/viewtopic.php?t=5505
    and still more debunking of Popular Mechanics:
    http://www.reopen911.org/ericreubt.htm

    Poopular Mechanics staff replaced just before laughable “debunking” article written:
    http://www.reopen911.org/hiddenhand.htm
    another neo-con 9/11 hit piece explodes, is retracted:
    http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/august2006/180806hitpiece.htm
    Professor Steven Jones debunks the N.I.S.T. “report” as well as the F.E.M.A. one and the 9/11 commission "report":
    http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/wtc_buildings_collapse_steven_jones.htm
    N.I.S.T. scientist interviewed:
    http://www.teamliberty.net/id235.html
    F.B.I. says no hard evidence linking Osama bin Laden to 9/11 which is why his wanted poster says nothing about 9/11:
    http://forum.afghansite.com/index.php?showtopic=9349
    Fire Engineering magazine says important questions about the Twin Tower “collapses” still need to be addressed:http://fe.pennnet.com/Articles/Article_Display.cfm?Section=OnlineArticles&SubSection=Display&PUBLICATION_ID=25&ARTICLE_ID

    Twin Towers’ construction certifiers say they should have easily withstood it:
    http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/121104easilywithstood.htm
    USA Today interview with the last man out of the South Tower, pursued by a fireball:
    http://www.usatoday.com/news/sept11/2001/12/19/usat-escape.htm
    Janitor who heard explosions and escaped has testimony ignored by 9/11 whitewash commission:
    http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/ignoring_9-11.html
    Janitor starts speaking out about it and his apartment is burglarized, laptop stolen:
    http://kurtnimmo.blogspot.com/2005/08/apartment-of-nine-eleven-hero-william_28.html
    Firefighters tell of multiple explosions:
    http://www.wnbc.com/news/1315651/detail.html
    Eyewitnesses tell of explosions:
    http://research.amnh.org/users/tyson/essays/TheHorrorTheHorror.html
    Interview with another firefighter telling of explosions:
    http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/Banaciski_Richard.txt
    Firefighter saw “sparkles” (strobe lights on detonators?) before “collapse”:
    http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC/Fitzpatrick_Tom.txt
    Other eyewitnesses talk of seeing/hearing explosions:
    http://georgewashington.blogspot.com/2005/11/more-proof-911-inside-job-witnesses-to.html
    Surviving eyewitnesses talk of multiple explosions there:
    http://www.thememoryhole.org/911/veliz-bombs.htm
    Cutter charge explosions clearly visible:
    http://www.rense.com/general63/cutt.htm
    The pyroclastic wave (that dust cloud that a second before was concrete) and how it wouldn’t be possible without explosives:
    http://st12.startlogic.com/~xenonpup/physics/
    Detailed description of the demolition of the Twin Towers:
    http://gordonssite.tripod.com/id2.html
    Freefall rate of “collapses” math:
    http://www.911blimp.net/prf_FreeFallPhysics.shtml
    More about their freefall rate “collapses”:
    http://www.serendipity.li/wot/second_wave.htm
    Video footage of the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers:
    http://www.plaguepuppy.net/public_html/video%20archive/
    Video footage of the controlled demolition of WTC # 7 building:
    http://911research.wtc7.net/talks/wtc/videos.html
    More
    http://www.wtc7.net/
    Photos of the Pentagon’s lawn (look at these and see if you can tell me with a straight face that a jumbo jet crashed there):
    http://www.911blimp.net/cached/HuntTheBoeing!.htm
    More photos of this amazing lawn at the Pentagon:
    http://cryptogon.com/docs/Introducing%20the%20amazing%20Penta-Lawn%202000!%20(9-11).htm
    Very unconvincing fake “Osama” “confession” tape:
    http://welfarestate.com/wtc/faketape/
    More about the fake “Osama” tape:
    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/osamatape2.html
    Fake “Mohammed Atta” “suicide” letter:
    http://www.welfarestate.com/wtc/fake-letters.txt
    Commercial pilots disagree with “official” 9/11 myth:
    http://www.prisonplanet.com/september_11_us_government_accused.htm
    More commercial jet pilots say “official” myth is impossible:
    http://www.masternewmedia.org/2001/10/31/commercial_jet_pilots_analysis_of_the_twin_tower_attack.htm
    Impossibility of cell phone calls from United 93:
    http://www.physics911.net/cellphoneflight93.htm
    More about the impossible cell phone calls:
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO408B.html
    Experiment proves cell phone calls were NOT possible from anywhere near the altitude the “official” myth has them at:
    http://physics911.ca/org/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9
    Fake Barbara Olson phone call:
    http://www.vialls.com/lies911/lies.htm
    Where the hell was the Air Force?
    http://www.welfarestate.com/wtc/af-scramble.txt
    More about the Air Force impotence question:
    http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0331-11.htm
    Sept. 10th 2001, Pentagon announces it is “missing” $2.3 trillion (now why do you think they picked THAT day to announce it? So it could be buried the next day by 9/11 news):
    http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/01/29/eveningnews/main325985.shtml
    Unocal pipeline-through-Afghanistan plan:
    http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0513/p05s01-wosc.html
    Unocal pipeline-through-Afghanistan plan mentioned:
    http://thetyee.ca/Views/2006/05/19/OutOfAfghanistan
    More on Unocal Afghan pipeline:
    http://www.newscentralasia.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=1031
    The attack on Afghanistan was planned in the summer of 2001, months before 9/11:
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1550366.stm
    Pentagon deliberately misled 9/11 Commission:
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=EGG20060802&articleId=2887
    9/11 whitewash Commission and NORAD day:
    http://fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/071204_final_fraud.shtml
    The incredible fish tales of the 9/11 Commission examined:
    http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=%20GR20051213&articleId=1478
    Jeb Bush declares state of emergency 4 days before 9/11 for Florida, saying it will help respond to terrorism:
    http://www.eionews.addr.com/psyops/news/jebknew.htm
    Steel debris removal from Ground Zero, destruction of evidence:
    http://911research.wtc7.net/wtc/groundzero/cleanup.html
    Over two hundred incriminating bits of 9/11 evidence shown in the mainstream media:
    http://thewebfairy.com/killtown/911smokingguns.html
    Tracking the “hijackers”:
    http://www.welfarestate.com/911/
    “Hijacker” patsies:
    http://911review.org/Wiki/HijackersPatsies.shtml
    “Hijackers” receiving flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station:
    http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0208/S00085.htm
    No Arabs on Flight 77:
    http://www.sierratimes.com/03/07/02/article_tro.htm
    Flight manifests (tell me if you find any Arabs):
    http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA11.victims.html
    http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/AA77.victims.html
    http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua93.victims.html
    http://www.cnn.com/SPECIALS/2001/trade.center/victims/ua175.victims.html
    Thirty experts say “official” 9/11 myth impossible:
    http://911fraud.blogspot.com/2005/06/us-governments-offical-911-story-is.html
    “Al Qaeda” website tracks back to Maryland:
    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/alqmaryland.html
    Al Qaeda videos uploaded from U.S. government website:
    http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/july2004/140704governmentwebsite.htm
    Operation: Northwoods, a plan for a false-flag “terror” attack to be blamed on Castro to use it as a pretext for America to invade Cuba, thankfully not approved by Kennedy back in 1962 but was approved by the Joint Chiefs of Staff and sent to his desk:
    http://www.prisonplanet.com/us_terror_plan_cuba_invasion_pretext.html

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