"Of course, all the widespread boredom and ennui is completely understandable, similar to having some sort of inoperable tumor growing deep in your heart for so many years it eventually becomes the norm, The Thing That's Always There, so ingrained and embedded into your being that you can't even remember a time when you were free of it. And so every morning as your chest convulses and your body withers a little bit more, you just sigh and shake your head and accept the misery because, well, what the hell else are you gonna do?"

investors. Down from 60% in 1998. Individual income tax amounted to about $1.2 trillion last year and interest on our debt was about $244 billion. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States...

http://zfacts.com/p/461.html

The eye-popping $9 trillion gross national debt is owed by the "General Fund." That's the part funded by our income taxes.

What is the General Fund?
The General Fund of the federal government (AKA federal funds) with the $9 trillion debt. It is used to carry out the general purposes of the government, rather than the funds earmarked for a certain purpose, i.e. trust funds.

"General fund means the accounts for receipts not earmarked by law for a specific purpose, the proceeds of general borrowing, and the expenditure of these moneys." —From the Glossary of the Analytic Perspectives of the OMB Budget, FY 2005, p. 392.he eye-popping $9 trillion gross national debt is owed by the "General Fund." That's the part funded by our income taxes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17424874 /

Just who owns the U.S. national debt?

The money is borrowed from buyers of Treasury securities -- which are basically a big batch of IOUs that are auctioned off every three months.
The money flows in from all over the place: from individual investors and corporations, pension funds and governments, both in the U.S. and around the world. Basically, anyone with a large amount of cash looking for a safe place to put it is a good candidate for holding U.S. Treasury debt.

So just who are these lenders? As of last June (the latest complete breakdown available), the biggest holder of Treasury debt was the U.S. government itself, with about 52 percent of the total $8.5 trillion in paper that's out there.

edited to add additional link

He was dressed in one of those navy blue 'uniforms', with 'Case' embroidered over the pocket. And he said he was there to thank me.

He said that he and his wife often walked past my yard to the local video store and had noticed my yard signs over the years.I put up a 'tally' board in August 2004. It's about 4' by 4' and is headed with 'Mission (NOT) Accomplished'. I keep a running tally of US military deaths in Iraq. For a while, I had another line with 'coalition deaths' and 'Iraq civilians', but those haven't been changed as they were just painted on. The sign is weather worn and looking old. At the base, I have another, about 2' by 18 inches and it says, 'Dying for Neo-Con Empire'. I used to have one saying 'Impeach Bush' and 'Bush lied and thousands died', but it finally fell apart after 3 winters. Now there's another small one saying, "Save the Bill of Rights'.

Anyway, this man said he had two sons in the Arkansas National Guard and that they had just been called up for Iraq. He said that he appreciated my sign and keeping the memory of each and every soldier killed there. He said that he feared for his sons as they would be providing 'protection' for convoys. They were both truck drivers. He said we had to get out of Iraq, it was a mistake, and that he wished we could get Bush out of office. And he thanked me.

I SHAKE WITH ANGER:

At what is being done in my name around the world. At the sight of Dick Cheney's sneer. At the sound of George W. Bush's voice. At the LTTEs I read in the local paper. At the votes taken in the Senate and House. At the lies repeated on my TV. At the 'I can't recall' excuses in the hearing rooms. At the fake patriotism of those around me. At the ignorance that surrounds me.


I QUAKE WITH TEARS:

For those who have been betrayed by their 'Commander-in-Chief. For the terrified Iraqi children and their parents. For the death and destruction caused by 'my' country. For those who go to bed homeless or hungry within our borders. For those who only want to live in peace. For the loss of the city of New Orleans. For the trauma suffered by those in New York. For a world gone mad. For the impending failure of the 'great American experiment'. For all that has been lost.


I SHIVER WITH FEAR:

That the United States of America has passed the point of no return; beyond repair, beyond redemption, beyond restoration, to a fascist state. That my country will continue its march toward brutal empire, toward endless wars, toward a new Dark Age. That all debate will be silenced. That all will be made to pledge their allegiance to the empire. That hard economic times are ahead. That I will forever have to be ashamed to be from the USA.


This has been my existence for almost 7 years. I sometimes believe I am going mad. I yearn for peace within me, within this country, and throughout the world.




Edited to put in correct 'their'

Webb Amendment to set 'stay at home time' for war-weary troops who have had multiple tours of duty. Yet they cried like babies last January when Nancy told the GOP House members they would have longer work weeks.

Remember Rep. Kingston?


“Keeping us up here eats away at families,” said Rep. Jack Kingston (R-Ga.), who typically flies home on Thursdays and returns to Washington on Tuesdays. “Marriages suffer. The Democrats could care less about families — that’s what this says.”


What the hell do they think happens to the marriages and families of all those troops they claim to 'support'?

The mid-West, Southwest, Southeast, and North. It has a beautiful landscape and breath-taking places. However, I do not esteem our society nor government. We are racists, capitalists, and obsessed with consumerism and religiousity. None of those triats are extremely attractive. I have traveled the world and realize that there are many other beautiful landscapes and cultures throughout. I do not accept that America is 'the greatest country in the world' (what makes us that?) nor will I have any qualms about leaving these shores. My date for departure is set: Oct. 2010. I want to do all I can to resist the American Empire. To stop the destruction we, America, perpetrate on the rest of the world. I want a world that is heterogenous, filled with variety, and that includes other ways of doing things than the American model.

I'm a 59 yr. old woman. I took two of my dogs to the vet's this morning, early before 7AM. I pulled out on to our main drag, a 5 lane street that runs north through our town. There were no other cars on the street going in my direction and I stop at the first intersection for a red light, in the right hand lane. As I'm sitting there, this guy in a red Firebird approaches in the left lane. About 2 car lengths from the light, he swerves into the right lane, inches from my back bumper. I think, "Glad you don't know where the hell you're going." About then, the light changes to green and I pull away, thinking he's going to make a right turn.

But he didn't, he pulled back into the left lane and proceeded to stay in my 'blind spot' for awhile and then began to accelerate. I'm still driving the 40 MPH speed limit in the right lane. He then passes me and pulls back into the right lane. Now he's traveling at about 50 MPH and starts hitting his brakes (we do live in a hilly area and so you can pick up speed going downhill). He does this about 5 or 6 times, but it doesn't bother me because I'm that far behind him. I just think he's a terrible driver!

Finally, he's slowed down enough that I'm steadily gaining on him, so turn on my turn signal and start to pass him. He immediately cuts to the left lane. So I go back to the right lane and he cuts over as I do. I start to get irritated and pull to the left .... here he comes. By now, we're coming to another intersection/traffic light and there's another truck coming up on the left. As the truck is alongside the Firebird, I make my move into the left lane behind the truck. So now we're side by side at the stop light.

I said, "WTF is wrong with you?" out loud, though he couldn't have heard me. He flips me the bird as he makes a right hand turn at the light. And I then returned it as it dawned on me that he didn't like my bumper stickers!

I don't have a picture of the back of my car, but here's what's pasted there:
IMPEACH BUSH/CHENEY '07
GOD FORGIVE AMERICA
WE'RE THE ROGUE NATION
END THIS ENDLESS WAR
IMPEACHMENT: ONE WAY TO GET OUT OF THIS MESS
HONK IF YOU HAVE BUSH FATIGUE
"THERE IS NO FLAG LARGE ENOUGH TO COVER THE SHAME OF KILLING INNOCENT PEOPLE" - Howard Zinn
IF YOU WANT TO LIVE IN A COUNTRY RULED BY RELIGION, MOVE TO IRAN

http://icasualties.org/oif /

Will Tony Snow tell us, as he did on June 15, 2006, not to sweat it because, "It's just a number'?

Last evening, as I sat on my porch, I saw and heard my neighbor encouraging his two sons, ages 11 and 9, to repeatedly shoot a squirrel with an air rifle. They succeeded to gleefully shoot it 4 times. They were screaming, "Come here, Dad and look at this!" And, "We got it!!" He kept yelling back, "Shoot it in the head. Shoot it in the head", as he sat and read his paper. He finally went out front to where his kids were and came back with his arms raised in a sign of victory, yelling, "They got it!"

I was physically ill. What is wrong with people to teach their children to needlessly kill a harmless, defenseless animal?

I'm 59 years old and will admit to deliberately taking the lives of two creatures (above the insect level, as I do swat flies, mosquitoes, ants, and an occasional wasp) in my lifetime. One was an act of revenge and the other an act of mercy.

I once beat a Colorado River toad to death after it came into my walled Tucson yard and killed one of my three dogs. As I hit it with a shovel, tears streamed down my face and I have prayed for forgiveness although I'm an atheist. I truly regret that act of anger.

The other was a tiny field mouse. I bought one of those 'glue' traps when they first came out, thinking that I could then release the little pest once its feet were encased with glue. I didn't know what terribly cruel things those traps are. The mouse had fought so hard against the glue that its skin had become embedded and it had ripped it from its body. It must have been in terrible pain, so I 'finished' him off.

I will forever feel guilt for my deliberate destruction of those two living creatures. The only other animal to die by my actions was a rat I accidentally impaled with a pitch fork while I was cleaning out a barn stall as a teenager.

So, in your opinion, what's wrong with me?

I've a been thinkin' that maybe it might work out a lot better to fight them dang-blamed terraists over here, on our soil, than in I-rack. It don't seem to be workin' out real good fightin' em over there. I mean, we got us about 278,000,000 firearms in 'Merika and there's a good 30% of us that have been just chawin' for a fight. We're all good flag-waving patriots and I know that my pastor and his flock would be pleased as punch to have a go at them evil Muslims. We can get all of ourn militia men out there on the borders and the wemen folk will sew up some red, white, and blue unyforms and we can take em on right here. Whadda ya think?

http://thinkprogress.org/2007/03/13/sampso... ... /

But in an e-mail to Harriet Miers on Jan. 9, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales’s chief of staff Kyle Sampson (who resigned yesterday) admitted that the Clinton administration never purged its U.S. attorneys in the middle of their terms, explicitly stating, “In recent memory, during the Reagan and Clinton Administrations, Presidents Reagan and Clinton did not seek to remove and replace U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely under the holdover provision”:

Former Clinton chief of staff John Podesta previously told ThinkProgress that Rove’s claims that the Clinton administration also purged attorneys is “pure fiction.” He added, “Replacing most U.S. attorneys when a new administration comes in — as we did in 1993 and the Bush administration did in 2001 — is not unusual. But the Clinton administration never fired federal prosecutors as pure political retribution.”

And even CNN.com admits it:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/15/fir... /...

U.S. attorneys are political appointees who are routinely replaced when a new president takes office, but their removal in the middle of a presidential administration is rare -- and some say unprecedented.

And from this post you can get to the offical report on the the attorneys that resigned when Bush took office in 2001.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...

Edited to add link.

I believe that any 'pre-emptive' war is immoral. I believe that killing, either directly or indirectly 655,000 civilians is immoral. I believe that the use of torture is immoral. I believe that imprisoning people indefinitely without trial is immoral. I believe that the occupation of a sovereign country until they 'privatize' their national resources is immoral. I believe displacing over 1.2 million people from their country is immoral. I believe no-bid contracts that reap $billions in profits while providing shoddy services is immoral. I believe the use of depleted uranium in weapons is immoral. I believe the use of napalm and burning phosphorus is immoral. I believe the failure to safe guard a nation's historical treasurers is immoral. I believe secret rendition is immoral. I believe a country spending over 50% of its revenue on a military is immoral. I believe that that sending mentally and physically wounded troops back into battle is immoral. I believe that requiring National Guard and Reservists to return to the battle field 3 and 4 times is immoral. I believe that following a Commander-in-Chief who is more interested in funding the groups that are killing your troops is immoral. I believe that destroying a city for revenge is immoral.

In other words, I can't see basing a military policy on your personal beliefs when you, yourself, have based your entire career on immoral acts.

I would give this book 5 stars! It will make you angry, make you sad, and in my case, seek for ways to bring the guilty to justice!

The author was in Iraq from late 2002 until the after the CPA moved out in June 2004. Unlike the members of the CPA and their staff, Rajiv traveled throughout Baghdad and interviewed common Iraqis.

The story is of how the USA managed to destroy the entire social structure, infrastructure, economy, and lives of 25 million Iraqis.

"Under Saddam's Baathist government, state-owned factories produced a plethora of goods including school notebooks (which were so substandard that the pages fell out), car batteries (which weren't much better), leather coats (which were favored by members of the secret police). Government jobs either in a factory or a ministry or in the security services, were plentiful and guaranteed you a salary for the rest of your life. Paychecks were low, but the cost of most goods and services was subsidized by the government. Gasoline was sold for less than a nickel a gallon. Nobody paid for electricity, not even the state-owned factories that guzzled hundreds of megawatts. Every family received monthly food rations from the state. Education, even college, was free. So was health care. The price of fertilizer was so heavily subsidized that Iraqi farmers would often sell their annual allotment in Jordan and Syria instead of using it to grow crops; doing so took a truck and a few days, and it netted more money than spending months toiling in the fields.

Iraqis experienced an unparalleled degree of affluence because of the country's plentiful oil revenue. Before the 1991 Gulf War bankrupted and isolated the country, government run department stores managed by the Ministry of Trade sold Italian loafers, Pierre Cardin ties, and Breitling watches at a fraction of their retail price anywhere else in the world. International tickets on Iraqi Airways were subsidized, as were imported Volkswagens, Volvos, Mercedes-Benzes, and Chevrolets. In the 1970s and even into the early 1980s, before the apex of Iraq's eight-year war with neighboring Iran, Iraq's healthcare and university systems were regarded as the best in the Arab world. Tens of thousands of Egyptians, Somalis, Pakistanis, and Indians moved to Iraq to work on massive infrastructure projects: the construction of a six-lane highway to Jordan, luxury hotels in Baghdad, bridges across the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. "We had a very, very good life." Faez Ghani Aziz, the director of the vegetable oil factory, told me. "We were the richest country in the Middle East."

So, the USA invades, topples Saddam, leaves everything except the Oil Ministry unguarded to be looted and burnt, immediately disbands the Iraqi Army, and decides that anyone connected to the Baathist party should be fired. And that was just for starters. The Americans with Bremer at the head plays the role of unquestioned king and decides to remake the socialist Iraqi into a mini-America, complete with electronic stock market, a free global market, Maryland's traffic rules, and almost all reconstruction to be done by anyone other than Iraqis.

"....With search teams unable to turn up any weapons of mass destruction, the primary American justification for the invasion, the viceroy deemed the development of democracy to be no longer just an important goal. It was the goal."

However, they ignore the voices of Iraqis, the lack of electricity and clean water, the un-supplied hospitals, the growing number of unemployed, the payment of pensions, and distribution of food.

What was accomplished by the CPA was a squandering of American taxpayer dollars, the formation of ethic violence, an increased Sunni insurgency, and incalculable damage to the country of Iraq.

"...We never saw each other as Sunnis or Shiites first. We were Iraqis first," said Saad Jawad, a professor of political science at Baghdad University. "But the Americans changed all that. They made a point of categorizing people as Sunni or Shiite or Kurd."

One other note, you'll be thrilled to read how much the key Bush players, Rumsfeld, Feith, and Wolfowitz had a hand in this fiasco.

The book is an easy read that will leave you shaking with fear. The author simply presents what the Christian Right is and what it really seeks: the destruction of this country in favor of totalitarianism.

"In this version of the Christian Gospel, the exploitation and abuse of other human beings is a good. Homosexuality is an evil. And this global, heartless system of economic rationalism has morphed in the rhetoric of the Christian Right into a test of faith. The ideology it espouses is a radical evil, an ideology of death. It calls for wanton destruction, destruction of human beings, of the environment, of communities and neighborhoods, of labor unions, of a free press, of Iraqis, Palestinians or others in the Middle East who would deny us oil fields and hegemony, of federal regulatory agencies, social welfare programs, public education - in short, the destruction of all people and programs that stand in the way of a Christian America and its God-given right to dominate the rest of the planet. The movement offers, in return, the absurd but seductive promise that those who are right with God will rise to become spiritual and material oligarchs. They will become the new class. Those who are not right with God, be they poor or Muslim or unsaved, deserve what they get. In the rational world none of this makes sense. But believers have been removed from a reality-based world. They believe that through Jesus all is possible. It has become a Christian duty to embrace the exploitation of others, to build a Christian America where freedom means the freedom of the powerful to dominate the weak. Since believers see themselves as becoming empowered through faith, the gross injustices and repression that could well boomerang back on most of them are of little concern. They assuage their consciences with the small acts of charity they or their churches dole out to the homeless or the mission fields. The emotion-filed religious spectacles and spiritual bromides compensate for the emptiness of their lives. They are energized by hate campaigns against gays or Muslims or liberals or immigrants. They walk willingly into a totalitarian prison they are helping to construct. They yearn for it. They work for it with passion, self-sacrifice and a blinding self-righteousness. "Evil when we are in its power is not felt as evil but as a necessity, or even a duty," Simone Weil wrote in Gravity and Grace. and it is the duty of the Christian foot soldiers to bring about the Christian utopia. When it is finished, when all have been stripped of legal and social protection, it will be too late to resist. This is the genius of totalitarian movements. They convince the masses to agitate for their own incarceration."

If you can, you really need to read at least the last chapter of this book. He urges us to not engage in dialogue with these people, but to speak out against them.

Someone on another thread asked why the RW hated welfare and I answered that part of it was the 'Gospel of Prosperity; being taught in these churches. I can't resist another quote from this book.

"But the gospel of prosperity has a more insidious effect than the personal enrichment of leaders such as Paul and Jan Crouch at the expense of gullible, desperate and often impoverished followers. When it is faith alone that will determine your well-being, when faith alone cures illness, overcomes emotional distress and ensures financial and physical security, there is no need for outside, secular institutions, for social-service and regulatory agencies, to exist. There is no need for fiscal or social responsibility. Although many of the followers of the movement rely, or have relied in the past, on government agencies to survive, the belief system they embrace is hostile to all secular intervention. To put trust in secular institutions is to lack faith, to give up on God's magic and miracles. The message being preached is one that dovetails with the message of neoconservatives who want to gut and destroy federal programs, free themselves from government regulations and taxes and break the back of all organizations, such as labor unions, that seek to impede maximum profit."

scientific, artistic, or whatever. I greatly admire those who 'push the envelop' or break the bounds of the mundane. These people, artists, musicians, writers, deep sea explorers, astronauts, physicians, whoever, dare to live life. Perhaps they find peace and a rebirth of spirit as they pursue the things and activities that make their lives worthwhile to themselves. They should be looked to for inspiration. For if we're not here to live our lives as we see fit, than what are we here for?

I try to find empathy with all living creatures on this planet. It is very difficult when so called 'progressives' refer to three highly intelligent men as 'jerks' and refuse to acknowledge that these men were experienced mountain climbers who knew very well the risks they took. It is hard when some will tell you that you can't be 'progressive' if you smoke, or drive a SUV, or enjoy an activity that they would find dangerous.

What I find vile and inexcusable are the 'isms'. Imperialism, fascism, communism, capitalism, and fundamentalism of all flavors. These 'isms' all seek to restrain the human spirit, to enslave, and to squash the human quest.

I am proud to be a liberal, secular humanist.

Maybe you all should check it out: http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?s...