America: Like a monkey with its hand in a trap

There are four things that human beings must have in order to survive: Air, food and water, sure -- but also they need to feel good about themselves. So if you tell people bad things about themselves, then they are not going to like you because you are creating a life-threatening situation for them. So. It's always a good idea not to talk smack about your fellow-man.

But I'm gonna talk smack here anyway because I just can't resist.

I should say that America is a wonderful country and Americans are the Salt of the Earth. Instead, however, I'm going to indulge my weakness for pointing out character flaws in others and just tell the truth. "Americans are like greedy little monkeys who have put their hands in a trap, who could free themselves from the trap if they would only let go of the banana inside but who just can't bring themselves to let go."

The corporate Americans who rule us simply can't let go of the gigantic profits that they rake in from wagging endless war -- even though they know that war is polluting our environment and destroying America's economy (and the entire planet's economy and environment as well) and that because of their greed we're all probably gonna end up dying of nuclear radiation poisoning if nothing else.

American healthcare insurance companies can't let go of their bananas either, even though 335 Americans a DAY die because of their lust for unreasonable profits and their strangle-hold on America's doctors, nurses and hospitals. To solve our healthcare problems, all we gotta do is give MediCare to anyone under 65 who wants it, and then the freaking monkey would be out of the freaking trap. But no. The insurance companies seem hell-bent on destroying the system that they milk. Greed has trapped them -- and us as well.

But Americans aren't the only ones who won't let go of the banana. Over in the Middle East, Israel has its hands on a banana called "The Occupation," which will eventually strangle Israel economically, politically and morally if it keeps holding on. For instance, when Israel was first created, most Americans thought of it as a shining beacon of idealism -- but how things have changed since 1948. People don't look to Israel as a moral leader any more, not so much. For example when the recent kidney-selling scandal came up, all too many people in America were willing to believe rumors that the Israeli Defense Force was selling body parts because of the many atrocities that the IDF had already committed over the last 60 years. Israel needs to let go of that "Occupation" banana!

And all too much of the Islamic world is in the banana trap too. Did Mohammed (PBUH) ever envision that such a large number of Muslims would all be out there trying to kill each other? Like in the Iran-Iraq War or the ongoing Shia-Sunni split? Is this what Mohammed (PBUH) had in mind? Hardly. (Not that Christians are all out there eagerly obeying Jesus' Golden Rule either! The American Civil War, World War I and World War II immediately come to mind. Must I repeat myself? War is the ultimate monkey trap.)

Not only that, but Muslims -- and also Hindus, Christians, Jews and even atheists and animists -- need to let go of the monkey trap of treating women as if they were mere property and/or objects of lust. They need to stop keeping women under house arrest where they are probably getting rickets from lack of sunshine Vitamin D. If treating women like this is such a wonderful and pious thing to do, then why aren't men doing these things also? Women make up half of the human race. Wherever women are treated as inferiors, we are wasting at least half of the human race's sorely-needed talents and capabilities. Men need to let go of that banana as well.

And me? I'm not perfect either. I gots my own banana-traps too. I need to get rid of all that extra stuff that keeps cluttering up my apartment. And I also need to do everything I can to help all of us monkeys get out of our traps so that all of us can start feeling good about ourselves -- and survive.

PS: What's new on the fabulous Jane Stillwater Show? Here's my latest interview -- with Paul Larudee, an expert on the Israel-Palestine situation. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mGqbO1e5kw&eurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww%2Eyoutube%2Ecom%2Fmy%5Fvideos%5Fedit&feature=player_embedded#t=24

PPS: Here's an even bigger news item: http://Kitco.com announced that the price of gold just topped the $1,000 mark.

Lord of the Manor: US foreign policy in Iraq & Afghanistan

(To see a video of me interviewing a Afghan terrorist on "The Jane Stillwater Show," click here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ve0ie0ABDEg )

I'm not really sure if my latest theory about Iraq and Afghanistan is correct -- but if it quacks like a duck, then I say let it fly. Here's my theory: That the folks in Washington seem to want to milk both Iraq and Afghanistan for all they are worth financially -- but from a safe distance. It's like that old lord-of-the-manor, castle-and-peasant trick. Build a huge castle on your fiefdom, squeeze the peasants dry until they scream and then retire back into the mega-base, er, I mean, castle again whenever things get too hot. Does this theory sound right?

I hate research and I may have to google all this stuff to get backup evidence but here's what I've come up with so far:

1. Everyone knows that Iraq has oil -- but what the freak does Afghanistan have that has kept everyone in Washington so fascinated with the place? I couldn't figure this one out for a really long time. The pipeline? Well maybe.... I know! It's the poppies!

There's a HUGE traffic in opium poppies coming out of Afghanistan. Somebody has to be making a profit on its opium sales and we know it isn't the Afghans or they wouldn't be living in such abject poverty. They'd all be sitting pretty and their country wouldn't be all hovering down at the bottom of the wealth-of-nations list next to Haiti and the DRC. Hell, they'd probably even have a seat on the Security Council.

And the Taliban ain't getting the poppy money either. Those guys are living in CAVES.

So who buys this stuff? And who profits? Europe and America. Ever since the U.S. lost most of its manufacturing, one of the biggest industries left to us appears to be illegal drugs. Am I right on this one or not?

According to RAWA, "Afghanistan now supplies over 90 percent of the world’s heroin, generating nearly $200 billion in revenue. Since the U.S. invasion on Oct. 7, 2001, opium output has increased 33-fold (to over 8,250 metric tons a year). ...Common sense suggests that such prolific trade over an extended period of time is no accident, especially when the history of what has transpired in that region is considered. While the CIA ran its operations during the Vietnam War, the Golden Triangle supplied the world with most of its heroin." And after the U.S. took over Afghanistan? “Within two years of the onslaught of the CIA operation in Afghanistan, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderlands became the world’s top heroin producer.”

Okay. So we apparently gots Afghanistan replacing the Golden Triangle as the biggest source of illegal drugs in the world -- with the possible exception of Columbia in South America, another CIA stronghold.

Bottom line: Afghanistan is a cash cow -- if you know how to milk it right.

2. Iraq. And we all know about Iraq. Tons of oil. But are the peasants getting any of the benefits? Not. Many Iraqis -- if not most -- are currently living in poverty. I've been to some places in Anbar province that are poorer than poor. So who exactly IS getting Iraq's oil profits? Ask Paul Bremer.

3. Mega-bases are being constructed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. From Bagram AFB and to Camp Leatherneck in Afghanistan, the place has been pretty much castled. And from its Camp Victory to its Balad AFB, Iraq has been castled too. Now. Flash back in your mind to those cheesy dioramas of feudal Europe that we used to make in fifth grade. See, there's the castle. See, there's the serfs.

Based on the above-cited information, there seems to be a trend going on in these two countries that supports my new theory nicely. "But Jane," you might ask. "So what?" So this: All that castle-ing stuff that is going on in Afghanistan and Iraq is about giving more power to America's Lords of the Manor. Those "wars" that we got tricked into fighting weren't about Democracy or even Saddam or Osama after all.

Afghanistan used to be a rather advanced country. Education was valued there. Women went to college. They had schools. They had jobs. They had roads. And then Afghanistan got reduced to rubble during the USSR invasion and Charlie Wilson's War and the power-vacuum aftermath that resulted. Afghanistan became positively medieval, feudal. So doesn't it seem fitting that America should become Afghanistan's new "Lord of the Manor"? With castles and all.

And as for Iraq? Mega-bases apparently make sense there too. You gots a population that is prone to fighting among itself like peasants. So why not have a "Lord of the Manor" there too? Why not seize the moment.

And look what is happening in America right now as well. We too are all squabbling among ourselves. The wingnuts are all talking about staging a Revolution. "Go for it!" I say. And then in the rubble that is left after that, we also will probably end up with a few "Lords of the Manor" -- who will then be able to siphon off our country's wealth unrestricted. And America will also have lots of mega-bases as well.

PS: Speaking of drugs, my friend JoAnne just sent me an e-mail on the subject. "Of course America wants to control the drugs in the world," wrote JoAnne, "since we consume most of them! The Wall Street Journal said about two weeks ago that Mexico has made about 40 different types of drugs (weed, heroin, opium, meth, etc.) legal in small quantities there because their country was simply falling apart over drug wars. My guess is they want to stop the war at the street level where every thug is now fighting for turf. Imagine that -- making drugs legal so there's no more criminal element in the business."

Maybe they should do that here in the U.S. too -- except that Big Pharma would probably get its knickers all in a twist when marijuana starts to out-sell all its big money-makers like Prozac and Welbutrin.

Down-home music at its best: Berkeley's old & new Freight & Salvage Coffeehouse

(Photos are of the old Freight & Salvage kitchen crew, the old Freight kitchen, U.Utah Phillips dressed up as Santa, me as Santa's helper, me and some of my children -- including Joe --circa 1979, and toddler Mena inspecting the new F&S and dancing to Eric and Suzie Thompson's cajun music in the park)

"I'm about to go off to the grand opening of the fancy new Freight & Salvage folk music coffee house," I told my son Joe, "but I seriously doubt that it will be as good as the original old funky Freight was back in 1972." Remeber the old Freight & Salvage? Legendary! "Remember that time when I almost gave birth to you right there on the Freight's kitchen table?" You don't? Oh.

"I loved the old F&S!" I exclaimed. But to my delight and surprise, the new Freight & Salvage turned out to be equally as awesome as the original Freight & Salvage -- and perhaps even more so.

For eight long years back in the 1970s, my life totally revolved around Berkeley's old Freight & Salavage Coffeehouse. I worked in the kitchen baking cookies, listened avidly to the music, took money at the door, painted and cleaned the place up during the day and kept the musicians [very] happy at night. Our boss, Nancy Owens, had started the Freight in a former storage facility on San Pablo Avenue, across from the Albatross bar. I started working there in 1972. I'd make the coffee and my daughter Ruby would fall asleep under the kitchen table or in the musicians' room. All of us lived on bluegrass, coffee laced with smuggled in Jack Daniel's, home-made brownies and handfuls of raw cookie dough.

So today when I went to the grand opening of the new uptown Freight and Salvage, I wasn't really expecting too much. But I thought that I'd stop by anyway, re-live some old times and see all the people I used to know back in the good old days. But you can't go home again. I didn't know ANYBODY at the new Freight. And the place was upscale, high-tech and didn't even HAVE a kitchen table any more. I asked one docent if I could take a photo of my granddaughter Mena next to a snack table, the closest thing to the old table I could find.

"No you cannot," replied the docent. "Liability insurance won't allow it." Humph. The old Freight & Salvage never had no stinkin' liability insurance. And all of the staff's kids practically lived in the place. The old Freight ran on fiddle music and the laughter of children.

At the new Freight grand opening, when me and my granddaughter Mena went over to listen to a singing demonstration, Mena started to sing along -- and a patron actually came up to me and said, "If you want, I can take your granddaughter out in the lobby to prevent the other patrons from being disturbed. They hate being distrubed." Times have certainly changed.

The closest I had come to experiencing anything like that at the old Freight & Salvage was when the lead singer for "Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen" came up to me after he saw that I was pregnant and said, "It's not mine and Goodbye!"

Then, like I said, there was the time that I almost gave birth to Joe right there in the kitchen rather than miss out on a night of good fiddle music. And baby Joe also spent time sleeping under the table at the Freight.

But the main focus at the Frieght & Salvage was always the music. We featured some of the best bluegrass, folk and old-timey music in the world. Lightning Hopkins, Doc Watson, Elizabeth Cotten, Ralph Stanley, the Joy of Cooking, U. Utah Phillips, Rosalie Sorrels and High Country. I remember when I was going out with the main singer for High Country, Pat Enright, and he said that he wanted to move to Nashville and try to make it in the big-time. I can't believe that I actually told Pat Enright that he would never make it in Nashville, that he should stay here in Berkeley and that Nashville would only break his heart. Ha! Two Emmies, something like ten CDs and a world tour as a singer in the Nashville Bluegrass Band later....

Anyway, Nancy Owens got tired of running the Freight and we workers then tried to buy it. "Let's form the Berkeley Society for the Preservation of Traditional Music," I said. And we did. And we ran the Freight until some other people came along who offered to run it better. But good grief! Eight years of my life went into that place. I had music coming out of my ears! And now I go off to the freaking Grand Opening of the New Freight & Salvage and nobody even recognizes me -- and nobody even cares.

And then Mena and I went into the main stage concert hall and a Hawaiian guy named Patrick Landeza started playing slack key guitar over the best sound equipment I have ever heard. EVER. And suddenly the old Freight & Salvage magic that had made the original F&S a magical place that I just loved was there right in the room with me again. And the new Freight & Salvage was suddenly as good as or better than the old one. And Mena started dancing. And nobody stopped her.

Plus on the way out afterwards, one of the new managers spotted my antique "Freight & Salvage" T-shirt, came over to me, said hello and actually volunteered to listen to all my old stories about the old F&S -- maybe even the ones that are X-rated....

Then, on our walk home, Mena and I stopped by Provo Park, where the Freight & Salvage grand opening also had some open-air music going on and Eric and Susie Thompson, who used to play at the Freight 30 years ago, were playing Cajun waltzes and two-steps in the park and there were suddenly little kids everywhere -- and them and me and toddler Mena did the two-step and it was suddenly even more like old times.

PS: About that fight that Mena had in the park with the 11-month-old over Mena's stuffed Totoro? Well. Forget what you heard to the contrary. Mena won. I think. I have it on tape. Click here. Take bets. Mena weighed in a few pounds heavier but that 11-month old was FIERCE!

PPS: Here's a short video of Mena, fighting for her Totoro. She's the one in the green dress. Princess Mena-noke! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VJOm5keIlE

The Jane Stillwater Show: Why haters hate

Now that I've finally discovered how easy (and fun!) it is to make YouTube videos, I've decided to start my own YouTube talk show too. Craig Ferguson and Jon Stewart, eat your hearts out. I'd mention Rush Limbaugh and Glen Beck as well but they aren't really true talk-show hosts. They are just hateful people who are bringing America down.

Anyway, here's the first episode of my fabulous new talk show: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSh14vAlk8U. And if you can't download it from YouTube, then here's the written account:

Why Haters Hate: "Love thy neighbor as thyself"

"I just had psychic surgery performed on my knees by one of the top psychic surgeons in the Philippines." How's that for a fabulous lead sentence?

"Did it work?" you might ask. Who knows. I'm still in post-op recovery. But it was intense, almost like having two knee replacement operations without anesthetic. Well, maybe not that bad, but still. You had to have been there. It was intense.

There is a legendary psychic surgeon now living in the Philippines, Montsignor Marcos Orbito, who is descended from generations of psychic healers and is famous all over the world. At age 84, Montsignor Orbito is still actively healing people and is planning to speak at the 2009 Parliament of World Religions in Australia in December. And the man who operated on me has been training with Montsignor Orbito for his entire life.

My knee procedure took approximately 20 minutes. There may or may not have been chicken blood involved. My knees may or may not have gotten healed. But this experience, for me, was completely life-changing -- in a way that had nothing to do with my knees.

"Before we begin," said the psychic healer, "I would like you to read a few passages from the Bible." Sure. "Read Mark 12:28-31."

"Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself." It was Jesus' second commandment -- one of a boxed set of two.

And while the healer was psychically cutting into my knees, it suddenly hit me. "That commandment is DEEP." Loving one's neighbor is hard. Then I vowed that when I got out of this surgery, I was going to bite the bullet, man up and actually start loving my neighbor -- because this Commandment is the real key to world peace, which I desire even more dearly than actually possessing workable knees.

Then I had another revelation right there on the operating table. Love thy neighbor? Like thyself? Holy crap! "Before one can love one's neighbor like oneself, one has to love oneself first!" That's TOTALLY deep! It means that all those people who keep saying hateful things about others -- like wingnut talk-radio hosts who spew hatred and fear and distrust, like racists, war mongers and even like CIA torturers, Al Qaeda and the Taliban -- really ARE loving their neighbors as much as they love their own selves. People who hate others are only broadcasting to the world just how they feel about themselves. All those people who hate others? They must truly hate themselves even worse.

They must be following Jesus' commandment to the letter. They must be loving their neighbors just as little as they love themselves.

"Sorry, Jane. There's going to be no world peace for you -- at least not until all the haters of this world can stop hating -- stop hating themselves."

PS: There is currently talk among some of my gun-toting right-wingnut friends regarding marching on Washington and staging a Revolution. However, I have two questions regarding the wisdom of such a plan. First, suppose that you guys do have a successful Revolution, all those weapons in the Pentagon aren't trained in your direction and that you actually DO manage to bring down the government. Then what?

Are any of you even half-way prepared to deal with the chaos that will surely ensue?

And my second question would be, "Where were you guys when Bush and Cheney were squelching our freedom, turning patriotism into a an excuse to 'water the tree of liberty' at American citizens' expense, murdering our children by sending them off to fight illegal wars for profit, and otherwise looting our wallets any way that they could?"

PPS: All this hatin' on Van Jones is also really starting to get me down. I've known Van since 1998, when he was friends with my boss Robert Treuhaft and his wife Jessica Mitford. Van is everything that you could ever want an American to be -- smart, honest, well-educated, compassionate, hopeful, responsible, all that stuff. He is one of our best and brightest. And he is also African-American -- which makes him fair game for a bunch of hate-filled unpatriotic losers who couldn't even make it to college let alone graduate from Yale.

Of all the people who actually did great harm to America that the GOP could have picked on (Bernanke for instance -- or Summers or, God forbid, Cheney and Bush), they picked on Van Jones instead. That so bodes ill for the future of America and for our next generations. That so sucks eggs.

OMG Becky! The Taliban & the Northern Alliance might be the same guys!

(One of these photos is of the Northern Alliance. The other one is of the Taliban. Can you tell which is which?)

I woke up this morning with a terrifying thought -- that the same dudes who fought the USSR in Afghanistan are now fighting the USA there too. Eeuuww.

Remember how we used to root for those poor ragged Afghan guerrillas who held off the entire Soviet army during Charlie Wilson's War? I'm thinking that those very same ragged Afghan guerrillas (or their sons and grandsons) are now holding off the American military too. Good grief. Those dudes are fierce!

And here we were thinking that our sweet little Northern Alliance buddies were separate and different from the evil and hoary Taliban. Wrong. They are both Afghan fighters and they are both fierce. "Don't mess with Afghanistan."

So. All we gotta do now to defeat the Taliban is to figure out how the USSR defeated the Northern Alliance and then to use those same techniques.

PS: Oops. We already are using them.

PPS: Of course I am aware that the most of the Taliban hate most of the Northern Alliance. But I'm also thinking that they also hate the people who invade their country much more.

The point of this essay is not only to have fun (you GOTTA have fun writing this stuff or you will grow hair on your palms and go crazy and die from not being able to change the grim direction our world is now heading in), but also to do whatever little bit that I can to end the flow of America's wealth into endless wars that benefit only America's corporatists.

Becky, this essay is a work in progress -- just like the destruction of American democracy by corporatists is a work in progress too.

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And here's me and baby Mena reciting the "Talking OMG Becky Taliban Blues" -- as described above -- on YouTube. We're fierce too! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGtG1bmTiIE

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From The Times of India: There is nothing called the 'moderate Taliban' [Pakistan isn't doing too well against Afghanistan either]:

....Benazir Bhutto and the ISI did not create the Taliban in the winter of 1994 for war against America. Its purpose was to defeat fractious Afghan warlords, and establish a totalitarian regime that would equate Afghanistan's strategic interests to Pakistan's. The ISI conceived an "Afpak" long before the idea reached the outer rim of Washington's thinking.

Pakistan worked assiduously to widen the Taliban's legitimacy and would have drawn America into the fold through the oil-pipeline siren song if Osama bin Laden had not blown every plan apart. In some essentials, things have not changed. Pakistan's interests still lie in a pro-Islamabad Taliban regime in Kabul. The "moderation" theory is a ploy to provide war-weary America with an exit point. India's anxieties will be offered a smile in public and a shrug in private.

History is uncomfortable with neat closures. Neither the Taliban nor Pakistan are what they were in 1994: the former is much stronger, the latter substantially weaker. The fall of Kabul to the Taliban this time could be a curtain raiser to the siege of Islamabad. http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/OPINION/MJ-Akbar/The-Siege-Within/There-is-nothing-called-the-moderate-Taliban/articleshow/4390292.cms

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Here's an e-mail I just received from yet another angry Marine Mom: Afghanistan strategy sacrifices U.S. troops:

Here's a quote from the speech Adm. Mullen delivered to our troops at Forward Operating Base Ramrod, Afghanistan Friday, July 17, 2009:

“We cannot succeed here without taking care of the Afghan people first. We’re heavily focused on making sure that we absolutely eliminate civilian casualties. You could be in a really hot firefight but you need to be thinking how to get through that in a way that doesn’t really hurt the overall effort strategically.”

And in a statement published on the Joint Chiefs of Staff Web site Adm. Mullen said: "The US military effort in Afghanistan lacks credibility because the US hasn’t done enough to establish relationships with local communities, and its actions don’t always match its words."

Way to go, Admiral! Put the blame on our troops for not having established good relationships.

It’s time for the Admiral to retire.

The only way to absolutely eliminate civilian casualties is to leave Afghanistan, which, after eight years of bungling, apologizing, and making solitia payments to those shooting at our troops, may now be our only option.

This method of leadership only creates fear and insecurity with our forces and is why the situation has continually deteriorated.

The turning point was when we allowed the Afghans to falsely accuse the MSOC-F Marine Company who had been hit by a suicide bomber and ambushed, of killing civilians, and within six days, ordered the entire company of 120 SpecOps Marines out of Afghanistan along with their 32 containers of equipment.

We have too many risk-adverse generals with little or no combat experience willing to destroy the troops under their command.

Lt. General Francis Kearney III -- The only combat experience Gen. Kearney had was in Granada, yet he was put in charge of Special Forces in Afghanistan. He ordered the entire company of 120 SpecOps Marines out of Afghanistan.

An experienced combat veteran would not have stated “There is no evidence that the Marine Spec Ops platoon came under small-arms fire after the bombing. We found no brass (ammunition casings.)”

Instead of investigating the suicide bomber and the source of the weapons and mortar bases found at the site, Gen Kearney ordered a criminal investigation of the Marines who were attacked. Kearney took the side of the insurgents, who were firing on our troops. The problem with apologizing and making payments before any investigation is completed is that the Afghans take this as an admission of guilt, and these exaggerated false counts are broadcast around the world enormously damaging our efforts.

Army Col. (now BG) John Nicholson -- Nicholson publicly apologized to the Afghans saying he was “deeply, deeply ashamed and terribly sorry that American Marines had killed and wounded innocent Afghan people. This was a terrible, terrible mistake,” Nicholson said. “And my nation grieves with you for your loss and suffering. We humbly and respectfully ask for your forgiveness.”

And for the first time upped the number of dead from 10 to 19, based on no evidence but the word of the Afghans in this Taliban-controlled village, who he paid for their trouble. The military did not explain the discrepancy.

Nicholson paid the families of the insurgents who fired on our troops. Brian Williams reports on an interview Jim Maceda had with Col. Nicholson: By the end of his 2006 tour in Eastern Afghanistan, Nicholson’s unit had lost 45 men and 350 wounded,­ the highest U.S. toll in the war.
http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=181419&page=1 <http://shock.military.com/Shock/videos.do?displayContent=181419&page=1>

Allowing the Afghans to falsely accuse our troops of killing civilians, he paid compensation for exaggerated, false counts, and unbelievably, apologized, knowing it was a fabrication.

Air Force Col. Patrick Pihana, Kearney’s chief of staff with no combat experience was assigned to investigate. Pihana recorded and took signed statements from all 29 Marines on the patrol. Pihana also met with Army and Navy Explosive Ordnance Disposal Experts. The two explosives experts filed their report stating that the impacts on the MSOC vehicles were from small arms ammunition. The explosives experts both testified that they were 99% positive that the impacts could have only been from bullets.

Both explosives experts testified that Col Pihana repeatedly met with them and attempted to have them resubmit their reports to reflect that the impacts were from explosives and not small arms. Both explosives experts testified that they refused to comply with Col. Pihana’s request because they were sure of their original reports.

After expelling the SpecOps Marine Company, Kearney was promoted to LtGen and assigned as the Deputy Commander of U.S. Special Operations Command. Col Nicholson of 3rd Brigade, 10th Mountain Division was promoted to BGen and assigned deputy commander, regional command south, after he made false statements publicly.

The US Air Force Investigating Officer, Col. Pihanas, who conducted his shoddy investigation was rewarded this winter by a distinguishing Service Medal awarded from LtGen Kearney.

The various lists of supposed injured and dead civilians cannot be verified by any source. The Army did not check the solatia list, instead, accepted the list from the Nangahar governor. Afghan testimony contained numerous instances of fraud. Tribal elders told some citizens to say they were injured to receive money.

Within 15 minutes of the attack, the first team of Military Police arrived on th e scene; they saw no injured people or dead bodies other than the body parts of the suicide bomber. No bodies were recovered; there were no autopsies, no forensic evidence.

These senior commanders were so fearful for their careers should the American public be made aware of and scrutinize their military misadventures, they were willing to destroy and imprison innocent servicemen.

As long as we continue to promote these risk-adverse, self-seeking officers with little or no combat experience, we will continue to have weak leadership and unforgiving, stunning casualty rates.

Our generals would do well to concentrate more on winning the war and less on blaming and prosecuting our troops.

McCarthyism: Don Siegelman, Cyril Wecht & Julia Child

I was feeling all down in the dumps this week and so my doctor prescribed "Abilify" for me. Holy sheep dookie! That drug is a nightmare and has very strange side effects. During the one night that I took it, I woke up three different times -- consumed with body-wracking HICCUPS! Hiccups? You gotta be kidding. And I had three different episodes of terrible crippling leg cramps as well. And neither of these symptoms were even listed on Abilify's side-effects chart. And, in addition, I also had several of the symptoms that were listed: Pounding headaches, tiredness, blurred vision, coated tongue, constipation and "unusual mental or mood changes". And all this came from just one little two-mg pill (that costs $20 per pill!)

Screw that. No bad-hair-day prevention plan is worth doing all of that nasty stuff to my body. I'm gonna freaking cheer up my own self. So I went off to the movies and saw "Julie and Julia" instead -- much better. And no horrible side-effects were involved.

At one point in the movie, Julia Child's husband is falsely accused of all sorts of terrible things by members of Senator Joe McCarthy's notorious black-suited attack squad. Apparently Paul Child served in China during World War II and so he was targeted for rigorous grilling by one of the dread HUAC sub-committees or something. But as I sat there and watched Stanley Tucci play out this scene, I thought, "This whole scenario sounds really familiar." I had witnessed a scene like that somewhere else recently. But where? At the movies? Nope. I know! At the recent Netroots Nation convention.

At one seminar at NN9, Governor Don Siegelman had talked about how, when he had been governor of Alabama, he had been framed by a Republican prosecutor whose husband used to be his opponent's campaign manager. Siegelman had been framed for a so-called crime that "there are not enough prisons in America to hold all the government officials that have done the same thing that Governor Siegelman is accused of doing."

According to the Legal Schnauzer blog, "Recent Texas governors, including George W. Bush, took major donations from people and then appointed them to state boards and commissions.... The Houston Chronicle reports that Texas Governor Rick Perry (a Republican) has received almost $5 million in donations from people he appointed to state boards and commissions. And the newspaper reports that other Texas governors, including one who goes by "Dubya," have followed the same practice." So. How come Dubya isn't in jail?

Have the Republicans been holding witch-hunt trials all across our nation in 2007 and 2008 -- just like they did back in 1954? You bet they have. That's modern-day McCarthyism! And our Julia would have stood up to those goons -- and fricasseed their arses had she been in charge -- either then or now.

After he finished his talk, I asked Governor Siegelman if I could take a photo of him. "Wouldn't you rather be in the picture with me?" he replied. Sure!

Dr. Cyril Wecht spoke next at the seminar. He had been charged with 23 felony counts of sending personal faxes over the county fax machine. 23 felonies -- totaling $23. "First I was threatened, and then my family was threatened by these malevolent right-wingers. You have to know how these guys work -- the FBI agent on my case forged the signatures of other FBI agents onto documents. That's a felony."

Apparently the Department of Justice had been hijacked by Karl Rove during the period that Bush occupied the White House -- just like when McCarthy had hijacked it during the 1950s. During the sad times after Bush was appointed to the White House by the Supreme Court's rude nullification of our states' rights, approximately 700 Democrats or centrist Republicans were charged with made-up crimes -- and nearly 100% of these cases were tried by Bush-appointed judges.

"I am extremely disappointed," stated Dr. Wecht, "that the Obama administration has not made the moves that they have to make to clean out the Justice Department. Get off your [bottoms] and replace these people!"

Dr. Wecht, like all of the other 700 victims of the Rove-controlled Department of Justice, faced political and financial ruin due to these McCarthy-like accusations. Dr. Wecht fought back and was able to escape a guilty verdict by spending a fortune on legal fees but the rest of the 700, who were not as tenacious as Dr. Wecht, should never have been tried and should never have been convicted. "I am still in debt for six million dollars in legal fees," stated Dr. Wecht. "My family was threatened. I want accountability. "

So. Here's my point. Julie, the young woman in today's movie, found happiness by cooking all 524 of Julia Child's recipes in just 365 days. Maybe I can do something like that too -- find happiness by comparing all of McCarthy's crimes with all the crimes committed by Bush, Rove and Cheney. And for a truly happy ending? Maybe just 365 days from now I can get Bush, Rove and Cheney censured by Congress just like McCarthy.

That would make me MUCH happier than Abilify ever could!

Grandma on an ice floe: My trip to Antarctica....

My lawsuit against the Department of Defense finally ended last week when I filed a "Stipulation to Dismiss" based on a signed order from a Ninth District federal court judge. In June of 2008, I had sued the DoD in small claims court for the return of my airfare when one of my Iraq embeds had been canceled, allegedly without due cause. Then, after about a year of sparing in court, the Department of Defense finally agreed to settle with me and reimburse me for my airfare, allegedly in order to avoid further legal fees after they had bumped my case up into federal court.

Apparently I didn't exactly WIN my case against the DoD but simply wore them down. Whatever. My main point here is this -- that after the DoD settlement, I had a bit of extra money left over so I immediately ran out and signed up for a trip to Antarctica this December. Yaay!

But what does this mean?

It means that I just paid Overseas Adventure Travel a good chunk of money in order to "set grandma loose on an ice floe." This December I'm gonna become a poster-child for the Republican party!

PS: I also will be leaving for Russia and Ukraine in two weeks, hoping to report back from the Kremlin and Red Square (and Chernobyl if I'm lucky) regarding the social and economic conditions of one of the top major players on the world stage today. And, no, I will not be going anywhere near the North Pole.

PPS: According to a Daily Kos article entitled "Red Alert: Health Care as National Security Crisis," 166,000 Americans have died since September 11, 2001 due to lack of health insurance. 800,000 Americans have also died due to inferior healthcare. So. Has having a crumby healthcare delivery system made us feel any safer? Nope.

Plus, as my friend Mike just pointed out, "We don't have enough general practitioners, regular doctors and nurses to contain or detect a major pandemic before it breaks nationally." Americans are willing to spend big bucks on nuclear weapons but are not willing to spend even peanuts on sending the necessary amount of students to med school needed to protect us from pandemics. And without enough doctors, we are in just about as much -- if not more -- danger than we were when the twin towers went down.

According to recent USA Today headlines, "Flu could infect half of USA: 90,000 deaths, 2M patients possible." And with a crisis like this in the making, do we really want to have the same slow top-heavy bureaucratic for-profit healthcare insurance companies that have already screwed up bigtime in charge of this possible national disaster? I can see it all now. "I can't treat those two thousand people in my waiting room desperately dying of swine flu," doctors will cry. "None of them have the correct forms!" In case of a major national health crisis, wouldn't we rather have the same folks that brought us MediCare be in charge?

And another thing I don't understand is this -- why every doctor in America doesn't go out on strike until Congress finally enacts a single-payer healthcare plan that will keep the medical profession from being strangled, beaten and swamped by all that insurance company bureaucratic red tape?

And according to the Daily Kos article on healthcare being a national security issue, "Today, like every day, 275 Americans will die because of the inferior level of U.S. health care relative to other industrialized nations; 60 Americans will die today due to lack of insurance."

Will some of us grannies be among the 335 who will die today due to inferior healthcare or lack of it? Probably not -- because we all have MediCare and are not effected by what those lame-arse health insurance companies are doing to our children and grandchildren. But if we ARE gonna be among the 60,300 Americans who will die within the next six months due to the current healthcare system's failures, then I would highly recommend that us grandmas run out and make our reservations to go visit Antarctica NOW -- before the ice all melts and there are still some high-quality ice floes left to choose from down there.

PPPS: My son and one of my daughters currently have minimal (but expensive) healthcare insurance, and my granddaughter has none. In memory of Teddy Kennedy and in the name of national defense, let's get my children and grandchildren -- and your children and grandchildren too -- some decent single-payer healthcare insurance that will keep our loved ones all safe.

****

Here's my "Talking Grandma Blues" video on YouTube about being out on an ice floe:

"Blogger Jane Stillwater, a grandmother herself, figures that if she is going to be put out on an ice floe by the healthcare insurance industry, she might as well do it in style!"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zOEUvWetv2I