Stukas Over Dixieland

The Junkers JU-87 Stuka Dive Bomber was, for a time, one of Nazi Germany's most fearsome weapons. It was, among other things, equipped with an incredibly loud, air-powered siren that would increase in volume and pitch as it descended at great speed on a target, the sound was intended to strike terror into the hearts of it's victims and it worked admirably, if one is inclined to admire terrorism.
(I am not.)

Speaking of high-pitched, fear-inducing sirens, Sarah Palin was in my hometown today; she held a rally at the very same NASCAR track that I worked at earlier this year.
She and McCain had a rally together in Virginia Beach earlier this morning, with Palin continuing up here this afternoon.

This is remarkable because my state, in my lifetime, has NEVER voted for a Democratic Presidential candidate- most years, the GOP doesn't lift a finger to contest Virginia- it's a given that it'll go Republican. This year might change that. McPalin wouldn't be visiting if they weren't afraid.

Speaking of fear, what the heck are McPalin talking about at these rallies? It can't be McPalin policies, because they, by their own admission, don't have any.
This morning, McCain’s policy adviser, Douglas Holtz-Eakin, said, “I have no comment on anything, to anybody.”
It's three weeks before the election and McPalin's campaign platform is "no comment"?

That's pathetic.

So anyway, what are they talking about at those rallies?

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It should be noted that the Stuka was quite effective at destroying slow-moving or immobile targets such as homes, factories, railroads, people and bridges.
Look around your American neighborhood. Did a Stuka dive bomber foreclose your home, close the local factory and shut down your Amtrak station? Did the Luftwaffe bomb New Orleans?

It should also be noted that the Stuka was no match for a true fighter plane such as the American P-51 Mustang or the British Spitfire. The JU-87 was a slow, unwieldy aircraft that was all but incapable of protecting itself in an aerial dogfight.

It had two primary functions:

1) Terrorize
2) Destroy

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So anyway, what are they talking about at those rallies?

No Special Reason For Asking This

CLICK

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Remember when the Bush Administration warned us about Iraq? How BushCo told us that if we didn't use massive military force right this fucking second, Iraq was gonna destroy our "freedoms"? Or how the Bush-bullies used fear to start a war that, to any rational person was clearly illegal, unjustified, pointless, unaffordable, counter-productive and unwinnable...and used that same fear to ram the laughably mis-named PATRIOT Act down our collective throats?

We, as a people, rolled over and gave BushCo everything they asked for.

How did that work out?

Puppet Dance

During the 2000 Presidential campaign, George W. Bush pledged to "restore dignity to the White House", a not-so veiled reference to Bill Clinton's impeachment for perjury and obstruction of justice charges. Ha. Ha.

Rep. Dennis Kucinich today introduced 35 articles of impeachment against President Bush for high crimes and misdemeanors. Kucinich has been working on this for years and it's a pretty good case...wiretapping,torture, kidnapping, perjury, obstruction, starting a war under false pretenses...it apparently took five hours for the House clerk to read it. The resolution got so much domestic attention that I was forced to link to the Belfast Telegraph for an article.

There's no chance of an actual impeachment , there is neither time nor political will. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, following the 2006 election that left the Democrats in charge of Congress, that impeachment was "off the table". I hated hearing that.

Pelosi and other Dems claimed that pursuing impeachment hearings would distract them from the truly important issues such as the war in Iraq and the troubled American economy.

Well, they sure did a great job of ending the war and fixing the economy. Can we have the impeachment now, please?
In my opinion, Bush should have been evicted from the White House in 2001 for allowing Henry Kissinger to once again darken the doorstep- and there certainly wasn't any reason to invade Iraq, ever. Remote-controlled unmanned drone airplane that would drop anthrax on Kansas? That was considered a "threat" despite the fact that Iraqi air-space at that time was the most heavily monitored airspace on Earth- half the country was a "no-fly zone"...when I tried to explain this to my fellows, they'd just say "9-11! 9-11!" and ask me why my Honda had no flags on it.

To make the case for the war they craved, the GOP sent Colin Powell to his doom at the U.N., ordering him to present a laundry list of weapons and bio-warfare facilities allegedly in Iraqi hands...the list turned out to be outdated and exaggerated, to put it mildly. It was debunked, and harshly.
Eventually, Powell took the fall for that speech but the war had already started.

General Powell, a man who once enjoyed bipartisan respect, resigned from his job as Secretary of State and was replaced by Condi Rice, who once had an oil tanker named after her. No kidding- Chevron was so happy with her ten years of service on their Board that they named a goddamn oil tanker after her. Think about that next time you fill up.

Powell, had he not been humiliated and retired in disgust after acknowledging that there were no WMD in Iraq , would have made a pretty good Presidential candidate...he had impeccable military and Cabinet-level credentials and his personal politics are moderate and thoughtful. (Pro-choice, for example).

I desperately hope that America is "ready" for a Black President. I don't know if we are ready or not, but I do know that the Republican Party is not ready for a black, pro-choice, moderate Republican nominee no matter how qualified he may be...the current GOP thinks John McCain is too centrist, fer chrissakes...if I were the paranoid type, I'd be compelled to think that the GOP set Gen.Powell up in order to head off any political aspirations he may have had.

How about that Global Warming bill? What bill?
The anti-pollution one that failed to get enough votes to pass the Senate and the inevitable Bush veto. This is another example of the kind of important issue that Pelosi and Co. decided to pursue instead of following up on the impeachment resolution. Good job on losing out to a filibuster...even as the majority party, the Democrats can't get shit done...if I didn't know better, I'd swear the two parties have more in common than at odds with each other...nah, that's just crazy talk.

Be Careful What You Wish For

We are in the middle of our bi-annual Pledge Drive at the station; for an entire week we shamelessly beg the public for the spare change and loose dollars that make our broadcasts possible...it's a busy time for us volunteers, but it comes with it's own set of rewards- one of which is food.

Glorious food.

Of course, there are hazards involved, one of which is food.

Al, a carnivorous volunteer, was lamenting the lack of meat-based foodstuffs on our station buffet (dude, it's Green Week)...his complaint did not go unheeded.
The following day, Wendy, another one of our stalwart volunteers, brought in this delicacy, made especially for Al:

Sea of Corned Beef Hash

Goldfish Crackers and sculpted frankfurters set on a bed of Corned Beef Hash!
In the culinary arts, presentation is everything and this is presentation taken to the extreme.
I sent this pic to my best penpal. She lost two pounds just looking at it.

Al S., the meat-seeking volunteer, thought it was great. Within 24 hours, it was all gone...coincidently, so was Al.

Get well soon, buddy!

Al Gets His Wish:

( food pics by Fontaine)


Al isn't the only one that's been enjoying the festivities over the last few days...I've had a couple of good bands in the studio and I had a most excellent Sunday show, receiving a $100 pledge from two of my most loyal fans...I actually have loyal listeners!
That tickles me pink, it does... feels good. In some ways, I'm a very lucky man. I get to play my record collection on the radio and other people enjoy it...that's a high school rocker's dream come true.

I think I found my true calling this weekend. I'm not exactly sure what my calling is, but it definitely involves Rock Chicks. My friend Laura's new band played at our party Saturday and I was conscripted into taking pictures of Laura and her band:

Laura Drinking a 9.0% Alcohol Energy Drink Out of a Paper Bag While Sitting on her new Bass Amp:


Rock Chicks:


Here's a bit of weird blog/rock trivia...I first met Katie, (above, left), at a 2005 gig in Brooklyn with her old band, The Strap-Ons...that band was sharing a drummer with my old band, Polite Society... I went to a NYC gig with them where I met my blogpal Lyzard- in person!
I was drunker than a roomful of priests, but it was a great time nonetheless.

After the show, the band and I found a diner that served whiskey and pancakes...then we went to a Motel 6 where I wound up comforting a weeping teenage groupie in the stairwell and later, in the ice-machine room.

It was one of those nights.

Well, two more days of Pledge Drive...then another weekend of live music. I have a jazz artist on Saturday and an Irish folk band on Sunday. I also have a paying a job, albeit a temporary one...I'll be shilling NASCAR merchandise at the Raceway on the 2nd and 3rd of next month...if I pass the background check. I can't believe that they asked me to submit a background check for a two-day temp job at a NASCAR event, but they did.

My boss didn't make me take a drug test but she did ask me if I could cope with drunken rednecks...I'd probably have to deal with some "unruly and intoxicated" customers, she said.
At a NASCAR race? , I asked in mock disbelief.
She laughed.

Assuming I clear the background check , I'll make a month's rent in two 14- hour days - the timing couldn't be much better...and yeah, I can handle drunken rednecks.

I watched a grown man eat the food pictured above. I can handle almost anything.

A Fender, a Throne and a Set of Irish Handcuffs:

Carbomb Dating

I watched quite a bit of yesterday's Iraq hearing. It took all day for us to learn what we already knew: Iraq is an unsolvable mess.

Gen. Petreaus kept repeating that the "progress we have made is fragile and reversible"...this sounds reasonable, doesn't it?

A cautious, sober assessment from a military expert, right?

Wrong. It's complete bullshit. Anyone with a dictionary and a fifth-grade education can disprove it.

progress (noun):

#1 Movement, as toward a goal; advance.
#2 Development or growth: students who show progress.
#3 Steady improvement, as of a society or civilization.

In 2002 Iraq was a corrupt dictatorship. It was also modern nation with a modern infrastructure; most of the country had electricity, indoor plumbing and cars that didn't explode.

Today none of that is true. Goodbye dictatorship, hello foreign-led martial law. No more electricity, plumbing or infrastructure and the cars aren't nearly as safe as they used to be.
The average Iraqi is, by any measure, far worse off today than they were in 2002.
The U.S. invasion, which no longer even has a goal, hasn't produced any progress at all, only destruction, death and displacement.
The only way that we could reverse the 'progress' we have made since 2003 would be to build a time machine and travel back to 2000 and change the Presidential election results- and any fifth-grader knows that we don't have time machines.

Sometimes it feels as if I live in a deja vu machine. Listening to the conversation about what would happen should Iraq become a "failed state" was like listening to a debate on what would happen if the Ottoman Empire should collapse-I mean, when a nation measures it's monthly bombings by the hundred, it's hard to think of it as anything other than failed.
(I feel the same way when I hear the News clones speculating on whether or not we are heading into a economic recession. )

Each politician prefaced their questions with obsequious praise about the service of the General, the Ambassador, our troops ; how proud they were and what a great job they were doing etc etc...it would have been more appropriate to take 4,024 moments of silence, declare peace and go home.

One Republican suggested that our troops were following in the footsteps of George Washington and Abe Lincoln, comparisons that make no political, military or historical sense...in 1776, for example, George Washington was the leader of a rag-tag rebel militia comprised largely of ill-equipped civilians who were forced into war with an occupying force of overwhelming military superiority.
Washington's men were the insurgents, not the occupiers...during the American Revolution, the British employed quite a few mercenary contractors, the most famous of which were the Hessians, a group whose modern counterparts would be 'contractors' hired from for-profit armies such as Blackwater.

In 1776, George Washington handed the foreign mercenaries a resounding defeat at the Battle of Trenton. The mercenaries were hung-over and half-asleep when Washington's men surprised them on Christmas - imagine what today's politicos would say about armed, nationalistic rebels with the audacity to attack sleeping men during a Christian holiday.
They wouldn't call them patriots, but that's what they were.

Lincoln? He said Lincoln. How are our troops like Abe Lincoln?
In the same way that they are like JFK.
It's an unfortunate comparison to make.

The Cable Clones broke away from the Iraq Bullfest to switch over to a ceremony where Resident Evil was giving the Medal of Honor to the parents of a dead Navy SEAL. The young man had thrown himself on top of a live grenade, sacrificing his life to save the lives of two men with him.
The SEAL died in 2006; I'm sure the timing of the ceremony to coincide with the 2008 Iraq Report was purely accidental.

When the TV coverage returned, I saw General Petraeus in a new light. My anger at him had vanished. He is simply a soldier falling on a live grenade, sacrificing himself to protect others.
It's his duty.

The sad thing is, he's sacrificing himself to protect Resident Bush. That's like taking a bullet for Charles Manson.
No justice in that.

BushCo gives loud lip-service to " supporting our troops", but I'd argue that BushCo treats our military with a profound disregard and a deadly disrespect that has never been seen by any prior C-in-C. Asking our troops to die for a goal that cannot even be defined is sheer malevolence- asking them to die for someone else's profits adds a strong element of avarice and forcing our military leadership to explain the unexplainable throws a heaping spoonful of cowardice into the mix.

Evil. Greed. Cowardice.
Trifecta!

Picture this: It's 3 a.m. on an early winter morning, 1944. In Europe the Nazis are planning a counterattack against the advancing Allied forces when General Dwight D. Eisenhower's phone rings. On the other end is President Franklin Roosevelt.
"Ike", says FDR, "I need you to come home and explain to America why we are fighting."
That didn't happen. FDR made his own speeches.
BTW, we won that war and nobody had to explain why we invaded Normandy.

The military is already fighting Bush's war in Iraq and our Resident is making them fight his political battles at home too. That's a disgrace to the uniform and to the Office.

If we pull out of Iraq, Iraq might become a fractured, violent, unstable region with a population and leadership that strongly dislikes America.

Austria-Hungary might collapse.

We might lose the Alamo.

The U.S.S. Maine might sink.


Let's take that chance.

Dit Heads

Do you know what a 'Ditto-Head' is? A dithead is a follower of media crackpot Rush Limbaugh. Limbaugh's acolytes call themselves Ditto Heads because they unquestioningly agree with and repeat every word that Limbaugh says. A dithead has no personal opinion or convictions of their own, they are merely an echo of whatever they've been told by people like Rush; ditheads are utterly incapable of learning on their own, they can only repeat what has been said.

Lately, I've heard them repeating this old lie : "War is Good For The Economy".

Bullshit.

Unless you are a shareholder in Exxon-Mobil, Bechtel, Halliburton et.al., how exactly has the current war helped you financially? Lower prices? Rising equity in your home? A stable job? Better, safer schools for your children? Improved healthcare? Lower crime rates? A stronger dollar?
How has the war helped you, personally?

A dithead might point out that there have been no terrorist bombings here since 2001. That's irrelevant- we have moved the mountain to Mohamed, so to speak, as we approach 4,000 war dead...besides, with our money spent and our National Guard deployed internationally, we can barely protect ourselves from the weather and our own crumbling infrastructure. Why would terrorists bother to do what we are already doing to ourselves?

(Then there's the impending Bay Area earthquake...in fairness, seismology is non-partisan. When this happens, there will be no one party or person to blame. It will be Hayward's fault.)




Rush likes to claim that he "Rules the Country", but a Jew named Bernard Baruch once wielded more power and influence than Rush could ever hope to attain...Rush's influence extends mainly to uneducated white trash ; Baruch served as adviser to Presidents, including two Presidents that actually won wars: Woodrow Wilson and FDR.

Baruch, among many other things, was a member of the National War Labor Board during WWI and WWII... Baruch , as a businessman himself, was not generally in favor of meddlesome government intervention in industry, but he understood that in times of war and crisis, the interests of business ( and labor) should be secondary to the health and preservation of the nation and it's principles, a philosophy that stands in direct contradiction to the current Bush Regime policy of protecting corporations (the telecom scandal for example) from the citizens.

During WW II Baruch advocated recycling as a method to conserve resources, he proposed price controls to keep inflation in check, he endorsed using collective bargaining as a means of maintaining balance between labor unions and their employers and he was one of the first financiers to speak about developing domestic alternatives to foreign oil, mainly the development of corn-based alternatives...this new source was to be used to manufacture synthetic rubber tires, tires being in high demand during both wars...Baruch lost that particular battle and oil, not ethanol became the primary ingredient in synthetic rubber; petroleum alternatives remain underdeveloped to this day.

To help prevent Federal bankruptcy during WWII, Baruch suggested a "pay-as-you-go" approach to government spending, prophetically arguing that a huge National debt would be threat to National security. He stated that the practice of 'free enterprise' would not serve the country well during the war and that victory should be placed ahead of profit.

America did win two World Wars while following Baruch's advice on collective bargaining, price and wage controls and 'green' (a term that hadn't been coined yet) resource management.





What kind of man was Bernard Baruch? Probably not the kind that Limbaugh would support.

At WWI's end in 1919, Baruch personally paid for a train ticket home for each of the hundreds of women who held wartime jobs in his Washington DC offices, giving each woman a postcard to mail to him upon their safe arrival home- by today's standards, this gesture might seem condescending and sexist, but in 1919 there were precious few ways for a single woman to make money in an American city (women were not even allowed to vote until 1920) and Baruch didn't wish to see his disbanded clerical staff forced into the "street life", so he paid -out of his pocket- for their safe return home.

Limbaugh, on the other hand, used his maid to score Oxycontin for himself.

And of course, there's fellow neo-con spokesmouth Bill O'Reilly, sued for making obscene calls to female staffers...those two guys would hate probably hate Bernard Baruch even if Baruch were not a Jew.

Anyway...


In WWII , the War Labor Board help introduce some labor practices that were unheard of at that time. One of those ideas was that of "equal pay for equal work".

The War Labor Board (WLB) and its predecessor, the National Defense Mediation Board, had a profound impact on relations between employers and unions during World War II. The WLB—made up of representatives from government, labor, and management—provided protection for unions from hostile bosses, increased the wages of the lowest-paid workers, helped set industry-wide wage patterns, and established methods of resolving shop floor disputes. Although the WLB operated in routinized and bureaucratic ways, its decisions could also carry powerful ideological messages. That became clear in the following document, which insisted upon the policy of equal pay for equal work—a seemingly self-evident principle that was not standard practice in American industry. This board decision mandated equal pay for women.

From a 1943 opinion set forth by the NWLB:

...

the National War Labor Board abolishes the classifications “colored laborer” and “white laborer” and reclassifies both simply as “laborers” with the same rates of pay for all in that classification without discrimination on account of color. The Negro workers in this classification are hereby granted wage increases which place them on a basis of economic parity with the white workers in the same classification. This wage increase is made... with regard simply for the democratic formula of equal pay for work equal in quantity and quality in the same classification. This equalization of economic opportunity is not a violation of the sound American provision of differentials in pay for differences in skills. It is rather a bit of realization of the no less sound American principle of equal pay for equal work as one of those equal rights in the promise of American democracy regardless of color, race, sex, religion, or national origin.

Conservatives- many of them Democrats- didn't like these ideas. During the next twenty years, a great many Democrats, most of them Southern, would leave their party and join the GOP, helping give rise to what was known as the Southern Strategy , among other things...


There have been other, better known figures who have warned us of what would happen if the War Business eclipsed the business of war. The most famous of those is none other than Republican President and retired Army General Dwight D. Eisenhower, a man who left office with deep misgivings about the Cold War and the industry that helped maintain it.

Ike's 1961 farewell address should be required reading in the American classroom:

We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations. Three of these involved our own country. Despite these holocausts America is today the strongest, the most influential and most productive nation in the world. Understandably proud of this pre-eminence, we yet realize that America's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength, but on how we use our power in the interests of world peace and human betterment.

Any failure traceable to arrogance or our lack of comprehension or readiness to sacrifice would inflict upon us a grievous hurt, both at home and abroad.

Until the latest of our world conflicts, the United States had no armaments industry. American makers of plowshares could, with time and as required, make swords as well. But now we can no longer risk emergency improvisation of national defense; we have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions.

This conjunction of an immense military establishment and a large arms industry is new in the American experience. The total influence – economic, political, even spiritual – is felt in every city, every Statehouse, every office of the Federal government. We recognize the imperative need for this development. Yet we must not fail to comprehend its grave implications. Our toil, resources and livelihood are all involved; so is the very structure of our society.

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist.

We must never let the weight of this combination endanger our liberties or democratic processes. We should take nothing for granted. Only an alert and knowledgeable citizenry can compel the proper meshing of the huge industrial and military machinery of defense with our peaceful methods and goals, so that security and liberty may prosper together.

I can think of many adjectives to describe persons who happily call themselves 'Ditto Heads' but
"alert " and "knowledgeable" are not on that list. I actually visited Limbaugh's site and found that links to much of the source material Limbaugh uses for his blathering are available only to those who are willing to register themselves as Ditto Heads...I thought that the suppression of information was considered un-American, but what the hell do I know?
I am not a dithead.

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