OK, I have had it about up to here with these hoax e-mails that are being sent around constantly. Particularly offensive is the political propaganda sent to me by right-wing fanatics who apparently don’t have the slightest clue how to use Google. The latest of these precious e-mails included the picture to the left, and the following accompanying story:

THIS IS GREAT! and something every American should see. What is it? See below below the photo……….. Have a great day. God bless.

Do you know why we don’t hear about this in the news? Because it is heart warming and praise worthy. The media avoids it because it does not have the shock effect that a flashed breast or controversy of politics does. But we can do something about it. We can pass this along to as many people as we can in honor of all our brave military who is making a difference. Thank you!!

A wonderful sentiment, right? And an absolutely beautiful statue. The only problem is that the story is a hoax, and the real story is printed here, from the normally conservative Wall Street Journal. I’ll bet they had no idea the pictures would eventually be used in yet another mass e-mailed lie.

According to the article, “Officers from the U.S. Army’s 4th Infantry Division commissioned a life-size bronze sculpture of the tableau to honor dozens of troops the unit has lost in its 11 months in Iraq.” Got that? Commissioned. What does that mean? That means the artist, whose name is actually Khalid Alussy (not Kalat — they can’t even get the poor guy’s name right), did not do this as a “thank you” gesture. He was PAID for it. How much? $8,000. When he was asked to do another statue, he asked for $10K. Like the article says, “he learned capitalism mighty fast.”

The article also notes that “Had they pressed [Alussy], they might have learned he is harshly critical of the United States and bitter over a U.S. rocket attack during the war that killed his uncle. Alussy said he thinks the war was fought for oil and holds the United States responsible for the violence and unemployment that since have plagued Iraq.”

Oh yeah… And the melted statues? “Mr. Alussy’s initial asking price was far higher than the officers had expected. He blamed the steep price of bronze. So the Americans decided to recycle the bronze Hussein-on-horseback twins. “We figured we were going to blow them up anyway, so why not take the bronze and use it for our own statues?” recalls Sgt. Fuss. “That way we could take something that honored Saddam and use it to remember all of those we lost getting rid of him.”

Yet another right-wing propaganda attempt debunked.

I just received the following e-mail from the Sundance Channel:

In response to strong audience demand, Sundance Channel is bringing back “The Al Franken Show,” a televised version of the political humorist’s weekday program on Air America Radio. “The Al Franken Show” premieres Monday, June 6, 2005, and will air weeknights (Monday-Friday – time TBA); the series is slated to run through the end of 2005.

“The news that Sundance has ordered a second season of episodes of ‘The Al Franken Show’ comes to me as a complete shock,” said Franken. “Because the filming has been so unobtrusive, I had no idea that we were even off the air. I’m pleased, of course, that we’ll be back but alarmed that I never knew we were gone.”

Thanks for your interest and thanks for watching!
Sundance Channel

WOOHOO!!!!

I guess it had to come to an end at some point, but my previously mentioned quest for some good conversation over at the HVAC “America, Religion, Politics” area has terminated. One can only take so much being shot at and ridiculed. It’s a shame, because there are a couple really great people over there among the liars, name-callers and mean-spirited crypt-dwellers. As for the latter, their whole purpose was to shut me up so they could have their club to themselves and continue to bathe in their own propaganda, free from confrontation with the truth. So much for Freedom. So much for America. These are the same folk who call themselves “patriots” while shutting up anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

The suppositions and grand conclusions based on absolutely nothing were staggering. My initial home heating question asked over there was labelled a “front” for my posting on the political forum. I was called a liar when I posted anything clearly backed up with facts. In fact, the reaction to just about ANY post from the most obstinate of these folk was to just simply call me a LIAR and a CHEAT and a FRAUD. Rational conversation was not possible. I should have known better. There were several others who would post well thought-out posts regarding the nature of man, the perpetual state of fear the government wants to keep us in, and other interesting observations. The reaction to those posts? More ad-hominem attacks. It seems this is all this type of person has to offer. It’s really a shame, since it seems we as a nation are not going to move far in ANY direction if the reaction to any plea for civil discourse is to be yelled at, called names, and ridiculed. The agenda of the day is to spread Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Anything else is labelled “propaganda,” which is funny, since they don’t have the ability to spot true propaganda when they actually see it.

What really put me over the edge though was a post about Mexicans, Blacks, and how “milk white Americans” need to “wake up” basically because we’re being taken over and soon they’ll be in your town! Wow!

It’s become clear to me that liberals in general are much more open to the fact that they may be wrong and are always looking for input from the other side and a discussion of real ideas and thoughts in order to get at the real truth, or the best way to solve a problem. They are always open in that previously held beliefs can be changed. On the other side, it seems that reason and openness are simply not the best way to attempt to get their point across. Their way is the sledgehammer — the O’Reillys, the Hannitys, the Limbaughs — my way is the right way, and yours is the wrong way, and I’m going to bully you, shut off your microphone, and yell at you until you see it my way.

Clinton was a perfect example of this. He would listen to everyone in the room to arrive at policy decisions or directions. After all, the more ideas the better, right? The folks on the bulletin board, however, and Neo-Cons in general, follow the doctrine of their leader, Bush, which is that you should go by gut feeling alone, and the only people who should be in the room talking things out should be people entirely loyal to you and your cause. No dissenters allowed. No fresh ideas allowed. How else did we end up recycling all the Reagan doctrines and philosophies, no matter how badly they failed and put the nation at enormous financial risk?

Time and again, this stubbornness in face of the truth and pure contempt for anyone who thought differently is what I saw on that forum, and after a while, it just makes you sick to your stomach, you know? Someone finally asked me, “Why bother? Why take the abuse? If they choose to remain ignorant and come out with attacks instead of debating the issues, why bother?” And you know what? He was right. So right.

Just the failure of Bush’s Social Security privatization scheme alone should be proof enough that people are finally starting to wake up and see what this administration really is — a bunch of crooks and liars.

I don’t need to waste my time reasoning with the wind.

Well, what do you know? A conservative with morals! Remember those “secret Bush tapes” that the White House was hoping would just go away? You know, the ones where Bush said, “I wouldn’t answer the marijuana questions. You know why? Because I don’t want some little kid doing what I tried.” And the ones where he said he would refuse to answer questions about using LSD, cocaine and marijuana because “I don’t want any kid doing what I tried to do 30 years ago.” Well, the man who did the taping has apparently had a change of heart since allegations arose that he was merely seeking publicity for his book by releasing the tapes. He has turned the tapes over to the White House and is donating all the money from the proceeds of his book to charity. I particularly like the end of that article where Scott McClellan notes that the tapes “are in private hands” and declined any further comment. Boy, that was a close one, eh? Wonder what kind of threats the NeoCons made to Doug Wead to get him to turn the tapes over? I can’t wait to see the next skeleton come out of Bush’s closet. I wonder when the mainstream conservative press will start paying attention to these things? I guess it’s too much to ask since they’re all in the pockets of big business.

I had a strange vision a couple weeks ago, and I’m not usually one prone to visions. I guess it wasn’t so much of a vision as an “occurrence.” I was on a lunch break and tuned into Sean Hannity for a few seconds to see what he was spewing about, and as I was listening to the hatred spill out from my radio, I just had this strange feeling come over me. I could hear the desperation in his voice. I could hear the fear that his lies and the lies of the administration he hawks for was about to end. I had this overwhelming feeling — and if I ever got a message from god, this is what I’d imagine it would feel like — that the pendulum was swinging back and that the people would start realizing that they had been lied to so many times by so many people.

Today, I received the first sign of real proof that things are turning back to sanity in this country — that we might still have a shot at joining the rest of the civilized world. In a 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court of the USA categorically barred the use of the death penalty for minors. The article states that “Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, who voted with the majority 16 years ago [that allowed the death penalty for minors], said the new decision was necessary to keep pace with the “evolving standards of decency” that for the last 50 years have shaped the Supreme Court’s view of what constitutes cruel and unusual punishments.”

Is there any question that this is potentially a statement in reaction to the torture that has become a common occurrence in USA controlled detention camps? This is the highest law of the land taking a stand against cruel and unusual punishment, and it’s about time. Hopefully the death penalty as a whole will be next to go the way of extinction.

While there needs to be suitable punishment for those committing such heinous crimes, the death penalty is almost always handed out unfairly and should be abolished. One of the most eloquent explanations of why the death penalty should be made illegal was made by Robert Nigh on June 11th, 2001 — the date of Timothy McVeigh’s execution. The recording is here, or you can read it.

At 7 a.m. this morning, we killed Tim McVeigh, the person responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing. But we did much more than that. We also killed Sergeant McVeigh, the young man who joined the Army because he wanted to serve his country; the young soldier that was so dedicated to his duty that he became the top gunner in this battalion of 100.

He was the young man who took up arms on his country’s behalf and traveled half-way across the world to meet and engage our enemy. He placed his own life in jeopardy because we asked him to and because he thought it was his duty to do so.

His actions were of such character that he was awarded the Bronze Star with designation of valor.

But much more importantly than any of that, what we did this morning was to kill Tim McVeigh, friend to Bob Popovic, Allen Smith and Elizabeth McDermott. We killed Bill and Mickey’s son this morning. And we killed Jennifer McVeigh’s big brother.

Of course, we can say that it was Tim himself that caused their pain.

And we would be half-right. But it would be a lie to say that we did not double their pain and that we are not responsible, because there is a reasonable way to deal with crime that doesn’t involve killing another human being.

Although we might not express it in these terms because we know better, we might say that these people are simply collateral damage, but we know too well that there is no such thing as collateral damage. There are only real people with faces and names and loved ones who may never heal because of our actions, and that is true whether their grief was inflicted by Tim McVeigh or by federal law enforcement or by us collectively.

To the survivors in Oklahoma City who have had the courage to come out against capital punish in spite of the tremendous pain that they have suffered, I say thank you. To the victims in Oklahoma City, I say that I am sorry that I could not successfully help Tim to express words of reconciliation that he did not perceive to be dishonest. I do not fault them at all for looking forward to this day or for taking some sense of relief from it. But if killing Tim McVeigh does not bring peace or closure to them, I suggest to you that it is our fault. We have told them that we would help them heal their wounds in this way.

We have taken it upon ourselves to promise to extract vengeance for them. We have made killing a part of the healing process. In order to do that we use such terms as reasoned moral response, but I submit there’s nothing reasonable or moral about what we have done today. That is true when killing a human being even means killing Tim McVeigh.

There was a time when we recognized this in our country. In 1972, the Supreme Court of the United States struck down the death penalty as it existed at the time. In its concurring opinion in Furman v. Georgia, Justice Marshall wrote, “The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in time of crisis.

“This is a country that stands tallest in troubled times; a country that clings to fundamental principles, cherishes its constitutional heritage and rejects simple solutions that compromise the values that lie at the roots of our democratic system. In striking down capital punishment, this court does not malign our system of government; on the contrary, it pays homage to it. In recognizing the humanity of our fellow beings, we pay ourselves the highest tribute. We achieve a major milestone in the long road from barbarism and join the approximately 70 other jurisdictions in the world which celebrate their regard for civilization and humanity by shunning capital punishment.”

There has been a movement in the states to celebrate the dignity of human life and to start a moratorium on executions. It did not come soon enough for Tim McVeigh, but it can come soon enough for others.

Where we go from here is a question of critical importance. I have told you, honestly, that Tim cared for people. And some of the people he cared deepest about were his brothers on the federal death row. Even Tim recognized that our claims that we are not racially biased are false. If we believe that, then we ignore the reality that 18 of the 20 men behind me on the federal death row in Terre Haute are persons of color. Fully 90 percent belong to a minority. If we do not acknowledge that, we are lying to ourselves about what we are doing. We are killing the poor and the minority and people that we believe to be different and lesser than ourselves.

Even in Tim McVeigh’s case, to which the racial disparity doesn’t apply, we were incapable of inflicting the death penalty in a fair manner.

The FBI could not participate in the prosecution without breaching its obligation to turn over the witness statements. This must make us realize that we are too fallible, we are simply too human to extract so final and irreversible a punishment.

If there is anything good that can come from the execution of Tim McVeigh, it may be to help us realize sooner that we simply cannot do this anymore. I am firmly convinced that it is not a question of if we will stop, it is simply a question of when.

Thank you all very much.