And it's one, two, three, four
What are we fighting for?
Don't ask me, I don't give a damn,
Next stop is Vietnam;
And it's five, six, seven, eight
Open up the pearly gates,
Well, there ain't no time to wonder why,
Whoopee!  We're all gonna die!

Well, come on mothers throughout the land,
Pack your boys off to Vietnam.
Come on fathers, don't hesitate,
Send 'em off before it's too late.
Be the first one on your block.
To have your boy come home in a box.

I Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag,
Country Joe McDonald, 1965

With the tragedy at Ford Hood yesterday, there is no better time to remind the nation of the immorality and tragedy of war, and the idiocy of this administration, if not the stupidity of continuing the Bush policies in fighting two wars. 

Prolonging one in Iraq and escalating the second in Afghanistan.

And the impact on this nation, in terms of human loss, the impact it has on our civil liberties at home (not to mention the flattening and destruction of the countries where we fight these wars) and the huge fiscal, environmental, foreign policy and even domestic tragedy such policies represent.

While there is no excuse for killing, and I have always been a committed pacifist, and I cannot even begin to imagine the heartbreak and the sorrow of the families of the bereaved, for whom my heart goes out to, there is one person in all of this who is going to get blamed for something that is not his fault.

And that is the shooter himself. 

Who is naturally going to take all the blame and get punished for enduring what was probably unbelievable torture.  Although nobody will ever admit to it or realize it.  Or own up to the fact that he was actually just as much a victim as those he killed and wounded.  Caught up in an immoral system and war that he was powerless to get free from.

So he cracked.  Which is what happens when human beings are pushed beyond their limits by inhumane conditions and immoral leaders.

Which is what is going on right now.

When the real perps are going to get off scott free.  And probably even profit from it.

The fault for what happened yesterday at Fort Hood lies entirely with our national leaders. 

Starting with the asshole in the Oval Office.

Who may show up at Dover and salute coffins, but that doesn't mean Jack shit.  It's a photo op, like everything else the man does. 

Where is HIS moral leadership and courage?

The shooter yesterday exhibited behavior much like the other soldiers who are cracking under the strain of repeated tours of duty for immoral and stupid wars that are being fought for reasons that our leaders are lying to us about, wasting vast amounts of OUR money to do it, and immersing this country in debt and perpetuating a mentality that only leads to more violence. 

Both at home and abroad.

It is significant that the shooter was a Muslim, a senior officer who was well aware of what was really going on and had no desire to be immersed in it himself, as he was about to be deployed to Iraq, a psychiatric advisor who had heard too many tales of horrific destruction, seen too many ruined lives and human beings, a man who himself had been taunted by his fellow soldiers for his own religious beliefs, (yet his own racist superiors apparently did nothing about, which is even more appalling, particularly since they will probably never be punished for war criminals, which is exactly what they are) and who understood exactly what suicide bombers are.  

Patriots.

Who defend their country against imperialist invaders who never should be there in the first place.

As much as the U.S. military and our national political elite tries to deny it.  And in fact seem to forget that this is exactly how OUR country was founded.

When one's country is invaded by an invading force the size of the U.S. military for the natural resources (oil) which is exactly what we are doing in both Iraq and Afghanistan, (see the recent news on the contracts multinational oil companies are now signing with the Iraqi government for extra profit of dollars a barrel for their supposed "investment" while raping the country, a story as old as our historical involvement in the region itself for the last seventy years, and Empires historically in the region, and the plans of all Empires to control a planned strategic oil pipeline which run right through coveted Afghani territory, you have to sit back and wonder, what the hell are we fighting for.

Actually, you don't have to wonder. 

It stares you right in the face.  And has been the reason historically why we have gone to war, as well as other Empires, in both regions for well over two hundred years.

We are being LIED TO. 

We are not fighting terrorists or Al Queda.  We are fighting wars of Imperialism to feed our insatiable addiction to oil and refusal to make investments in the paradigm shift we need to switch to a cleantech, carbon free economy so we don't wreck our planet. 

Any more than we already have that is.

Not to mention end the suffering of the growing ranks of the unemployed in an economy which is outdated and failing, so that the disproportionate share of income and it's ownership in this country will become even more concentrated, and Democracy will evaporate like spit on a Texas highway in a noonday sun. 

If it hasn't already. 

So people like Mr. Obama can buy their way into office and those in Congress can deny the American people the same kinds of healthcare for example that they get, paid for by our tax dollars, because they are being bought off by undemocratic, unelected interests.

But in the end, this is stupid and unsustainable, a fact that those idiots who are making these decisions don't seem to realize.  Us poor whipping horses and donkeys are on the verge of collapse.  Whether we are on the unemployment line or in the National Guard. 

We are all casualties of such appalling policies.  And the ranks of the unemployed are only going to continue to grow and are much larger than the "official" numbers being reported by the Department of Labor and the media.

Just as what is really going on in both wars is being hidden by officials from public view so they can continue with their appalling policies because they don't have the guts to change things.  Or don't want to because they profit directly from the status quo.

Even though I distinctly remember a politican who ran on a platform to do precisely that.  Who now sits in the Oval Office.

But apparently that's too politically challenging for the wimp who's now there.  Who even experienced the politics of oil imperialism abroad as a child, so he has no excuses for not understanding the politics involved, since he saw them first hand and even wrote about them in his books.  And wrote about fights between his mother and stepfather who decided, just as Obama is doing, to take the easy road, sell out, and go work for the oil companies.  And decided his mother was an idiot.

Shows you what a sexist, not to mention racist Obama really is, doesn't it?  Especially as there are no white women in their forties in the White House in leading roles, or even leading ANY cabinet heads in Washington.

Does Obama want an oil tanker named after him too?  Maybe he should have kept Condi Rice on as Secretary of State instead of naming Hillary to the post. Although I have to say, there isn't much difference.

He'd rather retain the perks of office and take the easy road instead and live in the White House and have people kiss his ass for as long as possible.  And say "Mr. President" for as long as possible.

Instead of acting like a responsible leader and making the real and tough and moral choices one expects from a leader who promised "change we can believe in."

So he'd rather kill poor people instead.  And perpetuate suffering in this country by diverting resources to killing and the war machine, instead of rebuilding a country and an economy (this one) that is dying and out of date.

And because his lack of leadership, why our leaders are so hell bent on using the "terrorist threat" as an excuse to keep spending massive amounts of money, expending lives of both American soldiers and innocent civilians both here and abroad, so oil companies, not to mention Wall Street, can make huge profits, and we can ruin our environment, instead of putting those resources into really making the paradigm shift we need to establish a cleantech economy and work towards world peace.

Isn't that what Nobel Peace Prize winners are supposed to do?

Apparently Obama thinks he can even redefine THAT. 

But Orwell beat you to the punch there buddy. 

"War is peace", remember 1984?

Supposedly Harvard educated Presidents are supposed to be familiar with the Canon.  And not the kind that fires cannon balls.

It is precisely policies like these that make America hated around the world. It is precisely policies like these that are driving America broke.  It is precisely policies like these that are contributing not only to the suffering that we saw at Fort Hood, the continuing and rising and horrific death toll and suffering that will continue to haunt soldiers (and their families) for the rest of their lives, which is the real so-called "opportunity cost" of war, but the absolutely intransigent so-called "conventional wisdom" of our political elite on both sides of the aisle that seemingly doesn't change, and in fact makes a profit off of war.  

And one I have paid a direct price for all my life.

My own father, a purple heart decorated (if you can call it that) veteran of WWII, a German Jew and Holocaust survivor, was forced to go to the front lines of the French and German border, despite the horrific risk he faced, both as cannon fodder and what would have happened to him if he had been caught (because he was a German Jew) because he spoke both fluent French and German, unlike most American GI's, by the horrific and anti semitic immigration policies of Joe Kennedy (patriarch of the supposedly saintly Kennedy dynasty) who was virulently anti semitic and denied entry to all German Jews seeking asylum, while doing business with Hilter until Pearl Harbor, and even covering up news of the Concentration Camps, unless those Jews lucky enough to get here (in other words men, or women, like my aunt, who was married to Peter Drucker, the so-called Father of Management) fought in the war.  My dad was horrifically wounded as a result.  With wounds that affected him for the rest of his life.

I lost him when I was 11.

But Cassandra Butts, the supposed "expert" on immigration, among other things, in the White House who told me to go fuck off and that I was "privileged" because I was white, or perhaps because I knew her at all, when I called to congratulate her on her new gig in the White House days after the inauguaration doesn't seem to see it that way.  And refused to pass my proposal to create jobs and equality for people who desperately need it, not to mention create a cleantech economy very quickly, on to the right people who definately need some guidance on job creation at 1600 Penn. 

Which is appalling. 

Not to mention the fact that I have been without a job for over three years at this point because I was illegally fired.  And even refuses to this day to investigate the illegal violations of my civil rights by cabinet members of this administration.  Which is both directly her job and illegal.

Why is she doing this?  Well I'm not sure, except that I suppose she thinks that she's better than I am and more powerful.  Or perhaps because I dared to criticize (called my FIRST AMENDMENT RIGHTS) the appalling policies of Mr. Donovan, now head of HUD, which have led to the worst housing crisis in New York City since the Great Depression.  Or the fact that I criticized the fact that Google is collecting cookies from the White House website, in contravention to Federal Disabilities Law. 

Or perhaps because I'm white.  Because naturally, being Black in this country is the worst kind of discrimination there is? 

Right?

And she's suffered far more because of it, not to mention ever put her ass on the line to do something about it. 

Right?

Much like her boss, or even say Melody Barnes, another White House hypocrite and UNC grad who refuses to return my phone calls.

Even though I never got to go to graduate school, much less Harvard, have been permanently disfigured by an illegal termination from a Wall Street Bank, have been waiting for over two years for the EEOC to even finish it's investigation, am on the edge of eviction, am completely financially ruined, and my life has been completely changed forever.

God, that sounds really privileged to me. 

Not to mention the fact that in terms of accomplishment in Washington, if she thinks she's accomplished more and has the right to even say something like that, she's out to lunch.  And is appalling. 

Number one, she WORKS FOR ME, number two, it is the duty of those who serve in public office to help the less fortunate, not to mention investigate civil rights abuses, and number three, I've accomplished MORE than she has, despite the fact that she brags about her fancy sports cars and she makes more money than I do and has a fancier title now and went to Harvard because of family circumstances.

Accomplishment and meritocracy is and never has been about money.

Even when we knew each other on a more daily basis in college, I still fought harder for racial rights and led the anti apartheid movement at the first Southern public university and then the first Southern State (North Carolina and UNC Chapel Hill), and certainly took more risks to do so and fight for racial justice in this country AND Apartheid South Africa than either Ms. Butts or Ms. Barnes (another black woman and UNC alumni who now works in the White House).  Neither of whom ever put their asses, their scholarships or even their lives on the line to force first the University and then the state to divest all scholarship and pension funds from apartheid South Africa.

Ms. Butts showed up for a few rallies.  Ms. Barnes never even did that.  I faced down Klansmen with loaded shotguns pointed at my head.

Both of them went to graduate school (Ms. Butts went to Harvard) because they had families to support them).  And Ms. Barnes even went to work for Mr. Kennedy, who's daddy made mine a man with a life long disability.

My family would never even cosign loans for undergrad.  And I still have scars on my arms that make me look like a heroine addict to this day because I had to sell my plasma to eat (and passed out every time I sold it), because my scholarship, to a public university was not enough to cover the costs (because Reagan was busy cutting back on everything, my abusive stepfather even committed both federal mail and tax fraud to prevent me from getting my own family money and to try to get me to drop out of college) and my scholarship prevented me from working on campus. 

And the only places near campus to work were bars.  Where I was barred from working because I was underage.

And I lost MY FATHER at the age of 11.  Thanks Joe Kennedy.

So I'm really privileged, doncha know?

Just because I'm white.

And really unaccomplished politically, even though I started changing state policy at the age of 19, and national policy, in DC at the age of 23.  And not as a staffer who went to Harvard.

But in reality, I'm just another victim of the kind of policy that this country has always followed.  Now being perpetuated by political elites who are black.  But naturally they feel they are far more persecuted but ironically more special and privileged and know better, if they went to Harvard, sit their asses in the White House and have chips on their shoulders.

It doesn't matter what the color of your skin is if you are immoral.  Or your gender.

It's what you do that counts.

THAT is the kind of hypocritical crap that is perpetrated by our "leaders."

So I know very well the real cost of war.  It's why I've always been opposed to it.  Especially immoral, Empire building ones.

It doesn't mean that I don't believe in fighting to protect your rights.  Which I have had to do all my life, especially from elitists, racists and sexists, who think they can pull this kind of crap.   Of whatever color, gender or sexual orientation.

But that's not what we are doing right now with the wars we are fighting.

I am a direct descendent of one of the first two women in U.S. history to have ever fought on the front lines of ANY U.S. battle in a little historical dustup called The Battle of King's Mountain.  Which for all you U.S. history buffs out there, is known as the turning point of the REVOLUTIONARY WAR.  And women are still not given credit by DoD.  Or given leadership posts.  Or allowed to command troops in battle.  Or given leadership roles in business, politics, academics or just about anything because we're biologically inferior, right Summers?  Not to mention Obama, who has already created what is being called a "boy's club" in the White House.

God what a change.

Apparently men and elitists who go to Harvard who never put their asses on the line, know better.  About everything.   Which is what leads to these kinds of policies.

And tragedies.

The shooter yesterday apparently endured not only horrific tales of horror from his counseling of troops returning from the war, but additional harrassment because of his religion from his fellow troops because he was a Muslim.

Which the army brass did nothing about. 

That is just one of the real crimes here.

DoD has done NOTHING in the face of a rising suicide rate and repeated shootings of a similar nature in Iraq. 

That's another war crime that will go unpunished.

And the idiot in the Oval Office, who has also never put his ass on the line for anything, or anybody and has only worked for personal self gain and self promotion, per HIS OWN ADMISSION, has determined, along with Congress and that disgustingly hypocritical moment of silence last night on the Hill, despite all of this, to draw out the war in Iraq and escalate the one in Afghanistan. 

Because of "the terrorist threat."  Which is complete and utter BS.

Both theatres of war are being maintained for profit.  And to control dirty resources.  Spelled O-I-L.

Many members of Congress actually profit from the war themselves personally (like Dianne Fienstein, and Mr. Murtha, both of whom, and they are not the only ones) who vote for such wars, approve such appropriations, and who's spouses and relatives get rich from war profits in contracts with the U.S. military.   And Mr. Obama is giving first dibs to all the best bailout money to his cronies.  Who are as crooked as a dog's hind leg.

Not to mention the fact that Obama is out to lunch if he ever thinks that he will win in Afghanistan, (see my last blog on the subject) and made a campaign promise to promptly end the war in Iraq. 

Of course we all know that he's broken every single promise he ran on, so I suppose it's stupid of me to even bring up the latter subject.

But I am so furious, as well as heartbroken about the tragedy in Fort Hood, as well as the media's coverage of it, our political elite's reaction to it, that I can't help but write about it.

WHY THE HELL CAN'T WE LEARN OUR LESSONS?

How many more kids will come home in a box before we do?

With the entire country on the verge of economic collapse, despite the propoganda of a supposed "economic turnaround" (which is complete and utter crap and based solely on the BS of the stock market rally, which is an illusion as even reported by say Paul Krugman and Robert Reich, even if you don't want to take it from a woman, who, according to the raving sexist in the White House, Mr. Summers who thinks that women are incapable biologically of understanding economics or apparently anything of substance, despite the wonderful FU of the first woman in history to just win a Nobel for economics in HISTORY) and real unemployment in this country hovering around forty to fifty percent if you count the number of people who are deliberately kept out of the workforce based on discrimination, what the hell are we doing wasting money and lives both domestically and abroad and putting more pressure, both psychologically and fiscally on the American people by such policies? 

Not to mention the damage and killing we are doing abroad?

This is known as torture. And deluded public policy.

And perpetuated by political sadists who seem to think that spending as much money for ONE YEAR in Afghanistan alone that equalled a domestic bailout that was way too small, but giving the banks a $32 Trillion dollar bailout is appropriate.

And is not coming from Republicans, BUT DEMOCRATS.

But you see war is very profitable for the banks and the political elite and DoD armchair generals who all get to make money, control huge budgets, and get promotions behind safe desks, far away from the real suffering, by promoting such policies.

And oil companies and pharma companies who will make a literal killing in both commandeering the resources of destroyed countries we are directly responsible for flattening, and selling overpriced medicine the soldiers who's lives we ruin will have to buy for the rest of their lives when their bodies and brains are battered forever.   At overinflated prices the President just refused to bargain for.

What a flaming asshole.  Does the man have a conscience?

Does he know how to spell the word?

Does he even know what it means?

That's what dictionaries are for you dickhead. 

Maybe you should look one up.  You did go to Harvard, after all.  I should think you'd be familiar with both multi syllabic words, not to mention such basic books.

Or even the fucking internet.

Yes I'm angry.  Furious as hell.

What the hell are we doing?  Or to be more specific, what the hell are YOU doing?

And why are the American people putting up with this?

Again, and again and again?

Economically, war based economies are the worst, most destructive, economically and environmentally wasteful and non sustainable policies there are.  And only further concentrate wealth.  Not "spread the wealth around."

So if Mr. Obama, in all of his supposed brilliance, really gave a crap about anything or anybody except himself, he might follow the advice of some other brave leaders, even if they weren't so supposedly brilliant as he thinks he is.

And who never went to Harvard.  And put their asses, careers and reputations on the line.  Not to mention their lives.  And actually had ethics and morals. And guts.

Like say Mohammad Ali, who gave up his boxing championships and titles in opposition to the Vietnam War, refused enlistment, faced prison time for doing it, and said "No Viet Cong ever called me a Nigger."

Yet Mr. Obama, who seems to forget that the sacrifices of the past, including Dr. King, who was also opposed to the War in Vietnam, and who's bravery in leading the Black Civil Rights movement got him shot.

Yet who's bravery in advancing the rights of the African American civil rights movement put Mr. Obama in the White House.

Where this ungrateful asshole is aping the worst attitudes and policies of the white male elite who oppressed and is continuing to do so, minorities who didn't have both legacy and minority advantages plus grannies who worked at banks to cosign their loans plus a mother who coached him and sacrificed everything for her ungrateful son who couldn't even show up when she was dying, not to mention screwing over women and the disabilities community (not to mention the LGBT community) now that he's in office, not to mention the poor of every color, gender, sexual orientation, able bodied or those with disabilities of whatever kind.

Because Obama is an ungrateful fuck, who thinks he's smarter than everyone else on the goddamned planet.  And doesn't give a fuck about anyone else.  And thinks he deserves the best of everything.  While letting the rest of the world go to hell.

What a hypocritical Buppy and corrupt Oreo. 

And what change we can believe in. 

Right?

One, two, three, four, what the fuck are we fighting for?

Except to get this asshole out of office, asap.  And everyone in Congress who supports him and these policies.

And if you think I'm mad as hell, you are absolutely right. 

And if you have a brain, and you really care about what happened yesterday, not to mention what is going on all around you every day, you should be too.

And will do something about it. NOW.