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 Greetings! You are reading an article from The Mudville Gazette. To reach the front page, with all the latest news and views, click the logo above or "main" below. Thanks for stopping by! March 17, 2004 Wanna Get Away?By GreyhawkYou've had a bad week... Your country is at war... You've referred to an ally of your country as "window dressing" just before that country suffers a terrorist attack that results in a change in its government. Having declared them unimportant, and having declared the terrorist threat overrated, you can now do little but express sympathy. The whole thing, in fact, is way out of your league, as you have no real geo-political savvy. Speaking of which, you recently claimed that "foreign leaders" want you to be the next president. Actually, a careful reading of your claim shows you said they just don't want George Bush to be president. No one believes you. Speaking of Bush as President, you are caught referring to him and his administration as "These guys, er, these guys are the most crooked, you know, lying group of people I've ever seen" and try to back pedal. Your credibility is questioned. But not as much as it is over the whopper of a fib you spout in Miami (of all places) about your "tough on Castro" position. If you were John Kerry, what would you do? He's going on vacation. A well deserved week off should be just the thing. Sadly, he'll miss St. Paddy's in Boston. Kerry is Irish, you know. He's part French, too, but only by marraige. Posted by Greyhawk / March 17, 2004 2:16 AM | Permalink 3 Comments |
November 26, 2010America@war [Greyhawk]
I think anyone who's ever pondered the "comment" option - once only available on blogs and bulletin boards, now ubiquitous on almost any web site - will appreciate this:
The so-called faculty of writing is not so much a faculty of writing as it is a faculty of thinking. When a man says, "I have an idea but I can't express it"; that man hasn't an idea but merely a vague feeling. If a man has a feeling of that kind, and will sit down for a half an hour and persistently try to put into writing what he feels, the probabilities are at least 90 percent that he will either be able to record it, or else realize that he has no idea at all. In either case, he will do himself a benefit. That's wisdom from the past, captured for posterity at the US Naval Institute, shared via the web on the institute's 137th anniversary. From their about page:
"The Naval Institute has three core activities," among them, History and Preservation: The Naval Institute also has recently introduced Americans at War, a living history of Americans at war in their own words and from their own experiences. These 90-second vignettes convey powerful stories of inspiration, pride, and patriotism. Take a look at the collection, and you'll see it's not limited to accounts from those who served on ships at sea, members of the other branches are well-represented. I'm fortunate to have met USNI's Mary Ripley, she's responsible for the institute's oral history program (and she's the daughter of the late John Ripley, whose story is told here). She also deserves much credit for their blog. ("We're not the Navy nor any government agency. Blog and comment freely.") We met at a milblog conference - Mary knew (and I would come to realize) that milbloggers are the 21st-century version of exactly what the US Naval Institute is all about. Once that light bulb came on in my head, I mentioned a vague idea for a project to her - milblogs as the 21st century oral history that they are. "Put that in writing," she said (of course - see first paragraph above!) - and here's part of the result. Shortly after the first tent was pitched by the American military in Iraq a wire was connected to a computer therein, and the internet was available to a generation of Americans at war - many of whom had grown up online. From that point on, at any given moment, somewhere in Iraq a Soldier, Sailor, Airman or Marine was at a keyboard sharing the events of his or her day with the folks back home. While most would simply fire off an email, others took advantage of the (then) relatively new online blogging platforms to post their thoughts and experiences for the entire world to see. The milblog was born - and from that moment to this stories detailing everything from the most mundane aspects of camp life to intense combat action (often described within hours of the event) have been available on the web... And et cetera - but since you're reading this on a milblog, you probably knew that. And you know that milblogs aren't just blogs written by troops at war, that many friends, family members, and supporters likewise documented their story of America at war online in near-real time, as those stories developed. The diversity in membership of that group is broad, the one thing we all have in common is the impulse to make sense of the seemingly senseless, and communicate the tale - for each of us that impulse was strong enough to overcome whatever barriers prevent the vast majority of people from doing the same. Everyone at some point has some vague idea they believe should be shared - we were the people who, from some combination of internal and external urging, found and spent those many half hours persistently trying to write it down. But where will all that be in another 137 years? Or five or ten, for that matter. That's something I've asked myself since at least 2004 - when I wrote this:
Membership in the ghost battalion has grown in the years since, and an ever growing majority of those abandoned-but-still-standing sites are vanishing. Have you checked out Lt Smash's site lately? How about Sgt Hook's? If you're a long-time milblog reader you know the first widely-read milblog from Operation Iraq Freedom and the first widely-read milblog from Afghanistan are both gone from the web. If you're a relative newcomer to this world you may never even have heard of them - or the dozens upon dozens of others who carried forth the standard they set down. If you have a vague notion that something should be done about that, (a notion I've heard expressed more than once...) then you and I and the good folks at the US Naval Institute are in agreement. Preserving the history documented by the milbloggers is just one of the goals of the milblog project, the once-vague idea that we're now making real. And it's a big idea, if I say so myself - too big to explain in one simple blog post, so stand by for more. Likewise, it's too big a task to be accomplished by just one person. So if you're a milblogger (and exactly what is a milblogger? is a topic for much further discussion on its own) I'm asking for your help. All I'll really need is just a little bit (maybe just one or two of those half hours...) of your time, and your willingness to tell the tale. We've already made history, it's time to save it. (More to follow...) Posted 4:02 PM | Permalink |
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The Mudville Gazette is the on-line voice of an American warrior and his wife who stands by him. They prefer to see peaceful change render force of arms unnecessary. Until that day they stand fast with those who struggle for freedom, strike for reason, and pray for a better tomorrow.
 
 
 Furthermore, I will occasionally use satire or parody herein. The bottom line: it's my house. I like having visitors to my house. I hope you are entertained. I fight for your right to free speech, and am thrilled when you exercise said rights here. Comments and e-mails are welcome, but all such communication is to be assumed to be 1)the original work of any who initiate said communication and 2)the property of the Mudville Gazette, with free use granted thereto for publication in electronic or written form. If you do NOT wish to have your message posted, write "CONFIDENTIAL" in the subject line of your email. Original content copyright © 2003 - 2011 by Greyhawk. Fair, not-for-profit use of said material by others is encouraged, as long as acknowledgement and credit is given, to include the url of the original source post. Other arrangements can be made as needed. Contact: greyhawk at mudvillegazette dot com  Tending Distant Far from hearth and home, watching What tales we'll tell When things grim Some distant sunset, vision fading Saluting fallen friends whose names - Greyhawk, Baghdad, December 2004 |
While you continue to bash Kerry unmercilessly, let me keep up with o'l deserter Bush's fake persona. Recently, in 2 newsaper articles about GIs back from Iraq going off the reservation without permission, the army's base spokesperson said if such GI was absent without leave he/she would be consider a deserter. A DESERTER! Why that what Mike Moore called George Bush. Given Bush the benefit of the doubt on his NG situation between Texas and Alabama, I find he was at least AWOL for 5 months and in time of war. Who is kidding whom here? Bush by all rights, if he didn't have push and pull from powerful people, should have been in the stockade or disciplined for the record in some way. Do you want this guy with his record not now hidden to continue to be president? Give me a break! Some people have to be brain dead or are willfully ignoring reality, thus jeopardizing America's and its citizens' future.
Bush is "the BIG LIE, stupid." This whole regime of Bush's is the BIG lie. From an incompetent person becoming the president by false pretenses, to the lies for war, to the lies on the economy, on jobs, on Medicare, on environmental protection and other legislation and agency actions where the pitch is to say one thing to get approval or con the public while in reality this adminisration means an entirely different thing, e.g., the Clean Air Act (or something like that) promoted by the adminstration for Bush's utility friends and signed into law by him that will allow more air pollution, not less.
I am sure the old USSR operated under the concept of the big lie, made infamous by George Orwell in "1984" but the most significant practitioner of that black art was mister NAZI himself, Joseph Goebbels.It appears to me that Karl Rove has steered Bush into being his Hitlerian foil to Rove's imitation of Goebbels. You remember from WWII films about the Nazis the scenes of Jewish and other people being taken into German concentration camps under the "Arbeit Machs Frei" signs. "Work makes you free." A nifty con to get the prisoners to go into the camps without trouble. Ya, those prisoners were going to work their way to freedom in the form of freedom by death.
It is not much of a step for people who think they are superior to the general populus and that the public is stupid to manipulate it to get what they want through lies, deceit and anti-democratic activities. It is a very deadly game that those figures in politics without legitimacy use to take and keep power.
What bothers me on this Blog is not the heavy bashing of Kerry, if he is any good he will answer up to the serious questions about his character and beliefs, but your seemingly unquestioning faith in Bush. He is a person of such immense character faults as to make it criminal for a man like him to be president. America needs and deserves a president who is better than Bush.
Dear Petey,
Who you calling stupid?
Where have you've been? They've proven that the "AWOL" theory was a bunch of rhetoric. And anyone who’s been in the reserves knows exactly how record keeping is. Let me guess, not a reservist, are you? Let's see the Medical records only prove Bush's teeth were in Alabama. Kerry's a fowl-mouthed, unmoral, pathetic excuse for botoxed skin who use his power and pull to abandon his command and troops after a short 4 months. He collected three Purple Hearts but has no limp. All his injuries were so minor that he lost no time from duty.
And the about the lies for war; Yeah Tony (a lefty) and Bush cooked up this intelligence to go to war. IT WAS BRITISH INTTELLIGENCE given to Bush not US, so explain word for word where Bush lied. Kerry's the liar! PROOF http://www.instapundit.com/archives/014617.php
Becoming president under false pretenses? Florida? You guys lost, get over it.
The economy is great! The index of leading economic indicators has turned up, and the stock market is rising again. In addition, there has been a slight uptick in temporary hiring, generally considered an indicator of more-permanent jobs to come.
Compared with the "exceptional" years of of Clinton, 1993, 1994, and 1995, the first three years of George W. Bush's presidency featured
lower inflation, lower unemployment, faster productivity growth, faster labor compensation growth (i.e., wages and benefits, 29.4 percent ($6.9 trillion) more economic output, 45 percent ($960 billion) more exports; and an economic growth rate 81.2 percent as fast as that under Clinton. Unemployment rate is down to 5.5% from Clinton's 6.2%. Farm productivity is way up there at 4.1% compared to Clintons piddly .5%. Gross domestic products are up to $30.3 trillion compared to Clintons $23.4 trillion and exports are up to 3.09 trillion compared to Clintons $2.13 trillion. The American can see the #'s, they don't lie.
oh, btw that's "Arbeit Machts Frei" not "Machs" (work powers free).
The Nazis frequently hung meaningless slogans on camp entrances. No one who entered the camps was deceived by hollow promises. No one was ever released for working hard or for good behavior, especially with guns to their backs. They were not fooled by this con. To compare Bush and Rove to the Nazis is insane. I have faith in the American people; they're not as mindless as you think. They’ll vote for the right man, the one who will support his military and keep his country prosperous and as safe as possible.
Carla, glad to see you here. But this is just a put-back for me. By the way, my real name is Peter. I am probably old enough to be your father or maybe even your grandfather and I like my names.
Actually I am wondering where you have been. Perhaps you never heard the saying "its the economy, stupid," or maybe you don't know about the use of literary allusion.
I wonder why some plain old grunts can be alleged to be deserters for being a month or so absent without leave and Bush in 1971 was absent for a about 5 months (check the info, I believe he left his Texas unit in the Fall 1971 and did not get permission shown by the record to move to Alabama until the Spring 1972. Show me your the proof otherwise. I think you can't, so the issue is still open. Has ANYONE in his Alabama unit or from the base come forward to state unequivically Bush had signed in in Alabama or was seen doing his duty? Lead me to the proof. His teeth were in Alabama after him supposedly had finished with his Guard duty and his private work in Alabama. What relevance does that have to his skipping out on his army duties?
Kerry who has some deficiencies, did considerably better than your Georgie boy. Kerry didn't dodge the duty, he was in the field of fire, he was hit 3 times and inches anyway from where he was hit could have killed or maimed him. Where was your Bush, hidding out at the old homestead in Texas or ducking fire in Alabama? Kerry was in the Zone, can liar Bush claim that?
Bush lied, my goodness Carla, you don't believe it? Where are the WMD he and his minnions claimed to exist in Iraq? Where is Saddam's connection with al Qaida that was claimed? What happened to the claim of the supposed buy of "yellow cake" for nuclear material from Niger? A preposteriously fake claim made by Georgie in the State of the Union address, to all Americans he lied. My dear, you can't pass that off on the British, as our own government agents established that the "yellow cake" claim was fraudulent before Bush made his claim in January, 2003 to the American people. Bush's administration KNEW the nuclear material buy was bogus many months before Bush spoke of it. The claim Bush makes that he relied on Bristish intelligence is just another con to keep his job. And a bad one at that. Blaming it on the British is like you telling a patrol officer that you should not get a speeding ticket because your passenger told you you were not going over the speed limit even though you saw the speed sign and you knew you were going over the limit.
That's all for now. I will finish later.