Blog-IT-o ergo sum

	11/26/2003

An honest perspectivce from American military personnel

While Ed Cone was picking up on the NPR ATC story on blogs this Monday, I was struck by the philosopical candor of our military personnel (both present and retired) that was being made available to the public on my drive home.

Probably violated a copyright law here but here are the audio links of note:

Sniper Trial Jurors Explain Death Penalty Call

At the front of the story, we learn that Virginia was chosen as the location for the trial because of the "willingness of Virginia juries to sentence people to death." (I wonder if this is because of the high concentration of current and former federal employees in the area.) Go near the end of the story to hear former naval intelligence officer and John Mohammad trial juror Elizaeth Young explaining her decision to opt for putting Mr. Mohammad to death:

"For me in the end --- its possible in the future I may become an anti-death penalty activist --- but for now I felt I had to fulfill my obligations as a juror and meet the requirements of the law."

U.S. Raids Seek to Control Iraq-Syrian Border

Pertinent quotes here:

-- army specialist Alan Caldwell,

" We started of with the nice guy approach...we met with a lot of resistance...so we locked them down. Now that they have no choice, they are more willing to embrace peace."

-- commander Jim Teeples explaining how he explained the rounding up hundreds of suspected beligerants into a desert detention center to the local Iraqi mayor,

"Mr. Mayor you've got what I would call a cancer in your town. The loyalists, foreign fighters and criminals that are controlling your town. So, what we're going to do is put your community on the operating table. Its going to take a few days, but when we're done, as painful as it will be, there won't be any cancer anymore."

Remember when this whole program was called Operation Iraqi Freedom?

I know it is the stuff conspiracy charges are made against, but since special pieces from fellows, advisors and speakers of the CFR are almost daily fare now on NPR, I also include this audio link on what the president emeritus of the CFR suggested should happen in Iraq. (From ATC on November 25th)

Foreign Policy Expert Urges Splitting Iraq

9:54:18 PM

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The Patroit Act and You

patroitactandyou

While local League of The South supporters were able to attract several cap L Libertarians to their conference Lincoln Revisited by offering Thomas DiLorenzo, senior fellow of the von Mises Institute as a speaker, local progressive activists where not able to pull off the same feat with their conference focused on getting the word out on the dangers of the Patriot Act. Matching the muscle of other local "fringe" groups though, the turnout for last Saturday's conference was about 50 people.

Democratic State House Rep and local publisher, "brother" Earl Jones welcomed his "brothers and sisters" to the event with his opening remarks that included a slam against the "monarchy of corporate capitalists" whose "corrupt system has caught up with the currupt people who run it." l met Earl on the campaign trail last year and found him to be quite likeable. And, even though I agree we have many anti-free market capitalists running the world's largest corporations, I have to say Brother Jones read on the state of our society is probably why many people have started to accept the word Democrat as just a euphemism for Socialist.

Though we had already been brought into the spirit of the evening with a boom box playing Paul Robeson for our pot luck meal, after Earl's opening remarks we were given an additional interlude of 3 or 4 unionist songs from the good old days of Marxist-Lenninist labor strikes gone by. As I squirmed in my seat, the guitarist and his female companion had me thinking Bluto might be getting ready to come down the stairs and smash something.

Both I and the guitar survived however and we were treated to a 15 minute talk by public legal defender attorney Lewis Pitts. Lewis currently is representing the poor guy in South Carolina who had the audacity during a presidential visit to his state to hold up an anti-Bush sign outside the designated "free-speech" zone allowed for those wishing to express their opinions to their elected representatives --- with no line of sight from 200 yards away.

Lewis Pitts was also the council who represented the victims of The Greensboro Massacre. When I realized that his presence at the conference brought out only a few of his fellow "heavys" in the effort to establish a Truth and Reconciliation Project* for Greensboro, I decided to bow out of the conference early -- even though State House Rep Larry Womble was also on tap to speak.

Anyway, I think my picture taking was starting to make the uninformed nervous that I was the assigned FBI plant.

*You might want to check this link to see all the people helping us on our local project.

10:30:35 AM

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Fair and Balanced Pimping

Having to focus on my daytime job, which is also a night time job, my blogging avocation posts are sometimes a little slow on the mark. Though it was posted faster than my report after the Lincoln Revisited Conference, my (more than) equal time report for the Patriot Act and You Conference sponsored by local area "progressives" did not make it out fast enough to avoid being called a pimp for the League of the South.

7:01:06 AM

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