604

Andrew Bacevich, on the death of his son in Iraq and the reasons for it:

To whom do Kennedy, Kerry and Lynch listen? We know the answer: to the same people who have the ear of George W. Bush and Karl Rove — namely, wealthy individuals and institutions.

Money buys access and influence. Money greases the process that will yield us a new president in 2008. When it comes to Iraq, money ensures that the concerns of big business, big oil, bellicose evangelicals and Middle East allies gain a hearing. By comparison, the lives of U.S. soldiers figure as an afterthought.

...

Money maintains the Republican/Democratic duopoly of trivialized politics. ... It negates democracy, rendering free speech little more than a means of recording dissent.

This is not some great conspiracy. It's the way our system works.

And it will continue to work this way — against us — until we take the money out of politics.

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A commenter recently pointed out to 604 how lucky Palestinian refugees are, and how proudly they bear their refugee status:

• Palestinians are probably the most cosseted people in history. They have the longest lives and the highest birth rate in the Arab world.

• Palestinians are the first people in history whose "refugee" status is hereditary. Officially passed on from father to son.
  

The commenter is no doubt correct, and longtime observers like Robert Fisk should be ashamed of themselves for false and misleading posts like this:

The catastrophe of [the Palestinians'] eviction and flight from Palestine in 1948, their near-destruction in the Lebanese civil war, their cruel suffering at the hands of Israeli invaders — the massacre of Sabra and Chatila in 1982 where 1,700 were slaughtered — and now this [battle at the Nahr el-Bared camp], have sealed these people into a permanent prison of suffering.

Lucky bastards...

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Soccerdad's "defense" of the Dems:

So spare me all the crap about Dems being cowards or not having a strategy. Its time for people to wake up look at the history and realize that the democratic leadership does not represent the antiwar sentiment in the US.

And that's the best we can say about the Democratic leadership. They're not spineless. They're just slimeballs who exploit and then ignore those credulous souls who count so heavily on them. I'm afraid that to be a Democrat these days is to be a true believer and an enabler.

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And speaking of the champions of the working man and woman, the Democrats finally beat an increase in the minimum wage out of the Republicans, for the first time in a decade. And all it took was giving George Bush another hundred billion towards his war for oil. I wonder how many invasions the Dems would have to bankroll to win single-payer health insurance?