Romney began his presidential campaign by insulting the English. He continues by insulting the Muslims, and Palestine. He tosses about remarks about Hezbollah, and Hamas, without even a semi-scholarly insight as to what those groups are about. Or what our enemies might be capable of. We continue to force our Christian/Judaic tradition, and our American culture on those who deeply hold alternative beliefs, and we don’t consider that they might have a real cause for which they are fighting.
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The Republican party of today is not the party it was in years past. The GOP freely admits they are governing not for people, but for corporations. Some of these corporations are foreign held. Profit is the motive. Patriotism such as James Stewart defined in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington is a forgotten emotion. The average American is yet unaware of that loss. It has been said that “Once, to every man, and nation, comes a moment to decide.” Now may be that moment for the “Good ol’ USA.”
Photo credits: CBS News (2), Hitchcock TV
Article comments
1 - Igor
I guess Romney wants to gather together a posse and go after Iran. Much like he gathered a posse to go after John Lauber and cut his hair off.
Mitt Romney is a Bully.
2 - Igor
Romney should draft the US militia as his posse for going after Iran. You know, the Militia who have self-identified by buying guns, rifles, assault guns, etc., in compliance with the 2nd amendment, which clearly states:
"A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."
We should all be so happy that so many people have volunteered for this dangerous militia duty, and have also provided their own weapons! They truly are Great Patriots.
Thanks guys! We'll all be somber when your deaths are announced on the evening news. Perhaps wipe away a vagrant tear or two.
Perhaps, when the Great Glorious Iran Invasion is over we'll hire a Chinese sculptor to erect a black granite obelisk on which these patriotic observations of Wilfred Owen will be engraved:
It's Sweet and Beautiful to die for your Homeland
DULCE ET DECORUM EST
Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! -- An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.
3 - Clav
It's Sweet and Beautiful to die for your Homeland
But first, there has to be a homeland...
4 - Glenn Contrarian
""A well REGULATED Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.""
Somehow they never seem to see the word "regulated". All they seem to recognize is the "shall not be infringed" part.
But it doesn't matter anyway since we can literally print our own assault rifles now. All that's needed are the 3D printer (less than $2K now), the material (@ $30), and the program containing the schematics (surely soon to be available at an internet connection near you).
5 - Les Slater
I wouldn't put too much credence in a candidate's rhetoric. The constraints are much greater than their naive wishes.
6 - Igor
Here's more on the ''militia', vis a vis the Constitution:
Article II:
...
Section 2 - Civilian Power over Military, Cabinet, Pardon Power, Appointments
The President shall be Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the Militia...
----------------------
Amendment 2 - Right to Bear Arms. Ratified 12/15/1791.
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
---------------------------------
Section 8 - Powers of Congress
The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;
...
To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;
To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;
Send all the gun owners to Iran to fight!
7 - Igor
It looks like Romney capitalised Bain Capital with blood money from Central American death squads.
allenged Romney seeded Bain - with death squad family spoils
Posted: Aug 9th, 2012 - 11:25 am
Sporting a crisply starched, long-sleeved Cuban guayabera atop prestigious LDS “endowment” undergarments (literally signaling his “Annointed One” persona) while on an overt Latino community pander mission, Mitt revisited fertile fundraising grounds, where he had made well documented lucrative deals with despotic El Salvadoran death squad financiers back in the early 80s. According to “The Real Romney” author, Harry Strachan, Mitt had been worried about possible ties the Salaverria, Poma, de Sola and Dueñas families had to “illegal drug money or right-wing death squads," but not enough to stop him from accepting over $9 mil in 1984, a sizeable chunk of Bain’s original “outside funding.”
At a 2007 presidential campaign fundraiser, Romney admitted, “I owe a great deal to Americans of Latin American descent,” then did a little name-dropping while listing his original Bain “partners,” including, “Ricardo Poma, Miguel Dueñas, Pancho Soler, Frank Kardonski, and Diego Ribadeneira," and giving a shout out to de Sola and Salaverria founding families as well. These same “friends” continue their Bain investments to this day and, as recently as May, participated in investor board meetings. Naturally, the company cites “confidentiality” issues when declining to provide specifics, but insists it doesn't take in blood money. Not so fast.
The death squad connections were thoroughly examined in 1994 by the Boston Globe, and again in 1999 by the Salt Lake Tribune. The Tribune reports, “By 1984, the media had thoroughly exposed connections between the death squads and the Salvadoran oligarchy, including the families that invested with Romney. The sitting U.S. ambassador to El Salvador charged that several families, including at least one that invested with Bain, were living in Miami and directly funding death squads. Even by 1981, El Salvador’s elite, largely relocated to Miami, were so angered by the public perception that they were financing death squads that they reached out to the media to make their case. The two men put forward to represent the oligarchs were both from families that would invest in Bain three years later. The most cursory review of their backgrounds would have turned up the ties.”
El Salvador’s civil war torturous death squad mass murders racked up 75,000 fatalities between 1979 and 1992 (including the assassination of Catholic priests). Human rights publications began condemning their activities as early as 1982 and by the early 90s, 85% of these had been attributed to right-wing political parties with whom these families had documented ties. In 1984, US ambassador Robert White testified in a congressional hearing about his knowledge of two Salaverria family members involvement with death squad activities that dated back to 1981 while resisting land reforms. The de Solas and Pomas were heavy contributors to the winger ARENA death squad party. Virtually all Bain "family ties" to the atrocities have been confirmed, leaving us all to wonder just how much of Bain's other "outside investors" funneled blood money into the coffers, not to mention why they continue to maintain such a low bar of ethical standards set by its founder back in the day.
For those eager to attack the veracity of the claims and portray them as a phoney lib outrage that’s “no biggie,” end comments sections from one article I read elicited nearly 26,000 entries in 10 hours. On the other hand, no one is expecting Bain to be anymore forthcoming with exposing its entrepreneurial exsanguintors than its former CEO has been with his tax return disclosures, once again leaving this field of factual inquiry open to wild voter speculation and imaginations running amok.
8 - Clav
No attribution, Igor? Did you make it up yourself?
9 - Igor
I lost the original attribution, somehow, but this has been widely reported on. For example:
KWCH TV
CommonDreams
Salon