I am happy. Truth will prevail.

From the intuitive side,

I have had a burst of happiness* about what is developing. People who treasure what is good are becoming stronger as they realize the struggle is against ACTUAL EVIL, like in the Bible. Things look grim politically, but it calls out many more people who are beginning to see the depths of where our country is now.

People serving under persecution dig deep into their souls, as trees in drought send their roots ever deeper in search of water, and determine to stand against what is wrong. Our work is to illuminate what is happening so many more people will become engaged in the struggle to save our Constitutional republic.

Encourage each other, keep moving, step by step and small stone by small stone WE WILL WIN.

*burst of happiness is extremely improbable for someone with major depression. I think it is God-given. TRUTH WILL PREVAIL.

Everyone can do something:

LEAD. FOLLOW. SUPPORT. TEACH. LEARN.

Our children die for...PNAC? Oil?

Pachacutec at firedoglake-–”Not only has every rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq been discredited (I’m with Atrios: I still want to know why we really went)”

Well duh OIL of course. Interesting to see the debate where Webb said we should NOT HAVE PERMANENT BASES in Iraq and forced Allen reluctantly to agree.

Iraq IS a terrorist threat. To "The Realm." Alliance between elements of their government and rogue/dual citizenship/loyalty elements of our own government. What’s good for A must be good for B. And that’s how we find ourselves on the food end of the Matrix.

PNAC goal: to get the US government to send its military to wipe out terrorist threats to their country. Sounds good until you talk to the families of the 3,000-8,000 killed [OH COME ON, you think they’re counting everyone killed? If in the helicopter or at the hospital they ARE NOT COUNTED.] and 20,000-40,000 grievously wounded.

I talked with a father of a Marine in Ramadi. The casualty rate, dead and seriously wounded, is 54%. That’s FIFTY-FOUR PERCENT. And the morale of the rest of them = ?

This makes the news here…not so much. OUR SHAME. THEIR DEATHS and their loss of eyesight, ability to think clearly ever again, arms, legs. And FOR WHAT REASON? FOR WHAT GLORIOUS NATIONAL GOAL? For the glory of the Bush administration?

Even Bush acknowledged there is no connection between 9/11 and Iraq. So WHAT THE HELL are we doing there?

God help us. God forgive us.

Webb for Senate: please donate

Please donate generously to help Jim Webb kick George Allen out of the Senate.

It's easy, go to the Links here and click Campaign ActBlue Egregious.

Or Webb's campaign site.

Take back the Senate!

Don't give up. FIGHT for the children.

A commenter at firedoglake has a dark view.

I disagree: No, No, and No.

egregious @ 83

Guitar Playing Bastard @ 54

*****NONE***** of the opposition are decent people. Not one fucking soul. They are ALL EVIL. Y'all better get that through your thick skulls.

Sigh...we're going to lose again. Shit.

Suicide is looking like a better option.

No, No, and No.

No #1. There ARE decent people in the opposition, and we are winning them over to our side more and more.

No #2. We are NOT going to lose again. There is unprecedented energy in House and Senate races. Keep up the momentum, not a done deal yet.

No #3. You owe it to your children, grandchildren, nieces and nephews, and neighbor children, to fight as hard as you can. YOU understand what is happening; they do not. They will be the bewildered survivors of the ruins of this nation. Re staying alive, duty is an over-riding goal. We live not for ourselves alone. Despite your pain, which I honor, you OWE it to them to keep fighting until you drop. Good God, man, hae ye no Scottish, Irish, or Welsh blood in ye?

FIGHT!!! SAVE THE CHILDREN!!!

Welcome to Germany. Or the Soviet Union, your choice.

I once asked a Russian colleague to try to explain, just how they could kill 20,000,000 of their own people, most of whom were obviously innocent.

Answer: to show they can, and for slave labor.

Method: monthly quotas—-find some people and bring them in. People settling grudges turning in their neighbors or family members? Political opponents, journalists, people of the wrong religion or sexual orientation? Bring 'em in, the Communist German U.S. government needs to make this month’s quota.

If you think it can’t happen here, think again. They have lied us into war and stolen elections, tortured innocent people and called it holy. Why would they stop there?

PLEASE VOTE. Oppose torture. No war in Iran.

Well that about covers it, yes?

Egregious' recommended candidates:

In Virginia: James Webb for Senate

In Connecticut: Ned Lamont for Senate

In Montana: Jon Tester for Senate

In North Carolina: Larry Kissell for Congress

In Minnesota: Dan Walz for Congress

In Illinois: John Laesch for Congress.

In Alaska: Diane Benson for Congress.

Please vote, folks, this is the big one.

Politically active. And in pain.

dialogue at firedoglake:

egregious: And this doesn’t even count the billions announced by the Pentagon as simply “lost” on September 10, 2001. snl = sorry no linky

ed*ard teller: this will get you started:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dov_S._Zakheim

egregious: And here’s the paradox. Based on new self knowledge, supported by folk here at fdl, unnamed but you know who you are, I am passing along the responsibility of this to either other people, or me tomorrow. Soul-killing stress comes from seeing horror and feeling that I, alone, RIGHT NOW, and only now, can take action to make things better. Maybe that’s right sometimes. But for me it is destructive. Have to allocate my energy “care”-fully. Thanks to fdl people who are on team egregious. I need you. The lives of children in Uzbekistan depend on your support. See what I’m talking about? Undeniable pressure.

I am seeing a HUGE overlap here between our fdl military threads and our fdl labor threads. Contractor/private army versus regular military. Who works for us, the American people? Who works for those who use OUR TAX DOLLARS to hire mercenaries?

The Billions acknowledged lost on 9/10/01 and the Billions lost in Iraq go a long way to providing a permanent mercenary army for those who would do us harm. Or at minimum, those who do not care whether their actions do us harm. Ahem $$$$.
Hotflash, thank you. This is my life, so far I have been able to keep things going. I do worry. So I am doing all required stuff to keep me going: meds, shrink, reaching out to family and friends, speaking the truth even when it is painful.

When I’m on I’m superwoman. But it comes at a cost. Bipolar is very high energy for a while but then it crashes. At the high energy level I can do amazing things, ask the people at children’s hospital in st. petersburg russia. But when it crashes OMG. I have spent a lot of energy shielding my children from the crashes so it wouldn’t ruin their lives. Pretty much worked but they are so sensitive they see thru the curtain sometimes.

What can you do, pick up the reins if you see them, take action. If you mean for me in particular, …long pause… if providing feedback here please be gentle not harsh and dismissive, that’s one. On a higher level talk about …teary pause… that other people are also involved in saving the family/world, that not everything is the responsibility of one person.

My father was only not an alcoholic due to his determination not to go that route. Otherwise, all the sudden rage/bipolar stuff is there in spades. I will probably spend tens of thousands of dollars in therapy to understand that it is not my responsibility to keep our family of 9 intact but it may take the rest of my hopefully long life.

I am wired to try to help save babies/children/people/nations. Ref: Russia. If I pull back now, when our country is in trouble, is that a good thing? Would help to hear that there are sufficient people in the fray, that I can rest a spell.

Thank you and sorry for the immense OT rant.

What if people whose only goal was power have already used our tax dollars and our military to set up their own kingdom? Neocons/Bush Crime Family/Moonies, take your pick. Should we continue to support this with the lives of our soldiers? Tinfoil or titanium, your choice. Sometimes it seems the only possible explanation sounds like 1984 type fiction. But what if that is what’s really happening?

Not asking you to believe, just asking you to think about what it would look like, if this was true.

Saving lives. Living in pain.

What if I can save more lives by running at full capacity, even if it involves bad health habits *cough*drinking*cough* that are destructive? Not to mention what I am able to contribute to firedoglake and other blogs about saving our country from totalitarian government...we are germany in 1931...need to ACT...

Where is the tradeoff?
Yes I'm on meds/in therapy/trying hard. But still.

What do I owe my grown children and my future grandchildren, versus what I can do to save the lives of ANOTHER 2,000 children. No pressure.

I need help. I am getting some psych help. I need support. Have asked for support at home. Not happening..... Thanks for listening to this egregious rant.

Sec./Sen. James Webb

Senator James Webb of Virginia...I like the sound of that.

As Secretary of the Navy under Reagan he served in a Republican government before they all went off the deep end. My Republican mother, aka egregiousMom, says she would like to belong to the Party of the Reasonable. What happened to these guys?

Sec. Webb believes his party left him, so he is now in our strange new alliance, which includes libertarians, gun owners, progressives, and true conservatives. Strange bedfellows indeed.

Secretary Webb's son is just now leaving to serve with the Marines in Iraq. Proud Marine father. This has caused him to miss some important Labor Day weekend campaign events. The timing of the callup...surely just a coincidence....

Some highlights from Webb's speech on September 2:

Starts off joking about being 5 cups of coffee behind previous speakers. Honors Gerry Connolly's appearance despite being 2 days post-op. His comfort level in speaking to large crowds grows by the week. Decides to change the order of his speech to talk about:

KATRINA. Webb's wife is from New Orleans, watched her family go through this experience. Says people thought he got into the race out of frustration with national security and leadership; that's a big part of it, but the last straw was our response to Katrina, the incompetence and the indifference. Our response could have been different with competent leadership.

When South Vietnam fell in 1975, our country was able to take care of 500,000 refugees within weeks. We rescued them from the ocean, formed refugee camps, created transition points, and were able to assimilate them into communities where they could be taken care of. This was much more complex than Katrina.

We might have used Fort Polk, halfway between New Orleans and Houston, with 330 square miles, for some of the FEMA trailers that are to this day still sitting empty in Little Rock--these could have helped a lot of people. Here we are a year later. New Orleans has been allowed to just sit there...not a lot of humanitarian thought from this administration.

MARSHALL PLAN FOR NEW ORLEANS. We helped rebuild Europe after WWII. People are talking about a Marshall Plan for Lebanon and Iraq, hundreds of billions of dollars. "I say we have got to rebuild the infrastructure of the United States starting now".

WATERGATE. The 1974 elections were a time when the stakes were as high as today. The potential transformation in American government was as serious. The nation was exhausted, the old ways of looking at issues were all being contested. People wanted something new, they stepped forward and took a huge risk.

Party affiliation: a lot of people who have not had a strong party affiliation for the last 20 years are looking for answers--our challenge and our opportunity. The situation is as bad as he has ever seen. Administration has the reverse Midas touch--everything they touch is screwed up.

Webb testified after the First Gulf War that going on to Baghdad would empower Iran and Syria. The same people who got us into the Iraq mess this time wanted it last time. Those military officers who quietly warned against war with Iraq this time are now retiring and confirming their warnings.

EISENHOWER'S ADVICE: During the darkest days of the Korean War, Eisenhower said that the people who allowed this disaster to occur are not the people who are going to be able to repair it.

End of Part One.

Part Two: Webb's speech on domestic policy.

This administration and people like George Allen who supported it blindly have threatened to disrupt the very fabric of what we call ourselves as Americans. We used to talk about the difference between rich and poor Americans, now it's the difference between rich and middle class Americans. After tax corporate profit as a percent of net worth is the highest it's ever been. Wages are the lowest.

In the last 3 years real income has gone down for most people, medical costs are up, good jobs are going overseas, gas is $3 a gallon. Gas is coming down "until Thanksgiving" i.e. around the elections.

We have a one-party government, abuses of presidential power, fraud and waste in places like Iraq, don't have people who will stand up, who have COURAGE.

Webb was really happy to destroy Allen's characterization of him as an out-of-stater. He said he went to the same small town where Allen called on "Macaca" and spoke of tending nearby family graves. He goes back 12 generations in SW Virginia. His great-grandfather was 40 miles to one side of the Macaca town, his grandfather 40 miles to the other side. It is Allen, from California, who is the outsider here.

Furthermore, Allen's characterization of the people here as excluding anyone is AN INSULT to the good people of SW Virginia. Sidharth's father has worked in eastern Kentucky and western Virginia, and he said it's the only place where when his car broke down, 3 people stopped and asked if they could help him.

Congress is talking about the wrong issues. We have the war in Iraq, poverty, issues of Constitutional powers, and what is the Congress talking about? Gay marriage...burning flags...excluding people....

We all know this game. We all know what's going to happen between now and November 7. We can change the direction of this country if we can get the word out and get people who are dedicated to the future of our nation.

Inclusive government carries a responsibility to take care of people who have no power, and to give those people a voice in the government. Webb says if you stay with us and bring people like me into Congress, there will be momentum this year and on into 2008. "I'll bring a lot of people back into the party." Huge applause from the audience there on September 2, and here as well.

End of Part Two. [looking for hot paraffin for typing hands]

Shooting at my brother, my cousin

Speaking of the "enemy"-----
An activist on the right has a stroke.

Surely we can feel sympathy for him and his family even tho we find ourselves on the other side of the table, yes?

............
[commenter] "He'll have to wait in line behind ~ 20K U.S. casualties and God-only-knows how many Iraqi noncombatants before I can muster up anything like sympathy for that snide son of a babs."
............


No one in pain waits in line in my book. This is exactly how people dehumanize each other, as if a wounded Lebanese in pain means less than a wounded Israeli in pain...why. Or an American with his legs blown off versus an Iraqi with his legs blown off. War is bad for the soul, it creates hate.

Do we truly feel nothing for those on the other side of the line? I am reminded of Germans and Americans both singing Silent Night/Stille Nacht across the line in both WWI and WWII. In my own family we had first cousin against first cousin in the Civil War. Bad enough to shoot at each other, must we hate fellow humans?

We are obliged to choose the right way and set a good example even if our opponents do not. A fellow politically-engaged person with a stroke, no matter how far apart we are, deserves respect and sympathy if he has a stroke. There but for the grace of God....

--------egr, Quaker and Scottish Highlander

Peace or battle, depends on my mood. Nothing in between, yay bipolar.

Mothers of the world, unite, save our lovely sons and daughters from those who would slaughter our precious babies to make more money.

FIGHT BACK! TAKE ACTION! PROTECT THE CHILDREN!