WAR CRIMINAL n.
A person commiting any of various crimes,
such as genocide or the mistreatment of
prisoners of war, committed during a war
and considered in violation of the conventions
of warfare.
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 I believe there were only two groups that the average Bush voter could fit into.....

1. The stupid, ignorant misinformed goose category(or)
2.  The well-off, greedy, materialistic heel group…

(If you voted for Bush and do not belong to either of these assemblies, then you must be an alien from another planet, because the Bush Bunch certainly didn't conceal their true nature.)
)

I just came across this little quiz (I know too late) but sadly, it sure reinforces my theory about the Bush voter. Carolyn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The 5 Question Bush/Kerry Election Quiz
Not sure who to vote for? We can help! (snarkcake) Just write TRUE or FALSE next to each of the sentences below.

1) ______ My family makes more than $200,000 a year (the top 1%).
2)_______ A member of my family works for / are a major stockholder in one of the following businesses: big media, defense, oil/energy, or any company that has received a no-bid contract in Iraq.
3) _______ I think Al Queda has been neutralized as a threat to the United States because since 9/11 we have done everything we can to fight them.
4) ______ I think that record deficits (debt), high unemployment and creeping inflation are signs of a strong, well-managed economy.
5) ______ I believe George W. Bush showed excellent leadership by invading Iraq and he has communicated a clear plan for Iraq’s future and America’s military deployed there.

Now add up your answers. ____ True ____ False
If you answered most questions TRUE, then you should vote for George W. Bush. You are one of the lucky few benefiting from his policies.
If you answered most questions FALSE, then you should vote for John Kerry. You should look after your own best interests. George W. Bush sure isn’t.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here is another wonderful Mark Morford reality article...
I have inserted the Pictures to make his words even
more meaningful.
(if that's possible)
Carolyn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Very, Very Dirty Pictures
You want explicit? You want raw and uncensored
and free of media bias? Here you go
- By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, December 3, 2004

This is what you won't see in the paper.

This is what you won't see on CNN or on MSNBC or CBS News or on any major media Web site anywhere and especially no goddamn way ever in hell will you see it within a thousand miles of Fox News.

You aren't supposed to see. You aren't supposed to know. You are to remain ignorant and shielded, and, if you're like most Americans, you have been very carefully conditioned to think Bush's nasty Iraq war is merely this ugly little firecracker-like thing happening way, way over there, carefully orchestrated and somewhat messy and maybe a little bloody but mostly still patriotic and good and necessary and sponsored by none other than God his own angry Republican self.

And hence you and I both have no real idea what the hell goes on in Iraq, no real images to gnaw on and be deeply horrified and saddened by, except for maybe a tiny handful of carefully sanitized snapshots of bombed-out Iraqi cities and maybe some grainy video of U.S. soldiers enjoying a dusty game of pickup football and a turkey dinner at the posh military digs way, way outside of Baghdad.

Or maybe you think war is manly and heroic and cool, as exemplified by that now-famous shot of that macho "Dogface" Marlboro-smokin' Marine whose dirt-encrusted mug was eagerly picked up by newspapers and media Web sites across the nation (including this one), and he became an instant icon for the war and the military was positively giddy about using him an ideal recruitment tool, a model of how to make soldiers look all studly and rugged and badass as opposed to the often poorly educated, disposable hunks of politically abused postpubescent meat BushCo considers them to be.

So then. Here is your uncensored truth: fallujahinpictures.com. Real pictures from Fallujah. Real pictures of war. Brutal and explicit and shocking and just one site of many. Be warned: this is very graphic content. Horrific and deeply disturbing. No censorship. No suppression. No Photoshop. No bogus shots of happy Iraqi children running in the streets begging for candy from American soldiers. No night shots of Marines in bitchin' night-vision goggles bustin' down the door of some palace and then cheering.

Because if you think that's what it's all been about, if you really think war is just this tragic but necessary evil that contains some unfortunate violence and regrettable death but is nonetheless still full of righteous democratic American truth, you have been wildly misled and deeply deceived and might want to consider a nice intellectual emetic. You and Dubya both.

EMETIC An agent that causes vomiting .

Mind you, fallujahinpictures.com is not all gross-out shots of imploded skulls or severed limbs or brutally decapitated children or mutilated women or splattered brains or rivers of blood and intestine and excrement lining the Iraqi streets. Those horrific photos are indeed available (just Google "Iraq war pictures"). But, really, who wants to see that? Not Dubya, that's who. Besides, that's what slasher movies are for. Republicans and war hawks don't actually want to see that stuff in, you know, real life.

And maybe you already know that our government instituted an unqualified ban on pictures of all those flag-draped U.S. coffins that are pouring into American Air Force bases by the hundreds. Maybe you remember that cargo worker who lost her job last spring for leaking such photos to The Seattle Times.







Maybe you know how back in June the Republican-led Congress upheld the ban on coffin photos, all under the guise of "respecting soldiers' families," which of course translates directly into "If the pubic saw all those kids coming home dead, they might not wave that flag so wildly."

As the saying goes, Bush may be dumb, but he ain't always stupid. Even he doubtlessly remembers the effect of watching TV in the '60s and seeing all those American kids coming home from Vietnam in body bags. Not exactly good for morale back home. Not exactly good for the country's view of itself. And true poison to the pseudo-noble idea of just what the hell it is we think we're doing by launching such brutal and unwinnable wars in the first place.

Make no mistake, the government knows the power of the photo. Words, it's not so worried about. After all, you can read the war descriptions and you can check the appalling U.S. death stats and you can scour the dour headlines and still most of us just shrug our shoulders and say gosh that sounds bad and get on with our day.

But much like that other "un-American" site, sorryeverybody.com, exemplifies so beautifully (in a wholly different but no less effective way), sometimes words just aren't enough. You need to see it. You need to feel it. Visceral and human and deep.

Funny thing is, many right-wing neocons consider the act of displaying such pictures unpatriotic, even traitorous. As if revealing the true horrors of war somehow disrespects our long-suffering soldiers, somehow harms them by depicting the full violence of what they must endure for Bush's snide and viciously isolationist policies. You think soldiers don't want the folks back home to know what they have to deal with? You think they want you numb to the truth of war and pain and death? Guess again.

Maybe this should be the rule: If you can't handle seeing what really goes on in a war, maybe you don't deserve to support it. If you can't stomach the truths of what our soldiers are doing and how brutally and bloodily they're dying and in just what manner they have to kill those innocent Iraqi civilians in the name of BushCo's desperate lurch toward greed and power and Iraqi oil fields and empire, maybe you don't have the right to stick that little flag on your oil-sucking SUV. Clear enough?

The major media, by the way, is often hamstrung and torn. They can rarely run such photos. Newspapers and TV are hemmed in by "no-sensationalism" policies and are often paralyzed by the notion that if they ran such pictures, they would be called insensitive or inflammatory or anti-Bush and advertisers and readers alike would run away in droves. After all, most readers just aren't keen on seeing gross-out pics of 19-year-old kids from Kentucky with massive bleeding head traumas. It just totally ruins "Garfield."

You have to seek the facts yourself. You have to dare yourself to click, to take it in, to see if you can, in fact, handle the truth.

It is not easy. It is definitely not pleasant. But in this time of ever escalating numbers of war dead and flagrant BushCo lies and sanitized BS about the real effects of war, all coupled with a simmering plan to attack Iran and maybe North Korea someday real soon, seeking out such visceral truth is no longer just optional. It is, perhaps, the most patriotic thing you can do.

Click Here for more Mark Morford on connection.com

Click Here for Mark Morford New Year's Resolutions

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Thoughts for the author? E-mail him. I did!

Dear Wonderful Mark,
I just wanted to let you know that I am a dedicated and loyal fan of yours (not that you give a flying leap). I've cried, laughed, blushed, split my spleen and have said on occasion MERCY after reading one of your articles! You sure know how to make words induce emotion (positive and negative) and for that
I am-a-thankin-ya.

I have never emailed you before, knowing you don't have much time to listen to my feelings (just another, everybody's got one, opinion) but your last essay "Very, Very Dirty Pictures
You want explicit? You want raw and uncensored
and free of media bias? Here you go "
was so moving I just had to let you know... For all of us somewhat rational, thinking people (what a curse) you are the best... THERE I'VE SAID IT... and I don't care if you don't care!
Thank you, Mark!
Carolyn "a blue" from Florida

Mark's column archives are here

Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters.

_______________

Dear World: Sorry About Bush
No, seriously. Very, very sorry. How sorry?
Well, let America show you ... in pictures
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist

Wednesday, November 17, 2004


It's a movement. It's a phenomenon. It's a Web site. Or maybe it's far more than that. No one can really be sure.
No matter what it is, it's called sorryeverybody.com and it expresses, better than any outpouring so far, a sentiment that's omnipresent and palpable and still going strong, and every single Democrat and every single Kerry supporter and every single liberal of any stripe whatsoever probably felt it like a white-hot stab in the heart the minute Kerry's concession speech hit the airwaves and it undoubtedly went something like this:

Dear world: We are so very, very sorry. For Bush. For our bitterly divided and confused nation. For what's to come. Please know that tens of millions of us did not vote for him. Please do not hate us. Not all of us, anyway. OK, maybe Utah. Do you know where Utah is? Never mind.

See, not only is half of America still deeply dejected about the onslaught of Dubya Dubya II, but much of that half wants the world to know just how crestfallen we are, and just how awful we feel for inflicting Bush and his middle-finger foreign policy on them like a virus, a toxin, a nasty STD, yet again.

After all, we knew this wasn't no ordinary election. We knew how much was at stake, how this one represented a sea change in global attitudes, a dramatic upheaval and reversal of long-standing American ideas of cooperation and defense and restraint, ideas that BushCo has now mutated into a hollow, kill-'em-all faux-cowboy maverick attitude, an almost irreversible shift, mostly backward. Or downward.

But here's the genius part. Beyond e-mail, beyond blogs or radio shows or despondent letters to the editor or overly verbose progressively insulated Left Coast columnists who avoid excessive punctuation as they type because it might spill their scotch, sorryeverybody.com nails the sentiment in a way no one could have imagined: in photographs.

Or, rather, thousands of photographs. Of people. Ordinary people, grainy and crooked and funny and amateurish and honest and full of pathos and raw emotion and wry humor and surprising beauty and you want that connecting thread? That thing that unifies and makes you feel less alone and that helps you locate yourself in a country gone mad and lost and regressive? You can do no better than this.

And so far the site carries nearly 5,000 photos, with an apparent backlog of over 1,000 more ready to be uploaded and new ones coming in faster than the site's diverse gaggle of stunned creators -- namely, a sly neuroscience student from USC named James and his ragtag team of webmasters and designers from across the country -- ever dreamed. And the reaction has been, to put it mildly, overwhelming: a whopping 50 million hits to the site so far, moving nearly two terabytes of information. And growing fast.

And if a picture's worth a thousand words, then sorryeverybody.com is exploding with a few million very ardent expressions indeed, all echoing the same simple but heartbreaking sentiment and all, presumably, posted in the hope that the message will be somehow reach the eyeballs of the world, the countries so very and rightfully appalled and revolted by our apparent lack of vision.

It seems to be working. Pictures are apparently flooding into the site from around the world, full of messages of "It's OK" and "Thanks for trying" and "Just don't let it happen again" and it's even spawned a European response page called apologiesaccepted.com and this is when it hits you: this little gag site, unexpectedly, wonderfully, with its beautifully simple concept, might have actually stumbled on a way to do the impossible: it might just help heal our decimated international relationships and, quite possibly, do more for world diplomacy that Bush ever could, or ever will.

Is that taking things a bit far? Not really. Sure the site's cute. Sure it's a bit of a novelty. But it's also illuminating and deeply moving and 50 million hits in under two weeks is nothing short of staggering, and hence the creators are receiving reams of hate mail from the BushCo Right of sufficient vehemence and vitriol that it's even spawned a creepy 'n' crude "We're Not Sorry" countersite, with its handful of disturbing pics of rabid right-wingers displaying their, uh, raging pro-Bush myopia. So you know James and Co. are onto something.

After all, sorryeverybody.com has broken the cardinal rule of Bush's bitter neocon agenda: no matter what the atrocity, no matter the how grossly botched the war or how insidious the WMD lie or how debilitating the world-record deficit or how brutal the attack on the environment, if there's one thing the GOP simply does not do, it's apologize.

But this is what makes sorryeverybody.com so incredibly effective. It does what no column and no punditry and no news analysis and no Democratic weeping can possibly do, what the Kerry campaign failed to do, what no amount of verbal raging into the Void can manage: it puts a human face on the sadness.

A very real face, families and children, teenagers and the elderly, young couples and homosexuals and many, many disaffected liberal loners who are stuck like sad beacons way out in the middle of the red states and who desperately want the world to know they exist, that they're Americans, too, that they did their best to get the Smirking One out.

What's more, the pics, generally speaking, aren't raunchy. They aren't gross or hateful or puerile or full of screaming middle fingers or manly gun collections or people holding large kitchen knives or butane lighters up to Bush dolls in effigy.

They're just snapshots, candid and intimate and expressive and unretouched and often rather beautiful, taken in the living rooms and backyards and bedrooms and small towns of the country.

It's just people. It's just America. "Real" America. An enormous and enormously saddened half of this amazing country that's trying to reach out to the rest of the world and get the word out and mend its broken heart like at no other time in our generation's history. It's an expression of regret for what's been lost, for what we once were, for what we had hoped to become again but that has now been, well, at best delayed, at worst bludgeoned into a blind stupor.

The site proves that countless Americans still not only care enough to apologize for our country's massive errors of judgment, for our blind mistakes, but also are concerned about the effect those mistakes will have on others. As such, these pictures are perhaps the finest and most honest expressions of love for one's country you can find. And if that's not patriotic, nothing is.

WWW.SORRYEVERYBODY.COM

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Margaret Mead's words are truer
today than ever before!

  "Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful committed citizens can change the world.  Indeed it's the only thing that ever has." Margaret Mead

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

carolynconnection has obtained a theme song
Only a portion of song will download,
You can download whole song here

"Unamerican" by Ian Rhett
Ian Rhett is another Bob Dylan.

The Words To Unamerican

      v.1
Didn't know I was unamerican
For choosing to give a damn
Or unpatriotic
For daring to take a stand
For what I believe in
Looks like Freedom to me -
Expressions of Liberty
Wanting our America to be
A responsible hegemony

      v.2
Didn't know I was a communist
For wanting to share the wealth
It doesn't take an economist
To measure the cost of health
And what I believe in
Looks like heaven to me -
One Human Family
Where everybody's got enough to eat
And something warm to cover their feet

      v.3
Didn't know I'd be labeled a terrorist
For daring to speak my mind
It's becoming more precarious
For failing to tow the line
And what I believe in
Sounds like Freedom to me -
Like the Sons of Liberty
In 1773
Dumping 45 tons of tea

      v.4
Didn't know I was in the minority
Of people who love the Earth
I hope it becomes a priority
Before it gets any worse
And what I Believe In
Looks like heaven to me -
Where Angels take the shape of the tree
Giving us clean air to breathe
From the rivers to the mountains and seas...

      v.5
Didn't know I hated my country
For acknowledging the Truth
This war is dispicable profiteering
At the expense of our youth
And what I Believe In
Looks like heaven to me
All of humanity
Living as community
In relative harmony

I know it's just a song
But if the whole world sang along
How much longer would it be this way?

his work is ©2004 Ian Rhett and licensed
under a Creative Commons License
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Every daring attempt to make a great change
in existing conditions, every lofty vision of new
possibilities for the human race, has been labeled Utopian.

Idealists foolish enough to throw caution to the
winds have advanced mankind and have enriched the world.
Emma Goldman

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Here's an idea, we progressives should take a lesson from the protesters behind the democratic "orange revolution" in the Ukraine.  

START DYING OUR HAIR BLUE, WEAR A BLUE TIE AND LET US CALL IT THE BLUE REVOLUTION!  I can dream can't I, maybe a dream that could come true... Carolyn
PS:  Here's a start:  CHOOSE THE BLUE
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  OP-ED COLUMNIST
Let My People Go
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF Published: December 4, 2004  ---
 Columnist Page: Nicholas D. Kristof
Kristof Responds: The Columnist Addresses Readers' E-mail E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com
 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

IN HARD-LUCK MINING REGION, YANUKOVYCH WINS LOYALTY FOR PROVIDING MODEST, YET STABLE, SALARIES AND PENSIONS
ORANGE UKRAINE

KIEV, Ukraine — Here's a suggestion for President Bush from the protesters behind the democratic "orange revolution" here:

Orange is said to be the favourite colour of Mr Yushchenko because it reminds him of the sunrise over the Carpathian Mountains. Sources close to the opposition leader said the Western-leaning economist was genuinely surprised that so many people came out to support him.

Wear an orange tie.   "If he wore an orange tie, people here would be crying," said Yuri Maluta, a protester from Lviv. "It would show that the American president supports democracy here."  

The request says something about the lighthearted and pro-American spirit on the streets. Since my father grew up in what is now southwestern Ukraine, I decided to come here to join my people - and I found that waging revolution has rarely been such fun.  

Young people enveloped in orange scarves, hats and ribbons alternately chant slogans for freedom, boogie to rock music, eat oranges, warm up and flirt at McDonald's, and disappear into their downtown "tent city" to make love, not war.

  The protest organizers have placed gorgeous young women in the vanguard of confrontations with troops, so the troops will be too dazzled to club them.

  Most Ukrainians love the U.S., and to be an American here - any American - is to be a rock star. Protesters overhear me speaking English and line up to ask me to autograph their orange ribbons with a big "U.S.A."  

Yet for all the giddiness among the protesters here, particularly after the Supreme Court's landmark ruling in their favor yesterday, this is as much about Russia as it is about Ukraine. And the first thing to say is that Vladimir Putin has behaved utterly disgracefully.

  Mr. Putin seems to regard the Ukrainians as Russia's serfs, bound to obey the will of their master. Mr. Putin was a co-conspirator with Ukraine's outgoing president, Leonid Kuchma, to tilt the campaign and fix the election in favor of the pro-Moscow candidate, Viktor Yanukovich, whose criminal history (he served almost four years for robbery and assault as a young man) would make him a fine Putin stooge.

  Mr. Putin visited Ukraine twice during the campaign to help Mr. Yanukovich, used the Russian news media to promote him and then congratulated him publicly before the results of the stolen election had even been completely counted. President Bush and other Western leaders need to make it clear to Mr. Putin that he has no right to extend his quasi dictatorship to other peoples.  

Sure, it's traumatic for the Russians to have seen their country sink from a superpower to a third-rate economy whose old colonies are now busy joining NATO. But Mr. Putin has undermined Russian democracy, brutalized Chechnya and barely helped in curbing weapons of mass destruction. We don't need to be so solicitous of such a bully.

  I was among the crowds in Independence Square when images of Mr. Putin were shown on the huge screens. The crowd yelled a deafening "boo." We should be joining in.

  Colin Powell strongly denounced the rigged election, and Ukrainians will remember that American support with gratitude for a long time to come. But Mr. Bush and the White House haven't been as outspoken as either Mr. Powell or the Europeans, and that's a mistake. Mr. Bush is working through the Europeans, and especially the Poles, to achieve a solution, and he may fear that too public an American role would anger the Russians and revive the cold war. Those are fair concerns.

  But this is the moment of truth for Ukraine, when Mr. Putin is trying to thwart the challenger, Viktor Yushchenko, by squelching a democratic election, and we need to stand foursquare with the democrats.

  "Bush has to push more strongly and decisively on Ukraine to be democratic," said Bogdan Prysyazhnyuk, a young lawyer who is backing the orange revolution.

  "The Europeans are doing something, much more than Bush is," noted Natalya Slobodyan, a journalism student who, like many young women, has dyed her hair orange. That's a common view on the street, where the Europeans are seen as standing up to Mr. Putin. Mr. Bush's behind-the-scenes role is less appreciated.

  I'm glad that Europe is finally getting its act together, after bungling the breakup of Yugoslavia in the 1990's and studiously ignoring the catastrophe in Darfur this year. But when a historic tide is running in our favor, our president should be riding it at least abreast of the Europeans, not cheering them from the shore.

  Or he might at least choose an orange tie.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fat chance of that... Bush will never wear an Orange tie just like he would never wear a Blue (for
progression and peace) tie. Carolyn
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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