Heywood Ja Sacrifice Something?

From Heywood J's Hammer of the Blogs:

We have not even been asked to cut into our large-living ways; indeed, we've been encouraged to indulge them. Consumerism is what keeps this Ponzi economy afloat, that and dangerously bundled derivatives on the esoteric hedge-fund market. So instead of conserving and rationing, the way homefront Americans were glad to do in WW2, to be part of the cause, we continue to indulge and consume, and in particular waste oil profligately, as if we weren't over in the Middle East to -- at least in part, whether people can admit it to themselves or not -- secure our access and supply.

[snip]

This is replayed day after day, across the country, heedlessly, rhythmically, almost like a ginormous variation of musical chairs -- if they stopped, they would think about what they were doing, and reality might set in. And the heroic Chinese-made ribbon magnet might then not seem to be enough to justify driving a 3-ton, 10-mpg mini-RV to the post office or the Wal-Mart.

Sacrifice should be shared across the board, rich and poor, wherever possible. But mostly it appears to be two classes of people who need to start sacrificing proportionately to what they take -- the profiteering class and the mindless hyper-consumption class. (read the whole thing here)

When I travel to the midwest it is clear to me just how little impact this war actually has on many people, and sadly they can't see how their behavior could make a difference.

What if the President asked everyone to enlist? What if he went on the air and said:

"I don't want to have a draft, but we don't have enough troops. We need 500,000 more troops NOW to win this thing. I won't let my successor take on this burden and they way they are talking, they will leave. In my mind leaving is losing. So I'm asking every able bodied man and woman to enlist in the armed forces. If you are between 17 and 42 you can enlist in the army. And I'm going to ask the military contractors to leave Blackwater and related firms and re-enlist in the armed forces."

What if he specifically asked the rich to send their money and their children to fight? Maybe he could call people who didn't go to war, unpatriotic? He would demand that people who make excessive profit from the war that they are America haters and traitors. People who have avoided taxes by going offshore will be identified and vilified.

"If you can't serve yourself, ask your child to serve.
If your child can't serve, ask your relatives to serve.
If you can't serve, have no children or relatives serving, send us your money.
If you have children and relatives already serving, God bless you.

We need more than just your taxes. To win we need your savings and then we need some more. If we don't get it, we will lose and we will be attacked and many of you will die. What good will your money do you if you are dead? Everyone who has a yellow ribbon on their car or a flag in their heart should be willing to send us more than just your tax dollars.

I pledged not to raise taxes, but I never said I couldn't ask the people to voluntarily give more. We need 900 billion more to win.

I'm asking the middle classes --those making between $30,000-350,000 a year-- to send us 5 percent of your GROSS income to help pay for this global war on terror. This is on top of your taxes, that I will remind you, I haven't raised. Those making $350,000-2,500,000? I'm asking you for 10 percent. If you are fortunate enough to make 2.5 million to 25 million we need 15 percent of your gross. 25 million and up. 20 percent. If you try and cheat on this and leave the country or lie on your taxes I'll consider you a traitor and unpatriotic. I'm going to ask the people who supported this effort in the beginning to be the first to give. If you were on board and supporting me in 2003 I know I can count on you now. Right now I'm going over the lists of all the Bush Rangers, radio talk show hosts, Fox news anchors, and PNAC members. If you have flipped flop on your support of me and this war, shame on you. Only liberals flip flop and don't follow what their duly elected President says. Especially when it comes to matters of National Security--which everyone agrees is the responsibility of the executive branch.

Yes, you can question the percent that I'm asking, but if you do, you obviously don't want America to win and don't deserve your freedom. Freedom's not free and right now you aren't paying your fair share. The people who won't have to pay this voluntary extra money? The people who have a spouse or child serving in the armed forces.

Why do we need your money now? Several reasons. The first reason is that sacrifice in the global war against terror is only borne by a small part of America, and that has to stop. We are better than that.

Another is that the cost of this war is forcing us to do things detrimental of the health of America. For example, right now America is beholden to China. China is the bank and we are charging this war on the credit card they issued us. In return we are forced to eat their poisoned food and accept their untested vitamins and drugs. We don't like to talk about this, but that was part of the deal China made with us when they agreed to pay for the war. The "interest" we pay is accepting the goods they send us, with nothing more than cursory checks on the food. Their system is so dangerous and corrupt that they sentenced the head of their FDA to death. It was a price I was willing to pay on your behalf because I didn't think they would really sell us that much poisoned food, but I was wrong. I won't allow Americans to die because we had to eat poison food to pay for this war. If we want to get out from under our debt, we need more money. And we can't just cut China off, if we do they will retaliate economically and our economy will crash. Specifically our largest employer, Wal-Mart, will crash, and I can't let that happen.


I love to hear the phrase Freedom isn't free from people because those people know that they need to pay their fair share. And this will be enforced by the IRS.

Starting on July 4th the IRS will be be undergoing a radical shift in focus to the top one tenth of one percent, so anyone who isn't making over 2.5 million a year doesn't need to worry. That doesn't mean they won't still be doing the rest of their work on regular tax payers, but if you try to hide your income in foreign banks or with tricks, we will find you and punish you. Also, no companies that are incorporated out side of the US and who aren't paying their fair share of taxes,will get Government contracts.

And we will know if these people and companies aren't paying taxes.

I will use my authority under the Patriot Act to post the names of American citizens and companies who have NOT paid their taxes, voluntarily given more or enlisted. The first list will be all members of this administration and all Republican elected officials. The next list will be all corporations that have been been employed by the government in the global war on terror.

If we can't do this for our country then we don't deserve the trust of the people. It's a small price to pay for our freedom and liberty.

Bush Image Control. That is NOT a Beer!

U.S. President George W. Bush (C) is joined by President of the Washington Nationals' Stan Kasten (L) and Nationals' General Manager Jim Bowden as they watch the Washington Nationals' baseball team play in Washington, July 5, 2007. REUTERS/Jim Young (UNITED STATES)

When Pansypoo over at First-Draft saw this image her question was:
A. "who does he think he's fooling?"

Q. The media. And 28 percent of the people all of the time.

I'm glad nobody asked him what it was. I'm sure we would have a logical explanation like the bump in his jacket, during the debate. And the media would just look silly asking the question, and it would be disrespectful, and not relevant. Because they really want to focus on serious stuff like haircuts. No, they don't care what an alcoholic is drinking out of a paper bag at a ball game. Because EVEN if it was beer, I'm sure that they would easily find a reason to excuse it.

WingNut Excuses if it was Revealed Bush was Drinking Again

1. It's not a crime to drink beer!
   
   
2. Prove it.
   
   
3. Show us the empty can.
   
   
4. You can't prove it can you?
   
   
5. State your sources
   
   
6. You have no proof.
   
   
7. It was near beer anyway. I'll bet you want to test the left over liquid to confirm it really was near beer. Tin foil hat time!
   
   
8. Just because the President occasionally has a drink doesn't make him an alcoholic. He never admitted to being an alcoholic anyway.
   
   
9. I suppose you want a special investigator to find out "the truth".
   
   
10. The AA method of never drinking again is not the only way to deal with alcoholism. Besides, the President never attended AA meetings.
    
    
11. I thought the liberals would have more sympathy, you are always calling it a disease, maybe your compassion only applies to people who are Hollywood liberals like Lindsey Lohan who go to rehab and get a free pass.
    
    
12. Hey didn't your beloved "San Francisco Values" Mayor have a drinking problem? You don't kick him out of office for it or his woman problems.
    
    
13. You are hypocrites if you don' t demand that Gavin resign for his drinking problem! Besides do you really think that they would let Bush drink in public?
    
    
14. This is a non-issue and the fact that liberals are focusing on it proves they have no new ideas or solutions.
    
    
15. They just hate our troops and many of the troops voted for Bush because he's their kind of guy, a beer drinkin' guy.
    
    
16. He's the kind of guy you could have a beer with, you are just jealous because nobody wanted to have a beer with Al Gore or John Kerry.
    
    
17. Hillary probably says she drinks beer, but really drinks Cosmopolitans or Mojitos like those gay men and women in Sex in the City.
    
    
18. A real Presidential candidate would drink American beer, or whiskey, neat. That's what Fred Thompson drinks.
    
    
19. In heaven, where Bush is going, there is no beer. That's why he drinks it here.
    
    
20. Bush is just getting back to his roots as a guy who drinks beer with other real men.
    
    
21. I don't see what the problem is, it's not like he is "on-duty".
    
    
22. He wasn't drunk! There were no breath tests! There was no proof of his BAC! Besides, in case of an emergency President Cheney would have acted.
    
    
23. It's not like there were any real US threats the week of the Fourth of July anyway. The US threats were vague and didn't tell the date, time, or methods of attack. The threats are all over in Britain, Iraq and Afghanistan because we are safe here because he's the President.
    
    
24. When Hillary is President we won't be safe and all the Presidential soberness in the world won't stop the terrorists from attacking once she is President and wants to "use her words."
    
    
25. I'm sure it's a one time thing.
    
    
26. Now I suppose you will bring up the pretzel incident, can't you people "move on" and get over it all ready?
    
    
27. Lots of sober people get a pretzel caught in their throat, pass out and hit their head on a coffee table. Alcohol had NOTHING to do with it.
    
    
28. On WorldNetDaily and in the Washington Times they have hundreds of stories about people passing out from pretzels, but the drive by media never report on it so you never hear about it. You only hear about it on Drudge, talk radio and Fox-- thank god they exist or we would never know anything.
    
    
29. There goes your Bush Derangement Syndrome!
    
    
30. You call Rush a drug addict all the time, where is your compassion for him and his substance abuse problems?
    
    
31. Rush was sympathetic to Al Gore III for his drug and speeding problem, where was your sympathy for Rush?
    
    
32. Shouldn't you give us credit because Rush has sympathy for Al Gore III?
    
    
33. Haven't you ever drank a beer on a hot day?
    
    
34. Let me guess, you drink a Pink Lady when it's hot outside.
    
    
35. I'll bet John Edward's drinks mint "jewlips" or Pink Ladies when he goes to polo matches, he wouldn't be caught watching a real man's sport.
    
    
36. Did you notice it was an American beer Bush drank, not some foo foo French beer?
    
    
37. The bag was there to cover up the near beer because the moonbats went nuts over the shot of him drinking the near beer in Germany. The White House just wanted to avoid useless speculation from crackpots with keyboards.
    
    
38. Why shouldn't the President be able to drink a beer like the regular guys at the park?
    
    
39. This will actually boost his ratings., everyone sort of likes guys who drink beer at the ball game, except for the real whack-jobs.

Police Baffled By Bottle-Shaped Paper Bag

April 21, 1999 | Issue 35•15

BRIDGEPORT, CT—Local police officials are "utterly baffled" by a bottle-shaped paper bag that local resident Jimmy Kilty held while sitting on an East Side strip-mall bench Monday.

"It's a real mystery," said Sgt. Ted Vittorio of the Bridgeport Police Department. "Judging from the way he kept putting the paper bag up to his mouth, you'd think he was drinking something out of it. But obviously he wasn't, since paper can't hold liquid. It would soak right through instantly."

Vittorio said he was making his normal patrol of the area when he noticed Kilty clutching the strange bag.

"It's part of my job to monitor for loitering and public intoxication, so when I spotted Kilty sitting on the bench, I slowed down to survey the scene," Vittorio said. "I thought maybe he was drinking, but, as it turned out, he was just repeatedly putting a paper bag up to his face. Such behavior may be strange, but it's certainly not illegal, so I moved on."

Enlarge Image

The mysterious paper bag that has confounded Sgt. Ted Vittorio (inset) and other police officers.

Read the rest of this Onion story here. The Onion, America's Finest News Source.

UPDATED 07/07/07: Added a few excuses I expect to hear and I formated them to be easier to read.
("They Moonbats edit the posts where they make up stuff because they can't handle criticism.")

Remember Bush's Plan to Create an Excuse to Attack Iraq?

I'm reading Joe Conason's brilliant new book "It Can Happen Here" and he points out that in 2003 Bush wanted a war so much that he concocted a plan to give him an excuse to attack.

The notes of a secret meeting between the president and British prime minister Tony Blair on January 31, 2003, show that Bush wanted to lure the Iraq dictator into a fatal error with a simple trick. Concerned that the U.N. weapons inspectors who ad returned to Iraq were failing to find any hidden weapons that would justify the invasion schedule for March, he told Blair that the United States might send "U-2 reconnaissance planes with fighter cover over Iraq, painted in UN colors..If Saddam fired on them, he would be in breach [of U.N. resolutions]" And despite the absence of any forbidden weapons, the Anglo-American coalition would seize the excuse to invade.

[snip]
Three years later, Bush's scheme to lure Iraq into an armed provocation was revealed on the front page of the New York Times. Neither the British nor the American government denied the story.

One of the things that you learn from reading about these people is that they keep using the same tricks over and over again. And part of the trick is setting up a world view that gives them "permission" to do what they want. Then what they want to do is seen as "inevitable." Blair can say, "We HAD to do it. We REALLY want peace, but they hit our guys first, we just HAD to attack."

Will this be the Media's "Remember the Maine" Moment?
Remember the Maine! (But what about the Maine? The part were it was blown up because of an internal coal bunker fire (as the 1976 Rickover investigation believed) or the part where Hearst and the media wanted the American people to believe that the Spanish blew it up? Different investigations in 1898, 1911 and 1999 have lead to different conclusions. (link)


People who attack because they don't want to be seen as weak ARE the weak ones. What kind of man is more afraid of some name callers than taking effective action that will save lives and won't lead to a huge unneccessary conflict?