War, Politics, and Life by Bruce Maulden
“You can’t be afraid of words that speak the truth. I don’t like words that hide the truth. I don’t like words that conceal reality. I don’t like euphemisms or euphemistic language. And American English is loaded with euphemisms. Because Americans have a lot of trouble dealing with reality. Americans have trouble facing the truth,…
George W. Bush, president: “We don’t torture.” (November 2005) George Jr., nit-twit civilian: “I sanctioned torture of 9/11 mastermind.” (November 2010). Another excerpt from the US shame files was cut open this week with the New York Times release of some WikiLeaks documents on the nefarious Guantanamo Naval Base — most likely you’ve heard or…
An example of the fiscal foolishness of war. From Stars and Stripes: The Air Force secretary says the service has been spending about $4 million a day to keep 50 fighter jets and nearly 40 support aircraft in the Libya conflict, including the cost of munitions. Secretary Michael Donley tells reporters that the Air Force…
As these modern times gets more complicated, the ability of government to stare way-down into your bowels to catch a terrorist turd has come a long way, baby, and the future of freedom doesn’t appear too inconspicuous, either. In fact, any private aspect of our daily lives is open to be scrutinized, filmed, recorded and…
One giant, DUH! From Media Matters: Asked what most viewers and observers of Fox News would be surprised to learn about the controversial cable channel, a former insider from the world of Rupert Murdoch was quick with a response: “I don’t think people would believe it’s as concocted as it is; that stuff is just…
During these uprisings across northern Africa, a lot of talk has been about national security, or the nearly-mechanical catch-phrase, “police apparatus,’ which is just a soft-lotion locution for an ugly, nefarious secret cop operation. All strong-armed, dictator regimes must have these organizations or they couldn’t exist for very long — the Soviets had the old…
State of the propaganda of the US war machine. (Illustration found here). Paul Nash (1889-1946) created the above artwork in oil, titled: “We Are Making a New World.” And Nash had a horror epiphany while on the bloody Western Front. He wrote his wife in 1917 (from the link above): I have seen the most frightful…
One wonders at the wonder of technology. I moved last weekend — on Friday transferred the power and gas, and the telephone, to the new address (just a couple of blocks from the old one) in a matter of 120 minutes. My Internet provider, however, took three days to relocate the Web to my laptop’s…
Fright Friday: John McCain ratcheted-up national apprehension when on Friday, Aug. 29, 2008, he named Sarah Palin as his vice presidential running mate, blubbering: “She’s got the grit, integrity, good sense and fierce devotion to the common good that is exactly what we need in Washington today.” And from that frightful fatal day, US politics…
In the wake of Saturday’s Tucson shooting, it’s hard to find any kind of humor in the horror that’s been coming from the right side of the political aisle the last couple of years — the Safeway slaughter an incident indicating a mangled/reversed ‘put your action where your mouth is‘ kind of event. When you…