Craw: The thin-walled expanded portion of the alimentary tract, used for the storage of food prior to digestion, that is found in of a bird or insect
I must have an expansive craw that is as big as the bladder of an elephant. Yesterday two statements lodged. Explosive dislodging is in order.
From David Crisp at Billings Blog, writing about a post by Professor Rob Natelson at Electric City Weblog: :
I am not as far to the left as Mr. Natelson is to the right, but I admit that I saw elements of what looked like fascism to me in the Bush administration. We invaded countries that hadn’t attacked us; we then ran the conquered countries with an almost seamless marriage of corporate, military and governmental interests. We suspended, without admitting it, habeas corpus. We adopted torture for the first time in American history. We taunted prisoners’ religious and cultural beliefs. We ignored and insulted allies. It’s the closest thing to fascism I have ever seen in America.
American journalists need to be focused and attentive, but there is more to it than that. They also have to wear blinders, and steadily focus only on acceptable subject matter. Otherwise, they move on to a new profession, say, house painting.
The most important part of the job of the American journalist is not to know certain things, and most of them are very good at their jobs. Crisp is one I have always thought saw those things he was not supposed to see. I thought of him as a man with a good eye and a flare for a pithy phase.
Yesterday I shed my illusions. Crisp noticed things under Bush that he hadn’t seen before:
We invaded countries that hadn’t attacked us…
Just in my lifetime: Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada, Panama, Serbia, Bosnia. Afghanistan. All before Bush. I’ll shorten the list by not mentioning those countries we attacked without full scale invasion.
we then ran the conquered countries with an almost seamless marriage of corporate, military and governmental interests.
This strains credulity. I’ll limit my scope to one small area where we have run the affairs of other countries with that seamless marriage: The Western Hemisphere. Every single country, including Canada, who we harassed and invaded on several occasions in our early history. It’s been going on since the days when John Quincy Adams said that Cuba would fall into our hands like “ripe fruit”.
We taunted prisoners’ religious and cultural beliefs.
OK – I’ll give him this one. This is an area where I suspect Crisp may be right – in the past, the U.S. has not been racist nor has it picked out any one religion or culture for special humiliation. We’ve been indifferent as to whether the target of our animus was white or black or Hispanic, Christian or Muslim or Hindu. We go after everybody.
Finally,
We adopted torture for the first time in American history.
Crisp’s blog, like mine, is not widely read. Were it, there’d be guffaws and explosive snot rockets from Panama City to Khartoum, Hanoi to Athens. It’s a long way from here to tiger cages, and none of those poor Vietnamese schmucks who were dropped from helicopters after interrogation lived to tell their story.
Yes, Mr. Crisp, the U.S. does not torture. Never did before, doesn’t now, and won’t continue to do so in the coming decades. I’ve got a bridge in my backyard … give it to you for a song ….
The saddest part of this is not just one lonely editor in Billings – it is the entire Democratic Party who thinks that Obama has cleaned up our act. All the tricorders have now been turned off. All is calm on the starship. We’re not curious anymore.
Enough. Here’s the other insect caught in my craw: “Just a Citizen” writing at Electric City Weblog:
Not sure the age of empires is over. They may look different but still be an empire.
This might actually be insightful and observant. JAC might see something that none on the right or the housebroken left can see. The United States is an empire. However, read further:
Think what the cultural Nation of Islam might look like in 40 years, given current demographic trends in Europe and N. America.
‘Nuff said.
Piece of Mindful 
Mark, you do a great job over at smitty’s site. The talk of secession is truly amazing crazy talk, and I believe that crazy talk should not go uncontested. I wrote, but was immediately taken down as usual, just WHAT the benefits of secession would be for Montana. I asked this moronic awe person (I can’t STAND pretend Indians who use their supposed Indian names) to list just TEN benefits of secession to Montana. I have yet to see a reponse. You see, I don’t think that these so-called secessionists have even THOUGHT about what they are proposing. If it is such a great idea, WHY is it such a great idea? And since it IS such a great idea, one would THINK that coming up with ten reasons would be a piece of cake. Ask’em for me. I’d really like to know. Let’s see if they thought that far.
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Tricorders are not only off, they’ve been thrown into the river. Via W.Post.
>>The headquarters of Murtech, in a low-slung, bland building in a Glen Burnie business park, has its blinds drawn tight and few signs of life. On several days of visits, a handful of cars sit in the parking lot, and no trucks arrive at the 10 loading bays at the back of the building.
Yet last year, Murtech received $4 million in Pentagon work, all of it without competition, for a variety of warehousing and engineering services. With its long corridor of sparsely occupied offices and an unmanned reception area, Murtech’s most striking feature is its owner — Robert C. Murtha Jr., 49. He is the nephew of Rep. John P. Murtha, the Pennsylvania Democrat who has significant sway over the Defense Department’s spending as chairman of the House Appropriations defense subcommittee.
Robert Murtha said he is not at liberty to discuss in detail what his company does, but for four years it has subsisted on defense contracts, according to records and interviews. He said Murtech’s 17 employees “provide necessary logistical support” to Pentagon testing programs that focus on detecting chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threats, “and that’s about as far as I feel comfortable going.” Giving more details could provide important clues to terrorist plotters, he said.<<
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From Days of Caves in Living Rock
of Stone-Tipped Spear and Tomahawk
From Saber Tooth and Mastodon
through Years of Bronze and Years of Iron
Crossbow, Sword, and Battleaxe
Dungeons Deep and Torture Racks
To Gunpowder and Musketry
Bayonet and Artillery
Thor Frowned and Then
Poison Gas in the Ardennes
Machinegun Belts and TNT
Tank Columns and Infantry
Phantom Jets and Flak-Filled Skies
Napalm and a Child Cries
Pestilence, War, Famine,
it’s Armageddon
When at Last We Face the Beast
I Sing the Song of the Warrior Priest!
PJC, 1991
War and its atrocities are inevitable Mark, as proved thru the sands of time. To say in your perfect world all injustices vanish is frankly, lunacy.
If repbs and dems are flawed then please enlighten us, or to quote Milton, “Who then are these angels”, to lead us into peace and prosperity.
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You have done what is always done when it is pointed out that the U.S., like all imperial powers before it, is brutal. Where before you might have said that we were somehow different, a force for good in the world, now you beat a strategic retreat and say “Yes, it is so, it is always so, so why are you harping away?”
Stand your ground. If we are different and better, defend yourself. If we are just like everyone before us, stop with the patriotic blather.
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DAMN! Sorry to swear, but I’m STILL waiting for those Pubbie Top Ten reasons that secession would be a great idea for Montana! Methinks the the little righties took a BIG dump with this one. They really look silly. Smitty, Yaweh, the Nutty Perv, Bobo Nasalsound. It appears that in SPITE of their insistence on Montana leaving the United States, not ONE of them can list ten reasons for doing so! If the reasons are SO compelling that we need the legal means to do so, WHERE ARE THE REASONS for doing so? Guess that when you’re outta of ideas, all you got left is goofiness! They truly are rebels without a clue, OR reasons. Guess I’ll just wait here until I see’em.
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p.s. Maybe Big Weed would be so bold as to list’em. That is, IF he favors secession too. How bout it, Weed?
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