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Our Enemies Are Right Here

 

Soapbox

Russia state-controlled media

  · YtSeScstpseoarnadays athtuod lcflh1:i00rrl iSPemdlM  · 

“My name is Mike Prysner. I joined the Army and went for basic training on my 18th birthday in June of 2001. I was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division and in March of 2003 I was attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade deployed to northern Iraq.

So when I first joined the Army, we were told that racism no longer existed in the military. A legacy of inequality and discrimination was suddenly washed away by something called the "Equal Opportunity Program." We would sit through mandatory classes and every unit had this EO representative to ensure that no elements of racism could resurface. The Army seemed firmly dedicated to smashing any hint of racism. And then September 11th happened and I began to hear new words like "towelhead" and "camel jockey" and the most disturbing, "sand n****r." And these words did not initially come from my fellow soldiers but from my superiors. My platoon sergeant, my company first sergeant, battalion commander. All the way up the chain of command these terms, these viciously racist terms were suddenly acceptable.

And I noticed that the most overt racism came from veterans of the first Gulf War. And those were the words they used when incinerating civilian convoys. Those were the words they used when this government delivered any targeting of civilian infrastructure; bombing water supplies knowing it would kill hundreds of thousands of children. Those are the words the American people used when they allowed this government to sanction Iraq. And this is something many people forget. And we can’t forget.

We’ve just learned that we’ve killed over a million Iraqis since the invasion. But we already killed a million Iraqis in the ’90s through sanctions and bombings prior to this invasion. But the number is truly much higher.

When I got to Iraq in 2003 I learned a new word and that word was “Hajji.” Hajji was the enemy. Hajji was every Iraqi. He was not a person, a father, a teacher, or a worker. And it’s important, we’ve heard this word a lot during Winter Soldier but it’s important to understand where this word came from and to Muslims the most important thing is to take a pilgrimage to Mecca. It’s the Haj. And taking this pilgrimage is the Hajji. And, it’s something in traditional Islam that is the highest calling in their religion. So we took the best thing from Muslim and made it into the worst thing.

But, history did not start with us and since the creation of this country, racism has been used to justify expansion and oppression. The Native Americans were called savages. The Africans were called all sorts of things to excuse slavery. And Vietnam veterans know of the multitude of words used to justify that imperialist war. So, Hajji was the word we used… it was the word we used on this particular mission I’m going to talk about and we’ve heard a lot about different raids and kicking down doors of people’s houses and ransacking their houses. But this mission was a different kind of raid. I never got any explanation for these orders. We were only told that this group of houses, of five or six houses, were now property of the US military and we had to go in and make those families leave those houses.

So, we went to these houses and informed the families that those homes were no longer their homes. We provided them no alternative, nowhere to go, no compensation. And they were very confused and very scared and did not know what to do, would not leave, so we had to remove them from those houses. One family in particular, a woman with two small girls, very elderly man and two middle-aged men, we dragged them out of their house and threw them onto the street and arrested the men because they refused to leave. We arrested the old man and sent them off to prison. And, at that time I didn’t know what happened to people when we tied their hands behind their back and put a sandbag over their head.

Unfortunately, a few months later, I had to find out. We were short interrogators so I was assigned to work as an interrogator. I oversaw and participated in hundreds of interrogations. One in particular I’m going to share was a moment for me that really showed me the nature of this occupation. This particular detainee… when I was sent to interrogate him he was stripped down to his underwear, hands behind his back, and sandbag on his head. I never actually saw this man’s face. My job was to take this metal folding chair and just smash it against the wall next to his head, he was faced against the wall with his nose touching the wall while a fellow soldier asked the same questions over and over again, no matter what his answer, my job was to slam this chair against the wall.

We did this until, basically, we got tired. And, I was told to make sure he stood against the wall for however long I was guarding this prisoner. My job was to make sure he kept standing up. But I noticed that there was something wrong with his leg and he was injured and he kept, like, falling to the ground. And the sergeant in charge would come and tell me to get him up on his feet so I’d have to pick him up and put him against the wall and he kept going down and I’d have to keep pulling him up and putting him against the wall. And my sergeant came around and he was upset with me for not, you know, continuing to make him to stand. He picked him up and slammed him against the wall several times and then he left and when the man went down on the ground again I notice blood pouring down from under the sandbag. And so I let him sit and I noticed my sergeant coming again and I would tell him quickly to stand up and I realized that I was supposed to be guarding my unit from this detainee but I realized at that moment that I was guarding the detainee from my unit. I tried hard to be proud of my service but all I could feel was shame. Racism could no longer mask the occupation. These were people. These were human beings. I’ve since been plagued by guilt anytime I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn’t walk and we rolled onto a stretcher, told the Iraqi police to take him away. I feel guilt anytime I see a mother with her children like the one who cried hysterically and screamed that we were worse than Saddam as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street.

We were told we were fighting terrorists, but the real terrorist was me and the real terrorism is this occupation. Racism within the military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country. It has long been used to justify the killing, subjugation, and torture of another people. Racism is a vital weapon deployed by this government. It is a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank, a bomber or a battleship. It is more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster, or a tomahawk missile. While all of those weapons are created and owned by this government, they are harmless without people willing to use them.

Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger or lob a mortar round. They do not have to fight the war. They merely have to sell the war. They need a public who is willing to send their soldiers into harm’s way and they need soldiers who are willing to kill or be killed without question. They can spend millions on a single bomb, but that bomb only becomes a weapon when the ranks in the military are willing to follow orders to use it. They can send every last soldier anywhere on earth, but there will only be a war if soldiers are willing to fight, and the ruling class: the billionaires who profit from human suffering care only about expanding their wealth, controlling the world economy, understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression, and exploitation is in our interests. They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die to control the market of another country. And convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior. Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, have nothing to gain from this occupation.

The vast majority of people living in the US have nothing to gain from this occupation. In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain, but we suffer more because of it. We lose limbs, endure trauma, and give our lives. Our families have to watch flag draped coffins lowered into the earth. Millions in this country without health care, jobs, or access to education must watch this government squander over $450 million a day on this occupation. Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in another country to make the rich richer, and without racism soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who send us to war.

I threw families onto the street in Iraq only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country in this tragic, tragic and unnecessary foreclosure crisis; only to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land. Not people whose names we don’t know, and cultures we don’t understand. The enemy is people we know very well and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable. The enemy is the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it’s profitable; it’s the insurance companies who deny us health care when it’s profitable; it’s the banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable. Our enemies are not 5,000 miles away, they are right here at home. If we organize and fight with our sisters and brothers, we can stop this war, we can stop this government, and we can create a better world.”

Soapbox

Russia state-controlled media

  · YtSeScstpseoarnadays athtuod lcflh1:i00rrl iSPemdlM  · 

“My name is Mike Prysner. I joined the Army and went for basic training on my 18th birthday in June of 2001. I was assigned to the 10th Mountain Division and in March of 2003 I was attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade deployed to northern Iraq.

So when I first joined the Army, we were told that racism no longer existed in the military. A legacy of inequality and discrimination was suddenly washed away by something called the "Equal Opportunity Program." We would sit through mandatory classes and every unit had this EO representative to ensure that no elements of racism could resurface. The Army seemed firmly dedicated to smashing any hint of racism. And then September 11th happened and I began to hear new words like "towelhead" and "camel jockey" and the most disturbing, "sand n****r." And these words did not initially come from my fellow soldiers but from my superiors. My platoon sergeant, my company first sergeant, battalion commander. All the way up the chain of command these terms, these viciously racist terms were suddenly acceptable.

And I noticed that the most overt racism came from veterans of the first Gulf War. And those were the words they used when incinerating civilian convoys. Those were the words they used when this government delivered any targeting of civilian infrastructure; bombing water supplies knowing it would kill hundreds of thousands of children. Those are the words the American people used when they allowed this government to sanction Iraq. And this is something many people forget. And we can’t forget.

We’ve just learned that we’ve killed over a million Iraqis since the invasion. But we already killed a million Iraqis in the ’90s through sanctions and bombings prior to this invasion. But the number is truly much higher.

When I got to Iraq in 2003 I learned a new word and that word was “Hajji.” Hajji was the enemy. Hajji was every Iraqi. He was not a person, a father, a teacher, or a worker. And it’s important, we’ve heard this word a lot during Winter Soldier but it’s important to understand where this word came from and to Muslims the most important thing is to take a pilgrimage to Mecca. It’s the Haj. And taking this pilgrimage is the Hajji. And, it’s something in traditional Islam that is the highest calling in their religion. So we took the best thing from Muslim and made it into the worst thing.

But, history did not start with us and since the creation of this country, racism has been used to justify expansion and oppression. The Native Americans were called savages. The Africans were called all sorts of things to excuse slavery. And Vietnam veterans know of the multitude of words used to justify that imperialist war. So, Hajji was the word we used… it was the word we used on this particular mission I’m going to talk about and we’ve heard a lot about different raids and kicking down doors of people’s houses and ransacking their houses. But this mission was a different kind of raid. I never got any explanation for these orders. We were only told that this group of houses, of five or six houses, were now property of the US military and we had to go in and make those families leave those houses.

So, we went to these houses and informed the families that those homes were no longer their homes. We provided them no alternative, nowhere to go, no compensation. And they were very confused and very scared and did not know what to do, would not leave, so we had to remove them from those houses. One family in particular, a woman with two small girls, very elderly man and two middle-aged men, we dragged them out of their house and threw them onto the street and arrested the men because they refused to leave. We arrested the old man and sent them off to prison. And, at that time I didn’t know what happened to people when we tied their hands behind their back and put a sandbag over their head.

Unfortunately, a few months later, I had to find out. We were short interrogators so I was assigned to work as an interrogator. I oversaw and participated in hundreds of interrogations. One in particular I’m going to share was a moment for me that really showed me the nature of this occupation. This particular detainee… when I was sent to interrogate him he was stripped down to his underwear, hands behind his back, and sandbag on his head. I never actually saw this man’s face. My job was to take this metal folding chair and just smash it against the wall next to his head, he was faced against the wall with his nose touching the wall while a fellow soldier asked the same questions over and over again, no matter what his answer, my job was to slam this chair against the wall.

We did this until, basically, we got tired. And, I was told to make sure he stood against the wall for however long I was guarding this prisoner. My job was to make sure he kept standing up. But I noticed that there was something wrong with his leg and he was injured and he kept, like, falling to the ground. And the sergeant in charge would come and tell me to get him up on his feet so I’d have to pick him up and put him against the wall and he kept going down and I’d have to keep pulling him up and putting him against the wall. And my sergeant came around and he was upset with me for not, you know, continuing to make him to stand. He picked him up and slammed him against the wall several times and then he left and when the man went down on the ground again I notice blood pouring down from under the sandbag. And so I let him sit and I noticed my sergeant coming again and I would tell him quickly to stand up and I realized that I was supposed to be guarding my unit from this detainee but I realized at that moment that I was guarding the detainee from my unit. I tried hard to be proud of my service but all I could feel was shame. Racism could no longer mask the occupation. These were people. These were human beings. I’ve since been plagued by guilt anytime I see an elderly man, like the one who couldn’t walk and we rolled onto a stretcher, told the Iraqi police to take him away. I feel guilt anytime I see a mother with her children like the one who cried hysterically and screamed that we were worse than Saddam as we forced her from her home. I feel guilt anytime I see a young girl like the one I grabbed by the arm and dragged into the street.

We were told we were fighting terrorists, but the real terrorist was me and the real terrorism is this occupation. Racism within the military has long been an important tool to justify the destruction and occupation of another country. It has long been used to justify the killing, subjugation, and torture of another people. Racism is a vital weapon deployed by this government. It is a more important weapon than a rifle, a tank, a bomber or a battleship. It is more destructive than an artillery shell, or a bunker buster, or a tomahawk missile. While all of those weapons are created and owned by this government, they are harmless without people willing to use them.

Those who send us to war do not have to pull a trigger or lob a mortar round. They do not have to fight the war. They merely have to sell the war. They need a public who is willing to send their soldiers into harm’s way and they need soldiers who are willing to kill or be killed without question. They can spend millions on a single bomb, but that bomb only becomes a weapon when the ranks in the military are willing to follow orders to use it. They can send every last soldier anywhere on earth, but there will only be a war if soldiers are willing to fight, and the ruling class: the billionaires who profit from human suffering care only about expanding their wealth, controlling the world economy, understand that their power lies only in their ability to convince us that war, oppression, and exploitation is in our interests. They understand that their wealth is dependent on their ability to convince the working class to die to control the market of another country. And convincing us to kill and die is based on their ability to make us think that we are somehow superior. Soldiers, sailors, marines, airmen, have nothing to gain from this occupation.

The vast majority of people living in the US have nothing to gain from this occupation. In fact, not only do we have nothing to gain, but we suffer more because of it. We lose limbs, endure trauma, and give our lives. Our families have to watch flag draped coffins lowered into the earth. Millions in this country without health care, jobs, or access to education must watch this government squander over $450 million a day on this occupation. Poor and working people in this country are sent to kill poor and working people in another country to make the rich richer, and without racism soldiers would realize that they have more in common with the Iraqi people than they do with the billionaires who send us to war.

I threw families onto the street in Iraq only to come home and find families thrown onto the street in this country in this tragic, tragic and unnecessary foreclosure crisis; only to wake up and realize that our real enemies are not in some distant land. Not people whose names we don’t know, and cultures we don’t understand. The enemy is people we know very well and people we can identify. The enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable. The enemy is the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it’s profitable; it’s the insurance companies who deny us health care when it’s profitable; it’s the banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable. Our enemies are not 5,000 miles away, they are right here at home. If we organize and fight with our sisters and brothers, we can stop this war, we can stop this government, and we can create a better world.”

Mike Prysner, Anti-war Veteran Twitter: @MikePrysner
Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Prysner

Let the people vote

 

The Big Lie

 March 24, 2021 (Wednesday)

Last night, federal prosecutors filed a motion revealing that a leader of the paramilitary group the Oath Keepers claimed to be coordinating with the Proud Boys and another far-right group before the January 6 insurrection. 

After former President Donald Trump tweeted that his supporters should travel to Washington, D.C., on January 6 for a rally that “will be wild!,” Kelly Meggs, a member of the Oath Keepers, wrote on Facebook: “He wants us to make it WILD that’s what he’s saying. He called us all to the Capitol and wants us to make it wild!!! Sir Yes Sir!!! Gentlemen we are heading to DC pack your s***!!” 

In a series of messages, Meggs went on to make plans with another individual for an attack on the process of counting the electoral votes. On December 25, Meggs told his correspondent that “Trumps staying in, he’s Gonna use the emergency broadcast system on cell phones to broadcast to the American people. Then he will claim the insurrection act…. Then wait for the 6th when we are all in DC to insurrection.”

The Big Lie, pushed hard by Trump and his supporters, was that Trump had won the 2020 election and it had been stolen by the Democrats. Although this was entirely discredited in more than 60 lawsuits, the Big Lie inspired Trump supporters to rally to defend their president and, they thought, their country. 

The former president not only inspired them to fight for him; he urged them to send money to defend his election in the courts. A story today by Allan Smith of NBC News shows that as soon as Trump began to ask for funds to bankroll election challenges, supporters who later charged the Capitol began to send him their money. Smith’s investigation found that those who have been charged in the Capitol riot increased their political donations to Trump by about 75% after the election. 

In the 19 days after the election, Trump and the Republican National Committee took in more than $207 million, prompted mostly by their claims of election fraud. John Horgan, who runs the Violent Extremism Research Group at Georgia State University, told Smith that “Trump successfully convinced many of his followers that unless they acted, and acted fast, their very way of life was about to come to an end…. He presented a catastrophic scenario whereby if the election was — for him — lost, his followers would suffer as a result. He made action not just imperative, but urgent, convincing his followers that they needed to do everything they could now, rather than later, to prevent the ‘enemy’ from claiming victory.”

And yet, on Monday, Trump’s former lawyer, Sidney Powell, moved to dismiss the Dominion Voting Systems defamation lawsuit against her. Powell helped to craft the Big Lie, and won the president’s attention with her determination to combat the results of the election and restore Trump to the presidency. In January, Dominion sued Powell for $1.3 billion after her allegations that the company was part of an international Communist plot to steal the 2020 presidential election. 

On Monday, Powell argued that “no reasonable person would conclude” that her statements about a scheme to rig the election “were truly statements of fact.” Eric Wilson, a Republican political technologist, explained away the Big Lie to NBC News’s Smith: “[T]here are a lot of dumb people in the world…. And a lot of them stormed the Capitol on January 6th.”

And yet, 147 Republicans—8 senators and 139 representatives—signed onto the Big Lie, voting to sustain objections to the counting of the electoral votes on January 6. 

So the Republicans are left with increasing evidence that there was a concerted plan to attack the Capitol on January 6, fed by the former president, whose political campaign pocketed serious cash from his declarations that he had truly won the election and that all patriots would turn out to defend his reelection. Those claims were pressed by a lawyer who now claims that no reasonable person would believe she was telling the truth.

The Republicans tied themselves to this mess, and it is coming back to haunt them. President Biden’s poll numbers are high, with a Reuters/Ipsos poll released last Friday showing that 59% of adults approve of Biden’s overall performance. (Remember that Trump never broke 50%). They are happy with his response to the coronavirus pandemic and his handling of the economy.

Rather than trying to pass popular measures to make up the ground they have lost, Republicans are trying to suppress voting. By mid-February, in 43 states, Republicans had introduced 253 bills to restrict voting. Today, Republicans in Michigan introduced 39 more such bills. In at least 8 states, Republicans are trying to gain control over elections, taking power from nonpartisan election boards, secretaries of state, and governors. Had their systems been in place in 2020, Republicans could have overturned the will of the voters.

To stop these state laws, Democrats are trying to pass a sweeping federal voting rights bill, the For the People Act, which would protect voting, make it easier to vote, end gerrymandering, and get dark money out of politics. The bill has already passed the House, but Republicans in the Senate are fighting it with all they’ve got. 

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) told them: “This is infuriating. I would like to ask my Republican colleagues: Why are you so afraid of democracy? Why, instead of trying to win voters over that you lost in the last election, are you trying to prevent them from voting?”

Dog Heaven

 

Michael Winslow

 

So you remember MICHAEL WINSLOW as the guy from the Police Academy movies?

This is so much B.S.

IMMEDIATELY after January 6, 2021 participants in the insurrection on the Capitol were all pointing at drumpf, who duped them into doing what they did.  

And today I found another "sad story"

A member of the Oath Keepers militia charged with coordinating a military style attack on the Capitol is asking a federal judge to reconsider keeping him in jail until his criminal trial begins, according to Law & Crime.

Graydon Young, 54, was denied bond last month by U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Wilson after claiming that he was “duped” into participating in an insurrection with the extremist para-military group.

He insisted that he was “unaware of the organization’s nefarious purpose when he joined” and claiming his role in Jan. 6 was “limited.”

In the Second Superseding Indictment filed earlier this month in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., the government alleged that on Jan. 6, Young and nine other members of the Oath Keepers “planned with each other, and with others known and unknown, to forcibly enter the Capitol” in order to “stop, delay, and hinder the Congressional proceedings occurring that day.”

They were charged with conspiracy, obstructing official government proceedings, destruction of government property, and trespassing.

Young, who served in the U.S. Navy Reserve for seven years, was also charged with the corrupt destruction of evidence for deleting his Facebook account in the days following the Capitol siege.

Per the report, Young’s lawyers filed a motion on Monday “seeking to have the initial bond ruling vacated, arguing that the Government lacked sufficient evidence to hold Young on the charges.”

They cited to his “strong character” and the “psychological burdens” Young has endured as a result of his first-ever jailing as reasons why he should be released.

His attorneys wrote:

“The psychological burdens of being detained pending trial are very real for Mr. Young. Since he has no previous experience with the criminal justice system, being detained is taking an extremely high toll on his mental well-being,” the motion stated. “Prior to being detained, Mr. Young was a mentally strong and stable person with no history of mental disorders. His current emotional and psychological state is owing entirely to the fact that he has been detained and is unable to rely upon his normal social support systems. Because he is such a strong family man, locking him up away from his wife and children with the prospect of an extremely long period of time before trial is even scheduled is causing potentially irreparable psychological and emotional damage to Mr. Young.”

Read the full report.

Image credit: Screengrab / FOX 13 Tampa Bay / YouTube

Story Source: https://theintellectualist.com/2021/03/22/oath-keeper-who-stormed-capitol-struggling-to-cope-because-hes-a-family-man-with-no-jail-experience-lawyers-say/?fbclid=IwAR03GNXNj57B_fe8avEr6B12w4y9fybjo6LqfsTepnpgkCgyZVEvylSZpL4

Monday Morning Smile

 

Who's Scared?

 

Happiness

 

Catholics are hypocrites

 

Did You Know......

 

I never knew there was such a variety of Ladybugs.

BURDENS

 

Monday Morning Smile

 

Very Cool Drone Clip

 

Monday Morning Smile

 

Weather Recap - March 7, 2021

 

Philip Roth on drumpf

 

Monday Morning Smile