World's second oldest profession featured at GOP fest

I can abide by the GOP's endless lunacy about more tax cuts for the rich, restricting women's reproductive health, denying full citizenship to gays, fomenting hatred of Muslims and denigrating the undocumented because I've come to expect that from an extremist party. But I will not abide their giving prime time at their convention to unrepentant war mongers like Senator John McCain and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to propagandize for more unbridled militarism around the world. Their speeches at the GOP convention were despicable in their lamenting America's inevitable decline as the world's only super power; inevitable because it is unsustainable.

Senator McCain demonstrated why he's the last high ranking and unrepentant supporter of our filed Afghan war with this challenge: "I believe we cannot afford to substitute a political timetable to a military strategy. By committing to withdraw from Afghanistan, the president has discouraged and emboldened our enemies, which is why our commanders did not recommend these decisions, and why they have said it puts our mission at much greater risk." Sadly, Senator McCain has been fighting in and promoting criminal war for nearly 50 years now, starting out by dropping hundreds of bombs on hapless North Vietnamese civilians in America's failed war of conquest in Vietnam. Apparently, McCain never got over that we were pushed out by the Vietnamese people who created a thriving unified country after the North Vietnamese victory in 1975. McCain was rejuvenated by our senseless, murderous and bankrupting wars in Afghanistan and Iraq when our only responsibility after the 911 attacks was to destroy the terrorist bases and then get out, in the case of Afghanistan; and avoid a criminal war in Iraq altogether. Even though Iraq is now in the loss column with millions of casualties and refugees, and Afghanistan is similarly a lost cause, green lighted through 2013, if not longer, McCain supported our intervention into the Libyan civil war, seeks overt aid to the rebels in the Syrian civil war, and dreams, no doubt, of war with Iran.

While former Bush national security advisor and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has been fairly quiet on the criminal war front since she left office in 2009, her convention speech was a clarion call for America to continue its domination of world affairs. Ignoring the enormous damage she did by putting a pretty face on the immoral Bush war cabinet which lied and intimidated and threatened and scared us into supporting their criminal Iraq war, Rice trumpeted: "My fellow Americans, we do not have a choice. We cannot be reluctant to lead and you cannot lead from behind." Rice's idea of leadership was to brilliantly manipulate our citizenry to support her war crimes by saying that we cannot afford for the smoking gun proving Iraq a threat to be a mushroom cloud. Translation: 'Iraq is gonna nuke us so let's get 'em first'.

While no members of the world's oldest profession were given a prime time mike at the convention, the GOP sure shined the spotlight on members of the world's second oldest profession: war propagandists.

Rep. Walsh gives Rep. Roskam civics lesson on need to debate

In my August 21st post: "Should be no debate about debates", I lamented my IL 6th District Congressman Peter Roskam's failure to respond within a week of challenger Leslie Coolidge's August 14th request for a series of town hall style debates about the vital issues facing 6th District residents thusly:


"With no response to date, it looks like Congressman Roskam will let his millions of dollars in campaign cash do all his debating for him against another challenger with limited financial resources".

Alas, here we are a week later and still no response from Congressman Roskam, a man never shy about communicating to his constituents when it suits his political purposes. Apparently, engaging in the most critical form a communication - face to face debates with an intelligent, socially conscious, and knowledgeable opponent - doesn't meet that criteria for the incumbent.

Yet, one of the most reviled of all the 435 incumbents for his endlessly crude, inflammatory, and intemperate remarks, Joe Walsh, has seen fit to schedule 5 debates with an equally intelligent, socially conscious, and knowledgeable candidate, Tammy Duckworth in IL House District 8.

If I were grading Roskam and Walsh on the subject of debates, Joe Walsh gets a A. Roskam? He gets a D. Least you think that is better than a F for FAILURE   Also published in the Glen Ellyn Patch, August 27, 2012