Tea Time In The Wildwood: Lou Dobbs' Red Herring Stew

He's had some work done by Myrtle June

We haven't had a good Tea Time for awhile so pull up a stump, a rocker or grab your favorite blanket, the meadow is beautiful this summer. We've got fresh Raspberry Sun Tea special brew today from those wonderful raspberries down the lane. I'm going with the Oat Straw-Chamomile combo as Lou Dobbs makes my blood pressure rise. Later, we'll break out the Dandelion Wine we corked up early last month. Other tea additives are in the kitchen cabinet, just behind the tomato juice, pickled asparagus and Tabasco sauce. Help yourself.

Tanbark and I have been working on his computer for a few days since it wouldn't allow him to go to any blogspot site, or windows update, or gnb. Plus, he was bombarded with ads suddenly. What an aggravating situation that was! Then, come to find out, it was his ISP or other intertube routing fuckery. It cleared up earlier today, but this routing nonsense may have caused a need to step away and pick at his instruments a bit. Just before this bit of fun, Tanbark received an email from a dear relative of his regarding Lou Dobbs.

The email contained a "2 minute video every American should see". I didn't see it, but it was sent to several other of his family members and friends of his relative's. Apparently Tanbark watched it, then stepped out and replied... to everyone on the list. He expressed concern that he may be in the market for a new family. Here's his reply:

Dear Cousin, and everyone; thanks for the send.

Except, I'm not all that worried about illegal immigrants. That's a problem that can be dealt with. And the best way to deal with it, is for America to stop propping up right-wing governments who keep their own poor and working-class people in a such a state of poverty and abuse, that they are willing to leave their home country and take the risk of coming to the U.S. any way they can.

NOW, if we want to talk about a threat to the "working class Americans" about whom Lou Dobbs has been weeping crocodile tears for these many moons, I would suggest that he (and John Boehner, who, himself, is a piece of shit, so maybe that's why he can recognize it in the immigration bill...)consider that we are nearly 6 years into the worst foreign-policy screwup in our history.

I am, of course, talking about the clusterf**k in Iraq. 4100 of our troops are dead. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis, none of whom had jackshit to do with attacking us, until george bush invaded their country based on a pack of lies and patrio-kooliad like haven't been seen since Vietnam.

Someone needs to remind Lou and congressman shit-for-brains, that bush's vanity war is costing us $3 billion dollars a week, with no end in sight.

Two weeks ago, the deputy P.M. of Israel held a presser and announced that "an attack on Iran is unavoidable".

Within 24 hours, oil spiked $11 a barrel. Every time bush pulls out his little toy saber and rattles it, the PPB goes up a buck or two.

I can't speak for everyone whom I'm sending this reply to, but I happen to feel that $4 a gallon gas, unprecedented home foreclosures, skyrocketing unemployment, and TWO wars which are eating us alive, economically speaking, are one HELL of a bigger threat to us than every Mexican who pole-vaulted into the united states.

Lou Dobbs' pimping of illegal immigrants as a terrible threat to us, at the same time that 20-30 of our troops are dying each month, and our economy is tanking, is nothing but republican horseshit. It's a giant red-herring for the fact that george bush and the GOP have taken a humongous shit in the american bed, and they haven't got a clue as to how to UN-shit it.

All they're trying to do is hang on long enough to dump the flaming misery in the democrats laps, at which NANOSECOND, they will spin 180 degrees and begin shrieking "THEY did it to us!"

The "illegal immigrant" rants from Dobb's and republicans like Boehner are nothing but Hitler-lite hate-transferal techniques that were used on the Jews, when Germany was imploding in the 1920's. He was successful in scapegoating them, and he rode that hatred to his election as Chancellor, in 1933, I think it was.

Barack Obama is in process of welding george bush and the war in Iraq, to John McCain's ass like he was putting a trailer hitch on a pick-up truck. :o)

For all of his faults, and his senility, and despite being put up as a sacrificial goat by the goopers, I hope McCain won't stoop to this kind of tactic.

But this one is for all the chips. If Obama wins, there is a chance that we can pull back from the precipice of the corporate 4th Reich that bush and the neocons have dragged us to.

If McCain wins, the Supreme Court will be the "Alpine Redoubt" for the rightwing asshats, just as it was when they made bush the president in 2000.

BTW, all of you; if george bush IS insane enough to pull the trigger on Iran, oil will spike over $200, and keep spiking. And there will be some rather significant changes in the quality of life for us all.

Cousin! If you haven't put in a "mission accomplished" garden, then, trust me, it's time to get on it.

Good luck to us all, we're going to need it, and NOT because of illegal immigrants.

And then something very cool happened. He got some nice replies!

From his cousin, the sender of the original email:

Hey, Tanbark. Thanks for helping me see the broad picture. I knew all of that, but guess I was waylaid by the outrageous sounding sound bite. How well you say things! Thanks again for the insight. I agree with all. Have a great weekend.

Another relative:

Tanbark, I agree with you. I can't see why so many people are upset with the illegal immigrants when we are so dependent on them! And to spend all that money to build a fence on the border just sounds insane to me!

I really think there are a lot of lies being passed around about how much they're "costing" us. I've kept my mouth shut and just listened so far, but I have to agree with you.

More!

... But we are together on all your rant. I have been unable to believe we ( as a nation) could have re-elected this crowd of criminals. The first time was bad enough, but to ask for more was beyond my belief. So all we can do is live with it for a few more months. I'm just sorry the spineless congress won't impeach. If ever there was a case this is it.

... Let me know when you're going to be nearby, as I'd like to meet you. And keep the faith; our country will survive this mess.

Another!

Tanbark, I was so glad to hear from you and your take on gb and Iraq. Couldn't agree with you more. Please keep me posted on your thoughts about the upcoming election.

Well, they asked....

I hope no one minds a little joint reply. I got a bit exercised there, going off on Lou and his great immigration red herring. Been hearing it for a while now, from the warpimps who are so desperate to shift attention from bush's policies, expecially, in Iraq, to the great brown-skin threat to the south.

I re-read it after I sent it, and I was thinking:

"Whoa! I may need a new family! No nice Turkeyday get-together for you, Tanbark....:o)"

I was relieved that no one was too offended by my rant.

Thanks to each of you, for taking the trouble to let me know your feelings. And for your support.

... I'll be glad to include you on my rant list. It's not that long, but, as you have figured out by now, I don't pull any punches. Same old:

If you aint pissed off, you aint paying attention. :o)

I got four grandkids, and another'n on the way. I don't want them to inherit the kind of "1984" world that bush and his petro-idiots are so diligently trying to create.

... of the election, I'm pretty much of the so-far, so-good, school of thought.

I was a strong supporter of John Edwards. Loved his populism, and the fact that he has spoken out for poor and working class people so consistently. If the kneejerk conservatives think that Edwards has terrible baggage with him because he's a trial lawyer who IS the american success story, and who came from modest means, and then made his money by suing these corporations for product liability, and for personal injuries to people, they need to think again. Hard for me to come up with something better to have on his resume'. :o)

But, he didn't make it. His hard luck to be running in a year with Hillary and Obama. And he dropped out, which was prolly the right thing to do, since his campaign had not really caught on.

I'd been an admirer of Hillary's for a long time, and then watched as she and her "braintrust" were cynical and politically stupid enough to suck up to the very people who were savaging she and her family for all those years. When, in 2006, she lent her presence and her office to FauxNews by attending their 10th anniversay birthday bash in N.Y., what did she say when she ran into Bill O'Reilly:

"Hi. Bill. Good to see you. Thanks a ton for using all manner of bullshit to flay the hide off me, Bill, Chelsea, and Socks...not to mention the democratic party, for the past decade."

No. I won't go into all of the reasons why I think we dodged a giant bullet when Obama (with belated help from the DLC) finally ran her out, but Barack Obama is so much more electable than is she, that it's no contest. The republicans don't like him, but they purely hate the Clintons. And so do the independents, from whom I think Obama can peel off a fair number of votes.

I also do not want to see her as the veep selection. If Obama, himself, is brick-dumb enough to pick her, then the twin issues of Iraq and the economy (really, just one, since our economic troubles derive from the loon-crusade) would be reduced to back-burner issues, as Fox, and the republicans, with help from a lot of the MSM (mainstream media) would ecstatically make the election about "Billary", 24-7. There would be so many clips of Bubba and Monica on the tube, that we'd think we'd gone through a time-warp. I voted for him, twice. And I was delighted when she won the Senate seat in New York. But their time is over.

As has been said on some of the blogs:

"Bush-Clinton...Bush-Clinton...the White House is not a damn Myrtle Beach time-share."

There is one clip of her on YouTube, where she practically lost her mind (I supposed from seeing the coronation express laying in the ravine like the Wreck of the Old 97" and praised John McCain as good "commander-in-chief" material, while scorning Obama in the next sentence.

Politically savvy, my arse. It was one more horrible mis-step, in a spastic dance of them.

If Obama were to pick her, can you imagine the fun the republicans would have with THAT clip, along about mid-October?

Edwards seemed to take himself out of the running for the second spot, and then sorta-kinda put himself back in. It would be a formidable ticket, but I feel like he would be wasted as the veep. It's a political closet; a backwater; and John likes to mix it up. I would prefer him as A.G.

"Gentlemen! Start your subpoenas!" :o)

I also think that he could have the statehouse in Raleigh, for the asking, and deliciously, Liddy Dole's Senate seat, but I think she's not up for re-election until 2010; is that right?

But I like the man. Saw him speak 3 times, once in a very intimate setting at the little Union Hall for the steelworkers in Georgetown. The atmosphere was electric. He lit the place up. Spoke straight-out. Said that his first day in office, he would close Gitmo. That took some courage, in red-state S.C., but the applause was LOUD, when eh said it. He also, for the umpteenth time, apologized profoundly for his vote to authorize in 2002. This was 10 months ago. It took Hillary 20 debates into the campaign, to unequivocally eat HER vote, and she only did it when she was seeing the poll-writing on the wall.

Anyway, back to Obama. He's brainfarted a few times, most notably on FISA, with it's protection for the damn telcoms who helped bush pull his warrantless tracking of our phone calls, etc. That was disappointing, and he needs to remember that every time we "reach out" to the republicans and the conservatives, we draw back a bleeding stump. The best thing he can do is put distance between himself and McBush. The voters will love it.

The enthusiasm he's generated has been because people perceive him as a different breed of political cat. If he tries to move to the right, it's going to cost him, big time. I hope he and his people understand that. I think they got the message when he got hammered for his "yes" vote on FISA, by some of the same blogs, notably, DailyKos, who had worked and fundraised, their butts off for him.

He doesn't need to be in full-on rant mode yet, about all of the lies and B.S. that were used to drag us into the Mesopotamian La Brea pit. There is such a thing as issue-fatigue for the voters, no matter how true the accusations are. Don't use all the ammo early.

To put it another way, the "stability" in Iraq stems from two things, bush has crammed 150,000 troops into the country, and he's paying the Sunni insurgents, and a smaller number of Shia militia groups, a million dollars a day to lay off of our troops. It's like given protection money to Tony Soprano; what happens when you stop paying? And those people aren't dumb. They KNOW they have bush and the GOP's 'nads in a vise. If they start raising hell before the election, it's going to be a deadly reminder of just how UN-winnable bush's mayhem opera really is.

And why wouldn't they raise hell? I would. Saddam was an ageing tyrant, but if you kept your mouth shut, you could survive, and it was a matter of time until one of his own people dropped a grenade in his lap.

Bush has turned the country into a charnel house Baghdad is a rat's nest of checkpoints, ethnically cleansed neighborhoods, and miles of concrete blast barriers.

The Kurds don't give a fig about "greater Iraq". They're biding their time and consolidating their hold on Kirkuk and those lucrataive fields that make up 15% of Iraq's reserves.

The Shiites down south control the other 85%, and if our military isn't there to make them funnel it to the "central Government" in Baghdad, I think they will shut off the faucet, instanter.

Shorter me: Iraq is being held together by our military and by that $3 bil a week. That's all. When that ceases; it's going to be Katie-bar-the-door, and the nearly 2/3rds Shiite majority, will be exchanging glute-rubs with their bros in Teheran, making Iran the big winner in bush's war.

Obama can't say this, but there's not going to BE a good outcome for us there. You don't get elected speaking that kind of truth; all he can do is point out McCain's unstinting support for it, and make plans to try to salvage something.

The alternative is years more of casualties and the huge drain on our money and our international standing.

Enough. I think Rome is falling. Never seen so many angry people. It's important that we make sure their anger is directed at the people who are responsible for what's going on. I believe that as we head into the general election, Obama is just the guy to do that.

We'll see...gonna be a hell of a 3 and a half months.

Love to all.

More tea? I just love the way Tanbark nails it! What a great family he has there.

People are talking amongst themselves and the good people of this country are all too often waylaid by the red herring and righty rhetoric coming at us fast and furious like. But, when one person speaks the truth, then it somehow prompts others to also begin to be more critical of what they're hearing, the source of the "news", and to add some context to what they're seeing. Ultimately, they speak out as well.

I have a friend in another city who receive a package of pro mccain literture from her elderly father in another state. She was livid and at a loss of what to say to him. She despises bushco and what they've done.

We'd been on the phone election night 1999 and the ups and downs of the flickering Florida blue/red status was just mindbending. We were on the phone still when the bush crime family was eating at ma and pa's and Florida was blue and the reporter asked george w. what he thought of that. He replied, "Jeb was supposed to take care of that". In unison, I'm sure you heard it, we instantly let out a big "Whhhhhhaaaaaat? Did he really say thaaaat!". Then Florida turned red and that was that pretty much that. I digress. I do that. *blush*

So after some time of trying to figure out how to tell her father of her appalled state at his "gift box", she chose a simple truth. In her package back to him she inserted a lovely Obama sticker, a campaign pamphlet, and simple "Thank You, but I've decided. Love...". And who knows, she may well have changed his mind. Regardless, it was a simple truth that required no long debate or explanation. It just is what it is. Obama. Our only hope.

This is how we change our country. Acknowledge where the other person is at. State where you're at. A simple statement of why can help.

As for Lou Dobb's. His a hateful puppet of the right and all his insane hateful speaking is designed for one thing. Red Herring Stew!!!!

Dandelion wine all around :-)



Who's Gonna Build You Wall - Tom Russell