Monday, December 01, 2008

Braved icy rain and strong winds to go to Target yesterday and get two tops for the luncheon on Wednesday, then ran a few other errands. Aside from that, stayed in. Looking forward to dinner with Vivian tonight.
Wider Note: For those Obama hopefuls still clinging to their dreams, this from Justin Raimondo at Anti-War.com:
"The War Party's decisive influence in the Obama administration is going to be rolled out on Monday, so that even the most craven Obama-bots on the Left will be left wondering who and what they voted for. Hillary the hawk at State, Bush's warlord Robert Gates at Defense, and Gen. Jim Jones – who wants to station U.S. troops in the occupied territories under the rubric of NATO! – as national security adviser to the president. Yes, antiwar voters took a chance on Obama, reasoning that anything would be better than four more years of Bushian belligerence, yet now they discover to their chagrin that the dice are loaded."
But there's much more and the piece, entitled "The End of the Affair"* should be read in full. Here's the address:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13838
And there's this, from Chris Hedges, one of my favorite writers on war (in "Truthdig.com"):
"Barack Obama’s decision to increase troop levels in Afghanistan and leave behind tens of thousands of soldiers and Marines in Iraq—he promises only to withdraw combat brigades—is a failure to rescue us from the status of a rogue nation. It codifies Bush’s “war on terror.” And the continuation of these wars will corrupt and degrade our nation just as the long and brutal occupation of Gaza and the West Bank has corrupted and degraded Israel. George W. Bush has handed Barack Obama a poisoned apple. Obama has bitten it."
Those last two sentences almost took my breath away.
*Wonder how many besides me recognize the allusion to Graham Greene's book of the same name?

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hi, Mom,

I just saw a short part of the 1955 or so movie, "The End of the Affair". I saw the part where the woman makes a deal with God that she'll leave if her boyfriend is OK. It looked like an interesting movie, but I was tired and went to bed at that point.
Regarding Obama, oh, I don't know what to say. I still think he was a better choice than that old man and the crazy lady from Alaska.
Talk to you later.
Ellen

Mimi said...

Oh, heavens, of course he was a better choice, no question about that. It's jsut demoralizing that he seems to be filling his appointments for militaristic old pols.
As for Graham Greene, actually his "The Heart of the Matter" (I think) is a better book. However, I haven't read any of his for years.

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