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Jane Stillwater
UPDATE ! Sunday, April 01, 2007Letters from Iraq: The Charge of the Light Brigade, Part 1 March 30 -- we finally received our orders to fly out of Kuwait and into Baghdad. Hurray! Now all I have to do is get my passport back from the Kuwait visa inspectors and I'm good to go. "Stillwater? Here's your passport." Whew. "Now line up here and wait." I did. This is exciting. And perhaps a little too real. Two hours later, we boarded a plane. It was a big one, a real work of art. It was as big as a football field inside, no windows, no frills -- just one big warehouse. The pallets with our gear on them were stored in back of us and troops lined the walls and took up seats in the center. This plane is spooky. Forget everything you ever experienced on Continental, United or Delta. This plane is weird. Exposed pipes run along the 20-foot-high ceiling. Wires hang loose. There's a plywood floor. There's NOTHING decorative about this plane at all -- except that they gave us nicely-colored earplugs to baffle the sound. While waiting in some tent or other for the plane to take off, the soldiers I sat next to took turns telling stories. I love these guys. Anyone who can tell a good story is all right by me. And these guys tell stories with flash and charm. Each one has an attention-grabbing introduction, an exciting and suspenseful plot, a gripping climax and a really great hook at the end. Guys, I salute you. Now don't go out there and blow yourselves up. You have too many stories to tell. This plane holds a hecka lot of men. I'm not allowed to say how many but it's a lot -- more than the amount of people who live in my neighborhood, less than the amount of people at a Pussycat Dolls concert. There were a lot of women soldiers back on the base in Kuwait but I'm probably the only woman on this plane now besides some sort of stewardess wannabe in khaki fatigues whose main job appears to be handing out earplugs. 1:15 am: This whole freaking embed experience is so weird, so bizarre. It's like nothing I can equate it with inside my realm of experience back home. It's bizarre. It's going to take me YEARS to digest all of this. Just going to the freaking toilet on a troop transport plane is bizarre. Once the plane takes off, all the lights go out except for a handful of red ones lining the walls, giving the interior the look and feel of Hell -- Hell and the Battlestar Galactica, with a little bit of Road Warrior thrown in. The soldiers are all wearing helmets and flack jackets. To a man, all of them are asleep -- in awkward, unnatural positions. Only I am awake. And on the way to the toilet, I glide down the aisle like that Greek goddess of old who was kidnapped by Hades -- Persephone? Once inside the restroom, there's no light, only a red glow. I do my business by touch and get out as soon as I can, back to the jaws of death, back to the mouth of Hell. And the troops sleep on, in exhausted, exaggerated positions, looking for all the world like they were dead. These men are my boys. Hurt them and you have to go through me. Hear that, George Bush? These men aren't just action figure toys for you to play with. These are real, living human beings. Sincere. Serious about doing their jobs -- and doing them well. They deserve better than the blunders of GWB. They deserve respect. They've got mine. "Prepare for landing. Thank you." Obviously there's gonna be no in-flight movie and no in-flight meal. And I don't think we are going to have a spiffy arrival area and baggage carousel either. "This is BIAP". Baghdad International Airport. "BIAP" must be short for "biopsy". That's what I think. The descent into BIAP is so swift and sudden, it feels like they cut out a piece of us. Yep, it's a good thing this plane doesn't have windows! But did all that decompression wake up the troops? Nope. I'm still the only one awake. Then "BOOM!" The plane touches down with a sonic thud. We've landed in Baghdad.
Good grief! Iraq is just BRIMMING with news. I don't even know where to begin. At 4 am this morning, a huge armored vehicle moved us from the Baghdad airport to the Green Zone in a convoy composed of vehicles that looked like they had just came out of a Toys R Us catalog. Nobody in Iraq seems to need sleep. Not even me. But they don't go without food. Did you know that the average American soldier in Iraq gains 26 pounds -- while the average insurgent lives on rice and beans? If that doesn't give our troops an edge here, then what will? If we are now entering the fourth year of this war and it still is bogged down even despite our tremendous Cheesecake advantage, the Bush guys are in big trouble. But I digress. I've been here in Iraq for three days and this is the first day I have even seen -- let alone talked to -- an Iraqi. So I started at the top and interviewed an Iraqi general. His basic message seems to be that the Iraqi army now has about 25 new ways to kill people and/or make them go to their rooms. "We have more troops, more joint security stations, more ammunition, more tips from informants, more security...." Then his translator went on and on about how the Iraqi army is eliminating tourists. Tourists? Oh, he meant TERRORISTS. My bad. Then I spoke with an American admiral who stated, "The people of Iraq need to be able to walk to the local coffee shop safely." By this does he mean that after four whole years of occupation, people still can't walk safely to the coffee shop -- or does he mean that what Iraq needs today is more Starbucks? I'm confused. After that, you will never guess what happened next! I got to interview John McCain! Seriously. He was here. Right here in the press room. Which is fifty feet down the corridor and around the corner from the cot where I had dumped off all my stuff this morning and is now my new home. Senator McCain, Senator Graham, Rep. Pence and Rep. Renzi had put together what appeared to be the 2007 GOP Hype-the-War Tour. "Do you think that they will give us souvenir T-shirts of the tour," I asked some guy from CNN. Probably not. Anyway, Sen. McCain and his backup singers were here and even though I don't agree with them, I was glad that they came. It takes courage to come to Iraq. "Our new strategy is making progress," said McCain. "We are doing things differently," said Sen. Graham. "We cannot let suicide bombers set the pace. If we talk about leaving and losing, the car bombers win." Then Graham talked about how the four of them went down to the Baghdad market today and it was perfectly safe. "We bargained and bought rugs." Pence agreed about the safety of the market. Later, however, he added that they did have to travel there in Humvees and be escorted by soldiers and wear body armor -- but other than that... Later I talked with an Iraqi reporter who said that the market they went to was the safest in the city and several American reporters added that walking around in Baghdad without troops backing you up was suicidal and anyone who did something like that had a death wish. Renzi then stated that, "We will not turn our backs on the Iraqi people," and the other Dream Boys agreed. And apparently if the bill to end the war makes it through Congress, Bush will veto it. "The President [sic] will veto any bill that will cut the legs out from under the military," added Graham. So far, the group had talked a lot about how to make the "war" policy regarding Iraq succeed, but none of them talked about the elephant in the living room -- that the policy itself is fatally flawed. But I did! Shut up, Jane. Yes, even with all those Senators and reporters and everything there I still had to have my say. So. Exactly what DID I say to John McCain? Sorry but you're gonna have to die of suspense a little bit longer. Someone just brought me some food! Fried chicken, meatloaf, honeyed carrots, mashed potatoes, green beans and cookies! Giant chocolate chip cookies, macadamia nut cookies, peanut butter cookies, chocolate fudge cookies. Hey! You forgot the cheesecake. So. What did I say to Sen. McCain? I gave him my famous "Light Brigade" speech. "I have been so completely impressed," I began, "by the quality, training, competence and skill of our troops here. They represent yet another generation in a long line of competent and capable Americans." McCain smiled and nodded his head, thinking I had finished my speech. Not. "But," I continued, just getting warmed up, "our troops are also like the heroes of Lord Tennyson's poem, 'The Charge of the Light Brigade.' They are fighting bravely and well in a situation caused by a blunder. So why should we senselessly continue to put our troops in harm's way for a mistake?" Or in order to appease some greedy, immature Lord Nelson wannabe. It doesn't make sense to destroy a whole generation of American soldiers just to support Bush and Cheney. Then I got down to the heart of my question. Giving McCain that special look that us moms usually reserve for recalcitrant children, I said, "And after this terrible blunder in Iraq, are you then going to go ahead and make that same horrible mistake in Iran?" McCain's answer was brief. "No comment." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I must admit that I thought my friend Jane was joking when she said she was going to Iraq but this Proud Liberal Bitch is doing something that most of us (especially me) would never have the guts to do.
BERKELEY WOMAN'S IRAQ QUESTSleeping bag in tow, she hopes to embed with Army and blogJane Stillwater is a 64-year-old Berkley woman who left for Kuwait on Wednesday, hoping to embed with the U.S. military there and in Iraq as a blogger. And if she is refused? She's got a sleeping bag and plans to sleep on the beach in Kuwait until her return flight in three weeks. Protection? A Berkeley city councilman tried in vain to get her some body armor; she's accepting online donations through PayPal so she can buy some in Kuwait. (Inserted:Got any extra Kevlar for my trip to Iraq? If you wanna contribute to my Kevlar fund, I now have a PayPal account. Go to https://www.paypal.com/, click on "send money" and type in jpstillwater@yahoo.com where it says "to". Thanks.) Credentials? The military said the prolific blogger needs to be sponsored by a media outlet. No problem: The Lone Star Iconoclast, a 900-circulation liberal weekly in President Bush's vacation getaway of Crawford, Texas, is sponsoring her. Not that it's paying her. Then again, nearly all of the dozens of online columns Stillwater has produced over the past seven years for various publications have been labors of love. Money for Arabic translators? Unnecessary. "I've been all over the world," she said, "and you always find people who speak English." Stillwater's is the tale of one citizen journalist's quest for the truth in the Middle East. No matter what happens, it is bound to become a story. Conversations with Stillwater are punctuated every 45 seconds or so with the phrase, "That reminds me of a story." About selling 60,000 Girl Scout cookies with her daughter over the years. About meeting a blind imam in Afghanistan last year. About being asked if she wanted to appear on "Judge Judy" regarding a neighbor dispute. Stillwater said she's going to Iraq to write about the war for "real people." She's tired of getting news from TV journalists who throw on a khaki vest for a few photo ops before flying home first-class. She has lived in Section 8 housing in Berkeley for 27 years, and she saved for her $1,072 airline ticket the same way she has saved for other exploits. "All I eat are peanut butter sandwiches," she said. She bikes everywhere, keeps her 17-year-old Toyota Tercel chugging along and wears clothes she finds discarded on the street -- like the green jeans and soccer jersey she wears now. "This sweater I bought at Goodwill, though. Maybe 2 bucks. These socks? I think my kids outgrew them." "I don't go to movies, I don't do anything," she said. "You can save a lot of money that way." So why did she book a ticket without getting the Defense Department to bless her coverage? She couldn't pass up a ticket at that price. Karma will take care of the rest. A slight 120 pounds with silvery hair pulled back into a ponytail and round, brushed-metal-framed glasses, Stillwater calls herself a "responsible flake," someone who can be flaky and "take care of business when I have to." She proudly cops to being very "Berkeley" -- but old-school Berkeley. "I'm more Berkeley in the way it used to be -- before the yuppies moved in and started buying $600,000 houses," she said. She got a master's degree in city planning from UC Berkeley in 1966, a time she called "the best time of my life, bar none," and worked as a legal secretary for years. She's never been married, but she had children with four different men. Each was a story. Stillwater described herself as more of an "old hippie" than a grandma. In fact, she said she regularly communicates with three of her four adult children but has little contact with her grandchild. "One of my greatest accomplishments were my kids, and one of my greatest failures were with my kids," she said with a note of regret. But other children are a part of her life. She's an emergency foster care parent, providing temporary housing for kids. She's a substitute teacher in a juvenile hall. And she befriended Berkeley High School students when she lobbied to get a crosswalk painted near their school; she was upset they kept getting tickets for jaywalking. "She talks about tiny issues and big, serious subjects, but she always mixes her brand of humor in with it," said Berkeley City Council member Kriss Worthington, who tried in vain to obtain body armor for Stillwater. Her farewell party for the Middle East on Tuesday night was subdued. Her 27-year-old son, Joe, and his girlfriend stopped by with the intention of taking her out to dinner. Afterward, they planned to do laundry at her place. Instead, they just chatted for a while before Stillwater shooed them away so she could finish packing. The next morning, she took BART to the airport by herself. Cheaper that way. Joe Stillwater said, "My mom may seem like a flaky Berkeley lady." But through a combination of luck, common sense and, he said, good karma, she always seems to come out OK. Which may explain why her friends aren't worried that among Stillwater's travel reading is the Lonely Planet guide to Kuwait, which she borrowed from the library a few days ago. "We never had a lot of money growing up, but we were always going on these wild trips and adventures," Joe Stillwater said. To Mexico. To a Buddhist retreat in Oregon. On a Caribbean cruise as a reward for selling all those Girl Scout cookies. The adventures are remembered in photographs taped across the walls of her two-story townhouse. A sign that reads, "Welcome to the Stillwater Museum," hangs on the front door. If it's called a museum, Stillwater said, "then I don't have to keep it all tidy. I can just curate it." Last year, she went to Afghanistan on a Global Exchange tour. To help pay for a ticket, she held a sign soliciting money at various liberal activist events and demonstrations. This is the first time she's gone overseas solo. Stillwater isn't scared, though. She may walk stiffly up a flight of stairs, the by-product, she said, of doing 100 jumping jacks every day of her life. But she can still run and is confident she'll be able to shoulder the 30 pounds of equipment she's lugging. Her pack doesn't include a laptop. She plans to transmit stories from Internet cafes. If she finds them. Her editor awaits the results. "I would like a source that doesn't necessarily adhere to the company line about what the soldiers are facing over there," said W. Leon Smith, publisher of the Lone Star Iconoclast. He'd be disappointed if she doesn't get an embedded spot. "I'm really hoping she gets some interviews with people there." As Stillwater waited for her plane at the airport Wednesday, the Army was still trying to find a unit in which to embed her. "Oh, yeah, her application looks fine," said Army Spc. J. Wyatt Harper, a media embedding coordinator for Iraq. "We're just trying to find a unit anywhere that will take her. There's a lot of people out there now." Even City Council member Worthington worries about how she'll be able to leap the language barrier without being able to afford an interpreter. "But by the power of her personality and uniqueness, she might find some stories that other reporters might just overlook," he said. "And people tend to open up to you when you're a peace activist." Stillwater's sense of mission goes back to the day in 1976 when she asked a hypnotist to look into her future. The hypnotist said she didn't predict futures. Oh, come on and try, Stillwater said. So the hypnotist offered two scenarios. In one, Stillwater was told that she wouldn't die until she's 88 as long as she kept seeking the light of truth. In the alternative scenario, she dies while lying on a couch, inflated by a life of gorging on junk food. "So everything I've done in my life since then goes back to that scenario," she said. "How do I want to live my life? Sitting on the couch or seeking the light?" Stillwater makes little effort to hide her progressive politics and has drawn scorn from conservative bloggers for her commentary and activist stunts. On July 4, 2002, she traveled to Washington, D.C., to serve an eviction notice -- "Three-day Notice to Perform or Quit" -- on President Bush "based on multiple violations of their lease, The United States Constitution." In her last blog post (www.jpstillwater.blogspot.com) before she left for Kuwait, Stillwater confronted what could happen next with her usual mix of self-deprecating humor and biting commentary. She told readers that she was headed to "Baghdad to write fabulous stories for YOU all about how our brave troops are doing a bang-up job over there despite the fact that their bosses in the White House are sadistic bastards, terribly inefficient crooks and totally nuts -- or I will spend three weeks wandering the streets of Kuwait City waiting for my flight home, searching for internet cafes and trying to sell bootleg Girl Scout cookies." E-mail Joe Garofoli at jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com.
Greetings from Kuwait! This post is gonna be quick and dirty and not very coherent because I'm writing to you from a Kinko's at the Kuwait City airport. After two days on the plane, I arrived here around midnight and, since I can't even begin to try to arrange to get picked up until 6 am tomorrow morning, I'll be spending the rest of the night in a Barca-lounger in the airport offices of Kellogg, Brown & Root. How surrealistic is that!
Here's my first dispatch:
The Great American Dream still exists -- in Iraq!
By Jane Stillwater http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
You know how we all thought that the American economy was going down-hill? It's not true! We're just not looking in the right places. Look closer -- the 1950s American economic miracle isn't dead. It's still going on. People are still getting well-paying jobs. Mortgages are still being paid off. Jobs are available everywhere. You can find one just for the asking. Three cars in your garage? No problem. No money worries, no debts. Decent jobs are out there begging. Yes, the 1950s American economic miracle is still happening.
Only it's happening in Iraq.
How spooky, how weird, how de-ja-voo. While American cities are rotting and American children go to sleep hungry at night, there still is a land -- far far away -- where everything is as it was before our present economic American Easter egg cracked.
Where is this simple, illusionary, holiday place? Iraq.
Yesterday, escorted by two large handsome bodyguard cameramen supplied by the San Francisco Chronicle, I took a BART train to the San Francisco airport and boarded a plane to Amsterdam.
"Jane, your flight from Amsterdam to Kuwait has been canceled," said the guy at the KLM check-in counter. "Would you mind spending a night in Holland?"
Would I mind? Hecka no! But when I got to Amsterdam, they told me something else. "Tomorrow's flight has been canceled but you can still get on yesterday's flight." Huh? "And it leaves in two hours." So I trundled off to Gate D-7 -- and while I was waiting for yesterday's flight, I chit-chatted with four really nice Department of Defense and Blackwater "contractors". They talked about perks.
"I'm making a fabulous salary."
"I've saved up enough to put my daughters through college. And also my wife!"
"We have a mini-van, a sedan and an SUV."
"I just got back from a week at Disney World and next year we're taking the family to Europe."
Sounds just like the good old days, doesn't it. Guys working hard, guys getting ahead.
On the flight from Holland to Kuwait, the entire PLANE was filled with contractors, pursuing the American Dream -- in Iraq.
Who am I to try to put an end to this perfect world -- just because it is based on the quicksand of a million dead bodies?
"Not I," said this little white duck.
On the way to Kuwait, I watched an in-flight movie entitled "Bobby" -- about the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy. And what RFK said in that film hit the nail exactly on the head. "Too often, we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of other human beings."
PS: While I was flying across the Atlantic, getting leg cramps, eating rubber chicken and watching "Casino Royal," I also read an article in The Guardian about the ghastly slaughter that is happening right now in Darfur. Don't even get me started on that one -- wondering who else is making a profit off of all those grisly deaths.
Woman of Steel: I'm off to Iraq & need Kevlar by Wednesday!
By Jane Stillwater http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com When you are a reporter, you gotta go where the good stories are. And everyone knows that the hot stories today are in Washington DC and Iraq. Well, maybe in the Bahamas too -- but mostly in DC and Iraq.
I've been trying to embed in Iraq with the Department of Defense since last July. At first my senator, when she inquired on my behalf, was told that I couldn't be embedded because I was "opinion-based and not fact-based" but as America's goddess of accurate-yet-fun reporting Molly Ivins used to say, "That dog don't hunt" -- not after the DoD itself got caught telling bold-faced lies about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction! But when the Dems took over Congress last November, I was informed by several sources that, under pressure from above, the DoD has now developed a whole new policy wherein progressive reporters are no longer being actively discriminated against and that I had a good chance of being embedded if my credentials were good.
After getting four online news services, a nationally-known crusading regional editor, my hometown newspaper and a major metropolitan media giant to sponsor me -- The Lone Star Iconoclast just sent me the most beautiful press pass in the world -- I finally got the green light from DoD! Sorta.
To get to Iraq, you fly into Kuwait and the Department of Defense's MNFI comes to pick you up. So I went online to www.bargaintravel.com, the best source of cheap international airfare there is, and scored a fabulously inexpensive round trip flight to Kuwait for a price that even I could afford! I was all ready to go, leaving on Wednesday, March 28, 2007. Sorta.
"Sorry, Jane," the DoD media guy just wrote me. "We haven't finished processing your paperwork yet." Oops. So here I am with a non-refundable ticket to Kuwait and no green light.
What to do? Whether or not I have DoD clearance, I HAVE to leave for Kuwait on March 28. I can't afford to waste that kind of money. I lived off peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for a YEAR to save all that up. And when I get to Kuwait, either the MNFI will have completed the paperwork and I will be whisked off to their training and staging area near Kuwait City and then off to Baghdad to write fabulous stories for YOU all about how our brave troops are doing a bang-up job over there despite the fact that their bosses in the White House are sadistic bastards, terribly inefficient crooks and totally nuts -- or I will spend three weeks wandering the streets of Kuwait City waiting for my flight home, searching for internet cafes and trying to sell boot-leg Girl Scout cookies.
If, however, I do get embedded in Iraq, I will need a Kevlar bullet-proof vest. Can anyone loan me one by Wednesday? I'm serious! Would you send me into a combat zone without Kevlar? Who do you think I am? The Woman of Steel?
PS: Of course the main reason I'm going to Iraq is to bring you back stories about what it is actually like over there -- but there's also another special bonus inducement: I hear that the commissaries over there serve a dynamite (to-die-for) chocolate cake.
PPS: Just because George W. Bush happily sends our troops into combat without adequate body armor, this doesn't necessarily mean it's a good idea.****
Got Kevlar? I can be reached at jpstillwater@yahoo.com or 510-843-0581. And if you know anyone in Kuwait who can sponsor me just in case I need an emergency visa when I get to Kuwait City, please let me know! Thanks.
Can George Bush say under oath, "I never had sex with that man..."
By Jane Stillwater http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
What possibly could be more sleazy than having the Clinton/Lewinsky affair shoved in our faces daily from the front page of the New York Times? Suddenly our children were learning new words that they had never heard before. Gross.
Now our children are learning even MORE facts of life, thanks to George W. Bush. "Military escort" is taking on a whole new meaning for them. "Mommy, what exactly does a male prostitute do?"
Here's a photo of George Bush salivating over his "protege" Jeff Gannon, another White House intern. Will George Bush be able to state under oath, "I never had sex with that man...."
This Gannon affair is truly sleazy and should probably not even be discussed in public. So why am I dragging all this trash up from the gutter? Because I, as an American citizen, need to know that the kind of behavior that was sanctioned by Bush at Abu Ghraib will no longer be originating in the Oval Office -- or in the Lincoln Bedroom.
I want the White House to be a symbol of respect and dignity again.
Another lesson I have learned from the Gannon affair is this: Republican leaders are not raising a hue and cry over Jeff Gannon like they did over Lewinsky/Clinton. REPUBLICAN LEADERS are not objecting to homosexual pornography in the White House! But why should they? Judging from their behavior, many of them seem to think it is a good idea.
It appears that all too many Republican leaders don't object to homosexuality per se; they only object to gay MARRIAGE. Apparently, they aren't going to be happy until everyone is back in the closet where they "belong" -- just like in the good old days when J. Edgar Hoover dressed up in his pink chiffon tutus. For them, gay marriage is too...normal!
In addition, from what I can see, most Republican leaders -- gay or strait -- appear to revel in secrecy, clandestine operations and intrigue. Repubs seem to LOVE intrigue. That's why they invented the CIA, revel in Skull and Bones and hate the Bill of Rights. For them, DEMOCRACY is a bad thing -- and homosexuality only becomes a sin, a crime and an abomination if one steps out of the closet!
I myself forgive George Bush. He is a human being under God -- and what he does with his sex life is his business. But shilling for prostitutes and encouraging deviants -- whether in Abu Ghraib or in the White House Press Corps -- has got to stop.
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Gannon's porn site: http://americablog.blogspot.com/2005/02/man-called-jeff.html
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From Air America: The "Monica Moment": http://politicalhumor.about.com/library/images/blbushmonica.htm
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From Mary: In Lhasa, Tibet, the Potola Palace is respected and revered. The American White House, however, has been sold to the highest bidder. "Then we went to the Potala Palace and it was everything I had ever imagined and far, far more. All those years I had spent hanging out with lamas during the 1970s came back to me and I was filled with awe that I was at the genesis, the well-spring of all they had learned and all they had tried to teach me. I was so excited, I even crossed myself. I could have lived there forever. Worldly goods and desires melted away.
"Ma, this way," said my son, pulling me out of my trance. The statue of the Fifth Dalai Lama, the beautifully painted and draped thankas, the butter lamps, the pilgrims -- it was everything I had ever imagined." http://travelswithamy.blogspot.com/2004/03/amy-goes-to-tibet-june-15-1999-my.html
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From Patrick:
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From Liz: I would remind people here of the National Socialists of Germany and some of the bizarre sexual lifestyles many of them had, even though they busied themselves with sending open homosexuals to the camps. The more things change, the more they seem to stay the same.
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From MA Dark [Election fraud is STILL the issue]: In These Times Article -- Kerry won. A Corrupted Election: Despite what you may have heard, the exit polls were right. http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/1970/
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I have become shocked and amazed lately at how bitter and cynical and mean my e-mails are becoming -- but ever since Bush, Rove, Rumsfeld and Cheney bombed several defenseless countries into rubble, failed to protect my country on 9-11, scalped our treasury and blatantly STOLE two national elections, I've just not been the same. I WANT to be a kind and loving and caring person but the example being set for me by America's "leaders" has precluded that from happening. My apologies.
In defense of my country, I must fight fire with fire. Those people in the White House are NASTY.
Why I am a Conservative (and proud of it too)
By Jane Stillwater http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
Good grief! I always thought that I was a liberal. Now I've discovered that I am conservative AND I'M PROUD OF IT!
In my world, if people aren't doing their job, they get fired. Bush failed to protect America on 9/11. He lied about the war on Iraq. Why is he still in the White House? If Congress were conservative, they would fire his ass -- if not put him in jail
In July alone, my country went $69.16 billion dollars further into debt. I don't believe in debt. I don't even have a credit card. But apparently Congress has gone to the mall bigtime with its Visa. That's fiscal irresponsibility! Only liberals do that. A conservative would take away ALL Congressional charge cards.
"We need to send more aid to Israel," said Paul Wolfowitz. Who is this guy? Another liberal bleeding heart? We already gave Israel 90 billion dollars. We've given Israel more aid than any country in the world -- and probably more than we give to Rhode Island. If those wimps in Israel can't control a few Palestinians with 90 billion dollars, why should they deserve welfare from us? They should go out and work and get a job like everybody else. Forget all that liberal talk. I AM A CONSERVATIVE!
Get this straight. I didn't like it when the Marines went to Tripoli. And now I don't want them in Iraq. I am an isolationist. Let's mind our own business. That makes me a conservative. And proud of it too.
While we're on the subject of the war on Iraq, how about those death statistics? If a Marine dies in combat, he's counted. If he dies on the way to the hospital, he's not. Out of the 22,000 GI casualties, how many of those have died without being counted? Are we being lied to? George Washington would never do that.
I want to go back to the good old days. Before corporations became neo-Welfare Queens. The Republicans say that they stand for fiscal responsibility? They're liberals! They are giving all of our tax money away to their PAC landlords (and not to us).
Jesus? Who ARE these so-called Christians who can't even read their Bibles? What would Jesus do? Lie? Kill? Defile our flag at Abu Ghraib? Not Him. Not me. When it comes to religion, call me old-fashioned but...I believe in the Bible!
Income tax? Those liberal Repubs in Congress and the White House are hijacking our treasury. And if their hanger-on friends in Big Busniess were true capitalists, they would LOVE paying taxes. It would demonstrate to everyone that they had just made tons of profits. These losers would never be able to make profits at all if the government wasn't shoring them up. That's liberal talk! And all that IRS tax bureaucracy? Dump that. Forget income tax. A1% federal sales tax is much more conservative.
And what's with all this government debt and paper money with no gold in Fort Knox. What happened to all the gold in Fort Knox? Ask the liberals like Richard M. Nixon. Me? I'm a conservative.
I believe in states' rights. The feds are telling us what to do and when to do it. Take Florida, for instance. What? The Supreme Court thinks that Flor-a-duh is too dumb to count votes by itself once they run out of fingers and toes?
Speaking of government, Big Government is not a conservative thing. Those liberals in the White House have hired more government employees than anybody in the history of this country. But instead of teaching our children and fixing our roads, the "New Bureaucrats" being hired are being hired to spy on US. That sucks eggs. I'm a conservative. I want to go back to the old days when there was no FBI and no CIA and no "Homeland" security rifling though my bank account and organizing a more powerful IRS and bringing in cocaine for our young -- treating us like WE were the enemy. Maybe the militia are right. Without justice, it's just us.
Why else am I a conservative? I wanna go back to the days when we actually honored the Constitution. This Patriot Act nonsense is driving me nuts.
The environment? Adam and Eve were instructed to tend the Garden of Edan. Me too! And no more government give-aways in our national forests. That's liberal talk.
To hell with those liberal Republicans. Maybe I should join John Birch. The American Independent Party just told my friend Sonya, "The war in Iraq is un-Constitutional, we should never have gone in and we need to get out fast!" And what about Palestine? "I don't know anything about that so I don't have an opinion." My God. An honest politician!
I'm sick and tired of liberals like Halliburton getting a free ride. I'm sick and tired of having the bleeding hearts in the White House yell "Terror" every time they want to give more of our money away. I'm sick and tired of schools that don't offer our children a classic education. Thomas Jefferson would be shocked. I'm proud to be a conservative. I like it when people have to be elected to live at the White House. Give me the good old days!
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"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World Peace in one generation!"
Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds. Here's an opportunity to do one: In October, I will be walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-day walkathon to benefit breast cancer research. Donate $5 and I will put you on my prayer list! (You are on there already but hey...) To donate, please go to http://www.the3day.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=30112 Click on "sponsor a participant" and type in my name.
Another way to fight breast cancer? Women exposed to pollution develop breast cancer first -- so let's fight it by dumping those money-grubbers in the White House who are allowing toxic polluters to endanger the lives of our wives, mothers and sisters.
In the name of Jesus, PLEASE revoke GWB's license to kill.
By Jane Stillwater http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
In the name of Jesus, I can't stand it any more. How many MORE people will our government blow up and maim and kill? Thousands dead? Tens of thousands dead? Hundreds of thousands dead? Millions dead?
When will my country's armies stop the killing in Iraq? When will they finally say, "We have won the war on Iraq." When every man, woman and child in that country is dead?
Yesterday Muqtada al-Sadr put out an impassioned plea to the nations of the world. "Help my country. They're killing us one by one." American top brass look down their noses at this man and go on killing and killing and killing -- as if Jesus Himself gave them the right to open a butcher shop in Iraq.
Where is the moral imperative, where is the moral justification for thousands and thousands and thousands of deaths? Ask Hitler. Ask Stalin. Ask George W. Bush. There is none.
Inventing the future: 18 years without sex!
By Jane Stillwater http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
I'm always trying to better my life, right? And to make the world a better place. But how? Deep breath.
"Look back over your life," said Marilee Zdenek on her audiotape. "What is it you do best?" Sex? Don't laugh. I was a flower child. That's what we did.
We studied sex. We did research. We read Mantak Chia's classic instructions on how to draw the power of sex up our back bones and into our minds. We hung Tibetan Buddhist posters of Padmasambhava and his consort up on our walls. We sought inspiration from peyote and mushrooms and LSD. We found cute long-haired hippie boys, radical black men out to save the race and lonely Asian nerds FOB. We practiced on them. We studied. We learned. We thought of sex as medicine. We thought we were doing good deeds.
In Greenwich Village, London, Taos, Mexico City, Paris, Berkeley and Montgomery, we sought meaning in life through sexuality and we took our studies VERY seriously.
Now, like some steel worker whose job has been outsourced to a foreign country, we find that our skills are obsolete. A 62-year-old geisha? Vey es mir. All that training down the drain. I shoulda gone to med school instead. Then I could be off helping the poor in Haiti.
What can be worse than having your professional equipment rust before your very eyes? Ladies, don't go there. Stay in school! (Actually, forget I said that; going to Cal in 1968 was EXTREMELY educating.)
So. Here I am. 62-years-old, listening to my "Inventing the Future" tape. Thinking that it's not too late to learn new things. There are so many people out there in the world who are needy: Refugees in the Sudan, disabled vets, children without homes, taxpayers getting screwed by corporate welfare queens.... There is so much need.... I may have been downsized from my original skills -- and learned the hard way that indiscriminate sex is DEFINITELY not good medicine -- but the world still has a need for me.
While I'm trying to figure out what my new skills should be, however, I still keep that old photograph of me on the front cover of the Berkeley Barb hidden in a corner of my back closet where the grandchild won't see. I had horribly misplaced and wasted my ideals and skills -- and, in this modern world of sexual predators and AIDS, would NEVER advise any young woman to do what I did -- but, boy, do I have memories....
Ashley, me and the missing Republican National Convention
By Jane Stillwater, http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
"Want to go to New York and volunteer at the Republican National Convention with me in August?" I asked my 17-year-old daughter.
"Can we buy rice pudding on Second Avenue?" Of course. Young Ashley is very fond of Lower East Side kosher food. We bought our tickets -- and got a great deal on Expedia. Flight and rooms for only $235 each! Now all we have to do is to convince the RNC to put us on their staff.
I have already sent in an application. But why would they choose us?
First of all, there's Ann Coulter. Her sense of fashion is WAY off. She needs us to instruct her on how to dress. Second of all, the Repubs need to be taught how to become Christians again and I am just the person to do it! Bible thumping is my favorite contact sport.
Third, be prepared! If we heed all the dire warnings that Bush is giving us about there being a terrorist attack in New York (God forbid), Ashley is a Girl Scout. And she knows CPR too.
Fourth and most important, when the Bush Gang announces that NYC is now too dangerous to hold the convention there and plans to move it to Iowa, we can console the thousands of Repubs who will have missed it. "Bush didn't MEAN to snub you," I will tell them. "It's just that he began to notice that real Republicans were starting to get nervous about the corruption at the White House and, well, he thought he'd do better to have a Republican convention without the actual delegates."
Don't worry, Republicans. Ashley and I will save the day! See you there!
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"Imagine a world where EVERY child is wanted, nurtured, protected and loved: World Peace in one generation!"
Correction: Ginger Rogers sang "We're in the Money" in pig-Latin in "Gold Diggers of 1933". Not 1935. And if you want to see what a swift boat looks like, rent Robin Williams' movie, "Good Morning Vietnam!". And if you wanna know what weirdness goes on among the Texas aristocracy, rent "Giant" with Rock Hudson, James Dean and Liz Taylor. Shades of the Crawford "ranch"! (By the way, Crawford used to be a pig farm before GWB bought it in 2000. And Bush is afraid of horses too.)
Life is a competition. The winners are the ones who do the most good deeds. Here's an opportunity to do one: In October, I will be walking in the Susan G. Komen 3-day walkathon to benefit breast cancer research. Donate $5 and I will put you on my prayer list! (You are on there already but hey...) To donate, please go to http://www.the3day.org/faf/home/default.asp?ievent=30112 Click on "sponsor a participant" and type in my name.
Another way to fight breast cancer? Women exposed to pollution develop breast cancer first -- so let's fight it by dumping those money-grubbers in the White House who are allowing toxic polluters to endanger the lives of our wives, mothers and sisters.
Choosing Iraq over America? That's traitor talk.
By Jane Stillwater http://jpstillwater.blogspot.com
Suppose some hot-spit economist pointed out to you that America couldn't afford the war on Iraq? "These figures in this column here indicate that..." That what? That if America continues to indiscriminately run up her credit card debt in Iraq, we are soon going to get a rather ugly visit from the repo man.
At the rate that the math-challenged party-boys in the White House continue to pour America's paychecks into Iraq, we will soon be bankrupt, have no armed forces at home to defend us and our children will be as dumb as posts.
If you had to chose between America and Iraq, which would you chose? I would chose America! To chose Iraq over our country? That's traitor talk.
If you had to chose between losing the American Dream because the installment payments on "Operation Iraqi Freedom" are going to leave us living in our car -- and letting the Iraqis battle it out between themselves without us, which would you chose?
"But," you might say, "The war on Iraq is over!" I am willing to bet you one hundred twenty five billion dollars -- plus $180,000 a minute (http://costofwar.com/) plus the145,000 American soldiers now stationed there -- that it is not.
"But," you might say, "our pride is at stake here. We can't afford to lose the war on Iraq!" You will need a better argument than that. We have already lost the war on Iraq. We lost it before the Bush Gang even fired a shot. We lost it the day that America was told to spend a trillion dollars on bombs instead of schools.
According to Jim Hightower, just one of the bribes that Bush offered Turkey to join the Iraq war was larger than the entire funding of "No Child Left Behind".
In the future, guys, let's get our priorities straight. Our country is AMERICA. Not Iraq.
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From Global Research: "Is a USA Economic Collapse Due in 2005?" by F. Will |
