Emails

The following is an e-mail sent to me from a family member the later is my reply my appoliges to my cousin for his statement.

“Subject: Fascism, Indeed

There Is Fascism, Indeed
By Keith Olbermann
MSNBC Go to Original
Wednesday 30 August 2006
The man who sees absolutes, where all other men see nuances and shades of meaning, is either a prophet, or a quack.
Donald H. Rumsfeld is not a prophet.
Mr. Rumsfeld's remarkable speech to the American Legion yesterday demands the deep analysis-and the sober contemplation-of every American.
For it did not merely serve to impugn the morality or intelligence - indeed, the loyalty - of the majority of Americans who oppose the transient occupants of the highest offices in the land. Worse, still, it credits those same transient occupants - our employees - with a total omniscience; a total omniscience which neither common sense, nor this administration's track record at home or abroad, suggests they deserve.
Dissent and disagreement with government is the life's blood of human freedom; and not merely because it is the first roadblock against the kind of tyranny the men Mr. Rumsfeld likes to think of as "his" troops still fight, this very evening, in Iraq.
It is also essential. Because just every once in awhile it is right and the power to which it speaks, is wrong.
In a small irony, however, Mr. Rumsfeld's speechwriter was adroit in invoking the memory of the appeasement of the Nazis. For in their time, there was another government faced with true peril-with a growing evil-powerful and remorseless.
That government, like Mr. Rumsfeld's, had a monopoly on all the facts. It, too, had the "secret information." It alone had the true picture of the threat. It too dismissed and insulted its critics in terms like Mr. Rumsfeld's - questioning their intellect and their morality.
That government was England's, in the 1930's.
It knew Hitler posed no true threat to Europe, let alone England.
It knew Germany was not re-arming, in violation of all treaties and accords.
It knew that the hard evidence it received, which contradicted its own policies, its own conclusions - its own omniscience - needed to be dismissed.
The English government of Neville Chamberlain already knew the truth.
Most relevant of all - it "knew" that its staunchest critics needed to be marginalized and isolated. In fact, it portrayed the foremost of them as a blood-thirsty war-monger who was, if not truly senile, at best morally or intellectually confused.
That critic's name was Winston Churchill.
Sadly, we have no Winston Churchills evident among us this evening. We have only Donald Rumsfelds, demonizing disagreement, the way Neville Chamberlain demonized Winston Churchill.
History - and 163 million pounds of Luftwaffe bombs over England - have taught us that all Mr. Chamberlain had was his certainty - and his own confusion. A confusion that suggested that the office can not only make the man, but that the office can also make the facts.
Thus, did Mr. Rumsfeld make an apt historical analogy.
Excepting the fact, that he has the battery plugged in backwards.
His government, absolute - and exclusive - in its knowledge, is not the modern version of the one which stood up to the Nazis.
It is the modern version of the government of Neville Chamberlain.
But back to today's Omniscient ones.
That, about which Mr. Rumsfeld is confused is simply this: This is a Democracy. Still. Sometimes just barely.
And, as such, all voices count - not just his.
Had he or his president perhaps proven any of their prior claims of omniscience - about Osama Bin Laden's plans five years ago, about Saddam Hussein's weapons four years ago, about Hurricane Katrina's impact one year ago - we all might be able to swallow hard, and accept their "omniscience" as a bearable, even useful recipe, of fact, plus ego.
But, to date, this government has proved little besides its own arrogance, and its own hubris.
Mr. Rumsfeld is also personally confused, morally or intellectually, about his own standing in this matter. From Iraq to Katrina, to the entire "Fog of Fear" which continues to envelop this nation, he, Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, and their cronies have - inadvertently or intentionally - profited and benefited, both personally, and politically.
And yet he can stand up, in public, and question the morality and the intellect of those of us who dare ask just for the receipt for the Emperor’s New Clothes?
In what country was Mr. Rumsfeld raised? As a child, of whose heroism did he read? On what side of the battle for freedom did he dream one day to fight? With what country has he confused the United States of America?
The confusion we - as its citizens- must now address, is stark and forbidding.
But variations of it have faced our forefathers, when men like Nixon and McCarthy and Curtis LeMay have darkened our skies and obscured our flag. Note - with hope in your heart - that those earlier Americans always found their way to the light, and we can, too.
The confusion is about whether this Secretary of Defense, and this administration, is in fact now accomplishing what they claim the terrorists seek: The destruction of our freedoms, the very ones for which the same veterans Mr. Rumsfeld addressed yesterday in Salt Lake City, so valiantly fought.
And about Mr. Rumsfeld's other main assertion, that this country faces a "new type of fascism."
As he was correct to remind us how a government that knew everything could get everything wrong, so too was he right when he said that - though probably not in the way he thought he meant it.
This country faces a new type of fascism - indeed.
Although I presumptuously use his sign-off each night, in feeble tribute, I have utterly no claim to the words of the exemplary journalist Edward R. Murrow.
But never in the trial of a thousand years of writing could I come close to matching how he phrased a warning to an earlier generation of us, at a time when other politicians thought they (and they alone) knew everything, and branded those who disagreed: "confused" or "immoral."
Thus, forgive me, for reading Murrow, in full:
"We must not confuse dissent with disloyalty," he said, in 1954. "We must remember always that accusation is not proof, and that conviction depends upon evidence and due process of law.
"We will not walk in fear, one of another. We will not be driven by fear into an age of unreason, if we dig deep in our history and our doctrine, and remember that we are not descended from fearful men, not from men who feared to write, to speak, to associate, and to defend causes that were for the moment unpopular."
And so good night, and good luck.”


???????????????????????????????????????????????????????
Humans are credulous, pattern-finding, story-driven animals, in search of meaning. Though we may vehemently deny it, we are readily mislead by authority figures to believe falsehood and to reject truth.

****End of e-mail gentlemen start your ranting!!!!!

Please, you have to be kidding me? Never before have I read such impressive tripe. For all the accusations, the conclusions and comparisons drawn, where is a single fact in the whole narrative? Keith Olbermann is grinding his axe but has no teeth to eat with. He is constantly spewing about the great crimes and conspiracies of the current administration, but has yet to ever give us anything but his opinion; you know the dissenting opinion that he says Rumy is trying to quash? Obviously no one has shut him up yet. And if your going to try to draw comparisons to governments and wars, at least stay on one side of the argument. You can’t debate both sides at the same time. Must I constantly remind everyone that most of the problems he has claimed that the current administration has botched are actually clean up jobs left over from the years of mismanagement of the previous democratic administration. If you don’t get this then I can show you the tapes and congressional records where the previous admin. and many dems. had stated that Sadam was a threat that we knew Osama was a threat when he was handed to Clinton on a silver platter. I can show you the pictures of the airplanes buried in the desert and the reports of the WMD’s That every one not just Bush-men agreed were a threat and real. As far as Katrina goes, are we forgetting whose responsibility it was to have a disaster plan? Whose administration kept voting to put money into tourism on the French Quarter and not to improve the levees? Oops! wouldn’t that fall to Mayor Nagan? And the busses that the federal government failed to provide or even stage for that disaster? Guess we’ve forgotten the thousand busses that belonged to the New Orleans School district? The Real Question we need to ask is not about what Olbermann and the rest of the main stream media want to point us to, but what they want us to see and not see. Where are the pictures coming from on the internet of troops helping Iraqis and protecting children, that we never see main stream? Where is fair and balanced when stories that aren’t supportive of the liberal movement are never told? Fascism maybe, but not In our government as Keith would have us believe but in the media for misleading us and showing the half truths, slants, and biases, but presenting them as the whole truth, as fair and balanced.

Mark
Loudmouth redneck

About Cindy

Awhile ago I received an e-mail about Cindy Sheehan. It was a letter by a counselor in San Diego and I thought it really hit the mark. Here it is: the email in its entirety. Apologies to Dr. Barbara Collier.


I have been happily married for 35 years, and am also a counselor, in the San Diego area. I am the mother of two happily married children, and two
happily born "grandies."

Please find attached a copy of an editorial I submitted last week to the San Diego Tribune, and the LA Times. Both were run, resulting in a
veritable barrage of hate letters and phone calls. I don't care. People have got to wake up end again, somehow, take up the reins of responsibility and
accountability.

Dr. Barbara Collier

Open Letter to Cindy Sheehan

OK, you have gotten your "mad" out there. You've been noticed. You've attracted pity. You've had your say. Now, please, go home and stop
embarrassing yourself and shaming your own son's memory.

Don't think, for a single moment, that you have the market cornered on grief and loss. There are countless mothers who have lost loved ones.
My son fought in the war, but I never had the President of the United States greet me, but if he had, he wouldn't have remembered my son's name
either.
I am a counselor, and I meet with people all the time, who come to me with emotional wounds. It is a natural thing to feel personally wronged when
a loved one, particularly a child, is taken, from them... regardless of the cause. They have lost something precious, and they are angry. They want
someone, anyone, to "pay." And you have decided that the one "to pay" you for the loss of your son, Casey, is going to be George Bush. And you are
"not leaving Crawford until he's held accountable."

Congratulations! You have now, single-handedly, shamed your own son's memory. Your son VOLUNTARILY, enlisted in the military armed forces,
so that people such as yourself could retain the right to speak their minds, make public fools of themselves, verbally attack the office of the President of
the United States, and (essentially) try to hold him hostage. You are just a different type of terrorist yourself, and doing the very thing your son died for: resisting.

War, in case you have never cracked open a history book, is ugly. People die. Had there not been ranks and files of anguished mothers who also lost their
sons during the Revolutionary War, you would not be living here in America, enjoying the rights and freedoms you obviously take for granted, and feel you
deserve. Freedom is paid for with blood. Had your son died in the Twin Towers on 9-1-1, you would be chaining yourself to a fence in Crawford, Texas
demanding that George Bush go bomb the hell out of some terrorists.

Your anger is really towards your son, because he joined the cause of freedom, of his own free will, and you disagreed with his choice to do so. You had
personal goals and dreams for him, and now they cannot happen. His life was cut short, and YOU are feeling ripped off and wronged. George Bush is not intimidated by you. He is not frightened by you. And quite frankly, he doesn't have the time for you. There are some 300,000,000 people in this country, and
he knows precious few of them by name. Get over it. You do NOT speak for the majority of us. You speak for yourself and have, already, embarrassed way
too many of us. Pack up your soapbox, and your Jane Fonda want-to-be cause, and go home. Go sit at your son's graveside and apologize to him for shaming
him, the cause HE stood for, and his memory you have belittled.


Dr. Barbara Collier

Mad Mark Beyond the Blogosphere

Well, finally something has struck a nerve, something strong enough to drag me back to the computer. Needless to say it has been a while since I’ve bloged, excuses? Well I’ve been really busy with my company ( an owner never sleeps ) and there really hasn’t been anything lately that just had that kick in the gut feeling to it, to force me to write.
(Ok… there was the Cindy Sheehan thing but others have taken up the cause and I’ll get to that later)

It started with the hurricane and the MMS’s response; gee let’s blame the federal government! While watching the “never ending coverage” I couldn’t help but turn to CNN (Communist News Network) during the commercials. It never fails to amaze me the blatant slant they manage to add to their stories. The reporter was asking some very leading questions of one of the refugees, and she just wasn’t getting the answers she wanted. She would ask him, was he frustrated that the Astrodome was closed to him and his family. And he would say that he was grateful to be on dry ground. So she asked what he was going to do now that he had no home and nowhere to go. His answer was that he was just thankful that his family was together and that they were no longer at the Superdome. So the reporter was getting frustrated she wasn’t getting the “right” answer and just said something to the effect of: Aren’t you disgusted with the fact that most of the rescue efforts and money are coming from the private sector and not the federal government, and aren’t you mad that President Bush doesn’t care about the refugees? (Ok, not her exact words but ya’ll saw this garbage… didn’t you?)

Then we’ve got the Mayor of New Orleans throwing a fit and yelling that Bush and the federal government are not doing anything to help them. Hello… If were going to start blaming folks, where the hell was your city’s evacuation plan? You sure made it out ok, loudmouth. Why were your city’s dyke systems only engineered to withstand a Category 3 storm? Why weren’t all the pumps properly maintained? Why aren’t you taking any of the blame, instead of using the “head in the sand” defense, or the “lets blame Bush” defense? You, sir get the Flaming A-hole Award, for being a royal “pain in the butt”.

Ok so you ask “why are you so mad? Mark”. This is for anyone who feels like nothing is being done. Have you ever been to a sporting event? Maybe a concert or a place like Six Flags? Did you sit in you car for an hour trying to get out of the parking lot? (Ok this might take a little imagination) Let’s say there was an emergency right smack in the middle of the parking lot as everyone is trying to get out. Let’s say there is an ambulance trying to get to the hurt people at this emergency. Now just for fun lets add a big storm, not just a thunderstorm but add extra high winds, (high enough that light poles ,electric poles and trees are blown down in the only road in) some collapsed bridges and flood the road. How long do you think it’ll take? Oh yeah, the only ambulance left working in the area (due to the storm destroying all the other ambulances and the hospitals) is over a hundred miles away. Are you starting to get the picture? Reality is let’s multiply this situation by several hundred times. Its thousands of people hurt several thousand people in our proverbial parking lot and we’re trying to move thousands of vehicles in with several thousand tons of equipment and supplies. See the logistical problems? No?
On top of this let’s remember the idiots and thugs shooting at innocents, the rescue workers and each other.
It’s an astronomical sized mess, people, there is a huge rescue effort in place, but it is going to take time! A long time!
Blaming the ambulance company is not productive. In fact if your there trying to get your story, busy blaming everyone, filming people washing away and NOT HELPING THEM because that would mean putting down your camera YOU ARE PART OF THE PROBLEM!

PS. For all the people who lost family and/or friends, homes, jobs or property my heart and prayers go out to you. May God give you the strength to go on, and to rebuild your lives.
For those of you who choose to loot for personal gain, shoot at rescue teems and cause additional pain and grief to those who are trying to survive, I hope that you haven’t had a chance to breed yet and that you get what’s coming to you.

What a year, Please say it'll get better.

A lot has taken place since I’ve last visited here. Only four months into the year and it’s proving to be a real stinker. I’m afraid to tempt fate and say “it can’t get any worse” but something has to go right sooner or later. Let me explain.

February rolled around and the four man partnership that formed our business had to be paired to three. The general feeling among me and the other two board members was that we were paddling up the stream as hard as we could and the fourth partner was drilling holes in the boat. Needless to say this is not conducive to a healthy, thriving or productive business relationship so we were forced to ask for his resignation. As a side note we are still finding things that he had done that are causing our company strife.

Second and most devastating to me personally, March ended with the loss of my mentor, friend and greatest hero, my father Lynn McDaniel. Dad had been battling leukemia since 1998 and although he was forced to slow down occasionally he never gave in. Although long since retired (and living a retirement dedicated to fishing) he had forgotten more about air-conditioning and refrigeration than I will ever know, and while I fancy myself a pretty good a/c tech, I fear I may never achieve his level of expertise. Dad also had a talent for talking to people. He was a man who never knew a stranger (a gift I always admired) he could talk to anyone from a King to a pauper and treat them both with the same respect. A truly rare soul he touched a great many lives and none more than mine. I must confess that I rarely made a decision without consulting him. His answer often was simply a question directed back at me, and even when given, I did not always follow his advice, but I knew he was always on my side. He is sorely missed.

The third tragedy, and most recent was a young man named Jason Clifton. I just returned from his funeral prior to writing this tonight. Jason was the nephew of one of the remaining partners in our company. After the death of his parents at a young age he was raised by his grandfather and was more of a brother to Stephen. He came to our rescue after the dismissal of our forth partner. You see our odd little company also has a computer sales and service department, Jason had a degree in electronics engineering from ITT Denver and just the skills we needed to plug the holes in the boat mentioned earlier. Much like my father, Jason had an ability to talk to anyone. He was a youthful spirit and genuinely fun guy to work with. Last Thursday while he was working at his second job, joking with his boss, just being Jason, he collapsed. Everyone has been devastated at the suddenness of his departure. At 26 years of age he had shown no sign of what took his life and we are still in shock.

I must apologize at my feeble attempt to memorialize these two wonderful people here tonight. Needless to say I’m still reeling, and this is probably an attempt on my part to share my anguish with the world. I would like to end this piece with a prayer.

Dear Lord, please be with the families and loved ones of these two dear people that you have called home. Let us feel your comfort and ease our pain. Let us know that while they have finished their time on earth, that they are safe in your arms in heaven, and that we will see them again when we go home to you. Unique and beautiful in your creation, we will miss their daily interaction that made our lives brighter, but know that your purpose is greater than our understanding. We grieve our loss, but know that they live on in you and in our hearts forever. Amen.

Dying ain't much of a living boy

Well ... Well, I'm being told that to get people to actually read this thing I need to post regularly. Its just finding time to post lately has been ... Well difficult. ( that says nothing of the fact I might aught to offer something worth reading )
My life has been rather consumed of late, by my work and my family. Any one who thinks that being your own boss means that you get to go home early and take off when you like, has never owned their own business ( or probably wasn't very successful at it )
At any rate, my parent's house is still in disarray from the flood and is taking a lot of attention. Yes their fixing it ... But also looking for a place on higher ground. My own house is suffering from inattention and my wife is probably going to put me out of my misery soon if I don't get some projects finished around here.
Any way I just finished some take home work and here I am on the computer at 2:00 am.
Ok, got to admit, this sounds like whining so I'll change the tune.

On one of my few couch potato moments I happened to see a program on glaciers. It was on the discovery channel or history or one of the other "educational" cable channels and I kept hearing how global warming was causing the glaciers to shrink and these ice shelves in Antarctica to shear off and fall in the ocean. The scientists wanted to study this phenomenon and find out what effect WE are having on the environment by causing the global warming that's causing all this stuff to happen. Just me I guess, but I also heard them say that these things have been going on for hundreds of years....?
So we have been polluting and using Chloroflurocarbons for hundreds of years?
I guess those cowboys and their hairspray or those high polluti'n covered wagons sure were tearing up our ozone even back then!
If you just watch closely you'll see the slant. Things just don't add up.
They have found green house gases hundreds of feet down in ice cores too! So I guess we can blame those damn dinosaurs for the last ice age. ( them and their SUVs )
Just once I would like to have a scientists explain how the Chlorine in Freon got up to the ozone layer? You see, CFCs are 5 to 8 times heaver than air. ( Newton had that one figured out without government money )
Guess I'm just sick of the scare tactics and the real pollution spewing out of the media and the bunny huggers mouths>

Message to Islamic extremists

Tonight, while the hot water flowed and the walls reverberated with the slightly off tones of my best shower singing voice, a lonely thought hit. I say lonely because it has been awhile since I thought outside my own little world in a while. I was singing the “Angry American” a patriotic ditty by Mr. Toby Keith. The phrase that generated the thought was: “ this nation that I love has fallen under attack, a mighty sucker punch came flying in from some where in the back, but soon as we could see clearly through our big black eye, man we lit up your world like the Forth of July!”
The thought was “They just don’t get it!” let me elaborate. My point is the Islamic extremists just don’t get it. We are not like anyone else in the world. We are Americans! A mixed breed of people from every culture in the world, but with a different mind set than any. You see unlike the Spanish people or French or any one else, we are the most inspired and determined people in the world. We will not quit! We will not just lie down and take it! We will not give up without a fight. Check your history Osama.
If you really want us out of your holy land, you are going about it all wrong. The governments of two countries have already been toppled. Al-Qaeda’s back has been broken, its leaders captured and thousands of insurgents lay dead. Free elections will take place in Iraq, just as they did in Afghanistan, and you can’t stop it. You have not America to blame, but only yourselves. You brought us there, by attacking on 9-ll.
Once again the “sleeping giant” has been awoken.
If you had left us alone, these things would not have taken place. We would still be minding our own business here in America. But noooo … you did it and now we’re over there doing our thing and spreading freedom. Your way of life will never be the same! And furthermore if your insurgents and your suicide bombers continue to attempt to disrupt our efforts, we will never leave, we will topple more governments and we will eventually free the whole Middle East. Because, (now listen closely) We don’t quit! We have resolve. We are America. You started this and we’re going to finish it!
The news is pouring in that more Iraqis than expected voted. Even though they were threatened, even though your suicide bombers blew up polling sites, even the fear of death didn’t stop them and it won’t stop us.
So if you really want us gone, if you really want to continue to exist, you will stop the killing, stop the cowardly tactics. But then again you are “extremists”, and peaceful coexistence is not in your nature so as the song goes “we’ll put a boot in your ass, it’s the American way”.

Still Alive

No, contrary to the rumors, I am not dead, nor am I in a Turkish prison. I have, though been preoccupied with the whole Christmas thing and have had my daughter with me for the holidays. No excuse I’m sure; but that’s my story, and I’m sticking to it.
Actually, the daughter thing is a blessing, and having her has been fun. See, my wife Liz (yes for those who don’t know I also got married to my long time girlfriend since the last post) and I have 4 children between us, and while the normal 3 are a handful, four are the equivalent of a force 5 hurricane. Just to add to the party Liz’s Grandmother (93yrs old and more lucid than I) has been temporarily displaced and has moved in with us. I’m not griping, family members in need are never an inconvenience but it does change your daily routine.
Needless to say my life has been … well … hectic of late.
My blog site has suffered for it. And so to my loyal, if not some what perturbed fans, my deepest apologies.

On to current events, my sympathies go out to the people caught up in the tsunamis in Asia. Mother Nature is a royal b*%$! She tends to remind us from time to time that no matter how big we build and how smart we become, we are still as fragile as tissue in her grasp (wet tissue at that). Aid is now pouring into the region, and I just hope it goes to the people that need it.
I don’t begrudge people (in need) getting help, but I do sometimes wonder where the international aid was when our coastlines in Florida were getting hammered. It’s been a rough year world over.

Osama Bin Laden is back in the news. Apparently he has released another tape from his cave. He is calling for a boycott of the infidel elections in Iraq. He also endorsed Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq, praising him for his attempts to thwart the American (read “infidel”) efforts in that region. Please, for God’s Sake, will some one please collect the bounty on these idiots? We really need to arrange a meeting between these guys and Allah (before he places them in the elevator going down).

Not to forget our U.N. buddies, who keep telling us that the U.S. is conducting an occupation of Iraq and that we are conducting the elections all wrong.
Hey, dunderheads we are not conducting the elections …. The Iraqis are.
In fact, the Iraqi council is planning, and conducting the Iraqi election, making their own rules; even some rules against American suggestions. You see America is determined to allow them to rule themselves, and give freedom a chance. We are not the corrupt, self serving, leaches you are. Truth is you guys are still sore that we screwed you out of your “oil for torture” cash cow, and have caught you with your proverbial hands in the cookie jar. Mr. Annan, you and your son are going down, hard. Resign while you’re ahead.

BLOCKED

Hello to all my fabulous readers. I’m sure the multitudes are waiting for my next blog. There’s only one problem … blogers block. Yes friends and neighbors the Big Fat Redneck can’t think of a single thing to write about. Take a picture with your freakin cell phone cause I’m just speechless.
Maybe it’s because of the stress, maybe it’s because my parents didn’t play classical music while I was in the womb, maybe it was those damn Dr Seuss books, I don’t know but quit possibly for the first time in my life I really don’t have anything to rant about tonight.
It’s not that I don’t have plenty of things to be angry about; or that the news wouldn’t produce plenty of rantings. It’s more that… well… I really don’t care to watch the news tonight.

I will however point you to a great blog site (for those of you who don’t already frequent his site) the Great Kyle, evil genius, lawyer, fellow conservative, and also my cousin has been banging away at his keyboard again and has some note worthy postings. (Also some great links). Go to http://cerebralmisfire.blogspot.com. where you will find his wisdom.

And for me BLAH!