In my campaign travels, I was asked to represent the Green Party's Presidential Candidate at a forum at a local college. The Dem was a guy I know, we've worked together on some education issues. He's a good enough guy. He did the usual, "John Kerry will do blah, blah, blah." and "Our founding fathers blah, blah, blah."

The Republican guy was in his mid-30's, a former English teacher, coach and now in a cushy job doing something with the local bus service, which poor dems use, but rich repubs control. This dumbass was spewing things like we should all become Republicans because we all share the same values and that The War Criminal will protect us all, etc. He was a good technical speaker, but the content was all crap. And to boot, there's this table of girls...probably not more than sophmores, on the edge of their seats at dumbass' every word...it was like when Marcia Brady had a crush on someone...brutal.

So when it's my turn, I start talking about getting out of an illegal & immoral war.
Well, dude's not having any of that...he comes back with Saddam himself was a weapon of mass destruction and that how could the war be immoral when he gassed women & children. Well when I hit him with the truth & actual facts, first, he didn't have a reply and second, the little girls were looking at me as if I just ran over their puppy. It was awesome! I also rocked their world about capitalism - i.e. exporting jobs, and got close to a standing ovation on education.

Oh...what did I say about Saddie? Well, just that the US is the country that put him into power, that WE sold him the chemicals then I pointed out that there are pictures that show Donny Rumsfeld shaking hands with Saddie himself. Don't believe me?




God damn, that was a good night.

Oh yeah, that wasn't even the original reason I had to post...I'm going to start making a list of times when "in the name of freedom". The US or its puppets do shit that we condemn others for. Like what? Uh, how 'bout this from Democracy Now:

The [US installed] Iraqi government is also threatening media outlets in Iraq to be careful on how it describes members of the Iraqi resistance and how it describes military operations carried out by the U.S and interim Iraqi government. The government said reporters must differentiate between, "innocent citizens of Fallujah who are not targeted by the military operations and between the terrorist groups who infiltrated the city and took its people hostage under the pretext of resistance and jihad." Iraq's Media High Commission also told news organizations they must provide space to explain "the government position" and journalists have been warned not to add patriotic descriptions to members of the Iraqi resistance. Journalists were told to underscore that "these military operations did not come about until all peaceful means were attempted." It is unclear what will happen to news organizations that break the new guidelines. The commission said that failure to follow the instructions will require authorities to "take all necessary measures to safeguard the supreme interest of the homeland."

Hooray! Freedom!