DN! has a sobering report up this morning on the side of the war story you don’t hear from the Rah!Rah! mainstream media.  Keep the tissues nearby, because unless you have a hard heart, the tears will flow.

Tomas Young, activist against the Iraq War, dies on the eve of Veterans’ Day.

Phil Donahue and his role in getting Tomas’ story told.  The side of war you don’t see or hear.  As Donahue said, this has been the most “sanitized” war on record.  With the Vietnam war, the war was right in our faces every night with the then respectable media.  Communications folks talk about the war as being lost because of the horror of war brought into people’s homes every night.  There was no denying how devastating it was.

Now we have Tomas Young, who went in thinking he was fighting for his country, when he was fighting for oil.  He became paralyzed….for oil.

Lastly, StoryCorps has an animated video of a soldier and the children he met.  He could see their humanity and how utterly devastating war is when his little friend suffered terrible losses.  How could he explain this to the child?

I wonder what my Dad went through in his service.  He never talked about it.

And again, I want to state that I am not down on veterans…but I seek a world without war.

**edited to fix link.

Farmer’s Almanac has a great recipe up on Pumpkin Burgers. They also have a written version to click on, which I found more helpful.  I haven’t tried them yet, but they sound delicious.  Enjoy!

I’m just wondering…how much money would we save, in fifteen minutes or less…if Geico, State Farm, Liberty Mutual, Progressive, etc., weren’t constantly running TV, radio, and internet ads?

I mean, really, the amount of money they are forking over for those ads means that a) they charge too much for their premiums opposed to the amount they pay out; or b) they don’t pay enough in corporate taxes.

Probably both….

Rick Berman, the master of psychological manipulation, is still very much on the payroll of those who really are against democracy.  As you listen to the tapes, you see that he uses all the persuasion in communications tactics–trying to humiliate the opposition, playing word games that confuse the listener, demoralizing the moral authority (this just shows what a sociopath Berman is), branding environmentalists as stupid and without credibility, and the creme de la creme is his saying  that he uses the biggies: fear, anger, love, greed, sympathy, to mold people’s thinking.  This is the book of persuasive techniques in Communications.  And why I would never be in Public Relations, because this is exactly how they operate–by using psychological manipulation.

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Billionaires buy elections.  Another reason they should be paying higher taxes…if they have $41 million to spend on elections, they sure the hell have enough to pay higher taxes.

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The Koch brothers use persuasive communications techniques by funding political ads portraying potheads for Robert Burke.. in an apparent attempt to siphon votes away from Mary Burke.

…another reason I am against the push for making pot “normal”…this is the same thing that happened in the 60s–a wonderful movement was essentially quashed by cocaine.  You can’t be strong if you’re high.  You can’t think straight if you’re high.  Before you think I’m condemning those who imbibe, I’m not. I don’t think it should be criminalized, either.  I’m just saying that we should take a long look at why Republicans would think this is okay….?  They have ulterior motives is why.

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Finally, the Koch party wins big.  God help us all.

Well, this is good news.  I am so glad to see Earthships going to help build a home and possibly give a spark to help the First Nations build sustainable housing for themselves.

As Chief Wilma Pearl Mankiller found, when she led the Bell water project–they suddenly found they weren’t as helpless as they were made to feel.  It gave them their dignity back.

And you can’t beat having a home that is sustainable–water gathered from rain, growing food inside year ’round, heating with solar, and on.

Well, it would seem that there are kindred spirits also protesting the lack of choice in candidates….

These folks wrote in cartoon characters in place of live candidates.  I’m not sure there is a difference.  Haha.

Notice how the talking heads make light of the whole thing instead of taking folks’ concerns seriously…and actually, you know, reporting on why folks are writing in their own candidates….and the difficulty in getting a write in candidate on the ballot.  I was not even aware that Ralph Nader was on the Indiana ballot in 2012…it was never mentioned when the talking heads “reported” on the candidates for the election.  Funny how that goes, eh?

Here are more folks writing in sports heroes.  Okay…that’s taking it a bit too far.  I’m thinking more of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mahatma Ghandi…or just anyone who is able to survive being poor…definitely my heroes.

This is from New York, but still helpful in writing in a candidate.

This is the form a write-in candidate must file in Indiana. Note that in order to affiliate with the Dems or Repubs, they must get the party’s blessing.  Can you beat that?  This is after the county clerk in the town I grew up in absolutely refused to change my party affiliation when I requested it.  She tried to tell me that they no longer ask for party affiliation when registering voters, therefore, I was no longer a Republican.  Not that I would want to call myself Democrat now, either, but that’s besides the point.  But here we have this official form asking that if folks did not declare a party affiliation or vote with a certain party, they had to get the party’s okay to run as a candidate for that party.  There is something wrong here.

Roberta Blackgoat’s impassioned pleas to stay on the land she and her mother and grandmother and great-grandmother, etc., have dwelled on for centuries really spoke to me.

Here is a good history of what has happened. What would we do without John McCain pushing people around and wanting to start wars at the drop of a hat?

I found a powerpoint on the history, too.

Here is an update and a plea for help from the Dineh.  Note that this is Black Mesa, which Peabody insisted they had no interest in….but that was 2000, and things change, you know. /snark

It’s really important to distinguish the Tribal Councils from the traditionals–the traditionals would never, ever *think* of selling their land, or digging the coal out of the ground, or any of the other toxic stuff.