More Antiwarriorology

Thousands of "antiwar" protestors received their marching orders today and went on the offensive down Broadway in NYC.

The sign that says "United for Peace & Justice" (globally) must mean that they're united behind America's leadership in ridding the world of the Taliban and the Baathists (who weren't doing "World Peace" and "Justice" any favors, to be sure).

One would think.

Think again.

The sign that says "Bush IS More Evil Than Bin Laden" (what, "Evil?" Hey, that's "Manichaean!") can just as well say that Bush--not Bin Laden-- is the world's biggest terrorist (and indeed, we've heard that before).

It also implies, therefore, that:

1) The war the "antiwar" movement is waging against the evil terrorist President George W. Bush is justified for a nation that is waging a war on terror

and

2) The antiwar movement is comprised of a bunch of idiots

Smile for the camera, folks. There's a special place just for you in a file at the Department of Homeland Security!

The Food-Chain

Ladies & gentlemen, my fellow Americans, Republicus proudly presents our "Elite."

The "Patriots."

Remember The Alamo On May Day

April 27, 2006
By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Pro-immigration activists say a national boycott and marches planned for May 1 will flood U.S. streets with millions of Latinos to demand amnesty for illegal immigrants and shake the ground under Congress as it debates reform.

Such a massive turnout could make for the largest protests since the civil rights era of the 1960s, though not all Latinos -- nor their leaders -- were comfortable with such militancy, fearing a backlash in Middle America.

"There will be 2 to 3 million people hitting the streets in Los Angeles alone. We're going to close down Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Tucson, Phoenix, Fresno," said Jorge Rodriguez, a union official who helped organize earlier rallies credited with rattling Congress as it debates the issue.

Immigration has split Congress, the Republican Party and public opinion. Conservatives want the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants classified as felons and a fence built along the Mexican border.

Others, including President George W. Bush, want a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship. Most agree some reform is needed to stem the flow of poor to the world's biggest economy.

"We want full amnesty, full legalization for anybody who is here (illegally)," Rodriguez said. "That is the message that is going to be played out across the country on May 1."

Organizers have timed the action for May Day, a date when workers around the world traditionally have marched for improved conditions, and have strong support from big labor and the Roman Catholic church.

They vow that America's major cities will grind to a halt and its economy will stagger as Latinos walk off their jobs and skip school.

Teachers' unions in major cities have said children should not be punished for walking out of class. Los Angeles school officials said principals had been told that they should allow students to leave but walk with them to help keep order.

In Chicago, Catholic priests have helped organize protests, sending information to all 375 parishes in the archdiocese.

CRITICS CHARGE INTIMIDATION

Chicago activists predict that the demonstrations will draw 300,000 people.

In New York, leaders of the May 1 Coalition said a growing number of businesses had pledged to close and allow their workers to attend a rally in Manhattan's Union Square.

Large U.S. meat processors, including Cargill Inc., Tyson Foods Inc and Seaboard Corp said they will close plants due to the planned rallies.

Critics accuse pro-immigrant leaders of bullying Congress and stirring up uninformed young Latinos by telling them that their parents were in imminent danger of being deported.

"It's intimidation when a million people march down main streets in our major cities under the Mexican flag," said Jim Gilchrist, founder of the Minuteman volunteer border patrol group. "This will backfire," he said.

Some Latinos have also expressed concerns that the boycott and marches could stir up anti-immigrant sentiment.

Cardinal Roger Mahony of the Los Angeles archdiocese, an outspoken champion of immigrant rights, has lobbied against a walkout. "Go to work, go to school, and then join thousands of us at a major rally afterword," Mahony said.

And Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who has long fought for immigrant rights, has said he expects protesters to be "lawful and respectful" and children to stay in school.

In Washington on Thursday, immigrant-rights activists brushed off talk of a backlash.

"This is going to be really big. We're going to have millions of people," said Juan Jose Gutierrez, director of the Latino Movement USA. "We are not concerned at all. We believe it's possible for Congress to get the message that the time to act is now."

(Additional reporting by Aarthi Sivaraman in Los Angeles, Dan Trotta in New York and Michael Conlon in Chicago)

Econ 101

Market fuel prices drop
By Patrice Hill
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
April 28, 2006


Oil and gasoline prices took another tumble in New York trading yesterday on signs of increasing supplies and slackening demand in the United States and China, adding to an 18-cent drop in wholesale gas prices that likely will produce relief at the pump in the days ahead.

Since peaking above $75 last week, the price of premium crude oil has fallen to just under $71 yesterday on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while gas for delivery in May has plummeted to $2.07 a gallon after touching a high of $2.25.
Pump prices have flattened out at $2.92 nationwide for regular unleaded, 50 percent higher than they were in February but not yet reflecting the declines in the futures and wholesale markets.

The biggest factors causing price drops have been signs that demand for gas is running about 1 percentage point behind last year's level -- most likely in response to the rapid run-up in pump prices since last month -- even as refineries are racing to take advantage of high prices and increase scarce supplies of summer fuels.

[Note by Republicus: In the April 21 post "Dead Dinosaur Gunk Going Gold," Republicus finished by saying:

The good news in all of this is...(2) the fundamentals of supply and demand themselves may preempt any catastrophes by the simple fact that there's only so much consumers are willing--if not able--to pay for anything...

And that's precisely what happened with the drop in prices.

Unfortunately, the drop will encourage the same old behavior that forced supply to raise prices in the first place.

Americans should understand that.]

Demagoguery

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- In an interview previewing a major speech she will give tomorrow at the Chicago Economic Club, Clinton said, "The economy is working really well for many people, but if you look just over the horizon and below the surface there are some troubling issues. The rich are getting richer, everybody else is marching in place" and "I don't think that's good for us."

Not true. The pool of "rich" Americans has grown as segments of the middle class moved up into it, and the middle class pool has grown as segments of the "poor" moved up into that.

What has shrunk is the pool of the impoverished.

True, the gap between the very rich and the very poor is wider than ever, because the rich have indeed gotten richer and so further away from rock bottom--but so what? Is that bad?

Is that "unfair?"

The rich are giving-- by themselves --to charitable organizations in record amounts (because they have more money and because we're a giving, compassionate people).

Furthermore, next time you hear Senator Clinton crow (any day now) about how much better "My husband's economic policies" were (like allowing oil companies to merge), keep in mind that the same gap between the very rich and very poor that she's harping about now was widening just as fast as ever--if not faster-- in the late 1990's with the Tech Bubble (a brief period of "irrational exuberance" that today is mytholigized by the hyperbolic Left as "The Greatest Most Stupendiferous Economy In The History Of The Planet...Until Bush Destroyed It!").

This part of the statement is fine: "The economy is working really well for many people..."

Indeed. "Really well," thank you very much.

But?

"...but if you look just over the horizon and below the surface there are some troubling issues."

Yes. A pessimist could find "troubling issues over the horizon and below the surface" with just about any subject at any stage of its development, including life itself.

Nothing here is perfect.

That's just rhetoric used to segue into the stoking of a little class warfare and the exploiting of the politics of envy and divisiveness in a subtle way by saying: "the rich are getting richer, everybody else is marching in place."

So there's "the rich" and..."everybody else," marginalizing the former into some corporate, greedy and anomalous--if not tyrannical-- minority who are not part of "everybody" and who are somehow responsible for the "marching in place" of the armies of the "oppressed" latter (i.e. "everybody else").

It's Robespierre and Marat stuff.

The subtext of all that is--can only be-- that the "Bush tax-cuts for the Rich" are responsible for the rich getting richer, taxes which could've been used to...

...help "everybody else" march out of poverty!

And what's with this "march" business?

Why "march?"

And where would "everybody else" march to?

Why, to war!

Against who?

The terrorists?

Heck no, silly, the real enemies to the republic, George W. Bush and the rich Republicans!

"The People vs. The Powerful!"

"Proletariats Unite!"

"To The Bastille!"

Why couldn't she just say: "Yes, the economy is working really well for many people, but we'll always have the poor among us, and we shouldn't forget them," because, indeed, "I don't think that's good for us."

She couldn't say that because every vote does indeed count in this day and age with razor-thin elections of 100 million-plus voters being decided by single-digit millions, and she has to be divisive and stir up class warfare to make sure that she keeps the demographic of "the poor"--i.e. everybody else not a rich white corporate Republican like Ken Lay-- voting for filthy rich, tax-sheltered Democrats like herself and the Kerry's.

You don't hear the Republicans endlessly harping about rich vs. poor, male vs. female, black vs. white, gay vs. straight, etc., because...

"They're "tone deaf?"

"Out of touch?"

Because they're uniters, not dividers.

It's the Democrats who try to shear away entire demographics by slandering the Republicans as "The Party of the Rich," and the "anti-Choice/anti-Female Boy's Club," and racist "Anglo-Fascists" and "Homophobes."

So who's left to support the Republican Party?

Voila: Rich, sexist, racist, homophobic white boys...

...versus "Everybody else!"

So stop marching in place and march to the polls for the mid-term elections and '08 and Hillary and the Democrats will make "everybody else" rich, too (or at least make them feel relatively--and vindictively--richer by soccing it to the rich)!

How?

How else?

Tax hikes!

Way To Go, Tony!

Bush taps Tony Snow to be new Press Secretary

"Never Happened"

The Best Among Us

Sergeant Re-Enlists After Losing Hand in Iraq IED Attack
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Foxnews

Returning to her camp near Baghdad, Sgt. 1st Class Juanita Wilson's last supply run turned out very differently than the other missions in her seven-month tour in Iraq.

"We got everything we needed and [were] on our way back … about an hour from our camp … that's when something happened to our vehicle," recounted Wilson, a full-time member of the Army Reserve whose unit deployed to Iraq in March of 2004.

That 'something' was an improvised explosive device (IED) that wounded her and several members of her convoy in August of 2004. The explosion cost Wilson her left hand and some of her arm.

"My driver kept saying, 'Something's wrong with my leg, something's wrong with my leg!' … I didn't know anything was wrong with me. I was trying to figure out what was wrong with him," she explained.

Wilson knew they had been attacked and told the driver to get them out of the "kill zone" — the area where attackers expect to kill many of the enemy. Once the vehicle was in a safer position, she started to realize something else was wrong.

I started to feel this tingling in my hand … I looked down and that was when I realized OK, I don't have a hand here,'" Wilson said. A combat medic rushed over and began patching her up but the attack wasn't over. The U.S. convoy then got hit with small-arms fire. Other soldiers with Wilson began returning fire and radioed for helicopter gunship support.

Wilson and her driver were severely wounded and could only wait for the medical evacuation team to arrive. To Wilson, listening to the battle and waiting for the MEDEVAC seemed like "the longest amount of time."

Over the next four days, Wilson made her way to Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., where she spent the next year in intensive therapy and making many decisions about her medical care and the type of life she wanted to live.

Wilson was a unit supply specialist with the 411th Engineer Battalion, an Army Reserve unit from Hilo, Hawaii. The unit had been building roads and infrastructure such as schools around Iraq since its deployment.

While recuperating at Walter Reed, one option Wilson would not consider was leaving the Army, despite the long road to recovery that lay ahead of her.

"From Day One, my decision was, 'I'm not getting out,'" Wilson said, adding that she still has things she wants to accomplish in the military. "My support channel has been there for me and I'd like to give that back to the soldiers of the future."

Wilson underwent a year of both occupational and physical therapy before a medical review board cleared her for further service. She explained that an individual isn't even considered to appear before the board until at least a year of therapy.

"They want to see if you're really ready to return, which is a good thing," Wilson said. "It's really great at Walter Reed. They don't want you to leave there with the idea that 'nobody helped me or asked me what I wanted to do.'"

Wilson, originally from Clarksdale, Miss., now lives in Maryland and works at Walter Reed. The 32-year-old volunteers as a peer visitor for other soldiers in situations similar to hers.

More than 600,000 patients a year pass through the Walter Reed Army Medical Center and its clinics; it’s the Army’s largest healthcare facility. Walter Reed boasts more than 1,600 full-time physicians, nurses, and other health care providers. Its Orthotic and Prosthetic Appliance Laboratory constructs artificial limbs, correction braces and other devices

Now, nearly two years after the IED attack in Iraq and after therapy, numerous operations and a new prosthetic hand, Wilson made good on her decision to stay in the Army. She and 37 others re-enlisted in a ceremony held on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on April 6. Wilson wasn't the only veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom who re-enlisted, nor was she the only wounded soldier among them.

Wilson understands the circumstances that have drawn media attention to her, but doesn’t consider herself to be that special.

"I hope to represent every soldier in the Army Reserve — and my daughter — in a positive way. If you put your feet in Iraq or Afghanistan, your service is just as meaningful and just as appreciated," Wilson said.

Michael Lawhorn contributed to this report.