by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
Oct. 26, 2009
Violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people is wrong. So is violence against people in Afghanistan and Iraq. But in the bizarre culture of identity politics, there are no alliances among the oppressed. The Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act, the first major federal civil rights law protecting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, passed this week, was attached to a $680-billion measure outlining the Pentagon’s budget, which includes $130 billion for ongoing military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Democratic majority in Congress, under the cover of protecting some innocents, authorized massive acts of violence against other innocents.
It was a clever piece of marketing. It blunted debate about new funding for war. And behind the closed doors of the caucus rooms, the Democratic leadership told Blue Dog Democrats, who are squeamish about defending gays or lesbians from hate crimes, that they could justify the vote as support for the war. They told liberal Democrats, who are squeamish about unlimited funding for war, that they could defend the vote as a step forward in the battle for civil rights. Gender equality groups, by selfishly narrowing their concern to themselves, participated in the dirty game.
[…]
via Truthdig*
Thomas Friedman Sums Up the Iraq War: “Suck. On. This.”
JeremyWBlueDuck37
Jan 25, 2011
Chris Hedges is the author of the new book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle.”
Copyright © 2009 Truthdig
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Dandelion Salad 
I am receiving a large number (10 just today) of old posts, marked “new”.
Lynn, thanks for letting me know. I had to edit a lot of older posts in the last few days. I think it’s because you set the comments or new posts to receive an email for each. Please set your subscription to “daily” and then you would only receive one email per day. You have to make these changes yourself as I don’t have any control over the email notifications.
The best email newsletter is from Feedburner. It comes out only once per day and has a short description of each post.
http://feedburner.google.com/fb/a/mailverify?uri=DandelionSalad
Please see: https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/so-sorry-for-all-the-emails-on-the-older-blog-posts-by-lo/
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Thomas Friedman is a psychotic individual. There is no such thing as a terrorism bubble, which burst on 9-11. There is more terrorism today in the world than ever and it is increasing. Thomas Friedman talks as if killing innocent Iraqi civilians is an object lesson to the whole Islamic world. If it is, it is a lesson that the United States is an evil nation which uses sophisticated terrorism to rob the resources of other countries. Notice that not once did Thomas Friedman mention oil and the oil giants of the world are in Iraq now dividing up the spoils.
Hedges cant see a religious role, which makes him blindi n that one area (at least this time–he has often called out his own religion)
On the sexual sadism involved in war, from Abu Gharib to telling statements, like those made by Friedman the Loathesome, were spot on.
remember that we live in a society that glorifies blood. just like at all the primetime T.V. shows wrestling,UFC etc. Everyone wants to solve their problems with weapons and fists. Its all downhill from here folks.
I dont.
Hedges is dead wrong about what causes homophobic hate crimes. Bigotry causes them, and that bigotry is based on religion.
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