Wednesday, September 17, 2014 8:35:31 PM
American political situation begins to resemble Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
OpEdNews Op Eds 8/1/2014 at 12:35:31
By Marc Jampole
Image from page 7 of .Songs from Alice in wonderland and Through the looking-glass. (1921)
(image by internetarchivebookimages)
Have we fallen down a rabbit hole and entered a surrealistic world as Alice did when she fell into Wonderland? Have we walked through a looking glass to a world that looks like ours but operates on a weird kind of logic?
I can't be the only one who looks at the political scene in Washington, D.C. and concludes it looks a lot like Lewis Carroll's 19th century fantasies, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.
What could be more bizarre than the lawsuit of the Republicans against President Obama because he has failed to implement parts of a law that they vehemently opposed and then spent four years trying to repeal?
Or how about this bit of logic from John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives? In the morning he says that Congress will come up with a plan to solve the current border crisis and in the afternoon we find out the plan is to tell the president to do something. Of course, if the president does do something about the border crisis, he will be expanding the powers of the presidency, the same sin of which the lawsuit accuses him.
Or how about this bit of lunacy? Dick Cheney, John McCain and others want to send more troops to Iraq to support a government known for repressing segments of its population. Or think of a world turned upside down in which the United States supports a coup d'etat and Russia supports the constitutionally elected government? Believe it or not, that's what has happened in the Ukraine--although I have to add that by no means serves as an endorsement of Russia's support of Ukrainian rebels.
As our political landscape begins to resemble the Wonderland into which Alice fell, I find myself assigning characters to an imaginary Washington Wonderland: Our President would have to be Alice.
[INSERT: The President has to be Alice, yep, central so must be. Just as
i'm a bit fuzzy on the Wonderland characters, lol, i felt to check that one ..
"loving and gentle," "courteous to all," "trustful," and "wildly curious".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_%28Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland%29
yeah, ok. The rest of the characters are even more spot on.]
John Boehner as unctuous but ineffectual The White Rabbit and Ted Cruz as the completely bonkers Mad Hatter are easy calls, and if Cruz is the Mad Hatter, then Jeff Sessions is the March Hare and Mitch McConnell is the Dormouse who sits squeezed tight between these two crazies. The Mock Turtle, a creature that doesn't exist outside of a mediocre pun, is Marco Rubio. Paul Ryan is the mean-spirited and hypocritical Duchess.
And who is the self-satisfied Cheshire Cat, sitting in a tree above the action--or should I say above the rhetoric and posturing masquerading as action--with a sly, knowing smile? It's has to be America's ultra-wealthy as represented by those fat cats, the Koch brothers. While our elected officials, especially our legislatures, continue to create chaos out of order, the ultra-rich enjoy a regime of low taxes, enormous tax loopholes for corporations, insufficient environmental regulations and a foreign policy driven solely by the needs of the 1%. The Cheshire Cats smile, too, because they know they are sitting pretty, what with current campaign finance laws that allow them to buy elections and the Republican campaign to restrict voting rights (which, BTW, takes a page from wealthy northerners in the 1870's and the South from the end of Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, who also moved to dramatically restrict eligible voters).
The more things don't change, the more the ultra-wealthy smile like Cheshire Cats.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/American-political-situati-by-Marc-Jampole-Border-Security_John-Boehner_Koch-Brothers_Obama-Administration-140801-872.html
===
Kurds retake Christian villages from Iraq militants
Kurdish peshmerga forces on Tuesday recaptured seven Christian villages in northern Iraq in clashes with militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. (ISIS) (File photo: Reuters)
By AFP | Erbil
Tuesday, 16 September 2014
Kurdish peshmerga forces on Tuesday recaptured seven Christian villages in northern Iraq in clashes with militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an officer and a cleric said.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians, most of them Chaldeans, fled their homes when ISIS militants launched a renewed drive in the north in early August.
Iraq’s largest Christian town, Qaraqosh, and dozens of other villages were all but emptied in what Christian leaders described as the worst disaster for the minority in centuries.
On Tuesday, peshmerga forces ousted ISIS militants from seven villages west of the Kurdish capital Arbil during fighting in which rockets and mortar rounds were used, a senior officer said.
“We liberated those villages with the support of US aircraft,” Major Sardar Ali said, referring to the Nineveh plains area between Arbil and Mosul, the main IS hub in Iraq.
The United States, whose air force has been targeting ISIS militants in the area since early August, has yet to confirm it carried out the latest reported strikes.
The officer said many of the homes were booby-trapped by the jihadists before they retreated.
The peshmerga, the main security forces of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, are receiving arms and ammunition from countries including the United States and France.
A source in the Catholic Chaldean church told AFP that Kurdish forces had made progress Tuesday.
“The peshmerga managed to liberate several villages... (ISIS) militants have now fled from there,” the cleric said on condition of anonymity.
The villages were important because of their location close to the towns of Bartalla and Qaraqosh, he added.
IS jihadist fighters on June 9 launched an offensive that saw them seize the second city of Mosul and sweep through much of Iraq’s Sunni heartland in a matter of days.
In another push in early August, they targeted minority groups, took control of the country’s largest dam and moved within striking distance of Arbil.
That prompted Washington to send warplanes back into the skies over Iraq for a bombing campaign to support efforts by Kurdish and federal forces to recapture lost ground.
ISIS militants have also seized large areas of neighbouring Syria and beheaded three Western hostages, causing an international outcry.
Last Update: Tuesday, 16 September 2014 KSA 22:53 - GMT 19:53
RELATED STORIES [1 OF 6]
German Muslims invite all faiths to day of prayer against ISIS
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/09/16/German-Muslims-invite-all-faiths-to-day-of-prayer-against-ISIS.html
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/09/16/Kurds-retake-Christian-villages-from-Iraq-militants-.html
Yep. "teabagger corker from the backwards state of Tennessee, whoa! ...man is he
ever obvious ... making a show for all backwoods folks in the slave states .. .. ;) "
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=106370171
Note: Kerry just reminded us that the suggestion the moderate forces in Syria in
opposition to Assad have formed a truce with ISIS is ISIS misinformation. Period.
See also:
Iraqi PM says foreign troops not welcome in the country
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=106373088
Arab Nations Offer to Conduct Airstrikes Against ISIS, U.S. Officials Say
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=106258218
Alice "trips" down wonderland .. and .. the real thing .. Alice in Wonderland (1999)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=105825979
OpEdNews Op Eds 8/1/2014 at 12:35:31
By Marc Jampole
Image from page 7 of .Songs from Alice in wonderland and Through the looking-glass. (1921)
(image by internetarchivebookimages)
Have we fallen down a rabbit hole and entered a surrealistic world as Alice did when she fell into Wonderland? Have we walked through a looking glass to a world that looks like ours but operates on a weird kind of logic?
I can't be the only one who looks at the political scene in Washington, D.C. and concludes it looks a lot like Lewis Carroll's 19th century fantasies, Alice in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There.
What could be more bizarre than the lawsuit of the Republicans against President Obama because he has failed to implement parts of a law that they vehemently opposed and then spent four years trying to repeal?
Or how about this bit of logic from John Boehner, Speaker of the House of Representatives? In the morning he says that Congress will come up with a plan to solve the current border crisis and in the afternoon we find out the plan is to tell the president to do something. Of course, if the president does do something about the border crisis, he will be expanding the powers of the presidency, the same sin of which the lawsuit accuses him.
Or how about this bit of lunacy? Dick Cheney, John McCain and others want to send more troops to Iraq to support a government known for repressing segments of its population. Or think of a world turned upside down in which the United States supports a coup d'etat and Russia supports the constitutionally elected government? Believe it or not, that's what has happened in the Ukraine--although I have to add that by no means serves as an endorsement of Russia's support of Ukrainian rebels.
As our political landscape begins to resemble the Wonderland into which Alice fell, I find myself assigning characters to an imaginary Washington Wonderland: Our President would have to be Alice.
[INSERT: The President has to be Alice, yep, central so must be. Just as
i'm a bit fuzzy on the Wonderland characters, lol, i felt to check that one ..
"loving and gentle," "courteous to all," "trustful," and "wildly curious".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alice_%28Alice%27s_Adventures_in_Wonderland%29
yeah, ok. The rest of the characters are even more spot on.]
John Boehner as unctuous but ineffectual The White Rabbit and Ted Cruz as the completely bonkers Mad Hatter are easy calls, and if Cruz is the Mad Hatter, then Jeff Sessions is the March Hare and Mitch McConnell is the Dormouse who sits squeezed tight between these two crazies. The Mock Turtle, a creature that doesn't exist outside of a mediocre pun, is Marco Rubio. Paul Ryan is the mean-spirited and hypocritical Duchess.
And who is the self-satisfied Cheshire Cat, sitting in a tree above the action--or should I say above the rhetoric and posturing masquerading as action--with a sly, knowing smile? It's has to be America's ultra-wealthy as represented by those fat cats, the Koch brothers. While our elected officials, especially our legislatures, continue to create chaos out of order, the ultra-rich enjoy a regime of low taxes, enormous tax loopholes for corporations, insufficient environmental regulations and a foreign policy driven solely by the needs of the 1%. The Cheshire Cats smile, too, because they know they are sitting pretty, what with current campaign finance laws that allow them to buy elections and the Republican campaign to restrict voting rights (which, BTW, takes a page from wealthy northerners in the 1870's and the South from the end of Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, who also moved to dramatically restrict eligible voters).
The more things don't change, the more the ultra-wealthy smile like Cheshire Cats.
http://www.opednews.com/articles/American-political-situati-by-Marc-Jampole-Border-Security_John-Boehner_Koch-Brothers_Obama-Administration-140801-872.html
===
Kurds retake Christian villages from Iraq militants
Kurdish peshmerga forces on Tuesday recaptured seven Christian villages in northern Iraq in clashes with militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. (ISIS) (File photo: Reuters)
By AFP | Erbil
Tuesday, 16 September 2014
Kurdish peshmerga forces on Tuesday recaptured seven Christian villages in northern Iraq in clashes with militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), an officer and a cleric said.
Tens of thousands of Iraqi Christians, most of them Chaldeans, fled their homes when ISIS militants launched a renewed drive in the north in early August.
Iraq’s largest Christian town, Qaraqosh, and dozens of other villages were all but emptied in what Christian leaders described as the worst disaster for the minority in centuries.
On Tuesday, peshmerga forces ousted ISIS militants from seven villages west of the Kurdish capital Arbil during fighting in which rockets and mortar rounds were used, a senior officer said.
“We liberated those villages with the support of US aircraft,” Major Sardar Ali said, referring to the Nineveh plains area between Arbil and Mosul, the main IS hub in Iraq.
The United States, whose air force has been targeting ISIS militants in the area since early August, has yet to confirm it carried out the latest reported strikes.
The officer said many of the homes were booby-trapped by the jihadists before they retreated.
The peshmerga, the main security forces of the autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, are receiving arms and ammunition from countries including the United States and France.
A source in the Catholic Chaldean church told AFP that Kurdish forces had made progress Tuesday.
“The peshmerga managed to liberate several villages... (ISIS) militants have now fled from there,” the cleric said on condition of anonymity.
The villages were important because of their location close to the towns of Bartalla and Qaraqosh, he added.
IS jihadist fighters on June 9 launched an offensive that saw them seize the second city of Mosul and sweep through much of Iraq’s Sunni heartland in a matter of days.
In another push in early August, they targeted minority groups, took control of the country’s largest dam and moved within striking distance of Arbil.
That prompted Washington to send warplanes back into the skies over Iraq for a bombing campaign to support efforts by Kurdish and federal forces to recapture lost ground.
ISIS militants have also seized large areas of neighbouring Syria and beheaded three Western hostages, causing an international outcry.
Last Update: Tuesday, 16 September 2014 KSA 22:53 - GMT 19:53
RELATED STORIES [1 OF 6]
German Muslims invite all faiths to day of prayer against ISIS
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/09/16/German-Muslims-invite-all-faiths-to-day-of-prayer-against-ISIS.html
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/News/middle-east/2014/09/16/Kurds-retake-Christian-villages-from-Iraq-militants-.html
Yep. "teabagger corker from the backwards state of Tennessee, whoa! ...man is he
ever obvious ... making a show for all backwoods folks in the slave states .. .. ;) "
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=106370171
Note: Kerry just reminded us that the suggestion the moderate forces in Syria in
opposition to Assad have formed a truce with ISIS is ISIS misinformation. Period.
See also:
Iraqi PM says foreign troops not welcome in the country
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=106373088
Arab Nations Offer to Conduct Airstrikes Against ISIS, U.S. Officials Say
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=106258218
Alice "trips" down wonderland .. and .. the real thing .. Alice in Wonderland (1999)
http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=105825979
It was Plato who said, “He, O men, is the wisest, who like Socrates, knows that his wisdom is in truth worth nothing”
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