hell’s handmaiden

It used to be my country. At least, I used to think that it was country. As a child I had fantasies about honor, and freedom, and dignity. I imagined that the country in general respected freedom and human rights. I was always kinda proud that my dad fought at Iwa Jima, and elsewhere in the Pacific, to preserve those things. I think maybe I was wrong.

I’m kicking off the carnival with a few posts that really catch the spirit of the thing. These are what I imagine the carnival the be. The get a privileged position.

First, a new name to the carnival but this nails a number of root issues. Holly Ord presents Acceptance vs. Tolerance posted at Woman Tribune, saying, “A permissive attitude (tolerance) towards someone of a different race is not the same as accepting that person. I shouldn’t have to approve anything that makes a person a person or give my permission for a person to be who they want to be.”

Another new name and another great post. Tristan L. Sullivan presents Strikingly Unusual: Presidential Candidate Mike Gravel posted at Imagine.

And another new name. Jerry Novick presents The Ways In Which We Divide posted at BentSense.

And next Jon Swift presents The Torture Race posted at Jon Swift, saying, “As long as we can say the terrorists are worse than we are, we have the moral high ground. But we cannot let them get too much worse than us or there will be a morality gap that could be as devastating as the missile gap potentially was during the Cold War. So we need to stay just one small step behind the enemy in the torture race. If they ratchet up their interrogation techniques, we need to ratchet up ours, making sure that they always stay just a little bit more evil than us so that we can retain our moral superiority.”

Politics as usual? Sad. Ian Welsh presents What Democratic Control of Congress Has Brought the US posted at The Agonist.

Hmmm… yeah, of course We condemn terror. We Condemn violence. posted at Untruths.

The President:

Stirling Newberry presents The Continuing Tales of Captain Carnage posted at The Agonist, saying, “What’s wrong with neo-conservatism is not the polls, it was wrong when the country supported Bush 90% for allowing Arabs to fly planes into buildings; it was wrong when the the country allowed us to go to war without a vote in Congress; it was wrong when Congress ratified that war; it was wrong when we invaded; it is wrong now that moral cripples in Congress continue to fund a war where we have already declared defeat, withdrawn from most of Iraq, and now sit bunkered up in the Blackwater Zone of Baghdad.”

No More Mr. Nice Guy! presents Junior’s Evil Empire posted at No More Mr. Nice Guy!, saying, “Building a bridge back to the USSR.”

The Presidential Race:

Rickey Henderson presents Rickey’s Wednesday Whine posted at Riding with Rickey, saying, “My thoughts on the current anti-intellectual tone in politics, as well as the whole “likability” nonsense taking place in the 2008 campaign. Enjoy.”

200motels presents Giuliani’s Panties posted at 200motels.net.

Politics as usual:

Charles H. Green presents Lessons in Propaganda: What Politicians Learned from Business posted at Trust Matters, saying, “The problem isn’t cynical politicians twisting business ideas: it is cynical business ideas themselves, granted mainstream legitimacy by business opinion leaders—-the business media, business schools, industry associations, and business leaders themselves.”

Doug Ragan presents >Republican Retirement Spells Opportunity posted at I’m A Pundit Too, saying, “I would like to take the opportunity of Hastert’s retirement to analyze who is leaving and the opportunities that have opened up for the Republican party.”

DWSUWF presents VBO (Voting by Objective) posted at Divided We Stand United We Fall, saying, “The objective of careful, limited, fiscally responsible federal government, can be accomplished at the ballot box. Not by voting exclusively Republican, Democrat or 3rd party, but by voting consistently for Divided Government.”

The War:

Stirling Newberry presents Realism on Iraq posted at The Agonist.

The Social Order:

Ian Welsh presents The Underclass Trap | The Agonist posted at The Agonist.

Holly Ord presents Fun with My Google Adsense posted at Menstrual Poetry, saying, “Whenever looking at this site, I always find myself going through the ads Google has deemed as appropriate for my website. As most know, most of the time Google comes up with some rather interesting ads to display, sometimes having nothing to do with the content on your website.”

SmallTownBS presents My Take On World Peace posted at Small-town Big-shot, saying, “This certainly applies for the U.S. but I can see how it could relate to anyone’s country- society in general.”

Satire? Snark? … I’m not sure. Interesting enough though. Chris presents Inside Every Martial Artist is a Dangerous Criminal posted at Martial Development.

Education:

Holly Ord presents No, They Won’t Pay For School posted at Woman Tribune.

Madeleine Begun Kane presents SCHIP Haiku posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness.

Firearms:

Sunny presents Civil Rights and Mental Illness posted at Morning Globe, saying, “Beginning with the Gun Control Act of 1968 there has been a movement to eliminate gun ownership rights among the mentally ill. The tragedy of Virginia Tech helped propel that movement forward, and a bill that will enforce GCA68’s provisions against mental illness has passed the House and moved on to the Senate. While it is noble to keep guns out of the hands of those who pose an imminent threat to themselves and others, stripping a group of individuals of their guaranteed civil rights should always come under extreme scrutiny. This bill needs strong definitions to protect the rights of a group of individuals who daily face serious social prejudices.”

Madeleine Begun Kane presents Not Tickled Pink About Girlish Pink Guns posted at Mad Kane’s Political Madness.

Speech:

Danogo cites something of a disturbing trend in the country and concludes that Internet Censorship is Alive, But Not Well: Web Proxy Sites Still Allow Free Speech posted at Danogo.com - Discover. Inspiring . Media, saying, “Article about how governments, schools and businesses are taking away our right to free speech. Explains how to bypass firewalls using web proxies.”

That concludes this edition. Submit your blog article to the next edition of this is not my country using our
carnival submission form.Past posts and future hosts can be found on our blog carnival index page.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, November 1st, 2007 at 8:25 am and is filed under TINMC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.