Obamabot vs. Thinking Person: Indefinite Detention

Video h/t Corrente

Also, via Corrente, see 2012 Obama fans shaping up to be worse than 2008's. That certainly squares with my observations on the gated community blogs and on Twitter. Their slogan really should be, "Fear and Loathing You Can Believe In."

So, you want to talk about catnip? Talk. Do it here. Now.

Who's the latest target of the New But definitely Not Improved Troll Patrol over at dkos?

Me.

Take a look in the comments here.

The genesis of this shitstorm?

I had the audacity to state (back on Feb 24th) that I'd rather see an educated non-voter than an uneducated voter. [I made the same comment back in the 90s to a local, liberal radio talk show host and he used it in his promos for a week after that - not because it contained any shock value but because I was a regular caller he had interviewed in person once about human rights abuses. He respected my opinions and later became (and still is) an elected official*. Are votes important to him? Sure. But he understood exactly what I meant because we live in Conservative Hell.]

* Note to Deoliver47 whose new hobby is doing "research" about me using Google: the story I just shared will not be found online so that one's a dead end.

Anyway, here's how all of this then spiraled out of control. (You will note that I didn't say anything about anybody's race, creed, colour, religion, sexual identity or popcorn-flavour preference in the above comment).

I'd rather see neither. (6+ / 0-)

but at least the voter is standing up and contributing to the process.

this isn't professional sports. most people don't HAVE to be mere spectators.

by mallyroyal on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 10:27:58 AM MST
____

you're implying... (2+ / 0-)

...that non-voters are merely spectators and that they don't contribute anything to democracy. That is not necessarily true.

by catnip on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 10:33:52 AM MST
____


I don't know how else to put how I feel (5+ / 0-)

about the American nonvoter withought degenerating into insults. truly.

by mallyroyal on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 10:35:46 AM MST

___

"feel" is the key word there (2+ / 0-)

Try thinking about why some people don't vote and how they still contribute to democracy.

by catnip on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 10:43:07 AM MST

___

See anything about race there? Nope? That's because it wasn't the issue - until some people made it THE issue. If you follow the thread, you'll see that it diverged into 2 topics which both had the same result: accusing me of being a racist.

The first divergence was made by those who insisted that people who died in wars died for the right to vote. I disagreed. I said people died for freedom - including the right not to vote.

Let me insert the bleedingly obvious here: did the protesters in Egypt and elsewhere recently die "for the right to vote"? Seems to me those Egyptians already had that right even when Mu was still the dictator. No. They died for freedom. That's a pretty simple point, don't you think? But no, when I said to dkos yanks that people died for freedom, that became an affront to African-American soldiers somehow. I'm "culturally insenstive", apparently. (Just another phrase for "racist").

The second divergence from that conversation? I made the mistake of telling mallyroyal (an AA kossack) to "think" instead of "feel". I was immediately jumped on with this:

well you know.... (6+ / 0-)

I only voted for Obama because he's black.

I didn't think about his policy position just like most AA didn't. That's why he has such a high approval ratings from us unthinking AA.

I must try some of that THINKING catnip suggests, but then again being an unthinking AA is so much easier.

;-)

by sephius1 on Thu Feb 24, 2011 at 03:21:38 PM

Had I said anything about anybody's race? No.

Ironically, mallyroyal (the person I was accused of being racist against - along with all other AAs) posted this yesterday:

finally some common sense in these comments. (3+ / 0-)

any rational person would read this from a POTUS to a former governor whose brother and father were previously POTUS.

too many kossacks allow their emotionalism to reign supreme while calling it rationale.

by mallyroyal on Sat Mar 05, 2011 at 10:50:31 AM MST

Did the same people accuse him of saying that AAs don't think? Of course not.

Let's fast forward through this clusterfuck:

1. Today I was accused 3 times of outing several people over at mcat's and elsewhere. Of course, the accusers didn't provide any links and one of the people I was accused of outing - slinkerwink - actually outed herself on dkos.

2. Consider this for a moment:

When you stated Sephius called you a racist (5+ / 0-)

which you continued to assert, you were calling him a racist.

Please - stop with the game playing.

by Deoliver47 on Sun Mar 06, 2011 at 10:06:10 AM MST

Here is my response:

let's change the wording... (3+ / 0-)

...to take a look at your preposterous leap of logic:

When you stated Sephius called you a cat (0+ / 0-)

which you continued to assert, you were calling him a cat.

Sorry but your Ps & Qs don't add up.

by catnip on Sun Mar 06, 2011 at 10:47:48 AM MST

Get what's going on there now? Yes. It is that obvious.

I'm not the first person they've done this too. Will I be the last? Stay tuned.

SO, if any of your Troll Patrol keyboard warriors want to take me on: do it here. Now. Be warned: anything goes here and nobody's going to cry for you if your feelings get hurt. The only rule here is: there are no rules.

A memorial for an old friend on Twitter

Ductape Fatwa, whose presence once graced numerous blogs until the fall of 2006, was one of the most thought-provoking writers I’ve had the privilege to know. He was arguably a force who brought many of us together, and who would no doubt have nurtured this blog had his life not been cut short just weeks after its inception. His ability to bring together people of diverse and sometimes divergent viewpoints and personalities is one I have often admired, and is one talent I wish I had. I digress however.

As a few of you may have sussed out, I do spend a little time on Twitter. I’ve had my account for ages, but really didn’t much use it. Anyway, I’ve been on a bit more as of late, and just for kicks decided to see if anyone had made mention of our old friend. Much to my surprise, I found Ductape Fatwa’s Twitter profile. Of course it’s not his per se. It is a memorial set up by someone else. Whoever set it up doesn’t seem to update it very often – seems he or she comes by about once a year since setting up the profile a couple years ago. I would love to thank whoever set it up. In the meantime, check it out, add yourself as a follower, and perhaps we can incite the person responsible to update it a little more often.

Quick update: if you don't have a Twitter account, you can access Ductape Fatwa's profile here.

Boo hoo hoo....a BBB closes

Maybe you've already seen the latest bombshell: Open Left, one of the Big Box Blogs, has shut its virtual doors. The reasoning behind the closure seemed a bit suspect, and Donklephant has pointed out just what stinks to high heaven:

The liberal blog Open Left suddenly announced today that they’ll stop posting content because…

we have gradually run out of money to maintain operations. It is a difficult decision, but we kept going for as long as we could.

But…

The site will not disappear, and all published content will remain online {…}

Wait…what?

Open Left is run on Soap Blox, which is a blogging platform and hosting service. The blog platform appears to be free and the most expensive hosting costs $40 a month. Sure, there are add ons, but Open Left doesn’t get a ton of traffic. They say they’re going to keep the website up, so it’ll cost $480 at the most every year. If you add in extra storage and overages every month, maybe it costs $1,000 a year…maybe.

So the idea that it was too costly to maintain the site is hard to swallow. Why didn’t they just throw a fundraiser? Think they could get 100 people to pitch in $10…or more? This is, after all, some of the same readers who rocketed Howard Dean from obscurity to the national stage because he was able to raise a ton of money online.

Bottom line…if they really cared about their readers they’d simply tell them that they can’t pay their writers anymore so content contributions will go down. And that’s assuming they paid their writers in the first place. Many political blogs simply invite people to blog and pay them zip. The platform, readership and communication is enough compensation. Also, I’ve been frank with all of you about content dropping in the down years between elections…and our hosting costs more than what they were paying. Do you see us going away?

Just saying…Chris Bowers and crew could easily keep that site up and post to it when they want to. But they’re not making any money. That’s the reason they’re quitting. Not very “open” if you ask me.

Amen! Strikes me that there would be plenty of regulars there who would gladly pony up some cabbage, if operating costs were an issue. But like other good corporatists, albeit of the "leftist" flavor, it's all about making the almighty profit - readers be damned.

Poetry Time

A Version of Pasternak's "Hamlet"

The hour is at hand: it calls the actor.
The crowd grows still as I step through the arch.
There's the cue: an echo from the future.
I must come forth and give the fated speech.

A thousand eyes, in darkness, throng about me;
Like Roman swords, they'll pierce me till I bleed.
O if it be Thy will, Abba, Father,
Then take the proffered cup away from me.

For I adore your rigorous conception,
And am content to play my given role.
But these new lines will scorch the throat that speaks them;
This once, I pray, remove me from the bill.

No: I see the acts have all been plotted;
The journey's end already has been willed.
I'm alone, while the world drowns in falsehood.
Cross this stage, and you cross a killing field.

Translated by Chris Floyd

Courtesy of Empire Burlesque.

'Let's get ready to rumble'

 
 

Okay.

Well...brrreaking news...there's a meta shitstorm going on at Teh Daily Kos (when isn't there?) and I've decided to let the various players involved use this place to fight it out because that's what we do here - meta.

Now, I don't know exactly what this is all about. There's talk of "ponies" and "pragmatics" and "hero worshippers" and "dirty fucking hippies" and "racism" and "rainbows" and "secret cabals" and the wreck list and various conspiracy theories. And this all involves "factions" (although I'm pretty sure we're not talking about the Crips and the Bloods here).

In other words: same shit, different day.

So, if you want to have it out, here are the rules:

1. There are no rules.
2. See rule number one.

If you're new here, this was our first post back in 2006 when a bunch of us migrated here from Booman Tribune and Daily Kos.

There are no referees here. You're on your own. (Unless somebody's posting spam trying to sell faux Rolex™ watches - then we might step in.) So, no complaining to the management if somebody hurts your feelings. We don't care.

Any questions?

Oh yeah - NO "pootie" pics. And they're called "cats", for fuck's sake: CATS.
 

Somebody Better Break Out The Fainting Couches!

Green Party "Draft Nader For Senate Buzzes The Internet..."

...Green Party efforts to draft Ralph Nader into a Senate run against Chris Dodd has created quite a buzz across the internet in just a few days ,as hundreds have signed an online petition to work for him and over a thousand have joined a social networking site on “Facebook” asking Nader to run... -- via On the Wilderside

I'd say that the paroxyms of rage this would induce in Kosland and its ilk do not have any comedic potential whatsoever, but I'd be lying.

Turkey Time

And I'm not talking about the Thanksgiving festivities that my American friends were engaged in this past week.

No.

The fact that a reportedly uninvited socialite couple crashed the WH state dinner has caused numerous heads to explode at the normally sedate (ha!) dkos. Even Mr Blades has joined in on the "what if? ZOMG!!" action positing about how these nefarious crashers could have poisoned The Chosen One with ricin. I kid you not:

Mock all you like. Ricin is an easy poison ... (26+ / 0-)

...to make, requiring only basic chemistry. And it's easy to apply. A syringe is best, but a scratch from, say, a specially prepared bracelet will do the trick. Of course, the Salahis didn't have any bracelets close at hand. So no problem, right?

Don't tell me what you believe. Tell me what you do and I will tell you what you believe.

by Meteor Blades on Sat Nov 28, 2009 at 01:13:38 AM MST

Quick! Someone get the man some worry beads. And pass a law pronto banning all bracelets in the WH.

The conspiracy theories about how this all came about are fast and furiously being posted over there - much to the delight of those who are so tightly wrapped up in Hollywoodesque impending disaster porn that they can barely stop their hands from quivering long enough to post "100% correct!" "Boycott Bravo!" "She looks anorexic!". (Oh, the misogyny is out in full force. Trust me.) This, on a site where conspiracy theories are supposed to be a bannable offense because it's a reality-based community. (I know. I know.)

I mean, c'mon. The two of them almost started a nuclear war! when they weren't busy posing with the nation's poseurs.

 

 

Well. At least they don't have to waste time talking about and justifying that shitty, so-called health insurance reform sell-out bill today. On with the show!
 

Mcat Update

My cat, Shipley

New e-mail from Marisa.

She's ordered a new PC but it won't be delivered until December 8.

She's hanging in there - contemplating novenas for the withdrawal symptoms though.

I'm sure she won't mind me posting this bit:

I am on my neighbor's mac laptop... and had originally thought In could throw up a quick thread at Mcat... but using this is a nightmare.

Enjoy the scenery...

Marisa's on a forced internets vacation since her PC died last week. And while she's in the process of ordering a new one, some of her regulars are out in the cold since comments on her blog are now closed.

Might as well enjoy the scenery in the meantime...

Blogging the debauchery...wherever we can...
 

Dana Houle: Banned

Announced with no fanfare whatsoever to avoid offending Houle's rather delicate sensibilities.

wait...so MB saw that... (3+ / 0-)


but missed DH in MI's many meltdowns? That would make MB like a pro 'rasslin' ref who was accidentally looking the other way.

-6.88,-6.77

by Shahryar on Sat Sep 05, 2009 at 11:09:50 PM MDT



*
Perhaps you should click... (1+ / 0-)


...here.

Some people would be better off not reading diaries they comment on, since they already have all the answers.

by Meteor Blades on Sun Sep 06, 2009 at 11:28:02 AM MDT


LOL...You banned DH? (0+ / 0-)

Roar Louder!!! @ Docudharma

by buhdydharma on Sun Sep 06, 2009 at 12:20:57 PM MDT

Your Moment of Zen™: What is the sound of one (severely narcissistic) head exploding?

Please sign the condolence book below.
 

If you don't support Obama, you'll kill him

So this is goodbye from me. At least for a while. I wish you all the best and i'll pray for Obama's safety every day, because i've seen first hand how tragic can be the end of a visionary and forward-looking leader, when right wing lunatics decide to eliminate him and the left leaves him all alone.

- Daily Kos diarist, blackwaterdog

[insert heavy sigh here]

It was bad enough when, during the campaign, people who criticized Obamalama were labeled "racists". Now, you are basically the one holding the gun to his head if you voice your opposition to his policies which, contrary to the laundry list of hyped-up crap in that diary, have been anything near "progressive".

But the Leave Obama Alone! crowd can't deal with reality hitting them in the face. Too much "doom and gloom", they say - as if it's all about how their poor feelings are getting hurt. Maybe they should sit down for a face to face with the families of the dead in Iraq and Afghanistan and talk "feelings". Maybe they should have a face to face with those who've been tortured who won't see any justice done by this administration and talk "feelings". Maybe they should have a face to face with people who are dying from a lack of proper health care and talk "feelings".

But, no. If the "left" (whatever is left of the left in the US surely isn't in this Democratic party) abandons the Spelunker-in-Chief (I coined that term) who never met a cave he didn't like - he's as good as dead.

We joke about the insanity of the wingnuts who are showing up, completely misinformed while embarrassing themselves to no end, to the health care town halls. Pelosi and Hoyer have called their rabble-rousing "un-American". (Them's fighting words.) Meanwhile, the so-called "left" on blogs like Daily Kos - who loudly cheered the protests in Iran while posts about US protests for universal health care on the site faded quietly into oblivion - can't even bring themselves to get their asses off their chairs to get out there to fight for their rights in their country. No. Obama told them to write their congresspeople (because that's so effective, isn't it?).

Conservatives typically despise unruliness. Oh how they hated the 60s. And this centrist bunch of self-identified "pragmatic" Dems - who also chided every attempt by groups like Code Pink to bring attention to the horrific wrongs perpetrated by Bushco (and now continued by Obama's administration) - are stuck standing by while the right-wingers ironically claim the radical mantle of very public dissent. The squeaky wheel gets the grease.

Rahm Emanuel says that "Dems attacking other Dems are 'fucking stupid'". This, in the middle of a seriously muddled attempt to roll out a bill that the Dems have absolutely failed to explain.

Obama kicks the issue back to congress. But, because he believes he is the face of absolutely everything (and haven't you felt like selling your teevee too by now?), he owns this mess. And he owns the fact that the wingnuts are having an absolute field day (death panels, anyone?).

He owns every single bad policy decision his government has enacted since he's been in office. He wants to own it all. How many times have you seen one of his cabinet secretaries in the media explaining his policies? Does anybody even know who they are?

And, as has been noted ad nauseum by people who are actually in touch with reality on the real left and who won't be guilted into backing off from criticizing him because of ridiculous claims like the one made by the above-quoted Daily Kos diarist, Obama has committed a slough of very non-progressive missteps. He's only been in office 7 months!, they proclaim. As if he's going to change his very character and wake up one morning soon to unleash his hidden inner liberal. Or maybe, they hope, Michelle will make him do it. (No, really. Some have actually said that.)

Read my lips: that's not going to happen.

The Hopeyness train has left the station and it took the Changeyness policies with it.

You just can't call the wingnuts crazy while making equally crazy statements yourself.

If you can't stand the much-deserved criticism, refresh, refresh, refresh and leave the rest of us alone.

 
Crossposted from my place.
 

Everything Went Black

I wanted to take a few moments to pay tribute to a few of our compañeros in blogtopia who've gone silent. I chose today for a reason: it marks the last date that an old blogging friend, Ductape Fatwa, posted so much as a comment. After that point, his blogging stopped and he stopped answering his emails, leaving many of us who had grown to consider him a dear friend to wonder about his whereabouts and well-being. Anyone who knew him will recognize him as a rather unique presence – at once a radical gadfly tweaking the noses of Democratic and Republican bloggers and a folksy elder gentleman telling anecdotes of his grandchildren; a devout Muslim with a keen intellectual curiosity and fascination with pop culture; a storyteller weaving dystopian narratives and yet unwaveringly optimistic; a stirrer of controversy who yet built something of a community among a diverse and divergent cast of internet characters. Words outlive their authors, and although he may have been just another obscure blogger among obscure bloggers, his words – scattered as they are throughout blogtopia – continue to live on and inspire.
This goes out to Ductape Fatwa and other bloggers whose voices have gone silent.

New Free-speechiness-like Blog

Former Pffer, Jack's Smirking Revenge, has launched his own little experiment in free-speechiness: The Free Speech Zone

From his maiden post: (not that I'm calling him a maiden although he's now taken on the job of being the collective Pff rejects' - including the various pinches, of course - handmaiden...)

Give me your banned, your poor, your huddled masses yearning for free speech in the blogosphere!

In the blogosphere there are sites that wish to discuss political matters in a civil manner.

Here, I want that discussion, as well as other kinds in which the community will take care of the trolls and people deemed "assholes" rather than have them banned for their opinion.

Say what you want, post what you want*.

*Note: No Child Porn unless you want the real world to come to your door.

I'm not quite sure what "take care of" means in that context. We shall see, I suppose.

In the meantime: meet the new blawg, same as the old blawg. Same as it ever was. Lipstick on a pig. [insert next cliché here]

Have fun, little hamsters.
 

Pff...pfft

Political Fleshfeast is dead.

What had been launched last year as a dubious yet perhaps promising free speechiness alternative to American, so-called "progressive", big box blogs (BBB) by disgruntled blog commenter peeder, has suddenly closed its' doors this Labour Day weekend. According to its owner, it had become too labour intensive...or he needed more time to cook...or some such thing.

The Pff regulars who actually tried to save the swamp have a different story to tell and they're welcome to do so here: the home for Mo Betta META (minus the frat boy pRon and misogyny that Pff had become infamous for).

Where will the newly homeless go now? Has peeder destined them to wander the bloggy desert for 40 days and 40 nites until they find their new promised land? Or will a new incarnation of the unabashedly screeching hall of online hell be created by the next new dissident/saviour/prophet/guru/frat boy?

Stay tuned.

______________________________

If this is your first visit to Mo Betta, you can read about our blog's purpose here - as written by our "founding father", the sorely-missed Ductape Fatwa.
 

The years before the current phase of the Iraq War

I always figure that a reminder that the US had been at war against the Iraqis for longer than the five years that we've been marking this week. To take a trip down memory lane, here's a list of some noteworthy US bombings of Iraq during the Bill Clinton years:

June 27, 1993: The U.S. launches a cruise missile attack on the headquarters of Iraq's intelligence service. Although the action, which is not authorized by the Security Council, is allegedly undertaken in retaliation for an attempt to assassinate former Pres. Bush during a visit to Kuwait, no evidence is ever produced to confirm that Iraq was involved (or even if the supposed assassination attempt actually occurred. Among the many "collateral" victims of the missile strike is the prominent Iraqi painter, Leila Attar.

September 3-4, 1996: The U.S. launches a series of cruise missile attacks against targets in northern Iraq. Although the action, which is not authorized by the Security Council, is supposedly undertaken to protect the Kurdish population around Irbil from Iraqi depredations, the U.S. policy of supporting assaults against these same Kurds belies any such noble motive. On Sept. 14, Pres. Clinton admits that he actually "ordered these attacks in order to extend the no-fly zone." The U.S. missile strikes thus violate Chapter VII of the UN Charter, As Well as UNGA resolution 337A (V) and a host of other elements of international law. Given the extent of "collateral" civilian casualties involved -- not the least among the very Kurds Clinton claimed to be trying to "save" -- violations of the 1923 Hague Rules of Aerial Warfare and the 1949 Geneva Convention IV are also at issue.

December 16, 1998: UNSCOM chief Richard Butler, having withdrawn the last of his personnel from Iraq, submits a report to the Security Council stating that the Iraqis had refused admission of inspectors to a number of "sensitive" installations (this is a conscious misrepresentation; Iraq had refused admission mainly to presidential palaces and other facilities deemed essential to "the dignity and sovereignty of the country."). On this pretext, and without Security Council authorization, Pres. Clinton orders the commencement of "Operation Desert Fox" the same evening. Over the next 4 days, more than 100 sites -- several of them in Baghdad -- are subjected to heavy bombing. As U.S. inspector Scott Ritter later observes, by that point, Iraq's existing stockpiles and capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction had already been completely destroyed. The U.S. airstrikes are thus plainly geared far more to impress upon the Iraqi government that it must do whatever it is told, than to "eliminate Iraq's chemical and biological weapons capabilities."

From about three years ago, I noted:

It is also the case that the US and UK had been cooperating since the end of the 1991 Gulf War to continue periodic bombing raids within Iraq's borders. None of this is a secret. The US (abetted by UK) campaign of genocide in Iraq was already on-going by the time Bu$hCo usurped the throne - the economic embargo imposed by the US had led to the death by starvation and disease of some 500,000 children in Iraq, for example - something that Clinton's ambassador to the UN, Madeleine Albright considered an acceptable price to pay.

In that light, from around the same time period, I said:

I've discussed previously the fact that following the presumed "end" to the Gulf War the regular bombings of Iraq targets continued unabated throughout the 1990s and early 2000s - at which point begins the official "beginning" of the war that our government is currently perpetrating. These airstrikes, conducted under the pretext of preventing the Evil Saddam from engaging in further hostilities with his neighbors, actually served the purposes of preventing efforts to rebuild the infrastructure (and worked in tandem with economic sanctions serving the same end). These strikes included, among other targets, the Kurdish areas of northern Iraq on Sept. 3 & 4, 1996 (ostensibly to "protect" the Kurds) ordered by none other than Bill Clinton (see, e.g., Ward Churchill's On the Justice of Roosting Chickens for a more thorough treatment of the US posture towards Iraq during this period). Of course, there were periodic spikes in bombing activity including - as it turns out - a noticeable escalation in airstrikes during the latter half of 2002:

THE RAF and US aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war, new evidence has shown.

The attacks were intensified from May, six months before the United Nations resolution that Tony Blair and Lord Goldsmith, the attorney-general, argued gave the coalition the legal basis for war. By the end of August the raids had become a full air offensive.

The details follow the leak to The Sunday Times of minutes of a key meeting in July 2002 at which Blair and his war cabinet discussed how to make "regime change" in Iraq legal.

Geoff Hoon, then defence secretary, told the meeting that "the US had already begun `spikes of activity' to put pressure on the regime".

The new information, obtained by the Liberal Democrats, shows that the allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001, and that the RAF increased their attacks even more quickly than the Americans did. Link

Keep in mind what both Bush and Blair were saying both to their respective constituencies and to the rest of the world: they lied when they contended that they were still pursuing diplomatic avenues.

I can only reiterate that the history of US hostilities against the Iraqi people stretches back to 1990, and has included not only two major military phases (The 1991 Gulf War and the current occupation that started in 2003), but also largely successful effort via sanctions to starve out the Iraqi people. Of course, as the above serves to remind us, the bombings never really stopped and indeed escalated in the months running up to the "Shock and Awe" that occurred on March 19th/20th. This genocidal effort was and is largely a bipartisan affair inside the Beltway, and aided and abetted by the UK's governments (e.g., John Major, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown).

It's easy to try to rewrite history. It's up to us who know otherwise to continue to call bullshit at those revisionist efforts.

What other bloggers have been saying on the Iraq War anniversary

Image caption: Falluja/Guernica, 2004 by Rob Landeros (found at Gernika)

Although there are some 375 blogs participating in the March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm, there are plenty of other similarly-minded bloggers who are not formally part of the blogswarm but who deserve to be read. Please check these folks out. You'll be glad you did.

Marisacat - The Thousand and One Nights
A Tiny Revolution - Five Years Later and Spencer Ackerman on Jeffrey Goldberg and Stephen Hayes
The Heathlander - Polling Your Face Off (part of the post includes results from a recent Iraqi opinion poll)
Left I on the News - Obama on the 5th Anniversary of the Invasion of Iraq
Lenin's Tomb - The re-division of Iraq and Extraordinary testimony from Iraq vet
Mickey Z: Cool Observer - The Iraq War did not "begin" on March 19 (useful reminder that the war and occupation in its present incarnation is merely a continuation of what Papa Doc Bush and Bubba Clinton perpetrated)
Arthur Silber - Tragic Reprise: A Nation of Stupid Children Who Refuse to Give Up the Lies and Over One Million Murdered -- and Nothing Has Been Learned
The Try-Works - Happy Fifth Anniversary US Soldiers! and Happy Fifth Anniversary Iraqi Civilians! (both posts contain very graphic images - enter at your own risk)
Who is IOZ - Psalms
Green Left Infoasis - Global Warming and the Iraq War and National Day Of Protest Against Iraq War Includes Labor
Invictus - Five Years of U.S. War on Iraq (Graphic)
World War 4 Report - More than 100 arrested in San Francisco anti-war actions
jmbzine - Still stunned by everything at Winter Soldier
Peace Arena - 5 Years Too Many events in OKC and Voices from the war
Okie Funk - Iraq Occupation Killed Truth
Free Iraq - There rarely was a suicide in Iraq before 2003 and Corporate Genocide - Result of 5 years of occupation
Earthside - Five Years of Failure
Empire Notes - Nothing Ever Happens in Macondo
The Fanonite - There Must be a Reckoning and Was It Worth It?
Informed Comment - The Arab Conscience and the 5th Anniversary of the Iraq War and 5 Years, Five Lies: Cole in Salon
EuroYank - Blog Debates - Your Life Hangs on a Thread (includes a mention of the Iraq War)
American Samizdat - Iraq: teachers told to rewrite history
Fitness for the Occasion - Iraq: Seeing the Violence
Empire Burlesque - Five Years and Counting: A Milestone on America's Long March Into Hell

Suffice it to say, this is merely the tip of the iceberg.

Some other columnists' fifth anniversary writings

Image caption: 'Photo-Op' by Martha Rosler, from the article "House Beautiful Iraq"

From CounterPunch:

Jeff Taylor - Five Years of War in Iraq: When Failure is Rewarded
Patrick Cockburn - A War of Lies: The Terrible Reality of Iraq
Robert Fisk - The Little Men and the Inferno: The Hell-Disaster of Iraq
Ron Jacobs - Five Years and Counting: Who'll Stop the Rain?
Yifat Susskind - Iraqi Women Resist the Occupation: Will Progressives Stand With Them?
Andrew Wimmer - War Demands Its Due: Getting the Story Right

From Antiwar.com:

Justin Raimondo - Iraq: Five Years After the Conquest
Jim Lobe - Why Did the US Invade Iraq?
Ivan Eland - For the Iraq War's Birthday, Slice of Cake

From elsewhere:

Christopher Cerf and Victor S. Navasky - A surge in Iraq gasbags
Jonathan Steele and Suzanne Goldenberg - What is the real death toll in Iraq?
Greg Mitchell - 5 Years Ago, As War Neared, Hillary Clinton Was Silent, 'NYT Archives Show
Salon.com - Robbing the cradle of civilization, five years later
Linda Heard - How to Destroy a Country and Get Off Scot-Free
Curt Guyette - The Left Was Right
Scott Horton - Six Questions for Aram Roston, Author of ‘The Man Who Pushed America to War’
Walter C. Uhler - My Protest to The Times: Effete Warmonger Kristol/Sanitizing Five Years in Iraq
Dahr Jamail - Rule, Not Reconciliation
Jon Soltz - Iraq: Five Years and Fading
Michael Goldfarb - Happy Anniversary
Rebecca Solnit - Five Years Later
Madeleine Mysko - Winter Soldiers: Nation must heed the horrifying words of those who have returned from the front lines
Nofa Khadduri - Occupation is Corporate Genocide
Rob Winder - US Voices Against the War
Firas Al-Atraqchi - The Iraq Invasion: Five Years On
Robert Parry et al. - How Could So Many People Buy into Bush's "Patriotism Sweepstakes" War?
Michael Zweig - The War and the Working Class
Maya Schenwar - Five Years Into War, Soldiers Speak
Susan Donaldson James - Penn's War: Media Lap Dogs Backed Iraq Mess
Bill Moyers - Casualty of War

Also, The Huffington Post has a whole series called Iraq Five Years of War.

Note that I'll be continuing my series of posts on the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War through today, as - depending on the perspective of Americans/British or Iraqis (different time zones) - the war either commenced on the 19th or 20th of March.

While You're At It

Make sure you check out what some other bloggers are saying as part of the March 19 Iraq War Blogswarm. Many of us have posted links to our offerings in the comments.

A couple more blasts from the past

Here are my Iraq War anniversary posts from the old Left End of the Dial days.

March 19, 2003 - A Day That Will Live in Infamy (2006 - a slightly updated version of the 2005 post)

March 19, 2003 - A Day That Will Live in Infamy (2005)

One Year Later: We Are All Victims of Bu$hCo's Groupthink (2004)

It's interesting to look at how one's thoughts about the Iraq War have evolved over time. If anything, the Iraq War and its aftermath have led me to a more radical perspective than I would have held previously. I'm probably not alone in that regard.

So it goes. We'll keep lighting candles in the darkness for as long as necessary.