Rather writes: "With the death of Merle Haggard, an often overlooked, underestimated era of American culture has almost passed. Willie Nelson is now the last man standing. He, along with Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, are the last living giants of country music's golden age."
Dan Rather. (photo: Mark Sagliocco/Getty Images)
Requiem for a Heavyweight: Merle Haggard
08 April 16
ith the death of Merle Haggard, an often overlooked, underestimated era of American culture has almost passed. Willie Nelson is now the last man standing. He, along with Dolly Parton and Loretta Lynn, are the last living giants of country music�s golden age.
Perhaps there�s a new such time already in the making. Or there�ll be another somewhere down the line. But, as of today, those three are the last of a certain breed of truly greats.
If there is ever a Mount Rushmore of country-music icons, Merle and Willie will be carved into it. So will Dolly and Loretta. But the list of other worthy candidates figures to be a mite crowded. The �Ol� Singing Brakeman,� Jimmy Rogers, would be high on it, since he ushered in the period and invented the genre during the 1930s. So would Roy Acuff, he of �Wabash Cannonball� fame. Hank Williams, certainly. And, of course, George Jones, Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline and maybe Waylon Jennings. It would take a big mountain to accommodate the whole lot of them.
Opera, symphonic music, rock, the blues, hip-hop and so on all have their influences on our culture. Country music, when it�s mentioned at all, often is treated as a kind of bastard child. Sometimes as just an afterthought, even as an embarrassment � �white trash� talk and all that. But there is nothing more American than the best of country music. Yeah, and I subscribe to the old theory that if you really want to know what�s going on in our United States � if you want to understand the hearts and minds of a large segment of America at any given moment � listen to country music and you�ll know.
The struggles and heartaches, the fears and hopes, the angers and resentments are all there, in songs about mama, broken romances, alcohol, pick-up trucks, trains and prisons; raw and real, with the texture of tears, the smell of dirt and sweat, and echoes of our past � a haunting reminder of from where we came and who we are when we�re not pretending.
So, so long Merle. See you on the other side. In the meantime, rest in peace knowing that your music is eternal.
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Right on, Dave. Given that the Pentagon isn't required to account for its expenditures in any detail to Congress*, why would anyone begin to think we would? Oh, right, that comment was from "Iraqi officials..."
*Defense Spending Is Overstated, GAO Report Says
Or do we deal with it by letting the Fed print more of those pieces of paper ?
Seriously, if you were able to total up all the money that "went missing" or was "wasted" during the 8 years of the Bush/Cheney regime, it would be in the trillions of dollars. The reason the US economy is so bad right now is the 8 years of misrule by the Bush/Cheney regime.
Read Thomas Fran's The Wrecking Crew about how Repbulicans deliberately wreck government and its programs. He's got it just right -- looters and wreckers. It is funny that our mass media gets so hysterical when a riot breaks out and a few store windows are broken and some stuff looted. But when a Republican regime loots the entire nation of trillions of dollars over 8 years, the mass media does not even peep!
how stupid are we that we let them take our government and loot the treasury time and time again. we're STUPID!
and it's in the news again. GOP DESTABILIZING ECONOMY TO WIN POWER.
destabilizing the economy, flushing us down the toilet in the process, to gain power in congress, and then getting power to flush us down the toilet again.
you're right rm LOOTERS AND WRECKERS. THEIVES!!!!
Read Thomas Fran's The Wrecking Crew about how Repbulicans deliberately wreck the government. Medicare part D is the biggest giveaway ever a half a billion dollars to the insurance companies every year while they decimate those who cannot afford the added insurance payments and copays. This will soon have a bigger cost than the one time giveaways. "I want to shrink government until it will fit in the bathtub so I can drown it."
And you're right about Thomas Frank's book. I read it and thought I knew the extent of the problem - it's worse. Much worse. We're about to lose our democracy.
Somebody, somewhere, knows where this money is. It's just top secret right now.
Anyone who votes Republican these days is either stupid, willfully ignorant or filthy rich. Anyone who votes Democratic can expect their elected officials to follow in the path of Republicans. Anyone who votes for a third party is giving their vote to a Republic or a Democrat, depending on how right- or left-leaning the third-party candidate is.
We're screwed.
Unfortunately, the laugh is on us. It is our [tax] dollars being flushed into the void.
Welcome to the plantation.
http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/dispatches-iraqs-missing-billions/
This is not fresh news. It's only fresh to people who have never heard of it. The above link will take you to a website where you will be able to play & watch, free, an unabridged complete version of a documentary titled "Iraq's Missing Billions." This came out in 2006 & was aired many times on FSTV. I recorded it multiple times on my DVD burner, but if you wish to watch it, just go to the above referenced site.
If you have the latest version of Real Player, it would be better for you to download the video as a .FLV file to your hard-drive first so you can watch it at your leisure. Real Player allows you to do this. It is a large file. You can then watch the film using Windows Media Player, but I would suggest that you download & install the latest version of Media Player Classic. The quality of the video may not be the best played full screen, but it will suffice.
This is an amazing & unbelievable video to watch when you see how they handled the billions of dollars in actual real cash & how they ultimately protected it, which was a complete joke. I would tell you to enjoy it, but it will probably get you angry as to how the money was spent & how it disappeared. Enjoy anyway.
When Bush started banging the drums for war I listened to what all the administraion hacks and their media promoters said and none of it rang true. Yet someone had to gain by our going to war. I finally decided, still prior to the war, that it had to be a giant money-launderin g operation designed to turn public funds (tax dollars)into private profits. I guess every war has that motivation but, perhaps it is not quite as blatant as it was this time.
Stealing all the money that belonged to the Iraqi people after having destroyed their country is even more appalling though. But as Obama and the new U.S. Ambassador to Iraq said- "That's all in the past. Let's look to the future."
Has it ever occurred to them, or to anyone else for that matter that EVERY CRIME IS IN THE PAST. But we still lock criminals up and these people deserve to be locked up, for life-or maybe suffer a trial like Saddam!
Do they really expect us to believe that no one knows what happened to the money? and that it can't be found? How dumb do they think we are?
What is most salient is the corporate media was passing the missing 6+ billion as some sort of accounting snafu.
Is it any wonder that one of the smallest nations in the world is paranoid about its political independence when surrounded by these nations?
I am not talking about the right or wrongs of Israels actions on it own behalf. I am talking about its paranoia.
The United Nations seems totally incapable of stopping these outrageous actions totally outside the confines of of the United Nations Charter.
Either the Charter stands for something or it doesn't.
If the Charter stands for nothing than let's get the hell out and quit wasting our money and our young men and women on a meaningless piece of paper.
Wasting money in Iraq and other mid east countries will continue as long as Israel is in fear of its existence and money will continue to be wasted on meaningless wars.
there you are , jail the bastards !!!
Cut Medicaid to cover it...
Cut School Funding to Cover it...
Cut Student Loans to cover it...
Cut funding for Planned Parenthood to cover it...
Cut the Budget for the EPA to cover it...
Cut the Budget for the FDA to cover it...
Cut Funding for FEMA to cover it...
Stop fixing OUR Infrastructure to cover it...
Cut Anything but Defense Spending and...
MOST CERTAINLY--- DO NOT RAISE TAXES ON THE SUPER DOOPER GLOBAL CORPORATE WEALTHY to cover it.
Just ''cut cut cut'' those pesky '''social things''' so unnecessarily there for All Americans---and then--Cover It...
and then--- Let IT Go..!
Don't Mention IT or anybody involved with IT again...
Its in the Past now where all Big Corruption belongs in Modern, 21st Century, DeRegulated, Corporate-Under Taxed,Corporate -Media-Controll ed, Far-Less-Republ ic, Far-More-Corpor acratic America...
So what if a few got super rich. There's plenty to go around if only we would get rid of THE NATIONAL BUDGET with only a few Corporate-Belov ed Exceptions.
You want to be ''rich''.. right..?
Apparently...
The only guy in jail is that poor sap that sent out the truth.
As huge a crime as it is--- What's $6 Billion in missing cash compared to he even larger, more massive 'Treasonous' crime of $12 Trillion in Deficit Spending by Government Regulation/Taxa tion Hating, Global Corporatist 'Bushie' CONservatives who set about deliberately draining the Treasury into the hands of their Corporate Supporters and running up massive Deficits and National Debts in order to FORCE the end of the modern, middle class creating, 'FOR' The People Government which was created by the New Deal and Great Society Concepts and Budgetary Formulations born out of that Great Ideology which the 2% Wealthy Global Corporate Class and Republicans have been systematically attempting to dismantle ever since the creation of it all began..?
And, whether those who believe in less and less and less and less and 'Less Government' understand what they effort for or not, as a deliberate agenda or not--- in the end, it ends up being done FOR THE SAKE OF CREATING A GLOBAL-CORPORAT E-OLIGARCHICAL- WORLD EMPIRE CENTERED WITHIN AMERICA where 2-3% of the Wealthiest Corporate People on Earth achieve dominion over EVERYTHING...
I'll bet lots of those gunny sacks full of cash are in the closets of stateside GIs and contractors now retired and living the rich life.
Hmmmmmmmm Little Timmy Gietner was the NY Fed.... Check his and Paulsons and all the GS guys... They are more than Willing to create Fraudulent dark vault deriv's why not a flat out load it in a truck and drive off scheme too. They new when it was leaving. BUt My moneys on the BUSH crime family!
The hubris extant at the time of the invasion of Iraq defied any oversight and yes, if anybody has worked in the Middle -East or overseas in general, bribery is a way of life (they are just more open about it than the Beltway crowd) just like bargaining for goods is (I could have retired rich just on the bribes I was offered in Indonesia). But any such sum(s) could and should have been at least estimated in a "contingency" clause in each contract to keep the warlords (I mean the local ones) happy and on the "right side".
And don't forget that cosy photo of Rumsfeld and Saddam fondly shaking hands when he was "our good guy". You don't suppose all that passed between them was accounted for, d'you? Or maybe it all came out of the still heavily and secretly funded C.I.A. "Black Budget" which even most legislators aren't even party to?!
It is written that in the end-times, evil will shamelessly strut about in broad daylight. Sound familiar?
`We the People` need to stop giving the Government the money and more important, the ability to continue taking and adding to the taking.
I am not satisfied with the distribution of my taxes and especially of the use of my future taxes.
Lets pay attention to the other 364.5 days expenditures also