Although I posted this earlier on a VP open thread, it scrolled off before I could finish so I thought I'd repost the comment as a diary, especially since the post was titled "5 p.m. PDT Daily Open Obama V.P. Thread #2: Mother's Day Edition (w/poll)" and was subtitled an "all woman," post, and I am not one of those. Anyway, apologies for having posted an unintentionally unfeeling comment in your diary, ourprez08.

I read an interesting post today at Counterpunch written by David Michael Green. The entire article is entertaining and deals primarily with the fact that Obama has it pretty well wrapped up, but what I found interesting was his suggestion for Obama's VP. It was Admiral William Fallon. This is what Mr. Green had to say;

One of the favorite things I learned while in an Eastern Orthodox Christian monastery was the term "fool for Christ." These "fools" were simply, and often simple, spiritual people who had truly found their connection to God, to a higher order. It changed their lives, but in doing so it often cost their lives. The "fools" would confront what they perceived as non-Christian behavior in even the powerful, both within the church and the State. And for doing so, were often executed or persecuted for their efforts. Many of the Orthodox saints were "fools for Christ"

Are we a rogue nation? Paul Craig Roberts seems to have that impression, and I tend to agree with him. He has written a good article about it that I found first on the Information Clearinghouse blog, link here,

http://www.informationclearing...

entitled, "American Hegemony is not Guaranteed." That is a deceptively innocent title for what follows. Mr. Roberts is concerned that General Petraeus began to make noises about Iranian influence in Iraq concerning "special groups" and Iranian supplied weapons being used to kill Americans in Iraq, which could be used as justification for an attack on Iran, and responds with an excellent slap-down of such theories.

I ran into an interesting essay at Counterpunch today that I thought I'd comment on, link here,

http://www.counterpunch.com/

entitled

        How Obama Could Seize Pennsylvania
The Clintons and Their Sordid Colombia Advocacy

written by Nikolas Kozloff. In the article Mr. Kozloff lists the Clinton family and staff that have ties to the Colombian government, in all its anti-union glory. The entire article is rather long and well researched, and I suggest you read it.

I just read Jeff Huber's post over at My Left Wing, and also here about Iraq, linky here,

http://www.dailykos.com/...

and thoroughly enjoyed it, but I was caught by one portion of a sentence. The Basara operation, so recently failed, was named "Operation Knight's Assault." Think about that for a minute, they named a military, supposedly Muslim originated action "Operation Knight's Assault." That name has associations with the Crusades, and if you're familiar with the Crusades, they were directed by Europeans trying to steal property from Arabs in Arabian lands. "Operation Massive Stupidity" was the best answer I could come up with. I mean, how many Arabs, Persians, Muslims, and Turks do you people want to piss off? You just did it.

I was prompted to write this after reading a story about some peace activists being arrested over at Counterpunch, link here,

http://www.counterpunch.com/...

entitled "Fracturing the Peace to End the War." It was written by an activist named Jeff Leys, who had done something similar as a young man, was arrested and spent some time in jail. It is an excellent article and I encourage you to read it. But this essay is about another activist I know personally, named Father Tom.

A story my mom told me about her childhood, about her mother, my Grandmother, that relates to racial problems. Both are gone, now, but still well loved, but what mom had to say was very powerful.