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| ... Fundamentalisms ... |
| 08.31.04 (4:48 pm) [edit] |
"Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should “make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof,” thus building a wall of separation between Church & State." - Thomas Jefferson
[b]"We the People" must reverse the dangerously tyrannical neo-fascist transformation of our nation into a fanatical religious-fundamentalist state by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]...[/b]
Christian Extremists Campaign for Bush
"[i]I suggest we begin the day with a little prayer for my reelection[/i]."
Amalgamating any of the different religious fundamentalisms would be absurd, of course. There are many differences between Moqtada Al-Sadr's Islamist militiamen, defending Ali's Shrine in Nadjaf down to their last drop of blood, and American Southern Baptists, who believe in the divine creation of the world in seven days, hate homosexuals, support the death penalty, and defend Israel in the name of a "Christian Zionism" that favors the return of all the Jews to their land the better to convert them there.
However, at the outset of this century that is proving so faithful to Malraux's predictions about the world's religious revival, God has become the pretext for most nationalist, ethnic, political and identity claims. In the United States, the Republican Party, campaigning for a second term for George Bush, has always been a heterogeneous coalition and the party for moral reform. Yet the weight of fundamentalist evangelicals among its militants, its Congressional delegation, and reaching even into the White House, is worrying.
Certainly America's "civil religion", based on respect for God, freedom of religion, and the nation's messianic mission, extends beyond party lines. Before George Bush Jr., Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan already knew evangelical rhetoric by heart. Since September 11, however, the Republican Party, which had blessed the rise of Protestant fundamentalism, seems to have become its instrument. We know the weight George Bush gives in his foreign policy to this Biblical vision of the world in which the forces of Good and Evil clash, and Americans, God's new chosen people, seem to be equipped with a universal mission of conversion and reform.
Fed by active proselytism, moral and social conservatism, the fights against all modernity foreign to God and transcendence, Evangelical Protestantism has the wind in its sails in the United States and elsewhere. It does not dream of theocracy, but expects to weigh heavily in the City's and the world's business, to make good the principle that the "Good" must always make the law. With the resources of an emotional religion, simple solutions, pragmatic and powerful financing networks, this evangelical model travels to the poor megapolises of the Third World.
Hindu and Islamist nationalism sometimes feed on the aggressiveness of Christian groups linked to North American Evangelical or Baptist churches. These religious fundamentalisms all share a common perverse interpretation of their own sacred literature and cross fertilize one another through overstatement and violence. This return of God marks a break with Western modernity as well as with the ever more disputed ideologies of secularism.
This vision of religion must be condemned. It endorses the dangerous "Clash of Civilizations" theory, which is the fundamental credo that all these fundamentalisms share above and beyond any of their differences. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| ... Bush's War on Democracy ... |
| 08.31.04 (2:00 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has betrayed us and are defrauding the American people ... The despotic Bush regime isn't [i]really[/i] waging any kind of "war on terrorism" ... Instead they are waging a war on[i] us[/i], a war on our[i] Republic[/i], a war on [i]Democracy[/i] ...[/b]
When George W. Bush's weapons-of-mass-destructi on rationale for invading Iraq evaporated, his excuse morphed into bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. But the way Bush has eviscerated our democracy in the United States is proof positive that his democratic credentials are phony.
We have seen our government assault First Amendment rights in the past - during the McCarthy era, and when the FBI instituted COINTELPRO to spy on and discredit civil rights activists.
But Bush has taken the attack on civil liberties to a new level. The most striking warning of his strategy to stifle dissent in an unprecedented way was former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer's admonition shortly after the September 11 attacks that Americans should "watch what they say, watch what they do."
That statement is now the mantra of Team Bush.
The Bush administration depicts as public enemies, and even potential terrorists, those who speak out against U.S. government policies.
In an annual survey by the First Amendment Center in 2003, 93 percent of respondents agreed that individuals should be allowed to express unpopular opinions in this country. Two-thirds supported the right of any group to hold a rally for a cause even if offensive to others.
[u]Three new developments on Bush's watch have a chilling effect on protected First Amendment activity[/u]:
1) the shift from reactive to preemptive law enforcement;
2) the enactment of domestic anti-terrorism laws; and
3) the recent relaxation of FBI guidelines on surveillance of Americans.
[b] From Reactive to Preemptive Law Enforcement[/b]
Like Bush's new "preemptive" or "preventative" war strategy which led us into Iraq in violation of the United Nations Charter, law enforcement in the United States has moved from reaction to "preemption," in violation of the U.S. Constitution.
Collective preemptive punishment against those who wish to exercise their First Amendment rights has taken several forms: content-based permits, where permission to protest is screened for political correctness; pretextual arrests in anticipation of actions that haven't yet occurred; the setting of huge bails of up to $1 million for misdemeanors; the use of chemical weapons; and the employment of less lethal rounds fired without provocation into crowds.
Protestors are painted by the government and the mainstream media as violent lawbreakers.
In this week's demonstrations against the Republican Convention in New York, police are prepared to use sound, ostensibly to convey orders to the crowd. This Long Range Acoustical Device (LRAD) has been utilized by the U.S. military in Iraq, and during the Miami free trade protests last year.
When employed in the weapon mode, LRAD blasts a tightly controlled stream of caustic sound that can be turned up to high enough levels to trigger nausea or fainting. Even if LRAD is not used by the police, the warning that it might be was designed to frighten potential protestors from taking to the streets of New York.
[b]New Domestic Anti-Terrorism Laws[/b]
The USA PATRIOT Act, rushed through a timid Congress a month after September 11, 2001, creates a new crime of "domestic terrorism," defined so broadly that anyone who may have, at some time, participated in civil disobedience, or even a labor picket, could be targeted.
This provision has been used to label environmental and animal rights groups "terrorist." Congressman Scott McInnis (R-Co) called Earth Liberation Front, which was responsible for major property damage in Colorado, a major domestic terrorist organization. Rep. George Nethercutt (R-Wash) suggested treating Earth Liberation Front like the Taliban: "I propose," he said, "that we use the model that has worked so well in Afghanistan. Give them no rest and no quarter." These politicians draw no distinction between human rights and property interests.
[b]Relaxed FBI Surveillance Guidelines[/b]
During the McCarthy period of the 1950s, in an effort to eradicate the perceived threat of communism, the government engaged in widespread illegal surveillance to threaten and silence anyone who had an unorthodox political viewpoint. Many people were jailed, blacklisted and lost their jobs. Thousands of lives were shattered as the FBI engaged in "red-baiting."
COINTELPRO (counter-intelligence program) was designed, by its own terms, to "disrupt, misdirect and otherwise neutralize" political and activist groups. In the 1960s, the FBI targeted Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in a program called "Racial Matters."
King's campaign to register African-American voters in the South raised the hackles of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, who disingenuously claimed King's organization was being infiltrated by communists.
In fact, the FBI was really concerned that King's civil rights and anti-Vietnam War campaigns "represented a clear threat to the established order of the U.S." It went after King with a vengeance, wiretapping his telephones and securing very personal information, which it used to try to discredit him and drive him to divorce and suicide.
A congressional committee chaired by Frank Church documented the abuses of COINTELPRO. As a result, in 1976, Congress established guidelines to regulate FBI activity in foreign and domestic intelligence-gathering.
John Ashcroft, again using the excuse of September 11, has relaxed the 1976 guidelines on FBI surveillance, spying and infiltration of political groups and meetings. The probable cause requirement for initiating surveillance of individuals and organizations has been removed. FBI surveillance of all public meetings and demonstrations is now authorized.
An internal FBI newsletter encouraged agents to conduct more interviews with activists protesting the war "for plenty of reasons, the chief of which it will enhance the paranoia endemic in such circles and will further serve to get the point across that there is an FBI agent behind every mailbox."
The national drive by the FBI to collect intelligence related to protests through local law enforcement has resulted in the harassment of people in places such as Denver, Fresno, CA, New York, and Drake University in Iowa.
In an October 2003 memo, the FBI urged law enforcement to monitor the Internet, because "protestors often use the Internet to ... coordinate their activities prior to demonstrations," reported The New York Times.
The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) - the same group that wrote the memos advising Bush how to get away with torturing prisoners - blessed the 2003 FBI memo. The OLC said that interrogating and gathering evidence on potential political protestors raised no First Amendment concerns. But, it went on to say, any "chilling" effect would be "quite minimal" and far outweighed by the overriding public interest in maintaining "order."
[b]The Bad News and the Good News[/b]
As we approach the November election - and for the next four years if Bush secures another term - we can expect that opponents of the Bush administration's repressive policies will increasingly be targeted.
But over 300 cities and four states have called for the repeal of the PATRIOT Act, and organizations like the National Lawyers Guild have filed lawsuits challenging the unconstitutional actions of the government.
And in the largest demonstration ever at a political convention, hundreds of thousands of demonstrators registered their protest Sunday against the assault on democracy by the forces of George W. Bush.
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----
[b]Marjorie Cohn, a contributing editor to [i]t r u t h o u t[/i], is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, executive vice president of the National Lawyers Guild, and the U.S. representative to the executive committee of the American Association of Jurists.[/b] - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| ... A New Age of Unreason ... |
| 08.31.04 (10:25 am) [edit] |
[b]"This administration has succeeded in mainstreaming a pre- and anti-Enlightenment attitude." [/b] - http://www.alternet.org/elect...
"We the People" cannot afford another 4 years of the reckless, wanton and corrupt mismanagement of our nation's domestic and foreign affairs by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]...
Appalled and frightened. That's how Mark Crispin Miller believes Founding Fathers would describe their emotions if they were around to witness the actions of the current occupants of the White House and the disintegration of our republic.
A professor of media studies at New York University, Mark Crispin Miller is the author of the wildly humourous and best-selling "Bush Dyslexicon." Miller's new book, "Cruel and Unusual: Bush and Cheney's New World Order" http://www.wwnorton.com/catal... (Norton, 2004), is of a more serious nature. In it, Miller argues that the ascendant Bush Republicans are in the midst of subverting the United States' republic with a theocracy, and that Bush & Co. have embarked us in a new age of unreason that rejects many of the Enlightenment concepts upon which this country was founded.
Miller sat down with Alternet for an interview during a recent visit to San Francisco to talk about the state of conservatism in this country and how the folks in the White House believe their "higher father" wants them to govern the United States.
[b]Your book title is "Cruel and Unusual: Bush and Cheney's New World Order." So it's about Bush and Cheney, two self-described conservatives. Yet the word "conservative" doesn't appear when you write about them. Why is that?[/b]
I don't use the word conservative in my book once to describe Bush & Company. That's a misnomer. Conservatism. Let's talk about it for a minute. What is it? Is it just being a nasty prick? That's what you'd think looking at the "conservative" landscape. What does Ann Coulter stand for, what are her principles? She just says the vilest possible things she can say.
Conservatism as far as I know means strict limits on federal power, a refusal to meddle in the affairs of other nations, an ornery distrust of ideologies and theories – instead a favoritism of the lessons of experience. Real conservatives also believe in economic self-sufficiency – you don't get a handout, and you thrive by dint of your hard work and playing by the rules. Not one of these qualities has been honored by this administration.
On the contrary, this is a radical administration. They have a radical view on the expansion of police powers. They believe in unilateral preemptive war – which is about as radical and unconservative as you can get. Regarding the typical conservative distrust of ideologies, this is a totally ideologized presidency. John Ashcroft prosecutes those things that offend his religious scruples – like Oregon's suicide law. In a time of terrorism that's what they prosecute.
See, they don't live in the real world – they can't learn from experience. Finally, there's nothing conservative about crony capitalism. They are completely fucking the average person, making it harder to declare bankruptcy and so on. People are getting absolutely screwed, and the administration so far has functioned in an economic sense to take every penny of public wealth and put it in private coffers. So, I don't see any conservativism there.
Read the entire article on http://www.alternet.org/elect... ...
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| ... Nest of Spies ... |
| 08.30.04 (2:47 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has placed our nation in peril and "We the People" are at the mercy of a [i]nest of spies[/i], called neo-cons who are liars, traitors and fanatical terrorists ...[/b]
When Iranian “students” took over the U.S. embassy in 1979, they called it the “nest of spies.” Now it seems, the FBI has discovered a real nest of spies, Israeli ones. Inside the Pentagon. Some of the people allegedly involved are the very same people who were first mentioned in an article (“The Lie Factory”) by Jason Vest and myself in [i]Mother Jones [/i]last year. (You can read it here http://www.motherjones.com/ne... .) That article cited Harold Rhode, a neocon operative in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessments, under the wizard-like Andy Marshall, and his sidekick, the laughably incompetent Larry Franklin.
Now Franklin, we all know, and perhaps Rhode, are under investigation by the FBI. Franklin is a minor cog in the Israeli nest of spies, who allegedly passed U.S. secrets on Iran to AIPAC, the Zionist lobby, who then passed it to the Israeli embassy. There are lots of details—but, so far, no one that I’ve seen has attempted to really analyze this. The basic paradox is: Ahmad Chalabi, the darling of Franklin’s neocon pals, is under investigation in Iraq and in Washington for spying for Iran. Franklin is under the FBI gun for spying for Israel, against Iran. Does this make any sense? Of course not.
Let’s assume that Chalabi and Franklin, two lower-level operatives for the same machine, are still working together. And that the machine, the great Neoconservative Empire Machine and its Israeli right-wing allies, is what needs to be investigated.
Franklin, for the past couple of years, has toiled away in the bowels of Paul Wolfowitz’s Iraq war team. A former U.S. intelligence official has this to say about him:
[i]Anyone who knew Franklin from DIA and from the past few years in OSD knows that the "incompetent fool way out of his depth" description fits. The Newsweek story of his walking, "out of the blue," into a private FBI-surveilled lunch meeting is pure Franklin: clueless. His DIA colleagues and supervisors knew he could not be depended upon for important tasks; some suspected he was mentally unbalanced. Taking him on missions abroad was asking for trouble: unaccounted absences, flaky "special case" demands, embarrassments with US embassy staffs and foreign personnel. He should have been fired long ago. Franklin was notoriously sloppy with security, never could be relied upon by his colleagues or supervisors to pull his weight on assigned projects or even to be found, repeatedly left messes behind for others to clean up, almost never met a suspense, and shamelessly bowed and scraped to the powerful and influential of the day. Days after a buddy from Net Assessments brought him into the former [Near East and South Asia office] with a promotion, it was "Paul" this and "Paul" that, referring to the [Deputy Secretary of Defense]. He ingratiated himself to OSD seniors by trafficking poison on intelligence seniors they already believed to be ideologically unreliable. Add to that deep draughts of the Kool-Aid and you have a prescription for disaster. Mostly, though, this one looks like his own personal one, and not entirely undeserved[/i].
Of course anyone as “clueless” as Franklin would be sloppy with classified material. The pro-Ariel Sharon clique in the Pentagon (and elsewhere in the U.S. government) is so tightly bound and incestuously linked to Israel that having to draw boundaries between what’s American and what’s Israeli must boggle their small minds. So this time Franklin got caught. (P.S. Don’t expect any big indictments, or any sweeping probe of Israel’s spy apparatus in the United States. Reports the [i]New York Times[/i] http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... : "American counterintelligence officials say that Israeli espionage cases are difficult to investigate, because they involve an important ally that enjoys broad political influence in Washington. Several officials said that a number of espionage investigations involving Israel had been dropped or suppressed in the past in the face of political pressure.” ) For the last two years I’ve watched Franklin, Rhode, Michael Rubin and others in the clique at meetings at the American Enterprise Institute, and what stands out above all is the fraternity-like bond that links them to one another, almost like a street gang.
For 25 years, this little clique has maintained sub rosa ties to Iran. They, and Israel, had multiple lines into Iran’s mullahs long before the Shah fell. Israel armed Iran throughout the 1980s, including during the 444 days when thugs held U.S. diplomats hostage. They were behind Iran-contra, trying to push the United States into a closer relationship with Iran when we were, sensibly enough, backing Iraq. And they’ve never let up. Since 2001, when they took power with the Bush administration, they’ve plotted war against Iraq and plotted how to establish ties with Iran’s national security apparatus and its military again, even if it meant undermining U.S. policy. A key figure in all this is Michael Ledeen, an AEI stalwart who’s long had intimate ties to Israeli intelligence. And then there is Ahmad Chalabi, another Mossad-linked creature.
We can discount, or throw out, Israel’s silly statement that it stopped spying against the United States after the Pollard affair. Israel has penetrated the United States so completely that it probably doesn’t even call it spying anymore. It's business as usual.
So the question is: What connects Ledeen, Richard Perle, Chalabi and Franklin? We know that the United States doesn’t really have an “Iran policy,” unless hoping that nothing happens qualifies as a “policy.” But what is the policy of Ledeen and Co.? They believe that Israel, Turkey, Iran, the Kurds, the Lebanese Christians and Pakistan can all be tied together in an alliance against the Arabs. That’s been true since the 1950s. What’s new is that Iraq presented them an opportunity: The Israel-Turkey-Iran et al. axis could take over and occupy part of the Arab bloc, thanks to the United States. Like the python who ate the deer, they are still struggling to digest it—though some, including myself but also including the CIA, believe they will choke on it. In any case, the gobbling up of Iraq hasn’t gone too well, but at least they’ve accomplished their secondary objective: the destruction and dismantling of Iraq as a nation and as a military force that could threaten Israel. And Ledeen, who organized Franklin’s secret missions to Iran since 2001, and Chalabi, who has secret missions of his own to Iran (both long exposed now), still believe that Iran is a useful partner in the anti-Arab axis.
More to come on Franklin, Rhode, Ledeen et al. this week.
[b]Written by veteran investigative reporter Bob Dreyfuss , The Dreyfuss Report offers readers the story behind daily headlines and policies pursued on behalf of national security. http://www.tompaine.com/archi... [/b]
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| ... Us vs. Them ... |
| 08.30.04 (11:55 am) [edit] |
[b]A nice find by Andrew Sullivan on President Bush's Freudian slip about the Swift Boat Ads http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... ...[/b]
... "I loved Bush's comment yesterday about the smear-ad: "I can understand why Senator Kerry is upset with [i]us[/i]. I wasn't so pleased with the ads that were run about me. And my call is get rid of them all, now." "Us"?? I thought Bush had nothing to do with it." ...
[b][i]Nice catch[/i]...
And here's another http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... :[/b]
Isn't the press going to bludgeon John Kerry over this remark this morning?
When asked whether we can "win" the "war on terror" Senator Kerry said: "Can we win? I don’t think you can win it. But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world.”
Oh, sorry. That was [i]President Bush[/i] http://www.nydailynews.com/fr... who said that.
[b]So forget what I said about press bludgeoning ...[/b]
[b]Wouldn't it be funny if "We the People" had to judge the words of the candidates[i] before [/i]knowing who was being quoted or mis-quoted by whom? LOL![/b]
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| ... PHOTOS FROM NYC PROTEST ... [- Update -] ... |
| 08.29.04 (3:35 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" ...
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson[/b]
[b]'No more years!' chant Bush foes
Thousands of protesters march in N.Y. on eve of GOP gathering[/b]
NEW YORK - Bearing flag-draped boxes resembling coffins and fly-swatters with President Bush’s image, more than 100,000 protesters peacefully swarmed Manhattan’s streets on the eve of the Republican National Convention to demand that the president be turned out of office.
Flanked by police in riot gear, the protesters moved through the fortified city, loudly and exuberantly chanting slogans such as “No more years.” They accused the White House of waging an unjust war in Iraq, making the country poorer and undermining abortion rights.
There were no reports of major violence and about 200 scattered arrests.
Police gave no official crowd estimate, though one law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, put the crowd at 120,000; organizers claimed it was roughly 400,000.
Read article on http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5... ...
[b]More Photos ...[/b]
"I remember that all through history, the way of truth and love has always won; there have been tyrants and murderers, and for a time they can seem invincible, but in the end they always fall." - Mahatma Gandhi
[b]Hundreds of thousands march through NYC chanting "No More Years!' http://newsday.com/ [/b]
[i]The marchers were close to the site of the 11 September attacks[/i]
[i]Many in the march felt they had been misled in the 'war on terror'[/i]
[i]Protesters wanted the Republicans to know they were not welcome[/i]
[i]People of all ages and different backgrounds took part[/i]
[i]The marchers were unified by their opposition to President Bush[/i] - http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/am...
[b]Huge Anti-Bush March Hits NY on Eve of Convention[/b]
NEW YORK - Hundreds of thousands of demonstrators toting colorful banners and shouting "no more Bush" took to Manhattan's streets on Sunday, the day before the Republican convention opens, to decry the Iraq war and President Bush's policies.
Organizers estimated 400,000 people turned out for the march, which led to more than 100 arrests and yielded at least one skirmish between self-styled anarchists and police. More than 400 people have been arrested in protests since Thursday.
[i]A crowd fills a Manhattan avenue during a protest march leading up to the Republican National Convention site sponsored by United for Peace and Justice, in New York[/i]
Chanting "Hey Ho, Bush Has Got to Go," the largely peaceful crowd marched past the Madison Square Garden convention site as Republicans and visitors arrived in the city for a four-day event where Bush will be nominated for another four-year term.
Read article on http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| America Is Asking... About Donald Rumsfeld's Responsibility for the Abuses at Abu Ghraib... |
| 08.28.04 (7:10 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" surely cannot permit these heinous Crimes Against Humanity perpetrated by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]against prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison ([i]and elsewhere[/i], e.g. Guantanamo Bay, Afghanistan, etc.) to go unpunished ... Scapegoating those at the [i]bottom of the ladder [/i]simply isn't acceptable ... Those[i] responsible for giving the orders at the highest levels [/i]within the tyrannical, despotic Bush regime must be prosecuted for War Crimes ...[/b]
[b]Refer to:[/b]
"Brutality and Purposeless Sadism", http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Abu Ghraib Cover-up Intensifies", http://www.tblog.com/template...
Two reports released this week on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal described the abuses of detainees there as torture and assigned responsibility to high-ranking military officers and senior Bush administration officials.
A civilian panel selected by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld cited the failure of Pentagon officials to provide adequate numbers of troops and to plan for the insurgency after the fall of Saddam as key factors that led to the abuses. An internal investigation of military intelligence by Gens. Anthony Jones and George Fay discredited the Bush administration's line that the torture at Abu Ghraib was merely the actions of a few bad apples. Both reports sharply criticized decisions made by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez and blamed them for creating a climate where the torture of Iraqi prisoners was permitted.
Below is a sample of commentary from newspapers around the country examining the reports and questioning Rumsfeld's ability to serve as secretary of defense.
[b]Lexington Herald-Leader – Lexington, Ky., http://www.kentucky.com/mld/k...
August 26, 2004[/b]
"The world, the American people and the Army need to see those responsible for the abuse at Abu Ghraib held accountable.
"That responsibility reaches all the way to the top of the Pentagon's civilian and military leadership, concluded a commission appointed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to investigate the mistreatment of prisoners...
"Rumsfeld should resign or be fired. And some of his deputies should go as well...
"The incompetence, botched planning and unrealistic expectations that created the monster at Abu Ghraib are shocking. But Abu Ghraib is also a microcosm of the whole Iraq fiasco."
[b]Seattle Post-Intelligencer – Seattle, Wash., http://seattlepi.nwsource.com...
August 26, 2004[/b]
"The panel concluded that while direct responsibility for the prisoner abuses lies with the soldiers involved and their immediate commanders, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and senior generals share the responsibility.
"The panel rejected suggestions that Rumsfeld or other senior officials should resign over its findings. But if Rumsfeld fails to move quickly and decisively on prosecutions and reforms, it will only add to the list of Rumsfeld shortcomings that have spurred this newspaper to repeatedly call for his removal."
[b]St. Louis Post-Dispatch – St. Louis, Mo., http://www.stltoday.com/stlto...+%2F+Commentary/story/477 B47CB7BC5C8D786256EFC0038 17FF?OpenDocument&Headlin e=ABU+GHRAIB+PRISON+TORTU RE%3A+Onus+at+the+top&hig hlight=2%2CAbu%2CGhraib%2 CPrison%2CTorture%2COnus% 2Cat%2CTop
August 26, 2004[/b]
"The independent panel that investigated the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal traced the episode right to the doors of the president, the secretary of defense and the attorney general. But instead of demanding accountability, the panel offered absolution...
"This week's Fay and Schlesinger reports on Abu Ghraib implicated a broader group of soldiers in the abuse. The new reports also place some of the onus for the prison abuse further up the chain of command than previous reports had. Still, Mr. Bush, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Ashcroft continue to escape the full responsibility they bear for creating conditions that led to abuse at Abu Ghraib and besmirching America's reputation for justice and decency."
[b]Fort Worth Star-Telegram – Fort Worth, Texas, http://abcnews.go.com/section...
August 27, 2004[/b]
"In the days after the airing of prisoner abuse allegations at Abu Ghraib, administration officials from the White House to the State Department to the Defense Department vowed to follow the process that is the hallmark of the American justice system: Investigate the accusations, determine whether they were valid, hold accountable those responsible and put in place corrective action. . .
"Now that the extent of the abuses is more clearly understood, it would be appropriate for Rumsfeld to once again step before the cameras to show his face as the one who needs to accept responsibility and fix the flaws."
[b]Bangor Daily News – Bangor, Maine
August 26, 2004[/b]
[i]Link unavailable[/i]
"Two reports on the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq come to the same conclusion: The abuses were the result of major leadership failures, not the actions of a small band of rouge soldiers, as Pentagon officials had long asserted. Both reports, released this week, have the same shortcoming, however. They fail to hold the military's top brass accountable for these failures...
"Sen. Susan Collins, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, has it right when she says: "I strongly believe that those responsible further up the chain of command should be held accountable. It would be unfair if only the low-level prison guards were punished when the various reports identify individuals ... responsible for creating the conditions that allowed the abuse to occur and for failing to exercise sufficient leadership.
"The reports did part of the job by identifying those responsible for the failures. It is now up to Sen. Collins and her colleagues, as well as the Pentagon, to reform the system so that such failures are not repeated and, as necessary, to discipline those who failed.
[b]Kentucky Courier Journal – Louisville, Ky., http://www.courier-journal.co...
August 26, 2004[/b]
"The report of the independent panel that investigated abuses of American prisoners in the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal must not be the final word on the subject, but it offers critically important findings.
"Most significant, the four members of an advisory board to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld rejected forcefully the notion voiced by senior officials, including President Bush, that misconduct at the Iraqi prison was confined to a small number of low-ranking soldiers.
"Instead, the inquiry found a string of failures at all command levels, including soldiers on the ground, the Central Command, the Pentagon and Mr. Rumsfeld's office...
"The voters will decide in November whether the mess in Iraq should cost Mr. Bush his job. But no matter who wins the election, the country needs a new secretary of Defense."
[b]Orlando Sentinel – Orlando, Fla.
August 27, 2004[/b]
[i]Link unavailable[/i]
"After the release of two government reports this week on the abuses of Iraqis at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, it's no longer plausible to argue that blame is limited to a few rogue soldiers.
"Another report from an independent panel handpicked by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld faulted failures in leadership extending up the chain of command to the Pentagon...
"It could take the United States years to repair the damage done to its reputation by what happened at Abu Ghraib. The best way to start is by holding all those involved accountable, and by acting aggressively to prevent such outrages from recurring."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ... Why Is The Country So Divided? ... |
| 08.27.04 (4:45 pm) [edit] |
[b]No one across the political spectrum seems to disagree that our nation is becoming increasingly divided ... There are many reasons for this division-- and violent disagreement has always existed in our nation, but we must seek to comprehend [i]not only [/i]the beliefs that divide us, but also [i]who benefits [/i]from a divide-and-conquer strategy ... Conflict between people is inevitable-- but hatred and warfare are [i]not[/i] inevitable-- and compromise [i]is the way [/i]of civilized people ... "We the People" must demand [i]much, much more [/i]from our leaders than the ugly politics that cynically and purposely set us[i] against [/i]each other ...[/b]
Politics, as a practice, always has been the competition of men and women for power. Some may seek power to do good, others because it is personally gratifying, self-esteeming, and rewarding. But many embark upon politics to "redistribute" income, wealth, and privilege from one social group to another. Their thinking is guided by notions of social concern and economic conflict.
Conflict doctrines are much older than the teaching of economic harmony. 17th and 18th century economic thought, commonly called Mercantilism, fostered much national conflict and led to numerous wars in Europe and the Americas. 18th and 19th century Classical economists perceiving basic harmony of interests in freedom sought to pacify the world. Adam Smith wrote of a great "propensity to truck and barter" which, under competition, would lead to division of labor and peaceful cooperation. But later critics of nationalistic and socialistic persuasion were convinced that economic interests do not match, that private capitalists are apt to be exploiters and spoilers. The most influential economist of our age, John Maynard Keynes, recommended large-scale government economic planning that would stimulate the market economy and promote employment. Many Americans have been enamored with such stimulation notions ever since.
Since the 1930s Democratic and Republican administrations have taken government economic planning far beyond the Keynesian proposal. They added countless social and economic laws to benefit the mass of working people who now like to ask: "What have you done for us lately?" And they may want to know: "What will you do for us in the coming years? What is your agenda?" But government can only dole out what it extracts from taxpayers, borrows from investors, or fleeces from inflation victims; it has no treasure-troves other than the income and wealth of its subjects. Yet, most politicians -- always looking over their shoulders to see if their supporters and voters are still there -- never tire of promising according to the voters' hopes. Their promises tend to divide the country into beneficiaries who hope to reap and the victims who are forced to settle.
Social legislation and regulation were born from political strife, are enjoying a full and varied life and tend to corrupt and weaken democratic institutions. Americans don't like to be reminded that social legislation was the invention of a German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. During the 1880s he devised and introduced a complex system of social security consisting of compulsory accident insurance, sickness insurance, and old age pensions in order to entreat and coax working people away from his political opposition. He was eminently successful; the workers came to believe in their rights to benefits by law and decree. German parliamentary procedure soon became an endless brawl about social benefits and their ways of payment. Defeated and impoverished in World War I, Germany faced the threat of civil war, with uprisings in Hamburg, Saxony and Thuringia. The army ruled the land throughout a state of emergency from October 1923 to February 1924. When, a few years later, the Great Depression descended on Germany and countless labor laws and regulations strangled the economy and prevented labor markets from adjusting, the rate of unemployment soared to 30 percent. In deep depression and political disarray Adolf Hitler came to power.
Surely, no one is suggesting that the United States is following in the footsteps of Nazi Germany. But this writer is convinced that the very ideological forces that destroyed old Germany are gnawing at the foundations of American society. They are visible in the race riots that occasionally erupt in American cities. In 1965, a residential section of south central Los Angeles, called Watts, was the cite of six days of race riots that claimed 34 lives. Riots again erupted in 1992, causing the death of 58 people and approximately $1 billion in property damage. If serious economic difficulties were to descend on the United States with unemployment rising to Great Depression levels, we may see more burning cities and bloody riots. Economic conflict doctrines permeate all levels of information and education.
Mass media are the wholesalers and retailers of public opinion. Echoing and reinforcing public thinking or even accentuating it, they love controversies and confrontations. Tales of exploitation and unemployment excite readers and listeners more than stories of steady improvements in working conditions. Ugly encounter carries further than peaceful cooperation. In an election year, ambitious politicians ever eager to garner votes busily fan the conflict. Speaking to African-Americans, for instance, they may call for new policies that spend more money on early childhood and other educational programs than on sending people to prison. They may even suggest that there are more black Americans in prison than in college, which, whether true or false, surely supports and refines the conflict doctrine and points the way to more riots to come.
Social peace, like war, begins in the minds of men and propagates in classrooms and the media. It is born of individual freedom and the unhampered private property order. It lives in free societies that safeguard the lives and respect the rights of their citizens. It dies when envy supplants morality and spurious doctrines cause men to prey on each other.
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Safe Haven[/i], Hans F. Sennholz, www.sennholz.com
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| ... Secrecy Report Card ... |
| 08.27.04 (12:30 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be extremely concerned, angered and outraged at the un-democratic and destructive fascist secrecy and imperial powers being employed against us by the neo-con Bush regime, for they are[i] refusing to release documents and information that have a direct impact and important bearing [/i]upon the nature of their criminal and incompetent governance ...[/b]
You might have suspected it, but now there's hard data: Government secrecy has dramatically increased in the past four years, according to a report by OpenTheGovernment.org http://www.openthegovernment.... . How dramatically, you ask? Well, for every dollar spent to release old secrets, the federal government has spent $120 classifying new information. Recently, that's included documents about Abu Ghraib and parts of the Senate Intelligence Committee's report on pre-war intelligence in Iraq. More than[b] 14 million documents [/b]have been classified in the [b]past year [/b]alone, at a cost of [b]$6.5 billion[/b]. That's more than the past entire decade. [b]SEE THE REPORT [/b] http://www.openthegovernment....
[b]Check out also:[/b]
Bush/Cheney Inc.: A History of Refusing to Release Documents ..., http://www.tblog.com/template...
Bush Administration Documents on Secrecy Policy ... c/o The Federation of American Scientists, http://www.tblog.com/template...
'Half of govt secrets shouldn't be secret', http://www.washtimes.com/upi-...
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| ... An American Icon on the State of the Union ... |
| 08.26.04 (4:24 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are indeed fortunate to have among us an iconoclastic American Master, Gore Vidal, a brilliant polemicist ([i]and [/i]World War 2 Veteran), who we should listen to carefully ...[/b]
[b]State of the Union, 2004
by Gore Vidal[/b]
In the 1960s and '70s of the last unlamented century, there was a New York television producer named David Susskind. He was commercially successful; he was also, surprisingly, a man of strong political views which he knew how to present so tactfully that networks were often unaware of just what he was getting away with on their--our--air. Politically, he liked to get strong-minded guests to sit with him at a round table in a ratty building at the corner of Broadway and 42nd Street. Sooner or later, just about everyone of interest appeared on his program. Needless to say, he also had time for Vivien Leigh to discuss her recent divorce from Laurence Olivier, which summoned forth the mysterious cry from the former Scarlett O'Hara, "I am deeply sorry for any woman who was not married to Larry Olivier." Since this took in several billion ladies (not to mention those gentlemen who might have offered to fill, as it were, the breach), Leigh caused a proper stir, as did the ballerina Alicia Markova, who gently assured us that "a Markova comes only once every hundred years or so."
I suspect it was the dim lighting on the set that invited such naked truths. David watched his pennies. I don't recall how, or when, we began our "States of the Union" programs. But we did them year after year. I would follow whoever happened to be President, and I'd correct his "real" state of the union with one of my own, improvising from questions that David would prepare. I was a political pundit because in a 1960 race for the House of Representatives (upstate New York), I got more votes than the head of the ticket, JFK; in 1962, I turned down the Democratic nomination for US Senate on the sensible ground that it was not winnable; I also had a pretty good memory in those days, now a-jangle with warning bells as I try to recall the national debt or, more poignantly, where I last saw my glasses.
I've just come across my "State of the Union" as of 1972. Apparently, I gave it fifteen times across the country, ending with Susskind's program. Questions and answers from the audience were the most interesting part of these excursions. As I look back over the texts of what we talked about, I'm surprised at how to the point we often were on subjects seldom mentioned in freedom's land today.
In 1972, I begin: "According to the polls, our second principal concern today is the breakdown of law and order." (What, I wonder, was the first? Let's hope it was the pointless, seven-year--at that point--war in Southeast Asia.) I noted that to those die-hard conservatives, "law and order" is usually a code phrase meaning "get the blacks." While, to what anorexic, vacant-eyed blonde women on TV now describe as the "liberal elite," we were pushing the careful--that is, slow--elimination of poverty. Anything more substantive would have been regarded as communism, put forward by dupes. But then, I say very mildly, we have only one political party in the United States, the Property Party, with two right wings, Republican and Democrat. Since I tended to speak to conservative audiences in such civilized places as Medford, Oregon; Parkersburg,West Virginia; and Longview, Washington, there are, predictably, a few gasps at this rejection of so much received opinion. There are also quite a few nods from interested citizens who find it difficult at election time to tell the parties apart. Was it in pristine Medford that I actually saw the nodding Ralph Nader whom I was, to his horror, to run for President that year in [i]Esquire[/i]? Inspired by the nods, I start to geld the lily, as the late Sam Goldwyn used to say. The Republicans are often more doctrinaire than the Democrats, who are willing to make small--very small--adjustments where the poor and black are concerned while giving aid and comfort to the anti-imperialists. Yes, I was already characterizing our crazed adventure in Vietnam as imperial, instead of yet another proof of our irrepressible, invincible altruism, ever eager to bring light to those who dwell in darkness.
I should note that in the thirty-two years since this particular state of the union, our political vocabulary has been turned upside down. Although the secret core to each presidential election is who can express his hatred of African-Americans most subtly (to which today can be added Latinos and "elite liberals," a fantasy category associated with working film actors who have won Academy Awards), and, of course, this season it's the marriage-minded so-called gays. So-called because there is no such human or mammal category (sex is a continuum) except in the great hollow pumpkin head of that gambling dude who has anointed himself the nation's moralist-in-chief, William "Bell Fruit" Bennett.
Back to the time machine. In some ways, looking at past states of the union, it is remarkable how things tend to stay the same. Race-gender wars are always on our overcrowded back burners. There is also--always--a horrendous foreign enemy at hand ready to blow us up in the night out of hatred for our Goodness and rosy plumpness. In 1972, when I started my tour at the Yale Political Union, the audience was packed with hot-eyed neocons-to-be, though the phrase was not yet in use, as the inventors of neoconnery were still Trotskyists to a man or woman or even "Bell Fruit," trying to make it in New York publishing.
I also stay away from the failing economy. "I leave to my friend Ken Galbraith the solving of the current depression." If they appear to know who Galbraith is, I remark how curious that his fame should be based on two books, [i]The Liberal Hour[/i], published a few years before the right-wing Nixon criminals tried to hijack the election of 1972 (Watergate was bursting open when I began my tour), and [i]The Affluent Society[/i], published shortly before we had a cash-flow problem.
In the decades since this state of the union, the United States has had more people, per capita, locked away in prisons than any other country, while the sick economy of '72 is long forgotten as worse problems--and deficits--beset us. For one thing, we no longer live in a nation, but in a Homeland. In 1972, "roughly 80 percent of police work in the United States has to do with the regulation of our private morals. By that I mean controlling what we smoke, eat, put in our veins--not to mention trying to regulate with whom and how we have sex, with whom and how we gamble. As a result our police are among the most corrupt in the Western world."
I don't think this would get the same gasp today that it did back then. I point out police collusion with gamblers, drug dealers, prostitutes and, indeed, anyone whose sexual activities have been proscribed by a series of state legal codes that were--are--the scandal of what we like to call a free society. These codes are often defended because they are very old. For instance, the laws against sodomy go back 1,400 years to the Emperor Justinian, who felt that there should be such laws because, "as everyone knows," he declared, "sodomy is a principal cause of earthquake."
Sodomy gets the audience's attention. "Cynically, one might allow the police their kinky pleasures in busting boys and girls who attract them if they showed the slightest interest in the protection of persons and property, which is what we pay them to do." I then suggested that "we remove from the statute books all penalties that have to do with private morals--what are called 'victimless crimes.' If a man or a woman wants to be a prostitute, that is his or her affair. Certainly, it is no business of the state what we do with our bodies sexually. Obviously, laws will remain on the books for the prevention of rape and the abuse of children, while the virtue of our animal friends will continue to be protected by the SPCA." Relieved laughter at this point. He can't be serious--or is he?
I speak of legalizing gambling. Bingo players nod. Then: "All drugs should be legalized and sold at cost to anyone with a doctor's prescription." Most questions, later, are about this horrific proposal. Brainwashing on the subject begins early, insuring that a large crop of the coming generation will become drug addicts. Prohibition always has that effect, as we should have learned when we prohibited alcohol from 1919 to 1933; but, happily for the busy lunatics who rule over us, we are permanently the United States of Amnesia. We learn nothing because we remember nothing. The period of Prohibition called the "Noble Experiment" brought on the greatest breakdown of law and order that we have ever endured--until today, of course. Lesson? Do not regulate the private lives of people, because if you do they will become angry and antisocial, and they will get what they want from criminals, who work in perfect freedom because they know how to pay off the police.
What should be done about drug addiction? As of 1970, England was the model for us to emulate. With a population of 55 million people, they had only 1,800 heroin addicts. With our 200 million people we had nearly a half-million addicts. What were they doing right? For one thing, they turned the problem over to the doctors. Instead of treating the addict as a criminal, they required him to register with a physician, who then gives him, at controlled intervals, a prescription so that he can obtain his drug. Needless to say, our society, based as it is on a passion to punish others, could not bear so sensible a solution. We promptly leaned, as they say, on the British to criminalize the sale and consumption of drugs, and now the beautiful city of Edinburgh is one of the most drug-infested places in Europe. Another triumph for the American way.
I start to expand. "From the Drug Enforcement Administration to the FBI, we are afflicted with all sorts of secret police, busily spying on us. The FBI, since its founding, has generally steered clear of major crime like the Mafia. In fact, much of its time and energies have been devoted to spying on those Americans whose political beliefs did not please the late J. Edgar Hoover, a man who hated commies, blacks and women in, more or less, that order. But then the FBI has always been a collaborating tool of reactionary politicians. The bureau also has had a nasty talent for amusing Presidents with lurid dossiers on their political enemies." Now in the year 2004, when we have ceased to be a nation under law but instead a homeland where the withered Bill of Rights, like a dead trumpet vine, clings to our pseudo-Roman columns, Homeland Security appears to be uniting our secret police into a single sort of Gestapo with dossiers on everyone to prevent us, somehow or other, from being terrorized by various implacable Second and Third World enemies. Where there is no known Al Qaeda sort of threat, we create one, as in Iraq, whose leader, Saddam Hussein, had no connection with 9/11 or any other proven terrorism against the United States, making it necessary for a President to invent the lawless as well as evil (to use his Bible-based language) doctrine of pre-emptive war based on a sort of hunch that maybe one day some country might attack us, so, meanwhile, as he and his business associates covet their oil, we go to war, leveling their cities to be rebuilt by other business associates. Thus was our perpetual cold war turned hot.
My father, uncle and two stepbrothers graduated from the US Military Academy at West Point, where I was born in the cadet hospital. Although I was brought up by a political grandfather in Washington, DC, I was well immersed in the West Point ethos--Duty, Honor, Country--as was David Eisenhower, the President's grandson, whom I met years later. We exchanged notes on how difficult it was to free oneself from that world. "They never let go," I said. "It's like a family."
"No," he said, "it's a religion." Although neither of us attended the Point, each was born in the cadet hospital; each went to Exeter; each grew up listening to West Pointers gossip about one another as well as vent their political views, usually to the far right. At the time of the Second World War, many of them thought we were fighting the wrong side. We should be helping Hitler destroy Communism. Later, we could take care of him.
In general, they disliked politicians, Franklin Roosevelt most of all. There was also a degree of low-key anti-Semitism, while pre-World War II blacks were Ellisonian invisibles. Even so, in that great war, Duty and Honor served the country surprisingly well. Unfortunately, some served themselves well when Truman militarized the economy, providing all sorts of lucrative civilian employment for high-ranking officers. Yet it was Eisenhower himself who warned us in 1961 of the dangers of the "military-industrial complex." Unfortunately, no one seemed eager to control military spending, particularly after the Korean War, which we notoriously failed to win even though the cry "The Russians are coming!" was heard daily throughout the land. Propaganda necessary for Truman's military buildup was never questioned...particularly when demagogues like Senator McCarthy were destroying careers with reckless accusations that anyone able to read the[i] New York Times [/i]without moving his lips was a Communist. I touched, glancingly, on all this in Nixonian 1972, when the media, Corporate America and the highly peculiar President were creating as much terror in the populace as they could in order to build up a war machine that they thought would prevent a recurrence of the Great Depression, which had only ended in 1940 when FDR put billions into rearmament and we had full employment and prosperity for the first time in that generation.
I strike a few mildly optimistic notes. "We should have a national health service, something every civilized country in the world has. Also, improved public transport (trains!). Also, schools which do more than teach conformity. Also, a cleaning of the air, of the water, of the earth before we all die of the poisons set loose by a society based on greed." Enron, of course, is decades in the future, as are the American wars of aggression against Afghanistan and Iraq.
In the end, we may offer Richard Nixon a debt of gratitude. I'm in a generous mood. "Through Nixon's awesome ineptitude we have seen revealed the political corruption of our society." (We had, of course, seen nothing yet!) What to do? I proposed that no candidate for any office be allowed to buy space on television or in any newspaper or other medium: "This will stop cold the present system, where Presidents and Congressmen are bought by corporations and even by foreign countries. To become President, you will not need thirty, forty, fifty million dollars to smear your opponents and present yourself falsely on TV commercials." Were the sums ever so tiny?
Instead, television (and the rest of the media) would be required by law to provide prime time (and space) for the various candidates.
"I would also propose a four-week election period as opposed to the current four-year marathon. Four weeks is more than enough time to present the issues. To show us the candidates in interviews, debates, uncontrolled encounters, in which we can see who the candidate really is, answering tough questions, his record up there for all to examine. This ought to get a better class into politics." As I reread this, I think of Arnold Schwarzenegger. I now add: Should the candidate happen to be a professional actor, a scene or two from Shakespeare might be required during the audition...I mean, the primary. Also, as a tribute to Ole Bell Fruit, who favors public executions of drug dealers, these should take place during prime time as the empire gallops into its Ben-Hur phase.
I must say, I am troubled by the way I responded to the audience's general hatred of government. I say we are the government. But I was being sophistical when I responded to their claims that our government is our enemy with that other cliché, you are the government. Unconsciously, I seem to have been avoiding the message that I got from one end of the country to the other: We hate this system that we are trapped in, but we don't know who has trapped us or how. We don't even know what our cage looks like because we have never seen it from the outside. Now, thirty-two years later, audiences still want to know who will let them out of the Enron-Pentagon prison with its socialism for the rich and free enterprise for the poor. So...welcome to Imperial America.
[b][i]Nation[/i] contributing editor Gore Vidal is a prolific novelist, playwright and essayist, and one of the great stylists of contemporary American prose. Author of more than two dozen books, his 1993 collected essays United States won a National Book Award. His latest book is Dreaming War: Blood for Oil and the Cheney-Bush Junta (Thunder's Mouth).[/b] - http://www.thenation.com/doc....
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| ... "Brutality and Purposeless Sadism" ... |
| 08.26.04 (10:54 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" must call for the dismissal of Rumsfeld and the impeachment of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]for their heinous war crimes at Abu Ghraib ...[/b]
An independent investigative panel led by former Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger and including another former defense secretary, Harold Brown, found that current Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is at least partially responsible for the torture that occurred in the Abu Ghraib prison between October and December 2003. Calling the 300 alleged instance of abuse[b] "brutality and purposeless sadism," [/b]the panel blamed the entire chain of top-level generals and military officials, including Rumsfeld, Gen. Tommy Franks and Gen. John P. Abizaid. "The aberrant behavior on the night shift in Cell Block 1 at Abu Ghraib would have been avoided with proper training, leadership and oversight," the report reads. SEE THE DOCUMENT: http://www.nyu.edu/globalbeat...
The [i]Washington Post [/i]reports http://www.washingtonpost.com... : "Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's leadership of the Pentagon has been weighed by a jury of his peers and found somewhat wanting.
A report by a blue-ribbon panel he appointed to review the military establishment's role in creating and handling detainee abuse problems at Abu Ghraib prison said that the Iraq war plan he played a key role in shaping helped create the conditions that led to the scandal."
[b]Refer also to:[/b]
Abu Ghraib Cover-up Intensifies, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Rumsfeld--and Others--Must Go, http://www.tblog.com/template...
U.S. Army Report Links Rumsfeld-Bush-Cheney To HORRORS At Abu Ghraib: TIME TO GO!!!, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| ... Without A Doubt ... |
| 08.25.04 (3:48 pm) [edit] |
"To have doubted one's own first principles is the mark of a civilized man." - [i]Oliver Wendell Holmes[/i]
"The beginning of wisdom is found in doubting; by doubting we come to the question, and by seeking we may come upon the truth." - [i]Pierre Abelard[/i]
"To deny, to believe, and to doubt absolutely -- this is for man what running is for a horse." - [i]Blaise Pascal[/i]
[b]Doubt is a healthy quality ... To have no doubt-- to fail to ask the right questions-- to refuse to acknowledge mistakes-- to have complete certainty without a recognition of the complexities of life-- these are all highly dangerous qualities and they are absolutely lethal in a leader whose lack of ability to think deeply will lead his/her nation on a path to chaos ... "We the People" have been saddled with an incompetent, corrupt and foolish man who lives without a doubt in his mediocre http://www.tblog.com/template... head ... http://www.thecrimson.com/art... http://www.newstarget.com/001... ... [/b]
[b][u]The Man Without Doubt: George W. Bush[/u]
Almost a thousand American troops have died, and No WMD have been found in Iraq; but President Bush still has “no doubt” that his war was a good idea. Sometimes doubt is a good thing[/b].
Consider these statements made by the Bush Administration:
• “Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.”-- [i]President George W. Bush, 3/6/03[/i]
• “Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.”-- [i]Dick Cheney, Speech to VFW National Convention, 8/26/02[/i]
• “We know where they [the WMDs] are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat.”-- [i]Donald Rumsfeld, ABC interview, 3/30/03[/i]
• “…every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. ... Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent.”-- [i]Secretary of State Colin Powell, at the UN, 2/5/03[/i]
• “The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it.”-- [i]White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer, 12/5/02[/i]
• “I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming.”-- [i]Colin Powell, remarks to reporters, May 4, 2003[/i]
• “Saddam Hussein is not disarming. This is a fact. It cannot be denied.”-- [i]President Bush, News conference, 3/6/03[/i]
• “We know for a fact that there are weapons there.”-- [i]White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, press briefing, 1/9/03[/i]
• “We based our decisions on good, sound intelligence, and the — our people are going to find out the truth. And the truth will say that this intelligence was good intelligence. There's no doubt in my mind.”-- [i]President George W. Bush, 7/17/03[/i]
These statements have two things in common. First, they were presented to the American people as absolute fact. They didn’t say, “we think”, “we believe”, or “it is possible”—they presented these statements as absolute facts. The second thing they have in common is that they now appear to be absolutely false. No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, even though soldiers’ lives and millions of taxpayer dollars have been squandered searching for them.
Despite that, the Bush Administration refused to admit they were wrong. All they did was modify their mis-statements of fact. “Weapons of Mass Destruction” became “Weapons programs”, then, “Weapon Program Related Activities”, and finally, “Saddam had bad intentions”.
Even though they have been wrong about almost everything in Iraq, the Bush Administration still operates under the delusion that they are always right.
• “The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts.”--[i] Bertrand Russell (1872-1970), British Philosopher and Essayist[/i]
• “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.”-- [i]Voltaire, letter to Frederick II, 1767[/i]
• “Analysts and policy makers alike tend to interpret information to support their own viewpoints.”-- [i]Dean Rusk, “As I Saw It”, 1990[/i]
• “Reality cannot be ignored except at a price; and the longer the ignorance is persisted in, the higher and the more terrible becomes the price that must be paid.”-- [i]Aldous Huxley, “Vendanta for the Western World”, 1945[/i]
John Kerry has been called indecisive because he refuses to answer complex questions with “sound bite” sized statements; while Bush is considered bold and decisive because he has a simple-minded answer for everything. It is easy to be decisive when your decisions are preordained by the NeoCon agenda, because no thought or deliberation is unnecessary.
• “From the very beginning, there was a conviction, that Saddam Hussein was a bad person and that he needed to go. Going after Saddam was topic "A" ten days after the inauguration - eight months before Sept. 11.”-- [i]Former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill, CBS’ 60 Minutes, 1/11/04[/i]
• “All too often…intelligence estimates tell us more about interests and foreign policy preferences of powerful groups in government than it does about what the other side’s intentions and capabilities are.”-- [i]Robert Jervis, “Intelligence and Foreign Policy”, International Security, Winter 86-87[/i]
There were plenty of people expressing doubts about Iraq’s military capabilities, but the Bush Administration refused to listen. That is why America is in such a deadly mess in Iraq today.
• “This (Bush) administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts.”-- [i]Conservative columnist George Will, Washington Post, 5/4/04[/i]
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| ... Do You Hear What I Hear??? ... |
| 08.25.04 (12:21 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]neo-con operatives are [i]out-in-force [/i]spreading mendacious mis-quotations that do not accurately reflect what John F. Kerry is[i] actually [/i]saying ... "We the People" should be wary of such vile, "dishonest & dishonorable" neo-fascist tactics used to [i]mis-represent [/i]John F. Kerry's positions ... Take the time to read Dana Milbank's excellent article in the [i]Washington Post [/i]on http://www.washingtonpost.com... ...[/b]
"Bush operatives constantly whine about the media, but Bush is benefiting from the mock sophistication of journalists who, striking a world-weary stance, say of his campaign dishonesty, 'It was ever thus in American politics.' Even if that were true, it would be no excuse, and it isn't true. This is extraordinary ... serious people flinch from being associated with the intellectual slum that is the Bush campaign, with its riffraff of liars and aspiring ayatollahs."
Those are the words, http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk... it may surprise you to learn, of George Will, writing on August 26th, 1992, writing of course about the campaign of the president's father.
The whole column merits reading in full -- and not simply because of the irony that Will was saying of that Bush campaign what many Democrats are now saying about his son's campaign. It's more than that. You have the same tactics, the same people, even the same criticisms in many cases -- ones which the campaign makes no effort to defend as being accurate but nonetheless insists it will keep repeating.
Read this passage from Will's piece and then stop by the Bush Jr. website http://www.georgewbush.com/Ke... and see that that's the message of the day in late August this year too ...
[i]Soon Bill Clinton will have to say to Bush what Dole publicly said to Bush in 1988: "Stop lying about my record." Bush says Clinton has raised taxes 128 times. Bush says this even though columnist Michael Kinsley has demonstrated that the list of "tax increases" is a tissue of falsehoods. (Some taxes are counted several times; components of a tax are counted as separate taxes; minor fees, such as the $ 1 court cost imposed on convicted criminals, are counted as taxes.) By the tendentious criteria used by the Bush campaign, Bush has raised taxes more often in four years than Clinton has in 12.
So, what does Teeter say of the 128 number? "We're not going to quit saying it about Mr. Clinton[/i]."
Here's the new version, for Senator Kerry.
[i]John Kerry promises not to raise taxes, but the reality is that he has cast 98 votes for tax increases, including voting ten times to raise gas taxes on the middle class. Kerry points to the largest tax increase in American history as the blueprint for his economic plan, which advisor Bob Rubin says Kerry won't reveal until elected. Kerry's credibility problem is only expanding as more and more Americans see the gap between what Kerry says and what Kerry does[/i].
Same stuff. Same indifference to saying things that are even remotely true. And at least till now, the same playing most of the press for chumps.
Of course, twelve years ago it took till August 26th for George Will to lower the boom. But perhaps the tide is starting to turn. Here, from Dana Milbank in yesterday's [i]Washington Post[/i], is a list of half a dozen quotes http://www.washingtonpost.com... from Kerry and how either President Bush or Vice President Cheney have distorted them out of all recognition on the campaign trail recently.
[b]Here's a sample ...[/b]
"Every performer tonight in their own way, either verbally or through their music, through their lyrics, have conveyed to you the heart and soul of our country." -- Kerry, July 8
"The other day, my opponent said he thought you could find the heart and soul of America in Hollywood." -- Bush, Aug. 18
[b]And of course, there are several more examples http://www.washingtonpost.com... for your reading pleasure ...[/b]
[b]Sources:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
Do You Hear What I Hear?, Dana Milbank, http://www.washingtonpost.com...
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| ... Why Credibility Matters ... |
| 08.25.04 (11:21 am) [edit] |
[b]The insane neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] mantra of "you're either with us or against us" is dangerously stupid and just plain dangerous ... Co-operation and good-will is absolutely necessary in a complex world ... "We the People" have been placed in greater danger than ever before by the despotic and corrupt Bush regime who has treated the world community with contemptuous disregard and whose word is no longer trusted ...[/b]
Our credibility at home and abroad has never been lower. With no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq, horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, and no foreseeable end game for the U.S. in Iraq, most are hesitant to trust the Bush administration. A June 2004 poll by[i] CBS News [/i]and[i] The New York Times [/i]reported that 79 percent of the national adult population believed that Bush was either hiding something or completely lying in his statements about the war. The story abroad is hardly better. In a March 2004 [i]Pew survey[/i] http://people-press.org/repor... of European and Middle Eastern countries, a majority in seven of the eight nations surveyed believed U.S. and British leaders lied about the Iraq war.
Why is credibility so important? The conventional wisdom focuses on credibility for credibility's sake, but misses the real point: the war on terrorism cannot be won if the rest of the world mistrusts the United States.
At the start of the war on terrorism, the Bush administration sent a clear message to the world's nations: "You're either with us, or against us." After three years, it appears that far too few are with us. While America must always stand up for itself, we can neither protect nor defend ourselves if we continue to go it alone. Without meaningful and sustained international cooperation, we can neither fight terrorism effectively nor win. Here's why:
[b]... Securing the world's ports. [/b] The Container Security Initiative (CSI) is designed to place customs inspectors in ports worldwide in order to pre-screen 70 percent of U.S.-bound cargo. Only a few of the 20 planned ports worldwide have entered the program. The current list of CSI participants is heavy on ports in Europe and Asia, but lacks any ports in the Middle East and includes only one in Africa. The United States needs to work with the entire international community to quickly expand this program to reduce the huge vulnerability of the world's ports.
[b]... Controlling proliferation.[/b] The Aspen Strategy Group recently concluded that the threat of a nuclear attack is much greater than the public realizes http://www.nytimes.com/2004/0... . Only eleven nations have committed to a version of the Proliferation Security Initiative (PSI), http://usinfo.state.gov/produ... aimed at stopping shipments of weapons of mass destruction worldwide. The 9/11 Commission called for participation in PSI to be extended to non-NATO countries, specifically Russia and China. To interdict a ship, the United States must secure permission from the flag state of the vessel in question or the state whose coastal waters are being used for navigation. Otherwise, a United Nations Security Council resolution is needed. U.S. credibility is key to convincing more nations, particularly those in Africa and the Middle East, to participate in the PSI or to gain support within the Security Council.
[b]... Rooting out terrorists.[/b] The war on terrorism involves not only preventing terrorist attacks before they occur, but also rooting out terrorist sanctuaries around the world. The 9/11 Commission Report http://www.9-11commission.gov... writes that the United States must "reach out, listen to, and work with other countries that can help." While the administration has formed a relationship with Pakistan, it must also work with other weak states that are havens for terrorists, such as Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia .
[b]... Disrupting terrorist financial networks.[/b] Small amounts of money can fund devastating attacks. Since 9/11, $200 million http://www.cfr.org/campaign20...://www.cfr.org/campaign2004/pub6954/ george_bush/speech_on_the _patriot_act.php?issue=11 in terrorist assets has been seized, mostly from abroad, but the seizure rate has dramatically slowed. A new multilateral initiative led by the United States is needed. According to the 9/11 Commission, "multilateral freezing mechanisms now require waiting periods before being put into effect, eliminating the element of surprise and thus virtually ensuring that little money is actually frozen." As a result, "worldwide asset freezes have not been adequately enforced and have been easily circumvented."
[b]... Breaking up terrorist communications. [/b] Terrorists continue to use both low- and high-tech communications. http://www.news-leader.com/to... Recent raids by Pakistan unearthed the information that terrorists had been monitoring U.S. financial institutions. The United States needs intelligence from other nations. Monitoring Osama bin Laden's low-tech means of communicating from hiding – such as putting a message on the back of a donkey – requires knowledge from other nations.
[b]... Sharing the burden.[/b] The United States currently has 19,000 troops in Afghanistan, but NATO's International Security Force Assistance is providing only 6,536, including contributions from the United States. In Iraq, the U.S. has received little international help in footing the $144.4 billion bill. The less credibility the United States has, the less the international community will want to work with us, and the more we will have to pay.
The president states, "We are fighting this evil [terrorism] in Iraq so we do not have to fight it on the streets of our own cities." http://www.heritage.org/Resea... But every day, we do have to fight it in our own cities, as well as in Afghanistan, Syria, the Philippines, Algeria, and Indonesia. We cannot go it alone. Cooperation matters and we need our credibility intact to secure it.
[b]Source:[/b]
Michael Pan is a senior policy analyst for national security and international policy and Amanda Terkel is a researcher at the [i]Center for American Progress[/i]. - http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ... John F. Kerry Wins Backing from Nobel Economics Laureates ... |
| 08.25.04 (9:25 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should pay close attention to what Nobel Prize winning economists are saying about our economy, for our nation is at dire risk from the recklessness and ruthlessness of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] ... Refer to "Bush Plays Humpty Dumpty with Prosperity" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
John Kerry won the endorsement of 10 Nobel Prize-winning economists on Wednesday as he attacked President Bush for policies that he said have led to the creation of only low-paying jobs.
The Democratic presidential nominee released a letter from the economists saying the Bush administration had "embarked on a reckless and extreme course that endangers the long-term economic health of our nation."
They cited "poorly designed" tax cuts that instead of creating jobs have turned budget surpluses into enormous budget deficits, a "fiscal irresponsibility threatens the long-term economic security and prosperity of our nation."
The endorsement, in the form of an open letter American voters, was signed by George Akerlof and Daniel McFadden of the University of California at Berkeley, Kenneth Arrow and William Sharpe of Stanford University, Daniel Kahneman of Princeton University, Lawrence Klein of the University of Pennsylvania, Douglass North of Washington University, Paul Samuelson and Robert Solow of MIT and Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University.
Kerry, in remarks prepared for an appearance in Philadelphia, called for "jobs that don't just let you survive but let you get ahead. Jobs that let you pay your bills, send your kids to college, buy a house, save a little for retirement and go out to dinner or a movie every once in a while."
Now, he said, good jobs are being replaced "with ones that just don't pay the bills," -- 1.8 million private sector jobs lost replaced by ones that pay $9,000 less and are more likely to be temporary less likely to offer health insurance.
Kerry hammered on the jobs issue in his neck-and-neck race for the Nov. 2 election with Bush after days of focus on criticism about his Vietnam war record.
In an appearance in Philadelphia Tuesday night the decorated veteran who became one of the conflict's leading critics firmly defended his opposition to the war.
Voters "can judge my character" by his Vietnam record, the Massachusetts senator said, "Because when the times of moral crisis existed in this country, I wasn't taking care of myself. I was taking care of public policy. I was taking care of things that made a difference to the life of this nation."
He said he served in Vietnam for two tours -- longer than opponents allege -- and the Navy "thought enough of my service that they made me an aide to an admiral."
Aides said his total service was about six months, including four months and 10 days in country and several weeks on a ship off the coast.
He was awarded a Silver Star, a Bronze Star and three Purple Hearts.
"The Navy 35 years ago made the awards that it made through the normal process. I'm proud of them and I'm of my service and I'm proud that I stood up against the war when I got home because it was the right thing to do," he added.
The controversy over how Kerry won his medals in that war 35 years ago has recently stolen the spotlight in the race for the White House as both candidates try to portray themselves as best able to lead the United States in its global anti-terror war.
Some veterans, some with ties to the Republican Party and Bush allies, have called Kerry's courage into question and disputed the circumstances under which he received his medals.
But other veterans -- with direct knowledge of events -- have backed him up.
Bush's record during the Vietnam war has also drawn criticism from some Democrats who accuse him of going absent without leave from the Texas Air National Guard, citing gaps in his service record. Bush did not serve in Vietnam. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| ... Defending Liberty ... |
| 08.25.04 (7:49 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" now face the most important presidential election of our generation and we must extricate ourselves from the neo-con, neo-fascist grip of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]for our nation's sake ...
[u]Defending Liberty[/u]
by Robert C. Byrd [/b]
The Constitution of the United States of America is sheer genius captured on parchment. The delicate balance of authority -- the system of checks and balances and separation of powers -- has served as the foundation for our liberties, providing for the flexibility needed to accommodate two centuries of change and growth while also inspiring people around the world to strive for liberty.
The Constitution is designed, as Chief Justice John Marshall observed, "to endure for ages to come." But our national charter is being threatened as never before by reckless disregard for its wisdom.
Especially since Sept. 11, 2001, I have viewed with increasing alarm the erosion of the people's liberties at the hand of an overreaching executive and a less than vigilant Congress. This White House wraps itself in the garb of patriotism while running roughshod over the very ideals for which the first American patriots sacrificed. A concentrated, manipulative and ruthless grasp for power by an arrogant executive which eschews the need to answer questions, seek counsel or build consensus is a dangerous phenomenon, especially in these troubled times.
This Bush administration preys on fear, twists the truth and relies on extreme secrecy in an unprecedented display of contempt for the American people.
Let President Bush speak for himself. "I'm the commander," he told journalist Bob Woodward for the book, Bush at War. "See, I don't need to explain -- I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel like I owe anybody an explanation."
In this country, the people are sovereign. The first three words of the preamble to the Constitution are "We the people." The people are always owed an explanation by those who serve them. For any public servant to believe otherwise is arrogant in the extreme and can be costly at home and abroad.
Consider the cornerstone of Mr. Bush's foreign policy -- the doctrine of pre-emption, the first-strike war. This doctrine is unconstitutional. It cuts the people's representatives -- the Congress -- completely out of decisions to send Americans to fight and die.
Look to Iraq, the first testing ground for this radical doctrine. America is not safer because of Mr. Bush's war.
Instead, we have forged a cauldron of contempt for America, a dangerous brew that may have poisoned efforts at peace throughout the Middle East and, indeed, the world, while giving rise to generations of young people who now hate America for its aggression and for shameful debacles like the horrors at Abu Ghraib. We have squandered the goodwill of the world. Such has been the price of the Bush doctrine of pre-emption.
A weak Congress buckled in its vote to authorize force in Iraq. The country was misled by an administration that waved the bloody shirt of 9/11 then subtly shifted the blame to Saddam Hussein, despite the fact that there exists no demonstrable link between the two.
The White House propaganda machine convinced the country and Congress that it was unpatriotic to question the president; that it was damaging to our troops to question the war; and that it now serves no purpose to rehash the events that took us to war. But we must learn from an examination of the sad mistakes that have been made. Nearly 1,000 Americans have died in Iraq. No president must ever again be granted such license with our troops and our treasure.
Each generation of Americans has the responsibility to renew the framer's legacy, and to make this nation shine as a lasting beacon of hope for the world. "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty." We must reacquaint ourselves with the Constitution and forge new links with our history. Congress must reinvigorate its defense of the people's liberties. Amid the sound and fury of election-year politics, all of us must take a long, hard look at the kind of country we want to leave to our children.
[b]Robert C. Byrd, the senior Democratic senator from West Virginia, is the author of [i]Losing America: Confronting a Reckless and Arrogant Presidency[/i] http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... (W.W. Norton & Co.) [/b] - http://www.commondreams.org/v...
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| Bush is Unfit to be President: Iraq is Going to Fall into Chaos ... |
| 08.24.04 (3:55 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" must hold Bush accountable for his disastrous failure in Iraq ... [/b]Bush/Cheney's neo-con neo-fascists fabricated traitorous lies, deceptions and falsehoods to lead us into their illegal and immoral incursion into Iraq in order to enrich Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil, the Military Industrial Complex, etc.; grab oil; and control the Middle East ... Moreover, the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] Iraq War for War-Profiteering is a bloody fiasco with Iraq falling into chaos and tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis massacred-- many innocent Iraqi men, women and children murdered, tortured, raped, sodomized and brutally abused under Bush's command-- and, nearly 1000 US soldiers have been slaughtered mercilessly while the vile, un-American Bush Crime Family gets filthy rich ... [b]This is unacceptable ...[/b]
[b]''The Iraqi National Conference: Legitimation Failure''[/b]
The Iraqi National Conference, which concluded on August 18, was meant to bestow legitimacy on the transitional regime by providing broader representation in state institutions and a check on the power of the executive. It did not achieve its objectives and has, instead, widened and deepened the crazy quilt of political fractures in Iraqi society, sharpening divisions, increasing the probability of intensified conflict and drawing the country closer to the stark alternatives of Middle Eastern-style dictatorship and separation into mini-states.
The major business of the Conference was the election of an Interim National Council with 100 members, 19 of whom had been pre-selected from members of the governing council that had been set up by the occupation's Coalition Provisional Authority and who had been excluded from the transitional government. In order to enhance the legitimacy of the transitional government, the Conference would have had to elect a Council representative of Iraq's political forces, especially those outside the exile parties that have thus far controlled the transition. Those outside forces are divided into Sunni and Shi'a Arab rejectionists who oppose and will not participate in the transitional institutions, and smaller parties, civil society groups, ethnic and religious minorities, tribal leaders and independents that seek a greater role in the transition.
That the Conference would not be fully or even significantly representative was assured by the refusal of the rejectionists -- most notably, Moqtada al-Sadr's Shi'a movement and the Sunni Muslim Scholar's Association -- to participate. At most, the Conference could make a place for the many groups in Iraqi society that desire to participate in a peaceful transition to general elections. Their inclusion would have signaled that interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi's regime was serious about democratization, enhancing the legitimacy of the transitional government in the sectors of Iraqi society that are still opposed to the rejectionists, but are skeptical about the occupation and suspect Allawi of being beholden to American interests.
Rather than moving towards inclusion, the parties that have controlled the transition opted to shape the Council in their image, creating a body that will work in tandem with the Allawi regime rather than holding it accountable. Their choice consolidates their power in the short run, but has alienated the forces that have desired to play a part in the transition and has increased the likelihood that the sectors of Iraqi society that are skeptical of the transitional regime will be driven in the direction of rejectionism.
In retrospect, the Conference was a bid for power by the Allawi regime and its coalition of factions that took place on two fronts. Outside the meeting, held in the heavily fortified Green Zone, Allawi and his American backers initiated military action in Najaf, where al-Sadr's Mehdi Army had set up positions in the Imam Ali Mosque -- Shi'a Islam's most sacred site. The aim of the operation was to crush the core of the Shi'a insurgency against the transitional government, while the Conference was going on. Inside the meeting, Allawi's coalition moved to override the opposition to its list of candidates for the Council. The transitional government's two-pronged attack to eliminate both military and peaceful opposition has had problematic results that indicate the lack of even the most tenuous consensus in Iraqi society on the country's political future.
[b]Najaf[/b]
From its outset, the Conference was overshadowed in the world news cycles by the confrontation in Najaf between the transitional government, spearheaded by American military forces, and the Mehdi Army. The decision to bring coercive pressure to bear on al-Sadr's movement in order to drive the Mehdi Army out of the Imam Ali Mosque and disarm it came on the first day of the Conference when the government broke off negotiations with al-Sadr that were aimed at ending the rebellion that he initiated on August 4 and bringing his movement into the transitional process.
The government claimed that it had withdrawn from the talks because they were not yielding progress, whereas al-Sadr said that a deal was close to being reached, with only some details to iron out. Whichever side was correct, it is clear that the government did not have to break off the talks abruptly and could have waited until the Conference concluded.
Several factors have been reported that entered into the decision to substitute confrontation for negotiation. The United States was pressing Allawi to adopt a military solution and dispose of Shi'a rejectionism, which, in an insurgent phase, was exposing U.S.-led coalition forces to deadly attack and was threatening the transition itself. The two most powerful members of the United States Senate's Foreign Relations Committee -- Republican Richard Lugar and Democrat Joseph Biden -- had publicly urged Allawi to suppress the Mehdi Army, indicating a bipartisan consensus on a coercive strategy. Allawi was also determined for his own interest to suppress the most serious threat to his regime -- any legitimacy that he might hope to achieve depends upon his providing at least a semblance of order to Iraq. Finally, Allawi and his coalition of exile parties might not have wanted a spotlight shown on a Conference that they were determined to control.
When the Conference was convened, its working program of discussions aimed at achieving a broadly representative consensus list of candidates for the Council was immediately scrapped and the proceedings were diverted to the Najaf crisis. Despite pleas by the Conference's organizers, representing the parties forming the transitional government, to stay with the program, the Shi'ite Political Council, which had helped calm an earlier rebellion by the Mehdi Army, threatened to walk out of the Conference unless negotiations with al-Sadr were restarted and military action against the Mehdi Army was suspended. The organizers acceded, due to the negative effects that a walk out would have had on the Conference's legitimacy and the sentiment among many delegates that the Conference would be a travesty if it was held in the context of civil war.
Whether or not the Conference organizers were sincere in their initial insistence that the Conference proceed with its scheduled work, the diversion of the proceedings to the Najaf crisis stopped any attempt at consensus building on the composition of the Council in its tracks. The second day of the Conference was taken up with debates over how it could play a role in defusing the confrontation. Anti-regime tendencies wanted the Conference to insist that Allawi withdraw military forces and enter negotiations with al-Sadr, pro-regime delegates backed Allawi's hard line, and moderates urged that the Conference intervene directly and send a mission to Najaf to persuade al-Sadr to stand down.
The moderates won, providing a brief possibility that the Conference could pave the way for an autonomous legislative body that would act independently of the transitional executive. The final plan, however, was to present al-Sadr with a non-negotiable proposal for his forces to leave the Mosque and disarm, in return for safe conduct and the opportunity to form a peaceful political movement. Although the proposal fell short of Allawi's maximum aims, he accepted it.
The Conference's third day, which was supposed to be devoted to electing the Council, was instead taken up with the fate of a delegation of eight Conference members who were to present the proposal to al-Sadr in Najaf. Al-Sadr refused to meet with them, citing security concerns stemming from fighting in the neighborhood of the Mosque, but his representatives were encouraging to the Council delegation.
By the time the delegation's mission was concluded, it was too late to elect delegates and the Conference was extended for another day.
On the Conference's fourth day, al-Sadr accepted the proposal to stand down, but it was not clear that the crisis had been resolved, since he quickly announced conditions, including the withdrawal of American forces from Najaf and a guarantee that the Mosque would be placed under the control of Shi'a clerics. The next day al-Sadr adopted a confrontational stance and the situation returned to what it had been before the Conference's attempt at a peaceful solution, with the government threatening to take the Mosque by force and al-Sadr vowing that he would resist and, if necessary, take the path of martyrdom. The Conference had failed to play a constructive role in resolving the Najaf crisis.
[b]Choosing the Council[/b]
With the attention of the Conference focused on Najaf for its first three days, there was no time for the intensive process of consensus building that had been envisioned by its American architects in the Coalition Provisional Authority and that was necessary to achieve its legitimacy and the legitimacy of the Council that it would elect. The way was open for the forces in the transitional government to craft the Council in its image.
Even before the Conference convened, its legitimacy had been severely questioned. Its opening had been delayed for two weeks by the United Nations, which objected to its lack of inclusiveness and sought to broaden representation of groups outside the transitional government. In the days before the Conference met, there were still persistent claims by small parties, civil society groups and tribes that the process for selecting delegates was not transparent and was controlled by the parties in the regime coalition. Nonetheless, of the 1300 delegates finally chosen, between one-third and one-half were not affiliated with the regime.
The major divide in the Conference was between pro-regime forces who desired a Council controlled by them that would cooperate with the transitional government, and non-regime tendencies that pushed for a Council that would function as an independent parliament that would serve as an overseer and a check on the transitional executive.
The conflict played out as a procedural struggle over how the Council would be elected. Originally, there were to have been broad discussions among the delegates that would result in a single list of candidates and would be voted in by a two-thirds majority. As the possibility for consensus building vanished due to the Najaf distraction, the non-regime tendencies argued for open voting by the entire Conference on prospective candidates, in order to avoid a list imposed on them by the pro-regime elements whom they suspected of having pre-selected candidates before the Conference began. A compromise was reached on the third day that a list dominated by the regime partners would be contested by a slate drawn up by the non-regime tendencies, and that the list gaining a simple majority would compose the Council. The compromise was effected only after 450 delegates threatened to walk out unless there would be competing lists.
The non-regime forces succeeded in making up a list, despite time constraints, lack of organizational experience and diverse interests, but then abruptly withdrew it. One of the leading non-regime figures at the Conference -- Aziz al-Yasseri, head of the Iraqi Democratic Movement -- explained that the non-regime list was withdrawn in order to deprive the pro-regime list of legitimacy. The non-regime bloc had concluded that the Conference had been too stacked by parties allied to the regime to allow for broader representation. As a result, 300 delegates are reported to have withdrawn from the Conference, at which point the Conference organizers quickly declared the pro-regime list the winner without taking a vote, prompting widespread expressions of dissent and dissatisfaction, and a walk out by the Shi'a delegation from Basra. The pro-regime elements had engineered a formal victory, at the cost of their legitimacy.
[b]Conclusion[/b]
The course of the Iraqi National Conference symbolizes the present state of Iraqi politics, which is becoming increasingly a polar struggle between the transitional government and the rejectionists. The Conference had provided the possibility for broader representation and with it increased legitimacy for the transitional institutions, but the regime and its allies chose to keep those institutions in their own hands with the apparent backing of the United States. As a result, Allawi will work with a compliant Council and can be expected to continue with his policy of confrontation with the rejectionists who will persist in their intransigence. Allawi will attempt to consolidate his power in state institutions, driving the United States to depend on him as its only recourse and encouraging a drift toward a dictatorship threatened increasingly by separatism.
Rather than enhancing the legitimacy of transitional institutions, the Conference diminished it. Sectors of Iraqi society that support neither the regime nor the Sunni and Shi'a Arab insurgencies have been cut out of their only chance to pursue their interests peacefully and institutionally. Their confidence in the planned open elections has been compromised. Excluded from the transitional process, they will be increasingly alienated from the regime, less willing to support it against its militant foes and more likely to place themselves with separatist tendencies.
[i][b]Report Drafted By:[/b][/i]
Dr. Michael A. Weinstein
[b]The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of inquiries@pinr.com. All comments should be directed to content@pinr.com.[/b] - http://www.pinr.com/report.ph...
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| ... Bush/Cheney Inc. On The "Real" Issues [sic]??? ... |
| 08.24.04 (1:57 pm) [edit] |
[b]Surely "We the People" deserve better than the mendacious Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]despotic lies, deceptions and falsehoods ... Don't we deserve a serious discussion of their neo-con war policies and neo-fascist economic agenda on behalf of corporations and the wealthiest among us,[i] and [/i]the harm they are doing to America??? ... [/b]
[b]Leave it to [i]Knight Ridder [/i]to actually get [i]this one [/i]right ...[/b]
... "[u]Headline[/u]: Bush criticizes ads by outside groups
Washington - President Bush sought Monday to distance himself from ads attacking Sen. John Kerry's war record and suggested that voters "should be looking forward, not backward."
But he didn't directly condemn the ads, and the controversy over Kerry's service in Vietnam showed no signs of abating." ...
See the rest of the piece here http://www.ledger-enquirer.co... ...
[b]Okay, I think we've got the winner for the most inane Bush-Swift Boat headline.[/b]
From the Bloomington, [i]Indiana Herald Times[/i]: "Bush calls anti-Kerry ad 'false and libelous." http://www.heraldtimesonline....
Great work, guys.
Tomorrow in the [i]Winfield Crier[/i]: "Bush: I Hate the Swift Boat Guys. End Ads Now!"
Thursday in the [i]Podunk Sentinel[/i]: "Bush: I Was on The Boat with Kerry."
Friday in the [i]Lumpville Courier[/i]: "Bush Breaks Silence: Kerry Saved My Life in 'Nam." - http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
[b]Will the neo-con, neo-fascist propaganda never cease??? ... When will the corrupt Bush regime get back to the [i]real[/i] issues??? ... Of course, did they ever discuss the[i] real [/i]issues with us, or were they simply imposed neo-imperial style??? ...[/b]
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| The Industries that Gave Most to Bush are the Ones that Have Screwed America the Worst!!! |
| 08.24.04 (11:23 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should "follow the money" trail ... Please read [i]Billionaires for Bush:-- They've Made Out Big-Time Off The "Expendable" Troops & Working People!!! [/i]on http://www.tblog.com/template... and then decide whether the despotic Bush/Cheney regime represents your interests ...[/b]
What TWO key things do the pharmaceutical, insurance, electric, oil/gas, and outsourcing-addicted industries have in common? 1) They gave the most to G.W. Bush; 2) they have been screwing American citizens royally since Bush took office. Each has cleaned up at America's expense: pharmaceutical and insurance got the Medicare scam windfall and Bush's refusal to regulate these monsters; the electric industry got the Clean Air Act gutted; the oil/gas industry: unlimited access to Cheney's energy task force, Iraq, Afghanistan, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve refill scam windfalls (which helped drive oil up to nearly $50/barrel;; ousourcing-addicted industries: Bush's blessing to ship 1.2 million jobs overseas. What Americans got: SCREWED!
Consider where the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]so-called "loyalty" [i]really[/i] lies on http://releases.usnewswire.co...
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| Undecided Voters Likely Will Swing Toward John F. Kerry |
| 08.24.04 (9:39 am) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]ugly neo-fascist smear campaign of bashing John F. Kerry with lies, deceptions and falsehoods may be backfiring ... "We the People" are fed-up and want a discussion of the real issues including the neo-con Bush regime's bungling of Iraq; their reckless mismanagement of the US economy; and, their insane neo-imperial lust to usher in WW IV based upon more heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods ...[/b]
If this presidential election outcome rests with the undecided voters, as most pollsters and analysts maintain, John Kerry has a bit of electoral history on his side.
Kerry's contest with George W. Bush is as tight as paint to a wall at this juncture; that's what everyone who's anyone in politics and punditry says, so it's probably true. Most recent polls give the Massachusetts senator the lead, but with a margin of error that makes the race effectively a tossup. Ergo, the outcome is in the hands of the undecided.
And the history of the undecided vote is that it almost always breaks roughly for the challenger, usually by at least 2-1.
Charley Cook, a nonpartisan, Washington-based analyst respected by both major parties, reports that in most elections for the last 30 years, something over 60 percent of the undecided vote has broken on Election Day for the challenger and against the incumbent. It seems to make little difference whether the contest is for president, governor, the Senate or the House of Representatives; the challenger gets the lion's share of the undecided vote.
There are exceptions. One thinks of the Truman-Dewey presidential election in 1948 when the undecided broke massively for Truman, the incumbent. And, obviously, the undecided are unlikely to matter much if the pre-election spread between incumbent and challenge is oceanic in size. But when the contest is as close as Kerry-Bush, it matters a great deal.
The dirty little secret with undecided voters is that, despite what they tell pollsters, they're not completely undecided.
They've already concluded the incumbent doesn't quite cut the mustard; they'd like someone else, someone better -- provided someone better is available. As Cook sees it, today's undecided voters are not sold on Bush; they'd like to trade him in for a new model. Trouble is, they're not convinced -- at least not yet -- that Kerry fills the bill.
All of which helps explain the tone of Kerry's national convention and his campaign -- surprisingly moderate and middle-road, with a heavier and more friendly emphasis on the military than found in most Democratic presidential campaigns, and with less of the traditional class warfare rhetoric.
The Democratic National Convention and Kerry's acceptance speech were tailored more for the television audience -- and those uncommitted voters -- than for the delegates and rank-and-file Democrats. It's not that the rank-and-file members don't count; they surely do. They're the activists Kerry managers count on to talk up the ticket, display the Kerry-Edwards signs and help drag out the vote this fall. But while vital, they're not enough to win it for him. For that, he needs to win over the bulk of the undecided.
And that means treading lightly. Unlike many Democrats, especially lifelong liberals, the undecided voters are not seen at Bush- haters. They don't care to see him bashed. Some voted for W. in 2000. They're experiencing disappointment with him now and with his policies. But they still might vote for him if Kerry fails to measure up.
With that in mind, Kerry opted to tread lightly, even on the issue that has stoked most of the Democratic rage -- the Iraq war.
The war is no doubt a factor for the undecideds as well as for the Democrats -- but with a difference. Democrats and Bush's detractors are agreed the war was a huge mistake; many, maybe most, even favor a pull-out now. But the view of the war among the undecided is not so clear-cut. They are, for lack of a better term, undecided.
It seems clear enough that they have reservations about the Iraq adventure. But there's no clear consensus beyond that. Some, while faulting Bush for having invaded Iraq or for having botched the whole business once it started, may -- like Kerry -- believe we've got to see it through. Still others among the undecided may be driven more by the economy, jobs and the exploding federal budget deficit.
Just who are the undecided voters? Terry Madonna, a political scientist and pollster at Franklin & Marshall University in Pennsylvania, says they are mostly middle-age, middle-income people, fiscally conservative but socially moderate and educated, but with only minimal interest in politics -- and overwhelmingly white. And how are they likely to vote in November?
Charley Cook maintains he's "not saying that this race is over," but he paints a bleak picture for Bush. If the race remains basically unchanged before November, he said, "then President Bush is not going to get re-elected -- he needs something to happen to shake this race up."
The presidential debates alone won't do it for Bush, as Cook sees it -- "it's got to be something bigger." Which may explain the Swift Boat smear campaign Bush surrogates have directed at Kerry's military record. - http://www.nj.com/columns/led...
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| Courageous Resisters ... |
| 08.23.04 (3:48 pm) [edit] |
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson
[b]"We the People" should be thankful for [i]each and every [/i]citizen with the courage to oppose the despotic, mean-spirited and corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]who are tragically transforming our nation into a neo-con, neo-fascist state http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
On the eve of the Republican National Convention, the Artists Network of Refuse & Resist! http://www.artistsnetwork.org... is presenting an evening of performance http://www.refuseandresist.or... to honor "Courageous Resisters" this Thursday, August 26, at 7:30 PM, at the Skirball Center for the Performing Arts at New York University in lower Manhattan.
Co-sponsored by[i] The Nation [/i]and a host of other New York City-based progressive groups and organizations, the event will celebrate the courage of those resisting the conservative agenda sweeping the US today. Honorees include Aaron Lebowitz, a high school student in Darby, Montana who resisted a resolution to make creationism part of his school's curriculum; Toni Smith, http://www.thenation.com/doc.... the New York City college basketball player who refused to line up with her teammates during the national anthem as a symbol of her opposition to war in Iraq; Camilo Mejia, http://www.thenation.com/doc.... the first US soldier to go AWOL because of his antiwar stance (now in the brig); Juanita Young, a leader of the movement against police brutality in New York City whose son was killed by the police and Jason West, the mayor of New Paltz, New York, who was charged with 19 criminal counts after he married gay and lesbian couples. (Click here http://www.artistsnetwork.org... for a complete list of the honorees.)
Numerous artists--graphic, visual and musical--will present original work in honor of the Resisters, including Odetta, Steve Earle, Andre Gregory, Dan Bern, Blair Brown, Vijay Iyer, Martha Lavey, Mari Mariposa, Ellen McLaughlin, Omar Metwally, Tracie Morris, Mikel Paris and Beau Sia. Click here http://www.skirballcenter.nyu... for tickets and info or call 212-992-8484.
The Imagine Festival of Arts, Issues and Ideas http://www.imagine04.org/ is another of the many creative responses to the RNC http://www.rnc.org/ and the threat posed by a second Bush term. A gala of more than 125 events mixing artistic and educational activities through a series of concerts, performances, screenings, forums, town meetings and artwork, the Festival takes place all over New York City from August 28 to September 2. Click here http://www.imagine04.org/ for the full schedule and click here http://www.rncguide.com/calen... to see [i]The People's Guide [/i]for a daily calendar of RNC-related events generally.
[b]Source:[/b]
Peter Rothberg, [i]ActNow[/i]!, TheNation, http://www.thenation.com
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| All About Money ... |
| 08.23.04 (1:29 pm) [edit] |
"By printing currency, loosening credit, and "buying" government securities, the Fed has "created" $2,033,800,000,000 additional dollars for Uncle $ugar--in three and a half years!", http://baltimorechronicle .com...
[b]Fred Cederholm is a [i]thinking [/i]American and ignorant citizens who are ignoring the looming disaster caused by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]reckless deficit spending while awarding massive immoral tax cuts to corporations and the richest-of-the-rich are akin to the proverbial ostriches sticking their dumb heads in the sand-- and then getting screwed when the day of reckoning comes ...[/b] "We the People" should be extremely alarmed because the Fed will be "keeping the lid on" our fiscal train-wreck until after the November election-- but it is unsustainable to print money [i]like it is going out of style[/i]-- instead [i]it will lose its value[/i] and we will be [i]hit hard by inflation [/i]that will be harmful to the American Middle Class and a major hardship to all Working people ...
I've been thinking about the US dollar, the M3 money supply, reserve currencies, OPEC, Saddam, and petrodollars. There is so much more to the story behind our money than what bucks we each have, what bucks we spend, what bucks are out there, and how those bucks are used/valued by the global financial community.
Our currency is "created" through the Federal Reserve Banking System of the United States. The Fed does this both by actually printing paper bills, and through manipulation of monetary policy--the expansion and contraction of credit/lending requirements. It also increases the money supply--putting more money in the hands of the "public"--by buying government securities in the market.
As strange as it sounds, the Federal Reserve pays for these by virtually creating the money out of thin air and transferring it to those people/entities selling the securities! There is no longer anything tangible behind the Federal Reserve Note--no links to gold or silver since 1971--only the full faith and "credit" of the United States of America.
Money supply is defined in terms of "M's." The M1 refers to the printed currency and all deposits in checking accounts (demand deposits), and unredeemed/outstanding travelers checks. The M2 picks up the M1 components plus all time-related deposits--savings deposits, small CD's and non-institutional money market funds. The M3 picks up the M2 components plus all large time deposits, institutional money-market funds, short-term repurchase agreements, along with eurodollar holdings.
In January 2001, the M3 stood at $7,249,900,000,000; at the end of June 2004 the M3 stood at $9,283,700,000,000. By printing currency, loosening credit, and "buying" government securities, the Fed has "created" $2,033,800,000,000 additional dollars for Uncle $ugar--in three and a half years!
This doesn't mean that Americans (or American businesses) have that much more money in their mattresses, bank accounts, or billfolds. The bulk of that whopping increase was added to outstanding reserve currencies. A reserve currency is one that is held by other governments and institutions as part of their foreign exchange reserves. They've accumulated that much because this nation buys so many more goods/products/services than we sell; and consumes so much more capital than we generate--an infusion of ONE AND ONE HALF BILLION dollars a day is presently required.
The US dollar is the "official" currency of OPEC. If you are a nation who needs OPEC oil, those purchases are priced/denominated in dollars. You are forced to pay in dollars, or in your currency's spot dollar valuation at the closing. Think of this as a US dollar monopoly within the OPEC oil cartel--hence, more and more dollars accumulate in the oil producing nations' treasuries.
In November 2000, Saddam Hussein broke that US dollar monopoly by denominating Iraqi oil pricing/sales in Euros. Saddam was even lobbying other OPEC members to do likewise. While this made the French, the Germans and other members of the European Union very happy; it made Washington D.C most unhappy. The implications to the dollar as the world's reserve currency, the US deficits (both trade and capital), the outstanding debt and its essential foreign rollovers and the US stock markets were tremendous--and all implications were negative.
The Saddam regime is now history. The evil dictator was preemptively/presumedly ousted because of his WMD's and his ties to terrorism, and the US dollar is back as "OPEC's currency." The trillions of petrodollars (US dollars earned from the sale of oil) give oil-producing nations the ability to do serious shopping in these United States--stocks, bonds, real estate, corporations, partnerships, government securities, etc.
We can only hope and pray that politicians are never offered for sale on the internet's sales portals.
I'm Fred Cederholm and I've been thinking. You should be thinking, too.
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| Alternatives to Mindless Slaughter ... |
| 08.23.04 (12:14 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be demanding a higher standard of dealing with issues including terrorism and the proliferation of WMDs that have been triggered by the insane neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's [/i]illegal and immoral incursion into the Middle East ...[/b]
There is a human catastrophe looming at The Shrine of Ali in Najaf, Iraq.
[b]First the facts:[/b] There is no Iraqi government. However -- entirely for US public relations purposes -- a semblance of an Iraqi government has been cobbled together, and is strategically positioned in front of news cameras at all times. They do not make decisions. All substantive decisions are made directly by the US White House, or when needed by the current US overseer "Ambassador" John Negroponte.
The armed force surrounding The Shrine of Ali in the Iraqi holy city of Najaf is largely a US military force. An Iraqi force -- again for public relations purposes -- has been assembled, and is being displayed for the benefit of the press in attendance. If an assault is mounted against The Shrine of Ali, that assault will be conducted not by any "Iraqi army," but by US forces. The main reason for this is that no one born in Iraq would even dream of attacking The Shrine of Ali -- only Westerners could conceive of such a thing.
Such an assault, should it take place, would be bloody -- far bloodier than what we have seen so far -- and it would have the very real potential to incite a region-wide uprising that would dwarf all that has occurred to date.
The US decision makers are driven, at least in part, by religious ideology. This was never more clearly on display than when Lt. Gen. William Boykin, a top-ranking US intelligence officer, referred to the war on terror as "a battle with Satan." That should not have come as any surprise -- George W. Bush last year actually referred to the US campaign as a "crusade." While the significance of that remark was lost on most Americans, it struck like a clarion call to every Muslim in the world.
There are two main arguments that are most often used to support a rationale for continued US military action in Iraq. The first is that if we pull out, there will be civil war. Normally that would be a valid concern. Unfortunately the Bush administration is doing more at this point to foment civil war in Iraq than prevent it. The creation of Iraqi "security forces" in fact pits Iraqis against Iraqis. The result is a bloody rendition of "divide and rule." Yes, if the Bush administration had an interest in preventing violence they might have a leg to stand on. But their interest is oil, and Iraqi unity does not serve that end.
The second argument most often used in support of the continued US military action in Iraq is, for lack of a better term, the installation of democracy. Again that won't work for Mr. Bush and the US oil industry. Democracy would lead to self rule, and that would be less profitable for us. Democracy, however does work quite well as a sales slogan, so look for it in use there.
Right now a full-out assault on The Shrine of Ali is imminent. Should that come to pass, international security will damaged beyond repair for decades to come.
[b]Alternatives to Mindless Slaughter[/b]
Moqtada al-Sadr would be easy enough to deal with, he is open to a negotiation and has been from day one. The Bush administration will not deal with him, because that again would lead eventually to Iraqi self rule. Not profitable, not acceptable. The Bush administration chooses to paint Moqtada al-Sadr as a "radical," or a "firebrand," and always as a terrorist. This is intended to build a US public mandate for the current assault on The Shrine of Ali. Moqtada al-Sadr is doing nothing more than defending his homeland.
There has been much debate in recent months over whether Iraq would even adapt to democracy, if that were an option. The answer is, it's doubtful. But for the time being, some democratic action would be just the ticket to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe.
It is equally important for Americans to brace themselves to confront the Bush administration. There is a profit motive at play in Iraq. High ranking Bush Administration officials are profiting personally from the military actions they are inciting. That is not acceptable. In making your decision, do this: close your eyes and have a conversation with the parents of an 18 year old US soldier on patrol in Iraq. Explain to them the purpose of this war against Iraq. Then wait long enough hear their reply. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| An Attack on Democracy ... |
| 08.22.04 (3:54 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" surely cannot fail to indict the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] for the crimes they have committed against our nation and the world community ... We must not fail in our obligation to fight for the survival of our Republic for which our Democracy Stands ...[/b]
"First they came for the Communists,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Communist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I wasn’t a Jew.
Then they came for the Catholics,
and I didn’t speak up,
because I was a Protestant.
Then they came for me,
and by that time there was no one
left to speak up for me."
By Rev. Martin Niemoller, 1945, http://www.hoboes.com/html/Fi...
The November presidential election is arguably the most important one in at least fifty years. As citizens, we are being asked whether or not to "continue the course" that we are on as a country. Stated another way, we are being asked whether or not we want to keep the current regime in power in the White House. However, a better question for this election year is why would we want to keep the Bush administration in power, given their misdeeds these past three years? "Misdeeds" is perhaps an understatement, but whatever term one uses, the important case to be made is that the Bush White House is the most corrupt one we have seen in recent history. By "corrupt," I mean that the actions and policies of the Bush administration have been unconstitutional, undemocratic in principle, unethical, and/or illegal. Although the misdeeds that characterize this administration are legion, I will limit my examples for sake of space.
[b]I. Unconstitutional Acts [/b]
James Madison, the author of our Constitution, stated that this document is a sacred trust between the people and the government. Thus, "every [government] usurpation [of power over the people] is an encroachment on the private rights not of one, but of all." How has the Bush administration encroached upon the "rights of all"?
The USA PATRIOT Act - This is the legislation pushed through the Congress immediately after 9/11/01 by Mr. Bush and Mr. Ashcroft. When the Judicial branch of government drafts legislation that allows itself permission to spy on its citizens, often without warrant and without judicial oversight, and to search and seize the property of its citizens with the same lack of warrant and oversight, then manipulates that proposal through Congress instead of relying on the usual period for reading and debating the law, our democracy is in peril. One cannot argue that it is needed to "protect us from terrorism," not only because one cannot preserve rights by rejecting them, but also because the dismantling of our rights-based system is precisely what the terrorists seek to do! Here are the main rights under attack by PATRIOT:
... Probable Cause (the Fourth Amendment) - First, PATRIOT allows governmental spying on U.S. citizens for "suspicion" only, which is a direct contravention of the Fourth Amendment requirement for probable cause. Second, Section 214 states that no warrant is required for use of devices designed to monitor incoming and outgoing phone numbers from citizens phones; just "relevance to an ongoing terrorist investigation;"
... Privacy (the Fourth Amendment) - First, Section 206 allows "roving wiretaps." Thus, if the FBI is investigating someone who uses a library computer, any person who also uses that computer can be monitored by the FBI without their knowledge or consent. Second, Section 213 permits "sneak-and-peek" searches of one's home and/or office by Federal agents, without notifying the person they were there. Further, this Section allows delayed notification of search warrant, and prohibits the person searched from monitoring what was searched or what was taken'
... Checks and Balances between the Judicial, Executive, and Legislative branches of government, which provide a guarantee that governmental power will not be consolidated or abused by one branch: First, Section 206 rules that no judicial review is permitted of roving wiretaps. Second, Section 215 requires a judge to court order seizures of "any tangible thing" the FBI requests, merely by claiming that it is "sought for" a terrorism investigation or that it is for "clandestine intelligence activities;"
... Free Speech (the First Amendment) - First, Section 218 permits surveillance of any "U.S. person" for any criminal investigation, as long as information gathered is for "a significant purpose." Second, Sections 215 & 505 issues gag orders on those visited by the FBI. Third, Section 412 allows detention and deportation of any immigrant who even verbally supports a terrorist organization. Fourth, Section 802 defines "domestic terrorism" as "acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of criminal laws...[that] appear to be intended...to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion."
[b] II. Circumventing the Principles of Democracy [/b]
The Bush administration has circumvented democracy in at least four particularly horrific ways. First of all, its secrecy. Judge Damon Keith stated from the bench, in a ruling against the use of the PATRIOT Act by the administration that "democracy dies behind closed doors." By most accounts, this administration has maintained the highest degree of secrecy of any administration in recent history. This includes the following actions taken by Mr. Bush and/or his administration:
... withholding the names and treatment of the prisoners at Guantanamo Bay;
... barring the press and public from immigration hearings;
... most prominently, the extreme secrecy surrounding the events leading up to 9/11, including the long stonewalling the administration did to prevent an investigation into intelligence and other failures leading to 9/11. Even though Mr. Bush eventually acquiesced to such a panel under political pressure, he continued to stonewall on providing them timely and important information;
... excluding members of Congress from gaining information they have legally asked for in order to perform their constitutional duties. The Bush Whitehouse has told Congress flat out that no more questions from them concerning its spending of taxpayer money will be accepted or answered;
... the new legislation creating the Department of Homeland Security forbids disclosure of any information concerning public health, safety, and the environment that private industry labels "sensitive." Thus, businesses are now allowed to conceal even the most minor of safety violations which concern the public health;
... Vice President Dick Cheney has successfully blocked public knowledge of his meeting with energy company lobbyists who were involved with his energy task force;
... The Vice President refuses to answer questions concerning the his four heart attacks, and his current health status. He has consistently told reporters that he would give them information on his health, but he never does. It is fully within bounds that citizens be informed about the failing health of the second-highest leader in our land;
... Mr. Cheney's secrecy concerning the fact that while he was in charge of Halliburton, the company did oil business with Iraq, Iran, Libya, Indonesia, Saudi Arabia, and Azerbaijan. These are all countries that are well known for massive human rights violations. Not only that, but Congress had passed legislation forbidding economic aid to Azerbaijan due to such rights violations. But Mr. Bush signed a presidential order overriding the law, and Mr. Cheney's company was right back in business there;
... Bush tightly controlled the media by bringing friendly and out of town journalists in to cover his official doings instead of relying on the usual White House press corps;
... The administration's involvement in the Project for a New American Century. It's first publication came in 1992, and outlined plans for U.S. hegemony in the world by attacking Iraq, Iran, Syria, and North Korea, and all they needed was something "like a new Pearl Harbor;"
... Mr. Cheney's creation of a secret government, making decisions out of the spotlight and with no accountability to Congress or to the public;
... The White House covering up the Red Cross report concerning prisoner abuse in Abu Graib, which was delivered to Mr. Bush a full two months before the pictures that came out that shook the world. Not only have they kept that report secret, but they have also stifled the report from Army Major General Antonio Taguba, which was presented to the Pentagon in March of this year;
The second alarming way in which the Bush team has inhibited democracy from functioning as it should is in its secret executive orders - Any of the following executive orders can be researched on www.whitehouse.gov, or by perusing journalistic articles on them:
... Postponed public release of thousands of declassified presidential documents that are 25 years old or more;
... stopped the Reagan presidential papers from being released to the public, even though President Reagan had signed off on doing so, as required by law;
... sent hundreds of millions of dollars to religious organizations with no obligation to show us where the money is going or how it's being used;
... signed an executive order shifting the approval needed for use of the Carnivore computer system, used to collect and store massive amounts of information on citizens from their Internet Service Provider use, from the Assistant Attorney General's office to the field offices, which means easier use and less judicial oversight;
... A Canadian citizen was secretly deported to Syria last year by the U.S. government, where he was beaten and tortured for ten months before his release. This was done on a secret presidential "finding" authorizing the CIA to deport foreigners without due process;
... order takes the entire court system out of the process of arrest and detention of alien terrorist suspects;
... Removal of information from government websites concerning "the use of condoms to prevent HIV/AIDS, the fact that abortions do not increase the risk of breast cancer, Labor Department statistics on mass layoffs, and budget information showing state-by-state cuts in federal programs."
... Placing judges on the bench by fiat when it becomes clear that they will not obtain congressional approval;
... Three executive orders expanding whom in his administration can classify records to make information unavailable to reporters or the public (e.g. secretary of agriculture, secretary of health and human services, and the head of the EPA).
The third, and perhaps the most chilling, undermining of democracy Mr. Bush has engaged in concerns his involvement in religion. Siding with the extremists of the so-called "religious right" (who are neither religious nor right but rather represent the viewpoints of the equivalent of an American Taliban), Mr. Bush has systematically excluded all other faith perspectives from having an influence on his policies, and has engaged policies calculated to solidify the far-right base of the Republican Party, which has far more power than its numbers should allow. For example:
... he rejected the plea of not only the pope, but of many mainstream religious voices in the U.S. and in the world, not to rush to war in Iraq. For example, the American Catholic Bishops, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Episcopal Bishop of Washington John Chane, and Shelby Spong, all made appeals that were flatly rejected by Bush;
... his rejection/limitation of stem-cell research, opposition to abortion, and his public opposition to gay marriage are issues focused on by the "religious right;"
... continuing with this theme, Mr. Bush is quietly involvement with the hard-right group "Focus on the Family," and joined them in crafting a political move against gay marriages well before mayors and states began to discuss and/or act on the question.
... Bush and members of his administration meet with evangelical Christians (organized into the "Apostolic Congress" and calling themselves "the Christian Voice in the Nation's Capital," and openly advocating a "one-state solution" in Israel [i.e. no Palestinian state]), before formulating or announcing mid-East policies;
... Mr. Bush has allowed religious groups to obtain federal grants to build centers for religious worship, something never before done in the history of this country, which traditionally has respected the First Amendment more than apparently Mr. Bush does;
... his nearly single-issue litmus test for nomination of new federal judges of being anti-abortion;
... his "faith-based initiatives" which clearly violate the First Amendment and also steer needed funds away from those in need;
The fourth way the Bush administration has undermined democracy is by overturning environmental legislation by fiat, and by replacing scientists and scientific research with committee members and findings that are ideologically determined, not scientifically and objectively researched. Examples of this include the following:
... the Union of Concerned Scientists, with support from many other organized and unorganized scientists, have charged the Bush administration with suppressing research and manipulating science in favor of ideology "on global warming, air quality, sexual health, cancer and other issues." When the White House denied the charges, a group of scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, responded to the White House denial with a point by point rebuttal;
... Bush has also become known for dumping respected scientists from governmental panels and replacing them with political appointees whose opinions are more in line with his and corporate America's business ideology.
... Robert F. Kennedy has accused the Bush administration of drastically changing over 200 environmental laws to favor corporate and polluter interests;
... the EPA now does the bidding of corporate America, and where they do not, Bush simply orders them to do this. For example, the agency mysteriously killed the EPA's planned emergency announcement that 16 billion tons of termolite, a substance that contains lethal levels of asbestos, had been mixed with fertilizers and home insulation. For another example, telling the EPA that carbon dioxide is not a pollutant that the agency is permitted to regulate;
... his "Clean Skies Initiative" will allow 17,700 older coal-burning plants to continue to pollute by avoiding having to purchase expensive "scrubbers" to clean their emissions;
... the refusal of the Bush administration to sign or to abide by the Kyoto agreement to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, which cause global warming, even though the U.S. is the greatest producer of these emissions, will make it extremely difficult for the world to avoid environmental catastrophe in the near future;
... Bush has also covered up and suppressed his own scientists' research into the seriousness of global warming. For example, it is already known that global warming kills over 150,000 people a year worldwide. In addition, a German government study states that measures four times greater than the Kyoto agreement that Mr. Bush refused to sign will now be needed to stem the tide of global warming and stop the polar ice caps from melting. In fact, the chief scientist in England has warned that global warming is a bigger threat than terrorism, and the environmental policies of the U.S. President are also worse than terrorism.
... the Bush administration has announced plans to scuttle the "Roadless Area Conservation Rule" passed in January, 2001. This law limits logging and development where no roads were already built. When Bush cuts this law down, his friends in the logging industry will be cutting down our national forests as well;
... Bush's EPA has also dropped investigations into over 100 power plants and factories for violating the Clean Air Act, and also dropped 13 cases in which it was determined that pollution laws had in fact been violated. In response, Democratic senators, attorneys general, and lawyers from seven Northeastern states are not only pressing for an investigation, but have sued the Bush administration for failing to regulate power plant emissions of carbon dioxide;
... Bush has proposed a new directive, which would exempt numerous governmental agencies from following environmental law, under the guise of "national security." The plan includes allowing the "degradation of public resources-such as building new roads through national forests for use by the border patrol - with no input from the public whatsoever;"
... In July of this year, Bush proposed to scrap a rule "that put nearly 60 million acres of national forest largely off limits to logging, mining or other development in favor of a new system that would leave it to governors to seek greater - or fewer - strictures on road construction in forests;"
... Bush has made an effort to amend the 1973 Endangered Species Act so U.S. companies can import endangered animals if they pay the country they are taking it from, for conservation efforts. Renowned primatologist Jane Goodall calls this effort "terrifying," and blames lobbyists from businesses that use animals for entertainment in the U.S. for these attempts to undo important legislation;
... Mr. Bush said of his energy plan, unveiled in May, 2001, that it would "make this country the world's leader in energy efficiency and conservation in the 21st century." However, the bill he presented "devotes less than ten percent of the $25.7 billion in tax breaks to energy efficiency;"
... The Bush administration is also in the process of weakening laws regarding the levels of mercury in the air;
[b]III. Class Wars (Economics) [/b]
James Madison and Thomas Jefferson agreed that taxation should be proportional to one's share of property, and that the purpose of taxes was "the general welfare." As these founders recognized, there is certainly nothing wrong with people having different levels of income. But when the tools of government are used to enhance the standing of those at the top of the economic scale and to exacerbate the tension-filled gap between the "haves" and the "have nots," then government has ceased to live up to its end of the sacred trust that the people at large put in it. Here are some of the ways in which Mr. Bush has failed to live up to his duty to allow general prosperity, preferring instead to assist the wealthy to become wealthier:
... He has given massive tax cuts to the wealthy ($726 billion proposed for this fiscal year alone, cut back a the last minute by more level-headed Republicans who joined with Democrats to cut that amount), combined with massive spending, especially for the military, combined on the other side with massive cuts in government services such as Medicaid, foster care and adoption programs, school lunch programs, and student loans. The proposed tax cuts would give more than $93,000 to a family with a million-dollar income, while half of all taxpayers would receive $100 or less, this according to the Tax Policy Center of the Brookings Institution. According to the Financial Times, the stimulus the cuts can be expected to give to the economy would be "negligible;" b) in a related item, the Congressional Budget Office states forthrightly that the biggest cause of the massive deficit we have accumulated under Bush is the massive tax cuts for the wealthy;
... The Bush administration has claimed that "outsourcing," that is, the movement of jobs overseas, is good for the economy. But a list of the main "outsourcers" in corporate America just so happens to coincide with the top contributors to the Bush campaign: American Express, Bechtel, Dell Computers, Ford, General Electric, Hewlett Packard, and Sallie Mae, to name just some of them;
... The leading Republican strategist today, Grover Norquist, has made public the economic plans for the Bush administration and the right-wing ideology. He said the goal is "to starve the beast" (government) with trillions of dollars in deficits, until, as Bill Moyers summarizes it, "the United States government is so anemic and anorexic it can be drowned in a bathtub;"
... He has re-classified low-paying fast-food jobs as "manufacturing jobs" in order to cover up the massive loss of the latter type of job during his tenure as President;
... While giving tax cuts, he opposed giving health care to National Guard members, and proposed cutting $1.5 billion from funding for military family housing and medical facilities. In addition, he has cut $700 million from job training programs for those recently displaced by the movement of jobs overseas, and $225 million in funding for youth job training grants, and;
... his ideas for funding education include a cut of $270 million from Pell Grants for students, a cut of $230 million from vocational and community colleges, a freezing of Teacher Quality State Grants for teacher training, and an increase in his "No Child Left Behind Initiative" by elimination of 45 education programs and cutting back 18 education programs;
... his (failed) attempts to cut overtime pay for American workers can only be considered a war on the lower and middle class;
... Bush's veteran's package includes denials of hundreds of thousands of claims or "better-off" veterans, $250 annual enrollment fees.
[b] IV. Moral Issues [/b]
It is certainly no secret that every President has lied on occasion to the American people. But when lying becomes pervasive and thus a modus operandi for a given presidency, that President and his administration have failed to set and lead by example of moral rectitude. Here are a few of the Bush administration's serious lies:
... Bush has claimed that he served a complete term in the Texas Air National Guard, but records show that Mr. Bush accumulated no flying experience during the entire year of 1972, nor is he on the payroll for the third quarter of that year. Furthermore, in Mr. Bush's annual performance review while in the service, dated May 2, 1973, it stated "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit" for the past year;
... Continuing with this theme of his military service, Mr. Bush stated that he has already released all records of his military service. The Washington Post, in response, stated that "no such information has been released," in response to which the administration released documents which they claimed "proved" Bush served during 1972-1973. However, the third quarter pay period records were missing from those documents. When the New York Times filed a Freedom of Information Request with the Pentagon to obtain them, the Pentagon said those records were "inadvertently destroyed," and that no paper back-up of them existed;
... the untrue charge that government labor unions were refusing to cooperate in key homeland security measures;
... Mr. Cheney has told almost too many lies to count, particularly about Halliburton and during the lead-up to the Iraq war. John Dean has the best collection of them I have read so far, but here are three that did not make the Dean's list: i) Iraq is "the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but especially on 9/11." Mr. Cheney has apparently forgotten about Osama bin Laden, the Taliban, and Afghanistan; ii) his insistence that Mohamed Atta, the head of the 9/11 hijackers, met in Prague with Iraqi intelligence officials before the attacks, even in the face of Czech President Havel's conclusion, along with his intelligence community, that there is no evidence for this; iii) Cheney's doing business with Cayman Islands and with Iran in defiance of a U.S. ban against such activities. The Grand Jury is now investigating these Cheney/Halliburton actions;
... The Bush administration kept the true cost of Medicare from the country, with prescription drug cards costing more than they claimed they would, with evidence that they knew this in advance. Even Richard S. Foster, the government's chief analyst of Medicare costs, said that the White House had participated in the decision to withhold information that indicated that Mr. Bush's proposed legislation would "be far more expensive than lawmakers knew;"
... Mr. Bush has stated, concerning his tax plan, that "by far the vast majority of the help goes to the people at the bottom of the end of the economic ladder," when in fact, the Congressional bipartisan Joint Committee on Taxation stated that households making less than $40,000 a year (i.e. the bottom half of the "economic ladder") received only 10% of Mr. Bush's tax cut;
... For more, Senator Charles Rangel has edited a documentation of the 237 most pernicious and important lies Bush has told. There are quite a few impressive collections of Bush lies, and the list is growing. See also David Corn, The Lies of George W. Bush; Al Franken, Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them; Michael Moore, Dude, Where's My Country?; Jim Hightower, Thieves in High Places. I have also done a Google search on "Bush lies," and "lying," and it turned up over three million hits!
The second way in which Mr. Bush has failed as a moral leader includes a host of immoral actions that violate the general sanctions of any given moral code. These include the following actions:
... Mr. Bush bilked the taxpayers of Texas millions of dollars, which he put into his pocket, through his shady dealings concerning the Texas Rangers baseball team and their new stadium;
... He has rewarded his main corporate supporters by giving them billions of dollars of business in Iraq;
... Mr. Bush regularly has protestors removed from his sight, from his vicinity, and from his motorcade route, to the point of having them arrested;
... Bush takes revenge on people who either criticize or leak even unclassified information to the press;
... he deliberately refuses to count Iraqi civilian casualties inflicted by our military;
... his administration has revealed the name of a CIA agent's wife, putting her life in danger and her career at an end, all for retaliation for taking issue with the President's lies about Iraq's attempting to buy "yellow cake" from Niger for nuclear weapons. This is still "under investigation" by our Justice Department;
... The Bush administration has planned to develop what they euphemistically call "mini-nukes" so that the U.S. can use nuclear weapons in a future war without destroying the world. Destroying even a part of the environment and the people for hundreds if not thousands of miles around the explosion by radiation is highly immoral and irresponsible. It also will lead to a new arms race, something from which we just emerged;
... the administration constantly attempts to keep Americans living in fear and thus quietly submissive to administrative actions by crying wolf regarding possible terrorist threats. This is especially disturbing because, in case after case, after the warning has been made, others come forward to demonstrate that the administration had no or very little evidence on which to base its warning. All the warnings that have been coming out this summer had little evidentiary basis to sound the alarms they did, including the so-called "threat to U.S. financial institutions;"
... they have obstructed investigators from everything from the 9/11 Commission to the latest investigation, that of the leak of the CIA operative's name (Valerie Plame). The delaying tactics of the administration on this case has caused not only a letter from four senators asking the President what he is doing, but it is raising suspicions about evidence tampering and legal obstruction of justice.
[b]V. Violations of Constitutional and International Law: The Iraq Invasion [/b]
... it is now well known some of the biggest lies and misinformation Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney, et. al. used to sell the war;
... Abu Graib, which involves Bush to at least the degree that he had his lawyer, Alberto Gonzales, send him a brief showing a legal way around being prosecuted for crimes violating the Geneva Convention regarding the torture of prisoners. Over and above this, however, news now comes out of President Bush signing off on the torture plans, and also sitting on videotapes of U.S. soldiers sodomizing young Iraqi boys. We have only seen the beginning of this massive scandal, which, if connected to Mr. Bush, would make him a war criminal;
... his deliberate ignoring of the civilian casualties inflicted by U.S. forces;
... his lies to Congress (an impeachable offense - why is the media not screaming about this, like they did for Clinton's lie about his BJ?), including telling Congressional leaders that Iraq was developing its nuclear capabilities and that it was connected to 9/11, so Mr. Bush wanted the Congress to act quickly, based on his promise that he would provide them with more information. He never did. In fact, the hype that culminated in Colin Powell's lie-filled speech to the United Nations has been completely discredited by numerous articles and authors. They knew full well that Iraq was not connected to 9/11, did not have nuclear weapons program, did not have WMD's, did not attempt to purchase uranium from Niger, did not have significant connections with al Qaeda, and did not meet with one of the 9/11 hijackers in Prague before the attack, yet they stated it all anyway. Even the Senate Intelligence committee, in its report on the intelligence failures prior to the invasion, concluded that the White House had "misrepresented" conflicting intelligence claims;
... blatant disregard of the international community in pushing for war;
... ignoring the international laws of war;
... ignoring the ethical need for a just cause (i.e. imminent threat) in order to go to war;
... giving contracts in Iraq to his corporate friends and campaign contributors. The list starts, of course, with Halliburton ($7 billion in Iraq oil contracts), but also includes big donors to the Republicans like Science Applications International Corporation (gave approximately $3 million to the Republican Party, and landed an Iraq contract for $82 million);
... the administration is covering up the fact that the U.S. is now also involved in what is called "extraordinary rendering," which means that a prisoner arrested in the U.S. is secretly taken to another country, such as Syria or Jordan or Pakistan, where torture is routinely done. They are called "ghost prisoners" because no one knows their whereabouts. That the U.S. does this often under the Bush administration is now becoming news;
... Mr. Bush has stated that the U.S. invasion of Iraq was done "to defend...the credibility of the United Nations," when the U.S. rejected the U.N. involvement prior to and after the invasion;
... keep in mind the reports from two well-respected public servants, former Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill and former National Security Advisor Richard Clarke, both of whom have claimed consistently that Mr. Bush planned to attack Iraq right after 9/11/01. In addition to these men, British Ambassador to the U.S. Christopher Meyer said that Bush had made it clear at a dinner with Prime Minister Tony Blair, on 9/18/01, that he wanted to attack Iraq. The Washington Post has also confirmed this report. Also, Senator Bob Graham of Florida stated that a senior military commander told him in February of 2002 that "we are moving military and intelligence personnel and resources out of Afghanistan to get ready for a future war in Iraq." Also, U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix has consistently made the same claim; Bush's order that no media be permitted to show the flag-draped coffins returning with our dead soldiers from Iraq;
... The administration has engaged in economic bribery of other nations to join "the coalition of the willing" to send troops to assist in the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. For example, Israel was "rewarded" $4-5 billion in military aid for allying against Iraq; Jordan picked up about $1 billion; Egypt $1.5 billion; Poland, Hungary, and 15 other countries who sent troops split $308.1 million.
These are all very serious charges and very serious issues (my original list of Bush misdeeds that I used to write this article covers over sixteen pages!). It would seem clear that when a President and/or his administration engage in subterfuge and circumventions of democratic processes on a regular basis, the citizens are left with little choice but to replace that President. The possible response to these accusations on the part of supporters of Mr. Bush would be to attempt to change the subject by attacking John Kerry or "liberals." During discussions of this issue from now to the election, we cannot allow such failures to respond directly to the charge of Mr. Bush's undermining of democracy to be left unchallenged. Bush supporters owe the American people an explanation as to what it is that Mr. Bush has done for the general good, for the majority of people, that we should give him allowances for the acts he has performed so far? It is insufficient in reason to give simplistic or pietistic answers or to be a single-issue voter (e.g. "He protects us from terrorism," or "he is a Christian," or "he opposes abortion and gay marriage"). Such simple answers only bypass the charge we should be making of Mr. Bush: that he has ignored the Constitution, undermined democracy, acted immorally, and lost the standing America has around the world as a moral leader. These issues far outweigh the stands Mr. Bush might have on any given issue, or any small series of issues. It is my position that unless America wakes up and gets this man out of office this time around, it may be too late to maintain democracy in the future.
[b]Dr. Robert Abele is a professor of philosophy at Illinois Valley Community College, located near Chicago. He has written articles on political philosophy and also on ethics and warfare, and is now in the process of completing a book on ethics and the invasion of Iraq. He also has a new book entitled A User's Guide to the USA PATRIOT Act, published by University Press of America, due out in November.[/b] - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| Ignorant Nation ... |
| 08.22.04 (1:14 pm) [edit] |
[b]Is it any wonder that [i]nearly half [/i]of the American public are so [i] foolish, ignorant and/or stupid [/i]enough to back the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] that operates [i]against[/i] their best interests in matters ranging from economic policies to the environment to national defense, etc., when you realize that most citizens aren't aware of basic facts and the reality of the world around them??? ...
"We the People" had better [i]wise-up fast[/i], otherwise we are facing [i]the dire prospect [/i]of living in a neo-fascist slave state http://www.tblog.com/template... in the near future that would be unrecognizable to our forefathers who would be horrified, as [i]we should be [/i]...[/b]
[u][b]Poll: Many Still Link Iraq With WMD[/b][/u]
More than half of Americans, 54 percent, continue to believe Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or a program to develop them before the United States invaded last year, according to a poll released Friday.
Evidence of such weapons has not been found.
Half believe Iraq was either closely linked with al-Qaida before the war (35 percent) or was directly involved in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on this country (15 percent).
The poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland found the numbers on both questions have dropped in the face of evidence that both pre-war claims may have been false.
President Bush consistently equates the war on terrorism with the war in Iraq, though he has replaced his claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction with claims that Iraq had the ``capability'' of building such weapons.
Both the Sept. 11 commission and the Senate Intelligence Committee have raised doubts about pre-war claims by the Bush administration before the Iraq war.
Seven in 10 in the poll say they believe the United States went to war in Iraq based on false assumptions. A similar number say the war in Iraq has given the United States a worse image in the world.
A majority, 55 percent, say they don't think the war in Iraq will result in greater peace and stability in the Mideast. In various polls, people have been evenly split on whether the war in Iraq was the right or wrong thing to do - a sharp drop from last winter.
The poll of 733 adults was conducted by Knowledge Networks from Aug. 5-11 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points. - http://www.guardian.co.uk/usl...,1282,-4437290,00.html
[b]Program on International Policy Attitudes site: http://www.pipa.org [/b]
Refer also to "[b]Iraq 'ended nuclear aims [and WMDs aims] in 1991'[/b]" on http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wo...
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| ... 14 Points of Fascism:-- Bush/Cheney Transformed the GOP into the Neo-Fascist Party ... |
| 08.22.04 (8:57 am) [edit] |
[b]Wake-up and Smell the Fascism[/b]
[b]In "Fascism Anyone?," Dr. Lawrence Britt, a political scientist, identifies 14 characteristics common to fascist regimes. His comparisons of Hitler, Mussolini, Franco, Suharto, and Pinochet yielded this list of 14 "identifying characteristics of fascism" should be studied closely by "We the People" ...[/b]
[b]1.) Powerful and Continuing Nationalism[/b]
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
. Let's not forget "Bring 'em on!" http://abcnews.go.com/section...
[b]2.) Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights [/b]
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
. Ashcroft refuses to give Congress torture memo, http://www.channelnewsasia.co...
. July 1, 2003: U.S. Suspends Military Aid to Nearly 50 Countries: The United States on Tuesday suspended military assistance to nearly 50 countries, because they have supported the International Criminal Court and failed to exempt Americans from possible prosecution, http://www.informationclearin...
. Outsourcing Torture: Contractors act as interrogators: Defense Department turned to private sources to question prisoners for intelligence gathering, http://tinyurl.com/2t8ew
. US has at least 9000 prisoners in secret detention, http://mathaba.net/0_index.sh...
. Who is a terrorist under the PATRIOT ACT, http://truthout.com/docs_02/0...
. Guantanamo Eyes Possible Execution Chamber, http://www.prisonplanet.com/0...
[b]3.) Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause[/b]
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
. A scared populace is a compliant populace Terrorists are likely planning U.S. attacks, a U.S. Homeland Security official said Friday, http://portal.tds.net/newsrea...
. Slander: Liberal Lies About the American Right, http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob...
. How U.S. Attorney-General, a Christian Evangelist With Anti-Islamic Views On Record, Is Waging War On American Muslims, http://www.paknews.com/specia...
. Dr. James J. Zogby: A co-ordinated and bigoted assault The anti-Arab campaign being waged today in the U.S. is an organised multi-pronged effort targeting a variety of Arab leaders, institutions and Islam, http://www.gulfnews.com/Artic...
. Congressman: Muslims 'enemy amongst us', http://wnd.com/news/article.a...
[b]4.) Supremacy of the Military[/b]
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
. If you haven't see the Oreo flash animation see it here: http://www.truemajority.org/o...
[b]5.) Rampant Sexism[/b]
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy.
. Justice Dept. Demands Abortion Records, http://abcnews.go.com/wire/US...
. W. David Hager chairman of the FDA's Reproductive Health Drugs Advisory Committee does not prescribe contraceptives for single women, does not do abortions, will not prescribe RU-486 and will not insert IUDs. Hager believes that headaches, PMS and eating disorders can be cured by reading Scripture, http://www.dfw.com/mld/starte...
. Bush Administration to Extend Health Coverage to Fetuses but Not to Pregnant Women, http://www.reproductiverights...
[b]6.) Controlled Mass Media[/b]
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
. Michael Powell: The FCC's Embattled Chairman, http://www.washingtonpost.com...¬Found=true
. Fibbing It Up at Fox, http://www.lewrockwell.com/or...
. If it's allowed to stand, an FCC ruling will feed media merger mania, http://www.nydailynews.com/ne...
. Articles published by American outlets suppressed in their own country, http://www.informationclearin...
. Reporters in chains: Under Homeland Security orders, journalists from England, Sweden, Holland and other friendly countries are being detained at U.S. airports, strip-searched and deported, http://www.informationclearin...
[b]7.) Obsession with National Security[/b]
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
[b]8.) Religion and Government are Intertwined[/b]
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
. Religious networks broadcasting Bush's White House prayer event, http://famulus.msnbc.com/famu...
. Thou shalt be like Bush: What makes this recently established, right-wing Christian college unique are the increasingly close - critics say alarmingly close - links it has with the Bush administration and the Republican establishment, http://www.nzherald.co.nz/sto...
. Presidential Prayer Team, http://www.presidentialprayer...
. US is 'battling Satan' says general, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wo...
. US soldiers in Iraq asked to pray for Bush, http://www.abc.net.au/news/ne...
. Park Service Continues to Push Creationist Theory at Grand Canyon and other nat'l parks, http://www.bushgreenwatch.org...
[b]9.) Corporate Power is Protected[/b]
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
. Halliburton, Bechtel, and the Carlyle group: Why were lied into war, http://www.oldamericancentury...
. Bush's talent for cronyism: foxes guarding the henhouse, http://www.oldamericancentury...
. Bush Administration Exempts Oil Industry From Clean Water Act, http://truthout.org/cgi-bin/a...
. Controversial drilling method may be protected Energy bill compromise would exempt 'hydraulic fracturing', http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin...
[b]10.) Labor Power is Suppressed[/b]
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
. Organized labor locks horns with White House Union leaders are working to displace GOP candidates, http://seattlepi.nwsource.com...
. President Bush Attacks Organized Labor Bush attacked organized labor Saturday, issuing orders effectively reducing how much money unions can spend for political activities and opening up government contracts to non-union bidding, http://www.shastalink.k12.ca....
. March 2001: President Bush signed his name to four executive orders on organized labor last month, including one that cuts the money unions will have for political campaign spending, http://salt.claretianpubs.org...
. Congress and the Department of Labor are trying to change the rules on overtime pay, eliminating the 40 hour work week, taking eligibility for overtime pay away from millions of workers, and replacing time and a half pay with comp days, http://www.ufcw.org/worker_po...
[b]11.) Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts[/b]
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts.
. Bush's new economic plan cuts funding for arts, education, http://www.vanderbiltorbis.co...
. NEA vows to undo President Bush's education programs, http://www.usatoday.com/news/...
. Artists from all over the world are being refused entry to the US on security grounds, http://www.guardian.co.uk/art...,11710,1150285,00.html
. In a highly unusual use of the USA Patriot Act, which its creators say was designed to prevent terrorist attacks in the United States, The New York Times reports that three artists have been served subpoenas to appear before a federal grand jury June 15, http://www.csmonitor.com/2004...
[b]12.) Obsession with Crime and Punishment[/b]
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
. U.S. Patriot Act Summary of fascist parts, http://www.pipeline.com/~rgibson/patriot.html
. EFF Analysis of "Patriot II", http://eff.org/Censorship/Ter...
[b]13.) Rampant Cronyism and Corruption[/b]
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
. Bush Cronyism: Foxes Guarding the henhouse, http://www.oldamericancentury...
. Iran-Contra Felons Get Good Jobs from Bush, http://www.blythe.org/nytrans...
. Big Iraq Reconstruction Contracts Went To Big Donors, http://www.cbsnews.com/storie...
. The companies making the most off the new Medicare contracts also donated the most to the GOP, http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
[b]14.) Fraudulent Elections[/b]
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
. the 2000 election, http://www.ericblumrich.com/g...
. How To Rig An Election In The United States, http://www.informationclearin...
. Scoop: Diebold Memos Disclose Florida 2000 E-Voting Fraud, http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/...
. Election officials all over the country are erecting illegal barriers to keep young voters from casting ballots. From New Hampshire to California, officials have designed complex questionnaires that prevent college students from registering, hired high-powered attorneys to keep them off the rolls, shut down polling places on campuses and even threatened to arrest and imprison young voters, http://www.rollingstone.com/f...
This picture is what stopped the ballot recounts in Florida shortly after it seemed that legitimate President Gore had a lead. The "citizens" started what was later called "the preppy riot". Screaming, yelling, pounding on the walls, these "outraged citizens" intimidated the polling officials to halt the court mandated recount. A closer look reveals who they really were. They were bussed and flown in at Republican lawmakers expense. Some even flew in on Tom Delay's private plane.
[b]More election fraud information on:[/b] http://www.oldamericancentury...
[b]If Mussolini defines fascism as "the merger of corporate and government power" what does that make the Republican party?[/b]
[u][b]Related articles:[/b][/u]
. The Road to Fascism, http://www.lewrockwell.com/lo...
Make that roads, and three great libertarians explained them, says Roderick T. Long.
. Is America Becoming Fascist?, http://www.adbusters.org/maga...
. Eternal Fascism:, http://www.themodernword.com/...
Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt
. The Danger of American Fascism:, http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power.
. Germany In 1933: The Easy Slide Into Fascism, http://www.crisispapers.org/E...
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| The Politics Of Bullying ... |
| 08.21.04 (8:51 am) [edit] |
"[i]Most organisations have a serial bully. It never ceases to amaze me how one person's divisive dysfunctional behaviour can permeate the entire organisation like a cancer[/i]." - Those Who Can Do; Those Who Can't Bully ...
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] are despotic task masters at the neo-con, neo-fascist http://www.tblog.com/template... intimidation tactic of bullying ... "We the People" must reject this neo-hitlerian form of tyranny meant to silence us into submission ... It is [i]not[/i] the American way ...[/b]
Examples abound of how bullying politics have shaped our country in the past four years. From the mob in Miami-Dade county to the jammed phone lines of a Democratic voting call center, manipulative tactics have become astoundingly commonplace. The challenge now, says Paul Rogat Loeb, is to make the issue of bullying the central theme of the election. Demanding that our leaders play fair isn't old-fashioned—it's democracy.
Paul Rogat Loeb is the author of[i] The Impossible Will Take a Little While: A Citizen’s Guide to Hope in a Time of Fear [/i](Basic Books, August 2004 www.theimpossible.org http://www.theimpossible.org/... ), and of [i]Soul of a Citizen[/i].
[b]The best thing John Kerry did [/b][b]at the Democratic convention [/b][b]was to challenge the bullying[/b]. He talked of the flag belonging to all of us, and how “standing up to speak our minds is not a challenge to patriotism [but] the heart and soul of patriotism.” By doing this, he drew the line against the pattern of intimidation that the Bush administration has used to wage war on democracy itself.
A former Air Force colonel I know described the administration’s attitude toward dissent as “shut up and color,” as if we were unruly eight-year-olds. Whatever we may think of Bush’s particular policies, the most dangerous thing he’s done is to promote a culture that equates questioning with treason. This threatens the very dialogue that’s at the core of our republic.
Think of the eve of the Iraq war, and the contempt heaped on those generals who dared to suggest that the war might take far more troops and money than the administration was suggesting. Think of the attacks on the reputations and motives of longtime Republicans who’ve recently dared to question, like national security advisor Richard Clarke, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, weapons inspector Scott Ritter, and Bush’s own former Treasury Secretary, Paul O’Neill. Think of the Republican TV ads, the 2000 Georgia Senate race—which paired Democratic Sen. Max Cleland with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein—asserting that because Cleland opposed President Bush’s Homeland Security bill, he lacked “the courage to lead.”
In this last case, it didn’t matter that Cleland had lost two legs and an arm in Vietnam, while the Republican who eventually defeated him had never worn a uniform. Nor that Republican strategists nearly defeated South Dakota Sen. Tim Johnson in the same election, with similar ads, although Johnson was the only person in Congress whose child was actually serving with the U.S. military—and would see active duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.
It’s hard to talk about such intimidation without sounding partisan or shrill, but we need to make it a central issue, because if it succeeds, it becomes impossible to discuss any other issues. Remember after the 9/11 attacks, when Attorney General John Ashcroft publicly declared that anyone who disagreed with administration policy was an ally of terrorism. We were still stunned and reeling at that point. Yet Democrats and honorable Republicans should have had the courage to say that this definition was unacceptable. Instead they capitulated to the tactics of Republican strategists like Grover Norquist, who proudly quotes Lenin’s motto, “Probe with bayonets, looking for weakness.” And a message of intimidation has dominated since, amplified through the endless echo chamber of O’Reilly, Rush, Hannity and Drudge.
Some who’ve embraced this approach believe they’re on a divinely sanctioned crusade. Others simply love the game—like Karl Rove, who got his start by destroying the reputation of a fellow contender to head the national Young Republicans, and helped Bush first take office by spreading rumors that then-Texas governor Ann Richards was a lesbian. My friend Egil Krogh—who worked in the Nixon administration, hired G. Gordon Liddy, and went to prison for Watergate—did things he knew were morally wrong, wanting to be loyal. He watched Nixon’s administration frame everything in terms of national security, then identify that security as whatever consolidated their power, while branding those who challenged them as traitors. Bush’s administration, to Krogh, seems even more ruthless.
The resulting rule of intimidation and manipulation grinds into the dust traditional conservative ethics of honesty and fair play. In the 2000 election, while the Florida ballots were still being counted, a mob of a couple hundred people, pounding on doors and windows, succeeded in permanently stopping a count of 10,000 Miami-Dade County ballots that were expected to favor Al Gore. As The Wall Street Journal reported, this mob was made up largely of Republican Congressional aides, organized by future House Majority Leader Tom DeLay and flown in by the Bush campaign. In a tight 2002 race for the New Hampshire Senate seat that Republican John Sununu eventually won, a Virginia-based campaign consultant group, GOP Marketplace, hired an Idaho telemarketing firm to jam the phone lines of Democratic "get-out-the-vote" call centers. More recently, Michigan and Oregon Republicans have gone all out to get Ralph Nader on the ballot, to siphon off votes from John Kerry.
The United States is an experiment, one whose outcome can be in doubt on any given day. But when our leaders embrace the ethics of Don Corleone, they undermine the very terms of our democracy. Go back to Richard Nixon’s “Southern strategy,” where he deliberately used racially polarizing language and images to lure white southerners into the Republican Party. Or the Willie Horton ads overseen by Karl Rove’s mentor, Lee Atwater. Or the Iran-Contra scandal, when the first President Bush and key members of the current president’s administration, then working for Reagan, crafted and enacted secret foreign policies that defied the will of Congress—while collaborating with dictators and terrorists. Or the illegitimate purging, in the 2000 election, of 94,000 largely poor and minority voters from the Florida rolls. Recently, the same five Supreme Court justices who installed Bush prevailed by a single vote in upholding Tom DeLay’s midnight redistricting in Texas and Pennsylvania—where Republicans broke all conventional rules about redistricting only after a census, and instead gerrymandered as many Congressional seats as they could, just because they held the reins of power.
Whatever our party identifications or stands on particular issues—which, of course, will vary—we should be profoundly troubled by these developments. Since the United States was founded, neither major political party has exercised a monopoly on deceit, venality or political abuse. Dead people voted in Chicago. Lyndon Johnson closed an air base in a Congressional district that dared to vote against him. No administration since the World War I Palmer Raids, however, has so systematically attempted to silence its critics.
But just as a culture of silence is contagious, so is one of courage. And citizens are beginning to stand up and question—from Republican conservationists questioning Bush’s environmental policies, to career foreign service officers decrying the rift our unilateral actions are creating between us and the world, to cities across America challenging the USA PATRIOT Act.
The challenge now is to make the issue of bullying the central theme of the election, linking the intimidation of all questioners with the blind insularity that leads to debacles like Iraq. If we can do this, Bush will lose. As old-fashioned as it may sound, the demand that our political leaders play fair still resonates. And in a democracy, we should expect nothing less. - http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
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| America's Disease ... |
| 08.20.04 (5:34 pm) [edit] |
[b]Greed, One of the 7 Deadly Sins[/b], http://deadlysins.com/sins/
[b][i]What it is[/i]:[/b] Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
[b][i]Why you do it[/i]:[/b] You live in possibly the most pampered, consumerist society since the Roman Empire.
[b][i]Your punishment in Hell will be[/i]:[/b] You'll be boiled alive in oil. Bear in mind that it's the finest, most luxurious boiling oil that money can buy, but it's still boiling.
[b][i]Associated symbols & suchlike[/i]:[/b] Greed is linked with the frog and the color yellow
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[b]The despotic Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] is driven by Greed ... Just as the greed for power and wealth by corrupt Emperors of yore ultimately destroyed the Roman Empire, so too will the neo-con Bush regime's corruption(s), incompetence(s) and criminal behavior(s) to satiate their greed-filled lusts, ultimately usher in the [i]Age of Corporate Fascism[/i], http://www.tblog.com/template... and finally destroy the United States of America by transforming us into a neo-fascist state ...[/b]
[u][b]America's Disease is Greed[/b][/u]
The most serious spiritual problem in the country today is reckless and untrammeled greed. Greed caused the disgraceful corporate scandals that fill our newspapers. Greed is responsible for crooked cops and crooked politicians. Greed causes the constant efforts to destroy unions that protect basic worker rights.
Greed has produced rash tax cuts that have given money to the rich and in effect taken it away from the poor. Greed has led to the immigration policy in which hundreds of poor men and women die every year as they struggle across the desert for the jobs that el norte promises them. Greed accounts for the efforts to take profitability out of the pensions and health insurance of working men and women. Greed is responsible for the fact that so many Americans have no health insurance and the fact that the recent reform of Medicare was a fraud. Greed causes newspapers to overestimate their circulation.
Greed is responsible for the obscene salaries of CEOs. In the '90s the ratio of CEO compensation to average workers' compensation was 250 to 1, meaning that the boss earned on his first day of work during a year as much as the worker did in a whole year. In European countries the ratio is closer to 100 to 1. Recent estimates put the current ratio at 500 to 1 -- the boss makes as much before lunch as the worker does all year. Greed is the cause of the high wages paid to the bosses even if the company is failing.
Greed is responsible for the endless stress and ruthless competition of the workplace and the strains and tensions of professional class marriages. Greed (in this instance another name for relentless ambition) explains much of the cheating on college campuses. Greed is responsible for outsourcing, which is incapable of comprehending that the employees who lose their jobs are also the consumers who sustain the economy. Greed generates the reckless ventures that in part caused the bubble of the late '90s. Greed causes expensive wars that shatter the budget. Greed is the reason that only the wealthy are benefitting so far from the economic upturn that is allegedly happening. Greed drives loan sharks. Greed is responsible for the success of big box stores that tax the poor with low wages to provide bargains for affluent suburban shoppers. Greed is the reason poor white Appalachians, poor African Americans and poor Native Americans must fight the wars that the wealthy start. Jessica Lynch joined the Army so she could go to college. Her Native American roommate, killed in action, joined so, single mother that she was, she could support her children. Greed is the reason why the country is being run by those whom the president has described, however inelegantly, as the ''haves and the have mores.''
No one said during the bizarre deification of President Reagan that he taught us that greed is good and that we should feel good about our greedy country. Greed is the reason that the country is being run by the insurance, pharmaceutical, weapons and petroleum industries. Greed causes worldwide sex slavery of women and children.
Greed drives the murders of the narcotics world. Greed is responsible for the exploitations of teen sports stars by colleges and for the mess in the pro sports world. It is also the cause of the use of performance drugs by young athletes. Greed is responsible for the bad advice lawyers gave the Church years ago to beat victims of sexual abuse into the ground. It is behind the scam artists who steal from the elderly.
Greed may have been a more serious problem for Americans, say, in the era of the robber barons. But the Garys and the Morgans and the Carnegies were a small bunch of men. Now their greed has seeped down to a much larger segment of the population.
The Catholic Church speaks of four sins that cry to heaven for vengeance. Two are cheating workers out of wages and exploiting widows and children. Both happen every day in our greedy country.
Ambition is not evil within limits. The struggle for success is not bad within limits. Hard work and fair rewards are good within limits. It is not good to take from the poor and give to the rich, and that's exactly what this country is doing today.
Don't let anyone tell you that lust is the most deadly of the deadly sins. - http://www.commondreams.org/v...
Refer also to "[b]14 Points of Fascism:-- Bush/Cheney Transformed the GOP into the Neo-Fascist Party[/b]" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| The "Enemy" ... |
| 08.20.04 (8:40 am) [edit] |
[b]Perhaps the[i] real [/i]"enemy" that "We the People" are confronted with is the heinous deception perpetrated upon us by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]...[/b]
The situation in Najaf is still confused after a night of U.S. bombing of the city, scores killed, and conflicting pledges by Muqtada Sadr to hand over the shrine that has become his base. But it’s clear that the U.S. government has no idea who we are fighting. A Tomgram on Wednesday pointed out the foolishness of the way the Bush administration is trying to portray the “enemy” in Iraq. Here’s an excerpt:
... "What do we call the enemy? George and Laura Bush were the guests on Larry King Live this Sunday. In the context of the latest fighting in Najaf, King said to the President: "We've had more today, there are more eruptions in Iraq. And it seems never-ending, doesn’t it? What does it do to you?"
The President replied:
"We've got a great leader in Prime Minister Allawi. He's a tough guy who believes in free societies. And more and more Iraqis are being trained. And more and more Iraqis are stepping up to do the hard work of bringing these terrorists, these former Baathist and some foreign fighters to justice. And that's why we are going to prevail."" ...
So the President thinks that in Najaf we're up against Baathists, foreign fighters, and terrorists. In a similar vein, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the following of the fighting in Najaf at a recent press conference:
... ""In this case, the violence is being perpetrated by outlaws and by former regime elements and by terrorists who respect no truce, respect nothing except force. And as long as those individuals don't understand the spirit of peace and reconciliation, are not willing to work for democratic, free Iraq, they have to be dealt with. And so your question really should not be addressed to us. It should be addressed to those who are causing the violence, who are setting off the bombs, who are destroying the hopes of the Iraqi people."" ...
But the United States is not primarily confronting Baathists—certainly not among Sadr’s forces!—and Sadr’s forces are not either “terrorists” or “foreign fighters,” though his armed militia may get some Iranian support. (Of course, Iran is also supporting the Shiite parties that now make up the Iraqi government, SCIRI and Al Dawa.) As for Baathists, former or current, many of them are now running the Iraqi government and army, so it can’t be them. (Of course, some resistance fighters may be Baathists, but up to two million Iraqis were, so that’s meaningless.) And as for foreign fighters, it’s long been clear that they are a tiny part of the resistance. The “terrorists” could be anyone, including the Chalabi family, who are now formally accused of assassinating the Iraqi deputy finance minister, but they aren’t a major component of the resistance, either.
In fact, the opposition to the United States, and to the phony government of Iraqistan that we’ve created, is populist, and deep, drawing support for major swaths of the population. In the Sunni areas, the vast majority supports the resistance. In the Shiite south and Sadr city in Baghdad, millions support various militant Shiite parties, including Sadr’s, and the situation is volatile—in fact, the entire area has been on a knife’s edge since the sweeping revolt of last spring. So what does the Iraqistan government control? Not the Kurdish north—that’s basically independent. Not the Sunni center, such as Fallujah and Ramadi—they’re semi-independent fiefdoms of resistance leaders. And not the south—that’s controlled by ayatollahs and the likes of Sadr, religious kooks all.
[b]Source:[/b]
Bob Dreyfuss, [i]The Dreyfuss Report[/i], TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com
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| Think Again: The Future Dictionary of America ... |
| 08.19.04 (4:50 pm) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]has changed our world forever, [i]for the worse [/i]... And a new lexicon will emerge from their neo-con, neo-fascist corruption(s), incompetence(s) and war crime(s) ... "We the People" must learn the true meanings-- for what [i]we are told[/i] by the despotic Bush regime [i]does not reflect[/i] their ugly reality[i] on the ground [/i]...[/b]
Eric Alterman writes: I borrowed this week's "Think Again" column from my friends over at McSweeney's. They've put together something they call [i]The Future Dictionary of America[/i], which they describe as "a guide to the American language sometime in the future, when all or most of our country's problems are solved and the present administration is a distant memory." The book includes contributions from almost 200 writers and artists. (It also comes with a CD with new songs and rarities from R.E.M., Sleater-Kinney, Elliott Smith, Tom Waits, David Byrne, the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, They Might Be Giants, and Death Cab for Cutie, among others. If you want to buy the book and CD after reading this, or even before, go here http://www.mcsweeneys.net/200... . The money will go to lots of good causes which are all described on the McSweeney's Web site. Here are a few of the highlights:
[b]ashcrofted[/b] [ash'-krofftid] adj. removed from or disqualified for public office on grounds of religious delusions. Derived from [i]The People v. President Ashcroft[/i], the landmark Supreme Court decision that disqualifies all candidates for public office who espouse a religion and/or other organized forms of magical, delusional, or psychotic thinking, on the constitutional grounds of separation of church and state, a decision taken at the time of the restoration of the Constitution following upon the dynastic, so-called "anti-terrorist" or "neopatriot" era.
—ROBERT COOVER
[b]Axis of evil [/b][ack'-sis uv ee'-vil] n. any perceived "nuclear" power that distracts attention from the national debt.
—SUSAN HENDERSON
[b]burning bush [/b][bur'-ning bush] n. a prickly outgrowth, first discovered in ancient Egypt. A final sighting occurred on November 2, 2004. (see [b]oil, stolen elections, pre-emptive wars, loss of jobs, contempt for democracy[/b]) [i]The last time a nation listened to a bush, its people wandered in the desert for 40 years.[/i]
—PAUL AUSTER
[b]bushwhack[/b] [bush' wak] v. a term that denotes the removal from office by the force of public outrage (a [b]whacking[/b]) of any public official who has misrepresented, falsified, or in any way led a nation into unilateral action obviating planetary consensus. A grassroots movement—comparable to the more bureaucratic impeachment—that brings about the whacking or removal from office of a mistrusted public official. Bushwhacking is now part of the inauguration ceremony, wherein a newly sworn-in president symbolically whacks a small bush with the right hand (the same hand he or she raised for oath of office) to represent the transparency of his or her forthcoming administration. January 20 has become a national (U.S.) holiday, on which citizens symbolically whack bushes as a sign of their commitment to this peace and justice. Many save their old Christmas trees for this purpose.
—JULIA ALVAREZ
[b]Cheney Effect [/b][chay'-nee ee-fekt'] n. the manifestation of personality changes brought on by the reception of a transplanted organ, usually the heart.
—JEFFREY EUGENIDES
[b]dark natter [/b][dark nat'-ur] n., v. an analogue of "dark matter" which astrophysicists speculate may constitute as much as 90 percent of the universe, dark natter is empty but continuous chatter of an ominous sort, whether in direct discourse, by way of the electronic media, or in print. (n.) [i]A lethal cloud of dark natter formed above the nation's capitol and is reported to be drifting in all directions. (v.) He dark-nattered his way through the Bible Belt with conspicuous success. Also: He was dark-nattered into defeat by ingenious opponents[/i].
—JOYCE CAROL OATES
[b]enron[/b] [en'-rahn] v. 1. to redeem oneself, particularly after grievous wrongs to society, by embracing good works. 2. to change dramatically and unexpectedly for the benefit of all. Derived from the story of scandal-ridden executives of the Enron Corporation who exemplified the Corporate Malfeasance Era of the first decade of the 21st century, and then, in a remarkable turnaround, devoted themselves to promoting reforms to better the lives of working families. After a nightly visitation by three spirits, the infamous miser suddenly enroned, becoming as good of a friend, master, and man as the good city knew.
—ANNE URSU
[b]environment[/b] [en-viyr'-un-ment] n. 1. a confused mass of biota, rocky places, open plains, and ditches filled variously with water, muck, and blood, with the potential of being converted into strip mines, strip malls, and strip clubs, to the everlasting benefit of mankind and the Halliburton Corporation. 2. a kind of place, like an office cubicle, where deals are made. 3. the prevailing mood or climate in which deals are made. 4. [colloq] turf or 'hood. 5. a conceptual space, like the airspace over Iraq, which will create a sucking void if not filled to repleteness with high explosives.
—T.C. BOYLE
[b]Floridation[/b] [flah'-rih-day'-shun] n. the process of adding mind-altering chemicals into the public water supply, as has been done in Florida since the late 20th century. The chemical additive most commonly used in the early 21st century, a water-soluble Mind Debilitator mixed with rum and feldspar (commonly known as Rum-Feld-WMD) was perfected by Florida's ex-governor, Jeb Bush, while he was doing time with his two brothers at Leavenworth. In small doses, Rum-Feld-WMD has been found to offer those who imbibe it a pleasant imperviousness to reality. In larger doses it has proven to be fatal.
—ART SPIEGELMAN
[b]libcon[/b] [lib'-kahn] n. 1. a leftist who seeks to conserve what "conservatives" desire to destroy, to wit: social security, funded public education, the environment, scientific objectivity, social welfare, equal rights for women, the Constitution of the United States, strategic alliances, the minimum wage, gun control, and child labor laws. 2. any such person attacked on Fox News. 3. [informal] a dangerous radical.
—CHARLIE BAXTER
[b]No Left-Behind Child Act [/b][noh left-bee-hiynd' chiy'-uld akt] U.S. Congressional act disqualifying any person from holding the office of American president who has not passed a series of rigorous examinations demonstrating psychological and emotional maturity, as well as expert knowledge of a wide range of subjects, including American history, world history, government, economics, law, geography, political science, etc., and a strong command of the English language.
—SIGRID NUNEZ
[b]ralphnadir [/b][ralf-nay'-deer] 1. n. the lowest point in any process, whereby the urgent need to alter that process becomes manifest. [i]The ralphnadir of America's unrepresentative two-party system led to the establishment, in 2012, of our current proportional allnite-party system. [/i]2. v. the act of creating such a low point while simultaneously undoing one's reputation. [i]He ralphnadired their relationship when he condi-scendingly denied that he'd cheneyed their joint account[/i].
—ART SPIEGELMAN
[b]reality[/b] [ree-al'-uh-tee] n. anything experienced in private. ANT.[b] Unreality [/b]n. anything appearing on or experienced through the mass media.
—ROBERT OLEN BUTLER
[b]squawkback[/b] [skwahk'-bak] n. parrot-like repetition of a question by the respondent; this invariably precedes a lie. Squawkback allows an ostensive acknowledgment of the question while providing the respondent with a mental pause in which to formulate a falsehood. The repeated phrase may be delivered in either a thoughtful or an incredulous tone. Ex.: [i]"Was I aware of this? Well…"; "Did that influence my decision? Why…"; "Was it a mistake? Well…"[/i]
—PAUL COLLINS
[b]terrorism[/b] [teh'-roh-riz-um] n. 1. the unlawful use or threatened use of force or violence by a person or an organized group against people or property with the intention of intimidating or coercing societies or governments, often for ideological or political reasons. ([i]American Heritage Dictionary[/i]) 2. cheating on a test. [i]Sixty of the 62 international terrorists, according to a March story in the Philadelphia Inquirer, turned out to be Middle Eastern students who had cheated on a test; specifically, they had paid others to take an English proficiency exam required for college or graduate schoo[/i]l. 3. unionization of educational employees. [i]Education Secretary Rod Paige called the National Education Association, the nation's largest teachers union, "a terrorist organization[/i]." 4. a government unaligned with the United States.[i] President George Bush sent an ultimatum to the world's leaders today: "You are either with us or you are with the terrorists[/i]." 5. drug trafficking. [i]Drug Czar Asa Hutchinson said Tuesday, "It is clear that there is not really a distinction between the drug traffickers and the terrorist organizations[/i]." (see also: [b]Drug War, Taft-Hartley Act, Political Violence[/b])
—STEPHEN ELLIOTT
[b]wolfowish[/b] [wulf'-oh-wish] v. hoping for that which is highly unlikely. Believing that the residents of Sadr City would greet the approaching Humvees with rose petals and chocolates was, in hindsight, probably indulging in a bit of wolfowishing.
—ERIC ORNER
[b]By Eric Alterman, http://www.americanprogress.o... , The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o... [/b]
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| What America is Saying… About Bush's Tax Cuts ... |
| 08.19.04 (9:09 am) [edit] |
[b]According to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office's recent report, President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts overwhelmingly favor the wealthy and have shifted the federal tax burden to the middle class. [/b] The report estimates that one third of the benefits of the tax cuts are allotted to those households in the top one percent, who have household incomes of over $1.1 million dollars annually. This unequal distribution of benefits, combined with an estimated $422 billion federal budget deficit, has sparked feelings of alarm in many Americans. Here is a sample of what Americans are saying about Bush's tax cuts.
"We the People" must reject the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]calamitous Age of Corporate Fascism that has triggered the Highest Gap Between the Haves and Have-Nots since the Great Depression ...
[b]Chattanooga, Tenn. – Chattanooga Times Free Press
August 17, 2004– Editorial -[/b] [i]link unavailable[/i]
"The CBO report, issued last Friday, should fuel the tax-fairness debate. It also should compel straight answers about how the enormous run-up in federal budget deficits that result from the tax cuts will be addressed in the future. That goes to the core of the argument against the wisdom, fairness and efficacy of the Bush tax cuts.
"The tax cuts are largely responsible for the swing under the Bush administration from the rare and growing budget surplus he inherited in 2001 to what quickly became record budget deficits. Mr. Bush's budget deficits have swelled enormously each year, and the deficits generated by his tax cuts are projected to keep accumulating as far as the eye can see. This year's deficit, at roughly $435 billion, will be the largest ever in this chain of growing deficits…
"The overall Bush swing from surplus to deficit, a gap of some $700 billion this year, and the accumulating deficits spell big trouble. In the very near future, after the election, Congress will have to decide how much to cut from projected Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid spending to rein in the tax-cut-induced deficits.
"Beyond that, it should be patently clear that the Bush tax cuts have largely failed to produce the ripple effect in investment and purchasing power, contrary to Mr. Bush's excuse for the tax cuts. That's because it is the spending of middle-class Americans, who have received so little benefit from tax cuts, that fuels the economy."
[b]New York, N.Y.— Newsday, http://www.newsday.com/news/o...,0,3261783.story
August 17, 2004 – Op-Ed [/b]
"President George W. Bush spouted…: "If you pay tax, you ought to get relief - it seems like to be the fair way to do things instead of trying to pick winners and losers," he said. But pick them or not, with the Bush tax cuts, there are winners and there are losers.
"Since 2001, tax cuts have shifted the federal tax burden away from the wealthiest Americans (the winners) and to the middle class (the losers).
"According to a CBO report released Friday, the top 1 percent of earners - average annual income $1.1 million - saw their combined share of federal tax payments fall to 20.1 percent this year, from 22.7 percent in 2001. For the top 20 percent of earners – average annual income $182,700 - the decrease was to 63.5 percent this year from 65.3 percent in 2001.
"At the same time, middle America - average annual income $75,600 - saw its share of the federal tax burden increase from 18.5 percent to 19.5 percent.
"That's fundamentally unfair. Shifting the burden in that manner wasn't the best way to structure tax cuts to stimulate a sluggish economy. And the tax cuts ballooned federal deficits that have added hundreds of billions of dollars to a malignant national debt that will burden future generations of taxpayers."
[b]Lancaster, Pa. – Sunday News
August 15, [i]2004 – Letter to the Editor -[/b] [/i]link unavailable
"It is every citizen's right to question his or her leadership and express his or her opinion. We elected our leaders and we pay their salaries.
"So, as a patriot, taxpayer and registered voter, I ask:
"Who will pay for this massive federal deficit?"
[b]Fort Pierce, Calif. – FresnoBee, http://www.fresnobee.com/opin...
August 13, 2004– Letter to the Editor[/b]
"When the White House cuts taxes for the wealthiest without proportionately cutting spending, it is not lowering the tax burden on the country at all. It is just, very selfishly, avoiding the responsibility of paying for its spending increases by pushing the burden of payment on future generations and leaders.
"When the administration reduces taxes at a time when spending has blown a $5.6 trillion surplus and is heading for a $4 trillion deficit, it is nothing but irresponsible, even if you believe that the enormous spending programs are necessary.
"Corporate welfare is alive and well in the form of subsidies, loan guarantees and many sweet deals. But social programs that have served us so well for so long, such as Social Security and Medicare, are in serious jeopardy."
[b]Chattanooga, Tenn. - ChattanoogaTimes Free Press
August 14, 2004– Editorial - [/b][i]link unavailable[/i]
"…Bush abruptly stopped pushing false optimism this week when the latest grim job figures came out. Presiding over 1.1 million jobs fewer than when he took office, Bush is about to join Hoover as only the second president in history to have a net job loss during his administration.
"A new Time Magazine poll shows that 27 percent of voters now say that the economy is their main concern, ahead of terrorism at 19 percent.
"…[Bush] remains trapped by his earlier decisions to allow huge federal deficits, to spend uncounted billions on the war in Iraq and to push through huge tax cuts targeted to the rich that overlook the rest of us. These policies leave him few options as far as fixing the economy goes."
[b]San Gabriel Valley, Calif.– San Gabriel ValleyTribune, http://www.sgvtribune.com/Sto...,1413,205%257E12238%257E2 335024,00.html?search=filter
August 15, 2004– Op-Ed[/b]
"The GOP let go of its final, lingering pretensions as the party of fiscal responsibility when the White House recently predicted a record $445 billion budget deficit and hailed it as 'good news.'
"How so? Let Joshua Bolten, White House budget director, explain:
"The good news is that it is much lower than we projected, [than] we or any of the other forecasters projected just six months ago.'
"Talk about setting a low bar for yourself. Does this mean that if the administration had made an even less accurate prediction half a year ago, this year's massive deficit would be even better news? Perhaps even 'great news'?
"During the 2000 campaign, Bush assured the country over and over again that the government had such large surpluses that he could easily increase spending on defense, improve Social Security and Medicare, tackle some other new priorities and that there would still be plenty 'left over' for large tax cuts.
"No sooner had Bush settled into the Oval Office than he moved the tax cuts, aimed mostly at the wealthy, to the top of his priority list.
"His conservative cheerleaders in the press advised that deficits didn't matter, as if taxpayers weren't paying billions upon billions of dollars in interest every year on the federal debt. Vice President Dick Cheney reportedly joined in the chorus, holding up the Reagan administration's deficits still unpaid, incidentally, as an example to follow.
"As the Bush deficits began to roll in, the president simply adjusted his rhetoric. He acknowledged that he was well into the red but offered various excuses and promised to do better. His deficits, he declared, would be small and short-lived.
"Now they are larger than ever and, even under the administration's optimistic projections, stretch many years into the future.
"Bush and his defenders argue that the raw deficit numbers aren't as bad when put in the proper perspective. When federal deficits are considered as a percentage of gross domestic product, Bolten claims, Bush's deficits are 'well within historical range.'
"It's not clear what historical range he has in mind. Certainly Bush's record is terrible compared with the preceding eight years under President Clinton, even using the calculations Bolten wants to use."
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| The 'Upside-Down' Economy ... |
| 08.18.04 (3:52 pm) [edit] |
[b]While times have never been better for the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] [i]and[/i] their neo-con, neo-fascist corporate-take-all cronies [i]and[/i] their "haves-and-have-mores" constituency-- the American Middle-Class[i] and [/i]Working families [i]and[/i] the "have-nots" are being forced to bear the back-breaking brunt of the despotic Bushies' reckless economic policies ([i]and[/i] the heart-breaking brunt of their bloody wars) deficit spending; inflation; barbaric warfare for illegal and immoral war-profiteering; and meanwhile our standard of living here at home is diminishing for the majority of our citizens ... "We the People" must reject the traitorous Bush regime's calamitous Age of Corporate Fascism ...
In this so-called "recovery", the distribution of economic gains has clearly been upside-down.[/b] While business profits are soaring to record levels, income growth is extremely slow and wage and employment gains have lagged significantly. Despite the rise in corporate profitability, these earnings are not being reinvested in the creation of good paying jobs and productive capital. Workers, therefore, have not reaped their fair share of the productivity gains in the past few years. In addition, sluggish income growth has caused household consumption to increase through borrowing, creating a debt-driven recovery that is not sustainable. A recent American Progress event highlighted the high costs of this upside-down economy and the policy solutions that can correct this trend.
[b]Righting the Upside-Down Economy: Creating a Sustainable Recovery[/b] - http://www.americanprogress.o...
In this recovery the distribution of economic gains has clearly been upside-down. While business profits are soaring to record levels, income growth is extremely slow and wage and employment gains have lagged significantly. More... http://www.kintera.org/htmlco...
• Eileen Appelbaum's PowerPoint Presentation, http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/upsidedowne conomy.ppt
• Audio: Krugman Keynote, http://www.americanprogress.o...%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A52 1-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/KRUGMAK EYNOTE.ASX | Other Highlights, http://www.americanprogress.o...%7BE9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A52 1-5D6FF2E06E03%7D/UPSIDED OWN.ASX
• Video: Introduction, Cassandra Butts, http://interface.audiovideowe... | Keynote, Paul Krugman, http://interface.audiovideowe... | Panel: Scott Lilly, http://interface.audiovideowe... Eileen Applebaum, http://interface.audiovideowe... James Galbraith, http://interface.audiovideowe... Robert Manning, http://interface.audiovideowe... | Closing Remarks, Gene Sperling, http://interface.audiovideowe...
• Transcripts: Complete Transcript, http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/Complete%20 upside-down%20transcript- FINAL.pdf | Keynote: Paul Krugman, http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/Krugman-FIN AL.pdf | Panel: Eileen Appelbaum, http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/Appelbaum-F INAL.pdf James Galbraith, http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/Galbraith-F INAL.pdf Robert Manning, http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/Manning-FIN AL.pdf
[u]Lagging Investment: The Cost of the Upside-Down Economy[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... by Christian E. Weller, July 1, 2004
The current economic recovery has been unique in many respects. It was the first "job loss" recovery since World War II. For most of the first two years of the recovery, total employment was below the levels at the start of the recovery.
[u]Can Consumer Purchasing Power Sustain the Current Economic Recovery?[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... by Scott Lilly, July 1, 2004
The Federal Reserve chairman, every official within this administration, most market analysts and a majority of financial writers agree that the outlook for the American economy is good if not excellent.
[u]Is the Strong Recovery Sustainable?[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... by Christian E. Weller, June 10, 2004
The economy seems to be looking brighter. After years of a weak economic recovery, where more jobs were lost than gained, the labor market finally gained some steam in March of this year.
[u]Employment Numbers Rise Too Slow to Offset Sharp Decline in Household Cash Flow[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... June 4, 2004
The Labor Department's report this morning indicates that the unusually low interest rates enjoyed by U.S. consumers during the later months of 2003 and the early months of 2004 continued to drive economic activity and job growth through the month of May.
[u]Statement of Scott Lilly On the June Employment Report[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... July 2, 2004
This morning's report from the Labor Department paints a grim picture concerning the prospects for the U.S. economy and for working families.
[u]'Upside-Down' Economy Takes a Bite out of Middle Class Wallets[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... by Christian E. Weller and Radha Chaurushiya, May 28, 2004
The distribution of economic gains is upside-down in this recovery, compared to previous ones. Profits received a larger share of national income than wages.
[u]George Bush's Upside Down Economy[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... May 24, 2004
For the most part, the recent economic recovery has been a "job-loss" one. Although the economy has been growing strongly, the labor market has not.
[u]Reversing the 'Upside-Down' Economy[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... by Christian E. Weller, May 10, 2004
The current economic recovery often has been described as a "job-loss" recovery, which is meant to capture a new quality to this recovery – a shrinking labor market among a growing economy.
[u]Today's Job Loss Worse; Recovery Weaker[/u], http://www.americanprogress.o... May 4, 2004
The current job recovery is unlikely to last through the remainder of this year according to a study released on May 5 by the Center for American Progress.
[b][u]Also, refer to:[/u]
"Who Pays And How" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Bush/Cheney's Age of Corporate Fascism: "Gap Between Haves, Have-nots Expands" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Raise the Economy Threat to "High"" on http://www.tblog.com/template... [/b]
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| Who Pays And How |
| 08.18.04 (9:42 am) [edit] |
[b]Thanks to last week's CBO report, everyone's suspicions that the Bush tax cuts mostly benefited the wealthy are confirmed.[/b] This isn’t a complete picture of how the financial burden plays out across society, says Reich. Who finances the massive federal debt and who pays the resulting interest is also revealing. "We the People" had better[i] sit-up and take notice [/i]before it is too late ...
[i]Robert B. Reich is the Maurice B. Hexter Professor of Social and Economic Policy at Brandeis University, and was the secretary of labor under former President Bill Clinton.[/i]
[b]Two stark facts [/b]have become apparent about how our government now finances itself.
The first is about who’s paying taxes. There used to be a graduated system in which the rich paid a much larger proportion than the poor. But that’s changed. None other than the Congressional Budget Office—which, incidentally, works for a Republican Congress and is headed by a former Bush economist—reports that two-thirds of the Bush tax cuts have gone to the wealthiest 20 percent of American families. And the lion’s share, to the top 1 percent.
Now the second fact, equally important: The Treasury Department tells us that the nation’s total debt has soared from 5.7 trillion dollars four years ago, to 7.3 trillion dollars today.
Put these two facts together and you’ve got the real story. Wealthy Americans used to add to government revenues mainly through their tax payments. Now, wealthy Americans add to government revenues by lending the government money.
Wealthy Americans still pay taxes, of course. But a smaller proportion of their earnings are taxed. So they’ve got more savings. And a higher percentage of those savings are being lent to the government to finance the mounting debt. Face it. It’s not your typical American who’s lending money to the government. The typical American has no savings and is in deep personal debt. Obviously, most of the Americans who are lending money to the federal government to keep it going, as the federal debt balloons, are well-off. They’re the same people who got most of the tax cut.
In other words, the wealthy have shifted their Washington portfolios, if you see what I mean. A lot of the money they used to send to Washington in the form of tax payments they now send to Washington in the form of loans, through treasury bills and bonds. The big difference, of course, is that loans have to be paid back, with interest. So far this year, interest payments on the federal debt have totaled over 290 billion dollars. And who pays that interest? Well, you and me and all taxpayers.
That’s the new system, folks. Combine the Bush tax cuts and the soaring federal deficits and you go from one method of financing government (which we used to call it a progressive income tax) to another method—consisting of loans from the wealthy—and interest payments to them from everyone else.
[b]This commentary originally appeared on Marketplace, public radio's only daily business news program and is reprinted via a special arrangement between TomPaine.com and Robert Reich. Marketplace is produced by Minnesota Public Radio and is heard on 322 public radio stations nationwide. More online at www.marketplace.org. [/b] - http://www.tompaine.com/artic...
[u][/u][b]Refer also to:[/b]
Brain Dead, Made of Money, No Future at All, http://www.tblog.com/template...
The Health Care Divide, http://www.tblog.com/template...
The Broken Promises of George W. Bush, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Raise the Economy Threat to "High", http://www.tblog.com/template...
Dog Days Of Employment, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Even Republicans Don't Like Bush |
| 08.18.04 (8:48 am) [edit] |
[b]RETIRING REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN says war was "a mistake", "not justified" and "a dangerous, costly mess." [/b]
Rep. Doug Bereuter of Nebraska http://www.house.gov/bereuter... made the statements in a four page letter to constituents detailed in an article http://www.journalstar.com/ar... in today's [i]Lincoln Journal Star[/i].
"When conservatives gathered in the nation's capital last Wednesday for a panel discussion on the 2004 election, they certainly didn't leave with good news about Bush's re-election hopes. Even the conservative member of the panel said Republicans weren't excited by Bush. 'For all the talk about polarization, I find a startling agreement [from] everybody I talk to,' syndicated columnist Robert Novak told the audience. 'Nobody seems to like George Bush very much. The Democrats I talk to hate him and the Republicans aren't very enthusiastic about him.'... 'If George W. Bush loses this election, you are going to find an implosion in the Republican Party,' Novak said. 'The Christian conservatives will be blamed, unfairly I think, by people who don't want them in the party.'"
Refer to "Does a GOP Implosion Await?" on http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewCo...%5CCommentary%5Carchive%5 C200408%5CCOM20040816c.html
[b]As Bush/Cheney's approval ratings continue to slide, many in the GOP may be even more outspoken regarding the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] horrendous mismanagement of our affairs of state ... It should give "We the People" cause for reflection ...[/b]
[b][u]Also consider:[/u][/b]
According to New Polls, John F. Kerry is Beating George W. Bush, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Bush Is In Big Trouble, http://www.tblog.com/template...
Kerry 327 vs. Bush 211, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| According to New Polls, John F. Kerry is Beating George W. Bush ... |
| 08.17.04 (7:05 pm) [edit] |
[b]There's an interesting passage in the analysis portion of the new Zogby poll http://www.zogby.com/news/Rea... ... Please refer also to "Is Bush in Trouble?" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ... It says ...[/b]
... "Kerry leads among all age groups except 30-49 year olds, where the two candidates are pretty much tied. Catholics give Kerry a 50%-37% edge – numbers more similar to Clinton’s leads in 1992 and 1996 than Al Gore’s 51% to 46% margin in 2000. Protestants are for Bush (57% to 33%), especially on the strength of the President’s 68% to 20% margin among Born Again Protestants." ...
Meanwhile, the last major sounding of Hispanic voters http://www.washingtonpost.com... , done by [i]the Post[/i], Univision, and Tomas Rivera Policy Institute, puts Kerry over Bush by a 60% to 30% margin.
Jewish voters, though probably only electorally significant in one swing state this year, remain as Democratic as they were four years ago (75% to 22% for Kerry), despite much more than the usual degree of pandering from the White House, according to this poll http://www.njdc.org/readNews.... just out from the National Jewish Democratic Council.
And though it's probably not too much of a surprise that President Bush isn't doing all that well among Muslim voters, let's note for the record that this poll http://www.beliefnet.com/stor... from June has the president clocking in at a rather anemic 3% support among voters who say there is no God but God and Muhammad is his messenger.
Now, many times I've noted http://www.talkingpointsmemo.... the unlovely tendency many political commentators have of claiming that Democrats are 'dependent' on the black vote or that absent black votes the Democrats would be a permanent minority party. And far be it from me to make the same disreputable charge in reverse.
But if you look at these numbers you can see pretty clearly that the weight of the GOP comes heavily from white voters and particularly white evangelical voters. Despite all the terrible buffeting the country has gone through in the last few years, the thesis of Chris Caldwell's masterful 1998 essay, 'The Southern Captivity of the GOP' is well worth revisiting.
(Unfortunately, the [i]Atlantic Monthly [/i]has chosen not to make it available http://www.theatlantic.com/is... to the public on its website. If someone can point me to a site that has reprinted the piece, using some sort of public interest exception to the IP laws, I'd be much obliged.)
[b]Let us hope that "We the People" will think for ourselves and reject the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] despite their massive neo-con, neo-fascist propaganda machine ...[/b]
[b]Source:[/b]
Joshua Micah Marshall, TalkingPointsMemo, http://www.talkingpointsmemo....
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| Two Candidates Diverged In The Woods ... |
| 08.17.04 (5:09 pm) [edit] |
"[i]I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference[/i]." - Robert Frost
[b]Compare and contrast: Bush and Kerry rallies[/b]
Both presidential contenders found themselves crossing paths in Portland, Oregon late last week. How did the two visits compare http://www.kgw.com/sharedcont... ?
[u][b]Bush[/b][/u]
Bush met with 300 small-business owners Friday morning, and 2,300 supporters in a town hall-style gathering at a Beaverton school that also attracted a few hundred protesters to a police cordon a few hundred yards away.
[u][b]Kerry[/b][/u]
Fire officials estimated the crowd at Kerry's rally in Waterfront Park at between 40,000 and 50,000 people; the largest turnout for a political speech in Portland in at least a decade.
[b]"We the People" desperately need a change away from the despotic Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] ... Let's vote for John F. Kerry for President of the United States of America ...[/b]
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| Brain Dead, Made of Money, No Future at All ... |
| 08.17.04 (1:05 pm) [edit] |
[b]For the sake of our nation's well-being and future generations of Americans, "We the People" must acknowledge the hideous fact that we've been ruthlessly and recklessly betrayed by the despotic neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] ... The outrage expressed by[i] real [/i]patriots who love this nation at a warmongering president and corporate fascists who led us into an illegal and immoral war based upon heinous lies, deceptions and falsehoods will not be silenced any longer... [/b]
[b]Tuesday 17 August 2004[/b]
To: George W. Bush
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear George:
A pretty awful joke has been making the rounds lately. Some might say it's an awful joke because of the comparison. Most, however, think it's an awful joke because it isn't funny. It's too close to the truth to be funny.
The joke: What is the difference between President George W. Bush and President Ted Bundy?
The answer: Bush killed more people than Bundy.
See? I told you it was a terrible joke. On the one hand, it is in poor taste by commonly accepted standards to compare a sitting President to a notorious serial killer. On the other hand, though, the 943 dead American soldiers in Iraq, the more than ten thousand dead Iraqi civilians, the more than five thousand dead civilians in Afghanistan, and let's not forget the large crowd of Americans you toddled off to the Texas killing bottle while Governor, pretty much means you have left Mr. Bundy in the deep shade when it comes to the body count.
There are, of course, the nearly 3,000 dead people from September 11th, people from all over the world. The 9/11 Commission broke out some buckets of whitewash, and like a group of dutiful Tom Sawyers, painted over the grim realities of that day. It couldn't be stopped, they said in their report. People like Richard Clarke, Sibel Edmonds and the families of the lost who know more about the events of that day than anyone on the planet, disagree.
"Two planes hitting the twin towers did not rise to the level of Rumsfeld's leaving his office and going to the War Room? How can that be?" asked Mindy Kleinberg, a 9/11 widow who has become a leader in the truth movement. The thing is, Mindy, Mr. Rumsfeld was probably fine-tuning the Iraq invasion plan he'd been working on for years. He is, after all, a professional.
Three more American kids got killed in Iraq today, George. That makes 30 dead American soldiers in the first 16 days of August. That's thirty more names to be added to the commemorative wall which will appear somewhere in Washington DC someday. Thirty more etchings in ebon stone, thirty more people who would not now be dead but for your decisions and your actions and your appalling dishonesty.
I'm pretty bored with those commonly accepted standards that are supposed to be applied in the treatment of a sitting President. Too many people have been playing patty-cake with you over the last three years, George. Too many journalists looking to keep their sweet seat in the press crunch at the White House, too many television news anchors who think research and context is for other people, too many media outlet owners - read: 'massive corporations' - whose profit margins are intimately wed to your suicidal policies, and, frankly, too many politicians for the 'loyal opposition' who have been tested in the forge of true crisis these last years, and been found to be sorely wanting.
So let's not have any patty-cake between us, George. Let's get down to brass tacks. Your people compared Senator Max Cleland to Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein during the 2002 midterm campaign. Cleland left two legs and an arm in Vietnam, but your people did that to him anyway. A little hard talk, East Texas style, shouldn't be anything new to you.
A wiser man once wrote this:
"Allow the President to invade a neighboring nation, whenever he shall deem it necessary to repel an invasion, and you allow him to do so, whenever he may choose to say he deems it necessary for such a purpose, and you allow him to make war at pleasure...if, today, he should choose to say he thinks it necessary to invade Canada, to prevent the British from invading us, how could you stop him? You may say to him, 'I see no probability of the British invading us' but he will say to you, 'Be silent; I can see it, if you don't.'"
The wiser man who wrote these words was Abraham Lincoln, in a letter to his law partner Billy Hendron. Lincoln wrote this letter in 1848 while serving in the House of Representatives, years before he himself would assume the office of the Presidency. Lincoln became, in the fullness of time, a war President who unwillingly inherited his war, and then pursued it with grim determination.
He summoned Generals like Ulysses Grant, whose essential demeanor, in the words of Civil War historian Bruce Catton, "was that of a man who had made up his mind to drive his head through a stone wall." From March of 1864 to April of 1865, Grant used the mighty Army of the Potomac as Lincoln's merciless fist, until the white flags were raised over bloodied ground at Appomattox.
Lincoln was a war President who won his war, though the fighting of it was not his choice. He fought the enemies arrayed before him, and did not invent enemies out of whole cloth. Imagine Lincoln, faced with the Confederate insurrection, deciding to undertake an invasion of Greenland. He would have been laughed out of the White House. That's basically what you've done in Iraq.
You fancy yourself a war President, right? "I'm a war President," you said on television not long ago. "I make decisions in the Oval Office with war on my mind." Your war in Iraq is a war of choice, not of necessity. It had nothing to do with September 11, weapons of mass destruction, or bringing democracy to the Iraqi people. It had nothing to do with defending the American people.
Your boys wanted to get paid. Cash money on the barrelhead for Halliburton, right? Almost twelve billion dollars they've made to this point. Hey, it's good work if you can get it. All you had to do was use September 11th against your own people for months, scare them to death, denigrate the work of the weapons inspectors you agreed to send in there, flap around some claims about weapons of mass destruction (26,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX gas, per your own words from your 2003 State of the Union Address), and then fly onto an aircraft carrier and declare victory while your people were still dying.
As if that wasn't bad enough, you're also losing your war of choice.
Hard to believe, isn't it? Your daddy rolled up Iraq like a windowshade when it was his turn at the big wheel. Your daddy made it look easy, which is perhaps why you thought you could take care of business over there on the cheap. Do you have trouble looking daddy in the eyes these days?
Right now, the soldiers you sent into harm's way are fighting a running battle in the holy city of Najaf, which is home to the Shrine to Ali. Ali, in case you didn't know, is considered to be the legitimate heir to Mohammed himself by followers of the Shi'ite faith. Shi'ites all around the world - millions of them in places like Iran and India and right here in America - are reacting to this action in the same way Catholic parishioners in Boston would react if someone rolled tanks on the Vatican. If you so much as chip the paint on that shrine, you're going to unite yet another group of people in explosive rage against the United States.
The gap between you and Abraham Lincoln is so wide, George, that it cannot be measured by any scientific instruments currently known to modern science. Abe had you pegged, though, 156 years ago. You were allowed to make war at your pleasure, and the world entire is desperately wondering how you can be stopped.
You might have heard, George, about a fellow named Hugo Chavez winning the referendum on his Presidency in Venezuela. Millions of poor people flooded out of the hills to cast their votes for him, because he uses his nation's oil revenues to pay for their food and education. Quite a novel idea, yes? How many schools could we have built - schools like citadels - with the twelve billion dollars you have thrown at Halliburton? How many hungry people in your own country could have been fed? How many jobs programs could have been funded? How many catastrophically polluted Superfund sites could have been cleaned?
That apparently wasn't on your program, George. You have eviscerated OSHA regulations - those pesky things that keep workers from getting injured and killed on the job - because you want to appear 'business-friendly.' The $1.5 million you got from the chemical industry in campaign funding compelled you to lower the safety standards for chemicals used in the production of superconductors, chemicals that are believed to cause miscarriages in pregnant workers. You eliminated overtime pay for six million workers, going so far as to have tips for employers posted on your administration's Labor Department website which will help them screw employees out of the wages they earn. You have obliterated environmental protections across the board.
The list goes on. For a man who fashions his political persona as a "regular fella," you have delivered a large screwing to the real regular fellas who are going to have to plow through the wreckage you've left in your wake.
I worry about you, George. You live in a stark black-and-white world, and you actually think God speaks to you. There are a lot of people in padded rooms, wearing coats that button up the back, because they have had similar delusions. You see monsters everywhere. Some of them do exist, to be sure, but I am forced to remember the words of Frederich Nietzsche: "Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster. And when you look into the abyss, the abyss also looks into you."
You have become a monster, George, and the abyss is staring into your eyes. I wonder what it sees there. I know what I see.
[b]By William Rivers Pitt
------------------------- ------------------------- ------------------------- -----
William Rivers Pitt is a New York Times and international bestseller of two books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You To Know' and 'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'[/b] - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| Bush/Cheney's Age of Corporate Fascism: "Gap Between Haves, Have-nots Expands" ... |
| 08.17.04 (10:58 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" have been ruthlessly betrayed by the corrupt neo-con, neo-fascist Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] who have ushered in the calamitous Age of Corporate Fascism ... [/b]Dubya has shamelessly admitted that his constituency is the[i] "haves and have mores" [/i]... and he thinks that the rich should not be obliged to pay taxes because they[i] dodge them [/i]anyway ... Please read[b] "Raise the Economy Threat to "[i]High[/i]"" [/b]on http://www.tblog.com/template...
[u][b]Gap Between Haves, Have-nots Expands[/b][/u]
WASHINGTON (AP) — Over two decades, the income gap has steadily increased between the richest Americans, who own homes and stocks and got big tax breaks, and those at the middle and bottom of the pay scale, whose paychecks buy less.
The growing disparity is even more pronounced in this recovering economy. Wages are stagnant and the middle class is shouldering a larger tax burden. Prices for health care, housing, tuition, gas and food have soared.
The wealthiest 20% of households in 1973 accounted for 44% of total U.S. income, according to the Census Bureau. Their share jumped to 50% in 2002, while everyone else's fell. For the bottom fifth, the share dropped from 4.2% to 3.5%.
Jobs and the economy top the list of voter concerns this election year. President Bush touts a strong economy that is growing, but polls find that Americans have doubts and think jobs are scarce. John Kerry is trusted more on the economy, with Democrats talking regularly of "two Americas," divided between the rich and everyone else.
That argument has merit, some private economists say.
"For those working in the bottom half of the pay scale, they're under an enormous amount of pressure," said Mark Zandi, chief economist at Economy.com.
New government data also shows that President Bush's tax cuts have shifted the overall tax burden to the middle class from the wealthiest Americans.
"We're just trying to get ahead." said Debbie Reames, 49, of Raytown, Mo., whose bank job of 24 years was sent overseas in February. "But it seems like we climb a few rungs and then we fall back again."
Reames has a new secretarial job, which pays $7,000 a year less than her bank job, and she works catering jobs for extra money. Her husband, Russ, can no longer work after an injury. One son is finishing college and another will start in the fall.
So the family budget tightened. That meant fewer cable channels, more meals at home, postponed doctor appointments, missed vacations, delayed credit card payments, all to "keep the wolf away from the door," she said.
The U.S. jobs market is soft, sending wages down. Hiring came to a near standstill last month, with companies adding just 32,000 new jobs overall, stunning economists who had expected seven times as many.
More than a million jobs have been added back to the 2.6 million lost since Bush took office, but they pay less and offer fewer benefits, such as health insurance. The new jobs are concentrated in health care, food services, and temporary employment firms, all lower-paying industries. Temp agencies alone account for about a fifth of all new jobs.
Three in five pay below the national median hourly wage — $13.53, said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist for Wells Fargo.
On a weekly basis, the average wage of $525.84 is at the lowest level since October 2001.
The income gap is showing up in booming sales of luxury items. Porsche Cars North America Inc. says sales are up 17% for the year. Strong sales at Neiman Marcus, Nordstrom and Saks Fifth Avenue overshadow lackluster sales at stores such as Wal-Mart, Sears and Payless Shoes.
Real estate agent Lance Anderson, 38, of Overland Park, Kan., expects a record sales year, as homeowners upgrade to more expensive homes and commercial clients expand. He recently took his family to Disney World for a two-week Florida vacation.
"My clientele, it seems as a whole, has seen positive growth," he said. So his family, including three children, now eat out more often and spend more on clothes. They recently bought two new cars and anticipate buying a larger house in the next few years.
Economists say wages should rise as companies boost hiring. But the growing gap between the haves and have-nots will remain.
Technology has eliminated many U.S. jobs, as has global competition, particularly from low-wage countries such as China. Highly skilled, educated workers in America will thrive as demand rises, Sohn said, while low-skilled jobs remain vulnerable to outsourcing.
"This really has nothing to do with Bush or Kerry, but more to do with the longer-term shift in the structure of the economy," Sohn said.
Not all economists agree with Sohn and many are quoted as confirming that Bush's reckless record-level deficit spending on warfare and job-loss economy is contributing to inflation, massive debt driving our dollar down, and an unstable stock-market. - http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| ... The Fog Machine ... |
| 08.16.04 (2:25 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are being ruthlessly misled and brutally lied to by the corrupt neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]on the pathetic state of our economy, as well as on their illegal and immoral bloody fiasco in Iraq ... The[i] skinny [/i]on right-wing neo-fascist "fact checkers" who are spinning the lousy job numbers:-- [/b]
After the worst jobs report in months came out last Friday, the President, in an almost Stepford-like fashion, asserted that his tax cuts are working and the economy is “strong and getting stronger.”
In fact, fewer than 100 days before the presidential election, unemployment is stuck where it was when the recovery began two-and-a-half years ago. Real wages are down over the past few months. And many who have found new employers after losing their jobs during the recession or its jobless recovery are earning less than they used to.
The fact that some in the Bush camp are in denial about the data is to be expected at this point in the game, but it seems like a good time to set out the relevant facts, both positive and negative.
First, the positive (don’t be discouraged that there are only a few bullets in this section -- the first two are huge, and should be weighted very heavily):
. The jobless recovery is over. Since September, we’ve added 1.5 million jobs. These job gains have not been concentrated in any one industry or occupation; most sectors are adding jobs again. As noted below, the pace has slowed in recent months, but at least we’re consistently adding jobs.
. Productivity growth has been very strong in this recession/recovery period, which raises the potential for higher living standards than would otherwise be the case.
. Overall compensation (wages and benefits together) is up, continuing to outpace inflation. The reason this can happen when wage growth (as opposed to benefit growth) is lagging inflation is due to rising healthcare costs.
Here are the negative:
. The unemployment rate in July 2004 is about the same as it was in November 2001, when the recovery began (5.6 percent then versus 5.5 percent last month).
. There are 1.2 million fewer jobs now than there were 28 months ago, when the last recession began. In every other post-war recovery, we had surpassed the prior jobs peak by this point.
. While employment grew relatively quickly earlier this year -- 225,000 average monthly growth, January through May -- it slowed sharply in the last two months, growing 55,000 jobs per month, well below what’s needed to tighten up the job market.
. A broad measure of average wages in the economy -- the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Employment Cost Index -- rose at an annual rate of 2.5 percent in both of the previous quarters. This is the slowest wage growth on record for this series, going back to the early 1980s. Since inflation was 2.8 percent in the second quarter, real wages were down slightly.
. Another important wage series, one for blue-collar and non-managerial workers, is down in real terms in six out of the past seven months;
. Between 2001 and 2003, 6.3 percent of the “tenured workforce” -- those who had had their jobs for at least three years -- lost those jobs due to layoffs, plant closings, or other reasons not for cause (i.e., they didn’t get fired). That’s the highest level on record going back to the early 1980s, when this survey began. That’s barely above the 1981-83 displacement rate of 6.2 percent but unemployment was 9 percent back then.
. Of those displaced workers who were rehired in full-time jobs, 57 percent earned less in their new job, the highest share going back ten years. The difference in median earnings between new and old jobs was 16 percent, tied with 1991-93 for the biggest negative pay gap on record.
. GDP rose 3 percent in the second quarter, well below expectations. It was held back largely by slow consumption growth, which likely relates to these negative wage trends. In fact, in June aggregate wages -- the grand total of everybody’s wages throughout the economy -- fell slightly, as did consumer spending.
. Over the course of this business cycle, 85 percent of the growth of corporate income has gone into profits, and 15 percent to compensation; on average, these values in past recoveries were 23 percent (profits) and 77 percent (compensation).
None of this is especially complicated. These facts should not be controversial. Depending on the speed of your Internet connection, I could point you toward every one of them in seconds. And, moving ever so slightly into interpretation, they paint a pretty clear picture of an economy in transition.
Simply put: Last fall, we finally emerged from the most protracted jobless recovery on record. Such a long period of joblessness did some damage, and the damage doesn’t disappear the month you turn the corner on job growth. The labor market remains slack and the benefits of growth have flowed largely to profits. From the perspective of working families, it’s an unbalanced outcome thus far, especially compared to where things were at the end of the last recovery.
While we don’t yet have up-to-date family income data (the 2003 income and poverty numbers will be out at the end of this month), it’s probably the case that the typical working family is not much better off than it was four years ago; some are worse off. Middle-income, working families lost some earnings but gained a bit of tax relief, and the value of their home is probably up (although so is their debt). Their employment situation is more insecure now than in the latter 1990s, but it’s better than it was a year ago.
How does all this square with what the presidential candidates themselves are saying? In such settings, those running for office amplify certain facts, ignore others, and invariably invent some along the way. They’re neither economists nor accountants, and they tend to paint with a broad brush.
If the real wages of middle-income workers are falling they talk about a middle-class squeeze. If the benefits of growth are flowing largely to capital, they talk about “two Americas,” despite the fact that no academic studies to date have found the second one. If, as is the case, industries and occupations that pay less are growing faster than those that pay higher wages, they argue that “the new jobs pay less than the old ones” (which, as the displaced-workers data noted above shows, happens to be true, although you wouldn’t know that from the data on which industries are growing fastest).
Or, on the other hand, they might argue that their tax cuts are working and that broadly shared prosperity is just around the corner.
It is not, however, that simple. The problem is that the data fog machine is up and running. Economists at the Heritage Foundation have a cottage industry attacking the data source for the jobless recovery and the recent downturn in real wages: the BLS Establishment Survey. This despite the fact that, as the Congressional Budget Office unequivocally put it, “The establishment survey better reflects the state of labor markets.” Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan and even the White House have made similar claims. Perhaps most convincing is the extent to which financial markets rely on employment and wage information from the establishment data -- those folks have real money riding on this stuff. Nevertheless, one Heritage economist recently argued in a debate we were having that “you really can’t look at this BLS earnings report now anymore and really understand the economy.”
Factcheck.org, a group claiming to be a watchdog for both sides, has a recent piece http://factcheck.org/article.... that says: “Kerry also said ‘wages are falling’ when in fact they are increasing.” Their evidence: “Wages have increased steadily. Kerry would be correct to say that in recent months, wages haven’t kept up with inflation …” but this is due, according to Factcheck.org, to rising inflation, “not falling pay rates.” In other words, they say Kerry is wrong because nominal wages are up.
In the same vein, Factcheck.org attacks Kerry for saying that the new jobs pay $9,000 less than the old ones. This factoid comes from some of our own research http://www.epinet.org/content... which finds that amount to be the pay gap between industries that are expanding as a share of total employment versus those contracting as a share.
These are both thoughtless criticisms that add little to voters ability to separate fog from fact. Nominal wages are almost always up. Candidates always speak to real wage and income trends, adjusted for inflation, because that’s what matters to voters: the purchasing power of their paychecks. They don’t need to add, “in real terms …” And while Kerry should correctly frame the $9,000 figure, his point about diminished job quality is correct. Such “factchecking” only adds confusion.
(For more on our argument with Factcheck.org regarding job quality, see here http://www.epinet.org/content... .)
OK -- enough venting. The only way out of a fog like this is to follow the facts and keep your foghorn at the ready.
[b]Jared Bernstein is a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute (EPI) in Washington, D.C.[/b] - http://www.prospect.org/web/p...
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| ... Unmasking the Outlaws ... |
| 08.16.04 (8:44 am) [edit] |
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] has tragically ushered in the calamitous Age of Corporate Fascism [i]and[/i] has ruthlessly betrayed our nation and has brutally lied to our citizens ... These vile traitors in the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush regime are instigating new intimidation tactics, fear-mongering and terrorism against the United States of America in order to transform our people into frightened, compliant-and-brain-washe d, and obedient slaves ... "We the People" [i]cannot-- must not [/i]permit this neo-orwellian form of tyranny to grip our hearts ... People are [i]more important [/i]than corporations and we must stand-up for our freedoms, our rights, and our fair share of the American dream ... We must [i]not[/i] permit ourselves to become slaves ...[/b]
For the last four years many have been trying to track the mythical money trail, to flesh out what has been driving all the recent changes on the global stage. Finally, thanks to “The Corporation,” it appears that the true identity of the real Outlaws is now clear. Most have remained focused on the politicians and the politics of the new millennium. But, that’s only been a front for the actual powers that be, and their agenda that is toxic to everything, except themselves.
Globalism has created an entirely new standard in the world today. There are no longer national laws that can touch the multinationals. The War on terror was phony from day one: it was a declaration of war by multinational interests upon all nations, all religions and all forms of order and law around the world. The real organizational chart depicts our new owners, and is headed by the major multinational corporations. Below them are the political parties and the politicians that we used to see as powerful. Beneath that are the military and intelligence forces, along with their supporting cast and all of this is all held together by the media that reports only what the owners of media want you to know. Media also just happens to be made up of subsidiaries, to those same mega-corporations that are now running the whole show.
Politicians and political parties are nothing but hollow fronts for international theft and greed, as never before. Yes, there is terrorism today, but it is not by those whom the government says we are at war with. The “terror” is alive and well but it is hiding behind the corporate logos of prominent multinational corporations. Their mission has become the theft, and ultimately the privatization of everything that is part of what we think of, as life on this planet.
These insider outlaws, want to own all the components of everyday life. It begins with the water, the air and all the earth—and then goes deeper—seeking to patent the entire matrix of human life, as well as any plant or living organism that could produce a profit. In this, they have over the last sixty years, coerced the lawmakers and the courts, into becoming their silent partners in this would-be theft of all that lives.
This all became possible to the direct degree that GATT, then NAFTA, and now FTAA have been allowed to succeed. Globalization has been the corporate shield that has granted complete immunity from governmental interference in corporate affairs—in effect placing private corporations above national laws. By virtue of the perks granted by corporate charters worldwide, these entities enjoy immunity from prosecution, for all but the most heinous of crimes. These corporate bulwarks have been able to commit their crimes against nature and humanity, while protecting their profit margins at the expense of the world’s communities.
People, ordinary everyday, law-abiding people have served as the engines that drive these mega-giants, that are on their way to owning it all. Most of those who work for these new monopolies are in reality employed in creating the demise of their own way of life. This Orwellian footnote makes this one of the largest perversions of labor, in human history.
The War on the World, now in its opening stages, was necessary to protect multinational corporations from the people they have destroyed or are planning to destroy, solely for corporate profits – worldwide.
How did this begin? When the nation was an infant - corporations were only groups of people with very limited partnerships that were formed to accomplish specific tasks, after which they were dissolved. About the time of the Civil War, corporate attorneys began to feel too restricted by the laws governing most corporations. To enhance corporate profits and protect the partners from responsibility and liability, the lawyers pressed for greater protections. By 1886 a Supreme Court decision had granted corporations "the rights of personhood." That enabled them to buy and sell things, and this created an artificial construct that had the rights of free speech, and all the other rights of human beings, except that this entity did not have any of the responsibilities that real people have. They do not have to die, they can continue forever without the need for oversight or renewal permissions, nor do they have to be responsible for the results of their commercial activities.
This movement got serious after the end of World War I, and began to take shape during WWII. All US presidents since Truman have had a hand in this, to some degree, but with the theft of the office of the presidency, the way was paved for the final act, which is now here.
To the multinationals there is only what is owned and what is privatized—there is no longer any need to consider what might be governmental or privately owned because all of that is simply waiting to be absorbed, as future product, for their corporate balance sheets. They need not weigh the good of the community, or the health risks that might flow directly from their efforts. They are not responsible for the losses their products might cause the general public. The only consideration, which the law requires of them, is that they must maximize profits for their respective shareholders. They can make or sell whatever they want, without regard to costs, waste, pollution or human needs. Basically they take all that has a potential monetary value and leave the wreckage for others to deal with. The costs usually become a matter for others to solve.
Add to this the fact that most of their board members sit on many interlocking boards, of other mega-corporations, and the temptation to simply take over from slow and limited normal society becomes clear. With no morality, there is only private profit.
There are many telltale signs of late, that the above is so. The desire to reduce the world’s population by some four billion people becomes more understandable, if that number is seen as the poorest of the poor; then they are by definition of no use whatever to profit making entities. There is bankrupting of the US Treasury, to weaken what's left of the government. The remainder will be auctioned off at fire-sale prices and the unclaimed services will just be dumped on the trash-heap of history. That was part of the original goal of the robber barons from the early days, for unfettered commerce, zero regulation, and the near slavery of workers. That’s where all this greed is leading.
There is now almost nothing left of the US government except an empty shell. Government was created by the founders, to protect us from just such criminal behavior, but that will evaporate, if we allow this final act to reach its designated conclusion. If the multinationals get their way, there will be an amoral tidal wave that seeks the literal ownership of everything, at the expense of every private person still alive. Because ethics, religion and morality are obsolete under the new paradigm of corporate-think.
The multinational corporate goal is to eventually take control of all resources, all the space, the light, the air and the water – that’s every square inch of the planet – just to sell it. This is all the easier for them, because human rules don’t apply to them. People have to be responsible for their personal waste and greed, as well as for spin-offs from what they do to earn a living. Not so the corporation. Corporate structure is amoral, as it recognizes no limitation on the companies need to earn those profits.
What about these ill-gotten profits? They will simply line the vaults of the legal construct of their corporations, until they’re needed to destabilize or seize another entity. Their officers will become our defacto political leaders—and their workers will have made this all possible, because they just wanted to keep their jobs. To the corporation: all resources, whether natural or man-made will be available for marketing and development according to plan. Anything that does not serve the corporate interest will be bought off, acquired, or destroyed. It is to these ends, that the recent wars were declared, so that the governments of the world would be reduced and their national powers mitigated.
The US government is now only the enforcement arm for corporate greed and private profits, in service to their favorites in the running. The unstated goal for at least 50 years has been total dominance over all materials and resources, to achieve absolute global power—absolutely.
However all is not going well in multinational paradise. People the world over are beginning to wake up. In India people rose in opposition to genetically engineered seeds, and Indians reclaimed their right to choose. In Cochabamba, Bolivia, the people rioted and overwhelmingly rejected the takeover of their water supply by foreigners. In the end, they drove out the multinationals. http://www.marxist.com/Latina...
Depending on our complicity or rejection, of the hostile takeover bid here, we will either follow the example of the third world and reclaim what is ours: or we will soon no longer be able to resist them. The US government really is just us—and we’ve left it to the scavengers of industry that have picked that carcass nearly clean of all resolve. We could change this, but only if we take back the basics of this nation to ourselves:
[b][u]From The US Declaration of Independence[/u][/b]
"[i]That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed,
-- That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, It is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, Laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness."
"But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.[/i]"
Still have doubts? Find a way to see the film, “The Corporation” and then decide.
[b]Source:[/b]
Project for the Old American Century, http://www.oldamericancentury...
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| So Much For The City On A Hill ... |
| 08.16.04 (6:52 am) [edit] |
[b]PASS IT ON [/b]
“Iraq under the Bush administration is the worst advertisement for democracy in the history of the world.”
—Middle East expert and University of Michigan history professor Juan Cole, http://www.juancole.com/2004_... , Aug. 12, 2004.
[b]Kerry and Bush on Iraq War[/b]
Bush asked Kerry if he would still have voted for the Iraq War if he had known in fall of 2002 everything he knows now about the non-existence of weapons of mass destruction.
Kerry said "yes," but that he would have handled things differently from Bush, giving the weapons inspectors more time to do their jobs and involving the international community, so that the US did not have to go it alone.
Read the entire account on http://www.juancole.com/2004_...
[b]"We the People" have yet to come to grips with the horrendous consequences of the corrupt and incompetent Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]disastrous War Crimes in Iraq ... [/b]The traitorous Bushies lied us into their illegal and immoral war and we will be paying a heavy burden in lives and treasure for generations to come ... Moreover, our reputation in the world community is severely damaged, perhaps irreparably and we must install a new team at the White House in order to establish a positive change of direction ... Please vote for John F. Kerry for President of the United States of America on 2nd November ...
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| MEDIA METER: 10 of the Top Least Reported Stories of the Week ... |
| 08.15.04 (7:25 am) [edit] |
[b]Less than 3 months are left until the upcoming presidential election, the most important election of our generation, for it will change forever the face of America. Our right-wing corporate-owned media has failed us. "We the People" would be wise to research every possible source of news that is not biased towards this corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] in order to learn the truth of the damage and destruction that this corrupt neo-con cabal of fascists, traitors, war-mongers and crooks are perpetrating upon our nation and around the world ...[/b]
Anyone who routinely scans multiple sources for news, taking in AFP, BBC, Al Jazeera, the Guardian, US Newswire, and other non-Bush-controlled sources will quickly begin to see the gaping holes in US corporate media coverage. Not only do these holes tend to be uniformly in the interests of G.W. Bush and his campaign, they are systematic: it is rare to find one of the members of the US media cartel breaking ranks and giving prominent coverage (as in not buried on page A22 or C12), to a story suppressed by the others. There are laws against price-fixing - a practice acknowledged by all as fraud. So why aren't there laws against "news fixing?" It, too, is fraud.
[b]10 of the Most Important Stories the US Media Failed to Report to the American People this Week (August 8-15)[/b]
1. The Colossally Expensive Transport of 3,600 troops from Korea to Iraq
http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200408/k t2004081217352111990.htm" title="http://times.hankooki.com/lpage/nation/200408/k t2004081217352111990.htm" target="_blank"http://times.hankooki.com/lpa...
2. 35 Senators Unite to Protest Bush Overturn of Wetland Protections that has resulting in the Draining of Thousands of Acres by Developers
www.commondreams.org/news2004/0809-06.htm
3. Coalition of Evangelical and Moderate Religious Leaders Condemn Bush Campaign's Misuse of Church Directories
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=110-08132004" title="http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=110-08132004" target="_blank"http://releases.usnewswire.co...
4. Foreign Fighters Flooding into Iraq are Ex-Patriot Iraqis returning from the West, not Iranians
www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0, 3604,1280467,00.html
5. Nearly All of Bush's Recess Appointments were political payoffs
www.commondreams.org/news2004/0809-06.htm
6. The US Army's attempt to block the showing of Fahrenheit 9/11 at 160 bases
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/14/co ntent_1783198.htm" title="http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-08/14/co ntent_1783198.htm" target="_blank"http://news.xinhuanet.com/eng...
7. Launch of a major international movement against media corruption
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=139-08132004" title="http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=139-08132004" target="_blank"http://releases.usnewswire.co...
8. Bush Offers Native Americans 'Home ownership" promise that may be a Trojan Horse
www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=B56DA9E1-309 6-43C2-98685C949FC79A64 and www.unknownnews.net/fanniefreddie.html
9. Bush Administration Slashes Medicare Funding for Wheelchairs
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=109-08132004" title="http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=109-08132004" target="_blank"http://releases.usnewswire.co...
10. Bush Campaign's use of merchandise made by foreign sweatshop labor
http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=124-08132004" title="http://releases.usnewswire.com/GetRelease.asp?id=124-08132004" target="_blank"http://releases.usnewswire.co...
[b]Sampling of Ongoing Stories Suppressed EVERY Week[/b]:
. The truth about Kerry's Military Service: Media interviews "Swift boat vets" who never served with Kerry, but never a REAL Swift Boat Vet who actually DID!
http://www.notsoswiftvets.com" title="http://www.notsoswiftvets.com" target="_blank"http://www.notsoswiftvets.com...
. Halliburton corruption cases and why the Pentagon is still doling out billion-dollar contracts to the company
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3799635.stm" title="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3799635.stm" target="_blank"http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/bu...
. Cheney's Role in Halliburton fraud - a story systematically killed since 2001
http://www.uspoliticstoday.com/news/CheneyHalliburto n" title="http://www.uspoliticstoday.com/news/CheneyHalliburto n" target="_blank"http://www.uspoliticstoday.co... and http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/wo...
. The systematic distortion of truth by the RNC, rightwing radio hosts and columnists - including manipulation of audio tapes
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=138711" title="http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=138711" target="_blank"http://www.americanprogress.o... and http://slate.msn.com/id/21050...
. Number of Severe injuries to Soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan is steadily climbing - now nearing 7,000
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_o ur_own_correspondent/3562 470.stm" title="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/from_o ur_own_correspondent/3562 470.stm" target="_blank"http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/pr...
. Number of Iraqis being killed in conflict each Month: 500;
Total Number of Iraqis killed in Initial action (March to April 2003: 11,500-13,000
Total number of Iraqis killed since March 2003: 18,000-20,000
Total Number of Iraqis seriously injured: 20,000
http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-2-2046 .jsp" title="http://www.opendemocracy.net/themes/article-2-2046 .jsp" target="_blank"http://www.opendemocracy.net/...
. One in 43 Americans is Barred from Voting due to Unconstitutional laws
http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0812-04.htm" title="http://www.commondreams.org/news2004/0812-04.htm" target="_blank"http://www.commondreams.org/n...
. Bush's Cowardly Evasion of Duty during Vietnam War
http://www.glcq.com/bush_at_arpc1.htm" title="http://www.glcq.com/bush_at_arpc1.htm" target="_blank"http://www.glcq.com/bush_at_a...
. How Fannie Mae Used dreams of home ownership in get-rich scheme
www.unknownnews.net/fanniefreddie.html
http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=23072" title="http://www.democrats.com/view.cfm?id=23072" target="_blank"http://www.democrats.com/view...
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| Kerry's True Positions - and the Fraudulent Technique the RNC [and Media] Use to Distort Them ... |
| 08.14.04 (12:35 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" must become tougher and more clever at spotting the mendacious Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] neo-orwellian mis-representations of John F. Kerry's positions on issues ... It is clear that since Kerry has started to gain momentum in the polls, that an ugly, nasty "gloves-off" campaign by Bush's gutter neo-con neo-fascists has been ignited that involves smearing Kerry with gross fabrications, bold-faced lies, dishonorable deceptions and vile falsehoods-- Apparently these dirty neo-hitlerian tactics are the only way that Bush/Cheney Inc. are able to get their way ... Let's make sure that we don't fall for their neo-con-game and ergo, it will eventually backfire!!! ...[/b]
William Saletan writes "Does Kerry now agree with Bush's decision? Would Kerry have gone into Iraq? Would he have voted to give Bush the authorization had Kerry known what he now knows about the absence of WMD and about how Bush would use the authorization?" No, says Saletan. Yet the RNC, using the same fraudulent tactics as Sean Hannity, Bill O'Reilly, et al, has compliled doctored clips of Kerry's statement - yielding the very soundbytes the media then uses. Ex: Kerry: '"I agree completely with this administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq." He calls Saddam a "renegade" who has betrayed the terms of his 1991 cease-fire. However, the RNC omits Kerry's next two sentences: "But the Administration's rhetoric has far exceeded their plans or their groundwork. In fact, their single-mindedness, secrecy, and high-blown rhetoric has alienated our allies and threatened to unravel the stability of the region." Saletan presents other examples as well of this fraud.
[b]Would Kerry Vote Today for the Iraq War?
[i]No.[/i]
By William Saletan[/b]
Last Friday, President Bush challenged http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... Sen. John Kerry: "My opponent hasn't answered the question of whether, knowing what we know now, he would have supported going into Iraq." On Monday, pressed by a reporter to answer Bush, Kerry said, http://www.washingtonpost.com... "Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it was the right authority for a president to have."
Bush argues that this is yet another Kerry flip-flop and that Kerry now endorses Bush's war. At a campaign rally on Tuesday, Bush asserted http://www.whitehouse.gov/new... ,
... "[i]My opponent has found a new nuance. He now agrees it was the right decision to go into Iraq. After months of questioning my motives and even my credibility, Senator Kerry now agrees with me that even though we have not found the stockpile of weapons we believed were there, knowing everything we know today, he would have voted to go into Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power[/i]." ...
Does Kerry now agree with Bush's decision? Would Kerry have gone into Iraq? Would he have voted to give Bush the authorization had Kerry known what he now knows about the absence of WMD and about how Bush would use the authorization?
The answer, if you look closely at Kerry's statements over the past three years, is no. But Kerry refuses to make this clear, http://www.johnkerry.com/pres... so let's go to the videotape—specifically, a 12-minute videotape of Kerry's statements, compiled by the Republican National Committee and posted on the Web http://www.kerryoniraq.com/ . These statements, in the RNC's judgment, make the strongest case that Kerry has flip-flopped on Iraq.
The first significant clip shows Kerry on[i] The O'Reilly Factor [/i]on Dec. 11, 2001. "We ought to put the heat on Saddam Hussein," he says. Kerry adds that when U.N. weapons inspector Richard Butler provided evidence that inspections should continue, "I criticized the Clinton administration for backing off of the inspections."
Summary: Kerry wants pressure and inspections.
The next significant clip shows Kerry on [i]Hardball[/i] on Feb. 5, 2002. The host, Chris Matthews, asks Kerry whether Iraq "can be reduced to a diplomatic problem—can we get this guy to accept inspections of those weapons of mass destruction potentially and get past a possible war with him?" Kerry answers: "Outside chance, Chris. Could it be done? The answer is yes. He would view himself only as buying time and playing a game, in my judgment. Do we have to go through that process? The answer is yes."
Summary: Kerry doubts Iraq would comply with inspections, but he thinks we have to go through the process of trying.
The next significant quote comes from Kerry's speech to the Democratic Leadership Council on July 29, 2002. "I agree completely with this administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq," Kerry says. He calls Saddam a "renegade" who has betrayed the terms of his 1991 cease-fire. However, the RNC omits Kerry's next two sentences: http://www.ndol.org/ndol_ci.c... "But the Administration's rhetoric has far exceeded their plans or their groundwork. In fact, their single-mindedness, secrecy, and high-blown rhetoric has alienated our allies and threatened to unravel the stability of the region."
Summary: Kerry agrees that regime change is a "goal." He doesn't clarify how he would pursue it. The part edited out by the RNC suggests that Kerry doesn't like the way Bush is pursuing the goal, particularly because it "alienated our allies."
The video then shows Kerry speaking at a Democratic presidential primary debate in South Carolina on May 3, 2003. Kerry tells moderator George Stephanopoulos, "I said at the time I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity. But I think it was the right decision to disarm Saddam Hussein. And when the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm [Saddam]."
Stephanopoulos' question, http://www.washingtonpost.com...¬Found=true edited out of the video, was, "On March 19, President Bush ordered Gen. Tommy Franks to execute the invasion of Iraq. Was that the right decision at the right time?" Kerry takes the question in two parts: No to the timing ("I would have preferred if we had given diplomacy a greater opportunity"), yes to the "decision to disarm." But in his final sentence, Kerry conveys that his agreement with Bush on the decision is more important than their disagreement on the timing: "When the president made the decision, I supported him, and I support the fact that we did disarm [Saddam]."
This appears to be the first time Kerry endorses the war as Bush conducted it.
It also appears to be the last. The next clip in the RNC video shows Kerry on [i]Meet the Press [/i]on Aug. 31, 2003. "In the resolution that we passed, we did not empower the president to do regime change," says http://msnbc.msn.com/id/30802... Kerry. That's consistent with Kerry's previous statements calling for "heat," "inspections," "process," and cooperation with "allies."
The video shows Kerry announcing his presidential candidacy http://www.boston.com/news/po... on Sept. 2, 2003. "I voted to threaten the use of force to make Saddam Hussein comply with the resolutions of the United Nations," he says. The video omits Kerry's next sentence: "I believe that was right, but it was wrong to rush to war without building a true international coalition and with no plan to win the peace."
No conflict here. Kerry thinks he was voting to turn up the heat and get compliance with inspections. He thinks Bush betrayed two of Kerry's principles: process and allies.
The video shows Kerry on ABC's [i]This Week [/i]on Oct. 12, 2003. The administration "rushed to war," Kerry complains. "They did not give legitimacy to the inspections. We could have still been doing inspections even today."
This is a telling remark. Take Kerry's stated principles: inspections, process, allies. Apply these to the trends of the winter of 2002-03: restored inspections and grudging Iraqi concessions. Combine the principles and the trend with the evidence we have today that Iraq's WMD programs had disintegrated. The most plausible conclusion is that if Kerry were president, we would still be doing inspections, as he suggests.
The video shows Kerry again on [i]Hardball[/i] on Jan. 6, 2004. Chris Matthews asks him, "Are you one of the antiwar candidates?" "I am, yeah—" says Kerry. The video cuts off the rest of the sentence, which continues: "in the sense that I don't believe the president took us to war as he should have, yes, absolutely."
This is classic Kerry: emphasizing the right half of his position when it's convenient, then the left half when that's more convenient. But it isn't a change of position.
At this point, the video takes us back to Kerry's appearance on [i]This Week [/i]on Feb. 22, 1998, when Saddam was harassing U.N. weapons inspectors. "We have to be prepared to go the full distance" to disrupt Saddam's regime, Kerry says. Cokie Roberts asks him, "Does that mean ground troops in Iraq?" Kerry replies, "I'm personally prepared, if that's what it meant." The RNC deletes the next seven sentences, so that Kerry's next words appear to be, "He can rebuild both chemical and biological, and every indication is because of his deception and duplicity in the past, he will seek to do that. So we will not eliminate the problem for ourselves or for the rest of the world with a bombing attack."
Sounds like a call for war. But let's read the whole quote, including the part the RNC left out:
... "[i]I am personally prepared, if that's what it meant. I don't think you have to start there. I think there are a number of other options. But what I hear from the administration, thus far, is if he doesn't comply, then we will hit him. The obvious question is, after you've hit him, have you opened up your inspections? Well, I think the answer is probably not, certainly not in the near term. After you've hit him, is he still in power, capable of building weapons again? Every bit of intelligence John [McCain] and I have says within various periods of time, he can rebuild both chemical and biological, and every indication is because of his deception and duplicity in the past, he will seek to do that. So we will not eliminate the problem for ourselves or for the rest of the world with a bombing attack[/i]." ...
This is the same position Kerry has stated all along: compliance, inspections, skepticism, process. He says we shouldn't start with an invasion. He rejects bombing not because it will fail to change the regime, but because it will fail to restore inspections. And look at the sentence the RNC cut in half, about Saddam having the ability to rebuild the chemical and biological weapons programs he had lost in the early 1990s. Notice what the RNC removed: Kerry's attribution of that assessment to the "intelligence" he had been shown.
If the basis of Kerry's concern about Iraqi WMD was the intelligence, and the intelligence turns out to be mistaken, does this change Kerry's view of the war?
That's the focus of the video's final clip. It shows Kerry's on 60 Minutes a month ago. Lesley Stahl tells him: "You voted for this war. Was that vote, given what you know now, a mistake?" Kerry answers: "What I voted for—Lesley, you see, you're playing here. What I voted for was an authority for the president to go to war as a last resort if Saddam Hussein did not disarm and we needed to go to war." Stahl persists, "But I'm trying to find out if you today, now that you know about [the absence of WMD], think the war was a mistake?" Kerry stonewalls, "I think I answered your question. I think the way he went to war was a mistake."
Kerry sticks to his position. He doesn't answer Stahl's question. But this time, somebody who can speak English is sitting next to Kerry: John Edwards. Seconds after the RNC cuts away from the interview, Edwards steps in to rescue his running mate.
[b]Edwards:[/b] I'm going to finish this. The difference is, if John Kerry were president of the United States, we would never be in this place. He would never have done what George Bush did. He would have done the hard work to build the alliances and the support system. …
[b]Stahl:[/b] Why build an alliance if they didn't have weapons of mass destruction?
[b]Edwards:[/b] We would have found out.
[b]Kerry:[/b] That is it.
[b]Edwards and Kerry (in unison): [/b]That's the point.
[b]Kerry:[/b] That is exactly the point.
There you have it. Edwards says if Kerry had been president, we would have found out Iraq had no WMD, and "we would never be in this place." Kerry emphatically agrees with this translation. It makes pretty clear that given Kerry's principles, and given what we now know about the absence of WMD, Kerry wouldn't have gone to war.
Last Thursday, Kerry gave the RNC more comic material. He told http://cnnstudentnews.cnn.com... a conference of minority journalists,
... "[i]I voted to hold Saddam Hussein accountable, because had I been president, I would have wanted that authority, because that was the way to enforce the U.N. resolutions and be tough with the prospect of his development of weapons of mass destruction. … Now, might we have wound up going to war with Saddam Hussein? You bet we might have—after we exhausted those remedies and found that he wasn't complying, and so on and so forth. But not in a way that provides, you know, 90 percent of the casualties are American, and almost all of the cost[/i]." ...
This is the kind of endless, backside-covering nuance that earned Kerry two months of "Kerryisms" in[i] Slate[/i]. But it doesn't change his position: United Nations, WMD, compliance, process. And it includes a very important phrase: "Because had I been president, I would have wanted that authority."
Only when you remember that phrase does the meaning of Kerry's statement on Monday become clear. When Kerry says he would have voted for war authority because "it was the right authority for a president to have," the president he's thinking of—"a president," as he puts it—isn't Bush. It's himself.
So the question that now needs to be put to Kerry is this one: "Knowing what you know now—not only about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, but also about the way President Bush would use the authority given to him by that resolution—would you still have voted to give him that authority?" Good luck getting him to answer it.
[b]William Saletan is Slate's chief political correspondent and author of[i] Bearing Right: How Conservatives Won the Abortion War[/i][/b]. - http://slate.msn.com/id/21050...
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| Emerging “Surveillance-Industrial Complex” Is Turbo-Charging Government Monitoring ... |
| 08.14.04 (6:44 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be alarmed and outraged at the neo-fascist direction that the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]is wantonly driving our nation ([i]off a cliff[/i]) ... It is[i] not hard [/i]to "connect-the-dots" if we study the time-line of the traitorous Bush regime's neo-fascist rape of American ([i]and other peoples[/i]) precious lives, resources and (US) treasure, with their reckless deficit spending at dangerously record-level highs, joblessness, lack of health care and inflation rising, etc.; their ruthless plans for illegal and immoral neo-con warfare in the Middle East to grab oil continue unabatted; and, their criminal [i]cover-up after cover-up [/i]of their secretive swindles, embezzlements and collusions with corporations, wealthy foreign dictatorships & terrorists, and plutocrats disloyal to America -- [i]all [/i]are having a seriously detrimental and harmful effect upon our economy, our relationships with other countries around the world and our nation's spirit and well-being ... So what are they doing in order to keep us under control, silence and intimidate us??? ...
A Warning From the ACLU: Emerging “Surveillance-Industria l Complex” Is Turbo-Charging Government Monitoring[/b]
A new report by the American Civil Liberties Union has found the government is rapidly increasing its ability to monitor average Americans by tapping into the growing amount of consumer data being collected by the private sector. [includes rush transcript: http://www.democracynow.org/a... ]
The report is titled, “Surveillance-Industria l Complex: How The American Government is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society” on http://www.aclu.org/SafeandFr...
Read the transcript [i]and/or [/i]listen to the interview between Amy Goodman and Barry Steinhardt, Director of the ACLU’s Technology and Liberty Program on [i]DemocracyNow[/i] on http://www.democracynow.org/a...
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| ... Is Bush in Trouble??? ... |
| 08.13.04 (3:33 pm) [edit] |
[b]"New poll numbers show the President slipping in some key battleground states" is the [i]lede[/i] of a new story in [i]Time magazine[/i] http://www.time.com/time/elec...,18471,681609,00.html ... Also recently, all of the major Electoral College polls show that Kerry leads Bush ... Check-out [i]USA Map of Kerry/Bush votes [/i]on http://www.tblog.com/template... [/b] ...
"We the People" must be prepared for a very close election and we must exercise our right and do our duty as responsible citizens and [i] vote [/i]... Our[i] vote [/i]is critical, perhaps never more so than at this perilous time, and we should do everything we can to encourage our fellow Americans to [i]vote[/i] for a course change to elect John F. Kerry as the next President of the United States of America ...
Currently John F. Kerry Has A 6% Lead Over Bush In Florida http://www.tblog.com/template... ... and Kerry opens poll leads over Bush in several key states http://www.sacbee.com/24hour/... ... The raw data across a large array of polls does not bode well for Bush http://www.tblog.com/template... ...
[b]Thus, is Bush in trouble???[/b]
For the past month the Bush campaign has been saying that the President would roll out his second term agenda in the final few weeks before the Republican convention in New York. But if you’ve watched George Bush on the campaign trail this week, his message seems unchanged, focusing mainly on which candidate will keep America safer.
The campaign unveiled a new ad on Wednesday in which the President invokes September 11th and promises to protect the nation, the third spot in two weeks to focus on terrorism. Bush spent much of his time on the stump this week mocking Kerry’s position on the war in Iraq. And Dick Cheney unleashed an even stronger attack, latching on to Kerry’s promise to "fight a more effective, more thoughtful, more strategic, more proactive, more sensitive war on terror that reaches out to other nations." Cheney replied, “A sensitive war will not destroy the evil men who killed 3,000 Americans and who seek the chemical, nuclear and biological weapons to kill hundreds of thousands more.”
It’s a biting remark, but not as biting as the political reality the President now faces. If the election were held today, there’s a good chance George W. Bush would not be reelected. And if he doesn’t change the course of his campaign or dramatic news events don’t change the race, he’s not going to be reelected in November. Certainly the polls still show a close race. Most say Kerry has the lead, a few give it to Bush, but all put it within the margin of error. And Kerry gained only a small bump in the national polls from his convention. But that’s because conventions usually rally the party faithful around their nominee, and Bush, with some help from Howard Dean, united the Democrats months ago. The President really means it when he says he’s a uniter.
What has to be far more disturbing to the staff at Bush-Cheney ‘04 headquarters is the most recent round of polls from key battleground states. They show Kerry gaining ground in some of the states most crucial for Bush. The latest poll in Florida, where Bush was ahead before the convention, gives Kerry a six point lead. West Virginia is leaning toward Kerry. A New Hampshire poll shows Kerry ahead by seven points. All three states voted for Bush in 2000.
As for those close national polls, there are some strong signs that Bush will not pick up many votes from the small sliver of undecided Americans. Nonpartisan political guru Charlie Cook recently analyzed a series of AP polls from April to August and found that while 56% of surveyed voters believe the country is on the wrong track, 74% of undecided voters think that’s the case.
Dramatic news events could change the dynamics of the race, but this week’s headlines — a disappointing jobs report and heavy fighting in Najaf — aren’t helping Bush. Cultural issues, like New Jersey Governor James McGreavy’s dramatic coming-out and the fight over gay marriage could energize some voters, and possibly change the results in Ohio, which has a gay marriage ban amendment on the election day ballot, but it’s unlikely to overshadow war and the economy nationwide.
All of this puts Bush in a bit of a campaign straitjacket. To take the reins of his reelection, he needs to put forward a bold second-term agenda, offering something akin to the compassionate conservative message he stressed in 2000. But the economy and the war make it hard for him to change the public’s focus, and the deficit puts him in a fiscal straightjacket when it comes to bold new programs. He has been hinting at his proposals for creating an “ownership society”, but cracking down on lawsuits or allowing voters to tuck away more cash in Medical Savings Accounts is not going to set the electorate on fire.
Bush continues to run against John Kerry, rather than for reelection. It might work. Kerry certainly has shown the ability to dig himself into a verbal hole with statements like “I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it.” But unless the President rolls out a few surprises at his convention, he is in trouble. - http://www.time.com/time/elec...,18471,681609,00.html
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| It's Time For Them To Go: Rumsfeld and Bush Failed Us on Sept. 11 ... |
| 08.13.04 (11:34 am) [edit] |
[b]How many among[i] us [/i]would[i] keep [/i]our jobs if we [i]failed[/i] as miserably as have Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld and their neo-con cabal of neo-fascist thugs, goons, incompetents, liars and crooks??? ...[i] Not many of us, I assure you [/i]...[/b] "We the People" are the [i]employers [/i]of these public servants, [i]our employees[/i], and it is time to demand their removal from office!!! ... It is not only their unforgivable failures concerning 9/11 that should outrage us, but also their illegal and immoral neo-con war (unconscionably waged based upon traitorous lies, deceptions and falsehoods) upon Iraq that was badly mismanaged costing the precious lives of nearly 1000 US Soldiers and hundreds of billions of US taxpayer dollars, as well squandering the good-will of other nations & besmirching our reputation; their reckless fiscal & economic malfeasance; and, their gross neglience with respect to their ruthless neglect of the needs of our nation and the well-being of our citizens ...
[u][b]Rumsfeld and Bush Failed Us on Sept. 11[/b][/u]
Donald Rumsfeld, one of the chief opponents of investing real power over purse and personnel in a new national intelligence chief, told the 9/11 commission that an intelligence czar would do the nation "a great disservice." It is fair to ask what kind of service Rumsfeld provided on the day the nation was under catastrophic attack.
"Two planes hitting the twin towers did not rise to the level of Rumsfeld's leaving his office and going to the War Room? How can that be?" asked Mindy Kleinberg, one of the widows known as the Jersey Girls, whose efforts helped create and guide the 9/11 commission. The fact that the final report failed to offer an explanation is one of the infuriating holes in an otherwise praiseworthy accounting.
Rumsfeld was missing in action that morning — "out of the loop" by his own admission. The lead military officer that day, Brig. Gen. Montague Winfield, told the commission that the Pentagon's command center had been essentially leaderless: "For 30 minutes we couldn't find" Rumsfeld.
For more than two hours after the Federal Aviation Administration became aware that the first plane had been violently overtaken by Middle Eastern men, the man whose job it was to order air cover over Washington did not show up in the Pentagon's command center. It took him almost two hours to "gain situational awareness," he told the commission. He didn't speak to the vice president until 10:39 a.m., according to the report. Since that was more than 30 minutes after the last hijacked plane crashed, it would seem to be an admission of dereliction of duty.
Rumsfeld's testimony before the commission last March was bizarre. Asked point-blank by Commissioner Jamie Gorelick what he had done to protect the nation — or even the Pentagon — during the "summer of threat" preceding the attacks, Rumsfeld replied simply that "it was a law enforcement issue." That obfuscation — was the FBI expected to be out on the Beltway with shoulder-launched missiles? — has been accepted at face value by the commission and media.
Rumsfeld is in charge of NORAD, which has the specific mission of protecting the United States and Canada by responding to any form of air attack. The official chain of command in the event of a hijacking calls for the president to empower the secretary of Defense to send up a military escort and, if necessary, give shoot-down orders.
Yet President Bush told the panel he spoke to Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10 a.m. — 23 minutes after the Pentagon was hit and moments before the last plane went down. It was, says the report, "a brief call in which the subject of shoot-down authority was not discussed."
As a result, NORAD's commanders were left in the dark about what their mission was. When fighters were told to scramble from Langley, Va., they were sent not to cover Washington but on a fool's mission to tail and identify American Airlines Flight 11, which was already boiling the first Trade Center tower to the ground.
Why wasn't Rumsfeld able to see on TV what millions of civilians already knew? After the Pentagon was attacked, why did he run outside to play medic instead of moving to the command center and taking charge? The 9/11 report records the fatal confusion in which command center personnel were left: Three minutes after the FAA command center told FAA headquarters in an update that Flight 93 was 29 minutes out of Washington, D.C., the command center said, "Uh, do we want to, uh, think about scrambling aircraft?"
FAA headquarters: "Oh, God, I don't know."
Command center: "Uh, that's a decision somebody's going to have to make probably in the next 10 minutes."
But nobody did. Three minutes later, Flight 93 was wrestled to the ground by heroic civilians.
How is it that civilians in a hijacked plane were able to communicate with their loved ones, grasp a totally new kind of enemy and weaponry and act to defend the nation's Capitol, yet the president had "communication problems" on Air Force One and the nation's defense chief didn't know what was going on until the horror was all over?
The failures of 9/11 were not inherent in the system; they were human failures. Yet, so far, no one has been fired, which leaves the 9/11 families — and all of us — in a conundrum.
The inaction of both the president and the Defense chief under the ultimate test offer little reassurance to a nervous nation under the shadow of new terror warnings. Before we attempt to revamp the entire security system, shouldn't our government look first at why the people in charge failed to communicate or coordinate a response to the catastrophe?
[b]Gail Sheehy reported on the 9/11 commission's findings for Mother Jones. She is the author of "Middletown, America: One Town's Passage From Trauma to Hope" (Random House, 2003). [/b] - http://www.commondreams.org/v...
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| Special Interest Takeover by the Bush Regime and the Dismantling of Public Safeguards |
| 08.13.04 (10:07 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are being placed in dangerous jeopardy by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]...[/b]
Special interests have launched a sweeping assault on protections for public health, safety, the environment, and corporate responsibility – and unfortunately the Bush administration has given way. Crucial safeguards have been swept aside or watered down; emerging problems are being ignored; and enforcement efforts have been curtailed, threatening to render existing standards meaningless.
This agenda puts special interests above the public interest, sacrificing a safer, healthier, more just America at the behest of industry lobbyists, corporate campaign contributors, and professional ideologues – many of whom the president has appointed to "regulate" the very interests they used to represent.
Over the last 30 years, we have made significant progress through strong public safeguards. Our air and water are cleaner, our food, workplaces, and roads are safer, and corporations and government are more open and accountable to the public. These protections have saved thousands upon thousands of lives and improved the quality of life for all Americans – without hobbling industry or the economy.
Nonetheless, significant problems remain. Every year, more than 40,000 people die on our nation's highways. Foodborne illnesses kill an estimated 7,000 and sicken 76 million. Nearly 6,000 workers die as a result of injury on the job, with an additional 50,000 to 60,000 killed by occupational disease. And asthma – linked to air pollution – is rising dramatically, afflicting 17 million, including six million children.
We should address these problems by building on past successes. Instead, the Bush administration has reversed course. [u]For complete details, please continue[/u]: http://www.americanprogress.o... .
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| John F. Kerry Has A 6% Lead Over Bush In Florida ... |
| 08.12.04 (3:12 pm) [edit] |
"Kerry and Edwards had the backing of 47%, Bush and Cheney had the support of 41% and independent Ralph Nader and his running mate Peter Camejo had 4% in the Quinnipiac University poll. Bush and Kerry were deadlocked in Florida at 43% each in a Quinnipiac poll in late June. The August poll found Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother, getting tepid reviews from Floridians. They were evenly split on whether they approve or disapprove of the job the second-term governor is doing. The survey also found fewer than half, 47%, were 'very confident' that their vote would count. Only one in five said the same about new touch-screen voting machines that will be used this year in 15 of the state's largest counties."
Kerry also has the lead over Bush in all of the major electoral college polls ... Refer to "Electoral College Predictions: Kerry Leads Bush in All The Major Polls" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...
"We the People" should watch-out for an [i]October Surprise[/i] http://www.octobersurprise.ne... that may be a terrorist attack upon America; another Middle East war (Iran?); and/or election-rigging, by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] who will most probably try to pull some heinous act of treason to steal the election as they did in their vile banana republican coup d'etat in 2000 ...
[u][b]Kerry Takes Lead Over Bush in Florida[/b][/u]
Democrat John Kerry has taken a slight lead over President Bush in Florida — the essential swing state in the 2000 election, according to a poll out Thursday.
Kerry and running mate John Edwards had the backing of 47 percent, Bush and Vice President Cheney had the support of 41 percent and independent Ralph Nader and his running mate Peter Camejo had 4 percent in the Quinnipiac University poll.
Bush and Kerry were deadlocked in Florida at 43 percent each in a Quinnipiac poll in late June.
The August poll found Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, the president's younger brother, getting tepid reviews from Floridians. They were evenly split on whether they approve or disapprove of the job the second-term governor is doing.
The survey also found fewer than half, 47 percent, were "very confident" that their vote would count. Only one in five said the same about new touch-screen voting machines that will be used this year in 15 of the state's largest counties.
Bush's 537-vote edge in Florida in 2000 gave him the presidency over Democrat Al Gore after a fierce political struggle that included recounts, lawsuits and a final decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in favor of Bush.
Florida since has spent more than $32 million on improvements in equipment and voter education, but machine malfunctions in subsequent elections and the removal of one county supervisor for incompetence has contributed to voter uncertainty.
The poll of 1,094 registered voters was taken Aug. 5-10 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points. - http://story.news.yahoo.com/n...
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| "Mission Far From Accomplished!":-- Major Combat Still Not Over 469 Days Later ... |
| 08.12.04 (9:02 am) [edit] |
"Major combat operations in Iraq have ended." - President George Bush, 5/1/03, http://www.state.gov/p/nea/rl...
[i]VERSUS[/i]
"Major operations...have begun." - U.S. Marine Maj. David Holahan, 8/12/04, http://www.latimes.com/news/y...,1,4065625.story
[b]Over 469 days after Dubya dressed-up in his Top-Gun Halloween costume and pranced around the USS Abraham Lincoln like an idiotic clown [i]smirkin' and crowin'[/i] that "major combat operations are over", more than 790 US Soldiers (a grand total of nearly 1000) have been massacred along with tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians and the US taxpayers (not the rich like Bush/Cheney who awarded themselves massive tax boondoggles) have been swindled out of over $127 Billion (at least $2 Billion of which has gone missing 'cause Cheney's Halliburton robber-barons have embezzled it) squandered on their illegal and immoral neo-con war in Iraq ...[/b]
"We the People" should be prepared to call this bloody neo-fascist fiasco in Iraq by it's proper name:-- the traitorous Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]miserable and tragic failure (that the rest of us are forced to pay-off with our blood, sweat and tears while the corrupt Bushies steal the US taxpayer's money and run) ...
[u][b]Major Combat Operations Continue[/b][/u]
More than 15 months after President Bush triumphantly declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," the U.S. is leading "major operations" in Najaf. It is part of an effort led by U.S. troops "to crush an uprising led by cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, whose fighters have been battling U.S. troops in Shiite strongholds across Iraq for a week." The operation is particularly sensitive it is centered in the city of Najaf, home of the "revered Imam Ali shrine and its vast cemetery." The new offensive risks "enraging Iraq's Shiite majority – including those who do not support the uprising – if it targets the shrine, where many of the insurgents have taken refuge." Already, operations by U.S. forces in Najaf have "ignit[ed] mass street protests in at least two other cities." For those concerned about the administration's failure to locate WMD, obtain more assistance from international troops or stabilize Iraq, Bush offered this assurance: "I know what I'm doing when it comes to winning this war."
[b]NO EASY VICTORY IN NAJAF:[/b] There are no clear solutions to resolve the revolt in Najaf led by al-Sadr. The Christian Science Monitor explains if al-Sadr "is killed while fighting in such a holy site, he would become a martyr, drawing thousands of Shiites to his cause. If American and Iraqi forces pull back from a final assault on Najaf - and indeed, intense negotiations have been conducted since the beginning - and create another truce with Sadr, Sadr may be seen by many as a man who stood up to the Americans."
[b]TEXAS NATIONAL GUARD SHIPPING OUT:[/b] The San Antonio Express News reports that in "the largest combat mobilization of Texas Army National Guard troops since World War II, about 3,000 soldiers are bound for Iraq." The soldiers will be required to remain in Iraq for up to two years. Across the country, "about 102,000 reservists, or 29 percent of all guard troops, are now mobilized." While the call-up has been expected in recent weeks, "the advance notice didn't keep tears from flowing over the prospect of loved ones being separated by the 17-month-old war that continues to claim lives long after major combat operations were deemed over."
[b]MEDIA LOSES INTEREST IN IRAQ:[/b] Distressingly, "until the recent flare-up in Najaf, Iraq had faded from the front pages." The paucity of coverage in the six weeks since sovereignty was handed over to Iraq has occurred even as "the country has been gripped in escalating violence, forcing some coalition countries and private contractors to flee for safety." As a result of the instability, "Iraq's national conference – critical to the eventual implementation of free elections – has been postponed." Nevertheless, there has been far more attention to Martha Stewart, Laci Peterson and Kobe Bryant.
[b]THE POST'S MEA CULPA:[/b] The Washington Post prints a long self-critique today of its coverage leading up to the Iraq war that acknowledges the paper was hesitant to print pieces that didn't mesh with the Bush administration's message or agenda. According to Post Pentagon correspondent Thomas Ricks, "Administration assertions were on the front page. Things that challenged the administration were on A18 on Sunday or A24 on Monday. There was an attitude among editors: Look, we're going to war, why even worry about all this contrary stuff." The Post's Executive Editor Leonard Downie said the failure to give more prominence to articles questioning the administration's rationale "was a mistake on my part." Read the full article HERE http://www.washingtonpost.com... .
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Rescuing America From Tyranny ... |
| 08.11.04 (5:44 pm) [edit] |
"These are the times that try men's souls" - Thomas Paine
[b]"We the People" must behave with courage, fortitude and honor in the face of tyranny in order to do justice to the generations of Americans who have bravely fought and died to protect our liberty[i] and also [/i]to preserve our freedom for future generations of Americans. The American patriots of today will stand firm against the corrupt neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] to rescue the United States of America from their Neo-Fascist Corporate Fascism and Neo-Imperial Tyranny ...[/b]
Two-hundred and twenty-eight years ago, America’s founding fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
In the beginning, some men were more equal than others, and women weren’t even mentioned. So it was far from perfect freedom our founding fathers fought for. Still, they answered the call to arms and fought for [i]more freedom than they'd had[/i].
They pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor. They created a new nation, and gave America the beginnings of freedom.
Since then, in wartime and in peace, brave soldiers and sailors have defended this nation, preserving America’s freedoms for each successive generation. And America’s freedoms have grown -- the slaves have been freed, women’s rights have been recognized, and the nation has inched closer to achieving its cherished ideals -- thanks to hundreds of years of hard work by many, many liberals.
[b]The lesson to be gleaned from America's history of freedom should be obvious: [i]Freedom works best when it's shared[/i]. Liberty and justice is not just for some people, it's for all. Letting more and more people have more freedom has made America better, stronger, greater.[/b]
But from the day in 2000 when they sued to stop votes from being counted, virtually everything the Bush-Cheney administration has done has been an affront to freedom.
The Bush administration has quietly ended habius corpus, granting unprecedented powers to Bush alone. Solely on his say-so, Americans can be -- and have been -- imprisoned without trial, without proof, without involving any lawyers or any law, without due process and without any recourse.
Is that what America's founders, the men who signed the Declaration of Independence or the Bill of Rights, fought for? Is that what our men and women in the military are risking their lives to protect?
Tom Ridge, the Homeland Security Director, has proposed that the government should reconsider posse comitatus, more than a century of tradition and law keeping the military from acting as police in America. In the event of a terrorist attack, Ridge wants troops to have the power to make arrests and, if necessary, fire their weapons at Americans on US soil.
He has authorized using demographic and marketing data to establish whether individual US air passengers are "rooted in the community," and flagging suspect passengers for further review and interrogation. The long-term plan is to expand such passenger screening to rail and bus travelers as well.
Beginning in January 2004, all visitors to the US from nations deemed as terrorist-friendly have been required to have their fingerprints and photographs taken for DHS files. The rule now affects about 27,000,000 passengers annually, and is expected to be expanded.
Under DHS guidelines, credentialed journalists from friendly nations are now required to show a special "press visa." In several instances, reporters with otherwise valid visas have been detained at US airports or even deported.
When the President or Vice President speaks, everyone in the audience has been pre-screened. Attendees must provide ID in advance. Their backgrounds are checked by federal agents, and they're reuired to sign a pledge of support for Bush-Cheney's re-election. To express an opinion or carry a sign during a Presidential or Vice Presidential visit, Americans must stand behind fences far from Bush or Cheney, in areas designated by police as “free speech zones.”
[b]Free speech zones[/b] -- chew on that for a moment. Have American soldiers fought and died for “free speech zones,” for your right to speak freely behind barbed-wire topped fences? Did you pledge allegiance to “free speech zones”?
Of course, no-one could argue with a straight face that Bill Clinton, the first George Bush, or Ronald Reagan were at the forefront of the fight for freedom. At best, they were indifferent caretakers -- freedom and civil rights were less important to them than other policy pursuits. And we have no illusions that John Kerry would sincerely care about such things.
George W. Bush, however, has accomplished so many rollbacks and reductions in freedom, one can only assume that [i]the fight against freedom [/i]is one of his top priorities. Maybe it's #1. If there's a unifying theme to Bush-Cheney policies, it's that they tend to reduce, not expand, people's rights and freedoms. In just three and a half years, it has been breathtaking and heartbreaking to see what they've accomplished toward these repressive goals.
Bush-Cheney et al speak often of “traditional American values,” but the tradition of freedom isn't what they value. Their "traditional values" are code words, meaning support for laws against gay marriage, laws against abortion, laws against sex and violence in art and entertainment.
These are their "traditional values" --[i] reductions in freedom for gay people, women, and artists[/i]. Gay people are entitled to equal rights (provided they become heterosexuals). Women are free (so long as men agree with women's choices). Movies and music fall under the First Amendment's freedom of speech (so long as the movies or music are virtuous).
If Bush and Cheney are rewarded with a second term, it seems reasonable to expect White House policies would lurch even further, perhaps [i]much farther [/i]from liberty and justice for all. With no need to keep an eye to the next election, what's to hold them back?
In a second Bush-Cheney term, the Constitution will be eroded at a quicker pace. There will probably be another war or two, another several thousand dead American soldiers. Judicial nominees will be less "moderate" than in Bush's first term, when most have been far, far to the right of mainstream Americans. There will be even less oversight from the Environmental Protection Agency, the Securities and Exchange Commission ... and even more oversight from the Department of Homeland Security. In a second term, expect the same as we've already seen from Bush-Cheney -- only much more so.
[b]Does anyone remember the day the World Trade Center went boom?[/b] The Bush administration seems to have forgotten.
In the immediate aftermath of After September 11, Bush said, http://www.unknownnews.net/wo... "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him."
Eighteen months later, with bin Laden’s whereabouts still unknown, he said, http://www.unknownnews.net/wo... "I don't know where [Osama bin Laden] is and I really don't care. It's not that important. It's not our priority."
[b]Osama bin Laden is not America's priority.[/b] Think about that.
While the ruins of the World Trade Center still smoldered, Bush and Cheney lobbied ferociously against any and every call for an investigation. When an investigation couldn’t be blocked, Bush-Cheney gave the September 11 Commission a minuscule budget, and insisted on hand-picking its members. The Bush administration demanded the right to edit the final report, then dragged their feet about providing evidence. Bush and Cheney refused to testify under oath, or without each other.
[i]We dare anyone with a half-open mind to read [/i]some of the un-asked and un-answered questions of September 11 http://www.unknownnews.net/91... , and say with a straight face that there’s been an honest investigation. For anyone who’s been following the facts as they’ve hesitantly unfolded, the most obvious conclusion to be drawn from the September 11 Commission’s report is that it’s a sequel to the Warren Report.
[b]How’s your war going?[/b] As of this morning, 931 American soldiers have given their lives in a war without reason, conquering and occupying Iraq -- a nation that was no threat to America. These soldiers are, of course, disproportionately poor, and minorities, and Reservists.
[i]Was it worth 931 American soldiers’ lives to pull Saddam Hussein out of a hole in the ground[/i], while the people who attacked New York, Washington, and Pennsylvania on September 11 got away with mass murdering 3,000 Americans? Remember, none of culprits behind September 11 were Iraqis. Iraq had nothing to do with it.
[b]Is America safer? [/b]We've spent more than $200 billion to topple two Middle Eastern countries, killing more than 50,000 Iraqis and Afghans http://www.unknownnews.net/ca... . Terrorist activity is now at an all-time high, and it’s going to get worse. It goes without saying, some of the furious friends, family, and countrymen of the dead will find ways to exact vengeance. Far from making America “safe,” these invasions have simply spawned new generations of terrorists. We’ll still be reaping repercussions in fifty years, as Americans as yet unborn are kidnapped or killed by people who hate America -- and hate America quite understandably, if you look at it from their perspective.
Bush and his Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, have given tacit permission to torture prisoners. At Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and other prisons you’ve never heard of, it’s far worse than the media has reported. The Bush administration is trying their damnedest to keep the true scope of it under wraps (including the systematic rape of Iraqi children, among other atrocities) at least until after the election. When the truth finally does come out, the delay and cover-up will only add to the anger other nations justifiably feel.
Already, more people across the globe hate America than ever before in history. That is President Bush’s “signature achievement.”
Further, Bush’s trashing of the Geneva Conventions increases the chances that American GIs captured in future wars will be tortured by America’s future enemies. If the new American warfare is played without rules of war, future tyrants will accept those terms, as Bush has.
[b]Incredibly, some Americans laugh it off[/b], as if wars without rules are AOK, or as if torture is nothing to worry about. As if a government that tortures its enemies from Fallujah and Baghdad won't eventually find enemies to torture at home, in Ohio or Oregon or New Jersey.
When they're not committing battery and assault on freedom, the Bush-Cheney administration is working overtime to escalate secrecy in government, making sure we the people are blocked from knowing what "our" government does. Or simply telling flat-out whoppers about what they've done.
Under the guise of “protecting America,” the Bush administration has crafted a color coded terror chart, and announced vague “terror threats” with little or no specific information. Curiously, there's a fresh terror alert whenever Bush’s poll numbers begin to dip.
Tom Ridge, Bush’s man in charge of “homeland security,” has suggested that Americans should buy duct tape and plastic sheeting to seal homes and offices in the event of a chemical attack.[b] Does that make you feel safer?[/b]
A day doesn't go by without an astounding affront to truth, justice, and the American way from Bush-Cheney, or from some state or local office following Bush-Cheney's lead. We try to highlight the most outrageous of these on our front page http://www.unknownnews.net/ , but despite our best efforts we undoubtedly miss most of the bad news. There are simply too many horrific events to keep track of.
We love this nation, and we believe in its ideals. We're patriots, and patriots do not support the obliteration of the Constitution. Patriots understand that waving a flag doesn't make it OK to violate every principle that makes America great, or send US troops to fight and kill and die for no good reason. Patriots believe in American rights and freedom, and oppose tyrants who take rights and freedoms away.
Anyone who loves this nation should be ashamed of what Bush-Cheney have done to it. And yet, polls show that about half of Americans still support Bush-Cheney.
Of all the ongoing atrocities, that's the one that frightens us most.
What would Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin, or John Hancock say about the conniving criminals in charge of America in 2004? What would they say about the collaborating Congress -- Republicans and Democrats who have cooperated and allowed this to happen?
We sincerely believe that our founding fathers would recognize the present-day US of A as [i]what they were rebelling against[/i], not at all what they were rebelling for.
We believe any principled patriot would ask President Bush, Vice President Cheney, and the members of Congress who have supported them to do the only honorable thing -- resign. And if these present-day leaders ran for re-election instead, we believe Americans of 1776 would reach for their muskets.
But this is not a call to arms. We're not at that moment, yet. And if we want to avoid that moment, we the people must make ourselves heard -- [i]so this is a call to stand up and start shouting[/i].
Tell your friends, tell your family, tell co-workers and strangers: [b]America is in grave danger[/b]. Our freedoms are being stashed behind barbed-wire fences, in "free speech zones." We've been manipulated into a phony war, by a fictitious president. Precious liberties earned by the blood of Americans have been quietly snatched.
Americans have fought for freedom all through American history, to bring [i]more freedom to more people[/i], not to take freedoms away. [i]More freedom [/i]is America's greatest tradition, passed along from Jefferson and Franklin to Abe Lincoln, to Rosa Parks ... to you and me and millions more who believe in freedom.
If we the people deserve to be called Americans -- in the best sense of that word -- then now is time to raise a ruckus, and take this nation back to its founding principles. It's about freedom, remember?
Silence is acquiescence. Silence is letting ignorance go un-answered, and letting America go un-defended.
Now is the time to sound the alarm, just like Paul Revere. But this time the enemy isn't coming, like the British were. This time, the enemy is already here -- in power, and running for re-election.
[b]Source:[/b]
Helen & Harry Highwater, Unknown News, http://www.unknownnews.net/04...
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| Tipping Point??? ... |
| 08.11.04 (12:20 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" better watch-out for the 'tipping point' at which [i]Lord Only Knows [/i]what unpleasant surprise (e.g. terrorist attack, world war, election rigging, etc.) that the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta [/i]have in store for us ...[/b]
"President Bush must have a change in the dynamics and the fundamentals of this race if he is to win a second term," Charlie Cook http://nationaljournal.com/me... writes. "The sluggishly recovering economy and renewed violence in Iraq don't seem likely to positively affect this race, but something needs to happen. It is extremely unlikely that President Bush will get much more than one-fourth of the undecided vote, and if that is the case, he will need to be walking into Election Day with a clear lead of perhaps three percentage points."
"This election is certainly not over, but for me, it will be a matter of watching for events or circumstances that will fundamentally change the existing equation — one that for now favors a challenger over an incumbent."
[b]Source:[/b]
Political Wire, http://politicalwire.com/arch...
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| The Health Care Divide ... |
| 08.11.04 (9:11 am) [edit] |
"[i]Health care is an essential safeguard of human life and dignity and there is an obligation for society to ensure that every person be able to realize this right[/i]." - Cardinal Joseph Bernardin, Chicago Archdiocese
[b]Our health care system is a pitiful national disgrace and over 45 million US citizens are without health care and a rising number (9 million more) have lost their coverage since the corrupt and callous Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] hijacked our nation in 2001 ...[/b] "We the People" should [i]hang our collective heads in shame [/i]that the richest nation on the planet fails to care for our poor and vulnerable citizens who fall ill ...
[b]The Pew Research Center confirms http://people-press.org/repor... :[/b]
... "Fully 72% of Americans agree that the government should provide universal health care, even if it means repealing most tax cuts passed since Bush took office. Democrats overwhelmingly favor this proposal (86%-11%) and independents largely agree (78%-19%). Even a narrow majority of Republicans (51%) favor providing health insurance for all even if it means canceling the tax cuts, while 44% disagree.
In addition, most Americans especially those who support repealing tax cuts to provide universal health coverage see this as a moral issue as well as a political issue. Just a third believes this is strictly a political issue, while a narrow majority (52%) views it also as a moral question. A big majority of those who support this proposal 61% think of it as a moral as well as a political issue, while most opponents tend to see this in strictly political terms (58%)." ...
[b]"We the People" would be wise to vote for John F. Kerry for President if we care about Health Care because the neo-con, neo-fascist Bush regime believes in a great ole' system that cares for the rich, and leaves working families and the rest of us [i]on the outs [/i]...[/b] Also, check-out [i]Physicians for a National Health Programme[/i] on http://www.pnhp.org/ ...
[u][b]The False Promise of 'Consumer-Driven' Health Care[/b][/u]
Last year, Congress passed, and President Bush signed into law, legislation expanding high-deductible health insurance. Such insurance requires families to pay at least $2,000 each year (in addition to premiums) before health coverage kicks in. This law also includes tax-advantaged "health savings accounts" (HSAs), designed to provide consumers with funds to use before they spend enough to meet the deductible. The IRS recently released guidance that is likely to make these accounts even more appealing to employers. Supporters of this approach would like you to believe that these so-called "consumer-driven" health plans are consumer-friendly. Unfortunately, the term is merely a euphemism for a policy that favors the healthy and wealthy and leaves the working poor and chronically ill to carry a greater financial burden.
In fact, a more apt term for this type of medical plan is a "defined contribution health plan." Like defined contribution retirement plans such as 401(k)s, these plans replace comprehensive benefits with more limited benefits and shift costs and responsibilities to employees. In health care, this means a higher deductible (between $1,000 and $10,000), combined with a tax-advantaged health savings account, possibly with a contribution from the employer. Most "consumer-driven" plans build in a "gap" of coverage, assuring that the employee must pay for some health care costs entirely out-of-pocket before any coverage kicks in.
Two new studies (published in a special edition of the journal Health Services Research http://www.blackwell-synergy.... ) shed light on this trend toward offering high-deductible health plans. The first, which analyzed 16,000 University of Minnesota employees who were allowed to choose between a traditional health plan and a less-expensive high-deductible plan, provides evidence that high-deductible plans favor the well-to-do. It found that those who chose the high-deductible plan had incomes that were 48 percent higher than those who selected traditional plans. Higher-income, better-educated employees tended to select high-deductible plans, figuring that they would come out ahead financially. If they had to pay the high deductible (because of, say, unexpected medical expenses), they could afford to do so. But lower-income employees paid the higher premiums for the low-deductible plans because in our view they couldn't take the risk of having to pay for the deductible if they had unexpected medical expenses.
The second study of 4,680 employees of Humana, Inc., provides evidence that high-deductible plans favor the healthy at the expense of those most in need of medical care. In the study, only 7 percent of employees selected the high-deductible plan, and these employees were significantly healthier on every measure studied. This means problems for those left in the traditional plan, as the overall pool would be less healthy and therefore riskier. This could lead to higher premiums down the road, which might encourage more people to join the high-deductible plan, leading to an adverse selection spiral.
The current policy of promoting high deductible plans (including the proposal for a new tax deduction for individual high-deductible policies) will weaken the employer based health care system by providing employers with financial incentives to "cash-out" health benefits, sending employees to the individual market. This market cherry-picks the healthy and creates barriers to coverage for the sick. This policy undermines the purpose of insurance (whether health, homeowners, car, or any other type), which is to pool risk. With most health insurance – employer coverage, Medicare, and most other countries' systems – the healthy subsidize the unhealthy, to ensure that overall premiums are reasonable and that everyone covered by the plan receives the health benefits they need when they get sick. In fact, the system is intended to have the healthy subsidize the sick, since none of us can be fully in control of our health. Outside factors such as heredity, the environment, and plain luck also play a role, even among those of us who eat healthfully, exercise faithfully, and keep stress to a minimum. Ultimately, we all benefit by having a comprehensive healthcare system that takes care of the poor and the rich, the sick and the healthy, and everyone in between.
Tax incentives to favor "consumer-driven health care," such as last year's HSA legislation, exacerbate marketplace forces on employers. Despite the fact that high-deductible plans are unpopular with consumers, we may soon find that our health care system has taken giant steps toward a market dominated by such plans. In a world in which high-deductible coverage was pitched as a "choice," future consumers may have very limited options, all of which involve high deductibles.
America's healthcare system is fragile enough today, with millions of people left uninsured or underinsured. Are we as consumers, patients, and taxpayers going to cede the future of health insurance to the supporters of high-deductible coverage? The upcoming presidential and congressional elections provide an ideal opportunity to probe candidates' health care philosophy and priorities. Do they favor shifting the burden to those with chronic costly health conditions? Do they favor gaps in coverage that create financial barriers to care for many? Do they support policies that divide the healthy from the sick, the rich from the poor? The health care stakes have never been higher.
[i][b]Gail Shearer is the director of health policy analysis and Susanna Montezemolo is the legislative representative in the Washington office of Consumers Union.[/b][/i] - http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Anti-Kerry Book Author Preaches Hate, Bigotry, Homophobia & Anti-Semitism |
| 08.10.04 (3:37 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are being viciously bombarded with an ugly, nasty campaign of bigoted hate waged by the corrupt neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] mad-[i]attack[/i]-dogs http://www.tblog.com/template... who have[i] gone beyond the usual rough-n-tumble [/i]tough campaigning and have[i] crossed the line [/i]into the nightmarish realm of mendacious neo-hitlerian, neo-orwellian propaganda that has been condemned by many conscientious patriots including Senator John McCain http://www.tblog.com/template... , Ret. General Tommy Franks http://www.tblog.com/template... and others http://www.tblog.com/template... ... Surely we must also condemn this vile, false neo-fascist rhetoric [i]based upon lies, deceptions & falsehoods[/i], that is unjustly used to malign and smear John F. Kerry who is an honest and courageous man [i]and[/i] who served our nation honorably in war-time ...[/b]
[b]Read on ...[/b]
A co-author of the anti-Kerry screed,[i] Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry[/i], is a religious bigot, hatemonger and gay basher who says Islam should be eliminated, calls Senator Hillary Clinton a “lesbo” and says “Ragheads are Boy-Bumpers as clearly as they are Women-Haters.”
“Islam is like a virus,” writes Jerome Corsi who – with longtime GOP operative John O’Neill wrote the book as part of a project financed by Texas Republican contributors with strong ties to President George W. Bush.
“It (Islam) affects the mind,” Corsi writes. “Maybe even better as an analogy, it is a cancer that destroys the body it infects. No doctor would hesitate to eliminate cancer cells from the body.”
Corsi posted these comments on the FreeRepublic.com web site on November 26, 2002. He is a regular contributor to the right-wing website, posting under the screen handle of “jrlc” since 2001.
A frequent gay basher, Corsi on November 18, 2001, posted: “Isn’t the Democratic Party the official SODOMIZER PROTECTION ASSOCIATION of AMERICA?” (The capital letters are his)
He reserves the same hatred towards Catholics: “So this is what the last days of the Catholic Church are going to look like. Buggering boys undermines the moral base and the lawyers rip the gold off the Vatican alters. We may get one more Pope, when this senile old one dies, but that’s probably about it.” (Posted on December 16, 2002).
Corsi refers to Democratic Nominee John Kerry as “John F*ing Kerry” and said on February 2, 2004 that “John F*ing Commie Kerry and Commie Ted (Kennedy) discuss their plan to hand America over to our nation’s enemies.”
His religious bigotry extends to Judiasm with this March 4, 2004, post: “After he married TeRAHsa, didn’t John Kerry being practicing Judiasm? He also has paternal grandparents that were Jewish. What religion is John Kerry?”
Besides John Kerry, Ted Kennedy, Arabs, Muslims, Catholics and Jews, Corsi also hates Bill and Hillary Clinton. A sampling:
“HELL-ary loves the Arabs so much (kiss, kiss Mrs. Arab*RAT) – wonder how she would look in a Burka?” (Posted on May 21, 2002).
“When is this guy (Bill Clinton) going to admit he’s simply an anti-American communist? Won’t he and his leftist wife simply go away?” (Posted February 24, 2002).
“Let the FAT HOG run!!!” (A reference to a possible Presidential run by Senator Clinton posted on August 30, 2003).
“Anybody ask why HELLary couldn’t keep BJ Bill satisfied? Not a lesbo or anything is she?” (Posted on June 8, 2003).
Corsi admitted on FreeRepublic.com on March 19 of this year that he was “jrlc” adding that “the VVAW and John Kerry are a field of interest to me. In 1972, I published an extensive study of the political protest around the 1972 Democratic and Republican National Conventions in Miami Beach, protests in which the VVAW was actively involved (the work was published at the Lemberg Center for the Study of Violence, Brandeis University, 1974). Jerome R. Corsi, jrlc on Free Republic. I'll be happy to clarify any other questions you might have.”
Jerome Corsi has a PhD in political science from Harvard (1972), has written books on various subjects and is vice president and senior editor of U.S. Financial Marketing Group. He is also a contributor to wintersoldier.com, where he writes about John Kerry’s antiwar activities after coming home from Vietnam.
Reputable historians like Douglas Brinkley, author of the highly-acclaimed [i]Tour of Duty[/i], have noted about Corsi’s book, [i]Unfit for Command[/i], plays fast and loose with the facts when it comes to John Kerry. Corsi claims the Senator’s work as an antiwar activist were treasonous and claimed “Kerry and VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) consistently coordinated their efforts with communists.”
Recently declassified FBI files show the bureau had VVAW under surveillance, as they did with many antiwar activists, but the files say agents could not find “any evidence of any affiliation or coordination with Communist elements known to be operating in the country.”
In 1971, Corsi claimed Kerry proclaimed “Communists were right in maintaining that American values were corrupt and the only solution was for America to capitulate so Communism could continue to spread.”
Yet that same year, on December 12, Kerry was quoted in the Boston Globe as saying “I don’t like Communists. In fact, I hate them. I hate all totalitarians. I’m totally dedicated to representative, pluralistic, free democracy.”
“These are malicious fabrications in the heat of the election,” says Douglas Brinkley of the claims in[i] Unfit for Command[/i], adding that what Corsi and his co-author have written are nothing more than the grumbling of “malcontents who have never forgiven Kerry for his actions in speaking out against the war.”
Few outside Corsi's narrow conservative Republican view escape his verbal assaults. He says initials for the news network MSNBC stand for “More Shit, Nothing But Communism.” (Posted on FreeRepublic.com on May 16, 2002), NBC Today Show host Katie Couric is “Little Katie Communist of NBC (which Corsi says stands for Nothing But Communism).”
Celebrities are also a favorite target. On Martina Navratilova, Corsi posted on June 26, 2002: “Perfect Liberal – lesbian, self-absorbed, hates America, anxious to impose her values on everybody else.”
And this on June 7, 2003: “Too bad the plane didn’t crash into the TV set of the NBC show ‘The Left Wing” – especially when Martin Sheen was acting.”
[b](Our thanks to[i] Media Matters for America [/i]for alerting us to this information along with readers who asked us to look into the opinions of Jerome Corsi because they said they were fed up with the tactics being used by Republicans and web sites like Free Republic.)[/b] - http://www.capitolhillblue.co...
Refer also to "[b]SUNK: Swift Boats weren’t meant to ride on sewage[/b]" on http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| The Fed Loosens Its Lips ... |
| 08.10.04 (12:54 pm) [edit] |
[b]The Economy Is Bushed! http://www.progressive.org/we... The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] and their corporate-take-all rapists have bilked, milked and swindled us until we're exhausted and facing rising inflation to pay-off their reckless record-level deficit spending; hopeless joblessness with the worst job record since Herbert Hoover; and, although the gluttonous corporations & the richest-of-the-rich got massive tax boondoggles, the rest of "We the People" are saddled with massive debts to pay-off war-profiteering (Halliburton, Bechtel, Carlyle Group, Unocal, Big Oil the Military Industrial Complex, etc.) for illegal and immoral Bush/Cheney wars ...
The Fed is desperately trying to keep the[i] lid on [/i]until [i]after[/i] the November presidential election, when our economy will spin [i]out-of-control [/i]and inflation will [i]skyrocket[/i] ...[/b]
Alan Greenspan, chairman of the Federal Reserve, is famous for his ability to say nothing and everything at the same time. He and the other members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC), the decision-making body of the Fed, are often criticized for releasing statements that confuse the public and financial markets about Federal Reserve policy; some feel that the Fed should simply keep its mouth shut. What they don’t realize is that until about 15 years ago, that is exactly what it did.
The Federal Reserve has been in existence since 1914, and has been a relatively opaque institution for most of that time. Indeed, most central banks, until recently, believed that secrecy around their decisions was necessary to implement effective monetary policy, following the monetarist argument that only "surprise" movements in interest rates have an impact on the economy. It has only been under Greenspan's tenure as chairman since 1987 that the Fed has moved toward increased transparency in its policy decisions.
Over the last few years, the Fed has taken transparency to a new level, using communication as a tool to implement monetary policy. The Fed has traditionally relied upon its control over the federal funds rate, a short-term interest rate that banks pay to borrow from each other overnight, to influence long-term interest rates and consequently the economy. During the last year, however, it has informed markets through speeches by Fed officials and minutes of FOMC meetings, among others, about its likely interest rate decisions before or sometimes even instead of making them. The Fed has thus been able to move long-term interest rates and affect the economy before actually changing the federal funds rate, and occasionally, without changing it at all.
[b]Download the entire report in PDF[/b]: http://www.americanprogress.o...{E9245FE4-9A2B-43C7-A521- 5D6FF2E06E03}/Fed080904.pdf
[b]Also refer to "A Fragile House of Cards" on[/b] http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Fox to Guard Henhouse ... |
| 08.10.04 (10:02 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be very wary and concerned over [i]the cynical, politically-timed [/i]appointment made by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i] of Porter Goss, a partisan political toady who like Tenet is apt to [i]just 'go-along' [/i]with whatever lies, crimes and cover-ups that the insane neo-con Bushies decide to perpetrate upon our nation ... [/b]
The appointment of Porter Goss to head the CIA comes as no surprise, but if reform is on the agenda, Goss isn’t the man. During his tenure as head of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, Goss shredded any last iota of oversight by the committee, turning it into a cheerleader for the agency were Goss once worked. Goss virtually pulled HPSCI out of the oversight business, repeatedly saying that he sees the committee’s role as a partner with the U.S. intelligence community, not as its overseer and watchdog. (The contrast with the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is especially stark.) In my opinion, Goss has the potential to be the worst, most adventurous CIA chief since Bill Casey.
The sad thing is that the CIA didn’t really need a chieftain to get it through the elections, since its acting director, John McLaughlin, seems quite capable of getting us there. And it raises a question of tenure, since, if Kerry wins in November, he’ll have to decide whether to oust Goss or keep him on. Goss’ appointment could be one the shortest ever atop the agency, shorter even than James Schlesinger’s ill-fated months-long tour there in 1973.
At least Goss wants to go slow on implementing the 9/11 Commission recommendations, which is one good thing to say about him.
[b]Source:[/b]
Bob Dreyfuss, [i]The Dreyfuss Report, TomPaine[/i], http://www.tompaine.com
[b]... Also refer to "Another Reason Why Goss Is Wrong for the CIA" on http://www.thenation.com/capi... ...[/b]
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| Billionaires for Bush:-- They've Made Out Big-Time Off The "Expendable" Troops & Working People!!! |
| 08.09.04 (7:13 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be outraged by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]shameless pandering to rapacious corporations and hyper-rich plutocrats who are ruthless war-profiteers, having heinously abused our troops considered by these neo-cons as "expendable" cannon-fodder [i]as well as [/i]America's working people considered by these neo-fascists as "slave labor" serfs ...
Refer to [u]"Dog Days Of Employment[/u]" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
[u][b]Billionaires for Bush[/b][/u]
President George W. Bush received donations from 79 percent of the U.S. billionaires who contributed to a presidential campaign this year, while Democrat John Kerry was backed by 21 percent, a study says.
Bush received contributions from 116 billionaires, including Bill Gates, chairman of Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp., who was listed by Forbes magazine as the world's richest person, and Frederick Smith, chief executive of FedEx Corp., according to PoliticalMoneyLine, which tracks campaign donations.
Kerry got donations from 31 billionaires, including Warren Buffett, chairman of Omaha- based Berkshire Hathaway Inc., and the world's second- richest person; Eli Broad, chairman of AIG SunAmerica Inc., a subsidiary of New York-based American International Group Inc.; and David Geffen, co-founder of Glendale, Calif.-based DreamWorks SKG, a movie studio.
Republicans often outscore Democrats in fund raising among corporate executives.
The 58-year-old Bush has 280 CEOs from Russell 1000 index companies, to 52 for the 60-year-old Kerry, a four-term Massachusetts senator, according to PoliticalMoneyLine, a nonpartisan group based in Washington.
Kerry, who accepted the Democratic presidential nomination last week, released a list of 204 executives who endorse his economic policies.
Of the 277 U.S. billionaires identified by Forbes magazine, 153 gave to a candidate, including six who gave to both Bush and Kerry.
Those giving to both candidates included Charles Dolan, chairman of Bethpage, N.Y.- based Cablevision Systems Corp.; and Donald Trump, chief executive officer of Atlantic City, N.J.-based Trump Hotels and Casino Resorts.
Another 124 billionaires, or 45 percent of the total, gave to neither candidate, including Ted Turner, the founder of Cable News Network and a former vice chairman of New York-based Time Warner Inc.; Roy Disney, chairman of Shamrock Holdings Inc. and a former director of the Walt Disney Co., founded by his uncle; and Forrest Mars Jr., chairman of Mars Inc.
"I'm always surprised at the separation of the business world from politics in a number of wealthy people," said Kent Cooper, co- founder of PoliticalMoneyLine. "To them, politics is a different world, and the business mind has a hard time understanding how politics works."
Kerry has the support of two billionaires who did not give to either presidential campaign: Steve Jobs, chief executive officer of Cupertino, Calif.-based Apple Computer Inc., and Barry Diller, chairman of New York-based IAC/InterActiveCorp, an Internet commerce and television shopping company.
A Kerry campaign spokesman declined to comment.
Calls to the Bush campaign were not returned.
[b]Wealthy donors [/b]
116 Number of billionaires who made donations this year to President Bush.
31 Number of billionaires who made donations this year to Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry.
6 Number of billionaires who made donations this year to both Bush and Kerry. - http://www.rockymountainnews....,1299,DRMN_4_3094590,00.html
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| Dog Days Of Employment ... |
| 08.09.04 (1:31 pm) [edit] |
[b]Times are [i]a changin' [/i]and [i]not for the better [/i]for the majority of "We the People" ... Certainly [i]not[/i] for [i]working people [/i]... Inflation is rising and is going to get worse, much worse-- the economy has stalled and joblessness is still a major problem, with Dubya having destroyed jobs and a lousy track-record of a net loss of over 2 million jobs ([i]Clinton's economic policies were responsible for creating over 22 million new jobs, high-paying jobs, not the trickling of low-wage slave-labor McJobs Bush is thrusting upon us[/i])-- no health care for tens of millions of Americans-- etc.-- ... [i]It's not a pretty picture [/i]... Take time to read "[u]Raise the Economy Threat to "High"[/u]" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...
Oy. Not Good[/b]
A bad employment report for July.
It is worth noting that the administration's forecast, made last winter, was that by this time payroll employment would be at 132.8 million--not the 131.3 million that it is actually at. Somebody should ask Bush todaywhat has gone so unexpectedly wrong to put employment 1.5 million lower than expectations in just half a year.
And somebody else should ask Bush today why he adopted a "jobs and growth" program of shifting taxes from the present into the future that got us only about half the bang per buck of deficit that we would have received from a normal Keynesian fiscal stimulus program. He didn't make the lousy labor market. But he and his team sure did pass up a lot of chances to buy insurance against the bizarrely weak job market we now find ourselves in.
[b]Job growth weaker than expected - Aug. 6, 2004:[/b] Hiring by U.S. employers slowed significantly in July, according to a government report Friday, as the number of new jobs added to payrolls came in far below Wall Street expectations. The Labor Department report showed only 32,000 new net jobs added to payrolls during the month, down from a revised 78,000 jobs that were added in June. The increase was the smallest since December, when payrolls rose by just 8,000....
This is the second straight month of jobs growth far below economists' forecasts, following three months that showed strong jobs growth starting in March. The June report had initially showed 112,000 jobs added, rather the 250,000 forecast at that time. But Friday's report missed the target by even a wider margin.... Meanwhile bond prices soared and yields, which move in the opposite direction, fell amid expectations that the Federal Reserve will not raise interest rates as fast as previously expected. Several economists said Friday that the report should prompt the Fed to reconsider the widely expected quarter-point increase in interest rates at Tuesday's meeting.
"They would like to raise rates, but right now, keeping rates a little too low would cause the least harm in the economy," said Mark Vitner, senior economist at Wachovia Securities. "If they raise rates after this weak employment report, people will be hollering. George Bush would be hollering the loudest."...
[b]Sources:[/b]
Brad DeLong, http://www.j-bradford-delong....
TomPaine, http://www.tompaine.com
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| The Broken Promises of George W. Bush |
| 08.09.04 (10:20 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" have been ruthlessly conned, scammed and duped by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i] on key domestic issues relating to jobs, education, health care, the environment, etc.-- [i]as well as[/i], on vital foreign policy issues relating to trade, national security and the use of force as a "last resort" ... In the aftermath of 9/11, the reckless Bush regime squandered the good will and trust of the American people and our allies throughout the world ... The bombastic, arrogant and rapacious neo-con, neo-fascist Bushies have wantonly undermined our prosperity and our safety ...[/b]
President Bush is slowly unveiling his agenda http://www.foxnews.com/story/...,2933,126432,00.html , should he be re-elected, for a second term. Already Bush has promised to increase high school graduation rates and expand access to health care. Can the American people trust that Bush will follow through? A new document by the American Progress Action Fund reveals that, on a slew of issues – from education to taxes to the environment – Bush has broken the explicit promises he made the American people in the last Presidential campaign. The document is based, in large part, on promises made on an archived version http://web.archive.org/web/20...:/www.georgewbush.com/ of Bush's official campaign website. Check out the complete document here http://www.americanprogressac... .
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| ... LOL!!! ... Preacher Urges Stone-faced Bush to Ditch Possessions ... LOL!!! ... |
| 08.08.04 (11:25 am) [edit] |
[b]You've got to love[i] this [/i]Preacher ... [/b]"We the People" are at war in Iraq ([i]based upon Bush/Cheney lies[/i]) that is rapidly spinning out of control ... Over 100 US Soldiers have died in the past 2 months and an average of 2 soldiers die every day since Dubya's bombastic "Mission Accomplished!" buffoonery aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln, over a year ago May 2003-- and moreover, inflation is beginning to rise; low-wages and joblessness haunts our nation; tens of millions of our fellow citizens have no health care coverage;-- and Bush's reckless record-level spending us into financial ruin is a back-breaking hardship that is being put on the backs of working people because the hyper-rich plutocrats and corporations awarded themselves [i]via Bush/Cheney [/i]massive tax boondoggles ...
But[i] what[/i] is Bush doing during this dangerous and ugly period, while our fellow citizens are dying in wars of [i]his making[/i], and struggling as a result of ruinous economic policies of[i] his making[/i]??? ... [u]Vacationing[/u]: playing golf, and he & his spoiled brats have gone a' fishing!!! ...
[u][b]Bush Family Listens as a Minister Urges Wealthy Congregation to Ditch Possessions[/b][/u]
KENNEBUNKPORT, Maine - A clergyman implored his affluent congregation, including President Bush's family, to jettison their material possessions, gently mocking George H.W. Bush's struggles on the golf course to drive home his point.
The Very Rev. Martin Luther Agnew preached Sunday to a packed Episcopal church just down the road from the Bush family's seaside estate. Its oceanfront parking lot was filled with luxury cars made by Jaguar, Mercedes, BMW and Volvo, testament to the wealth of the summer visitors at this southeast Maine resort.
"Gated communities," Agnew said, "tend to keep out God's people." But, he said, "Our material gifts do not have to be a wall."
"They can very well be a door. Jesus says, 'Sell your possessions and give alms,'" Agnew said. "I'm convinced that what we keep owns us, and what we give away sets us free."
Agnew, a guest minister from Louisiana whose summer assignment ended Sunday, swung a golf club to get his message across to the vacationing congregation.
The sermon culminated with a joke about the first President Bush's battle to chip a golf ball out of an anthill. Swinging the club in a mock re-enactment, Agnew said Bush had swung twice and whiffed completely, wiping out hundreds of ants.
The ants got together and agreed: "If we're going to live, we better get on the ball!"
The former president sat stone-faced through this parable, even as his family, including the current President Bush, looked at him and smiled.
The ex-president gamely high-fived Agnew when the priest approached the second pew.
"Brothers and sisters, what God is inviting us to do is get on the ball," Agnew said, again imploring his audience to part with their possessions.
The Bush family that gathered at the front of the church Sunday morning is wealthy by any measure. They convened here at the 11-acre family compound owned by the former president and perched on the Atlantic Ocean. It is worth millions of dollars.
The current president lists among his assets his Texas ranch, worth between $1 million and $5 million. He also has U.S. Treasury notes valued at $5 million to $8.7 million. He sold his share of the Texas Rangers baseball team in 1998 for more than $15 million.
Also in the stone-and-mortar church were Bush's three brothers, Jeb, Neil and Marvin, first lady Laura Bush and Barbara Bush, the former first lady.
The family were gathered here for the wedding Saturday of Jeb Bush's son George Prescott Bush.
From church, the president and former president went fishing, their third expedition on the power boat in three days.
President Bush was to return to Washington Sunday afternoon.
His weekend outing was a last breather before a week of heavy campaigning through Virginia, Florida, New Mexico, Arizona, California, Oregon, Washington and Iowa. - http://www.commondreams.org/h...
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| Electoral College Predictions: Kerry Leads Bush in All The Major Polls ... |
| 08.08.04 (8:25 am) [edit] |
[b]Across a wide range of polls, Kerry is leading Bush in the electoral college predictions ...[/b]
[b]Site:-- Kerry / Bush / K-B[/b]
EP http://www.electionprojection... ..................... 327 / 211 / +116
EVP http://www.electoral-vote.com... .................. 328 / 210 / +118
MyDD http://www.mydd.com/outlook/p... ................ 343 / 195 / +148
R04 http://www.race2004.net/ .................. 291 / 234 / +57
Rasm http://www.rasmussenreports.c...%20College%20Projection.htm ................. 227 / 197 / +30
[b]This is the most important election in modern times for it will [i]change the course of history [/i]for generations to come ... "We the People" must take this opportunity to elect John F. Kerry as President of the United States of America in order to restore dignity, integrity and honesty to the White House ...[/b]
[b]Electoral Vote Predictor 2004:- Kerry 307 (Blue) - Bush 231 (Red)[/b]
[b]Legend:[/b] Dark Blue=Strong Kerry / Light Blue=Weak Kerry / Dark Red=Strong Bush / Light Red=Weak Bush ...
[b]Aug. 4 New polls: AZ PA TN VA WA [/b] / [u]Current Electoral Vote Predictor[/u]: http://www.electoral-vote.com...
[b]Senator Kerry Retains A Lead Through His Convention, New Zogby Interactive Presidential Battleground Poll Reveals[/b]
Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry remains solidly in the lead after a week in which his party and candidacy grabbed the political spotlight at their national convention in Boston, a new edition of Zogby Interactive polls in 16 battleground states shows.
After a string of good news for the Kerry campaign stretching back to the selection of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as the vice presidential running mate a month ago, he leads in the Electoral College by a 291-215 margin, the individual state polls shows. Four of the 16 states in the poll collection - with a combined total of 32 electoral votes - were excluded from the calculation because the races there are too close to call.
Those states are Missouri (11 votes), Nevada (5 votes), Tennessee (11 votes), and New Mexico (5 votes). Mr. Bush won all but New Mexico four years ago.
Mr. Kerry picked up ground in Florida, while Mr. Bush made up ground in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Ohio.
[b]ZOGBY'S RACE SO FAR: --- August 3 --- July 26 ----[/b]
-------[i] President Bush [/i]----------- 215 ---------- 220 ------
------- [i]Senator Kerry [/i]------------ 291 ---------- 275 -------
Please note that this chart reflects the race based on the premise that the 34 states not included in the poll will fall to the candidate of the same party to which they fell in 2000. This chart reflects only an estimation of where the Presidential race is, in part because the race in several states is within the margin of error. Four states are so close that their Electoral College votes are not included in this calculation. Those states are Missouri, Nevada, Tennessee, and New Mexico.
Mr. Kerry continues a strong season on the campaign trail as the war for the White House enters a new phase. In the past, Mr. Kerry had benefited not from the power of his own personality or compelling platform of programs, but rather by the political troubles Mr. Bush has suffered as Commander in Chief because of military setbacks in Iraq, or because of the sluggish economy, or by the electricity generated by the addition of John Edwards to the team.
This newest edition of the poll, however, comes as Mr. Kerry was the focus of a concentrated four-day program at the convention. There’s not much movement in the polls, but that wasn’t expected because there are abnormally low numbers of undecided voters in this race.
Republicans tried to push up expectations that Mr. Kerry would get a big bounce coming out of the convention so that later on, when that bounce didn’t materialize, it would reflect negatively on the Democratic nominee. It is still unclear whether that tactic worked.
The two candidates continued to canvass the nation raising boatloads of campaign cash, much of it for their political parties instead of their own campaigns, with the unspoken understanding that the parties would then turn around and spend that money advertising or otherwise aiding the election of their Presidential candidate. In battleground states this weekend, Mr. Kerry’s advertising campaign went off the air, and the next day, the Democratic National Committee’s slate of commercials began.
So intense is the battle in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania that the Bush and Kerry campaigns almost passed on Interstate 70 Saturday in western Pennsylvania, as Mr. Bush motored east after stumping in Cleveland, Canton, and Cambridge, Ohio, and Mr. Kerry was headed west to campaign in Zanesville, Ohio.
Their motorcades are so large and disruptive to highway traffic that it's probably good news for the economy that they didn’t meet.
[i]Pollster John Zogby: "Kerry had a good week and the numbers reflect it --especially in West Virginia, New Hampshire, and Florida. These represent his bump in the Electoral College. Meanwhile, President Bush has improved in a few states, notably Ohio where he has widened his lead. Ohio is a must win for Bush.
"These numbers track well with our national telephone sampling after the convention, where Kerry now leads by 5 points -- 48% to 43%.
"It will shortly be time for the Republicans to convene their convention in New York. The President will get a small bump, but -- like Kerry -- not a big one. There is just not enough give this year[/i]."
[b]More details of Zogby Poll on[/b] http://www.zogby.com/news/Rea...
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| ... ??? We're Always One Step Ahead ??? ... |
| 08.07.04 (1:08 pm) [edit] |
[b]PASS IT ON ...[/b]
[b]"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."[/b]
--- President Bush, at a signing ceremony Aug. 5, 2004 for a $417 billion defense bill http://www.latimes.com/news/n...,1,3501534.story?coll=sns-ap-politic s-headlines ...
[b]"We the People" are saddled with this idiot in the White House??? ... [i]Jeez[/i] ... Take a look at [i]On the Lighter Side:-- Another Bush Blooper [/i]... on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
For some light humor related to the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]neo-orwellian propaganda, check-out Jon Stewart from Comedy Central's [u]Daily Show[/u]:--
[i]Talking Points: They're True Because They're Said A Lot[/i] ... on http://www.tblog.com/template...
[i]Pass It On: Repetition [/i]... on http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| Aspartame, anti-depressants and Bush ... |
| 08.06.04 (5:01 pm) [edit] |
"[i]When divine power plans evil for a man, it first injures his mind[/i]."—Sophocles
[b]Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]is in trouble ... Check-out "[i]New Zogby Interactive Presidential Battleground Poll Reveals [Map][/i]" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ... "We the People" should be very concerned because George W. Bush simply isn't sufficiently competent ([i]nor[/i] is he sufficiently intelligent) to carry on in the role of president ... Not only is he incompetent and unfit to be president, but there are alarm-bells raised by credible physicians [i]as well as [/i]people close to Bush that raise serious doubts regarding his mental stability ... Consider also "[i]Can All The Mad King George's Men Put Humpty-Dumpty-Dubya Back Together Again[/i]???" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...[/b]
First we have Dr. Justin Frank, the prominent Washington psychiatrist and author of the book, "[i]Bush on the Couch, Inside the Mind of the President[/i]", characterizing George W. Bush as suffering from "character pathology," including "grandiosity" and "megalomania," seeing himself, America and God as interchangeable, a truly unholy trinity. Now we have an article by Dr. Betty Martini, [i]Political Sanity vs. Neurotoxins:[/i] U.S. President [sic] Being Given Powerful Anti-depressants which Interact with Aspartame, published in [u]U.N. Observer & International Report[/u] http://www.unobserver.com/lay... .
As Dr. Martini tells us, "The first correspondence I had with President [sic] George Bush was when he was Governor of Texas. He was about to sign into law the Dietetics Practice Act. At the time, Monsanto owned NutraSweet and I explained that the dieticians were Monsanto's media hacks and that his law granted them a monopoly, which is against most state constitutions. (They passed it anyway). I sent him a packet about aspartame, showing him that it is a deadly chemical poison and the dietitians push it and defend the manufacturer. He wrote back that he disagreed—and he also got hooked on Diet Coke."
It should be noted that Dr. Martini, while not a physician, has worked in medicine for 22 years. She's best known as the founder of [u]Mission Possible International[/u], http://www.dorway.com/possibl... which works with doctors worldwide to remove aspartame from food, drinks and medicine. Dr. Martini reports that 75 percent of all the complaints to the Food and Drug Administration are about the ill effects of aspartame.
Concerning George Bush, Dr. Martini notes, "So far, the president [sic] has exhibited memory loss to such an extent that the Atlanta Journal Constitution published that he appeared to need to be coached for each word." She refers to that scene at the end of Fahrenheit 911, in which Bush attempts to quote an old saying, "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." As Dr. Martini points out, "he couldn't remember the end of it, so after saying, 'Fool me once, shame on you, he looked around and thought and then said, 'And don't do it again.' You could see he couldn't remember." Dr. Martini points out that Bush "has also had a blackout which is notorious of aspartame and he complained of joint pain. Aspartame hardens the synovial fluids and causes agonizing joint pain."
This seems like a case of cruel but ironic justice, Bush signing a bill for a drug that puts him in danger. But the danger goes far beyond Bush's mental and physical health. As Dr. Martini says, "The phenylalanine in aspartame at 50 percent is neurotoxic and goes directly into the brain." That is, anybody's brain who uses it: men, women or children. "It lowers the seizure threshold and depletes serotonin," she adds, "and when you lower serotonin, it triggers paranoia, manic depression or bi-polar brain disorder, hallucinations, mood swings and suicidal tendencies. It also interacts with all anti-depressants and you can get a double whammy with some of these psycho drugs."
In fact, the side effects of depression, paranoia, mood swings were also noted in the article [i]"Sullen, Depressed President Retreats into Private, Paranoid World"[/i] http://www.capitolhillblue.co... , by Capitol Hill Blue Editor Theresa Hampton and William D. McTavish, a follow-up to Hamtpon's article, [i]"Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior"[/i] http://www.capitolhillblue.co... . All in all, this doesn't add up to a comforting picture of the most powerful individual on earth, George W. Bush.
Only a few White House intimates, such as Karl Rove or Karen Hughes get to speak with Bush; of cabinet members, the truly scary John Ashcroft, fellow born-again, is the leading shoulder to lean on. Can't you see them all sitting around a conference table drinking Diet Coke and forgetting what the agenda was? Perhaps that's why we lost most of our civil rights with the USA PATRIOT Act. They forgot there was a Bill of Rights. Certainly it seems so in regard to not funding the $26 billion "No Child Left Behind Act," or Bush's campaign promise not to engage in "nation building," switching once he seized office, as if to Diet Pepsi, to the hegemony of a "A New World Order." There are so many forgotten promises: to cut taxes for working families, but the wealthiest ended up with the lion's share of the current, budget-busting cuts. And there was the announcement that the war in Iraq was over on May 1, 2003, though the death toll keeps rising as the fighting rages on with no end in sight.
Perhaps the forgetting, the paranoia, the mood swings, the depression, are infectious, above and beyond the aspartame or anti-depressants. Perhaps that's the double whammy Dr. Martini was referring to. After all, there we have the paragon of propriety, Dick Cheney, hurling an expletive at a senator who challenged his no-bid Iraq contracts to Halliburton, of which he was, and in a way, seems to continue to be, CEO, or OOC (out of control). What's more, if we have Ashcroft forgetting the entire Bill of Rights, what about W forgetting the separation of church and state embodied in the First Amendment.
In fact, we have an administration so paranoid it has given the least number of press conferences in the history of television. And we have a president [sic] whose first impulse was to reject a formal investigation into 9/11. Not that the 9/11 whitewash has produced any great revelations. That said, let's return to Dr. Martini, aspartame, and another Bush stalwart, Donald Rumsfeld, and their impact on us all.
[b]Aspartame and Donald Rumsfeld[/b]
As reported on NewswithViews.com, http://www.newswithviews.com/... May 9, 2004, "aspartame is a drug, not just an additive, found in diet soft drinks and over 5,000 foods, drugs and medicine. According to top doctors and researchers, aspartame causes headache, memory loss, seizures, vision loss, coma and cancer. It worsens or mimics the symptoms of such diseases and conditions as fibromyalgia, MS, lupus, ADD, diabetes, Alzheimer's, chronic fatigue and depression." Relevant Bush and millions of other drinkers and ex-drinkers, "Further dangers highlighted are that aspartame liberates free methyl alcohol. The resulting chronic methanol poisoning affects the dopamine system of the brain causing addiction."
Curiously, in George W. Bush's "Summary of Medical History August 4th, 2001," when he was 55 years, old, the physician, Dr. Kenneth Cooper notes in the President's [sic] Social History:
"[i]Tobacco: An occasional cigar.
"Alcohol: None.
"Caffeine: Diet sodas and coffee[/i]."
The abundant use of diet drinks can function as a kind of replacement addiction, with some of the equally dangerous side effects mentioned earlier. Now if aspartame is so dangerous, how did it ever go public? That's a matter of profit and Republican politics.
Aspartame was discovered in 1965, bringing with it a raging debate over the sugar substitute's health risks. From lab testing on rats, it was learned the drug induced brain tumors. On Sept. 30, 1980, the FDA Board of Inquiry agreed and denied the petition for approval. In 1981, as the Reagan era cranked up, Arthur Hull Hayes, the new FDA Commissioner ignored the ruling and approved aspartame for dry goods. As noted in the 1985 Congressional Record, then CEO of Searle Laboratories, Donald Rumsfeld, said that he would "call in his markers" to get the drug approved. Rummy was then on President Reagan's transition team. A day after he took office, he appointed Hayes.
As Dr. Martini tells us, "When Donald Rumsfeld was CEO of Searle, that conglomerate manufactured aspartame. For 16 years the FDA refused to approve it, not only because it's not safe, but also because they wanted the company indicted for fraud. Both U.S. prosecutors hired on with the defense team and the statue of limitations expired. They were Sam Skinner and William Conlon. Skinner went on to become Secretary of Transportation, squelching the cries of the pilots who were having seizures on this seizure-triggering drug, aspartame, and then Chief of Staff under President [sic] Bush's father . . . Even Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas is a former Monsanto attorney. (Monsanto bought Searle in 1985, and sold it a few years ago). When Ashcroft became attorney general, Thompson from King and Spalding Attorneys (another former Monsanto attorney) became deputy under Ashcroft (attorneys for Nutra Sweet and Coke).
"However, the FDA still refused to allow Nutra Sweet on the market . . . It interacts with all antidepressants, L-dopa, Coumadin, hormones, insulin, all cardiac medication, and many others. It also is a chemical hyper sensitization drug so that it interacts with vaccines, other toxins, other unsafe sweeteners like Splenda, which has a chlorinated base like DDT and cause autoimmune disease. . . . Despite the fact that the FDA has known this for a quarter of a century and done nothing even though it's against the law . . . Searle went on to build a Nutra Sweet factory and had $9 million worth of inventory."
Rumsfeld, as Dr. Martini pointed out, was on Reagan's transition team. And the day after Reagan took office, he selected FDA Commissioner Arthur Hayes to approve aspartame. Despite the FDA setting up a Board of Inquiry of top scientists, who pointed out the drug's dangers and revoked the approval, Hayes overruled the board and then went to work for the manufacturer's PR agency, Burson-Marstellar. He's never spoken to the press since.
Despite three congressional hearings, a general outcry of "poison," Senator Orrin Hatch, also paid by Monsanto, made sure that Senator Howard Metzenbaum's bill, calling for independent studies of aspartame's toxic effects, never got out of committee. The bill, S. 1557, also would have put a moratorium on the drug. The further studies of its effects on the population would have looked at interaction with drugs, seizures, fetus health, and even behavioral problems in children, due to the depletion of serotonin caused by the phenylalanine in aspartame.
According to an April 26 news release from the National Justice League, lawsuits were filed in three California courts against a dozen companies that produce or use aspartame as a sugar substitute in their products. The companies included Coca-Cola, PepsiCo, Bayer Corp., the Dannon Company, William Wrigley Jr. Company, Wal-Mart, ConAgra Foods, Wyeth, Inc., The NutraSweet Company, and Altria Corp. (parent company of Kraft Food and Phillip Morris).
Dr. Martini recommends that consumers read all labels on any food, medicine or drinks they intend to consume. That might be great advice for a president [sic] struggling to maintain his own clarity if not his office. One wishes those who voted for Bush had read his label, to find out just how deadly he could be, and will be, if elected this time.
[b]Jerry Mazza is a free-lance writer who resides in New York City. He can be reached at gvmaz@verizon.net.[/b] - http://www.onlinejournal.com/...
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| !!! ... Raise the Economy Threat to "High" ... !!! |
| 08.06.04 (1:17 pm) [edit] |
[b][i]The U.S. economy added 32,000 workers in July – a far cry from the Bush administration's prediction of over 200,000[/i].[/b] - http://www.alternet.org/elect...
[b]"We the People" are facing a dire economic situation here at home as a consequence of the disastrous [i]corporate-take-all and tax boondoggles for the richest-of-the-rich [/i]neo-fascist swindle waged by the corrupt neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta[/i], who have spent us into their reckless record-level deficits contributing to the largest debt in our nation's history.[/b]
[b]I urge you to study the following reports:--[/b]
"Bush's Inflation For "We the People"": http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Reality Check: Economy Stalled": http://www.tblog.com/template...
"Two Paths for America": http://www.tblog.com/template...
[b]Consider also ...[/b]
I scribbled a note on my calendar: "Bush lost re-election today."
Baring a major gaff by the opposing team, today's bombshell job report has exposed once and for all the fraudulent claim that the U.S. economy is in recovery. Wall Streeters headed for the bomb shelters this morning after learning that U.S. employers were only able to add a paltry 32,000 workers to payrolls in July — just a bit short of the 215,000 to 240,000 the administration had projected would be created last month.
As you try to grapple with the significance of these numbers keep in mind that the economy has to create 150,000 new jobs each month just to keep up with natural population growth. And, if you want to keep the economy from slumping into recession employers have to create 200,000 new jobs each and every month.
The bad July news now makes three months running that the administration has failed to produce the robust job growth promised its $1.6 trillion in tax cuts. Trickle-down has, as it did under Reagan, only produced chuck-full reservoirs at the top and drought at bottom. If anything should trickle down it's only because someone's reservoir sprung a leak.
I have warned for months that we should not to confuse the spurt of economic activity created last year by the Bush tax cuts with a sustainable recovery. Mailing refund checks to a hundred million consumers will always spark a round of spending. But, unless we are ready to keep mailing those checks that spending will disappear quickly. We didn't, and it did.
So, the trickle-down chickens have once again come home to roost.
This morning news included the following other indicators:
* The New York Stock Exchange index, American Stock Exchange index and the Russell 2000 index of smaller-company stocks all tumbled. Declining issues outnumbered advancing ones by 8 to 3 on the NYSE.
* The price of the Treasury's 10-year note rose sharply marking a flight to safety by savvy investors. And the already nervous precious metals investors rushed out to buy more gold which now stands near $400 an ounce.
* And rising energy prices will further dampen economic growth. Oil for September delivery settled at $44.41, up $1.58 a barrel.
Earlier this week I published a complete explanation why I thought the administration was wrong when they claimed we were enjoying a robust recovery. Several readers wrote complaining that I took it down before they could read it, so what better time than today – the day Bush lost re-election – to reprint it.
("Repurposed" From August 3)
I think it may be time to adopt a second color-coded warning system, so I will. I am hereby unveiling the Economic Threat Level System. So as not to reinvent the wheel we will use the same colors as the Terrorism Threat Level System already in place. That indicator was recently bumped from "Elevated" (Yellow,) to "High" (Orange.) Here at the new Economic Threat Agency we scanned this morning's financial news and have decided to kick things off with a burnt orange – a threat level somewhere between Elevated and High. The intelligence reports that contributed to this decision were fresh from this morning's business headlines:
"[i]U.S. stocks opened lower on Wednesday after crude oil hit a new high on worries of scarce supplies[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Both US oil companies and the world's largest oil source, Saudi Arabia, have been cooking their books, though for different reasons. Shell Oil recently got caught inflating its oil reserves by a staggering 5 billion barrels in order to bolster the company's stock price. The Saudis have been lying about how much oil they still have underground in order to maintain its political leverage over the oil-addicted US. The fact is that we all knew that someday demand for oil would outstrip supply, and that day has arrived. Both China and India are industrializing and are demanding their fair share of the black stuff. In the old days the US could ring up a prince in the Sandpile Kingdom and ask they turn the spigot up a bit to ease prices. But the Saudis are now hoarding what oil they have left. Which explains the next headline.
"[i]Oil prices surged to yet another record high on Wednesday, battering stock markets and helping keep up demand for government bonds as investors pondered pricey crude's impact on world economic growth. U.S. light sweet crude touched $44.28 a barrel – the highest price since oil futures were launched on the New York Mercantile Exchange in 1983[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Duh!
"[i]New applications for U.S. mortgages eased last week with a dip in refinancing despite steady 30-year mortgage rates, an industry group said on Wednesday[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Homeowners have been maintaining middle class life styles with cash-out refi's. They paid off their original mortgage by taking out a larger one at lower rates. The extra cash, equity from appreciation, went to improve their homes and other major purchases. This spending contributed to a short up tick in economic activity. But now tapped out, and saddled with an even larger mortgage – many with adjustable rates poised to increase – homeowners are retrenching and are no longer able to fuel further growth. Which explains the next headline.
"[i]American consumer spending in June unexpectedly plunged by the steepest margin since the September 11, 2001 attacks, government figures showed[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] It's not just homeowners who are tapped out. Those who did not have home equity to tap have used credit cards to maintain their pre-2001 lifestyles. One credit expert described credit cards as "Yuppie food stamps," a way to maintain standard of living young workers have come to consider an entitlement. U.S. consumer debt has reached staggering levels after more than doubling over the past 10 years. According to the most recent figures from the Federal Reserve Board, consumer debt has finally passed the $2 trillion level representing credit card and car loan debt, but excluding mortgages, of nearly $20,000 per US household. And, defaults and personal bankruptcies are also at record highs and promise to get worse, as the next story indicates.
"[i]Layoffs in the United States rose 8 percent in July from the previous month, a report said on Monday, as the job market recovery struggled to gain momentum[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] A free market economy operates just like a natural world eco-chain - trouble anywhere along the chain quickly cascades throughout the entire system. Consumers under stress stop spending, orders for goods slow causing wholesalers to cut future orders from manufacturers who lay off workers. Those workers then come under stress and stop spending, which then triggers the next downward cycle, as indicated by the next story.
"[i]U.S. houses were less affordable in the second quarter than in the prior quarter because of rising home prices and interest rates[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Hey, isn't this where we started, with homes? You betcha. Rock bottom interest rates over the past three years ignited inflation in residential real estate – good news for homeowners who saw their paper wealth increase, but bad news for those who wanted to buy their first home. These would-be homeowners are now about to get hit with a double whammy. First home prices screamed past their price range and now, while prices are cooling a bit, interest rates are on the way up meaning that even a lower prices will not help much because the monthly payments are too high, which explains the next story.
"[i]Outlays for U.S. construction fell unexpectedly in June as spending on housing dropped for the first time in 16 months, a government report showed on Monday[/i]."
[u]Analysis:[/u] Fewer buyers who can qualify for a new home mean fewer new homes will be built. This will result in construction layoffs – one of the few remaining blue-collar jobs in America where a person can earn a decent wage. Advice to construction workers seeking a new job: hard hats not required at Wendy's.
One final piece of intel on the economy. Our operatives on Wall Street have been tracking sentiment among those who bet their own and their client's fortunes daily on the direction things are heading, and the picture they draw is not a pretty one. The Dow Jones 90-Day moving average has been moving — down, down, down for the past six months. This represents the best guess by frontline investors of what's in store for the economy just over the horizon.
[b]Source:[/b]
By Stephen Pizzo, [i]News for Real[/i]: http://newsforreal.com/ , AlterNet, http://www.alternet.org
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| Can All The Mad King George's Men Put Humpty-Dumpty-Dubya Back Together Again??? |
| 08.05.04 (4:04 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" should be very concerned for the security and welfare of our nation because the Mad King George is[i] to put it bluntly [/i]"losing it" ... [/b]Dubya is a 'Dry-Drunk' who has spent his entire[i] squalid ne'er-do-well life[/i] being taken care of by Poppy Bush [i]and/or [/i]Poppy's rapacious corporate cronies ... Dubya is acting [i]desperate[/i]:-- [i]i.e.[/i] making alot of mistakes in his speeches (we already know his [i]actions[/i] are miserable failures on[i] both [/i]the insane neo-con foreign and neo-fascist domestic scenes ...) -- storming off the stage when asked tough questions -- and, apparently his dwindling mental state is even worrying those around him ... Refer to "[b]Sounding a dubious terrorist alert to deflect questions about Bush's mental state[/b]" on http://www.onlinejournal.com/... ... A [i]desperate, out-of-control [/i]man is [i]very, very dangerous [/i]and is certainly [i]unfit to serve in office[/i], particularly the most powerful office in the land ...
[i][b]The final days of Bush?[/b][/i]
"[i]Whom The Gods Would Destroy, They First Make Mad With Power[/i]"—Charles A. Beard
Could it be? Is it possible? Is that picture of an angry Bush stalking away from a reporter's questions predictive of a widening crack in the monolith? Whatever it is, it's the buzz on the Beltway: the pieces are about to fall. And all the king's men and all the king's spinners are trying to put them together again.
This reported from capitolhillblue.com by Editor Theresa Hampton in her 7/28/04 article, "[b]Bush Using Drugs to Control Depression, Erratic Behavior[/b]." http://www.capitolhillblue.co... Yes. Prescription drugs are being doled out by Col., Richard J. Tubb, the White House Physician, to the president [sic] of the United States, George W. Bush.
They "impair the president's [sic] mental faculties and decrease both his physical capabilities and his ability to respond to a crisis," aides commented privately. Though many of us had that feeling long before the aides spoke. And they added, "It's a double-edged sword. We can't have him flying off the handle at the slightest provocation but we also need a president [sic] who is alert mentally." Uh huh, uh huh, a lot of us have been saying that too for a long time. Especially when he charged into Iraq without our major allies, UN or world approval, or any real evidence Saddam had WMD. Or bio, chemical, or "nucular" material, like yellow-cake uranium from Niger, which he said they had but didn't. He fibbed big-time (I mean, CIA intelligence did). Whichever, many, many people have died as a result, and the world is very angry. Obviously, Bush is very angry with the world.
Dr. Tubb prescribed the anti-depressants after the Bushman stormed off stage July 8, refusing to answer reporters' questions about his relationship with indicted Enron former chief, Kenneth J. Lay. You remember him, the guy with the handcuffs on, saying he was innocent of all wrongdoing. Yeah. Backstage, Bush screamed the M.F.-word (plural) to describe the reporters, and to keep them away from him, as he tore an aide a new A-word (singular). He added, "If you can't, I'll find someone who can."
Jesus, could conscience be catching up with this guy? Is he getting sensitive on us? Does he have bad dreams of all those poor souls going down in the Towers? Especially since he as CIC (commander in chief) couldn't, wouldn't, didn't scramble a plane into the air for an hour and 15 minutes, as planeswent crashing into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a field in rural Pennsylvania. And he grinned through his photo-op with some endangered kids with whom he was reading "a goat story." Is it all coming back to haunt him? I mean that's pretty crazy stuff.
That kind of stuff can bring the old mood swings on and those nasty obscene outbursts. It's enough to drive a man to drink again, especially if he quit cold turkey and not in a supervised 12-step program, as psychiatrist Dr. Justin Frank pointed out in his book, Bush On the Couch: Inside the Mind of the President. What's more the prominent George Washington University psychiatrist diagnosed the Bush as a "paranoid megalomaniac." Webster defines the first descriptor as "characterized by suspiciousness and persecution." The second word as "marked by infantile feelings of omnipotence and grandeur." That's a tricky combo. You know, like a Nixon or a Hitler (whose Third Reich Grandpa Prescott Bush coincidentally bankrolled, until FDR busted him under the Trading With the Enemy Act in 1942).
In addition to Bush's "untreated alcoholism," Dr. Frank noted his "lifelong stream of sadism, ranging from childhood pranks, like blowing up frogs [not the French] with firecrackers, insulting journalists, gloating over state executions, pumping his hand gleefully before the bombing of Baghdad." Dr. Frank is not alone in his diagnosis. Other prominent doctors, like Dr. James Grotstein, Professor at UCLA Medical Center, and Dr. Irvin Yalom, MD, Professor Emeritus at Stanford University Medical School praise the assessments of Dr. Frank.
The doctors also question the intelligence of administering powerful anti-depressant drugs to an old stoner (excuse me, a person with a history of chemical dependency). Bush is an admitted alcoholic (praise for his honesty about something, certainly not for his non-military career). What's more, tales of his cocaine-use as a younger man, sniff-sniff, line up from his runs for Texas governor to his first presidential campaign.
Not surprisingly, the staff at the house on Pennsylvania Avenue didn't return calls seeking their take on the Theresa Hampton article. In fact, who's to say the staff didn't leak the facts? It seems amazing such a tight-lipped administration would even mention it. Could they be getting ready to dump George? Throw a net around him? Send him off in a chopper waving his fingers in Vs, fly him to a bunker in Minnesota? Could Dick Cheney be ready to step in as the neocon presidential candidate and somebody kinder and gentler (ahem) like House Majority Leader Tom DeLay as neocon veep? Folks with whom the far right or—change that market target—the moderate right could feel right about, let's say a Senator McCain? Never hurts to have a real war hero.
What's more, even though the exact drugs or dosages to control depression and behavior are not known, we do know these pack enough wallop to keep Bush under control, perhaps wipe the smirk off his face. Yow! But given Republican propriety uber alles, details of Mr. Bush's health, drugs or treatment are not public record. Though they sound pretty public to me. And are guarded, zealously, by the will-o-the-wisps surrounding His Loonyness. It is The Madness of King George redux, updated for 2004. Though he's still out there folks, only yesterday endorsing a new post to oversee intelligence, a person that he (Bush) could hire or fire, according to the Monday's New York Times. Isn't that a comfort?
Yet veteran White House watchers are comparing this situation to Reagan's second term: when aides managed to sit on the fact that the Gip's memory lapses were sadly signaling the onset of the big A (Alzheimer's). This is especially not funny for this author, whose father, somewhat misguided, loved the Gip, and even kept a portrait-sized photo near his bed in the nursing home room, after he contracted Alzheimer's himself, and lapsed into a heart-rending never-never land. Which only illustrates how we, from right to center to left, are all so vulnerable. And how this all too human flesh is connected, even by stem-cell research, like it or not, and can even be compassionate to a conservative who's yet to earn compassion, having left millions of kids behind, waiting for $26 billion in funding for their program. And so on.
Read all about it. George Bush now walking alone in the rose garden. Behind him the pillaged environment, the monopoly of excessive tax cuts to the rich, the Saudi gifts to Arbusto and all the Bushes, insider trading at Harken, the Texas Rangers scam, Tom Hicks paying $10 million for Bush's $600,000 worth of shares, the Carlyle Group side-income. And so on. His reneging on more international treaties than any American president. His degrading Texas pollution laws to favor power and oil companies, making Texas the most polluted state in the Union. His most executions by any governor in American history. And so on.
With the help of brother Jeb, governor of Florida, and daddy's appointments to the Supreme Court, becoming president [sic] after losing the popular election by over 500,000 votes. Shattering the record for the largest annual deficit in U.S. history. Setting a record for most private bankruptcies filed in any 12-month period. In his first year in office, over 2 million Americans lost their jobs and that trend continues every month. Members of his cabinet the richest of any administration in U.S. history. Setting the record for most campaign fund-raising trips by any U.S. president [sic]. All-time U.S. and world record-holder for receiving the most corporate campaign donations. The doling out of 100 million-plus dollars from the White House to Born Again Christians, and another billion from a Capital fund, but excluding other religious groups. Buying votes. Corrupting all our values. And so on, a list that goes down your arm and into the dirt easily . . .
The fewest numbers of press conferences of any president [sic] since the advent of television. The all-time record for most days on vacation in any one-year period, including taking off the entire month of August prior to the 9-11 attacks. The all-time record for most people worldwide to protest at once in public venues (15 million people), shattering the record for protests against any person in the history of mankind. Cutting health care benefits for war veterans and supporting a cut in duty benefits for active duty troops and their families in wartime. And so on, and so on . . .
It's no wonder Bush, according to Teresa Hampton & William D. McTavish's July 29 follow-up article on capitolhillblue.com: " White House aides say Bush has retreated into a tightly-controlled environment where only top political advisors like Karl Rove and Karen Hughes are allowed. Even White House chief of staff Andrew Card complains he has less and less access to the president [sic]." Even Andy Card has to tip toe around Bush. Yet only Attorney General John Ashcroft, a fellow fundamentalist, father of the USA PATRIOT Act, remains in the tight circle, in which he and Bush have earned the title, "The Blue Brothers," both believing they're on a mission from God. Oh boy. Can you hear that Twilight Zone music in the background? And Tom Ridge complaining he gets too little face time with the boss (thank God for little things, Tom). W thinks he is God, not just president [sic].
Ridge staffers quip that Ashcroft is Bush's Himmler, as in Heinrich Himmler, chief of the Nazi SS. And lest we think Cheney is the Man behind the Man, Ridge staffers whisper its "Ashcroft . . . reason for all to be very, very afraid." Even Rummy, who predicted two of the plane-hits during 9/11 (how did he know that?), even old gnarled Rummy "is outta there, no matter what happens in November."
It's all unraveling in the Final Days into a "siege mentality:" calls, emails monitored, everyone under suspicion for "disloyalty to the crown," Kafka the doorman; one staffer questioned for dating a Democrat, imagine that, in these days of Mary Matalin and James Carville as man and wife. And the paranoia merely reflects the big guy's, or as Emerson would say, "institutions are but the shadows of the men who lead them." So hunker in the bunker, Laura. You never know who's coming to dinner. Could it be the tall guy from New England with funny hair, his sidekick with the big southern smile, their wives and kids?
And could a White House presidential portrait be whispering in the night to Bush, as they all did to Nixon . . ."We find these truths to be self evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.—That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. . . . But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security. . . ."
Now there's some sanity. A breath of fresh air that could clear the atmosphere, that could sober the brain functions, that could bring some checks and balances back to an unbalanced White House. Though it still remains the duty of every American mumbling his or her dissatisfaction, to vote it so, to monitor the vote, to fulfill the prescriptions of our Declaration of Independence and Constitution or suffer the unimaginably crazy consequences. And that's no joke.
[b]Jerry Mazza is a free-lance writer and life-long resident of New York City. Reach him at gvmaz@verizon.net.[/b] - http://www.onlinejournal.com/...
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| "Family Values" ... |
| 08.05.04 (12:15 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" have entered the [i]Age of Corporate Fascism[/i] http://www.womensgroup.org/da... whereby the corrupt neo-con Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]talk out of [i]both sides [/i]of their neo-orwellian mouths:-- sanctimoniously lecturing us all on their so-called "family values" [[i]sic[/i]] while massacring families enmasse in their insane neo-con warmongerings for war-profiteering in the Middle East [i]and[/i] impoverishing working families here at home in their neo-fascist corporate rule ...[/b]
Somewhere between 10,000 and 30,000 Iraqis have been killed by Mr. Bush’s war. Maybe we should ask the families of those victims to come over to the United States and campaign against the president. How else to counter the efforts of the families of the victims of 9/11 http://www.911independentcomm... to make endorsement of the 9/11 report’s recommendations into a litmus test for voters?
In what borders on the outrageous, Kean—the [i]ersatz Kissinger [/i]who headed the 9/11 Commission—says that voters ought to demand that politicians implement the commission’s scary recommendations http://www.tompaine.com/artic... . Reports the [i]Times[/i]:
... [i]"Mr. Kean said he thought that it was appropriate for Mr. Bush and Mr. Kerry to be judged in the election by the way they respond to the work of the commission. ‘I think it will be an issue and should be an issue,’ said. Mr. Kean.
‘And even if the commission didn’t want to make it an issue, the families would,’ he said, referring to the victims’ families. ‘The families have told me that, as an organization, they are going to monitor the elections, … and that’s wonderful.’"[/i] ...
The commission itself, reports today’s [i]Post[/i], http://www.washingtonpost.com... has hired a team of PR flacks, run by the champion spinmeister Michael “Devious” Deaver, to promote its Big Brother agenda. Deaver, of course, was Ronald Reagan’s flack-in-chief.
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Bob Dreyfuss, The Dreyfuss Report[/i], Tom Paine, http://www.tompaine.com
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| On the Lighter Side:-- Another Bush Blooper ... |
| 08.05.04 (10:23 am) [edit] |
[b]Sorely in need of a laugh?[/b] In a clip aired on CNN, Bush revealed at least his subconscious knowledge of the damage he's wreaking on the country: "[i]Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we[/i]." Brian Montopoli over at Campaign Desk http://www.campaigndesk.org/a... speculates as to why CNN would air that statement without comment.
"We the People" have been saddled with a real buffoon in the White House who ought to be in a Mental Hospital [i]instead[/i] http://www.tblog.com/template... ... [i]No joke!!! [/i]... But, anyway check out [i]The Complete Bushisms [/i]on http://slate.msn.com/id/76886... ... and ...[i] Bushisms: Adventures in George W. Bushspeak [/i]on http://politicalhumor.about.c... ...
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Posted by Lakshmi, AlterNet[/i], http://www.alternet.org
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| New Zogby Interactive Presidential Battleground Poll Reveals ... [Map] ... |
| 08.04.04 (7:25 pm) [edit] |
[b]This is the most important election in modern times for it will [i]change the course of history [/i]for generations to come ... "We the People" must take this opportunity to elect John F. Kerry as President of the United States of America in order to restore dignity, integrity and honesty to the White House ...[/b]
[b]Electoral Vote Predictor 2004:- Kerry 307 (Blue) - Bush 231 (Red)[/b]
[b]Legend:[/b] Dark Blue=Strong Kerry / Light Blue=Weak Kerry / Dark Red=Strong Bush / Light Red=Weak Bush ...
[b]Aug. 4 New polls: AZ PA TN VA WA [/b] / [u]Current Electoral Vote Predictor[/u]: http://www.electoral-vote.com...
[b]Senator Kerry Retains A Lead Through His Convention, New Zogby Interactive Presidential Battleground Poll Reveals[/b]
Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry remains solidly in the lead after a week in which his party and candidacy grabbed the political spotlight at their national convention in Boston, a new edition of Zogby Interactive polls in 16 battleground states shows.
After a string of good news for the Kerry campaign stretching back to the selection of North Carolina Sen. John Edwards as the vice presidential running mate a month ago, he leads in the Electoral College by a 291-215 margin, the individual state polls shows. Four of the 16 states in the poll collection - with a combined total of 32 electoral votes - were excluded from the calculation because the races there are too close to call.
Those states are Missouri (11 votes), Nevada (5 votes), Tennessee (11 votes), and New Mexico (5 votes). Mr. Bush won all but New Mexico four years ago.
Mr. Kerry picked up ground in Florida, while Mr. Bush made up ground in West Virginia, Tennessee, and Ohio.
[b]ZOGBY'S RACE SO FAR: --- August 3 --- July 26 ----[/b]
-------[i] President Bush [/i]----------- 215 ---------- 220 ------
------- [i]Senator Kerry [/i]------------ 291 ---------- 275 -------
Please note that this chart reflects the race based on the premise that the 34 states not included in the poll will fall to the candidate of the same party to which they fell in 2000. This chart reflects only an estimation of where the Presidential race is, in part because the race in several states is within the margin of error. Four states are so close that their Electoral College votes are not included in this calculation. Those states are Missouri, Nevada, Tennessee, and New Mexico.
Mr. Kerry continues a strong season on the campaign trail as the war for the White House enters a new phase. In the past, Mr. Kerry had benefited not from the power of his own personality or compelling platform of programs, but rather by the political troubles Mr. Bush has suffered as Commander in Chief because of military setbacks in Iraq, or because of the sluggish economy, or by the electricity generated by the addition of John Edwards to the team.
This newest edition of the poll, however, comes as Mr. Kerry was the focus of a concentrated four-day program at the convention. There’s not much movement in the polls, but that wasn’t expected because there are abnormally low numbers of undecided voters in this race.
Republicans tried to push up expectations that Mr. Kerry would get a big bounce coming out of the convention so that later on, when that bounce didn’t materialize, it would reflect negatively on the Democratic nominee. It is still unclear whether that tactic worked.
The two candidates continued to canvass the nation raising boatloads of campaign cash, much of it for their political parties instead of their own campaigns, with the unspoken understanding that the parties would then turn around and spend that money advertising or otherwise aiding the election of their Presidential candidate. In battleground states this weekend, Mr. Kerry’s advertising campaign went off the air, and the next day, the Democratic National Committee’s slate of commercials began.
So intense is the battle in states like Ohio and Pennsylvania that the Bush and Kerry campaigns almost passed on Interstate 70 Saturday in western Pennsylvania, as Mr. Bush motored east after stumping in Cleveland, Canton, and Cambridge, Ohio, and Mr. Kerry was headed west to campaign in Zanesville, Ohio.
Their motorcades are so large and disruptive to highway traffic that it's probably good news for the economy that they didn’t meet.
[i]Pollster John Zogby: "Kerry had a good week and the numbers reflect it --especially in West Virginia, New Hampshire, and Florida. These represent his bump in the Electoral College. Meanwhile, President Bush has improved in a few states, notably Ohio where he has widened his lead. Ohio is a must win for Bush.
"These numbers track well with our national telephone sampling after the convention, where Kerry now leads by 5 points -- 48% to 43%.
"It will shortly be time for the Republicans to convene their convention in New York. The President will get a small bump, but -- like Kerry -- not a big one. There is just not enough give this year[/i]."
[b]More details of Zogby Poll on[/b] http://www.zogby.com/news/Rea...
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| Fear and the Ballot Box ... |
| 08.04.04 (4:36 pm) [edit] |
"[i]If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen[/i]." - Samuel Adams
"[i]No passion so effectually robs the mind of all its powers of acting and reasoning as fear ... Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could only do a little.[/i]" - Edmund Burke
"[i]The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedience, and by parts ... The people never give up their liberties, but under some delusion.[/i] - Edmund Burke
[b]The corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]ruthlessly and cynically manipulates the American public using [i]fear, terror and tyranny [/i]... "We the People" must [i]stand-up with courage [/i]in the face of the traitorous Bush regime's heinous intimidation tactics and say 'NO' to Bush/Cheney's neo-con fascism, and 'YES' to Kerry/Edwards' vision of a better future, in order to save our [i]democratic[/i] Republic from[i] a fate worse than death [/i]...[/b]
[i]Bush Exploits Fear of Terrorism against Kerry [/i]
[u][b]Fear and the Ballot Box[/b][/u]
It is always risky to play with terrorism and the fear it arouses, to move it or use it for political or electoral ends. Spanish voters did not allow themselves to be taken in when they punished the Aznar government for having tried to manipulate the March 11 attack to its advantage and they delivered victory to the Socialist Zapatero.
What's happening in the United States right now also calls for reflection. Since this weekend, shortly after the conclusion of the Democratic Party convention which anointed its presidential candidate John Kerry, and just following the criticisms leveled by the Congressional Commission on September 11, the Bush Administration waved the specter of the terrorist threat once more. The alert level was raised in New York and in Washington. Now the government has been forced to acknowledge that the intelligence invoked was several years old, dating to even before September 11, 2001, before asserting that it had been recently updated.
Under these circumstances, we have to ask ourselves whether it really was a coincidence, or whether this threat was put forward once again to break the Kerry candidacy's surge. In fact, as the [i]New York Times[/i], which, along with [i]The Washington Post[/i], was the first to express some doubts, observed, the polls show that management of terrorist risk is George Bush's sole advantage in an extremely close election. Bush knows he can make easy pickings this way. American public opinion, still traumatized by the September 11, 2001 attacks, is ready to believe a lot. The Democratic opposition cannot allow itself to attack the "commander-in-chief" about so sensitive a subject and has had to abandon the initiative to the sitting president out of fear - should an incident occur - of being taxed with a lack of patriotism.
However, when a government's credibility about such a serious matter is called into question, then all its policies run that risk. And, ever since its arrival in power January 2001, the Bush administration has never stopped playing on the politics of tension and fear- even to the point of brainwashing the public, as the debate on the undiscoverable weapons of mass destruction in the Iraq file demonstrates. September 11 and the war in Afghanistan most opportunely allowed an unelected president to freeze political debate and adopt a series of exceptional measures. The war in Iraq - planned well before the al-Qaeda attacks - initially exploited this advantage.
We would like to believe that George Bush did not decide to use al-Qaeda as his best electoral agent, but the staging of last few days, after so many others, seems to suggest the opposite. Certainly, the terrorist threat exists and attacks are always possible, in the United States and elsewhere. However, far from reinforcing democracy, manipulating public opinion, this politics of fear, undermine it.
[b]Source:[/b]
[i]Le Monde[/i],[i] Editorial[/i], http://www.truthout.org/docs_...
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| Failures at Abu Ghraib Go All The Way to the Top |
| 08.04.04 (9:22 am) [edit] |
[b]The heart-breaking murders, tortures, abuses, rapes, sodomy (including little children) and other heinous atrocities committed by US Troops under Rumsfeld's control at Abu Ghraib during the corrupt Bush/Cheney regime's neo-con reign will [i]go down in history [/i]as a dark and criminally barbaric action carried out under a traitorous and dictatorial Bush administration [i]run-amok [/i]... [/b] "We the People" should hang our collective heads in shame in the aftermath of the tyrannical Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta's [/i]illegal and immoral warmongering in Iraq and their lawless "brute force" arrogance and corruption that led to Abu Ghraib ...
Instead of disclosing the truth to the American people; demonstrating righteous outrage that such neo-hitlerian barbarity took place; and firing those responsible, the neo-con Bushies are [i]covering-up [/i]their neo-fascist War Crimes ... Scapegoating a few US Troops who carried-out orders from above is morally and ethically wrong, and just as Adolf Hitler didn't personally shove Jewish people into Gas Chambers & then shovel them into Ovens, but is nonetheless responsible-- so to are Bush/Cheney responsible for these horrendous Crimes Against Humanity ... Please read "[u]Abu Ghraib Cover-up Intensifies[/u]" on http://www.tblog.com/template... ...
[u][b]Failure at Abu Ghraib Go All The Way to the Top[/b][/u]
As a high profile hearing for Pfc. Lynndie England unfolds this week, Bush administration officials continue to deflect blame for Abu Ghraib on to underlings and refuse to accept responsibility for egregious abuses of Iraqi prisoners.
[b]. The Army's internal investigation of military interrogation techniques was a whitewash of serious command failures.[/b] According to the [i]New York Times[/i], a 300-page report from the Army's inspector general concluded that there were no "systemic" problems with military treatment of detainees "even though there were 94 documented cases of prisoner abuse, including some 40 deaths, 20 of them homicides; even though only four prisons of the 16 they visited had copies of the Geneva Conventions; even though Abu Ghraib was a cesspool with one shower for every 50 inmates; even though the military police were improperly involved in interrogations; even though young people plucked from civilian life were sent to guard prisoners - 50,000 of them in all - with no training."
[b]. The Pentagon created a permissive environment that allowed torture in Iraq. [/b]A commission headed by former Defense Secretary and CIA Director James Schlesinger is set to conclude in mid-August that top Pentagon commanders – up to and including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld – failed to set clear guidelines for interrogations and neglected to thoroughly oversee the process. This failure of command ultimately created the conditions for torture in Iraq.
[b]. President Bush must demand full accountability from everyone who played a role in allowing torture of Iraqi prisoners.[/b] Contrition alone will not restore America's reputation or protect our troops. Without full legal accountability for all those – including top ranking officials – who bore responsibility for Iraqi prisoners, America's word remains suspect, and our soldiers are in greater danger of receiving similar treatment at the hands of our enemies.
[b]Source:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
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| Bush's Approval Ratings:-- A Trend Analysis ... [Graph] ... |
| 08.03.04 (5:25 pm) [edit] |
[b]If you have listened to just about any Bush speech, especially recently, you have heard that all he talks about is[i] War, Terror, and Terrorism[/i]. [/b]He has [i]no other[/i] policy. He is drunk with power and war. Notice that his support goes up [i]when[/i] the blood flows. Bush knows this and will continue to play on this. Why do you think the Bush gang are so [i]hyped-up [/i]about a potential terrorist attack upon "We the People"?
Consider "[i]Bad Signs For Bush In History, Numbers[/i]" on http://www.washingtonpost.com... : - [i]Excerpt[/i] -
... "Frank Newport of the Gallup Organization pointed out that, in Gallup's surveys, no president since World War II has won reelection after falling below 50 percent approval at this point in an election year. "Looking at it in context, Bush is following the trajectory of the three incumbents who ended up losing rather than the trajectory of the five incumbents who won," he said.
But Newport was quick to add that history may be an uncertain guide, given the volatility of events in Iraq. "There is the potential for this to be a disruptive year that doesn't follow historical patterns," he said." ...
Particularly when you can terrorize, terrify and intimidate the American people with terrorist attacks ... [i]Hmmm [/i]...
[b]Source:[/b]
Washington Post, http://www.washingtonpost.com...
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| Reality Check: Economy Stalled ... |
| 08.03.04 (1:18 pm) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are facing an economic nightmare [i]in the making [/i]as a consequence of the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc. [i]junta's[/i] reckless record-level deficit spending on warfare for war-profiteers; failure to keep good jobs in the USA and instead letting their gluttonous corporate cronies export them to exploit slave labor abroad for CEOs to gorge on fat, juicy profits while laying-off US workers; and, insanely immoral tax cuts for corporations and the rich at a time when[i] Bush's government spending on the wealthiest-of-the-wealthy [/i][i]skyrockets[/i] ...[/b] [b]Inflation is hitting America now http://www.tblog.com/template... and[i] will only get worse [/i]without a sound economic policy put in place by President John F. Kerry ...[/b]
Economic reality hit Americans hard over the weekend as newly released data showed a dramatic slowing of economic growth, a decline in consumer spending, and federal budget deficits reaching an all-time high. President Bush continued to talk up the economy stating, "We've turned the corner and we're not turning back," – surely comforting words for millions of Americans facing stagnating wages, rising costs, and mounting debt.
[b]. Millions of struggling Americans have been left behind in today's economy.[/b] New economic data released last week showed paltry 3 percent annual growth rate in the second quarter – down from the 5.4 percent average growth rate in the year ending in March – thus increasing concerns about long term job and wage growth.
[b]. Middle class consumers – fueled by rising household debt – cannot sustain economic growth. [/b]The primary culprit for slower growth was a sharp drop-off in consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of our nation's economic activity. The amount of economic activity driven by consumers in the second quarter grew by only 1 percent, the weakest since the recession and a sharp decline from the 4.1 percent clip in the first quarter of 2004. At the same time, job market growth remains slow, wages continue to decline, and household debt is mounting.
[b]. "Tax-and-spend conservatives" have created a major fiscal crisis that will threaten economic growth for years.[/b] The Office of Management and Budget estimated a $445 billion budget deficit for fiscal year 2004 – $70 billion more than in 2003 and over $100 billion more than originally estimated by the Bush administration. Projected deficits of $5 trillion over the next 10 years will almost certainly drag down economic growth, reduce job and wage opportunities, and force spending cuts in critical programs aimed at helping struggling Americans.
Click here http://www.americanprogress.o... to read more about the recent economic indicators from American Progress Senior Economic Policy Analyst Brian Deese.
[b]Sources:[/b]
The Center for American Progress, http://www.americanprogress.o...
The Economic Outlook for the United States, http://www.americanprogress.o...
ECONOMY, Not necessarily in the news, http://www.tblog.com/template...
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| 36 Ways the Bush/Cheney Inc. Junta Is Losing the War on Terror ... |
| 08.03.04 (10:26 am) [edit] |
[b]"We the People" are being terrorized[i] and [/i]intimidated by the corrupt Bush/Cheney Inc.[i] junta [/i]... We must take our nation back and vote for John F. Kerry as president in order to develop a strategy for fighting terrorism that is sane, realistic and solid, [i]instead [/i]of the insane, unrealistic and dangerously unstable (i.e. [i]stupid[/i]) neo-con doctrine of pre-emptive[i] warfare for war-profiteering [/i]against regimes that have not even threatened us[i] beforehand [/i]and become havens & recruiting grounds for terrorists [i]afterwards[/i] ...[/b]
Consider "[i]36 Ways the US Is Losing the War on Terror[/i]" on http://www.antiwar.com/utley/... ...
Three years and half a trillion dollars later America is losing the war on terrorism. The 9/11 Commission has warned that more and worse acts of terrorism are to be expected. Bin Laden's planning always assumed that we, in reacting to him, http://argument.independent.c... would help him carry out his objectives. Well, we did. In his dreams he could not have imagined the damage done to America. So how are we losing the war?
1.) Of course, turning most of the world against us is bin Laden's greatest achievement. From Africa to Latin America, from Europe to Asia, the swift collapse of confidence in America's moral leadership, and hatred for our government, is unparalleled in history. According to the July 26 issue of Time, "Bush and America are so unpopular overseas, polls show, that many foreign leaders can't agree to anything the president asks for without taking a hit in their own ratings." See also [i]America Alone[/i] http://antiwar.com/utley/?art... by Jonathan Clarke and Stefan Halper.
2.) Al-Qaeda has now metastasized into new semi-autonomous groups in many nations, all motivated by hate for the U.S. and any nation or government that helps it. America's relations with the Muslim world, nearly a quarter of the planet's population, are subject to new hatred and fear as never before.
3.) A threatening breakdown in globalization is occurring. The State Department has urged American civilians to flee from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and even the Philippines, nations where Americans have lived for generations. The long-term consequences mean loss of business contacts and investments with a chain reaction all over the world. As[i] Fortune Magazine [/i]warned in 2001, "A Fortress America mentality in security matters could spill into economic ones ... a short hop from nationalism to protectionism ... all sorts of parochial interests in the U.S. are much more likely to get the upper hand. The effect on the economy will result in real declines in American living standards." There are growing threats to American interests http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/am... in any nation with substantial Muslim populations, even now in the Far East.
4.) America's government is slowly being bankrupted – President Bush's cave-in on domestic spending http://www.independent.org/ti... to gain support for foreign wars follows his father's footsteps. Bush Sr. also caved in to Democratic demands for taxes and spending in return for their support for war against Iraq in 1990. Niall Ferguson, author of [i]Empire[/i], http://www.amazon.com/exec/ob... argued in[i] Newsweek [/i]that the American Empire was rare in being so dependent upon foreigners lending it money, and that the coming Social Security/Medicare financi | |
