After the Pledge of Allegiance

TELL BUSH OFF!!!

2005-06-06T11:53:00.000-04:00

Please sign Rep. Conyer's "Downing Street Memo" Letter to George W. Bush. He's looking for 1,000,000 signatures. Click on "TELL BUSH OFF" to sign his letter. Here's the text:

The Honorable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, N.W.
Washington, D.C. 20005
Dear Mr. President:
We the undersigned write because of our concern regarding recent disclosures of a Downing Street Memo in the London Times, comprising the minutes of a meeting of Prime Minister Tony Blair and his top advisers. These minutes indicate that the United States and Great Britain agreed, by the summer of 2002, to attack Iraq, well before the invasion and before you even sought Congressional authority to engage in military action, and that U.S. officials were deliberately manipulating intelligence to justify the war.
Among other things, the British government document quotes a high-ranking British official as stating that by July, 2002, Bush had made up his mind to take military action. Yet, a month later, you stated you were still willing to "look at all options" and that there was "no timetable" for war. Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, flatly stated that "[t]he president has made no such determination that we should go to war with Iraq."
In addition, the origins of the false contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction remain a serious and lingering question about the lead up to the war. There is an ongoing debate about whether this was the result of a "massive intelligence failure," in other words a mistake, or the result of intentional and deliberate manipulation of intelligence to justify the case for war. The memo appears to resolve that debate as well, quoting the head of British intelligence as indicating that in the United States "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."
As a result of these concerns, we would ask that you respond to the following questions:
1)Do you or anyone in your administration dispute the accuracy of the leaked document?
2) Were arrangements being made, including the recruitment of allies, before you sought Congressional authorization to go to war? Did you or anyone in your Administration obtain Britain's commitment to invade prior to this time?
3) Was there an effort to create an ultimatum about weapons inspectors in order to help with the justification for the war as the minutes indicate?
4) At what point in time did you and Prime Minister Blair first agree it was necessary to invade Iraq?
5) Was there a coordinated effort with the U.S. intelligence community and/or British officials to "fix" the intelligence and facts around the policy as the leaked document states?
These are the same questions 89 Members of Congress, led by Rep. John Conyers, Jr., submitted to you on May 5, 2005. As citizens and taxpayers, we believe it is imperative that our people be able to trust our government and our commander in chief when you make representations and statements regarding our nation engaging in war. As a result, we would ask that you publicly respond to these questions as promptly as possible.
Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter.

One More Nail in the Coffin

2005-06-05T07:53:00.000-04:00

As the nomination of Chris Cox, an avowed advocate of anti-consumer and pro-corporate legislation to head to the SEC proves, the current administration is intent on getting its own way regardless of the consequence to the American public. Like the Bolton nomination, a nomination equivalent to placing Ted Bundy alone with a rope in a college sorority, the elevation of Cox is just another sign that the quest for power, and power alone, is at the heart of the Bush Administration’s agenda. More than at any time in our political history, fundamental American institutions are being assaulted and pummeled by a small number of outright liars and thieves who will not let small considerations like honesty, integrity, and truth stand in their way.

How the GOP Makes Me Feel

2005-06-02T19:17:00.000-04:00

Once, when I was eleven years old, I came down early in my pajamas before my parents had gotten up. Half stumbling to the kitchen, I turned aside and stood at the head of the cellar steps. Without thought, and as naturally as could be, I began to urinate down the steps. There I was, my brain shouting, “What in the hell are you doing?” and my body unable to respond, exactly the same feeling of helplessness I get when I see George W. Bush, or anyone, ripping apart the fabric of this nation—or worse, my lifelong perception of it.

Downing Street "Minute"

2005-06-02T19:07:00.000-04:00

On July 23, 2002, almost eight months before the Bush Administration received authorization from Congress to go to war, a group of British politicians and intelligence agents sat down for a meeting at 10 Downing Street. The leaked secret and official minutes of that meeting (verified as genuine by British government sources) surfaced in a London Sunday Times article on May 1, 2005, and so far there has been little news coverage or visible effect in the United States. The document reveals that Richard Dearlove, MI6 chief:

… reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.

This is smoking gun proof that George W. Bush lied to Congress and the American people when he said he wanted a diplomatic solution to the Iraq/Saddam Hussein issue.

Dearlove went on:

It seemed clear that Bush had made up his mind to take military action, even if the timing was not yet decided. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbours, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.

Bush’s intention all along was to use armed force rather than diplomacy. What will it take for the American public to wake up and see what George W. Bush has done and is still doing to this country? 1,665 unnecessary American dead, and still counting.

What Needed To Be Said

2005-04-26T18:05:00.000-04:00

Every once in awhile there will be an essay that captures everything we’ve been thinking but failed to put into words. Juan Cole’s reply to Matthew Haughey is one of those essays. Read it.

Two Years Of Death And Destruction In Iraq

2005-03-21T19:20:00.000-05:00

By way of Gary Younge of the Guardian, two quotes I wish I had made:

"If our guys want to poke somebody in the chest to get the name of a bomb maker so they can save the lives of Americans, I'm for it," said Republican senator Jim Talent at a recent hearing on torture. How about ramming someone who does not have the name of a bomb maker in the anus with a truncheon, Mr Talent. Are you for that too?

(snip)

"US troop withdrawal," said Bush last week, "would be done depending upon the ability of Iraqis to defend themselves." They are already defending themselves Mr Bush - from you.

My nation, America, has condoned the use of torture, napalm, cluster bombs, and other assorted depleted-uranium projectiles against hapless Iraqi civilians—and for what?

Dante had the right idea. If there was truly such a thing as justice in this flawed world then George W. Bush and his lying band would have to suffer and re-suffer the same fate as each dead, tortured, and maimed Iraqi innocent in perpetuity.

Bush, Camus, and Sartre

2005-03-16T07:51:00.000-05:00

There’s nothing earth-shattering in the knowledge that George W. Bush doesn’t know what in the hell he’s talking about, but sometimes the irony is too sweet to ignore. Here’s a tidbit from Ronald Aronson, the author of Camus and Sartre: The Story of a Friendship and the Quarrel that Ended It. He is also a professor of humanities at Wayne State University.

A careful reading of "The Fall" reveals that President Bush's quote from Albert Camus in Brussels was an astonishing mistake. Many of our European friends may now be laughing up their sleeves at the United States' head of state. To those who know Camus, a White House speechwriter may have created a spectacle, in which the president unwittingly parodied himself.

The quote, "freedom is a long-distance race," was ripped from its context, one that establishes beyond doubt that Camus' words were not meant straightforwardly. No, a careful reading makes clear they were intended as a spoof of the thought of his former good friend, Jean-Paul Sartre.

(snip)

The paragraph from which the president quoted begins by having Clamence extolling slavery, as Camus believed Sartre had done by aligning himself with the French Communist Party. Then Camus has Clamence condemn himself of hypocrisy, for which Camus criticized Sartre in his journal, by saying that that he "was always talking of freedom. At breakfast I used to spread it on my toast, I used to chew it all day long, and in company my breath was delightfully redolent of freedom. With that key word I would bludgeon whoever contradicted me; I made it serve my desires and my power."

(Snip)

Camus' character, while sounding resolute and tireless about pursuing freedom, making it seem daunting and thankless but the mark of a true human being, is really prattling on about freedom. He is intimidating people with it, using it for purposes of self-interest and does not at all believe in it. The grand-sounding phrase about freedom being a "long-distance race" is just another piece of flimflam. Camus, a writer who pondered every phrase, every word, might turn in his grave upon hearing Bush misunderstand his meaning.

Prattling on indeed. Bush is an “ignoranus” – he’s not only stupid, he’s an asshole too.

What We've Lost

2005-03-13T09:03:00.000-05:00

One of the things that upsets me the most about the present and its plethora of moving images and vast indigestible stream of information is the loss of the imaginative necessity that reading (the only way we could know the world) required.

The world, Africa for example, seemed a fuller place when my access to it was National Geographic and Graham Greene novels, not the blast and surfeit of contemporary information, most of which, even if it has value, can’t be humanly held together in a cohesive whole. Then, a generalist (with a liberal education) had value—now everything it would have taken a lifetime to know can be found with a single click of a computer button. I can’t remember who said it, but this encapsulates the issue, “There is more information in a single Sunday New York Times than it took a man, in Shakespeare’s day, a lifetime to accrue.”

All of which brings me to the thought that unless a person is a specialist in one tiny corner of this welter of information they are by circumstance marginalized by a society which values apparent certainty and expertise. What we’ve lost is the capacity reading gave us for wonder (in its most incredible sense), and I miss it very much. Perhaps this is what’s at the heart of my current feeling of being overwhelmed—the former slowness of the process of learning, and it’s value, have changed dramatically in such a few, short years.

Have we finally exceeded our human ability to process information? Is how I feel a consequence of age? Have all generations experienced the same feeling? Is my complaint merely a time-honored case of sour grapes at being left behind? Perhaps there’s an element of all of this in my current state of mind, but overall, at least in a human sense, I believe we’ve lost more than we’ve gained.

At What Cost?

2005-03-05T08:13:00.000-05:00

Has anyone stopped to wonder how much Bush’s jaunts around America to hype the Social Security crisis is costing the U.S. taxpayer? I have no idea, really, but if the massive Secret Service security precautions and cost of local police and other authorities (not to mention any lost revenue to local businesses, etc.) are rolled together it must total millions of dollars each time the trained chimp takes his Washington circus on the road. Whatever the actual cost, if his latest European trip is any example the cost is in the millions, and the current travel agenda is 60 stops in 60 days.

What if, instead of taking his phony dog-and-pony show on the road, Bush stayed in Washington and… gulp! read a book, or actually had a real policy meeting? Better yet, what if he took all that wasted propaganda money and put it in the Social Security Trust Fund instead? Just think how many seniors, on a fraction of this unnecessary expense, could live out their lives in security. Would that be asking too much of a man who ran in 2000 as a “compassionate conservative” (a moron’s oxymoron if I ever heard one)?

George Bush is a dry-drunk psychotic (who needs all that AA 12 step apologizing shit?) who is hell-bent on dismantling the most successful government program in America’s history. Any concession to his plan to destroy Social Security would be, and is, a travesty. With the 2006 mid-term elections a soon to be reality, our legislators need to feel our hot breath on their necks. In the meantime we can watch as our favorite fiscal conservative pisses important millions down the drain.

Consider George W. Bush’s New Budget

2005-03-02T08:39:00.000-05:00

Here’s something to think about. Why should running a country, with all of its costs, be any different than how one runs the smallest social unit… the family? Just think of all the decisions made at the federal government level that would be an anathema at the family level. Who in their right mind would cut the food one child gets to overfeed another? Who would allow one child healthcare and withhold it from a different child? Who would give one child basic education and deny it to another? Who would allow one child to have expensive toys when another child has few or none? No one who cares in the least for their family would be this morally debased, and yet that’s exactly what our present government does to us every day.

Of course, there are limits to what any government can do for each of us, but just as the mark of a good family is in how well they function and increase the welfare of all of their members, the mark of a good government should be reflected in its attempt at equity of distribution and in the increased welfare of all of its citizens. Just consider George W. Bush’s new budget. A government that does anything less is morally bankrupt.

Note to My “Conservative” Brothers and Sisters

2005-02-27T08:48:00.000-05:00

Jesus is out of step

Whether or not you agree, we’re still all members of the same family, the American family. If this is so, would you deny places at the table to family members (your brothers and sisters) on Thanksgiving so that 20% of the family could claim 100% of the meal? Especially when the table is huge and the food abundant. Don’t we have a responsibility to share this abundance with all of our family members?

Ah, you say the 20% deserve their portion because they’ve earned it, and if those excluded had worked hard enough they would be sitting in their place as well? Certainly a good analogy if we were a pack of dogs. Is that what you believe we are, or should be?

By all estimates we’ve been and are the richest country the world has ever seen. Since this is the case, why do 45 million Americans lack health care, and why have we allowed our infant mortality to drift lower than that of… gasp! Cuba. Would you truly allow your own little sister or brother to die because your mother lacked sufficient access to health care? Or would you say she should have been more educated and more aware and more ruthlessly snapped and snarled her way to her portion of the bounty—even if she was disabled and unable to work?

Perhaps your America is different place than mine, where mistakes are punished and the less able are discarded like so much waste, where greed is moral and good, and where only the fittest and strong survive. Perhaps you should read your Bible, the text on which you apparently place such trust:

Matthew 9:10-12

And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold,
many publicans and sinners came and sat down with him and his
disciples.

And when the Pharisees saw it, they said unto his disciples, Why
eateth your Master with publicans and sinners?

But when Jesus heard that, he said unto them, they that be whole need not a
physician, but they that are sick.

Getting Closer to the Truth

2005-02-23T22:58:00.000-05:00

The more I read about the Gannon/Guckert pseudo-reporter-whore affair, the more certain I am there is some vital link to the White House that hasn’t yet surfaced.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out he was Karl Rove’s boy toy. The only thing better would be if Guckert’s daily press pass was to the area directly beneath Dubya’s Oval Office desk. Remember that nonsense about Bubba choking on a pretzel?

After all, Gannon was a “real” journalist, wasn’t he? He did have two days of journalistic training—perhaps it was there he learned how to hold a microphone so firmly. Not that I give a damn about anyone else’s sex life. As far as I’m concerned, if Jeff, Karl, or George want to do it with a goat that’s their business, but when their party collectively bashes gays and uses them as an election issue, the ante needs be a little higher. In any event, things are developing and developing quickly.

Bush To Poor: Drop Dead

2005-02-20T09:11:00.000-05:00

In light of the rich-oriented tax cuts George Bush wants to make permanent, Will Durst, political satirist, has an interesting take on Bush’s new budget. Here are his bulleted points:

• Tighter restrictions on Food Stamp eligibility so rich people can have more money.

• Federal Drug Administration inspection teams sacked so rich people can have more money.

• Highway and infrastructure improvement budgets slashed so rich people can have more money.

• An 11% reduction in Homeland Security funds available to state and local coordination efforts so rich people can have more money.

• $250 million cut from programs to train child care doctors and other health care professionals so rich people can have more money.

• Small Business Administration cut from $3.3 billion to $.6 billion so rich people can have more money.

• Increase on charges for Veterans Health Care so rich people can have more money.

• Cutting Federal Foster Care Programs so rich people can have more money.

• Cutting Medicaid and Medicare benefits so rich people can have more money.

• Ending community services block grants, a $637 million program that helps pay for community action agencies founded more than 35 years ago as part of the fight against poverty so rich people can have more money.

• Proposed cuts in aid to farmers, seniors, children, students, cops, veterans, the homeless, the hungry, the environment, Amtrak, AND the Center for Disease Control and Prevention so rich people can have more money.

• Gutting the low income home energy assistance program which is mostly used by the elderly. That's right friends, he's cutting winter heating subsidies to the elderly so rich people can have more money.

He ends with the following:

Did the political comic Will Durst mention most of these cuts are necessary to insure that rich people can have more money? Because he meant to mention most of these cuts are necessary to insure that rich people can have more money. And the poor less.

George, George, Stop Bullshitting

2005-02-18T21:49:00.000-05:00

For those of you with a philosophical bent, here’s an article (now a book) written by Harry Frankfurt, a philosophy professor at Princeton University. Have you ever wondered how George W. Bush can stand up in front of the world, tell lies with a straight face, and still believe in his own purity? I know it’s made me crazy. Incredulous when it happens, I want to reach out and shake some sense into him. “George, George, can’t you see what you’re saying is pure bullshit?” Well, there’s an answer to our quandary, and it comes by way of Frankfurt’s fine essay “On Bullshit.” I suggest you read the whole piece, but here’s a sample:

Consider a Fourth of July orator, who goes on bombastically about “our great and blessed country, whose Founding-Fathers under divine guidance created a new beginning for mankind.” This is surely humbug. As Black’s account suggests, the orator is not lying. He would be lying only if it were his intention to bring about in his audience beliefs which he himself regards as false, concerning such matters as whether our country is great, whether it is blessed, whether the Founders had divine guidance, and whether what they did was in fact to create a new beginning for mankind. But the orator does not really care what his audience thinks about the Founding Fathers, or about the role of the deity in our country’s history, or the like. At least, it is not an interest in what anyone thinks about these matters that motivates his speech. It is clear that what makes Fourth of July oration humbug is not fundamentally that the speaker regards his statements as false. Rather, just as Black’s account suggests, the orator intends these statements to convey a certain impression of himself. He is not trying to deceive anyone concerning American history. What he cares about is what people think of him. He wants them to think of him as a patriot, as someone who has deep thoughts and feelings about the origins and the mission of our country, who appreciates the importance of religion, who is sensitive to the greatness of our history, whose pride in that history is combined with humility before God, and so on.

I think that just about sums it up.

All the Jeff Gannon You'll Ever Need

2005-02-18T20:50:00.000-05:00

I haven’t posted anything about the Jeff Gannon/White House affair yet, but from what I’ve been reading the noose is closing on whatever connection Gannon/Guckert had inside the White House. Anyone interested should visit Daily Kos where the whole affair is being investigated, archived, and revealed. Of course, many other blogs are on the case also, but all of them are referred to and linked.

Note to Those Stopping By

2005-02-18T05:30:00.000-05:00

Here's a little begging from the site owner: if you stop by leave me a little feedback, good or bad. And if you have a site you think I would like, leave your URL so I can visit you as well.

Thanks,
Charles

Our Annual Shot: (Daily Boosters Available)

2005-02-17T04:07:00.000-05:00

In the same way Americans get flu shots each year when the vaccine is available, the government (read that as the smirking chimp and his barrel of sycophant monkeys) makes sure the public also gets their annual (unquestionably available) injection of “fear.” All right all you FOX-fed sheep, drop the Vioxx, turn off American Idol, and line up! The Syrians are coming! The Syrians are coming! What horse hockey.

Bush's Boys Push the Panic Button Again

2005-02-16T23:10:00.000-05:00

Here we go again. The bullshit machine is on full throttle. Today, Porter Goss (Bush’s boy), Robert Mueller (Bush’s boy), and Donald Rumsfeld (also Bush’s boy) raised the red flag on Iranian nuclear weapons, Syrian intransigence, and Al-Qaeda cells lurking in America. Add the recalling of our ambassador to Syria in response to the killing of Rafik al-Hariri, the former Lebanese prime minister, and you have a classic case of Republican hysteria mongering.

Crisis!, Crisis!, Americans be very afraid of our non-specific, non-substantiated, hearsay warnings.

My immediate reaction was “How can they even think about going to war with Iran without an army?” It just as quickly came to me that the answer was that Iraq would essentially have to take care of itself now that it has an elected government. Not tomorrow, but in the very near future. As long as we have permanent Iraqi military bases and protect the oil fields, then the rest of the country can to hell for all Bush cares. Another thing, now that Bush believes the Palestinian/Israeli issue is "settled," he can turn up the pressure elsewhere. Best of all, it takes the heat off Bush and his budget disaster.

Now it’s time to see just how gullible our oh-so-politically-aware population is going to be. I’ll give you 5 to 1 odds they suck it down faster than Jeff Gannon… well, I’ll leave that up to your imagination.

Edison/Mitofsky Wimps Out

2005-02-16T17:58:00.000-05:00

Well, what do you know… the election was stolen after all, something thinking voters have already surmised. Once more the Rove machine has rolled over the will of the of the American people—at least the thinking ones. No need to catalogue the abuses here; they’re apparent to most living, breathing human beings who can read. Remember those exit polls that showed Kerry with a solid lead:

Although President Bush prevailed by 3 million votes in the official, tallied vote count, exit polls had projected a margin of victory of 5 million votes for Kerry. This unexplained 8 million vote discrepancy between the election night exit polls and the official count should raise a Chinese May Day of red flags.

(Snip)

On Jan. 19, on the eve of the inauguration, Edison and Mitofsky released their report, "Evaluation of Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004,"… that the discrepancy was "most likely due to Kerry voters participating in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters." But the body of the report offers no data to substantiate this position.

(Snip)

Notably, Mitofsky and Edison unsucessfully try to explain away the fact that, according to their data, only in precincts that used old-fashioned, hand-counted paper ballots did the official count and the exit polls fall within the normal sampling margin of error.

(Snip)

The exit polls themselves are a strong indicator of a corrupted election. Moreover, the exit poll discrepancy must be interpreted in the context of more than 100,000 officially logged reports of irregularities during Election Day 2004. For many Americans, if not most, mass-scale fraud in a U.S. presidential election is an unthinkable possibility. But taken together, the allegations, the subsequently documented irregularities, systematic vulnerabilities, and implausible numbers suggest a coherent story of fraud and deceit.

(Snip)

The thesis of the Mitofsky/Edison exit poll report and the headlines that it generated are curiously detached from the numbers in the report itself. Statisticians who have studied the exit polls find substantial evidence to support the thesis that the vote counts—not the exit polls—were inaccurate.

Of course, nothing will change, but it’s all good material to store away until the truth (as a fact in the history books of 2050) comes out.

Power For Its Own Sake

2005-02-16T10:45:00.000-05:00

A very simple question: how can the government of United States condemn any nation for human rights abuses when the government of the United States increasingly uses the same tactics from the Patriot Act to Guantanamo to CIA “renderings” to political meetings that require loyalty oaths to enter, and so on? Doesn’t anyone see the logical problem here? So, what do they want? What conclusions can be drawn from such a comparison?

• Those currently running the United States are either liars, deluded, or both

If so, then their fundamental objective must be the retention and increase of power for its own sake by any means. What might these means be?

o Articulated sophistry of a high order
o Manipulation of public media
o Corruption of democratic social order
o Governmental secrecy as a primary value
o Fear as a political tool
o Expediency above morality

Our Dear Leader

Not a pretty picture, is it?

2005-02-14T11:07:00.000-05:00

Haloscan commenting and trackback have been added to this blog.

Oh, That's Where It Went

2005-02-13T23:13:00.000-05:00

Paul Bremer, former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq, has a lot of explaining to do. In his several years of “service” to the American and Iraqi people he lost 9 Billion dollars. Yes, lost (looted?)… as in “who knows where it went?”

U.S. officials in postwar Iraq paid a contractor by stuffing $2 million worth of crisp bills into his gunnysack and routinely made cash payments around Baghdad from a pickup truck, a former official with the U.S. occupation government says.

(Snip)

Describing the transfer of $2 million to one contractor's gunnysack, Willis (a senior adviser on aviation and communications matters for the CPA) said: "It was time for payment. We told them to come in and bring a bag." He said the money went to Custer Battles of Middletown, R.I., for providing airport security in Baghdad for civilian passengers.

Willis said a coalition driver would go around the Iraqi capital and disburse money from the a pickup truck formerly belonging to the grounded Iraqi Airways airline. The reason is because officials "wanted to meld into the environment," he said.

Willis' allegations follow by two weeks an inspector general's report that concluded the occupying authority transferred nearly $9 billion to Iraqi government ministries without any financial controls.

Just imagine, these are some of the same people (Republicans) who want you to trust them with your Social Security.

Capitalism, Health Insurance & Bankruptcy

2005-02-13T15:14:00.000-05:00

So, you have health insurance and a job and you’re doing all right… well, so did 50% of those who filed for bankruptcy in 2004. As if that wasn’t enough to scare you think about this:

• There are more bankruptcies each year than divorces
• Every 30 seconds someone files
• 4 million people filed last year
• 2 million of them had a decent job, were considered middle-class, owned a home, and had health insurance

To compound the issue there’s legislation in Congress which aims at making it harder to file. Thank God you have George Bush, the compassionate conservative, to watch your back. Just look at the great Medicare deal he gave seniors.

America, America, I Want You Back

2005-02-13T15:03:00.000-05:00

I feel like I’m losing my place in American society. We’ve always been a contentious people, but the shallow, crass, flagrant, power-grabbing greed of America’s religion spouting conservatives has reached new and unprecedented heights (or depths if you choose). Of course, power grabbing isn’t a new item on the agenda, we could hardly be human without it, but what seems most new is how stupidly this agenda is embraced by otherwise intelligent and moral people. How can anyone with a brain believe the lies the current administration keeps piling up? That’s the question I can’t resolve. In the face of proven lie after proven lie the current bunch in Washington still commands the allegiance of millions. What amazing rationalization it must take to deny such obvious reality. It brings to mind this quote: "The size of the lie is a definite factor in causing it to be believed, for the vast masses of a nation are in the depths of their hearts more easily deceived than they are consciously and intentionally bad. The primitive simplicity of their minds renders them a more easy prey to a big lie than a small one, for they themselves often tell little lies, but would be ashamed to tell big lies." That’s from our favorite fascist, Adolf Hitler. Perhaps, in the long run, humanity deserves what it gets.

What can be more dangerous than a group of deluded, righteous idealists with political power? I wonder what all of those innocent dead Iraqi’s would have to say about it? The God-led manic in the White House and his crypto-fascist followers have brought America to the worst state the country has ever been in, and they’re poised to make a final strike against anyone who opposes them. People are being arrested for wearing the wrong t-shirts at Bush political rallies; photographers are being harassed and arrested for taking pictures of bridges; new electronic voting machines subject to undetectable manipulation and with no paper backup are being forced on voters; billions of dollars are being given back to those who already are rich and billions more are being wasted in Iraq; hundreds, if not thousands of people are being held in illegal detention and often tortured—and for what?

Is this the inevitable result of a system (manipulated capitalism) that rewards the greediest and least moral? Yes, when you add messages directly from God to a man who is never wrong.

Domestic Policy... What Domestic Policy?

2005-02-11T22:01:00.000-05:00

Anyone who thinks genuine policy planning has a place in our current White House should read “Why Are These Men Laughing?” by Ron Suskind. Written for Esquire in 2003, it more than explains the bizarre difference between what George W. Bush says and reality—there’s no substance to his actions beyond pure politics. Of course, Karl Rove is at the center of the action.

One senior White House official told me that he’d be summarily fired if it were known we were talking. "But many of us feel it’s our duty—our obligation as Americans—to get the word out that, certainly in domestic policy, there has been almost no meaningful consideration of any real issues. It’s just kids on Big Wheels who talk politics and know nothing. It’s depressing. Domestic Policy Council meetings are a farce. This leaves shoot-from-the-hip political calculations—mostly from Karl’s shop—to triumph by default. No one balances Karl.

"There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a complete lack of a policy apparatus," says DiIulio. "What you’ve got is everything—and I mean everything—being run by the political arm. It’s the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."

Now, it’s 2005 and nothing has changed.

Can America Recover?

2005-02-09T18:06:00.000-05:00

Although the article quoted here is specifically addressed to progressives correctly framing our arguments and policies, it made me start thinking about how much America has changed in my lifetime. The changes are obvious: the hardening disregard for the less fortunate; the crass institutionalization of greed and how easily it’s expressed; an increasingly common belief that government is bad in and of itself; the appropriation and clinical manipulation of language to “spin” the truth; the effacement and disappearance of shame as a corrective in our culture; the failure of officials to take responsibility when their foibles are exposed; the list could go on and on.

Finally, we come to the highest level of framing accomplishment achieved by the right, and the most powerful. So successful have they been in their deep propaganda efforts, they have reframed the very categories employed in the discussion and consideration of political questions, as well as the labels and the meanings of those labels, used in such discourse. If, for example, they can cause negative images and sentiments to be associated with the very word 'liberal', they have won half the battle before it ever begins. And this, regrettably, is precisely what has transpired.

Consider the trajectory of the words and categories 'liberal' and 'conservative' over the past three decades. At the beginning of this period, liberal was far less the dirty word than it is today, and conservative far more so. Perhaps it was my age then, or the particular crowd with which I ran, but it seems to me that for many at that time, 'conservative' meant Nixon and lies and war and greed and uptight attitudes toward life's pleasures. Meanwhile, ideas like helping the poor, and the government functioning as a successful proprietor of solutions to societal problems, were broadly accepted as conventional wisdom.

To say that those latter notions are now ancient history for most Americans today is to be overly generous to the status of contemporary liberalism. The ultimate goal of skillful framing is to marginalize hostile concepts completely, optimally to the point of being forgotten and then actually inconceivable, and the right is now well down that path in the United States. Of course, this was precisely the core genius of Orwell in 1984, and why he was at such pains to portray in his totalitarian dystopia the government's efforts at reinventing language for the purpose of rendering certain ideas quite literally unthinkable.

Perhaps, then, the most profound - and subtle, and therefore little remarked upon - legacy of the Reagan years was to reverse those liberal notions embedded in 20th century conventional wisdom, turning Americans against their own government (notwithstanding the logical absurdity of such a notion in a democracy) and promoting the grandeur of what can only be described as greed. By the time we get to the era of Clinton and the Bushes, the poor and working class have fallen entirely out of sight, and politicians begin catering in their rhetoric only to the middle class. Meanwhile, being labeled 'liberal' becomes a political kiss of death, only slightly more attractive than 'pedophile' or 'terrorist' (just ask Mike Dukakis, who lost an election on almost entirely on the basis of this one-word albatross).

Honestly, is there really any chance of America recovering its moral and rational center? A part of me believes the damage is too great. What do you think?

Does Bush Know What He's Doing?

2005-02-07T22:38:00.000-05:00

Honest, this is from the transcript of Bush’s speech in Florida—from the White House web page no less. The reason he never gives details of his new plans ahead of time---is that he has no idea about the details. Imagine, the President of the United States, the man responsible for 265,000,000 people, and he doesn’t know what in the hell he is doing.

THE PRESIDENT: Because the -- all which is on the table begins to address the big cost drivers. For example, how benefits are calculate, for example, is on the table; whether or not benefits rise based upon wage increases or price increases. There's a series of parts of the formula that are being considered. And when you couple that, those different cost drivers, affecting those -- changing those with personal accounts, the idea is to get what has been promised more likely to be -- or closer delivered to what has been promised.

Does that make any sense to you? It's kind of muddled. Look, there's a series of things that cause the -- like, for example, benefits are calculated based upon the increase of wages, as opposed to the increase of prices. Some have suggested that we calculate -- the benefits will rise based upon inflation, as opposed to wage increases. There is a reform that would help solve the red if that were put into effect. In other words, how fast benefits grow, how fast the promised benefits grow, if those -- if that growth is affected, it will help on the red.

Okay, better? I'll keep working on it.

Bloggers Matter

2005-02-05T07:50:00.000-05:00

It’s not usually my style to quote David Brooks, but when he pointed out the fact that the Democratic Party under Howard Dean is drawing it’s power (and money) from readers of blogs like Daily Kos it needs to be noted.

The answer, as Mickey Kaus observes in Slate, is that the party is following the money. The energy and the dough are in the MoveOn.org wing, which is not even a wing of the party, but the head and the wallet. Only the most passionate and liberal voices can stir up this network of online donors from the educated class.

Of course he used it as a negative, but for those of us who believe the status quo of our current political system needs to be changed, it’s positive. In short, bloggers and their readers are changing the political landscape.

Now let's keep up the pressure.

More Torture Logic

2005-02-02T08:33:00.000-05:00

In another convolution of language and specious logic, Robert J. Delahunty and John C. Yoo (one of the authors of the Justice Department’s torture memos) say, in a LA Times opinion piece, that The Geneva Conventions are not obsolete and are obsolete in the same breath.

The Geneva Convention is not obsolete— nor, despite his critics, did Gonzales say it was. It protects innocent civilians by restricting the use of violence to combatants, and in turn give soldiers protections for obeying the rules of war. Although enemy combatants may have killed soldiers or destroyed property, they are not treated as accused criminals. Instead, nations may detain POWs until the end of hostilities to prevent them from returning to combat.

(snip)

A treaty like the Geneva Convention makes perfect sense when it binds genuine nations that can reciprocate humane treatment of prisoners. Its existence and its benefits even argue for the kind of nation-building that uses U.S. troops and other kinds of pressures in places like Somalia, Afghanistan and Iraq; more nation-states make all of us safer. But the Geneva Convention makes little sense when applied to a terrorist group or a pseudo-state. If we must fight these kinds of enemies, we must create a new set of rules.

In that important respect, the Geneva Convention will become increasingly obsolete. Rather than attempting — as Gonzales' shrill critics do — to deny that reality, we should be seeking to address it.

"...we must create a new set of rules?" "….we should be seeking to address it?"

How?-—with another anal light stick?

Edison/Mitofsky Gets it Wrong

2005-01-31T21:24:00.000-05:00

Compliments of UsCountVotes.org

Prominent Statisticians Urge Investigation of 2004 U.S. Presidential Election Results
Written by Kathy Dopp
Saturday, 29 January 2005
Press Release:
Monday, January 31, 2005

Prominent Statisticians Refute 'Explanation' of 2004 U.S. Exit Poll Discrepancies in New Edison/Mitofsky Report and Urge Investigation of U.S. Presidential Election Results.

President Bush won November's election by 2.5% yet exit polls showed Kerry leading by 3%. Which was correct?

"There are statistical indications that a systematic, nationwide shift of 5.5% of the vote may have occurred, and that we'll never get to the bottom of this, unless we gather the data we need for mathematical analysis and open, robust scientific debate.", says Bruce O'Dell, USCountVotes' Vice President.

The study, “Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report”, was co-authored by a diverse group of professors and academicians specializing in statistics and mathematics. The USCountVotes team included Josh Mitteldorf, Ph.D., Temple University Statistics Department; Kathy Dopp, M.S. in mathematics, USCountVotes President; Steven F. Freeman, Ph.D., Visiting Scholar & Affiliated Faculty, Center for Organizational Dynamics, University of Pennsylvania; Brian Joiner, Ph.D., Professor of Statistics and Director of Statistical Consulting (ret), University of Wisconsin; Frank Stenger, Ph.D. Professor of Numerical Analysis, School of Computing, University of Utah; Richard G. Sheehan, Ph.D. Professor, Department of Finance, University of Notre Dame, Elizabeth Liddle, M.A. (UK) Ph.D. candidate at the University of Nottingham, Paul F. Velleman, Assoc. Professor, Ph.D., Department of Statistical Sciences, Cornell University; Victoria Lovegren, Ph.D., Lecturer, Department of Mathematics, Case Western Reserve University; Campbell B. Read, Ph.D. Professor Emeritus, Department of Statistical Science, Southern Methodist University. Their study does not support claims made by Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International that exit poll errors were to blame for the unprecedented 5.5% discrepancy between exit polls and official 2004 election results.

According to this analysis by a group of senior statisticians, the new data just released by the exit-pollsters shows that the possibility that the overall vote count was substantially corrupted must be taken seriously. “Now we have statistical evidence that these reports were the tip of a national iceberg. The hypothesis that the discrepancy between the exit polls and election results is due to errors in the official election tally is a coherent theory that must be explored,” said statistician Josh Mitteldorf.

Their paper titled "Response to Edison/Mitofsky Election System 2004 Report" notes that the Edison/Mitofsky report offers no evidence to support their conclusion that Kerry voters “participated in the exit polls at a higher rate than Bush voters”. In fact, the data provided in the Edison/Mitofsky report suggests that the opposite may have been true: Bush strongholds had slightly higher response rates than Kerry strongholds.

The statisticians go on to note that precincts with hand-counted paper ballots showed no statistical discrepancy between the exit polls and the official results, but for other voting technologies, the overall discrepancy was far larger than the polls’ margin of error. The pollsters at Edison/Mitofsky agreed that their 2004 exit polls, for whatever reason, had the poorest accuracy in at least twenty years.

USCountVotes, a nonprofit, non-partisan Utah corporation was founded in December 2004. Its mission is to create and analyze a database containing precinct-level election results for the entire United States; to do a thorough mathematical analysis of the 2004 election results; and to fully investigate the 2004 Presidential election results. USCountVotes actively seeks volunteers and accepts donations to help make this unprecedented civic project a reality – visit www.uscountvotes.org for further information.

For more information, contact Bruce O'Dell, Vice President of US Count Votes, in Minneapolis, MN: bruce@uscountvotes.org 612-309-1330

The statisticians' study is available online at
http://uscountvotes.org/ucvAnalysis/US/USCountVotes_Re_Mitofsky-Edison.pdf

The full text of the Edison/Mitofsky report is available at
http://www.exit-poll.net/election-night/EvaluationJan192005.pdf

What I Heard, by Eliot Weinberger

2005-01-31T08:27:00.000-05:00

Another long article and the best on Iraq I've read yet. Eliot Weinberger, using the words of those responsible, creates a timeline detailing the fraud and travesty the invasion was and still is. I found it in the London Review of Books. If nothing else, it shows how flawed human memory fails to connect the dots--one of the prime vehicles for George Bush's political success. As far as I'm concerned, every single person in the USA should be forced to read this, not that it would change the deranged thinking of those who have their heads firmly lodged in their asses.

Actually, it just occurred to me how this would lend itself to a dramatic reading. Three or four voices reciting the following would be quite dramatic. There would be a few hurdles (Weinberger's permission, and so forth), but it could be done. Just imagine, Eliot Weinberger, playwright.

My quotes are only a fraction of the original article. The whole thing must be read.

In 1992, a year after the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, say that the US had been wise not to invade Baghdad and get `bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq'.

I heard him say: `The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.'

In July 2001, I heard Condoleezza Rice say: `We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.'

On 11 September 2001, six hours after the attacks, I heard that Donald Rumsfeld said that it might be an opportunity to `hit' Iraq. I heard that he said: `Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not.'

I heard that Condoleezza Rice asked: `How do you capitalise on these opportunities?'

Step by step he convicts the players in their own words.

I heard the president, in the State of the Union address, say that Iraq was hiding materials sufficient to produce 25,000 litres of anthrax, 38,000 litres of botulinum toxin, and 500 tons of sarin, mustard and nerve gas.

I heard the president say that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium - later specified as `yellowcake' uranium oxide from Niger - and thousands of aluminium tubes `suitable for nuclear weapons production'.

I heard the vice president say: `We know that he's been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.'

I heard the Pentagon spokesman call the military plan `A-Day', or `Shock and Awe'. Three or four hundred cruise missiles launched every day, until `there will not be a safe place in Baghdad,' until `you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes.'

I heard the spokesman say: `You're sitting in Baghdad and all of a sudden you're the general and thirty of your division headquarters have been wiped out. You also take the city down. By that I mean you get rid of their power, water. In two, three, four, five days they are physically, emotionally and psychologically exhausted.'

I heard him say: `The sheer size of this has never been seen before, never contemplated.'

I heard Major-General Charles Swannack promise that his troops were going to `use a sledgehammer to smash a walnut'.

Relentlessly he proceeds.

I heard an American soldier say: `There's a picture of the World Trade Center hanging up by my bed and I keep one in my Kevlar. Every time I feel sorry for these people I look at that. I think: "They hit us at home and now it's our turn."'

I heard about Hashim, a fat, `painfully shy' 15-year-old, who liked to sit for hours by the river with his birdcage, and who was shot by the 4th Infantry Division in a raid on his village. Asked about the details of the boy's death, the division commander said: `That person was probably in the wrong place at the wrong time.'

I heard an American soldier say: `We get rocks thrown at us by kids. You wanna turn around and shoot one of the little fuckers, but you know you can't do that.'

I heard the Pentagon spokesman say that the US did not count civilian casualties: `Our efforts focus on destroying the enemy's capabilities, so we never target civilians and have no reason to try to count such unintended deaths.'

I heard him say that, in any event, it would be impossible, because the Iraqi paramilitaries were fighting in civilian clothes, the military was using civilian human shields, and many of the civilian deaths were the result of Iraqi `unaimed anti-aircraft fire falling back to earth'.

As the riots and looting broke out, I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: `It's untidy, and freedom's untidy.'

And when the National Museum was emptied and the National Library burned down, I heard him say: `The images you are seeing on television you are seeing over, and over, and over, and it's the same picture of some person walking out of some building with a vase, and you see it twenty times, and you think: "My goodness, were there that many vases? Is it possible that there were that many vases in the whole country?"'

I heard that 10,000 Iraqi civilians were dead.

I heard the vice president say that the war would be over in `weeks rather than months'.

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say: `It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months.'

I heard Donald Rumsfeld say there was `no question' that American troops would be `welcomed': `Go back to Afghanistan, the people were in the streets playing music, cheering, flying kites, and doing all the things that the Taliban and al-Qaida would not let them do.'

I heard the vice president say: `The Middle East expert Professor Fouad Ajami predicts that after liberation the streets in Basra and Baghdad are "sure to erupt in joy". Extremists in the region would have to rethink their strategy of jihad. Moderates throughout the region would take heart. And our ability to advance the Israeli-Palestinian peace process would be enhanced.'

I heard the vice president say: `I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators.'

I heard Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi foreign minister, say: `American soldiers will not be received by flowers. They will be received by bullets.'

Their own words convict them.

I heard that air force regulations require that any airstrike likely to result in the deaths of more than 30 civilians be personally approved by the secretary of defense, and I heard that Donald Rumsfeld approved every proposal.

I heard the marine colonel say: `We napalmed those bridges. Unfortunately, there were people there. It's no great way to die.'

I heard the Pentagon deny they were using napalm, saying their incendiary bombs were made of something called Mark 77, and I heard the experts say that Mark 77 was another name for napalm.

I heard a marine describe `dead-checking': `They teach us to do dead-checking when we're clearing rooms. You put two bullets into the guy's chest and one in the brain. But when you enter a room where guys are wounded, you might not know if they're alive or dead. So they teach us to dead-check them by pressing them in the eye with your boot, because generally a person, even if he's faking being dead, will flinch if you poke him there. If he moves, you put a bullet in the brain. You do this to keep the momentum going when you're flowing through a building. You don't want a guy popping up behind you and shooting you.'

I heard the president say: `We're rolling back the terrorist threat, not on the fringes of its influence but at the heart of its power.'

I heard the president say: `Today, on bended knee, I thank the Good Lord for protecting those of our troops overseas, and our Coalition troops and innocent Iraqis who suffer at the hands of some of these senseless killings by people who are trying to shake our will.'

I heard that this was the first American president in wartime who had never attended a funeral for a dead soldier. I heard that photographs of the flag-draped coffins returning home were banned. I heard that the Pentagon had renamed body bags `transfer tubes'.

I heard a tearful George Bush Sr, speaking at the annual convention of the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association, say that it was `deeply offensive and contemptible' the way `elites and intellectuals' were dismissing `the sowing of the seeds of basic human freedom in that troubled part of the world'. I heard him say: `It hurts an awful lot more when it's your son that is being criticised.'

I heard the president's mother say: `Why should we hear about body bags and deaths? Why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?'

I'll stop quoting here, but by all means read the whole article.

Why Governments Repeat Their Mistakes

2005-01-30T10:45:00.000-05:00

By way of Barbara Tuckman's The March of Folly, John M. Novaks says governments repeat their mistakes because...

In the end, the follies of government may be named the failings of people. Those who endow a government with behavior are people with opinions and ideals. When those beliefs of individuals conflict with reality, human nature will often deny reality. Face and position become staked in the correctness of policy, and policy hardens in reaction; it becomes easier to follow consequences to their bitter end rather than face reality and change policy, with the resulting loss of face -- a sense that it is better to go for a supposed tiny chance of success, despite severe effects of failure, rather than accept the certainty of an already-failed policy, even though that acceptance would be better for the parties involved. This sort of mule-headed rejection of facts is endemic in human nature; it seems that no government to date has successfully eliminated its effects. Understanding history may at least allow us to reduce the damage of such behavior...

John M. Novak
www.johnmnovak.com

His direct application was Bush's current undertaking in Iraq. In other words, the principle Americans use for choosing an SUV, a fatty hamburger, or running the government is essentially the same.

He's right!

The New Plan is Clear

2005-01-30T07:55:00.000-05:00

The plan is finally firming up. What the Bush Administration wants is a malleable government in Iraq, permanent military bases, and control of Iraqi oil. The proof (there’s been plenty of it before) is shown in how the administration is now allowing the U.S. military to voice sentiments such as this:

The insurgency in Iraq will last at least a decade and American troops alone will not be able to defeat it, a senior US military officer in Baghdad has predicted.

Speaking on the eve of Iraq's first free election for 51 years, the officer conceded: "Iraqis are the ones who will have to defeat the insurgency, not multi-national forces.

"It is not necessarily a growing insurgency but it is a resilient one," he told The Telegraph. "We're looking at a long-term insurgency, probably at a lower level of violence than now. Historically, you look at a decade – and this is no different."

They go even further:

The cautiously optimistic assessment has led to the Pentagon drawing up "best case" plans to cut US troop numbers in Iraq by half over the next 18 months as part of a wide review of the American military, The Telegraph has learned.
It is hoped that a new strategy for training Iraqi troops – in which thousands of US military advisers would be attached to local units as "mentors" - will lead to dramatic improvements in security.

President George W Bush is insistent that America will not "cut and run", but the administration is keen to have an exit strategy ready before the US mid-term elections in late 2006 - as long as the "mentoring" strategy works.

"The administration does not want to go into the mid-term elections where they are now," said Dan Goure, a Pentagon adviser and director of the Lexington Institute defence think-tank. Generals and Pentagon civilian planners were working to cut numbers from about 120,000 - though there are 155,000 covering the elections - to 60,000."

So, the original grand plan of creating the first-rules free capitalist society on earth, where greed is the only law, has been modified to—-diminish U.S. casualties (bad publicity), mold the new Iraqi government (shadow government), have permanent military bases (planes and tanks are power in the middle-east), dominate and control oil resources (SUV owners vote), and win in the 2006 mid-term elections. Nothing cynical here, eh?

Gonzales is a disgrace

2005-01-28T20:59:00.000-05:00

Alberto Gonzales has no more business being the Attorney General than he does the Pope. Unfit even as G.W. Bush’s attorney and advisor when Bush was Governor of Texas (more poor, black, or mentally deranged folks executed in Texas than in all the blue states combined), Alberto Gonzales is constitutionally incapable of being anything other than Dubya’s lapdog. The very fact that torture is even a part of our national dialogue now can be laid directly at this fawning sycophant’s feet. To approve him as Attorney General would be something like letting Al Capone run the FBI—too stupid to even consider.

Where We Are At This Moment

2004-12-21T07:53:00.000-05:00

This post goes with and compliment the one previous.

The Myth of National Victimhood—All Wrapped and Delivered for Christmas
By Thom Hartman

It's Christmas week - Adolf Hitler's favorite season after he declared an official merger of church and state - and, ironically, conservatives are using the occasion to mount a new and bizarre attack.

They said liberals are out to destroy Christmas. Cobbling together a few anecdotes (unsupportable attacks are always anecdote-based), they managed to imply a vast anti-Christian conspiracy bubbling just under the belly of America, and pushed that frightening implication into the minds of millions of Americans just in time for the holiday season.

Conservatives must constantly attack others (and focus on "morality") to keep hidden their own true agenda, which is no less than a return to the world of Scrooge & Marley, Inc. They're working to bring about a return to Robber Baron feudalism, with a stable, rich, and powerful ruling class, and an impoverished, frightened, and politically impotent working class.

But for conservatives to keep the loyalty of the working-class victims of their policies (which are shipping American jobs overseas, while fighting unions and minimum-wage increases here), they must convince people that there is a "them" out there - liberals in this case - who are out to destroy America's moral fiber and are thus responsible for working-class misery.

This is an old trick, and one the cons know is very difficult to counter. Consider what happened when German militarism in WWI led, through the punishing Treaty of Versailles and then later the Great Depression, to the collapse of the German economy in the 1920s and early 1930s. Hitler couldn't blame the militarists and corporatist conservatives who had led his nation into WWI and mismanaged the economy afterwards, so he pointed to the Jews as the "them" responsible for the problems in German society.

The http://www.zenpickle.com/ website (disclosure: Zenpickle is owned by Joe McPherson, a former producer of my radio program) features a spoof book supposedly by Ann Coulter, titled "Mein Kampf, Second Edition." To create "Ann's" book, Joe clipped pieces out of Hitler's original and adroitly made a (very) few replacements, such as changing "Jews" and "Germany" into "Liberals" and "America." Thus, we find on his site:

Chapter 10: Why American Society Collapsed
It must be admitted that all this was partly the result of extraordinary crafty tactics on the part of Liberals on the one hand, and obvious official stupidity or naïveté on the other hand. The Liberals were too clever to allow a simultaneous attack to be made on the whole of their Press. No one section functioned as cover for the other. ...the national papers, also in Liberal hands, knew how to camouflage themselves as model examples of objectivity. They studiously avoided harsh language, knowing well that blockheads are capable of judging only by external appearances and never able to penetrate to the real depth and meaning of anything. ... This form of human frailty was carefully studied and understood by the Liberal Press..
Certainly in days to come the Liberals will raise a tremendous cry throughout their newspapers once a hand is laid on their favorite nest, once a move is made to put an end to this scandalous Liberal Press and once this instrument which shapes public opinion is brought under Conservative control and no longer left in the hands of Liberals and enemies of the people. I am certain that this will be easier for us than it was for our fathers. The scream of the twelve-inch shrapnel is more penetrating than the hiss from a thousand Liberal newspaper vipers. Therefore let them go on with their hissing..
By means of the Liberal Press, the Liberals spread the colossal falsehood about 'American Militarism' throughout the world and tried to inculpate America by every possible means, while at the same time the Democratic Party refused to assent to the measures that were necessary for the adequate training of our national defense forces. .
What soon gave me cause for very serious consideration were the activities of the Liberals in certain branches of life, into the mystery of which I penetrated little by little. Was there any shady undertaking, any form of foulness, especially in cultural life, in which at least one Liberal did not participate? On putting the probing knife carefully to that kind of abscess one immediately discovered, like a maggot in a putrescent body, a little Liberal who was often blinded by the sudden light.
In my eyes the charge against Liberalism became a grave one the moment I discovered the Liberal activities in the Press, in art, in literature and the theatre. All unctuous protests were now more or less futile. ... Here was a pestilence, a moral pestilence, with which the public was being infected..

I was happy at last to know for certain that a Liberal is not an American.
Perhaps Joe went to unnecessary effort in converting "Jews" to "Liberals" in Hitler's screed, since apparently it's again fashionable to be publicly anti-Semitic in America. Last week William Donahue, president of the Catholic League, told the nation on MSNBC, "Hollywood is controlled by secular Jews who hate Christianity in general and Catholicism in particular. It's not a secret, OK? And I'm not afraid to say it."

As you can see, the formula is simple. Identify real problems within a society, such as crime, poverty, and unemployment. Invent a conspiracy responsible for these problems, say it is led by a specific group, and hyperinflate a few anecdotes to make the conspiracy seem vast and powerful. Say they are trying to destroy the nation by weakening its defenses and corrupting its morals, thus causing the economic pains felt by the average person. Rally the people behind you in self-defense to restore military strength, moral clarity, and empower great wealth and corporations to "create jobs again."

As Leo Strauss - the mentor of the Neoconservatives currently controlling much of Washington, DC - pointed out, it's not even necessary that the so-called enemies of the nation really be enemies. The myth of national Victimhood, when wrapped in the language of morality, will elevate a politician to power just as surely as will true national victimhood.

It was the formula Hitler used, and it still works today. It is, in fact, the most consistently reliable way for demagogues to gain power. It works because it's gradual but relentless, and progressively absorbs - and then intimidates or co-opts - both government and the media.
For example, Milton Mayer, a German Jew who survived Hitler's era to write about the experience of Germany in his book They Thought They Were Free, noted that:
What happened here was the gradual habituation of the people, little by little, to being governed by surprise; to receiving decisions deliberated in secret; to believing that the situation was so complicated that the government had to act on information which the people could not understand, or so dangerous that, even if he people could understand it, it could not be released because of national security....

As a friend of Mayer's noted, and Mayer recorded in his book:
This separation of government from people, this widening of the gap, took place so gradually and so insensibly, each step disguised (perhaps not even intentionally) as a temporary emergency measure or associated with true patriotic allegiance or with real social purposes. And all the crises and reforms (real reforms, too) so occupied the people that they did not see the slow motion underneath, of the whole process of government growing remoter and remoter. ...
To live in this process is absolutely not to be able to notice it - please try to believe me - unless one has a much greater degree of political awareness, acuity, than most of us had ever had occasion to develop. Each step was so small, so inconsequential, so well explained or, on occasion, "regretted," that, unless one were detached from the whole process from the beginning, unless one understood what the whole thing was in principle, what all these "little measures" that no "patriotic German" could resent must some day lead to, one no more saw it developing from day to day than a farmer in his field sees the corn growing. One day it is over his head.

In this conversation, Mayer's friend suggests that he wasn't making an excuse for not resisting the rise of the fascists, but simply pointing out an undisputable reality. This, he suggests, is how fascism will always take over a nation.

"Pastor Niemoller spoke for the thousands and thousands of men like me when he spoke (too modestly of himself) and said that, when the Nazis attacked the Communists, he was a little uneasy, but, after all, he was not a Communist, and so he did nothing: and then they attacked the Socialists, and he was a little uneasier, but, still, he was not a Socialist, and he did nothing; and then the schools, the press, the Jews, and so on, and he was always uneasier, but still he did nothing. And then they attacked the Church, and he was a Churchman, and he did something - but then it was too late."
"Yes," I said.
"You see," my colleague went on, "one doesn't see exactly where or how to move. Believe me, this is true. Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don't want to 'go out of your way to make trouble.' Why not? - Well, you are not in the habit of doing it. And it is not just fear, fear of standing alone, that restrains you; it is also genuine uncertainty.
"Uncertainty is a very important factor, and, instead of decreasing as time goes on, it grows. Outside, in the streets, in the general community, everyone is happy. One hears no protest, and certainly sees none. You know, in France or Italy there will be slogans against the government painted on walls and fences; in Germany, outside the great cities, perhaps, there is not even this. In the university community, in your own community, you speak privately to your colleagues, some of whom certainly feel as you do; but what do they say? They say, 'It's not so bad' or 'You're seeing things' or 'You're an alarmist.'
"And you are an alarmist. You are saying that this must lead to this, and you can't prove it. These are the beginnings, yes; but how do you know for sure when you don't know the end, and how do you know, or even surmise, the end? On the one hand, your enemies, the law, the regime, the Party, intimidate you. On the other, your colleagues pooh-pooh you as pessimistic or even neurotic. ...
"But the one great shocking occasion, when tens or hundreds or thousands will join with you, never comes. That's the difficulty. If the last and worst act of the whole regime had come immediately after the first and the smallest, thousands, yes, millions would have been sufficiently shocked - if, let us say, the gassing of the Jews in '43 had come immediately after the 'German Firm' stickers on the windows of non-Jewish shops in '33. But of course this isn't the way it happens. In between come all the hundreds of little steps, some of them imperceptible, each of them preparing you not to be shocked by the next. Step C is not so much worse than Step B, and, if you did not make a stand at Step B, why should you at Step C? And so on to Step D.
"And one day, too late, your principles, if you were ever sensible of them, all rush in upon you. The burden of self-deception has grown too heavy, and some minor incident, in my case my little boy, hardly more than a baby, saying 'Jew swine,' collapses it all at once, and you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in - your nation, your people - is not the world you were in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits, the concerts, the cinema, the holidays. But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God." ...

Mayer's friend pointed out the terrible challenge faced then by average Germans, and today by peoples across the world, as governments are taken over by authoritarian, corporatist - fascist - regimes.

"How is this to be avoided, among ordinary men, even highly educated ordinary men?" Mayer's friend asked rhetorically. And, without the benefit of a previous and recent and well-remembered fascistic regime to refer to, he had to candidly answer: "Frankly, I do not know."
This was the great problem that Mayer and so many in his day faced.

As Mayer's friend noted, "I do not see, even now [how we could have stopped it]. Many, many times since it all happened I have pondered that pair of great maxims, Principiis obsta and Finem respice - 'Resist the beginnings' and 'consider the end.' But one must foresee the end in order to resist, or even see, the beginnings. One must foresee the end clearly and certainly and how is this to be done, by ordinary men or even by extraordinary men?"
And here we are.

Sinclair Broadcast Group runs right-wing editorials on its stations over public airways with no pretense of balance.

Former MSNBC producer Jeff Cohen tells me that he was ordered to always have at least two conservatives on the Donahue show whenever one liberal appeared, "and three conservatives to Michael Moore." Apparently the Moore Rule at MSNBC now also extends to Amy Goodman - a few days after Cohen said this on my radio program, I watched MSNBC's Chris Matthews position Goodman against three conservatives, and then dismiss her before the show ended so the remaining three could make their final points.

Hundreds of hours a day of right-wing programming pour out of radio stations nationwide, and conservative extremists are the most common "guests" and "experts" on network news and weekend political TV shows.

The 2004 election may have been stolen with massive nationwide fraud - the statistics in New Mexico, Ohio, and Florida are truly startling - and Alliance for Democracy lawyer Cliff Arnebeck has filed a lawsuit against Bush, Cheney, Rove, et al, suggesting that Kerry actually won Ohio. The story was only covered in any depth by C-SPAN.

The possibility that the election of 2002 was also stolen - particularly in Georgia, where Max Cleland losing his seat to Saxby Chambliss gave Republicans control of the Senate - has never been seriously investigated.

And when a consortium of news organizations recounted the Florida 2000 vote and it was found that Al Gore actually won the entire state - and thus the presidency - no matter what standard was used to count the ballots, the corporate news organizations of America buried the story (although the New York Times and Washington Post at least did report it on 09/12/01).

Our Attorney General-designate calls the Geneva Conventions "quaint"; our Secretary of Defense stands accused of ordering torture; our President and Vice President knowingly lie to us and the world in order to lead an election-year preemptive war; and Congress passes national security bills without reading them - eerily like the German Parliament passed the Enabling Acts after the Reichstag was burned.

So how to counter it?

The experience of 20th century Europe demonstrates that those abusing power must be confronted with equally vigorous power. In the 1930s, Germans who believed in republican democracy were overwhelmed before they realized how completely their civil liberties and national institutions had been seized.
We must not allow it to happen in our nation.

And, fortunately, there are now groups and people working hard to push back against the growing forces of corporatism - fascism - here in the United States. They range from web-based news sites, to progressive magazines and newspapers, to liberal talk radio programs, to groups outing media bias and holding both corporations and government accountable.
But if American democracy is to survive, we must all participate.

Whether it's standing in a vigil like the Ukrainians did, joining a political party, sending money to your favorite reader-supported websites and groups, or forwarding articles to friends and speaking out in our homes and workplaces, we all must all "consider the end" and "resist the beginnings." And we must do so now, today.

In this holiday season, can we give this gift of democracy to our children and our world?
Please say yes.

Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. http://www.thomhartmann.com/commondreams.shtml His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection," "We The People," "The Edison Gene", and "What Would Jefferson Do?."

The Parallels of History

2004-12-21T07:35:00.000-05:00

If you don't think America is on the threshold of fascism read this:

When Democracy Failed: the Warnings of History
by Thom Hartmann
The 70th anniversary wasn't noticed in the United States, and was barely reported in the corporate media. But the Germans remembered well that fateful day seventy years ago - February 27, 1933. They commemorated the anniversary by joining in demonstrations for peace that mobilized citizens all across the world.
It started when the government, in the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, received reports of an imminent terrorist attack. A foreign ideologue had launched feeble attacks on a few famous buildings, but the media largely ignored his relatively small efforts. The intelligence services knew, however, that the odds were he would eventually succeed. (Historians are still arguing whether or not rogue elements in the intelligence service helped the terrorist; the most recent research implies they did not.)
But the warnings of investigators were ignored at the highest levels, in part because the government was distracted; the man who claimed to be the nation's leader had not been elected by a majority vote and the majority of citizens claimed he had no right to the powers he coveted. He was a simpleton, some said, a cartoon character of a man who saw things in black-and-white terms and didn't have the intellect to understand the subtleties of running a nation in a complex and internationalist world. His coarse use of language - reflecting his political roots in a southernmost state - and his simplistic and often-inflammatory nationalistic rhetoric offended the aristocrats, foreign leaders, and the well-educated elite in the government and media. And, as a young man, he'd joined a secret society with an occult-sounding name and bizarre initiation rituals that involved skulls and human bones.
Nonetheless, he knew the terrorist was going to strike (although he didn't know where or when), and he had already considered his response. When an aide brought him word that the nation's most prestigious building was ablaze, he verified it was the terrorist who had struck and then rushed to the scene and called a press conference.
"You are now witnessing the beginning of a great epoch in history," he proclaimed, standing in front of the burned-out building, surrounded by national media. "This fire," he said, his voice trembling with emotion, "is the beginning." He used the occasion - "a sign from God," he called it - to declare an all-out war on terrorism and its ideological sponsors, a people, he said, who traced their origins to the Middle East and found motivation for their evil deeds in their religion.
Two weeks later, the first detention center for terrorists was built in Oranianberg to hold the first suspected allies of the infamous terrorist. In a national outburst of patriotism, the leader's flag was everywhere, even printed large in newspapers suitable for window display.
Within four weeks of the terrorist attack, the nation's now-popular leader had pushed through legislation - in the name of combating terrorism and fighting the philosophy he said spawned it - that suspended constitutional guarantees of free speech, privacy, and habeas corpus. Police could now intercept mail and wiretap phones; suspected terrorists could be imprisoned without specific charges and without access to their lawyers; police could sneak into people's homes without warrants if the cases involved terrorism.
To get his patriotic "Decree on the Protection of People and State" passed over the objections of concerned legislators and civil libertarians, he agreed to put a 4-year sunset provision on it: if the national emergency provoked by the terrorist attack was over by then, the freedoms and rights would be returned to the people, and the police agencies would be re-restrained. Legislators would later say they hadn't had time to read the bill before voting on it.
Immediately after passage of the anti-terrorism act, his federal police agencies stepped up their program of arresting suspicious persons and holding them without access to lawyers or courts. In the first year only a few hundred were interred, and those who objected were largely ignored by the mainstream press, which was afraid to offend and thus lose access to a leader with such high popularity ratings. Citizens who protested the leader in public - and there were many - quickly found themselves confronting the newly empowered police's batons, gas, and jail cells, or fenced off in protest zones safely out of earshot of the leader's public speeches. (In the meantime, he was taking almost daily lessons in public speaking, learning to control his tonality, gestures, and facial expressions. He became a very competent orator.)
Within the first months after that terrorist attack, at the suggestion of a political advisor, he brought a formerly obscure word into common usage. He wanted to stir a "racial pride" among his countrymen, so, instead of referring to the nation by its name, he began to refer to it as "The Homeland," a phrase publicly promoted in the introduction to a 1934 speech recorded in Leni Riefenstahl's famous propaganda movie "Triumph Of The Will." As hoped, people's hearts swelled with pride, and the beginning of an us-versus-them mentality was sewn. Our land was "the" homeland, citizens thought: all others were simply foreign lands. We are the "true people," he suggested, the only ones worthy of our nation's concern; if bombs fall on others, or human rights are violated in other nations and it makes our lives better, it's of little concern to us.
Playing on this new nationalism, and exploiting a disagreement with the French over his increasing militarism, he argued that any international body that didn't act first and foremost in the best interest of his own nation was neither relevant nor useful. He thus withdrew his country from the League Of Nations in October, 1933, and then negotiated a separate naval armaments agreement with Anthony Eden of The United Kingdom to create a worldwide military ruling elite.
His propaganda minister orchestrated a campaign to ensure the people that he was a deeply religious man and that his motivations were rooted in Christianity. He even proclaimed the need for a revival of the Christian faith across his nation, what he called a "New Christianity." Every man in his rapidly growing army wore a belt buckle that declared "Gott Mit Uns" - God Is With Us - and most of them fervently believed it was true.
Within a year of the terrorist attack, the nation's leader determined that the various local police and federal agencies around the nation were lacking the clear communication and overall coordinated administration necessary to deal with the terrorist threat facing the nation, particularly those citizens who were of Middle Eastern ancestry and thus probably terrorist and communist sympathizers, and various troublesome "intellectuals" and "liberals." He proposed a single new national agency to protect the security of the homeland, consolidating the actions of dozens of previously independent police, border, and investigative agencies under a single leader.
He appointed one of his most trusted associates to be leader of this new agency, the Central Security Office for the homeland, and gave it a role in the government equal to the other major departments.
His assistant who dealt with the press noted that, since the terrorist attack, "Radio and press are at out disposal." Those voices questioning the legitimacy of their nation's leader, or raising questions about his checkered past, had by now faded from the public's recollection as his central security office began advertising a program encouraging people to phone in tips about suspicious neighbors. This program was so successful that the names of some of the people "denounced" were soon being broadcast on radio stations. Those denounced often included opposition politicians and celebrities who dared speak out - a favorite target of his regime and the media he now controlled through intimidation and ownership by corporate allies.
To consolidate his power, he concluded that government alone wasn't enough. He reached out to industry and forged an alliance, bringing former executives of the nation's largest corporations into high government positions. A flood of government money poured into corporate coffers to fight the war against the Middle Eastern ancestry terrorists lurking within the homeland, and to prepare for wars overseas. He encouraged large corporations friendly to him to acquire media outlets and other industrial concerns across the nation, particularly those previously owned by suspicious people of Middle Eastern ancestry. He built powerful alliances with industry; one corporate ally got the lucrative contract worth millions to build the first large-scale detention center for enemies of the state. Soon more would follow. Industry flourished.
But after an interval of peace following the terrorist attack, voices of dissent again arose within and without the government. Students had started an active program opposing him (later known as the White Rose Society), and leaders of nearby nations were speaking out against his bellicose rhetoric. He needed a diversion, something to direct people away from the corporate cronyism being exposed in his own government, questions of his possibly illegitimate rise to power, and the oft-voiced concerns of civil libertarians about the people being held in detention without due process or access to attorneys or family.
With his number two man - a master at manipulating the media - he began a campaign to convince the people of the nation that a small, limited war was necessary. Another nation was harboring many of the suspicious Middle Eastern people, and even though its connection with the terrorist who had set afire the nation's most important building was tenuous at best, it held resources their nation badly needed if they were to have room to live and maintain their prosperity. He called a press conference and publicly delivered an ultimatum to the leader of the other nation, provoking an international uproar. He claimed the right to strike preemptively in self-defense, and nations across Europe - at first - denounced him for it, pointing out that it was a doctrine only claimed in the past by nations seeking worldwide empire, like Caesar's Rome or Alexander's Greece.
It took a few months, and intense international debate and lobbying with European nations, but, after he personally met with the leader of the United Kingdom, finally a deal was struck. After the military action began, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain told the nervous British people that giving in to this leader's new first-strike doctrine would bring "peace for our time." Thus Hitler annexed Austria in a lightning move, riding a wave of popular support as leaders so often do in times of war. The Austrian government was unseated and replaced by a new leadership friendly to Germany, and German corporations began to take over Austrian resources.
In a speech responding to critics of the invasion, Hitler said, "Certain foreign newspapers have said that we fell on Austria with brutal methods. I can only say; even in death they cannot stop lying. I have in the course of my political struggle won much love from my people, but when I crossed the former frontier [into Austria] there met me such a stream of love as I have never experienced. Not as tyrants have we come, but as liberators."
To deal with those who dissented from his policies, at the advice of his politically savvy advisors, he and his handmaidens in the press began a campaign to equate him and his policies with patriotism and the nation itself. National unity was essential, they said, to ensure that the terrorists or their sponsors didn't think they'd succeeded in splitting the nation or weakening its will. In times of war, they said, there could be only "one people, one nation, and one commander-in-chief" ("Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer"), and so his advocates in the media began a nationwide campaign charging that critics of his policies were attacking the nation itself. Those questioning him were labeled "anti-German" or "not good Germans," and it was suggested they were aiding the enemies of the state by failing in the patriotic necessity of supporting the nation's valiant men in uniform. It was one of his most effective ways to stifle dissent and pit wage-earning people (from whom most of the army came) against the "intellectuals and liberals" who were critical of his policies.
Nonetheless, once the "small war" annexation of Austria was successfully and quickly completed, and peace returned, voices of opposition were again raised in the Homeland. The almost-daily release of news bulletins about the dangers of terrorist communist cells wasn't enough to rouse the populace and totally suppress dissent. A full-out war was necessary to divert public attention from the growing rumbles within the country about disappearing dissidents; violence against liberals, Jews, and union leaders; and the epidemic of crony capitalism that was producing empires of wealth in the corporate sector but threatening the middle class's way of life.
A year later, to the week, Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia; the nation was now fully at war, and all internal dissent was suppressed in the name of national security. It was the end of Germany's first experiment with democracy.
As we conclude this review of history, there are a few milestones worth remembering.
February 27, 2003, was the 70th anniversary of Dutch terrorist Marinus van der Lubbe's successful firebombing of the German Parliament (Reichstag) building, the terrorist act that catapulted Hitler to legitimacy and reshaped the German constitution. By the time of his successful and brief action to seize Austria, in which almost no German blood was shed, Hitler was the most beloved and popular leader in the history of his nation. Hailed around the world, he was later Time magazine's "Man Of The Year."
Most Americans remember his office for the security of the homeland, known as the Reichssicherheitshauptamt and its SchutzStaffel, simply by its most famous agency's initials: the SS.
We also remember that the Germans developed a new form of highly violent warfare they named "lightning war" or blitzkrieg, which, while generating devastating civilian losses, also produced a highly desirable "shock and awe" among the nation's leadership according to the authors of the 1996 book "Shock And Awe" published by the National Defense University Press.
Reflecting on that time, The American Heritage Dictionary (Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983) left us this definition of the form of government the German democracy had become through Hitler's close alliance with the largest German corporations and his policy of using war as a tool to keep power: "fas-cism (fbsh'iz'em) n. A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business leadership, together with belligerent nationalism."
Today, as we face financial and political crises, it's useful to remember that the ravages of the Great Depression hit Germany and the United States alike. Through the 1930s, however, Hitler and Roosevelt chose very different courses to bring their nations back to power and prosperity.
Germany's response was to use government to empower corporations and reward the society's richest individuals, privatize much of the commons, stifle dissent, strip people of constitutional rights, and create an illusion of prosperity through continual and ever-expanding war. America passed minimum wage laws to raise the middle class, enforced anti-trust laws to diminish the power of corporations, increased taxes on corporations and the wealthiest individuals, created Social Security, and became the employer of last resort through programs to build national infrastructure, promote the arts, and replant forests.
To the extent that our Constitution is still intact, the choice is again ours.
Thom Hartmann lived and worked in Germany during the 1980s, and is the author of over a dozen books, including "Unequal Protection" and "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight." This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached.

Unanswered Bush Administration Questions

2004-12-17T06:34:00.000-05:00

I’m continually amazed at how so many public questions remain unanswered before we’re on to the next round of unanswered questions. Why isn’t the American public howling with indignation?

A partial and very incomplete list:

Where is the CIA report being suppressed by Porter Goss?

Where is the Fitzgerald investigation into someone in the administration revealing Valerie Plame’s CIA status?

Where is the investigation of Dick Cheney’s energy policy meetings?

What’s happening in the investigation of voting fraud and electronic voting manipulation, and why are stories and evidence not more highlighted?

Why aren’t the administration’s previously repeated lies about Iraq’s WMD and how the story kept changing to fit new revelations not being sufficiently questioned and highlighted? http://www.thememoryhole.com/cold-shoulder.htm

Why isn’t the fact that Bush disbanded the 400 person team hunting for WMD in January of 2001 not being highlighted and re-highlighted? http://www.thememoryhole.com/cold-shoulder.htm

Why isn’t Bush administration’s development of new and different atomic weapons not more scrutinized? http://www.thememoryhole.com/cold-shoulder.htm

Why isn’t Dick Cheney’s intrusion and pressure tactics on the CIA’s intelligence analysts still being highlighted? http://www.thememoryhole.com/cold-shoulder.htm

Why don’t we hear more about oil in Afghanistan and how important it is to the Bush/neo-con administration?

Why aren’t all American military deaths included in the totals reported, or the extent of real injuries to those wounded?

Why doesn’t it matter more that Bushes policies reward the richest Americans at the expense of the rest?

Why can Bush lie with impunity?

And last, why aren’t we (the mass of American citizens) demanding the answers?

An Apt Metaphor

2004-12-14T18:43:00.000-05:00

There's been a lot of talk lately about how Democrats will only have a chance in the next election if they move more to the right. Nonsense. To do so would only play into the Republican's strength. We have to wake up, stand up, and stop allowing ourselves to get hit.

"By Mel Giles—by way of Michael Moore
Watch Dan Rather apologize for not getting his facts straight, humiliated before the eyes of America, voluntarily undermining his credibility and career of over thirty years. Observe Donna Brazille squirm as she is ridiculed by Bay Buchanan, and pronounced irrelevant and nearly non-existent. Listen as Donna and Nancy Pelosi and Senator Charles Schumer take to the airwaves saying that they have to go back to the drawing board and learn from their mistakes and try to be better, more likable, more appealing, have a stronger message, speak to morality. Watch them awkwardly quote the bible, trying to speak the ‘new’ language of America. Surf the blogs, and read the comments of dismayed, discombobulated, confused individuals trying to figure out what they did wrong. Hear the cacophony of voices, crying out, "Why did they beat me?"
And then ask anyone who has ever worked in a domestic violence shelter if they have heard this before.
They will tell you: Every single day.
The answer is quite simple. They beat us because they are abusers. We can call it hate. We can call it fear. We can say it is unfair. But we are looped into the cycle of violence, and we need to start calling the dominating side what they are: abusive. And we need to recognize that we are the victims of verbal, mental, and even, in the case of Iraq, physical violence.
As victims we can't stop asking ourselves what we did wrong. We can't seem to grasp that they will keep hitting us and beating us as long as we keep sticking around and asking ourselves what we are doing to deserve the beating.
Listen to George Bush say that the will of God excuses his behavior. Listen, as he refuses to take responsibility, or express remorse, or even once, admit a mistake. Watch him strut, and tell us that he will only work with those who agree with him, and that each of us is only allowed one question (soon, it will be none at all; abusers hit hard when questioned; the press corps can tell you that). See him surround himself with only those who pledge oaths of allegiance. Hear him tell us that if we will only listen and do as he says and agree with his every utterance, all will go well for us (it won't; we will never be worthy).
And watch the Democratic Party leadership walk on eggshells, try to meet him, please him, wash the windows better, get out that spot, distance themselves from gays and civil rights. See the Democrats cry for the attention and affection and approval of the President and his followers. Watch us squirm. Watch us descend into a world of crazy-making, where logic does not work and the other side tells us we are nuts when we rely on facts. A world where, worst of all, we begin to believe we are crazy.
How to break free? Again, the answer is quite simple.
First, you must admit you are a victim. Then, you must declare the state of affairs unacceptable. Next, you must promise to protect yourself and everyone around you that is being victimized. You don't do this by responding to their demands, or becoming more like them, or engaging in logical conversation, or trying to persuade them that you are right. You also don't do this by going catatonic and resigned, by closing up your ears and eyes and covering your head and submitting to the blows, figuring its over faster and hurts less if you don't resist and fight back.
Instead, you walk away. You find other folks like yourself, 57 million of them, who are hurting, broken, and beating themselves up. You tell them what you've learned, and that you aren't going to take it anymore. You stand tall, with 57 million people at your side and behind you, and you look right into the eyes of the abuser and you tell him to go to hell. Then you walk out the door, taking the kids and gays and minorities with you, and you start a new life. The new life is hard. But it's better than the abuse.
We have a mandate to be as radical and liberal and steadfast as we need to be. The progressive beliefs and social justice we stand for, our core, must not be altered. We are 57 million strong. We are building from the bottom up. We are meeting, on the net, in church basements, at work, in small groups, and right now, we are crying, because we are trying to break free and we don't know how.
Any battered woman in America, any oppressed person around the globe who has defied her oppressor will tell you this: There is nothing wrong with you. You are in good company. You are safe. You are not alone. You are strong. You must change only one thing: Stop responding to the abuser.
Don't let him dictate the terms or frame the debate (he'll win, not because he's right, but because force works). Sure, we can build a better grassroots campaign, cultivate and raise up better leaders, reform the election system to make it fail-proof, stick to our message, learn from the strategy of the other side. But we absolutely must dispense with the notion that we are weak, godless, cowardly, disorganized, crazy, too liberal, naive, amoral, "loose,” irrelevant, outmoded, stupid and soon to be extinct. We have the mandate of the world to back us, and the legacy of oppressed people throughout history.
Even if you do everything right, they'll hit you anyway. Look at the poor souls who voted for this nonsense. They are working for six dollars an hour if they are working at all, their children are dying overseas and suffering from lack of health care and a depleted environment and a shoddy education.
And they don't even know they are being hit."

Where is E.B. White When You Need Him?

2004-12-12T09:40:00.000-05:00

Here’s the latest transcript of a White House press briefing posted on their official website. From all the TV clips of White House press briefings I’ve seen over the last few years I’ve always known how Orwellian and self-serving they were, but this is the first time I’ve seen one as text. They’re even worse than I thought. How does Scott McClellan sleep at night? Anyone who can, with a straight face, invent and regurgatate this sophist crap has to be a sleeze-ball of the first order. Is a pat on the head from Dubya (along with a nice fat paycheck) enough to assuage his conscience—assuming he has one. Again, how does Scott McClellan keep his skin from crawling when he lies down at night in that terryfying, existential, self-reflective time between awareness and sleep? And what brings these reporters back again and again to get non-answers--another fat paycheck and a chance to hobnob with power? It must be like trying to dance with a partner who won’t move their feet, or a repeated sexual encounter that always ends in frustration. Not once is there ever a real answer to a real question. Hell, with a little effort we could do away with human presence altogether; someone could easily compile a compendium of stock phrases and cliches, insert them into a computer program, and then just let the software answer the reporter’s questions automatically. The pen may be mighter than the sword, but not if the ink’s integrity has been diluted. Can you say Winston Smith? Can you say 1984?

Press Briefing by Scott McClellan The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
1:06 P.M. EST
MR. McCLELLAN: Good afternoon, everybody. The President looks forward to here shortly going to visit the USO care package stuffing facility in Fort Belvoir, Virginia. The President and Mrs. Bush will participate with other volunteers in assembling care packages for Operation USO care packages. It's an opportunity to highlight the many ways Americans can show their support for our troops, our men and women in uniform who are serving abroad.
Let me give you a little bit of details about this before you go, but for a $25 donation, Americans can sponsor a care package for a service member who is either en route to an overseas assignment or already deployed. The packages are assembled on military bases by volunteers. Each operation package contains, at a minimum, a 100-minute international calling card, a disposable camera, toiletries, sun screen, playing cards, and a message of support from a care package sponsor. And more than 480,000 care packages have been assembled and distributed, as of December of 2004. And Fort Belvoir has donated space and assistance to Operation USO Care Package since August of 2004.
And the President looks forward to going there and thanking all those volunteers for to their service to their country, and highlighting the real strength of America, which is found in the heart and soul of every American.
And with that, I'll be glad to go to your questions. Helen.
Q I asked you the other day and didn't get an answer and I'll ask you again, do we follow the Geneva Conventions at Guantanamo?
MR. McCLELLAN: The President has already answered that question. We've answered that question on numerous occasions, Helen. The President's most solemn obligation is to protect the American people, and in terms of -- in terms of Guantanamo, it's related to the war on terrorism that we're fighting. We're fighting a different kind of war and we face an enemy like we have never faced before. The President designated individuals again Guantanamo as unlawful enemy combatants who do not share -- they are people who do not share our values, who do not respect the rule of law, and who have no regard for innocent --
Q You haven't even charged them.
MR. McCLELLAN: Helen, I'm going to move on to other people if you're not going to let me answer the questions.
Q Go ahead.
MR. McCLELLAN: I would like to answer your question and I'm trying to do that. We can disagree on the war on terrorism, but I want to make my points, too.
But these are people who have no regard for innocent civilian life, and the military -- and in terms of the military and the detainees who are at Guantanamo Bay, the President expects them to be treated humanely and consistent with the Geneva Conventions. That's what he has said to the Pentagon, and that's what he expects to happen. We are a nation of values and laws, and we adhere to our values and laws.
Q Why are there so many reports, then, of abuses at Guantanamo?
MR. McCLELLAN: You should direct your questions to the Department of Defense if there are any allegations of abuse. They take them very seriously.
Q You're not aware of any?
MR. McCLELLAN: Okay, Helen, we can disagree on this, but --
Q It isn't a question of -- I'm asking you a very valid question.
MR. McCLELLAN: And you're not letting me respond to it, Helen. I would like to respond to it, but you're not letting me.
Q You said that we don't really have to obey the law in this case, in terms of not giving these people a fair trial and charging them --
MR. McCLELLAN: These are people that are -- that do not adhere to the Geneva Conventions. These are enemy combatants who were picked up on the battlefield trying to do harm to Americans, or plotting to carry out attacks against the American people.
Q How do you know that without charging them?
MR. McCLELLAN: John, go ahead. Helen you've got to let me have a chance to respond. Thank you.
Q I want to ask about the White House Economic Conference next week. What does the President really get out of this? I mean, he pretty much knows what he wants to do in a second term economically, right? He's talked about Social Security. He's talked about the tax code, about trying to make the tax cuts permanent. So what is this supposed to accomplish next week?
MR. McCLELLAN: The President's number -- one of his top priorities is making sure that we are doing everything we can to keep our economy growing stronger and creating jobs. Because of the policies this President has implemented, our economy is growing stronger. And we are seeing strong job creation. Over the last 15 months, we've seen some 2.4 billion new jobs created. But there is more to do. We're in very much a changing economy, where people don't have the same -- don't have the same kind of jobs that they used to. The President has talked about this at length during the campaign, where he wants to help people plan for careers.
But in a changing economy, you need to make sure that workers have the skills they need and the education they need to fill the high growth, high paying jobs that are being created. There are a lot of high paying, high growth jobs being created in the health care sector and the technology sector, and people do not have the skills and -- there are people that do not have the training and skills to fill those jobs. And so we need to continue to build upon all that we have done when it comes to strengthening our economy.
The President has outlined six very clear proposals for strengthening our economy even more. And he wants to talk about those. And he wants to talk about how we keep our economy growing. And this is an opportunity for him to sit down with people from across the business sector and other people to talk about ways that we can continue to strengthen our economy. It's a top priority for the President.
Q Could I ask you what his first economic goal is in terms of legislation of this Congress. Some have said it's the tort reform. It's the cap on damages for pain and suffering, $250,000. Is that the first thing he wants to get through Congress, followed by other things?
MR. McCLELLAN: We're talking with congressional leaders about how we proceed in the second term. And how we move forward on the priorities that the President outlined. The priorities that the President outlined for continuing to keep our economy growing are very clear. He talked about the need for a comprehensive energy plan. He talked about the need for reducing lawsuit abuse. It is a serious matter, and that's one of the things he will be talking about next week at this economic conference and participating in a panel relating to the rising costs associated with lawsuit abuse. He's talked about the importance of continuing to expand trade opportunities. He's talked about the importance of supporting community colleges and a number of other issues.
But we intend to move forward on all those priorities, working very closely with members of Congress to implement them.
Go ahead, Steve.
Q Are you preparing a new supplemental funding request for Iraq? And there's some reports that it could be as much as $100 billion. Is that accurate?
MR. McCLELLAN: We are continuing to talk with the Department of Defense about how we move forward on a supplemental for next year, that we'll make sure our troops have all the resources and equipment they need to continue to do their job. That's the President's top commitment to our troops, making sure that they have the best equipment so that they can complete their mission.
And this builds upon the $87 billion supplemental that we passed last year for Afghanistan and Iraq. The President also set up a $25 billion emergency reserve contingency fund so that there would be no disruption in terms of supplies and equipment that our troops need during the time frame from that supplemental to the time we pass a new supplemental. But we are continuing to talk with the Department of Defense and members of Congress, and we expect to move forward on one at some point early next year.
In terms of the exact cost, that will be determined by what the needs are and the circumstances are on the ground. But the President will make sure that our troops are getting everything they need, and that supplemental is a big part of making sure that happens.
Q Can I follow on that?
MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Bill.
Q If Bernard Kerik is confirmed the head of Homeland Security, he would be in charge of a department which does substantial business with Taser and other firms in which he's had a direct or indirect interests. Is this an ethical conflict of interest?
MR. McCLELLAN: We've looked into all these issues, and obviously, he'll be talking about some of these matters during his confirmation hearing. But the President appointed Commissioner Kerik because he knows he is someone who is firmly committed to helping us win the war on terrorism and make sure that we are doing everything we can to protect the homeland.
We have full confidence in his integrity and we are confident that he will take the appropriate steps necessary to make sure that there are no conflicts there.
Q But even if he is not any longer connected with any of these companies, there is still the perception that he can influence the way the department does business with them, no?
MR. McCLELLAN: We believe he will take all the appropriate steps to make sure that there are no conflicts.
Go ahead, Connie.
Q Thank you. Similar, on the Iraqi situation, there's a report from at least one manufacturer claiming the Army has not given them a go-ahead to build any more armored plating. Is that true, and is there a slow down on that because of budgetary constraints?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm sorry, on the first part of your question, it was the reports relating to these contracts?
Q Yes, there was one manufacturer, at least, who was quoted as saying they could manufacture more metal plating for the Humvees and the others, but they haven't been given any instructions by the military.
MR. McCLELLAN: First of all, let me reiterate, the President is committed to making sure our troops have the best equipment and all the resources they need to do their job. And that's what he expects to happen.
If there -- if our troops need additional resources or equipment, then we will work to make sure that they have that equipment and those resources. And that's why the President worked with Congress to pass the $87 billion supplemental for Afghanistan and Iraq, to make sure that our troops had the armor and had the equipment and had the resources they needed to do their job. That's why he worked to establish that $25 billion emergency contingency fund, so that there is no disruption in the troops getting the equipment. And we're continuing to work through that, as I mentioned to Steve.
In terms of some of these reports, that's just come to our attention. We've talked to the Department of Defense about it. They're looking into it, and I expect they'll be able to tell you more about it once they've had an opportunity to look into it.
Q So, theoretically, orders could be given right away to accelerate the manufacture, if that's the problem?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, the Department of Defense is looking into it. And when they've had a chance to look into it, I'm sure they can tell you more.
But let me point out that I've been with the President on many occasions when he visits with our troops, and he visits with the families of our troops. One of the first questions the President asks is: Are you getting everything you need? Do you have all the support and do you have everything that you need? And if they have concerns, then the President works to make sure that those concerns are addressed. That's what he's committed to doing.
I have been with him when he has visited with the families and talked to them about -- and thanked them for the sacrifices that they have made. I've been with him when he's visited with --
Q What do they say?
MR. McCLELLAN: -- when he's visited with the soldier at the lowest level of the military, or visited with the sergeant, or visited with the general higher up the chain of command. And I've seen the President talk to them about their concerns and listen to their concerns. And if they have some, then he makes sure that those concerns are addressed.
And in fact, earlier this week, he just went to Camp Pendleton and visited with families and visited with our troops, thanking them for their service and sacrifice. That's the kind of President that he is.
Q Scott, following up the Kerik nomination, Democrats, when it was announced that he was the President's choice, received the news quite warmly -- notably, Senators Schumer and Clinton, as you know. Now with these questions, though, kind of out there about his financial dealings, is there any worry on the part of the White House that his confirmation may be in jeopardy?
MR. McCLELLAN: No. In fact, I think all you need to do is look to the people of New York to see the kind of support that Commissioner Kerik has, because he is someone who has a proven record of working to transform large institutions to make sure that they are doing an even better job than they were before he took that position. He's been the head of a corrections facility. He's been the commissioner of the New York Police Department. He was someone who was one of the first ones on the scene at Ground Zero. And he was there helping to coordinate the response and recovery efforts.
He is someone who is very capable, and someone who has the strong support of those who know him best, on both sides of the aisle. He has the strong support of Democrats and Republicans alike. Mayor Giuliani certainly is a strong supporter of his. Senator Schumer and Senator Clinton have made very strong statements of support for Commissioner Kerik. He is someone that will do a great job at the Department of Homeland Security, and we hope that the Senate will move forward quickly on his nomination next year when the hearings begin.
Go ahead, Wendell.
Q Scott, a couple of questions. The first, does the President, like Ambassador Danforth, still have confidence in Kofi Annan and remain believe he should remain the Secretary General of the United Nations?
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes. I think, one, we've addressed this issue before. And I think that Ambassador Danforth addressed it just yesterday. Secretary General Annan is someone we have worked very closely with on a number of important priorities, like the global AIDS initiative, and like our efforts in Sudan and other areas where we've worked to make the world safer and better. He is someone we will continue to work closely with.
Now, this has all come up recently in the whole oil-for-food program investigation that is ongoing. And I think it's very important for us to continue to emphasize that we expect a full investigation and a transparent investigation. It's important that all the facts be known about this investigation. And we are continuing to urge that that investigation proceed in a way that is fully transparent so that everybody knows exactly what happened with the oil-for-food program. And that's what we continue to emphasize.
At the same time, separate and apart from that, we continue to work with the Secretary General to address some of the priorities that we all share across the globe.
Q And the other question, does the President agree with Secretary Powell that the reluctance of some NATO members to participate in training Iraqi troops is hurting the credibility and cohesion of NATO?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think Secretary Powell stated it very well. When NATO has a mission, it's important for everybody to be supportive of that mission. And there are a number of countries that are participating in the training mission in Iraq. NATO just announced earlier this week that they were increasing the number of people participating in that training mission for the Iraqi people. But in any mission related to NATO, we think it's important for all countries that are members of NATO to be supportive of those efforts.
Q But NATO is an organization that works by consensus: All agree or NATO does not follow. So how is it that you can say that, when obviously there is such reluctance on the part of a number of NATO members to be involved --
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, I think the international community is --
Q -- in training troops in Iraq?
MR. McCLELLAN: -- is strongly behind the efforts of the Iraqi people to realize a free and peaceful future and to move forward on holding elections. The international community is in strong support of the Iraqi people assuming full responsibility for their nation, and there are different ways that the international community can help the Iraqi people. We've seen that, whether it's through debt reduction or reconstruction efforts or troops. There are many ways that the international community can help.
Obviously, each country has to make their own decision. But when it comes to NATO, which you're referring to, we do believe it's important for everybody to be supportive of the missions that NATO sets.
Q Secretary Rumsfeld is in India, right after Mr. Putin's visit. I wonder if he's carrying any special message from the President. And also, I understand that U.S. has offered weapons to India also, as well as Pakistan. So how President feels about that?
MR. McCLELLAN: I don't have any update for you on either of those countries, beyond what we have said recently.
In terms of the Secretary Rumsfeld's trip, I think it's best to talk to the Department of Defense about what he will be talking about.
Q Scott, tomorrow the President will undergo his physical. How will information be disseminated about that? Will it be here? Will it be a piece of paper? Can you --
MR. McCLELLAN: It will go out, like it always does, to everybody. There will be a medical summary that will be provided to everybody from his physical. The President is someone who remains in great physical shape. Anyone that doubts that can just try to go on a mountain bike ride with him and see. But this will be his annual physical tomorrow at Bethesda.
It will also be an opportunity for the President to visit with some of our wounded soldiers who are at Bethesda, our sailors and others who are there. The President looks forward to visiting with them, thanking them for their service and sacrifice, and visiting with their families as well.
Q Two questions, if I may. Afghanistan President Karzai says the drug problem in his country is a cancer more serious than terrorism or the Soviet Union of Afghanistan. Is the President committed to helping Karzai get rid of the opium trade?
MR. McCLELLAN: Absolutely. In fact, we have -- there was just a briefing recently about that very subject, about how we've been supportive of those efforts to crackdown on opium in Afghanistan and crack down on the trade there. The British are playing an important role in helping with those efforts. And President Karzai is someone who is committed to moving that country forward and addressing issues like drugs. So, absolutely.
Q One more?
MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead.
Q There is a report that nearly 6,000 people in the U.S. wind up in emergency rooms over the holidays because of decorating injuries. What specifically are you and the President doing to hang the holly and the mistletoe safely? (Laughter.) And have orders been issued that there is to be no dipping into the punch bowl while decorating? (Laughter.)
MR. McCLELLAN: I would just say that we have great appreciation for all the staff and the volunteers who help put up the Christmas decorations and the holiday decorations that adorn the White House, and we appreciate all that they have done in that.
Q Follow-up, Scott. (Laughter.)
MR. McCLELLAN: Happy holidays. Go ahead, Les.
Q The Washington Times has twice reported the Center for Military Readiness charged that the U.S. Army is currently violating the Defense Department's ban on women in land combat. In the first of two, the President, as Commander-in-Chief, is aware that most women can't carry male wounded, they can't pass the male strength tests at our service academies, that female POWs have been gang-raped, and that thousands of impregnated women had to be brought home from Desert Storm, isn't he? Isn't he aware of this?
MR. McCLELLAN: Les, let me tell you that the President is grateful for the sacrifice and the service of all our men and our women who serve in uniform. They're doing an outstanding job, and he greatly appreciates it. And that's what I would say in response to that question.
Q A follow-up. Considering the reports from the Air Force Academy, more than 100 rapes as a result of rooming females in the same dormitories as males. Why does the President think it's all right to send women into combat zones where they are so outnumbered by healthy and normal young men with raging hormones?
MR. McCLELLAN: Les, first of all, on the Air Force Academy issue, this is something that the Pentagon has taken very seriously, and they looked into, and they are making it clear that if women have been abused or assaulted in any way, they need to come forward and they will be there to help. That was a very serious matter. It was fully investigated. The Pentagon briefed on it earlier this week. And we expect it to be addressed. And they are working --
Q Wouldn't it be better to put them, the women, in a separate dorm? Wouldn't it be better?
MR. McCLELLAN: They are -- they are working to address it.
Q They're going to do that? Okay.
MR. McCLELLAN: And in terms of all of our men and all of our women who serve in uniform, the President could not be more appreciative or more grateful for their service.
Jay, go ahead.
Q Turning back to the economic summit next week, are there any more details you can give us about what topics are going to be discussed? And are any of these sessions going to be open to the press, including the ones that the President is expecting to attend?
MR. McCLELLAN: I expect it would be similar to some of the summits and other economic meetings that we've had. We will be putting out more information, hopefully later this afternoon. We're still finalizing some of those details. There will be several panel sessions looking at different areas. Like I said earlier, the President will be participating in one relating to the high cost of lawsuit abuse. There are some others that he'll be participating in, as well. And he'll be making remarks at the end of the economic conference to talk about the importance of continuing to take steps to keep our economy growing stronger.
Go ahead.
Q Can I ask about the economic conference, as well? It's a conference, not a summit, like we have in the summer of 2002. What's the difference?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you're going to see the difference when we put out all the details. I know you all are wanting to get ahead of next Wednesday, but we're going to be putting out details later. There will be several panel sessions with people participating on that to talk about how we can continue to move the economy forward and keep it growing stronger. And the President will be participating in some of those -- a couple of those panels, I believe. The Vice President will be there. The President's economic team will be there, and talking about all these issues.
Q Why not call it a summit, though?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, Mark, we'll put out all the details later today, but we have different names for different meetings that the President participates in, or different events, and this is called the Conference on the Economy, so the President's Conference on the Economy.
Q Can I ask one other thing about it. Is there any chance that there's going to be anybody speaking at these conferences who, for example, doesn't think private Social Security accounts are a good idea or doesn't think making the tax cuts permanent is a good idea?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, you're going to see the list of people that are participating in this, and I think it will resemble -- or that there will be a wide range of people from the business community participating in this.
I think the President's policies, in terms of how he believes we need to move forward to keep the economy growing are very clear. He talked about them at length during the campaign. And I think that generally speaking, there are going to be people there who are supportive of ways we can continue to move forward on these policies together to keep the economy growing stronger. The President is someone who has a strong record of working to implement pro-growth, pro-jobs economic policies, and we want to use this economic conference as an opportunity to talk about how we can continue to build upon those efforts, and continue to address the needs that our economy faces in a changing economy and the needs of workers in that changing economy.
Q Scott, at the gaggle this morning you said the United States, as a matter of policy, does not support this or that candidate in Ukraine's elections. Congressman Paul has said the overwhelming amount of taxpayer money that went into the Ukraine elections, via NGOs, et cetera, went to help the opposition candidate. Are you absolutely confident that NGOs that receive taxpayer money, U.S. taxpayer money, abide by the same position, that they don't support this or that candidate?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, there is accountability in place that we make sure that that money is being used for the purposes for which it's assigned or designated.
Q I'd like to follow up on Wendell's last question. The United Nations -- there's a report out of London, the United Nations has ordered its staff not to help in the training of the Iraqi prosecutors that are to conduct the war crimes trial of Saddam Hussein. Also, some of our European allies have also declined to assist in training these jurists. How can you say that there is international support for Iraq when these things are taking place by, once again, the United Nations?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think first of all, it's in everybody's interest that a free and peaceful Iraq emerge, and the Iraqi people want that to happen. They are moving forward to hold elections at the end of next month. We're there to support them in those efforts. And the United Nations is playing a role to support the independent Iraqi Election Commission as it moves forward on holding the elections.
Q But it's important for the Iraqi people to close the chapter on Saddam Hussein, that he will be tried for his crimes, and that he will not return to power. How can that be accomplished without the support of the United Nations?
MR. McCLELLAN: He will be tried for the oppression and brutality of his regime. He is someone who is no longer carrying out the atrocities on the American [sic] people. He is now in jail. There is a legal process that has been put in place, and the Iraqis will move forward on that legal process.
Go ahead, Bob.
Q Scott, could you say where the prospects of a new generation of nuclear power plants fits in with the President's vision of economic and energy security for the country?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I mean, the President talked about it in his comprehensive energy plan that he outlined back in 2001, about the importance of diversifying our sources of supply so that we can become less dependent upon foreign sources of energy. And nuclear energy is something that was discussed at length in that energy report. Energy security is important to our economic security and our national security. It's a high priority for the President. The President will continue to talk about ways we can reduce our dependence on foreign sources of energy to make America more energy self-sufficient. And nuclear energy is something he is certainly committed to looking at. He has talked about it in the past on a number of occasions, as well.
Q Scott, going back to NATO, the refusal of some members to participate in the training, do you see that as symbolic or symptomatic of a deeper fissure within NATO than maybe we thought there had been before, given that this is not the first time that this sort of thing has happened?
MR. McCLELLAN: I would leave it where Secretary Powell described it. I think he described it well. He was attending those meetings, and he addressed the matter. I don't think --
Q Do you believe we need a --
MR. McCLELLAN: I was reiterating what he said. But he talked about how some of the differences of the past are behind us now, and we're all focused on helping the Iraqi people build a free and peaceful future, like I said earlier today.
Thank you.
END 1:32 P.M. EST

One Way to Look at It

2004-12-04T08:34:00.000-05:00

The following is from The Philadelphia Independent, a small alternative newspaper. There's something to be said about taking the long, historical view of human progress, or the lack of the same. Perhaps if we can look at our current situation through a longer lens it will all make sense and maybe give us a little peace.

Necks Elect Noose
by Alexander Swartwout
November 2004

America is the greatest damned mass of foolish, ignorant peasantry the world has ever produced. Not once before in the human race's mutable existence has there been a nation of such monumental idiocy; and what's more astounding is that history has given these dopes self-determination. In the exercise of this self-determination, America (if we are not so skeptical but as to actually believe the tally) has chosen to let George W. Bush lead it for another four critical years, and we are at once given a demonstration of our extraordinary mass moronism, and of the stunning depth of our ancestors' genius. Now it might seem to go against my famous tempered humanity to say such a thing as this—to argue that I, in fact, know better than sixty million American citizens. How can I, you ask, call the whole race stupid and still claim to admire it as a humanist must? Well, this is exactly what I am arguing. I do know better than the lot of you: it is my occupation to do so, it is the singular reason that I have taken up the mantle of public philosopher. I know that the sensible choice this Tuesday past would have been to exterminate the presidency of Mr. Bush, and to every one of those who cast their vote for this outcome, I offer that you are a buffoon and an intellectual stumblebum, if you love your country and your species. But unlike the rest of my punditious colleagues, who will be reeling for months once they have finally summoned the muster to resume their work, I will not dwell on the outcome. You are idiots, all, but there is method to it—and it is my job, also, to understand this. Under such circumstances as our nation today finds itself—where the immense mass of citizens are half-educated ingrates, where the people are completely cut off from their own experience of the wider world by the extraordinary power of technology and informative media, where religion and superstition have filled the mushy minds of an entire generation of frightened recluses—under such circumstances as these, how are we to celebrate the idea of democracy, how are we to wish for the rule of the majority, when indeed the majority is not fit to rule themselves? Msrs. Jefferson, Madison, Hamilton and the rest have devised just such a conundrum into their marvelous political equation. The democracy they built was designed to destroy itself, and this week it has accomplished just that. A free man, as the philosophers of the eighteenth century perceived him, could do and say what he pleases, so long as he does not adversely affect his neighbors; a free man may look and think as he likes, so long as he does not cause physical harm to his surroundings. But the American people have had enough of this freedom—and so they have granted it into the hands of Mr. Bush's cabal. Indeed, Mr. Bush is compelled to realize his agenda in the name of ‘freedom;' and yet Mr. bin Laden is compelled by the same thing. Each want their people to be free and unharassed, and each is prepared to scorch the earth and enslave their own native dissenters to accomplish it. Such freedom is dubious at best, where it comes at the cost of another's. George W. Bush is the embodiment of the end of just rule by the people. This is not to say that he was not justly elected—regardless of the means of his ascendance, he represents the last figure to be freely chosen by the American electorate, because under his continued administration, we shall cease to be free as the framers defined it. This is because Mr. Bush's handlers and political philosophers believe they know better than the people—as surely as I do. And yet where I know better from the privacy of my den or the quietude of my tower, and harmlessly make my announcements in ink and pencil, the Republican demagogues are determined to exercise their superiority by legislating the behavior of the citizenry. They shall determine what is legal and illegal to say and do; they shall legislate how we are able to take care of ourselves physically and economically; they shall determine where we live and how we die, by pulling the strings of money and manipulating the very material of the natural world. They will do this because the population is stupid, and in their stupidity, the population desires it, and registered this desire, by a great effort of their overweight and overtired persons, in the boobytrapped funhouses that our polling-places have been allowed to become. The population, in a democratic fashion, has chosen to demolish the democratic republic. Jefferson would have had it just the same way—it is the genius of the democratic model after all—though perhaps he would have been more proud to see it last a bit longer. Still, he knew that when an electorate becomes too ill-informed and too weakly-equipped to uphold its duty to itself, it shall earn and it shall receive the government it wants, and the relevance of his constitution would quietly dissolve. To the portion of us who didn't think it was quite time to destroy our democracy, and who attended the polls hoping to demonstrate at the least our desire to prolong our society's descent into medievalism, this might seem like a horrible tragedy; but we must acknowledge that we are outnumbered by rubes, and that the only way the human race might ever enjoy the fruits of freedom and the pleasure of human enlightenment again is to tear down what is ruined and rebuild it. The mistake we have made to this point is to think that this election is so important; to believe that these four years might make all the difference. In truth, the demise of our society is much more deep-rooted. George W. Bush is the newest embodiment, the most fully realized embodiment, of this degradation, but he is not a novel monster just come out of the void. The majority of the citizens of this country are not capable of liberty. We reside today in their country. And so four-year terms are not the units of history. History is slow and grand and great, and we are victimized by our own impatience in believing it can be steered around a bend as sharp as one single November. We must recognize the cycles of human history for the large sweeping arcs that they are, and know that ever since the Founding Fathers established our society by the light of European intellectual development, the cycle of history has been swinging away in the opposite direction. Perhaps we have come to the apogee of human enlightenment in the superstitious reign of Junior Bush; or perhaps we are doomed to go still further. Regardless, we ought to look and realize that the change we seek is one that will only come over the course of generations, of centuries, through the birth and death of nations and the rise and fall of great ideas. In the near term we shall lose our liberty, we shall be robbed of our human rights, and we shall see our nation turned into a kingdom of misguided divinity. We have little choice, as individuals, but to stop ‘fighting for it,' and begin fighting against it. For it is no longer a democracy, it is no longer the seat of freedom. America is the world's most dangerous nest of superstition and religious intolerance; the most sharp-fanged enemy to true intellectual and personal liberty; and the most seductive chimera of opportunity and promise. This country is not any longer Jefferson's noble resurrection of Athens; it is the modern Saudi Arabia of Christendom, the refuge of crusaders and bigots and fearmongers. Until now, we have been content or deluded in believing that our democracy was intact, and that in spite of its flaws, it was a self-healing mechanism. Imagine what you might be feeling today in a land governed by the Senator from Massachusetts. Is everything better? Is the urgency gone? Is the crisis passed, and the world, astonishingly, recovered? You might likely feel these sensations, but of course you would be perfectly deluded to the reality. Our society and our system are maimed by our sloth, our intellectual impotence, and our lack of concern or sympathy. And the only mechanism built into our system of governance to repair it under such conditions is not a healing one, but a self-destructive one. All that remains in our country of Jeffersonian democracy and Enlightenment secularism is the memory of the ideal, and it is this that we are charged with carrying forth and planting anew; it is this that those of us who know better, or know other, are obliged to give our lives to. The pendulum of history does not brush us briefly in our youth—it collides with us and demolishes our tranquility, and forces us to dedicate our whole existence to it. If you perhaps thought a few months of activism would straighten out the world, you have this week met the truth of the profundity of the human dilemma. We are a century from the nearest conceivable renaissance of reason and humanism, and in proportion to our own anemia, its date of arrival outstrips us. Our pride or our optimism or our slumbering reason has until now prevented us from realizing that we reside in an utterly dark age and in the land from which that darkness emanates. Science and reason and sense are nearly vanished from our society, and the great majority desire to be ruled by fear of the supernatural, ignorance, intolerance, and blindness. The majority of our countrymen are content to wage war for its own sake, they are content to annihilate populations unlike their own, they are content to be relieved of the responsibility for being human. They are content to lean back and let a mysterious, wrathful God govern their fate, and to dictate what is right and wrong. They are content, in short, to give away their liberty and become slaves of idiotic ideology, and in so doing to abandon the legacy of their country's founders. The United States is only the same nation it was in name; but it is not that country of hope and opportunity and possibility and absolute human freedom anymore. And it has not been this for some time—the great gift Mr. Bush might have given to us in his victory is a clear, long overdue picture of our country as the unlikely enemy of true human freedom. The last thing our democracy was ever meant to do was bring the hammer down upon itself. There the shards of our enlightened society will lay until enough members of an enlightened generation can be summoned to rebuild it. Until then, those of us who know better have nothing to do but to fight that shadowy thing that now stands in our old nation's place.Alexander Swartwout edited Three Weeks, a newspaper in Queens, New York.

A Rant On My Current State of Mind

2004-12-03T07:02:00.000-05:00

I’ve been a news and current events hound since my awakening to vileness of Bush & Co., and all the issues surrounding his rise to power. If nothing else, hating him and his fellow Christian crypto-fascists riles up my passions and makes me feel alive. The downside is that I’m becoming a junky for those passionate feelings, any passionate feelings really. To compound it I’ve started reading internet weblogs and political blogs and alternative news sources, which are an endless chain that can never be followed to any satisfactory ending. So many good thoughts and ideas, so many political and social abstractions, and so much to think about. Trying to understand hurts my brain and sometimes rips my comprehension to shreds. What’s the right thing to say to an Iraqi sixteen year old girl who has a car in the street in front of her house full of bullet holes and gouts of innocent blood? How do I reply to the twisted wisdom of people who carry their ideological agenda like a gigantic American flag? There’s a sickness in the world. An age-old sickness that now has a means of spreading itself across the globe via TV and the internet. I long for our previous world; the world of worked-for access to knowledge—you know, back when to fully understand anything you had to sit down with a book and read. I hate the time in which we’re living. I feel like the world has been hijacked. I want the past back, and not in a sappy, nostalgic, Saturday Evening Post sort of way either. The past in which there was a genuine caring for the common men and women who worked for a living--in other words, a real republic. Maybe it’s just a longing for innocence, but whatever it is I want it back. Time is what we lack today—time to digest and think about how we feel before our understanding is swept away beneath us. Previously, I would read books (poetry, fiction, history, et al), perhaps read The New Yorker, and see no TV at all (I didn’t have one for twelve years)--now my brain is overwhelmed with input. Sometimes I hate myself. Is there anyone else out there who feels the same way?
Forgive my griping. I’m going to go and get a shower now and see if I can make myself feel clean and good.

Let's start here

2004-11-21T08:19:00.000-05:00

What do you think?

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