DECEMBER 31, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
TAX CUTS AND RED INK
When he first took office Bill Clinton wanted to raise taxes, rather modestly really, on the richest Americans. Republicans caterwauled that the tax increases were certain to shove the country into recession. Instead, we set off a path of budget surpluses and a sound economy. George W. Bush came along like a termite in the foundation and started pushing through tax cuts for the very affluent. Now we have a sea of red ink, programs such as student loans are getting cut, and the rich are still getting tax cuts. This editorial comes from The New York Times at www.nytimes.com:
A surprise awaits the nation's highest earners when they file their 2006 tax returns. Their taxes are going down again - whether or not Congress passes the investor tax cuts the lawmakers have been promising. On New Year's Day, two additional tax cuts will kick in, allowing people who earn upward of $200,000 a year to claim bigger write-offs for a spouse, their children and other expenses, like mortgage interest on a vacation home.
The bolstered write-offs were enacted in 2001, but with a delayed start date because of their high cost: according to Congressional estimates, the new breaks will cost $27 billion over the short term, exploding to $146 billion from 2010 through 2019. By then, most of the benefits would flow to taxpayers who make more than $1 million a year.
With the nation deep in debt, at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Congress voting last month to slash programs for health care and student loans, and with a debilitating shortfall building in Medicare - the decision by Congress to let these particular tax breaks take effect now is flabbergasting. But it is not out of character.
PUNISHING COMPASSION
A few years ago George W. Bush made a big deal about being a "compassionate conservative." That phrase in itself is an oxymoron. The very basis of conservatism is anti-compassion, bigotry, intolerance, and greed. Now some of the members of the "compassionate conservative" party want to pass legislation making it a crime to provide help to illegal immigrants. This would include people like nurses. This article by Rachel L. Swarns is at www.nytimes.com:
Churches, social service agencies and immigration groups across the country are rallying against a provision in the recently passed House border-security bill that would make it a federal crime to offer services or assistance to illegal immigrants.
The measure would broaden the nation's immigrant-smuggling law so that people who assist or shield illegal immigrants would be subject to prosecution. Offenders, who might include priests, nurses or social workers, could face up to five years in prison. The proposal would also allow the authorities to seize some assets of those convicted of such a crime.
FANNING THE FLAMES OF WAR
I've read that when the first Battle of Bull Run in the Civil War was taking place several members of Washington's high society went out to take a look. It was like an afternoon picnic to watch soldiers involved in combat. Death and maiming made for a great afternoon's entertainment until the Confederates started winning the battle and suddenly the elite spectators were themselves in danger. In Fresno we're "blessed" with the august Victor Davis Hanson, professor of classical studies, and intellectual guru of Bush's war in Iraq. . Hanson draws classical analogies from the travails and triumphs of the ancient Greeks and in a sort of copy and paste maneuver applies the "lessons" from that time to the present day. In this column James Wolcott looks at the changing rationales Hanson, the elite spectator, offers to justify the carnage in Iraq. The column is at http://jameswolcott.com/archives/2005/12/the_pericles_of.php:
A nation of Homer Simpsons lacks physical and moral sinew, laments Hanson, cracking a walnut with one hand.
"...our affluent society is at a complete disconnect with hard physical work and appreciation of how tenuous life was for 2,500 years of civilization. Those in our media circus who deliver our truth can't weld, fix a car, shoot a gun, or do much of anything other than run around looking for scoops about how incompetent things are done daily in Iraq under the most trying of circumstances. Somehow we have convinced ourselves that our technologies and wealth give us a pass on the old obstacles of time and space — as if Iraq 7,000 miles away is no more distant than Washington is from New York. Perhaps soldiers on patrol who go for 20 hours without sleep with 70 pounds on their back are merely like journalists pulling an all-nighter to file a story. Perhaps the next scandal will be the absence of high-definition television in Iraq — and who plotted to keep flat screens out of Baghdad."
He's really full of the ripest fertilizer. It may be true that the jugglers and acrobats in the "media circus" would useless trying to fix the septic tank, but why single them out as distinctive soft products of the information age? It's not as if those who support the Iraq war clank around with tool belts around their waists. How handy does Hanson think his colleagues at NRO are around the house and garage, and how much manual work does he imagine Richard Perle, Paul Wolfowitz, Doug Feith, Reuel Marc Gerecht, and the editors of the Weekly Standard have done in their pampered existence? Find me the correlation between the ability to weld and the steely resolve to prosecute preemptive war--there isn't one. And I would note that conservatives reverence men and women who toil with their hands and technical knowhow, until of course they form a union and try to negotiate better working conditions and health benefits. Then they become blue-collar blackmailers who ought to consider themselves lucky their jobs haven't been outsourced--yet.
Friday, December 30, 2005
DECEMBER 30, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
TAKING THE LOW ROAD
For the past five years of the Bush administration average incomes in the United States have fallen every year. Bush has borrowed more foreign capital than all the previous presidents combined. We are not becoming more competitive in the much-hyped global economy; we're increasingly in debt and with an increasingly low-paid workforce. We're seeing the United States transformed into a Third World country. Holly Sklar takes a look in this article at www.commondreams.org:
"The vast majority of American workers (70 percent) think 'the American Dream' has been or will be harder for them to financially achieve than it was for their parents' generation," according to the Principal Financial Well-Being Index.
We are living the American Dream in reverse.
The hourly wages of average workers are 11 percent lower than they were back in 1973 (adjusted for inflation), despite rising worker productivity. CEO pay, by contrast, has skyrocketed -- up a median 30 percent in 2004 alone, in the Corporate Library survey of 2000 large companies.
Median household income has fallen an unprecedented five years in a row. It would be even lower if not for increased household work hours. Americans work over 200 hours more a year on average than workers in other rich industrialized countries.
THE NIXON MALIGNANCY
Until George W. Bush came along Richard M. Nixon was the most paranoid president in our history. Nixon compiled "enemies lists" and abused the powers of his office, justifying it in the name of national security. We have a history of paranoid Republicans who see enemies everywhere and want to destroy civil liberties. Senator Joseph McCarthy thought Communists were under every bush and it became customary to tar people and destroy their lives because they might or might not have some association with Communists. In this administration you're "with them or against them," either anti-terrorist or pro-terrorist, with no thought of protecting civil liberties and the right of dissent. It doesn't seem to occur to Bush and his cronies that you can be anti-terrorist and very much pro-civil liberties. Molly Ivins looks at the Nixon influence on the current administration at www.commondreams.org:
For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a man of notable talents. There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of our country.
The Testy Kid wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he is the president, and he considers that sufficient justification for whatever he wants. He even finds lawyers like John Yoo, who tell him that whatever he wants to do is legal.
The creepy part is the overlap. Damned if they aren't still here, after all these years, the old Nixon hands -- Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the whole gang whose yearning for authoritarian government rose like a stink over the Nixon years. Imperial executive. Bring back those special White House guard uniforms. Cheney, like some malignancy that cannot be killed off, back at the same old stand, pushing the same old crap.
PORTRAIT OF BUSH
It's probably not sufficient to look at the hideous policies of George W. Bush. We need to look at the kind of person that he is. I've been baffled for some time at how some people can think Bush is a "Godly man" or that he has integrity. His entire life history contradicts that. This article by Tim Abbott is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
In Iraq, he took us into an unnecessary war.
He uses fear, intimidation, distortion and lies. I cannot tell whether the man cannot tell the truth or he doesn't know the truth.
From these few examples of many, what kind of man is Bush? Is he like Washington or Lincoln? Or is he a man of another kind? Not a Cincinnatus, but a Tarquin.
When I think of Bush, I do not think of liberty and courage, compassion and justice. No, I think of arrogance, greed and lies. He is a thug, a buffoon and a coward. Not only is he incompetent, he is corrupt.
He is of a kind with the dictators; a strutting, sanctimonious buffoon who talks democracy but acts like Saddam Hussein. Bush might differ in degree from Hussein, not having been in power as long, but in behavior, with torture and the corruption of government, they are of a kind.
IMPEACH BUSH
TAKING THE LOW ROAD
For the past five years of the Bush administration average incomes in the United States have fallen every year. Bush has borrowed more foreign capital than all the previous presidents combined. We are not becoming more competitive in the much-hyped global economy; we're increasingly in debt and with an increasingly low-paid workforce. We're seeing the United States transformed into a Third World country. Holly Sklar takes a look in this article at www.commondreams.org:
"The vast majority of American workers (70 percent) think 'the American Dream' has been or will be harder for them to financially achieve than it was for their parents' generation," according to the Principal Financial Well-Being Index.
We are living the American Dream in reverse.
The hourly wages of average workers are 11 percent lower than they were back in 1973 (adjusted for inflation), despite rising worker productivity. CEO pay, by contrast, has skyrocketed -- up a median 30 percent in 2004 alone, in the Corporate Library survey of 2000 large companies.
Median household income has fallen an unprecedented five years in a row. It would be even lower if not for increased household work hours. Americans work over 200 hours more a year on average than workers in other rich industrialized countries.
THE NIXON MALIGNANCY
Until George W. Bush came along Richard M. Nixon was the most paranoid president in our history. Nixon compiled "enemies lists" and abused the powers of his office, justifying it in the name of national security. We have a history of paranoid Republicans who see enemies everywhere and want to destroy civil liberties. Senator Joseph McCarthy thought Communists were under every bush and it became customary to tar people and destroy their lives because they might or might not have some association with Communists. In this administration you're "with them or against them," either anti-terrorist or pro-terrorist, with no thought of protecting civil liberties and the right of dissent. It doesn't seem to occur to Bush and his cronies that you can be anti-terrorist and very much pro-civil liberties. Molly Ivins looks at the Nixon influence on the current administration at www.commondreams.org:
For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a man of notable talents. There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution of our country.
The Testy Kid wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he is the president, and he considers that sufficient justification for whatever he wants. He even finds lawyers like John Yoo, who tell him that whatever he wants to do is legal.
The creepy part is the overlap. Damned if they aren't still here, after all these years, the old Nixon hands -- Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the whole gang whose yearning for authoritarian government rose like a stink over the Nixon years. Imperial executive. Bring back those special White House guard uniforms. Cheney, like some malignancy that cannot be killed off, back at the same old stand, pushing the same old crap.
PORTRAIT OF BUSH
It's probably not sufficient to look at the hideous policies of George W. Bush. We need to look at the kind of person that he is. I've been baffled for some time at how some people can think Bush is a "Godly man" or that he has integrity. His entire life history contradicts that. This article by Tim Abbott is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
In Iraq, he took us into an unnecessary war.
He uses fear, intimidation, distortion and lies. I cannot tell whether the man cannot tell the truth or he doesn't know the truth.
From these few examples of many, what kind of man is Bush? Is he like Washington or Lincoln? Or is he a man of another kind? Not a Cincinnatus, but a Tarquin.
When I think of Bush, I do not think of liberty and courage, compassion and justice. No, I think of arrogance, greed and lies. He is a thug, a buffoon and a coward. Not only is he incompetent, he is corrupt.
He is of a kind with the dictators; a strutting, sanctimonious buffoon who talks democracy but acts like Saddam Hussein. Bush might differ in degree from Hussein, not having been in power as long, but in behavior, with torture and the corruption of government, they are of a kind.
Thursday, December 29, 2005
DECEMBER 29, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
WHINY RIGHT-WINGERS
The past several days I've seen some incredibly cowardly letters from local right-wingers published in The Fresno Bee. One letter that I mentioned a few days ago parroted Rush Limbaugh and said liberals don't like Bush's spying because we "have something to hide." Another letter that appeared on December 28 said eavesdropping wasn't as bad as bombs and went on to suggest that maybe the Constitution was out of date, being ratified in 1789 and all.
These people are letting the actions of nineteen criminals on September 11 and the fear-mongering of George W. Bush persuade them to throw civil liberties away. Without civil liberties what really separates the United States from totalitarian countries? If you want perfect security (well almost perfect except for the night-time rapes), go into a prison. Gene Lyons writes about the new contagion of cowardice we see among the "security at all costs" crowd in this column at www.nwanews.com:
My man Digby (digbysblog. blogspot. com ) may have put it best : "Suddenly the he-men of Wal-Mart and the NRA leaped into Big Brother's arms and shrieked 'save me, save me ! Do whatever you have to do, they're trying to kill us all !' They now look to Daddy Government... to check under the bed for them every night, reassure them that the boogeyman won't hurt them and then read them a nice bedtime story about spreading freedom and democracy. It turns out that underneath all this swaggering bravado, the Republicans aren't the Daddy party-they're the baby party." Constitution ? We don't need no stinkin' constitution. Our dear leader, George W. Bush-the same guy who went fishing after somebody read him a Daily Briefing titled "bin Laden Determined to Strike in U. S." -is the only guarantee we need to protect our freedoms. Just this morning, I had an e-mail from a Bush supporter who assured me that if I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear. Thanks, comrade.
THE QUACKING OF A LAME DUCK
Second terms for U.S. presidents can often prove brutal. Richard M. Nixon was dethroned by the Watergate scandal in his second term. Ronald Reagan had Iran-Contra dominate much of his second term. Bill Clinton had the Monica thing. Now George W. Bush is meeting the reality of being a lame duck and the bubbling scandals of a second term in just his first year. I don't know why people didn't see through this guy earlier, but the amalgamation of greed, incompetence, and lying is becoming a gathering storm. This article by Rupert Cornwell is at news.independent.co.uk:
Re-elected presidents almost always have a rough time (witness LBJ and Vietnam, Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal, not to mention Bill Clinton and a certain Monica Lewinsky). Rarely, though, has "second term-itis" struck so quickly and so fiercely. More than three years before he leaves the White House, President Bush is already something of a lame duck. Can the trend be reversed? The omens are not promising. Bush once preached his doctrine of "compassionate conservatism". But he has become a desperately polarising figure, of whom half the country will hear no good under any circumstances. One of his strongest selling points was managerial competence, but Katrina banished that illusion. Even more than previous presidents, he surrounds himself with courtiers and is almost never exposed to dissenting views. Presidents live in bubbles, but few are as sealed off from reality as much as George W Bush. "We make our own reality," once boasted an aide.
NO, NO, NO
A combination of smear and fear politics has helped the Republicans in control of the federal government push through much of their onerous agenda. But in 2005 we saw a change. Formerly timid Democrats and some principled Republicans are finally standing up against the Bush administration. The administration lost the battle to despoil the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the benefit of oil companies. They lost on getting their Constitution-destroying Patriot Act extended indefinitely. And "intelligent design" took a major hit with a court decision in Pennsylvania. Let's hope and work for some more major victories in 2006. This article by Froma Harrop is at seattletimes.nwsource.com:
The right-wing takeover of this sensible country has been stopped. With this pleasant thought, we enter 2006.
In one golden week, three things happened that bore a common thread. In each case, mainstream positions won out over the bluster of blowhards. People of principle stared down charges that they were unpatriotic, loved Osama or hated religion. The results were gratifying — not only to liberals, but to moderates and a good number of self-described conservatives, who have distanced themselves from their leaders' excesses.
For starters, the Senate said "no" to opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. It has saved the refuge before, but this time the Republican oilmen turned the vote into a game of chicken. The drilling provision was first stuck to the budget bill. When lawmakers balked, it was unstuck and attached to the defense-spending bill. Once there, the gamesters figured they could smear anyone voting against it as uncaring about the troops.
IMPEACH BUSH
WHINY RIGHT-WINGERS
The past several days I've seen some incredibly cowardly letters from local right-wingers published in The Fresno Bee. One letter that I mentioned a few days ago parroted Rush Limbaugh and said liberals don't like Bush's spying because we "have something to hide." Another letter that appeared on December 28 said eavesdropping wasn't as bad as bombs and went on to suggest that maybe the Constitution was out of date, being ratified in 1789 and all.
These people are letting the actions of nineteen criminals on September 11 and the fear-mongering of George W. Bush persuade them to throw civil liberties away. Without civil liberties what really separates the United States from totalitarian countries? If you want perfect security (well almost perfect except for the night-time rapes), go into a prison. Gene Lyons writes about the new contagion of cowardice we see among the "security at all costs" crowd in this column at www.nwanews.com:
My man Digby (digbysblog. blogspot. com ) may have put it best : "Suddenly the he-men of Wal-Mart and the NRA leaped into Big Brother's arms and shrieked 'save me, save me ! Do whatever you have to do, they're trying to kill us all !' They now look to Daddy Government... to check under the bed for them every night, reassure them that the boogeyman won't hurt them and then read them a nice bedtime story about spreading freedom and democracy. It turns out that underneath all this swaggering bravado, the Republicans aren't the Daddy party-they're the baby party." Constitution ? We don't need no stinkin' constitution. Our dear leader, George W. Bush-the same guy who went fishing after somebody read him a Daily Briefing titled "bin Laden Determined to Strike in U. S." -is the only guarantee we need to protect our freedoms. Just this morning, I had an e-mail from a Bush supporter who assured me that if I have nothing to hide, I have nothing to fear. Thanks, comrade.
THE QUACKING OF A LAME DUCK
Second terms for U.S. presidents can often prove brutal. Richard M. Nixon was dethroned by the Watergate scandal in his second term. Ronald Reagan had Iran-Contra dominate much of his second term. Bill Clinton had the Monica thing. Now George W. Bush is meeting the reality of being a lame duck and the bubbling scandals of a second term in just his first year. I don't know why people didn't see through this guy earlier, but the amalgamation of greed, incompetence, and lying is becoming a gathering storm. This article by Rupert Cornwell is at news.independent.co.uk:
Re-elected presidents almost always have a rough time (witness LBJ and Vietnam, Reagan and the Iran-Contra scandal, not to mention Bill Clinton and a certain Monica Lewinsky). Rarely, though, has "second term-itis" struck so quickly and so fiercely. More than three years before he leaves the White House, President Bush is already something of a lame duck. Can the trend be reversed? The omens are not promising. Bush once preached his doctrine of "compassionate conservatism". But he has become a desperately polarising figure, of whom half the country will hear no good under any circumstances. One of his strongest selling points was managerial competence, but Katrina banished that illusion. Even more than previous presidents, he surrounds himself with courtiers and is almost never exposed to dissenting views. Presidents live in bubbles, but few are as sealed off from reality as much as George W Bush. "We make our own reality," once boasted an aide.
NO, NO, NO
A combination of smear and fear politics has helped the Republicans in control of the federal government push through much of their onerous agenda. But in 2005 we saw a change. Formerly timid Democrats and some principled Republicans are finally standing up against the Bush administration. The administration lost the battle to despoil the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge for the benefit of oil companies. They lost on getting their Constitution-destroying Patriot Act extended indefinitely. And "intelligent design" took a major hit with a court decision in Pennsylvania. Let's hope and work for some more major victories in 2006. This article by Froma Harrop is at seattletimes.nwsource.com:
The right-wing takeover of this sensible country has been stopped. With this pleasant thought, we enter 2006.
In one golden week, three things happened that bore a common thread. In each case, mainstream positions won out over the bluster of blowhards. People of principle stared down charges that they were unpatriotic, loved Osama or hated religion. The results were gratifying — not only to liberals, but to moderates and a good number of self-described conservatives, who have distanced themselves from their leaders' excesses.
For starters, the Senate said "no" to opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling. It has saved the refuge before, but this time the Republican oilmen turned the vote into a game of chicken. The drilling provision was first stuck to the budget bill. When lawmakers balked, it was unstuck and attached to the defense-spending bill. Once there, the gamesters figured they could smear anyone voting against it as uncaring about the troops.
Wednesday, December 28, 2005
DECEMBER 28, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
WHAT PRICE SAFETY?
Recently, a Republican politician suggested that giving up some civil liberties was worth it to get more security. I like Senator Russ Feingold's response, "Give me liberty or give me death." There is no such thing as 100% security, and totalitarianism in any form isn't acceptable. As Eugene Robinson points out in this column, there are countries that have vast amounts of security--such as Cuba. Crush dissent, throw any potential opponent into prison, watch everyone, spy on everyone, and sure you can have some security. But you also have no more freedom. This column is at http://www.washingtonpost.com:
If potential terrorists may be walking among us, why not have police officers stand on street corners all day and subject anyone who looks "suspicious" to questioning and a search? That's what Fidel Castro does in Cuba, and believe me, Cuba is an extremely safe country.
In Vietnam we destroyed villages in order to save them. In this war on terrorism, why not go ahead and destroy our freedoms in order to save them?
The reason we don't do these absurd things, of course, is that we see a line between the acceptable and the unacceptable. That bright line is the law, drawn by Congress and regularly surveyed by the judiciary. It can be shifted, but the president has no right to shift it on his own authority. His constitutional war powers give him wide latitude, but those powers are not unlimited.
THE CORPORATE PARTY
The Republican party has a history of supposedly representing small business, but the twenty-first century version of the party is corporate all the way. Republicans are willing to step all over the poor and the middle class to fulfill the interests of corporate lobbyists. They get handsomely rewarded by campaign contributions and other perks. Both major parties should be looking out for the interests of the majority of citizens in this country, not people who can ante up big bucks for campaign contributions. In this column E. J. Dionne looks at the corruption in the latest budget. The article is at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600532.html
The Medicaid cuts include increased co-payments and premiums on low-income Americans, and the budget assumes savings because fewer poor people will visit the doctor. As Kevin Freking of the Associated Press reported: "The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that such increases would lead many poor people to forgo health care or not to enroll in Medicaid at all -- contributing to some of the $4.8 billion in Medicaid savings envisioned over the next five years."
Ah, say their defenders, but these cuts will be good for poor people. According to the New York Times, Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.), an architect of the Medicaid proposals, said the higher co-payments were needed to "encourage personal responsibility" among low-income people. Spoken like a congressman who never has to worry about his taxpayer-provided health coverage.
And that is just one instance among many of corporate interests being shielded from cuts, while child support enforcement and foster care programs were sliced. Shortly before the bill went to the House floor, Republican leaders, at the insistence of a group of GOP lawmakers from Ohio, dropped a $1.9 billion cut that would have changed Medicare payments to oxygen equipment manufacturers. The main beneficiary of this change was Invacare Corp. of Elyria, Ohio.
REMAKING NATIONS AND CULTURES
George W. Bush has spoken of creating democracy in the Middle East, starting with Iraq. It's a little ironic since has been busily destroying democracy here at home. What he is saying, in essence, that he and the United States can impose a new political system in the Middle East, by force if necessary. But it's not working out quite the way Bush and his neocons planned. This article by Richard Drayton is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1674184,00.html
For the American imperial strategists invested deeply in the belief that through spreading terror they could take power. Neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the recently indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, learned from Leo Strauss that a strong and wise minority of humans had to rule over the weak majority through deception and fear, rather than persuasion or compromise. They read Le Bon and Freud on the relationship of crowds to authority. But most of all they loved Hobbes's Leviathan. While Hobbes saw authority as free men's chosen solution to the imperfections of anarchy, his 21st century heirs seek to create the fear that led to submission. And technology would make it possible and beautiful.
On the logo of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office, the motto is Scientia est potentia - knowledge is power . The IAO promised "total information awareness", an all-seeing eye spilling out a death-ray gaze over Eurasia. Congressional pressure led the IAO to close, but technospeak, half-digested political theory and megalomania still riddle US thinking. Barnett, in The Pentagon's New Map and Blueprint for Action, calls for a "systems administrator" force to be dispatched with the military, to "process" conquered countries. The G8 and a few others are the "Kantian core", writes Barnett, warming over the former Blair adviser Robert Cooper's poisonous guff from 2002; their job is to export their economy and politics by force to the unlucky "Hobbesian gap". Imperialism is imagined as an industrial technique to remake societies and cultures, with technology giving sanction to those who intervene.
IMPEACH BUSH
WHAT PRICE SAFETY?
Recently, a Republican politician suggested that giving up some civil liberties was worth it to get more security. I like Senator Russ Feingold's response, "Give me liberty or give me death." There is no such thing as 100% security, and totalitarianism in any form isn't acceptable. As Eugene Robinson points out in this column, there are countries that have vast amounts of security--such as Cuba. Crush dissent, throw any potential opponent into prison, watch everyone, spy on everyone, and sure you can have some security. But you also have no more freedom. This column is at http://www.washingtonpost.com:
If potential terrorists may be walking among us, why not have police officers stand on street corners all day and subject anyone who looks "suspicious" to questioning and a search? That's what Fidel Castro does in Cuba, and believe me, Cuba is an extremely safe country.
In Vietnam we destroyed villages in order to save them. In this war on terrorism, why not go ahead and destroy our freedoms in order to save them?
The reason we don't do these absurd things, of course, is that we see a line between the acceptable and the unacceptable. That bright line is the law, drawn by Congress and regularly surveyed by the judiciary. It can be shifted, but the president has no right to shift it on his own authority. His constitutional war powers give him wide latitude, but those powers are not unlimited.
THE CORPORATE PARTY
The Republican party has a history of supposedly representing small business, but the twenty-first century version of the party is corporate all the way. Republicans are willing to step all over the poor and the middle class to fulfill the interests of corporate lobbyists. They get handsomely rewarded by campaign contributions and other perks. Both major parties should be looking out for the interests of the majority of citizens in this country, not people who can ante up big bucks for campaign contributions. In this column E. J. Dionne looks at the corruption in the latest budget. The article is at http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/26/AR2005122600532.html
The Medicaid cuts include increased co-payments and premiums on low-income Americans, and the budget assumes savings because fewer poor people will visit the doctor. As Kevin Freking of the Associated Press reported: "The Congressional Budget Office has concluded that such increases would lead many poor people to forgo health care or not to enroll in Medicaid at all -- contributing to some of the $4.8 billion in Medicaid savings envisioned over the next five years."
Ah, say their defenders, but these cuts will be good for poor people. According to the New York Times, Rep. Joe L. Barton (R-Tex.), an architect of the Medicaid proposals, said the higher co-payments were needed to "encourage personal responsibility" among low-income people. Spoken like a congressman who never has to worry about his taxpayer-provided health coverage.
And that is just one instance among many of corporate interests being shielded from cuts, while child support enforcement and foster care programs were sliced. Shortly before the bill went to the House floor, Republican leaders, at the insistence of a group of GOP lawmakers from Ohio, dropped a $1.9 billion cut that would have changed Medicare payments to oxygen equipment manufacturers. The main beneficiary of this change was Invacare Corp. of Elyria, Ohio.
REMAKING NATIONS AND CULTURES
George W. Bush has spoken of creating democracy in the Middle East, starting with Iraq. It's a little ironic since has been busily destroying democracy here at home. What he is saying, in essence, that he and the United States can impose a new political system in the Middle East, by force if necessary. But it's not working out quite the way Bush and his neocons planned. This article by Richard Drayton is at http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1674184,00.html
For the American imperial strategists invested deeply in the belief that through spreading terror they could take power. Neoconservatives such as Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and the recently indicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby, learned from Leo Strauss that a strong and wise minority of humans had to rule over the weak majority through deception and fear, rather than persuasion or compromise. They read Le Bon and Freud on the relationship of crowds to authority. But most of all they loved Hobbes's Leviathan. While Hobbes saw authority as free men's chosen solution to the imperfections of anarchy, his 21st century heirs seek to create the fear that led to submission. And technology would make it possible and beautiful.
On the logo of the Pentagon's Information Awareness Office, the motto is Scientia est potentia - knowledge is power . The IAO promised "total information awareness", an all-seeing eye spilling out a death-ray gaze over Eurasia. Congressional pressure led the IAO to close, but technospeak, half-digested political theory and megalomania still riddle US thinking. Barnett, in The Pentagon's New Map and Blueprint for Action, calls for a "systems administrator" force to be dispatched with the military, to "process" conquered countries. The G8 and a few others are the "Kantian core", writes Barnett, warming over the former Blair adviser Robert Cooper's poisonous guff from 2002; their job is to export their economy and politics by force to the unlucky "Hobbesian gap". Imperialism is imagined as an industrial technique to remake societies and cultures, with technology giving sanction to those who intervene.
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
DECEMBER 27, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
America is a melting pot, the people at the bottom get burned while all the scum floats to the top.
- - - Charlie King
WOULD BUSH ARREST JESUS?
If you read the words of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Sermon on the Mount, you'd have to conclude he was truly a radical leader. Love your neighbor as yourself? If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other one to him also? Blessed are the poor? That's the real Jesus Christ, not the warrior king George W. Bush would have you believe. This commentary by Chris Floyd is at chris-floyd.com:
And what would happen today if a swarthy Middle Eastern man without wealth or political connections suddenly appeared in front of the White House proclaiming such a radical doctrine of mercy, forgiveness, charity, self-abnegation and love – love even for the "evildoers" who "want to destroy our way of life"? Would he be targeted by the lawless spy gangs that Bush has personally loosed upon the nation? Would he be condemned as a terrorist sympathizer and expelled from the country? Would he be seized and "rendered" to some secret CIA prison or Bush-friendly foreign torture chamber for "special interrogation"?
Or perhaps Woody Guthrie saw the truth years ago, as he sat in a cold boarding house in New York City, transfiguring an old folk song about an outlaw into a gospel for modern times: "If Jesus was to preach here like he preached in Galilee, they would lay Jesus Christ in his grave."
YEAR IN REVIEW
After Christmas is over it's standard for the media to take a look at the year in review. It has been a notable year. The Bush blitzkrieg appears to have finally been slowed. To wit: the incredible intrusiveness into the Schiavo case, which alienated many, the indictment of Tom DeLay, the suspicion surrounding Bill Frist around insider trading, the scandal swirling around Jack Abramoff, the ineffectual and corrupt handling of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the plan to privatize Social Security, the ongoing tragedy in Iraq, secret torture prisons operated by the CIA, and Bush's unconstitutional spying on Americans, there are almost too many Republican scandals to count. This article by Bob Burnett is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
As America staggers out of 2005, it's time to look back at what hit us. There were five major events: Bush deflation, Republican corruption, Iraq quicksand, American shame, and Mother Nature acts out.
"Oh yes, I'm the great pretender, pretending that I'm doing well." Shortly after being reelected in November 2004, George Bush bragged about his new political capital.
The President promised Republican donors that they would see new tax cuts and entitlement reductions. He promised to "reform" Social Security. One of the big stories of the year was the scuttling of Bush's ambitious agenda. Congressional Democrats united and the President's political capital evaporated. By the end of the year, congressional Republicans were abandoning battleship Bush. Separating from the Administration on torture, renewal of the Patriot Act, and his economic legislation. Dubya lost so much face that he was forced to do what previously had been unthinkable - admit making a mistake.
IMPEACH BUSH
America is a melting pot, the people at the bottom get burned while all the scum floats to the top.
- - - Charlie King
WOULD BUSH ARREST JESUS?
If you read the words of Jesus Christ as recorded in the Sermon on the Mount, you'd have to conclude he was truly a radical leader. Love your neighbor as yourself? If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn the other one to him also? Blessed are the poor? That's the real Jesus Christ, not the warrior king George W. Bush would have you believe. This commentary by Chris Floyd is at chris-floyd.com:
And what would happen today if a swarthy Middle Eastern man without wealth or political connections suddenly appeared in front of the White House proclaiming such a radical doctrine of mercy, forgiveness, charity, self-abnegation and love – love even for the "evildoers" who "want to destroy our way of life"? Would he be targeted by the lawless spy gangs that Bush has personally loosed upon the nation? Would he be condemned as a terrorist sympathizer and expelled from the country? Would he be seized and "rendered" to some secret CIA prison or Bush-friendly foreign torture chamber for "special interrogation"?
Or perhaps Woody Guthrie saw the truth years ago, as he sat in a cold boarding house in New York City, transfiguring an old folk song about an outlaw into a gospel for modern times: "If Jesus was to preach here like he preached in Galilee, they would lay Jesus Christ in his grave."
YEAR IN REVIEW
After Christmas is over it's standard for the media to take a look at the year in review. It has been a notable year. The Bush blitzkrieg appears to have finally been slowed. To wit: the incredible intrusiveness into the Schiavo case, which alienated many, the indictment of Tom DeLay, the suspicion surrounding Bill Frist around insider trading, the scandal swirling around Jack Abramoff, the ineffectual and corrupt handling of the disaster caused by Hurricane Katrina, the collapse of the plan to privatize Social Security, the ongoing tragedy in Iraq, secret torture prisons operated by the CIA, and Bush's unconstitutional spying on Americans, there are almost too many Republican scandals to count. This article by Bob Burnett is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
As America staggers out of 2005, it's time to look back at what hit us. There were five major events: Bush deflation, Republican corruption, Iraq quicksand, American shame, and Mother Nature acts out.
"Oh yes, I'm the great pretender, pretending that I'm doing well." Shortly after being reelected in November 2004, George Bush bragged about his new political capital.
The President promised Republican donors that they would see new tax cuts and entitlement reductions. He promised to "reform" Social Security. One of the big stories of the year was the scuttling of Bush's ambitious agenda. Congressional Democrats united and the President's political capital evaporated. By the end of the year, congressional Republicans were abandoning battleship Bush. Separating from the Administration on torture, renewal of the Patriot Act, and his economic legislation. Dubya lost so much face that he was forced to do what previously had been unthinkable - admit making a mistake.
Monday, December 26, 2005
DECEMBER 26, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
BUSH'S PRESS MANIPULATION
The Bush administration has demonstrated a pattern of dishonesty, lying, bullying, and manipulation in dealing with the press. The press in the United States has been largely the puppy dog variety anyway, but occasionally there's a reporter who tries to publish the truth. That's when the Bush administration springs into action, citing "national security" or other concerns to cover up unfavorable stories. Then there's always money. We know that the administration has paid "journalists" such as Armstrong Williams to promote its policies. We know that the administration also planted stories in Iraqi papers. This article by Howard Kurtz is at www.washingtonpost.com:
President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security.
The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.
BUSH THE POWER ADDICT
The original Star Trek series had an episode called "The Ultimate Computer." It was a computer that could think like a human, but with the vastly faster speeds of a computer. But the computer had its paranoid delusions. At one point it reached out to tap some more power and vaporized a crewman. Its creator said the man "simply got in the way." That's a lot like George W. Bush. In his quest for more and more power people simply get in the way. The Constitution gets in the way. The Bill of Rights is a major impediment. Bush has the delusion that HE is the United States. In his world what is good for George W. Bush justifies anything. This article by Steve Chapman is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential prerogatives of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration's secret eavesdropping program is justified because "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it."
But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.
IMPEACH BUSH
BUSH'S PRESS MANIPULATION
The Bush administration has demonstrated a pattern of dishonesty, lying, bullying, and manipulation in dealing with the press. The press in the United States has been largely the puppy dog variety anyway, but occasionally there's a reporter who tries to publish the truth. That's when the Bush administration springs into action, citing "national security" or other concerns to cover up unfavorable stories. Then there's always money. We know that the administration has paid "journalists" such as Armstrong Williams to promote its policies. We know that the administration also planted stories in Iraqi papers. This article by Howard Kurtz is at www.washingtonpost.com:
President Bush has been summoning newspaper editors lately in an effort to prevent publication of stories he considers damaging to national security.
The efforts have failed, but the rare White House sessions with the executive editors of The Washington Post and New York Times are an indication of how seriously the president takes the recent reporting that has raised questions about the administration's anti-terror tactics.
BUSH THE POWER ADDICT
The original Star Trek series had an episode called "The Ultimate Computer." It was a computer that could think like a human, but with the vastly faster speeds of a computer. But the computer had its paranoid delusions. At one point it reached out to tap some more power and vaporized a crewman. Its creator said the man "simply got in the way." That's a lot like George W. Bush. In his quest for more and more power people simply get in the way. The Constitution gets in the way. The Bill of Rights is a major impediment. Bush has the delusion that HE is the United States. In his world what is good for George W. Bush justifies anything. This article by Steve Chapman is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
His conservative allies say Bush is acting to uphold the essential prerogatives of his office. Vice President Cheney says the administration's secret eavesdropping program is justified because "I believe in a strong, robust executive authority, and I think that the world we live in demands it."
But the theory boils down to a consistent and self-serving formula: What's good for George W. Bush is good for America, and anything that weakens his power weakens the nation. To call this an imperial presidency is unfair to emperors.
Sunday, December 25, 2005
DECEMBER 25, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
CEO ROBBER BARONS
Garrett Morris used to portray a character on "Saturday Night Live" who was a former baseball player turned commentator. He would comment, "Baseball has been very good to me." CEOs at America's largest companies can certainly say things are going just great for them. As the living standards for most of us are declining, CEOs get compensation packages in the tens of millions of dollars. You have to wonder why some people, whose value to society is minimal, get paid so handsomely and other people who contribute far more get scraps. This article by David Lazarus is at sfgate.com:
CEO pay continues to soar, wildly outpacing the salaries of rank-and-file workers. That probably won't stop anytime soon, but legislation in Congress might at least make companies more accountable for fat compensation packages lavished on the boss.
The Protection Against Executive Compensation Abuse Act -- HR 4291 -- would require companies to spell out clearly what their top execs are making (including pensions, golden parachutes and other perks). Such disclosure would have to be made in an annual report to shareholders.
The report also would have to include all "short- and long-term performance measures" that will be used to determine future CEO pay. Shareholders would be able to reject any performance measures deemed inappropriate or inadequate.
Saturday, December 24, 2005
DECEMBER 24, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
NEW HOME SALES PLUNGE
George W. Bush once said that terrorists hate us because we can buy homes. Well, not anymore. The sales of new homes dipped to its lowest level in twelve years, which signals that the "strong" Bush economy is a sham. This article by MARTIN CRUTSINGER is at news.yahoo.com
Sales of new homes plunged in November by the largest amount in nearly 12 years, the most dramatic evidence yet that the booming housing market is starting to cool off.
The Commerce Department reported Friday that sales of new single-family homes fell by 11.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.245 million units.
Analysts had been expecting a drop of around 8.7 percent given that sales in October had jumped unexpectedly to an all-time high. But many said the size of the decline was a clear indication that the five-year boom in housing has peaked.
KING GEORGE
If you go back and read the magnificent Declaration of Independence, written mostly by Thomas Jefferson, you'll see a list of the offenses of British King George III. Jefferson was building a case for why the British colonies should declare their independence from Britain. If we did a similar list today, we can build a case for declaring our independence from the tyrannical rule of George W. Bush. Fortunately, our Founders gave us a legal and peaceful mechanism called impeachment to remove criminals and tyrants from power. This article by Stephen Crockett is at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__051223_impeach_the_liar_in_.htm
Bush falsely stated that wiretaps under his government were only being conducted under authorization of the federal courts. This was false. Bush violated the law by not getting court authorization for his wiretapping of American citizens. This has not been done since the government of Richard Nixon. Nixon was driven from office based in large part because of this behavior. Bush broke the law passed in the aftermath of Watergate to prevent this kind of governmental abuse of power. Carter and Clinton permitted wiretaps of a handful of foreigners who were agents of foreign governments. Bush wiretapped thousands of American citizens without proven connections to terrorism.
Bush and Cheney has repeatedly lied to the American taxpayers over the impact of their program of excessive tax breaks to the Super Wealthy who have financed their political machine. During the 2000 Presidential Election, they promised tax breaks for the wealthy only because our government was in surplus because of the wise management of President Clinton. They stated that they would not support tax cuts if the government budget was in deficit. This was false. They promised a balanced budget but gave use the largest budget deficits in history. They have spent money in the most reckless manner of any American government in history with huge amounts going to their political supporters with much accountability or plan to pay the bills.
I KNOW: LET THE POOR FREEZE
Congressional Republicans, apparently miffed they can't pillage ANWR, have cut two billion dollars in emergency heating money for the poor. The cut will mean poor people in the coldest areas of the country will have to make choices about whether to buy food or cut back to afford heat. I need to go to my thesaurus to find all the synonyms for "despicable" or "vile" or "hateful" to describe Republicans. This item comes from the Center and Policy Priorities at http://www.cbpp.org/12-22-05bud-pr.htm
Forced to drop a controversial provision authorizing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from the defense appropriations bill, Senate leaders also stripped from the bill a provision adding $2 billion in badly needed energy assistance funding this winter for low-income households. This development, which early media accounts have misreported, was not necessitated by the removal of the ANWR provision and will result in greater hardship for large numbers of low-income Americans this winter, a new Center analysis explains.
Studies demonstrate that poor families that face high heating costs in winter months and do not receive adequate assistance often cut back on expenditures for food and other necessities, and that adverse effects on children can result.
IMPEACH BUSH
NEW HOME SALES PLUNGE
George W. Bush once said that terrorists hate us because we can buy homes. Well, not anymore. The sales of new homes dipped to its lowest level in twelve years, which signals that the "strong" Bush economy is a sham. This article by MARTIN CRUTSINGER is at news.yahoo.com
Sales of new homes plunged in November by the largest amount in nearly 12 years, the most dramatic evidence yet that the booming housing market is starting to cool off.
The Commerce Department reported Friday that sales of new single-family homes fell by 11.3 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.245 million units.
Analysts had been expecting a drop of around 8.7 percent given that sales in October had jumped unexpectedly to an all-time high. But many said the size of the decline was a clear indication that the five-year boom in housing has peaked.
KING GEORGE
If you go back and read the magnificent Declaration of Independence, written mostly by Thomas Jefferson, you'll see a list of the offenses of British King George III. Jefferson was building a case for why the British colonies should declare their independence from Britain. If we did a similar list today, we can build a case for declaring our independence from the tyrannical rule of George W. Bush. Fortunately, our Founders gave us a legal and peaceful mechanism called impeachment to remove criminals and tyrants from power. This article by Stephen Crockett is at http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_stephen__051223_impeach_the_liar_in_.htm
Bush falsely stated that wiretaps under his government were only being conducted under authorization of the federal courts. This was false. Bush violated the law by not getting court authorization for his wiretapping of American citizens. This has not been done since the government of Richard Nixon. Nixon was driven from office based in large part because of this behavior. Bush broke the law passed in the aftermath of Watergate to prevent this kind of governmental abuse of power. Carter and Clinton permitted wiretaps of a handful of foreigners who were agents of foreign governments. Bush wiretapped thousands of American citizens without proven connections to terrorism.
Bush and Cheney has repeatedly lied to the American taxpayers over the impact of their program of excessive tax breaks to the Super Wealthy who have financed their political machine. During the 2000 Presidential Election, they promised tax breaks for the wealthy only because our government was in surplus because of the wise management of President Clinton. They stated that they would not support tax cuts if the government budget was in deficit. This was false. They promised a balanced budget but gave use the largest budget deficits in history. They have spent money in the most reckless manner of any American government in history with huge amounts going to their political supporters with much accountability or plan to pay the bills.
I KNOW: LET THE POOR FREEZE
Congressional Republicans, apparently miffed they can't pillage ANWR, have cut two billion dollars in emergency heating money for the poor. The cut will mean poor people in the coldest areas of the country will have to make choices about whether to buy food or cut back to afford heat. I need to go to my thesaurus to find all the synonyms for "despicable" or "vile" or "hateful" to describe Republicans. This item comes from the Center and Policy Priorities at http://www.cbpp.org/12-22-05bud-pr.htm
Forced to drop a controversial provision authorizing oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) from the defense appropriations bill, Senate leaders also stripped from the bill a provision adding $2 billion in badly needed energy assistance funding this winter for low-income households. This development, which early media accounts have misreported, was not necessitated by the removal of the ANWR provision and will result in greater hardship for large numbers of low-income Americans this winter, a new Center analysis explains.
Studies demonstrate that poor families that face high heating costs in winter months and do not receive adequate assistance often cut back on expenditures for food and other necessities, and that adverse effects on children can result.
Friday, December 23, 2005
DECEMBER 23, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
THE OUT OF WHACK ECONOMY
Once upon a time when there was rising productivity the productivity would be matched by a rise in wages. That's not true in Bush world. Even though productivity has been on the rise, wages have been stagnant or are falling. More people are living in poverty. But the priorities of Bush and the Republicans is to give tax cuts to the already obscenely rich. This item comes from www.epi.org/content.cfm/pm110
1. Profits are up, but the wages and the incomes of average Americans are down.
* Inflation-adjusted hourly and weekly wages are still below where they were at the start of the recovery in November 2001. Yet, productivity—the growth of the economic pie—is up by 13.5%.
* Wage growth has been shortchanged because 35% of the growth of total income in the corporate sector has been distributed as corporate profits, far more than the 22% in previous periods.
* Consequently, median household income (inflation-adjusted) has fallen five years in a row and was 4% lower in 2004 than in 1999, falling from $46,129 to $44,389.
2. More and more people are deeper and deeper in debt.
* The indebtedness of U.S. households, after adjusting for inflation, has risen 35.7% over the last four years.
* The level of debt as a percent of after-tax income is the highest ever measured in our history. Mortgage and consumer debt is now 115% of after-tax income, twice the level of 30 years ago.
BUSH SPYING ANOTHER VIETNAM PARALLEL
It sounds almost like a cliche to compare George W. Bush to Richard M. Nixon or the situation in Iraq to what we faced in Vietnam in the 1960s. But the parallels are almost scary sometimes. Bush is at least as paranoid as Nixon, but less intelligent and less skilled. Iraq was a sovereign nation and Vietnam was divided into two sections and more or less in a civil war. We deployed a massive number of troops to Vietnam for vague reasons and no clear objective. We deployed thousands of troops to Iraq based on a lie, and with no exit strategy. The federal government in the Vietnam era spied on anti-war groups and dissidents in the name of "being at war" and we're seeing the same abuses and more by the Bush administration because "we're at war." Former Senator Gary Hart writes about it in this article at http://www.alternet.org/story/29990/
Today, one has only to consider the behavior of the Bush administration during the Iraq war to appreciate how soon we forget, how little we learn and how pervasive is the tendency to violate civil and constitutional liberties in the name of war. Virtually all of the reforms recommended by the Church Committee -- many of which were passed into law -- have been evaded, ignored or violated in the name of the "war on terrorism."
It is often said that the first victim of war is the truth. In fact, the first victim of American war is the liberty of Americans.
During our investigations of intelligence abuse, we discovered that the government had engaged in widespread surveillance of a very large number of American citizens. Civil rights leaders were monitored. Antiwar groups were under surveillance. Domestic phones were tapped. Mail was opened. The FBI conducted warrantless "black bag" break-ins of private residences and offices. We wrote an entire report on warrantless electronic surveillance by the FBI -- exactly what the NSA has now been authorized to do by the president.
BUSH'S CANCEROUS PRESIDENCY
John Dean once told Richard Nixon that a "cancer was growing on the presidency" in the midst of the Watergate scandal. George W. Bush's presidency is a cancer growing on the country. Cancer is a disease that destroys from within, and that is what Bush has been doing to the Constitution since he stole his way into the White House in 2000. In this article John Atcheson looks at "snoopgate." The article is at www.commondreams.org/views05/1222-32.htm
It is not hyperbole to say that our 230 year experiment in democracy is now threatened more than at any time in our history save one. We have proved that our democracy can withstand assaults from without, now the test is whether it can survive the cancerous erosion of freedoms from within. We have witnessed under this administration, a continued and concerted attempt to manipulate, deceive, bully, intimidate and cajole the people and the press to bend them to its will, rather than to hear and execute the will of the people.
For more than two centuries, the press has fulfilled the role envisioned by our founders – giving citizens the information they needed to hold our leaders accountable, to guard against the insidious and perhaps inevitable grasp for power by those in positions of authority. But for nearly six years now, the press has ceased functioning as a profession with ethics and started operating as a business with nothing more than a bottom line. The result has been he-said, she-said reporting in which facts, truth, and reality have taken a back seat to "balance" and "fairness." Inevitably, propaganda has supplanted truth; deception has replaced discourse; and now, expedience has replaced liberty.
IMPEACH BUSH
THE OUT OF WHACK ECONOMY
Once upon a time when there was rising productivity the productivity would be matched by a rise in wages. That's not true in Bush world. Even though productivity has been on the rise, wages have been stagnant or are falling. More people are living in poverty. But the priorities of Bush and the Republicans is to give tax cuts to the already obscenely rich. This item comes from www.epi.org/content.cfm/pm110
1. Profits are up, but the wages and the incomes of average Americans are down.
* Inflation-adjusted hourly and weekly wages are still below where they were at the start of the recovery in November 2001. Yet, productivity—the growth of the economic pie—is up by 13.5%.
* Wage growth has been shortchanged because 35% of the growth of total income in the corporate sector has been distributed as corporate profits, far more than the 22% in previous periods.
* Consequently, median household income (inflation-adjusted) has fallen five years in a row and was 4% lower in 2004 than in 1999, falling from $46,129 to $44,389.
2. More and more people are deeper and deeper in debt.
* The indebtedness of U.S. households, after adjusting for inflation, has risen 35.7% over the last four years.
* The level of debt as a percent of after-tax income is the highest ever measured in our history. Mortgage and consumer debt is now 115% of after-tax income, twice the level of 30 years ago.
BUSH SPYING ANOTHER VIETNAM PARALLEL
It sounds almost like a cliche to compare George W. Bush to Richard M. Nixon or the situation in Iraq to what we faced in Vietnam in the 1960s. But the parallels are almost scary sometimes. Bush is at least as paranoid as Nixon, but less intelligent and less skilled. Iraq was a sovereign nation and Vietnam was divided into two sections and more or less in a civil war. We deployed a massive number of troops to Vietnam for vague reasons and no clear objective. We deployed thousands of troops to Iraq based on a lie, and with no exit strategy. The federal government in the Vietnam era spied on anti-war groups and dissidents in the name of "being at war" and we're seeing the same abuses and more by the Bush administration because "we're at war." Former Senator Gary Hart writes about it in this article at http://www.alternet.org/story/29990/
Today, one has only to consider the behavior of the Bush administration during the Iraq war to appreciate how soon we forget, how little we learn and how pervasive is the tendency to violate civil and constitutional liberties in the name of war. Virtually all of the reforms recommended by the Church Committee -- many of which were passed into law -- have been evaded, ignored or violated in the name of the "war on terrorism."
It is often said that the first victim of war is the truth. In fact, the first victim of American war is the liberty of Americans.
During our investigations of intelligence abuse, we discovered that the government had engaged in widespread surveillance of a very large number of American citizens. Civil rights leaders were monitored. Antiwar groups were under surveillance. Domestic phones were tapped. Mail was opened. The FBI conducted warrantless "black bag" break-ins of private residences and offices. We wrote an entire report on warrantless electronic surveillance by the FBI -- exactly what the NSA has now been authorized to do by the president.
BUSH'S CANCEROUS PRESIDENCY
John Dean once told Richard Nixon that a "cancer was growing on the presidency" in the midst of the Watergate scandal. George W. Bush's presidency is a cancer growing on the country. Cancer is a disease that destroys from within, and that is what Bush has been doing to the Constitution since he stole his way into the White House in 2000. In this article John Atcheson looks at "snoopgate." The article is at www.commondreams.org/views05/1222-32.htm
It is not hyperbole to say that our 230 year experiment in democracy is now threatened more than at any time in our history save one. We have proved that our democracy can withstand assaults from without, now the test is whether it can survive the cancerous erosion of freedoms from within. We have witnessed under this administration, a continued and concerted attempt to manipulate, deceive, bully, intimidate and cajole the people and the press to bend them to its will, rather than to hear and execute the will of the people.
For more than two centuries, the press has fulfilled the role envisioned by our founders – giving citizens the information they needed to hold our leaders accountable, to guard against the insidious and perhaps inevitable grasp for power by those in positions of authority. But for nearly six years now, the press has ceased functioning as a profession with ethics and started operating as a business with nothing more than a bottom line. The result has been he-said, she-said reporting in which facts, truth, and reality have taken a back seat to "balance" and "fairness." Inevitably, propaganda has supplanted truth; deception has replaced discourse; and now, expedience has replaced liberty.
Thursday, December 22, 2005
DECEMBER 22, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
ENEMIES OF THE CONSTITUTION
For years I've heard right-wingers proclaim themselves "strict constructionists" on the Constitution. I wonder, then, how they can justify George W. Bush's egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures when Mr. Bush spied on Americans. We have extreme right-winger Max Boot writing in The Los Angeles Times that people upset about the Valerie Plame leak aren't consistent in not being outraged about the leak concerning Bush's violation of the Constitution. First, the Valerie Plame leak was strictly about political revenge. It was breaking the law. It compromised U.S. intelligence. It undoubtedly got people killed.
The leak of Bush's lawbreaking is what we might call whistle-blowing. If you have someone in power threatening the Constitution, it's patriotic to leak that information. Bush's unique combination of greed, arrogance, and contempt for civil liberties has put us into a very dangerous place. This article by Gene Lyons is at http://smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=24111&mode=nested&order=0
Anybody who rationalizes George W. Bush's illegal use of secret, warrantless wiretaps against American citizens is no friend of democracy. They may call themselves "conservatives." But they might with equal accuracy dub themselves Martians or Zoroastrians. In reality, they are ideologues who place party over country, enemies of the Constitution and its freedoms.
There's evidently no outrage they won't rationalize so long as a Republican's doing it. For reasons best left to historians, the Republican right has made itself captive to a brand of callow authoritarianism that's found its hero in this swaggering mediocrity who appears invariably to draw the wrong lessons from what few scraps of history he knows. The last time no-warrant, presidentially authorized wiretaps came before the Supreme Court was 1972, courtesy of President Richard M. Nixon, who used the FBI to spy on political foes and famously decreed that "when the president does it, that means it's not illegal."
THOU SHALT NOT LIE
Religious conservatives, who want the Ten Commandments posted everywhere, should be aware of the commandment that says, "Thou shalt not lie." You have to wonder why they're lying so effusively about the "war on Christmas." Fox News commentator John Gibson, for example, has an entire book about the alleged "war on Christmas." Americans United for Separation of Church and State did an investigation and found out the "war on Christmas" is so much smoke blowing in the wind. This item comes from http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=7719&JServSessionIdr005=9sry03e7d1.app7b
“This isn’t a war on Christmas it’s not even a skirmish,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “When the facts are exposed, the Religious Right’s ‘war on Christmas’ melts faster than a snowman on an 80-degree day.”
Among the incidents debunked by Americans United is a tale frequently told by Fox News Channel commentator John Gibson. In Gibson’s new book, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought, he asserts that the public schools in Plano, Texas, have banned students from wearing green and red clothes. The story has been reported uncritically in other media outlets and hyped by Bill O’Reilly but it is apparently untrue.
A spokeswoman for the Plano schools told Americans United that the district has no such policy and expressed frustration that the story continues to circulate. The Plano schools have posted an item on its website denying the rumor. A similar claim about public schools in Saginaw Township, Mich., is also false.
ABRAMOFF READY TO SING?
Super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, friend of Tom DeLay, and sugar daddy to so many Republicans in Congress may be ready to cop a deal. Some interesting people, such as Michael Scanlon, a former aide to Tom DeLay, and David Safavian, White House procurement officer, have ties to Abramoff. Lots of Republican Congressmen have taken donations from Abramoff. It makes you almost want to sing, "On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me a series of indictments against Republicans." It doesn't rhyme, but it sounds good just the same. This item comes from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=acmbNn2_QjLQ
Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist at the center of a U.S. Justice Department-led investigation, may plead guilty in a Florida wire-fraud case as early as next week, a person close to the case said.
A plea a may help federal prosecutors build cases against lawmakers and their staffs in both the Florida investigation and in a related probe of Abramoff's lobbying activity in Washington.
Abramoff's former business partner, Michael Scanlon, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to bribe members of Congress and their staffs, including Representative Robert Ney, an Ohio Republican.
Another Abramoff associate, Adam Kidan, pleaded guilty last week to wire fraud in the Florida case. Abramoff and Kidan were indicted in August in connection with a $147.5 million purchase of a casino boat company.
THE GREAT DIVIDE
A series of Bush scandals involving intelligence and spying is showing a great divide in the United States. There are those of us who believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Then there are those who think we should toss the Bill of Rights overboard because it will make us more "secure." Today's Fresno Bee features a typically sneering, hysterical, hateful letter from a right-winger who pooh-poohs the very idea of privacy. What have liberals got to hide, she asks. I wonder what the Founding Fathers, who wrote the Fourth Amendment, had to hide. If conservatives are so blase about privacy, I suggest they post all their private information on the Internet for the world to see. Maybe they should go Big Brother and put webcams in their homes so we can watch them scurry about 24/7. You can read this asinine letter at http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/lets_ed/story/11618204p-12348799c.html
I don't mind if someone listens in on my conversations in order to protect me or my family. The liberal, however, clings tightly to his sordid privacy because he has much to hide. He doesn't understand that his present demand for "privacy" will be the undoing of his civil liberties in the days ahead.
IMPEACH BUSH
ENEMIES OF THE CONSTITUTION
For years I've heard right-wingers proclaim themselves "strict constructionists" on the Constitution. I wonder, then, how they can justify George W. Bush's egregious violation of the Fourth Amendment against unreasonable searches and seizures when Mr. Bush spied on Americans. We have extreme right-winger Max Boot writing in The Los Angeles Times that people upset about the Valerie Plame leak aren't consistent in not being outraged about the leak concerning Bush's violation of the Constitution. First, the Valerie Plame leak was strictly about political revenge. It was breaking the law. It compromised U.S. intelligence. It undoubtedly got people killed.
The leak of Bush's lawbreaking is what we might call whistle-blowing. If you have someone in power threatening the Constitution, it's patriotic to leak that information. Bush's unique combination of greed, arrogance, and contempt for civil liberties has put us into a very dangerous place. This article by Gene Lyons is at http://smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=24111&mode=nested&order=0
Anybody who rationalizes George W. Bush's illegal use of secret, warrantless wiretaps against American citizens is no friend of democracy. They may call themselves "conservatives." But they might with equal accuracy dub themselves Martians or Zoroastrians. In reality, they are ideologues who place party over country, enemies of the Constitution and its freedoms.
There's evidently no outrage they won't rationalize so long as a Republican's doing it. For reasons best left to historians, the Republican right has made itself captive to a brand of callow authoritarianism that's found its hero in this swaggering mediocrity who appears invariably to draw the wrong lessons from what few scraps of history he knows. The last time no-warrant, presidentially authorized wiretaps came before the Supreme Court was 1972, courtesy of President Richard M. Nixon, who used the FBI to spy on political foes and famously decreed that "when the president does it, that means it's not illegal."
THOU SHALT NOT LIE
Religious conservatives, who want the Ten Commandments posted everywhere, should be aware of the commandment that says, "Thou shalt not lie." You have to wonder why they're lying so effusively about the "war on Christmas." Fox News commentator John Gibson, for example, has an entire book about the alleged "war on Christmas." Americans United for Separation of Church and State did an investigation and found out the "war on Christmas" is so much smoke blowing in the wind. This item comes from http://www.au.org/site/News2?abbr=pr&page=NewsArticle&id=7719&JServSessionIdr005=9sry03e7d1.app7b
“This isn’t a war on Christmas it’s not even a skirmish,” said the Rev. Barry W. Lynn, executive director of Americans United. “When the facts are exposed, the Religious Right’s ‘war on Christmas’ melts faster than a snowman on an 80-degree day.”
Among the incidents debunked by Americans United is a tale frequently told by Fox News Channel commentator John Gibson. In Gibson’s new book, The War on Christmas: How the Liberal Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You Thought, he asserts that the public schools in Plano, Texas, have banned students from wearing green and red clothes. The story has been reported uncritically in other media outlets and hyped by Bill O’Reilly but it is apparently untrue.
A spokeswoman for the Plano schools told Americans United that the district has no such policy and expressed frustration that the story continues to circulate. The Plano schools have posted an item on its website denying the rumor. A similar claim about public schools in Saginaw Township, Mich., is also false.
ABRAMOFF READY TO SING?
Super lobbyist Jack Abramoff, friend of Tom DeLay, and sugar daddy to so many Republicans in Congress may be ready to cop a deal. Some interesting people, such as Michael Scanlon, a former aide to Tom DeLay, and David Safavian, White House procurement officer, have ties to Abramoff. Lots of Republican Congressmen have taken donations from Abramoff. It makes you almost want to sing, "On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me a series of indictments against Republicans." It doesn't rhyme, but it sounds good just the same. This item comes from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=acmbNn2_QjLQ
Jack Abramoff, a Republican lobbyist at the center of a U.S. Justice Department-led investigation, may plead guilty in a Florida wire-fraud case as early as next week, a person close to the case said.
A plea a may help federal prosecutors build cases against lawmakers and their staffs in both the Florida investigation and in a related probe of Abramoff's lobbying activity in Washington.
Abramoff's former business partner, Michael Scanlon, pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy to bribe members of Congress and their staffs, including Representative Robert Ney, an Ohio Republican.
Another Abramoff associate, Adam Kidan, pleaded guilty last week to wire fraud in the Florida case. Abramoff and Kidan were indicted in August in connection with a $147.5 million purchase of a casino boat company.
THE GREAT DIVIDE
A series of Bush scandals involving intelligence and spying is showing a great divide in the United States. There are those of us who believe in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Then there are those who think we should toss the Bill of Rights overboard because it will make us more "secure." Today's Fresno Bee features a typically sneering, hysterical, hateful letter from a right-winger who pooh-poohs the very idea of privacy. What have liberals got to hide, she asks. I wonder what the Founding Fathers, who wrote the Fourth Amendment, had to hide. If conservatives are so blase about privacy, I suggest they post all their private information on the Internet for the world to see. Maybe they should go Big Brother and put webcams in their homes so we can watch them scurry about 24/7. You can read this asinine letter at http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/lets_ed/story/11618204p-12348799c.html
I don't mind if someone listens in on my conversations in order to protect me or my family. The liberal, however, clings tightly to his sordid privacy because he has much to hide. He doesn't understand that his present demand for "privacy" will be the undoing of his civil liberties in the days ahead.
Wednesday, December 21, 2005
DECEMBER 21, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
IRVING BERLIN AND CHRISTMAS
With all the foaming mouth conservatives screaming about the mythical "attack on Christmas" this is an interesting article about composer Irving Berlin. Berlin wrote the holiday classic "White Christmas," and as this article points out, his nonsectarian view of Christmas has predominated over the past sixty years. The article by Harold Meyerson is at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001011.html
Berlin kept Christmas in the public square and, more than anyone before or since, sent it out over the public airwaves. But it was an American, not a Christian, Christmas. And by the crass index of number of recordings sold, and the not-so-crass index of number of spirits touched, Berlin's nonsectarian holiday has been the predominant version of Christmas in this country for the past 60 years.
Now the Fox News demagogues want to impose a more sectarian Christmas on us, supplanting the distinctly American holiday we have celebrated lo these threescore years with a holiday that divides us along religious lines. Bill O'Reilly can blaspheme all he wants, but like millions of my countrymen, I take attacks on Irving Berlin's America personally. If O'Reilly doesn't like it here, why doesn't he go back to where he came from?
BANKRUPTCY LAW MAY BE BACKFIRING
There is no industry more loathsome than the credit card industry. Defense contractors may be as bad, but they're not worse. The credit card industry has used high-paid lobbyists and compliant members of Congress and regulatory agencies to push through one onerous provision after another. They can jack up interest rates if the wind blows the wrong way, hit you with punitive late charges for being a single day late, and they made bankruptcy almost impossible, no matter the circumstances. According to this column, that may be backfiring on them now. The article by Liz Pulliam Weston is at moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/bankruptcyguide/P135860.asp
Credit card issuers and other lenders spent a small fortune to get bankruptcy reform legislation passed. Now the new law is costing them even more.
An unprecedented spike in filings before reform took effect in fall 2005 is chewing into lenders' bottom lines, and the subsequent lull is showing signs of being short-lived. Bankruptcy attorneys say their caseloads are starting to pick up, and credit counseling agencies -- which provide now-mandatory sessions for consumers who want to file -- say they're seeing significantly more people than they initially predicted.
BAD TO THE BONE
When you read the history of the Bush family you have to wonder if there has ever been a decent member of the Bush-Walker clan. These people have been multigenerational bloodsuckers. Prescott Bush, grandfather of the faux president, was a financier of Adolf Hitler. George H. W. Bush had absolutely no principles to stop him from becoming Ronald Reagan's vice president or in lying about Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential campaign. The current president is probably the worst of them all. That's not even considering the brothers and other spawn of this family. This article by Howell Raines is at http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1221-28.htm
At this point, the policy legacy of George Bush seems pretty well defined by three disparate disasters: Iraq in foreign affairs, Katrina in social welfare, corporate influence over tax, budget and regulatory decisions. As a short-term political consequence, we may avoid another dim-witted Bush in the White House. But what the Bush dynasty has done to presidential campaign science — the protocols by which Americans elect presidents in the modern era — amounts to a political legacy that can haunt the Republic for years to come.
We are now enduring the third generation of Bushes who have taken the playbook of the "ruthless" Kennedys and amplified it into a consistent code of amorality in both campaign tactics and governance. In their campaigns, the Kennedys used money, image-manipulation, old-boy networks and, when necessary, personal attacks on worthy adversaries such as Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey. But there was also a solid foundation of knowledge and purpose undergirding John Kennedy's sophisticated internationalism, his Medicare initiative, his late-blooming devotion to racial justice, and Robert Kennedy's opposition to corporate and union gangsterism. Like Truman, Roosevelt and, yes, even Lincoln, two generations of Kennedys believed that a certain amount of political chicanery was tolerable in the service of altruism.
IMPEACH BUSH
IRVING BERLIN AND CHRISTMAS
With all the foaming mouth conservatives screaming about the mythical "attack on Christmas" this is an interesting article about composer Irving Berlin. Berlin wrote the holiday classic "White Christmas," and as this article points out, his nonsectarian view of Christmas has predominated over the past sixty years. The article by Harold Meyerson is at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/20/AR2005122001011.html
Berlin kept Christmas in the public square and, more than anyone before or since, sent it out over the public airwaves. But it was an American, not a Christian, Christmas. And by the crass index of number of recordings sold, and the not-so-crass index of number of spirits touched, Berlin's nonsectarian holiday has been the predominant version of Christmas in this country for the past 60 years.
Now the Fox News demagogues want to impose a more sectarian Christmas on us, supplanting the distinctly American holiday we have celebrated lo these threescore years with a holiday that divides us along religious lines. Bill O'Reilly can blaspheme all he wants, but like millions of my countrymen, I take attacks on Irving Berlin's America personally. If O'Reilly doesn't like it here, why doesn't he go back to where he came from?
BANKRUPTCY LAW MAY BE BACKFIRING
There is no industry more loathsome than the credit card industry. Defense contractors may be as bad, but they're not worse. The credit card industry has used high-paid lobbyists and compliant members of Congress and regulatory agencies to push through one onerous provision after another. They can jack up interest rates if the wind blows the wrong way, hit you with punitive late charges for being a single day late, and they made bankruptcy almost impossible, no matter the circumstances. According to this column, that may be backfiring on them now. The article by Liz Pulliam Weston is at moneycentral.msn.com/content/Banking/bankruptcyguide/P135860.asp
Credit card issuers and other lenders spent a small fortune to get bankruptcy reform legislation passed. Now the new law is costing them even more.
An unprecedented spike in filings before reform took effect in fall 2005 is chewing into lenders' bottom lines, and the subsequent lull is showing signs of being short-lived. Bankruptcy attorneys say their caseloads are starting to pick up, and credit counseling agencies -- which provide now-mandatory sessions for consumers who want to file -- say they're seeing significantly more people than they initially predicted.
BAD TO THE BONE
When you read the history of the Bush family you have to wonder if there has ever been a decent member of the Bush-Walker clan. These people have been multigenerational bloodsuckers. Prescott Bush, grandfather of the faux president, was a financier of Adolf Hitler. George H. W. Bush had absolutely no principles to stop him from becoming Ronald Reagan's vice president or in lying about Michael Dukakis during the 1988 presidential campaign. The current president is probably the worst of them all. That's not even considering the brothers and other spawn of this family. This article by Howell Raines is at http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1221-28.htm
At this point, the policy legacy of George Bush seems pretty well defined by three disparate disasters: Iraq in foreign affairs, Katrina in social welfare, corporate influence over tax, budget and regulatory decisions. As a short-term political consequence, we may avoid another dim-witted Bush in the White House. But what the Bush dynasty has done to presidential campaign science — the protocols by which Americans elect presidents in the modern era — amounts to a political legacy that can haunt the Republic for years to come.
We are now enduring the third generation of Bushes who have taken the playbook of the "ruthless" Kennedys and amplified it into a consistent code of amorality in both campaign tactics and governance. In their campaigns, the Kennedys used money, image-manipulation, old-boy networks and, when necessary, personal attacks on worthy adversaries such as Adlai Stevenson and Hubert Humphrey. But there was also a solid foundation of knowledge and purpose undergirding John Kennedy's sophisticated internationalism, his Medicare initiative, his late-blooming devotion to racial justice, and Robert Kennedy's opposition to corporate and union gangsterism. Like Truman, Roosevelt and, yes, even Lincoln, two generations of Kennedys believed that a certain amount of political chicanery was tolerable in the service of altruism.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
DECEMBER 20, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
MORE BUSH SPYING
Support environmental causes, want to fight poverty, or support animal rights? Then you might be a terrorist according to the Bush administration. The New York Times has learned that the FBI had "loosened restrictions" under former Attorney General John Ashcroft and conducted surveillance on groups like PETA and Greenpeace and suggested an anti-poverty group had a "semi-communistic ideology." This is way beyond the pale. This article by Eric Lichtblau is at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20fbi.html?ei=5094&en=171df5b870cdd147&hp=&ex=1135141200&part
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.
But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.
One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
INEPT AND DANGEROUS
The attack on 9/11 never would have happened had the Bush administration done its job. The administration is making the excuse now that had the Patriot Act and its onerous provisions been in effect they could have prevented the attacks. But how much information did they need when Bush was presented with a Presidential Daily Briefing that flatly stated, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S"? They had numerous other warnings. The 9/11 Commission, whitewash that it was, still found the Bush administration derelict in taking action to prevent another terrorist attack. But now we're supposed to excuse Bush's abuse of his powers in spying on American citizens without a warrant. As this editorial states, this administration is both inept and dangerous. This editorial comes from http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1220-26.htm
If there are any Americans who still retain confidence in the Bush administration's judgment over foreign affairs -- after its inept pursuit of Osama bin Laden, its bungling of prewar intelligence on Saddam Hussein, its botched planning for the occupation of Iraq and its hostility to international norms on torture -- then surely they will be rattled by the disclosure last week that President Bush circumvented federal law and ordered a secret government intelligence agency to spy on Americans.
Even staunch Republicans such as Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania say they are troubled by the New York Times account. This raises the possibility that maybe -- finally -- moderates in Congress will begin to exercise some independent thinking and critical judgment toward the foreign policy of an administration that has proven itself arrogant, secretive and misguided.
In remarks on Saturday, the president tried to justify his secret order to the National Security Agency (NSA) by arguing that the nation's intelligence needs will sometimes override the privacy interests of its citizens.
This is an offensive, but by now predictable, effort at misdirection. No one has disputed that a nation must sometimes make tradeoffs between civil liberties and the requirements of national defense. The question is whether the president, alone and without independent review, gets to make that call.
ARNIE CHICKENED OUT ON WILLIAMS EXECUTION
I have major problems with the death penalty, although in some rare cases I think it may be justified. I think it's only justified in the case of a particularly heinous crime when there is absolutely no doubt about the guilt of the perpetrator and there are no mitigating circumstances such as mental illness. But there are major problems with the current system. Defendants who are poor, particularly if they are minorities, are much more likely to get the death penalty. It's absolutely appalling that some people have gotten the death penalty with totally inadequate representation at their trials. The arbitrary nature of the death penalty is also troubling. Why do some get life imprisonment for committing the same or worse crimes than death row inmates? Governor Groper could have taken a courageous stance that would have been supported by many if he had commuted the sentence of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. That's the subject of this article by Bill Press is at http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1219-28.htm
Nobody really expected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute the sentence of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Yes, he went through the motions of meeting with Tookie's supporters. But that was pure political theater, designed to give the appearance of fairness - when, in fact, he'd already decided to appease California's blood-thirsty pack of wolves.
Arnold's political advisors told him he had to look tough by upholding the death penalty. But they were dead wrong. Refusing to commute Tookie's sentence from execution to life in prison without parole didn't make Arnold look tough. It made him look like a great big "girlie-man."
Arnold made a cowardly decision. In capital punishment cases, it's easy to follow the lynch mob. What takes courage is doing the right thing, even if politically unpopular. Instead of dancing to the drumbeat of death-penalty supporters, Arnold should have followed the lead of another Republican, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who commuted the sentences of everybody on death row - because he knew the death penalty itself was fatally flawed.
IMPEACH BUSH
MORE BUSH SPYING
Support environmental causes, want to fight poverty, or support animal rights? Then you might be a terrorist according to the Bush administration. The New York Times has learned that the FBI had "loosened restrictions" under former Attorney General John Ashcroft and conducted surveillance on groups like PETA and Greenpeace and suggested an anti-poverty group had a "semi-communistic ideology." This is way beyond the pale. This article by Eric Lichtblau is at http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/20/politics/20fbi.html?ei=5094&en=171df5b870cdd147&hp=&ex=1135141200&part
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, John Ashcroft, who was then attorney general, loosened restrictions on the F.B.I.'s investigative powers, giving the bureau greater ability to visit and monitor Web sites, mosques and other public entities in developing terrorism leads. The bureau has used that authority to investigate not only groups with suspected ties to foreign terrorists, but also protest groups suspected of having links to violent or disruptive activities.
But the documents, coming after the Bush administration's confirmation that President Bush had authorized some spying without warrants in fighting terrorism, prompted charges from civil rights advocates that the government had improperly blurred the line between terrorism and acts of civil disobedience and lawful protest.
One F.B.I. document indicates that agents in Indianapolis planned to conduct surveillance as part of a "Vegan Community Project." Another document talks of the Catholic Workers group's "semi-communistic ideology." A third indicates the bureau's interest in determining the location of a protest over llama fur planned by People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
INEPT AND DANGEROUS
The attack on 9/11 never would have happened had the Bush administration done its job. The administration is making the excuse now that had the Patriot Act and its onerous provisions been in effect they could have prevented the attacks. But how much information did they need when Bush was presented with a Presidential Daily Briefing that flatly stated, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S"? They had numerous other warnings. The 9/11 Commission, whitewash that it was, still found the Bush administration derelict in taking action to prevent another terrorist attack. But now we're supposed to excuse Bush's abuse of his powers in spying on American citizens without a warrant. As this editorial states, this administration is both inept and dangerous. This editorial comes from http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1220-26.htm
If there are any Americans who still retain confidence in the Bush administration's judgment over foreign affairs -- after its inept pursuit of Osama bin Laden, its bungling of prewar intelligence on Saddam Hussein, its botched planning for the occupation of Iraq and its hostility to international norms on torture -- then surely they will be rattled by the disclosure last week that President Bush circumvented federal law and ordered a secret government intelligence agency to spy on Americans.
Even staunch Republicans such as Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania say they are troubled by the New York Times account. This raises the possibility that maybe -- finally -- moderates in Congress will begin to exercise some independent thinking and critical judgment toward the foreign policy of an administration that has proven itself arrogant, secretive and misguided.
In remarks on Saturday, the president tried to justify his secret order to the National Security Agency (NSA) by arguing that the nation's intelligence needs will sometimes override the privacy interests of its citizens.
This is an offensive, but by now predictable, effort at misdirection. No one has disputed that a nation must sometimes make tradeoffs between civil liberties and the requirements of national defense. The question is whether the president, alone and without independent review, gets to make that call.
ARNIE CHICKENED OUT ON WILLIAMS EXECUTION
I have major problems with the death penalty, although in some rare cases I think it may be justified. I think it's only justified in the case of a particularly heinous crime when there is absolutely no doubt about the guilt of the perpetrator and there are no mitigating circumstances such as mental illness. But there are major problems with the current system. Defendants who are poor, particularly if they are minorities, are much more likely to get the death penalty. It's absolutely appalling that some people have gotten the death penalty with totally inadequate representation at their trials. The arbitrary nature of the death penalty is also troubling. Why do some get life imprisonment for committing the same or worse crimes than death row inmates? Governor Groper could have taken a courageous stance that would have been supported by many if he had commuted the sentence of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. That's the subject of this article by Bill Press is at http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1219-28.htm
Nobody really expected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger to commute the sentence of Stanley "Tookie" Williams. Yes, he went through the motions of meeting with Tookie's supporters. But that was pure political theater, designed to give the appearance of fairness - when, in fact, he'd already decided to appease California's blood-thirsty pack of wolves.
Arnold's political advisors told him he had to look tough by upholding the death penalty. But they were dead wrong. Refusing to commute Tookie's sentence from execution to life in prison without parole didn't make Arnold look tough. It made him look like a great big "girlie-man."
Arnold made a cowardly decision. In capital punishment cases, it's easy to follow the lynch mob. What takes courage is doing the right thing, even if politically unpopular. Instead of dancing to the drumbeat of death-penalty supporters, Arnold should have followed the lead of another Republican, former Illinois Gov. George Ryan, who commuted the sentences of everybody on death row - because he knew the death penalty itself was fatally flawed.
Monday, December 19, 2005
DECEMBER 19, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
SOME LOCAL NOTES
George W. Bush gave his big speech about our supposed "progress" in Iraq. Don't you just love the way he frames things? We've got two choices: victory or defeat. He doesn't define victory, and what he doesn't admit, no matter how things turn out in Iraq, that we've already been defeated in many ways. We've lost over 2,000 of our military, we've killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, we've recruited future generations of terrorists, and we've almost certainly set Iraq on a path to becoming an Islamic republic. What will Mr. Bush say if Iraqis vote "democratically" to set up a fundamentalist Islamic government? Is that going to make the U.S. more secure?
A local guy named Tony Capozzi was on Channel 30 after the speech giving what I'm almost certain was a prepared tribute to Bush. Capozzi stated that Bush needed to do well in the speech to help his sagging poll numbers and that Bush "spoke from the heart." I have my doubts that Bush has a heart. And there are far more important considerations than Bush's poll numbers.
There's a RV dealer named Dan Gamel in this area who evidently wants to capitalize on the "war on Christmas" nonsense. Gamel has a commercial on right-wing Channel 26 stating how he will say "merry Christmas," yada, yada. I'll never have the money or inclination to buy a gas hogging RV, but this would be an even greater incentive to stay away.
WE'RE ALL THE ENEMY
From the high-handed approach of the Bush administration's "war on terror" we have to conclude that darned near everyone in the world is the enemy. This administration has consistently pursued secret policies that violate the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the International Declaration of Human Rights. This is all justified because of the "war on terror" and the unconventional way terrorists supposedly operate. This administration assumes that any of us is a potential terrorist, so they can use sneak and peek warrants to snoop in our homes, wiretap our phones without a court order, read our e-mail, detain some people without benefit of habeas corpus, and send detainees to places like Guantanamo. They can torture and they can use ghastly weapons like white phosphorus, In the meantime, their friends the war profiteers do very well. Bob Herbert writes about the serial crimes of the Bush administration at www.topplebush.com/oped2403.shtml
The Bush version of American values, as least with regard to the so-called war on terror, has been a throwback to the Middle Ages. Detainees were herded like animals into the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where many were abused and denied the right to challenge - or even hear - the charges against them. Whether they were innocent or guilty made no difference. How's that for an American value?
Others were swept up in that peculiar form of justice called extraordinary rendition. That's when someone is abducted by Americans and sent off to a regime skilled in the art of torture. I spent a little time in Ottawa with Maher Arar, a family man from Canada who was kidnapped at Kennedy Airport and taken to Syria.
He wasn't a terrorist and he hadn't done anything wrong, but that was no defense against the sweeping madness of the Bush antiterror policies.
MORE REPUB CONTROL FREAKS
The paranoia of the right-wing continues to reach new heights. We'll have fat, dumpy beer-swilling trolls hanging around the border and calling themselves "Minutemen" to take pot shots at Mexican illegals. We'll pass all kinds of laws against illegal immigrants, but never seriously deal with the employers who hire them. We'll demand a work permit from every American that can be matched against a Homeland Security database. It's not enough that they want a National ID card or to have our private records zipping hither and yon. This item comes from www.correntewire.com/republicans_plannning_work_permits_for_everyone
Yes, work permits. Or should I say ausweissen?
From the ACLU (thank the God of your choice for them):
The House is considering HR 4437, the “The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005,” which also includes HR 4312, the “Border Security and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2005.” Last week, the House Judiciary Committee approved the proposal on a party-line vote. The ACLU noted that, while HR 4312 has had some consideration by Congress, no substantive hearings have been held on the larger bill.
The legislation would create a sea-change in federal employment rules by requiring all workers in the country to obtain a federal agency’s permission to work. All employers would be required to participate in a national employment eligibility verification program in an expansion of the faulty but voluntary “Basic Pilot” program in current law. Like Basic Pilot, the new program would use an Internet-based system to check the names and social security numbers of all employees — citizens and non-citizen alike — against a Department of Homeland Security database.
IMPEACH BUSH
SOME LOCAL NOTES
George W. Bush gave his big speech about our supposed "progress" in Iraq. Don't you just love the way he frames things? We've got two choices: victory or defeat. He doesn't define victory, and what he doesn't admit, no matter how things turn out in Iraq, that we've already been defeated in many ways. We've lost over 2,000 of our military, we've killed thousands of innocent Iraqis, we've recruited future generations of terrorists, and we've almost certainly set Iraq on a path to becoming an Islamic republic. What will Mr. Bush say if Iraqis vote "democratically" to set up a fundamentalist Islamic government? Is that going to make the U.S. more secure?
A local guy named Tony Capozzi was on Channel 30 after the speech giving what I'm almost certain was a prepared tribute to Bush. Capozzi stated that Bush needed to do well in the speech to help his sagging poll numbers and that Bush "spoke from the heart." I have my doubts that Bush has a heart. And there are far more important considerations than Bush's poll numbers.
There's a RV dealer named Dan Gamel in this area who evidently wants to capitalize on the "war on Christmas" nonsense. Gamel has a commercial on right-wing Channel 26 stating how he will say "merry Christmas," yada, yada. I'll never have the money or inclination to buy a gas hogging RV, but this would be an even greater incentive to stay away.
WE'RE ALL THE ENEMY
From the high-handed approach of the Bush administration's "war on terror" we have to conclude that darned near everyone in the world is the enemy. This administration has consistently pursued secret policies that violate the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the International Declaration of Human Rights. This is all justified because of the "war on terror" and the unconventional way terrorists supposedly operate. This administration assumes that any of us is a potential terrorist, so they can use sneak and peek warrants to snoop in our homes, wiretap our phones without a court order, read our e-mail, detain some people without benefit of habeas corpus, and send detainees to places like Guantanamo. They can torture and they can use ghastly weapons like white phosphorus, In the meantime, their friends the war profiteers do very well. Bob Herbert writes about the serial crimes of the Bush administration at www.topplebush.com/oped2403.shtml
The Bush version of American values, as least with regard to the so-called war on terror, has been a throwback to the Middle Ages. Detainees were herded like animals into the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where many were abused and denied the right to challenge - or even hear - the charges against them. Whether they were innocent or guilty made no difference. How's that for an American value?
Others were swept up in that peculiar form of justice called extraordinary rendition. That's when someone is abducted by Americans and sent off to a regime skilled in the art of torture. I spent a little time in Ottawa with Maher Arar, a family man from Canada who was kidnapped at Kennedy Airport and taken to Syria.
He wasn't a terrorist and he hadn't done anything wrong, but that was no defense against the sweeping madness of the Bush antiterror policies.
MORE REPUB CONTROL FREAKS
The paranoia of the right-wing continues to reach new heights. We'll have fat, dumpy beer-swilling trolls hanging around the border and calling themselves "Minutemen" to take pot shots at Mexican illegals. We'll pass all kinds of laws against illegal immigrants, but never seriously deal with the employers who hire them. We'll demand a work permit from every American that can be matched against a Homeland Security database. It's not enough that they want a National ID card or to have our private records zipping hither and yon. This item comes from www.correntewire.com/republicans_plannning_work_permits_for_everyone
Yes, work permits. Or should I say ausweissen?
From the ACLU (thank the God of your choice for them):
The House is considering HR 4437, the “The Border Protection, Antiterrorism, and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005,” which also includes HR 4312, the “Border Security and Terrorism Prevention Act of 2005.” Last week, the House Judiciary Committee approved the proposal on a party-line vote. The ACLU noted that, while HR 4312 has had some consideration by Congress, no substantive hearings have been held on the larger bill.
The legislation would create a sea-change in federal employment rules by requiring all workers in the country to obtain a federal agency’s permission to work. All employers would be required to participate in a national employment eligibility verification program in an expansion of the faulty but voluntary “Basic Pilot” program in current law. Like Basic Pilot, the new program would use an Internet-based system to check the names and social security numbers of all employees — citizens and non-citizen alike — against a Department of Homeland Security database.
Sunday, December 18, 2005
DECEMBER 18, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
19TH CENTURY VERSION OF "INTELLIGENT DESIGN"
School textbooks in the 19th century offered up their own version of what is now called "intelligent design." To be fair to the authors then, we have learned a great deal more in over a hundred years, so today's proponents aren't as easily excused. This column by Douglas Baynton is at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601559.htm:
School boards across the country are facing pressure to teach "intelligent design" in science classes, but what would such courses look like? Thankfully, we need not tax our imaginations. All we have to do is look inside some 19th-century textbooks.
The one science course routinely taught in elementary schools back then was geography. Textbooks such as James Monteith's "Physical and Intermediate Geography" (1866), Arnold Guyot's "Physical Geography" (1873) and John Brocklesby's "Elements of Physical Geography" (1868) were compendiums of knowledge intended to teach children a little of everything about Earth and its inhabitants.
A PATTERN TO THE MADNESS
In this column Jane Smiley takes a look through the looking glass at the actions of George W. Bush in going against all logic and common sense. For instance, big tax cuts in the midst of a war may not be sheer lunacy, but part of a pattern to cripple the government's ability to do much of anything. Services the government has provided can then be turned over to private companies. There's gold in them thar war profits. I think there might be some credence to this argument because why would someone who has taken a system that has worked so well and utterly, maliciously destroy it? This column is at www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/a-tenstep-program_b_12451.html:
How else are we going to interpret the satisfaction the President continually expresses in the results of his policies so far? As an example, when Bush said, “Heckuva job, Brownie”, outsiders generally assumed he was making a mistake--that he didn’t know what a bad job Brownie was doing. But let’s say that he knew perfectly well that Brownie had abandoned new Orleans to the forces of nature, and that THAT was the essence of the heckuva job he was doing. In the same way, many people assume that the administration is embarrassed that the extent of the American rendition gulag or the techniques of torture used at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have gotten into the news along with the use of white phosphorus in Falluja, as if torture and rendition and white phosphorus were something that Bush does not want to do. But let’s say that torture and rendition are something that the Bush administration is happy to do, and doesn’t mind others knowing about. Likewise, many observers, let’s say Jack Murtha, for one, assume that the president does not want to destroy the army. But if the army is destroyed, then the services that the army provides at a relatively moderate expense to the taxpayer can be farmed out to companies like Halliburton. Let’s say that Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush have cast their lot not with the draft, or even the volunteer army, but with the mercenary army, which is more profitable, less subject to Congressional and public oversight, and, really, the appropriate army for a rogue state. And, with a mercenary army, there is no problem when a fallen soldier is sent home as a piece of freight. It is only citizen-soldiers who make the ultimate sacrifice out of patriotism. When we get rid of citizen soldiers, then we don’t have to respect them.
BELIEVE THE OPPOSITE
The policies of George W. Bush seem to always have the opposite effect of what we're told they will accomplish. Mr. Bush and his operatives have so consistently lied and subverted the law maybe it's time to adopt a policy of believing just the opposite of what they say. WMDs in Iraq? We know it was just the opposite. The prescription drug plan is a "great deal." Believe just the opposite. The Patriot Act protects us and secures our liberties? Believe the opposite. This article by Peter Fredson is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The President has twice stood in front of Congress, put his hand on the Bible, and before the Supreme Court Chief Justice sworn to uphold the Constitution with his life. If he has indeed disrespected and violated the Constitution then he must be given a “regime change.”
The problem is: can we trust anyone in the administration to speak the truth? Is anyone free of the seductive and evil Bush rhetoric? Is there anyone who does not believe the deceit, lies, misinformation, exaggerations, and tap dances around democratic legal obstacles? If there is, please stand up and expose all of the illegalities and violations that Bush has committed for the past 5 years.
Oh, and take little Condi Rice. Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove along to sworn testimony of an impartial investigating committee with subpoena power which will disregard all claims of secrecy and executive privilege behind which Bush has hidden for so long.
IMPEACH BUSH
19TH CENTURY VERSION OF "INTELLIGENT DESIGN"
School textbooks in the 19th century offered up their own version of what is now called "intelligent design." To be fair to the authors then, we have learned a great deal more in over a hundred years, so today's proponents aren't as easily excused. This column by Douglas Baynton is at www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/16/AR2005121601559.htm:
School boards across the country are facing pressure to teach "intelligent design" in science classes, but what would such courses look like? Thankfully, we need not tax our imaginations. All we have to do is look inside some 19th-century textbooks.
The one science course routinely taught in elementary schools back then was geography. Textbooks such as James Monteith's "Physical and Intermediate Geography" (1866), Arnold Guyot's "Physical Geography" (1873) and John Brocklesby's "Elements of Physical Geography" (1868) were compendiums of knowledge intended to teach children a little of everything about Earth and its inhabitants.
A PATTERN TO THE MADNESS
In this column Jane Smiley takes a look through the looking glass at the actions of George W. Bush in going against all logic and common sense. For instance, big tax cuts in the midst of a war may not be sheer lunacy, but part of a pattern to cripple the government's ability to do much of anything. Services the government has provided can then be turned over to private companies. There's gold in them thar war profits. I think there might be some credence to this argument because why would someone who has taken a system that has worked so well and utterly, maliciously destroy it? This column is at www.huffingtonpost.com/jane-smiley/a-tenstep-program_b_12451.html:
How else are we going to interpret the satisfaction the President continually expresses in the results of his policies so far? As an example, when Bush said, “Heckuva job, Brownie”, outsiders generally assumed he was making a mistake--that he didn’t know what a bad job Brownie was doing. But let’s say that he knew perfectly well that Brownie had abandoned new Orleans to the forces of nature, and that THAT was the essence of the heckuva job he was doing. In the same way, many people assume that the administration is embarrassed that the extent of the American rendition gulag or the techniques of torture used at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo have gotten into the news along with the use of white phosphorus in Falluja, as if torture and rendition and white phosphorus were something that Bush does not want to do. But let’s say that torture and rendition are something that the Bush administration is happy to do, and doesn’t mind others knowing about. Likewise, many observers, let’s say Jack Murtha, for one, assume that the president does not want to destroy the army. But if the army is destroyed, then the services that the army provides at a relatively moderate expense to the taxpayer can be farmed out to companies like Halliburton. Let’s say that Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Bush have cast their lot not with the draft, or even the volunteer army, but with the mercenary army, which is more profitable, less subject to Congressional and public oversight, and, really, the appropriate army for a rogue state. And, with a mercenary army, there is no problem when a fallen soldier is sent home as a piece of freight. It is only citizen-soldiers who make the ultimate sacrifice out of patriotism. When we get rid of citizen soldiers, then we don’t have to respect them.
BELIEVE THE OPPOSITE
The policies of George W. Bush seem to always have the opposite effect of what we're told they will accomplish. Mr. Bush and his operatives have so consistently lied and subverted the law maybe it's time to adopt a policy of believing just the opposite of what they say. WMDs in Iraq? We know it was just the opposite. The prescription drug plan is a "great deal." Believe just the opposite. The Patriot Act protects us and secures our liberties? Believe the opposite. This article by Peter Fredson is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The President has twice stood in front of Congress, put his hand on the Bible, and before the Supreme Court Chief Justice sworn to uphold the Constitution with his life. If he has indeed disrespected and violated the Constitution then he must be given a “regime change.”
The problem is: can we trust anyone in the administration to speak the truth? Is anyone free of the seductive and evil Bush rhetoric? Is there anyone who does not believe the deceit, lies, misinformation, exaggerations, and tap dances around democratic legal obstacles? If there is, please stand up and expose all of the illegalities and violations that Bush has committed for the past 5 years.
Oh, and take little Condi Rice. Dick Cheney, and Karl Rove along to sworn testimony of an impartial investigating committee with subpoena power which will disregard all claims of secrecy and executive privilege behind which Bush has hidden for so long.
Saturday, December 17, 2005
DECEMBER 17, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
NO GREAT MOSLEM CONSPIRACY
Members of the Bush administration have hinted rather overtly that Osama bin Laden and company are determined to take over the world. They're in effect making Islam itself the enemy, not Osama's band of terrorist bombers. It's like the Nazis warning of an international Jewish conspiracy. It's an excuse to wage war, kill innocents, and establish hegemony. In this article Haroon Siddiqui looks at the "threat" of a Moslem conspiracy at www.commondreams.org:
We had Wahhabism. We had the madrassas. We had the houris of Heaven. Now we have the caliphate.
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld et al have been raising the spectre of a worldwide Islamic rule by a caliph, as envisaged by Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab Zarqawi and other terrorists.
The chances of a caliphate coming are zero. But raising its spectre helps keep Americans scared. Never mind that, just as the reasons given for the Iraq war proved false, the explanations offered for terrorism have not met the test of time either.
When 15 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 turned out to have been Saudis, Washington and its apologists blamed Wahhabism, the essentialist Islam practised in Saudi Arabia. The problem with that theory was that the Saudi ruling family, the guardians of Wahhabism, was and remains the staunchest ally of the U.S. and guarantor of its energy needs.
We were also told that terrorists were hatched primarily in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in religious schools. But we know now that most of those who bombed Bali, Jakarta, Istanbul, Amman, etc. were not graduates of those schools. Nor were those responsible for the train bombings in Madrid and London. They were Muslims born or raised in Europe.
THE SHIFT IN GEOPOLITICS
At the end of the second world war the United States was at the top of the heap. The Soviet Union was a rival and remained a rival until Communism fell, but the United States was at the height of its political, military, and economic power. Until Communism fell, the major focus was in keeping the Soviet Union from building client states all over the globe. The U.S. was busy building its own client states, or attempting to put governments friendly to the United States in power. It proved a disaster in Vietnam. Contrary to its own vision of democracy, the U.S. helped install dictators in places like Iran, Chile, and Guatemala. The Bush administration, using the outline from the Project for a New American Century, aggressively and recklessly invaded Iraq. It was wrong morally and it was wrong geopolitically. In this article Gabriel Kolko looks at the difficulty of staying at the top of the heap and establishing empire. The article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The dilemma the US has had for a half-century is that the priorities it must impose on its budget and its imperial plans have never guided its actual behavior and action. It has always believed, as well it should, that Europe and its control would determine the future of world power. But it has fought in Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq--the so-called "Third World" in general--where the stakes of power were much smaller.
The American priorities were specific, focused on individual nations, but they also set the United States the task of guiding or controlling the entire world--which is a very big place and has proven time and again to be far beyond American resources and imperial power. In most of those places in the Third World where the US massively employed its power directly it has lost, and its military might has been ineffective. The US's local proxies have been corrupt and venal in most nations where it has relied upon them. The cost, both in financial terms and in the eventual alienation of the American public, has been monumental.
WHAT WE HAVE BECOME
I have little doubt that George W. Bush, aided by friends on the Supreme Court, stole the 2000 presidential election. He then took an oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath has proven just as illegitimate as his "election" was in 2000. The list of crimes just keeps growing. The evidence is overwhelming that Bush lied us into a war against Iraq. His administration has allowed and probably sanctioned torture. The administration has used "extraordinary rendition" to snatch so-called terror suspects, transport them to other countries, and torture them. Corporations friendly to Bush have gotten no-bid contracts and stolen billions from American taxpayers. The Bush administration was totally incompetent in dealing with the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Bush has borrowed more money from foreign governments than the previous 42 presidents combined, putting our economic security at risk. Even in the midst of war, he has championed tax cuts for the most affluent and run up record deficits. Now we learn that Bush authorized spying on Americans without warrants. Senator Robert Byrd talks about what we have become in the Bush years. This speech is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Yes, we hear high-flown language from this White House about bringing democracy to lands where democracy has never been. We seem mesmerized with glorious rhetoric about justice and liberty. But, does the rhetoric really match the reality of what our country has become since the heinous attacks of September 11?
I speak of the actions of our own government, actions that have undermined the credibility of this nation around the world. These actions, taken one at a time, may seem justified. But taken as a whole, they form an unsettling picture and tell a troubling story.
Do we remember the abuses at Abu Ghraib? They were explained as an aberration.
Do we remember the abuses at Guantanamo Bay? They were denied as an exaggeration.
Now, we read about this so-called policy of 'rendition' - a policy where the US taxpayers are funding secret prisons in foreign lands. What a word - rendition. It sounds so vague, almost harmless. But the practice of "rendition" is abhorrent. The Administration's practice of 'rendition' is an affront to the principles of freedom - the very opposite of principles we claim we are trying to transplant to Iraq and other rogue nations.
IMPEACH BUSH
NO GREAT MOSLEM CONSPIRACY
Members of the Bush administration have hinted rather overtly that Osama bin Laden and company are determined to take over the world. They're in effect making Islam itself the enemy, not Osama's band of terrorist bombers. It's like the Nazis warning of an international Jewish conspiracy. It's an excuse to wage war, kill innocents, and establish hegemony. In this article Haroon Siddiqui looks at the "threat" of a Moslem conspiracy at www.commondreams.org:
We had Wahhabism. We had the madrassas. We had the houris of Heaven. Now we have the caliphate.
Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld et al have been raising the spectre of a worldwide Islamic rule by a caliph, as envisaged by Osama bin Laden, Abu Musab Zarqawi and other terrorists.
The chances of a caliphate coming are zero. But raising its spectre helps keep Americans scared. Never mind that, just as the reasons given for the Iraq war proved false, the explanations offered for terrorism have not met the test of time either.
When 15 of the 19 terrorists of 9/11 turned out to have been Saudis, Washington and its apologists blamed Wahhabism, the essentialist Islam practised in Saudi Arabia. The problem with that theory was that the Saudi ruling family, the guardians of Wahhabism, was and remains the staunchest ally of the U.S. and guarantor of its energy needs.
We were also told that terrorists were hatched primarily in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere in religious schools. But we know now that most of those who bombed Bali, Jakarta, Istanbul, Amman, etc. were not graduates of those schools. Nor were those responsible for the train bombings in Madrid and London. They were Muslims born or raised in Europe.
THE SHIFT IN GEOPOLITICS
At the end of the second world war the United States was at the top of the heap. The Soviet Union was a rival and remained a rival until Communism fell, but the United States was at the height of its political, military, and economic power. Until Communism fell, the major focus was in keeping the Soviet Union from building client states all over the globe. The U.S. was busy building its own client states, or attempting to put governments friendly to the United States in power. It proved a disaster in Vietnam. Contrary to its own vision of democracy, the U.S. helped install dictators in places like Iran, Chile, and Guatemala. The Bush administration, using the outline from the Project for a New American Century, aggressively and recklessly invaded Iraq. It was wrong morally and it was wrong geopolitically. In this article Gabriel Kolko looks at the difficulty of staying at the top of the heap and establishing empire. The article is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The dilemma the US has had for a half-century is that the priorities it must impose on its budget and its imperial plans have never guided its actual behavior and action. It has always believed, as well it should, that Europe and its control would determine the future of world power. But it has fought in Korea, Vietnam, and now Iraq--the so-called "Third World" in general--where the stakes of power were much smaller.
The American priorities were specific, focused on individual nations, but they also set the United States the task of guiding or controlling the entire world--which is a very big place and has proven time and again to be far beyond American resources and imperial power. In most of those places in the Third World where the US massively employed its power directly it has lost, and its military might has been ineffective. The US's local proxies have been corrupt and venal in most nations where it has relied upon them. The cost, both in financial terms and in the eventual alienation of the American public, has been monumental.
WHAT WE HAVE BECOME
I have little doubt that George W. Bush, aided by friends on the Supreme Court, stole the 2000 presidential election. He then took an oath of office to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. That oath has proven just as illegitimate as his "election" was in 2000. The list of crimes just keeps growing. The evidence is overwhelming that Bush lied us into a war against Iraq. His administration has allowed and probably sanctioned torture. The administration has used "extraordinary rendition" to snatch so-called terror suspects, transport them to other countries, and torture them. Corporations friendly to Bush have gotten no-bid contracts and stolen billions from American taxpayers. The Bush administration was totally incompetent in dealing with the tragedy of Hurricane Katrina. Bush has borrowed more money from foreign governments than the previous 42 presidents combined, putting our economic security at risk. Even in the midst of war, he has championed tax cuts for the most affluent and run up record deficits. Now we learn that Bush authorized spying on Americans without warrants. Senator Robert Byrd talks about what we have become in the Bush years. This speech is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Yes, we hear high-flown language from this White House about bringing democracy to lands where democracy has never been. We seem mesmerized with glorious rhetoric about justice and liberty. But, does the rhetoric really match the reality of what our country has become since the heinous attacks of September 11?
I speak of the actions of our own government, actions that have undermined the credibility of this nation around the world. These actions, taken one at a time, may seem justified. But taken as a whole, they form an unsettling picture and tell a troubling story.
Do we remember the abuses at Abu Ghraib? They were explained as an aberration.
Do we remember the abuses at Guantanamo Bay? They were denied as an exaggeration.
Now, we read about this so-called policy of 'rendition' - a policy where the US taxpayers are funding secret prisons in foreign lands. What a word - rendition. It sounds so vague, almost harmless. But the practice of "rendition" is abhorrent. The Administration's practice of 'rendition' is an affront to the principles of freedom - the very opposite of principles we claim we are trying to transplant to Iraq and other rogue nations.
Friday, December 16, 2005
DECEMBER 16, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
BUSH STOMPS ON CONSTITUTION AGAIN
Capitol Hill Blue recently quoted George W. Bush as saying the Constitution is just "a piece of paper." Bush doesn't like the Constitution much when it interferes with his paranoid obsessions in spying on people. The New York Times has learned that the National Security Agency has been spying on Americans since Bush signed an order in 2002. This news comes on the heels of a report that the Pentagon has been spying on peace activists. Just what kind of freedom are we going to have if Bush destroys the Constitution to "protect" us from terrorism? This story by JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU is at www.nytimes.com:
Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
THE REPUBLICAN IDEA MYTH
One of the canards we've gotten from right-wingers in recent years is that the Republican party is the "party of ideas" and that the ideas of Democrats are out of date. It seems to me that the ideas of Democrats worked very well for a very long time. FDR's ideas helped lift the country out of the Great Depression and won a war. Harry Truman's ideas began the process of building a prosperous middle class. JFK and LBJ took action against poverty and poverty was actually reduced. Bill Clinton went against Republican orthodoxy and raised taxes on the rich. We had a good economy and budget surpluses. The Republican "new ideas" given to us by the likes of Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush have increased poverty, created greater inequality, and rolled back progress on civil liberties. E. J. Dionne writes about ideas in his column at www.washingtonpost.com:
Supply-siders asserted that cutting taxes on the wealthy -- and especially on savings and investment -- would help everyone, including the poor, by promoting economic growth. Tax cuts would produce so much growth that they would pay for themselves. Since government programs were flawed, private investment was always more productive than government spending. And deficits, if they did come, need not worry us very much.
For many of us, this whole argument was always a highfalutin rationalization for giving the rich what they wanted, and often even more. Bill Clinton's economic policies should have definitively destroyed supply-side claims: Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy and cut the deficit, and an exceptional period of economic growth followed.
BUSH TAX CUTS HAVEN'T HELPED STOCK MARKET
Back to myths. We've been told that cutting taxes on stock dividends and on capital gains will do wonders for the economy. It will put new life and energy into the stock market and we'll all be walking those streets of gold. All it really does is put lots of money into the pockets of the rich, create huge deficits, and program cuts for the middle class and the poor. In this item Gene Sperling looks at the mythology of dividend tax cuts at thinkprogress.org/2005/12/15/tax-cuts-stock-market/:
While Bush’s defenders still want to focus on what happened to the stock market after it was driven to recent lows in the lead up to war, the picture is a lot different when you look at stock performance since March, 2002. From March 2002 – when the ramifications of the horrors of September 11 were already built into the market and the recession had been over for several months – till today, the stock market has gone from 10,600 to 10,900, less than 1% growth per year.
From that vantage point, the Bush tax policies hardly seem like a rocking success for the stock market.
IMPEACH BUSH
BUSH STOMPS ON CONSTITUTION AGAIN
Capitol Hill Blue recently quoted George W. Bush as saying the Constitution is just "a piece of paper." Bush doesn't like the Constitution much when it interferes with his paranoid obsessions in spying on people. The New York Times has learned that the National Security Agency has been spying on Americans since Bush signed an order in 2002. This news comes on the heels of a report that the Pentagon has been spying on peace activists. Just what kind of freedom are we going to have if Bush destroys the Constitution to "protect" us from terrorism? This story by JAMES RISEN and ERIC LICHTBLAU is at www.nytimes.com:
Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.
Under a presidential order signed in 2002, the intelligence agency has monitored the international telephone calls and international e-mail messages of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people inside the United States without warrants over the past three years in an effort to track possible "dirty numbers" linked to Al Qaeda, the officials said. The agency, they said, still seeks warrants to monitor entirely domestic communications.
THE REPUBLICAN IDEA MYTH
One of the canards we've gotten from right-wingers in recent years is that the Republican party is the "party of ideas" and that the ideas of Democrats are out of date. It seems to me that the ideas of Democrats worked very well for a very long time. FDR's ideas helped lift the country out of the Great Depression and won a war. Harry Truman's ideas began the process of building a prosperous middle class. JFK and LBJ took action against poverty and poverty was actually reduced. Bill Clinton went against Republican orthodoxy and raised taxes on the rich. We had a good economy and budget surpluses. The Republican "new ideas" given to us by the likes of Ronald Reagan, Newt Gingrich, and George W. Bush have increased poverty, created greater inequality, and rolled back progress on civil liberties. E. J. Dionne writes about ideas in his column at www.washingtonpost.com:
Supply-siders asserted that cutting taxes on the wealthy -- and especially on savings and investment -- would help everyone, including the poor, by promoting economic growth. Tax cuts would produce so much growth that they would pay for themselves. Since government programs were flawed, private investment was always more productive than government spending. And deficits, if they did come, need not worry us very much.
For many of us, this whole argument was always a highfalutin rationalization for giving the rich what they wanted, and often even more. Bill Clinton's economic policies should have definitively destroyed supply-side claims: Clinton raised taxes on the wealthy and cut the deficit, and an exceptional period of economic growth followed.
BUSH TAX CUTS HAVEN'T HELPED STOCK MARKET
Back to myths. We've been told that cutting taxes on stock dividends and on capital gains will do wonders for the economy. It will put new life and energy into the stock market and we'll all be walking those streets of gold. All it really does is put lots of money into the pockets of the rich, create huge deficits, and program cuts for the middle class and the poor. In this item Gene Sperling looks at the mythology of dividend tax cuts at thinkprogress.org/2005/12/15/tax-cuts-stock-market/:
While Bush’s defenders still want to focus on what happened to the stock market after it was driven to recent lows in the lead up to war, the picture is a lot different when you look at stock performance since March, 2002. From March 2002 – when the ramifications of the horrors of September 11 were already built into the market and the recession had been over for several months – till today, the stock market has gone from 10,600 to 10,900, less than 1% growth per year.
From that vantage point, the Bush tax policies hardly seem like a rocking success for the stock market.
Thursday, December 15, 2005
DECEMBER 15, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS IN THE U.S.
Right-wingers have made up history about Christmas the way they've made up history about the United States being a Christian nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles. The hot button issue again this holiday season, instead of the insane war in Iraq, is that there is an "attack" on Christmas. Right-wingers will take it even further and claim that the history of Christmas as we know it was the way it was all along. Not true. In the first century or so of this country's existence Christmas was no big deal. It wasn't even recognized as a national holiday until 1870. This item comes from http://www.beggarscanbechoosers.com/2005/12/to-founding-fathers-christmas-was-no.html:
Nor was Christmas particularly important to our Founding Fathers (or the nation as a whole). The U.S. government didn't even recognize Christmas as a holiday until 1870. Until then, Congress routinely met and conducted business on Christmas day. It was, in fact, just another workday.
Truth be told, Christmas was a totally different affair during the first century of America's history. It was far removed from today's holiday in which families gather and open presents around the Christmas tree.
So how did one celebrate Christmas back in those days? Well, typically, you might start off the day getting blindingly drunk. Then, you'd take to the streets and approach passer-by and demand money from them. If they refused, you'd beat them up. You might conclude the day by smashing some store windows or breaking into people's homes and stealing their food. Peruse a newspaper from the 1820s and you can routinely read of such chaotic yuletide lawlessness.
In the early part of the 19th century, Christmas was, as one historian once noted, "like a nightmarish cross between Halloween and a particularly violent, rowdy Mardi Gras." In fact, a massive Christmas riot in 1828 led to the formation of New York City's first police force.
1998 AND NOW
Jump on the way back machine and travel back to 1998. President Clinton is being pursued by the right-wing Congress and the right-wing media for his fling with Monica, even to the point of impeaching Clinton. Now move back to our time with George W. Bush. Polls show more support for impeaching Bush (for much better reasons) than existed for impeaching Clinton. This comes from www.democrats.com/node/7152
Recent polls show that support for impeachment hearings for President Bush are much higher than they were for President Clinton. In a poll published on November 4, Zogby International found that, by a margin of 53% to 42%, Americans said that "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE
Working class people in the United States have been hammered for almost two decades. Since the ascent of Ronald Reagan, things have gotten progressively worse for working people. Unions have struggled to survive and come under vicious attack from right-wing politicians and their corporate supporters. Jobs have been exported to other countries. Giant companies like Wal-Mart have taken more and more command of the economy, destroying small businesses and fair wages in the process. While members of Congress give themselves handsome raises and dole out tax cuts for their rich friends, they keep the minimum wage at its miserly level of $5.15 an hour. It hasn't been increased in eight years. This item comes from /thinkprogress.org/2005/12/14/celebrate-christmas-by-raising-the-minimum-wage/
Congress has the power to brighten the holiday for the almost 8 million Americans living on the minimum wage by increasing their paycheck.
Yet, this is the eighth year in a row that Congress has failed to enact even a small increase in the minimum wage. By freezing it at an inadequate $5.15 and ignoring the effects of inflation, Congress has essentially given a pay cut to these workers. In fact, if the minimum wage in 2005 was worth what it was worth in 1968 (its peak value), it would be $8.88 an hour.
How can the leadership in Congress leave Washington this week to enjoy a plentiful Christmas and a comfortable New Year knowing that their inaction has guaranteed another tough Christmas for millions of Americans?
IMPEACH BUSH
HISTORY OF CHRISTMAS IN THE U.S.
Right-wingers have made up history about Christmas the way they've made up history about the United States being a Christian nation founded on Judeo-Christian principles. The hot button issue again this holiday season, instead of the insane war in Iraq, is that there is an "attack" on Christmas. Right-wingers will take it even further and claim that the history of Christmas as we know it was the way it was all along. Not true. In the first century or so of this country's existence Christmas was no big deal. It wasn't even recognized as a national holiday until 1870. This item comes from http://www.beggarscanbechoosers.com/2005/12/to-founding-fathers-christmas-was-no.html:
Nor was Christmas particularly important to our Founding Fathers (or the nation as a whole). The U.S. government didn't even recognize Christmas as a holiday until 1870. Until then, Congress routinely met and conducted business on Christmas day. It was, in fact, just another workday.
Truth be told, Christmas was a totally different affair during the first century of America's history. It was far removed from today's holiday in which families gather and open presents around the Christmas tree.
So how did one celebrate Christmas back in those days? Well, typically, you might start off the day getting blindingly drunk. Then, you'd take to the streets and approach passer-by and demand money from them. If they refused, you'd beat them up. You might conclude the day by smashing some store windows or breaking into people's homes and stealing their food. Peruse a newspaper from the 1820s and you can routinely read of such chaotic yuletide lawlessness.
In the early part of the 19th century, Christmas was, as one historian once noted, "like a nightmarish cross between Halloween and a particularly violent, rowdy Mardi Gras." In fact, a massive Christmas riot in 1828 led to the formation of New York City's first police force.
1998 AND NOW
Jump on the way back machine and travel back to 1998. President Clinton is being pursued by the right-wing Congress and the right-wing media for his fling with Monica, even to the point of impeaching Clinton. Now move back to our time with George W. Bush. Polls show more support for impeaching Bush (for much better reasons) than existed for impeaching Clinton. This comes from www.democrats.com/node/7152
Recent polls show that support for impeachment hearings for President Bush are much higher than they were for President Clinton. In a poll published on November 4, Zogby International found that, by a margin of 53% to 42%, Americans said that "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable through impeachment."
RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE
Working class people in the United States have been hammered for almost two decades. Since the ascent of Ronald Reagan, things have gotten progressively worse for working people. Unions have struggled to survive and come under vicious attack from right-wing politicians and their corporate supporters. Jobs have been exported to other countries. Giant companies like Wal-Mart have taken more and more command of the economy, destroying small businesses and fair wages in the process. While members of Congress give themselves handsome raises and dole out tax cuts for their rich friends, they keep the minimum wage at its miserly level of $5.15 an hour. It hasn't been increased in eight years. This item comes from /thinkprogress.org/2005/12/14/celebrate-christmas-by-raising-the-minimum-wage/
Congress has the power to brighten the holiday for the almost 8 million Americans living on the minimum wage by increasing their paycheck.
Yet, this is the eighth year in a row that Congress has failed to enact even a small increase in the minimum wage. By freezing it at an inadequate $5.15 and ignoring the effects of inflation, Congress has essentially given a pay cut to these workers. In fact, if the minimum wage in 2005 was worth what it was worth in 1968 (its peak value), it would be $8.88 an hour.
How can the leadership in Congress leave Washington this week to enjoy a plentiful Christmas and a comfortable New Year knowing that their inaction has guaranteed another tough Christmas for millions of Americans?
Wednesday, December 14, 2005
DECEMBER 14, 2005
IMPEACH BUSH
PENTAGON SPYING ON U.S. CITIZENS
One of the most memorable scenes in Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 shows a group called Peace Fresno, a few peace activists gathered together to oppose Bush's Iraq war. Now we learn that the Pentagon has been collecting data on peace activists around the country. This is part of a pattern of the Bush administration gathering data on dissidents and trying to suppress dissent. John Poindexter was working on a data base that could collect information on almost everything we buy. The Patriot Act allows the government to check our reading habits at book stores and libraries. This is a throwback to the Vietnam war era when the FBI was busy collecting data about war opponents. If the government spent half the energy it spends on pursuing peace activists to instead catching people like Osama bin Laden, we might actually be safer. This article by Lisa Myers, Douglas Pasternak, Rich Gardella and the NBC Investigative Unit is at www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316:
The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One “incident” included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes — a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
THE RIGHT WING'S WAR ON FAIRNESS
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." That's sheer heresy to your average right-winger. They maintain that the rich are not only different from you and me; the rich are better. The rich are smarter, more virtuous, more hard-working, more innovative, and probably favored by God. Right-wingers will make those arguments even about people who inherited their fortunes and maybe haven't worked a day in their lives. We hear all the code words such as "class warfare," "socialism," "redistribution of wealth," and so on. It boils down to the rich getting richer and the heck with everyone else.
Leigh Saavedra writes about it in this article linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The warriors of semantics worked overtime. First, "redistribution of wealth" joined the other words made slimy by the far right's touch, running it through the brainwash machine until it joined all the words used to scare us -- socialist, leftist, liberal, death tax. Then, within the past 25 or so years, the concept, if not the term, has come back into being, turned totally on its ear, Robin Hood out robbing the poor and middle class to sustain an excessive lifestyle of the rich. You say it, and you're a proponent of class warfare; you don't say it, and you contribute to the slow death of our middle class.
This new kind of distribution, taking from the neediest and giving it to those for whom it will be overflow, is what it is all about. Everything -- taxes, wars, the media, religion, the new world as extracted from "the new world order," everything.
RIGHT WINGERS TRIVIALIZE CHRISTMAS
I guess I'm cynical. I don't think some of the blowhards talking about the "attack" on Christmas (such as Bill O'Reilly) really care that much about Christmas. What they care about is finding another hot button issue to distract their minions who act like Pavlov's dogs whenever a right-wing commentator shoots off his mouth. Jesus Christ himself condemned public displays of piety, but so-called "Christians' fall over themselves in fulminating about a "holiday" tree or someone saying "happy holidays." They can show all the piety they want in their homes and in their churches, but they should keep their piety out of retail and out of the public sector. Leonard Pitts has some thoughts in this editorial at www.kansas.com:
What's offensive here is not the imperfect balancing of minority and majority. What's offensive -- also surreal and absurd -- is the notion that Christianity, a faith claimed by 76 percent of all Americans, is somehow being intimidated into nonexistence. Some of the earliest Christians were stoned for their beliefs. In some parts of the world today, Christianity is a crime punishable by death. And the AFA is feeling persecuted because a salesclerk says "Happy Holidays"?
That's not persecution. It's a persecution complex.
And it trivializes what Christians claim to uphold: the baby born of a virgin's womb.
Of what importance is a salesman's greeting if you're one of the 76 percent who believe that? The greeting that matters was spoken by angels. The book of Luke says they appeared before shepherds in a field: "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."
Linus said it best: "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."
IMPEACH BUSH
PENTAGON SPYING ON U.S. CITIZENS
One of the most memorable scenes in Michael Moore's documentary Fahrenheit 9/11 shows a group called Peace Fresno, a few peace activists gathered together to oppose Bush's Iraq war. Now we learn that the Pentagon has been collecting data on peace activists around the country. This is part of a pattern of the Bush administration gathering data on dissidents and trying to suppress dissent. John Poindexter was working on a data base that could collect information on almost everything we buy. The Patriot Act allows the government to check our reading habits at book stores and libraries. This is a throwback to the Vietnam war era when the FBI was busy collecting data about war opponents. If the government spent half the energy it spends on pursuing peace activists to instead catching people like Osama bin Laden, we might actually be safer. This article by Lisa Myers, Douglas Pasternak, Rich Gardella and the NBC Investigative Unit is at www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10454316:
The DOD database obtained by NBC News includes nearly four dozen anti-war meetings or protests, including some that have taken place far from any military installation, post or recruitment center. One “incident” included in the database is a large anti-war protest at Hollywood and Vine in Los Angeles last March that included effigies of President Bush and anti-war protest banners. Another incident mentions a planned protest against military recruiters last December in Boston and a planned protest last April at McDonald’s National Salute to America’s Heroes — a military air and sea show in Fort Lauderdale, Fla.
THE RIGHT WING'S WAR ON FAIRNESS
Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that "all men are created equal." That's sheer heresy to your average right-winger. They maintain that the rich are not only different from you and me; the rich are better. The rich are smarter, more virtuous, more hard-working, more innovative, and probably favored by God. Right-wingers will make those arguments even about people who inherited their fortunes and maybe haven't worked a day in their lives. We hear all the code words such as "class warfare," "socialism," "redistribution of wealth," and so on. It boils down to the rich getting richer and the heck with everyone else.
Leigh Saavedra writes about it in this article linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The warriors of semantics worked overtime. First, "redistribution of wealth" joined the other words made slimy by the far right's touch, running it through the brainwash machine until it joined all the words used to scare us -- socialist, leftist, liberal, death tax. Then, within the past 25 or so years, the concept, if not the term, has come back into being, turned totally on its ear, Robin Hood out robbing the poor and middle class to sustain an excessive lifestyle of the rich. You say it, and you're a proponent of class warfare; you don't say it, and you contribute to the slow death of our middle class.
This new kind of distribution, taking from the neediest and giving it to those for whom it will be overflow, is what it is all about. Everything -- taxes, wars, the media, religion, the new world as extracted from "the new world order," everything.
RIGHT WINGERS TRIVIALIZE CHRISTMAS
I guess I'm cynical. I don't think some of the blowhards talking about the "attack" on Christmas (such as Bill O'Reilly) really care that much about Christmas. What they care about is finding another hot button issue to distract their minions who act like Pavlov's dogs whenever a right-wing commentator shoots off his mouth. Jesus Christ himself condemned public displays of piety, but so-called "Christians' fall over themselves in fulminating about a "holiday" tree or someone saying "happy holidays." They can show all the piety they want in their homes and in their churches, but they should keep their piety out of retail and out of the public sector. Leonard Pitts has some thoughts in this editorial at www.kansas.com:
What's offensive here is not the imperfect balancing of minority and majority. What's offensive -- also surreal and absurd -- is the notion that Christianity, a faith claimed by 76 percent of all Americans, is somehow being intimidated into nonexistence. Some of the earliest Christians were stoned for their beliefs. In some parts of the world today, Christianity is a crime punishable by death. And the AFA is feeling persecuted because a salesclerk says "Happy Holidays"?
That's not persecution. It's a persecution complex.
And it trivializes what Christians claim to uphold: the baby born of a virgin's womb.
Of what importance is a salesman's greeting if you're one of the 76 percent who believe that? The greeting that matters was spoken by angels. The book of Luke says they appeared before shepherds in a field: "Fear not, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, which is Christ the Lord."
Linus said it best: "That's what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown."
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