July 31, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WE CAN'T AFFORD FUNDAMENTALISTS
When you look at the world today who would you say is causing the greatest misery and destruction? Fundamentalists in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam would certainly head the list. George W. Bush and the Christian right that supports him believe we're approaching the apocalypse. They not only believe in the apocalypse, they want to hasten its arrival. In the meantime, they ignore the pressing issues of our time, such as global climate change, because they believe the world is ready to end. Karen Armstrong is one of the foremost scholars of religion in the world. This article is linked at www.commondreams.org:
The fundamentalists' rejection of science is deeply linked to their apocalyptic vision. Even the relatively sober ID theorists segue easily into Rapture-speak. "Great shakings and darkness are descending on Planet Earth," says the ID philosopher Paul Nelson, "but they will be overshadowed by even more amazing displays of God's power and light. Ever the long-term strategist, YHVH is raising up a mighty army of cutting-edge Jewish End-time warriors." They all condemn the attempt to reform social ills. When applied socially, evolutionary theory "leads straight to all the woes of modern life," says the leading ID ideologue Philip Johnson: homosexuality, state-backed healthcare, divorce, single-parenthood, socialism, and abortion. All this, of course, is highly agreeable to the Bush administration, which is itself selectively leery of science. It has, for example, persistently ignored scientists' warnings about global warming. Why bother to implement the Kyoto treaty if the world is about to end? Indeed, some fundamentalists see environmental damage as a positive development, because it will hasten the apocalypse.
This nihilistic religiosity is based on a perversion of the texts. The first chapter of Genesis was never intended as a literal account of the origins of life; it is a myth, a timeless story about the sanctity of the world and everything in it. Revelation was not a detailed program for the End time; it is written in an apocalyptic genre that has quite a different dynamic. When they described the Jews' return to their homeland, the Hebrew prophets were predicting the end of the Babylonian exile in the sixth century BC - not the second coming of Christ. The prophets did preach a stern message of social justice, however, and like all the major world faiths, Christianity sees charity and loving-kindness as the cardinal virtues. Fundamentalism nearly always distorts the tradition it is trying to defend.
A NEW ARISTOCRACY
One of the things the Founding Fathers abhorred about Europe was its system of inherited aristocracy. Wealth and power were passed on from generation to generation simply by being born into the right families. Republicans must like that system because they're doing their best to restore it. Repealing the estate tax is a major step toward insuring a permanent American aristocracy. This article by Johann N. Neem is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
The fight against aristocracy goes back to the nation's founding and is part of our democratic tradition. Nobody feared aristocracies more than Thomas Jefferson. In Jefferson's day, aristocracies were far-reaching. European nations had powerful nobles who inherited their status, promoted their own self-interested politics and often considered their interests to be superior to those of the majority. They demanded legal privileges unavailable to others. In contrast, Jefferson hoped to create a society in which all citizens were considered equal.
Americans today agree that hard work ought to be rewarded, but inheritance of great wealth and power works against this core American value. Jefferson hoped to replace a permanent aristocracy with what he called a "natural aristocracy" of talent and virtue, but he recognized this meant giving the children of each generation an equal start.
Jefferson argued that the best way to prevent an aristocracy was to limit inheritance. In a 1789 letter to his friend James Madison, Jefferson wrote that "the earth belongs in usufruct to the living" and "the dead have neither powers nor rights over it" -- that is, the dead should not control the opportunities of the next generation. Every child deserves a fair chance.
Saturday, July 29, 2006
July 29, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE PERILS OF ELECTRICAL PRIVATIZATION
Conservatives act like Pavlov's dogs in chanting "free market, free market" as the solution to almost anything. They got their way when electricity was privatized, and now the bitter fruit from privatization is coming back to haunt us. Rolling blackouts across the United States are becoming more common. People are getting sick and dying because they don't have air conditioning to deal with the oppressive heat. This article by Tyson Slocum is at www.tompaine.com:
Before the implementation of Enron’s agenda, electric utilities were fully regulated by states, with one company responsible for producing and delivering power. These utilities had a legal obligation to serve all consumers and were forced to re-invest a portion of their profits back in to improving reliability. Were there flaws with this system? Of course. But it produced the most reliable and affordable power system the world had ever seen.
Enron and their ilk smashed it apart, replacing legal mandates with “the market” to regulate America’s power system. They assumed competition would successfully replace regulators to provide the necessary investments in power generation and transmission.
But that didn’t happen. With the requirements to invest a share of profits into improving reliability now removed, Wall Street and the power industry shunned putting their money into unprofitable investments like upgrading transmission lines and distribution networks. Why should investors spend money on low-rate-of-return investments like reliability when they can make a killing buying and selling power plants?
IRAQ AS FREE MARKET EXPERIMENT
As much as anything, Iraq has been used as a laboratory to try out right-wing economic ideas. Privatize, privatize, privatize. Impose American capitalism and take it a step further. The results haven't been pretty. This article by Joshua Holland is at www.truthout.org:
Iraqis have been brutalized not only by bombs and bullets; they've also been the victims of economic violence in the form of the free market "shock therapy" cooked up by a firm in Virginia on a $250 million no-bid contract before the U.S. invasion. Transforming Iraq's economy overnight was a matter of ideology trumping commonsense, and it's killed thousands of innocent Iraqis and shattered a way of life for hundreds of thousands more.
That the radical restructuring of Iraq's political economy has received so little critical attention - even as Iraq's nascent government threatens to crash and burn - is a testament to how deeply indoctrinated we are -especially our media - in the narrative of what "American-style" capitalism is. It was taken as a given that after knocking off Saddam, we'd rapidly privatize huge swaths of Iraq's national companies, get rid of hundreds of thousands of civil servants, completely restructure the country's tax and finance laws and throw Iraq's economy wide open for foreign multinationals. File it under bringing "democracy and capitalism" to the poor, backward Arabs.
The reality is that the economic policies we imposed on Iraq were not some generic form of "capitalism"; they included the most radical business-state rules imaginable - policies that developing countries have vehemently resisted for over a decade. What's more, imposing them at the point of a gun appears to have violated both international and U.S. laws. There's nothing "normal" about it.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE PERILS OF ELECTRICAL PRIVATIZATION
Conservatives act like Pavlov's dogs in chanting "free market, free market" as the solution to almost anything. They got their way when electricity was privatized, and now the bitter fruit from privatization is coming back to haunt us. Rolling blackouts across the United States are becoming more common. People are getting sick and dying because they don't have air conditioning to deal with the oppressive heat. This article by Tyson Slocum is at www.tompaine.com:
Before the implementation of Enron’s agenda, electric utilities were fully regulated by states, with one company responsible for producing and delivering power. These utilities had a legal obligation to serve all consumers and were forced to re-invest a portion of their profits back in to improving reliability. Were there flaws with this system? Of course. But it produced the most reliable and affordable power system the world had ever seen.
Enron and their ilk smashed it apart, replacing legal mandates with “the market” to regulate America’s power system. They assumed competition would successfully replace regulators to provide the necessary investments in power generation and transmission.
But that didn’t happen. With the requirements to invest a share of profits into improving reliability now removed, Wall Street and the power industry shunned putting their money into unprofitable investments like upgrading transmission lines and distribution networks. Why should investors spend money on low-rate-of-return investments like reliability when they can make a killing buying and selling power plants?
IRAQ AS FREE MARKET EXPERIMENT
As much as anything, Iraq has been used as a laboratory to try out right-wing economic ideas. Privatize, privatize, privatize. Impose American capitalism and take it a step further. The results haven't been pretty. This article by Joshua Holland is at www.truthout.org:
Iraqis have been brutalized not only by bombs and bullets; they've also been the victims of economic violence in the form of the free market "shock therapy" cooked up by a firm in Virginia on a $250 million no-bid contract before the U.S. invasion. Transforming Iraq's economy overnight was a matter of ideology trumping commonsense, and it's killed thousands of innocent Iraqis and shattered a way of life for hundreds of thousands more.
That the radical restructuring of Iraq's political economy has received so little critical attention - even as Iraq's nascent government threatens to crash and burn - is a testament to how deeply indoctrinated we are -especially our media - in the narrative of what "American-style" capitalism is. It was taken as a given that after knocking off Saddam, we'd rapidly privatize huge swaths of Iraq's national companies, get rid of hundreds of thousands of civil servants, completely restructure the country's tax and finance laws and throw Iraq's economy wide open for foreign multinationals. File it under bringing "democracy and capitalism" to the poor, backward Arabs.
The reality is that the economic policies we imposed on Iraq were not some generic form of "capitalism"; they included the most radical business-state rules imaginable - policies that developing countries have vehemently resisted for over a decade. What's more, imposing them at the point of a gun appears to have violated both international and U.S. laws. There's nothing "normal" about it.
Friday, July 28, 2006
July 28, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DISASTER HERE, DISASTER THERE, DISASTER EVERYWHERE
George W. Bush and his inept administration are the classic example of why reactionary politicians should never be entrusted with power. The ideas of reactionaries don't work. What's worse, they create crisis after crisis, costing homes, lives, and stability. Except for the very rich, everyone in this country is worse off since Bush took power. People around the world are homeless, maimed, or dead thanks to Bush. This article by Peter Baker is at www.washingtonpost.com:
"You've got Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories aflame, you've got Iraq still aflame, and you've got the Iran issue now unresolved," said Carlos Pascual, a senior State Department official until this year. "It has hurt the U.S. internationally because it has only reinforced in everyone's mind that the U.S. was not being strategic, it was not looking ahead to how to handle the whole panoply of issues in a way that's both realistic and effective."
Bush advisers who have been buffeted in the past year by a catastrophic hurricane, rising gasoline prices, a failed Social Security initiative, Republican revolts, criminal investigations and a relentless overseas war said they have grown accustomed to constant crisis. "This is a new normal for our administration in the last couple years," said one senior official. "You begin to expect the unexpected."
THE NON-INTERFERENCE DIRECTIVE
When I think of U.S. foreign policy I think of the Non-interference Directive that was a major part of Star Trek. The Non-interference Directive essentially said that the United Federation of Planets would allow societies to develop in their own way without interference from the Federation. If only we had that policy in effect here on earth. The U.S. has consistently been involved in the overthrow or destabilization of other governments. Some would claim that these governments were bad and should be overthrown. But look at Iraq. Are the Iraqi people truly better off than they were under Saddam Hussein? In this column Andrew Greeley looks at the dead in Iraq thanks to U.S. foreign policy. The column is at www.commondreams.org:
There was, therefore, no just cause, no attempt to exhaust all possible alternatives short of war, no real hope for victory, no postwar plan, and no ability to prevent the postwar butchery that was easily predictable to those who understood Iraq. The war leaped from slogan to slogan -- weapons of mass destruction, the critical front in the global war on terror, stay the course, freedom and democracy in Iraq. All these slogans are false.
Were America's leaders deliberately lying? Did they really believe that the Shiites and the Sunnis would not murder one another, or did they know better? One must leave the state of their consciences to God. However, they should have known, and in the objective order, they are criminally responsible for the hundred deaths every day. They should be tried for their crimes, not that such trials are possible in our country.
The hundred who die every day are not merely numbers, they are real human beings. Their deaths are personal disasters for the dead person and also for all those who love them: parents, children, wives, husbands. Most Americans are not outraged. Iraqis are a little less than human. If a hundred people were dying every day in our neighborhoods, we would scream in outrage and horror. Not many of us are lamenting these daily tragedies. Quite the contrary, we wish the newscast would go on to the weather for the next weekend.
Is blood on the hands of those Americans who support the war? Again, one must leave them to heaven. But in the objective order it is difficult to see why they are not responsible for the mass murders. They permitted their leaders to deceive them about the war, often enthusiastically. How can they watch the continuing murders in Iraq and not feel guilty?
How would you feel if the street were drenched with the blood of your son or daughter, if your father was in the hospital with his legs blown off?
We cannot permit ourselves to grieve for Iraqi pain because then we would weep bitter and guilty tears every day.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DISASTER HERE, DISASTER THERE, DISASTER EVERYWHERE
George W. Bush and his inept administration are the classic example of why reactionary politicians should never be entrusted with power. The ideas of reactionaries don't work. What's worse, they create crisis after crisis, costing homes, lives, and stability. Except for the very rich, everyone in this country is worse off since Bush took power. People around the world are homeless, maimed, or dead thanks to Bush. This article by Peter Baker is at www.washingtonpost.com:
"You've got Lebanon, Israel and the Palestinian territories aflame, you've got Iraq still aflame, and you've got the Iran issue now unresolved," said Carlos Pascual, a senior State Department official until this year. "It has hurt the U.S. internationally because it has only reinforced in everyone's mind that the U.S. was not being strategic, it was not looking ahead to how to handle the whole panoply of issues in a way that's both realistic and effective."
Bush advisers who have been buffeted in the past year by a catastrophic hurricane, rising gasoline prices, a failed Social Security initiative, Republican revolts, criminal investigations and a relentless overseas war said they have grown accustomed to constant crisis. "This is a new normal for our administration in the last couple years," said one senior official. "You begin to expect the unexpected."
THE NON-INTERFERENCE DIRECTIVE
When I think of U.S. foreign policy I think of the Non-interference Directive that was a major part of Star Trek. The Non-interference Directive essentially said that the United Federation of Planets would allow societies to develop in their own way without interference from the Federation. If only we had that policy in effect here on earth. The U.S. has consistently been involved in the overthrow or destabilization of other governments. Some would claim that these governments were bad and should be overthrown. But look at Iraq. Are the Iraqi people truly better off than they were under Saddam Hussein? In this column Andrew Greeley looks at the dead in Iraq thanks to U.S. foreign policy. The column is at www.commondreams.org:
There was, therefore, no just cause, no attempt to exhaust all possible alternatives short of war, no real hope for victory, no postwar plan, and no ability to prevent the postwar butchery that was easily predictable to those who understood Iraq. The war leaped from slogan to slogan -- weapons of mass destruction, the critical front in the global war on terror, stay the course, freedom and democracy in Iraq. All these slogans are false.
Were America's leaders deliberately lying? Did they really believe that the Shiites and the Sunnis would not murder one another, or did they know better? One must leave the state of their consciences to God. However, they should have known, and in the objective order, they are criminally responsible for the hundred deaths every day. They should be tried for their crimes, not that such trials are possible in our country.
The hundred who die every day are not merely numbers, they are real human beings. Their deaths are personal disasters for the dead person and also for all those who love them: parents, children, wives, husbands. Most Americans are not outraged. Iraqis are a little less than human. If a hundred people were dying every day in our neighborhoods, we would scream in outrage and horror. Not many of us are lamenting these daily tragedies. Quite the contrary, we wish the newscast would go on to the weather for the next weekend.
Is blood on the hands of those Americans who support the war? Again, one must leave them to heaven. But in the objective order it is difficult to see why they are not responsible for the mass murders. They permitted their leaders to deceive them about the war, often enthusiastically. How can they watch the continuing murders in Iraq and not feel guilty?
How would you feel if the street were drenched with the blood of your son or daughter, if your father was in the hospital with his legs blown off?
We cannot permit ourselves to grieve for Iraqi pain because then we would weep bitter and guilty tears every day.
Wednesday, July 26, 2006
July 26, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WHAT COMPASSION?
George W. Bush advertised himself as a "compassionate conservative." It's a phrase that would gag a maggot. Compassion and conservatism are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Being a conservative means being greedy, short-sighted, self-righteous, hypocritical, and cruel. This item comes from www.riverfog.net:
As the issue of executive salaries and perks once again grabs headlines, this time in terms of backdate stock options (“Think of it as a chance to buy a stock at a rock-bottom price after you already know it's gone up. It now appears that many companies offered executives this opportunity over the past decade–and broke laws in the process.” CSM 7/19), the poor in American have remained poor under the aegis of compassionate conservatism. And the poor still suffer. Income inequality, not usually the stuff of newsreels, is getting the kind of attention this summer that would make Michael Harrington proud. A new Brookings Institution Study, actually reported on by the NYT, outlines the problems of the ghetto tax–the extra cost of goods and services to those in the inner city. That such a poverty premium was around throughout the 20th century does not mean that it does not deserve periodic reexamination, though at least one critic thinks Brookings could have been more creative in its search for solutions.
TO EVERYTHING A SEASON
Even the Bible, strangely enough, recognizes that things change. The Bible says that to everything there is a season. Not so for George W. Bush, though. The guy who claims he has a hotline to God makes a decision and, no matter how disastrous the results, he stays the course. Bush's decisions get people killed, and I'm not confident of his abilities as a seer. This article by Maureen Dowd is linked at rozius.blogspot.com:
Scientists see more and more evidence that human evolution not only exists but is ongoing, as people adapt to changing circumstances with shifts in everything from skin color to the protein structure of sperm.
But with W., it's more a matter of survival of the stubbornist.
If you turn on TV, you see missiles flying, bodies lying, nuclear missiles unleashed and a slaughterhouse in Iraq. But don't despair, because yesterday President Bush announced the establishment of 'a joint committee to achieve Iraqi self-reliance.' He called it a 'new partnership,' as if it were some small business.
Isn't it a little late, in July 2006, to be launching a new partnership for such an old mess? Isn't it a little late to realize that Baghdad, a city where 300 garbage collectors have been killed in the last six months, according to press reports, has spun out of control?
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WHAT COMPASSION?
George W. Bush advertised himself as a "compassionate conservative." It's a phrase that would gag a maggot. Compassion and conservatism are at opposite ends of the spectrum. Being a conservative means being greedy, short-sighted, self-righteous, hypocritical, and cruel. This item comes from www.riverfog.net:
As the issue of executive salaries and perks once again grabs headlines, this time in terms of backdate stock options (“Think of it as a chance to buy a stock at a rock-bottom price after you already know it's gone up. It now appears that many companies offered executives this opportunity over the past decade–and broke laws in the process.” CSM 7/19), the poor in American have remained poor under the aegis of compassionate conservatism. And the poor still suffer. Income inequality, not usually the stuff of newsreels, is getting the kind of attention this summer that would make Michael Harrington proud. A new Brookings Institution Study, actually reported on by the NYT, outlines the problems of the ghetto tax–the extra cost of goods and services to those in the inner city. That such a poverty premium was around throughout the 20th century does not mean that it does not deserve periodic reexamination, though at least one critic thinks Brookings could have been more creative in its search for solutions.
TO EVERYTHING A SEASON
Even the Bible, strangely enough, recognizes that things change. The Bible says that to everything there is a season. Not so for George W. Bush, though. The guy who claims he has a hotline to God makes a decision and, no matter how disastrous the results, he stays the course. Bush's decisions get people killed, and I'm not confident of his abilities as a seer. This article by Maureen Dowd is linked at rozius.blogspot.com:
Scientists see more and more evidence that human evolution not only exists but is ongoing, as people adapt to changing circumstances with shifts in everything from skin color to the protein structure of sperm.
But with W., it's more a matter of survival of the stubbornist.
If you turn on TV, you see missiles flying, bodies lying, nuclear missiles unleashed and a slaughterhouse in Iraq. But don't despair, because yesterday President Bush announced the establishment of 'a joint committee to achieve Iraqi self-reliance.' He called it a 'new partnership,' as if it were some small business.
Isn't it a little late, in July 2006, to be launching a new partnership for such an old mess? Isn't it a little late to realize that Baghdad, a city where 300 garbage collectors have been killed in the last six months, according to press reports, has spun out of control?
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
July 25, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
FIASCO
A new book describes the Bush administration's foray into Iraq with a single word: "fiasco." That pretty much sums up the entire Bush administration. The book by Thomas E. Ricks is reviewed by MICHIKO KAKUTANI at www.nytimes.com:
The title of this devastating new book about the American war in Iraq says it all: “Fiasco.” That is the judgment that Thomas E. Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, passes on the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq and its management of the war and the occupation. And he serves up his portrait of that war as a misguided exercise in hubris, incompetence and folly with a wealth of detail and evidence that is both staggeringly vivid and persuasive.
By virtue of the author’s wealth of sources within the American military and the book’s comprehensive timeline (beginning with the administration’s inflammatory statements about Saddam Hussein in the wake of 9/11, through the invasion and occupation, to the escalating religious and ethnic strife that afflicts the country today), “Fiasco” is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how the United States came to go to war in Iraq, how a bungled occupation fed a ballooning insurgency and how these events will affect the future of the American military. Though other books have depicted aspects of the Iraq war in more intimate and harrowing detail, though other books have broken more news about aspects of the war, this volume gives the reader a lucid, tough-minded overview of this tragic enterprise that stands apart from earlier assessments in terms of simple coherence and scope.
EDUCATION NO GUARANTEE FOR SUCCESS
It has been part of the American experience that the track to success lies with education. Earn a degree, we're told, and you're on the right track to a middle class life. That's not necessarily true in the Bush economy, though. Even wages for people with Bachelors Degrees have been falling. This article by Molly Hennessy-Fiske is at www.latimes.com:
Wage stagnation, long the bane of blue-collar workers, is now hitting people with bachelor's degrees for the first time in 30 years. Earnings for workers with four-year degrees fell 5.2% from 2000 to 2004 when adjusted for inflation, according to White House economists.
It is a remarkable setback for workers who thought they were well-positioned to win some of the benefits of the nation's economic growth, and it may help explain why surveys show that many Americans think President Bush has not managed the economy well.
Not since the 1970s have workers with bachelor's degrees seen a prolonged slump in earnings during a time of economic growth. These workers did well during the last period of economic growth, 1995 to 2000, with inflation-adjusted average wages rising 12%, according to an analysis by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
FIASCO
A new book describes the Bush administration's foray into Iraq with a single word: "fiasco." That pretty much sums up the entire Bush administration. The book by Thomas E. Ricks is reviewed by MICHIKO KAKUTANI at www.nytimes.com:
The title of this devastating new book about the American war in Iraq says it all: “Fiasco.” That is the judgment that Thomas E. Ricks, senior Pentagon correspondent for The Washington Post, passes on the Bush administration’s decision to invade Iraq and its management of the war and the occupation. And he serves up his portrait of that war as a misguided exercise in hubris, incompetence and folly with a wealth of detail and evidence that is both staggeringly vivid and persuasive.
By virtue of the author’s wealth of sources within the American military and the book’s comprehensive timeline (beginning with the administration’s inflammatory statements about Saddam Hussein in the wake of 9/11, through the invasion and occupation, to the escalating religious and ethnic strife that afflicts the country today), “Fiasco” is absolutely essential reading for anyone interested in understanding how the United States came to go to war in Iraq, how a bungled occupation fed a ballooning insurgency and how these events will affect the future of the American military. Though other books have depicted aspects of the Iraq war in more intimate and harrowing detail, though other books have broken more news about aspects of the war, this volume gives the reader a lucid, tough-minded overview of this tragic enterprise that stands apart from earlier assessments in terms of simple coherence and scope.
EDUCATION NO GUARANTEE FOR SUCCESS
It has been part of the American experience that the track to success lies with education. Earn a degree, we're told, and you're on the right track to a middle class life. That's not necessarily true in the Bush economy, though. Even wages for people with Bachelors Degrees have been falling. This article by Molly Hennessy-Fiske is at www.latimes.com:
Wage stagnation, long the bane of blue-collar workers, is now hitting people with bachelor's degrees for the first time in 30 years. Earnings for workers with four-year degrees fell 5.2% from 2000 to 2004 when adjusted for inflation, according to White House economists.
It is a remarkable setback for workers who thought they were well-positioned to win some of the benefits of the nation's economic growth, and it may help explain why surveys show that many Americans think President Bush has not managed the economy well.
Not since the 1970s have workers with bachelor's degrees seen a prolonged slump in earnings during a time of economic growth. These workers did well during the last period of economic growth, 1995 to 2000, with inflation-adjusted average wages rising 12%, according to an analysis by the liberal-leaning Economic Policy Institute.
Monday, July 24, 2006
July 24, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
LET THE BACKLASH BEGIN
For years we've heard right-wing Republicans sanctimoniously pontificate against gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell research. George W. Bush used the first veto of his fraudulent presidency to deny federal funding for stem cell research. It's an ominous sign for the Bible-thumping frauds in the Republican party that Ralph Reed lost his primary election in Georgia. In this column Frank Rich writes about the building backlash against the fundamentalist hypocrites. The column is linked at 64.226.238.78/PA/fr/fr212.shtml:
Whatever else is to be said about the Decider, he's consistent. Having dallied again this summer while terrorism upends the world, he has once more roused himself to take action — on stem cells. His first presidential veto may be bad news for the critically ill, but it was a twofer for the White House. It not only flattered the president's base. It also drowned out some awkward news: the prime minister he installed in Baghdad, Nuri al-Maliki, and the fractious Parliament of Iraq's marvelous new democracy had called a brief timeout from their civil war to endorse the sole cause that unites them, the condemnation of Israel.
The news is not all dire, however. While Mr. Bush's Iraq project threatens to deliver the entire region to Iran's ayatollahs, this month may also be remembered as a turning point in America's own religious wars. The president's politically self-destructive stem-cell veto and the simultaneous undoing of the religious right's former golden boy, Ralph Reed, in a Republican primary for lieutenant governor in Georgia are landmark defeats for the faith-based politics enshrined by Mr. Bush's presidency. If we can't beat the ayatollahs over there, maybe we're at least starting to rout them here.
That the administration's stem-cell policy is a political fiasco for its proponents is evident from a single fact: Bill Frist, the most craven politician in Washington, ditched the president. In past pandering to his party's far-right fringe, Mr. Frist, who calls himself a doctor, misdiagnosed the comatose Terri Schiavo's condition after watching her on videotape and, in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, refused to dispute an abstinence program's canard that tears and sweat could transmit AIDS. If Senator Frist is belatedly standing up for stem-cell research, you can bet he's read some eye-popping polls. His ignorance about H.I.V. notwithstanding, he also knows that the facts about stem cells are not on Mr. Bush's side.
HUMANS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
I've actually seen letters in The Fresno Bee recently talking about the merits of seeing Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" that deals with global climate change. There are always some nut cases on the right who deny the reality of global climate change. It's cyclical, they'll tell us, or it's solar activity, or it's volcanic eruptions. Just as they'll deny the reality of evolution, these people put their heads in the proverbial sand on climate change. The human race has to take action now to deal with the changes that are being wrought by human activity. This article by Naomi Oreskes is at www.commondreams.org:
Since the 1950s, scientists have understood that greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels could have serious effects on Earth's climate. When the 1980s proved to be the hottest decade on record, and as predictions of climate models started to come true, scientists increasingly saw global warming as cause for concern.
In 1988, the World Meteorological Assn. and the United Nations Environment Program joined forces to create the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action. The panel has issued three assessments (1990, 1995, 2001), representing the combined expertise of 2,000 scientists from more than 100 countries, and a fourth report is due out shortly. Its conclusions — global warming is occurring, humans have a major role in it — have been ratified by scientists around the world in published scientific papers, in statements issued by professional scientific societies, and in reports of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society and many other national and royal academies of science worldwide. Even the Bush administration accepts the fundamental findings. As President Bush's science advisor, John Marburger III, said last year in a speech: "The climate is changing; the Earth is warming."
To be sure, there are a handful of scientists, including MIT professor Richard Lindzen, the author of the Wall Street Journal editorial, who disagree with the rest of the scientific community. To a historian of science like me, this is not surprising. In any scientific community, there are always some individuals who simply refuse to accept new ideas and evidence. This is especially true when the new evidence strikes at their core beliefs and values.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
LET THE BACKLASH BEGIN
For years we've heard right-wing Republicans sanctimoniously pontificate against gay marriage, abortion, and stem cell research. George W. Bush used the first veto of his fraudulent presidency to deny federal funding for stem cell research. It's an ominous sign for the Bible-thumping frauds in the Republican party that Ralph Reed lost his primary election in Georgia. In this column Frank Rich writes about the building backlash against the fundamentalist hypocrites. The column is linked at 64.226.238.78/PA/fr/fr212.shtml:
Whatever else is to be said about the Decider, he's consistent. Having dallied again this summer while terrorism upends the world, he has once more roused himself to take action — on stem cells. His first presidential veto may be bad news for the critically ill, but it was a twofer for the White House. It not only flattered the president's base. It also drowned out some awkward news: the prime minister he installed in Baghdad, Nuri al-Maliki, and the fractious Parliament of Iraq's marvelous new democracy had called a brief timeout from their civil war to endorse the sole cause that unites them, the condemnation of Israel.
The news is not all dire, however. While Mr. Bush's Iraq project threatens to deliver the entire region to Iran's ayatollahs, this month may also be remembered as a turning point in America's own religious wars. The president's politically self-destructive stem-cell veto and the simultaneous undoing of the religious right's former golden boy, Ralph Reed, in a Republican primary for lieutenant governor in Georgia are landmark defeats for the faith-based politics enshrined by Mr. Bush's presidency. If we can't beat the ayatollahs over there, maybe we're at least starting to rout them here.
That the administration's stem-cell policy is a political fiasco for its proponents is evident from a single fact: Bill Frist, the most craven politician in Washington, ditched the president. In past pandering to his party's far-right fringe, Mr. Frist, who calls himself a doctor, misdiagnosed the comatose Terri Schiavo's condition after watching her on videotape and, in an interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos, refused to dispute an abstinence program's canard that tears and sweat could transmit AIDS. If Senator Frist is belatedly standing up for stem-cell research, you can bet he's read some eye-popping polls. His ignorance about H.I.V. notwithstanding, he also knows that the facts about stem cells are not on Mr. Bush's side.
HUMANS AND CLIMATE CHANGE
I've actually seen letters in The Fresno Bee recently talking about the merits of seeing Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth" that deals with global climate change. There are always some nut cases on the right who deny the reality of global climate change. It's cyclical, they'll tell us, or it's solar activity, or it's volcanic eruptions. Just as they'll deny the reality of evolution, these people put their heads in the proverbial sand on climate change. The human race has to take action now to deal with the changes that are being wrought by human activity. This article by Naomi Oreskes is at www.commondreams.org:
Since the 1950s, scientists have understood that greenhouse gases produced by burning fossil fuels could have serious effects on Earth's climate. When the 1980s proved to be the hottest decade on record, and as predictions of climate models started to come true, scientists increasingly saw global warming as cause for concern.
In 1988, the World Meteorological Assn. and the United Nations Environment Program joined forces to create the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change to evaluate the state of climate science as a basis for informed policy action. The panel has issued three assessments (1990, 1995, 2001), representing the combined expertise of 2,000 scientists from more than 100 countries, and a fourth report is due out shortly. Its conclusions — global warming is occurring, humans have a major role in it — have been ratified by scientists around the world in published scientific papers, in statements issued by professional scientific societies, and in reports of the National Academy of Sciences, the British Royal Society and many other national and royal academies of science worldwide. Even the Bush administration accepts the fundamental findings. As President Bush's science advisor, John Marburger III, said last year in a speech: "The climate is changing; the Earth is warming."
To be sure, there are a handful of scientists, including MIT professor Richard Lindzen, the author of the Wall Street Journal editorial, who disagree with the rest of the scientific community. To a historian of science like me, this is not surprising. In any scientific community, there are always some individuals who simply refuse to accept new ideas and evidence. This is especially true when the new evidence strikes at their core beliefs and values.
Sunday, July 23, 2006
July 23, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH WILL LEAVE LEGACY OF DEATH AND CORRUPTION
It won't take history long to form a definitive opinion of George W. Bush and his administration. It won't take years of reflection and study to realize this is the worst president in our history. He's someone who should never have been in the Oval Office. The Republican party was grossly irresponsible in nominating Bush to be president. The Supreme Court committed a crime against this country by, in effect, appointing Bush to the presidency. The media have been nothing but lapdogs, totally abrogating their responsibility to act as watch dogs on the government. And American citizens who have supported this thug have blood on their hands too. James Wolcott looks at Bush in this posting at jameswolcott.com:
The war crimes of the United States compound by the minute, the hour, the day. I predict that George Bush, upon leaving office, will be the most despised president in American history. He will have his core support, the clotted, stunted brains that collect at sites like Lucianne.com and Powerline, but he will enjoy no Reaganesque orange sunset afterglow (or Nixonian self-rehabilitation), so deep, lasting, and tragic is the damage he's done, a damage abetted by a craven, corrupt political class and a press that even now, as the full dimensions of the disaster unfold before us, is unable to sound alarm, so accustomed as they've become to their role as sponges and clever snots. History will not forgive Bush or the United States, nor should it, for raising and destroying the hopes of the Iraqi people, and presiding over the dissolution of their nation into a failed state. Robert Dreyfuss at TomPaine.com:
"Iraq is engaged in a full-fledged civil war. For those remaining defenders of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, who argue that the United States needs to stay put in order to prevent civil war, it’s too late. It’s here, in all of its brutality and ugliness.
"The violence is not only engulfing Baghdad—home to approximately one-fifth of Iraq’s population—but Basra, Iraq’s second city and its only port. In the north, there is violence in Kirkuk, in what has been, until now, the relatively unscathed heartland of the Shiite south, as well.
"What is unfolding in Iraq is a staggering tragedy. An entire nation is dying, right in front of us. And the worst part of it is: It may be too late to do anything to stop it."
BUSH LOVES PLUTOCRATS
It was once said, economically speaking, that a rising tide lifts all boats. Not anymore. Now the rising tide lifts the very rich and swamps everyone else. This has largely been a deliberate policy of the Bush administration. The administration has pursued policies guaranteed to enrich the already rich and leave everyone else in the dust. This article by Teresa Tritch is at www.truthout.org:
The Bush administration, though, has not even done anything as benign as get out of the way. The policies it has pursued - affirmatively and aggressively - have widened the gap between rich and poor.
Tax cuts are the most obvious example. The Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center computed the combined effects of tax cut legislation from 2001, 2003 and 2006. The tax cuts' contribution to the income gap was significant.
In 2006, the average tax cut for households with incomes of more than $1 million - the top two-tenths of 1 percent - is $112,000 which works out to a boost of 5.7 percent in after tax income. That's considerably higher than the 5 percent boost garnered by the top 1 percent. It's far greater than the 2.5 percent increase of the middle fifth of households, and fully 19 times greater than the 0.3 percent gain of the poorest fifth of households.
The disparities are driven by tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the most affluent. In 2006, for instance, a tax cut took effect that allows high income households - those with incomes above $200,000 - to take bigger write offs for their children and other expenses, like mortgage interest on a second home. And increasingly, tax cuts are aimed at allowing America's wealthiest families to amass dynastic wealth - estates to transfer from one generation to the next virtually untouched by taxes. The most obvious example is the gradual reduction in the estate tax that is scheduled through 2010 (and regular attempts to abolish the estate tax altogether). Another huge, though lesser noted example, is the law passed last May allowing all Americans to shelter money in a tax-favored Roth I.R.A. Under previous law, Roths had been off limits to wealthy Americans, precisely because the government did not want to help people amass big estates under the guise of saving for retirement. That sound principle has now been turned on its head.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH WILL LEAVE LEGACY OF DEATH AND CORRUPTION
It won't take history long to form a definitive opinion of George W. Bush and his administration. It won't take years of reflection and study to realize this is the worst president in our history. He's someone who should never have been in the Oval Office. The Republican party was grossly irresponsible in nominating Bush to be president. The Supreme Court committed a crime against this country by, in effect, appointing Bush to the presidency. The media have been nothing but lapdogs, totally abrogating their responsibility to act as watch dogs on the government. And American citizens who have supported this thug have blood on their hands too. James Wolcott looks at Bush in this posting at jameswolcott.com:
The war crimes of the United States compound by the minute, the hour, the day. I predict that George Bush, upon leaving office, will be the most despised president in American history. He will have his core support, the clotted, stunted brains that collect at sites like Lucianne.com and Powerline, but he will enjoy no Reaganesque orange sunset afterglow (or Nixonian self-rehabilitation), so deep, lasting, and tragic is the damage he's done, a damage abetted by a craven, corrupt political class and a press that even now, as the full dimensions of the disaster unfold before us, is unable to sound alarm, so accustomed as they've become to their role as sponges and clever snots. History will not forgive Bush or the United States, nor should it, for raising and destroying the hopes of the Iraqi people, and presiding over the dissolution of their nation into a failed state. Robert Dreyfuss at TomPaine.com:
"Iraq is engaged in a full-fledged civil war. For those remaining defenders of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, who argue that the United States needs to stay put in order to prevent civil war, it’s too late. It’s here, in all of its brutality and ugliness.
"The violence is not only engulfing Baghdad—home to approximately one-fifth of Iraq’s population—but Basra, Iraq’s second city and its only port. In the north, there is violence in Kirkuk, in what has been, until now, the relatively unscathed heartland of the Shiite south, as well.
"What is unfolding in Iraq is a staggering tragedy. An entire nation is dying, right in front of us. And the worst part of it is: It may be too late to do anything to stop it."
BUSH LOVES PLUTOCRATS
It was once said, economically speaking, that a rising tide lifts all boats. Not anymore. Now the rising tide lifts the very rich and swamps everyone else. This has largely been a deliberate policy of the Bush administration. The administration has pursued policies guaranteed to enrich the already rich and leave everyone else in the dust. This article by Teresa Tritch is at www.truthout.org:
The Bush administration, though, has not even done anything as benign as get out of the way. The policies it has pursued - affirmatively and aggressively - have widened the gap between rich and poor.
Tax cuts are the most obvious example. The Urban Institute-Brookings Institution Tax Policy Center computed the combined effects of tax cut legislation from 2001, 2003 and 2006. The tax cuts' contribution to the income gap was significant.
In 2006, the average tax cut for households with incomes of more than $1 million - the top two-tenths of 1 percent - is $112,000 which works out to a boost of 5.7 percent in after tax income. That's considerably higher than the 5 percent boost garnered by the top 1 percent. It's far greater than the 2.5 percent increase of the middle fifth of households, and fully 19 times greater than the 0.3 percent gain of the poorest fifth of households.
The disparities are driven by tax cuts that overwhelmingly benefit the most affluent. In 2006, for instance, a tax cut took effect that allows high income households - those with incomes above $200,000 - to take bigger write offs for their children and other expenses, like mortgage interest on a second home. And increasingly, tax cuts are aimed at allowing America's wealthiest families to amass dynastic wealth - estates to transfer from one generation to the next virtually untouched by taxes. The most obvious example is the gradual reduction in the estate tax that is scheduled through 2010 (and regular attempts to abolish the estate tax altogether). Another huge, though lesser noted example, is the law passed last May allowing all Americans to shelter money in a tax-favored Roth I.R.A. Under previous law, Roths had been off limits to wealthy Americans, precisely because the government did not want to help people amass big estates under the guise of saving for retirement. That sound principle has now been turned on its head.
Saturday, July 22, 2006
July 22, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BAGHDAD DYING
The U.S. presence in Iraq was supposed to prevent a civil war between the Shias and the Sunnis, but the civil war is heating up anyway. In the meantime, there are continued Iraqi deaths at the hands of U.S. forces. Now in Baghdad you can be killed if you have the wrong kind of identity card. How will the United States ever have any moral credibility again? This article by Patrick Cockburn is at news.independent.co.uk:
Yesterday US troops killed five people, including two women and a child, in the city of Baquba during a raid, claiming they had been shot at. At best it was a tragic error, at worst it spoke to the cavalier attitude of the US towards Iraqi civilian lives. Local police said that a man had fired from a rooftop at the Americans because he thought a hostile militia force was approaching.
While the eyes of the world are elsewhere, Baghdad is still dying and the daily toll is hitting record levels. While the plumes of fire and smoke over Lebanon have dominated headlines for 11 days, with Britain and the US opposing a UN call for an immediate ceasefire, another Bush-Blair foreign policy disaster is unfolding in Iraq.
Invoking the sanctity of human life, George Bush wielded the presidential veto for the first time in his presidency to halt US embryonic stem cell research in its tracks. He even paraded one-year-old Jack Jones, born from one of the frozen embryos that can now never be used for federally funded research, and talked of preventing the "taking of innocent human life". How hollow that sounds to Iraqis.
RIGHT WING GHOULS
According to right wing pundits, war is a good thing. The Mouth That Roared, Rush Limbaugh, even said a bigger war in the Middle East would be a "gift to the world." None of these larded, pompous, big-talking he-men have served in the military, of course. They aren't having their homes bombed and their children slaughtered. This article by Cenk Uygur is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
There are a small group of people in this country who are actively trying to start a broader war in the Middle East. They're just a handful of people, mostly neo-conservatives, who are trying to goad the rest of us into fighting a bloody, counterproductive and intractable war for their purposes.
Why would we want to get dragged into a bigger war in the Middle East? That's absolutely nuts. We don't have enough troops to keep anything resembling order in just one Middle Eastern country, Iraq. Iran is four times as large as Iraq. Imagine if we had five wars like Iraq on our hands. Let alone Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
If I were you, right now I'd be pretty incredulous. Really, there are warmongers in the US who want us to get involved in more wars in the Middle East? That seems very hard to believe. As former sportscaster in New York, Warner Wolf used to say, "Let's go to the videotape."
First, we start with fan favorite, Bill "The Warmonger" Kristol telling us once again that we have to use force in Iran, that diplomacy is useless and it will be easy to win in Iran. Watch for yourself.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BAGHDAD DYING
The U.S. presence in Iraq was supposed to prevent a civil war between the Shias and the Sunnis, but the civil war is heating up anyway. In the meantime, there are continued Iraqi deaths at the hands of U.S. forces. Now in Baghdad you can be killed if you have the wrong kind of identity card. How will the United States ever have any moral credibility again? This article by Patrick Cockburn is at news.independent.co.uk:
Yesterday US troops killed five people, including two women and a child, in the city of Baquba during a raid, claiming they had been shot at. At best it was a tragic error, at worst it spoke to the cavalier attitude of the US towards Iraqi civilian lives. Local police said that a man had fired from a rooftop at the Americans because he thought a hostile militia force was approaching.
While the eyes of the world are elsewhere, Baghdad is still dying and the daily toll is hitting record levels. While the plumes of fire and smoke over Lebanon have dominated headlines for 11 days, with Britain and the US opposing a UN call for an immediate ceasefire, another Bush-Blair foreign policy disaster is unfolding in Iraq.
Invoking the sanctity of human life, George Bush wielded the presidential veto for the first time in his presidency to halt US embryonic stem cell research in its tracks. He even paraded one-year-old Jack Jones, born from one of the frozen embryos that can now never be used for federally funded research, and talked of preventing the "taking of innocent human life". How hollow that sounds to Iraqis.
RIGHT WING GHOULS
According to right wing pundits, war is a good thing. The Mouth That Roared, Rush Limbaugh, even said a bigger war in the Middle East would be a "gift to the world." None of these larded, pompous, big-talking he-men have served in the military, of course. They aren't having their homes bombed and their children slaughtered. This article by Cenk Uygur is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
There are a small group of people in this country who are actively trying to start a broader war in the Middle East. They're just a handful of people, mostly neo-conservatives, who are trying to goad the rest of us into fighting a bloody, counterproductive and intractable war for their purposes.
Why would we want to get dragged into a bigger war in the Middle East? That's absolutely nuts. We don't have enough troops to keep anything resembling order in just one Middle Eastern country, Iraq. Iran is four times as large as Iraq. Imagine if we had five wars like Iraq on our hands. Let alone Syria, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories.
If I were you, right now I'd be pretty incredulous. Really, there are warmongers in the US who want us to get involved in more wars in the Middle East? That seems very hard to believe. As former sportscaster in New York, Warner Wolf used to say, "Let's go to the videotape."
First, we start with fan favorite, Bill "The Warmonger" Kristol telling us once again that we have to use force in Iran, that diplomacy is useless and it will be easy to win in Iran. Watch for yourself.
Friday, July 21, 2006
July 21, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S UGLY SCORECARD
If you want to build George W. Bush just add equal parts greed, cruelty, and incompetence. The absolute horror that is the Bush administration continues to achieve new levels of catastrophe. The war Israel is waging now on Lebanon is a classic case. Bush has stood by idly as more people are maimed and killed. He attacked Iraq without provocation and helped destabilize an already unstable region. Any time he meets with other world leaders he demonstrates what a fool he is, totally incapable of grasping or addressing life and death issues. In this column Rosa Brooks looks at the scorecard of evil. The column is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
At the beginning of this millennium, the Cold War was over, the prosperous United States was the sole remaining superpower and global opinion was largely sympathetic to U.S. aims. In the wake of brutal ethnic wars in Central Europe and Africa, the international community had forged a new determination to prevent conflict and atrocities. The volatile Middle East was quiet, and the world seemed headed toward stability rather than chaos.
Only six years later, things couldn't be more different. The Bush administration's tunnel-vision approach to foreign policy has pushed the U.S. and the world into a devastating tailspin of conflict without end.
In Afghanistan, this year is shaping up to be the deadliest yet for U.S. troops. In Iraq, which President Bush promised would be "a source of true stability in the region," the carnage has been mind-boggling, and by late September, the fighting will have dragged on for 3 1/2 years — the same length of time it took us to defeat Germany in World War II.
DOWN MEMORY LANE OF ISRAEL'S ABUSES
It's amazing sometimes that right-wingers will claim that the U.S. media is anti-Israel when the bulk of the coverage we get never discusses Israeli abuses against the Palestinians. There are little things like assassination attempts that go awry and kill innocent children. In this column Alexander Cockburn takes us down memory lane to show the Palestinian side of the story. The column is linked at www.counterpunch.org:
Let’s go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.
Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.
Now we’re really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32.
That’s just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S UGLY SCORECARD
If you want to build George W. Bush just add equal parts greed, cruelty, and incompetence. The absolute horror that is the Bush administration continues to achieve new levels of catastrophe. The war Israel is waging now on Lebanon is a classic case. Bush has stood by idly as more people are maimed and killed. He attacked Iraq without provocation and helped destabilize an already unstable region. Any time he meets with other world leaders he demonstrates what a fool he is, totally incapable of grasping or addressing life and death issues. In this column Rosa Brooks looks at the scorecard of evil. The column is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
At the beginning of this millennium, the Cold War was over, the prosperous United States was the sole remaining superpower and global opinion was largely sympathetic to U.S. aims. In the wake of brutal ethnic wars in Central Europe and Africa, the international community had forged a new determination to prevent conflict and atrocities. The volatile Middle East was quiet, and the world seemed headed toward stability rather than chaos.
Only six years later, things couldn't be more different. The Bush administration's tunnel-vision approach to foreign policy has pushed the U.S. and the world into a devastating tailspin of conflict without end.
In Afghanistan, this year is shaping up to be the deadliest yet for U.S. troops. In Iraq, which President Bush promised would be "a source of true stability in the region," the carnage has been mind-boggling, and by late September, the fighting will have dragged on for 3 1/2 years — the same length of time it took us to defeat Germany in World War II.
DOWN MEMORY LANE OF ISRAEL'S ABUSES
It's amazing sometimes that right-wingers will claim that the U.S. media is anti-Israel when the bulk of the coverage we get never discusses Israeli abuses against the Palestinians. There are little things like assassination attempts that go awry and kill innocent children. In this column Alexander Cockburn takes us down memory lane to show the Palestinian side of the story. The column is linked at www.counterpunch.org:
Let’s go on a brief excursion into pre-history. I’m talking about June 20, 2006, when Israeli aircraft fired at least one missile at a car in an attempted extrajudicial assassination attempt on a road between Jabalya and Gaza City. The missile missed the car. Instead it killed three Palestinian children and wounded 15.
Back we go again to June 13, 2006. Israeli aircraft fired missiles at a van in another attempted extrajudicial assassination. The successive barrages killed nine innocent Palestinians.
Now we’re really in the dark ages, reaching far, far back to June 9, 2006, when Israel shelled a beach in Beit Lahiya killing 8 civilians and injuring 32.
That’s just a brief trip down Memory Lane, and we trip over the bodies of twenty dead and forty-seven wounded, all of them Palestinians, most of them women and children.
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
July 19, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH BACKING ISRAELI BARBARISM
I know the emotional arguments about Israel. Israel is surrounded by enemies. Israel has to protect itself. That's fine as far as it goes. But Israel has treated the Palestinians abominably for years. Israel bristles with nuclear weapons and uses the threat of military force or overt military force to obtain its objectives. The Israeli response to the kidnapping of some of its soldiers is way over the top. Killing innocent civilians is wrong, and getting innocent Israeli civilians killed is wrong. Meanwhile, that incompetent puppet master George W. Bush sits back and watches more barbarity while mouthing his occasional platitudes, and his obscenities when there happens to be an open microphone. This story by Dave Lindorff is at www.commondreams.org:
It is clear by the ease and speed with which Israel's military moved systematically into Gaza, destroying the basic infrastructure of that hemmed-in captive community of a million impoverished human beings, that this had nothing to do with "rescuing" a "kidnapped" soldier, and everything with attempting to destroy the elected government of the nascent Palestinian state. Israel initiated this act of aggression after weeks of rocket and shelling attacks against the territory--including one which killed eight members of a family on a beach outing--all of which provocation took place without any criticism from the US.
It doesn't take much of a foreign affairs background to predict that such an all-out assault on the Palestinian people would elicit a response from the Palestinian people's closest ally, the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, and respond Hezbollah did.
Now there may be those in Israel's right-wing government who wanted Hezbollah to attack, giving Israel a pretext to move back into Lebanon and to unleash its American-provided and American taxpayer-financed weaponry against the Palestinian and Lebanese backers of a Palestinian state residing in Lebanon. There may even be those in Israel who for their own insane reasons want an excuse to expand the current bloody war further into Syria, which is a backer of Hezbollah. But where are America's interests here?
PARTY HACK GETS VICIOUS
I call a local Republican bigwig Party Hack. Party Hack writes occasional screeds to The Fresno Bee containing the usual amount of bluster, lies, and personal attacks. Today Party Hack outdid himself. He was making a vicious personal attack against a letter writer who said, rightly, that Islam is a religion of peace and that negotiation would be a better course than eternal war. People like Party Hack love war and death and destruction. They can't function unless they hate someone. It's fine with Party Hack to hate all Muslims because 19 fanatics on September 11 attacked the United States.
We will never win a "war on terrorism." As long as there are people who have no other weapons than low tech methods like box cutters, improvised explosive devices, poison gas, or any other relatively cheap way of killing lots of people, and who are willing to commit suicide, there is no winning a "war on terrorism."
It might make sense to pursue actual terrorists, not kill thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians. It might make sense to understand the terrorist mindset, if that's possible, the way you might defuse a ticking time bomb. Ramping up hatred against anyone of a particular ethnicity, race, or religion is disgusting beyond belief and ultimately counterproductive.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH BACKING ISRAELI BARBARISM
I know the emotional arguments about Israel. Israel is surrounded by enemies. Israel has to protect itself. That's fine as far as it goes. But Israel has treated the Palestinians abominably for years. Israel bristles with nuclear weapons and uses the threat of military force or overt military force to obtain its objectives. The Israeli response to the kidnapping of some of its soldiers is way over the top. Killing innocent civilians is wrong, and getting innocent Israeli civilians killed is wrong. Meanwhile, that incompetent puppet master George W. Bush sits back and watches more barbarity while mouthing his occasional platitudes, and his obscenities when there happens to be an open microphone. This story by Dave Lindorff is at www.commondreams.org:
It is clear by the ease and speed with which Israel's military moved systematically into Gaza, destroying the basic infrastructure of that hemmed-in captive community of a million impoverished human beings, that this had nothing to do with "rescuing" a "kidnapped" soldier, and everything with attempting to destroy the elected government of the nascent Palestinian state. Israel initiated this act of aggression after weeks of rocket and shelling attacks against the territory--including one which killed eight members of a family on a beach outing--all of which provocation took place without any criticism from the US.
It doesn't take much of a foreign affairs background to predict that such an all-out assault on the Palestinian people would elicit a response from the Palestinian people's closest ally, the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, and respond Hezbollah did.
Now there may be those in Israel's right-wing government who wanted Hezbollah to attack, giving Israel a pretext to move back into Lebanon and to unleash its American-provided and American taxpayer-financed weaponry against the Palestinian and Lebanese backers of a Palestinian state residing in Lebanon. There may even be those in Israel who for their own insane reasons want an excuse to expand the current bloody war further into Syria, which is a backer of Hezbollah. But where are America's interests here?
PARTY HACK GETS VICIOUS
I call a local Republican bigwig Party Hack. Party Hack writes occasional screeds to The Fresno Bee containing the usual amount of bluster, lies, and personal attacks. Today Party Hack outdid himself. He was making a vicious personal attack against a letter writer who said, rightly, that Islam is a religion of peace and that negotiation would be a better course than eternal war. People like Party Hack love war and death and destruction. They can't function unless they hate someone. It's fine with Party Hack to hate all Muslims because 19 fanatics on September 11 attacked the United States.
We will never win a "war on terrorism." As long as there are people who have no other weapons than low tech methods like box cutters, improvised explosive devices, poison gas, or any other relatively cheap way of killing lots of people, and who are willing to commit suicide, there is no winning a "war on terrorism."
It might make sense to pursue actual terrorists, not kill thousands upon thousands of innocent civilians. It might make sense to understand the terrorist mindset, if that's possible, the way you might defuse a ticking time bomb. Ramping up hatred against anyone of a particular ethnicity, race, or religion is disgusting beyond belief and ultimately counterproductive.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
July 18, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WHAT'S BUSH HIDING
It's amazing that George W. Bush frequently criticizes other governments for a "lack of transparency" when Bush obstructs information at every turn. We've learned today from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that Bush personally stopped an investigation by the Justice Department into Bush's illegal spying program on Americans. As they say, the plot thickens. This story by the Associated Press is at www.nytimes.com:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans' international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected.
The department's Office of Professional Responsibility announced earlier this year it could not pursue an investigation into the role of Justice lawyers in crafting the program, under which the National Security Agency intercepts some telephone calls and e-mail without court approval.
At the time, the office said it could not obtain security clearance to examine the classified program.
Under sharp questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Gonzales said that Bush would not grant the access needed to allow the probe to move forward.
THE KILLING GOES ON AND ON
I don't claim to be an expert on the Middle East. But I know instinctively that the Israeli attack on Lebanon is repugnant. We're getting too accustomed to killing in this new 21st century. Madmen hijacked airplanes and deliberately crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They had no regard for innocent lives. A madman named George W. Bush started "shock and awe" against Iraq, a country that was no threat to the United States. White phosphorous weapons were used against Fallujah. Fanatics in Iraq kidnap and behead people. U.S. troops slaughter civilians. And now Israel and its enemies are joining in the carnage. In this article Ramzi Kysia looks at Lebanon and remembers the Spanish town of Guernica that was reduced to ashes by the Fascists. The article is linked at www.commondreams.org:
As I write this, over two hundred Lebanese have been killed. Almost all of them were civilians.
I think of Guernica.
On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the German Air Force, siding with fascist dictator Francisco Franco, began a bombing campaign against the city of Guernica. Some 1,600 people were killed, and the city was reduced to rubble. Guernica is remembered as the first time air power was used against a civilian population with the intent of causing complete destruction.
When it happened, Guernica shocked the world. Today, we do not shock so easily. Lebanon is being sacrificed without so much as a casual protest.
Israel has bombed power plants, roads, and bridges all across Lebanon. Israel has bombed gas stations and fuel depots, grain silos, lighthouses, the seaports in Beirut, Tripoli, Jounieh and Tyre. Beirut's airport is in flames. Beirut's Shi'a suburbs have been almost completely demolished. Firefighters are pleading for help, because they do not have enough water to put out the blazes. (1)
I think of Guernica.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
WHAT'S BUSH HIDING
It's amazing that George W. Bush frequently criticizes other governments for a "lack of transparency" when Bush obstructs information at every turn. We've learned today from Attorney General Alberto Gonzales that Bush personally stopped an investigation by the Justice Department into Bush's illegal spying program on Americans. As they say, the plot thickens. This story by the Associated Press is at www.nytimes.com:
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said Tuesday that President Bush personally blocked Justice Department lawyers from pursuing an internal probe of the warrantless eavesdropping program that monitors Americans' international calls and e-mails when terrorism is suspected.
The department's Office of Professional Responsibility announced earlier this year it could not pursue an investigation into the role of Justice lawyers in crafting the program, under which the National Security Agency intercepts some telephone calls and e-mail without court approval.
At the time, the office said it could not obtain security clearance to examine the classified program.
Under sharp questioning from Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter, Gonzales said that Bush would not grant the access needed to allow the probe to move forward.
THE KILLING GOES ON AND ON
I don't claim to be an expert on the Middle East. But I know instinctively that the Israeli attack on Lebanon is repugnant. We're getting too accustomed to killing in this new 21st century. Madmen hijacked airplanes and deliberately crashed them into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. They had no regard for innocent lives. A madman named George W. Bush started "shock and awe" against Iraq, a country that was no threat to the United States. White phosphorous weapons were used against Fallujah. Fanatics in Iraq kidnap and behead people. U.S. troops slaughter civilians. And now Israel and its enemies are joining in the carnage. In this article Ramzi Kysia looks at Lebanon and remembers the Spanish town of Guernica that was reduced to ashes by the Fascists. The article is linked at www.commondreams.org:
As I write this, over two hundred Lebanese have been killed. Almost all of them were civilians.
I think of Guernica.
On April 26, 1937, during the Spanish Civil War, the German Air Force, siding with fascist dictator Francisco Franco, began a bombing campaign against the city of Guernica. Some 1,600 people were killed, and the city was reduced to rubble. Guernica is remembered as the first time air power was used against a civilian population with the intent of causing complete destruction.
When it happened, Guernica shocked the world. Today, we do not shock so easily. Lebanon is being sacrificed without so much as a casual protest.
Israel has bombed power plants, roads, and bridges all across Lebanon. Israel has bombed gas stations and fuel depots, grain silos, lighthouses, the seaports in Beirut, Tripoli, Jounieh and Tyre. Beirut's airport is in flames. Beirut's Shi'a suburbs have been almost completely demolished. Firefighters are pleading for help, because they do not have enough water to put out the blazes. (1)
I think of Guernica.
Monday, July 17, 2006
July 17, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THAT OLD "RICH PAY THE TAXES" THING
Any time you write The Fresno Bee to talk about how the economic system in the United States favors the very rich you'll get some bleeding heart conservative bleating about how the very rich pay most of the income taxes. They never mention little things like sales taxes and withholding taxes. Those of us who work for wages pay a far higher percentage of our incomes in sales taxes and withholding taxes than the very rich do. Right-wingers also ignore the fact that the very rich make a lot more money than the rest of us. There's a corollary there. Income taxes are based on income. This article by Tom Blackburn is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
As the president's ideological backers never tire of saying, the rich pay most of the income tax. The top 20 percent income bracket should include Allen-Edmonds' customers. It varies a little from year to year, but the top 20 percent accounted for 63 percent of the income-tax revenues in 2004, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Everyone else - the other 80 percent - paid more in withholding taxes than income tax. The lowest 60 percent provided just over 16 percent of the income tax revenue.
So, then, how did that projected budget deficit close by more than $100 billion in nine months? (The budget year runs from October through September.) The rich got a lot richer, that's how. They had to get a whole lot richer to generate taxes to make up for the tax cuts, and then some. That's how Mr. Bush predicted that his cuts would work.
The implication was they would work for everybody. They work that way, however, only for the people who pay most of the income taxes.
THE EMBARRASSMENT IN CHIEF
A right-winger wrote The Fresno Bee griping about our two Democratic Senators, saying they are "embarrassments." This comes from someone who undoubtedly supports George W. Bush, a man who embarrasses the United States every day on the world stage. It's not just that Bush is a Walking Malapropism. It's obvious that Bush doesn't know, and doesn't care, what he's talking about. He's more interested in being a frat boy than in dealing with the life and death issues we're facing now. This article by Bob Higgins is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Being distracted I forgot the remote and heard my least favorite grinning idiot make several references to a pig at a press conference in Stralsund, Germany. In his repeated attempts to divert the focus away from his lack of knowledge and preparation, he instead drew attention to his thoroughly sophomoric sense of humor a half dozen times with references to the boar that was being roasted for dinner.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel looked like she'd rather be anywhere else, while our national embarrassment avoided serious questions and played his arrogant and foolish game.
The second instance when I had our "National Sum Of All Morons" inflicted on me in the last few days was another press conference which was held before the beginning of the G8 conference in Russia with Vladimir Putin, whose KGB soul the Bush has experienced to its very depths.
I listened to him hem and haw, appreciate this person and that event, mention the bits and pieces that (supposedly) he and Putin had talked about and how much hard work it was, and stutter and stammer over material that he had no knowledge of nor any obvious interest in.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THAT OLD "RICH PAY THE TAXES" THING
Any time you write The Fresno Bee to talk about how the economic system in the United States favors the very rich you'll get some bleeding heart conservative bleating about how the very rich pay most of the income taxes. They never mention little things like sales taxes and withholding taxes. Those of us who work for wages pay a far higher percentage of our incomes in sales taxes and withholding taxes than the very rich do. Right-wingers also ignore the fact that the very rich make a lot more money than the rest of us. There's a corollary there. Income taxes are based on income. This article by Tom Blackburn is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
As the president's ideological backers never tire of saying, the rich pay most of the income tax. The top 20 percent income bracket should include Allen-Edmonds' customers. It varies a little from year to year, but the top 20 percent accounted for 63 percent of the income-tax revenues in 2004, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Everyone else - the other 80 percent - paid more in withholding taxes than income tax. The lowest 60 percent provided just over 16 percent of the income tax revenue.
So, then, how did that projected budget deficit close by more than $100 billion in nine months? (The budget year runs from October through September.) The rich got a lot richer, that's how. They had to get a whole lot richer to generate taxes to make up for the tax cuts, and then some. That's how Mr. Bush predicted that his cuts would work.
The implication was they would work for everybody. They work that way, however, only for the people who pay most of the income taxes.
THE EMBARRASSMENT IN CHIEF
A right-winger wrote The Fresno Bee griping about our two Democratic Senators, saying they are "embarrassments." This comes from someone who undoubtedly supports George W. Bush, a man who embarrasses the United States every day on the world stage. It's not just that Bush is a Walking Malapropism. It's obvious that Bush doesn't know, and doesn't care, what he's talking about. He's more interested in being a frat boy than in dealing with the life and death issues we're facing now. This article by Bob Higgins is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Being distracted I forgot the remote and heard my least favorite grinning idiot make several references to a pig at a press conference in Stralsund, Germany. In his repeated attempts to divert the focus away from his lack of knowledge and preparation, he instead drew attention to his thoroughly sophomoric sense of humor a half dozen times with references to the boar that was being roasted for dinner.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel looked like she'd rather be anywhere else, while our national embarrassment avoided serious questions and played his arrogant and foolish game.
The second instance when I had our "National Sum Of All Morons" inflicted on me in the last few days was another press conference which was held before the beginning of the G8 conference in Russia with Vladimir Putin, whose KGB soul the Bush has experienced to its very depths.
I listened to him hem and haw, appreciate this person and that event, mention the bits and pieces that (supposedly) he and Putin had talked about and how much hard work it was, and stutter and stammer over material that he had no knowledge of nor any obvious interest in.
Sunday, July 16, 2006
July 16, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S INTELLECT IS COSTING US
It's easy to ridicule George W. Bush for his lack of intellectual gifts. But his lack of curiosity is dangerous and it has been costly for the United States. Perhaps the greatest example of that was his offhand dismissal of an impending terrorist attack back in 2001. He received a briefing that flatly stated Osama bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States. His response was to continue his vacation on his Crawford, Texas, ranch. He showed a similar lack of concern when he got a briefing about Hurricane Katrina and the damage that would result to the Gulf Coast. This article by Jonathan Chait is linked at www.commondreams.org:
Yet it is now increasingly clear that Bush's status as non-rocket scientist is a serious problem. The problem is not his habit — savored by late-night comedians — of stumbling over multisyllabic words. It is his shocking lack of intellectual curiosity.
Ron Suskind's new book, "The One Percent Doctrine," paints a harrowing picture of Bush's intellectual limits. Bush, writes Suskind, "is not much of a reader." He prefers verbal briefings and often makes a horse-sense judgment based on how confident his briefer seems in what he's saying. In August 2001, the CIA was in a panic about an upcoming terrorist attack and drafted a report with the title, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." When a CIA staffer summed up the memo's contents in a face-to-face meeting with Bush, the president found the briefer insufficiently confident and dismissed him by saying, "All right, you've covered your ass, now," according to Suskind. That turned out to be a fairly disastrous judgment.
Bush loyalists like to dismiss Suskind's reporting, but it jibes with the picture that has emerged from other sources. L. Paul Bremer III's account of his tenure as head of Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority depicts Bush as uninterested in the central questions of rebuilding and occupying the country.
EXAMINING CONSERVATISM
Conservatism has been marketed to us as common sense government. It is, they tell us, about keeping taxes low, government small, business as unregulated as possible, and keeping government "off our backs." An examination of conservatism since the Reagan era shows government in direct contradiction to all the claims of conservatism. We've seen reckless spending, massive deficits, insane foreign policy decisions, massive government intervention into our personal lives, and business given total carte blanche to do whatever it wants, even when that is harmful to society as a whole. This article by Len Hart is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
* Conservatives believe in limited Government.
Oh Really? Let's start with Ronald Reagan, whom conservatives have all but deified. Reagan tripled the national debt and ran up historically high deficits. Despite a respite in the 90's the bad old days are back under Bush, a fact not lost on some fiscal conservatives:
From 2000-2003, Washington had a rare opportunity to save the average household nearly $2,500 in taxes without reducing any federal services. After 50 years of steady increases, interest payments on the national debt declined by $247 billion from 2000 to 2003, thanks to the balanced budgets of the 1990s. Like the post-Cold War “peace dividend,” Congress and the president got a once-in-a-lifetime “interest dividend” of $247 billion.
And they squandered every penny.
—Capitol Magazine, Washington's $782 Billion Spending Spree
That was published in 2002. It's only gotten worse since then.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
BUSH'S INTELLECT IS COSTING US
It's easy to ridicule George W. Bush for his lack of intellectual gifts. But his lack of curiosity is dangerous and it has been costly for the United States. Perhaps the greatest example of that was his offhand dismissal of an impending terrorist attack back in 2001. He received a briefing that flatly stated Osama bin Laden was determined to strike in the United States. His response was to continue his vacation on his Crawford, Texas, ranch. He showed a similar lack of concern when he got a briefing about Hurricane Katrina and the damage that would result to the Gulf Coast. This article by Jonathan Chait is linked at www.commondreams.org:
Yet it is now increasingly clear that Bush's status as non-rocket scientist is a serious problem. The problem is not his habit — savored by late-night comedians — of stumbling over multisyllabic words. It is his shocking lack of intellectual curiosity.
Ron Suskind's new book, "The One Percent Doctrine," paints a harrowing picture of Bush's intellectual limits. Bush, writes Suskind, "is not much of a reader." He prefers verbal briefings and often makes a horse-sense judgment based on how confident his briefer seems in what he's saying. In August 2001, the CIA was in a panic about an upcoming terrorist attack and drafted a report with the title, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S." When a CIA staffer summed up the memo's contents in a face-to-face meeting with Bush, the president found the briefer insufficiently confident and dismissed him by saying, "All right, you've covered your ass, now," according to Suskind. That turned out to be a fairly disastrous judgment.
Bush loyalists like to dismiss Suskind's reporting, but it jibes with the picture that has emerged from other sources. L. Paul Bremer III's account of his tenure as head of Iraq's Coalition Provisional Authority depicts Bush as uninterested in the central questions of rebuilding and occupying the country.
EXAMINING CONSERVATISM
Conservatism has been marketed to us as common sense government. It is, they tell us, about keeping taxes low, government small, business as unregulated as possible, and keeping government "off our backs." An examination of conservatism since the Reagan era shows government in direct contradiction to all the claims of conservatism. We've seen reckless spending, massive deficits, insane foreign policy decisions, massive government intervention into our personal lives, and business given total carte blanche to do whatever it wants, even when that is harmful to society as a whole. This article by Len Hart is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
* Conservatives believe in limited Government.
Oh Really? Let's start with Ronald Reagan, whom conservatives have all but deified. Reagan tripled the national debt and ran up historically high deficits. Despite a respite in the 90's the bad old days are back under Bush, a fact not lost on some fiscal conservatives:
From 2000-2003, Washington had a rare opportunity to save the average household nearly $2,500 in taxes without reducing any federal services. After 50 years of steady increases, interest payments on the national debt declined by $247 billion from 2000 to 2003, thanks to the balanced budgets of the 1990s. Like the post-Cold War “peace dividend,” Congress and the president got a once-in-a-lifetime “interest dividend” of $247 billion.
And they squandered every penny.
—Capitol Magazine, Washington's $782 Billion Spending Spree
That was published in 2002. It's only gotten worse since then.
Thursday, July 13, 2006
July 13, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE SPEND AND WASTE ADMINISTRATION
Republicans like to throw around a few choice catch phrases like "liberal media" and "tax and spend liberals." From all the hot air, you would think Republicans would be the very model of fiscal prudence. It hasn't worked that way, of course. The deficit quadrupled during the Reagan-Bush years. Bill Clinton restored some fiscal sanity, only to have George W. Bush and his gang destroy the budget. Not only has Bush spent and spent, he doesn't spend money well. We haven't spent money wisely on infrastructure, on education, on health care, on housing, or in preparing for the retirement of the baby boom generation. This column by Froma Harrop is at seattletimes.nwsource.com:
Many conservatives are amazed that Democrats haven't made more hay of their superior record in containing the size of government. The Democrats' dilemma is that they are not philosophically opposed to expanded government, even if in practice they have shown far more spending discipline.
Democrats really ought to brag about their Clintonian track record. Not only did they keep government growth in check, but they paid its bills the old-fashioned way, with tax revenues. That's what fiscal rectitude is all about. And it shines next to the Bush administration's disgraceful habit of borrowing on the backs of future generations.
Even more important, Democrats have spent the taxpayers' money with greater care. The reason, in part, is that Democrats don't maintain a childlike faith in the good intentions and can-do of the private sector. They believe in regulating these guys — and that government can do some things better than can business.
The Bush administration likes to send big checks and a have-a-nice-day to private contractors, who then do as they please. Our MBA president seems to forget that he is supposed to represent the taxpayers in these transactions, not the business interests.
DARNED DIVERSITY
Today's right-wing missive in The Fresno Bee deals with diversity and the "melting pot" in America. Our scribe suggested that we stopped being a "melting pot" because of liberalism and because liberals embrace diversity. Then she went on to say, of course, she didn't believe in "quashing" other cultures. So, I wonder, how much diversity is too much diversity?
One interesting tidbit in this letter dealt with the people who came through Ellis Island and "kissed the soil" of the United States. She didn't mention that many of these people lived for years and years in their own ethnic neighborhoods. We had Italian neighborhoods, Polish neighborhoods, Irish neighborhoods, and so on. That was--oh my god!--diversity!
Conservatives liked those good old days of segregating people because of their race or their ethnicity. It wasn't liberals who stood against civil rights. Bull Connor was no liberal when he turned fire hoses and set attack dogs against civil rights protesters. I don't think insuring equal rights to people regardless of their ethnicity is such a bad thing. I don't think it's so terrible either that we aren't all homogenized and indistinguishable from each other.
BIG GDP ISN'T ALL GOOD
All kinds of things get factored into the Gross Domestic Product statistic. So when the government touts the GDP it's good to keep that in mind. For example, Halliburton making big bucks in Iraq for a criminal war gets factored into the GDP. Our economy being financed more and more by consumption and debt gets factored into the GDP. This article by Andrew Bosworth is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Currently, the Party uses the phrase "Gross Domestic Product" as if people were rolling up their sleeves to build machines and harvest crops. But increases in "GDP" these days come from consumption, not production. And the bad news gets worse: the consumption is not coming from savings, but rather from credit-card debt. In a giant circle of nonsense, this ends up increasing our national "GDP."
The housing boom accounts for much of the economic "growth," but few people realize that "home owners" have little or no equity in their homes, and that each move in the creative-financing shell game (between banks, mortgage companies and speculators) only adds to the mighty "GDP."
About 5 - 10% of GDP, as it turns out, is Walmart - a tsunami of cheap Asian stuff once made in the United States. Apparently, there is money to be made hollowing out America's middle class. The failed-but-somehow-eternal war in Iraq also gets factored into the GDP. Halliburton, arms merchants, Madison-Avenue propaganda companies - it all gets to be included. So does the Vatican-sized embassy in Baghdad (outsourced) and the permanent military bases there (outsourced).
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE SPEND AND WASTE ADMINISTRATION
Republicans like to throw around a few choice catch phrases like "liberal media" and "tax and spend liberals." From all the hot air, you would think Republicans would be the very model of fiscal prudence. It hasn't worked that way, of course. The deficit quadrupled during the Reagan-Bush years. Bill Clinton restored some fiscal sanity, only to have George W. Bush and his gang destroy the budget. Not only has Bush spent and spent, he doesn't spend money well. We haven't spent money wisely on infrastructure, on education, on health care, on housing, or in preparing for the retirement of the baby boom generation. This column by Froma Harrop is at seattletimes.nwsource.com:
Many conservatives are amazed that Democrats haven't made more hay of their superior record in containing the size of government. The Democrats' dilemma is that they are not philosophically opposed to expanded government, even if in practice they have shown far more spending discipline.
Democrats really ought to brag about their Clintonian track record. Not only did they keep government growth in check, but they paid its bills the old-fashioned way, with tax revenues. That's what fiscal rectitude is all about. And it shines next to the Bush administration's disgraceful habit of borrowing on the backs of future generations.
Even more important, Democrats have spent the taxpayers' money with greater care. The reason, in part, is that Democrats don't maintain a childlike faith in the good intentions and can-do of the private sector. They believe in regulating these guys — and that government can do some things better than can business.
The Bush administration likes to send big checks and a have-a-nice-day to private contractors, who then do as they please. Our MBA president seems to forget that he is supposed to represent the taxpayers in these transactions, not the business interests.
DARNED DIVERSITY
Today's right-wing missive in The Fresno Bee deals with diversity and the "melting pot" in America. Our scribe suggested that we stopped being a "melting pot" because of liberalism and because liberals embrace diversity. Then she went on to say, of course, she didn't believe in "quashing" other cultures. So, I wonder, how much diversity is too much diversity?
One interesting tidbit in this letter dealt with the people who came through Ellis Island and "kissed the soil" of the United States. She didn't mention that many of these people lived for years and years in their own ethnic neighborhoods. We had Italian neighborhoods, Polish neighborhoods, Irish neighborhoods, and so on. That was--oh my god!--diversity!
Conservatives liked those good old days of segregating people because of their race or their ethnicity. It wasn't liberals who stood against civil rights. Bull Connor was no liberal when he turned fire hoses and set attack dogs against civil rights protesters. I don't think insuring equal rights to people regardless of their ethnicity is such a bad thing. I don't think it's so terrible either that we aren't all homogenized and indistinguishable from each other.
BIG GDP ISN'T ALL GOOD
All kinds of things get factored into the Gross Domestic Product statistic. So when the government touts the GDP it's good to keep that in mind. For example, Halliburton making big bucks in Iraq for a criminal war gets factored into the GDP. Our economy being financed more and more by consumption and debt gets factored into the GDP. This article by Andrew Bosworth is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Currently, the Party uses the phrase "Gross Domestic Product" as if people were rolling up their sleeves to build machines and harvest crops. But increases in "GDP" these days come from consumption, not production. And the bad news gets worse: the consumption is not coming from savings, but rather from credit-card debt. In a giant circle of nonsense, this ends up increasing our national "GDP."
The housing boom accounts for much of the economic "growth," but few people realize that "home owners" have little or no equity in their homes, and that each move in the creative-financing shell game (between banks, mortgage companies and speculators) only adds to the mighty "GDP."
About 5 - 10% of GDP, as it turns out, is Walmart - a tsunami of cheap Asian stuff once made in the United States. Apparently, there is money to be made hollowing out America's middle class. The failed-but-somehow-eternal war in Iraq also gets factored into the GDP. Halliburton, arms merchants, Madison-Avenue propaganda companies - it all gets to be included. So does the Vatican-sized embassy in Baghdad (outsourced) and the permanent military bases there (outsourced).
Wednesday, July 12, 2006
July 12, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DEGRADING THE MILITARY
Assuming we survive as a country, future historians will grapple with what is the worst legacy left by George W. Bush. His failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks led to a series of catastrophes. He used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to ram through huge tax cuts for the rich, which has resulted in mountainous deficits and created a gaping divide between the rich and poor. His failure to act during and after Hurricane Katrina has left many areas of the Gulf Coast a shambles. His assault on civil liberties has seriously weakened the Constitution. His neglect of global climate change imperils our planet. His disregard for treaties and the rights of sovereign nations has made us hated around the world. One more legacy will be the serious damage done to the U.S. military, which took decades to recover from Vietnam. This column by Bob Herbert is at 64.226.238.78/PA/bh/bh216.shtml:
By 1971, after years of mindless fighting, dying and widespread atrocities in Vietnam, portions of the U.S. military had fallen into a horrendous state of affairs. Morale had plummeted. Drug use was widespread. Soldiers in units that had previously fought bravely and well were threatening mutiny. Officers and N.C.O.'s were targeted for death by frightened and resentful enlisted men. Racial conflicts abounded.
The biggest lesson we failed to learn from Vietnam was how utterly tragic it was to pull the trigger on an unnecessary war. Now once again we are condemned to suffer the consequences, and those consequences are not always self-evident.
For example, the U.S. military — its capabilities and its reputation so painstakingly rebuilt in the decades since Vietnam — is again falling victim to lowered standards, breakdowns in discipline and a series of atrocities that are nothing less than a betrayal of the many honorable men and women in uniform and the country they serve.
The Army has had to lower its standards because most young Americans want no part of George W. Bush's war in Iraq. Recruiters, desperate to meet their quotas, are sifting for warm bodies among those who are less talented, less disciplined and, in some cases, repellent.
THE CRACKER FACTOR
Novelists such as Harry Turtledove have written fiction about "alternative history" that have the South winning the Civil War. But in many ways the South has, in fact, won. Lately it seems that almost anything that takes us back to a more oppressive time, or a general dumbing down of the population, comes from the South. We've gotten politicians like George W. Bush and Tom DeLay. We've gotten evangelical "Christians" like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. We got the 2000 presidential election stolen in Florida. We've gotten Atlanta-based CNN turning the news into tabloid journalism. We've gotten the retail steamroller Wal-Mart out of Benton, Arkansas. This article by Stephen Pizzo is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
In a recent editorial, scholar Robert Rapaport put it this way:
"Should we call it "The Cracker Factor?" Unless explained by CNN's presence in Atlanta, or the ghost of Scarlett O'Hara rampant, how do we account for this previous year's crop of overheated, overexposed, over-the-top stories about life-supported-spouses, kidnapped children, missing high-schoolers, run-amok lacrosse teams, and run-away brides, emanating from the American South? ... " Wallowing in the coverage of this Confederate cornpone-ucopia has been enough of a slog. Worse, are the scoldings we Yankee/liberals seem destined to endure about our social, political, and moral shortcomings from such Southern scions as Senators Bill Frist and Saxby Chambliss, the Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and former House Republican generalissimo's, Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich. It is enough to make an ex-New Englander conjure up the satanic despoiler himself; General William Tecumseh Sherman, for a second tromp through Georgia. (Full)
Rapaport gets it just right. Look no further than CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who named his daily news show, "The Situation Room." When you name a daily show, "The Situation Room," there damn well better be a friggin "situation" every day. Lacking stories any real news person would consider a "situation," CNN pumps up whatever is happening at the moment, no matter how trivial, declaring it "situation" de jur.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
DEGRADING THE MILITARY
Assuming we survive as a country, future historians will grapple with what is the worst legacy left by George W. Bush. His failure to prevent the 9/11 attacks led to a series of catastrophes. He used the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to ram through huge tax cuts for the rich, which has resulted in mountainous deficits and created a gaping divide between the rich and poor. His failure to act during and after Hurricane Katrina has left many areas of the Gulf Coast a shambles. His assault on civil liberties has seriously weakened the Constitution. His neglect of global climate change imperils our planet. His disregard for treaties and the rights of sovereign nations has made us hated around the world. One more legacy will be the serious damage done to the U.S. military, which took decades to recover from Vietnam. This column by Bob Herbert is at 64.226.238.78/PA/bh/bh216.shtml:
By 1971, after years of mindless fighting, dying and widespread atrocities in Vietnam, portions of the U.S. military had fallen into a horrendous state of affairs. Morale had plummeted. Drug use was widespread. Soldiers in units that had previously fought bravely and well were threatening mutiny. Officers and N.C.O.'s were targeted for death by frightened and resentful enlisted men. Racial conflicts abounded.
The biggest lesson we failed to learn from Vietnam was how utterly tragic it was to pull the trigger on an unnecessary war. Now once again we are condemned to suffer the consequences, and those consequences are not always self-evident.
For example, the U.S. military — its capabilities and its reputation so painstakingly rebuilt in the decades since Vietnam — is again falling victim to lowered standards, breakdowns in discipline and a series of atrocities that are nothing less than a betrayal of the many honorable men and women in uniform and the country they serve.
The Army has had to lower its standards because most young Americans want no part of George W. Bush's war in Iraq. Recruiters, desperate to meet their quotas, are sifting for warm bodies among those who are less talented, less disciplined and, in some cases, repellent.
THE CRACKER FACTOR
Novelists such as Harry Turtledove have written fiction about "alternative history" that have the South winning the Civil War. But in many ways the South has, in fact, won. Lately it seems that almost anything that takes us back to a more oppressive time, or a general dumbing down of the population, comes from the South. We've gotten politicians like George W. Bush and Tom DeLay. We've gotten evangelical "Christians" like Pat Robertson or Jerry Falwell. We got the 2000 presidential election stolen in Florida. We've gotten Atlanta-based CNN turning the news into tabloid journalism. We've gotten the retail steamroller Wal-Mart out of Benton, Arkansas. This article by Stephen Pizzo is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
In a recent editorial, scholar Robert Rapaport put it this way:
"Should we call it "The Cracker Factor?" Unless explained by CNN's presence in Atlanta, or the ghost of Scarlett O'Hara rampant, how do we account for this previous year's crop of overheated, overexposed, over-the-top stories about life-supported-spouses, kidnapped children, missing high-schoolers, run-amok lacrosse teams, and run-away brides, emanating from the American South? ... " Wallowing in the coverage of this Confederate cornpone-ucopia has been enough of a slog. Worse, are the scoldings we Yankee/liberals seem destined to endure about our social, political, and moral shortcomings from such Southern scions as Senators Bill Frist and Saxby Chambliss, the Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, and former House Republican generalissimo's, Tom Delay and Newt Gingrich. It is enough to make an ex-New Englander conjure up the satanic despoiler himself; General William Tecumseh Sherman, for a second tromp through Georgia. (Full)
Rapaport gets it just right. Look no further than CNN's Wolf Blitzer, who named his daily news show, "The Situation Room." When you name a daily show, "The Situation Room," there damn well better be a friggin "situation" every day. Lacking stories any real news person would consider a "situation," CNN pumps up whatever is happening at the moment, no matter how trivial, declaring it "situation" de jur.
Tuesday, July 11, 2006
July 11, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CAPITALISM AND GREED GO TOGETHER
In the movie Wall Street Michael Douglas played a corporate raider named Gordon Gecko. He famously said of the 1980s that "greed is good." That was the driving philosophy of the Reagan years and it's the same, if not more so, during the era of George W. Bush. When FDR took office some rich people called FDR a "traitor to his class." I would suggest that any working class person who votes for Republicans is a traitor to all working class people. In this column Molly Ivins has some of the grim statistics about the rich-poor divide. The column is at www.workingforchange.com:
Anyone who doesn't think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers -- this is Bush country, where a rising tide lifts all yachts.
According to the current issue of Mother Jones:
# One in four U.S. jobs pays less than a poverty-level income.
# Since 2000, the number of Americans living below the poverty line at any one time has risen steadily. Now, 13 percent -- 37 million Americans -- are officially poor.
# Bush's tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those making $1 million are saved $42,700.
# In 2002, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, compared those who point out such statistics as the one above to Adolph Hitler (surely he meant Stalin?).
IRAQ: AN UNHOLY TRADITION
If you read the unsanitized version of American history, you see a pattern of greed and exploitation. Native Americans were conquered and their lands stolen by European settlers who came to this continent. Africans were kidnapped and brought here as slaves. Mexico was defeated in a war and much of territory appropriated by the United States. More recently, corporations and the United States government have exploited the Third World for cheap labor and for natural resources. We see exploitation in its most egregious form in Iraq. In this article Charles Sullivan writes about it in a column linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Right wing politicos and their conservative constituents are always bemoaning big government. Yet wealthy people of all political stripes constantly use big government to their own benefit. The rich widely assume, falsely, I think, that what is good for them is good for the country. By extension they also assume that what is good for the corporations is good for the people. But that has never been the case. No one should be allowed to make a living on the misery of others.
The latter seems odd, given that business people are always harping about getting the government out of our (their) lives; all the while they are using government to obtain no bid contracts, to write legislation in the corporate interest, stocking the judiciary with pro-corporate judges, redrawing political districts and using the military to invade and occupy sovereign nations in order to privatize them. Iraq provides a compelling case study.
Of course, what businessmen really mean by getting government off our backs is preventing government from regulating commerce, as if there were some connection between capital and democracy, democracy and freedom. In corporate speak democracy and free trade has nothing to do with human beings and their freedoms. What Bush and his kind are really talking about is absolute corporate rule and continued Plutocracy.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CAPITALISM AND GREED GO TOGETHER
In the movie Wall Street Michael Douglas played a corporate raider named Gordon Gecko. He famously said of the 1980s that "greed is good." That was the driving philosophy of the Reagan years and it's the same, if not more so, during the era of George W. Bush. When FDR took office some rich people called FDR a "traitor to his class." I would suggest that any working class person who votes for Republicans is a traitor to all working class people. In this column Molly Ivins has some of the grim statistics about the rich-poor divide. The column is at www.workingforchange.com:
Anyone who doesn't think this is a country where the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer needs to check the numbers -- this is Bush country, where a rising tide lifts all yachts.
According to the current issue of Mother Jones:
# One in four U.S. jobs pays less than a poverty-level income.
# Since 2000, the number of Americans living below the poverty line at any one time has risen steadily. Now, 13 percent -- 37 million Americans -- are officially poor.
# Bush's tax cuts (extended until 2010) save those earning between $20,000 and $30,000 an average of $10 a year, while those making $1 million are saved $42,700.
# In 2002, Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, compared those who point out such statistics as the one above to Adolph Hitler (surely he meant Stalin?).
IRAQ: AN UNHOLY TRADITION
If you read the unsanitized version of American history, you see a pattern of greed and exploitation. Native Americans were conquered and their lands stolen by European settlers who came to this continent. Africans were kidnapped and brought here as slaves. Mexico was defeated in a war and much of territory appropriated by the United States. More recently, corporations and the United States government have exploited the Third World for cheap labor and for natural resources. We see exploitation in its most egregious form in Iraq. In this article Charles Sullivan writes about it in a column linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Right wing politicos and their conservative constituents are always bemoaning big government. Yet wealthy people of all political stripes constantly use big government to their own benefit. The rich widely assume, falsely, I think, that what is good for them is good for the country. By extension they also assume that what is good for the corporations is good for the people. But that has never been the case. No one should be allowed to make a living on the misery of others.
The latter seems odd, given that business people are always harping about getting the government out of our (their) lives; all the while they are using government to obtain no bid contracts, to write legislation in the corporate interest, stocking the judiciary with pro-corporate judges, redrawing political districts and using the military to invade and occupy sovereign nations in order to privatize them. Iraq provides a compelling case study.
Of course, what businessmen really mean by getting government off our backs is preventing government from regulating commerce, as if there were some connection between capital and democracy, democracy and freedom. In corporate speak democracy and free trade has nothing to do with human beings and their freedoms. What Bush and his kind are really talking about is absolute corporate rule and continued Plutocracy.
Monday, July 10, 2006
July 10, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
NOT SO FAST
A big headline in The New York Times proclaimed that a surge in tax receipts has exceeded expectations and that the budget deficit may actually decline this year. You can already hear the trickle down advocates saying, "See, cut taxes on the rich and you get increased revenues!" But, as this article points out, we've had years and years of massive deficits caused by those same big tax breaks for the rich. And these temporary spikes in tax receipts are cyclical. We have record deficits just when we need surpluses the most, to deal with Bush's war in Iraq and to finance Social Security and Medicare as baby boomers begin to retire. This article by Edmund L. Andrews is at www.nytimes.com:
Democrats and many independent budget analysts note that overall revenues have barely climbed back to the levels reached in 2000, and that the government has borrowed trillions of dollars against Social Security surpluses just as the first of the nation's baby boomers are nearing retirement.
"The fact is that revenues are way below what the administration said they would be a few years ago," said Thomas S. Kahn, staff director for Democrats on the House Budget Committee. "The long-term prognosis is still very, very bleak, and the administration doesn't have any kind of long-term plan."
One reason the run-up in taxes looks good is because the past five years looked so bad. Revenues are up, but they have lagged well behind economic growth.
The surge could also evaporate as quickly as it appeared. Over the past decade, tax revenues have become much more volatile, alternately soaring and plunging in the wake of swings in the stock market and repeatedly defying government projections.
WAR CRIMES
Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, believes the United States is guilty of war crimes for launching an unprovoked war against Iraq. When George W. Bush started his build-up to the war against Iraq he proclaimed a new doctrine of "preemptive war," getting them before they got us. We know that the entire case against Iraq was phony. It's a devastating indictment in itself against preemptive war. Mr. Ferencz has pointed out that preemptive war is contrary to the U.N. Charter, to which the United States is a signatory. This article by Jan Frel is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Most Americans firmly believe there is nothing the United States or its political leadership could possibly do that could equate to the crimes of Hitler's Third Reich. The Nazis are our "gold standard of evil," as author John Dolan once put it.
But the truth is that we can, and we have -- most recently and significantly in Iraq. Perhaps no person on the planet is better equipped to identify and describe our crimes in Iraq than Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials who successfully convicted 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating death squads that killed more than one million people in the famous Einsatzgruppen Case. Ferencz, now 87, has gone on to become a founding father of the basis behind international law regarding war crimes, and his essays and legal work drawing from the Nuremberg trials and later the commission that established the International Criminal Court remain a lasting influence in that realm.
Ferencz's biggest contribution to the war crimes field is his assertion that an unprovoked or "aggressive" war is the highest crime against mankind. It was the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 that made possible the horrors of Abu Ghraib, the destruction of Fallouja and Ramadi, the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, civilian massacres like Haditha, and on and on. Ferencz believes that a "prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation."
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
NOT SO FAST
A big headline in The New York Times proclaimed that a surge in tax receipts has exceeded expectations and that the budget deficit may actually decline this year. You can already hear the trickle down advocates saying, "See, cut taxes on the rich and you get increased revenues!" But, as this article points out, we've had years and years of massive deficits caused by those same big tax breaks for the rich. And these temporary spikes in tax receipts are cyclical. We have record deficits just when we need surpluses the most, to deal with Bush's war in Iraq and to finance Social Security and Medicare as baby boomers begin to retire. This article by Edmund L. Andrews is at www.nytimes.com:
Democrats and many independent budget analysts note that overall revenues have barely climbed back to the levels reached in 2000, and that the government has borrowed trillions of dollars against Social Security surpluses just as the first of the nation's baby boomers are nearing retirement.
"The fact is that revenues are way below what the administration said they would be a few years ago," said Thomas S. Kahn, staff director for Democrats on the House Budget Committee. "The long-term prognosis is still very, very bleak, and the administration doesn't have any kind of long-term plan."
One reason the run-up in taxes looks good is because the past five years looked so bad. Revenues are up, but they have lagged well behind economic growth.
The surge could also evaporate as quickly as it appeared. Over the past decade, tax revenues have become much more volatile, alternately soaring and plunging in the wake of swings in the stock market and repeatedly defying government projections.
WAR CRIMES
Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials, believes the United States is guilty of war crimes for launching an unprovoked war against Iraq. When George W. Bush started his build-up to the war against Iraq he proclaimed a new doctrine of "preemptive war," getting them before they got us. We know that the entire case against Iraq was phony. It's a devastating indictment in itself against preemptive war. Mr. Ferencz has pointed out that preemptive war is contrary to the U.N. Charter, to which the United States is a signatory. This article by Jan Frel is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Most Americans firmly believe there is nothing the United States or its political leadership could possibly do that could equate to the crimes of Hitler's Third Reich. The Nazis are our "gold standard of evil," as author John Dolan once put it.
But the truth is that we can, and we have -- most recently and significantly in Iraq. Perhaps no person on the planet is better equipped to identify and describe our crimes in Iraq than Benjamin Ferencz, a former chief prosecutor of the Nuremberg Trials who successfully convicted 22 Nazi officers for their work in orchestrating death squads that killed more than one million people in the famous Einsatzgruppen Case. Ferencz, now 87, has gone on to become a founding father of the basis behind international law regarding war crimes, and his essays and legal work drawing from the Nuremberg trials and later the commission that established the International Criminal Court remain a lasting influence in that realm.
Ferencz's biggest contribution to the war crimes field is his assertion that an unprovoked or "aggressive" war is the highest crime against mankind. It was the decision to invade Iraq in 2003 that made possible the horrors of Abu Ghraib, the destruction of Fallouja and Ramadi, the tens of thousands of Iraqi deaths, civilian massacres like Haditha, and on and on. Ferencz believes that a "prima facie case can be made that the United States is guilty of the supreme crime against humanity, that being an illegal war of aggression against a sovereign nation."
Sunday, July 09, 2006
July 09, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THIS IS SUCCESS?
George W. Bush and members of his administration have consistently maintained in the face of mounting contrary evidence that things in Iraq are going well. "We're making progress" Bush asserts. This story documents how the Iraqi police, supposedly on our side, are incredibly corrupt and brutal, and how they even give aid and information to the insurgents. The story by Solomon Moore is at www.latimes.com:
Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.
A recent assessment by State Department police training contractors echoes the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.
Officers also have beaten prisoners to death, been involved in kidnapping rings, sold thousands of stolen and forged Iraqi passports and passed along vital information to insurgents, the Iraqi documents allege.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THIS IS SUCCESS?
George W. Bush and members of his administration have consistently maintained in the face of mounting contrary evidence that things in Iraq are going well. "We're making progress" Bush asserts. This story documents how the Iraqi police, supposedly on our side, are incredibly corrupt and brutal, and how they even give aid and information to the insurgents. The story by Solomon Moore is at www.latimes.com:
Brutality and corruption are rampant in Iraq's police force, with abuses including the rape of female prisoners, the release of terrorism suspects in exchange for bribes, assassinations of police officers and participation in insurgent bombings, according to confidential Iraqi government documents detailing more than 400 police corruption investigations.
A recent assessment by State Department police training contractors echoes the investigative documents, concluding that strong paramilitary and insurgent influences within the force and endemic corruption have undermined public confidence in the government.
Officers also have beaten prisoners to death, been involved in kidnapping rings, sold thousands of stolen and forged Iraqi passports and passed along vital information to insurgents, the Iraqi documents allege.
Saturday, July 08, 2006
July 08, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CALCULATED SADISM
We've heard the distressing news that U.S. soldiers deliberately planned the murder and rape of a young Iraqi woman, and murdered her family. The charges, if true, show men with no honor, but who are sadists determined to humiliate, degrade, and kill. I've often thought of rape victims who are murdered. Their last contact with life is with a vile creep who is assaulting them. It's even worse in cases like this when family members have been murdered. I don't like the death penalty. But when there is a crime this heinous, and there is no doubt about the guilt of the perpetrator, the death penalty is the closest we can come to justice. Colbert King writes about this horrific crime in this column at www.washingtonpost.com:
Twenty-one-year-old Steven D. Green, honorably discharged from the Army in May for a "personality disorder," is charged with entering an Iraqi home near Mahmudiyah in March and raping a young woman (Iraqis say she was 15 years old; the U.S. military says 20), shooting her in the head and setting her body aflame -- after he was done using it.
But first, it is alleged, he herded the young woman's mother, father and 5-year-old sister into a bedroom, where he shot and killed them. Arrested by the FBI this week, Green has pleaded not guilty.
WAR SHOULDN'T BE PROFITABLE
I would like to see the prophecy in Isaiah fulfilled that we will beat our swords into ploughshares and not make war anymore. War is the ultimate failure in conflict resolution. The people who want war, who orchestrate war, and who profit from war are seldom the people who are maimed or killed in war. It is grossly obscene that people actually make money from war. In this article John Stanton proposes nationalizing the defense industry. The article is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
In 1969 John Kenneth Galbraith penned a piece for the New York Times titled The Big Defense Firms Are Really Public Firms and Should be Nationalized arguing, among other things, that it was folly for defense contractors to claim that they were private corporations. Such claims made a mockery of free enterprise.
Nearly 40 years hence, Charlie Cray and Lee Drutman have resurrected and energized Galbraith's argument in their work titled Corporations and the Public Purpose: Restoring the Balance (Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Winter 2005). They make an exceptionally compelling case for putting the defense industrial base (DIB) into the direct service of the American public through a form of nationalization: federal chartering.
"Converting the companies to publicly-controlled, nonprofit status would introduce a key change: it would reduce the entities' impetus for aggressive lobbying and campaign contributions. Chartering the defense contractors at the federal level would in effect allow Congress to ban such activities outright, thereby controlling an industry that is now a driving force rather than a servant of foreign policy objectives. As public firms, they would certainly continue to participate in the policy designed to determine the nation's national security and defense technology needs, but the profit-driven impetus to control the process in order to best serve corporate shareholders would be eliminated. Thus, by turning defense and security firms into full public corporations, we would replace the criteria by which their performance is judged from quarterly earnings targets to criteria that is more consistent with the national interest."
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
CALCULATED SADISM
We've heard the distressing news that U.S. soldiers deliberately planned the murder and rape of a young Iraqi woman, and murdered her family. The charges, if true, show men with no honor, but who are sadists determined to humiliate, degrade, and kill. I've often thought of rape victims who are murdered. Their last contact with life is with a vile creep who is assaulting them. It's even worse in cases like this when family members have been murdered. I don't like the death penalty. But when there is a crime this heinous, and there is no doubt about the guilt of the perpetrator, the death penalty is the closest we can come to justice. Colbert King writes about this horrific crime in this column at www.washingtonpost.com:
Twenty-one-year-old Steven D. Green, honorably discharged from the Army in May for a "personality disorder," is charged with entering an Iraqi home near Mahmudiyah in March and raping a young woman (Iraqis say she was 15 years old; the U.S. military says 20), shooting her in the head and setting her body aflame -- after he was done using it.
But first, it is alleged, he herded the young woman's mother, father and 5-year-old sister into a bedroom, where he shot and killed them. Arrested by the FBI this week, Green has pleaded not guilty.
WAR SHOULDN'T BE PROFITABLE
I would like to see the prophecy in Isaiah fulfilled that we will beat our swords into ploughshares and not make war anymore. War is the ultimate failure in conflict resolution. The people who want war, who orchestrate war, and who profit from war are seldom the people who are maimed or killed in war. It is grossly obscene that people actually make money from war. In this article John Stanton proposes nationalizing the defense industry. The article is linked at www.smirkingchimp.com:
In 1969 John Kenneth Galbraith penned a piece for the New York Times titled The Big Defense Firms Are Really Public Firms and Should be Nationalized arguing, among other things, that it was folly for defense contractors to claim that they were private corporations. Such claims made a mockery of free enterprise.
Nearly 40 years hence, Charlie Cray and Lee Drutman have resurrected and energized Galbraith's argument in their work titled Corporations and the Public Purpose: Restoring the Balance (Seattle Journal for Social Justice, Winter 2005). They make an exceptionally compelling case for putting the defense industrial base (DIB) into the direct service of the American public through a form of nationalization: federal chartering.
"Converting the companies to publicly-controlled, nonprofit status would introduce a key change: it would reduce the entities' impetus for aggressive lobbying and campaign contributions. Chartering the defense contractors at the federal level would in effect allow Congress to ban such activities outright, thereby controlling an industry that is now a driving force rather than a servant of foreign policy objectives. As public firms, they would certainly continue to participate in the policy designed to determine the nation's national security and defense technology needs, but the profit-driven impetus to control the process in order to best serve corporate shareholders would be eliminated. Thus, by turning defense and security firms into full public corporations, we would replace the criteria by which their performance is judged from quarterly earnings targets to criteria that is more consistent with the national interest."
Friday, July 07, 2006
July 07, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
NEOCON DREAMS CRASHING
From the time he stole the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush and his administration have demonstrated incredible arrogance. Bush was quick to act as though he was boss, and everyone else better toe the line. His popularity even in the United States was plunging, and then the attacks on 9/11 occurred. Suddenly, Bush had support at home and international sympathy. He exploited the sympathy at home to push through the neocon dream agenda that included massive tax cuts for the rich, the attack on civil liberties, and the rollback of any treaties the neocons didn't like. But time and incompetence have caught up with Bush. North Korea demonstrated absolute contempt for Bush when it launched seven missiles in direct defiance of Bush's threats. In this article Jim Lobe looks at the fragmented world Bush has created. The article is at www.commondreams.org:
A week before the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush finds his power and authority -- both at home and abroad -- at their lowest ebb.
With his approval ratings falling back into the cellar after a brief bounce following last month's death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, escalating violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and between Israelis and Palestinians, and shows of defiance by the two surviving members of the "Axis of Evil", Iran and North Korea, Bush's stature is much diminished compared to his previous G-8 appearances.
The man whose efforts to install a national order based on the dominance of the executive and a compliant Congress and a global order based primarily on U.S. military power and compliant "coalitions of the willing" now finds both under unprecedented challenge -- from the Supreme Court to Somalia.
The latest and boldest challenge, of course, was this week's launch by North Korea of at least seven missiles -- on the Fourth of July, no less -- despite the president's explicit warning less than a week before that such a move was "unacceptable".
HAIL CAESAR
I wonder how George W. Bush would look in a toga. He often behaves as though he's the twenty-first century version of a Roman Emperor. The Romans ruled the ancient world, sometimes with an iron fist, but even the mighty Roman Empire eventually fell. The Empire endured far longer than our republic has existed. The neocon agenda of empire has put the greatest democracy in world history gravely at risk. This article by Paul Craig Roberts is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
I realized that the U.S. is the new Rome – there is no legitimate power but us. Any other power is a potential threat to our interests and must be eliminated before it gets any independent ideas. The U.S., however, is far more dangerous than Rome. Rome saw its world as the Mediterranean and, for a while, Northern Europe, but the U.S. thinks the whole world is its oyster. The Bush regime is busy trying to marginalize Russia, and neocons are preparing war plans to attack China before that country can achieve military parity with the U.S.
Gentle reader, consider what it means when our government believes other countries have no right to their own interests unless they coincide with U.S. interests. It means that we are the tyrant country. We cannot be the tyrant country without being perceived as the tyrant country. Consequently, the rest of the world unites against us.
How is the U.S., which has spent three years proving that it cannot successfully occupy Iraq, a small country of only 25 million people, going to control India, China, Russia, Europe, Africa, and South America?
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
NEOCON DREAMS CRASHING
From the time he stole the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush and his administration have demonstrated incredible arrogance. Bush was quick to act as though he was boss, and everyone else better toe the line. His popularity even in the United States was plunging, and then the attacks on 9/11 occurred. Suddenly, Bush had support at home and international sympathy. He exploited the sympathy at home to push through the neocon dream agenda that included massive tax cuts for the rich, the attack on civil liberties, and the rollback of any treaties the neocons didn't like. But time and incompetence have caught up with Bush. North Korea demonstrated absolute contempt for Bush when it launched seven missiles in direct defiance of Bush's threats. In this article Jim Lobe looks at the fragmented world Bush has created. The article is at www.commondreams.org:
A week before the Group of Eight (G8) summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, U.S. President George W. Bush finds his power and authority -- both at home and abroad -- at their lowest ebb.
With his approval ratings falling back into the cellar after a brief bounce following last month's death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, escalating violence in Iraq, Afghanistan, and between Israelis and Palestinians, and shows of defiance by the two surviving members of the "Axis of Evil", Iran and North Korea, Bush's stature is much diminished compared to his previous G-8 appearances.
The man whose efforts to install a national order based on the dominance of the executive and a compliant Congress and a global order based primarily on U.S. military power and compliant "coalitions of the willing" now finds both under unprecedented challenge -- from the Supreme Court to Somalia.
The latest and boldest challenge, of course, was this week's launch by North Korea of at least seven missiles -- on the Fourth of July, no less -- despite the president's explicit warning less than a week before that such a move was "unacceptable".
HAIL CAESAR
I wonder how George W. Bush would look in a toga. He often behaves as though he's the twenty-first century version of a Roman Emperor. The Romans ruled the ancient world, sometimes with an iron fist, but even the mighty Roman Empire eventually fell. The Empire endured far longer than our republic has existed. The neocon agenda of empire has put the greatest democracy in world history gravely at risk. This article by Paul Craig Roberts is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
I realized that the U.S. is the new Rome – there is no legitimate power but us. Any other power is a potential threat to our interests and must be eliminated before it gets any independent ideas. The U.S., however, is far more dangerous than Rome. Rome saw its world as the Mediterranean and, for a while, Northern Europe, but the U.S. thinks the whole world is its oyster. The Bush regime is busy trying to marginalize Russia, and neocons are preparing war plans to attack China before that country can achieve military parity with the U.S.
Gentle reader, consider what it means when our government believes other countries have no right to their own interests unless they coincide with U.S. interests. It means that we are the tyrant country. We cannot be the tyrant country without being perceived as the tyrant country. Consequently, the rest of the world unites against us.
How is the U.S., which has spent three years proving that it cannot successfully occupy Iraq, a small country of only 25 million people, going to control India, China, Russia, Europe, Africa, and South America?
Thursday, July 06, 2006
July 06, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE NIGER SMOKING GUN
George W. Bush lied repeatedly about the causes of war against Iraq. But the argument that convinced more Americans than any other was the suggestion that Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons. Bush claimed in a State of the Union address that Hussein was trying to acquire uranium from Africa that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. This is where Joe Wilson, the man Bush attacked by outing his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative, came into the picture. Wilson was skeptical of the claims that Hussein was trying to get yellowcake uranium from Niger. Now it appears that documents stolen from the Niger embassy may have been forged, and they may have a direct connection to the Bush administration. This article by Craig Unger is at http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vanityfair.com%2Ffeatures%2Fgeneral%2Farticles%2F060606fege02
Vanity Fair has found at least 14 instances prior to the 2003 State of the Union in which analysts at the C.I.A., the State Department, or other government agencies who had examined the Niger documents or reports about them raised serious doubts about their legitimacy—only to be rebuffed by Bush-administration officials who wanted to use the material. "They were just relentless," says Wilkerson, who later prepared Colin Powell's presentation before the United Nations General Assembly. "You would take it out and they would stick it back in. That was their favorite bureaucratic technique—ruthless relentlessness."
All of which flies in the face of a campaign by senior Republicans including Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to blame the C.I.A. for the faulty pre-war intelligence on W.M.D. Indeed, the accounts put forth by Wilkerson and his colleagues strongly suggest that the C.I.A. is under siege not because it was wrong but because it was right. Agency analysts were not serving the White House's agenda.
What followed was not just the catastrophic foreign-policy blunder in Iraq but also an ongoing battle for the future of U.S. intelligence. Top officials have been leaving the C.I.A. in droves—including Porter Goss, who mysteriously resigned in May, just 18 months after he had been handpicked by Bush to be the director of Central Intelligence. Whatever the reason for his sudden departure, anyone at the top of the C.I.A., Goss's replacement included, ultimately must worry about serving two masters: a White House that desperately wants intelligence it can use to remake the Middle East and a spy agency that is acutely sensitive to having its intelligence politicized.
CONSERVATISM = DISASTER
If you want to make the lives of most people worse, just vote for conservatives. You'll get the usual campaign rhetoric from conservatives about cutting your taxes and "getting government off your back." You'll hear them extol "family values" and wave the red, white, and blue. But once in power conservatives reward their big campaign contributors, whose desires often mean bad things for the rest of us. Corporations don't want good wages, they don't want an increase in the minimum wage, and they don't want to protect the environment. Evangelical Christians don't want the kind of Christianity preached by Christ. They want a mutant form of Christianity that melds the most punitive beliefs of the Old Testament with the fire-breathing god of Revelation. This article by Alan Wolfe is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
"Ideas," a distinguished conservative named Richard Weaver once wrote, "have consequences." Americans have learned something about the consequences of conservative ideas during the Bush years that they never had to confront in the more amiable Reagan period. As a way of governing, conservatism is another name for disaster. And the disasters will continue, year after year, as long as conservatives, whose political tactics are frequently as brilliant as their policy-making is inept, find ways to perpetuate their power.
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
THE NIGER SMOKING GUN
George W. Bush lied repeatedly about the causes of war against Iraq. But the argument that convinced more Americans than any other was the suggestion that Saddam Hussein was actively pursuing nuclear weapons. Bush claimed in a State of the Union address that Hussein was trying to acquire uranium from Africa that could be used in the manufacture of nuclear weapons. This is where Joe Wilson, the man Bush attacked by outing his wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative, came into the picture. Wilson was skeptical of the claims that Hussein was trying to get yellowcake uranium from Niger. Now it appears that documents stolen from the Niger embassy may have been forged, and they may have a direct connection to the Bush administration. This article by Craig Unger is at http://rawstory.com/showarticle.php?src=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vanityfair.com%2Ffeatures%2Fgeneral%2Farticles%2F060606fege02
Vanity Fair has found at least 14 instances prior to the 2003 State of the Union in which analysts at the C.I.A., the State Department, or other government agencies who had examined the Niger documents or reports about them raised serious doubts about their legitimacy—only to be rebuffed by Bush-administration officials who wanted to use the material. "They were just relentless," says Wilkerson, who later prepared Colin Powell's presentation before the United Nations General Assembly. "You would take it out and they would stick it back in. That was their favorite bureaucratic technique—ruthless relentlessness."
All of which flies in the face of a campaign by senior Republicans including Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, to blame the C.I.A. for the faulty pre-war intelligence on W.M.D. Indeed, the accounts put forth by Wilkerson and his colleagues strongly suggest that the C.I.A. is under siege not because it was wrong but because it was right. Agency analysts were not serving the White House's agenda.
What followed was not just the catastrophic foreign-policy blunder in Iraq but also an ongoing battle for the future of U.S. intelligence. Top officials have been leaving the C.I.A. in droves—including Porter Goss, who mysteriously resigned in May, just 18 months after he had been handpicked by Bush to be the director of Central Intelligence. Whatever the reason for his sudden departure, anyone at the top of the C.I.A., Goss's replacement included, ultimately must worry about serving two masters: a White House that desperately wants intelligence it can use to remake the Middle East and a spy agency that is acutely sensitive to having its intelligence politicized.
CONSERVATISM = DISASTER
If you want to make the lives of most people worse, just vote for conservatives. You'll get the usual campaign rhetoric from conservatives about cutting your taxes and "getting government off your back." You'll hear them extol "family values" and wave the red, white, and blue. But once in power conservatives reward their big campaign contributors, whose desires often mean bad things for the rest of us. Corporations don't want good wages, they don't want an increase in the minimum wage, and they don't want to protect the environment. Evangelical Christians don't want the kind of Christianity preached by Christ. They want a mutant form of Christianity that melds the most punitive beliefs of the Old Testament with the fire-breathing god of Revelation. This article by Alan Wolfe is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
"Ideas," a distinguished conservative named Richard Weaver once wrote, "have consequences." Americans have learned something about the consequences of conservative ideas during the Bush years that they never had to confront in the more amiable Reagan period. As a way of governing, conservatism is another name for disaster. And the disasters will continue, year after year, as long as conservatives, whose political tactics are frequently as brilliant as their policy-making is inept, find ways to perpetuate their power.
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
July 05, 2006
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
APPEALING TO THE DARK SIDE
Republicans win elections and govern, if that's the word, by appealing to our worst instincts. Republicans love divisive issues such as gay marriage, flag burning, affirmative action, anti-feminism, anti-environmentalism, anti-immigrant policies, and sometimes outright racism. They love to cry "class warfare" if you talk about an economic system that's grossly unjust. They like to find some foreign enemy to demonize, whether it be "godless Communists" or "terrorists." There's always someone to hate. This article by Steve Horowitz is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Once America was seen as a beacon of hope and freedom. Today it's the world's bully.
We know how it happened. The smirking simpleton in the Oval Office, guided by Karl Rove, trumpeted by the venomous hatemongers of right-wing radio, and with the complicity of all but a few Republicans, discovered their ticket to political power: appeals to people's worst instincts.
And oh, how the people responded.
They demand religion in schools -- as long as it's their religion. They demand Constitutional amendments prohibiting gay marriage, abortion and flag-burning. Why? Those things offend them. They're wrong, the way they see things. And if you don't see things that way, if you're not offended, you're wrong, too.
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE TWO
Tennyson wrote the famous lines "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred" about the absolutely bungled Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. In her book The Reason Why historian Cecil Woodham-Smith talks about how the famous charge came about. I thought this description of the English aristocracy at the time parallels the aristocracy we now have in the United States. She wrote:
"Lord Brudenell, however, did not embark on his new duties with misgiving, or even with diffidence, but with thoroughgoing contempt. It was a class contempt--of the lord for the commoner, of the rich man for the man of moderate means, of the man who had been born within the charmed circle of privilege and influence for the man who has not."
Could there be a better description of George W. Bush and the hierarchy of the Republican party?
IMPEACH BUSH
IMPEACH CHENEY
APPEALING TO THE DARK SIDE
Republicans win elections and govern, if that's the word, by appealing to our worst instincts. Republicans love divisive issues such as gay marriage, flag burning, affirmative action, anti-feminism, anti-environmentalism, anti-immigrant policies, and sometimes outright racism. They love to cry "class warfare" if you talk about an economic system that's grossly unjust. They like to find some foreign enemy to demonize, whether it be "godless Communists" or "terrorists." There's always someone to hate. This article by Steve Horowitz is at www.smirkingchimp.com:
Once America was seen as a beacon of hope and freedom. Today it's the world's bully.
We know how it happened. The smirking simpleton in the Oval Office, guided by Karl Rove, trumpeted by the venomous hatemongers of right-wing radio, and with the complicity of all but a few Republicans, discovered their ticket to political power: appeals to people's worst instincts.
And oh, how the people responded.
They demand religion in schools -- as long as it's their religion. They demand Constitutional amendments prohibiting gay marriage, abortion and flag-burning. Why? Those things offend them. They're wrong, the way they see things. And if you don't see things that way, if you're not offended, you're wrong, too.
CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE TWO
Tennyson wrote the famous lines "Theirs not to reason why, Theirs but to do and die: Into the valley of Death rode the six hundred" about the absolutely bungled Charge of the Light Brigade during the Crimean War. In her book The Reason Why historian Cecil Woodham-Smith talks about how the famous charge came about. I thought this description of the English aristocracy at the time parallels the aristocracy we now have in the United States. She wrote:
"Lord Brudenell, however, did not embark on his new duties with misgiving, or even with diffidence, but with thoroughgoing contempt. It was a class contempt--of the lord for the commoner, of the rich man for the man of moderate means, of the man who had been born within the charmed circle of privilege and influence for the man who has not."
Could there be a better description of George W. Bush and the hierarchy of the Republican party?
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