AL GORE'S INCREDIBLE SPEECH
"Gore to Call for Resignation of Bush Team Members Responsibe for Iraq Involvement (algoredemocrats.com) "Major address will cite imminent risk to U.S. soldiers and Homeland from Bush failure to hold top officials accountable --Former Vice President Al Gore will deliver a major foreign policy address in New York City on Wednesday,May 26, sponsored by MoveOn PAC, calling for the resignation of five members of the Bush Administration team and one member of the military command responsible for the failed policy and abuse of prisoners in Iraq. Gore will identify the various ways in which all Americans--soldiers in Iraq, residents and travelers abroad, and citizens at home—are endangered by the bitterness created throughout the Islamic world—and beyond—by US policy. He will also explore the linkages between the President[sic]’s Iraq policy and the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison."
I'll say! That summary is guilty of gross understatement. You must read this. Here's a quote:
"How dare the incompetent and willful members of this Bush/Cheney Administration humiliate our nation and our people in the eyes of the world and in the conscience of our own people."
Here's another link.
http://www.moveonpac.org/goreremarks052604.html/
Could any of us have said it better? Not John Kerry. At least not yet.
It now seems sad that so many of us lacked the passion for Al Gore back in 2000, I think partly because he appeared to lack any passion himself. But when I look at the passionate and courageous person he seems to have grown into, at least as evidenced by these amazing and moving MoveOn speeches, I wonder--had we that passion, would Florida even have happened? (And by the way, where's ol' Bubba in all of this? His silence is revealing, too. Maybe the VP should have been P.)
I wonder too if we are making the same mistake with John Kerry. Certainly most of us have not mustered any passion for him. Granted it's not just his style, but the content as well. But I didn't think that highly of Al Gore's content then either.
Will Kerry too grow and evolve into the mensch we wish he would be now? Who knows? Would Gore have grown as he has, or been as forthright on whatever the great issues would have been, had he been allowed to claim the office he won and thus the circumstances that instigated and aroused such feelings now not occured? Who knows?
But maybe it's another mistake to merely begrudgingly accept and vote for Kerry. Maybe we need to muster enough passion for him to guarantee his victory, by a margin so large that Jeb Bush, Diebold, or the repugnant tactics of Karl Rove can't stop it. I'm thinking maybe if he felt secure about his victory, then maybe he too would start to speak like Gore instead of some damn second-rate automaton pandering to the holy middle. Or like the speech I wrote for him in yesterday's post. (And the final irony is that we used to say that about Gore.)
That'll be hard, finding that passion. So many maybes, so many doubts. But maybe it's just too important not to.
I'm gonna try.
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Thursday, May 27, 2004
Wednesday, May 26, 2004
WHY CAN'T KERRY TALK THIS WAY?
BUT FIRST, ANDY ROONEY
I missed 60 Minutes this Sunday, but a transcript of Rooney's commentary is buzzing around the net.
It would have been interesting to see Andy Rooney read it. I don't much like his sociopolitical opinions when he goes there--usually too conservative (not rightwing), or at least centrist. But I do like his curmudgeonly style.
And I don't agree with all his points in this commentary either, but there's enough good stuff in his piece that it's worth reading. While he states that Abu Ghraib "belongs high on the list of worst things that ever happened to our country," I would have included slavery and its legacy, and the genocide of Native Americans, but in fairness he was talking about singular events like 9/11. And that part about booting the offenders out of the country is not my style. I'd publicly humiliate them, like getting them all nekkid and piling them up on some of the bullshit that comes out of the Whitehouse. Rumsfeld especially(The horror, the horror).
But it got me thinking. Specifically, that if these kinds of thoughts are coming from the center maybe there's hope that Bush will be defeated.
And I got to thinking about that phraseology. I didn't say that Kerry will win, but that Bush will lose.
Because if that doofus doesn't figure out this campaigning thing soon, we only have the continuing neocon implosion to hope for. We'll only win because they will lose. Or we won't win, because a critical mass of frustrated lefties will go for nadir--as many apparently are. I'm having deja vu all over again.
As for Kerry's strategy so far, it's almost inexplicable that he and his team don't get it. And it's not that hard, especially since every liberal or democratic pundit in the country is telling him the same thing, and it's pretty obvious anyway.
And can't his handlers get him to stop rambling off into incoherent one-size-fits-all politico-babble?
Can't they stop regularly supplying Mr. Bush with great fodder for his snarky and degrading attacks, like that stupid declaration that he might postpone the nomination until after the convention.
How hard can that be? The neocons have been street smart, but have no wisdom. Kerry and his team seem to understand what that wisdom is--sometimes--but are quite dumb about applying it.
For instance, he might say something like this:
"My fellow citizens, I want to tell you how this administration's extremist basis for reproductive health policy is responsible for death and suffering of women of all ages in our country and around the world. And I want you to know that an enlightened country, the world leader in science and medicine, cannot continue to let ignorance and radical ideology dictate a health policy that ignores, or worse, distorts that science for its own ends. In 2004, in fact, it's criminal.
Every time I hear Mr. Bush talk about the rights of women in Afghanistan and Iraq, I am reminded that on the first day he took office, he reimposed the gag rule. Since then, WHO estimates 75,000 women worldwide have died due to lack of reproductive health care and advice. The only right they had was the right to die.
Since Mr Bush essentially banned anything but abstinence to be taught in schools by withholding funds from those that do otherwise, teenage pregnancy rates have increased significantly. In the face of multiple studies in schools that support that fact, Mr. Bush's team claims they were flawed, and ignores them.
Since Mr. Bush has removed any mention of condoms from the CDC website pages on HIV/AIDS, how many STD's that could have been prevented are now plaguing our citizens? And do you know why he has banned references to condoms? Because they don't work, his minions claim. And they lead to teenage promiscuity. The former statement is patently absurd, and the latter is unsupported by any data--any at all. In fact, as with the abstinence-only policies, if anything leads to increased sexual activity in our teenagers it's the lack of responsible and truthful education about all aspects of reproductive health in our schools. I hold this administration completely responsible for increased rates of pregnancy and std's among our youth, and that is just unacceptable.
Bush has banned the OTC sales of Plan B (levonorgestrel), the emergency contraceptive that can be used after unprotected sex, even though the FDA approved it for OTC. Amazingly, though even the FDA knows it's a contraceptive, they even ignorantly call it an abortion pill. They claim it will lead to promiscuity, and can cause health problems for teenagers. Apparently it's "healthy" for a 14 year old victim of rape or incest to be pregnant, but not take an FDA-approved contraceptive.
If this administration really cared about the rights of women and the wellbeing of our teenagers, they would stop spreading this nonsense, and stop prohibiting our public health teams from telling the truth. But as in so many areas of public policy that affect our daily lives in countless ways, they are more concerned about supporting their radical agenda than the real health of our citizens.
They must think we are stupid. Why else would they continue to feed us such nonsense on a daily basis? They think that if they repeat these lies enough times, we'll eventually start believing them. Well, we're not stupid. And as citizens we demand respect from our leaders.
This madness must stop. Isn't it time we confronted every instance of Mr. Bush's telling us the opposite of what we know is true? Isn't it time we held this administration accountable for its lies and ignorance? Isn't it time we stopped letting science be manipulated or suppressed to support an extremist ideological program that results in death and misery? Is ignorance and willful misinformation in the service of this hateful agenda part of the legacy we want?"
Now, unlike any proclamation from this administration, everything I wrote here is true, and hardly radical. So why won't Kerry talk about these things? Who's telling him that it's in his interest to constantly redefine himself as a centrist, and that being a centrist means dancing around the real hot-button issues that affect our lives immediately and perhaps more than Bush's debacle in foreign policy, as awful as that is? Are they all that dumb?
And that's only on one of many issues that's not getting much press coverage these days. Imagine if he talked that way about Medicare. Deficits. Class warfare. Environmental policy--or destruction. Budgetbusting budgets. Unfunded mandates. Spending, secret and public, lawful and unlawful. Secrecy itself. Ashcroft's primitivism, priggery and oppression. Attacks on the Constitution. Delusions of Theocracy. Refusal to accept responsibility for anything. Judicial appointments. Pandering to idiots. Blaming the victims. And on, and on.
Kerry could address these issues and expose the deceit in every one of them by merely stating fact. It would just be the truth, after all. It's out there.
And wouldn't it be refreshing to hear Kerry talk this way? Wouldn't it be so satisfying to finally hear a contender speak truth to power, to address the unrelenting and insulting doublespeak of this administration?
Anyone holding breath?
How did we get to this point?
I think it's the mercury in the tuna.
Here's Rooney:
(Broadcast on Sunday, May 23, 2004 by 60 Minutes / CBS News)
Our Darkest Days Are Here by Andy Rooney
If you were going to make a list of the great times in American history, you'd start with the day in 1492, when Columbus got here.
The Revolution when we won our independence would be on the list.
Beating Hitler.
Putting Americans on the moon.
We've had a lot of great days.
Our darkest days up until now have been things like presidential assassinations, the stock market crash in 1929, Pearl Harbor, and 9-11, of course.
The day the world learned that American soldiers had tortured Iraqi prisoners belongs high on the list of worst things that ever happened to our country. It's a black mark that will be in the history books in a hundred languages for as long as there are history books. I hate to think of it.
The image of one bad young woman with a naked man on a leash did more to damage America's reputation than all the good things we've done over the years ever helped our reputation.
What were the secrets they were trying to get from captured Iraqis? What important information did that poor devil on the leash have that he wouldn't have given to anyone in exchange for a crust of bread or a sip of water?
Where were your officers? If someone told you to do it, tell us who told you. If your officers were told – we should know who told them.
One general said our guards were "untrained." Well, untrained at what? Being human beings? Did the man who chopped off Nicholas Berg's head do it because he was untrained?
The guards who tortured prisoners are faced with a year in prison. Well, great. A year for destroying our reputation as decent people.
I don't want them in prison, anyway. We shouldn't have to feed them. Take away their right to call themselves American - that's what I’d do. You aren't one of us. Get out. We don't want you. Find yourself another country or a desert island somewhere. If the order came from someone higher up, take him with you.
In the history of the world, several great civilizations that seemed immortal have deteriorated and died. I don't want to seem dramatic tonight, but I've lived a long while, and for the first time in my life, I have this faint, faraway fear that it could happen to us here in America as it happened to the Greek and Roman civilizations.
Too many Americans don't understand what we have here, or how to keep it. I worry for my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren. I want them to have what I've had, and I sense it slipping away.
Have a nice day.
I missed 60 Minutes this Sunday, but a transcript of Rooney's commentary is buzzing around the net.
It would have been interesting to see Andy Rooney read it. I don't much like his sociopolitical opinions when he goes there--usually too conservative (not rightwing), or at least centrist. But I do like his curmudgeonly style.
And I don't agree with all his points in this commentary either, but there's enough good stuff in his piece that it's worth reading. While he states that Abu Ghraib "belongs high on the list of worst things that ever happened to our country," I would have included slavery and its legacy, and the genocide of Native Americans, but in fairness he was talking about singular events like 9/11. And that part about booting the offenders out of the country is not my style. I'd publicly humiliate them, like getting them all nekkid and piling them up on some of the bullshit that comes out of the Whitehouse. Rumsfeld especially(The horror, the horror).
But it got me thinking. Specifically, that if these kinds of thoughts are coming from the center maybe there's hope that Bush will be defeated.
And I got to thinking about that phraseology. I didn't say that Kerry will win, but that Bush will lose.
Because if that doofus doesn't figure out this campaigning thing soon, we only have the continuing neocon implosion to hope for. We'll only win because they will lose. Or we won't win, because a critical mass of frustrated lefties will go for nadir--as many apparently are. I'm having deja vu all over again.
As for Kerry's strategy so far, it's almost inexplicable that he and his team don't get it. And it's not that hard, especially since every liberal or democratic pundit in the country is telling him the same thing, and it's pretty obvious anyway.
And can't his handlers get him to stop rambling off into incoherent one-size-fits-all politico-babble?
Can't they stop regularly supplying Mr. Bush with great fodder for his snarky and degrading attacks, like that stupid declaration that he might postpone the nomination until after the convention.
How hard can that be? The neocons have been street smart, but have no wisdom. Kerry and his team seem to understand what that wisdom is--sometimes--but are quite dumb about applying it.
For instance, he might say something like this:
"My fellow citizens, I want to tell you how this administration's extremist basis for reproductive health policy is responsible for death and suffering of women of all ages in our country and around the world. And I want you to know that an enlightened country, the world leader in science and medicine, cannot continue to let ignorance and radical ideology dictate a health policy that ignores, or worse, distorts that science for its own ends. In 2004, in fact, it's criminal.
Every time I hear Mr. Bush talk about the rights of women in Afghanistan and Iraq, I am reminded that on the first day he took office, he reimposed the gag rule. Since then, WHO estimates 75,000 women worldwide have died due to lack of reproductive health care and advice. The only right they had was the right to die.
Since Mr Bush essentially banned anything but abstinence to be taught in schools by withholding funds from those that do otherwise, teenage pregnancy rates have increased significantly. In the face of multiple studies in schools that support that fact, Mr. Bush's team claims they were flawed, and ignores them.
Since Mr. Bush has removed any mention of condoms from the CDC website pages on HIV/AIDS, how many STD's that could have been prevented are now plaguing our citizens? And do you know why he has banned references to condoms? Because they don't work, his minions claim. And they lead to teenage promiscuity. The former statement is patently absurd, and the latter is unsupported by any data--any at all. In fact, as with the abstinence-only policies, if anything leads to increased sexual activity in our teenagers it's the lack of responsible and truthful education about all aspects of reproductive health in our schools. I hold this administration completely responsible for increased rates of pregnancy and std's among our youth, and that is just unacceptable.
Bush has banned the OTC sales of Plan B (levonorgestrel), the emergency contraceptive that can be used after unprotected sex, even though the FDA approved it for OTC. Amazingly, though even the FDA knows it's a contraceptive, they even ignorantly call it an abortion pill. They claim it will lead to promiscuity, and can cause health problems for teenagers. Apparently it's "healthy" for a 14 year old victim of rape or incest to be pregnant, but not take an FDA-approved contraceptive.
If this administration really cared about the rights of women and the wellbeing of our teenagers, they would stop spreading this nonsense, and stop prohibiting our public health teams from telling the truth. But as in so many areas of public policy that affect our daily lives in countless ways, they are more concerned about supporting their radical agenda than the real health of our citizens.
They must think we are stupid. Why else would they continue to feed us such nonsense on a daily basis? They think that if they repeat these lies enough times, we'll eventually start believing them. Well, we're not stupid. And as citizens we demand respect from our leaders.
This madness must stop. Isn't it time we confronted every instance of Mr. Bush's telling us the opposite of what we know is true? Isn't it time we held this administration accountable for its lies and ignorance? Isn't it time we stopped letting science be manipulated or suppressed to support an extremist ideological program that results in death and misery? Is ignorance and willful misinformation in the service of this hateful agenda part of the legacy we want?"
Now, unlike any proclamation from this administration, everything I wrote here is true, and hardly radical. So why won't Kerry talk about these things? Who's telling him that it's in his interest to constantly redefine himself as a centrist, and that being a centrist means dancing around the real hot-button issues that affect our lives immediately and perhaps more than Bush's debacle in foreign policy, as awful as that is? Are they all that dumb?
And that's only on one of many issues that's not getting much press coverage these days. Imagine if he talked that way about Medicare. Deficits. Class warfare. Environmental policy--or destruction. Budgetbusting budgets. Unfunded mandates. Spending, secret and public, lawful and unlawful. Secrecy itself. Ashcroft's primitivism, priggery and oppression. Attacks on the Constitution. Delusions of Theocracy. Refusal to accept responsibility for anything. Judicial appointments. Pandering to idiots. Blaming the victims. And on, and on.
Kerry could address these issues and expose the deceit in every one of them by merely stating fact. It would just be the truth, after all. It's out there.
And wouldn't it be refreshing to hear Kerry talk this way? Wouldn't it be so satisfying to finally hear a contender speak truth to power, to address the unrelenting and insulting doublespeak of this administration?
Anyone holding breath?
How did we get to this point?
I think it's the mercury in the tuna.
Here's Rooney:
(Broadcast on Sunday, May 23, 2004 by 60 Minutes / CBS News)
Our Darkest Days Are Here by Andy Rooney
If you were going to make a list of the great times in American history, you'd start with the day in 1492, when Columbus got here.
The Revolution when we won our independence would be on the list.
Beating Hitler.
Putting Americans on the moon.
We've had a lot of great days.
Our darkest days up until now have been things like presidential assassinations, the stock market crash in 1929, Pearl Harbor, and 9-11, of course.
The day the world learned that American soldiers had tortured Iraqi prisoners belongs high on the list of worst things that ever happened to our country. It's a black mark that will be in the history books in a hundred languages for as long as there are history books. I hate to think of it.
The image of one bad young woman with a naked man on a leash did more to damage America's reputation than all the good things we've done over the years ever helped our reputation.
What were the secrets they were trying to get from captured Iraqis? What important information did that poor devil on the leash have that he wouldn't have given to anyone in exchange for a crust of bread or a sip of water?
Where were your officers? If someone told you to do it, tell us who told you. If your officers were told – we should know who told them.
One general said our guards were "untrained." Well, untrained at what? Being human beings? Did the man who chopped off Nicholas Berg's head do it because he was untrained?
The guards who tortured prisoners are faced with a year in prison. Well, great. A year for destroying our reputation as decent people.
I don't want them in prison, anyway. We shouldn't have to feed them. Take away their right to call themselves American - that's what I’d do. You aren't one of us. Get out. We don't want you. Find yourself another country or a desert island somewhere. If the order came from someone higher up, take him with you.
In the history of the world, several great civilizations that seemed immortal have deteriorated and died. I don't want to seem dramatic tonight, but I've lived a long while, and for the first time in my life, I have this faint, faraway fear that it could happen to us here in America as it happened to the Greek and Roman civilizations.
Too many Americans don't understand what we have here, or how to keep it. I worry for my grandchildren, my great-grandchildren. I want them to have what I've had, and I sense it slipping away.
Have a nice day.
Friday, May 14, 2004
Citizen posters at the acclaimed political web log www.dkos.com contributed ten of their best ideas for progressive bumper stickers to this effort.
Here they are.
Asses of Evil
Thanks for Not Paying Attention
Four More Wars!
More Trees, Less Bush
It Takes a Village Idiot
One Person, One Vote (*May Not Apply in Certain States)
Putting the "Con" In Conservative
We're Gooder!
Leave No Billionaire Behind
Bring Back Monica Lewinsky
This one is from a friend:
Jail The Neoconmen
Asses of Evil
Thanks for Not Paying Attention
Four More Wars!
More Trees, Less Bush
It Takes a Village Idiot
One Person, One Vote (*May Not Apply in Certain States)
Putting the "Con" In Conservative
We're Gooder!
Leave No Billionaire Behind
Bring Back Monica Lewinsky
This one is from a friend:
Jail The Neoconmen
Wednesday, May 12, 2004
OSAMA VS CUBA, ROUND 1
The Miami Herald reports that the Treasury Department has more than 20 people assigned to catching people who violate the trade and tourism embargo on Cuba. It has four employees assigned to tracking the assets of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein.
I think I can forego my normally sardonic comments, which are clearly unecessary. Except for that last sentence, of course.
I think I can forego my normally sardonic comments, which are clearly unecessary. Except for that last sentence, of course.
YOU'D THINK THE DEMOCRATS WOULD LEVERAGE THIS
Findings from a new national poll show support for impeachment, growing
opposition to war on terrorism.
May 11, 2004
For Immediate Release
Berkeley--Reporting from an ongoing survey of public knowledge and
opinion, Berkeley based NGO Retro Poll released startling results
suggesting that 39% of Americans favor impeachment of President Bush.
The poll, taken between April 19 and May 5 asked whether people believe
that misleading Congress and the Public on weapons of mass destruction
to take the country to war is grounds to impeach the President (39% said
yes, 40% said no). On whether the U.S. should have invaded Iraq the
poll results are consistent with findings of Gallup and other major
polls (48% said yes).
Other surprising findings were that almost half of respondents (46%)
favor an independent investigation of the U.S. role in the overthrow of
Haiti's democratically elected president, Juan Bertrand Aristide, and
57% favor a national moratorium on the death penalty because of the
procedural problems that have put many innocent people on death row (112
released so far). Four out of five Americans also repudiate the use of
torture.
As in earlier Retro Polls most support for the war in Iraq and the War
on Terrorism was found among people who still think that Saddam Hussein
worked with Al Qaeda (though no evidence has been published) and among
the 32% of people who believe the War on Terrorism is preventing
terrorism. However, 24% of Americans believe that the War on Terrorism
is actually creating terrorists. In addition, 56 % of people who gave
an opinion say the War on Terrorism is removing important democratic
rights in the US and large percentages (50-80%) oppose various intrusive
provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act.
The poll reached 513 random Americans and has a "margin of error" of +/-
3.5% Full results are available at www.retropoll.org.
opposition to war on terrorism.
May 11, 2004
For Immediate Release
Berkeley--Reporting from an ongoing survey of public knowledge and
opinion, Berkeley based NGO Retro Poll released startling results
suggesting that 39% of Americans favor impeachment of President Bush.
The poll, taken between April 19 and May 5 asked whether people believe
that misleading Congress and the Public on weapons of mass destruction
to take the country to war is grounds to impeach the President (39% said
yes, 40% said no). On whether the U.S. should have invaded Iraq the
poll results are consistent with findings of Gallup and other major
polls (48% said yes).
Other surprising findings were that almost half of respondents (46%)
favor an independent investigation of the U.S. role in the overthrow of
Haiti's democratically elected president, Juan Bertrand Aristide, and
57% favor a national moratorium on the death penalty because of the
procedural problems that have put many innocent people on death row (112
released so far). Four out of five Americans also repudiate the use of
torture.
As in earlier Retro Polls most support for the war in Iraq and the War
on Terrorism was found among people who still think that Saddam Hussein
worked with Al Qaeda (though no evidence has been published) and among
the 32% of people who believe the War on Terrorism is preventing
terrorism. However, 24% of Americans believe that the War on Terrorism
is actually creating terrorists. In addition, 56 % of people who gave
an opinion say the War on Terrorism is removing important democratic
rights in the US and large percentages (50-80%) oppose various intrusive
provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act.
The poll reached 513 random Americans and has a "margin of error" of +/-
3.5% Full results are available at www.retropoll.org.
Tuesday, April 13, 2004
THE DANGER ZONE IS EVERYWHERE
The Curtis Mayfield song The Danger Zone was recorded by Ray Charles and issued as the B-side of Hit the Road, Jack, Charles's 1961 hit.
The Danger Zone
Sad and lonely all the time
That's because I've got a worried mind
You know the world is in an uproar
The danger zone is everywhere, everywhere
Just read your paper
And you'll see
Just exactly what keeps worryin' me
Yeah, you'll see the world is in an uproar
The danger zone is everywhere
My love for the world is like always
For the world is a part of me
That's why I'm so afraid
Of the progress that's being made
Toward eternity
Every morning, noon, and night
Finds me hoping that everything's alright
Mm-hmm, the world is in an uproar
The danger zone is everywhere
Thengs were getting worse by 1971 when Stone the Crows recorded a version and put a little oomph in the lyrics:
Sad, sad and lonely
And sad and lonely all the time
That's because I've got
such a worried mind
The world is in an uproar
The danger zone everywhere
It is everywhere
Just read your paper
Read your paper and you'll see
Just what exactly has been
bothering me
The world is in an uproar
The danger zone everywhere
It is everywhere
My love for the world
It will always be the same
Because the world
has become a part of me
And I'm so afraid of the progress
that's being made toward eternity
Every morning, every morning
Every morning, noon and night
I keep on wishing and hoping
that everything's gonna be alright
The world is in an uproar
The danger zone everywhere
It is everywhere, everywhere
My love for the world
will always be the same
Because the world
has become a part of me
And I'm so afraid of the bloody progress
that has been made toward eternity
Every morning, every morning
Every morning, noon and night
I keep on wishing and hoping
that everything's gonna be alright
The world is in an uproar
Don't you know, don't you know
The danger zone everywhere
It is everywhere
32 years later, of course, the entire world is at peace and humanity has risen to its highest potential, abandoning armed conflict and violence as means to ends, and the reign of reason, tolerance and peace has begun. Just read your paper and you'll see.
The Danger Zone
Sad and lonely all the time
That's because I've got a worried mind
You know the world is in an uproar
The danger zone is everywhere, everywhere
Just read your paper
And you'll see
Just exactly what keeps worryin' me
Yeah, you'll see the world is in an uproar
The danger zone is everywhere
My love for the world is like always
For the world is a part of me
That's why I'm so afraid
Of the progress that's being made
Toward eternity
Every morning, noon, and night
Finds me hoping that everything's alright
Mm-hmm, the world is in an uproar
The danger zone is everywhere
Thengs were getting worse by 1971 when Stone the Crows recorded a version and put a little oomph in the lyrics:
Sad, sad and lonely
And sad and lonely all the time
That's because I've got
such a worried mind
The world is in an uproar
The danger zone everywhere
It is everywhere
Just read your paper
Read your paper and you'll see
Just what exactly has been
bothering me
The world is in an uproar
The danger zone everywhere
It is everywhere
My love for the world
It will always be the same
Because the world
has become a part of me
And I'm so afraid of the progress
that's being made toward eternity
Every morning, every morning
Every morning, noon and night
I keep on wishing and hoping
that everything's gonna be alright
The world is in an uproar
The danger zone everywhere
It is everywhere, everywhere
My love for the world
will always be the same
Because the world
has become a part of me
And I'm so afraid of the bloody progress
that has been made toward eternity
Every morning, every morning
Every morning, noon and night
I keep on wishing and hoping
that everything's gonna be alright
The world is in an uproar
Don't you know, don't you know
The danger zone everywhere
It is everywhere
32 years later, of course, the entire world is at peace and humanity has risen to its highest potential, abandoning armed conflict and violence as means to ends, and the reign of reason, tolerance and peace has begun. Just read your paper and you'll see.
Monday, April 12, 2004
NADER REDUX AGAIN
A FEW TACOS SHORT OF A FIESTA PLATTER
After a group of prominent liberal activists sent a letter last week to Ralph "A flower short of an arrangement" Nader begging him to abandon his "quixotic and destructive" bid for the presidency, Nader spokesman Kevin Zeese said Nader would not bow out simply to help someone else beat Bush. "You have to stand for something,"Zeese said.
And what is that, Kevin? That you can hold a grudge longer than anyone else except perhaps the Serbs? That it's OK to fuck over your friends and your country for the sake of your own ineffectual dogma?
See, all along I thought beating Bush WAS something to stand for.
What do I know?
Thursday, April 01, 2004
AIRAMERICA IS HERE
After all the anticipation, AirAmerica radio is here. The first broadcasts yesterday got mixed reviews in the media. The Washington Post piece was somewhat irritating: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40719-2004Mar31.html?referrer=email
There were amusing quotes from O'Reilly The Conqueror and Boston conservative radio host Jay Severin, and clearly neither one was aware of the astounding irony in their comments.
Severin: "Yes, we know you believe with utmost sincerity that we are monstrous Neanderthals, but do you really believe your left-wing/pacifist/United Nations/French worldview will win a big middle-class audience? In America?"
O'Reilly: "this whole liberal network scheme is just plain stupid. . . . These pinheads backing the venture will lose millions of dollars because the propaganda network is simply tedious and tedious doesn't sell."
In now-commonplace extremist Republican fashion, they accuse their counterparts of the very offenses they thrive on, while portraying themselves as saviors and expressing the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of zealots.
While the network is broadcast on few stations so far, we can listen live on the web via AirAmerica's website:http://www.airamericaradio.com/
Onward through the fog, Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo.
Interesting footnote: the Blogger spellcheck suggested a replacement for O'Reilly: Orwell
There were amusing quotes from O'Reilly The Conqueror and Boston conservative radio host Jay Severin, and clearly neither one was aware of the astounding irony in their comments.
Severin: "Yes, we know you believe with utmost sincerity that we are monstrous Neanderthals, but do you really believe your left-wing/pacifist/United Nations/French worldview will win a big middle-class audience? In America?"
O'Reilly: "this whole liberal network scheme is just plain stupid. . . . These pinheads backing the venture will lose millions of dollars because the propaganda network is simply tedious and tedious doesn't sell."
In now-commonplace extremist Republican fashion, they accuse their counterparts of the very offenses they thrive on, while portraying themselves as saviors and expressing the arrogant certitude that is the hallmark of zealots.
While the network is broadcast on few stations so far, we can listen live on the web via AirAmerica's website:http://www.airamericaradio.com/
Onward through the fog, Al Franken and Janeane Garofalo.
Interesting footnote: the Blogger spellcheck suggested a replacement for O'Reilly: Orwell
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
THIS ISN'T AMERICA by Paul Krugman
THIS ISN'T AMERICA
Paul Krugmans's NY Times columns:
www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/
By PAUL KRUGMAN
03/30/04 "New York Times" -- Last week an opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about the killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin said, "This isn't America; the government did not invent intelligence material nor exaggerate the description of the threat to justify their attack."
So even in Israel, George Bush's America has become a byword for deception and abuse of power. And the administration's reaction to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies" provides more evidence of something rotten in the state of our government.
The truth is that among experts, what Mr. Clarke says about Mr. Bush's terrorism policy isn't controversial. The facts that terrorism was placed on the back burner before 9/11 and that Mr. Bush blamed Iraq despite the lack of evidence are confirmed by many sources — including "Bush at War," by Bob Woodward.
And new evidence keeps emerging for Mr. Clarke's main charge, that the Iraq obsession undermined the pursuit of Al Qaeda. From yesterday's USA Today: "In 2002, troops from the Fifth Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. Their replacements were troops with expertise in Spanish cultures."
That's why the administration responded to Mr. Clarke the way it responds to anyone who reveals inconvenient facts: with a campaign of character assassination.
Some journalists seem, finally, to have caught on. Last week an Associated Press news analysis noted that such personal attacks were "standard operating procedure" for this administration and cited "a behind-the-scenes campaign to discredit Richard Foster," the Medicare actuary who revealed how the administration had deceived Congress about the cost of its prescription drug bill.
But other journalists apparently remain ready to be used. On CNN, Wolf Blitzer told his viewers that unnamed officials were saying that Mr. Clarke "wants to make a few bucks, and that [in] his own personal life, they're also suggesting that there are some weird aspects in his life as well."
This administration's reliance on smear tactics is unprecedented in modern U.S. politics — even compared with Nixon's. Even more disturbing is its readiness to abuse power — to use its control of the government to intimidate potential critics.
To be fair, Senator Bill Frist's suggestion that Mr. Clarke might be charged with perjury may have been his own idea. But his move reminded everyone of the White House's reaction to revelations by the former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: an immediate investigation into whether he had revealed classified information. The alacrity with which this investigation was opened was, of course, in sharp contrast with the administration's evident lack of interest in finding out who leaked the identity of the C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame to Bob Novak.
And there are many other cases of apparent abuse of power by the administration and its Congressional allies. A few examples: according to The Hill, Republican lawmakers threatened to cut off funds for the General Accounting Office unless it dropped its lawsuit against Dick Cheney. The Washington Post says Representative Michael Oxley told lobbyists that "a Congressional probe might ease if it replaced its Democratic lobbyist with a Republican." Tom DeLay used the Homeland Security Department to track down Democrats trying to prevent redistricting in Texas. And Medicare is spending millions of dollars on misleading ads for the new drug benefit — ads that look like news reports and also serve as commercials for the Bush campaign.
On the terrorism front, here's one story that deserves special mention. One of the few successful post-9/11 terror prosecutions — a case in Detroit — seems to be unraveling. The government withheld information from the defense, and witnesses unfavorable to the prosecution were deported (by accident, the government says). After the former lead prosecutor complained about the Justice Department's handling of the case, he suddenly found himself facing an internal investigation — and someone leaked the fact that he was under investigation to the press.
Where will it end? In his new book, "Worse Than Watergate," John Dean, of Watergate fame, says, "I've been watching all the elements fall into place for two possible political catastrophes, one that will take the air out of the Bush-Cheney balloon and the other, far more disquieting, that will take the air out of democracy."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
Paul Krugmans's NY Times columns:
http://www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/
Paul Krugmans's NY Times columns:
www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/
By PAUL KRUGMAN
03/30/04 "New York Times" -- Last week an opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about the killing of Sheik Ahmed Yassin said, "This isn't America; the government did not invent intelligence material nor exaggerate the description of the threat to justify their attack."
So even in Israel, George Bush's America has become a byword for deception and abuse of power. And the administration's reaction to Richard Clarke's "Against All Enemies" provides more evidence of something rotten in the state of our government.
The truth is that among experts, what Mr. Clarke says about Mr. Bush's terrorism policy isn't controversial. The facts that terrorism was placed on the back burner before 9/11 and that Mr. Bush blamed Iraq despite the lack of evidence are confirmed by many sources — including "Bush at War," by Bob Woodward.
And new evidence keeps emerging for Mr. Clarke's main charge, that the Iraq obsession undermined the pursuit of Al Qaeda. From yesterday's USA Today: "In 2002, troops from the Fifth Special Forces Group who specialize in the Middle East were pulled out of the hunt for Osama bin Laden to prepare for their next assignment: Iraq. Their replacements were troops with expertise in Spanish cultures."
That's why the administration responded to Mr. Clarke the way it responds to anyone who reveals inconvenient facts: with a campaign of character assassination.
Some journalists seem, finally, to have caught on. Last week an Associated Press news analysis noted that such personal attacks were "standard operating procedure" for this administration and cited "a behind-the-scenes campaign to discredit Richard Foster," the Medicare actuary who revealed how the administration had deceived Congress about the cost of its prescription drug bill.
But other journalists apparently remain ready to be used. On CNN, Wolf Blitzer told his viewers that unnamed officials were saying that Mr. Clarke "wants to make a few bucks, and that [in] his own personal life, they're also suggesting that there are some weird aspects in his life as well."
This administration's reliance on smear tactics is unprecedented in modern U.S. politics — even compared with Nixon's. Even more disturbing is its readiness to abuse power — to use its control of the government to intimidate potential critics.
To be fair, Senator Bill Frist's suggestion that Mr. Clarke might be charged with perjury may have been his own idea. But his move reminded everyone of the White House's reaction to revelations by the former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill: an immediate investigation into whether he had revealed classified information. The alacrity with which this investigation was opened was, of course, in sharp contrast with the administration's evident lack of interest in finding out who leaked the identity of the C.I.A. operative Valerie Plame to Bob Novak.
And there are many other cases of apparent abuse of power by the administration and its Congressional allies. A few examples: according to The Hill, Republican lawmakers threatened to cut off funds for the General Accounting Office unless it dropped its lawsuit against Dick Cheney. The Washington Post says Representative Michael Oxley told lobbyists that "a Congressional probe might ease if it replaced its Democratic lobbyist with a Republican." Tom DeLay used the Homeland Security Department to track down Democrats trying to prevent redistricting in Texas. And Medicare is spending millions of dollars on misleading ads for the new drug benefit — ads that look like news reports and also serve as commercials for the Bush campaign.
On the terrorism front, here's one story that deserves special mention. One of the few successful post-9/11 terror prosecutions — a case in Detroit — seems to be unraveling. The government withheld information from the defense, and witnesses unfavorable to the prosecution were deported (by accident, the government says). After the former lead prosecutor complained about the Justice Department's handling of the case, he suddenly found himself facing an internal investigation — and someone leaked the fact that he was under investigation to the press.
Where will it end? In his new book, "Worse Than Watergate," John Dean, of Watergate fame, says, "I've been watching all the elements fall into place for two possible political catastrophes, one that will take the air out of the Bush-Cheney balloon and the other, far more disquieting, that will take the air out of democracy."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times Company
Paul Krugmans's NY Times columns:
http://www.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/
Thursday, March 18, 2004
LA TIMES ENLIGHTENED POLICY ON LANGUAGE
From The Week, March 19, 2004:
The article:
A Los Angeles Times music critic who'd described an opera as "pro-life"--meaning celebrating life--was shocked to find that a copy editor had changed the phrase to "anti-abortion." Richard Strauss' Die Frau Ohen Schatten has nothing to do with abortion, said critic Mark Swed. The copy editor was adhering to a strict policy banning the phrase "pro-life" as offensive to people who support abortion rights.
The Week printed this little article in a section called "Only in America." I guess this was meant to belittle the situation.
As silly as the incident was, I was delighted to find out about the LA Times language policy. Perhaps The Week saw just humor in this, but I saw something more. I saw, finally, the media beginning to resist the conservative usurpation of language to achieve an extreme political and cultural goal.
"Pro-life" has always been one of the most flagrant and obnoxious examples of the success the right has achieved in framing the debate. "Partial-birth abortion" is another, among many.
Congratulations to that copy editor for a mistake that brought an enlightened policy to our attention, and to the LA Times for its stance.
The article:
A Los Angeles Times music critic who'd described an opera as "pro-life"--meaning celebrating life--was shocked to find that a copy editor had changed the phrase to "anti-abortion." Richard Strauss' Die Frau Ohen Schatten has nothing to do with abortion, said critic Mark Swed. The copy editor was adhering to a strict policy banning the phrase "pro-life" as offensive to people who support abortion rights.
The Week printed this little article in a section called "Only in America." I guess this was meant to belittle the situation.
As silly as the incident was, I was delighted to find out about the LA Times language policy. Perhaps The Week saw just humor in this, but I saw something more. I saw, finally, the media beginning to resist the conservative usurpation of language to achieve an extreme political and cultural goal.
"Pro-life" has always been one of the most flagrant and obnoxious examples of the success the right has achieved in framing the debate. "Partial-birth abortion" is another, among many.
Congratulations to that copy editor for a mistake that brought an enlightened policy to our attention, and to the LA Times for its stance.
Sunday, March 14, 2004
1,049 FEDERAL MARRIAGE RIGHTS
1,049 Federal Rights Available to Married Couples
In 1997, the General Accounting Office of the Federal Government compiled a list of 1,049 rights and benefits which were related to civil marriage. The list includes thirteen categories of rights and benefits, including:
Social Security and Related Programs, Housing, and Food Stamps
Veterans' Benefits
Taxation
Federal Civilian and Military Service Benefits
Employment Benefits and Related Laws
Immigration, Naturalization, and Aliens
Trade, Commerce, and Intellectual Property
Financial Disclosure and Conflict of Interest
You can view the entire GAO report here: http://www.marriageequality.org/facts.php?page=1049_federal
Then click on "GAO report here." It's a pdf file.
THE MYTH OF THE 'GOOD' NADER
MORON NADER--I MEAN MORE ON NADER
I don't read the New Republic, haven't in years, and don't know much about Chait, but I've said myself some of what he's saying in this artcle, decided to let someone else rant about him this time.
THE MYTH OF THE 'GOOD' NADER
Make You Ralph
by Jonathan Chait ,The New Republic
Post date: 02.29.04
Issue date: 03.08.04
As Ralph Nader prepares for another spoiler run at the presidency, liberals are again wringing their hands at the damage he may do not only to Democrats' chances of retaking the White House but to his own reputation as well. "The most regrettable thing about Mr. Nader's new candidacy is not how it is likely to affect the election, but how it will affect Mr. Nader's own legacy," editorialized The New York Times this week. "Ralph Nader has been one of the giants of the American reform movement. ... [I]t would be a tragedy if Mr. Nader allowed [his anger] to give the story of his career a sad and bitter ending." The same theme was sounded in November of 2000. "Bernie Sanders is right. Ralph Nader is 'one of the heroes of contemporary American society,'" argued Eric Alterman in The Nation. "How sad, therefore, that he is helping to undo so much of his life's work in a misguided fit of political pique and ideological purity." As Robert Scheer lamented in the Los Angeles Times, "What Nader did was to impulsively betray a lifetime of painstaking, frustrating, but most often effective, efforts on his part to make a better world. He is a good man who went very wrong."
The good-man-who-went-wrong assessment of Nader is virtually unchallenged among liberals. But, if you think about it for a moment, it's awfully strange. Heroes of history do not normally reverse themselves out of the blue. George Washington did not end his days pining for a return of the British monarchy to U.S. shores. George Orwell did not suddenly warm to the virtues of totalitarianism. Nor, for that matter, did Ralph Nader go wrong after decades of doing good. The qualities that liberals have observed in him of late--the monomania, the vindictiveness, the rage against pragmatic liberalism--have been present all along. Indeed, an un-blinkered look at Nader's public life shows that his presidential campaigns represent not a betrayal of his earlier career but its apotheosis.
Nader made his name with the 1965 publication of Unsafe at Any Speed, an exposé of the Chevy Corvair. Today, people generally remember the ways in which Nader was right--the appalling lack of concern for safety in the automobile industry and the need for federal regulations. Few realize that Nader's campaign against the Corvair was only the most visible edge of an uncompromising, conspiratorial worldview. Nader believed not only that the Corvair was dangerous but that General Motors (GM) knew it was. Justin Martin, in his fair-minded 2002 biography, Nader: Crusader, Spoiler, Icon, shows how Nader hounded liberal Connecticut Senator Abraham Ribicoff into investigating whether GM had lied about what it knew in testimony before Congress. In a letter to Ribicoff, Nader wrote, "Now comes decisive evidence which reveals a labyrinthic and systematic intra-company collusion, involving high General Motors officials, to sequester and suppress company data and films." Nader insisted he had an array of inside sources and documents that would reveal this conspiracy. Ribicoff dutifully assigned a pair of staffers to the case, and they spent two years chasing down Nader's leads. None of them panned out. The investigators found no evidence that GM knew of the Corvair's safety flaws. The failure to confirm Nader's suspicions enraged him. "He could not let go of the Corvair issue," one of the staffers told Martin. "He was fixated. And, if you didn't accept or believe the same things he did, you were either stupid or venal."
During the late '60s and early '70s, Nader developed a reputation as a wonk's wonk, a data-driven do-gooder with a stack of papers perpetually tucked under his arm. In fact, even then his work was driven by ideologically motivated fanaticism. In 1971, Nader pressured one of his associates, Lowell Dodge, to sex up his study "Small on Safety: The Designed-in Dangers of the Volkswagen." In his self-proclaimed 1976 hatchet job, Me & Ralph, former tnr managing editor David Sanford describes how Nader insisted that Dodge rewrite the conclusion of the study so that it began, "The Volkswagen is the most hazardous car in use in significant numbers in the U.S. today." Objecting that "the conclusion is not reflected in the data," Dodge left the project, allowing others to take credit as principal authors. "I have always carried around considerable guilt about what I regard as the extreme intellectual dishonesty of that conclusion," he told Sanford.
Nader's true fame came not from Unsafe at Any Speed but from the fact that its publication prompted GM to hire a private investigator to dig up damaging personal information that might discredit him. The irony is that Nader's grandiose paranoia predated this episode. Before publishing Unsafe at Any Speed, Nader worked as an obscure functionary at the Labor Department under then-Assistant Secretary Pat Moynihan. "Ralph was a very suspicious man," Moynihan told Charles McCarry in his 1972 biography Citizen Nader. "He used to warn me that the phones at the Labor Department might be tapped. I'd say, 'Fine! They'll learn that the unemployment rate for March is 5.3 percent, that's what they'll learn.'"
Nader's friends recalled that often he would act furtively, speaking in code, always convinced he was being monitored or phone-tapped. When he insisted in 1966 that he was being followed, one of his friends replied, according to Martin, "Ralph, your paranoia has grown to new extremes." Of course, it turned out that in that instance Nader was being followed. But this merely proved the old adage that sometimes even the paranoid have enemies plotting against them.
Nader sued GM and won $425,000, which he used to found activist organizations that helped push through a staggering series of consumer and environmental reforms, most of them in the late '60s and early '70s. Nader rightly wins credit for spurring progress during the era. And yet, even during his heyday, Nader habitually denounced liberals and their work, sabotaging the very causes he claimed to believe in. Martin's biography is filled with examples. In 1970, Nader championed a report by his staff savaging Ed Muskie, the liberal senator from Maine. Muskie, who helped engineer the Air Quality Act of 1967, had a reputation as an environmental ally, but Nader's report called the act "disastrous," adding, "That fact alone would warrant his being stripped of his title as 'Mr. Pollution Control.'"
That same year, the Senate overwhelmingly passed a bill to create a Consumer Protection Agency (CPA), what Nader called his highest legislative goal. But, just days after praising the bill, Nader turned against it, saying that "intolerable erosions" had rendered the bill "unacceptable." As Martin writes, "Without Nader's backing, the bill lost momentum" and died in committee. The pattern repeated itself, as the CPA passed either the House or the Senate five more times over the next six years, but Nader rejected every bill as too compromised. "Ralph could have had a consumer agency bill in any of three Congresses," liberal consumer activist and former Nader associate Mike Pertschuk told Martin. "But he held out for the perfect bill."
The final defeat came in 1978. Again, Nader's strategy was to impugn every Democrat who harbored any reservations at all about the bill. He maligned Washington Representative Tom Foley as "a broker for agribusiness"--despite the fact that Foley had bucked agribusiness to pass a bill regulating meatpackers. He attacked Colorado liberal Pat Schroeder, who had supported earlier versions of the CPA but had minor reservations this time, as a "mushy liberal" selling her vote to corporate contributors. He so alienated Democrats that, as the measure went down to defeat, one reportedly said as he voted no, "This one's for you, Ralph." House Speaker Tip O'Neill told The Washington Post, "I know of about eight guys who would have voted for us if it were not for Nader."
For Nader, it was almost axiomatic that anybody who disagreed with him was a corporate lackey. "Nader sees critics as enemies," wrote Sanford, a former ally. "Those who do not serve him serve the evil elements of corporations." This Manichaean worldview came through in everything Nader did. In the 1970s, he worked to establish automatic funding for Public Interest Research Groups (pirg) on campus--proto-Naderite outfits to train the next generation of like-minded activists. Nader's preferred funding mechanism was for every student to automatically contribute $1; those who objected could go to the college administration for a refund. But the administration at Penn State University in 1975 opted instead for a positive checkoff, whereby each student would check a box if he wanted to pitch in $2 for the pirg. Nader attacked Penn State as "a citadel of fascism" and threatened one Penn State board member: "I would advise Mister Baker to study very carefully the meaning of conflict of interest if he wants to understand the kind of disclosures that will be forthcoming in the coming year."
The Jimmy Carter presidency only saw a heightening of Nader's schismatic tendencies. "I want access. I want to be able to see [Carter] and talk to him. I expected to be consulted," he told The New York Times. That Carter filled his administration with former Naderites didn't help. Less than a year after Carter put former Nader deputy Joan Claybrook in charge of the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, Nader denounced her, demanding she resign for implementing an air-bag regulation with "an unheard of lead time provision." In 1980, Nader told Rolling Stone, "In the last year we've seen the 'corporatization' of Jimmy Carter. Whereas he was impotent and kind of pathetic the first year and a half, he's now surrendered. ... The two-party system, by all criteria, is bankrupt--they have nothing of any significance to offer the voters, so a lot of voters say why should they go and vote for Tweedledum and Tweedledee." (Liberals today who anguish over Nader's insistence that no important differences exist between the two parties should note that this belief dates back more than two decades.) In the summer of 1980, Jonathan Alter (now a Newsweek columnist) worked on Nader's voting guide for the presidential election. Alter came away amazed by Nader's fury at Carter. "He didn't seem overly distressed at the idea of Ronald Reagan becoming president," Alter later told Martin. As Nader addressed a gathering of supporters in 1981, according to The Washington Post, "Reagan is going to breed the biggest resurgence in nonpartisan citizen activism in history."
Of course, that did not happen. But twelve years of Republican rule failed to dim Nader's conviction that little difference existed between the two parties. Even Nader's critics seem to forget that he began running against Democrats in 1992, when he urged New Hampshire primary voters to write in "None of the above." "None of the above" meant Nader himself, as he would tell audiences: "Hello, I'm 'None of the above,' and I'm not running for president." Nader demanded that the major candidates address what he deemed the important issues of the day. In his 2002 memoir, Crashing the Party, Nader alleges that Bill Clinton leaked the Gennifer Flowers adultery revelations himself to avoid having to address Nader's agenda. "I'm almost certain that [Clinton] and his supporters knew [the Flowers scandal] was coming," he posits. "Clinton knew how to stay on message, and nothing was going to get him to take a stand on President Bush's nafta proposal before Congress, or on nuclear power, or on the failing banks in New Hampshire." This assertion neatly encapsulates Nader's style of thinking--the fevered conspiracy-mongering, the moral righteousness, and the laughably outsized role he assigns himself in world events.
s Nader embarks upon his fourth protest run against the Democrats in as many elections, there is something slightly ridiculous about the shock of his liberal critics. They still don't know who they're dealing with. Nader is not a heroic figure tragically overcome by his own flaws; he is a selfish, destructive maniac who, for a brief historical period, happened upon a useful role.
In the waning days of the 2000 election, some of Nader's campaign advisers urged him to concentrate on uncontested states, like New York and California, where he could attract local media without competition from the major-party candidates and win liberal voters who needn't fear tipping the race to George W. Bush. Instead, he chose a whirlwind tour of battleground states, campaigning in Pennsylvania and Florida, where votes would be harder to come by but more consequential to the outcome of the race. Liberals assume Nader tried to maximize his vote total without regard to how it affected Bush and Gore. The truth is that he actively sought to help Bush, even at the expense of his own vote total.
It's therefore both comic and sad when liberals take Nader at his word that he does not believe he affected the outcome of the 2000 race. The website RalphDontRun.net patiently explains how, if Al Gore had netted even 1 percent of Nader's 97,000 Florida votes, he would have overcome Bush's 537-vote margin. Like other liberals, the people behind the website seem to think, if they could only persuade Nader that his candidacy might help reelect Bush, it would dissuade him from running. More likely, it would have the opposite effect. The real mystery is not why Nader would do something so destructive to liberalism. It's why anybody ever thought he wouldn't.
Tuesday, March 09, 2004
HILLARY YOU PUTZ
Hillary moves to the right.
In today's news: "But while the Republican mayor of America's largest city says he supports same-sex marriage, both of New York's Democratic senators have come out against it. Spokespeople for U.S. senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Rodham Clinton told the New York Post they would not support marriage rights for gays and lesbians."
Oh Hillary, what the hell are you thinking? A Republican taking a more liberal and compassionate stance than you?
Add this to your wimpy record and almost inaudible voice against the Bush cabal, and I am ready to abandon you to the clutches of the DLC and the road to political impotence. Did you leave your brain and courage behind you when the press belittled you during the Affair of the Blue Dress? Are your ambitions such that you won't make waves at a time when a sunami is what's needed to dislodge the usurpers? Are you still listening to hubby, who also still thinks the party's success lies in staying in the capitulating and pandering center, rather than proudly building on its liberal past?
Shame on you, Hillary. This is a betrayal of your own political history and all who supported you then and now. You are on the verge of marginalizing yourself, and if that happens, you have only yourself to blame. For example, I'm writing you off, unless or until you show the spunk and fortitude we expected from you.
Sincerely,
Renfrew Zetz
Thursday, March 04, 2004
I GOT A LETTER FROM BUSH
March 4, 2004
Mr. Arthur Cohen
xxx xxxxxxxxx Street
xxxxxxxxx, Massachusetts 02466-2105
Dear Mr. Cohen:
On behalf of President Bush, thank you for your e-mail. The President appreciates learning your views and welcomes your suggestions.
President Bush is dedicated to pursuing policies and programs that make America safer and more prosperous for all citizens.
Thank you for writing. Best wishes.
Sincerely,
Desiree Thompson
Special Assistant to the President
and Director of Presidential Correspondence
This needs no comment.
Monday, February 23, 2004
RALPH YOU FRICKIN' EGOMANIAC Part 2
WHO'S MORE WILLFULLY IGNORANT--BUSH OR NADER?
A friend from California reports that a commentator named Travis T. Hipp on KPIG radio was speaking about Ralph and said that he could be applauded for his work 30 years ago regarding car safety and the Chevrolet Corvair.
He went on to say that Nader's run for President in 2000 was responsible for getting George Bush elected and asked if Ralph thus realized that he (Ralph) was responsible for killing more people than the Corvair did.
ENVIRONMENTAL DISASTER WORSE SECURITY THREAT THAN TERRORISM
EAT YOUR SUV, ENEMY OF THE STATE
The article is at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5732.htm.
I was going to just summarize it and provide the link, but it's so illustrative of the incredible hypocrisy and corruption of this administration that I decided to print the whole thing.
Now the Pentagon tells Bush: climate change will destroy us
· Secret report warns of rioting and nuclear war
· Britain will be 'Siberian' in less than 20 years
· Threat to the world is greater than terrorism
Mark Townsend and Paul Harris in New York
Sunday February 22, 2004: (The Observer) Climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters..
A secret report, suppressed by US defence chiefs and obtained by The Observer, warns that major European cities will be sunk beneath rising seas as Britain is plunged into a 'Siberian' climate by 2020. Nuclear conflict, mega-droughts, famine and widespread rioting will erupt across the world.
The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the planet to the edge of anarchy as countries develop a nuclear threat to defend and secure dwindling food, water and energy supplies. The threat to global stability vastly eclipses that of terrorism, say the few experts privy to its contents.
'Disruption and conflict will be endemic features of life,' concludes the Pentagon analysis. 'Once again, warfare would define human life.'
The findings will prove humiliating to the Bush administration, which has repeatedly denied that climate change even exists. Experts said that they will also make unsettling reading for a President who has insisted national defence is a priority.
The report was commissioned by influential Pentagon defence adviser Andrew Marshall, who has held considerable sway on US military thinking over the past three decades. He was the man behind a sweeping recent review aimed at transforming the American military under Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Climate change 'should be elevated beyond a scientific debate to a US national security concern', say the authors, Peter Schwartz, CIA consultant and former head of planning at Royal Dutch/Shell Group, and Doug Randall of the California-based Global Business Network.
An imminent scenario of catastrophic climate change is 'plausible and would challenge United States national security in ways that should be considered immediately', they conclude. As early as next year widespread flooding by a rise in sea levels will create major upheaval for millions.
Last week the Bush administration came under heavy fire from a large body of respected scientists who claimed that it cherry-picked science to suit its policy agenda and suppressed studies that it did not like. Jeremy Symons, a former whistleblower at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), said that suppression of the report for four months was a further example of the White House trying to bury the threat of climate change.
Senior climatologists, however, believe that their verdicts could prove the catalyst in forcing Bush to accept climate change as a real and happening phenomenon. They also hope it will convince the United States to sign up to global treaties to reduce the rate of climatic change.
A group of eminent UK scientists recently visited the White House to voice their fears over global warming, part of an intensifying drive to get the US to treat the issue seriously. Sources have told The Observer that American officials appeared extremely sensitive about the issue when faced with complaints that America's public stance appeared increasingly out of touch.
One even alleged that the White House had written to complain about some of the comments attributed to Professor Sir David King, Tony Blair's chief scientific adviser, after he branded the President's position on the issue as indefensible.
Among those scientists present at the White House talks were Professor John Schellnhuber, former chief environmental adviser to the German government and head of the UK's leading group of climate scientists at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. He said that the Pentagon's internal fears should prove the 'tipping point' in persuading Bush to accept climatic change.
Sir John Houghton, former chief executive of the Meteorological Office - and the first senior figure to liken the threat of climate change to that of terrorism - said: 'If the Pentagon is sending out that sort of message, then this is an important document indeed.'
Bob Watson, chief scientist for the World Bank and former chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, added that the Pentagon's dire warnings could no longer be ignored.
'Can Bush ignore the Pentagon? It's going be hard to blow off this sort of document. Its hugely embarrassing. After all, Bush's single highest priority is national defence. The Pentagon is no wacko, liberal group, generally speaking it is conservative. If climate change is a threat to national security and the economy, then he has to act. There are two groups the Bush Administration tend to listen to, the oil lobby and the Pentagon,' added Watson.
'You've got a President who says global warming is a hoax, and across the Potomac river you've got a Pentagon preparing for climate wars. It's pretty scary when Bush starts to ignore his own government on this issue,' said Rob Gueterbock of Greenpeace.
Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.
Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'
Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.
'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'
So dramatic are the report's scenarios, Watson said, that they may prove vital in the US elections. Democratic frontrunner John Kerry is known to accept climate change as a real problem. Scientists disillusioned with Bush's stance are threatening to make sure Kerry uses the Pentagon report in his campaign.
The fact that Marshall is behind its scathing findings will aid Kerry's cause. Marshall, 82, is a Pentagon legend who heads a secretive think-tank dedicated to weighing risks to national security called the Office of Net Assessment. Dubbed 'Yoda' by Pentagon insiders who respect his vast experience, he is credited with being behind the Department of Defence's push on ballistic-missile defence.
Symons, who left the EPA in protest at political interference, said that the suppression of the report was a further instance of the White House trying to bury evidence of climate change. 'It is yet another example of why this government should stop burying its head in the sand on this issue.'
Symons said the Bush administration's close links to high-powered energy and oil companies was vital in understanding why climate change was received sceptically in the Oval Office. 'This administration is ignoring the evidence in order to placate a handful of large energy and oil companies,' he added.
© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2004
Sunday, February 22, 2004
LIBERALS AND CONSERVATIVES
I know I've mentioned this before, but it's worth repeating, and it's one of my favorite quotes. I clipped it from a letter-to-the-editor in the Boston Globe about 10 years ago, before an off-year election when local progressive Mark Roosevelt was running for governor and Kennedy for Senate re-election. I have no idea now who the writer was.
The writer asks, "Why am I going to voter for Kennedy and Roosevelt? It has to with something my pappy used to say."
"He said, 'Son, outside of Mother Theresa, there are basically two kinds of people: those that live their lives in an essentially selfish manner and feel guilty about it. They're called liberals. And those who live their lives in an essentially selfish manner and are proud of it. They're called conservatives. The first may be capable, on occasion,of responding to an ideal higher than their own self-interest; the second don't even know that such things exist."
The writer asks, "Why am I going to voter for Kennedy and Roosevelt? It has to with something my pappy used to say."
"He said, 'Son, outside of Mother Theresa, there are basically two kinds of people: those that live their lives in an essentially selfish manner and feel guilty about it. They're called liberals. And those who live their lives in an essentially selfish manner and are proud of it. They're called conservatives. The first may be capable, on occasion,of responding to an ideal higher than their own self-interest; the second don't even know that such things exist."
SAME-SEX MARRIAGE
I'm still waiting, America.
Waiting for anyone to demonstrate how same-sex marriage will harm existing heterosexual marriages or the institution of marriage.
Or that the children of same-sex couples are any more troubled or socially maladapted than any other kid. Iin fact the data that does exist by the APA unambiguously concludes that if there is any difference, it is that these kids are better adjusted than those from opposite sex couples.
Or that same-sex marriage is a slippery slope that will lead to societal approval or legalization of polygamy or bestiality.
We're all waiting for your proof, America.
So either put up, or have a nice cup of shut-the-fuck-up.
Waiting for anyone to demonstrate how same-sex marriage will harm existing heterosexual marriages or the institution of marriage.
Or that the children of same-sex couples are any more troubled or socially maladapted than any other kid. Iin fact the data that does exist by the APA unambiguously concludes that if there is any difference, it is that these kids are better adjusted than those from opposite sex couples.
Or that same-sex marriage is a slippery slope that will lead to societal approval or legalization of polygamy or bestiality.
We're all waiting for your proof, America.
So either put up, or have a nice cup of shut-the-fuck-up.
SAMUEL JACKSON OFFERS ADVICE TO HIS DAUGHTER'S DATES
It was reported in FHM magazine that Jackson never speaks to his daughter's dates. He doesn't want them to think it's OK to be there at all.
But one date couldn't keep quiet.
"He had come in and insisted on having a conversation with me, and I ws trying to watch a game, and he was like, 'How are you doing?' I looked at him. He was like 'I just want you to know it's really good to meet you, and we're going to the movies.' And I said, 'Don't (expletive) her!' My daughter walked in just as I said that. She said, 'Dad!' Then she grabbed him and left. That's pretty much all the conversation I had with that kid. He kind of blanched."
I would guess blanching was as close as the kid would get to any heat that night.
But one date couldn't keep quiet.
"He had come in and insisted on having a conversation with me, and I ws trying to watch a game, and he was like, 'How are you doing?' I looked at him. He was like 'I just want you to know it's really good to meet you, and we're going to the movies.' And I said, 'Don't (expletive) her!' My daughter walked in just as I said that. She said, 'Dad!' Then she grabbed him and left. That's pretty much all the conversation I had with that kid. He kind of blanched."
I would guess blanching was as close as the kid would get to any heat that night.
MEL YOU FRICKIN' SELF-DELUDED ANTI-SEMITIC EGOMANIAC
Well, sure, I've got a lot of passion over this movie. I've seen clips and read reams about it. It depicts Jews clamoring for Christ's crucifixion. Some who've seen the whole movie say it distinguishes between the Jewish priests and the Jewish people at large. That difference will be lost on those who seek affirmation for their overt or latent anti-Semitism.
That Gibson also portrays the historically brutal and ruthless tyrant Pontius Pilate as a man caught up in events he didn't support but had to implement is equally egregious. Pilate was not a nice guy, whereas in the movie he comes off almost sympathetic--in a scene from the Gospel of Matthew, after his final attempt to save Jesus fails, Pilate washes his hands and says to the Jewish crowd, "It is you who want to crucify him, not I. ... I am innocent of this man's blood."
Caiaphas and most Jewish authorities are clearly among the bad guys. They arrest Jesus by stealth, spit on him and have him scourged and find him guilty of blasphemy in a mock trial. In an extrabiblical cinematic touch, Jewish soldiers knock Jesus off of a wall, and it is only the chains around his body that stop his fall just before he hits the ground.
He is so badly wounded by the time he gets to Pilate that the Roman ruler says, "Do you always punish your prisoners before they're judged?" It is the Jewish leaders who incite the crowd to yell, "Crucify him, crucify him" in the face of Pilate's repeated attempts to release Jesus. The leadership at times even seems to take pleasure in the torture Jesus is forced to endure.
Gibson did cut a controversial scene that drew objections from Christian and Jewish leaders alike -- the so-called "blood curse" from the Gospel of Matthew that has been abused for centuries to hold all Jews accountable for the death of Jesus.
But he filmed it, and only cut it under pressure. And he added a few scenes that
show Jesus commanding his followers to love all people and declaring he faced death "of my own accord."
Oh, that's better.
But forget the movie for a minute. Let's look at Mad Max himself
Gibson's dad is overtly anti-Semitic, and is a Holocaust denier. The filmmaker gets prickly when asked about his father, and closes off discussion about him in interviews. Nor does he distance himself from his Dad's positions.
In an interview with Peggy Noonan, forthcoming in the March issue of Reader's Digest, he says, "My dad taught me my faith, and I believe what he taught me. The man never lied to me in his life."
Oh so? The Holocaust never happened?
Noonan offered him a chance to end any speculation about his views on the Holocaust: "You're going to have to go on record. The Holocaust happened, right?"
Gibson's reply: "I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in France. Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century, 20 million people died in the Soviet Union."
Well Well Well. War is horrible. "Some of them were Jews in concentration camps." Nothing special, just part of the mix among tens of millions.
George Mason University law professor David Bernstein points out that Holocaust "revisionists" typically do not deny that Jews were killed; they simply minimize the killing, portraying it as another part of the overall death toll of World War II rather than the systematic extermination campaign that it was. In Bernstein's opinion, "Gibson is skirting pretty close" to this kind of minimization.
And Cathy Young in Reason says, "Given an opportunity to state clearly that the Holocaust happened and that it was a horrific crime, Gibson, instead, chose to hedge--to give a "yes, but" answer, to gloss over the Nazi extermination of the Jews and quickly move on to other victims of other regimes. This may not signify anti-Semitism, but it certainly signifies a frightening moral obtuseness."
Mel, you can act hurt or offended all you want when accused of anti-Semitism, but with friends like you, the Jews don't need enemies. Polls done before the release of this movie report that while six in 10 Americans believe Bible stories are literally true*, only 8% believe Jews are responsible for Jesus' death. 80% say Jews are not responsible. I'd like to see results of those polls if retaken after this movie has its run.
In some mid-eastern or Arabic countries, it's not hard to imagine that those percents would be reversed, if they even cared who killed Jesus--which fortunately they do not. But anyone want to bet that this movie won't get used by the Palestinians and Islamic extremists to support their own home-grown anti-Semitism; or that the Christian rightwing Jew-haters all over Europe won't do the same?
So, Mr. Gibson, while you fire up the passions of those who want me at best marginalized and at worst dead, here's my passion: you are persona non grata in this house and the house of the Jews. You can't escape the ignominy of your actions with a turn of phrase. I'll never be able to see you in a film--new or old--without thinking of your "moral obtuseness." Never again. So I won't see you.
*Six in 10 believe Bible stories are literally true? Jesus H. Christ!
That Gibson also portrays the historically brutal and ruthless tyrant Pontius Pilate as a man caught up in events he didn't support but had to implement is equally egregious. Pilate was not a nice guy, whereas in the movie he comes off almost sympathetic--in a scene from the Gospel of Matthew, after his final attempt to save Jesus fails, Pilate washes his hands and says to the Jewish crowd, "It is you who want to crucify him, not I. ... I am innocent of this man's blood."
Caiaphas and most Jewish authorities are clearly among the bad guys. They arrest Jesus by stealth, spit on him and have him scourged and find him guilty of blasphemy in a mock trial. In an extrabiblical cinematic touch, Jewish soldiers knock Jesus off of a wall, and it is only the chains around his body that stop his fall just before he hits the ground.
He is so badly wounded by the time he gets to Pilate that the Roman ruler says, "Do you always punish your prisoners before they're judged?" It is the Jewish leaders who incite the crowd to yell, "Crucify him, crucify him" in the face of Pilate's repeated attempts to release Jesus. The leadership at times even seems to take pleasure in the torture Jesus is forced to endure.
Gibson did cut a controversial scene that drew objections from Christian and Jewish leaders alike -- the so-called "blood curse" from the Gospel of Matthew that has been abused for centuries to hold all Jews accountable for the death of Jesus.
But he filmed it, and only cut it under pressure. And he added a few scenes that
show Jesus commanding his followers to love all people and declaring he faced death "of my own accord."
Oh, that's better.
But forget the movie for a minute. Let's look at Mad Max himself
Gibson's dad is overtly anti-Semitic, and is a Holocaust denier. The filmmaker gets prickly when asked about his father, and closes off discussion about him in interviews. Nor does he distance himself from his Dad's positions.
In an interview with Peggy Noonan, forthcoming in the March issue of Reader's Digest, he says, "My dad taught me my faith, and I believe what he taught me. The man never lied to me in his life."
Oh so? The Holocaust never happened?
Noonan offered him a chance to end any speculation about his views on the Holocaust: "You're going to have to go on record. The Holocaust happened, right?"
Gibson's reply: "I have friends and parents of friends who have numbers on their arms. The guy who taught me Spanish was a Holocaust survivor. He worked in a concentration camp in France. Yes, of course. Atrocities happened. War is horrible. The Second World War killed tens of millions of people. Some of them were Jews in concentration camps. Many people lost their lives. In the Ukraine, several million starved to death between 1932 and 1933. During the last century, 20 million people died in the Soviet Union."
Well Well Well. War is horrible. "Some of them were Jews in concentration camps." Nothing special, just part of the mix among tens of millions.
George Mason University law professor David Bernstein points out that Holocaust "revisionists" typically do not deny that Jews were killed; they simply minimize the killing, portraying it as another part of the overall death toll of World War II rather than the systematic extermination campaign that it was. In Bernstein's opinion, "Gibson is skirting pretty close" to this kind of minimization.
And Cathy Young in Reason says, "Given an opportunity to state clearly that the Holocaust happened and that it was a horrific crime, Gibson, instead, chose to hedge--to give a "yes, but" answer, to gloss over the Nazi extermination of the Jews and quickly move on to other victims of other regimes. This may not signify anti-Semitism, but it certainly signifies a frightening moral obtuseness."
Mel, you can act hurt or offended all you want when accused of anti-Semitism, but with friends like you, the Jews don't need enemies. Polls done before the release of this movie report that while six in 10 Americans believe Bible stories are literally true*, only 8% believe Jews are responsible for Jesus' death. 80% say Jews are not responsible. I'd like to see results of those polls if retaken after this movie has its run.
In some mid-eastern or Arabic countries, it's not hard to imagine that those percents would be reversed, if they even cared who killed Jesus--which fortunately they do not. But anyone want to bet that this movie won't get used by the Palestinians and Islamic extremists to support their own home-grown anti-Semitism; or that the Christian rightwing Jew-haters all over Europe won't do the same?
So, Mr. Gibson, while you fire up the passions of those who want me at best marginalized and at worst dead, here's my passion: you are persona non grata in this house and the house of the Jews. You can't escape the ignominy of your actions with a turn of phrase. I'll never be able to see you in a film--new or old--without thinking of your "moral obtuseness." Never again. So I won't see you.
*Six in 10 believe Bible stories are literally true? Jesus H. Christ!
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