Independent-Musings

Moved to New Blog Address

2005-04-12T12:14:00.000-07:00

I've moved to a new blog: http://independent.myblogsite.com

Iraqi Media: American Style

2005-04-04T11:37:00.000-07:00

A young Iraqi woman's blog--Riverbend Baghdad Burning has a new entry re: the American Media. Quote:

Sunday, April 03, 2005. Two years ago, the major part of the war in Iraq was all about bombarding us with smart bombs and high-tech missiles. Now there’s a different sort of war- or perhaps it’s just another phase of the same war. Now we’re being assailed with American media. It’s everywhere all at once...

The first time I saw 60 Minutes on MBC 4, it didn’t occur to me that something was wrong. I can’t remember what the discussion was, but I remember being vaguely interested and somewhat mystified at why we were getting 60 Minutes. I soon found out that it wasn’t just 60 Minutes at night: It was Good Morning, America in the morning, 20/20 in the evening, 60 Minutes, 48-Hours, Inside Edition, The Early Show… it was a constant barrage of American media. The chipper voice in Arabic tells us, "So you can watch what *they* watch!" *They* apparently being millions of Americans...

I’ve been enchanted with the shows these last few weeks. The thing that strikes me most is the fact that the news is so… clean. It’s like hospital food. It’s all organized and disinfected. Everything is partitioned and you can feel how it has been doled out carefully with extreme attention to the portions- 2 minutes on women’s rights in Afghanistan, 1 minute on training troops in Iraq and 20 minutes on Terri Schiavo! All the reportages are upbeat and somewhat cheerful, and the anchor person manages to look properly concerned and completely uncaring all at once...

Ordinary Iraqis are struggling daily to simply survive and we're forcing them to watch Terri Schiavo coverage? Haven't we tortured these people enough without additionally subjecting them to our mindless ‘corporate propaganda’ mass media drivel?

Commenting further on American’s fascination with reality shows, Riverbend opined, Quote:

I have a suggestion of my own for a reality show. Take 15 Bush supporters and throw them in a house in the suburbs of, say, Falloojeh for at least 14 days. We could watch them cope with the water problems, the lack of electricity, the check points, the raids, the Iraqi National Guard, the bombings, and- oh yeah- the ‘insurgents’. We could watch their house bombed to the ground and their few belongings crushed under the weight of cement and brick or simply burned or riddled with bullets. We could see them try to rebuild their life with their bare hands (and the equivalent of $150)...

I’d not only watch *that* reality show, I’d tape every episode.

I would suggest that rather than simply sending 'Bush supporters' for such a reality TV show, we should send Bush&Co, Tom Delay, Bill Frist and other Terry Schiavo ‘culture of life’ vultures to experience 'freedom' in Iraq. Think of the ratings such a show would draw!!!

If only those who chose to hold vigils in front of Terri Schiavo’s hospice, had bothered to put their energy toward protesting the start of the ‘Iraqi conflict’. As Jeffery Feldman from Frameshop puts it, Quote:

"Imagine people camping out for weeks on front of the White House, screaming at the top of their lungs, pulling their hair out with anxiety, sending their children into police lines--all in the name of stopping more American soldiers and more Iraqis from dying for a war based on a series of lies".

Imagine there's no countries

It isn't hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for

And no religion too

Imagine all the people

Living life in peace...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will be as one

Imagine no possessions

I wonder if you can

No need for greed or hunger

A brotherhood of man

Imagine all the people

Sharing all the world...

You may say I'm a dreamer

But I'm not the only one

I hope someday you'll join us

And the world will live as one

John Lennon – ‘Imagine’ lyrics

Imagine if those Terry Schiavo protestors took John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’ lyrics to heart, joined other voices demanding peaceful resolutions and tried to realize a world where 'all the people…will live as one'. Perhaps then, such Graphic Photos would never have been taken.

More on Iraqi TV: Trial by television.In Iraq, captured rebels are shown confessing live on air, Quote:

Al-Iraqiya was once widely scorned as a dull Iraqi government mouthpiece; all that changed in January when Mosul started feeding the confessions to the main studio in Baghdad, giving the network a national primetime hit. Iraqis switch on their televisions at midday and 9pm to catch the latest confessions, which are then debated in homes, offices, taxis and cafes. Akin to Jerry Springer-meets-Newsnight, it is the government's most effective propaganda against a rebellion still raging two years after a US-led invasion toppled Saddam Hussein...

Human rights activists worry that the programme marks a return to Saddam-style public humiliations and coerced confessions, which undermine subsequent trials. Others complain that a complex insurgency which includes Islamic radicals, former regime loyalists and Arab Sunni nationalists is being depicted as nothing more than a coalition of thieving scumbags, a caricature which could deepen religious tensions...

It is no secret that the television station relies on Washington largesse. Built in 1969 to broadcast light entertainment and Ba'athist regime propaganda, the Mosul network was bombed by coalition planes in the Gulf war and again in 1999. In the chaos of the March 2003 invasion it was looted but re-opened months later as part of the Iraqi Media Network, which is funded by the US and operates from the heavily fortified Green Zone in Baghdad...

Khalid Jarrar, a viewer from Iraq comments on the show:

Saturday, March 12, 2005
Good morning, afternoon and evening, wherever you are...

On an Iraqi government TV channel, a daily show started recently, where police, interrogates real criminals who were arrested in Iraq, in front of the camera; we don't get to see the police faces, we only hear their voices. The camera is focused on the criminals' faces and they are the ones that are doing -supposedly- the beheading and the killing of the national-guard and police operations, and also the kidnapping and stealing, rape and thefts, and every other thing that you might think of.

The police ask them: "Why do you do that?"
"For money, sir!"

"How much are you getting paid?"
"$100 for an operation, sir!"

"And what do you do with that money?"
"We buy alcohol and drugs, sir!"

"What is your advice for all the terrorists that are still fighting?"
"I advice them to surrender, sir, and to cooperate with the authorities, sir!"

This is exactly what each and every one of them said and then you learn details: they confess that they kidnapped girls and raped them, then slaughtered them. A captive confessed that his mother is a pimp, and that his friends used to come to his house to "have fun" with his sisters; another claimed that he is gay and was caught having sex with another man inside the mosque.

And when these "confessions" are almost over, this question would always come:

"Where does that money come from?"
"From the Syrian intelligence, sir!"

The police voice would then preach how low they are and how they stained the word "jihad". The police would also say: if you were real mojahideen we -police- would have been the first to follow you, but you are simply thieves, rapists and thugs. Can you see dear audience? Those are the mojahideen that you hear about in your country, those are the so-called resistance, low worthless scum, real Iraqis should help capture; however, if they attack only Americans, the police would have been the first to follow them!

People in the street talk about this show, and they have different opinions, a lot say that its all a theatre just to discredit resistance and to blame Syria, the Iraqi so called government is waging its tail to the Americans and trying to find more things against Syria to support the issue of their masters, other think that those people are real people and that all what is said is true.

I believe that it might be true, and it might be a theatre, but it's obviously a "designed" show for a particular purpose, to discredit resistance and attack Syria... but: What about the rest of the resistance, who aren't put on TV? The ones that are dedicating their lives to fight the occupation? The ones that volunteer all their money and time, and risk their lives without getting paid? Does that mean that, if someone, were fighting the Americans, who wasn't gay or a rapist or paid by the Syrians, but simply fights the Americans because he has faith in his cause and kills so many American soldiers every day, would he then get the full support of the Iraqi government?

Such a naive propaganda, with bad broadcasting quality and horrible shooting too, I could have done much better work myself, with the small experience I have in the film making world! Man they can't do anything right even the propaganda!

The irony is the position that the Iraqi "government" finds itself in: they want to make a show that affects ordinary Iraqis in the street, so they can’t just say the crap that they always say in the media cause they know that nobody would listen and nobody would watch; so they forget that Americans are our ‘liberators’ and modified their attitude to be acceptable in the street by adopting a totally anti-American / anti-occupation attitude, supporting the attack on Americans, and insisting that those who attack the national guard are fighting the wrong enemy, since both the national guard and police are Iraqis! At the same time, the show is honoring mojahideen by saying that jihad is a very honorable value and that those criminals couldn’t be mojahideen (which I agree with), which means that they support the others that they don’t show on TV, who are the real mojahideen!

The Iraqi government, through this show unknowingly confessed that regular Iraqi are anti American and anti occupation, so they tried to look anti American to attract viewers. And at the same time the government confessed that jihad is a very legitimate and honorable thing, as long as it's done right: by attacking the American soldiers only. Thank you very much propaganda makers!...Have a good day all of you :)

In effect, American tax dollars are paying for propaganda, which advocates the legitimacy of killing American soldiers.

All we are saying is give peace a chance
All we are saying is give peace a chance

John Lennon – ‘Give Peace A Chance’

Media Lap Dogs

2005-03-30T12:41:00.000-08:00

Bonnie M. Anderson won 7 Emmy Awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize during her 27 year career as a print and broadcast journalist. Now, as author of News Flash: Journalism, Infotainment, and the Bottom-Line Business of Broadcast News, she turns a critical eye on what passes today as America's free press. BuzzFlash Interview: Part 1 and Part 2, Quote:

BuzzFlash: The White House has been outed for using, on at least two occasions, if not more, promotional video releases presented as news. These pre-packaged videos imply that a journalist is covering the story, when it’s really an actor.

Bonnie M. Anderson: To me, this was a huge development and it’s what's wrong with journalism in this country. You have an Administration lying to the public to advance their own agenda. Call me old fashioned, but I think government should be about protecting the Bill of Rights. Government should be truthful to the American public and not try to manipulate the public as well as the media. We also had commentators who were pretending to give their honest opinion on issues, when they were being paid by the Administration to promote an agenda. This, to me, is very, very frightening. Red flags should be going up all over this country...

BuzzFlash: You mentioned "product." We saw in the beginning of the Iraq war a lot of government preparation of the media. And the night of the attack on Baghdad, the news coverage we saw on CNN and other stations really treated this, as though it were almost a fireworks show.

Bonnie M. Anderson: Yes, "shock and awe." This is propaganda. And news networks fell for it hook, line and sinker. They did not want to be seen as anti-patriotic, they wanted to be seen as supporting the troops, which means supporting the Administration. If you remember, the President had said you’re either with us or against us. And that was taken literally by the network honchos and the corporations that own the networks...
I would maintain that we’re drowning in garbage, not in news. We may have far more news outlets, but there’s far less news being given to the public. There’s far more entertainment. Producers will spend a minute and a half on the story of the dog that jumped out of a car and traveled 500 miles to get home across country, instead of on what is happening on the West Bank, or in Somalia or in Lebanon.

BuzzFlash: Let me ask about soldiers dying in Iraq. We’re all aware that the Bush Administration won’t allow photographs of soldiers returning in caskets to the United States. What is the justification for that with the media? With the Vietnam War, we felt we were there when we watched the news. We saw soldiers dying, we saw the blood and guts. Today the media completely comply with the Bush Administration request not to show injuries or deaths of soldiers. It's almost a war that doesn’t exist, except in sound bites and accounts in the newspaper.

Bonnie M. Anderson: It exists only within the framework in which this Administration wishes to show the war. It’s an outrage that networks are going along with this. The American people need to know the cost of war, and the cost of war is body bags coming home. The cost of war is the injured coming back. This is what the public needs to know. It's a perfect example of the lack of integrity or ethics in the news organizations that are going along with another propaganda move by an administration.

I want to say very clearly, I would say the same thing if it were a Democratic administration. My issues are not left or right. My issues are journalistic principles and ethics. We’re not informing the American public, we don’t want them to see these things. But we will, of course, allow them to spend hours watching the statue of Saddam Hussein come tumbling down, because that glorifies and justifies the invasion of Iraq.

Journalists need to remember that we’re watchdogs / attack dogs and not lap dogs, and it is our responsibility, whether it’s popular or not, to tell the truth.

When I was five years old, my Dad was tortured--had the blood removed from his body prior to being put up against a wall... As I grew up, I realized that, had there been a free press in Cuba at the time, there’s no way Fidel Castro and his regime could have gotten away with murdering, not just my Dad, but 20,000 others, and imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people because of their belief in democracy. I realized the importance of a responsible free press.

With my book, I’m trying to remind people in this country that it can happen anywhere. We should value a free press. Support the media. Support investigations, whether they are uncovering something that is for or against the government you may like. We need to nourish exchange of information and support the people who are doing it. We need to demand higher standards. We need to remember that news is not just a business. I’m not saying you can’t make money from it, but there is a higher calling here.

No other business has protection from the Bill of Rights--no other business. The media does. But along with those special protections comes a responsibility. The responsibility is to inform the public as best we can. And as U.S. citizens, it’s our responsibility to protect our First Amendment, and protect the rights we have, and not give them up because there is the threat of terrorism. Don’t give up your rights to privacy and your rights to a free press and your rights to speak freely. Unless you’ve lived someplace where you have lost all freedom of speech, where you have no ability to speak or publish freely, it’s hard to understand. I just don’t want people to learn the hard way, as I did...

News Alert re: Government Propaganda

Monday, March 14th, 2005 (Democracy Now) State Propaganda: 'How Government Agencies Produce Hundreds of Pre-Packaged TV Segments the Media Runs as News'

According to a major expose in The New York Times, at least 20 federal agencies under the Bush administration - from the State Department to Agriculture to the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) - have been producing hundreds of pre-packaged TV segments that were broadcast on local stations as real news. For the past four years, many ‘pre-packaged government news releases’ were presented on local TV stations without crediting the government as the source of the information. Viewer Beware is a timely warning to all of us, as we continue to endure the onslaught of ‘fake’ government propaganda news stories.

When I first saw the report on the news re: ‘Outstanding TSA Security Measures at Area Airports’, I thought: "How absurd, I know from personal experience that the ‘security hassles’ TSA puts one through doesn't increase travel safety; esp. since air cargo is not screened (by cargo I don't mean passenger bags, but rather US mail, packages, etc. that the airlines carry in their cargo hold)". More at: PBS: 'Safe cargo?' Additionally, according to recent reports,pilots had given airline security a failing grade. Nevertheless, the TSA video was professionally done and seemed to seamlessly fit into the overall news story, that I really didn't pay much attention to it. However, when I read that the whole video was a GOVERNMENT PROPAGANDA piece, I was OUTRAGED.

I know, I know you're saying to yourself, she's always OUTRAGED over something. But the sneaky way, they passed off that video as a "news" story, just made angry. As it is, I already don't trust this administration; incidents such as this simply reinforce my distrust. This is not what America, land of the free/just, stands for.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) warned that the videos violate laws that ban ‘covert propaganda’ and called such ‘pre-packaged news segments’ illegal propaganda. A defiant White House, intent on continuing to crank out "video news releases" that look like television news stories, has told department agency heads to disregard the GAO's directive. The Bush administration continues to shamelessly defend this reprehensible and illegal practice, by claiming that the videos are appropriate as long as they are a factual.

Below are two organization dedicated to ‘Stopping News Fraud’:

Freepress.Net
Stop Fake News.org

'Corporate Media' Bias

On the Randi Rhodes Message Board (RRMB), I started the thread: "F**k MSNBC, CNN, Fox,etc., The Fourth Estate is dead".

Once again we've been outmaneuvered by the "Corporate Media" and portrayed in a bad light. See: Daily Kos article F**k MSNBC Quote:

As if you needed any more evidence that the media has been hijacked by multi-national corporations acting in self-interest to the detriment of this country, this to me shows just how biased they have become.

Democrats test debt xenophobia as 2006 issue

The use of such a biased headline undercuts something which should be a real concern to patriotic Americans. If this is an "ownership society", who owns our country? Shouldn't we all be concerned about the debt holdings of Communist China, which seems to be leading to the appeasement of its authoritarian regime, including a growing unwillingness of our government to protect Taiwan?

Furthermore, the gist of the article is obvious. "There go those Democrats again, responding to polling." ...

No responsible citizen should rely on the corporate media without questioning their motives and thinking critically, which is exactly the purpose blogs serve. Fuck MSNBC, Fuck CNN, Fuck Fox!

Corporate Media framing is killing us!!! We need to fight back. There is a desperate need for more informed liberal bloggers!!! Use Frameshop as a tool and hit back hard.

Lauren, a liberal from Arizona, actually took the time to write Tom Curry, author of this piece of drivel, to complain about his bias reporting and lack of journalistic ethics. More of us should follow her example and protest whenever we notice reporters regurgitating Republican ‘talking points’/ acting as a megaphone for the Bush administration.

The National Press Club (NPC): lacking integrity / journalistic ethics.

From the Randi Rhodes Message Board (RRMB): a discussion on the merits of the National Press Club (NPC).

'The Mother Lode,' an article available from Information Clearing House (News You won't find on CNN), points our how: "Bush lied. He stole. He murdered. In broad daylight. And he got away with it. That's the story. But you'll never hear it at the Press Club". Quote:

February 11, 2005, "Moscow Times:" The hoary adage that "there are none so blind as those who will not see" should be carved in stone at the National Press Club in Washington. Surely there can be no better motto for the cozy clubhouse of America's media mavens, who seem preternaturally incapable of recognizing the truth -- even when it stands before them, monstrous and unavoidable, like a giant Cyclops smeared with blood.

For just as they botched the most important story of our time -- the Bush Administration's transparently deceptive campaign to launch a war of aggression against Iraq -- the clubby mavens are now missing the crowning achievement of this vast crime: the mother of all backroom deals, a cynical pact sealed by murder, unfolding before our eyes.

The objective was revealed -- yet again -- in a recent Washington appearance by Iraqi Finance Minister Adil Abdel-Mahdi. Standing alongside a top State Department official, Abdel-Mahdi announced that Iraq's government wants to open the nation's oil fields to foreign investment -- not only the pumped product flowing through the pipes, but the very oil in the ground, the common patrimony of the Iraqi people. The minister said plainly that this sweet deal -- placing the world's second-largest oil reserves in a few private hands -- would be "very promising to the American investors and to American enterprise, certainly to oil companies," InterPress reports. These are the spoils for which George W. Bush has killed more than 100,000 human beings.

The American media completely ignored Abdel-Mahdi's declaration, but this is not surprising. After all, it occurred in the most obscure venue imaginable: an appearance before oil barons and journalists at the, er, National Press Club. Where better to hide open confessions of war crimes than in the very midst of the Washington hack pack?"

It infuriates me that in order to read a story like this, I have to go to "Moscow Times". Our vaunted 'free press' is worthless!!!

Introducing Gannon/Guckert, a gay male prostitute working a second job as a ‘White House’ correspondent. Watch the Bill Maher video on Gannon/Guckert!!!

March 29, 2005, The National Press Club Welcomes ... Jeff Gannon? Quote:

Yes, the same day that the prestigious Washington, D.C., journalism organization plans to present a lunch talk by former Washington Post executive editor Ben Bradlee, it will also allow the former White House reporter/sex site operator to be on a panel discussing bloggers and online journalism. Still, Press Club leaders will include Gannon on the panel April 8 that includes Wonkette.com editor Ana Marie Cox, National Journal's John Stanton, and others.

Gannon told E&P today that he always considered himself a legitimate journalist, and "perhaps their invitation is recognition of that."

When asked if giving Gannon a spot on the panel wrongly legitimizes him as a journalist, Madden disagreed. "It depends on how you look at it," he said. "He is there because the panel is presumably going to talk mostly about his case. He was, in large part, the central figure in the case that got us interested in the topic."

The Press Club's Web site, however, does not tout the event as focusing on Gannon but rather the differences between "bloggers" and "journalists." John Aravosis at AMERICAblog, which first reported the Press Club event, wrote: "What is Gannon/Guckert doing there at all? Like he's an expert on the difference between blogging and journalism? How so? He thinks journalism means parroting press releases and transcripts. As for blogging, again, he started a so-called blog 3 weeks ago and now he's representative of all bloggers?"

Originally the NPC limited attendance on its Gannon/Guckert (GG) panel to: "press club members and credentialed journalists". The restriction would exclude from the audience almost everyone who brought the GG affair the attention that made it newsworthy in the eyes of the press club in the first place. Update: On April 1, 2005, the NPC re-invited bloggers to watch Gannon/Guckert panel; however, noted bloggers such as John Aravosis of AMERICAblog, say: "no, thanks".

I have no respect for the "Corporate Media" anymore. The hypocrisy, coward kowtowing and self-censorship is an indication that the Fourth Estate is dead. Articles like 'The Mother Lode,' and 'Press Club Welcomes Jeff Gannon' simply prove once again that they have no standards.

Letters of protest to the National Press Club

National Press Club (NPC) Online
Agonist.org: Open Letter to NPC
Agonist.org: National Press Club Correspondence

To summarize, the journalists' role in holding government accountable has been rendered moot—like castrated lap dogs, the press corps kowtows to the Bush administration for table scraps.

Additional Info:

Phil Donahue, one of the best-known talk show hosts in the history of television in the United States, thought he could present a forum where dissent—Anti War voices—could be heard. He was wrong. In 2003, MSNBC fired him for having the temerity to question the Bush administration’s pro war stance.

Journalism.org (Content analysis)

Journalism.org (State of the Media)

A Culture of Secrecy: 'What has happened to the principle that American democracy should be accessible and transparent?' By Charles Lewis
Due to a pervasive 'Culture of Lying' and 'Politics of Fear', there is a "regressive shift in public accountability".

The nonprofit Center for Media and Democracy works to strengthen democracy by promoting media that are "of, by and for the people." Projects include PR Watch, a quarterly investigative journal; several award-winning books by CMD staff; Spin of the Day, which offers daily reporting on spin and propaganda in the news; and SourceWatch, a wiki-based investigative journalism resource to which anyone can contribute.

Easter Sermons: The State of our Hearts

2005-03-28T04:49:00.000-08:00

The Easter Sermons below resonated within me, reminding me once again of Mahatma Gandhi’s clarion call that we must "be the change we want to see happen in the world."
Two Easter Sermons Reflecting on the State of our Hearts: From the Daily Kos, Quote:

"So, I have a few questions for those on the streets, in the media, and in the legislatures who have invested so much time, energy, and money into this personal family tragedy through appeals to a "culture of life." Is a culture of life encouraged when the poor continue to fall ill and die because of inadequate access to health care? Is a culture of life nurtured when governments and corporations facilitate the destruction of the ecological systems that make life itself possible? Is a culture of life celebrated when we are encouraged to value that which we can buy, rather than those whom we could love? Is a culture of life embraced when people die as a result of terrorism and war, crushing poverty, and preventable diseases? With all due respect, I think I would have to call that something else. A culture of death, perhaps? Focussing on individual life-and-death tragedies is a sideshow at best, a diversion from what I believe are true culture of life issues. Sadly, I don't expect to see the media or legislators rushing to deal with them.

How can we have the courage to say "yes" in a culture that glorifies death in its consumerism, its militarism, and its institutionalization of spirituality? We have to overcome fear, first of all by accepting the perfect love that casts out all fear. We make that love possible every day in the choice we make to follow the path of God, building a realm of justice, peace, and love in our families, our neighborhoods, our world".

From livejournal, Quote:

"This Maundy Thursday marked the 25th anniversary of the death of Archbishop Oscar Romero, a Catholic priest in El Salvador whose experiences with his peoples’ suffering transformed in three short years from a shy, anxiety-ridden, conservative defender of the status quo to a mighty voice for the poor and disadvantaged of his country. The death of a fellow priest and friend prompted him to action, to speak up on behalf of those living in poverty, and to keep speaking even as forces powerful as the Salvadorean government, the United States, and his own Catholic church sought to silence him.

Unsurprisingly, this work did not win him many friends. He received death threats both oblique and direct. Posters went up around the country: ‘Be a patriot - kill a priest.’ Death squads murdered his fellow priests and nuns. When he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979, he was also offered asylum outside his country, for everyone knew that if he were to return, he would be killed. And Oscar replied: ‘I do not believe in death without resurrection. If they kill me, I will be resurrected in the Salvadoran people.’ Months later, he was assassinated.

You don’t get back what you lose; you can’t recover what’s over. Oscar Romero was murdered, gunned down as he celebrated the eucharist. And, on that Good Friday in Jerusalem, Jesus of Nazareth was nailed to a cross and left there until he died. In both cases, their killers believed that their spirits were tied to their bodies, and that the death of the latter would extinguish the former. For both men, death was supposed to put a stop to the work they had been doing. Death was supposed to be the end.

And yet…

Romero’s death galvanized the poor and those who live in El Salvadore today say his presence continues to be felt among the people…

The real miracle of Easter is that – the vessel that was Jesus, the teacher, the man, broke wide, and his spirit spilled out onto the rest of us. Every one of us is capable of receiving and practicing the grace and mercy that Jesus embodied with his life".

By accepting ‘death’, we accept that we will never regain what we’ve lost. We don’t get back the physical manifestations--the carpenter with the kind heart and the wry sense of humor, the brave priest ready to take on the world for the poor, the loving mother, the trusting child, or the patient soldier—but we can choose to honor their spirit by living our lives fully and dedicating ourselves to the principles expressed in the Peace Prayer of St. Francis of Assisi

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

when there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

Grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand,

to be loved as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying [to ourselves] that we are born to eternal life.

Choose peace…
'12 Peace Prayers'

DVD: Rumi: Poet of the Heart Leave the 21st Century for a about an hour and watch "Rumi: Poet of the Heart," and return enriched...

In the late 1990’s the surprising bestselling poet in America is a thirteenth-century Sufi poet and mystic named Jelaluddin Rumi. For seven hundred years, Rumi’s writings have enchanted, inspired, and enlightened Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, and Buddhists. Rumi’s poetry celebrates the sacred in everyday existence and transcends boundaries of time, place, and religion to speak to all people.
I am so small I can barely be seen. How can this great love be inside me?
Look at your eyes. They are small, but they see enormous things - Rumi
This is a poetry that calms and transforms. It's like finding an oasis amidst the desert of modern politics.

Main Street Music (Peter, Paul and Mary) preview albums, esp. the song ‘El Salvador’ in the album ‘No Easy Walk To Freedom'

State of the Nation.

2005-03-26T13:45:00.000-08:00

How could I possibly add anything to the commentary below. John S. Ashton, the resident firebrand of the 'Moderate Independent', reflects my feelings exactly.

SOMEONE'S GOT TO SAY IT: HOLY SHIT! WHAT THE FUCK HAPPENED TO THE NATION?!? I Turn My Back On George For A Few Years, And Jesus F'ing H. F'Ing Jesus! Did I Accidentally Get Off The Plane In Honduras???

by resident firebrand John S. Ashton

MARCH 15, 2005 – I mean holy friggin' Jesus friggin holy shit! Has anyone else seen this yet?

I mean, I guess last time I paid attention was a few years back or so. We were a superpower, we had peace, prosperity, democracy. The nation wasn't perfect but... holy friggin Christ.

Gas costs how much? Georgie was pissed off that oil was over $24 a barrel when he ran for office - for sure if I thought there was anything he could fix it would be that - he's a damned oil guy who sleeps with the Sheik of Saudi Arabia, for crying out loud. And then he even went into Iraq to steal the oil.

But let me get this straight. Our President is an oil man from Texas, his lover the dictator of the biggest oil producer on the planet, and we now rule the place with the second biggest reserves, and oil is up near $60 fucking dollars a barrel? And now all he can say is, well, maybe we'll find something to help under a bird's ass in Alaska?

For crying out loud, people! Hasn't every media outlet blown a nugget over this one already?

And Jesus Christ, I actually believed George that his deficit-creating tax cuts wouldn't really lead to deficits. The money would be multiplied back at us, through investment or some shit.

But holy fuck! Have you seen the debt? Or the deficit?

Or how about the trade debt? I just saw today, not only did it just go up to a new record, but it went up 25% this year alone. 25 fucking percent?!? In one year? Over an already record above record high? I'm sure that's the top story all over the news today, right? I mean, it just came out those numbers... God Damn!!!... they must be everywhere! I was hoping to find out the verdict about some second-rate former TV actor who hasn't worked in 20 years, but no way will that make the news with this story all over the place!!!

Jesus Christ what a mess! Long-term unemployment: at a record.

And when I last paid attention only about 1 or 2 people were dying a day in Iraq - and I thought that massive, end-all Fallujah assault that was timed to play out exactly on election week was going to "break the back" of the insurgency, or that the insurgents were just "making a last gasp" and would be done "after the election." But shit, now it's 20 a day, dead, 30, 40!

George! What the fuck are you doing?

I mean, I knew he might cause some shit, but... Fuck!

Okay, I better calm down and get some perspective.

Record debt, national deficits, trade deficits, oil at $56 and climbing, dirtier air, propaganda on TV, record long-term unemployment, record personal bankruptcies, the world friggin' hates us now, our cat dick-sized coalition of the sort-of-there in Iraq can't even keep Portugal or Poland on board? We're even losing our mafia buddies from Italy? I mean when even the mafia decides you're too low to associate with, how low have you sunk?!?

And wait, we're caught on film taking pictures of Arab penises? And some poor dog had to go sniffing Iraqi dicks for these pictures?

What the fuck?

Jesus Christ, George, I thought you quit using years ago? I mean, this shit doesn't just happen on two NA beers a night!

Come on, fess up. You hitting the Everclear again? Or maybe the Pine-Sol? Something. Sniffing magic markers? The pen you use to sign the spending bills?

Fuck. I mean, what the hell else can a person say? Fuck.

Russia has built up it's structure so it now is the second largest oil supplier, only behind the Saudis. Europe is going balls out to develop alternative energy technology. India is even taking over our phone banking/telemarketing.

And what the hell have we accomplished in the past four years? What?

There's got to be some upside? Some positive part of what's been going on here?

Anyone?

Oh yeah, limited local elections in Saudi Arabia, that's what I heard the non-Moderate Independent media saying made all this worth it. "Limited," "local" elections - in a dictatorship that is Bush's butt buddy and is reaping almost $60 for a barrel of oil now. No, that wasn't just a PR show to try and help Bush out, it was real progress that makes all this worth it.

But wait, Syria also... I don't know, did some shit related to some entirely insignificant hole named Lebanon. Wow, I feel better and safer and like record deficits, unemployment, debt, bankruptcies, oil prices, and no progress in science or anything else has been worth it. Because of something about something in... fucking Lebanon? When the hell were they about to attack us?

Fuck George. Stay focused. You're fucking up. Stay... stay focused Georgie. Look... no, don't tell me somewhere down the road... no, don't do it. George, stop!!! George!

Look, I would, you know, really like to believe what you're about to say about how things will work out someday or year down the road, but there's the little problem of EVERYTHING YOU'VE SAID SO FAR BEING WRONG! Oil is not cheaper! There are record deficits! Unemployment is a record! Iraq didn't have WMD's! It hasn't just taken "months not years"! George, you haven't gotten one fucking thing right!!

Fuck, look at this mess... no, stop... stop... stop saying I should ignore it, that it's all about to get better. George. George!!!!

Well, at least I'm sure the rest of the media isn't buying into any of this "it's all going really well" coke-head-liar talk. I'm sure the Democrats have made this oil disaster the massive story it should be, like it was in the Carter days. I wonder if they've activated the Emergency Broadcast System yet? Is GWB up in Air Force One for safety in case riots break out?

What a fucking mess!

Fuck.

At least I'm sure there's no one at this point still dumb enough to support the President or think he's done anything but wholly holy suck. I mean, anyone who did that would make a Cretan eunuch seem like a tough-guy genius. I mean, we always had stupid people, but fuck, that would take a mutant-strength moron like only appears after a Chernobyl-like accident or something. Thank goodness we haven't had any meltdown here that I know of, so it must mean no one is mutant-stupid enough to still not see what a fucking mess things are.

Fuck. What a fucking mess. What an asshole!

Ok, I'm done. Sorry if I got a bit overheated. Just happened to actually look at my nation for a second and decide to say something honest.

Fact vs Fiction

2005-03-25T20:27:00.000-08:00

I believe the meatrix clip is significant in today’s political discourse. If you’ve watched the clip you’ll know that one version of ‘reality’ is really a comforting sham; the harsh truth is almost unbearably tragic. Only by being willing to take the ‘red’ pill are our eyes opened and do we see the world through ‘reality-based’ lenses.

I see the Republicans as the ones who refused to take the red pill. They live in a comforting alternate reality cocoon, which tells them: "America is safer—we’re a Christian Nation","Freedom is on the March—God is on our side" and "Ownership Society—Bushco. & the GOP have our (America’s) best interest at heart". No matter how much ‘reality based’ information they receive, they’ll choose to listen to the ‘spin’ and use those lies to bury themselves deeper into their insulating cocoons.

For example if you tell a ‘devout Republican’ that: "our borders are wide open and more illegal immigrants are coming ashore, our cargo containers are not screened and the rest of the world hates us ", he will look at you serenely and say: "Well, Bush and God have kept us from harm, another 9/11 hasn’t happened under OUR LEADER, therefore, America must be safer". If you tell a ‘GOP believer’ that: "thousands have died for a lie, we are torturing our prisoners, our military is dangerously over-stretched / ill equipped and ‘Democracy sprouting up in the Middle East’ is a myth", he’ll yawn and say: "War is messy, ‘collateral damage’ is to be expected and besides the Iraqis have shown us their purple fingers as proof that they’ve voted—Freedom is on the March".

Finally, if you try to explain to an ‘evangelical Bushites’ that: "Ownership society means ‘you’re on your own’ to face illness, bankruptcy and a deteriorating environment / infrastructure; under Bush’s new laws ‘curbing class action lawsuits’, you will have no recourse to sue greedy corporations who poison the environment or put harmful products on the market, he’ll nod politely back away and say: "Bush knows what’s best for us, he has a good heart / talks to GOD and if you don’t support him you’re a "Liberal Elitist" who doesn’t support our troops and wants gay marriage".

WHAT?????

Reading through some conservative sites, one can see how this fictional account is perpetrated.

From a conservative blog entry: 'Standing on the shoulder of giants' Michael Barone briefly catalogues the great accomplishments of Washington, Lincoln and FDR. Could Bush be on course to leave the same type of footprint on American history?

Quote:

"GWB's presidency may come to be seen as another turning point, and one in which the president's character, and the choices he need not have made but did make, could shape the nation for a lifetime to come.

Bush... has transformed American foreign policy more than any president since Roosevelt and has decided to wield America's power proactively to advance liberty and democracy around the world. The recent advances toward democracy in the Middle East suggest he is on the side of history.

Bush is also working to transform government from the industrial era programs of Roosevelt's day to post-industrial era programs and has had some successes -- but how much is still uncertain. There will be turns in the road ahead, but Bush seems to be setting America on a course that was not inevitable and which could shape the nation for a lifetime to come".

Sometimes, I wish I could live in their ‘fantasy world’, since their perspective is so...much preferable than mine. But since I did take the red pill and therefore am part of the ‘reality-based community’, I cannot bury myself in the comforting cocoon of lies. No president has done more to destroy freedom in America than George W. Bush... Bush should be impeached for presenting duplicitous statements to Congress and the American people. His administration's secrecy and deception took us into an unnecessary war, which cost billions of dollars and untold lives. Together, the Bush White House and his Republican-controlled Congress have created the largest deficit in history, refused accountability for their actions and brought international respect for America to an all-time low. Thanks to Bush’s irresponsible lies and arrogance without limits, this nation is suffering world-wide condemnation and stands alone and unprotected in a hostile world community.

Not all conservatives, however, share this unshakeable belief system which claims that ‘Bush’s truth is God’s truth’. Pat Buchanan, an arch conservative, for example writes: ‘Bush's legacy is a Stillborn Empire :

Yet as one watches the Old Republic (U.S.A) spend herself into bankruptcy, run up trade deficits that debauch her currency, decline to defend her own bleeding borders, permit rivals to loot her technology and cart off her manufacturing plants, America does in a way resemble Rome. But it is,unfortunately, the Rome of the late fourth century.

For America 2005, unlike the America we knew not long ago, has become a newly dependent nation, dependent on the Gulf for oil to run our economy, on imports for the necessities of our national life, on Beijing and Tokyo to buy the bonds to subsidize our self-indulgent lifestyles.

The Kipling of the late Victorian era was speaking of folks like us when he wrote in his poem "Recessional": "For frantic boast and foolish word/Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!"

It frightens me when I agree with anything Pat Buchanan has to say.

A 'reality-based'response from Libertas regarding the claim that "Bush...has transformed American foreign policy more than any president since Roosevelt and has decided to wield America's power proactively to advance liberty and democracy around the world." is as follows:

Bush... has chosen to wield America's power recklessly to advance his own agenda and beliefs around the world. Under his administration Bush allowed not one, but two nations to develop the means to create nuclear weapons and invade one that didn't.

Bush's foreign policy will lead the Russians to trade military weapons with China and may very well re-start the Cold War.

Bush let the leader of the world's biggest criminal organization, Al-Qaida, to escape and allow Afghanistan warlords to increase the world's heroin poppy supply by over 50%. Bush's arrogance will provide Al-Qaida with the necessary elements to transform this international terrorist organization into a more dangerous, more powerful Narco-terrorist organization that will pose a threat to not only nations, but an entire hemisphere.

History will remember Bush not as a FDR or Lincoln. He will be remembered as a world conqueror, a divider and a buffoon. A ludicrous figure.

Taken from the Randi Rhodes Message Board (RRMB): Revised U.S. Constitution.

Here's the original U.S. Constitution:
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.

This is where we are today--Bush's version of the Constitution:
We the Sheeple of The Republican Party, in Order to form a more biased Oligarchy, establish Theocracy, insure domestic Polarization, provide for the military industrial complex, promote the general Hatred of those who have nothing, and secure the Tyranny of Slavery to ourselves and our Masters, do prop-up and establish this Fabrication for the Headquarters of Corporate America.

Any objections?

911 + What We Say = Shut the F**k Up!

With America in grave danger, none of us can afford to ‘Shut Up’. It is our duty as Americans to 'Speak Out' and expose this traitorous regime that is turning a great nation into a 'rogue state'!!!

For the Sake of Our Children

2005-03-23T04:02:00.000-08:00

Why don't we care enough to safeguard the planet—for future generations? Three voices speak out against the plundering of our children’s birthright--a wholesome, livable and thriving planet.
In For the Sake of Our Children—Jan 2005. Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., author of 'Crimes Against Nature',wrote, Quote:

"I have been an environmental advocate for twenty years, and I've been disciplined during that period about being nonpartisan in my approach to this issue. The worst thing that can happen to the environment is if it becomes the province of a single political party. Most of the environmental leaders in our country agree with me. Five years ago, if you asked the leaders of the major environmental groups in America, What's the gravest threat to the global environment?, they would have given you a range of answers: overpopulation, habitat destruction, global warming. Today, they will all tell you one thing: it's George W. Bush. This is the worst environmental president that we have ever had.

You simply cannot speak honestly about the environment in any context today without speaking critically about this president. If you go to the Natural Resources Defense Council's web site you will see over 400 major environmental rollbacks that have been promoted by this administration over the last three and half years. It is a concerted, deliberate attempt to eviscerate thirty years of environmental law. It is a stealth attack, one that's been hidden from the public...

We are living today in a science fiction nightmare, a world where, because somebody gave money to a politician, our children are brought into a world where the air is too poisonous for them to breathe… my children and the children of millions of other Americans can no longer enjoy fishing with their father or mother and come home and eat the fish...

I flew recently over the coal-fields of the Appalachians. I saw something that if the American people could see there would be a revolution in this country. We are cutting down the mountains, literally cutting them down. The coal companies blow off the tops of the mountains, using 2,500 tons of dynamite in West Virginia alone every year..."

________________

ZNet Commentaries by Vandana Shiva.
Dr. Vandana Shiva is a physicist, ecologist, activist, editor, and author of many books. In India she has established Navdanya, a movement for bio-diversity conservation and farmers' rights. She directs the Research Foundation for Science, Technology and Natural Resource Policy. Her most recent books are 'Biopiracy: The Plunder of Nature and Knowledge' and 'Stolen Harvest: The Hijacking of the Global Food Supply'.

In an article ‘Tsunami Teachings: Reflections for the New Year— Jan, 2005’ she wrote, Quote:

"Hopefully governments will learn a lesson that the earth has tried to give - "development" that ignores ecological limits and the environmental imperative can only lead to unimaginable destruction…A world organized around markets and profits, forgetting nature and people, is ill equipped to deal with such disasters. The information technology embedded 21st century cultures lacked the Gaian intelligence to connect to the earthquake and Tsunami in time to protect themselves. We need to revisit our dominant concepts of intelligence and information and take lessons from Gaia about living intelligently on the planet…"

In ‘The Suicide Economy Of Corporate Globalisation, Feb, 2004’ Dr. Shiva wrote, Quote:

"The Indian peasantry, the largest body of surviving small farmers in the world, today faces a crisis of extinction. In 1998, the World Bank's structural adjustment policies forced India to open up its seed sector to global corporations like Cargill, Monsanto, and Syngenta. The global corporations changed the input economy overnight. Farm saved seeds were replaced by corporate seeds which needed fertilizers and pesticides and could not be saved.

As seed saving is prevented by patents as well as by the engineering of seeds with non-renewable traits, seed has to be bought for every planting season by poor peasants. A free resource available on farms became a commodity which farmers were forced to buy every year. This increases poverty and leads to indebtedness. As debts increase and become un-payable, farmers are compelled to sell kidneys or even commit suicide.

Under globalisation, the farmer is loosing her / his social, cultural, economic identity as a producer. A farmer is now a "consumer" of costly seeds and costly chemicals sold by powerful global corporations through powerful landlords and money lenders locally…"

__________

Upon receiving the Global Environmental Citizen Award from the Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment, Bill Moyers’ gave the following speech, Excerpts: 'Welcome to Doomsday':

"For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad, but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts.

The Grist, an environmental magazine, reminded us recently of how James Watt, Reagan's first Secretary of the Interior, told the U.S. Congress that protecting natural resources was unimportant in light of the imminent return of Jesus Christ. In public testimony he said, "after the last tree is felled, Christ will come back." James Watt and his compatriots across the country are the people who believe the bible is literally true -- one-third of the American electorate, if a recent Gallup poll is accurate. In this past election several million good and decent citizens went to the polls believing in the rapture index. That's right - the rapture index.

Google it and you will find that the best-selling books in America today are the 12 volumes of the left-behind series written by the Christian fundamentalist and religious right warrior, Timothy LaHaye. These true believers subscribe to a fantastical theology concocted in the 19th century by a couple of immigrant preachers who took disparate passages from the Bible and wove them into a narrative that has captivated the imagination of millions of Americans. Its outline is rather simple, if bizarre: once Israel has occupied the rest of its "biblical lands," legions of the anti-Christ will attack it, triggering a final showdown in the valley of Armageddon. As the Jews who have not been converted are burned, the messiah will return for the rapture. True believers will be lifted out of their clothes and transported to heaven, where, seated next to the right hand of God, they will watch their political and religious opponents suffer plagues of boils, sores, locusts, and frogs during the several years of tribulation that follow.

The true believers will tell you that they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements…in order to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed -- an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144: just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of god will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire.

You can understand why people in the grip of such fantasies cannot be expected to worry about the environment: why care about the earth when the droughts, floods, famine, and pestilence brought by ecological collapse are signs of the apocalypse foretold in the Bible? Why care about global climate change when you and yours will be rescued in the Rapture? Why bother to convert to alternative sources of energy and reduce dependence on oil from the volatile Middle East? Anyway, until Christ does return, the Lord will provide.

America's Providential History is a high school history book used in fundamentalist circles. Students are told that "the secular or socialist has a limited resource mentality and views the world as a pie…that needs to be cut up so everyone can get a piece." The Christian, however, "knows that the potential in God is unlimited and that there is no shortage of resources in God's Earth.... While many secularists view the world as overpopulated, Christians know that God has made the earth sufficiently large with plenty of resources to accommodate all of the people."

The corporate, political, and religious right's hammerlock on environmental policy extends to the US Congress. Once upon a time I believed that people will protect the natural environment when they realize its importance to their health and to the health and lives of their children. Now I am not so sure. It's not that I don't want to believe that -- it's just that I read the news and connect the dots:

I read that the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has declared the election a mandate for President Bush on the environment. This for an administration:
that wants to rewrite the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act, and the Endangered Species Act protecting rare plant and animal species and their habitats, as well as the national Environmental Policy Act that requires the government to judge beforehand if actions might damage natural resources;

that wants to relax pollution limits for ozone, eliminate vehicle tailpipe inspections, and ease pollution standards for cars, sport utility vehicles, and diesel-powered big trucks and heavy equipment;

that wants a new international audit law to allow corporations to keep certain information about environmental problems secret from the public;

that wants to drop all its New-Source Review suits against polluting coal-fired power plans and weaken consent decrees reached earlier with coal companies;

that wants to open the Arctic Wildlife Refuge to drilling and increase drilling in Padre Island National Seashore, the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world and the last great coastal wild land in America;

that is radically changing the management of our national forests to eliminate critical environmental reviews, open them to new roads, and give the timber companies a green light to slash and cut as they please.

I read the news just this week and learned how the Environmental Protection Agency had planned to spend nine million dollars; $2 million of it from the administration's friends at the American Chemistry Council -- to pay poor families to continue to use pesticides in their homes. These pesticides have been linked to neurological damage in children, but instead of ordering an end to their use, the government and the industry were going to offer the families $970 each, as well as a camcorder and children's clothing, to serve as guinea pigs for the study…

I read all this and look up at the pictures on my desk, next to the computer: pictures of my grandchildren: Henry, age 12; of Thomas, age 10; of Nancy, 7; Jassie, 3; Sara Jane, nine months. I see the future looking back at me from those photographs and I say, "Father, forgive us, for we know now what we do." And then I am stopped short by the thought: "That's not right. We do know what we are doing. We are stealing their future. Betraying their trust. Despoiling their world."

And I ask myself: Why? Is it because we don't care? Because we are greedy? Because we have lost our capacity for outrage, our ability to sustain indignation at injustice? What has happened to our moral imagination? The news is not good these days. But as a journalist I know the news is never the end of the story. The news can be the truth that sets us free not only to feel but to fight for the future we want… We must engage our capacity to see and feel and then to act as if the future depended on us.

_______________

As the voices of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., Dr. Vandana Shiva and Bill Moyers clearly state, it is imperative that we protect the earth’s bio-diversity. Not only for our own sake, but more importantly for future generations. It is therefore essential that we maintain a secularist society where empiricism in science is valued over the ‘fake science’ that is generated by ‘faith-based’ special interest groups.

A secularist position is simply that the American government has no business spending any money on any institution whose purpose is the promotion of any religion. According to Susan Jacoby, author of Freethinkers, Quote:

"Free public education for the many rather than the few was essential to the secularist vision of a society in which every individual, unhampered by gatekeepers who sought to control the spread of dangerous knowledge, could go as far as his or her intellect would permit. In the view of freethinkers, the most pernicious gatekeepers were religious authorities; thus, education must be both secular and publicly financed. Indeed, by the 1870s the word secularist was used not only as a general philosophical term but as a specific definition, in either the affirmative or the pejorative sense, of those who advocated public schooling free of religious content".

To see the chilling effect of "religious" propaganda / education, consider the Moslem madrasahs which instill in children the belief that everyone who is not Moslem should be annihilated. Quote:

Some Musims launched a movement for a "purified Islam" and wanted only what they considered a proper Islamic curriculum to be taught in the madrasah. The demand for purist schools took a unique turn in the part of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan, where universal education has never been adequately provided. These strict fundamentalist madrasahs receive foreign support to teach and house young men with few prospects. There, they learn a crude version of Islam and a fierce contempt for what they see as the moral degeneracy of the West. The savage puritanism of the Taliban regime and its emphasis on militant struggle were born in such madrasahs...

Equally frightening is the insistence by some fundamentalist Christian 'gatekeepers' who wish to prevent their children from gaining scientific knowledge that doesn't support the bible's creation story; simply put 'intelligent design' does not belong in a high school biology curriculum. Their zeal to keep children ignorant is evident in the Christian fundamentalist recent outcry over an IMAX movie that cites evolution. On March 19, 2005: It's the Bible vs. the Volcanoes; religious dogma currently triumphs over science, as several Imax theaters caved into pressure from the ‘Religious Right’ and refused to show ‘Volcanoes’, a movie that dared to use the dreaded E-word: evolution.

When Religion and Government become closely intertwined, the government becomes intolerant of other view points. See:14 signs of fascism. Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.

The Question of American Guilt--March, 2005,

by MANUEL GARCÍA, Jr. opined, Quote:

"Today, America wields what many see as absolute power, hence…the decay of our social consciousness and sense of commons. For example, we are at war with the entire concept of public education because we are at war with any idea of contributing resources into a socialism that breeches our tribal and class barriers.

Americans' collective guilt for the continuing impact of American power on non-American lives is continually suppressed…Our SUVs are…cocoons free of the Iraqi screams emitted as we squeeze the earth for black blood to burn. If ignorance is bliss, then America is paradise…"

If we were to continue on the reckless path that we’re on presently, we will be known as the ‘greediest generation’— guilty of stealing from our children their birthright: clean air, fresh water, nature’s bountiful beauty….
We would have rejected our parents' generous legacy—the ‘greatest generation’ known for their willingness to sacrifice and extend a helping hand to others. The America they left us held the promise of the 'New Deal' and offered hope and opportunities for numerous people. Currently, we are in a fight about the kind of world we would leave to the next generation. The choice is ours: is our legacy going to be a world governed by social / environmental justice and respect for science, or one ruled by corporate greed and religious dogma?

Additional Information:

High Levels of Mercury Found in Vermont Birds (March 11, 2005.)

Study Links Mercury Emissions to Autism (March 18th, 2005.)
A new scientific study has found a link between mercury released from coal-fired power plants and the increasing number of cases of autism. Last month the U.S. blocked attempts to launch formal talks on a global treaty to ban mercury which has also been linked to other serious ailments in pregnant women and children.

Polluting Paradise (March 18, 2005.)

When Courage Was Called For, She Punted: Ex-EPA Leader Whitman Caved in to Bush Instead of Doing the Brave Thing (March 20, 2005) by Bill McKibben

EPA Chided for Disregarding Mercury Study (March 22, 2005.)

For Bush, Science is a Dirty Word (March 22, 2005.)

Save the environment: Yellowstone (March 22, 2005.)

Trophy Hunting Advocate, Matthew J. Hogan, Named Acting Director of US Fish and Wildlife Service (March 25, 2005.) Hogan was formerly the chief lobbyist for Safari Club International (SCI), an extreme trophy hunting organization that advocates the killing of rare species around the world.

Of Betrayal and Lost Sons.

2005-03-21T05:09:00.000-08:00

“All the war-propaganda, all the screaming and lies and hatred, comes invariably from people who are not fighting.”--George Orwell

In the words of Smedley Darlington Butle, Retired Major General - United States Marine Corps, 1935: "War is a racket, It always has been".

"It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small "inside" group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes. In the World War I a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires falsified their tax returns no one knows.

How many of these war millionaires shouldered a rifle? How many of them dug a trench? How many of them knew what it meant to go hungry in a rat-infested dug-out? How many of them spent sleepless, frightened nights, ducking shells and shrapnel and machine gun bullets? How many of them parried a bayonet thrust of an enemy? How many of them were wounded or killed in battle?

Out of war nations acquire additional territory, if they are victorious. They just take it. This newly acquired territory promptly is exploited by the few – the selfsame few who wrung dollars out of blood in the war. The general public shoulders the bill.

And what is this bill?

This bill renders a horrible accounting. Newly placed gravestones. Mangled bodies. Shattered minds. Broken hearts and homes. Economic instability. Depression and all its attendant miseries. Back-breaking taxation for generations and generations…”

In an ‘Open Letter to GI’s in Iraq’, STAN GOFF, US Army Retired wrote: “Hold On to Your Humanity”.

Below are two accounts of soldiers, one made it back, the other died in Iraq. Both held on to their humanity.

'Betrayal' Sean Huze, who served as a Marine in Iraq, became disillusioned with the rationale of the war. On November 8, 2004, he wrote a letter which read in part:

“The heavy civilian casualty toll began to weigh heavily upon me as we pushed from Nasirya, Al Kut, Baghdad, and Tikrit. I comforted myself with the letters from my wife and the knowledge that these sacrifices, of both the U.S. Service Men & Women and of the Iraqi people, was for a greater good.

After a few months in Iraq we got to return home. A couple of months went by and I allowed myself to bask in the adoration my friends and family blessed me with. I'm not sure what sparked it, but slowly my faith in the justifications of the war began to fade. Maybe it was the fruitless search for the weapons of mass destruction or the lack of any credible Al Qaeda ties to Saddam Hussein. As months dragged on, it became more and more evident that these would never be found. As these justifications for war dissipated, so did my own personal justifications for the deaths I had seen.

So, here I am. I'm left with pride in my own service and the men I served with, but the sickening feeling that it was avoidable. I would gladly lay down my life for our country. Like every other man who wears this uniform, our commitment is not at issue. Call it naiveté, but it never occurred to me that my country was less committed to us than we are to it. Sending us in harm's way for a lie amounts to a betrayal that may prove to be criminal. It's unfortunate that on November 2nd 59,000,000 Americans failed to do their duty and hold the administration accountable for this betrayal of the troops. A dishonorable discharge was never more warranted”.

In a piece for The New Yorker, March 14, 2005, Calvin Trillin wrote: 'Lost Son: Finding the Family He Left Behind'.

First Lieutenant Brian Slavenas had been in command of a Chinook helicopter that was brought down by a missile as it ferried soldiers on the first leg of their trip out of Iraq for leaves. Sixteen people were killed and twenty injured-one of the first big casualty reports in the period when Donald Rumsfeld was still saying that the continuing violence in Iraq was being caused by a few dead-enders. Brian Slavenas had been a member of an Illinois National Guard unit that was deployed in April of 2003, just a couple of months after he got his degree in industrial engineering from the University of Illinois. He had been ‘physically huge,’-six feet five, two hundred and thirty pounds, but he wasn't the sort of big man who used his size to intimidate. In the words of his stepmother: “Brian was very self-disciplined and studious and good natured. He liked history. He liked reading, he liked talking to people about ideas”.

The local press coverage after Brian Slavenas died was mostly about his family:

Brian's father, Ronald Slavenas, a retired school social worker, was born in Lithuania and came to America as a teen-ager. Ron Slavenas had served in the 82nd Airborne Division between high school and college and had later joined the National Guard; in the days following his son's death, he told one reporter, "This country took us in very generously. My philosophy is put your shoulder to the wheel." His house, whose front lawn is dominated by a pole that flies not only the American flag but the flag of the 82nd Airborne Division, has some elements of a military museum…The walls hold, among other military mementos, a huge gold-star flag with Brian's name on it and, across from a pencil drawing of a Chinook helicopter, framed copies of resolutions about Brian from dignitaries and legislative bodies. The centerpiece of that display is the letter sent to the survivors of every fallen soldier by the President of the United States. When reporters went to Ron Slavenas's home, in Genoa, Illinois-where Brian had lived until third grade, when his parents got divorced-they found a large American flag and a wreath bearing the words: "America's All American Hero-We Will Never Forget You."

Brian's mother, Rosemarie Dietz Slavenas, who'd just retired as an associate professor of early-childhood education at Northern Illinois, views her son’s death in a different light. She said that Brian never had any interest in being a hero and was under no illusions about the war in Iraq making the United States more secure. In fact, she said, he had tried to resign his commission rather than go to Iraq. Brian's family on his mother's side had, instead of a military tradition, a tradition of opposing wars. Rosemarie Slavenas had demonstrated against both of the wars her sons fought in; she is a longtime member of the DeKalb Interfaith Network for Peace and Justice, whose demonstrations tend toward silent vigils. Her older sister marched against the war in Vietnam. Their mother, now in her eighties, shares their views.

In her house-in Rockford, where she moved in 2003 after she retired-the only indication that Brian was in the military is that his high-school graduation portrait,…A large picture of an Indian in a canoe, a picture Brian painted when he was eight, hangs on the wall above an upright piano. The piano itself is a memento of Brian. In the two years that he attended Northern Illinois, before transferring to the Urbana-Champaign campus, she could tell when he got in at night because music would start wafting through the house-"Chopin that would break my heart." Rosemarie Slavenas displays no framed resolutions or official letters of condolence. She is still waiting for an answer from her own letter to the President, a letter that said, in part, "My beloved son Brian died for your red herring in the sand. . . He did not give his life. It was cruelly taken from him by your rush to war."
__________________

Brian's father had taken it for granted that there would be a formal military funeral, but Brian's designated next of kin-and thus the person entitled to make such a decision-was his mother. Rosemarie Slavenas said that it was her responsibility to give her son the funeral that was appropriate for his life. The service she arranged, at the Faith United Methodist Church, in Genoa, was a civilian service, with flowers rather than an American flag on the casket, and no weapons in sight. Afterward, addressing some reporters and cameramen gathered outside the church grounds, Rosemarie Slavenas said, "George Bush killed my son. I believe my son Brian died not for his country but because of our country's lack of a coherent and civilized foreign policy."

The eulogies were about the civilian Brian Slavenas… Brian was a serious power-lifter, specializing in the bench press, but he was also a serious pianist, specializing in Chopin. He loved skiing, but he also loved chess. The friends who spoke said that despite Brian's range of competence he was modest and self effacing. His passion for flying was so strong that, even after his engineering degree was in hand, he didn't completely rule out a career in aviation; for him, the practical appeal of the Guard had included not only tuition support but pilot training. He was the sort of student who studied hard preparing for an exam, was always pessimistic about how he had done, and almost invariably turned out to have done very well. He was thoughtful-someone who would always insist on taking the most cramped spot in the moving van. He had a modesty so profound that it sometimes seemed to shade into a shortage of self-confidence. His friends in the weight-lifting club didn't learn until after his death about the trophies he'd won in out-of-town tournaments.

Modesty may be particularly becoming in the person of someone who could win bench press tournaments and play Chopin and fly a helicopter and co-write a thesis called "An Economic Analysis of Combination Vaccines." I grew up one state away from where Brian Slavenas grew up, and, as I spoke to his friends and family about all he'd accomplished in his short life, I could almost hear him mumbling what I've always treasured as the Code of the Midwest-"No big deal".

In the divided Slavenas family, from what I could gather, Brian, the last born, was the dutiful child who tries to please his parents and keep the peace, the child who doesn't smoke or drink, the child who never gets into trouble. Rosemarie Slavenas sometimes refers to him as "my wise child." In Iraq, he wrote both parents regularly-devoting most of his last letters to his mother to the care that should be given an ancient family dog named Pepper and mentioning in one letter to his father that he was considering staying in the military as a chopper pilot. Lance Gackowski, a former teacher, thinks that the breadth of Brian's interests, as well as his inclination to stay out of the limelight, had something to do with having parents who were divorced and held widely divergent views. "Some kids in that situation just shut down," Gackowski told me. "He tried to fulfill both of their visions of what a noble man should be."
___________

Neither Ron nor Rosemarie Slavenas likes to dwell publicly on their differences over their son's funeral, partly because they think it detracts from the memory of Brian. Maybe for the same reason, or maybe because the Midwestern instinct is to seek some common ground, I found myself looking for ways in which they are not as far apart in their views as they may at first appear. Rosemarie Slavenas, for instance, is not automatically hostile to the military. She told me that Brian did value the organization and discipline of the Army and that the Army taught him important skills…

Ron Slavenas is a cordial man who seems to try hard to see other people's point of view. Although he believes that the United States has to persevere in Iraq now that our troops are there, he has said that we went to war "a little too fast." He told me that Brian, while being intent on doing his duty, was not "gung ho, not a muscle-flexing warrior." Ron Slavenas wouldn't say that his son tried to resign rather than go to Iraq, but he would acknowledge that Brian went in to his commanding officer in order to "look at his options," eventually learning that resignation after deployment is not permitted. To me, trying to resign and looking at your options sound like they could be different ways of saying the same thing.

"The single most important thing for me is to keep his spirit alive in my heart," I was told by Rosemarie Slavenas, who in her letter to George Bush had described her son as "an honorable, restrained, talented, caring man." I know that both of Brian's parents believe that he lived a noble life. They're left with differences in how he should be remembered. On my last day in Genoa, Ron Slavenas took me by Faith Methodist, where the funeral was held, and by the church cemetery, where Brian's grave is still without a stone. What Ron Slavenas would like to see on the stone is something like "Brian Slavenas, 1972-2003, First Lieutenant, Illinois National Guard, Chinook Pilot, Operation Iraqi Freedom." He assumes that his former wife would have different ideas, and so far he hasn't broached the subject. It's indicative of how different Rosemarie Slavenas's ideas would be that when she heard of her son's death she said, "All the kindness has gone out of the world". If Brian had lived, I think he would have continued to please both of his parents. He wasn't supposed to be frozen as one thing or the other at the age of thirty. He was supposed to live long enough to define himself rather than to be defined by his mother or his father. Parents aren't supposed to have to decide on a headstone for their child.

What a heartbreaking waste…

Each family that a soldier leaves behind their own personal story...
Missing Casey.
Truthout Multimedia has several tributes to the lost and wounded in Iraq.
For more information on Nonviolent Ways to Protest the War, check out: Albert Einstein Institution for peace.

BEING SILENT ON THE THINGS THAT MATTER

2005-03-19T00:16:00.000-08:00

Started a thread on the Randi Rhodes Message Board (RRMB)--general forum after reading a post on the DailyKos: 'BEING SILENT ON THE THINGS THAT MATTER' that really touched me. In today's world, we often find ourselves silent, cowering and afraid to speak the truth. Dr. Martin Luther King's words, however are a clarion call reminding us that certain things are too important to remain unspoken: our humanity and democracy depend upon our willingness to speak out when we see injustices heaped all around us. "Oppression can only survive through silence."Carmen de Monteflores. Quote:

"Can we continue to be silent on the matter of no longer having a free press, freedom of expression or the freedom to participate in political dissent, because dissent is essential to having true democracy?

Can we continue to be silent on the matter of a government whose sole mission is to continue to reward the wealthy at the expense of the poor?...

I read a book by Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-Illinois) titled: 'A More Perfect Union: Advancing New American Rights' which I recommend everyone to read if you are trying to muster up courage to find your voice and not remain silent. The book makes compelling arguments for healthcare, education, the environment, housing, jobs, to be an inalienable, fundamental, Constitutional right of every American in this country. None of these factors should be given to the few, or the privileged, if you read and interpret the U. S. Constitution on its face.

"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about the things that matter." Remember, when Dr. King wrote that, he wrote it from a cell in a jail in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963. If it meant something then, how much more does it have meaning for us 42 years later".

Examples of where our representatives remained mute in the face of evil abound:
Torture and Truth, Quote:

"The documents illustrate how the Bush administration constructed its rationale for ignoring prisoners’ rights, and how that decision played out, with appalling consequences, in Iraq. "I think it’s a lesson for every American to see how a democracy can arrive at the point where it commits these kinds of crimes," Danner says. "It’s there in the documentary history." Exhibit A is the "torture memo" issued by the Justice Department in early 2002 at the request of President Bush’s legal adviser (and nominee for attorney general) Alberto Gonzales, which concluded that "under the current circumstances, necessity or self-defense may justify interrogation methods that might violate" U.S. laws prohibiting torture. A few pages later, Iraqi prisoners give hair-raising depositions of their time in American captivity…"

For God's sake what type of rogue, soulless nation did we become under George W. Bush? MURDER INCORPORATED? Torture leads to death and death by torture is murder, no matter how many Memos of Understanding (MOUs) are agreed upon--it's still murder; those writing the MOUs are equally guilty as those who carried out the orders! The unjust actions can never be made just! When will we step up and charge Bush&Co. with crimes against humanity?CIA 'jets suspects overseas' March 07, 2005.
Senate Intelligence Chief Defends CIA on Torture March 10, 2005. Quote:

"The New York Times has reported that President Bush has given the CIA authority to send terrorism suspects to foreign countries for interrogation, including to states Washington has condemned in the past for torturing prisoners.

Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas said U.S. lawmakers were aware of abuse allegations being looked into by the Central Intelligence Agency's inspector general and expressed confidence a separate congressional probe would not be needed. "The Senate intelligence committee, along with the House (of Representatives)intelligence committee, is well aware of what the CIA is doing overseas in the defense of our nation and they are not torturing any detainee," he said.

Roberts said abuse allegations being looked at by the CIA suggested that "a small group of individuals may have acted on their own in violation of the rules set in place to prevent that kind of abuse".

The Republican has rejected a call from his committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. John Rockefeller of West Virginia, for a Senate probe of CIA abuse allegations, saying it would only be merited if the CIA's in-house investigation proved faulty. "At this point in time, I have full confidence that the CIA's inspector general will thoroughly investigate all allegations of abuse," Roberts said".

As pointed out in the DailyKos the torture is ongoing: The U.S. Army's Own Docs Detail Horrific Prisoner Abuse & Murder March 12, 2005.
US detainee death toll 'hits 108' March 16, 2005.
Green light for Iraq prison brutality came from the top April 3, 2005. Classified documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) reveal that Lt General Ricardo Sanchez, the former US military chief in Iraq, personally authorised interrogation techniques that were in clear violation not only of the Geneva Conventions, but the army's own standards. The documents disclose that the abuse of prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere was the result of an organised and co-ordinated plan for dealing with prisoners that originated at the highest levels of the chain of command--Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, also wrote memos authorising excessively coercive interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay...To date, only a few low-ranking reservists have been charged over the abuse. Where is the outrage?

When‘mass murder’ is equated with ‘patriotism’ in the name of ‘national security’, when ‘corporate greed’ is equated with ‘religious values’, when our ‘civil liberties’ are under attack, it is time for us to speak the truth: "the path this administration has chosen is IMMORAL, INHUMANE and Un-American!!!" As George Orwell once said: "In a time of universal deceit - telling the truth is a revolutionary act".Failing to hold our public officials "accountable" can partly be blamed on a complicit media--Online journal, Quote:

"Why do many Americans blindly love the thing that hates them, abuses them, lies to them, and will see them in rags—their own government? How have these Americans come to mistake the love of country for the love of a mere bureaucrat, say, a mere president? Who is driving them mad,perverting their natural love of country into a celebration of its opposite—the worship of a "leader"?

...the Germans, too, were thus driven mad by Hitler's propaganda lies. At Nuremberg, not the least of the Nazi crimes under indictment were the crimes perpetrated against the German people's conscience by driving them insane with lies—crimes that in the view of the American prosecutors were perhaps the most serious of all. Hans Fritzsche, a senior official in Goebbels' Ministry of Propaganda and Folk Enlightenment, answered thus when interrogated at Nuremberg on whether his office had manufactured hatred against the people of the USSR in order to make the Soviet Union a German colony: "Yes. I organized German propaganda in such a way as to inflame hatred of the German people... for the people of the USSR."

And how could it be different here, where the government produces 50 percent of the weapons that are being exported around the world, where the military budget is approaching half a trillion dollars, where the US government spends on the military more money than the 15 largest countries combined? Who but a people driven mad with fear would stand for this waste of wealth on war? The media are a handful of corporations. Five corporations control it all—down from 50 in 1983.

In Edward Herman's words the media "manufacture consent for imperialist wars of aggression." He cites an example: "The New York Times, this great liberal newspaper, had 70 editorials between September 11, 2001, and the attack on Iraq in 2003. In not one of these editorials was the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Tribunal, or any aspect of international law ever mentioned. Now, these guys know these things exist, and that's a perfect example of censorship by omission." There is direct propaganda, too. "There are instances, we know of," says Herman, "where the Pentagon generated video news reports and then gave them to various TV stations. This is spoon-fed propaganda, coming straight from the Pentagon and being broadcast as news."

"Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear".--Harry S. Truman, 33rd president of the U.S.

"Restriction of free thought and free speech is the most dangerous of all subversions. It is the one un-American act that could most easily defeat us".--Justice William O.Douglas

The silencing is happening all across America: "March in lockstep, America. Don’t ask questions. Don’t be unpatriotic. Don’t dissent. For heaven’s sake, go shopping. Go to Disney World. But whatever you do, remember… we’re doing it for your own good--your safety is at stake".

While the Bush administration and the media have been culpable for quelling dissenting opinions, we the public are also to blame: we blithely relied on the media, the corporations, & the government, to provide us with our "opinions" because we were too busy with our daily concerns to critically analyze the world around us. An excerpt from Milton Mayer’s 'They Thought They Were Free, The Germans 1938-45'(1955, University of Chicago Press)--provides us with a chilling and haunting warning:

"Each act, each occasion, is worse than the last, but only a little worse. You wait for the next and the next. You wait for the one great shocking occasion, thinking that others, when such a shock comes, will join with you in resisting somehow. You don't want to act, or even to talk, alone; you don't want to "go out of your way to make trouble." And one day, too late… you see that everything, everything, has changed and changed completely under your nose. The world you live in – your nation, your people – is not the world you were in at all. The forms are all there, all untouched, all reassuring, the houses, the shops, the jobs, the mealtimes, the visits…But the spirit, which you never noticed because you made the lifelong mistake of identifying it with the forms, is changed. Now you live in a world of hate and fear, and the people who hate and fear do not even know it themselves; when everyone is transformed, no one is transformed. Now you live in a system which rules without responsibility even to God."

A sermon on Fascism, by minister Davidson Loehr, November 7, 2004 'Living Under Fascism', describes the dangerous path America is on. Quote:

"This is not America's first encounter with fascism. In early 1944, the New York Times asked Vice President Henry Wallace to, as Wallace noted, "write a piece answering the following questions: What is a fascist? How many fascists have we? How dangerous are they?"

Vice President Wallace's answer to those questions was published in the New York Times on April 9, 1944, at the height of the war against the Axis powers of Germany and Japan. See how much you think his statements apply to our society today.

"The really dangerous American fascist," Wallace wrote, "is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information. With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public into giving the fascist and his group more money or more power".

"They claim to be super-patriots, but they would destroy every liberty guaranteed by the Constitution. They demand free enterprise, but are the spokesmen for monopoly and vested interest. Their final objective toward which all their deceit is directed is to capture political power so that, using the power of the state and the power of the market simultaneously, they may keep the common man in eternal subjection".

Hopefully history has taught us that we must act now, before it’s too late and we are compromised beyond repair. First, we must take responsibility for becoming better informed, and we must do so by seeking factual information, critically analyzing what we hear and listening to our conscience. For as Thomas Jefferson said, "All tyranny needs to gain a foothold is for people of good conscience to remain silent".

Joseph Darby is a HERO, because he dared to break the silence. Quote:

"Specialist Joseph Darby, who exposed torture at Abu Ghraib, wins JFK Profile In Courage award. Darby wrestled with the consequences of reporting the abuse in Abu Ghraib and finally spoke out, he said, because what he saw was so "morally wrong." In August 2004, Darby and his family were forced to move out of their Maryland home and into protective custody due to death threats against them.

Of Darby’s recognition, Ms. Kennedy said, "Individuals who are willing to take personal risk to further the national interest and uphold the values of American democracy should be recognized and encouraged in all parts of government. Our nation is indebted to U.S. Army Specialist Joseph Darby for standing up for the rule of law that we embrace as a nation".

Freedom to think and to follow one's conscience is every citizen's earnest charge. Not enough of us take this obligation seriously. Thank you Army Specialist Joseph Darby for breaking the silence and standing up for humanity / democracy!!!

Separation of Church and State

2005-03-16T08:14:00.000-08:00

In the political forum of the Randi Rhodes Message Board (RRMB), I started a thread re: Separation of Church and State, Moses did NOT write the Constitution. Below is the commentary slightly rearranged.
An article in the Nation, February 21, 2005 issue: 'Our Godless Constitution' examines the religious faith of our founding fathers. QUOTE:

"One of GWB Administration's current favorites is the whopper about America having been founded on Christian principles. Our nation was founded not on Christian principles but on Enlightenment ones. God only entered the picture as a very minor player, and Jesus Christ was conspicuously absent.

Our Constitution makes no mention whatever of God...

In the Declaration of Independence, God gets two brief nods: a reference to "the Laws of Nature and Nature's God," and the famous line about men being "endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights." More blatant official references to a deity date from long after the founding period: "In God We Trust" did not appear on our coinage until the Civil War, and "under God" was introduced into the Pledge of Allegiance during the McCarthy hysteria in 1954 [see Elisabeth Sifton, "The Battle Over the Pledge," The Nation, April 5, 2004].

In 1797 our government concluded a "Treaty of Peace and Friendship between the United States of America and the Bey and Subjects of Tripoli, or Barbary," now known simply as the Treaty of Tripoli. Article 11 of the treaty contains these words:

'As the Government of the United States...is not in any sense founded on the Christian religion...'

The Founding Fathers were not religious men, and they fought hard to erect, in Thomas Jefferson's words, "a wall of separation between church and state."

If we define a Christian as a person who believes in the divinity of Jesus Christ, then it is safe to say that some of the key Founding Fathers were not Christians at all. Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson and Tom Paine were deists--that is, they believed in one Supreme Being but rejected revelation and all the supernatural elements of the Christian Church; the word of the Creator, they believed, could best be read in Nature.

If Washington mentioned the Almighty in a public address, as he occasionally did, he was careful to refer to Him not as "God" but with some nondenominational moniker like "Great Author" or "Almighty Being." It is interesting to note that the Father of our Country spoke no words of a religious nature on his deathbed, although fully aware that he was dying, and did not ask for a man of God to be present; his last act was to take his own pulse, the consummate gesture of a creature of the age of scientific rationalism.

Franklin was the oldest of the Founding Fathers. He was also the most worldly and sophisticated, and was well aware of the Machiavellian principle that if one aspires to influence the masses, one must at least profess religious sentiments. By his own definition he was a deist...As for the pious hypocrites who have ever controlled nations, Franklin freely admitted: "A man compounded of law and gospel is able to cheat a whole country with his religion and then destroy them under color of law"--a comment we should carefully consider at this turning point in the history of our Republic.

In their fascinating and eloquent valetudinarian correspondence, Adams and Jefferson concluded:..."The result of our fifty or sixty years of religious reading, in the four words, 'Be just and good,' is that in which all our inquiries must end."

Though for public consumption the Founding Fathers identified themselves as Christians, they were, at least by today's standards, remarkably honest about their misgivings when it came to theological doctrine, and religion in general came very low on the list of their concerns and priorities--always excepting, that is, their determination to keep the new nation free from bondage to its (Religious) rule".

Separation of Church and State: Ten Reasons Not To Display the Ten Commandments on public property. In The Ten Commandments and American Law, Marci Hamilton explains 'Why Some Christians' Claims to Legal Hegemony Are Not Consistent with the Historical Record.' On NPR’s All Things Considered, listen as commentator and minister Ian Wrisley counsels us on the necessity of defending Jefferson’s 'Wall of Separation' between Church and State.

Moses Didn't Write The Constitution

QUOTE:

"Let us hope that the Supreme Court will affirm that decorative displays of the Ten Commandments - or any religious iconography - are fine in the context of art or, as Sandra Day O'Connor said in a previous decision, as "ceremonial Deism." This will probably allow for the display in the Texas case, as they're part of a much larger display of Texas historical icons, and will also prevent both conservative hysteria or anti-religious witch-hunts in which every last symbol of religion is scraped away from our institutions. (The Greek goddess John Ashcroft covered up with fabric is, after all, an ancient religious symbol. We need rationality here!!!)

But, more importantly, let's hope that the Court will take this opportunity to affirm the absolute separation of church and state in the United States, and to note, as Jefferson so well pointed out and as this nations Founding generation so well knew, that the Ten Commandments have nothing whatsoever to do with American law, or even its history. And, thus, they need not be displayed as major, focal-point monuments on public property (Judge Moore/Alabama); in classrooms next to the flag (a better display would be that subversive document, the Declaration of Independence, or the Constitution of the United States [which never once mentions "God"]); or taught in our schools (next on the Christian Taliban hit-list).

History - and our nation's Founders - teach us that religion is best left to religion, and governance best left to a government answerable to We The People, rather than to Moses, Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed, or their self-appointed contemporary spokesmen".

From the DAOU Report (March 15, 2005)
BRAD DELONG

QUOTE:

"Justice Scalia doesn't believe that political authority ascends from the people'... Nino Scalia's views on this are profoundly -- there is no other word for it --UnAmerican. Here in the United States, we are all children of Thomas Jefferson. God does not give us rulers. Instead, God gives us rights: to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We then institute governments to secure these rights, and they derive their just powers from our consent, not from God's decree.

Where does Scalia's anti-Jeffersonian belief that God gives us not rights but rulers come from? It comes from Paul, whom Scalia likes to quote with approval: Paul (Romans 13:1-5):'Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God...'

In his speech "God's Justice and Ours," Scalia says that God hates not just crime and open revolt but peaceful campaigns of civil disobedience which are, in Scalia's view, based on the false assumption that "what the individual citizen considers an unjust law... need not be obeyed."

Now this is a free country. And Nino Scalia is allowed to break with those like Jefferson, Madison, and Lincoln who think that legitimate power ascends from the consent of the people. It's a free country. He can take his stand with those like James I Stuart, Innocent III, and Khomeini who think that legitimate power descends from God.

But does such a guy have any business being a Justice of the Supreme Court of a free country? No."

More information on the nation’s secular heritage can be found in Susan Jacoby’s book: 'Freethinkers : A History of American Secularism.'

Torture Is Un-American!!!

2005-03-15T09:07:00.000-08:00

Originally, I wrote this post on the Randi Rhodes Message Board (RRMB)--general forum in an attempt to answer the question: "How To Argue With Someone Who Thinks Torture Is OK"
Torture is un-Constitutional, un-American and most importantly it is simply wrong. If we as a society tolerated torture, we would not be upholding the values of this country--truth, justice… and therefore stand accused of "hating America and her values." Below are a few articles that may help in your discussion. Good luck!!!

It's Called Torture
by Bob Herbert.

QUOTE:

"As a nation, does the United States have a conscience? Or is anything and everything O.K. in post-9/11 America? If torture and the denial of due process are O.K., why not murder? When the government can just make people vanish - which it can, and which it does - where is the line that we, as a nation, dare not cross?...

President Bush spent much of last week lecturing other nations about freedom, democracy and the rule of law. It was a breathtaking display of chutzpah. He seemed to me like a judge who starves his children and then sits on the bench to hear child abuse cases. In Brussels Mr. Bush said he planned to remind Russian President Vladimir Putin that democracies are based on, among other things, "the rule of law and the respect for human rights and human dignity."...

Mr. Arar was the victim of an American policy that is known as extraordinary rendition. That's a euphemism. What it means is that the United States seizes individuals, presumably terror suspects, and sends them off without even a nod in the direction of due process to countries known to practice torture.

A Massachusetts congressman, Edward Markey, has taken the eminently sensible step of introducing legislation that would ban this utterly reprehensible practice. In a speech on the floor of the House, Mr. Markey, a Democrat, said: "Torture is morally repugnant whether we do it or whether we ask another country to do it for us. It is morally wrong whether it is captured on film or whether it goes on behind closed doors unannounced to the American people."

Unfortunately, the outlook for this legislation is not good...

It means that torture by proxy, close kin to contract murder, remains all right. Congressman Markey's bill is going nowhere. Extraordinary rendition lives".

_____________________

Does the person want America to become a Fascist Nation? See:
14 Rules of Fascism Video among them:

QUOTE:

"Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even
demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was
to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people's attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice--relentless propaganda and disinformation--were usually effective.
Often the regimes would incite "spontaneous" acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and "terrorists." Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly".

_______________

Tell the person to read: God's Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It by Jim Wallis and ask the person: "Would Jesus condone torture or immoral behavior?"

QUOTE:

"Wallis recently appeared on The Daily Show and said that if Jesus were President, his first actions would not be tax cuts for the wealthiest people and starting a war / torture his fellow man. Faith is proven in action".

"God's Politics offers a clarion call to make both our religious communities and our government more accountable to key values of the prophetic religious tradition -- that is, make them pro-justice, pro-peace, pro-environment, pro-equality, pro-consistent ethic of life(beyond single issue voting), and pro-family (without making scapegoats of single mothers or gays and lesbians). Our biblical faith and religious traditions simply do not allow us as a nation to continue to ignore the poor and marginalized, deny racial justice, tolerate the ravages of war, or turn away from the human rights of those made in the image of God. These are the values of love and justice, reconciliation, and community that Jesus taught and that are at the core of what many of us believe, Christian or not. In the tradition of prophets such as Martin Luther King Jr., Dorothy Day, and Desmond Tutu, Wallis inspires us to hold our political leaders and policies accountable by integrating our deepest moral convictions into our nation's public life".

_______________

"I stand for peace and justice".
The statement was released on March 27, 2003, and already more than 95948 people have signed on! Here it is...We Stand for Peace & Justice If, after reading it, you like what it has to say, take a few seconds to visit We Stand for Peace & Justice and add your name to the list of endorsers.
_______________________________________________________
Continued:

In Phillis Engelbert's article Torture Endangers the Soul of Our Nation, the author argues that the disregard for human rights creates a cruel and inhumane society. As Abraham Lincoln once said: "Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not for themselves."

QUOTE:

The United States, long the self-proclaimed global human-rights standard-bearer, is now regularly cited by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for gross violations. We subject people, many of whom have no connection to terrorists, to unimaginable pain. We claim to be fighting terror, but are terrorizing hundreds, if not thousands of people, in the process. The only way to stop it, and hence reclaim our soul, is to refuse to allow torture to be committed in our name.

Moreover, torture doesn't produce reliable information.

QUOTE:

Veteran intelligence officials insist that torture doesn't work - that tortured detainees will say anything to stop the mistreatment. They assert that a detainee who is afforded due process and legal counsel is much more likely to cooperate and provide truthful information.

In an Open Letter to GIs in Iraq Stan Goff, a retired US Army veteran counseled, QUOTE:

"And to preserve your own humanity, you must recognize the humanity of the people whose nation you now occupy and know that both you and they are victims of the filthy rich bastards who are calling the shots...

It perfectly legal for you to refuse illegal orders, and orders to abuse or attack civilians are illegal. Ordering you to keep silent about these crimes is also illegal...

You are never under any obligation to hate Iraqis, you are never under any obligation to give yourself over to racism and nihilism and the thirst to kill for the sake of killing, and you are never under any obligation to let them drive out the last vestiges of your capacity to see and tell the truth to yourself and to the world. You do not owe them your souls. Hold on to your humanity".

The NY Times March 3, 2005 editorial Looking the Other Way emphasized that the US continues to believe that combating terrorism somehow gives Mr. Bush the power to violate Americans' constitutional rights. QUOTE:

The Bush administration enthusiastically congratulated itself for including abuses by Iraqi authorities in its annual report on human rights violations. One State Department official called it proof that "we don't look the other way." But the report did look away - from American involvement in the mistreatment it decried. In the end it was another sad reminder of the heavy price the nation has paid for ignoring fundamental human rights in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantánamo; in the secret cells where the CIA holds its unaccounted-for prisoners; and at home, where President Bush continues to claim the power to hold Americans in jail indefinitely without the right to trial.

When we, the public, condone a lawless administration in order to gain temporary "safety", I am again reminded of the familiar quote by Pastor Martin Niemoller, Nazi Germany, circa 1945, QUOTE:

First they came for the socialists,
and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me,
and there was no one left to speak for me.

Who indeed will be left to defend us when the Bush administration unleashes its powerful State Secrets Privilege weapon? By invoking "the state secrets privilege", the government can violate a person's civil, constitutional and human rights on the grounds that it is a "matter of protecting the national security."

Additional web sites:
The Nation: "Orders to Torture"
New Yorker: "OUTSOURCING TORTURE"
Torture of Iraqi woman
Army Details Abuse of Afghani Prisoners
Afghanistan, now 'One huge US jail'

Promote Local Governments' Usage of Recycled Products.

2005-03-14T14:40:00.000-08:00

"printed on 100% chlorine free/60% post-consumer paper"

Voting to use our Local Government’s Purchasing Clout Wisely
The best friend of earth of man is the tree. When we use the tree respectfully and economically, we have one of the greatest resources on the earth. - Frank Lloyd Wright

Introduction

The environmental benefits of recycling are well known: it takes 60 % less energy to manufacture paper from recycled stock than from virgin materials; purchasing one ton of recycled paper could save 20 trees, 7,000 gallons of water, generate 74% less air pollution and reduce landfill space requirements. Additionally, according to the Institute for Local Self-Reliance (ILSR), the principles of "reuse, recycling, and waste reduction" can be used as economic development tools as well as environmental tools. By recovering more materials from our waste stream in a cost-efficient manner and developing local remanufacturing/reuse businesses as markets for these materials – a.k.a. "closing the loop locally" – these concepts can help revitalize existing industries and attract new industries to our communities. Consequently, discarded materials are a local resource that can contribute to local revenue, job creation, and business expansion.

Product reuse (another form of recycling) is a productive adaptation whereby our community reuses valuable raw materials to make new products as well as effectively offset disposal costs. This proposal, for instance, is written on 100% post-consumer waste recycled papers produced by Graphic Paper NY, a Long Island based company (see Resources for Green Purchasing section). To show its commitment to preserving the environment and set an example, local governments could choose to utilize their considerable buying powers to purchase recycled-content products. This policy decision could be undertaken as part of a broader effort to eliminate waste by consumers, government, and business.

The ideas in the preceding paragraphs can be summarized as follows:

Environmental Leadership and Economic Benefits

Primary Objective: To conserve natural resources and reduce waste by...

purchasing environmentally-preferred paper products, giving preference to paper products containing at least 60% postconsumer waste.

maximizing the efficient use of paper.

recycling.

Secondary Benefit: Cost savings

40% of solid waste generated in the U.S. is paper, 1/4 of which is office paper; less than 30% of printing/writing papers are recovered for recycling.

"close the loop locally" by buying recycled products and developing local remanufacturing/reuse businesses as markets for these materials.

waste prevention/recycling effectively offset disposal costs.

The remainder of this paper will discuss a sample resolution, ideas for implementing a successful recycling program and resources for green purchasing.

A pledge to recycle and buy recycled products.

Below is a sample resolution from the GrassRoots Recycling Network which could be modified to reflect our local concerns and adopted by the Town/County governments.

RESOLUTION FOR PRODUCER RESPONSIBILITY for WASTE

WHEREAS Approximately ___________ tons of waste are currently being landfilled [or incinerated] in our community on an annual basis, and

The cost of collecting and [landfilling/incinerating] those wastes are estimated at $___________, and

Decisions regarding the design of these products are often made with little regard for waste prevention and recycling, and

Responsibility for managing waste that results from these products falls entirely on the citizens of our community, and

The United States Environmental Protection Agency estimates that over 70 percent of these wastes are manufactured products, including ‘durable’ goods (computers, TVs, appliances, furniture, and tires), ‘nondurable’ goods (newspapers, magazines, office paper, junk mail, diapers, and household items) and packaging (cans, bottles, cartons, bags and wraps), and

Landfilling and incineration degrade our water and air quality, now and for the indefinite future, and

Waste prevention, reuse, recycling and composting are materials management options that avoid the depletion of our natural resources, including forests, wildlife, minerals and energy, and other environmental impacts from extracting these resources.

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED THAT

The [Town of] [County of] ___________ considers that the responsibility to manage waste from manufactured products and packaging represents an 'unfunded mandate' on the citizens of this community, and

The [Town/County] further resolves that manufacturers should share in the responsibility for eliminating waste -- through minimizing excess packaging; designing products for durability, reusability and recyclability; using recycled materials in the manufacture of new products; and providing financial support for collection, processing, recycling or disposal of used materials, and

The [Town/County] further resolves to commit that 50% of its paper purchases are environmentally-preferred paper products, with preference given to paper products containing at least 60% postconsumer waste, by a [specific target date], and

The [Town/County] further resolves that our State and Congressional delegations should introduce and pass legislation that shifts the burden of managing discarded products and packaging from local governments to the producers of those products, and

The [Town/County] further resolves that this change in policy should be undertaken as part of a broader effort to eliminate waste by consumers, government, and business.

Implementing a successful paper recycling program

The average office worker generates between 120 and 150 lbs. of recyclable office paper per year; currently, less than 30% of this amount is being recycled. An important initial step in starting a workplace recycling program should be a thorough trash audit. Such an audit helps to determine whether recycling can help offset the facility's disposal costs. Most contract cleaners are well aware of the benefits of recycling and can be a knowledgeable resource to running an efficient recycling program.

Discuss the problem of contamination with the cleaning staff, so that regular trash isn't mixed with paper and other recyclables. As long as it isn't contaminated with non-recyclable materials, the market for clean, high-grade computer printout and white ledger paper is generally stable.
Determine if responsibilities for the recycling program can be added to the cleaning contract.

Step 1:

Appoint a Green Task Force.

The first step in organizing a green buying program is to assemble a task force to oversee the program. The main objective of the task force is to translate environmental goals into purchasing strategies. The task force is also responsible for maintaining interest in the program and addressing the needs of buyers.

Step 2:

Develop Your Mission and Purchasing Targets.

A policy or mission statement will help shape purchasing policy; but turning policy into practice requires identifying specific targets. Purchasing targets should be specific and measurable (expressed as either a percent of product purchased or a dollar amount invested).

Step 3:

Incorporate Preferences into Purchasing Documents.

Structure your specifications, requests for proposals (RFP’s) and other purchasing tools to favor environmentally preferable products, making their purchase more likely in the future. The following points highlight some ways to structure RFP’s to ensure that they are consistent with your green buying program:

Adopt a green purchasing policy with specific goals and targets, and give a copy to all your vendors.

Insist on complete disclosure from suppliers and manufacturers regarding chemicals used to manufacture products.
Commit to purchasing on the basis of life cycle costs, not purchase price.

Step 4:

Finding a paper buyer or broker and setting realistic waste reduction goals.

Contact a few local waste buyers or brokers through local telephone directories or referrals from the managers of other facilities. The buyer or broker can be a valuable resource for helping to identify the markets for recyclables and may even offer assistance in starting a workplace recycling program.

Start with short-term goals, such as reducing the amount of waste produced on the premises by 5 or 10% each month. Set goals for both source reduction and recycling.

Set attainable standards that require some change in how business is done and how the vendors meet your needs.

Resources for Green Purchasing

Greg Barber co., a New Jersey based company, which provides 100% post-consumer waste recycled papers

Green Seal: the national nonprofit that awards a Green Seal of Approval to products that have a significantly lower environmental impact, has published a new guide to buying the greenest copiers and fax machines, computer monitors, papers and cleaners.

EPA Waste Wise: The Official Recycled Products Guide.

CERMA's Recycled Printing and Writing Paper: products and manufacturers - listing of recycled printing and office papers with recycled content information. (703) 750-1158.

Office Paper Recycling Guide: How to buy recycled paper products and collect office waste paper.

Northeast Recycling Council (NERC): assists states in developing and stimulating markets for recycled materials in the Northeast. NERC has established EPPNET, the Environmentally Preferable Products Procurement Listserv, to link federal, state, local and private procurement and environmental officials charged with purchasing environmentally preferable products and developing policies for the procurement of these products.

NY State Department of Environmental Conservation(DEC): Waste Reduction and Recycling Program.

This draft proposal was written by Hanna using the internet sources listed below. Sources:

The GrassRoots Recycling Network

Recycled Paper Coalition (RPC)

What I Learned About Iraq

2005-03-14T06:31:00.000-08:00

Several of my posts re-Iraq from the Randi Rhodes Message Board (RRMB):

What I Heard about Iraq.

Listening to Iraqi Women.

Listening to Iraqi Children.

_______________

What I Heard about Iraq, a moving essay by Eliot Weinberger.

It chronicles a chilling timeline of Bush's propaganda that brought us "Freedom is on the March". Some highlights:
Quote:

In 1992, a year after the first Gulf War, I heard Dick Cheney, then secretary of defense, say that the US had been wise not to invade Baghdad and get ‘bogged down in the problems of trying to take over and govern Iraq’. I heard him say: ‘The question in my mind is how many additional American casualties is Saddam worth? And the answer is: not that damned many.’

In February 2001, I heard that a CIA report stated: ‘We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since Desert Fox to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction programmes.’

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

I heard the president say: ‘America must not ignore the threat gathering against us. Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof – the smoking gun – that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.’

I heard the president say: ‘You can’t distinguish between al-Qaida and Saddam.’

I heard an old man say, after 11 members of his family – children and grandchildren –were killed when a tank blew up their minivan: ‘Our home is an empty place. We who are left are like wild animals. All we can do is cry out.’

As the riots and looting broke out, I heard a man in the Baghdad market say: ‘Saddam Hussein’s greatest crime is that he brought the American army to Iraq.’

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

I heard that 100,000 Iraqi civilians were dead. I heard that there was now an average of 150 attacks on US troops a day. I heard that in Baghdad 700 people were being killed every month in ‘non-war-related’ criminal activities. I heard that 1400 American soldiers had been killed and that the true casualty figure was approximately 25,000.

I heard the president say: ‘I want to be the peace president. The next four years will be peaceful years.’

I heard Attorney General John Ashcroft say, on the day of his resignation: ‘The objective of securing the safety of Americans from crime and terror has been achieved.’

_________________

The above statements have been corroborated by a March 16, 2004 special investigative Congressional report, IRAQ ON THE RECORD: THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION’S PUBLIC STATEMENTS ON IRAQ prepared for CONGRESSMAN HENRY A. WAXMAN:

“Because of the gravity of the subject and the President’s unique access to classified information, members of Congress and the public expect the President and his senior officials to take special care to be balanced and accurate in describing national security threats. It does not appear, however, that President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Secretary Rumsfeld, Secretary Powell, and National Security Advisor Rice met this standard in the case of Iraq. To the contrary, these five officials repeatedly made misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq. In 125 separate appearances, they made 11 misleading statements about the urgency of Iraq’s threat, 81 misleading statements about Iraq’s nuclear activities, 84 misleading statements about Iraq’s chemical and biological capabilities, and 61 misleading statements about Iraq’s relationship with al Qaeda”.

____________________

I sent the article "What I Heard about Iraq" to a Republican friend and this is his reply-Quote:

“Why do you think there was such a dramatic change in Policy after 9/11?”

My Answer:

I understand that we all want to secure our family members, friends and neighbors. 9/11 was a horrible event in our history—the US was attacked by a group of terrorist led by Osama Bin Laden (15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudi nationals). However, the point that the compilation "What I Heard about Iraq" was trying to make was that 9/11 was used by this administration to simply lie about the threat that Saddam posed to us and the rest of the world. Yes, Saddam was a horrible dictator but as that article pointed out-Quote:

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

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

In two months (from July 2001 to Sept 2001) our “intelligence” on Iraq changed?
Some web sites you may want to check out:

PNAC Statement of Principles
AmericanFreePress.net
tvnewslies.org

The “pre-emptive doctrine” that Bush invoked to keep our nation secure would mean that the US should attack any nation that it perceived to be a danger to us. North Korea just admitted it harbors WMDs, should we just carpet bomb them as well as Iran? What about Pakistan, I believe they have nuclear weapons? While we are busy bombing the rest of the world into the Stone Age, perhaps we should also “round up” all the Democrats, etc. (“If you’re not with us, you’re against us”-Pres. Bush), put all the traitorous Dems (domestic enemies of the state) in an empty state and bomb them all to oblivion!!!

While I am being somewhat facetious, I want you to see that when you support military action, you are supporting the killing of thousands of people. Please realize that war is not just the pin-point accuracy of laser guided bombs into “enemy territory”. It is also the carpet bombing of enemy troops. It is also the death of American soldiers (currently at 1,516 U.S. soldiers and no end in sight). It is also the devastating toll of casualties--Iraqi men, women and children wounded or dead, the horrible accidents and the friendly fire which often leave thousands of soldiers & Iraqis with crippling injuries. See: The Economist: "Counting the casualties".

Now that we’ve “won” in Iraq, are we a safer nation? True there hasn’t been a 9/11 attack on US soil recently, but quite frankly at the rate we are “creating” enemies, we will inevitably face one sooner or later. Right now it is simply easier to kill American targets (ie. soldiers) abroad. The Bush administration has consistently lied to us: their “mission” keeps changing. First we attacked Iraq because “Iraq has WMDs” and posses an imminent threat to us. Then it turned out that we went to war to give the Iraqi people “freedom”.See: Americans Die for Sharia in Iraq

As Akeel, a 26-year-old translator and resident of Baghdad, remarked when asked of life in the newly freed Iraq: "Ah, the freedom. Look, we have the gas-line freedom, the looting freedom, the killing freedom, the rape freedom, the hash-smoking freedom. I don't know what to do with all this freedom." Taken from: Mother Jones.com

To say that the US is better than Saddam alternet.org or noapoligiespress.org is an affront to our country and its ideals: truth, justice, the American way.

In his State of the Union, Bush is basically promoting a policy of "perpetual war" "We've Been Warned" which will end up enriching the top 1% of our population. See the Carlyle Group (Exposed: The Carlyle Group).

Is this really the world you want to leave to your children and future grandchildren?
______________________

there_it_is wrote-Quote:

"The only thing that has happened in Iraq is our western style corruption meeting up with the eastern style of corruption... but with the huge underlying problem of a religious sect(s) that will swallow us whole for many years to come".

I agree. Didn't we learn anything from history? The quote below was taken from: "Coming to Terms with Vietnam" and what struck me about this portion is how eerily applicable it is to today's Iraq. When the author said that we brought in more "corruption" all I could think of was Halliburton, etc.
Quote:

"What really turned me around in my thinking about the Vietnam War was Neil Sheehan's book, 'A Bright Shining Lie: John Paul Vann and America in Vietnam'. It won the Pulitzer and the National Book Award a few years ago. He worked on it for 17 years. He was a reporter for the New York Times in Vietnam. He concludes, and I find his argument really persuasive, that the more we did of what we knew best to do, which was going in with guns and firepower and trying to dominate these people, the more we alienated the people we were supposed to be converting. Beyond that, his conclusion, and he comes to it really reluctantly -- I know because I talked to him about it when he lectured here -- was that South Vietnamese society was so corrupt and incapable that whatever we did to try and help made it worse, because we brought in more money, more troops, more inflation, and, most importantly, more corruption."

Truthfully, I don't know what to think (on the one hand, "You break it, you bought it" rule applies--Colin Powell), but the reality is I think we've already lost in Iraq and to minimize our casuality list we should just get out. I mean if we had pulled out of Vietnam in 1967, rather than 1975--see: Miss Saigon -- all those names might not be on the Vietnam Memorial in Washington D.C.today.

Below are a few web sites that you may find interesting--re: issues facing our soldiers & their families, etc.

Operation Truth.com
Veterans for common sense.org
Do you know.org
Veterans for peace.org
Bring them home now.org
______________________________________________________________________________
New Post: Listening to Iraqi Women

It seems that Republicans get their info from stories such as "Women of the World...Thank the US". I found Jim Siegel's blog in the DAOU Report(conservative side) and decided to post several comments regarding his assertion that-Quote:

"The opening of Afghanistan and Iraq to democracy is a huge step for women in a culture where they are second class citizens".

I suggested the following articles as counter-arguments:
Americans Die for Sharia in Iraq

Women's rights in a Shi'ite Iraq

Women Fear Losing Rights in New Iraq

I believe the quote from Women Fear Losing Rights in New Iraq sums it up beautifully,Quote:

The liberation promised by the U.S. invasion has so far eluded most Iraqi women. With gunmen roaming the streets and kidnappings a daily occurrence, protective fathers and anxious husbands keep their daughters and wives at home. Women have been targeted for failing to cover their heads and for expressing views such as those of Yanar Mohammed, a women's rights campaigner, who has received several death threats.

"If George Bush thinks this is liberation, then he should make his own wife and daughters wear hijab," said Hanan Azzawi, 36, one of the salon's stylists."

Bush's strong rhetoric on sex slavery masks policy failures, Quote:

U.S. interventions around the world are contributing to the trafficking and exploitation of women. The State Department TIP report for 2003 noted that trafficking activities have increased in Afghanistan and Iraq as a consequence of instability brought on by armed conflict. "As we have seen elsewhere," the report stated, "the demand for prostitution often increases with the presence of military troops, expatriates and international personnel who have access to disposable income."

On April 24, 2002, Ben Johnston, a helicopter mechanic for DynCorp in Bosnia, testified to Congress about DynCorp employees who were allegedly buying women and girls to keep in their homes as sex slaves. Yet, despite the president's "zero tolerance" directive and the development of laws that would hold contractors responsible for involvement in sex trafficking, DynCorp remains in good standing as a U.S. contractor, and in 2003 was awarded a no-bid contract to "re-establish police, justice and prison functions in post-conflict Iraq."

_______________________________________________________________________________
New Post: Listening to Iraqi Children
Bush vs. Iraqi children, opposing viewpoints

According to the Bush administration:
Quote:

"We are not occupying Iraq"

"Iraq is sovereign. We transferred authority to an interim government last June. Our troops are there because the representatives of the Iraqi people, who were appointed by American Proconsul Paul Bremer, have asked them to remain.

When the transitional government requests a timetable for withdrawal troops, we'll think of some other reason not to call the occupation an occupation".

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Colonial Occupation is Liberation

Now get with the program.

Repercussions of Bush's "Aggression by Choice" are plain to see, Quote:

In basic training in the United States military, new recruits who are broken down to break the human inhibition to killing take part in training chants like, “What makes the grass grow? Blood, blood, bright red blood.”

Recently in Vancouver, former United States Marine Sgt. Jimmy Massey addressed a small crowd and clearly described human rights violations and direct violations of Geneva conventions in Iraq. He talked about how the military taught recruits to hate another culture and did not give them the tools to appreciate or understand adequately those who they were being sent to kill and to liberate.

Massey clearly said several times: “We are committing genocide in Iraq.”

According to the Iraqi Children on the other hand, Quote:

Their elders don't always "teach the children well," either. Local leaders organized a street play in Sadr City. The "bad guy" is dressed as an American soldier, paying off local informants to squeal on the militant gunmen of the Mahdi army.
"Here is some money as a reward from the coalition forces," said one child.

Instead of using their imagination - or toy guns - they fire real guns, loaded with blanks.

And when they "play dead" they are treated as heroes, and martyrs. They talk of rivers of blood, and revenge.

"Let us revolt against America."

There isn't enough money or manpower to treat the million or more of Iraq's children Dr. Hameed estimates are deeply traumatized, much less the millions of children learning to live - and die - by the gun.

"So they are being trained to be killers?" asked Dozier.

"I'm sorry to say that I think yes," Hameed answered.

This, it seems, is a generation cheated out of peace -- and innocence.

For Iraqi children, a generation which never knew peace, the future looks grim. To quote from the article After the War Comes Cancer:

"Information collected for a German project investigating the use of uranium-charged ammunition in Iraq shows that when Iraqi women fear for their children's health, it is with good reason. After two wars where oil wells were torched, chemical factories bombed and radioactive ammunition fired, the first thing Iraqi women ask when giving birth is not if it is a boy or a girl, but if it is normal or deformed. The number of cancer cases and children born with deformities has skyrocketed after the two Gulf Wars…

The doctors say the connection between the contamination of hundred of thousands of people on one side and the rising number of cancer cases on the other is beyond doubt, but proving it is not easy. Dr. Janan Hassan firmly believes that the radioactive missiles used by the Americans and the British are responsible for the increased incidence of cancer in Iraq since the early 1990s… She hopes a future independent Iraqi government will seek compensation from Washington and London. "We have to demand it. That is the price of the war," she said".

In A Matter of Conscience, Sergeant Kevin Benderman, U.S. Army wrote, Quote:

"When you contemplate the beauty of the world around us and the gifts we have been given you have to ask yourself, " Is this what humanity is meant to do, wage war against one another?”…Consider: the positive things that could be accomplished without war in our lives--prescription medication that is affordable for seniors, college grants that are available for high school seniors, I could name a list of reasons not to waste our resources on war. The most important being to let the children of the world learn war no more".

Change only happens when we organize, start working together, and fight for what we believe in with whole-hearted determination. There are no short cuts to fighting for social justice/peace, just plain old hard work and patience. If not us, then who?

Peace Resources:
BigPictureSmall World
End Torture Now
Stop the war machine / Start the peace machine.

What 'Liberal Media?'

2005-03-14T01:34:00.000-08:00

Several posts I wrote on the Randi Rhodes Message Board (RRMB) re: the state of 'our media'.

What 'Liberal Media?', An explanation to a Republican!!!

The Media Can Legally Lie, Story found on Project Censored 2005

Carlyle group is trying to buy cable co., Corporate Message Control?

What 'Liberal Media?', An explanation to a Republican!!!

I sent a Republican friend the following articles hoping to open his eyes re: the Bushies and the state of 'our media'.

Gore Vidal on Bush's Inaugural Address: "The Most Un-American Speech I've Ever Heard" Gore Vidal on Democracy Now
________________

Ted Turner: Fox News Is Bush's Propaganda Tool
broadcastingcable.com

This is part of his e-mail:
QUOTE:

Re: “Ted Turner is absolutely correct about Fox News run by the republican party, but on the other side there are the rest of the news networks, are they all Democrats? Influence by the Democratic Party? None you say? That’s highly unlikely”.

My Response:

“What sources can you point to that reflect that the “mainstream” media is liberal?”

The so-called “Liberal Media” are owned by large Conservative corporations that dictate control over biased news reporting in major newspapers and on major television networks.PBS.org

The media are conservative just like their owners and sponsors. You're getting the "News" the way that they want you to see it. Basically six major companies (AOL Time Warner, Disney, GE, News Corp., Viacom & Vivendi Universal) manufacture a "world view" and present that view to us. Let’s face it, if CNN were a “liberal” station, it would have fired "Bob Novak" and hired someone like one of the country's leading dissidents, MIT Professor: Noam Chomsky.

The fact is we don’t really get “real” news from CNN, etc. Seeing that they spent most of their time covering “breaking news” stories such as “Michael Jackson’s trial” or “Prince Charles’s second wedding” is a distressing indication that they are in the “infotainment” business, rather than “real investigative journalism”(csicop.org).

Liberal Media News is alive and well, just not available on most mainstream sources. A compilation of reliable liberal information on the internet can be found on: Common Dreams.org.

Sites I personally read/listen to frequently are as follows:

Liberal radio stations:
Air America Radio
esp: Randi Rhodes

Independent News Organization:
Democracy Now.org

Liberal Magazines:
The Nation
Mother Jones

Also the main problem I have with Fox “news” station is that they continually lie to their audience in order to advance the Bush administration’s policies. When journalism is basically reduced to being the mouthpiece for an administration, it is no longer reliable news, rather it is government propaganda. Salon.com
_______________

You wrote:
QUOTE:

“So what is the point? American People are all Stupid for electing George Bush as President. A comment on Gore Vitals comments on the framing fathers of our constitution. If he likes it or not our present day government is the end product of their efforts including declarations of war.”

Thomas Jefferson once said: “An informed citizenry is the bulwark of a democracy”.
According to Robert McChesney, founder of Free Press:
QUOTE:

“The past few months remind us again that media reform is not a left-versus-right, technocratic or obscure issue; it addresses the singular importance of media to a self-governing society. Never again should we allow our media system to send the voters to the polls without the information they need to make well-reasoned decisions. There is a national emergency when voters go to the polls ignorant of the most elementary facts about our economy, foreign policy, health care, and environment. It is unacceptable”.

Because of the lack of “factual” information in the mainstream media, I believe that the American public is often mis-informed. See: Truthout's Chris Hume red state road trip series.

Everyone is entitled to their own opinions, just not their own “facts”. The Bush administration working with “fake reporters” such as “Jeff Gannon”, et al. managed to sell a “war of choice” and various harmful policies to the American public.

Media Matters.org
Opednews.com
Rolling Stone Article

I have no problem when an informed person is in favor of the “pre-emptive” Bush doctrine policies. I believe you are wrong (my opinion), but as long as you are aware of the consequences of that policy (stuck in Iraq indefinitely at a cost of $ 1 billion per day) and are willing to pay that price, then obviously Bush is your guy.

I do have a problem with the Republican voters (ie. the ones mentioned in the 'Chris Hume' series above) who due to the lies of the mainstream media, believe that in voting for Bush they would get “universal health care coverage”, or “sound environmental policies” etc. True democracy needs an informed citizenry.

PS. I don’t really understand your reference to the founding fathers, but below is a piece you might find interesting.
"The Founding Fathers Meet George Bush"
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ming wrote, QUOTE:
The whole bias in the media position is completely overblown by both sides. I think most of the mainstream media leans left, but it isn't that big of a deal.

The following books and films might illustrate why the concept of a 'liberal media' is a myth:'News Incorporated' a BuzzFlash Recommendation states QUOTE:

Democracy is dependent upon the flow of truthful information, and we're not getting it from the mainstream media. News divisions are now, for the most part, just corporate divisions of large conglomerate companies, more concerned with profit than shedding light on the public policy issues facing America and the world.

'News Incorporated' is a dangerously important anthology whose title speaks for the content of the book. News is no longer something that belongs to the population; but rather, it is a commodity owned by corporate interests aligned with the Republican Party. 'News Incorporated' covers the gamut of mainstream corporate media threats to democracy, most of which have already been realized. After all, this is the 5th year of the Bush Cartel rule, and it was only made possible because most of America is getting propaganda spoon fed to them over the corporate media pipelines instead of the actual news.

You may also want to read:'News Flash': Journalism, Infotainment and the Bottom-Line Business of Broadcast News by Bonnie Anderson.

Films such as: 'Elite Propaganda' demolish one of the central tenets of our political culture, the idea of the 'liberal media'. Utilizing a systematic model based on massive empirical research, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky reveal the manner in which the news media are so subordinated to corporate and conservative interests that their function can only be described as that of "elite propaganda."

'Weapons of Mass Deception' is a more recent film that you may want to check out. QUOTE:

BuzzFlash: "Your new film, 'Weapons of Mass Deception', documents how the American corporate media complex helped the Bush Administration sell the notion of launching a preemptive attack on Iraq. And more than that, the media misled the American people into believing that there were absolutely no other options other than a preemptive attack to protect our national security. So how was the media able to control and narrow the discussion so much? Is it as simple as just not talking about what other options were available in the buildup to the war?"

Danny Schechter: "Journalism is supposed to be a watchdog on power, not a lapdog. It’s not there as an echo chamber or a transmission belt for the claims made by the government. The media has a duty to scrutinize information, seek out other sources, try to evaluate and try to understand what the political strategy is behind a focus on a certain issue. But what we saw over and over again, on every single news program on every channel for almost five months, was the demonization of Saddam Hussein. He went from being a bad guy to a Hitler – somebody who not only was threatening his own people, gassing them and committing human rights abuses but also threatening the rest of the world. The media also spun the story that the WMDs in Iraq were presented as offensive weapons that had to be disarmed lest the world itself would be threatened".

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New Post
The Media Can Legally Lie, Story found on Project Censored 2005

Project Censored. org Highlights:

In February 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals unanimously agreed with an assertion by FOX News that there is no rule against distorting or falsifying the news in the United States.

Back in December of 1996, Jane Akre and her husband, Steve Wilson, were hired by FOX as a part of the Fox “Investigators” team at WTVT in Tampa Bay, Florida. In 1997 the team began work on a story about bovine growth hormone (BGH), a controversial substance manufactured by Monsanto Corporation. The couple produced a four-part series revealing that there were many health risks related to BGH and that Florida supermarket chains did little to avoid selling milk from cows treated with the hormone, despite assuring customers otherwise.

According to Akre and Wilson, the station was initially very excited about the series. But within a week, Fox executives and their attorneys wanted the reporters to use statements from Monsanto representatives that the reporters knew were false and to make other revisions to the story that were in direct conflict with the facts. Fox editors then tried to force Akre and Wilson to continue to produce the distorted story. When they refused and threatened to report Fox's actions to the FCC, they were both fired.(Project Censored #12 1997)

Akre and Wilson sued the Fox station and on August 18, 2000, a Florida jury unanimously decided that Akre was wrongfully fired by Fox Television when she refused to broadcast (in the jury's words) “a false, distorted or slanted story” about the widespread use of BGH in dairy cows. They further maintained that she deserved protection under Florida's whistle blower law. Akre was awarded a $425,000 settlement...

Akre and Wilson won the first legal round. Akre was awarded $425,000 in a jury trial with well-crafted arguments for their wrongful termination as whistleblowers. And in the process, they also won the prestigious “Goldman Environmental” prize for their outstanding efforts. However, FOX turned around and appealed the verdict. This time, FOX won...

Anyone concerned with media must hear the alarm bells. The Bush FCC, under Michael Powell’s leadership, has shown repeatedly that greater media consolidation is encouraged, that liars like Rush Limbaugh and Ann Coulter are perfectly acceptable, that to refer to the FCC interpretation of “editorial judgment” is to potentially throw out any pretense at editorial accuracy if the “accuracy” harms a large corporation and its bottom line. This is our “Brave New Media”, the corporate media that protects its friends and now lies, unchallenged if need be.

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qwerty asked:
QUOTE:

"Who is the new FCC chair? What do we know about them? Can anyone be worse than Powell?"

Sign the Free Press petition to appoint a chairperson who will defend the public interest and promote a more democratic media system. Additional information on reclaiming the FCC for the Public's Interests and limiting unchecked media consolidation can be found on: Time To Retool the FCC for the Public's Interests by Jonathan Lawson (posted earlier in this forum).
howson wrote:
QUOTE:

"Could it not be argued that, while there is no rule against it, by distorting or falsifying the news, the entity is no longer a new organisation, so it not entitled to the same protections as a real new organization?".

I believe these "news" organizations get around it by claiming that "According to some experts...". Consequently, "FAUX News" can say that they are simply "reporting" what certain "experts" believe (of course, the "experts" are carefully pre-selected and chosen for the views the media wanted to promote in the first place).
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New Post
Carlyle group is trying to buy cable co., Corporate Message Control?

Carlyle group is offering to buyout Insight cable company. By controlling the “message”, the corporate media (an increasingly powerful small elite) is succeeding in keeping Americans uninformed, and worse, misinformed. Censorship, government propaganda, parroting of official government sources, and media manipulation have replaced careful investigative reporting as the norm. See: 10 Things Corporate Media Doesn't Want You to Know.

Reflections on Orwell, 2005
QUOTE:

“BuzzFlash: Okay, let's get to the bottom line, as in profits. Isn't it sort of strange that the man who ultimately oversees CBS News is the vice-president of Viacom? You cover the multimedia conglomerate ownership of the "information industry" in your documentary. But it appears to be getting worse all the time. We have a one-party government in bed with the so-called news industry, which is really not a news industry at all. It's a public relations profit center. Every day we wake up with new "truths," the old ones erased as if the blackboard had been cleaned... What has happened to journalists' role in holding government accountable?

Robert Kane Pappas: Something has happened since the Bush administration took power. They are off limits for the media in some ways past administrations clearly were not, and for a couple of reasons.

First, the Republicans now control all three branches of government. There simply cannot be a Congressional investigation into something they don't want investigated. Even in such cases as Ken Lay/Enron and secret Cheney energy meetings or the Valerie Plame CIA outing, suddenly the wheels of investigations are slowed down to a glacial pace and the story never achieves a major level of public awareness. Meanwhile, the Martha Stewart case happens and justice moves with dispatch and huge media fanfare. So there is no accountability in the Bush Administration, not Bush, not Cheney, not Rumsfeld, not Rice, no one...

The spin process is very effective, both in newspaper reports and on TV and in radio. If you make it your business to be informed, what happens is, you end up watching the mainstream news with your mouth hanging open. If you watch only what they offer, you're largely intellectually lobotomized. Your opinions are determined by two- and three-word sound bites: "Death Tax," "Conspiracy Theory," "They hate our Freedoms," "Democracy," "Liberal Bias," "Class Warfare." As Winston's co-worker Syme says with glee: "Every year, fewer and fewer words, and the range of consciousness always a little smaller."

BBC's journalist Michael Buerk warned: "A flawed media, I suggest, leads to a flawed democracy...Ill informed citizens cannot make proper judgments about their leaders' actions, about the actions that take place in their names, about the laws that govern them. The media matter."

Also check out:

Interview with Amy Goodman, of Democracy Now.
Bill Moyers.
10 Steps to a more Democratic Media.
Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Laurie Garrett resigned from Newsday and in a blistering exit memo (Mar 1, 2005) blasted Newsday's parent company - the Tribune - for putting profit over quality journalism. She went on to write, "This is terrible for democracy. I have been in 47 states of the USA since 9/11, and I can attest to the horrible impact the deterioration of journalism has had on the national psyche. I have found America a place of great and confused fearfulness." Laurie Garret’s interview on Democracy Now, can be read here.

Media Reform Through Libraries

2005-03-13T19:53:00.000-08:00

I am concerned about the growing "Fascist" trends that I observe within the US. See Salon, February 2005 article: "Among the Believers" (you can sign in to Salon for free by watching an ad).

"There appears to be a large number of Americans who are prepared to kill anyone for George Bush ... Like Brownshirts, the new conservatives take personally any criticism of their leader and his policies. To be a critic is to be an enemy".

I have been trying to convince the librarians to hold monthly meetings re: media censorship and the decline of democracy in the US. Below is a portion of an e-mail I sent to a local librarian. I am trying to figure out how to create a national movement (perhaps through the American Library Association???) on "How libraries Can Fight Media Bias And Deception". Perhaps you have more ideas on the subject?

Media Reform And An Idea On How libraries Can Fight Media Bias And Deception.

Article taken from:"Running a Media Deficit". "The joint rise of the conservative media and creeping authoritarianism is no coincidence". By Robert Parry.

Excerpts:

"Some liberal activists wonder why Democratic leaders are often so circumspect. Why, they ask, don't the Democrats just let it fly like the Republicans do? The cautious tone turns off much of the Democratic base while leaving many independent voters questioning whether the Democrats really know what they stand for.

The Democratic-defensive dynamic, however, is a consequence of the media-political infrastructure that Republicans and conservatives have spent three decades--and billions of dollars--creating. This conservative infrastructure has helped the Republicans achieve a unity that often has been lacking on the Democratic side. Conservatives can consult dozens of well-financed media outlets to hear the latest pro-Republican "themes," often coordinated with the Republican National Committee or Bush's White House.

Liberals lack any comparable media apparatus, having failed to match the investment and dedication of the right. Those committed liberal outlets that do exist are almost always under funded and often part-time. The Republicans' right-wing media has given them a powerful advantage--and one that does not seem likely to go away.

This media deficit puts the Bush critics at a particular disadvantage because their arguments require explanation of historical context and acceptance of the frustrating work of diplomacy. On the other hand, Bush's argument is easier to grasp: "Kill the bad guys".
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"The new system would be the sum of the parts gradually arising out of the ruins of Watergate. At its core would be the intelligence concept of "perception management" not so much Orwellian as post-Orwellian. While Orwell's 1984 envisioned sophisticated torture to extract confessions and mass speeches to stir up ethnic hatreds, this new system would rely on ridicule to make those who get in the way objects of derision, outcasts whose very names draw eye-rolling chuckles and knee-slapping guffaws. Think of Dukakis wearing a helmet, Bill Clinton and a semen-stained dress and Al Gore inventing the Internet, not to mention any number of lesser-known public figures who were so foolish as to object to the rush to war in Iraq.

George W. Bush was the perfect candidate for exploiting this transformation. Lacking a deep appreciation for the American constitutional system of checks and balances, Bush wasn't personally repulsed by the notion of shifting to a more authoritarian structure of governance and silencing meaningful dissent. Indeed, he was attracted to the idea.

After claiming the presidency in December 2000, Bush once joked, "If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier--so long as I'm the dictator." It is hard to imagine that any other American president would have said such a thing".

More Info from:

Bush Family Fortunes DVD
Hijacking Catastrophe.org

Dear Librarian:

As you can see from the article above as well as from numerous other sources (ie. Freepress.net, etc.) media reform is essential if we want to keep our democracy alive. Since the media is not providing the "factual information", it's left to institutions such as libraries to educate the general public on issues that affect our lives: jobs, health insurance, social security (Medicare), environment, education, civil liberties, & war in Iraq/Afghanistan. If libraries across the nation could team up with a non-partisan organization such as the League of Women Voters and various university professors (political science, economics and journalism) they might be able to create a program that offers viewpoints and ideas not available in mainstream media.

A sample program could include various professors or even the authors discussing issues brought up in books such as:

"Running On Empty: How The Democratic and Republican Parties Are Bankrupting Our Future and What Americans Can Do About It" by Peter G. Peterson.
"Crimes Against Nature : How George W. Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy" by Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
"Chain of Command : The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib" by Seymour M. Hersh.

Such events could be moderated by a group panel from the League of Women Voters. I think that by having a university associated with such an event, one would almost be guaranteed an audience (if nothing else, a professor could make the event part of his/her class requirement).

Show the DVD of Studs Terkel's "Working (Broadway Theatre Archive) (1982)" alongside book discussions of "What's Class Got to Do With It?: American Society in the Twenty-First Century" by Michael Zweig or "Nickel and Dimed: On(Not)Getting By in America" by Barbara Ehrenreich

Show the DVDs "Outfoxed" & "Manufacturing Consent - Noam Chomsky and the Media (1993)" alongside book discussions of "What Liberal Media? The Truth About Bias and the News" by Eric Alterman, "Blinded by the Right : The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative" by David Brock (Media Matters.org), "The Exception to the Rulers: Exposing Oily Politicians, War Profiteers, and the Media that Love Them" by Amy Goodman, David Goodman

Find out why documentaries available on
Video: the dossier are not shown on US TV; esp. shows such as:

The "Canadian TV's scathing bio of VP. Dick Cheney"--Fifth Estate can also be seen on: Dick Cheney

The Dutch documentary "Exposed, The Carlyle Group" . The video talks about how former World Leaders and Washington Insiders Making Billions in the War on Terrorism (the video is amazing; George W. Bush is in a position to make budgetary decisions that could pad his father's bank account. If one has ever wondered why a conservative like George W Bush enjoys spending so much tax payer money, the video will make it clear. Through his father's association with The Carlyle Group, our nation's 13th largest contractor, today's government spending turns into tomorrow's future inheritance for the President of the United States.)

Also find out why very few people know about organizations such as the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) that influence/shape our nation's foreign policy--see: New American Century.org

Among the reasons given as to "Why libraries are good for the country", the American Library Association (ALA) presents the following statement:

"Libraries inform citizens. Democracy vests supreme power in the people. Libraries make democracy work by providing access to information so that citizens can make the decisions necessary to govern themselves. The public library is the only institution in American society whose purpose is to guard against the tyrannies of ignorance and conformity, and its existence indicates the extent to which a democratic society values knowledge, truth, justice, books, and culture".

Libraries across the nation (through the ALA) could create a yearly program that would designate October to be "voter information" month by presenting events such as those described above. To raise money for such a program and involve more of the community, the library could hold book fairs/author signings sponsored by local businesses (bookstores, etc.); part of the proceeds could then be used to create a separate fund to sponsor a class trip to Washington D.C. or the state capital for a local 8th class, thereby educating future voters. Let me know what you think of the idea of libraries fighting media disinformation.

P.S. "Never be afraid to raise your voice for honesty and truth and compassion against injustice and lying and greed. If people all over the world would do this, it would change the Earth". William Faulkner