Against a backdrop of slumping economic figures, a rise in poverty and a dramatic increase in the number of the nations health uninsured ~ the Republican party issued its expected CALL TO ARMS .
It's the only card Bush can play but it carries risks particularly if Iraq continues to disintegrate and the American body count continues to climb ~ now 969 and
fast approaching 1000.
" The numbers show it: By a 3-to-1 margin, people think the war in Iraq increased rather than decreased the threat of terrorism. Six in 10 say Bush does not have a clear plan for bringing the Iraq war to a successful resolution. A total of 969 U.S. Military members have died in Iraq, including 831 since Bush stood before a "Mission Accomplished" sign and declared an end to major combat on May 1, 2003."
" Nearly 40 percent of the dead soldiers came from political battleground states. In the 20 states where Bush and his rival, Sen. John Kerry, focus their time and money, each death has been a dominant story in the local news media. In the three most critical states to the president's re-election bid -- Pennsylvania, Florida and Ohio -- 128 service members have died in Iraq, or about 13 percent of the total." *
* Human Cost of Iraq War Erodes Support for Bush
by Ron FournierPublished on Monday, August 30, 2004 by the Associated Press
Using 9/11 as the backdrop former mayor Rudy Giuliani stoked the war fires to a fever pitch in the climatic speech of the evening. The irony is that the Administration whose incompetence led to 9/11 has the arrogance to use 9/11 as its call to arms.
Up until that point the crowd seemed strangely disengaged and their reaction to Cheneys entrance was muted at best .
Perhaps the 250,000 protesters the previous day had left its mark but Giuliani saved the night for the hard right believers.
Believe it or not, Michael Moore was in the press row and created more excitement than most of the speakers.
His raising two fingers for two months while the crowd was chanting four more yearswas a great moment.
Later he wrote; " But what's all this talk about New York being enemy territory? Nothing could be further from the truth. We New Yorkers love Republicans. We have a Republican mayor and governor, a death penalty and two nuclear plants within 30 miles of the city "
PBS offered the most unbiased and best analysis and their interview with John McCain , after his purposely moderate speech, was most telling.
McCain shared with Lehrer, Shields and Brooks that " this election will be decided on what is happening in Iraq and if it continues to flounder ~ Americans will choose another team and he has full confidence in John Kerry if that were to happen. "
And therein lies the real story of this convention for the moderate Republicans are uneasy with the performance of the Bush administration and are obviously the vote target of the kerry campaign. In many ways, conservative Republicans are having an identity crisis and it showed in the many unenthusiastic crowd shots.
Giuliani gave away the upcoming strategy as the election draws near when he exclaimed " Your either with us or the Terrorists " ~ for that will certainly be the Bush strategy when the alert level rises just before the election in November.
The question I and many concerned Americans ask is WHERE IS THE CALL FOR PEACE ?
Kerry has a golden opening to make that case while still maintaining a strong military presence .
This is the perfect opportunity for Kerry to proudly raise that banner and rekindle the flickering flame of his progressive anti-war base.
If he fails to seize this opportunity he may well lose this election .
The world and millions of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, wait with bated breath.
Bush lite will not carry the day.
Allen L Roland
Catch me on Radio every Monday/ TRUTHTALK7AM PST
STARTING WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 13TH / KYCY 1550 AM SAN FRANCISCO / WED 9 - 10 AM & SUNDAY 10 - 11 AM
Throughout history, it has been the inaction of those who could have acted; the indifference of those who should have known better; the silence of the voice of justice when it mattered most; that has made it possible for evil to triumph: Haile Selassie
The Bush theme for the Republican Convention will obviously be THE WAR ON TERROR to be fought with guns, missiles, bombs , etc.... I can already hear the drumbeats .
Finally a major statesman , obviously not from the United States, says the obvious and offers the only true solution to the War on Terror, " Without a war on poverty, we will never win the war on terror.. Dictatorship and Religious Extremism are fueled by Gross Inequality. "
The breeding ground for terrorism is economic apathy, despair and political disenfranchisement and Benazir Bhutto, former Prime Minister of Pakistan, brilliantly makes his case in the Guardian:
Excerpt: "While global attention is focused on terrorism, the crisis of poverty is effectively disregarded. Today, big business seems to be in the driving seat. One recent report found that while 20 years ago CEOs made an average of 40 times more than factory workers, last year it was 400 times more, and is now climbing to a multiple of 500....The neglect of rising poverty against the background of religious extremism can only complicate an already difficult world situation ."
Allen L Roland
Without a War on Poverty, We Will Never Defeat Terror
Dictatorship and Religious Extremism are fueled by Gross Inequality
by Benazir Bhutto
Published on Monday, August 9, 2004 by the Guardian / United Kingdom
While the world focuses on the war against terror, the war against poverty slides on to the backburner. Since the bombing of the World Trade Center in 2001, three developments have become decisive on a global scale. The first is the fight to root out militants, the second is the political rise of those on the religious margins and the third is the growing gap between the rich and the poor.
Pakistan is a frontline state in the war against terrorism. Most of the leading terrorists have been arrested in Pakistan. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, once described as the CEO of al-Qaida, was arrested in Rawalpindi. Other important leaders continue to be caught in dribs and drabs every six months, including Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian, who was arrested in the Pakistani city of Gujrat last month.
This is good and bad news for Islamabad's military ruler. The positive part is that General Pervez Musharraf gets to play good cop and earn Washington's pleasure to continue his dictatorship. The bad part is that eyebrows are raised as to why leading al-Qaida militants found it necessary to hide in a land run by Washington's "key ally" in the war against terror.
Unfortunately for Pakistan, assassinations and suicide bombings have also been increasing domestically. Scores of Pakistanis and many foreigners have been killed. Many political leaders have been gunned down in the streets - from Rawalpindi in the north to Karachi in the south.
None of the assassins has been arrested. Instead, public attention has been focused on five apparent assassination attempts against high-profile targets that have taken place since last December: two attacks on Gen Musharraf, and one each on the Karachi corps commander, the prime minister-designate, Shaukat Aziz, and the Baluchistan chief minister.
While the regime insists these were genuine assassination attempts, their pattern suggests something different. At most, they seem to have been attempts to frighten the targets. At worst, if the cynics are to be believed, the attacks were stage-managed for external consumption.
For example, in each case, the bombers used low intensity explosives. None of the people hurt or killed was of political value - though they were, of course, of personal and national value. These included innocent people escorting the apparent targets. The main targets escaped without a scratch. While it is welcome that they survived, the larger issue needs resolving.
The drivers in the corps commander's and prime minister-designate's cars were killed, but the other passengers escaped unscathed. It is difficult to believe that bombers would repeatedly use low-intensity explosives so that only one occupant of the car being attacked - or a person outside the car - would die. A public commission into these attacks is needed.
The second crucial development since September 11 2001 has been the rise of religious extremists. There appear to be groups in both the Muslim and non-Muslim worlds who believe that a clash of civilizations is needed for religious reasons. The Christian fundamentalists believe that Christ will be resurrected once the people of the Jewish faith are resettled on the banks of the Euphrates. The Muslim extremists believe that the Mahdi will arrive when the battle between Muslims and non-Muslims intensifies.
This political scenario is threatening to undo the entire global social fabric built since the end of the second world war - one based on the tolerance between different faiths, races, genders and cultures. A clash of civilizations can lead to Armageddon, where there will be no winners on earth. But perhaps the religious extremists are not searching for winners on earth.
The challenge for the world community is to emphasize values of tolerance, moderation and inter-faith understanding, on which rest the pillars of a less violent world. However, the bombing of the World Trade Center and the events in Iraq have made that more difficult. The former led to suspicion against Muslims and a loss of civil liberties; the latter to a counter-suspicion from Muslims as to the real purposes of the war. The inability to find weapons of mass destruction and the Abu Ghraib abuses undermined the reasons given for the Iraq war.
While global attention is focused on terrorism, the crisis of poverty is effectively disregarded. Today, big business seems to be in the driving seat. One recent report found that while 20 years ago CEOs made an average of 40 times more than factory workers, last year it was 400 times more, and is now climbing to a multiple of 500.
This staggering rise in the fortunes of those on top, while those below suffer, is a festering sore that has the potential to erupt. The recent Indian elections showed that a stock-market economy alone could not make India shine. The Indian electorate went against all predictions, as peasants, laborers and the middle classes voted for change. Similarly, in Pakistan the talk of stock market rises and foreign exchange increases hides a more troubling picture. This is one of increasing poverty, hunger, misery and frustration. The numbers of young people killing themselves because of hunger was 1,200 in six months. These are the officially recorded figures - the real figures are believed to be much higher.
In Pakistan, the average income has been shrinking. The cost of living is rising sharply. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the ordinary citizen to pay fat utility bills and buy the basic necessities of life. The Pakistan Economic Survey admits that poverty has increased since democracy was derailed in 1996. The gap between the rich and the poor is growing at an alarming rate. The war against terrorism is primarily perceived as a war based on the use of force. However, economics has its own force, as does the desperation of families who cannot feed themselves. A more stable world depends on the ability to use force when necessary - and to seek political solutions when possible. After all, force is the prelude to achieving a more favorable negotiating position in a political settlement.
Militancy and greed cannot become the defining images of a new century that began with much hope. As the body count rises in Iraq, as a leading NGO pulls out of Afghanistan and as a suicide attack takes place against Pakistan's prime minister designate, the time has come to rethink. By returning to the values of democracy, the will of the people, broad-based government and building institutions that can respond to the people, the social malaise can be addressed.
The neglect of rising poverty against the background of religious extremism can only complicate an already difficult world situation .
Benazir Bhutto is chairperson of the Pakistan People's party and a former prime minister of Pakistan
Catch me on Radio every Monday/ TRUTHTALK7AM PST
STARTING WEEK OF SEPTEMBER 13TH / KYCY 1550 AM SAN FRANCISCO / WED 9 - 10 AM & SUNDAY 10 - 11 AM
One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It is simply too painful to acknowledge -- even to ourselves -- that we've been so credulous: Carl Sagan
WHY WE ARE HATED
We are hated because we have allowed ourselves to be controlled by fear and have lost our soul and its moorings in the process.
Never had a country so many openings to happiness as this.
Her setting out is life, like the rising of a fair morning, was unclouded and promising .
Her cause was good.
Her principles just and liberal.
Her temper serene and firm.
Her conduct regulated by the nicest steps, and everything about her wore the mark of honor.
It is not every country that can boast so fair
an origin : Thomas Paine
We are hated because we have let greed and power overcome goodwill, cooperation and altruism .
America has lighted a candle to all the world : Patrick Henry
We are hated because we have forgotten where we came from.
Wise and good men are, in my opinion, the strength of the state ; much more so than riches and arms : Benjamin Franklin
We are hated becausewe have desecrated the word Democracy and made it into an instrument of conquest.
For we know that when a nation goes down and never comes back, when a society or civilization perishes, one condition may always be found ~ they forgot where they came from .
They lost sight of what brought them along : Carl sandburg
But perhaps the words of a young Iraqi woman can best describe the truth of our so called liberation of Iraq and why we are hated .
THE LIBERATORS
Nasreen Melek
The American police used dogs to frighten detained Iraqi teenagers, I see the fear on their faces from the pictures but they keep asking why do they hate us.
The American army were using their animals to make juveniles as young as 15 years old urinate on themselves as part of a competition but they keep asking why do they hate us.
The whole world watched the images of the Iraqi prisoners being strangled and dragged on the floor but they keep asking why do they hate us.
Their military personnel stacked the Iraqi prisoners bodies in a pyramid, wrote on their skin in English but they keep asking why do they hate us.
Male prisoners are positioned to simulate sex with each other, the American soldiers are laughing, posing, pointing or giving the camera a thumb-up but they keep asking why do they hate us.
Cluster bombs were used against Iraqi civilians but they keep asking why do they hate us.
Iraqi prisoners’ heads were covered with plastic bags, their hands were cuffed with plastic ribbons in front of their wives and children but they keep asking why do they hate us.
More than 10,000 Iraqis were killed during their liberation but they keep asking why do they hate us.
They bombed religious shrines but they keep asking why do they hate us.
They banned the media from their crime stage so there will be no witnesses but they keep asking why do they hate us.
Their bombs destroyed Allah’s name on the walls of shrine but they keep asking why do they hate us.
Iraqi scientists, lawyers, academics were shot in front of the American soldiers’ eyes but they keep asking why do they hate us.
Cemeteries were bombed in Najaf but they keep asking why do they hate us.
They demolished civilian’s houses but they keep asking why do they hate us.
They kidnapped our past, present and future but they keep asking why do they hate us.
There were no weapon of mass destruction and the whole country was destroyed because of their greed for the oil but they keep asking why do they hate us.
Am I losing my sanity or what?Please give me one reason to love them, to cherish their presence in my country and to see them as liberators.
"This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation's homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice and love: Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
On the anniversary of Martin Luther King's I have a dream speech in Washington, D.C. let's set the stage for the Republican Convention in New Yorks Madison Square Garden.
The situation is so grave that only the levity of Mark Morford, S.F.Gate, can put it all in proper perspective .
And isn't it funny how at least 13 members of Congress have actually requested that the United Nations monitor this year's U.S. presidential election, just because, just in case, just to ensure there's no voter rolling and election rigging and chad hanging and outright shameless Florida reaming like last time?
And isn't it even more funny how, when firebrand U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, from Florida, brought the issue up on the floor of Congress, she was actually shouted down by the Republicans, scolded that she was out of order and told her comments should be stricken from the record?
And they all screamed and stomped and huffed and puffed and said no way should there be any oversight of this year's election, even though there is indeed a gross pile of mounting evidence that there's nothing stopping BushCo from simply stealing the election all over again. Isn't that funny?
It's enough to make you laugh 'til you gag. And choke. And move to Canada.
And isn't it hilarious how the absolute worst thing the Right has been able to dredge up about John Kerry is that he might sort of maybe have exaggerated some facts about his various Vietnam medals and acts of and valor and deeds of astounding heroism, which is sort of like saying well sure you saved 10 babies from that burning building, but jeez, you were wearing special shoes at the time and by the way couldn't you have saved 11? Traitor!
And how hard should we guffaw while we note that, as Kerry was volunteering in Vietnam and earning his medals and risking his life in the most volatile and ugly and pointless and lethal and hideous war in American history unless you count Iraq, which you really really should, Dubya was "serving" in the Air National Guard, which we all know translates to mean "hangin' down in Tijuana slamming tequila shooters and annoying the waitresses, all while praising Jesus that he had a daddy who could keep him away from scary complicated violent stuff."
Whoa. Let me take that back. That was totally out of line and inappropriate and disrespectful of our fine incoherent president, and I have absolutely no proof that Dubya was such an embarrassment, such an incompetent AWOL serviceman. Very sorry.
After all, as I've mentioned in this column before, no one really knows what Bush was doing all those blurry, gin-soaked years in the National Guard. No one knows, because all of Dubya's military-service records just recently disappeared from Pentagon archives. Poof! Just like that! And then some of the missing payroll records were magically "found" again, though they still don't answer any questions regarding Bush's whereabouts that year. Imagine! Isn't it funny? What a thing.
So, let's see: Bona-fide war hero turned incredibly articulate, educated, gifted Vietnam War protester and respected senator on one side, alcoholic AWOL failed-businessman born-again pampered daddy's boy evangelical Christian on the other. Is this really the contest? Bush slugs gin and tonics like Evian while Kerry is accused of ... what again? Not being incredibly heroic enough? Wow.
This is not, apparently, a hallucination. Kerry really is being forced to defend his well-documented war record, despite how all the proofs are there, in public view, on the candidate's own Web site, with nothing to hide and for all to see, whereas Dubya was (and still is) a famously inept embarrassment to the military, and is being forced to defend nothing about his own spoiled spoon-fed life, as he humiliates the nation at every utterance and attacks Kerry (and, by extension, John McCain) via GOP-sponsored henchmen while large chunks of his own embarrassing records have just, um, "disappeared."
What, too bitter? Resentful? Too much like I advocate stringing Karl Rove up by his large intestine and slapping him with a rainbow flag until he cries? All apologies.
Hey, it happens. Sometimes you just gotta purge. Vent. Let it all out. Because, really, it all makes you ask: Is everyone on drugs? Mass delusional? Are we just blind? Or is the vicious GOP spin machine really that powerful? Why, yes, yes, it is. And isn't it just the funniest thing?
But, wait, there's more. The GOP is also accusing Kerry of a nasty bout of "flip flopping" on a handful of issues. Griping that he's changed his mind on a few key pieces of legislation, not the least of which is his support for war on Iraq. And the USA Patriot Act. Which is, you know, sort of true.
But, then again, not really, not considering how nearly every single congressperson was equally duped by the vicious GOP war machine, the outright WMD lies and BushCo's post-9/11 propaganda and the invidious USA Patriot Act midnight ream-through. Hell, Kerry was just as misled as the rest of us.
Is Kerry culpable for his own choices and for making errors in judgment and for not always being absolutely flawlessly progressive in his decisions? Hell, yes. But does his record of such errors pale in comparison to Bush's mile-high ream of lies and flip-flops and outright slaps in the face of your humanity? Oh my God yes, yes, it does.
But lo, let us not hold back any longer. Let us now laugh out loud, hold our sides in pain, gasp for air as we look at the BushCo "flip flop" record, in sum. Let us observe the short list of issues about which BushCo has either completely reversed his position, or has simply openly lied to the nation about to further his administration's shockingly small-minded, self-serving corporate agenda:
The creation of the 9/11 commission. The Iraq WMD investigation. The Israeli/Palestine conflict. Nation building. Same-sex marriage. Veterans' benefits. The value of Osama bin Laden. The Saddam/al Qaeda link. North Korea. The U.N. vote on Iraq. "Mission accomplished." Ahmed Chalabi. Steel tariffs. The Department of Homeland Security. Campaign-finance reform. Energy policy. Hybrid cars. The deficit. Assault weapons. Abortion. Science. Global warming. The environment.
And the list, as they say, goes on. And on. And on.
It's a masterful deflection by the GOP spin doctors, really, away from Bush's truly appalling record of flagrant deceit and his title as the hands-down worse environmental president in the history of the United States, toward Kerry's much more highly respected record, wherein he has, among other accomplishments, earned the highest possible rating from various international environmental groups.
And, finally, isn't it funny -- in a nauseating, soul-mauling sort of way -- that 52 American soldiers have died in BushCo's completely useless little Iraq war just this month alone. How very touching, their noble sacrifice. Too bad Bush doesn't care.
Let us just laugh and laugh at how the media barely covers these pedestrian, boring deaths anymore, instead allowing the GOP to turn the debate into one about a miserable, lost war that happened nearly 30 years ago, all while U.S. soldiers continue to die every day, right now, for no justifiable reason whatsoever.
Yes, let us laugh until we cry. Let us note how the Bush-induced death toll is now up to 964 U.S. soldiers -- a staggering 855 above the total since the infamous, insulting "Mission accomplished" quip -- which is, if the GOP plays it just so, right on track to reach 1,000 U.S. dead by the time the Republican convention kicks into high gear. What fun!
And that 1,000th soldier will fall in abject pain, his or her life utterly wasted for a cause that never really existed, that no one actually believes in, that was all built on a lie to begin with. And he or she will die just as all the war hawks and all the right-wing homophobes and all the cigar-chompin' corporate CEOs gather in New York and pop their champagne and cheer the true triumvirate o' GOP happiness: God, guns and money.
Yes, it's enough to make you laugh out loud. Until you don't.
Mark Morford's Notes & Errata column appears every Wednesday and Friday on SF Gate, unless it appears on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which it never does. Subscribe to this column at sfgate.com/newsletters.
REUTERS- Some 1.3 million Americans slid into poverty in 2003 as the ranks of the poor rose 4 percent to 35.9 million, with children and blacks worse off than most. . . Despite the economic recovery, the percentage of the U.S. population living in poverty rose for the third straight year to 12.5 percent -- the highest since 1998 --from 12.1 percent in 2002, the Census Bureau said in its annual povertyreport.
These figures along with the increase of 1.4 million of people without health insuranceis the tip of the Iceberg for the American people ~ if Bush wins in November.
Charles Tiefer, Salon, outlines Bush's agenda for the next four years and if you thought his first term was a bad dream ~ get ready for the nightmare.
Excerpt: " A second-term Bush agenda will constantly impale Democrats on the dilemma of abandoning their poorer, sicker, older and minority groups, or seeing their better-off, healthier and younger members lured off to the other party. If it sounds like a political nightmare for the Democrats, that's because that's what it is planned to be."
Allen L Roland
And you thought his first term was a nightmare What Bush has planned for America if he wins.
- - - - - - - - - - - - By Charles Tiefer / SALON
Aug. 25, 2004 | President Bush's plans for a second term threaten a devastating series of far-reaching challenges to the viability of the Democratic Party itself.
Under Bush's slogan of an "ownership society," the Republicans intend a long-term effort, using changes in Medicare, Social Security and taxes to pit better-off and worse-off Democrats against each other, offering all-but-irresistible incentives for some to desert the others -- and any progressive national coalition. Congressional Democrats reeling from the impact of the last four years of Republican government in the White House and Congress (apart from the brief Democratic-controlled Senate in part of 2001-02) will find no respite in the platform's subtext about the party-splitting wedges ahead. A second-term Bush agenda will constantly impale Democrats on the dilemma of abandoning their poorer, sicker, older and minority groups, or seeing their better-off, healthier and younger members lured off to the other party.If it sounds like a political nightmare for the Democrats, that's because that's what it is planned to be.
Medicare A prime provision of the Republican platform touts Bush's Medicare act of late 2003, focusing public attention on the drug benefit provisions and such nice-sounding themes as providing more healthcare choice and having a free market in healthcare. Meanwhile, the Republicans distract attention from the less visible part of the 2003 act, the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA), which made the most radical alteration to Medicare in years. These Medicare maneuvers occurred with the typical Republican stealth; the act was written in a closed-door conference committee that excluded meaningful Democratic input and rammed through Tom DeLay's House of Representatives by a single vote late at night as the rule for debate was extended for hours while moderate Republican doubters were coerced with threats.
Traditional Medicare unifies seniors into a group that can come together to defend it because it enrolls everyone in its public fee-for-services plan. The MMA begins the political splitting of seniors by adding a new private Preferred Provider Organization option, dubbed in Orwellian fashion "Medicare Advantage."
Medicare Advantage drains Medicare's total funding by giving away billions in lopsided subsidies to the private insurers who provide such plans, with the expectation that they can pocket most of those subsidies as profits and yet still offer incentives to some seniors to join. For example, such plans can provide the seniors they entice to sign up with a drug benefit plan without all the cutoffs and ceilings that make Bush's standard Medicare drug benefit plan a hollow offering for many seniors. But the insurers enroll only the healthier and better-off seniors into these plans. As a result, traditional Medicare, which must carry an increasingly concentrated share of the costlier patients, gets perceived as overspending per patient. This benefits Bush's corporate backers in the insurance industry who have the healthier, inexpensive beneficiaries to generate profits without any particular efficiency by the insurer itself.
Then, another part of Bush's MMA sets up "premium support demonstration projects." Under the new rules, competition between traditional Medicare and private plans will sharply force up the premiums seniors pay for traditional Medicare. At their start, these projects will affect about 6 million of the 41 million people in Medicare and will expand later. When Republicans have their way, the harsh consequences, such as 30 percent hikes in premiums, would be imposed on seniors who, for geographic and other reasons (for example, they live in Democratic voting states, they are working poor), Republicans see no reason to spare. Again, in these project sites, healthier and wealthier seniors, who can take the risk of leaving traditional Medicare, would depart for private insurers.
Once that happens, the whole senior population would be split into two antagonistic camps. The sicker and poorer group would be forced to stay behind in traditional Medicare, which would suffer increasing underfunding. However, the healthier and wealthier group of seniors moving into Bush's private plans would be well taught to identify their interest with the Bush-supporting private insurers. Both the insurers, and this group, would see merit in supporting tough cost-savings in the traditional Medicare group -- treating it increasingly the way stingy states treat Medicaid beneficiaries.
Some tough measures against traditional Medicare's increasingly beleaguered beneficiaries may include folding some poorer Medicare beneficiaries into their state's Medicaid program -- a rough fate in states that take full advantage of potentially lax federal oversight -- or perhaps even moving some parts of the Medicare population further toward the Republican ideal of a capped voucher system. Once the Republicans have such a capped voucher system, they can make further cuts from time to time that put all the fiscal pain of the system's limits, including its industry subsidies, on those who can least bear it.
Politically, the healthier and wealthier group would eschew the classic seniors' thoughts that traditional Medicare deserves protection and that Republicans are not protecting it. That political trend would become especially strong because the MMA includes a fast-track provision that could be traditional Medicare's death warrant. This provision, in circumstances that portend a larger Medicare draw upon general revenues, puts Republican-style changes, like benefit cuts, on a fast track through the House, rigged to work even if miraculously the Democrats regain procedural leadership. Democratic-style changes, like restructuring the self-serving drug industry, would of course be stymied. With traditional Medicare seeming to be doomed, those who could would depart, not defend it.
In every election thereafter, an alliance of drug companies, insurers and other Republican supporters would spend heavily in floods of easily understood, simplified advertising to label the Republicans as Medicare's saviors through so-called choice for beneficiaries, while labeling the Democrats as draconian tax increasers (who would also be implicitly stigmatized as defending minorities). As Medicare's beneficiaries increasingly separate into two classes, one of them susceptible to Republican lures, a unified and vigorous Democratic defense of Medicare would either crack up or lose key support through desertion.
Social Security Bush's vision of a so-called ownership society is code language for dismantling not only Medicare, but also the existing Social Security system and replacing it with a system by which individuals' contributions go into personal accounts. Even Bush's handpicked commission got nowhere on solving the huge problem of financing the transition from the current pay-as-you-go system to Bush's privatization scheme. Perhaps Bush will continue simply presenting his vision as an unfunded mirage. Or, in order to provide some actual funding for the change, a Bush victory would be the context in which to unveil a new tax that hits people harder the less they have, like a value-added tax that works like a sales tax but is not separated out and visible. Either way, Republicans could pitch to younger and better-paid workers who see no personal payoff right now in their paycheck deduction for Social Security.
Ordinarily, proposing a new federal tax akin to a national sales tax would involve too much risk for Republicans. However, the risk might drop if it were introduced as a way to end Social Security taxes, at least in part. As with Bush's tax cuts and the 2003 Medicare act, a long rosy-hued public phase of talking up the wonders of the proposal would get it through the House and Senate into a conference committee. Under cover of political darkness, this conference committee would produce quietly and in hard-to-decipher form the actual law that transfers funds on a broad scale from the have-nots to the haves.
In any event, through this plan, whether or not it's funded by something like a national sales tax, Bush would make a play to split younger from older Democrats. As with Medicare, he would shred the concept of a social safety net for all -- a unified protection for the national community.In election campaigns, Democrats, for trying to hold that unified protection together, would be depicted as -- no surprise here -- simple-minded excessive taxers, this time as to the payroll taxes.
Taxes Democrats may look at the Republican platform's call for more tax cuts and assume it just means an effort to extend in time the tax cuts of 2001 and 2003. That alone would be painful enough for Democrats and for the country. The Congressional Budget Office recently confirmed that a third of President Bush's tax cuts have gone to the top 1 percent of income. And the CBO estimates show that of the $10 trillion of newly piled-on debt anticipated from Bush's actions from 2002 to 2014, Bush's tax cuts (including their renewal) would amount to $5.5 trillion -- an enormous debt burden that will fall primarily on the middle class.
However, digging a little deeper, Bush's proposals carry a stealth plan to pit middle-class and worse-off Democrats against each other. Nina Olson, the Internal Revenue Service's national taxpayer advocate, gave a largely overlooked taste of this on June 23 in Chicago at the National Community Tax Coalition's conference of advocates for low-income taxpayers.
Olson warned the group that the earned income tax credit (EITC), the tax code provision that aids the working poor, could fall under the knife that tax writers will wield in coming years. Until now, even Bush, with his zeal to play reverse Robin Hood, has not dared to openly propose assailing the popular and efficient EITC. Olson points to the EITC's vulnerability in the context of an impending crisis arising from the alternative minimum tax (AMT), the additional income tax that kicks in principally for those who take certain specific deductions. "Unless you get attuned to the conversation of how the tax system is going to deal with the AMT, you will be left in the dirt," she said.
The AMT taxes incomes at a flat rate of 26 or 28 percent, and omits certain key deductions allowed from the regular income tax, notably state and local income taxes. Unlike the regular income tax brackets, which are indexed for inflation, the AMT's thresholds are not. So, the AMT will kick in at levels that stay the same despite inflation -- levels that look increasingly middle-class for those who have sizeable deductions for state and local income taxes -- while the high-rate income tax brackets kick in only at higher income levels due to tax cuts and inflation. This means that, absent relief, in a few years the AMT will impose scores of billions of dollars in taxes that the middle class would have been spared from paying as regular income taxes.
In plain English, if you're in the middle class, it's likely you have been paying only your regular income tax, but in a few years you'll find yourself paying not just that but also an increasingly hefty AMT. (Bush's tax cuts in 2001 and 2003 gave very short-term fixes to this problem. But those short-term fixes expire at the end of 2005, after which the AMT will increasingly become a burden on the middle class.)
Now here is an especially devious aspect of the Republican plot. Republicans did not show the interest in a long-term fix for the AMT in 2001 that they showed for slashing the estate tax, or in 2003 for chopping the tax on corporate dividends. After all, those are taxes that irritate very wealthy Republicans. By contrast, it so happens that the AMT's rise creates a much bigger problem for Democrats than Republicans. The states and localities that levy income taxes tend to be more Democratic, like California and New York, than the states that do not, like Texas. So that's where the taxpayers are whose income tax, but not their AMT, is reduced by deducting state and local income taxes -- and who will find themselves paying lots of AMT in a second Bush term. Thus the AMT performs the politically dangerous trick of surcharging Democratic areas and sparing Republican ones.
In fact, the partisan effect of leaving the AMT without a long-term fix is so potent that an article in the tax journal Tax Notes during the passage of Bush's 2001 tax bill had the stark headline, based on the AMT's long-term effect, "No Tax Cuts for the Gore States." Change "Gore" to "Kerry" or just plain "Democratic" and the post-2005 prospect becomes alarmingly clear.
In order to close the jaws of this political trap, in 2005-06 a Republican Congress and president will repeatedly and visibly put congressional Democrats to the politically lethal dilemma of having to vote on a package that patches the AMT and slashes the EITC. How would this work politically for the Republicans? Abolishing the AMT would cost $85 billion, and could be matched by a repeal of low-income tax credits, principally the EITC, thereby imposing $74 billion in taxes on the working poor, according to Olson. Forced to vote on such a package, some Democratic members may vote in favor of the measure to avoid the wrath of their own states and districts that otherwise face an increasing share of the federal tax burden as the AMT increases for them. But such votes to slash the EITC would then turn off the party's base among the working poor.
Thereafter, near election time, the Republicans would spend heavily on easily understood, oversimplified negative advertising to label the Democrats, whichever way they vote, as tax increasers for either their geographic or economic bases. Meanwhile, Bush could use whatever funds, such as even more piled-on debt, he wishes to devote to more regressive tax cuts, for those measures -- like repealing estate tax for estates of unlimited size -- which, unlike cutting the AMT or maintaining the EITC, put money in bulging pockets of his own high-income constituency.
The basic pattern is clear.The 2004 Republican platform and the program for a second term provide the blueprint for long-term Republican entrenchment in office. Bush intends to split the Democratic coalition by devastating the social gains the nation has created to guard against the worst effects of economic downturns, gross inequalities and the health vulnerabilities of the old.
Some observers may comfort themselves with the reassurance of a pendulum theory of government, in which even if Bush wins and presides over a unified Republican government, he may still have no popular mandate to pursue such a program. In this complacent view, the pendulum may have swung right at the present, but it must swing back, not onward even further toward the far right. But Bush and Karl Rove have proved they do not passively await popular mandates or pendulum swings. They have already done much of the preparatory work for their radical plans in the past four years. The Medicare revision, for example, already provides all the legal authority Bush needs; it only requires a tough-on-beneficiaries approach by those under his command who make the Medicare rules.
Bush stands on the threshold of his great dream -- or our nightmare -- of a nation in which key former Democratic coalitions lose large and important groups that have an investment in a government that serves the common good. If Bush succeeds, the Democratic Party may become a weakened shadow that can rarely, if ever for very long at a stretch, deploy the national authority for great public ends. It happened here before -- after the Progressive era in the 1920s that led to the crash and Great Depression. It can happen again.
- - - - - - - - - - - -
About the writer Charles Tiefer, a professor at the University of Baltimore law school, is the author of the forthcoming "Veering Right: How the Bush Administration Subverts the Law for Conservative Causes" (University of California Press). Based on his experience as solicitor of the House of Representatives from 1984 to 1995, he has been the author of books and articles on congressional procedure, and on tax and social spending legislation.
The evils of government are directly proportional to the tolerance of the people: Frank Kent
Ann louise Bardach , Slate, blows the whistle on the current corrupt Florida voting system which boggles the mind and strains the tolerance of the American people.
Excerpt: " Gov. Bush seems to have found an equal to Katherine Harris in Glenda Hood, the former Republican mayor of Orlando. True, Hood is not juggling Harris' other job—state chairman for George W. Bush's campaign—but she has done little to assure Floridians that all the votes will be counted this time around.
For one, Hood and Jeb Bush have strongly endorsed the state's Republican-controlled legislature's new rule that outlaws manual recounts .. and most critically, Hood and Gov. Bush have championed a new state law that abolishes Florida's longtime requirement that absentee ballots be witnessed .. Unlike the recent elections in Venezuela, where the new touch-screen voting machine provided every voter with a receipt, Floridians will have to take the word of Hood and Bush that their vote was counted ." There's more and it's a must read !
Allen L Roland
Hoodwinked Why is Florida's voting system so corrupt?
By Ann Louise Bardach Posted Tuesday, Aug. 24, 2004, at 12:45 PM PT
One indicator of the dire state of electoral affairs in Florida is the fact that Theresa LePore, the election supervisor who designed the infamous butterfly ballot, will once again be on the job. It was Ms. LePore's ballot that awarded the votes of thousands of elderly Jews in Palm Beach County to Pat Buchanan, arguably costing Al Gore the election. Given the multitude of other failures in the state's voting system, that's the good news.
In the wake of the most scandalous election in U.S. history, which led to an unprecedented 36-day recount, most Americans believed that state and federal authorities would take steps to ensure that the country would never again go through such an ordeal. But in truth very few changes have been made, and those that have been implemented have raised new concerns. Yet nearly all of Flordia's current troubles share a common denominator—they were decisions made or endorsed by Florida's secretary of state and chief elections officer, Glenda Hood, who was handpicked by Gov. Jeb Bush in November 2002.
Gov. Bush's own task force on the 2000 election recommended that the Legislature change county election supervisors from elected to nonpartisan positions. But the Legislature did not act on this recommendation, nor on the suggestion of election reform groups that the secretary of state also be selected by a nonpartisan commission, to ensure the necessary firewall between election officials and politicians.
There are excellent reasons for this recommendation. Following the contentious 2000 recount, e-mails on former Sec. of State Katherine Harris' computer revealed that she had been in contact with Jeb Bush during the recount, contrary to both their claims.Miami Herald reporter Meg Laughlin discovered that e-mail messages sent to Jeb Bush from Harris had been deleted after the recount. Harris then had the operating system of her computer changed, a procedure that erased all its data. "What was odd about what she did," said Mark Seibel, an editor at the Herald, "was that they installed an old operating system—not a new one—which makes you wonder why they did it."
According to Gallup polls taken yearly since 2000, roughly 50 percent of Americans believe that the election of George W. Bush was either "won on a technicality" or "stolen." Only 34 percent are "very confident" that the vote will be counted accurately in November.
But rather than allay those doubts by selecting an election supervisor of unimpeachable integrity, Gov. Bush seems to have found an equal to Katherine Harris in Glenda Hood, the former Republican mayor of Orlando. True, Hood is not juggling Harris' other job—state chairman for George W. Bush's campaign—but she has done little to assure Floridians that all the votes will be counted this time around.
For one, Hood and Jeb Bush have strongly endorsed the state's Republican-controlled legislature's new rule that outlaws manual recounts. This means that if any of the new optical-scan or touch-screen machines fail—as they did in the 2002 elections; and the recent March primaries; and just last week, when a backup system failed in a test run in Miami-Dade—there will be no recourse for counting votes. A coalition of election-reform groups has challenged this rule, and Rep. Robert Wexler of Palm Beach sued in federal court after a state appeals court dismissed the matter, ruling that while the right to vote is guaranteed, a perfect voting system is not.
Unlike the recent elections in Venezuela, where the new touch-screen voting machine provided every voter with a receipt, Floridians will have to take the word of Hood and Bush that their vote was counted.
To the embarrassment of Hood and Jeb Bush, even the state's Republican Party has voiced its doubts about the electronic voting system. A flier disseminated last month by the party, featuring a picture of a smiling President Bush striking a thumbs-up sign, urged Republicans living in Miami-Dade County to vote by absentee ballot even if they will be home on Election Day. "Make sure your vote counts," read the flier. "Order your absentee ballot today.'' Now many Democrats also believe that the only safe vote is an absentee ballot vote.
But it is in the "low-tech area" of absentee ballots, as Miami Herald columnist Jim DeFede puts it, "that things get really funky." Most critically, Hood and Gov. Bush have championed a new state law that abolishes Florida's longtime requirement that absentee ballots be witnessed. While some other states, like California, do not require witnesses, no state has Florida's history of institutional vote fraud.
Indeed, election fraud in Florida long precedes the 2000 debacle. In some counties it extends all the way back to the early days of Florida's statehood, in 1845. Florida's political culture derives from several different regions—the north, near Georgia, has more in common with the southern part of the United States; the south with Latin America—so election fraud tends to differ in the two regions. In the northern part of the state, for example, sheriffs have been known to let certain boxes of ballots—thought to be unfavorable to a particular politician—fall out of their squad cars and tumble into the Gulf of Mexico. In the south, notably Miami-Dade, a remarkable number of dead people have been known to rise up and make it to the polls. In 1998, Miami's mayoral election of Xavier Suarez was overthrown for a host of irregularities, including the fact that a man named Manuel Yip, who had died four years earlier, had voted for Suarez. (In fact, it was the fourth time he had voted since his death in 1994.)
But most of the fraud that has dogged Florida centers on absentee ballots. In the mayoral election mentioned above, approximately 5,000 absentee ballots were found to be fraudulent. Some folks were unaware they had voted, some did not live in Miami, and (naturally, being Florida) some were dead. In addition, many of the ballots had the same witness. One Miami vegetable peddler had witnessed more than 70 absentee ballots. And some of the city's poorest had been paid $10 to vote for Suarez. Without the state's witness requirement, officials would never have been able to prove that the absentee ballots were bogus. Buying ballots is another current problem. In 1998, an election volunteer was caught selling ballots to undercover agents. And just last week, the Cuban exile columnist Max Lesnik reported that absentee ballots were being sold on Miami's Calle Ocho for $25 apiece.
So, by doing away with the witness requirement, Hood, Gov. Bush, and the Florida Legislature have removed the only existing brake on absentee-voter fraud. It's now open season in the Sunshine State.
There is also the matter of Florida's large elderly population, which can be susceptible to manipulation. For example: For years, until he disappeared in 1982 after a drug-smuggling indictment, a Bay of Pigs veteran named Rafael Villaverde bused hundreds of Cuban exile ancianos in Miami-Dade from old-age homes to the polls so they could deliver the vote for the Republican Party.
Then there is the issue of the felon list. Florida is one of only seven states that does not automatically restore a felon's voting rights after his or her release from prison (another of the ignored recommendations made by the commission Jeb Bush created). More than 52 percent of Florida's felon population happens to be African-American, a demographic that voted Democratic in 2000 in unprecedented numbers. No matter whether one's crime has been marijuana possession, check bouncing, or DUIs, anyone who has been convicted of a felony must endure an arduous obstacle course in order to have their voting rights restored. Most will have to face the state's clemency board chaired by Gov. Bush and two other Republican officials. There is no appeal process. One veteran official with Florida's Corrections Department, who asked for anonymity, noted that, "We have the president's brother deciding whether people get to vote or not vote, which strikes me as a conflict of interest."
How critical is the felon issue? Consider that in Florida in 2003, more than 54,000 felons were released or completed their parole; and the ACLU alleges that more than 600,000 former felons living in Florida had been improperly deprived of their right to vote by Katherine Harris' policies in the 2000 election. (She and Gov. Bush instituted "purge lists" to ensure that no former felon voted without state approval.)
About the only thing that could restore confidence in Florida electoral procedures would be Hood's immediate resignation; her successor should then be chosen by a bipartisan commission. And as Gov. Bush cannot possibly be an impartial observer in his brother's quest for another term, he should recuse himself from every aspect involving the vote count in Florida. He also needs to flex his power with his famously compliant Legislature to repeal the new laws eliminating manual recounts and witnessed absentee ballots. In addition, all felons who have repaid their debt to society, following completion of their sentences, should have their voting rights restored.
If these changes are not made, Florida cannot conduct a credible election come November.
Cowardice asks the question - is it safe? Expediency asks the question - is it politic? Vanity asks the question - is it popular? But conscience asks the question - is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right: Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
John Kerry is playing a defensive and careful political game even though he isin the red zone . If he continues to avoid to take a position that is neither safe nor politic but right ~ he will nuance himself out of scoring position and into defeat ~ just like Gore did in 2000.
Andrew Christie, Common Dreams, sums it all up with these words; "The current JFK's only hope -- and ours -- as he trudges down the rut worn by Gore four years ago, is to start running for president as though he doesn't especially want the job. As though he were 27 years old and testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; not seeking to deflect and dance away, but drilling straight through, as though he were finally willing to say -- again -- yes, America, Vietnam was horrible.Do you want to know how horrible? I will remind you. Whose fault was it? The people who put us there. Who put us there? People just like the people who put us in Iraq ."
Allen L Roland
2000 Cometh Again: Will Kerry Gore Himself?
by Andrew Christie
Published on Monday, August 23, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
"In defense of Kerry, aides distributed a copy of the candidate's comments on NBC's Meet the Press earlier this year, when he conceded the language was sometimes excessive." -- Washington Post, 8/21/04
The day after their candidate roared "Bring it on!" to George Bush to invite debate of their respective service records, John Kerry's crack advisors and Democratic Leadership Council consultants snapped into action and... apologized. Sorry about that whole anti-Vietnam War thing and what I told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1971. That excessive language, that impolitic mention of routine atrocities, routinely ordered and carried out by corn-fed farm boys dropped into the most immoral conflict imaginable. Poor form on my part to have brought it up. The rashness of youth, and all that. Now please hand Mr. Rove this large paddle and ask him to wait a moment while I bend over.
Someone thought this was a good idea. Here's the calculus, as transparent as glass: The left has nowhere else to go. The swing voters must be assiduously courted. The nation's presumptive pro-military mood must be appeased. So: Vietnam is retracted. Then the retraction is underscored, as a "defense" against Republican attack ads consisting of clips from Kerry's principled testimony against the war.
Democrats: Gotta love 'em. Cinematic antecedents swim to mind: Peter Sellers as Vice President Mirkin Muffley in "Dr. Strangelove" ("Dmitri, please don't shout at me...") and the vague, bow-tie wearing senator portrayed by Gore Vidal, doomed to defeat at the hands of a boyish, folksy fascist in Tim Robbins' "Bob Roberts."
And, of course, Al Gore in Election 2000. The campaign of maximum caution, vetted by the controlling legal authority. Too late, Gore ditched the focus groups and fuzzy sweaters and decided to speak from the heart. Too late, Hubert Humphrey finally broke with his old boss and denounced the Vietnam War. Too predictably, the writers of official history blamed Eugene McCarthy and Ralph Nader for Nixon and Bush II, not the fatal blunders of Democratic candidates who brought chess boards onto the field of scrimmage.
The original JFK once observed that it was a shame that the only people who run for president are the people who are way too intent on getting the job, and those people are invariably politicians. The current JFK's only hope -- and ours -- as he trudges down the rut worn by Gore four years ago, is to start running for president as though he doesn't especially want the job. As though he were 27 years old and testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee; not seeking to deflect and dance away, but drilling straight through, as though he were finally willing to say -- again -- yes, America, Vietnam was horrible. Do you want to know how horrible? I will remind you. Whose fault was it? The people who put us there. Who put us there? People just like the people who put us in Iraq.
His only hope is to run as though he is simply interested in looking people in the eye and telling the truth as he sees it.
He will not be allowed to do so, because, as a species, political advisors are incapable of believing that the American people place ultimate value on someone who seems to stand for something and expresses genuine belief, and they will vote for that person even if they don't necessarily agree with much of the expressed belief in question. If we sense the presence of a moral core, whether it is carefully faked (Bill Clinton, George W. Bush), wholly genuine (Robert Kennedy, Paul Wellstone), or completely divorced from reality (Ronald Reagan), many of us will often as not subordinate our own opinions on the issues of the day and vote for that person, just because.
The question is will Kerry allow himself to be that person, and, if so, will he do so in time.
Andrew Christie (achris63@hotmail.com) is an environmental activist in San Luis Obispo
Things are already getting dicey in Florida as the Bush Brothers resort to police state gestapo pressure to stifle black voter turnout in Orange County and throughout the state.
Bob Herbert, N.Y.Times, reports how " The use of state troopers to zero in on voter turnout efforts is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, in Florida.... From the G.O.P. perspective, it doesn't really matter whether anyone is arrested in the Orlando investigation, or even if a crime was committed. The idea, in Orange County and elsewhere, is to send a chill through the democratic process, suppressing opposing votes by whatever means are available. "
he state police investigation into get-out-the-vote activities by blacks in Orlando, Fla., fits perfectly with the political aims of Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican Party.
The Republicans were stung in the 2000 presidential election when Al Gore became the first Democrat since 1948 to carry Orange County, of which Orlando is the hub. He could not have carried the county without the strong support of black voters, many of whom cast absentee ballots.
The G.O.P. was stung again in 2003 when Buddy Dyer, a Democrat, was elected mayor of Orlando. He won a special election to succeed Glenda Hood, a three-term Republican who was appointed Florida secretary of state by Governor Bush. Mr. Dyer was re-elected last March. As with Mr. Gore, the black vote was an important factor.
These two election reverses have upset Republicans in Orange County and statewide. Moreover, the anxiety over Democratic gains in Orange County is entwined with the very real fear among party stalwarts that Florida might go for John Kerry in this year's presidential election.
It is in this context that two of the ugliest developments of the current campaign season should be viewed.
"A Democrat can't win a statewide election in Florida without a high voter turnout - both at the polls and with absentee ballots - of African-Americans," said a man who is close to the Republican establishment in Florida but asked not to be identified. "It's no secret that the name of the game for Republicans is to restrain that turnout as much as possible. Black votes are Democratic votes, and there are a lot of them in Florida."
The two ugly developments - both focused on race - were the heavy-handed investigation by Florida state troopers of black get-out-the-vote efforts in Orlando, and the state's blatant attempt to purge blacks from voter rolls through the use of a flawed list of supposed felons that contained the names of thousands of African-Americans and, conveniently, very few Hispanics.
Florida is one of only a handful of states that bar convicted felons from voting, unless they successfully petition to have their voting rights restored. The state's "felon purge" list had to be abandoned by Glenda Hood, the secretary of state (and, yes, former mayor of Orlando), after it became known that the flawed list would target blacks but not Hispanics, who are more likely in Florida to vote Republican. The list also contained the names of thousands of people, most of them black, who should not have been on the list at all.
Ms. Hood, handpicked by Governor Bush to succeed the notorious Katherine Harris as secretary of state, was forced to admit that the felons list was a mess. She said the problems were unintentional. What clearly was intentional was the desire of Ms. Hood and Governor Bush to keep the list secret. It was disclosed only as a result of lawsuits filed under Florida's admirable sunshine law.
Meanwhile, the sending of state troopers into the homes of elderly black voters in Orlando was said by officials to be a response to allegations of voter fraud in last March's mayoral election. But the investigation went forward despite findings in the spring that appeared to show that the allegations were unfounded.
Why go forward anyway? Well, consider that the prolonged investigation dovetails exquisitely with that crucial but unspoken mission of the G.O.P. in Florida: to keep black voter turnout as low as possible. The interrogation of elderly black men and women in their homes has already frightened many voters and intimidated elderly get-out-the-vote volunteers.
The use of state troopers to zero in on voter turnout efforts is highly unusual, if not unprecedented, in Florida. But the head of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, Guy Tunnell, who was also handpicked by Governor Bush, has been unfazed by the mounting criticism of this use of the state police. His spokesmen have said a "person of interest" in the investigation is Ezzie Thomas, a 73-year-old black man who just happens to have done very well in turning out the African-American vote.
From the G.O.P. perspective, it doesn't really matter whether anyone is arrested in the Orlando investigation, or even if a crime was committed. The idea, in Orange County and elsewhere, is to send a chill through the democratic process, suppressing opposing votes by whatever means are available.
If this were a dictatorship, it would be a heck of a lot easier - just so long as I'm the dictator. George W. Bush, 18 December 2000
Here is an open letter from a decorated Vietnam Vet to the Swift Boat Organization but it could very well be to George W Bush and his power bloated gang of shameless scoundrels.
Excerpt: " Where were you then? John Kerry was there for his fellow veteran brothers, where were you? You choose to support men who had other priorities than serving their country. Men, whose self-interest was more important than duty, honor, and country; and you prefer to serve a man who treated his military obligation like Alcoholics Anonymous; picking and choosing what meetings he would or would not attend. "
Allen L Roland
Unfit - My Letter To The Swift Boat Organization
John Cory t r u t h o u t | Letter / 8/22/04
About the author: John Cory is a Vietnam veteran, he received the Purple Heart and Bronze Star with V device - 1969 - 1970
Dear Sirs:
In the face of fact after fact that exposes your lies, you continue to foul and slander John Kerry. Your words and deeds cast doubt on all the honorable men who served gallantly; question the competence of former military leadership; and hurl dispersions on fellow soldiers, while denigrating the dead.
And for what?
You choose to align yourselves with those who smeared an honorable Vietnam POW, calling into question his sanity and his survival of the Hanoi Hilton. You choose to serve those who disgracefully painted a Vietnam veteran triple amputee as unpatriotic and less than a true American.
Where were you then? John Kerry was there for his fellow veteran brothers, where were you?
You choose to support men who had other priorities than serving their country. Men, whose self-interest was more important than duty, honor, and country; and you prefer to serve a man who treated his military obligation like Alcoholics Anonymous; picking and choosing what meetings he would or would not attend.
You choose to aid those who have soiled themselves with the blood of others.
You choose to be finger-puppets of a media obsessed with ratings and tabloid sensationalism. A media, that willfully avoids the truth and pain of the daily toll in Iraq: willing to set veteran against veteran in order to increase viewer share. A media, that happily promotes an old war as a means of avoiding responsibility for its promotion of the new war.
You choose to inflate your shriveled egos with the spotlight of hate and slander. You choose to deny both the truth and the lie that was Vietnam. Like the man you support, you choose to look away from the flag-draped reality of today, and instead, seek yesterday's false reflection, in hope of revenge. But you cannot right a wrong war, whether then or now.
I crawled the mud paddies of Vietnam and stuck my fingers in the gaping wounds, trying to stop the oozing blood that drained the life from my fellow soldiers. I have walked the old paths of war and seen the children that even today, lose limbs from the unexploded ordinance of yesterday's war. I have seen more honor and compassion in the eyes of the men who were once my enemy, than in the twisted piety of your vitriolic defamation.
You now seek to cover your previous words of endorsement with the stench of vomit and partisan bile. You speak of wanting honesty and openness, but your actions belie your lips.
You have chosen vanity over valor, hubris over honor, character assassination and fraud over fact. You have chosen to enfold yourself in the shadows of partisan politics while sniping at those who stand in the open light of their record. You have chosen to wear the uniform of shame.
No sirs, with all due respect, I submit that it is you, who are Unfit.
Oxford Dictionary defines fate as ; A power regarded as
predetermining events unalterably .
But what is that power ?
Does God sit at some computer and press the smite button when the piano falls on our head ?
Or is God a loving plan in action ~ an evolutionary process with which we all participate as co-creators.
Now that makes sense ~ for then we would truly be experiencing an inner God of love and not an externalized God. We would see ourselves as part of something far greater than ourselves ~ and sense our part in that evolving loving plan.
As such, when my heart is open and I'm not controlled by fear ~ I am in sync with my destiny and my fate.
I call it being on the express .
When my heart is closed , and I'm controlled by fear ~ I am out of sync with my destiny .
I call it being on the local.
Iamon the express and I know my life is divinely guided because events continue to happen that have nothing to do with my ego and everything to do with being in service and playing my part in the loving plan. It's also a state of soul consciousness.
For example, I have intuited every major love relationship in my lifeand each has led me to more of myself and been a gift in my life ~ regardless of the pain that may have been part of that relationship.
All my clients are referrals and it's obvious that we are supposed to be working together.
There are numerous events in my life that were guided by something far greater than myself and I have surrendered to them ~ and all have led me to more of myself.
So being on the express means trusting the unknown for the unknown is a loving plan at work and the acceptance of our part in that loving plan.
There is no greater feeling of belonging.
Being on the local is a struggle with many stops and starts for we are continually externally seeking something that the soul already possesses. It's also a state of ego consciousness .
Being on the local means striving versus being .
So being on the localmeans you don't trust the unknown and are usually living in control and fear . That's usually when the piano falls on your head ~ and quite often it's a wake-up call to get on the express.
The universe is continually saying yes to us and most of us say no because we live in fear and do not trust the unknown or the love and joy that is deepest within each one of us.
So when I say yes to myself and do not allow myself to be controlled by fear ~ I find myself in sync with my destiny and fate is kind to me.
In that sense then , our lives are divinely guided for each of us has a part to play in a slowly evolving loving plan and fate, quite often, is a reminder of this reality.
As such, our ultimate common fate is fully surrendering to the crucible of love .
Like a moth to the flame love draws us towardsour destiny until we willingly burn in its fire and become a fragment of lifes heart.
And as Gibran writes ; Think not that you can control the course of love, for love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
Many are called, few listen and fewer still respond to this inner call of the hearts journey.
My joy andhappiness is directly related to the fact that I have listened and responded to that call.
Thus I am in sync with my destiny and fateis my welcomed
"The first sign of corruption in a society that is still alive is that the end justifies the means.": Georges Bernanos
The game is up , our dirty little secret about the use of depleted uranium has now blown up in our face and the consequences are staggering ~ literally a death sentence here and abroad.
Leuren Moret, a geoscientist , writes in the San Francisco Bay view ; " This week the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb” on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16months...Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability.This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems. "
At an April press conference, a group of New York Army National Guard vets raised their hands when asked if they have health problems. The soldiers, all from the 442nd Military Police Company, are complaining of headaches and fatigue after what they think is exposure to depleted uranium during their recent tour in Iraq. Photo: www.american freepress.net
“Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” - Henry Kissinger, quoted in “Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in Vietnam”
Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation.
And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press that “Gulf-era veterans” now on medical disability since 1991 number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period.
This week the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb” on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months.
Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer. One of the first published researchers on Gulf War Syndrome, who also served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras Korényi-Both, is in agreement with Barbara Goodno from the Department of Defense’s Deployment Health Support Directorate, that in this war soldiers were not exposed to chemicals, pesticides, bioagents or other suspect causes this time to confuse the issue.
This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed that DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff.
Scientists studying the biological effects of uranium in the 1960s reported that it targets the DNA. Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist retired from the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab and formerly involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in soldiers from the 2003 war as “spectacular … and a matter of concern.”
This evidence shows that of the three effects which DU has on biological systems - radiation, chemical and particulate – the particulate effect from nano-size particles is the most dominant one immediately after exposure and targets the Master Code in the DNA. This is bad news, but it explains why DU causes a myriad of diseases which are difficult to define.
In simple words, DU “trashes the body.” When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Fulk was more specific: “I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.”
Soldiers developing malignancies so quickly since 2003 can be expected to develop multiple cancers from independent causes. This phenomenon has been reported by doctors in hospitals treating civilians following NATO bombing with DU in Yugoslavia in 1998-1999 and the U.S. military invasion of Iraq using DU for the first time in 1991. Medical experts report that this phenomenon of multiple malignancies from unrelated causes has been unknown until now and is a new syndrome associated with internal DU exposure.
Just 467 U.S. personnel were wounded in the three-week Persian Gulf War in 1990-1991. Out of 580,400 soldiers who served in Gulf War I, 11,000 are dead, and by 2000 there were 325,000 on permanent medical disability.This astounding number of disabled vets means that a decade later, 56 percent of those soldiers who served now have medical problems.
The number of disabled vets reported up to 2000 has been increasing by 43,000 every year. Brad Flohr of the Department of Veterans Affairs told American Free Press that he believes there are more disabled vets now than even after World War II.
They brought it home
Not only were soldiers exposed to DU on and off the battlefields, but they brought it home. DU in the semen of soldiers internally contaminated their wives, partners and girlfriends. Tragically, some women in their 20s and 30s who were sexual partners of exposed soldiers developed endometriosis and were forced to have hysterectomies because of health problems.
In a group of 251 soldiers from a study group in Mississippi who had all had normal babies before the Gulf War, 67 percent of their post-war babies were born with severe birth defects. They were born with missing legs, arms, organs or eyes or had immune system and blood diseases. In some veterans’ families now, the only normal or healthy members of the family are the children born before the war.
The Department of Veterans Affairs has stated that they do not keep records of birth defects occurring in families of veterans.
How did they hide it?
Before a new weapons system can be used, it must be fully tested. The blueprint for depleted uranium weapons is a 1943 declassified document from the Manhattan Project.
Harvard President and physicist James B. Conant, who developed poison gas in World War I, was brought into the Manhattan Project by the father of presidential candidate John Kerry. Kerry’s father served at a high level in the Manhattan Project and was a CIA agent.
Conant was chair of the S-1 Poison Gas Committee, which recommended developing poison gas weapons from the radioactive trash of the atomic bomb project in World War II. At that time, it was known that radioactive materials dispersed in bombs from the air, from land vehicles or on the battlefield produced very fine radioactive dust which would penetrate all protective clothing, any gas mask or filter or the skin. By contaminating the lungs and blood, it could kill or cause illness very quickly.
They also recommended it as a permanent terrain contaminant, which could be used to destroy populations by contaminating water supplies and agricultural land with the radioactive dust.
The first DU weapons system was developed for the Navy in 1968, and DU weapons were given to and used by Israel in 1973 under U.S. supervision in the Yom Kippur war against the Arabs.
The Phalanx weapons system, using DU, was tested on the USS Bigelow out of Hunters Point Naval Shipyard in 1977, and DU weapons have been sold by the U.S. to 29 countries.
Military research report summaries detail the testing of DU from 1974-1999 at military testing grounds, bombing and gunnery ranges and at civilian labs under contract. Today 42 states are contaminated with DU from manufacture, testing and deployment.
Women living around these facilities have reported increases in endometriosis, birth defects in babies, leukemia in children and cancers and other diseases in adults. Thousands of tons of DU weapons tested for decades by the Navy on four bombing and gunnery ranges around Fallon, Nevada, is no doubt the cause of the fastest growing leukemia cluster in the U.S. over the past decade. The military denies that DU is the cause.
The medical profession has been active in the cover-up - just as they were in hiding the effects from the American public - of low level radiation from atmospheric testing and nuclear power plants. A medical doctor in Northern California reported being trained by the Pentagon with other doctors, months before the 2003 war started, to diagnose and treat soldiers returning from the 2003 war for mental problems only.
Medical professionals in hospitals and facilities treating returning soldiers were threatened with $10,000 fines if they talked about the soldiers or their medical problems. They were also threatened with jail.
Reporters have also been prevented access to more than 14,000 medically evacuated soldiers flown nightly since the 2003 war in C-150s from Germany who are brought to Walter Reed Hospital near Washington, D.C.
Dr. Robert Gould, former president of the Bay Area chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR), has contacted three medical doctors since February 2004, after I had been invited to speak about DU. Dr. Katharine Thomasson, president of the Oregon chapter of the PSR, informed me that Dr. Gould had contacted her and tried to convince her to cancel her invitation for me to speak about DU at Portland State University on April 12. Although I was able to do a presentation, Dr. Thomasson told me I could only talk about DU in Oregon “and nothing overseas … nothing political.”
Dr. Gould also contacted and discouraged Dr. Ross Wilcox in Toronto, Canada, from inviting me to speak to Physicians for Global Survival (PGS), the Canadian equivalent of PSR, several months later. When that didn’t work, he contacted Dr. Allan Connoly, the Canadian national president of PGS, who was able to cancel my invitation and nearly succeeded in preventing Dr. Wilcox, his own member, from showing photos and presenting details on civilians suffering from DU exposure and cancer provided to him by doctors in southern Iraq.
Dr. Janette Sherman, a former and long-standing member of PSR, reported that she finally quit some time after being invited to lunch by a new PSR executive administrator. After the woman had pumped Dr. Sherman for information all through lunch about her position on key issues, the woman informed Dr. Sherman that her last job had been with the CIA.
How was the truth about DU hidden from military personnel serving in successive DU wars? Before his tragic death, Sen. Paul Wellstone informed Joyce Riley, R.N., B.S.N., executive director of the American Gulf War Veterans Association, that 95 percent of Gulf War veterans had been recycled out of the military by 1995. Any of those continuing in military service were isolated from each other, preventing critical information being transferred to new troops. The “next DU war” had already been planned, and those planning it wanted “no skunk at the garden party.”
The US has a dirty (DU) little (CIA) secret
A new book just published at the American Free Press by Michael Collins Piper, “The High Priests of War: The Secret History of How America’s Neo-Conservative Trotskyites Came to Power and Orchestrated the War Against Iraq as the First Step in Their Drive for Global Empire,” details the early plans for a war against the Arab world by Henry Kissinger and the neo-cons in the late 1960s and early 1970s. That just happens to coincide with getting the DU “show on the road” and the oil crisis in the Middle East, which caused concern not only to President Nixon. The British had been plotting and scheming for control of the oil in Iraq for decades since first using poison gas on the Iraqis and Kurds in 1912.
The book details the creation of the neo-cons by their “godfather” and Trotsky lover Irving Kristol, who pushed for a “war against terrorism” long before 9/11 and was lavishly funded for years by the CIA. His son, William Kristol, is one of the most influential men in the United States.
Both are public relations men for the Israeli lobby’s neo-conservative network, with strong ties to Rupert Murdoch. Kissinger also has ties to this network and the Carlyle Group, who, one could say, have facilitated these omnicidal wars beginning from the time former President Bush took office. It would be easy to say that we are recycling World Wars I and II, with the same faces.
When I asked Vietnam Special Ops Green Beret Capt. John McCarthy, who could have devised this omnicidal plan to use DU to destroy the genetic code and genetic future of large populations of Arabs and Moslems in the Middle East and Central Asia - just coincidentally the areas where most of the world’s oil deposits are located - he replied: “It has all the handprints of Henry Kissinger.”
In Zbignew Brzezinski’s book “The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy and Its Geostrategic Imperatives,” the map of the Eurasian chessboard includes four regions strategic to U.S. foreign policy. The “South” region corresponds precisely to the regions now contaminated permanently with radiation from U.S. bombs, missiles and bullets made with thousands of tons of DU.
A Japanese professor, Dr. K. Yagasaki, has calculated that 800 tons of DU is the atomicity equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The U.S. has used more DU since 1991 than the atomicity equivalent of 400,000 Nagasaki bombs. Four nuclear wars indeed, and 10 times the amount of radiation released into the atmosphere from atmospheric testing!
No wonder our soldiers, their families and the people of the Middle East, Yugoslavia and Central Asia are sick. But as Henry Kissinger said after Vietnam when our soldiers came home ill from Agent Orange, “Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used for foreign policy.”
Unfortunately, more and more of those soldiers are men and women with brown skin. And unfortunately, the DU radioactive dust will be carried around the world and deposited in our environments just as the “smog of war” from the 1991 Gulf War was found in deposits in South America, the Himalayas and Hawaii.
In June 2003, the World Health Organization announced in a press release that global cancer rates will increase 50 percent by 2020. What else do they know that they aren’t telling us? I know that depleted uranium is a death sentence … for all of us. We will all die in silent ways.
To learn more
Sources used in this story that readers are encouraged to consult:
American Free Press four-part series on DU by Christopher Bollyn. Part I: “Depleted Uranium: U.S. Commits War Crime Against Iraq, Humanity,” www.americanfreepress.net/depleted_uranium.html; Part II: “Cancer Epidemic Caused by U.S. WMD: MD Says Depleted Uranium Definitively Linked,” www.americanfreepress.net/html/cancer_epidemic_.html
August 2004 World Affairs Journal. Leuren Moret: “Depleted Uranium: The Trojan Horse of Nuclear War,” www.mindfully.org/Nucs/2004/DU-Trojan-Horse1jul04.htm
August 2004 Coastal Post Online. Carol Sterrit: “Marin Depleted Uranium Resolution Heats Up – GI’s Will Come Home To A Slow Death,” www.coastalpost.com/04/08/01
World Depleted Uranium Weapons Conference, Hamburg, Germany, October 16-19, 2004: www.worlduraniumweaponsconference.de/speakers/speakers.htm
International Criminal Tribunal for Afghanistan. Written opinion of Judge Niloufer Baghwat: www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/Afghanistan-Criminal-Tribunal10mar04.htm
“Discounted Casualties: The Human Cost of Nuclear War” by Akira Tashiro, foreword by Leuren Moret, www.chugoku-np.co.jp/abom/uran/index_e.html
Leuren Moret is a geoscientist who has worked around the world on radiation issues, educating citizens, the media, members of parliaments and Congress and other officials. She became a whistleblower in 1991 at the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab after experiencing major science fraud on the Yucca Mountain Project. An environmental commissioner in the City of Berkeley, she can be reached at leurenmoret@yahoo.com.
Here is the full story of how George Bush got and lost his wings by Jeffrey St.Clair , Counterpunch.
St. Clair's well documented article bares the truth about Bush who he describes as " a stunted brat and a coward at the core ."
Excerpt: " Bush's dilemma was trickier and more unseemly than Clinton's. In order to escape service in Vietnam, he had exploited his family's political connections to secure a choice spot in the Texas Air National Guard, despite failing his pilot aptitude test. Though a blatant act of patronage, Bush was promoted to officer status before he earned his pilot's license and without going to officer training school. He refused to take his mandatory flight physical and also refused to show up for a mandatory evaluation. He went AWOL for a year and a half and then requested and received an early discharge. All this after promising to "serve as long as possible" and to devote himself to a lifetime of high flying...flying planes, that is ..... Given this vaporous record of service during Vietnam, it takes a perverse kind of hubris for Bush to assail the military careers of a POW (John McCain), a bona fide killing machine (John Kerry) and a triple amputee (Max Cleland). It's the trademark of a pampered bully. "
Allen L Roland
How Bush Got (and Lost) His Wings
Tracking the National Guard Career of the Fatuous Flyboy from New Haven
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Counterpunch 8/12/04
The early winter of 1968 was a season of acute anxiety for the young George W. Bush. As his academic career at Yale sputtered to an inglorious denouement, the war in Vietnam was hurtling forward at full-bore with the onset of the Tet Offensive. In those perilous months, there were 350,000 US troops in Vietnam, dying at a rate of more than 350 a week. From Bush's perch in New Haven, elite hamlet of his birth, the draft loomed, casting a chill shadow over his future.
Bush faced limited options. Unlike his warden-to-be Dick Cheney, this randy bon vivant wasn't prepared to anchor himself down in early wedlock, which would have entitled him to a marriage deferment. There were too many oats yet to be sown. How many seeds in how many fields? Tough to say precisely, but in the ripe phrase of one of Bush's drinking buddies from the 1970s: "he bedded nearly every bimbo in West Texas, married or not."
Alas, the remedial scholar's grades at Yale, already puffed-up beyond all merit courtesy of his legacy admission, proved to be so paltry that the escape hatch of graduate school was out of the question, too.
Only one sure sanctuary remained: the National Guard.
In January of 1968, Bush sent enquiries to the National Guard. It seems Bush had had an epiphany: he wante to be a pilot, just like his dad. Well, not exactly like Pappy, who was shot down flying a fighter in World War II. Yes, Lil' Bush wanted to fly fighter jets, but not in dicey combat situations. That, naturally, would defeat the entire purpose of joining the Guard.
In 1989, Bush explained the coarse calculus behind his decision to a reporter from the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, "I'm saying to myself, 'What do I want to do?' I think, I don't want to be an infantry guy as a pilot in Vietnam. What I do decide to want to do [sic] is learn to fly."
The National Guard commanders responded warmly to Bush's initial probings, but noted, somewhat ominously for the fratboy flier, that before his application could be accepted he had to submit to a battery of physical and mental tests. Damn, Bush must have shivered, more exams and no helpful tutors from the egghead division of Skull and Bones to guide him through the intellectual shoals!
At the time Bush applied to the National Guard, there were 100,000 other young men in line before him, stalled on a crowded waiting list hoping their number would be called before they were sucked up by the draft and dropped onto the killing fields of the Mekong Delta. In Texas alone, there were 500 applicants frantically vying for only four open slots for fighter pilot-training in the Air National Guard.
At first blush, Bush didn't seem to have much of a shot at landing one of those choice positions. First, he flunked his medical test. Then he flunked his dental exam. And finally, as Ian Williams reveals in Deserter, his merciless indictment of Bush's disappearing act in the National Guard, he scores a rock-bottom 25 percent on his pilot aptitude examination. That's one out of four correct answers, a ratio that is not even a credible mark in cluster-bombing class. To put this achievement in perspective, the average score of applicants taking the pilot aptitude test was 77 percent, a whopping fifty-two percentage points higher than the proud product of the Yale ancestral admissions program. More than 95 percent of the testers scored higher than Bush, the Ivy Leaguer.
Aptitude for piloting a fighter jet notwithstanding, on May 27, 1968, just nervy twelve days before the expiration of his student deferment, Bush the Younger was accepted into the Texas Air National Guard. On his application form under the heading "Background Qualifications," Bush declares in a refreshing spurt of honesty "None."
Today the pipsqueak commander-in-chief has exploited the Guard and Army Reserve as a form of covert conscription to beef up troop numbers in Iraq and Afghanistan. But in those days National Guard squadrons were generally not being sent off to the frontlines in Vietnam. But just to be sure, Bush checked the box on his enlistment form saying he was unwilling to do time overseas. That box was a comfy failsafe that is no longer available to young people seduced into signing up as weekend warriors in Bush's National Guard.
Flush with excitement at his triumphal entry into the Air National Guard, Bush averred to one-and-all that he had caught the flight bug. He duly submitted to the Guard brass a "Statement of Intent," pledging that he had "applied for pilot training with the goal of making flying a lifetime pursuit and I believe that I can best accomplish this to my own satisfaction as a member of the Air National Guard as long as possible."
This seems like boilerplate stuff. But it is a crucial document in at least one respect. Getting the dunderheaded Bush air-ready was going to take a lot of training and the Guard wanted to get a guarantee that it would get a minimal return on its investment-if not a special line-item in the appropriations bill, at least commitment from Bush that he would stick around as a pilot for the duration of his commitment, if not beyond. Ian Williams estimates that the Guard spent more than a million dollars training Bush how to fly. Bush was warned that any prolonged absence from the Guard would result in him being ordered to "active duty" for a period of two years.
What the commanders of the Guard may not have known at the time was that in Bush's mind it was either the Guard or Canada. In 1994, the gunshy Bush, who tortured animals as teen-ager, fessed up to the Houston Chronicle that being sent to Vietnam was simply not an option for him: "I was not prepared to shoot my eardrum out with a shotgun in order to get a deferment. Nor was I willing to go to Canada. So I choose to better myself by learning how to fly airplanesI don't want to play like I was somebody out there marching when I wasn't. It was either Canada or the service. Somebody said the Guard was looking for pilots. All I know is, there weren't that many people trying to be pilots."
As we now know, there were more than 500 people looking to be pilots in Texas alone, nearly all of them more qualified for the slots than Bush.
So how did this miraculous induction come about? Bush has long denied he got any favored treatment, which would seem unmanly. But there's now little doubt that the draft evader benefited from at least three pairs of helping hands: Sid Adger, a Texas oilman and Bush family crony, Ben Barnes, then Speaker of the House in Texas, and Gen. James Rose, former commander of the Texas Air National Guard.
The truth began to trickle out in 1999, when Barnes, then a top lobbyist and political fixer in Austin, became a witness in a lawsuit by Laurence Littwin. Littwin was suing the State of Texas for firing him as lottery directory, which he claimed was politically motivated. The Littwin lawsuit is a complex and confusing affair that provides a glimpse at the baseline of corruption pullulating through the Texas political system.
In sum, Littwin claimed that he was forced to hire a company called GTech to run the Texas lottery in order to suppress the real story of how Bush won entry into the Guard-namely that Ben Barnes had pulled strings with Gen. Rose. In the 1990s, Barnes worked a lobbyist for GTech. Indeed, GTech had paid Barnes $23 million for his expert services.
In his deposition, Barnes denied blackmailing Littwin into giving GTech the lucrative contract. But he confessed, with the haughty sense of accomplishment that only an apex politico can impart, that he had indeed opened the backdoor for Bush into the Air National Guard. Barnes said that he responded to a distress beacon from Bush intimate Sid Adger, a now dead Texas oil tycoon, and prevailed on Gen. Rose to adopt the young Bush as a member of the Guard's flying elite, which then included the war aversive sons of Gov. John Connelly and Sen. Lloyd Bentsen. It helped that Barnes's chief of staff, Nick Kralj, also served as a top aide-de-camp to the general. Mission accomplished.
But the handouts didn't stop there. Bush didn't want to remain a lowly private or corporal in those drab uniforms. He saw himself as officer material. Yet, he had no desire to subject himself to the mental and physical rigors of Officer Candidate School. In his mind, he was a birthright officer. And so it came to be. After a mere six weeks of training, Bush was promoted to the rank 2nd Lieutenant. He didn't even have his pilot's license.
In the wake of this astounding achievement, Bush felt it was time for a breather. He abandoned his training with the Guard for two months, hightailing it to the beaches and bars of Florida, where he claimed to have occasionally lent the services of his agile political mind to the senatorial campaign of rightwing, neo-segregationist congressman Ed Gurney, a favorite of Richard Nixon. Gurney won, but his victory was short lived. Gurney was later indicted by a federal grand jury on charges of political corruption, bribery and perjury. He walked away a free man courtesy of a hung jury.
* * *
After the election, Bush headed for Moody Air Base in Georgia to complete his pilot training with the 3559th Student Squadron. Around Thanksgiving, Bush was once again whisked away from the monotony of life as a fighter-pilot-in-training, this time courtesy of Richard Nixon. The president sent a plane to Moody Air Base to pick up the young Bush so that the newly brevetted lieutenant could escort Nixon's fabulously neurotic (and what progeny of Nixon's wouldn't at least be neurotic?) daughter Tricia out on a date. Sparks didn't fly. The young officer made clumsy advances, which Tricia deftly deflected. She later described Bush as "testy."
And so the days and weeks of Bush's service to the country, as commander-in-chief likes to put it, during the war in Vietnam rolled on. His instructors at the Moody Air Base assigned Bush the task of learning how to fly the F-102, an obsolete fighter soon destined for the scrap heap.
Finally, on June 23, 1971 Bush graduated from combat flight training school. Now he was ready to defend the airspace of Texas from hostile incursions from Mexico, Belize or the Virgin Islands.
Except that George the Younger apparently had formed other plans. Without informing the Guard commanders who had saved him going to Vietnam, Bush quietly applied for admission to study law at the University of Texas. For one of the few times in his life, Bush didn't get immediate gratification.
The flying fratboy's application to the University of Texas law school was ungraciously declined, despite the pleas of his father, who had just lost a fierce senatorial campaign against Lloyd Bentsen. Whatever its faults, apparently the University of Texas isn't prone to handing out legacy admissions to New Haven-born whelps of the political elite. Even in Texas, you have to draw the line somewhere.
Sulking at this unfamiliar rebuke, Bush slunk off to Ellington Air Base near Houston to join the 111th Fighter Squadron. By most accounts, his drinking, already problematic, began to intensify. By other accounts, it was during this time in Ellington that Bush began to refamiliarize himself with his narcotic of choice at Yale...cocaine. In his college days, Bush not only snorted, he dealt. Among the haut monde at Yale, he was known as one of the top purveyors of primo Colombian powder in New Haven, dispensing the crystal snow from ounce bags.
Now we come to the crucial lost years of 1971 and 1973. Shortly after Bush arrived at Ellington, his political ambitions begin to percolate to the surface. He tells the Houston Post that he is considering a run for the Texas state senate. His testing of the waters doesn't excite much interest and nothing comes of it.
So he continues flying, mainly on weekends, over the course of the next year. And he continues getting inebriated. On a trip back to Washington, DC at Christmastime, Bush treats his younger brother to a night cruising the bars of Georgetown. In the early hours of the morning, a shit-faced Bush crashes his car into a row of garbage cans in front of the family house. Roused from his slumbers by the racket outside, his father confronts him in the driveway about driving around drunk. Bush the Younger threatens to pummel his father with his fists, but Marvin, also drunk, intervenes and Bush is sent packing back to Texas.
In April of 1972, two important events coincide. The Air Force mandates drug testing for all pilots during medical exams and Bush takes what will turn out to be his last flight as a pilot for the Air National Guard.
Less than a month later, Bush flees his Texas Guard base for Alabama, where he signs up to work on the congressional campaign of Winton "Red" Blount, a friend of Bush's father and Nixon's postmaster general. He didn't inform his superiors at Ellington that he had left Texas until two weeks later, when he requested a transfer to the 9921st Air Reserve Squadron, a postal unit with no fighter jets. Initially, the transfer is granted.
No one recalls seeing Bush report for duty and there is no documentary record supporting his service there, which, in any event, was to consist primarily of reading flight manuals--an uninviting assignment for the quasi-literate airman. On July 6, Bush is scheduled to take his required flight physical, which will for the first time include a drug test. He fails to show up. Failure to take a flight physical is grounds for immediate suspension of his pilot's license.
These days Bush claims that he simply blew off the physical because the Guard was phasing out the F-102 and he didn't expect to be piloting any more flights. This excuse is circumspect for two reasons. First, although the F-102 was on its way out, the jet had not yet been mothballed and Bush still had the opportunity to learn to fly the new generation of fighter jets. Indeed, there was a fleet of them just down the highway at Dannelly Air Base in Alabama. Moreover, the flight physical was a mandatory requirement of service. This was not a matter of getting a permission slip to play intramural polo at Yale. For most Guardsmen, failure to abide by such orders resulted severe consequences, like being compelled to spend two-years in active duty, perhaps in Vietnam.
On July 31, Bush's transfer to the Montgomery postal unit was overturned by the DC office, which deemed him "ineligible for reassignment to the Air Reserve Squadron. He is ordered to return to Ellington. But Bush doesn't pay any attention. Instead, he retreated to Miami with his father for the 1972 Republican National Convention, the last hurrah of Nixon.
Two weeks later Bush returns to Alabama, where he files a new transfer request, this time to the 187th TAC Recon Group in Mobile. The transfer is approved on September 5, 1972. The following day the Air Force officially revokes his flight privileges for "failure to accomplish annual medical examination."
Bush wasn't alone in losing his wings. The other pilot suspended alongside Bush was none other than his close friend, James M. Bath. Yes, that James Bath, who would in just a few short years become the financial factotum for the Bin Laden family in Texas. In the 1980s, it was Bath, backed by the Bin Laden fortune, who bailed Bush out of the financial ruin he had made of Arbusto Drilling and Harken Energy. Old friends down there are not forgotten.
The de-winged pilot was ordered to report for duty to Lt. Col. William Turnipseed, commander of the 187th Recon Group. The Colonel says he never meet Bush and there is no record that junior ever showed up at the base. "Had he reported in, I would have had some recall, and I do not," said Col. Turnipseed. "I had been in Texas, done my flight training there. If we had had a first lieutenant from Texas, I would have remembered."
On September 29, Bush was sent a letter commanding him to appear before the Flying Evaluation Board to explain why he had refused to take the medical exam. Bush never responded. At this point, Bush was not only AWOL, but in breach of two direct orders.
Meanwhile, back in Montgomery, Bush had apparently gone AWOL from the Blount campaign as well. He spent his nights carousing in the bars of Montgomery. He would arrive hung-over at the campaign office in the afternoon, prop his cowboy-booted feet on the desk and recount his night of debauchery. The women workers at the campaign headquarters called Bush the "Texas soufflé." Full of himself and stuffed with hot air, the blue-haired ladies for Blount snickered.
Blount lost the election, but remained tight with the Bush clan. His company, Blount International, continues to benefit from it close association with the Bushes and their wars. In 1991, Blount International got a multimillion-dollar contract to reconstruct bombed out Kuwait City. Later, it won one of the largest private contracts ever awarded by the Saudi Royal family. Now, Blount's firm is working as a subcontractor for Halliburton in Iraq.
In the fall of 1972, things began to look grim for the fatuous flyboy from New Haven. The National Guard was on his tail, demanding an explanation for why he had jilted them after they had saved him from Vietnam and had invested a million dollars in teaching him how to fly fighters.
Thanks to the investigations of the intrepid Larry Flynt, we now know that it was in this window of months that Bush apparently got a Houston woman pregnant and gallantly paid for her to have an abortion. It was also in this period that Bush, according to his biographer J.H. Hatfield, was arrested for possession of cocaine. Instead of landing in prison, the judge presiding over the case bent to the pleadings of Bush's father, then US ambassador to the UN, and ordered the young derelict to perform six month's worth of community service at PULL, a center for black youths in urban Houston.
Williams' book Deserter lends circumstantial credence to Hatfield's account and raises even new questions. According to Bush's autobiography (ghostwritten by his political au pair, Karen Hughes), A Charge to Keep, he met former Houston Oiler tight end John White in December of 1972. White, Bush claims, asked him to come work full-time at his Houston youth center, called Project-PULL. Bush, who until this charmed moment had never exhibited the slightest charitable instinct, agreed. He started work at PULL in January of 1973.
Now keep in mind that Bush supposedly already had a job, working for the National Guard. Yet over the next six months there's not one confirmed Bush sighting by his Guard commanders. In the ornithology of the Air National Guard, Bush is the rarest and stealthiest of birds, passing through Guard air space like a ghostly passenger pigeon. Indeed, when his superiors tried to fill out an annual evaluation of Bush's service they are unable to complete the form, writing on May 2, 1973: "Lt. Bush has not been observed at this unit during the period of the report."
A month later, National Guard HQ in Washington sent Texas Guard commanders an official query about Bush. The DC brass instructed the Texas crew to prepare a Form 77a on Bush "so this officer can be rated in the position he held." The Texas Guard, then run by Bush family cronies who now saw themselves implicated in the transgressions of the absconder fratboy, balks at the order. Indeed, they delay filing a response until November 12, 1973, by which time Bush has been honorably discharged from the Guard. Even then the response from the Texas HQ is coy, though ripe with nefarious possibilities: "Not rated for the period 1 May 1972 through 30 April 73. Report for this period unavailable for administrative reasons."
So it seemed that the bureaucratic vise beginning to squeeze young George. Then mysteriously Bush is recorded as having performed 36 days of duty between May and July of 1973. Bush doesn't recall precisely what he did. There are no pay records to confirm his service. No one in the Guard witnessed him on the base. Indeed, Bush couldn't have done the Guard service because by his own admission he was working full-time for John White at PULL-if he'd gone AWOL from that job he might have very well landed in jail. It now seems likely that the entry of those 36 days of service was post-dated by someone in the Texas office not only to protect Bush, but also to shield his retinue of enablers in the high command of the Texas Air National Guard.
In September Bush completed his tour of duty at PULL, applied to grad school, and despite being AWOL from the National Guard from May of 1972 through October of 1973, is granted an honorable discharge.
That fall Bush evacuated to Cambridge, making a soft landing at Harvard Business School, another reliable safehouse for the brattish scions of the ruling class. Fellow students at Harvard remember Bush prancing into lecture halls wearing his uniform. Even then, he had a taste for military cross-dressing, though no one in the Massachusetts National Guard ever recalls the tyro-in-a-jumpsuit showing up for duty at the base--although he did drop by once to have his choppers cleaned gratis by the Guard's dentist.
Whenever Bush plays dress-up, as he does at nearly every photo-op on a military site from the USS Lincoln to torture seminar rooms at Ft. Bragg, he comes off as the missing member of the Village People, which mayy explains his enduring appeal to the latent types manning the controls of the Christian right these days.
In the mid-1990s, as Bush began to plot his run for the White House, the governor and his handlers (Dan Bartlett, Karen Hughes and Karl Rove) realized that Bush's missing years in the Guard might prove problematic. After all, during the 1992 presidential campaign, Bush's father assaulted Clinton for his deft manipulation of Col. Eugene Holmes, the commander of Arkansas's ROTC, to sidestep the draft.
Bush's dilemma was trickier and more unseemly than Clinton's. In order to escape service in Vietnam, he had exploited his family's political connections to secure a choice spot in the Texas Air National Guard, despite failing his pilot aptitude test. Though a blatant act of patronage, Bush was promoted to officer status before he earned his pilot's license and without going to officer training school. He refused to take his mandatory flight physical and also refused to show up for a mandatory evaluation. He went AWOL for a year and a half and then requested and received an early discharge. All this after promising to "serve as long as possible" and to devote himself to a lifetime of high flying...flying planes, that is.
In the offices of the Texas Air Guard there were records documenting Bush's dubious career and exposing the holes in his extravagent version of his military service to the country. The most potentially damning of those documents (Bush's pay records) are now missing. Where did they go?
One intriguing explanation comes from Lt. Col. Bill Burkett, a top aide to Maj. Gen. Daniel James, III, then commander of the Texas Air National Guard. In 1997, Burkett claims he was just outside the open door of Maj. Gen. James's office when the general received a conference call from Joe Allbaugh, Bush's chief of staff, and Dan Bartlett, Bush's communications director. The conversation played out over James's speakerphone, where Burkett claims he overheard Bush's men order James to cleanse Bush's military files. Burkett said he recalled Allbaugh's saying: "We certainly don't want anything that is embarrassing in there."
A few days later, Burkett says that he saw Brig. Gen. John Scribner dispose of Bush's pay and performance records in a 15-gallon metal waste can inside the Texas Air National Guard Musuem. "The files had been gone through over the years," Scribner quipped to Burkett, pointing to the garbage can. "Not as much in here as I thought." Apparently, this was a mop-up operation to make sure that nothing had been missed in previous search-and-destroy raids on Bush's files.
Burkett went public with his recollections in the spring of 2004 during the mini-tempest in the corporate press over Bush's military record sparked by Michael Moore's assertion that the president was a "deserter." The president's praetorian guard went into action, smearing Burkett as a disgruntled malcontent with an ax to grind against Maj. Gen. James, who Bush had elevated to the head of the Air National Guard for the entire country. Although the Burkett story quickly faded, phone records and other documents back up the circumstances of his claims. And Burkett himself hasn't backed down despite the assaults on his character from Bush's political mercenaries. "If President Bush is going to be the first president in over one hundred years that puts himself in a uniform and uses taxpayer's money for a photo opportunity to land on a flight deck and say hooray," Burkett told reporters. "He's put it on the table and we deserve to know." But the press bus had long since pulled away, never to return to the scene of the crime.
Given this vaporous record of service during Vietnam, it takes a perverse kind of hubris for Bush to assail the military careers of a POW (John McCain), a bona fide killing machine (John Kerry) and a triple amputee (Max Cleland). It's the trademark of a pampered bully.
* * *
The moment George Bush refused to go spill blood in Vietnam may have been the moral Everest of his life. But he has long since buried that singular act of conscience beneath a stench-heap of warped psychological projection and ethical hypocrisy. The president remains a stunted brat and a coward at the core, dodging rules he forces others to abide by with unforgiving strictness. Festooned in a flight jacket he never deserved, Bush has ordered National Guard troops into a bloody desert war he and his chickenhawk cronies launched under fabricated pretexts. Then in order to hand out tax breaks to the super-rich and billion-dollar contracts to favored arms makers, Bush scrimped on the funding of his precious war itself: too few troops, under-armed, over-worked, operating with no occupation plan and no exit strategy.
In their quest to transfer every possible federal dollar to their fatcat base, the Bush regime even went so far as to try to slash combat pay and separation allowances and increase co-payments for the treatment of those maimed in battle. Although he opted out of the Guard early, Bush has now implemented (perhaps illegally) "stop-losses" orders, a kind press-ganging by Oval Office fiat that keeps National Guard and Reserve troops in Iraq far beyond their contracted tour of duty. In essence, they are war slaves.
When the Iraqi resistance surfaced with a vengeance after Bush made his premature declaration of victory, the faux-warrior taunted them by sneering, "Bring it on." They did. And more than 700 American soldiers have perished since the delivery of that infamous sideline chant, tossed off as if the president were still a flighty cheerleader at Andover. To top it off, while Bush still refuses to attend funeral ceremonies for slain soldiers, he wasted no time in trying to slash death benefits for military families. And on and on it goes.
Explain his actions? Not then, not now, not ever.
Just as he stiffed the Flight Evaluation Board in 1972, Bush now refuses to offer an explanation for his illegal and unjust war that has killed and maimed tens of thousands. "I'm the commander--see, I don't need to explain," Bush brayed in his best Mafia capo syntax to Bob Woodward. "I do not need to explain why I say things. That's the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they say something, but I don't feel I owe anybody an explanation." That's the distilled essence of George W. Bush from his very own mouth: a bellicose and imperious buffoon who has never once been held to account for the mayhem he leaves in his wake.
So yet again Bush has succeeded in doing the impossible: he has sullied the once heroic term "draft evader."
"So let us regard this as settled: what is morally wrong can never be advantageous, even when it enables you to make some gain that you believe to be to your advantage. The mere act of believing that some wrongful course of action constitutes an advantage is pernicious." Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 B.C.)
John Kerry has severely blown it by defending his October 2002 vote authorizing President Bush's invasion of Iraq ~ knowing what he knows now.
Bush has rightfully made fun of Kerry for Kerry has not only sold out on his progressive anti-war base but has given away histrump cardintheOctober debates~Bush's tenuous moralcredibility regarding the war with Iraq.
Bush-lite will not win in November~ particularly if we have an acceleration of terror alerts.
Helen Thomas,Seattle Post-Intelligencer, calls it a colossal mistake and adds ; " Kerry has passed up several chances to distance himself from the Iraqi debacle. But instead he has left himself wide open to Bush's ridicule. What's he got left -- stem-cell research? " A must read !
It appears American voters have little choice between the presidential candidates in the November election when it comes to the disastrous war against Iraq.
Both President Bush and his rival, Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., seem to think it was worth the 932 American lives (so far) and thousands of U.S. wounded to get one man behind bars -- Saddam Hussein.
There also are the untold thousands of Iraqis dead and wounded as well. But, as one Pentagon spokesman told me, "They don't count."
Kerry has made a colossal mistake by continuing to defend his October 2002 vote authorizing President Bush's invasion of Iraq.
Last week at the Grand Canyon, Kerry said he would have "voted to give the president the authority to go to war" even if he had known there were no stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction -- Bush's original justification for war on Iraq.
Kerry explained that he believes a president should have the "authority" to go to war, and he voted accordingly. But he insisted that Bush subsequently misused the authority by rushing headlong into combat based on faulty intelligence about Saddam's weapons arsenal.
Kerry is mistaken on a key point. Under the U.S. Constitution, the president does not have that sole right to declare war. Despite its mindless default, that right still belongs to Congress.
Kerry has passed up several chances to distance himself from the Iraqi debacle. But instead he has left himself wide open to Bush's ridicule. What's he got left -- stem-cell research?
Bush had a field day smirking and mocking his political rival and telling the nation that he was "right" to attack Iraq, absence of weapons notwithstanding.
Bush has sarcastically told cheering Republican rallies, "After months of questioning my motives and even my credibility, Sen. Kerry now agrees with me."
"We did the right thing," Bush bragged. "And the world is better off for it."
The senator should have called Bush's hand months ago and laid it on the line after so much official deception. How could he say he would have voted for the 2002 war resolution after he and the whole world learned the rationale for the war was based on falsehoods?
Does Kerry realize that the U.S. invasion of Iraq without provocation violates the U.N. Charter and the Nuremberg Tribunal principles?
Kerry has a weak fallback position-- that he would have planned things differently before going to war and would have lined up more European allies. Knowing what they know now about the Bush fiasco, France and Germany are congratulating themselves for having the good sense to stay out of Iraq.
So Kerry has blown it big time, rising to Bush's bait and throwing away his ace in the hole -- Bush's shaky credibility on the profound question of war and peace.
Bush has yet to apologize for misleading the nation or to explain why he needed a war when Saddam's regime was tightly contained with sanctions, weapons inspections and U.S. patrolling of the "no-fly" zone.
Bush has no exit strategy or timetable for a troop withdrawal even under the facade of Iraqi sovereignty.
Kerry has talked about drawing down American forces and an eventual pullout.
But he could learn something from two previous wartime Republican presidential candidates who had a better take on the public pulse and won the White House.
In 1952 during the Korean War, Dwight D. Eisenhower made a campaign promise that he would "go to Korea" and end the bloodshed. He did go to Korea and the war ended with a cease-fire standoff months after his inauguration.
In 1968, Richard Nixon said he had a "plan" to end the Vietnam War and the voters, wanting peace, bought it. Nixon -- in part forced by Congress -- reduced the U.S. troop commitment to Vietnam, but U.S. forces were still there when Nixon was forced to resign from office in 1974 because of the Watergate scandal. But the war ended the following year.
These were not triumphal solutions but they did give Americans some hope of eventual escape from the two quagmires.
In 1964, a Los Angeles Times cartoon by famed Paul Conrad showed a pollster knocking on a door. A woman sticks her head out of a window and the pollster asks her voting preference: "President Johnson or Sen. Barry Goldwater, R-Ariz.?" She replies: "Who else have you got?"
In the eyes of empire builders men are not men but instruments: Napoleon Bonaparte: French Emperor (1769-1821)
Watching Jim Lehrer grill Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on PBS News Hour last night ~ it became obvious that Rumsfeld and Bush are not only oblivious of what the American public feels about the War and costly occupation of Iraq ~ they don't care !
Gail Sheehy , LA Times, explains in detail how the hubris twins, Bush and Rumsfeld, failed us on 9/11 and
offers; " The inaction of both the president and the Defense chief under the ultimate test offers little reassurance to a nervous nation under the shadow of new terror warnings . "
Donald Rumsfeld, one of the chief opponents of investing real power over purse and personnel in a new national intelligence chief, told the 9/11 commission that an intelligence czar would do the nation "a great disservice." It is fair to ask what kind of service Rumsfeld provided on the day the nation was under catastrophic attack.
"Two planes hitting the twin towers did not rise to the level of Rumsfeld's leaving his office and going to the War Room? How can that be?" asked Mindy Kleinberg, one of the widows known as the Jersey Girls, whose efforts helped create and guide the 9/11 commission. The fact that the final report failed to offer an explanation is one of the infuriating holes in an otherwise praiseworthy accounting.
Rumsfeld was missing in action that morning — "out of the loop" by his own admission. The lead military officer that day, Brig. Gen. Montague Winfield, told the commission that the Pentagon's command center had been essentially leaderless: "For 30 minutes we couldn't find" Rumsfeld.
For more than two hours after the Federal Aviation Administration became aware that the first plane had been violently overtaken by Middle Eastern men, the man whose job it was to order air cover over Washington did not show up in the Pentagon's command center. It took him almost two hours to "gain situational awareness," he told the commission. He didn't speak to the vice president until 10:39 a.m., according to the report. Since that was more than 30 minutes after the last hijacked plane crashed, it would seem to be an admission of dereliction of duty.
Rumsfeld's testimony before the commission last March was bizarre. Asked point-blank by Commissioner Jamie Gorelick what he had done to protect the nation — or even the Pentagon — during the "summer of threat" preceding the attacks, Rumsfeld replied simply that "it was a law enforcement issue." That obfuscation — was the FBI expected to be out on the Beltway with shoulder-launched missiles? — has been accepted at face value by the commission and media.
Rumsfeld is in charge of NORAD, which has the specific mission of protecting the United States and Canada by responding to any form of air attack. The official chain of command in the event of a hijacking calls for the president to empower the secretary of Defense to send up a military escort and, if necessary, give shoot-down orders.
Yet President Bush told the panel he spoke to Rumsfeld for the first time that morning shortly after 10 a.m. — 23 minutes after the Pentagon was hit and moments before the last plane went down. It was, says the report, "a brief call in which the subject ofshoot-down authority was not discussed."
As a result, NORAD's commanders were left in the dark about what their mission was. When fighters were told to scramble from Langley, Va., they were sent not to cover Washington but on a fool's mission to tail and identify American Airlines Flight 11, which was already boiling the first Trade Center tower to the ground.
Why wasn't Rumsfeld able to see on TV what millions of civilians already knew? After the Pentagon was attacked, why did he run outside to play medic instead of moving to the command center and taking charge? The 9/11 report records the fatal confusion in which command center personnel were left: Three minutes after the FAA command center told FAA headquarters in an update that Flight 93 was 29 minutes out of Washington, D.C., the command center said, "Uh, do we want to, uh, think about scrambling aircraft?"
FAA headquarters: "Oh, God, I don't know."
Command center: "Uh, that's a decision somebody's going to have to make probably in the next 10 minutes."
But nobody did. Three minutes later, Flight 93 was wrestled to the ground by heroic civilians.
How is it that civilians in a hijacked plane were able to communicate with their loved ones, grasp a totally new kind of enemy and weaponry and act to defend the nation's Capitol, yet the president had "communication problems" on Air Force One and the nation's defense chief didn't know what was going on until the horror was all over?
The failures of 9/11 were not inherent in the system; they were human failures. Yet, so far, no one has been fired, which leaves the 9/11 families — and all of us — in a conundrum.
The inaction of both the president and the Defense chief under the ultimate test offer little reassurance to a nervous nation under the shadow of new terror warnings.Before we attempt to revamp the entire security system, shouldn't our government look first at why the people in charge failed to communicate or coordinate a response to the catastrophe?
As usual , it is all smoke and mirrors and pure politics with the Bush administrationwhich is increasingly desperate to portray their commander-in-chief as capable of making sound decisions ~ even in the face of an obvious wrong one with Porter Goss as head of the CIA.
The Center for Amerrican Progress lays out the truefacts about Goss and also adds ; " According to a Republican operative quoted in the Washington Post, Goss was nominated to head the CIA yesterday because "poll data showed Kerry had closed the gap with Bush on the handling of terrorism and was slightly ahead as fit to be commander in chief." The nomination of Goss was made as a political calculation "to show that Bush was moving ahead."
Allen L Roland
Is Goss the Right Choice?
Center For American Progress 8/11/04
The CIA, beset by major intelligence failures in the lead up to 9/11 and the war in Iraq, needs a new leader who is committed to reform and can transcend partisanship. Is Rep. Porter Goss (R-FL) – nominated by President Bush yesterday – the right person for the job? As a former clandestine intelligence officer and chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, his knowledge of the agency is unquestioned. But his recent record of strident partisanship and marked disagreement with the White House and the 9/11 Commission on the role of the CIA director raises serious doubts about whether he is the right choice, particularly at a time when there is a clear need to depoliticize intelligence. (Read this statement and backgrounder on the Goss nomination from American Progress.)
GOSS ENGAGES IN PARTISAN ATTACK ON HOUSE FLOOR: Though CIA Directors are typically non-partisan and apolitical, Goss is anything but. On June 23, 2004, Goss – parroting talking points from the Bush/Cheney campaign – attacked presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) on the House floor. Goss held up a blowup of a chart about 1997 reductions in the intelligence budget and blamed "such distinguished Members of the Congress as Senator John Kerry...I got books full of that stuff. There is no doubt where the record is. The Democratic party did not support the intelligence community."
GOSS REBUTS KERRY SPEECH ON BEHALF OF BUSH CAMPAIGN: After John Kerry delivered a major national security address in early June, Goss was tapped by the Bush/Cheney campaign to provide their official rebuttal. Goss wrote in a statement released on Bush's campaign website that "John Kerry's speech today amounted to little more than political 'me-tooism.' He laid out some old goals that everyone agrees to, without offering concrete proposals to achieve them. He also neglected the President's historic achievements in this area." In "an effort to revise history and expunge...[Goss'] record of partisan attacks," the Bush campaign removed Goss' statement from its website yesterday. After it was called on the tactic, it restored the statement several hours later. Bush/Cheney communications director Nicolle Devenish called the decision to remove Goss' statement "a mistake."
GOSS PLAYS SPIN DOCTOR ON CAMPAIGN CONFERENCE CALL: Participating in a conference call with reporters on behalf of the Bush/Cheney campaign, Goss "answered 'clearly yes' to a question about whether Bush's policy toward North Korea was producing results." According to Goss, due to Bush's policies, North Korea is "no longer making progress they were making at Yongbyon [their key nuclear production site] and other places because we have called their bluff." But according to U.S. intelligence, since Bush has taken office, "North Korea has thrown out inspectors, removed nuclear fuel from internationally monitored storage, and may have increased the size of its nuclear arsenal."
GOSS MOCKS SUGGESTION TO INVESTIGATE THE OUTING OF VALERIE PLAME: As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Goss refused to investigate the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame by a senior member of the White House staff. Goss told a newspaper last October that when "somebody sends me a blue dress and some DNA, I'll have an investigation.'"
GOSS DISAGREES WITH BUSH, 9/11 COMMISSION ON ROLE OF CIA DIRECTOR: Two months ago, Goss introduced a bill "making the CIA director the intelligence czar, with control over the CIA, responsibility for advising the president and budget authority over all 15 intelligence agencies." The 9/11 Commission concluded that "the three jobs are too much for one official." Bush, on the other hand, has lent at least rhetorical support to the 9/11 Commission's recommendation for a separate intelligence czar. Goss' nomination threatens to further undermine the Commission because "it is unlikely that Goss would have said yes to the job only to have a more powerful intelligence official between himself and Bush."
TIMING OF GOSS NOMINATION POLITICALLY MOTIVATED:According to a Republican operative quoted in the Washington Post, Goss was nominated to head the CIA yesterday because "poll data showed Kerry had closed the gap with Bush on the handling of terrorism and was slightly ahead as fit to be commander in chief." The nomination of Goss was made as a political calculation "to show that Bush was moving ahead."
When I find myself screaming at the TV watching Bush blatantly and willfullylie about the economy and his illegal occupation of Iraq ~ I am always invigorated by the fiery words of Mark Monfort , S.F.Gate coumnist, who confirms what most Americans know ~ " It's time for a change ."
Excerpt: " This is not the way the world's greatest superpower is supposed to behave, this bitter metallic taste that leaps into my mouth whenever I see a picture of BushCo isn't really supposed to be there ~ the vice president isn't supposed to make children cry and flowers wilt and the gods recoil in disgust... And the president isn't supposed to mangle the language and induce multiple wars and invite international derision and make so many millions of us ashamed to be Americans. It's time for a serious change. This is how you know. " A must read !
Allen L Roland
Time To Get Out The Bush How do you know it's time for a major change in American leadership? Let us count the signs .
You know it's time for a serious change when the president of the United States actually mutters the infantile, instantly infamous line, "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we," just after finishing phonetically spelling out his name, in his favoritest red crayon, on yet another budget-reaming $417 billion defense-spending bill.
And you know it's time for a change when not a single one of the rigid and spiritually curdled military yes men standing around the ceremonial signing table, those sad automatons with their wooden smiles and stiff spines and bone-dry souls, not one broke into a hysterical bout of sad, suicidal laughter, followed by uncontrolled wailing and the rending of flesh and the muttering of oh my freaking God what the hell is this man doing as leader of the free world.
You know it's time for a change when you hear that Kerry and Edwards both wrote their own riveting, galvanizing acceptance speeches at the Democratic National Convention, heartfelt and effective rhetoric that gives you hope not for the quality of polished oratory but for genuine, refreshing political intellect, and verbal acumen, as you offer deep thanks that at least some politicians can still speak coherently and cogently without mangling the goddamn language at every adjectival clause.
Whereas you just know Dubya isn't capable of writing a single word of his own speeches, and will employ entire squadrons of lackeys to do it for him at the RNC, and will regardless still insist on mispronouncing "nukuler" and "'Murka" and "terrist" and "gin bender at Yale," and will doubtlessly say something like, "We must stamp out evil in all its forms because evil wants to do evil things to us and evil don't know the depths of its own, uh, evilnesses. Praise Jesus."
There are signs and indicators. There are feelings and intuitions. There is that undeniable tang in the air, that clenching of the cultural colon, that cringe in the collective soul. Something has got to give. A national shakeup is more than imminent -- it is desperately, urgently needed. And Bush is just about finished.
Don't you feel it?The sensation that the country cannot continue to careen down this ultraviolent, antihumanitarian path much longer without implosion and desperation and a massive increase in sedative prescriptions for anyone with an even slightly intuitive sense of justice and future and long hot sighs of hope? You're not alone.
You know it's time for a dramatic change when American bookstores and movie theaters are filled with unprecedented numbers of extraordinarily damning BushCo exposés and embarrassing tell-all tomes and brutal whistle-blower digests from all corners of the culture, produced by everyone from disheartened CIA insiders to ex-generals to respected reporters to former U.S. allies.
From Clarke's "Against All Enemies," Woodward's "Plan of Attack," Suskind's "The Price of Loyalty," Phillips' "American Dynasty," Unger's "House of Bush, House of Saud" and "Imperial Hubris," by 'Anonymous,' to "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Outfoxed" and "The Hunting of the President." Go ahead, Google any one (or all) of those titles. The list is endless and stunning in its depth and in the heat of its unanimous BushCo condemnation.
Hell, it's getting so you can't turn a corner or have a nuanced, humane thought without confronting another hunk of undeniable proof that what these media documents say is true: The Bush administration is quite possibly the most economically destructive, environmentally devastating, ethically corrupt, internationally loathed, deliberately tyrannical, worst-dressed administration in American history.
What, too harsh? Hardly.
When the professors and other intellectuals and the artists and the social workers and the mystics and the truly spiritual among us are appalled and mournful, and the homophobes and the rednecks and the religious zealots are cheering and shooting their guns in the sky, this is how you know.
When America has become a global punch line, a petulant and screeching child in an oversize Texas cowboy hat throwing oily little tantrums on a WMD whim, and the global community can only sit there, stunned and enraged, as every ally withdraws all offers of support and overtures of concern for our well-being, this is how you know.
The activists know it. Angry groups are popping up by the hundreds across the nation, all working diligently to toss a nice emetic into the Republican gorge-fest. Some are even going so far as to offer up the ultimate sacrifice: They will have sex with any Republicans willing to withhold their Bush vote this election.
It's true. It's funny. It's called fthevote.com. What, too extreme? Hey, extreme times call for extreme lubrication.
The watchdogs know it. The usual reaction from most analysts and wonks, most intellectuals and artists, when faced with another presidential election, is this: Yawn. After all, such ultra-elitist, top-tier shifts have little effect on the massive daily political grind, the real meat and potatoes of government, right? This is the common wisdom. A change in presidents is like changing the paint on an aircraft carrier: different patina, same damn boat.
Not this time.All those who normally claim that a change in who sits in the Oval Office means nothing are now all frantically waving their arms and shouting their protests and joining the resistance. This election is different.This one matters like never before in history, considering how so many of us underestimated just how much damage a single president's gnarled, hateful administration could unleash upon the world in a single term.
This is the new rallying cry. If you care at all about the soul of this country, if you care at all about women's rights and gay rights and true spiritual freedom and the environment and our international standing, if you care at all about actually reducing the anti-U.S. hatred in the world, as opposed to amplifying it a thousandfold, then oh my god yes, this election matters.
This, then, is how you know it's time for a serious change. When you can feel it in your bones, when you finally attune and really listen to the underlying messages and dig deep into your own spirit and discover that no, this isn't the way the world is supposed to work. This is not the way the country has to be.
This is not the way the world's greatest superpower is supposed to behave, this bitter metallic taste that leaps into my mouth whenever I see a picture of BushCo isn't really supposed to be there, the vice president isn't supposed to make children cry and flowers wilt and the gods recoil in disgust.
And the president isn't supposed to mangle the language and induce multiple wars and invite international derision and make so many millions of us ashamed to be Americans. It's time for a serious change. This is how you know.
Fear can not only override love and joy but fear can also slowly paralize if not strangle a nations common sense and core values ~ as the Bush administration is now clearly demonstrating.
Manuel Valenzuela is a profound and gifted writer whose foreboding words about the outcome of our illegal occupation of Iraq have proved true .
Now he brilliantly describes our ominous journey into the abyss of fear and writes that ' The Ghost of Orwell is upon us, ' addingthat ourfear is growing into a beast of montrous proportions;
Excerpt:" For Bush and his cronies have given life to a beast that has wrapped its malicious tentacles around the American psyche, breathing not oxygen but our exhaling fear, growing more powerful every day, feeding off our insecurity and continued dumbing down, enveloping our lives with our silent passivity, becoming omnipotent and omnipresent through our acquiescent complicity. Rolling down a snow-filled mountain as it gains unstoppable momentum, growing into a giant boulder intent on destroying 200 years of progress and hope, the disease created by Bush has become an unstoppable entity spiraling out of the control of humanity... The “War on Terror” is this malevolent demon called, a virus that is infecting America, catapulting us straight into the pages of a fiction – or a prophesy – long ago written by George Orwell ... the perfect enemy has been created, the perfect sheep we have become, and in the dark constructs of human power, greed and control a military/ police state begins to grow." A must read !
Allen L Roland
"The Ghost of Orwell is Upon us"
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." -- President George W. Bush, Aug. 5, 2004 in an apparent gaffe or a Freudian slip.
Manuel Valenzuela
08/11/04 "ICH" -- A rather sad state of affairs has risen out of the propaganda-laced, nationalism-spewing, draped-in-the flag-espousing and testosterone-filled Democratic National Convention that would have made Joseph Goebbels proud. The party of peace and progress has mutated into one of warmongers and military might, whoring itself to the evils of war and violence in order to regain power, forgetting principles of pacifism and humanism for those espousing death and destruction. The leaders of the Democratic Party know that to once more sit in the White House, to replace lunatics and liars, they must become George W. Bush, albeit with a brain, proclaiming the drums of war and the strength of violence. In a nation addicted to the smells of human blood and of growing hatred for the Arab and Muslim world, only mirages of warmongers and charades of military might can compete with the façade that propels Bush today.
Granted, this cynical conversion has been strategically made in order to elect John Kerry into office, knowing that the American public sits on its collective couch, as always glued to the television, furthering society’s decline as they are made ignorant, unthinking and conditioned drones, chips in one hand, beer in the other, believing the fictions being bombarded into their minds, frightened of Arab bogeymen and cowering to the insecurity and fear conditioned into daily life by a government and military-industrial complex basking in the euphoria of an easily controlled populace. Thus, needing to project strength and the ability to protect the populace in this so-called ‘war on terror’ the Democrats unleashed a wave of military symbolism, personalities and speeches, trying to recapture the ‘security’ and ‘leadership in times of war’ mantra from George W. Bush and the Republicans.
This carefully orchestrated reinventing of the Party, full of colorful signs and light choreography, jingoistic speeches, unity of personalities and hypocritical support by peacemakers of yet another warmonger has let it be known that, even if Kerry is elected, America’s foreign policy, especially that of the Middle East, will surely continue its self-destructive agenda. The Democrats know they cannot be elected without projecting a macabre fascination with the continuance of the ‘war on terror’ that has become a most omnipotent force since the devastation of 9/11. This snowball effect continues to feed a vicious cycle of death, war and destruction that, with every passing month, grows in momentum and power, thus making it virtually impossible that one day it can be halted. Spiraling into the hands of the military-industrial complex, the corporate Leviathan and the warmongers/criminals/neocons in government, the Democrats have assured the American people that the debacle in Iraq will persist, the occupation and exploitation of the Middle East will linger, and the cancer created by Israel will continue to endanger all of humanity.
For Bush and his cronies have given life to a beast that has wrapped its malicious tentacles around the American psyche, breathing not oxygen but our exhaling fear, growing more powerful every day, feeding off our insecurity and continued dumbing down, enveloping our lives with our silent passivity, becoming omnipotent and omnipresent through our acquiescent complicity. Rolling down a snow-filled mountain as it gains unstoppable momentum, growing into a giant boulder intent on destroying 200 years of progress and hope, the disease created by Bush has become an unstoppable entity spiraling out of the control of humanity.
The “War on Terror” is this malevolent demon called, a virus that is infecting America, catapulting us straight into the pages of a fiction – or a prophesy – long ago written by George Orwell. Immersed in 1984 we presently find ourselves trapped in, living the chapters of a great book that today has become our nightmarish reality. As each day passes in these days of George the Lesser we continue to turn the pages of a once-thought fantasy, traversing bound passages horrific in print that are inevitably becoming the truth of our daily existence.
The fabrication that is the ‘war on terror’ thus continues to propel itself, becoming a mechanism created by man that is slowly spiraling out of our ability to rein it in and control it. It continues to expand, corrupt and divide, free to enrapture humanity with its dark haze of violence and hatred whose ramifications we do not yet fully comprehend. The perfect enemy has been created, the perfect sheep we have become, and in the dark constructs of human power, greed and control a military/ police state begins to grow.
What is coming cannot yet be fully seen, it cannot be grasped by the human mind, for our brains work in the present, not the future, in conceptualizing small pieces, not large amalgams. We are unable to put the pieces of the puzzle together, failing in connecting the dots of a fascism rearing its ugly head over the horizon and the slowly emerging wars and battles being designed against the lands of the Middle East. Eurasia, Oceania and Eastasia have come into existence, conveniently designed to wage perpetual war against each other, propping up created enemies and hated foes that captivate our minds and souls.
We are told that new bogeymen now breathe away our air of freedom. Blindly we believe that these evildoers hate our democracy, liberties and ways of living, and so we must wage war, destroying countries, cities, buildings, families and innocents, sacrificing our children and husbands, our wallets and wages, our own freedoms and liberties. In order to battle that dark-skinned phantom which has been conditioned into our frightful minds we are willing to contribute to the erosion both to our way of living and the future freedom of our progeny. The Red and Communist Russian has given way to the Turban and Muslim Arab, and so we must obey our government, as criminal and corrupt as it may be, like sheep blindly following the shepherd to slaughter.
The fear of our conscious and the silence of our being are robbing us of more than Arab bogeymen ever could. Our own government is terrorizing more than Osama ever imagined. Our own government has us capitulating to fear, using the psychology of the weak-minded human brain to ensnarl us in terror, insecurity and the acquiescence of its criminal actions. It is using human fear to erode our freedoms and rights, turning a once grand beacon of hope into a Soviet Russia-style police state. In order to feel secure, in order to have a sense of safety our fellow citizens are gladly eviscerating their rights and freedoms, granting their evil government unprecedented levels of power over us. We are blindly giving up the beauty of America and the future of our children for the perceived security provided by government. The mechanisms of fear are working their black magic yet again, condemning the masses to their own ruination.
As can be expected, humanity creates without understanding the implications of what it helps unleash. Our still primitive brains cannot fathom the ramifications our actions have into a future we are incapable of grasping. We create only to see what we birth spiral beyond our ability to control and understand it. To humans, forethought is but an afterthought, and, as our history eerily reminds us, what we spawn in the present comes back to haunt us in our future. Creating without thinking, forcing actions without planning, implementing policies without visionary imagination, the human mind cannot fully envisage more than a few years into the unseen future. The examples of this are littered throughout the pages of history. But, as is usually the case with mankind, we fail to learn from our tumultuous past, and so we repeat the mistakes of our ancestors through the folly of our mammalian passions and instincts.
Already, the stage has been set for the further implementation of a police state in America, now seen in New York and Washington, that is changing the very fabric of what America once was and stood for. Those in power, a small cabal of immoral and elite miscreants, are spreading the virus of fear for their own sinister motives, entrenching in the populace a continuous flow of scare tactics designed to manipulate human emotions. The cover of threat is spreading beyond the Northeast to other large cities and regions. Under cover of fear and terror, Bush and company are altering the very fabric of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. They are forcing us to voluntarily give up our freedoms and rights for the sake of protection and safety from the same state engulfing us with those same elements of fear mongering we now confront on a daily basis. The disease is being spread nationally; the cloud of fear is enveloping America from sea to shining sea.
These mechanisms of fear are inundating our daily lives, from local to national news, we are being conditioned to the new economy of fear, a new society based on terror that, since 9/11, has and will only continue to increase. Human emotions are being meddled with, our insecurities are being manipulated, and soon, whether in one year or five, a police state existing and thriving on fear will arise out of the blazing bonfires of all our burning rights and freedoms. The stage is being set, this path we are now on, and if we decide to put the jigsaw puzzle together a police state is what America is to become.
The parameters of time and space will dictate its speed and severity, yet if the pieces of this most ominous puzzle are put together, the inevitability of this reality will become manifest. We must look to the totality of the circumstances, both the short and long term, to the present and future, to momentum and current events, to the direction the nation is taking and the increased fear mongering by our government. The winds of fear are giving way to the resounding army of despotic boots marching toward the coming police state.
Incessant fear-mongering has begun to control the populace into both submission and complicity through acquiescence. Weekly terror alerts are conditioning us to an insecurity that, we are told, can only be alleviated by self-erasing our rights and freedoms, granting our government unlimited powers to “protect” us, and believing the plethora of lies and propaganda our “cherished” government tells us. Slowly, 290 million Americans are helping to seal their own fates, destined to live in perpetual fear and in the hands of a fascist form of governance.
The Department of Homeland Insecurity is doing a masterful job of scaring the populace into giving up its rights. It is transforming the land of the free into a nation bordering tyranny. It is making the home of the brave a country gripped by fear. In truth, Tom Ridge is doing exactly as told, hitting the airwaves, reading the script, scaring millions, helping to re-elect a fear-mongering, warmongering, unpatriotic and treasonous administration that has exploited all Americans, using us as pawns in the greatest transformation of American society and governance in our brief history.
The expansion of the police state can today be seen on the streets of New York and Washington, D.C., with a constant police presence roaming streets and important buildings. Armed to the teeth, donning the intimidating attire of riot police, black in color, armor protected, machine gun in hand, thousands of officers now patrol the sidewalks you and I walk, observing, surveilling, spying and helping to keep us quiet and obedient worker bees. Roadblocks, evasive personal inspections of self and possessions, security checkpoints, racial profiling, illegal stops and questioning, demands to see ID’s and a police presence on every corner are the hallmark and the beginning stages of a police state. In sectors of New York and Washington the future of America can today be seen.
The threats of terror spewing like a hot geyser keep coming out of the Department of Homeland Insecurity, adding more cities and buildings scheduled for “government protection.” Today New York and Washington, tomorrow Chicago and San Francisco. The fear hovering throughout the land continues to emanate from the “War” President’s White House, as always erupting lie after continuous lie. The destruction of the Bill of Rights and the Constitution perseveres in the hallways of the Injustice Department, its shredders hard at work eliminating the last vestiges of American freedoms and rights. Meanwhile, the Department of War has once more turned on the conveyor belts of death and destruction, getting ready for yet another invasion and subsequent occupation where the poor castes of America kill and get killed by the poor classes of Iran and/or Syria.
With each new terror warning, with each new city listed as a “potential target” the police state will increase. Soon police and the military will guard us side by side, in every street corner and every subway station, every airport and every mall, M-16 or M-4 Carbines at the ready, intimidating our every move and glance. The days of military checkpoints, army Hummers lining the streets, police dogs at the ready and an aura of military rule are not far off.
Already America’s truckers have been recruited to spy on their fellow Americans, told to be vigilant on the nation’s highways and rest stops. Fear is gripping millions who live in cities, and, whether we see it or not, are being transformed into tools of the state, spies ever vigilant to whatever captures their eyes. Tourists with video equipment and photographers with cameras are now seen with suspicion. Anyone of Arab ethnicity, Middle East name or Muslim faith is now a suspect, guilty first, innocent only after investigation. The inevitability that is the emerging police state dictates that one day soon our own children will be brainwashed to spy on us and our friends, to report anything that might constitute danger to the state. Entire neighborhoods now maintain watchful eyes, becoming ever-suspicious of one another. The day is fast approaching when co-workers and one’s boss will report the activities of those they see as different or as suspicious. Conditioning of our children in schools might one day transform them through programming into conduits and defenders of the powerful who control the state, becoming robots unaware of the splendors their parents were once free to live under and enjoy.
With further evisceration of our rights and the increased powers spawned by technology, it is not hard to conceive of a state aware of every movement and activity. Our government already has, through the mechanisms of Project Echelon, the capacity to record every email, fax, phone call and text message we receive and/or send. Every form of communication can be traced and inspected. Every financial transaction can be tracked, pinpointing our movements. Library books checked out are monitored, internet surfing surveilled. More and more cameras line the streets and buildings, no doubt to continue their exponential growth in the years to come. Satellites in space can read license plates, thermal imaging can see inside our homes. Eye scanning technology is upon us, as is instant fingerprint analysis and public DNA identification. Advancements in technology will undoubtedly assist the coming police state to suppress crime and potential terror, yet it will also act to find and halt dissent, suppress freedoms and rights and transform the citizenry into a collection of scared humans afraid to question authority and exhibit an ounce of individual thought.
The road America has embarked on has no end in sight. Up ahead, only the entrance to a most ominous tunnel can be seen, dark and dangerous, pulling us towards it, sucking the last pebbles of light from the once-great beacon of hope and freedom. The future under this reality does not look bright as a once progressive light of human existence is extinguished under the rubric of fear, terror and security. With each new terror warning the beacon shining high and proud for the world to see is made dimmer, now unable to inspire or embolden. Instead, under the Bush administration, a thick and black cloth now covers what once gave us daylight, transforming day into night, courage into fear and security into terror.
In these days of fear we now live, being driven to re-elect a cabal of madmen intent on destroying an America our Founding Fathers created and believed in. In these times we are made to exist, with fear being politicized, dissent being marginalized and patriotism being questioned. Our emotions are being manipulated by those in power. We are being used and exploited into sacrificing the future of our progeny. We are being made to self-cannibalize our remaining rights and freedoms under the name of security and the lies of the “war on terror.” Yet the day is fast approaching when we will wake from this state of hypnosis, spawned by the fake fear being conditioned into us on a daily basis, only to see society transformed into a nation of spies whose eyes, ears and mouths have become the tools of the same system subjugating them.
Today New York, militarized and under a police state, tomorrow your city and neighborhood. Think it unlikely? Look around, it is already happening. Pay close attention to New York City in late August and early September to see the police state in action, protecting Republican elite from dissenters, protesters and average citizens. Silencing free speech and squashing rights to protest, coralling citizens into free-speech zones, macing innocent and peaceful protesters, arresting and intimidating hundreds, this will be the reality of New York City under partial military rule, all under the lie of security and under the rubric of terror. The stage has been set to halt the expected half a million to a million protesters. With little less than a month to go before the Republican Convention is to begin terror warnings have been put in motion, allowing the police and military to be introduced into the City, allowing the government to impose a police state during the Convention that will have the effect of shutting down protests, dissent and the unity of a million people. Through fear the government can do as it pleases. Through terror it controls the populace and its behaviors.
Under a crimson sky of fear human psychology becomes a dangerous amalgam of animal passions and human evil. Survival becomes a carnal principle; rational thought becomes blurred. The instinct for safety and security places unlimited trust in governance, to the point that humankind willingly cedes freedoms and rights in order to be protected by that which is most feared. Those in power use this truth to increase control over the masses, using us as the means to an end. Through our fear and insecurity their power grows. They are able to unleash war upon the lands of Eurasia and Eastasia, create bogeymen and enemies, encourage retaliation, which in effect acts to grant them still more power over their populace, and foster an era of intertwined interdependence between two competing ideologies whose vicious cycle of terror and violence billions of innocents find themselves immersed in.
To live in 2004 is to live in Orwell’s 1984, and, if the same road continues to be taken, the America of tomorrow will cease to parallel the one of yesterday. At the crossroads we stand, and the failure to act will no doubt condemn our future generations to the mistakes of their forefathers. The America they will inhabit will be a vastly different land than the one enjoying its last remaining days. They will never miss what they never had, and they will never fight for what they always deserved. Our actions, our fear and our complicity are helping to seal the fate of those millions that will come after us. History is being repeated, but not learned; it is being forgotten, and once more a collection of humans is committing the mistakes that have condemned millions before.
Humanity seems never to learn. The fear will continue to increase, the insecurity will not cease. Warnings will only grow louder; attacks will eventually come to our shores, adding to the vicious circle that cannot be stopped. A police state is upon us, yet hundreds of millions seem oblivious to the coming chasm that will affect their lives forever. The mechanism spawned by humanity has taken a life of its own, possessing unstoppable momentum, breathing and living through the fear-laced air we exhale, enveloping our energies and our daily lives as it continues to grow and expand, sending us spiraling out of control.
Whether you wish to live in fear is up to you because it will not stop. On the contrary, incessantly it will grow, spreading like the virus it is throughout the lands of the United States, gripping millions in fright and insecurity. From frightened mind to frightened mind the virus will proliferate, creating a pandemic of human emotions captured by fear and terror, capitalized by a government exploiting its citizens, empowering a few at the top and placing in destiny’s hands the future course of humanity.
The virus is upon us, and it is spreading rapidly. Like a giant wild fire in times of drought, it has become uncontainable, burning everything in its path. Only the powerful monsoons of the Other Superpower can save America now. Will the rains come, or will the drought continue?
Writer's Note: I urge everyone who reads this article to pick up a copy of George Orwell’s “1984” and read or re-read it. Its relevance to today’s America will awaken and scare you. If you want to understand America in 2004, and the direction it is embarking on, this work of art becomes of vital significance.
Manuel Valenzuela is author of Echoes in the Wind, a novel to be published in September of 2004. Email manuel@valenzuelas.net
Like a cool breeze from the sea the Olympics arrive to remind us of more innocent times when the world would focus on athletic competition and comraderie versus international power games,geopoliticsand
who is and isn't using performance enhancing drugs.
Over the centuries, the Games have included some wild and woolly sports. Ross Atkin , Christian Science Monitor, shares how the games got originally started and how they decide what qualifies to be on the Olympic program .A must primer for the games .
Imagine you start an Olympics in your own backyard. Deciding what events to include might be simple at first. But if your Olympics grows in popularity, kids from other streets, other neighborhoods, and maybe even other towns will want to join in - and eventually they might want a say in what sports and events are included in the games, and in where they are held.
That's pretty much what happened to the Olympic Games over the centuries as they grew from a simple one-event contest to the huge competition that starts this Friday when 10,500 athletes from 202 countries gather in Athens for two weeks to compete in 28 different sports.
To understand how the Games got to this point, let's look at their ancient origins. And there's no better time to do so than now, when the Olympics have returned to Greece, the birthplace of both the ancient Olympics and the so-called "modern Olympics," first held in 1896.
No one is sure how old the Olympics are, but the first formal records date to 776 BC. Those written logs listed the champions, and the champions only, because the Greeks crowned only winners (with an olive wreath), and never honored second- and third-place finishers.
Only one event to watch
Just as might occur in a backyard Olympics, the ancient Games began with only one event, a simple footrace. It was about 180 meters, or 200 yards, long - roughly the length of the stadium in Olympia, the traditional site of the ancient Games. This race was the only event in the first 13 Olympics.
A shorter race of about 100 feet was contested by girls in the Heraea, a women's festival that was a form of consolation for women barred from the all-male Olympics (even female spectators were banned under penalty of being tossed from a cliff).
Gradually, over the next few hundred years, the program of the ancient Games, which paid tribute to Zeus, king of the Greek gods, was expanded. Wrestling, boxing, and pankration - a sport that combined the two - were added, as were horse and chariot races.
Mostly, the athletes wore no clothes, except for the chariot drivers and competitors in a warrior-like running event who raced two lengths of the stadium wearing helmets and armor and carrying shields.
Basically, though, things were kept simple, with a focus on track and field.
The ancient Olympics enjoyed a long history of about 12 centuries before Emperor Theodosius of Rome, who came to preside over Greece, abolished the Games in AD 394.
Reviving old games in new ways
From there, picking up the Olympic trail requires leapfrogging ahead to the 1800s, when a Frenchman, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, an avid if not especially accomplished sportsman, struck on the idea of reviving the Olympics. (Although the most successful, he was not the only one: Evangelis Zappas and William Penny Brookes had each produced earlier Olympics-inspired competitions in Britain.)
The father of the modern Olympics wanted to encourage the physical and mental development of young people by creating an international competition capable of fostering friendship (Coubertin's success in doing so earned him the Nobel Peace Prize in 1920).
While Coubertin and his fellow organizers created Olympics with echoes of the old, they also wanted Games that reflected the modern world. Thus, in 1896, tennis was on the schedule, along with soccer and cricket, although the latter two were dropped because of lack of entrants - as was rowing because of rough seas. Swimming also was included, although not in a pool. Instead, competitors were delivered to an offshore starting point by boat, only to plunge into the nippy Mediterranean (in April) for their races.
Unlike the ancient Games, which stayed put, the modern ones moved to different world cities. The Olympics of 1900 and 1904 were folded into world fairs in Paris and St. Louis and stretched over months, not weeks, to provide diversion for fairgoers.
As a result, a period of willy-nilly expansion followed. Paris added cricket, croquet, golf, rugby, polo, and tug of war, none of which lasted long. In 1904, St. Louis introduced lacrosse and roque (a variation of croquet), which made short-lived appearances. Four years later, London added motorboating.
The Olympics program, it became clear, needed more consistency. One decision was to create a separate Winter Olympics, beginning in 1924 (figure skating and ice hockey were in the Summer Games before then). Another was to ban sports that relied on motorized propulsion, such as auto racing.
Also, the International Olympic Committee stepped in and nurtured the birth of global governing bodies for each sport. These have helped create a more orderly system for determining which contests end up in the Olympics.
This also led to trials for "demonstration sports," which are given an opportunity to test the Olympic waters in an unofficial capacity - in other words, without awarding medals. Over the years, some of these demonstration sports, such as baseball, have been promoted to permanent status, while others - like football, roller hockey, and korfball - have come and gone.
New entrants to the arena
Having governing bodies for each sport makes it easier to add new events for those sports already in the Olympics. Volleyball, for instance, ushered in beach volleyball in 1996, and cycling introduced mountain biking the same year.
Of course, sports wholly new to the Games occasionally manage to crack the lineup, too, as did table tennis in 1988, badminton in 1992, and softball in 1996.
Softball is for women only, and the International Olympic Committee is keen to find ways to bring greater gender equality to the Games. Women have participated in all but the first modern Olympics, although only in small numbers initially. Now the "playing field" of opportunity is almost level, with about 4,000 female athletes competing this year.
It's tricky to include more women while holding the line on overall participation. To do this, tougher qualifying standards help limit the number of entrants, and certain events or entire sports may be eliminated. At the same time, other sports are clamoring to get in, such as ballroom dancing - and why not, since the Winter Olympics include ice dancing?
As huge as the Olympics have become, the simple sprints, which determine the "world's fastest humans," remain one of its biggest attractions - and the only event on the roster of the very first Olympics.
Sports that didn't make the Olympic cut
Sports that you might not associate with Olympic gold were part of the early modern Games. That's because the International Olympic Committee had not yet adopted the criteria that currently require a sport to be played by men in at least 75 countries on four continents (or by women in 40 or more countries on three continents). The sport also had to appear at least twice in an international or continental championship.
• Croquet: In 1896 and 1900, competitors chased glory by knocking wooden balls through wire hoops.
• Jeu de paume: In 1908, this aristocratic French ancestor of tennis featured players in an enclosed court hitting a cloth ball with wooden, spoon-shaped rackets. (It means "game of the palm of your hand.")
• Powerboating: Before the ban on mechanization, it had a short life in 1908.
• Tug of war: The old standby of summer camp and family reunions was a track and field event from 1900 to 1920.
The emperor has no clothes but he is still the commander-in-chief and , believe me,that will be the white horse he will ride into the Republican Convention later this month.
William O'Rourke , Chicago Sun Times, writes ; "The first thing to notice about the elevated orange terror alert is that it is confined to Democratic stronghold cities and states. The next is to realize that no battleground states will be subjected to formal elevated alerts, lest the security interruptions sour the swing voters residing therein...The photos associated with terror alerts are now familiar: police wearing layers of military protection, an arm cradling an automatic rifle. It's the GOP convention theme to come -- A Nation in Danger: Re-elect Bush-Cheney. "
The first thing to notice about the elevated orange terror alert is that it is confined to Democratic stronghold cities and states. The next is to realize that no battleground states will be subjected to formal elevated alerts, lest the security interruptions sour the swing voters residing therein.
Terror alerts are mini-"October surprises" for this administration, ready to be employed anytime President Bush wants to move the Kerry-Edwards campaign off the front page for a few days. The ''cry wolf'' factor is high. Tom Ridge's claim that his Homeland Security Department ''doesn't do politics" rings hollow, given his political background and the boss he is beholden to. Bush can shout, ''We're a nation in danger'' in the Rose Garden anytime he wishes, but the public may yet conclude that the danger is the president's judgment.
George W. Bush, though, has begun a new campaign of limited candor: He told the National Urban League on July 23 that the Republican Party has ''a lot of work to do'' if it wants to gain black support and votes. And last week he told an Ohio crowd that the economy ''lags'' there and that he had spoken with Timken workers who were ''nervous about their future'' -- which they should be, because Timken has laid off more than 1,200 employees in Ohio just this year.
But such admissions are just that: Bush says them and just does what he does. The remarks are to prove he is not completely out of touch; though, in Ohio, as Bush tried to boast of a rebounding economy, his host, Republican Sen. George Voinovich, had already admitted, in introducing him, that Ohio's economy hadn't improved ''as robustly as some other states.''
It is not likely that Bush will display this new candor -- however sporadic -- for long, but it may continue until the GOP convention. That affair, doubtless, will be a festival of non-candor, highlighting diversity and moderation foreign to the practices of the Bush administration. If the Democrats framed John Kerry in their convention as a warrior candidate, the Republicans will doubtless present Bush as the peace president, wanting no more than peace abroad and prosperity at home.
There was a lot of talk among Democrats before the convention about the need to introduce Kerry to the nation. The GOP's task is different. The public doesn't want to know more about Bush, because when it has looked into his background, it has found a nest of bad news: Bush's sketchy military service, his drinking, his various failed businesses. The two Kerry daughters managed to make their father seem like ''the real deal'' in their convention speeches, but it is difficult to imagine the Bush twins introducing their father with amusing anecdotes about the early years with dad.
But Bush has been "born again" in a number of ways: his election to governor of Texas and his embracing of Jesus as his savior canceled, more or less, his previous history. And his presidency was born again on 9/11. The White House characterizes this campaign as one about the "future," not the "past."
Unlike Ronald Reagan, Bush is no father figure: He is the big brother who will beat up -- or have beaten up -- anyone who offends his family. The latest elevated terror alert will make it easier to turn mid-Manhattan into an armed camp for the upcoming Republican convention.
As much as possible, the Bush campaign will try to keep the public focused on the homeland. The 9/11 Commission has become a blessing for Bush. The hearings, as well as the president's feints toward approving some of its recommendations -- including another terror czar -- lets what is happening here be the news throughout the fall, rather than what is going on in Iraq.
For what is going on in Iraq is more bad news for Bush. Al-Qaida in the Big Apple is, perversely, a safer topic. The president will keep reminding the public that ''We're a nation in danger.'' The photos associated with terror alerts are now familiar: police wearing layers of military protection, an arm cradling an automatic rifle. It's the GOP convention theme to come -- A Nation in Danger: Re-elect Bush-Cheney.
The emperor has no clothes but he is still the commander-in-chief and , believe me,that will be the white horse he will ride into the Republican Convention later this month.
William O'Rourke , Chicago Sun Times, writes ; "The first thing to notice about the elevated orange terror alert is that it is confined to Democratic stronghold cities and states. The next is to realize that no battleground states will be subjected to formal elevated alerts, lest the security interruptions sour the swing voters residing therein...The photos associated with terror alerts are now familiar: police wearing layers of military protection, an arm cradling an automatic rifle. It's the GOP convention theme to come -- A Nation in Danger: Re-elect Bush-Cheney. "
The first thing to notice about the elevated orange terror alert is that it is confined to Democratic stronghold cities and states. The next is to realize that no battleground states will be subjected to formal elevated alerts, lest the security interruptions sour the swing voters residing therein.
Terror alerts are mini-"October surprises" for this administration, ready to be employed anytime President Bush wants to move the Kerry-Edwards campaign off the front page for a few days. The ''cry wolf'' factor is high. Tom Ridge's claim that his Homeland Security Department ''doesn't do politics" rings hollow, given his political background and the boss he is beholden to. Bush can shout, ''We're a nation in danger'' in the Rose Garden anytime he wishes, but the public may yet conclude that the danger is the president's judgment.
George W. Bush, though, has begun a new campaign of limited candor: He told the National Urban League on July 23 that the Republican Party has ''a lot of work to do'' if it wants to gain black support and votes. And last week he told an Ohio crowd that the economy ''lags'' there and that he had spoken with Timken workers who were ''nervous about their future'' -- which they should be, because Timken has laid off more than 1,200 employees in Ohio just this year.
But such admissions are just that: Bush says them and just does what he does. The remarks are to prove he is not completely out of touch; though, in Ohio, as Bush tried to boast of a rebounding economy, his host, Republican Sen. George Voinovich, had already admitted, in introducing him, that Ohio's economy hadn't improved ''as robustly as some other states.''
It is not likely that Bush will display this new candor -- however sporadic -- for long, but it may continue until the GOP convention. That affair, doubtless, will be a festival of non-candor, highlighting diversity and moderation foreign to the practices of the Bush administration. If the Democrats framed John Kerry in their convention as a warrior candidate, the Republicans will doubtless present Bush as the peace president, wanting no more than peace abroad and prosperity at home.
There was a lot of talk among Democrats before the convention about the need to introduce Kerry to the nation. The GOP's task is different. The public doesn't want to know more about Bush, because when it has looked into his background, it has found a nest of bad news: Bush's sketchy military service, his drinking, his various failed businesses. The two Kerry daughters managed to make their father seem like ''the real deal'' in their convention speeches, but it is difficult to imagine the Bush twins introducing their father with amusing anecdotes about the early years with dad.
But Bush has been "born again" in a number of ways: his election to governor of Texas and his embracing of Jesus as his savior canceled, more or less, his previous history. And his presidency was born again on 9/11. The White House characterizes this campaign as one about the "future," not the "past."
Unlike Ronald Reagan, Bush is no father figure: He is the big brother who will beat up -- or have beaten up -- anyone who offends his family. The latest elevated terror alert will make it easier to turn mid-Manhattan into an armed camp for the upcoming Republican convention.
As much as possible, the Bush campaign will try to keep the public focused on the homeland. The 9/11 Commission has become a blessing for Bush. The hearings, as well as the president's feints toward approving some of its recommendations -- including another terror czar -- lets what is happening here be the news throughout the fall, rather than what is going on in Iraq.
For what is going on in Iraq is more bad news for Bush. Al-Qaida in the Big Apple is, perversely, a safer topic. The president will keep reminding the public that ''We're a nation in danger.'' The photos associated with terror alerts are now familiar: police wearing layers of military protection, an arm cradling an automatic rifle. It's the GOP convention theme to come -- A Nation in Danger: Re-elect Bush-Cheney.
President Bush made a lot of promises during his 2000 presidential campaign. The record shows it was all talk.
HEALTH CARE RHETORIC
HEALTH CARE REALITY
"There are 43 million uninsured Americans – 4 million more than when the current administration took office. George W. Bush will reverse this trend by making health insurance affordable for hard-working, low-income families." [Source: Bush-Cheney 2000 website]
In the first two years Bush was in office, the number of uninsured American increased by nearly four million. Since Bush took office, health insurance premiums have risen by an average rate of 12.5 percent per year. According to a major study, "widespread adoption [of Bush's major health care plan] could drive up the annual deductible paid by workers." [Source: U.S. Census Bureau, 7/8/04; Kaiser Family Foundation, 4/04; USA Today, 4/25/04]
"George W. Bush will establish the 'Healthy Communities Innovation Fund' to provide $500 million in grants over five years to fund innovative projects addressing targeted health risks, such as childhood diabetes."
For the past three years, the Department of Defense has requested that Congress exempt it from environmental laws and regulations like the Clean Air Act of 1970. The exemptions were requested despite the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency has thus far declined to apply the policies to the military training facilities in question.
George W. Bush will "fully fund the Pell grant program for first-year students by increasing the maximum grant amount by more than 50 percent, to $5,100."
President Bush has frozen the maximum Pell Grant at $4,050 in his FY 2005 education budget. This is the third year in a row that Bush has frozen or cut the maximum Pell Grant. [Source: House Committee on Education and the Work Force 2/2/04]
WELFARE RHETORIC
WELFARE REALITY
"To encourage states to help families in crisis, Governor Bush will provide states an additional $1 billion over five years for preventative services to keep children in, or return them to, their homes whenever safely possible." [Source: Bush-Cheney 2000 – Child Welfare website]
Bush has proposed allowing states to use the federal funds currently earmarked for foster care room-and-board payments to be used for preventative services. In exchange, states must accept a spending cap on the amount of foster care funding they receive. [Source: Philadelphia Inquirer, 3/24/04]
Energy, Nominations, National Security
On everything from energy, to judicial nominations, to nuclear nonproliferation policy, President Bush has broken his promises to the American people.
ENERGY RHETORIC
ENERGY REALITY
"To provide energy assistance to low-income Households and Address Short-Term Supply Threats, Governor Bush will expand the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program (LIHEAP) by seeking the release of $155 million, and directing a portion of oil and gas royalty payments to the program, costing $1 billion over ten years." [Source: Bush-Cheney 2000 – Energy website]
Bush's first budget, for the 2002 fiscal year, cut LIHEAP funding by $300 million as compared with the previous year, despite higher unemployment and a colder winter. [Source: CBS, 12/11/02]
JUDICIAL RHETORIC
JUDICIAL REALITY
"To restore confidence in government, George W. Bush will...return civility to the nomination process." [Source: Bush-Cheney 2000 website]
When Democrats objected to the nomination of William Pryor to the Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals, the White House stood by its allies who leveled charges of anti-Catholic bias at the Democrats. When Sen. Patrick Leahy confronted Vice President Cheney about the impropriety of this charge on the Senate floor, Cheney civilly told him to "F*** off." [Source: CBS, 6/25/04]
NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION RHETORIC
NUCLEAR PROLIFERTION REALITY
"In an act of foresight and statesmanship, [Senator Lugar and Senator Sam Nunn in 1991] realized that existing Russian nuclear facilities were in danger of being compromised. The next president must press for an accurate inventory of all this material. [George W. Bush will] ask the Congress to increase substantially our assistance to Russia in dismantling as many of their weapons as possible, as quickly as possible." [Source: Bush-Cheney 2000 – Foreign Policy website]
Despite repeated claims this spring that he favors further expansion of the successful Nunn-Lugar program, Bush's proposed budget for FY 2005 cuts funding for Nunn-Lugar by 10 percent and cuts the Department of Energy's Russian nuclear security funding by 8 percent. [Source: Carnegie Endowment for Peace, 3/3/0/04]
Spending, Deficits and Taxes
Presidential candidate George W. Bush promised to be a fiscal conservative, and not destroy the surplus that had been created during the 1990s. But as the record shows, he has overseen the worst budget deterioration in modern American history – and misled the country about who will receive his tax cuts.
SPENDING RHETORIC
SPENDING REALITY
"To restore confidence in government, [George W. Bush] will...attack pork-barrel spending."
Since assuming office, President Bush has failed to veto a single bill, despite the enormous amount of pork that has crossed his desk. Even conservatives are getting frustrated. The Heritage Foundation recently wrote, "Budget discipline clearly isn't a priority of this administration, so why pretend it will get tough on frivolous measures like these?"
Millionaires received an average tax cut of $123,000. Those in the bottom quintile of earners received an average tax cuts of $27. Those in the second to bottom quintile received an average cut of $317. [Source: CBPP, 4/23/04, p. 17]
DEFICIT RHETORIC
DEFICIT REALITY
"As President, Governor Bush will…pay the debt down to a historically low level."
As of July 30, the national debt stood at $7,316,567,571,232.89, a record high. This year's budget will also create a record deficit: $445 billion, according to the White House. [Source: Treasury Department, 8/3/04, Reuters, 7/31/04]
The economy is tanking and Bush is willfully oblivious of the chaos he has created. He hasn't even taken the first step towards solving the problem which is ~ admitting we have a problem.
Bob Herbert, N.Y.Times, takes him to task in a scathing article yesterday ; " Despite the rosy rhetoric that comes nonstop from the administration, millions upon millions of American families, including many that consider themselves solidly in the middle class, are in deep economic trouble. Friday's Wall Street Journal featured a page-one article with the ominous headline: "New Group Swells Bankruptcy Court: The Middle-Aged."
suppose there are people who still believe that enormous tax cuts for the very wealthy will lead to the creation of millions of good jobs for working people. In the twilight of his first term, the president, stumping for votes in regions scarred by the demon of unemployment, continues to sing from the tattered pages of his economic hymnbook:
"The economy is strong,'' he says again and again and again, "and it's growing stronger."
At a riverfront rally under cloudy skies in Davenport, Iowa, last week, Mr. Bush told a crowd of 5,000, "We are turning the corner and we're not going back."
In another four years, he says, "The economy will be better."
His tax cuts, he insists, couldn't have been better timed.
The true believers were jolted Friday by the news from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that employers added a meager 32,000 jobs in July. In an economy the size of America's, that's roughly equivalent to no jobs at all.
July's poor job-creation performance was widely described as unexpected. But it's important to keep in mind that it didn't occur in a vacuum and that there is no quick fix coming. American workers are hurting.
"The weak job market continues to put downward pressure on wage growth," said Jared Bernstein, a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute in Washington. He noted that nominal wage growth on a year-over-year basis has been decelerating even as inflation is increasing, which is bad news for an economy so dependent upon consumer spending.
In a report released by the institute on Friday, Mr. Bernstein wrote, "These job and wage dynamics erode workers' buying power, and this has negative implications for the strength of the recovery."
Retail sales in July were disappointing, hampered by high gasoline prices as well as anemic wage growth. And the stock market is in a prolonged swoon.
Despite the rosy rhetoric that comes nonstop from the administration, millions upon millions of American families, including many that consider themselves solidly in the middle class, are in deep economic trouble. Friday's Wall Street Journal featured a page-one article with the ominous headline: "New Group Swells Bankruptcy Court: The Middle-Aged."
Personal bankruptcy filings in the U.S. are at an all-time high. The Journal story focused on "an emerging class of middle-age, white-collar Americans who make the grim odyssey from comfortable circumstances to going broke." Among the villains of this disturbing piece are the unstable job market and staggering amounts of personal debt.
It's getting harder and harder to close our eyes to the growing economic devastation. Elizabeth Warren, a Harvard law professor and co-author of "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Mothers and Fathers Are Going Broke," wrote in 2003:
"This year, more people will end up bankrupt than will suffer a heart attack. More adults will file for bankruptcy than will be diagnosed with cancer. More people will file for bankruptcy than will graduate from college. And, in an era when traditionalists decry the demise of the institution of marriage, Americans will file more petitions for bankruptcy than for divorce."
The Century Foundation, in a recent study, addressed the problem of outstanding debt. For many families borrowing has morphed from a tool that, used judiciously, can enhance their standard of living into a nightmare that threatens to destroy their economic viability.
"Debt burdens," the study said, "are at record levels because families have been stretched to the limit in recent years. With more income going to housing and other rising expenses related to medical care, education, vehicles, child care, and so forth, families are relying on credit as a way to meet everyday needs. Remarkably, a family with two earners today actually has less discretionary income, after fixed costs like medical insurance and mortgage payments are accounted for, than did a family with only one breadwinner in the 1970's."
There is no plan from the administration that I've heard of to brighten this bleak picture of the American economic landscape. John Kerry and John Edwards have an opportunity in the presidential campaign to offer their prescriptions. The first essential step for anyone serious about a search for solutions would be to recognize and acknowledge the sheer enormity of the problem.
Iraqi anger towards the U.S. is real and justified and we are in deep trouble ~ regardless of the efforts of the Bush Administration to spin reality and prop up lagging domestic and international support.
Antonia Juhasz, L.A.Times, reports on how Bush's illegal orders give the U.S. a lock on Iraq's economyand arethe realseed ofthe growing insurgency;
Excerpt: " A sampling of the most important orders demonstrates the economic imprint left by the Bush administration: Order No. 39 allows for: (1) privatization of Iraq's 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) "national treatment" — which means no preferences for local over foreign businesses; (4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership licenses."
Allen L Roland
The Hand-Over That Wasn't: Illegal Orders give the US a Lock on Iraq's Economy
08/06/04 "Los Angeles Times" Officially, the U.S. occupation of Iraq ended on June 28, 2004. But in reality, the United States is still in charge: Not only do 138,000 troops remain to control the streets, but the "100 Orders" of L. Paul Bremer III remain to control the economy.
These little noticed orders enacted by Bremer, the now-departed head of the now-defunct Coalition Provisional Authority, go to the heart of Bush administration plans in Iraq. They lock in sweeping advantages to American firms, ensuring long-term U.S. economic advantage while guaranteeing few, if any, benefits to the Iraqi people.
The Bremer orders control every aspect of Iraqi life — from the use of car horns to the privatization of state-owned enterprises. Order No. 39alone does no less than "transition [Iraq ] from a … centrally planned economy to a market economy" virtually overnight and by U.S. fiat.
Although many thought that the "end" of the occupation would also mean the end of the orders, on his last day in Iraq Bremer simply transferred authority for the orders to Prime Minister Iyad Allawi — a 30-year exile with close ties to the CIA and British intelligence.
Further, the interim constitution of Iraq, written by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, solidifies the orders by making them virtually impossible to overturn.
A sampling of the most important orders demonstrates the economic imprint left by the Bush administration: Order No. 39 allows for: (1) privatization of Iraq's 200 state-owned enterprises; (2) 100% foreign ownership of Iraqi businesses; (3) "national treatment" — which means no preferences for local over foreign businesses; (4) unrestricted, tax-free remittance of all profits and other funds; and (5) 40-year ownership licenses.
Thus, it forbids Iraqis from receiving preference in the reconstruction while allowing foreign corporations — Halliburton and Bechtel, for example — to buy up Iraqi businesses, do all of the work and send all of their money home. They cannot be required to hire Iraqis or to reinvest their money in the Iraqi economy. They can take out their investments at any time and in any amount.
Orders No. 57 and No. 77 ensure the implementation of the orders by placing U.S.-appointed auditors and inspector generals in every government ministry, with five-year terms and with sweeping authority over contracts, programs, employees and regulations.
Order No. 17 grants foreign contractors, including private security firms, full immunity from Iraq's laws. Even if they, say, kill someone or cause an environmental disaster, the injured party cannot turn to the Iraqi legal system. Rather, the charges must be brought to U.S. courts.
Order No. 40 allows foreign banks to purchase up to 50% of Iraqi banks.
Order No. 49 drops the tax rate on corporations from a high of 40% to a flat 15%. The income tax rate is also capped at 15%.
Order No. 12 (renewed on Feb. 24) suspends "all tariffs, customs duties, import taxes, licensing fees and similar surcharges for goods entering or leaving Iraq." This led to an immediate and dramatic inflow of cheap foreign consumer products — devastating local producers and sellers who were thoroughly unprepared to meet the challenge of their mammoth global competitors.
Clearly, the Bremer orders fundamentally altered Iraq's existing laws. For this reason, they are also illegal. Transformation of an occupied country's laws violates the Hague regulations of 1907 (ratified by the United States) and the U.S. Army's Law of Land Warfare. Indeed, in a leaked memo, the British attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, warned Prime Minister Tony Blair that "major structural economic reforms would not be authorized by international law."
With few reconstruction projects underway and with Bremer's rules favoring U.S. corporations, there has been little opportunity for Iraqis to go back to work, leaving nearly 2 million unemployed 1 1/2 years after the invasion and, many believe, greatly fueling the resistance.
The Bremer orders are immoral and illegal and must be repealed to allow Iraqis to govern their own economic and political future.
Union, the true upward union in the spirit, ends by establishing the elements it dominates in their own perfection : Teilhard de Chardin
True relationship is a dance of intimacy ( a means to an end versus an end in itself ) where both partners continually take hold and let go ~ leading eventually to true SELF, inner joy and validation and the courage and freedom to fully express and sing one's own true song .
As such , the true intent of relationship is the full flowering of each partner . Thus, relationship must be seen as a journey towards self discovery and the path is always through doors of fear.
Authentic relationship begins when both partners realize that their quest will be fulfilled not in any " perfect relationship, " but only when they reunite with their authentic self, which is still trapped within a prison of childhood fears.
Since 50 % of all marriages end in divorce ~ perhaps we need another look at relationships and why they are the true test of who we are .
As such, I will now describe the three types of relationships we tend to set up in our quest to find ourselves.
1. " GOING THROUGH THE MOTIONS " RELATIONSHIPS
Partners are joined by common fears and are usually
completely dependent on each other.
There is little if any passion. few risks are taken and no
real growth occurs.
Both partners have settled for less than all of themselves ~ but at the cost of growth and passion.
They tend to see themselves as victims and usually are spectators in life.
It is a dry creek bed waiting for the spring rain .
COLOR IT GREY
2. " SAFE LOVE " RELATIONSHIPS
The ego is still in control and both partners have common dis-affinites such as unworthiness, fear of love and intimacy, fear of rejection, abandonment, aloneness , etc
These tend to be intense and short lived relationships as both partners vainly try to fill the others emotional void ~ when, in reality, they are avoiding their own emotional void. Mission impossible one and two.
As such, they are externally directed relationships .
They, in essence, eventually become enclosed in a common cocoon ( a cocoon for two )where love tends to contract versus expand.
You can be relatively happy in a " safe love " relationship ( compared to a " Going through the motions " relationship ) but joy is elusive because little, if any, growth occurs ~ as both partners will not give up controland refuse to surrender.
The dry creek bed has become a stream
COLOR IT PASTEL
3. ' SOUL MATE 'OR "GREAT LOVE " RELATIONSHIPS
Soul mates and great loves come into our life when we are ready to find and fulfill our part in the loving plan.
Great love relationships are internally directed and prepare us for the transition from ego consciousness to soul consciousness.
The ultimate aim of such a relationship is for both partners to fully emerge from their cocoons of fear and become their truest self.
This is the love that Teilhard de Chardin refers to when he wrote ; The only right love is between couples whose passion leads them both , one through the other, to a higher possession of themselves.
There is little room here for the Ego's need toprotect and control fora great love confronts us with our deepest feelings and fears ~ and demands that we SURRENDER !
It requires us to grow beyond our fear to the place where we can both consciously and unconditionally love our partner.
It is a love that can both take hold and let go ~ for it is beyond emotional dependency .
There is tremendous joy and delight in soul mate relationships because there is no greater joy than going ( and growing ) through our fears and discovering our true self.
This love is not for the faint of heart for, indeed, many who briefly experience this fire will quickly run for cover ~ not realizing that they are actually running away from what is deepest within themselves.
You are now in the river of life
COLOR IT VIBRANT PRIMARY COLORS
Like the mothto the flame ~ once you have willingly burned in the fire of a great love ~ you will accept
nothing less .
You will then realize, as I have, that you are the fire.
Kengo Futagawa (59 at the time) was crossing the Kannon Bridge (1,600 meters from the hypocenter) by bicycle on his way to do fire prevention work. He jumped into the river, terribly burned. He returned home, but died on August 22, 1945.
After being released, it took about a minute for Little Boy to reach the point of explosion. Little Boy exploded at approximately 8:15 a.m. (Japan Standard Time) when it reached an altitude of 2,000 ft above the building that is today called the "A-Bomb Dome."
The July 24, 1995 issue of Newsweek writes: "A bright light filled the plane," wrote Lt. Col. Paul Tibbets, the pilot of the Enola Gay, the B-29 that dropped the first atomic bomb. "We turned back to look at Hiroshima. The city was hidden by that awful cloud...boiling up, mushrooming." For a moment, no one spoke. Then everyone was talking. "Look at that! Look at that! Look at that!" exclaimed the co-pilot, Robert Lewis, pounding on Tibbets's shoulder. Lewis said he could taste atomic fission; it tasted like lead. Then he turned away to write in his journal. "My God," he asked himself, "what have we done?" (special report, "Hiroshima: August 6, 1945") note: Paul Tibbets was Colonel, not "Lt. Colonel," when he was the pilot of the Enola Gay.
The Little Boy generated an enormous amount of energy in terms of air pressure and heat. In addition, it generated a significant amount of radiation (Gamma ray and neutrons) that subsequently caused devastating human injuries.
The people who saw the Little Boy often say "We saw another sun in the sky when it exploded." The heat and the light generated by the Little Boy were far stronger than bombs which they had seen before. When the heat wave reached ground level it burnt all before it including people.
The strong wind generated by the bomb destroyed most of the houses and buildings within a 1.5 miles radius. When the wind reached the mountains, it was reflected and again hit the people in the city center. The wind generated by Little Boy caused the most serious damage to the city and people.
The radiation generated by the bomb caused long-term problems to those affected. Many people died within the first few months and many more in subsequent years because of radiation exposure. Some people had genetic problems which sometimes resulted in having malformed babies or being unable to have children. It is believed that more than 140,000 people died by the end of the year. They were citizens including students, soldiers and Koreans who worked in factories within the city. The total number of people who have died due to the bomb is estimated to be 200,000. WWW Museum
The Target The building which is now known as the A-bomb Dome was built in 1915 as the Hiroshima Prefectural Products Exhibition Hall. Later the name was changed to the Hiroshima Prefectural Commercial Exhibition Hall and finally to the Hiroshima Prefectural Industrial Promotion Hall. It was designed by Jan Letzel, a Czech architect, and, as the city's most elegant and artistic building, was a source of pride for Hiroshima citizens. To the west of the building was a unique T-shaped bridge, the Aioi Bridge, which served an important role of joining east and west sections of the city with the Nakajima and Yoshijima districts to the south. The Aioi Bridge is said to have been the target when the A-bomb was dropped. Research to date has indicated that the actual point where the A-bomb exploded was approximately 300 meters southeast of Aioi Bridge, approximately 580 meters above the Shima Hospital in the district that was previously called Saiku-machi. (The ground directly below the point where the bomb exploded is referred to as the hypocenter.)
The Fireball at the Instant of Explosion The temperature of the air at the point of explosion reached several million degrees Celsius (the maximum temperature of conventional bombs is approximately 5,000 degrees. Several millionths of a second after the explosion a fireball appeared, radiating white heat. After 1/10,000 of a second. the fireball reached a diameter of approximately 28 meters with a temperature of close to 300,000 degrees. At the instant of explosion, intense heat rays and radiation were released in all directions, and a blast erupted with incredible pressure on the surrounding air. Of the energy released, approximately 35 percent was in the form of heat rays, 50 percent as blast wind, and 15 percent as radiation (5 percent as initial radiation and 10 percent as residual radiation).
The Mushroom Cloud The cloud generated by the disturbed air resulting from the explosion was lifted upward by strong currents. As the pillar of radiation-laden smoke reached the bottom of the stratosphere, it spread out horizontally to a diameter of several kilometers, forming the shape of a mushroom cap. After developing into this final stage, the mushroom cloud was dispersed by the wind and dissipated into the surrounding air.
An Eyewitness Account by a Middle School Student The following is from an eyewitness account by a middle school student who was in a classroom during the bombing. The student managed to escaped the collapsed school building but suffered injuries. "I'll never forget that day. After we finished our morning greetings in the schoolyard, we were waiting in the classroom for our building demolition work to begin. Suddenly a friend by the window shouted 'B- 29!' At the same instant, a flash pierced my eyes. The entire building collapsed at once and we were trapped underneath. I don't know how long I remained unconscious. When I came to, I couldn't move my body. Cuts on my face and hands throbbed with pain. My front teeth were broken and my shirt soaked in blood. As I crawled along, encouraging myself, I somehow managed to poke my head out of the wreckage. The school that should have appeared before my eyes was nowhere to be seen. It had vanished and only smoldering ruins remained. Beyond the school toward the center of town, all I could see was a sea of flames. I was so terrified I couldn't stop shaking. Moving my body a little at a time, I was finally able to work free of the collapsed structure. Making sure to head upwind to escape the fires, I made my way staggering haphazardly through the rubble of the city and escaped."
Shigeru was a first-year student at the Hiroshima Prefectural Hiroshima Middle School #2 and was mobilized everyday with his classmates to work on clearing demolished buildings. He was exposed to the A-bombing on August 6 in Nakajima Shinmachi (currently Peace Memorial Park), approximately 500 meters from the hypocenter. His mother walked around the A-bombed city looking for her son, eventually finding him with a lunch box strapped around his stomach. The body was unidentifiable, and the lunch box, with its contents that he never ate, was burned black. (Approximately 500 meters from hypocenter. Courtesy of Shigeko Oremen) City of Hiroshima
" Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we " President Bush at a bill signing ceremony yesterday.
As Bush's folly in Iraq continues ~ 1000 soldiers have died since the World Trade Center attack ~ and over 920 of those in Iraq.
Jimmy Breslin, Newsday, poignantly describes the death of the 1000th American Soldier against the backdrop of an obviously politicized Orange alert ; " With a number of dead this high, an easily remembered figure that stands in the sky and accuses the nation, it was not surprising to have the government throw a little added tension into the steam and announce that huge New York financial buildings have been targeted by al-Qaida...Whenever I see Ridge, I feel he is another on the Republican campaign staff. It seems that whenever George Bush is in a little trouble, Ridge tells the public that we are going to be attacked "
A rocket-propelled grenade came out of the hot afternoon in Iraq on July 7 and made Pfc. Samuel Bowen of Cleveland the 1,000th member of the U.S. military to die in battle since the World Trade Center attack.
The number of dead is carefully compiled by the Army Times newspaper, which carries the most news about the war. The others who know he is the 1,000th are those who fought where he died.
Bowen died at 38 in the afternoon of July 7 when his Ohio National Guard engineer convoy stopped because one of the trucks broke down. Bowen and a dozen Guardsmen protected the convoy while a mechanic tried to repair the truck. Iraqis fired a rocket-propelled grenade that killed Bowen and wounded two others.
With a number of dead this high, an easily remembered figure that stands in the sky and accuses the nation, it was not surprising to have the government throw a little added tension into the steam and announce that huge New York financial buildings have been targeted by al-Qaida. There was an orange alert and cops and troops were all over.
Tom Ridge of Homeland Security made the announcement. Whenever I see Ridge, I feel he is another on the Republican campaign staff. It seems that whenever George Bush is in a little trouble, Ridge tells the public that we are going to be attacked.
George Bush is in some sort of tight situation. Yesterday, he had the figure of Sam Bowen, death number 1,000, and the report of the 9/11 Commission that he is hard-pressed to adopt. Bush the President said that we were in terrible danger and needed the alert.
The specific facts the government says it has include a study of inclines of underground parking garages. This took no breath away from anybody who remembers the Jersey City cab-driver bombers getting stuck behind a truck while trying to get out of the World Trade Center garage just before the 1993 explosion. They also had horrifying details about uniforms worn by building security people. The people who flew planes into the Trade Center needed no uniforms. I believe the forgotten bin Laden wants to bomb us tonight, if he can, but please don't try to frighten me with old details and much of the rest available on the Internet.
At the Citigroup Center on Lexington and 53rd, 18 police cars were parked. In a row, there were cars from the 112, 110, 114, 111, 112, 113, 109, 110 and 104 precincts. All pulled in from Queens. Don't ever say that Queens doesn't fight. Officer Neumann, from the 108 in Long Island City, was on duty in front of a clothes shop on the ground floor. "Is anybody left in Queens?" he was asked. He laughed and was smart enough not to say anything.
"The place is as empty as Sunday," a guy coming out of the building said. He said he was from Washington Heights and that was it. "I just came from a meeting of Boston Properties, we had 50 managers there. They were worried about shops on the ground floor. One of them wants a concrete barrier at the curb. One manager had a very good idea. He wanted to have NYPD cops as rent-a-cops. You hire them off-duty for your building security. In uniform."
Pfc. Sam Bowen, whose brave death caused Bush's people to spread fear, was coming out of a PX in Camp Anaconda in Iraq on June 16 with a friend, Ronald Eaton. They had bought soda. Suddenly, a rocket landed to Eaton's right. Shrapnel ripped his side. There was a second rocket. Shrapnel hit Bowen. Then Bowen was on his feet. He dragged Eaton out of the area. "He helped some others before he helped himself," Eaton was saying yesterday. "Then he drove two and a half hours to our base at Tikrit. He was a true hero."
Bowen was in the 112th Engineer Battalion of the Ohio National Guard. When he arrived in Iraq, they had him in the morale, welfare and recreation office. He got out of there in as hurry. He became a driver for a sergeant, Paul Brondhaver. "He drove me 2,000 miles of combat patrols," Brondhaver recalls.
On July 7, Bowen was driving Brondhaver in an unarmored humvee. They were last in the convoy that stopped. They got out to guard the others and the rocket took care of Bowen.
Ronald Eaton, his friend, who lives in Lakewood, was at the armory headquarters of their 112th Engineers for a party for a soldier retiring. Two officers from the unit took Eaton off to the side. They told him they just had come from telling Bowen's wife that he was dead in Iraq. Eaton would not allow this to sink in. He was dazed and resistant. Bowen was one side of his life.
Eaton yesterday was at Camp Atterbury in Indiana for medical treatment. His liver took shrapnel.
"He can't be dead," Eaton said. "I think he'll come home with the unit in February. Yes, sir, I do expect to see him."
The trust of the innocent is the liar's most useful tool.
Stephen King
Something bothers me about George Bush's lobbying for a new Intelligence Czar and then I read Mary Pitt's excellent article on
THE SECURITY CZAR and it all became crystal clear ~
Excerpt: " But, wait ! This concept of having one person to whom all law enforcement and security departments of the government report in detail of the state of the security and needs of the nation does ring a distant bell ...It seems that, at some point in our history, we had such a person ! ...But if we strain our memories, we could remember such a person, who considered all this information in a studied manner and, with the welfare of the nation in mind, made serious, wise, and well-thought proposals for legislation to implement the safety and continuation of the Union.... Now I remember ! We called him the President! "
Allen L Roland
The Security Czar
by Mary Pitt
The much-lauded "independent commission on terrorism" has finally come to an end and, based upon their judgement of the information that they gathered, have come forth with ideas regarding "ways to prevent future attacks". First and foremost of these recommendations is that our nation is in desperate need of a "security czar", one person to whom all the "stovepipes " lead, who will recieve all the reports from and be responsible for the efficiency and utility of every department of the government having to do with national security. Based upon the discoveries and recommendations regarding these several departments. this "czar" is to recommend to the President and the Congress, when asked, what steps could and should be taken in order to safeguard the lives of our citizens and the security and treasure of the United States of America.
In order to implement this grandiose plan it will, incidentally, be necessary to build a huge "security complex" to contain all these various departments. Gone will be the J.Edgar Hoover building, home of the FBI and the impressive complex which is now the home of the CIA would become "surplus propety" to be sold to the highest bidder or used to house some of the many rapidly-expanding departments of government of which the Bush administration is so fond. Instead, the American taxpayer will be required to dig ever more deeply into the ballooning deficit to pay for another huge boondoggle by an administration that has no qualms about mortgaging the future of the nation.
President Bush has been quick to jump into the breach and announce his own plan for just such a "czar" but his plan would include only some of the recommendations. He wants the power to fire this "czar" in order to maintain toal control over him/her; he wants the "czar" to have no budgetary control, preferring to keep this prerogative to himself, and he wants the reins of decision to remain in his own hands as the "supreme commander" of the actions and the behavior of all sections of the government.
Just what duties he does envision for the holder of this position is, as yet, unclear. Does he plan to put him, initially, in charge of one department and then, gradually, absorb the other agencies under the umbrella or is it his task to merely re-assess all the information that has been gathered and assessed by the several departments? Will he be responsible for the recently-disclosed misfeasance and malfeasance that has been alleged in the interpretations division of the FBI/CIA? Will this person have the authority to hire and fire within the departments in order to maintain efficiency and accuracy? Will he be able to end the nepotism and favoritism that has recently come to light? Will he be able to say, "Shove it!", in response to an "Office of Special Plans" who may be sent by the office of the Vice-President or the Secretary of Defense? Or will it just be another "honorarium" such as the Secretary of Homeland Security?
But, wait!This concept of having one person to whom all law enforcement and security departments of the government report in detail of the state of the security and needs of the nation does ring a distant bell. It seems that, at some point in our history, we had such a person! This person received daily briefings from the head of the CIA and the FBI as well as periodic reports from the Departments of Interior, from Health and Environment, and even chats now and then with the Surgeon General regarding such health issues as immunizations and poverty. This man collected all the data, considered it in depth, and made decisions as to the best course to take in the interests of the American people Based on this collection of information he set priorities and suggested to Congress the steps he suggested that we take to cope with problems.While it may not be long in calendar years, with all the things that have happened in recent times, it seems forever. But if we strain our memories, we could remember such a person, who considered all this information in a studied manner and, with the welfare of the nation in mind, made serious, wise, and well-thought proposals for legislation to implement the safety and continuation of the Union.
Now I remember! We called him the President!
Mary Pitt is a septuagenarian Kansan who is self-employed and active in the political arena. Having three generations of descendants, she feels obligated to leave them with the same rights and freedoms which she has so enjoyed.
Yesterdays brazen political terror alert, based on three year old information , is just the beginning of a panic move by Bush to scare the American people into voting for his inept and morally corrupt presidency.
The Center for American Progress calls it an ongoing loss of credibility and writes; " politicizing intelligence and threat reports undermines the government's credibility and blurs the line between protecting the homeland and promoting fear for political gain. "
Allen L Roland
The Loss of Credibility
Just one day after issuing a major terror warning that was supposedly prompted by new information, the New York Times and Washington Post report that the decision, in fact, was based on old information from before 9/11. Specifically, the Bush administration acknowledged "they had not yet found concrete evidence that a terrorist plot or preparatory surveillance operations were still under way." While the LA Times does point out that "it appears the information was updated as late as 2004" one senior official told the New York Times, "You could say that the bulk of this information is old." The key issue is not whether the threat is real – no one argues that al Qaeda still wants to do great harm to us, and credible intelligence must be acted upon to protect America. But politicizing intelligence and threat reports undermines the government's credibility and blurs the line between protecting the homeland and promoting fear for political gain.
POLITICAL MESSAGES IN ANNOUNCING THE ALERT:The politicization of homeland security perhaps was no better highlighted than in Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge's press conference on Sunday. As the New York Times reports, Ridge used the solemn announcement to "repeatedly praise President Bush's leadership" – as if the press conference was some sort of campaign event. Instead of focusing his praise on law enforcement, Ridge claimed "We must understand that the kind of information available to us today is the result of the president's leadership in the war against terror."
CREDIBILITY DAMAGED IN MAY: In the last terror warning, the Bush administration damaged its credibility and raised questions of politicization. In the same week President Bush's polls dropped to their lowest point ever, Attorney General John Ashcroft held a dramatic press conference about an urgent terrorist threat. But he had no new information at all, and instead simply told Americans to be on the lookout for European-looking people who may be al Qaeda. The administration's political move was so transparent, that Ridge was forced to admit "there is absolutely nothing specific enough" to warrant a change in the threat level. A senior administration official agreed, saying, "There really is no significant change that would require us to change the alert level of the country."
POLITICAL QUESTIONS RAISED LAST WEEK: Last week during the Democratic National Convention, Pakistan announced it had captured a top al Qaeda suspect. The news was welcome by all, but raised intense questions about the political nature of its timing. According to a New Republic article three weeks before, a White House aide told a Pakistani official last spring that "it would be best if the arrest or killing" of any high value terrorist occurred during the Convention, ostensibly to steal attention from the President's opponents. Even more interesting, Pakistani officials admitted that the al Qaeda suspect they captured was actually caught five days before the announcement was made, meaning they held the announcement to come just hours before Sen. John Kerry's speech.
WHITE HOUSE HAS ADMITTED IT WANTS TO POLITICIZE: As the Progress Report has previously documented, the White House has essentially admitted its desire to politicize homeland security and the fight against terrorism. Nineteen weeks after 9/11, White House political adviser Karl Rove implored Republican candidates to use the fight against terrorism for political gain, saying conservatives can "go to the country" and run campaigns on national security. In May of 2002, the Republican National Committee began selling White House pictures of the president on 9/11 at campaign fundraisers. On 6/13/02, the Associated Press reported the White House began urging conservatives to push "messages highlighting the war on terrorism." And the list goes on.
In the country of the blind the one-eyed man is king:
Erasmus c.1469 - 1536
The war in Iraq is a fraud and no one sees this more clearly than Robert Fisk , The independent UK , who has been in Baghdad for the past month and files this report ;
"Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn’t Blair realise that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn’t Bush realise this? The American-appointed "government" controls only parts of Baghdad - and even there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated ... For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist . "
Allen L Roland
'Can't Blair see that this country is about to explode? Can't Bush?'
01 August 2004 "The Independent" -- The war is a fraud. I’m not talking about the weapons of mass destruction that didn’t exist. Nor the links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa’ida which didn’t exist. Nor all the other lies upon which we went to war. I’m talking about the new lies.
For just as, before the war, our governments warned us of threats that did not exist, now they hide from us the threats that do exist.Much of Iraq has fallen outside the control of America’s puppet government in Baghdad but we are not told. Hundreds of attacks are made against US troops every month. But unless an American dies, we are not told. This month’s death toll of Iraqis in Baghdad alone has now reached 700 - the worst month since the invasion ended. But we are not told.
The stage management of this catastrophe in Iraq was all too evident at Saddam Hussein’s "trial". Not only did the US military censor the tapes of the event. Not only did they effectively delete all sound of the 11 other defendants. But the Americans led Saddam Hussein to believe - until he reached the courtroom - that he was on his way to his execution. Indeed, when he entered the room he believed that the judge was there to condemn him to death. This, after all, was the way Saddam ran his own state security courts. No wonder he initially looked "disorientated" - CNN’s helpful description - because, of course, he was meant to look that way. We had made sure of that. Which is why Saddam asked Judge Juhi: "Are you a lawyer? ... Is this a trial?" And swiftly, as he realised that this really was an initial court hearing - not a preliminary to his own hanging - he quickly adopted an attitude of belligerence.
But don’t think we’re going to learn much more about Saddam’s future court appearances. Salem Chalabi, the brother of convicted fraudster Ahmad and the man entrusted by the Americans with the tribunal, told the Iraqi press two weeks ago that all media would be excluded from future court hearings. And I can see why. Because if Saddam does a Milosevic, he’ll want to talk about the real intelligence and military connections of his regime - which were primarily with the United States.
Living in Iraq these past few weeks is a weird as well as dangerous experience. I drive down to Najaf. Highway 8 is one of the worst in Iraq. Westerners are murdered there. It is littered with burnt-out police vehicles and American trucks. Every police post for 70 miles has been abandoned. Yet a few hours later, I am sitting in my room in Baghdad watching Tony Blair, grinning in the House of Commons as if he is the hero of a school debating competition; so much for the Butler report.
Indeed, watching any Western television station in Baghdad these days is like tuning in to Planet Mars. Doesn’t Blair realise that Iraq is about to implode? Doesn’t Bush realise this? The American-appointed "government" controls only parts of Baghdad - and even there its ministers and civil servants are car-bombed and assassinated. Baquba, Samara, Kut, Mahmoudiya, Hilla, Fallujah, Ramadi, all are outside government authority. Iyad Allawi, the "Prime Minister", is little more than mayor of Baghdad. "Some journalists," Blair announces, "almost want there to be a disaster in Iraq." He doesn’t get it. The disaster exists now.
When suicide bombers ram their cars into hundreds of recruits outside police stations, how on earth can anyone hold an election next January? Even the National Conference to appoint those who will arrange elections has been twice postponed. And looking back through my notebooks over the past five weeks, I find that not a single Iraqi, not a single American soldier I have spoken to, not a single mercenary - be he American, British or South African - believes that there will be elections in January. All said that Iraq is deteriorating by the day. And most asked why we journalists weren’t saying so.
But in Baghdad, I turn on my television and watch Bush telling his Republican supporters that Iraq is improving, that Iraqis support the "coalition", that they support their new US-manufactured government, that the "war on terror" is being won, that Americans are safer. Then I go to an internet site and watch two hooded men hacking off the head of an American in Riyadh, tearing at the vertebrae of an American in Iraq with a knife. Each day, the papers here list another construction company pulling out of the country. And I go down to visit the friendly, tragically sad staff of the Baghdad mortuary and there, each day, are dozens of those Iraqis we supposedly came to liberate, screaming and weeping and cursing as they carry their loved ones on their shoulders in cheap coffins.
I keep re-reading Tony Blair’s statement. "I remain convinced it was right to go to war. It was the most difficult decision of my life." And I cannot understand it. It may be a terrible decision to go to war. Even Chamberlain thought that; but he didn’t find it a difficult decision - because, after the Nazi invasion of Poland, it was the right thing to do. And driving the streets of Baghdad now, watching the terrified American patrols, hearing yet another thunderous explosion shaking my windows and doors after dawn, I realise what all this means. Going to war in Iraq, invading Iraq last year, was the most difficult decision Blair had to take because he thought - correctly - that it might be the wrong decision. I will always remember his remark to British troops in Basra, that the sacrifice of British soldiers was not Hollywood but "real flesh and blood". Yes, it was real flesh and blood that was shed - but for weapons of mass destruction that weren’t real at all.
"Deadly force is authorised," it says on checkpoints all over Baghdad. Authorised by whom? There is no accountability. Repeatedly, on the great highways out of the city US soldiers shriek at motorists and open fire at the least suspicion. "We had some Navy Seals down at our checkpoint the other day," a 1st Cavalry sergeant says to me. "They asked if we were having any trouble. I said, yes, they’ve been shooting at us from a house over there. One of them asked: ’That house?’ We said yes. So they have these three SUVs and a lot of weapons made of titanium and they drive off towards the house. And later they come back and say ’We’ve taken care of that’. And we didn’t get shot at any more."
What does this mean? The Americans are now bragging about their siege of Najaf. Lieutenant Colonel Garry Bishop of the 37th Armoured Division’s 1st Battalion believes it was an "ideal" battle (even though he failed to kill or capture Muqtada Sadr whose "Mehdi army" were fighting the US forces). It was "ideal", Bishop explained, because the Americans avoided damaging the holy shrines of the Imams Ali and Hussein. What are Iraqis to make of this? What if a Muslim army occupied Kent and bombarded Canterbury and then bragged that they hadn’t damaged Canterbury Cathedral? Would we be grateful?
What, indeed, are we to make of a war which is turned into a fantasy by those who started it? As foreign workers pour out of Iraq for fear of their lives, US Secretary of State Colin Powell tells a press conference that hostage-taking is having an "effect" on reconstruction. Effect! Oil pipeline explosions are now as regular as power cuts. In parts of Baghdad now, they have only four hours of electricity a day; the streets swarm with foreign mercenaries, guns poking from windows, shouting abusively at Iraqis who don’t clear the way for them. This is the "safer" Iraq which Mr Blair was boasting of the other day. What world does the British Government exist in?
Take the Saddam trial. The entire Arab press - including the Baghdad papers - prints the judge’s name. Indeed, the same judge has given interviews about his charges of murder against Muqtada Sadr. He has posed for newspaper pictures. But when I mention his name in The Independent, I was solemnly censured by the British Government’s spokesman. Salem Chalabi threatened to prosecute me. So let me get this right. We illegally invade Iraq. We kill up to 11,000 Iraqis. And Mr Chalabi, appointed by the Americans, says I’m guilty of "incitement to murder". That just about says it all.
The first tenet of my Unified Field Theoryis this ;
The basic underlying and uniting force of the universe is a psychic energy field of universal love, within which gravitational and electromagnetic fields, the strong and weak forces in the atom , and all other forces of nature, including time and space, are merely conditions of state.
Within this psychic energy field of love, paranormal events such as clairvoyance, telepathy, precognition and near-death experiences are also conditions of state.
The principle property of this field of love and soul consciousness is its propensity to unite, complete and fulfill all living beings within a constantly evolving loving plan.
This field of love is the absolute constant of the universe in that within it , time and space do not exist.
Thus , we are instantly joined with the past, present and future of a universe which is in the process of uniting, completing and fulfilling itself.
In other words, what lies deepest within us is a state of love and soul consciousness which extends beyond time and space and reveals itself in its urge to unite.
Longfellow called itthe thread of all sustaining beauty that runs through all and doth all unite.
Sound too far out ?
Dr John Hagelin, one of the world's leading pioneers of theoretical physics also believes that the long sought for Unified Field is a state of consciousness ~
If you scratch below the surface and get to the molecular atomic and sub-atomic worlds, you find that these worlds are not material worlds.
They are worlds of intelligence and ultimately worlds of consciousness.
British physicist Steven Hawking , like his predecessor Einstein, also sought a simple explanation for the Unified Field ; What is it that breathes fire into the equations and makes a universe for them to govern ?Hawking writes, " Is the ultimate Unified Field so compelling that it brings about its own existence ?
Hawking also wrotethat there should be something special and simple about a grand theory of everything~
And what could be more special and simple than love .
Thus, those who we love deeply would become part of us forever in that they still remain in thisstate of soul consciousness that lies deepest within ourselves and also beyond time and space.
As such , the soul would contain the event that shall befall it in that when we are in a state of soul consciousness we can and often will intuit the next step on the path of our heart.
I have had many experiences of connecting with former loves and family members on a psychic level of consciousness even though we were not in communication with each other.
I have often sensed or dreamed about the arrival of important relationships before they physically manifested themselves.
And I have even experienced my beloved grandfather speaking to me from beyond death to give me advice at a troubled time in my life.
My own mother coming back to me after her sudden and unexpected death is another example of how love lives beyond the grave but what was even more powerful was her speaking to me and sayingAllen , I know, I know.
In other words, my mother , who had read my Unified Field Theory wasvalidating this truth to me as an act of love.
Gallup reveals that 50% of all Americans have had an after death experience ~ whereas they have experienced or felt the presence of someone they deeply loved after they have passed on.
All of this is shared in my book RADICAL THERAPY / SURRENDER TO LOVE AND HEAL YOURSELF IN SEVEN SESSIONS ( Not Seven Years )
How gratifying it is to know that I am being loved from beyond time and space and when my heart is fully open I can access this state of consciousness .
Here is a wonderful example from my book;
TIM'S STORY
Tim came to see me as a client. During the session I took his hand and said it was " his turn " .
He seemed deeply touched and called me a few days later and said he needed to see me.
He told me about an incident that had happened when his father was dying several years before.
It seems that his father had literally died several times and then returned to lucid consciousness before he relapsed again into a coma.
During one of those lucid periods, Tim asked him , " What's
it like on the other side, Dad ? "
His dad smiled at him and said, " Someone is going to take your hand . "
Tim told me that when I had taken his hand during our first session, he had been deeply moved.
Later that day he realized that it was my hand that his dad had seen .
Of course, Tim's dad would have been in a state of soul consciousness when he momentarily slipped away ~ and in that moment would have had access to anyone who would eventually be loving his son unconditionally, because that loving state of consciousness exists beyond time and space.
__________________________________
Thus, love is indeed timeless and when we fully surrender to it we enter a world of consciousness where we are asked only to fulfill our part in a slowly evolving
loving plan. I call it the express versus the local ( which is a state of fear-based ego consciousness )
But now we have reached a crucial time in our evolution for by denying the altruism and love that is deepest within us, we are, in essence denying ourselves , our own fulfillment and our divine destiny.
Quite simply, to further evolve, we must love . For love, as Teilhard de Chardin clearly states in his ' unrealistic manner ' is the fundamental impulse of life.
Love has always been carefully eliminated from the realist and positivist concepts of the world; but sooner or later we shall have to acknowledge that it is the fundamental impulse of life, or, if you prefer, the one natural medium in which the rising course of evolution can proceed.
With love omitted, there is truly nothing ahead of us except the forbidding prospect of standardization and enslavement ~ the doom of ants and termites.
It is through love and within love that we must look for the deepening of our deepest self, in the life-giving coming together of mankind.
comment []
he state police investigation into get-out-the-vote activities by blacks in Orlando, Fla., fits perfectly with the political aims of Gov. Jeb Bush and the Republican Party.
suppose there are people who still believe that enormous tax cuts for the very wealthy will lead to the creation of millions of good jobs for working people. In the twilight of his first term, the president, stumping for votes in regions scarred by the demon of unemployment, continues to sing from the tattered pages of his economic hymnbook:
