Target Wal-Mart
By Robert L. Borosage and Troy Peters
TomPaine.com
Monday 14 November 2005
Wal-Mart must feel like a piñata these days - everyone's lining up to take a shot at it. This week, 7,000 house parties are being held to screen Robert Greenwald's blockbuster documentary, "Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price." The inspector general of the Labor Department censures its sweetheart deal that promised to give Wal-Mart notice before any future investigation of illegal child labor practices. Legislators from the L.A. City Council to the US Senate are introducing legislation to curb the giant's public subsidies. Communities are rejecting Wal-Mart's demands for subsidies and zoning exemptions. Right-wing groups are furious Wal-Mart is taking the Christ out of the Christmas holidays. It's gotten so bad that Wal-Mart has created a war room staffed by veterans of political campaigns to wage the PR battle.
Why Wal-Mart? For one thing, it's hard to avoid. It is the world's largest private corporation, employing more than 1.6 million "associates" worldwide - more people than Ford, GM, GE and IBM combined. The company serves 138 million customers per week worldwide and has outstripped any competitor. In 2004, it pocketed $10.3 billion in profits, on sales of $285 billion, more business than Target, Sears, Kmart, J.C. Penney, Safeway and Kroger combined. There are upward of 3,800 Wal-Mart stores in the United States today, in addition to nearly 1,600 locations in countries from Mexico to China. Wal-Mart alone is China's eighth-largest trading partner. It accounts for over 10 percent of our annual trade deficit with China, with over 70 percent of its products made in China.
If Wal-Mart's size is a problem, its policies are a threat. Wal-Mart is the model "low-road" corporation in the global economy. Its efficiency is celebrated; but its exploitation is caustic. The average pay of a Wal-Mart employee is $8.23 per hour, or an average yearly income of $14,000 - not enough to lift a family out of poverty. Wal-Mart is infamous for requiring workers to work overtime off the books. It's been cited for locking workers in plants overnight. The company has been hauled into court for discriminating against female employees. And it is viciously, rabidly anti-union, crushing any attempt by its workers to organize to gain a fair share of the profits they help generate.
But Wal-Mart doesn't merely follow the low road; it drives its suppliers and its competitors into the same race. When Wal-Mart comes to town, it purposefully wipes out small mom-and-pop stores, leaving small towns looking like they were hit by a neutron bomb - buildings intact, but people gone. Wal-Mart also undercuts big competitors that have unions and pay decent wages and benefits. They must slash wages, cut back on benefits or hang it up.
Given its size in the United States, Wal-Mart is a major force in driving wages down and forcing cutbacks in benefits. It is a central reason why we have an economy in which CEO salaries are up, stocks are up, but wages are down.
In China, Wal-Mart pushes its suppliers to lower their costs, generating sweatshops in which young workers - primarily women - are forced to work grotesque hours at subsistence wages. According to The Washington Post , Wal-Mart even pressures its suppliers to pay less than the Chinese minimum wage.
Wal-Mart also exploits taxpayers, for it is what Ronald Reagan would denounce as the leading corporate welfare queen. It's estimated that Wal-Mart's government subsidies total a whopping $2.7 billion, or $2,100 per employee. An internal memo to the board leaked recently reported that "our [health care] coverage is expensive for low-income families, and Wal-Mart has a significant percentage of associates and their children on public assistance." In fact, nearly one-half of the children of Wal-Mart employees are either on Medicaid or have no insurance at all.
While Wal-Mart is driving down wages and driving up public health care costs, its CEO and its owners are making out like bandits. The Walton family is the richest in the world. And they use their private wealth to foster their low-road policies. The Waltons donate millions to politics. Most goes to Republicans who defend their low-wage sweatshop practices, while 20 percent goes to buy a few business Democrats and divide the opposition. They are leading contributors to the voucher movement seeking to privatize education, and staunch advocates of the free trade policies that have stymied efforts to link trade access to the right to organize, environmental protection or even a crackdown on sweatshops.
Across America, people are starting to realize the stark reality: Wal-Mart's triumph is the defeat of middle-class America. If Wal-Mart sets the pace, Americans will pay the price, in declining wages, rising health care costs, longer hours, worse workplace conditions and rising personal taxes to offset soaring corporate subsidies.
America as we know it can't afford Wal-Mart. We can't sustain a $200 billion annual trade deficit with China, but Wal-Mart drives that deficit. We can't afford to subsidize the health care costs of the largest employers in the country - even as declining wages starve our public coffers. We can't afford to allow sweatshop labor access to the largest distribution network, without accelerating a global race to the bottom.
In the Gilded Age of the 19th century, America faced a similar problem: corporate behemoths, private fortunes amassed from exploiting workers, unions banned, politicians bought. It took a progressive movement to put new rules around the marketplace - to break up monopolies, create the 40-hour work week, institute the minimum wage, the right to organize, environmental protection, and workplace health and safety laws.
Now a new progressive movement is beginning to emerge. Once more, its agenda is to ban sweatshops, lift wages, empower workers and curb corporate power.
And surely Wal-Mart is and must be that movement's first target. The question isn't why Wal-Mart gets such bad press. The question is why Wal-Mart hasn't been confronted sooner.
Robert L. Borosage is co-director and Troy Peters is policy fellow at the Campaign For America's Future
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
Jimmy Carter sums up the state of America
This Isn't the Real America
By Jimmy Carter
The Los Angeles Times
Monday 14 November 2005
In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.
These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.
Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.
At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements - including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.
Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.
Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top US leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.
These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.
Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties.
Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.
Of even greater concern is that the US has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people in US custody.
Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.
Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies.
Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations).
I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.
As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need.
It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years.
Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, published this month by Simon & Schuster.
By Jimmy Carter
The Los Angeles Times
Monday 14 November 2005
In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.
These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.
Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.
At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements - including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.
Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.
Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top US leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.
These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.
Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties.
Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.
Of even greater concern is that the US has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people in US custody.
Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.
Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies.
Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations).
I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.
As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need.
It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years.
Jimmy Carter was the 39th president of the United States. His newest book is Our Endangered Values: America's Moral Crisis, published this month by Simon & Schuster.
Friday, November 11, 2005
John Cusack: On Bush, the Dems, Jon Stewart, Hunter Thompson, Bill Moyers, and King (not Don)
Murder is a crime. Uunless it is done...by a poooollliiicceeeman. Or an ariissssstoocrat -- Joe Strummer
Bush 2. How depressing, corrupt, unlawful and tragically absurd the administration's world view actually is...how low the moral bar has been lowered...and (though I know I'm capable of intellectually lazy notions of collective guilt) how complicit our silence as citizens is...Nixon, a true fiend, looks like a paragon of virtue next to the criminally incompetent robber barons now raiding the present and future. But where are the Dems? American foreign policy is in chaos. We are now left in the surreal position of having to condemn American-sponsored torture as official policy while a deranged President Bush orders his staff to attend ethics briefings -- a "refresher course" -- from the White House counsel. The very idea of America is in chaos and this chaos has created a vacuum. One question for any Democrat: Who will have the balls to get us out of Iraq? If the Democrats don't step up and fill this vacuum, the Republicans will. They will take us out of Iraq. And then the Democrats will be left holding the bag -- first as the enablers who let the Republicans take us into an unnecessary and immoral war, and then as the whipping boys who stood by while the Republicans kept justifying what was clearly an unnecessary and immoral war. They were so worried about positioning themselves as hawks, not being seen as soft on terror and war, that they lost the capacity for outrage when the person responsible for a legal memo that denied the validity of the Geneva Conventions was appointed Attorney General. And it was downhill from there.
The Republicans, especially leading up to the 2006 elections, with the Bush administration crumbling, KNOW they have to find a way out of Iraq. So they will basically find a way to declare victory and do something that looks like a withdrawal, and the Democrats will be left as passive bystanders -- because they don't have the courage to suggest that people who lied to get us into war should not only not be in office, they should be in prison.
Last Tuesday, Harry Reid demonstrated wonderful signs of life. The question now is, are they going to build on this, or is it going to be an isolated episode that doesn't lead to a fundamental shift? Will enough Democrats now be willing to admit that voting to authorize the war was a mistake? Whether they were genuinely misled, they bought into it, or they were too cowardly to vote for what they believed was true, it was a mistake. Will they now have the courage to say, "This was wrong, and that we need to get our brave troops out of Iraq now." Are the Democrats going to offer an alternative plan to get us out of Iraq? Are they going to fill this vacuum created by the chaos in Iraq and a scandal-plagued administration in tatters, or are they going to wait for the Republicans to do it their way, reap the political diviedends, and leave the Democrats sniping outside the palace gate?
All this makes me think of Jon Stewart, and the tricky position he finds himself in...I love the man. He is the most important media watchdog right now. As Bill Moyers said "If Mark Twain were back today, he'd be at Comedy Central."
But I hope we're not putting too much pressure on Mr. Stewart. There should be a lot more like him, but right now he's all we've got. He's the vanguard. And therefore when Republicans, who were the ones who led us into this war, and the ones whom he's so rightly skewering every night, sit across the table from him -- there is some kind of unspoken message being given that they are not part of the problem, that they can wink and laugh with Jon and the things he is making fun of. That they are not them, when in fact, they are...
And they are getting a free pass to sit next to someone who speaks truth to power. They get reflected hipness just by sitting across the table from him, and the irony is that they share a laugh over the same things that he rails against. As an example, look at the jokey appearances by Bill Kristol, or David Frum. These are not dutiful soldiers standing by their president (which would be bad enough), these are the intellectual architects of the the invasion. Bill Kristol, the editor of the neocon house organ The Weekly Standard, came on and could barely keep a straight face when he said that Bush was a good president. And as anyone knows, reflected hipness on these types of men is a truly ugly thing. I would suggest each Republican must face a press conference, or a gauntlet perhaps, of Daily Show correspondents...or at least Lewis Black.
Yes, there is a difference between the McCain/Hagel Repubs and the neo-con/White House Iraq Group lunatics. But it's also good to remember: no matter what he does from here on out, McCain stood by the president, a man (and his machine) who smeared him viciously on the 2000 campaign trail, and then, at the GOP convention four years later, campaigned for him when we were well on to this disastrous course. And thinking men -- of which McCain is surely one -- knew the neo-cons were exploiting 9/11 for their hideous misadventure in Iraq, and knew this was an administration that would not allow photos of the dead. Etc. etc. etc. Every man who stood by Bush should be forced to answer for it. The problem isn't with Jon Stewart, who's a hero. The problem is that he's the only one (with ratings at least; none of the right-wing heavyweights are going on the Al Franken show, are they?). And we are pouring too much concrete under his pedestal. But I must admit that he's far too polite to the architects and enablers of the tragic last five years. If I hear one more asshole say, "The issue isn't whether I would send my own children to Iraq, this is an all-voluntary army...National security is at stake... There are monsters in this world." Well, thanks for telling us that -- and for lying about the war and profiting from it. And trying to privatize Iraq so corporate interests could have a free-market laboratory without all those pesky questions about "who owns what" and "who gets a piece of the action." (See Naomi Klein's excellent Baghdad Year Zero.) This is indeed a league of bastards -- these men are human scum. There were many who would have given their life to fight al-Qaeda. Many parents would have sent their children on that cause. It is the issue...of course that is the issue... Here's an American thought: Arab life has as much intrinsic value as American life. We are SUPPOSED to be better than the horrible regimes we must fight (not choose to fight). Due process is a fundamental tenet of civilization. The law is supposed to be better than us. We have veered so badly away from sanity that re-reading an Eisenhower speech or two puts him to the left of Howard Dean. I miss Hunter S. Thompson. We need him -- but he isn't gone... "We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world -- a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. "Well, shit on that dumbness, George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today -- and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever. "Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush? "They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us -- they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. "And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them." I always thought he was too loose with the Nazi analogy, but I always got his point: if you're on the dying end of this madness, they might as well be monsters. It is interesting to remember what Churchill said: "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." I guess the exception is when and if Dick Cheney thinks we have a good reason to torture and deny due process. If these men are not impeached and thrown in jail, we truly are approaching the end of days. Thank God Bill Moyers is still around. Here he offers a very good and very compelling cry from the heart of a citizen who finds himself deeply disturbed, but unbowed by this wave of collective insanity. He is one of the best we have left. My own parents had deep faith, they saw the earth as a gift from God. They took Christ seriously -- the gospel, his words and acts -- and thought it their Christian duty to speak out against the desecration of God's great gifts: life, earth, freedom, and civilization. Nowhere could they find any endorsements of "wars of choice." Jesus was a radical to be sure, but in an opposite way from the war mongers and profiteers who use his name today. I can't get past "thou shalt not kill" and look at this carnage and see any rational way one could say these men follow Jesus Christ. Alas, the money lenders have well and truly invaded the temple. So Moyers: "One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts."
To read the rest of this remarkable speech, go here.
And, finally, Dr King: "A time comes when silence is betrayal. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak out with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak."
Copyright © 2005 HuffingtonPost.com. All rights reserved.
Murder is a crime. Uunless it is done...by a poooollliiicceeeman. Or an ariissssstoocrat -- Joe Strummer
Bush 2. How depressing, corrupt, unlawful and tragically absurd the administration's world view actually is...how low the moral bar has been lowered...and (though I know I'm capable of intellectually lazy notions of collective guilt) how complicit our silence as citizens is...Nixon, a true fiend, looks like a paragon of virtue next to the criminally incompetent robber barons now raiding the present and future. But where are the Dems? American foreign policy is in chaos. We are now left in the surreal position of having to condemn American-sponsored torture as official policy while a deranged President Bush orders his staff to attend ethics briefings -- a "refresher course" -- from the White House counsel. The very idea of America is in chaos and this chaos has created a vacuum. One question for any Democrat: Who will have the balls to get us out of Iraq? If the Democrats don't step up and fill this vacuum, the Republicans will. They will take us out of Iraq. And then the Democrats will be left holding the bag -- first as the enablers who let the Republicans take us into an unnecessary and immoral war, and then as the whipping boys who stood by while the Republicans kept justifying what was clearly an unnecessary and immoral war. They were so worried about positioning themselves as hawks, not being seen as soft on terror and war, that they lost the capacity for outrage when the person responsible for a legal memo that denied the validity of the Geneva Conventions was appointed Attorney General. And it was downhill from there.
The Republicans, especially leading up to the 2006 elections, with the Bush administration crumbling, KNOW they have to find a way out of Iraq. So they will basically find a way to declare victory and do something that looks like a withdrawal, and the Democrats will be left as passive bystanders -- because they don't have the courage to suggest that people who lied to get us into war should not only not be in office, they should be in prison.
Last Tuesday, Harry Reid demonstrated wonderful signs of life. The question now is, are they going to build on this, or is it going to be an isolated episode that doesn't lead to a fundamental shift? Will enough Democrats now be willing to admit that voting to authorize the war was a mistake? Whether they were genuinely misled, they bought into it, or they were too cowardly to vote for what they believed was true, it was a mistake. Will they now have the courage to say, "This was wrong, and that we need to get our brave troops out of Iraq now." Are the Democrats going to offer an alternative plan to get us out of Iraq? Are they going to fill this vacuum created by the chaos in Iraq and a scandal-plagued administration in tatters, or are they going to wait for the Republicans to do it their way, reap the political diviedends, and leave the Democrats sniping outside the palace gate?
All this makes me think of Jon Stewart, and the tricky position he finds himself in...I love the man. He is the most important media watchdog right now. As Bill Moyers said "If Mark Twain were back today, he'd be at Comedy Central."
But I hope we're not putting too much pressure on Mr. Stewart. There should be a lot more like him, but right now he's all we've got. He's the vanguard. And therefore when Republicans, who were the ones who led us into this war, and the ones whom he's so rightly skewering every night, sit across the table from him -- there is some kind of unspoken message being given that they are not part of the problem, that they can wink and laugh with Jon and the things he is making fun of. That they are not them, when in fact, they are...
And they are getting a free pass to sit next to someone who speaks truth to power. They get reflected hipness just by sitting across the table from him, and the irony is that they share a laugh over the same things that he rails against. As an example, look at the jokey appearances by Bill Kristol, or David Frum. These are not dutiful soldiers standing by their president (which would be bad enough), these are the intellectual architects of the the invasion. Bill Kristol, the editor of the neocon house organ The Weekly Standard, came on and could barely keep a straight face when he said that Bush was a good president. And as anyone knows, reflected hipness on these types of men is a truly ugly thing. I would suggest each Republican must face a press conference, or a gauntlet perhaps, of Daily Show correspondents...or at least Lewis Black.
Yes, there is a difference between the McCain/Hagel Repubs and the neo-con/White House Iraq Group lunatics. But it's also good to remember: no matter what he does from here on out, McCain stood by the president, a man (and his machine) who smeared him viciously on the 2000 campaign trail, and then, at the GOP convention four years later, campaigned for him when we were well on to this disastrous course. And thinking men -- of which McCain is surely one -- knew the neo-cons were exploiting 9/11 for their hideous misadventure in Iraq, and knew this was an administration that would not allow photos of the dead. Etc. etc. etc. Every man who stood by Bush should be forced to answer for it. The problem isn't with Jon Stewart, who's a hero. The problem is that he's the only one (with ratings at least; none of the right-wing heavyweights are going on the Al Franken show, are they?). And we are pouring too much concrete under his pedestal. But I must admit that he's far too polite to the architects and enablers of the tragic last five years. If I hear one more asshole say, "The issue isn't whether I would send my own children to Iraq, this is an all-voluntary army...National security is at stake... There are monsters in this world." Well, thanks for telling us that -- and for lying about the war and profiting from it. And trying to privatize Iraq so corporate interests could have a free-market laboratory without all those pesky questions about "who owns what" and "who gets a piece of the action." (See Naomi Klein's excellent Baghdad Year Zero.) This is indeed a league of bastards -- these men are human scum. There were many who would have given their life to fight al-Qaeda. Many parents would have sent their children on that cause. It is the issue...of course that is the issue... Here's an American thought: Arab life has as much intrinsic value as American life. We are SUPPOSED to be better than the horrible regimes we must fight (not choose to fight). Due process is a fundamental tenet of civilization. The law is supposed to be better than us. We have veered so badly away from sanity that re-reading an Eisenhower speech or two puts him to the left of Howard Dean. I miss Hunter S. Thompson. We need him -- but he isn't gone... "We have become a Nazi monster in the eyes of the whole world -- a nation of bullies and bastards who would rather kill than live peacefully. We are not just Whores for power and oil, but killer whores with hate and fear in our hearts. We are human scum, and that is how history will judge us. No redeeming social value. Just whores. Get out of our way, or we'll kill you. "Well, shit on that dumbness, George W. Bush does not speak for me or my son or my mother or my friends or the people I respect in this world. We didn't vote for these cheap, greedy little killers who speak for America today -- and we will not vote for them again in 2002. Or 2004. Or ever. "Who does vote for these dishonest shitheads? Who among us can be happy and proud of having all this innocent blood on our hands? Who are these swine? These flag-sucking half-wits who get fleeced and fooled by stupid rich kids like George Bush? "They are the same ones who wanted to have Muhammad Ali locked up for refusing to kill gooks. They speak for all that is cruel and stupid and vicious in the American character. They are the racists and hate mongers among us -- they are the Ku Klux Klan. I piss down the throats of these Nazis. "And I am too old to worry about whether they like it or not. Fuck them." I always thought he was too loose with the Nazi analogy, but I always got his point: if you're on the dying end of this madness, they might as well be monsters. It is interesting to remember what Churchill said: "The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law, and particularly to deny him the judgment of his peers, is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist." I guess the exception is when and if Dick Cheney thinks we have a good reason to torture and deny due process. If these men are not impeached and thrown in jail, we truly are approaching the end of days. Thank God Bill Moyers is still around. Here he offers a very good and very compelling cry from the heart of a citizen who finds himself deeply disturbed, but unbowed by this wave of collective insanity. He is one of the best we have left. My own parents had deep faith, they saw the earth as a gift from God. They took Christ seriously -- the gospel, his words and acts -- and thought it their Christian duty to speak out against the desecration of God's great gifts: life, earth, freedom, and civilization. Nowhere could they find any endorsements of "wars of choice." Jesus was a radical to be sure, but in an opposite way from the war mongers and profiteers who use his name today. I can't get past "thou shalt not kill" and look at this carnage and see any rational way one could say these men follow Jesus Christ. Alas, the money lenders have well and truly invaded the temple. So Moyers: "One of the biggest changes in politics in my lifetime is that the delusional is no longer marginal. It has come in from the fringe, to sit in the seat of power in the Oval Office and in Congress. For the first time in our history, ideology and theology hold a monopoly of power in Washington. Theology asserts propositions that cannot be proven true; ideologues hold stoutly to a worldview despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. When ideology and theology couple, their offspring are not always bad but they are always blind. And there is the danger: voters and politicians alike, oblivious to the facts."
To read the rest of this remarkable speech, go here.
And, finally, Dr King: "A time comes when silence is betrayal. Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony, but we must speak. We must speak out with all the humility that is appropriate to our limited vision, but we must speak."
Copyright © 2005 HuffingtonPost.com. All rights reserved.
Saturday, October 29, 2005
The Smug Morality Of the Bush White House: WRONG!
Paul BegalaBio
10.28.2005
The False Moral Superiority of the Bush White House (106 comments )
The Huffington Post
As a former Clinton aide, the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby and the announcement that Karl Rove remains in the prosecutorial hot-seat gives me no schadenfreude. First because many of my fellow Texans in the Bush White House are friends of mine; others are acquaintances I've known for years. I feel their pain.
Second, because no one who loves the White House and reveres the presidency can take joy in seeing it besmirched. And third, because the ultimate result of the alleged criminal conduct was to march 2,000 young heroes off to die in an unjust, unwise, unprovoked and unwarranted war.
The plain fact is that after a seven year non-stop investigato-rama, no senior Clinton White House official was ever even charged with wrongdoing. Much less indicted. Much less convicted. In fact, the highest-ranking Clinton official to be convicted of wrongdoing in connection with his public duties was the chief of staff to the Agriculture Secretary. Betcha five bucks you can't even name the Clinton Agriculture Secretary in question, much less his chief of staff. Unlike Nixon (whose Watergate crimes were manifest), unlike Reagan (whose White House was corrupted by the Iran-Contra crimes), unlike Bush 41 (who pardoned White House aides and Cabinet officers before they could testify against him), Bill Clinton presided over the most ethical White House staff in decades.
And yet George W. Bush campaigned on a pledge to "restore honor and decency to the Oval Office." He spoke of moms and dads on the campaign trail who showed him photos of their children and asked him to give them a president their kids could be proud of.
We all knew what he meant. With a wink and a nod he told us he wouldn't cheat on Laura. And after he took office Mr. Bush and his henchmen smeared the Clintonistas, falsely accusing them of vandalism and theft. They told the press that in this Oval Office the gentlemen would wear suits, the ladies, skirts. And no more paper coffee cups. Nothing but the finest bone china. The Bushies even claimed moral superiority because of their punctuality. Everything was designed and marketed to stress the virtue of the Bushies and the vice of the Clintonians. And it worked. In the first year of George W. Bush's presidency, one major media figure told my wife and me to our faces that the difference between the Clinton crowd and the Bush team was that, "They're just better people than you are. They're more loyal to their President, more patriotic, less self-interested and ambitious. They're just better people."
Now we learn that these Better People have turned the White House into a criminal enterprise. And that the purpose of that enterprise was to mislead the country into going to war. 2,000 Americans killed. 15,000 horribly wounded. $200 billion gone. And a Muslim world -- and a non-Muslim world, for that matter -- that hates our guts. Al Qaeda is recruiting terrorists faster than we can kill them. And there is no end in sight.
But thank God there were no blow jobs. They really are Better People.
That is why this prosecution is important. No one is criminalizing policy differences. Rather, the Bush White House stands accused of hijacking the public policy process in service of a criminal conspiracy to smear, lie and obstruct justice.
The Fitzgerald probe, it should be noted, is the first independent investigation into alleged wrongdoing in the Bush White House. And it has hit paydirt. Contrast that with the dry holes of Whitewater, Filegate, the billing records, Vince Foster's suicide, the cattle futures, the Buddhist temple, and all the rest. Good Lord, Congress even spent two years investigating Clinton's Christmas card list. Just to list the trumped-up Clinton "scandals" is to recall how trivial -- and yet how destructive -- they were. Innocent people were impoverished, reputations were damaged, careers derailed. But at least history can give the Clinton team a clean bill of ethical health. No White House was more thoroughly investigated -- and more thoroughly exonerated. But it's telling that the first time anyone had the courage to scratch the surface of Bush, Inc., he found corruption.
It is not boilerplate to state that those accused are entitled to the presumption of innocence. But that is a legal matter. As a matter of morality, the Bushies are already guilty. Guilty of smearing the Wilson family. Guilty of twisting intelligence. Guilty of lying about the role of White House aides in outing Mrs. Wilson. Guilty of sanctimony and hypocrisy and hubris. Most of all, they are guilty of misleading us into this God-awful war.
So, yes, I feel sorry for those indicted and those under investigation, and especially for their families. They are going through hell. But it's nothing compared to the pain of 2,000 families who've lost a loved one in Iraq, or 15,000 families whose loved one has shed blood or lost limbs in the war Mr. Bush and his "better people" have started.
10.28.2005
The False Moral Superiority of the Bush White House (106 comments )
The Huffington Post
As a former Clinton aide, the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby and the announcement that Karl Rove remains in the prosecutorial hot-seat gives me no schadenfreude. First because many of my fellow Texans in the Bush White House are friends of mine; others are acquaintances I've known for years. I feel their pain.
Second, because no one who loves the White House and reveres the presidency can take joy in seeing it besmirched. And third, because the ultimate result of the alleged criminal conduct was to march 2,000 young heroes off to die in an unjust, unwise, unprovoked and unwarranted war.
The plain fact is that after a seven year non-stop investigato-rama, no senior Clinton White House official was ever even charged with wrongdoing. Much less indicted. Much less convicted. In fact, the highest-ranking Clinton official to be convicted of wrongdoing in connection with his public duties was the chief of staff to the Agriculture Secretary. Betcha five bucks you can't even name the Clinton Agriculture Secretary in question, much less his chief of staff. Unlike Nixon (whose Watergate crimes were manifest), unlike Reagan (whose White House was corrupted by the Iran-Contra crimes), unlike Bush 41 (who pardoned White House aides and Cabinet officers before they could testify against him), Bill Clinton presided over the most ethical White House staff in decades.
And yet George W. Bush campaigned on a pledge to "restore honor and decency to the Oval Office." He spoke of moms and dads on the campaign trail who showed him photos of their children and asked him to give them a president their kids could be proud of.
We all knew what he meant. With a wink and a nod he told us he wouldn't cheat on Laura. And after he took office Mr. Bush and his henchmen smeared the Clintonistas, falsely accusing them of vandalism and theft. They told the press that in this Oval Office the gentlemen would wear suits, the ladies, skirts. And no more paper coffee cups. Nothing but the finest bone china. The Bushies even claimed moral superiority because of their punctuality. Everything was designed and marketed to stress the virtue of the Bushies and the vice of the Clintonians. And it worked. In the first year of George W. Bush's presidency, one major media figure told my wife and me to our faces that the difference between the Clinton crowd and the Bush team was that, "They're just better people than you are. They're more loyal to their President, more patriotic, less self-interested and ambitious. They're just better people."
Now we learn that these Better People have turned the White House into a criminal enterprise. And that the purpose of that enterprise was to mislead the country into going to war. 2,000 Americans killed. 15,000 horribly wounded. $200 billion gone. And a Muslim world -- and a non-Muslim world, for that matter -- that hates our guts. Al Qaeda is recruiting terrorists faster than we can kill them. And there is no end in sight.
But thank God there were no blow jobs. They really are Better People.
That is why this prosecution is important. No one is criminalizing policy differences. Rather, the Bush White House stands accused of hijacking the public policy process in service of a criminal conspiracy to smear, lie and obstruct justice.
The Fitzgerald probe, it should be noted, is the first independent investigation into alleged wrongdoing in the Bush White House. And it has hit paydirt. Contrast that with the dry holes of Whitewater, Filegate, the billing records, Vince Foster's suicide, the cattle futures, the Buddhist temple, and all the rest. Good Lord, Congress even spent two years investigating Clinton's Christmas card list. Just to list the trumped-up Clinton "scandals" is to recall how trivial -- and yet how destructive -- they were. Innocent people were impoverished, reputations were damaged, careers derailed. But at least history can give the Clinton team a clean bill of ethical health. No White House was more thoroughly investigated -- and more thoroughly exonerated. But it's telling that the first time anyone had the courage to scratch the surface of Bush, Inc., he found corruption.
It is not boilerplate to state that those accused are entitled to the presumption of innocence. But that is a legal matter. As a matter of morality, the Bushies are already guilty. Guilty of smearing the Wilson family. Guilty of twisting intelligence. Guilty of lying about the role of White House aides in outing Mrs. Wilson. Guilty of sanctimony and hypocrisy and hubris. Most of all, they are guilty of misleading us into this God-awful war.
So, yes, I feel sorry for those indicted and those under investigation, and especially for their families. They are going through hell. But it's nothing compared to the pain of 2,000 families who've lost a loved one in Iraq, or 15,000 families whose loved one has shed blood or lost limbs in the war Mr. Bush and his "better people" have started.
Sunday, October 02, 2005
25 Good Qestions On New Orleans
25 Questions About the Murder of New Orleans
Mike Davis & Anthony FontenatFri Sep 30, 3:42 PM ET
The Nation
We recently spent a week in New Orleans and southern Louisiana interviewing relief workers, community activists, urban planners, artists and neighborhood folks. Even as the latest flood waters from Hurricane Rita recede, the city remains submerged in anger and frustration.
Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn't the sinister gray sludge that coats the streets of the historic Creole neighborhood of Treme or the Lower Ninth Ward but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy. Where outsiders see simple "incompetence" or "failure of leadership," locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect--the murder, not the accidental death, of a great city.
In almost random order, here are twenty-five of the urgent questions that deeply trouble the local people we spoke with. Until a grand jury or Congressional committee begins to uncover the answers, the moral (as opposed to simply physical) reconstruction of the New Orleans region will remain impossible.
1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans side and not on the Metairie side? Was this the result of neglect and poor maintenance by New Orleans authorities?
2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward--the most deadly hit-and-run accident in US history?
3. All of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the Industrial Canal were drowned, except for the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District along Chef Menteur Highway. Why was industrial land apparently protected by stronger levees than nearby residential neighborhoods?
4. Why did Mayor Ray Nagin, in defiance of his own official disaster plan, delay twelve to twenty-four hours in ordering a mandatory evacuation of the city?
5. Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" until August 31--thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources?
6. Why wasn't the nearby USS Bataan immediately sent to the aid of New Orleans? The huge amphibious-landing ship had a state-of-the-art, 600-bed hospital, water and power plants, helicopters, food supplies and 1,200 sailors eager to join the rescue effort.
7. Similarly, why wasn't the Baltimore-based hospital ship USS Comfort ordered to sea until August 31, or the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in New Orleans until September 5?
8. Why does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld balk at making public his "severe weather execution order" that established the ground rules for the military response to Katrina? Did the Pentagon, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service suggests, fail to take initiatives within already authorized powers, then attempt to transfer the blame to state and local governments?
9. Why were the more than 350 buses of the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority--eventually flooded where they were parked--not mobilized to evacuate infirm, poor and car-less residents?
10. What significance attaches to the fact that the chair of the Transportation Authority, appointed by Mayor Nagin, is Jimmy Reiss, the wealthy leader of the New Orleans Business Council, which has long advocated a thorough redevelopment of (and cleanup of crime in) the city?
11. Under what authority did Mayor Nagin meet confidentially in Dallas with the "forty thieves"--white business leaders led by Reiss--reportedly to discuss the triaging of poorer black areas and a corporate-led master plan for rebuilding the city?
12. Everyone knows about a famous train called "the City of New Orleans." Why was there no evacuation by rail? Was Amtrak part of the disaster planning? If not, why not?
13. Why were patients at private hospitals like Tulane evacuated by helicopter while their counterparts at the Charity Hospital were left to suffer and die?
14. Was the failure to adequately stock food, water, portable toilets, cots and medicine at the Louisiana Superdome a deliberate decision--as many believe--to force poorer residents to leave the city?
15. The French Quarter has one of the highest densities of restaurants in the nation. Once the acute shortages of food and water at the Superdome and the Convention Center were known, why didn't officials requisition supplies from hotels and restaurants located just a few blocks away? (As it happened, vast quantities of food were simply left to spoil.)
16. City Hall's emergency command center had to be abandoned early in the crisis because its generator supposedly ran out of diesel fuel. Likewise, many critical-care patients died from heat or equipment failure after hospital backup generators failed. Why were supplies of diesel fuel so inadequate? Why were so many hospital generators located in basements that would obviously flood?
17. Why didn't the Navy or Coast Guard immediately airdrop life preservers and rubber rafts in flooded districts? Why wasn't such life-saving equipment stocked in schools and hospitals?
18. Why weren't evacuee centers established in Audubon Park and other unflooded parts of Uptown, where locals could be employed as cleanup crews?
19. Is the Justice Department investigating the Jim Crow-like response of the suburban Gretna police, who turned back hundreds of desperate New Orleans citizens trying to walk across the Mississippi River Bridge--an image reminiscent of Selma in 1965? New Orleans, meanwhile, abounds in eyewitness accounts of police looting and illegal shootings: Will any of this ever be investigated?
20. Who is responsible for the suspicious fires that have swept the city? Why have so many fires occurred in blue-collar areas that have long been targets of proposed gentrification, such as the Section 8 homes on Constance Street in the Lower Garden District or the wharfs along the river in Bywater?
21. Where were FEMA's several dozen vaunted urban search-and-rescue teams? Aside from some courageous work by Coast Guard helicopter crews, the early rescue effort was largely mounted by volunteers who towed their own boats into the city after hearing an appeal on television.
22. We found a massive Red Cross presence in Baton Rouge but none in some of the smaller Louisiana towns that have mounted the most impressive relief efforts. The poor Cajun community of Ville Platte, for instance, has at one time or another fed and housed more than 5,000 evacuees; but the Red Cross, along with FEMA, has refused almost daily appeals by local volunteers to send professional personnel and aid. Why then give money to the Red Cross?
23. Why isn't FEMA scrambling to create a central registry of everyone evacuated from the greater New Orleans region? Will evacuees receive absentee ballots and be allowed to vote in the crucial February municipal elections that will partly decide the fate of the city?
24. As politicians talk about "disaster czars" and elite-appointed reconstruction commissions, and as architects and developers advance utopian designs for an ethnically cleansed "new urbanism" in New Orleans, where is any plan for the substantive participation of the city's ordinary citizens in their own future?
25. Indeed, on the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, what has happened to democracy?
Like this article? Try 4 issues of The Nation at home (and online) FREE.
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
Mike Davis & Anthony FontenatFri Sep 30, 3:42 PM ET
The Nation
We recently spent a week in New Orleans and southern Louisiana interviewing relief workers, community activists, urban planners, artists and neighborhood folks. Even as the latest flood waters from Hurricane Rita recede, the city remains submerged in anger and frustration.
Indeed, the most toxic debris in New Orleans isn't the sinister gray sludge that coats the streets of the historic Creole neighborhood of Treme or the Lower Ninth Ward but all the unanswered questions that have accumulated in the wake of so much official betrayal and hypocrisy. Where outsiders see simple "incompetence" or "failure of leadership," locals are more inclined to discern deliberate design and planned neglect--the murder, not the accidental death, of a great city.
In almost random order, here are twenty-five of the urgent questions that deeply trouble the local people we spoke with. Until a grand jury or Congressional committee begins to uncover the answers, the moral (as opposed to simply physical) reconstruction of the New Orleans region will remain impossible.
1. Why did the floodwalls along the 17th Street Canal only break on the New Orleans side and not on the Metairie side? Was this the result of neglect and poor maintenance by New Orleans authorities?
2. Who owned the huge barge that was catapulted through the wall of the Industrial Canal, killing hundreds in the Lower Ninth Ward--the most deadly hit-and-run accident in US history?
3. All of New Orleans and St. Bernard Parish east of the Industrial Canal were drowned, except for the Almonaster-Michoud Industrial District along Chef Menteur Highway. Why was industrial land apparently protected by stronger levees than nearby residential neighborhoods?
4. Why did Mayor Ray Nagin, in defiance of his own official disaster plan, delay twelve to twenty-four hours in ordering a mandatory evacuation of the city?
5. Why did Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff not declare Katrina an "Incident of National Significance" until August 31--thus preventing the full deployment of urgently needed federal resources?
6. Why wasn't the nearby USS Bataan immediately sent to the aid of New Orleans? The huge amphibious-landing ship had a state-of-the-art, 600-bed hospital, water and power plants, helicopters, food supplies and 1,200 sailors eager to join the rescue effort.
7. Similarly, why wasn't the Baltimore-based hospital ship USS Comfort ordered to sea until August 31, or the 82nd Airborne Division deployed in New Orleans until September 5?
8. Why does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld balk at making public his "severe weather execution order" that established the ground rules for the military response to Katrina? Did the Pentagon, as a recent report by the Congressional Research Service suggests, fail to take initiatives within already authorized powers, then attempt to transfer the blame to state and local governments?
9. Why were the more than 350 buses of the New Orleans Regional Transportation Authority--eventually flooded where they were parked--not mobilized to evacuate infirm, poor and car-less residents?
10. What significance attaches to the fact that the chair of the Transportation Authority, appointed by Mayor Nagin, is Jimmy Reiss, the wealthy leader of the New Orleans Business Council, which has long advocated a thorough redevelopment of (and cleanup of crime in) the city?
11. Under what authority did Mayor Nagin meet confidentially in Dallas with the "forty thieves"--white business leaders led by Reiss--reportedly to discuss the triaging of poorer black areas and a corporate-led master plan for rebuilding the city?
12. Everyone knows about a famous train called "the City of New Orleans." Why was there no evacuation by rail? Was Amtrak part of the disaster planning? If not, why not?
13. Why were patients at private hospitals like Tulane evacuated by helicopter while their counterparts at the Charity Hospital were left to suffer and die?
14. Was the failure to adequately stock food, water, portable toilets, cots and medicine at the Louisiana Superdome a deliberate decision--as many believe--to force poorer residents to leave the city?
15. The French Quarter has one of the highest densities of restaurants in the nation. Once the acute shortages of food and water at the Superdome and the Convention Center were known, why didn't officials requisition supplies from hotels and restaurants located just a few blocks away? (As it happened, vast quantities of food were simply left to spoil.)
16. City Hall's emergency command center had to be abandoned early in the crisis because its generator supposedly ran out of diesel fuel. Likewise, many critical-care patients died from heat or equipment failure after hospital backup generators failed. Why were supplies of diesel fuel so inadequate? Why were so many hospital generators located in basements that would obviously flood?
17. Why didn't the Navy or Coast Guard immediately airdrop life preservers and rubber rafts in flooded districts? Why wasn't such life-saving equipment stocked in schools and hospitals?
18. Why weren't evacuee centers established in Audubon Park and other unflooded parts of Uptown, where locals could be employed as cleanup crews?
19. Is the Justice Department investigating the Jim Crow-like response of the suburban Gretna police, who turned back hundreds of desperate New Orleans citizens trying to walk across the Mississippi River Bridge--an image reminiscent of Selma in 1965? New Orleans, meanwhile, abounds in eyewitness accounts of police looting and illegal shootings: Will any of this ever be investigated?
20. Who is responsible for the suspicious fires that have swept the city? Why have so many fires occurred in blue-collar areas that have long been targets of proposed gentrification, such as the Section 8 homes on Constance Street in the Lower Garden District or the wharfs along the river in Bywater?
21. Where were FEMA's several dozen vaunted urban search-and-rescue teams? Aside from some courageous work by Coast Guard helicopter crews, the early rescue effort was largely mounted by volunteers who towed their own boats into the city after hearing an appeal on television.
22. We found a massive Red Cross presence in Baton Rouge but none in some of the smaller Louisiana towns that have mounted the most impressive relief efforts. The poor Cajun community of Ville Platte, for instance, has at one time or another fed and housed more than 5,000 evacuees; but the Red Cross, along with FEMA, has refused almost daily appeals by local volunteers to send professional personnel and aid. Why then give money to the Red Cross?
23. Why isn't FEMA scrambling to create a central registry of everyone evacuated from the greater New Orleans region? Will evacuees receive absentee ballots and be allowed to vote in the crucial February municipal elections that will partly decide the fate of the city?
24. As politicians talk about "disaster czars" and elite-appointed reconstruction commissions, and as architects and developers advance utopian designs for an ethnically cleansed "new urbanism" in New Orleans, where is any plan for the substantive participation of the city's ordinary citizens in their own future?
25. Indeed, on the fortieth anniversary of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, what has happened to democracy?
Like this article? Try 4 issues of The Nation at home (and online) FREE.
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
Saturday, September 24, 2005
Good reading: Once upon a time Bush, Delay & more said that VICTORY= AN EXIT STRATEGY
"Victory means exit strategy,"
John Nichols
Fri Sep 23,11:20 PM ET
The Nation -- It's anti-war quiz time.
Who made the following statement:
"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now."
A.) Cindy Sheehan?
B.) Phil Donahue?
C.) Michael Moore?
D.) A prominent politician who was not afraid to dissent in a time of war.
Answer: D.) A prominent politician who was not afraid to dissent in a time of war.
Defenders of the occupation of Iraq will, before the weekend is done, have some choice words for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are marching and rallying for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from that Middle Eastern nation.
They will pull out all the deliberate misreads of intelligence and paranoid fantasies that were employed by George Bush in his relentless campaign to win support for the invasion of Iraq. But, above all, they will peddle the lie that since the beginning of this misguided war has been their favorite: The suggestion that those who oppose the war are somehow harming the troops.
A marketing campaign, launched shortly after the war began and continued to this day, has sought to link support for the men and women serving in this country's military forces with support for even the most foolhardy and dangerous of the president's policies. There are even bumper stickers that declare: "Support President Bush and the Troops."
But this is just political gamesmanship, nothing more.
How do we know?
Because House Majority Leader Tom DeLay tells us so.
Back in 1999, after then-President Bill Clinton had ordered U.S. forces to begin a massive bombing campaign and missile strikes against Yugoslavia, the House of Representatives considered a resolution supporting the mission. The leading opponent of the resolution was DeLay, who dismissed the notion that opposing the war was in any way an affront to the troops. In a visceral floor statement delivered in March of that year, DeLay declared, "Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly. We must stop giving the appearance that our foreign policy is formulated by the Unabomber." As the war progressed, DeLay condemned "(President Clinton's) war," and grumbled in April, 1999, that, "There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today."
To those who dared suggest that such aggressive language might be dispiriting to the troops who were engaged in the mission, DeLay told USA Today, "It's very simple. The president is not supported by the House, and the military is supported by the House."
DeLay's sentiments were echoed in the Senate by Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, who explained that, "My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."
DeLay and Lott has allies in the media who were, if anything, even more passionate in their criticism of the war. Anticipating the current comments of Cindy Sheehan and other family members who have lost loved ones in Iraq, they framed their anti-war arguments as a plea to save the lives of U.S. troops who had been put in harm's way as part of a fool's mission. Sean Hannity growled into his Fox New microphone about how supporters of the war should be forced to: "Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life." Hannity was an "out now" man: "No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it," he argued. Hannity's fellow peacenik, conservative commentator Tony Snow, even went so far as to make quagmire comparisons, suggesting on a March 24, 1999, Fox program: "You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."
The commander-in-chief's critics found an ally in a candidate in the 2000 contest to replace Clinton. Sounding an awfully lot like U.S. Sen Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, who in August suggested that it was time to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Texas Governor George W. Bush told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on June 5, 1999: "I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long (U.S. troops) will be involved and when they will be withdrawn."
What about "stay the course"?
No way, said Bush the candidate. "Victory means exit strategy," he told the Houston Chronicle on April 9, 1999, "and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
Critics of this weekend's anti-war marchers will surely dust off the claim that the protesters are merely recycling the slogans of the 1960s. Fair enough. No more: "Make Love, Not War." Instead, why not recycle an anti-war slogan from the 1990s? Something catchy, like: "Victory means exit strategy." And while they're at it, foes of the Iraq occupation might want to recycle some of the better rhetoric of that decade, like the line: "I cannot support a failed foreign policy." Just be sure to credit the prominent politician who was not afraid to dissent in a time of war -- even if it meant criticizing the commander-in-chief: Tom DeLay.
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
John Nichols
Fri Sep 23,11:20 PM ET
The Nation -- It's anti-war quiz time.
Who made the following statement:
"I cannot support a failed foreign policy. History teaches us that it is often easier to make war than peace. This administration is just learning that lesson right now."
A.) Cindy Sheehan?
B.) Phil Donahue?
C.) Michael Moore?
D.) A prominent politician who was not afraid to dissent in a time of war.
Answer: D.) A prominent politician who was not afraid to dissent in a time of war.
Defenders of the occupation of Iraq will, before the weekend is done, have some choice words for the hundreds of thousands of Americans who are marching and rallying for the withdrawal of U.S. forces from that Middle Eastern nation.
They will pull out all the deliberate misreads of intelligence and paranoid fantasies that were employed by George Bush in his relentless campaign to win support for the invasion of Iraq. But, above all, they will peddle the lie that since the beginning of this misguided war has been their favorite: The suggestion that those who oppose the war are somehow harming the troops.
A marketing campaign, launched shortly after the war began and continued to this day, has sought to link support for the men and women serving in this country's military forces with support for even the most foolhardy and dangerous of the president's policies. There are even bumper stickers that declare: "Support President Bush and the Troops."
But this is just political gamesmanship, nothing more.
How do we know?
Because House Majority Leader Tom DeLay tells us so.
Back in 1999, after then-President Bill Clinton had ordered U.S. forces to begin a massive bombing campaign and missile strikes against Yugoslavia, the House of Representatives considered a resolution supporting the mission. The leading opponent of the resolution was DeLay, who dismissed the notion that opposing the war was in any way an affront to the troops. In a visceral floor statement delivered in March of that year, DeLay declared, "Bombing a sovereign nation for ill-defined reasons with vague objectives undermines the American stature in the world. The international respect and trust for America has diminished every time we casually let the bombs fly. We must stop giving the appearance that our foreign policy is formulated by the Unabomber." As the war progressed, DeLay condemned "(President Clinton's) war," and grumbled in April, 1999, that, "There are no clarified rules of engagement. There is no timetable. There is no legitimate definition of victory. There is no contingency plan for mission creep. There is no clear funding program. There is no agenda to bolster our overextended military. There is no explanation defining what vital national interests are at stake. There was no strategic plan for war when the President started this thing, and there still is no plan today."
To those who dared suggest that such aggressive language might be dispiriting to the troops who were engaged in the mission, DeLay told USA Today, "It's very simple. The president is not supported by the House, and the military is supported by the House."
DeLay's sentiments were echoed in the Senate by Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Mississippi, who explained that, "My job as majority leader is be supportive of our troops, try to have input as decisions are made and to look at those decisions after they're made ... not to march in lock step with everything the president decides to do."
DeLay and Lott has allies in the media who were, if anything, even more passionate in their criticism of the war. Anticipating the current comments of Cindy Sheehan and other family members who have lost loved ones in Iraq, they framed their anti-war arguments as a plea to save the lives of U.S. troops who had been put in harm's way as part of a fool's mission. Sean Hannity growled into his Fox New microphone about how supporters of the war should be forced to: "Explain to the mothers and fathers of American servicemen that may come home in body bags why their son or daughter have to give up their life." Hannity was an "out now" man: "No goal, no objective, not until we have those things and a compelling case is made, then I say, back out of it, because innocent people are going to die for nothing. That's why I'm against it," he argued. Hannity's fellow peacenik, conservative commentator Tony Snow, even went so far as to make quagmire comparisons, suggesting on a March 24, 1999, Fox program: "You think Vietnam was bad? Vietnam is nothing next to Kosovo."
The commander-in-chief's critics found an ally in a candidate in the 2000 contest to replace Clinton. Sounding an awfully lot like U.S. Sen Russ Feingold, D-Wisconsin, who in August suggested that it was time to set a timetable for withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, Texas Governor George W. Bush told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer on June 5, 1999: "I think it's also important for the president to lay out a timetable as to how long (U.S. troops) will be involved and when they will be withdrawn."
What about "stay the course"?
No way, said Bush the candidate. "Victory means exit strategy," he told the Houston Chronicle on April 9, 1999, "and it's important for the president to explain to us what the exit strategy is."
Critics of this weekend's anti-war marchers will surely dust off the claim that the protesters are merely recycling the slogans of the 1960s. Fair enough. No more: "Make Love, Not War." Instead, why not recycle an anti-war slogan from the 1990s? Something catchy, like: "Victory means exit strategy." And while they're at it, foes of the Iraq occupation might want to recycle some of the better rhetoric of that decade, like the line: "I cannot support a failed foreign policy." Just be sure to credit the prominent politician who was not afraid to dissent in a time of war -- even if it meant criticizing the commander-in-chief: Tom DeLay.
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
Thursday, September 22, 2005
Now Bush & Co. have nothing else to do with the FBI & our tax dollars but to try & erase PORN, GOOD LUCK IDIOTS!
Arianna Huffington: Bush's War on Porn: Perverted Priorities Run Amuck
Arianna Huffington
Thu Sep 22
For those easily offended by sexually explicit language, New York's 92nd Street Y was ground zero on Tuesday night. I was part of a panel put on by the Creative Coalition to discuss The Aristocrats, the First Amendment, and the curious chasm between what Americans find offensive and what they don't.
Also on the panel were Aristocrats director Paul Provenza, the film's masterfully vulgar Bob Saget, South Park co-creator Matt Stone, Motion Picture Association of America head Dan Glickman (gallantly defending the movie rating system), and our moderator, Lawrence O'Donnell.
My contribution to the debate was a head-scratching bewilderment over the fact that more people are upset by blatantly sexual language than by the blatantly fraudulent language we're constantly fed by our leaders. Make a joke about people getting it on and the public finger-waggers come pouring out of the woodwork. But let President Bush say that Brownie is doing "a heck of a job" or Dick Cheney say that the insurgency is in its "last throes" and the morality cops on the right don't raise an eyebrow. Yet that's the real obscenity.
Don't forget, it took less than two weeks after the unveiling of Janet Jackson's right boob at the Super Bowl before the president's congressional cronies were holding hearings on the matter -- but it took 14 months before Bush caved to public pressure and allowed the 9/11 Commission to be formed. Again, you pick the real obscenity.
The latest example of misplaced priorities can be found in the administration's re-energized War on Porn, which includes the formation of an FBI squad exclusively devoted to cracking down on sexually explicit material involving consenting adults.
That's right, with the war on terror in full swing, our Commander-in-Chief is going to have a group of G-men doing nothing but working the porn beat when they could be tracking down -- oh, I don't know -- terrorist sleeper cells. Good to know he's got his eye on the prize.
I don't know about you, but I certainly feel safer knowing the feds are going to be keeping close tabs on Jenna Jameson and Peter North. Let's just hope the next round of al-Qaeda terrorists looking to attack the U.S. all have huge penises, an ample supply of Viagra, and enjoy having sex with silicone-enhanced babes.
This blast from our blue-nosed past has been labeled "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Along with the FBI's anti-porn squad, the AG has also created an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in the Justice Department that will take prosecutors currently working on organized crime and racketeering, money laundering and computer crime cases, and have them shift their focus to the War on Porn. Real nice use of manpower, Alberto!
Of course, getting obscenity convictions in today's climate -- where Jenna Jameson's How to Make Love Like a Porn Star is a Times best-seller and GM, Rupert Murdoch, Time Warner, and all the big hotel chains are making a mint off sexually explicit movies -- won't be as easy as it was in Ed Meese's day.
The indecency of spending precious resources on making it harder to watch the Paris Hilton sexcapade has not been lost on federal and local law enforcement officials, who have reacted to the anti-porn push with a mixture of scorn and anger. The WaPo quotes an experienced national security analyst who calls the culture war initiative "a running joke for us," while the Daily Business Review cites high-level Justice Department sources saying that prosecutors are being assigned porn cases over their objections.
On the other hand, the president's born-again base is getting turned on by the initiative. For instance, the Family Research Council said it gave them "a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general." Hmm, could this be the political equivalent of a Cialis Rx, giving Gonzales the boost he needs to become Bush's next Supreme Court nominee?
For the moral relativists in the Bush administration, the definition of sin seems to depend on whether the sinner can further their political purposes.
So Justin exposing Janet's boob is a sin, but White House staffers exposing Valerie Plame is a win. Profiting from porn is a sin, but Halliburton's wartime profiteering is a win. Two men getting hitched is a sin, but Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff playing with each other's clubs is a win. And telling students condoms can prevent STDs is a sin, but lying about WMDs is a win.
I'm ready to see The Aristocrats again.
Copyright © 2005 HuffingtonPost.com. All rights reserved.
Arianna Huffington
Thu Sep 22
For those easily offended by sexually explicit language, New York's 92nd Street Y was ground zero on Tuesday night. I was part of a panel put on by the Creative Coalition to discuss The Aristocrats, the First Amendment, and the curious chasm between what Americans find offensive and what they don't.
Also on the panel were Aristocrats director Paul Provenza, the film's masterfully vulgar Bob Saget, South Park co-creator Matt Stone, Motion Picture Association of America head Dan Glickman (gallantly defending the movie rating system), and our moderator, Lawrence O'Donnell.
My contribution to the debate was a head-scratching bewilderment over the fact that more people are upset by blatantly sexual language than by the blatantly fraudulent language we're constantly fed by our leaders. Make a joke about people getting it on and the public finger-waggers come pouring out of the woodwork. But let President Bush say that Brownie is doing "a heck of a job" or Dick Cheney say that the insurgency is in its "last throes" and the morality cops on the right don't raise an eyebrow. Yet that's the real obscenity.
Don't forget, it took less than two weeks after the unveiling of Janet Jackson's right boob at the Super Bowl before the president's congressional cronies were holding hearings on the matter -- but it took 14 months before Bush caved to public pressure and allowed the 9/11 Commission to be formed. Again, you pick the real obscenity.
The latest example of misplaced priorities can be found in the administration's re-energized War on Porn, which includes the formation of an FBI squad exclusively devoted to cracking down on sexually explicit material involving consenting adults.
That's right, with the war on terror in full swing, our Commander-in-Chief is going to have a group of G-men doing nothing but working the porn beat when they could be tracking down -- oh, I don't know -- terrorist sleeper cells. Good to know he's got his eye on the prize.
I don't know about you, but I certainly feel safer knowing the feds are going to be keeping close tabs on Jenna Jameson and Peter North. Let's just hope the next round of al-Qaeda terrorists looking to attack the U.S. all have huge penises, an ample supply of Viagra, and enjoy having sex with silicone-enhanced babes.
This blast from our blue-nosed past has been labeled "one of the top priorities" of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Along with the FBI's anti-porn squad, the AG has also created an Obscenity Prosecution Task Force in the Justice Department that will take prosecutors currently working on organized crime and racketeering, money laundering and computer crime cases, and have them shift their focus to the War on Porn. Real nice use of manpower, Alberto!
Of course, getting obscenity convictions in today's climate -- where Jenna Jameson's How to Make Love Like a Porn Star is a Times best-seller and GM, Rupert Murdoch, Time Warner, and all the big hotel chains are making a mint off sexually explicit movies -- won't be as easy as it was in Ed Meese's day.
The indecency of spending precious resources on making it harder to watch the Paris Hilton sexcapade has not been lost on federal and local law enforcement officials, who have reacted to the anti-porn push with a mixture of scorn and anger. The WaPo quotes an experienced national security analyst who calls the culture war initiative "a running joke for us," while the Daily Business Review cites high-level Justice Department sources saying that prosecutors are being assigned porn cases over their objections.
On the other hand, the president's born-again base is getting turned on by the initiative. For instance, the Family Research Council said it gave them "a growing sense of confidence in our new attorney general." Hmm, could this be the political equivalent of a Cialis Rx, giving Gonzales the boost he needs to become Bush's next Supreme Court nominee?
For the moral relativists in the Bush administration, the definition of sin seems to depend on whether the sinner can further their political purposes.
So Justin exposing Janet's boob is a sin, but White House staffers exposing Valerie Plame is a win. Profiting from porn is a sin, but Halliburton's wartime profiteering is a win. Two men getting hitched is a sin, but Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff playing with each other's clubs is a win. And telling students condoms can prevent STDs is a sin, but lying about WMDs is a win.
I'm ready to see The Aristocrats again.
Copyright © 2005 HuffingtonPost.com. All rights reserved.
Bill Clinton Turns To Leading Statesman
Bill Clinton, Beyond the White House
By Tina Brown
The Washington Post
Thursday, September 22, 2005
The big surprise of Bill Clinton's Global Initiative conference at the Sheraton Hotel in New York last week was how strangely calming it was. You would expect to emerge begging for mercy from a three-day talkathon on the world's most intractable problems emceed by history's most garrulous president -- especially if you were a survivor of one of his book tour gigs.
To be sure, Clinton, the big intellectual showoff, had never been less than brilliant on his feet, but he never knew when to stop. And all that promiscuous lateral thinking ended up sucking the air out of the room. We got so tired of his lack of discipline that by 2000 we thought we were ready for a presidency that operated by assertion. Five years later we see what that's brought.
Maybe it's the effect of his brush with death. He's pared himself down to the essentials, symbolized by the slimmed physique and the paternal reading glasses. His style was always inclusive even when he was on the attack. But now you feel he's shed the psychic baggage of the impeachment years and with it the toxic rock and roll of his constantly roiling reputation.
The new, honed Clinton on the rostrum made sure that any earnest hand-wringing grappled with the raw brutality of irreconcilables. He even saw to it that the panels he moderated actually ran on time.
Every session began with a stroll to the podium to announce a big-bucks pledge for some imaginative initiative ($1.25 billion by the conference's close).
"Now here's something else in my hot little hand," the former prez would say, dangling his glasses, with his best "doggone" smile. "My old friend Carlos Slim Helu here has just said he's willing to develop a cell phone network for Gaza and link it to Jordan's network! Why, thanks, Carlos. Come up here and be recognized." A big hand for Carlos, who turns out to be the richest man in Latin America.
This wasn't just the usual FOBs from Park Avenue and Hollywood (though there were plenty of those cruising around). With so many world policy chiefs present -- Tony Blair, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Condi Rice, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, even Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams, for heaven's sake -- the conference was a tour d'horizon of Clinton's life, and head, since the White House. (So that's what he's been doing on all those far-flung speaking gigs -- scarfing down public policy from the global minibar.) No one has figured out before how to leverage a post-presidency like this. Jimmy Carter's version has been about the power of example. Clinton's is about the power of power. He's been everywhere, met everyone (my favorite Clintonian aside: "As someone who went to Nigeria to plead for the life of a woman condemned under sharia law, I thank you for doing this."). Now he's putting that Rolodex to work for something bigger than the next campaign.
Welcome to Planet Clinton, an interconnected world that's a solar system and a wormhole away from Bush country. Here Shimon Peres and Oprah Winfrey are just members of the audience. Barbra Streisand looks like any peppy matron taking an extension course. Brad Pitt's staccato hair and Angelina Jolie's duvet lips (sighted in the audience of Jeffrey Sachs's poverty panel) are reduced to a responsible human scale. Wandering out of a kitchen exit I found myself in a milling informal think tank with the former president expounding to the two guys who founded Google and a sprightly "Planet of the Apes" figure who turned out to be Mick Jagger.
Unlike Davos and other high-octane gabfests, however, Clinton's conference wasn't just about elephant bumping. For every VIP there was some earnest activist or intellectual who has caught his eye.
Clinton seems to have found his role as facilitator-in-chief, urging us to give up our deadly national passivity and start thinking things through for ourselves. Commandeering the role of government through civic action suddenly feels like a very empowering notion -- the alternative being to find oneself stranded in a flood waving a shirt from a rooftop.
It's an indicator of how the mood has changed that it was Al Gore who brought the house down. His Category 5 tirade on the impending calamity of unaddressed climate change electrified the lunch crowd. Who knew this Gore existed?
The answer is he didn't. Like Clinton, Gore has been liberated by cauterized rage at what has happened to the country in the past five years.
The White House doesn't seem to realize it yet, but we are entering a post-spin era in public life. The shift has long been underway in the business world, propelled by the Enron catastrophe and the collapse of the dot-com bubble. Process, not perception, is king in boardrooms today. After so much corporate malfeasance it all got too dire to put up with fake CEOs anymore.
Now after the Iraq debacle, the ballooning deficit and the aftermath of Katrina, Americans are pining for grounded leaders in public office, too -- leaders who have moral conviction, yes, but also the gnarly, dexterous ability to think things through.
The irony is that no one would have believed that Clinton -- the king of spin, who went out under a cloud of indecency five years ago -- could climb back to such credibility. Monica is fading and he's backlit now by his disciplined handling of the economy, the unsought comparisons of how well FEMA used to perform under his watch and the enlightened nature of his global activism.
A weird reputational exchange has taken place between Clinton and President Bush. After so much dishonest reasoning it's the vaunted "CEO president" who begins to look like the callow, fumbling adolescent. And it's the sexually incontinent, burger-guzzling, late-night-gabbing Bubba who is emerging as a great CEO of America.
"We are so arrogant because we are obsessed with the present," he told his guests at the conference's end. "I've reached an age now where it doesn't matter whatever happens to me. I just don't want anybody to die before their time anymore."
On Clinton's face these days is a look of wry, judicious knowingness. It's the look of political wisdom, and it imparted to his conference's departing crowd something like serenity.
2005Tina Brown
By Tina Brown
The Washington Post
Thursday, September 22, 2005
The big surprise of Bill Clinton's Global Initiative conference at the Sheraton Hotel in New York last week was how strangely calming it was. You would expect to emerge begging for mercy from a three-day talkathon on the world's most intractable problems emceed by history's most garrulous president -- especially if you were a survivor of one of his book tour gigs.
To be sure, Clinton, the big intellectual showoff, had never been less than brilliant on his feet, but he never knew when to stop. And all that promiscuous lateral thinking ended up sucking the air out of the room. We got so tired of his lack of discipline that by 2000 we thought we were ready for a presidency that operated by assertion. Five years later we see what that's brought.
Maybe it's the effect of his brush with death. He's pared himself down to the essentials, symbolized by the slimmed physique and the paternal reading glasses. His style was always inclusive even when he was on the attack. But now you feel he's shed the psychic baggage of the impeachment years and with it the toxic rock and roll of his constantly roiling reputation.
The new, honed Clinton on the rostrum made sure that any earnest hand-wringing grappled with the raw brutality of irreconcilables. He even saw to it that the panels he moderated actually ran on time.
Every session began with a stroll to the podium to announce a big-bucks pledge for some imaginative initiative ($1.25 billion by the conference's close).
"Now here's something else in my hot little hand," the former prez would say, dangling his glasses, with his best "doggone" smile. "My old friend Carlos Slim Helu here has just said he's willing to develop a cell phone network for Gaza and link it to Jordan's network! Why, thanks, Carlos. Come up here and be recognized." A big hand for Carlos, who turns out to be the richest man in Latin America.
This wasn't just the usual FOBs from Park Avenue and Hollywood (though there were plenty of those cruising around). With so many world policy chiefs present -- Tony Blair, King Abdullah II of Jordan, Condi Rice, President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa, even Sinn Fein's Gerry Adams, for heaven's sake -- the conference was a tour d'horizon of Clinton's life, and head, since the White House. (So that's what he's been doing on all those far-flung speaking gigs -- scarfing down public policy from the global minibar.) No one has figured out before how to leverage a post-presidency like this. Jimmy Carter's version has been about the power of example. Clinton's is about the power of power. He's been everywhere, met everyone (my favorite Clintonian aside: "As someone who went to Nigeria to plead for the life of a woman condemned under sharia law, I thank you for doing this."). Now he's putting that Rolodex to work for something bigger than the next campaign.
Welcome to Planet Clinton, an interconnected world that's a solar system and a wormhole away from Bush country. Here Shimon Peres and Oprah Winfrey are just members of the audience. Barbra Streisand looks like any peppy matron taking an extension course. Brad Pitt's staccato hair and Angelina Jolie's duvet lips (sighted in the audience of Jeffrey Sachs's poverty panel) are reduced to a responsible human scale. Wandering out of a kitchen exit I found myself in a milling informal think tank with the former president expounding to the two guys who founded Google and a sprightly "Planet of the Apes" figure who turned out to be Mick Jagger.
Unlike Davos and other high-octane gabfests, however, Clinton's conference wasn't just about elephant bumping. For every VIP there was some earnest activist or intellectual who has caught his eye.
Clinton seems to have found his role as facilitator-in-chief, urging us to give up our deadly national passivity and start thinking things through for ourselves. Commandeering the role of government through civic action suddenly feels like a very empowering notion -- the alternative being to find oneself stranded in a flood waving a shirt from a rooftop.
It's an indicator of how the mood has changed that it was Al Gore who brought the house down. His Category 5 tirade on the impending calamity of unaddressed climate change electrified the lunch crowd. Who knew this Gore existed?
The answer is he didn't. Like Clinton, Gore has been liberated by cauterized rage at what has happened to the country in the past five years.
The White House doesn't seem to realize it yet, but we are entering a post-spin era in public life. The shift has long been underway in the business world, propelled by the Enron catastrophe and the collapse of the dot-com bubble. Process, not perception, is king in boardrooms today. After so much corporate malfeasance it all got too dire to put up with fake CEOs anymore.
Now after the Iraq debacle, the ballooning deficit and the aftermath of Katrina, Americans are pining for grounded leaders in public office, too -- leaders who have moral conviction, yes, but also the gnarly, dexterous ability to think things through.
The irony is that no one would have believed that Clinton -- the king of spin, who went out under a cloud of indecency five years ago -- could climb back to such credibility. Monica is fading and he's backlit now by his disciplined handling of the economy, the unsought comparisons of how well FEMA used to perform under his watch and the enlightened nature of his global activism.
A weird reputational exchange has taken place between Clinton and President Bush. After so much dishonest reasoning it's the vaunted "CEO president" who begins to look like the callow, fumbling adolescent. And it's the sexually incontinent, burger-guzzling, late-night-gabbing Bubba who is emerging as a great CEO of America.
"We are so arrogant because we are obsessed with the present," he told his guests at the conference's end. "I've reached an age now where it doesn't matter whatever happens to me. I just don't want anybody to die before their time anymore."
On Clinton's face these days is a look of wry, judicious knowingness. It's the look of political wisdom, and it imparted to his conference's departing crowd something like serenity.
2005Tina Brown
Wednesday, August 31, 2005
magnolia grande
this has been a work in progress, I liked the photo & wanted to add digital effects that would compliment it
magnolia fordiana
this has been a work in progress, I liked the photo & wanted to add digital effects that would compliment it
Wednesday, August 24, 2005
Gary Hart for President!
Gary Hart seems to make more sense than any politician I can think of. His latest writings show a true leadership ability & a clear knowledge of the state of the USA. Hart in '08!
The latest article:
washingtonpost.com
Who Will Say 'No More'?
By Gary Hart
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; A15
"Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on," warned an anti-Vietnam war song those many years ago. The McGovern presidential campaign, in those days, which I know something about, is widely viewed as a cause for the decline of the Democratic Party, a gateway through which a new conservative era entered.
Like the cat that jumped on a hot stove and thereafter wouldn't jump on any stove, hot or cold, today's Democratic leaders didn't want to make that mistake again. Many supported the Iraq war resolution and -- as the Big Muddy is rising yet again -- now find themselves tongue-tied or trying to trump a war president by calling for deployment of more troops. Thus does good money follow bad and bad politics get even worse.
History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.
But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."
To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."
Further, this leader should say: "I am now going to give a series of speeches across the country documenting how the administration did not tell the American people the truth, why this war is making our country more vulnerable and less secure, how we can drive a wedge between Iraqi insurgents and outside jihadists and leave Iraq for the Iraqis to govern, how we can repair the damage done to our military, what we and our allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp, and what dramatic steps we must take to become energy-secure and prevent Gulf Wars III, IV and so on."
At stake is not just the leadership of the Democratic Party and the nation but our nation's honor, our nobility and our principles. Franklin D. Roosevelt established a national community based on social justice. Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism. John F. Kennedy recaptured the ideal of the republic and the sense of civic duty. To expect to enter this pantheon, the next Democratic leader must now undertake all three tasks.
But this cannot be done while the water is rising in the Big Muddy of the Middle East. No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.
The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.
Who now has the courage to say this?
The writer is a former Democratic senator from Colorado.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
The latest article:
washingtonpost.com
Who Will Say 'No More'?
By Gary Hart
Wednesday, August 24, 2005; A15
"Waist deep in the Big Muddy and the big fool said to push on," warned an anti-Vietnam war song those many years ago. The McGovern presidential campaign, in those days, which I know something about, is widely viewed as a cause for the decline of the Democratic Party, a gateway through which a new conservative era entered.
Like the cat that jumped on a hot stove and thereafter wouldn't jump on any stove, hot or cold, today's Democratic leaders didn't want to make that mistake again. Many supported the Iraq war resolution and -- as the Big Muddy is rising yet again -- now find themselves tongue-tied or trying to trump a war president by calling for deployment of more troops. Thus does good money follow bad and bad politics get even worse.
History will deal with George W. Bush and the neoconservatives who misled a mighty nation into a flawed war that is draining the finest military in the world, diverting Guard and reserve forces that should be on the front line of homeland defense, shredding international alliances that prevailed in two world wars and the Cold War, accumulating staggering deficits, misdirecting revenue from education to rebuilding Iraqi buildings we've blown up, and weakening America's national security.
But what will history say about an opposition party that stands silent while all this goes on? My generation of Democrats jumped on the hot stove of Vietnam and now, with its members in positions of responsibility, it is afraid of jumping on any political stove. In their leaders, the American people look for strength, determination and self-confidence, but they also look for courage, wisdom, judgment and, in times of moral crisis, the willingness to say: "I was wrong."
To stay silent during such a crisis, and particularly to harbor the thought that the administration's misfortune is the Democrats' fortune, is cowardly. In 2008 I want a leader who is willing now to say: "I made a mistake, and for my mistake I am going to Iraq and accompanying the next planeload of flag-draped coffins back to Dover Air Force Base. And I am going to ask forgiveness for my mistake from every parent who will talk to me."
Further, this leader should say: "I am now going to give a series of speeches across the country documenting how the administration did not tell the American people the truth, why this war is making our country more vulnerable and less secure, how we can drive a wedge between Iraqi insurgents and outside jihadists and leave Iraq for the Iraqis to govern, how we can repair the damage done to our military, what we and our allies can do to dry up the jihadists' swamp, and what dramatic steps we must take to become energy-secure and prevent Gulf Wars III, IV and so on."
At stake is not just the leadership of the Democratic Party and the nation but our nation's honor, our nobility and our principles. Franklin D. Roosevelt established a national community based on social justice. Harry Truman created international networks that repaired the damage of World War II and defeated communism. John F. Kennedy recaptured the ideal of the republic and the sense of civic duty. To expect to enter this pantheon, the next Democratic leader must now undertake all three tasks.
But this cannot be done while the water is rising in the Big Muddy of the Middle East. No Democrat, especially one now silent, should expect election by default. The public trust must be earned, and speaking clearly, candidly and forcefully now about the mess in Iraq is the place to begin.
The real defeatists today are not those protesting the war. The real defeatists are those in power and their silent supporters in the opposition party who are reduced to repeating "Stay the course" even when the course, whatever it now is, is light years away from the one originally undertaken. The truth is we're way off course. We've stumbled into a hornet's nest. We've weakened ourselves at home and in the world. We are less secure today than before this war began.
Who now has the courage to say this?
The writer is a former Democratic senator from Colorado.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Tuesday, August 23, 2005
A purrfect assessment of the Iraq war
washingtonpost.com
A Purrfect Storm
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; A15
What shall we call this mangy, ill-tempered cat that's just been let out of the bag? Not "the V-word" -- that would be a hopeless cliche. Maybe just "the Analogy," capitalizing the word to indicate the beast's unique status and power. The Analogy is a harbinger -- the same kind of omen that Creedence Clearwater Revival once called "a bad moon risin' " -- and now it's on the prowl. No presidential misadventure is safe.
I'm talking about the Vietnam Analogy, which Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel loosed on Sunday. "We are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar, dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam," Hagel said on ABC's "This Week." "The longer we stay, the more problems we are going to have."
Hagel is hardly the first person to use the Analogy, but coming from such a prominent Republican -- one who happens to be both a decorated Vietnam War veteran and a possible presidential candidate in 2008 -- Hagel's words serve as an incantation. Hagel has put the Analogy in play, and that's nothing but bad news for George W. Bush and his policy in Iraq.
Which is a good thing, since the president's policy amounts to the belief that if he concentrates really hard -- and stays in shape by regularly doing the Tour de Crawford on his mountain bike -- he'll be able to summon a miracle.
The thing is, he'll need more than one. Let's review the state of play:
Iraq is beset with an insurgency that defies Bush administration attempts to belittle its extent or staying power. Vice President Cheney's smug assertion that the violence was in its "last throes" has become a morbid joke. The insurgents -- mostly Sunni Muslims, Baathist die-hards and foreign jihadists -- are getting more effective at their mayhem, not less. Their roadside bombs are deadlier than ever now that they are somehow getting their hands on higher-quality explosives.
Shiites and Kurds are making progress toward organizing a new Iraq, but it's a far cry from the latter-day Athens envisioned by the neocon architects of the war. It looks as if the new Iraq, or at least the biggest chunk of it, will have an organic relationship with next-door Iran, another charter member of the Axis of Evil. So one result of invading Iraq, which had no weapons of mass destruction, was to drive its Shiite majority closer to Iran, which is doing its best to build a nuclear bomb. Gee, that really worked out.
The new Iraq will also be teeming with terrorists. The nascent Iraqi government is hardly likely to impose order, since 138,000 well-trained and well-equipped American troops can't do the job. The administration never sent enough troops to occupy and pacify the country, but now the U.S. military is stretched so thin that many analysts say the administration will have trouble maintaining the current presence, much less augmenting it.
Sending more troops isn't a real-world option anyway, not with public opinion undergoing a tectonic shift. In a Newsweek poll conducted at the beginning of August, 61 percent of those Americans surveyed disapproved of the way Bush is handling Iraq; when asked whether the Iraq war has made Americans safer from terrorism, 64 percent said no. A full 50 percent said they would not support having "large numbers of U.S. military personnel" in Iraq beyond one more year. Only 26 percent echoed the president's view that U.S. troops should remain "as long as it takes."
We didn't even get any oil out of the deal. Remember how much of the war's cost was going to be repaid by a generous new Athenian-style government from its bountiful oil revenues? Because of the insurgency and the general state of disorganization, the Iraqis can barely keep the oil pumps and ports functioning at a minimal level. How much did you pay the last time you filled up?
The Democratic opposition is in its usual disarray, but even the Democrats can't blow this one -- a Republican president mired in an unpopular war with no end in sight and no real plan for an exit. Republicans are looking nervously at the 2006 midterm elections. Keeping U.S. forces at current levels for four more years, as a top Army official predicted recently, would be "complete folly," Hagel said. "It would bog us down. . . . It won't be four years. We need to be out."
And right outside Bush's ranch, Cindy Sheehan's antiwar protest continues in her absence. It's as if the Analogy were stalking the bike-riding president like a hungry bobcat.
Down, kitty.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
A Purrfect Storm
By Eugene Robinson
Tuesday, August 23, 2005; A15
What shall we call this mangy, ill-tempered cat that's just been let out of the bag? Not "the V-word" -- that would be a hopeless cliche. Maybe just "the Analogy," capitalizing the word to indicate the beast's unique status and power. The Analogy is a harbinger -- the same kind of omen that Creedence Clearwater Revival once called "a bad moon risin' " -- and now it's on the prowl. No presidential misadventure is safe.
I'm talking about the Vietnam Analogy, which Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel loosed on Sunday. "We are locked into a bogged-down problem not unsimilar, dissimilar to where we were in Vietnam," Hagel said on ABC's "This Week." "The longer we stay, the more problems we are going to have."
Hagel is hardly the first person to use the Analogy, but coming from such a prominent Republican -- one who happens to be both a decorated Vietnam War veteran and a possible presidential candidate in 2008 -- Hagel's words serve as an incantation. Hagel has put the Analogy in play, and that's nothing but bad news for George W. Bush and his policy in Iraq.
Which is a good thing, since the president's policy amounts to the belief that if he concentrates really hard -- and stays in shape by regularly doing the Tour de Crawford on his mountain bike -- he'll be able to summon a miracle.
The thing is, he'll need more than one. Let's review the state of play:
Iraq is beset with an insurgency that defies Bush administration attempts to belittle its extent or staying power. Vice President Cheney's smug assertion that the violence was in its "last throes" has become a morbid joke. The insurgents -- mostly Sunni Muslims, Baathist die-hards and foreign jihadists -- are getting more effective at their mayhem, not less. Their roadside bombs are deadlier than ever now that they are somehow getting their hands on higher-quality explosives.
Shiites and Kurds are making progress toward organizing a new Iraq, but it's a far cry from the latter-day Athens envisioned by the neocon architects of the war. It looks as if the new Iraq, or at least the biggest chunk of it, will have an organic relationship with next-door Iran, another charter member of the Axis of Evil. So one result of invading Iraq, which had no weapons of mass destruction, was to drive its Shiite majority closer to Iran, which is doing its best to build a nuclear bomb. Gee, that really worked out.
The new Iraq will also be teeming with terrorists. The nascent Iraqi government is hardly likely to impose order, since 138,000 well-trained and well-equipped American troops can't do the job. The administration never sent enough troops to occupy and pacify the country, but now the U.S. military is stretched so thin that many analysts say the administration will have trouble maintaining the current presence, much less augmenting it.
Sending more troops isn't a real-world option anyway, not with public opinion undergoing a tectonic shift. In a Newsweek poll conducted at the beginning of August, 61 percent of those Americans surveyed disapproved of the way Bush is handling Iraq; when asked whether the Iraq war has made Americans safer from terrorism, 64 percent said no. A full 50 percent said they would not support having "large numbers of U.S. military personnel" in Iraq beyond one more year. Only 26 percent echoed the president's view that U.S. troops should remain "as long as it takes."
We didn't even get any oil out of the deal. Remember how much of the war's cost was going to be repaid by a generous new Athenian-style government from its bountiful oil revenues? Because of the insurgency and the general state of disorganization, the Iraqis can barely keep the oil pumps and ports functioning at a minimal level. How much did you pay the last time you filled up?
The Democratic opposition is in its usual disarray, but even the Democrats can't blow this one -- a Republican president mired in an unpopular war with no end in sight and no real plan for an exit. Republicans are looking nervously at the 2006 midterm elections. Keeping U.S. forces at current levels for four more years, as a top Army official predicted recently, would be "complete folly," Hagel said. "It would bog us down. . . . It won't be four years. We need to be out."
And right outside Bush's ranch, Cindy Sheehan's antiwar protest continues in her absence. It's as if the Analogy were stalking the bike-riding president like a hungry bobcat.
Down, kitty.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
THIS from a supposed religious leader!!!!
August 23. 2005
Televangelist Calls for Venezuelan President's Assassination
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:20 a.m. ET
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming ''a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.''
''We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,'' Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's ''The 700 Club.''
''We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator,'' he continued. ''It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.''
Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.
''You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,'' Robertson said. ''It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop.''
Robertson, 75, founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a former presidential candidate, accused the United States of failing to act when Chavez was briefly overthrown in 2002.
Electronic pages and a message to a Robertson spokeswoman were not immediately returned Monday evening.
Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier of oil to the United States. The CIA estimates that U.S. markets absorb almost 59 percent of Venezuela's total exports.
Venezuela's government has demanded in the past that the United States crack down on Cuban and Venezuelan ''terrorists'' in Florida who they say are conspiring against Chavez.
Robertson has made controversial statements in the past. In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to ''kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.''
Televangelist Calls for Venezuelan President's Assassination
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Filed at 6:20 a.m. ET
VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson suggested on-air that American operatives assassinate Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to stop his country from becoming ''a launching pad for communist infiltration and Muslim extremism.''
''We have the ability to take him out, and I think the time has come that we exercise that ability,'' Robertson said Monday on the Christian Broadcast Network's ''The 700 Club.''
''We don't need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator,'' he continued. ''It's a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.''
Chavez has emerged as one of the most outspoken critics of President Bush, accusing the United States of conspiring to topple his government and possibly backing plots to assassinate him. U.S. officials have called the accusations ridiculous.
''You know, I don't know about this doctrine of assassination, but if he thinks we're trying to assassinate him, I think that we really ought to go ahead and do it,'' Robertson said. ''It's a whole lot cheaper than starting a war ... and I don't think any oil shipments will stop.''
Robertson, 75, founder of the Christian Coalition of America and a former presidential candidate, accused the United States of failing to act when Chavez was briefly overthrown in 2002.
Electronic pages and a message to a Robertson spokeswoman were not immediately returned Monday evening.
Venezuela is the fifth largest oil exporter and a major supplier of oil to the United States. The CIA estimates that U.S. markets absorb almost 59 percent of Venezuela's total exports.
Venezuela's government has demanded in the past that the United States crack down on Cuban and Venezuelan ''terrorists'' in Florida who they say are conspiring against Chavez.
Robertson has made controversial statements in the past. In October 2003, he suggested that the State Department be blown up with a nuclear device. He has also said that feminism encourages women to ''kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.''
Thursday, August 18, 2005
Gary Hart offers a succinct, excellent & true editorial
Gary Hart: Moral Authority
The Huffington Post
Gary HartThu Aug 18
In the late 1980s the most respected leaders in the world--Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa (and earlier Martin Luther King)--all had one thing in common. They had spent time in jail. More important, they had spent time in jail for their beliefs, beliefs that threatened the power structures of their countries. It seems strange that many Americans idolize protesters in other countries and ridicule them at home.
Equally strange is the tendency of conservatives to revere the protesters of early times--Tom Paine, the Bostonians who painted themselves like Indians and threw tea in Boston harbor, even the abolitionist John Brown--and vilify those who protest today. Someone once said that conservatives are the worshipers of dead radicals.
Nevertheless, there is a rich history of protest in America, by laborers, by women, by war opponents, by environmentalists, by African Americans, and in almost every case the protests changed American ideas and policies for the better. Protesters make us think, that is those inclined to think. They stir things up, they rock the boat, they challenge the status quo and the conventional wisdom. They force us to look at reality often in painful ways. Protesters sometimes get themselves thrown in jail.
It is a great wonder that war opponents, including increasing numbers of Democratic "leaders," are so silent. Some of the most visible simply believe the invasion of Iraq, which they endorsed, has been mismanaged, that more troops (not fewer) are needed! Even today, they seem untroubled by the false statements and manipulated intelligence of the administration. The most difficult political statement in the English language is: I made a mistake.
Speaking only for myself, I will find it very difficult to support any Democratic "leader" who remains silent at this critical moment but who wants to be president in 2008. There are defining moments in political careers and in national life where true character is revealed, where moral authority is achieved, or forfeited. Recall Dante's well-known warning that a special place is reserved in hell for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserve their neutrality.
There are those who earn their moral authority the hard way, by going to jail or, like Cindy Sheehan, by sacricing a loved one. Such people do not merely earn an audience with the president.
Such people deserve an accounting.
Copyright © 2005 HuffingtonPost.com.
The Huffington Post
Gary HartThu Aug 18
In the late 1980s the most respected leaders in the world--Nelson Mandela, Vaclav Havel, Lech Walesa (and earlier Martin Luther King)--all had one thing in common. They had spent time in jail. More important, they had spent time in jail for their beliefs, beliefs that threatened the power structures of their countries. It seems strange that many Americans idolize protesters in other countries and ridicule them at home.
Equally strange is the tendency of conservatives to revere the protesters of early times--Tom Paine, the Bostonians who painted themselves like Indians and threw tea in Boston harbor, even the abolitionist John Brown--and vilify those who protest today. Someone once said that conservatives are the worshipers of dead radicals.
Nevertheless, there is a rich history of protest in America, by laborers, by women, by war opponents, by environmentalists, by African Americans, and in almost every case the protests changed American ideas and policies for the better. Protesters make us think, that is those inclined to think. They stir things up, they rock the boat, they challenge the status quo and the conventional wisdom. They force us to look at reality often in painful ways. Protesters sometimes get themselves thrown in jail.
It is a great wonder that war opponents, including increasing numbers of Democratic "leaders," are so silent. Some of the most visible simply believe the invasion of Iraq, which they endorsed, has been mismanaged, that more troops (not fewer) are needed! Even today, they seem untroubled by the false statements and manipulated intelligence of the administration. The most difficult political statement in the English language is: I made a mistake.
Speaking only for myself, I will find it very difficult to support any Democratic "leader" who remains silent at this critical moment but who wants to be president in 2008. There are defining moments in political careers and in national life where true character is revealed, where moral authority is achieved, or forfeited. Recall Dante's well-known warning that a special place is reserved in hell for those who, in times of moral crisis, preserve their neutrality.
There are those who earn their moral authority the hard way, by going to jail or, like Cindy Sheehan, by sacricing a loved one. Such people do not merely earn an audience with the president.
Such people deserve an accounting.
Copyright © 2005 HuffingtonPost.com.
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Bush on nukes, isn't it time he honor the Non-Proliferation Treaty?
Sweet Victory: Woolsey Says No to Nukes
The Nation
Katrina vanden Heuvel Fri Aug 12
This past weekend, thousands of activists gathered at Los Alamos and other prominent nuclear facilities across the country to mark the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan. As demonstrators chanted "No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis!," President Bush chose to honor the anniversary in another way: by proceeding with his plans to build newer, even more powerful nukes.
Last month, the Senate approved Bush's initial request of $4 million for research on a "robust nuclear earth penetrator" (RNEP)--a bomb that George Monbiot of the UK Guardian writes, has "a yield about 10 times that of the Hiroshima device." For all Bush has done to condemn the global proliferation of WMD, his actions are almost single-handedly destroying the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a pact signed by nearly 200 nations.
But Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey--co-chair of the recently revamped Congressional Progressive Caucus--is taking a stand against Bush's hypocrisy. On July 20th, she introduced a resolution calling for the president to fulfill his obligation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty by beginning "verifiable and irreversible reductions in the United States strategic and tactical nuclear weapons and their delivery systems." "There will be no security for America or our world," Woolsey says, "unless we take all steps necessary for nuclear disarmament."
Woolsey's bill is one of several bold new initiatives launched by members of the Progressive Caucus to try to open the suffocating consensus (especially on national security issues) in Congress. Since hiring Bill Goold as the CPC's first full-time staffer, Woolsey and her colleagues have drawn up several strong, sensible resolutions for withdrawal from Iraq and issued a powerful statement of core values in their "Progressive Promise."
Woolsey's H.Res.373 aims to fulfill one of the objectives outlined in the Promise: "To re-build US alliances around the world, restore international respect for American power and influence, and reaffirm our nation's constructive engagement in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations."
At a time in which America's relations with the world continue to be sullied by the politics of Boltonism, voices like Woolsey's are critical. To join the fight against Bush's nuclear nonsense, call your representatives and urge them to support H.Res.373.
We also want to hear from you. Please let us know if you have a sweet victory you think we should cover by e-mailing nationvictories@gmail.com.
Co-written by Sam Graham-Felsen, a freelance journalist, documentary filmmaker and blogger (www.boldprint.net) living in Brooklyn.
Like this article? Try 4 issues of The Nation at home (and online) FREE.
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
The Nation
Katrina vanden Heuvel Fri Aug 12
This past weekend, thousands of activists gathered at Los Alamos and other prominent nuclear facilities across the country to mark the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Japan. As demonstrators chanted "No more Hiroshimas! No more Nagasakis!," President Bush chose to honor the anniversary in another way: by proceeding with his plans to build newer, even more powerful nukes.
Last month, the Senate approved Bush's initial request of $4 million for research on a "robust nuclear earth penetrator" (RNEP)--a bomb that George Monbiot of the UK Guardian writes, has "a yield about 10 times that of the Hiroshima device." For all Bush has done to condemn the global proliferation of WMD, his actions are almost single-handedly destroying the Non-Proliferation Treaty, a pact signed by nearly 200 nations.
But Congresswoman Lynn Woolsey--co-chair of the recently revamped Congressional Progressive Caucus--is taking a stand against Bush's hypocrisy. On July 20th, she introduced a resolution calling for the president to fulfill his obligation to the Non-Proliferation Treaty by beginning "verifiable and irreversible reductions in the United States strategic and tactical nuclear weapons and their delivery systems." "There will be no security for America or our world," Woolsey says, "unless we take all steps necessary for nuclear disarmament."
Woolsey's bill is one of several bold new initiatives launched by members of the Progressive Caucus to try to open the suffocating consensus (especially on national security issues) in Congress. Since hiring Bill Goold as the CPC's first full-time staffer, Woolsey and her colleagues have drawn up several strong, sensible resolutions for withdrawal from Iraq and issued a powerful statement of core values in their "Progressive Promise."
Woolsey's H.Res.373 aims to fulfill one of the objectives outlined in the Promise: "To re-build US alliances around the world, restore international respect for American power and influence, and reaffirm our nation's constructive engagement in the United Nations and other multilateral organizations."
At a time in which America's relations with the world continue to be sullied by the politics of Boltonism, voices like Woolsey's are critical. To join the fight against Bush's nuclear nonsense, call your representatives and urge them to support H.Res.373.
We also want to hear from you. Please let us know if you have a sweet victory you think we should cover by e-mailing nationvictories@gmail.com.
Co-written by Sam Graham-Felsen, a freelance journalist, documentary filmmaker and blogger (www.boldprint.net) living in Brooklyn.
Like this article? Try 4 issues of The Nation at home (and online) FREE.
Copyright © 2005 The Nation
Friday, August 12, 2005
Cindy Sheehan speaks up!
I cound not agree more than the opinions that Cindy Sheehan writes about GW as she persists in her protest in Crawford.
Cindy Sheehan: This is George Bush’s Accountability Moment
The HuffingtonPost
Cindy SheehanThu Aug 11, 4:56 PM ET
This is George Bush’s accountability moment. That’s why I’m here. The mainstream media aren’t holding him accountable. Neither is Congress. So I’m not leaving Crawford until he’s held accountable. It’s ironic, given the attacks leveled at me recently, how some in the media are so quick to scrutinize -- and distort -- the words and actions of a grieving mother but not the words and actions of the president of the United States.
But now it’s time for him to level with me and with the American people. I think that’s why there’s been such an outpouring of support. This is giving the 61 percent of Americans who feel that the war is wrong something to do -- something that allows their voices to be heard. It’s a way for them to stand up and show that they DO want our troops home, and that they know this war IS a mistake… a mistake they want to see corrected. It’s too late to bring back the people who are already dead, but there are tens of thousands of people still in harm’s way.
There is too much at stake to worry about our own egos. When my son was killed, I had to face the fact that I was somehow also responsible for what happened. Every American that allows this to continue has, to some extent, blood on their hands. Some of us have a little bit, and some of us are soaked in it.
People have asked what it is I want to say to President Bush. Well, my message is a simple one. He’s said that my son -- and the other children we’ve lost -- died for a noble cause. I want to find out what that noble cause is. And I want to ask him: “If it’s such a noble cause, have you asked your daughters to enlist? Have you encouraged them to go take the place of soldiers who are on their third tour of duty?” I also want him to stop using my son’s name to justify the war. The idea that we have to “complete the mission” in Iraq to honor Casey’s sacrifice is, to me, a sacrilege to my son’s name. Besides, does the president any longer even know what “the mission” really is over there?
Casey knew that the war was wrong from the beginning. But he felt it was his duty to go, that his buddies were going, and that he had no choice. The people who send our young, honorable, brave soldiers to die in this war, have no skin in the game. They don’t have any loved ones in harm’s way. As for people like O’Reilly and Hannity and Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh and all the others who are attacking me and parroting the administration line that we must complete the mission there -- they don’t have one thing at stake. They don’t suffer through sleepless nights worrying about their loved ones
Before this all started, I used to think that one person couldn’t make a difference... but now I see that one person who has the backing and support of millions of people can make a huge difference.
That’s why I’m going to be out here until one of three things happens: It’s August 31st and the president’s vacation ends and he leaves Crawford. They take me away in a squad car. Or he finally agrees to speak with me.
If he does, he’d better be prepared for me to hold his feet to the fire. If he starts talking about freedom and democracy -- or about how the war in Iraq is protecting America -- I’m not going to let him get away with it.
Like I said, this is George Bush’s accountability moment.
Copyright © 2005 HuffingtonPost.com.
Cindy Sheehan: This is George Bush’s Accountability Moment
The HuffingtonPost
Cindy SheehanThu Aug 11, 4:56 PM ET
This is George Bush’s accountability moment. That’s why I’m here. The mainstream media aren’t holding him accountable. Neither is Congress. So I’m not leaving Crawford until he’s held accountable. It’s ironic, given the attacks leveled at me recently, how some in the media are so quick to scrutinize -- and distort -- the words and actions of a grieving mother but not the words and actions of the president of the United States.
But now it’s time for him to level with me and with the American people. I think that’s why there’s been such an outpouring of support. This is giving the 61 percent of Americans who feel that the war is wrong something to do -- something that allows their voices to be heard. It’s a way for them to stand up and show that they DO want our troops home, and that they know this war IS a mistake… a mistake they want to see corrected. It’s too late to bring back the people who are already dead, but there are tens of thousands of people still in harm’s way.
There is too much at stake to worry about our own egos. When my son was killed, I had to face the fact that I was somehow also responsible for what happened. Every American that allows this to continue has, to some extent, blood on their hands. Some of us have a little bit, and some of us are soaked in it.
People have asked what it is I want to say to President Bush. Well, my message is a simple one. He’s said that my son -- and the other children we’ve lost -- died for a noble cause. I want to find out what that noble cause is. And I want to ask him: “If it’s such a noble cause, have you asked your daughters to enlist? Have you encouraged them to go take the place of soldiers who are on their third tour of duty?” I also want him to stop using my son’s name to justify the war. The idea that we have to “complete the mission” in Iraq to honor Casey’s sacrifice is, to me, a sacrilege to my son’s name. Besides, does the president any longer even know what “the mission” really is over there?
Casey knew that the war was wrong from the beginning. But he felt it was his duty to go, that his buddies were going, and that he had no choice. The people who send our young, honorable, brave soldiers to die in this war, have no skin in the game. They don’t have any loved ones in harm’s way. As for people like O’Reilly and Hannity and Michelle Malkin and Rush Limbaugh and all the others who are attacking me and parroting the administration line that we must complete the mission there -- they don’t have one thing at stake. They don’t suffer through sleepless nights worrying about their loved ones
Before this all started, I used to think that one person couldn’t make a difference... but now I see that one person who has the backing and support of millions of people can make a huge difference.
That’s why I’m going to be out here until one of three things happens: It’s August 31st and the president’s vacation ends and he leaves Crawford. They take me away in a squad car. Or he finally agrees to speak with me.
If he does, he’d better be prepared for me to hold his feet to the fire. If he starts talking about freedom and democracy -- or about how the war in Iraq is protecting America -- I’m not going to let him get away with it.
Like I said, this is George Bush’s accountability moment.
Copyright © 2005 HuffingtonPost.com.
Wednesday, August 10, 2005
Dowd back with a fury!
Thank God Maureen Dowd is back from her book writing & gracing The NY Times again. Nobody can writepolitical opinion like this incredibel genius. Here, a good example:
August 10, 2005
The New York Times
Why No Tea and Sympathy?
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
W. can't get no satisfaction on Iraq.
There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.
A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it's more likely we'll have to fight them here?
Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran to Iraq.
And the Rolling Stones have taken a rare break from sex odes to record an antiwar song called "Sweet Neo Con," chiding Condi Rice and Mr. Bush. "You call yourself a Christian; I call you a hypocrite," Mick Jagger sings.
The N.F.L. put out a press release on Monday announcing that it's teaming up with the Stones and ABC to promote "Monday Night Football." The flag-waving N.F.L. could still back out if there's pressure, but the mood seems to have shifted since Madonna chickened out of showing an antiwar music video in 2003. The White House used to be able to tamp down criticism by saying it hurt our troops, but more people are asking the White House to explain how it plans to stop our troops from getting hurt.
Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for P.R., says she will camp out in the dusty heat near the ranch until she gets to tell Mr. Bush face to face that he must pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in a Sadr City ambush last year.
The president met with her family two months after Casey's death. Capturing W.'s awkwardness in traversing the line between somber and joking, and his love of generic labels, Ms. Sheehan said that W. had referred to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting, and given her the sense that he did not know who her son was.
The Bush team tried to discredit "Mom" by pointing reporters to an old article in which she sounded kinder to W. If only her husband were an undercover C.I.A. operative, the Bushies could out him. But even if they send out a squad of Swift Boat Moms for Truth, there will be a countering Falluja Moms for Truth.
It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn't.
It's hard to think of another president who lived in such meta-insulation. His rigidly controlled environment allows no chance encounters with anyone who disagrees. He never has to defend himself to anyone, and that is cognitively injurious. He's a populist who never meets people - an ordinary guy who clears brush, and brush is the only thing he talks to. Mr. Bush hails Texas as a place where he can return to his roots. But is he mixing it up there with anyone besides Vulcans, Pioneers and Rangers?
W.'s idea of consolation was to dispatch Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, to talk to Ms. Sheehan, underscoring the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. Mr. Hadley is just a suit, one of the hard-line Unsweet Neo Cons who helped hype America into this war.
It's getting harder for the president to hide from the human consequences of his actions and to control human sentiment about the war by pulling a curtain over the 1,835 troops killed in Iraq; the more than 13,000 wounded, many shorn of limbs; and the number of slain Iraqi civilians - perhaps 25,000, or perhaps double or triple that. More people with impeccable credentials are coming forward to serve as a countervailing moral authority to challenge Mr. Bush.
Paul Hackett, a Marine major who served in Iraq and criticized the president on his conduct of the war, narrowly lost last week when he ran for Congress as a Democrat in a Republican stronghold in Cincinnati. Newt Gingrich warned that the race should "serve as a wake-up call to Republicans" about 2006.
Selectively humane, Mr. Bush justified his Iraq war by stressing the 9/11 losses. He emphasized the humanity of the Iraqis who desire freedom when his W.M.D. rationale vaporized.
But his humanitarianism will remain inhumane as long as he fails to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.
E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com
August 10, 2005
The New York Times
Why No Tea and Sympathy?
By MAUREEN DOWD
WASHINGTON
W. can't get no satisfaction on Iraq.
There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.
A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it's more likely we'll have to fight them here?
Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran to Iraq.
And the Rolling Stones have taken a rare break from sex odes to record an antiwar song called "Sweet Neo Con," chiding Condi Rice and Mr. Bush. "You call yourself a Christian; I call you a hypocrite," Mick Jagger sings.
The N.F.L. put out a press release on Monday announcing that it's teaming up with the Stones and ABC to promote "Monday Night Football." The flag-waving N.F.L. could still back out if there's pressure, but the mood seems to have shifted since Madonna chickened out of showing an antiwar music video in 2003. The White House used to be able to tamp down criticism by saying it hurt our troops, but more people are asking the White House to explain how it plans to stop our troops from getting hurt.
Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for P.R., says she will camp out in the dusty heat near the ranch until she gets to tell Mr. Bush face to face that he must pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in a Sadr City ambush last year.
The president met with her family two months after Casey's death. Capturing W.'s awkwardness in traversing the line between somber and joking, and his love of generic labels, Ms. Sheehan said that W. had referred to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting, and given her the sense that he did not know who her son was.
The Bush team tried to discredit "Mom" by pointing reporters to an old article in which she sounded kinder to W. If only her husband were an undercover C.I.A. operative, the Bushies could out him. But even if they send out a squad of Swift Boat Moms for Truth, there will be a countering Falluja Moms for Truth.
It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn't.
It's hard to think of another president who lived in such meta-insulation. His rigidly controlled environment allows no chance encounters with anyone who disagrees. He never has to defend himself to anyone, and that is cognitively injurious. He's a populist who never meets people - an ordinary guy who clears brush, and brush is the only thing he talks to. Mr. Bush hails Texas as a place where he can return to his roots. But is he mixing it up there with anyone besides Vulcans, Pioneers and Rangers?
W.'s idea of consolation was to dispatch Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, to talk to Ms. Sheehan, underscoring the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. Mr. Hadley is just a suit, one of the hard-line Unsweet Neo Cons who helped hype America into this war.
It's getting harder for the president to hide from the human consequences of his actions and to control human sentiment about the war by pulling a curtain over the 1,835 troops killed in Iraq; the more than 13,000 wounded, many shorn of limbs; and the number of slain Iraqi civilians - perhaps 25,000, or perhaps double or triple that. More people with impeccable credentials are coming forward to serve as a countervailing moral authority to challenge Mr. Bush.
Paul Hackett, a Marine major who served in Iraq and criticized the president on his conduct of the war, narrowly lost last week when he ran for Congress as a Democrat in a Republican stronghold in Cincinnati. Newt Gingrich warned that the race should "serve as a wake-up call to Republicans" about 2006.
Selectively humane, Mr. Bush justified his Iraq war by stressing the 9/11 losses. He emphasized the humanity of the Iraqis who desire freedom when his W.M.D. rationale vaporized.
But his humanitarianism will remain inhumane as long as he fails to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute.
E-mail: liberties@nytimes.com
Friday, August 05, 2005
W's Ignorance Policies
washingtonpost.com
Ignorance Is Bliss; Sometimes It's Policy
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, August 5, 2005; A15
The ranch at Crawford hardly compares with the Forbidden City, but George W. Bush has something in common with the Ming emperors of China: He seems determined to make his great nation less ambitious and more ignorant.
He wouldn't see it that way, of course, but the emperors didn't see it that way either. And I don't know how else to explain policies and pronouncements that make the quest for knowledge conditional on politics. That is a prescription for decline.
In the early 1400s the Ming emperor Zhu Di made China into the world's leading maritime nation, sending huge fleets on missions of trade and exploration as far as the Swahili coast of Africa. It should have been just a matter of a few years before Chinese sailors discovered the Americas. But Zhu Di's successors, influenced by court politics, called home the fleets and forbade them to sail again, forfeiting the riches of the New World -- and five centuries of global domination -- to an underdeveloped backwater called Europe.
I guess it's a general rule of political dynasties, in China as well as in Texas, that the blood thins with successive generations.
Examples? Well, there's the way Bush insists on hamstringing American scientists who are trying to explore the potential medical benefits of therapies involving embryonic stem cells.
You are excused if your eyes glaze over at the mention of the words "stem cells," but it's enough to know that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, in a rare display of backbone, has challenged the president over his suffocating restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research -- and also that the fight is akin to arguing over what kind of lock to put on the barn door while the horse frolics in the next county.
While our leaders disagree, stem cell technology is being developed and advanced in laboratories all around the world, especially in Asia. South Korean researchers have arguably pushed farther than anyone else. At the moment it's still a long shot that embryonic stem cells will prove to be a panacea, but if they do it's increasingly likely that the key discoveries will be made elsewhere -- not in the United States.
And there's no real reason for Bush's position except politics. All that Frist and other reasonable people want is to be able to experiment on surplus embryos from fertility clinics, embryos that otherwise will be destroyed. But the radical pro-life lobby won't be reasonable, so Bush does his best to keep the United States on the sidelines of what is, at the moment, the most exciting field of medical research.
Then there's this administration's almost comical insistence that the firm scientific consensus on global climate change is some kind of mass hallucination. "What global warming?" they ask, as mean temperatures rise, Arctic ice melts, tropical diseases march north and hurricanes rake poor Florida in swarms.
The much-maligned Kyoto treaty isn't the point. Treaty or no treaty, it looks as if sooner or later the world is going to have to find a way to prosper without spewing so much heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Other nations are busy trying to develop technology and coping mechanisms to prepare for that day. When it comes, we'll be at or near the back of the line.
Maybe we'll line up all our obsolete SUVs along the coast to try to hold back the rising sea.
To round out the trifecta, the other day Bush reiterated his support for teaching "intelligent design" in America's schools along with evolution, as a way of exposing students to different points of view. This really borders on madness.
Intelligent design isn't a scientific theory at all; it's a matter of faith -- Creationism 2.0. Faith is a different kind of truth. Charles Darwin's landmark discovery of evolution, with a few minor modifications and additions over the years, has proved to be one of the sturdiest and most unassailable scientific theories of all time. To the extent that science can say anything is true, evolution is scientifically true. Done. Settled. As Walter Cronkite used to say, "That's the way it is."
To teach American children in science class that intelligent design is an alternative explanation of how birds, anteaters and people came to be birds, anteaters and people is simply to make American children less well educated than children elsewhere.
By all rights, we ought to remember the Ming dynasty for discovering America; instead, we think of gorgeous pottery but not much else. China's current leaders seem determined not to make the same mistake.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Ignorance Is Bliss; Sometimes It's Policy
By Eugene Robinson
Friday, August 5, 2005; A15
The ranch at Crawford hardly compares with the Forbidden City, but George W. Bush has something in common with the Ming emperors of China: He seems determined to make his great nation less ambitious and more ignorant.
He wouldn't see it that way, of course, but the emperors didn't see it that way either. And I don't know how else to explain policies and pronouncements that make the quest for knowledge conditional on politics. That is a prescription for decline.
In the early 1400s the Ming emperor Zhu Di made China into the world's leading maritime nation, sending huge fleets on missions of trade and exploration as far as the Swahili coast of Africa. It should have been just a matter of a few years before Chinese sailors discovered the Americas. But Zhu Di's successors, influenced by court politics, called home the fleets and forbade them to sail again, forfeiting the riches of the New World -- and five centuries of global domination -- to an underdeveloped backwater called Europe.
I guess it's a general rule of political dynasties, in China as well as in Texas, that the blood thins with successive generations.
Examples? Well, there's the way Bush insists on hamstringing American scientists who are trying to explore the potential medical benefits of therapies involving embryonic stem cells.
You are excused if your eyes glaze over at the mention of the words "stem cells," but it's enough to know that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, in a rare display of backbone, has challenged the president over his suffocating restrictions on federal funding for stem cell research -- and also that the fight is akin to arguing over what kind of lock to put on the barn door while the horse frolics in the next county.
While our leaders disagree, stem cell technology is being developed and advanced in laboratories all around the world, especially in Asia. South Korean researchers have arguably pushed farther than anyone else. At the moment it's still a long shot that embryonic stem cells will prove to be a panacea, but if they do it's increasingly likely that the key discoveries will be made elsewhere -- not in the United States.
And there's no real reason for Bush's position except politics. All that Frist and other reasonable people want is to be able to experiment on surplus embryos from fertility clinics, embryos that otherwise will be destroyed. But the radical pro-life lobby won't be reasonable, so Bush does his best to keep the United States on the sidelines of what is, at the moment, the most exciting field of medical research.
Then there's this administration's almost comical insistence that the firm scientific consensus on global climate change is some kind of mass hallucination. "What global warming?" they ask, as mean temperatures rise, Arctic ice melts, tropical diseases march north and hurricanes rake poor Florida in swarms.
The much-maligned Kyoto treaty isn't the point. Treaty or no treaty, it looks as if sooner or later the world is going to have to find a way to prosper without spewing so much heat-trapping carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. Other nations are busy trying to develop technology and coping mechanisms to prepare for that day. When it comes, we'll be at or near the back of the line.
Maybe we'll line up all our obsolete SUVs along the coast to try to hold back the rising sea.
To round out the trifecta, the other day Bush reiterated his support for teaching "intelligent design" in America's schools along with evolution, as a way of exposing students to different points of view. This really borders on madness.
Intelligent design isn't a scientific theory at all; it's a matter of faith -- Creationism 2.0. Faith is a different kind of truth. Charles Darwin's landmark discovery of evolution, with a few minor modifications and additions over the years, has proved to be one of the sturdiest and most unassailable scientific theories of all time. To the extent that science can say anything is true, evolution is scientifically true. Done. Settled. As Walter Cronkite used to say, "That's the way it is."
To teach American children in science class that intelligent design is an alternative explanation of how birds, anteaters and people came to be birds, anteaters and people is simply to make American children less well educated than children elsewhere.
By all rights, we ought to remember the Ming dynasty for discovering America; instead, we think of gorgeous pottery but not much else. China's current leaders seem determined not to make the same mistake.
eugenerobinson@washpost.com
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
Thursday, August 04, 2005
Too funny!
No matter what your political leanings are, this is the funniest thing I have seen for a very longtime. Click the headline for the link. Enjoy!
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