Quotes are in italics. Links may have been broken over time.
July 6, 2002
From Time, referring to the International Criminal Court: To U.S. Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman the new court is "an institution of unchecked power" that "undermines the democratic rights of our people and could erode the fundamental elements of the United Nations Charter."
Well jeez, Marc, the same could be said of the entire Bush administration.
***
July 5, 2002
Even more confused! Sanjay pointed out to me that ABC ran several stories about Hatfill in the past two weeks, indicating that he was under investigation. I certainly got the impression from Kristoff and WSWS that the major media was suppressing stories about Hatfill. Sorry if I misled anyone with the stuff below. I am still wondering what in the world is actually going on.
***
The World Socialist Web Site today actually identified the leading suspect in last fall's anthrax mailing. His name is Stephen Hatfill, and he's a former Green Beret and a former researcher at the army's Ft. Detrick research center. He also was a part of the UN weapons inspection team in Iraq before they were thrown out by Saddam Hussein. Amazingly, I have seen no follow-up to Nicholas Kristof's column of Tuesday or the two reports from the WSWS in any of the major media, including the New York Times. I guess Hatfill must not be Islamic, or he would probably be in jail. Anyone have any idea what is really going on here?
***
A guy shoots up an El Al ticket counter at LAX on the Fourth of July, but the government insists it isn't terrorism. "There is no evidence, no indication at this time, that this is terrorists," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. (Washington Post) Hundreds of soldiers fighting for another country 8000 miles from the US in what is basically a civil war are captured and whisked off to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where they are labeled "terrorists" and held indefinitely without charges or trials. I think Mr. George W. Bush should be required to define "terrorism" once and for all and be made to stick to whatever definition he comes up with. He'd better be real careful, though, to avoid including himself and most of his administration.
July 3, 2002
Uncle Sam and Aunt Thrax: Nicholas Kristof's editorial in yesterday's NY Times and today's follow-up by the World Socialist Web Site are certainly enough to get you scratching your head. There are only a few possible suspects for the anthrax mailer, the government appears to know which one it is, but no arrest has been made. The perpetrator is apparently roaming the world freely, perhaps even on government assignment. Your tax dollars at work.
***
Beware the CEOnistas! More satire from http://www.satirewire.com/index.shtml.
July 2, 2002
I actually updated my cartoons page! Two new strips to further enlighten and distract you!
***
``There cannot be the use of that kind of firepower and not have mistakes and errant weapons exist. It's going to happen. It always has and I'm afraid it always will,'' [Rumsfeld] said. (from the NY Times)
Of course, Rummy is implying that mistakes will happen, so we should all just
shut up about it. I say we turn it around. AC-130 gunships and B-52's are
weapons of mass destruction, and should not be used indiscriminately. It is hard
to believe that what few Taliban or al Qaeda people are still lurking in the
hills of Afghanistan pose much of a threat to us. We are trying to get
cockroaches out of the house by burning the house down. The roaches have already
fled the house, and the mostly innocent rightful inhabitants are the ones
getting burned. The endless pursuit of Taliban soldiers is particularly cruel
and bizarre. Almost none of them had any knowledge of or participation in the
9/11 attacks. Many were practically children indoctrinated in radical Islam from
an early age; others joined the Taliban as the only alternative to being killed
when the warlord they were fighting for was defeated by the Taliban. They ceased
to exist as an army in November, and individually pose no threat to America. But
Rummy feels it is necessary to exterminate every last one of them. The North did
not pursue and arrest or kill every Confederate veteran after the Civil War;
neither did the Allies pursue every last Nazi or Japanese soldier after WWII.
But now we are apparently willing to risk killing dozens or hundreds of
civilians on the off chance that we might kill a few former soldiers from a
defeated army. Did somebody say "war crimes?"
July 1, 2002
CNN says "unknown number of civilians had been killed." The NY Times says at least thirty killed, many more injured. The Guardian (London) says "at least 250" killed or wounded. Make a note of it somewhere: Do not invite the US military to your wedding reception.
***
Good choice of words there, Mr. Secretary (referring to Cleveland's school voucher plan upheld by the Supreme Court):
Bush's education secretary, Rod Paige, went even further, hailing Cleveland during his remarks here as "ground zero for freedom of choice in public schools."
I think he is saying that Cleveland is a pile of rubble where women can get abortions while they attend classes. Of course, I may be mistaken.
***
Just flying around, looking for people to kill: US bombers bring more death to Afghanistan. If this had been done to Americans or Israelis by a suicide bomber, imagine the reaction. But these are Afghans, so they don't count to the Bushies. At least it is getting major coverage from the NY Times and CNN.
***
The SEC also is investigating Halliburton Co. for its accounting practices in 1998, when Vice President Dick Cheney was its chief executive. Asked if the administration's tough stand on the responsibility of corporate bosses would apply in that case, [SEC Chairman] Pitt said: ``We don't give anyone a pass. If anybody violates the law, we go after them.'' (from http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Pitt-WorldCom.html)
I don't believe him for a second, but it sure would be sweet to see the Veep from the Deep locked up in a medium-security disclosed location for five to ten.
June 28, 2002
Short memory! Referring to the recent ruling on the Pledge of Allegiance: "There may have been a more senseless, ridiculous decision issued by a court at some time, but I don't remember it," Lieberman said. That from Senator, should be Vice President Joe Lieberman, who was kept out of a secure, undisclosed location by a senseless, ridiculous decision of the Supreme Court in December 2000.
***
Transparent, my Ashcroft! While W is telling the Palestinians that they must have a government that is "transparent," among other fairly impossible demands, his Department of "Justice" just got the Supreme Dolts to issue a ruling that immigration hearings could continue to be secret. The government claims that open hearings would give "terrorists" crucial information about investigations. More likely, it would give the public a clue as to how the government has absolutely no case against most of these people and is basically just holding them hostage to keep the fear factor up. In any case, it is hard to imagine that the events of September 11 would have happened if the various warnings had been published in leading newspapers instead of covered up by the sports section on W's desk. Maybe something else would have been tried, but at least the FBI and the CIA would have both known what the other knew. The Bushies secrecy is not protecting the US from al Qaeda: it is protecting the Bushies from the American people.
***
I'm stealing one Slowpoke comic: go to http://www.people.virginia.edu/~jls6c/archives.html for the rest!
June 26, 2002
File size was getting big, so I just moved everything before June to my Archive page.
***
If you donate enough money to enough causes, you get on some strange mailing lists. In the last eight months I have made donations to the Sierra Club, Doctors Without Borders, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the ACLU, and probably a few others. In response I've gotten solicitations from many other groups, including Bill Clinton looking for money for the Democrats and a wide variety of environmental groups. But sometimes the wires get crossed: today I got a letter and questionnaire from the Republicans. They included a business reply mail envelope, so I am going to stuff it with their questionnaire and some random mailings from some of the groups listed above. Hopefully I can get it up to half a pound or so. I'll wait until next week to mail it, after the postage rates have gone up. Just doing my part to cost the Bushies some money.
Here are some of the questions from the questionnaire with my answers:
Okay, I think I know how I got on their list: I voted for McCain in the Michigan primary in 2000, since my main priority was no Bush, no Gore. It is scary that there are so many people out there who would answer "yes" to most or all of those questions.
***
Just a reminder: we are not at war, since only Congress can declare war, and they didn't.
***
Another reminder: Over 2.3 million Americans died last year. Only about 3000 died from terrorist attacks, and this was way above the yearly average, even if you consider attacks on military targets like the Cole to be terrorism. Many, many more were killed by guns, by auto accidents, and by preventable diseases, as they are every year. While the "War on Terrorism" is almost certain to increase the number of terror attacks on America, these will still be relatively insignificant in the big picture, with most Americans still at much greater risk from drunk drivers or spouses with handguns. Taking away our freedom here and killing people abroad is a stupid, immoral response to a spectacular but in reality minor threat to our well being. And don't forget that the previous Bush's administration was responsible for the Gulf War, protecting one corrupt Arab regime from another after giving the invasion a green light. The Gulf War was directly or indirectly responsible for pretty much every terrorist attack since then. Osama bin Laden was not anti-American until we stationed troops in Saudi Arabia and left them there, even though we promised to remove them as soon as possible. Timothy McVeigh was a soldier in the US Army, and his orders to gun down heavily outgunned Iraqis contributed to his distrust of the government. If you go out of your way to kill people (and Iraq and Afghanistan are certainly out of our way) then you make other people angry. Kill lots of people, make lots of people angry. Massive military response hasn't freed Israel from terrorist attacks, and it never will. It won't work for us, either.
***
The satire would be funny if the danger were not so real. Two articles from Common Dreams in reaction to Bush's bizarre speech of yesterday:
W stands for war. He believes that with enough repression at home and provocation abroad, WW III will start, and he will "win" it. His speeches and actions are practically begging Osama for another hit so he can rev up the repression and militarism even more. I can't tell if Bush is so completely ignorant of how easily so much of his policy reflects back on him (calling for "democracy" in other countries while destroying it here, for example). He's dumb, but is he that dumb? I think he knows and does it just to be provocative, knowing that unrest abroad and at home provides further opportunities to bring out the guns, and he has more of them at his command than anyone. How did we get in this mess so quickly? And how can we possibly get out of it? I'm still holding out some faint hope that Colin Powell will finally get so pissed off that he will throw off his soldierly obedience and resign and begin speaking out against the administration and its deadly policies. Powell always struck me as an intelligent, compassionate, and honest reluctant warrior, and I hope he is. But Powell and most of Congress appear to be completely bought or threatened off, as is most of the media. And while the Bushies will almost certainly be largely to blame for the next bad thing that happens, you can be sure that they will use it to their advantage, which most assuredly will not be to ours.
June 25, 2002
Continued provocation, continued terror, eternal war. The continued threats against Iraq certainly give Saddam Hussein an incentive to develop nasty weapons, and an attack on Iraq will likely cause him to use them if he has them. The warmongers in Washington will then claim they were justified in attacking. And Sharon's policy of grabbing even more of the West Bank is almost certain to provoke further suicide bombings, thereby justifying further land grabs. While it seems clear that Hamas and other extremists among the Palestinians are as interested in perpetual war as Sharon is, Bush and apparently everyone else (the leaders of Egypt and Jordan, for instance) continues to blame Arafat and his three or four cops who haven't been shot by the Israelis for not stopping the bombings. Meanwhile, the average Palestinian lives in perpetual terror and the humiliation of curfews and checkpoints and the average American still stands united and clueless as the government does everything possible to provoke additional terror attacks.
***
Krug is the man! Paul Krugman writes one of the clearest denunciations of the Bushies I've seen in a major newspaper. W's clowns keep calling for "regime change" in Iraq, Palestine, Venezuela, etc. The Bush administration is the regime most in need of changing if there is to be any hope for peace, freedom, or the environment. Krugman notes that they intend to exempt their idiotic new Homeland Security Department from both whistle-blower protection and the Freedom of Information Act. This means we will be unable to find out what our secret police are up to, either from within or without. Meanwhile, they will know exactly what we are up to: the FBI has begun searching library records to see what we might have been reading, under the unconstitutional terms of the USA Patriot Act.
June 24, 2002
Dave Barry is always funny, but rarely serious. I do detect some real anger and disgust with his latest column about the ridiculous Farm Security Act recently passed by Congress.
***
Global warming is here, and Emperor W is fiddling with the Constitution and the frigging "war on terrorism" while Arizona burns. W is successfully accomplishing one thing: Before 2000, history might well have judged George Herbert Walker Bush as our worst president ever. I think W is doing a great job of keeping Daddy out of last place. Let's make Amtrak work, get the SUV's off the road, and get serious about the real threats facing us.
June 21, 2002
If a lie is repeated often enough and long enough, it will come to be perceived as truth. -- attributed to Nazi propagandist Joseph Goebbels
This quote relates directly to this story about a reference to one of his own campaign statements by George W. Bush. W says that he said during the 2000 campaign that he would allow deficit spending only in case of war, recession, or national emergency. He says now that he never dreamed we would have the "trifecta" (one thing he is not claiming enough credit for). The curious thing is that there is no record of his having said anything like that during the campaign. This was pointed out to him several days ago, and the White House hasn't provided any evidence that he did say there were conditions under which he would approve of deficit spending, but W continues to repeat the lie. He probably doesn't have time to memorize any new lines this week.
***
The so-called "Justice Department" claims that people labeled "enemy combatants" have no rights, period. This is Nazi stuff, and it has to be stopped.
“There is no right under the laws and customs of war for an enemy combatant to meet with counsel concerning his detention, much less to meet with counsel in private, without military authorities present,” the Justice Department wrote.
I'm sure there is no specific protection under the constitution for "remotely silly willywankers" or "moodlemoodlers", and there appears to be no one in Congress willing to deny the Bushies the ability to label any of us any of these things. The Bill of Rights protects people, with some additional protections granted to US citizens. Jose Padilla happens to be both a person and a citizen, and the Bushies are claiming that he has no rights at all. This could happen to any of us. Bush took an oath to preserve and protect the constitution: he is deliberately attempting to destroy it, and he should be impeached. Capital punishment might be in order, but the Supreme Court yesterday ruled that the retarded cannot be executed, which is otherwise a good thing. I'd say maybe we buy W a nice retirement home in Jenin.
***
September 11 hijackers were trained by US military: This article describes how an Air Force officer is being disciplined for claiming that Bush new about 9/11 before it happened and allowed it to happen for political gain. The officer had known one of the hijackers when he was a student at the military's Defense Languages Institute in Monterrey California.
June 19, 2002
The Bushies have made no secret of their intention to use secret methods to overthrow Saddam Hussein. Were it not for all of the other bizarre nonsense they are spouting this would seem to be a strange development: a highly publicized secret operation. This article explains why: Iraq has always been suspicious that UN weapons inspectors were actually spying for ways to eliminate Saddam. Now that W has stated clearly that we will use sneaky means to promote "regime change," there is no way that Saddam will allow weapons inspectors back. And that will be used to justify the war that W so badly wants.
***
Government for sale: Drug companies give Republicans lots of money; Republicans give drug companies a lot more back.
June 18, 2002
Ohio Nazi University: No matter what Ohio State students may have studied in their four or five years of school, they were given a graphic education in current reality at commencement when W came to speak:
(An eyewitness account from the website: http://www.turnyourbackonbush.com/ [actually, I couldn't get the link to this report to work, so I am copying it here from an e-mail sent to me--BG])
Ohio State fascism - What happened today
As I sit here before you, I must admit I am truly exhausted from a full day. I've read the thread about Ohio State on LBN, and I am here to tell you it is true...and then some. I'll try to hit all the details.
And what happened to us is truly unbelieveable.
We arrived at Ohio Stadium at 6am. A rally was scheduled at the Jesse Owens memorial site for that time, and the graduates were to be at their places by 630am. Family and friends were permitted to enter at that time as well.
I didn't get close enough to the 6am rally, but in my search for an organizer of Turn Your Back On Bush, I did indeed hear the announcement. Graduating students were told that they would be expelled and arrested if they turned their backs. they were alerted that dozens of staff members and police officers would be watching the stands, as well as the Secret Service. A few students asked for the definition of expulsion....did it mean removal from the stadium or refusal of their diplomas, or both? One of the persons at the front said "Both. And what will your parents do when they are paged from the crowd to bail out their son?" I do not know if this person had an official capacity with the Ohio State University or any police department.
I must say, I did not hear that exchange. I was informed of it later when I found outside the stadium protesting. To tell these ADULTS that after 4 years and 80,000 dollars that they would be tossed aside if they didn't face a certain direction?????
I began to wonder how many of those students went to find their friends who were graduating pre-law.....
We entered the stadium later with family and friends, and similar statements swirled around the crowd. "Please make sure you stand and loudly cheer our President. Our graduates have been requested to do the same, and have agreed to give a loud cheer for Mr. Bush", etc.....
Once inside, we decided that it might not be a good idea to be too close to the front. We saw the lines of people waiting to get in the stadium.....and yes, we saw the yellow buses that carted them all in. I asked one of them where they were from. The woman replied "Upper Arlington". However, she could not provide a zip code when I asked her for it (the main zip code for VA is 43221). Figuring on the masses of bussed-in people, we knew it might not be wise to be up front.
We went behind the graduates and looked for peace signs on the mortar boards (a sign that was meant to ID the Turn-Your-Backers). It was really difficult to get an accurate count, but there were a LOT of peace signs. I was sure that we weren't the only ones counting peace signs.
It didn't take long for our stomachs to turn....the first speaker (I believe the OSU President) began spouting about how proud they were to have Bush there. He said "We have a long tradition of inviting great men and women to speak at our commencements." I quickly responded "but since we couldn't get one, here's Georgie".
That got the attention of the state trooper in front of us. His eyes were on me the rest of the time.
The speech continued to mention that Chimpy was "a tireless worker in the field of education" and "a man who unified this country after the terrible events of 9/11". It was interesting to note that it took a LONG time for the 9/11 applause to turn into a standing ovation....they held out for that one, not continuing the speech intentionally.
About 10 minutes later, Shrub was introduced to speak. Before he even got to the stage, we did our about-face. I looked over my shoulder to see how many graduates were doing the same. However, everybody was standing at that point, and in pure black robes, it was impossible to see who was facing what direction. Furthermore, over that same shoulder, I saw one of Columbus' Finest heading our way.
We never got to see how many students participated. We were being led out of Ohio Stadium. To the officers' credit, he realized there was a 3-year-old in my arms and was not at all hostile. I asked him if I was under arrest, and he did not answer me. When we reached the exit, I asked the SS man why we had been ejected, and he told me we were being charged with disturbing the peace. If we chose to leave, the charges would be dropped immediately.
With our daughter in mind, we chose not to fight it. I am sure we will regret it someday when Bush's fabulous economy strikes us and we need a few million in a lawsuit. But our daughter did not need any more irritation on this day.
On this day, June 14th, 2002, I came to the realization that we no longer live in a free society. This is rapidly heading in the same way Nazi Germany headed. Questioning our leaders is no longer the most outrageous crime you can be charged with. Not paying attention to them is.
As you take in this message I give to you, I would like to add a footnote. Next time, I will not leave quietly. Next time, I will not allow you to intimidate my fellow Americans who wish to speak out. Next time I will not be so blind when I confront you. Next time we meet, I will have more people with me to oppose you. Next time, I will have brought voter registration cards for people whose eyes I will open to your oppression.
And next time, I will have a babysitter.
June 17, 2002
Classified investigations of the Qaeda threat now under way at the F.B.I. and C.I.A. have concluded that the war in Afghanistan failed to diminish the threat to the United States, the officials said. Instead, the war might have complicated counterterrorism efforts by dispersing potential attackers across a wider geographic area. -- from the New York Times
June 16, 2002
Rogue State: The Bush Administration is openly advocating a strike-first policy against Iraq and other nations it finds convenient to obliterate. This violates all principles of international law and can only mean more anger and hatred directed at the US and its citizens. Our claims to moral superiority were always dubious: this policy puts us in a class with Germany's blitzkriegs in World War II and Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor. And the focus on Iraq is so bizarre: The only "evidence" I can find of any attack by Iraq on the US is that 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta may have met with some Iraqis in Prague in 2000. From what I have read, Atta did a lot of traveling in the two years leading up to September 11: Germany, Spain, Egypt, the US. Chances are he met with people from those countries and many others during this travel. We are pretty sure that he met with his fellow hijackers from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. None of these are being used to justify starting a war (or using the CIA to force a "regime change") against these other countries. Nor should they be. If Iraq is in fact developing dangerous weapons, the most obvious reason is that the world's only superpower continues to bomb and threaten them with little justification. (The US basically gave Saddam a green light to invade Kuwait back in 1990, and even if Iraq did deserve to be punished for that, they have been for 11 years now.) Aside from the alleged meeting in Prague, Iraq has not been tied to September 11, nor to the attack on the Cole, the embassies in Africa in 1998, the first World Trade Center bombing in 1993, or any other terrorist attack on the US.
In addition, just as the "war on terrorism" has been used to justify increased violence against Palestinians by Israel and scary talk of war by India, our claiming the right to pre-emptive strikes is sure to be used by other countries as well. This will soon lead to the complete collapse of any semblance of international law, and quite possibly to World War III. The Bush administration is quite possibly the most dangerous threat to world peace since the Nazis, and the American people and their representatives need to put a stop to this crap right now.
June 10, 2002
Pouring gasoline on the fire: India and Pakistan are on the brink of war, so the US does what it usually does--arms both sides. This WSWS article describes recent US support for India, which hasn't gotten as much attention as the support for Pakistan in the "war on terrorism." We were squarely on both sides of the bloody Iran-Iraq conflict in the '80's, overtly supporting Saddam and Iraq while covertly supporting the Ayatollah and Iran. Besides increasing the frequency and violence of wars around the world, the US role as arms merchant to the world is clearly anti-democratic since it gives additional deadly power to those already in power, making it easier for them to suppress any opposition. As if that weren't enough, Bush has offered to assist governments in "fighting terror," which they are pretty much free to define any way they want.
June 7, 2002
Computer problems, Stanley Cup, World Cup, Can't Wake Cup: All contributors to my rant-out this week. Congratulations to the US Soccer Team, 3-2 winners over highly-rated Portugal in their first World Cup match. First time I've been proud of the old USA in a while. And also congrats to the Red Wings for evening up the series with Carolina. It's tough going up against all that hockey tradition!
***
And now for something completely different: As the press and congress finally start catching up on the multitude of misdeeds committed and good deeds omitted by the Bushies, said Bushies are spastically throwing new issues out almost daily in what is to me a blatant attempt to change the subject. Certain, massive and frequent terror attacks to come. FBI reorganized. CIA reorganized. Global warming is real. No it isn't. New cabinet department. Maybe a fling with an intern if things get really desperate. I guess it is understandable. If congress and the press focus in on any one issue: Enron, foreknowledge of 9-11, Cheney's energy policy (or pretty much anything Cheney), or the 2000 election they will find plenty to discredit, impeach, and possibly indict most of the White House staff (including W) and the cabinet. So not only do the Bushies keep moving the shells around, they keep adding shiny new shells to the game.
***
India-Pakistan and Israel-Palestine creep closer to war, and in both cases W's "war on terrorism" is being used as justification. Not only that, Bush's rhetoric actually encourages war through threats: "If they don't act, we will." (Approximate quote from the State of the Union Address.) I am just appalled by the way the Bushies seem to just say something and it happens. I was always under the impression that our system of checks and balances made it difficult to move quickly, which was sometimes a hindrance but usually a protection from hasty action. It appears now that instead of having Hillary put together her task force and study health care reform for months, Bill Clinton could have just decreed that we would have universal health care and that would have been that. All he had to do was declare a war against someone, anyone, after the first World Trade Center attack.
***
India-Pakistan. Israel-Palestine. I versus P. What's next? Indonesia-Philippines? Italy-Portugal? Indiana-Pennsylvania?
June 3, 2002
That's more like it! Last week I bemoaned the fact that Common Dreams ran back-to-back articles attacking Bushie conspiracy theories. Today they've got a good one supporting those theories.
***
First Safire (below), now Buchanan: I know Pat Buchanan has lots of ideas which I detest, but this column is so completely right on that I say "Thanks, Pat!" His point: the price of empire is terror. We give up our imperial tendencies, we get to keep our cities and our lives. As Buchanan says: "Evil though they may be, Islamic killers are over here because we are over there."
***
Safire takes on Ashcroft: William Safire must be one of the best columnists around. His columns almost invariably make me mad. Sometimes I am furious at Safire. For instance, his columns highlighting the supposed meeting between hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague is the only hint of a legitimate excuse for the war plans against Iraq. But today's Safire column makes me mad at its target, Ashcroft and the FBI (okay, making me mad at Ashcroft is about as hard as making W inarticulate). He points out that there are few if any physical barriers to the FBI finding out what you buy, what groups you belong to, and what your thoughts are, especially if you have your own rants page. Our main protection has been rules prohibiting such fishing expeditions on the part of the FBI, rules which Ashcroft and FBI Director Mueller decided last week were hindering the "war on terrorism." So I'm with Nixon's former speechwriter on this one: Safire away!
***
Global Warming is Happening, Fossil Fuels are to Blame, But Let's Not Do Anything About It Except Drive Our SUV's to the Mall to Buy More Summer Clothing. That's the basic gist of the U.S. Climate Action Report 2002 released by the government. I suspect that this will be followed by research grants to companies to improve building and automotive air conditioning, payments to realtors to compensate for prime beachfront property turning to coral reefs, and additional payments to oil companies as they convert their drilling rigs in low-lying areas to offshore rigs. I guess I'm taking the half-empty rather than the half-full view. That the Bushies are admitting that global warming is happening and that fossil fuels are to blame is a big step in the right direction.
***
Some quotes from W's graduation speech at West Point, with my annotations:
"If we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long," the president said, speaking at the commencement of the 204th graduating class of West Point, the nation's oldest military academy. "We must take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans and confront the worst threats before they emerge." That is, we reserve the right to bomb anyone, anywhere, at anytime, unprovoked. They are sure to love us then.
In a toughly worded speech that seemed aimed at preparing Americans for a potential war with Iraq, Mr. Bush added, "The only path to safety is action. And this nation will act." He did not mention Iraq by name, but warned that "even weak states and closed groups could attain a catastrophic power to strike great nations." Is he talking about Texas and the Republicans?
"America stands for more than the absence of war," Mr. Bush said. Well duh. W certainly won't stand for absence of war.
"In defending the peace, we face a threat without precedent," Mr. Bush said. "The attacks of Sept. 11 required a few hundred thousand dollars in the hands of a few dozen evil and deluded men. All of the chaos and suffering they caused came at much less than the cost of a single tank." The president also spoke of a future in which the United States would aggressively promote human rights around the world. This is why we need a multi-billion dollar missile defense system and a $48 billion increase in the defense budget, because we are much stupider than the terrorists.
The 20th century, he said, "ended with a single surviving model of human progress, based on nonnegotiable demands of human dignity, the rule of law, limits on the power of the state, respect for women and private property and free speech and equal justice and religious tolerance." And Bush intends to eliminate it.
May 31, 2002
Conspiracy against conspiracy theories? One of my favorite websites, commondreams.org, has run articles (The September 11 X-Files... and Crude Politics of Scandal...) the last two days critical of people like Rep. Cynthia McKinney who are suggesting that there was something more sinister than bureaucratic bungling on the part of the Bushies in the months preceding 9/11. I certainly don't know for certain that they suppressed investigations or otherwise allowed 9/11 to happen. My strong anti-administration stance was based initially almost entirely on the public statements of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft. Their excuses for the war in Afghanistan, the "war on terrorism" in general, and the crackdown on civil liberties immediately struck me as illogical, deceptive, and hateful. This certainly put me in a more receptive frame of mind to hear and believe that they had a grand plan which had been prepared well before 9/11, and I have ranted about many of the possibilities on this page. I don't think that W or Ashcroft are smart enough, nor is Colin Powell evil enough, to have created this grand plan. But when I hear Cheney or Rumsfeld speak I do hear the voice of intelligent evil. The same goes to some of the people behind the throne: George H. W. Bush, James Baker, and Newt Gingrich. These are people who seem to honestly believe that they should run the world, and that the sacrifice of a few thousand Americans or a few million non-Americans is worth making to achieve their goal. So while I'm sure that many or most of the conspiracy theories are false or exaggerated, I am dismayed to see supposedly progressive authors working so hard to discount them. The "X-Files" article shoots down several paper tigers that I hadn't even heard of, while the "Crude Politics" articles basically tells McKinney and others to shut up. The "War on Terrorism" fits too neatly with the agenda that the Bushies wanted to follow, and they have benefited too much politically and probably financially, for the possibility of foreknowledge of or even involvement in 9/11 to be ignored in any investigation. I think there is enough to discredit and possibly impeach Bush without that foreknowledge or involvement, but the debate will never focus on their actual failings and crimes unless the possibility that they could be worse is raised.
May 30, 2002
The good news: W is sending Rumsfeld to Pakistan. The bad news: W is apparently going to allow him to return to the US.
***
Conyers leads anti-Ashcroft chorus. Rep. John Conyers is saying basically what I said this morning (below) in a powerful bid to join my list of acceptable presidential candidates.
***
The FBI screwed up, so we have to suffer. FBI Director Robert Mueller has now admitted that the Bureau might have been able to stop the 9/11 attacks. His response, while late, seems appropriate. He thanks whistleblower Coleen Rowley for her memo which was critical of Mueller and FBI headquarters, admits mistakes on his part, and has come up with a plan intended to improve the Bureau's handling of information to make it more likely that they will "connect the dots" next time. To his credit, he didn't blame the failure on restrictions imposed by Congress or the courts.
Unfortunately, his boss Attorney General John Ashcroft has used the FBI's screw-ups as an excuse to give the Bureau more power and further restrict our civil liberties.
"These new guidelines say to the American people that you no longer have to be doing something wrong in order to get that F.B.I. knock at your door," Laura W. Murphy, director of the national office of the A.C.L.U., said. "The government is rewarding failure. It seems when the F.B.I. fails, the response by the Bush administration is to give the bureau new powers, as opposed to seriously look at why the intelligence and law enforcement failures occurred." -- from the New York Times
I must say I am confused. I was always under the impression that major changes in government policy required legislation and/or a court decision. Even Nixon and Reagan, when they wanted to immediately change US policy by throwing a coup in Chile or funding terrorists in Nicaragua by selling weapons to Iran, thought that they had to be secret about it because they were breaking the rules. Now I'm sure that the Bushies are breaking plenty of rules that we don't know about, but the idea that Ashcroft, of all "people," can simply decree that 27 years of official policy against domestic spying can be simply thrown out at his request is shocking, as is his pronouncement or whatever it was regarding the Second Amendment a few weeks ago. Pain-in-the-Ashcroft lost his bid for reelection to the Senate in a landslide to a dead man, and barely squeaked through his confirmation hearings. Now, he is using the failures of the FBI, an agency under his control, as an excuse for eroding decades and even centuries of civil rights protections.
In Ashcroft's perfect America, all of us will die in one big shootout in prison. Please contact your senators and representative and ask them to pull the reins in on Ashcroft, preferably through impeachment. He's hiding a lot more than nipples.
May 29, 2002
Probably getting carried away again*, but...Robert Mueller took over as head of the FBI just one week before 9/11. Is there something fishy about that timing?
*Sorry, but I basically write this blog from the bottom up, so this item was written after the one below. Technically this phenomenon is known as "the blogger's dilemma."
***
Probably getting carried away here, but...I was reading Tom Tomorrow's blog where he mentioned W's asking the president of Brazil "Do you have Blacks too?" Tracking this down led me to a transcript of a CNN Crossfire program, where James Carville described W's question and Condi Rice's explanation to him that Brazil, in fact, has more blacks than any country outside of Africa. But I also found in the Crossfire transcript a discussion of campaign violence in Kentucky, where several candidates for local office have recently been shot and/or killed. Pursuing this, I ended up at the website of the Lexington Herald-Leader, and in browsing the Local page I came across this article about terrorist bombings in West India. This news didn't make it to the international page of the New York Times, although after thoroughly searching their AP wire page I did find it. Interesting to see that a state in which it is risky to run for county clerk considers India to be local. Like I said, I'm probably getting carried away.
***
Virtual Virtual Reality: The Web is infested with bogus sites posted by PR firms working for evil-doing corporations. Many of these claim to be environmental or consumer groups but are actually pushing corporate agendas opposing protecting the public from pollution or dangerous chemicals. This article describes an incredibly tangled web woven by PR firms working for Monsanto and the other GMO storm troopers. One part of the article of interest to me was the mention of the "Center for Consumer Freedom." My friend Sanjay sent me a link to their site a few months ago where they were attacking Eric Schlosser's book Fast Food Nation. After browsing their site for a while, I sent them an e-mail basically telling them what I thought of them (I was mostly polite, however). I did get a more reasonable and informed response than I expected, especially in comparison to the articles on their site. I'm unclear what can be done about crap like this, but it seems as though our only real hope is for all large corporations to be broken up into tiny little companies, locally owned and controlled. I predict that eventually this will happen, but it sure would be nice if it happened peacefully instead of after the many military and environmental disasters staring us in the face have run their course.
***
If you haven't read FBI Special Agent Coleen Rowley's memo to FBI Director Mueller, read it now! Here's a small quote from it:
I feel that certain facts, including the following, have, up to now, been omitted, downplayed, glossed over and/or mis-characterized in an effort to avoid or minimize personal and/or institutional embarrassment on the part of the FBI and/or perhaps even for improper political reasons.
I'm hereby adding Special Agent Rowley to my list of acceptable presidential candidates. It seems clear that as stubborn as the "Justice" Department has been in refusing to allow the hundreds of Islamic hostages in jails around the country since September to prove their innocence and gain their freedom, it was equally as stubborn in preventing FBI agents from tracking down and jailing those few who were clearly dangerous before September 11. This certainly explains the Bush administration's obsession with secrecy: they have a whole lot to hide.
On a lighter note, I don't think there is any doubt who should star in the Coleen Rowley movie: Jodie Foster, come on down! I think we'll call it "Silence of the Feds."
May 28, 2002
Water you gonna do about it? I've often fantasized about writing a novel. The only half-decent plot I ever came up with was something I was going to call Civil War II. It would have the intelligent, determined residents of the beautiful, self-sufficient Great Lakes states facing the golfing, SUV-driving, gun-toting, Bush-voting yahoos of the American southwest in a battle over water. As you can probably tell, it would be an unbiased, even-handed approach to a difficult topic. I see an introduction featuring a face-off between governors of the Great Lakes states and Federal marshals at some planned spigot-turning ceremony. Arizona's governor would scream that the Great Lakes governors were attempting to deprive Phoenix caddies of their livelihood, and the rhetoric would escalate until the first shots were fired. I would then backtrack through a few chapters giving background on water issues and the history of the (so far) fictional aqueduct taking Great Lakes water to the southwest. I would then describe in exciting detail the course of the war starting with the Battle of Chicago and climaxing with the decisive Los Alamos campaign. The happy ending would involve a sort of affirmative reaction. All of the southwestern states which would have gotten water from the aqueduct would be combined into a single state, thus depriving them of their oversized voice in the Senate. Anyone involved in golf course ownership, management or who lived in a golf community would be forced to work in northern Wal-Marts for $7 an hour for two years, and their land would be returned to Native Americans. I'm hoping Ashley Judd will play the governor of Michigan and political leader of the Great Lakes in the movie, with George Clooney as commander of the Great Lakes Combined Militias. Jennifer Lopez will play the reporter for the Phoenix Gazette who is slowly won over to the justice of the Great Lakes cause.
I bring this up because the water issue was discussed in the Michigan gubernatorial debate last week. All six candidates, even the sleaziest Republican, said they would oppose any access to Great Lakes water by southwestern states. And then today I came across this (so far) three-part series on the ongoing drought in Santa Fe, New Mexico. We have had decades of federal subsidies to the west: homestead lands, free land to the railroads, low-cost or free mining, timber and grazing rights on federal land, and lots of massive and expensive dams and aqueducts. I see similarities to the Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza: the cities and golf courses of the west are "facts on the ground" that don't belong there, but which people won't give up without a fight.
May 27, 2002
That clears that up, I guess: Assistant Secretary of Defense Victoria Clarke sent a letter to the editor of the Washington Post, supposedly trying to clarify Donald Rumsfeld's remarks to a Senate committee recently. Clarke complains because the Post "characterized as inevitable that there would be terrorists armed with nuclear bombs or other weapons of mass destruction." To "set the record straight," Clarke quotes from Rumsfeld's testimony: "...terrorist networks have relationships with terrorist states that have weapons of mass destruction, and that they inevitably are going to get their hands on them." I've read the whole letter about five times now, and I still can't see how Clarke can claim that the Post's paraphrase is not accurate. Can you?
***
Just one more instance of how wrong Bushes can be: Tests Show Broccoli Is Good for You.
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On this Memorial Day, let us not only remember those who gave their lives making the world safe for freedom and democracy in the past, but also those who will misguidedly do just the opposite in the "War on Terror" in the future. And while we can only remember and weep for the dead of past wars, it is not too late yet for most of those who will die if the Bush-Cheney vision for the future prevails. It is up to all of us to see that it doesn't.
***
It is pretty disgusting to see chickenhawk Bush speaking anywhere, but it is definitely stomach-churning to see him speak at Normandy.
May 24, 2002
So what does Bush know? That inciting fear of terror and hyping a war on terror are effective means of stifling debate, intimidating opponents, and pushing reactionary, corporate-sponsored, ideologically-correct and politically-partisan social, economic, and anti-environmental programs. The terrorist attack of September 11 changed a lot in this country. What it has not changed are the pre-9/11 public policy goals of the Bush Administration. -- from Marty Jezer
***
Corporate Squeeze on Independent Publishers: BankOne and Borders have launched an assault on small publishers. BankOne has called in a loan, which was not behind in payments. Numerous small publishers were unwittingly connected to the loan and now have to scramble to find the funds to stay in business. Borders is turning over much of its book selection process to several big publishers who are unlikely to give much shelf space to smaller publishers. The corporate bosses have already made it impossible to hear alternative, or even accurate, viewpoints on TV or radio. They are now moving on to books.
***
Merrill Lynch "regrets that there were instances in which certain of our Internet sector research analysts expressed views which at certain points may have appeared inconsistent with Merrill Lynch's published recommendations." -- Molly Ivans points out that Merrill Lynch has thus apologized for the fact that some of their analysts told the truth, not that Merrill's published recommendations were self-serving lies. Time for a Merrill Lynch mob, methinks!
***
Rather obvious! Dan Rather is pointing out how all these new terror warnings are just an attempt by the Bushies to change the subject. Where were you when we needed you last September, Dan? Still, better late than never. Dan made his name going after one scumbag Republican president (Nixon). Maybe he can reclaim it by going after another.
***
If Rumsfeld’s claims are true—that after a decade of wars and despite a new and massive expansion of the US military, terrorist counterstrikes of catastrophic proportions are unavoidable—then the net result of the militaristic policies he embodies has been to doom the American people to death and destruction on a horrific scale. - from the World Socialist Web Site.
The entire article that this came from is worth reading. I went to a meeting last night where someone compared the Bushies approach to the frog in the water on the stove. If Rumsfeld had made his dire predictions last summer, when they were probably more justified, instead of last Sunday, the public might have dismissed him as the warmongering old coot that he is. Instead, they keep turning up the heat by raising the level of fear, and the public never realizes when they have passed the point where they can no longer jump out of the pan. Rumsfeld's point about the "asymmetrical advantages of the attacker as opposed to the defender" to me make a clear case for doing what we can to stop pissing people off. It makes a terrible case for all of the various wars we are starting and continuing.
***
So many scandals, so little time! The list just keeps growing, but the Bushies still act as though they are entitled to do whatever they want at all times. These scandals may not be as much fun as cigars and stained dresses, but their impact on the country and the world is much worse. While "what did he know and when did he know it" is getting maybe 25% of the coverage that it deserves, the other scandals seem to fade into the background. So here's a reminder:
It's no wonder that the Bushies are so obsessed with secrecy. It appears that there is nothing that they do that could withstand full scrutiny.
May 23, 2002
LBJ, GWB: Overzealous, under-informed Texans surrounded by yes men, leading us blindly into war. Good opinion piece from Richard Cohen.
***
Where's the beef? Hiding under the salmonella. Fortunately, the word from the American Meat Institute should provide comfort to those of you still daring enough to eat a burger or steak: "If the presence or absence of salmonella on a raw product were a measure of whether a product is safe or unsafe, then the government would be forced to require that only canned and cooked foods be sold." Why isn't Ashcroft going after the meat producers? They are obviously assisting suicides here.
***
This may not be a worthy rant, since its basis is a suggestion from a William Safire column to W on things he should say to President Vladimir Putin when he is in Russia, but if the suggestion is taken it will be just one more example of the administration insisting that other countries behave better than we do. The quote:
Bush, one hopes, will stress the need for sanctity of contracts and the end of wholesale bribery to attract investors.
Things would be a lot better here if someone would stop the use of bribery to attract investors. States have been pitted against each other for decades, stealing industry from each other through anti-union legislation, laxer environmental and worker safety laws, lower taxes, and outright gifts of land and money. The winners are the corporations; the losers are the workers and taxpayers of all the states. Bribery is probably too nice a word for this behavior, but most of our elected officials have supported it by "finding ways to compete for jobs for our state" rather than working at the federal level to make this competition unnecessary, perhaps even illegal. And GATT, NAFTA and the WTO just extend the madness worldwide. Admitting Russia to the WTO just adds another couple of hundred million people in direct competition for your job.
So Bush is calling for openness to opposition parties in Cuba, and Safire is telling him to end bribing of investors in Russia. Bush should remember that he was appointed to be president of the United States, and that he is doing one god-awful job of it.
May 22, 2002
Doomsday approaches: India and Pakistan are ready to go at it again, with nuclear armageddon a possibility. To build on what I wrote yesterday, it is very scary when avoiding nuclear war will require the sustained diplomatic efforts of intelligent, peace-seeking world leaders (let me know if you find any), while starting nuclear war is in the hands of any lunatic with some semtex or an assault rifle.
***
"What did the President know and when did Dick Cheney explain it to him?"
-- stolen from Tom Tomorrow,
who stole it from Jay Leno.
***
As for the national news media, top editors may still think it’s patriotic to shield George W. Bush’s limitations from the eyes of the world. But a greater danger might rest in creating an image of Bush as a competent leader when the reality is different. -- from Robert Parry
May 21, 2002
So much for democracy! From an account of a gubernatorial debate this evening:
Minutes before the questions for the candidates began, Brighton police went on stage to forcibly remove Doug Campbell, who is running for governor on the Green Party ticket. Campbell had tried to be included in the forum, but organizers said it was open only to candidates running in the Aug. 6 primary. Campbell was taken from the stage and would face charges of trespassing and disorderly conduct, Brighton Police Chief Mike Kinaschuk said. "He was given ample time and opportunity to leave of his own accord" but refused to get out of the chair set up for another candidate on stage, Kinaschuk said.
How are we ever going to get good government when we are restricted, apparently by force of law, to choose between the scumbag Republican who raises the most money and the scumbag Democrat who raises the most money? W was calling for giving opposition parties the freedom to organize and speak just yesterday! But that was in Cuba--he has no interest in bringing democracy to Michigan. I saw this covered on the local Fox News tonight; they fortunately made Campbell's removal the highlight of their story on the debate. The section I pulled from the AP report was buried way down in the story, and Campbell's removal wasn't mentioned in the headline. To show how much the "environmental" movement has been co-opted by the major parties, here's another quote:
Lana Pollack, who heads the Michigan Environmental Council in Lansing and is a member of the MLCV board, said the fact that all six major party candidates attended the forum is an indication that environmental issues will be important in the gubernatorial campaign. "As an environmentalist, my heart is lifted. It is singing, because I hear candidates fighting to be the best environmentalist," she said.
Sorry Lana, but the candidate who would actually be the best environmentalist was forcibly removed and arrested. The Greens are the only party truly interested in the environment, and the head of the Michigan Environmental Council has a singing heart when the Greens are denied the opportunity to debate environmental issues.
Along these lines, I went to Borders this evening to hear a talk given by John Stauber, co-author of Trust Us, We're Experts! He described how corporate-backed PR firms subvert and distort environmental and consumer causes through greenwashing and a variety of disinformation campaigns. Stauber and Rampton's previous book, Mad Cow USA, is available as a free download from their website. Like most arguments for being a vegetarian, the possibility of contracting mad cow disease or one of its relatives is completely convincing by itself. Eating meat is not only killing animals, it is also destroying the environment, exacerbating hunger worldwide, and is quite possibly a form of slow suicide. To quote from the PR Watch website:
On May 12, 1997, ABC World News Tonight reported that "people may not be contracting Alzheimer's as often as we think. The bad news is that they may be getting something worse instead. . . . This is about Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease. It is fatal. It destroys your brain, and what is worse, it is infectious."
In England, Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (CJD) has already become a household word because of its association with that country's epidemic of mad cow disease. In 1996, the news that young people were dying from eating infected beef shook England and all of Europe.
Rampton and Stauber, authors of the critically-acclaimed Toxic Sludge Is Good for You: Lies Damn Lies and the Public Relations Industry, reveal how mad cow disease has emerged as a result of modern, intensive farming practices whose true risks are kept hidden by government and industry denials.
***
The only thing we have to fear is fear itself - nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror... -- Franklin D. Roosevelt
This article makes the point that the recent bizarre actions of the Bushies, especially Cheney's warnings that another terrorist attack is certain, are both inspired by fear and intended to increase fear. As with so much of what they do, it reminds me of Orwell's 1984, where rocket bombs hit various parts of London every day or two, apparently random, supposedly sent by the current enemy, although no one really knows where they come from. The fear supplies the justification for further restrictions on civil rights and for ever increasing expenditures on weapons, soldiers and police.
***
Scary thoughts for the day: With US, Indian, Israeli and other powerful militaries on hair-trigger alert, and with government leaders promising us that more terrorist attacks are coming, the stage is set for all sorts of catastrophes. I was intrigued by reports that said that the recent suicide bomber in Netanya was dressed as an Israeli soldier. None of the reports suggested that it might actually have been an Israeli soldier. I doubt if it was, but my point is that by having these massive weapons ready to go at any provocation, fanatics on any side of any issue now have the power to start or continue wars. If only a few Israeli soldiers were fanatically devoted to the destruction of the Palestinians, assisting or even committing suicide bombings in Israel would be a much surer path to achieving that goal than just following orders and being good soldiers. Similarly, the massive mobilization of US forces and all the talk about the axis of evil and the 50-year "war on terrorism" give inordinate control to all sorts of fanatics all over the world.
Here is one really scary scenario: imagine a nuclear explosion in some city in Iraq. Saddam Hussein would immediately blame the US, with some plausibility, since US jets bomb Iraq all the time. Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of the warmongers in Washington would immediately claim that Saddam had once again used weapons of mass destruction against his own people, saying that the city destroyed was home to a leading opposition group within Iraq. While both explanations are possible, it would be difficult or impossible to determine the truth. The resulting US-Iraq war could be the desired goal of the real perpetrator, who might be Osama bin Laden, the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Iranians, or some hard-line communists from the former Soviet Union looking to regain superpower status for Russia.
Similarly, any new terror attack in the United States will lead to more calls for bombing countries, restricting civil liberties, and increasing defense spending. There are certainly some nut cases in this country who think that an even-larger war against, well, anybody is a desirable thing worth sacrificing the lives of hundreds of Americans for. The world is one big nuclear reactor, metaphorically and literally, and we are close to pulling out too many carbon rods and having the reaction go critical.
May 20, 2002
Not to be too humble or anything, but Maureen Dowd's column in Sunday's New York Times echoed pretty much what I was saying on Friday. For example:
Even if all President Bush learned at his Crawford briefing on Aug. 6 was that bin Laden was gearing up for hijackings here, why not order tougher airport security and fortified cockpit doors? After all, the 9/11 attacks started as old-fashioned hijackings.
I liked her conclusion, too:
Dick Cheney suggested that Democrats asking questions were unpatriotic. But that suggestion is anti-American. Maybe there has been too much bipartisanship lately. You can't get the truth that way.
***
Leaving diplomacy to the former presidents: Lacking any diplomatic skill or desire of their own, the Bushies have left our relations with Cuba and East Timor to former presidents Carter and Clinton. Here are some well-deserved kudos for Carter. I think we should give him another chance as president in 2004. As the article says, he's the best ex-president we've ever had. It says a lot, all of it bad, about our system that his presidency was not more of a success. For probably the first and only time ever we had a President who was honest, intelligent, and cared deeply about all the people of the world, and he got run out of town. So my list of acceptable presidential candidates for 2004 now includes Ralph Nader, Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney and Jimmy Carter. If at least one of these is not a major candidate I'm going to tell everybody to go back to their smoke-filled rooms and not to come out until they get it right! Bush-Gore, Bush-Daschle, etc. are totally unacceptable and must be rejected. Unfortunately our undemocratic two-party system is almost guaranteed to give us one of these or something equally disgusting. Maybe we can bring in Jimmy Carter to supervise our elections and see that they are fair this time.
***
Mr. Bush is personally and politically committed to a hard-line policy toward Cuba. In his speech today, he conditioned any easing of this policy on Cuba's adoption of democratic reforms, such as freeing all political prisoners and giving opposition parties the freedom to organize and speak. (from the New York Times)
Does that include freeing the political prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, George? And if you are so in favor of giving opposition parties the freedom to speak, why did you and Gore block Ralph Nader from the debates in 2000? You wouldn't even let him in the building, even though he had a ticket! And don't make me laugh by suggesting that the Democrats are an "opposition" party. You and Gore said almost exactly the same things on most issues; Al just used bigger words.
W went on to talk about free and fair elections in Cuba. Good idea, George! Let's try it here next time, too!
May 17, 2002
[National Security Advisor Condoleeza] Rice said the intelligence that discussed bin Laden, tucked in a 1½-page terrorism report given to Bush, mentioned bin Laden's al-Qaida network and "hijacking in a traditional sense" -- not suicide hijackers slamming fuel-laden planes into American landmarks. -- from AP
Pretty lame excuse if you ask me! If they had taken appropriate precautions to stop "hijacking in a traditional sense" it would have stopped the "untraditional" hijackings of September 11. What is the rest of the excuse here? We didn't pay much attention since probably only two or three hundred American lives were likely at risk from a "hijacking in a traditional sense?" And the possibility of crashing planes into buildings should not have been new to the administration. It was discussed by some of the conspirators in the 1993 attack on the World Trade Center, it was attempted by a disgruntled FedEx employee in 1994 who tried to crash a DC-10 into FedEx headquarters in Memphis, and it was described in Tom Clancy's novel Debt of Honor in 1995 where a Japanese pilot crashed a 747 into the US Capitol killing the president and most of congress and the administration. To paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen: I've known Jack Ryan from his early days hunting Red October right up through being our kick-butt president in Tom Clancy's fictional universe. And I must say, Mr. Bush, you're no Jack Ryan.
***
I'd rather that Dan had said this earlier, but it is good to hear CBS anchor Dan Rather speak out against the blind patriotism that he and other news leaders practiced following September 11 by not asking tough questions or demanding more access to the war in Afghanistan.
***
To me, much of the recent furor over the advance warning about September 11 is misdirected. While it would have been great if the information available had led to the thwarting of the plot and the 3000 people hadn't died, I'm willing to concede that the information may not have been complete or consistent enough to stop the attacks, even with a good-faith effort. The key point that has come out but is given only minor attention in the NY Times and Washington Post articles that I've read is that the "war on terrorism" was planned before September 11, with its real motive being US control of oil and natural gas resources in the Persian Gulf and Caspian regions. The World Socialist Web Site wrote about this back in November. The Bushies knew that starting a world-wide war and instituting a drastic domestic program of curtailing civil rights and arresting Arabs on the flimsiest of excuses would have been very unpopular last July, probably driving Bush's approval ratings from 50% down to 20% or less. Diligently and intelligently thwarting terrorist attacks before they happened would have denied them their excuse for war and repression. The scandal is not that they might have been able to piece together the plans for September 11 and stopped them; the real scandal is that their agenda may have caused them not to try.
***
I mentioned in my May 15 rant that little makes me madder than the undeserved praise directed at the president. Well, I've found something that does, and not surprisingly it comes from the Veep from the Deep, Useless Dick Cheney:
Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking in New York tonight, came to Mr. Bush's defense, calling "incendiary" any suggestion that the White House had advance knowledge of the attacks. He added, "Such commentary is thoroughly irresponsible and totally unworthy of national leaders in time of war." (from the New York Times)
You know, DICK, that we are at war because you warmongers chose to go to war, that you planned to go to war before September 11, that this plan gave you motive for downplaying or ignoring the warnings you were receiving, and that you have extended the war far beyond any rational response to 9/11. Not questioning your actions is what would be thoroughly irresponsible, and I don't blame anyone for not wanting to wait fifty years until your bloody war is over to question whether it is necessary or could have been avoided. Go crawl back in your cave and stay there until your pacemaker gives out, DICK!
***
May 16, 2002
McKinney for President! Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney gets in an "I told you so!" on the Republican morons who practically accused her of treason when she called for an investigation into the events leading up to September 11. You go girl!
***
Delay Tactics: In French or Spanish "de" means "of." So "DeLay" means "of Lay," which is exactly appropriate for Texas congressman Tom DeLay. He was a powerful tool in Enron's rise to power (so to speak) and their bilking of California, the country, and pretty much anyone else who had the misfortune of dealing with the slime of the century. He has been controlling PAC money, doling it out to fellow Republican congressmen who please him and denying it to those who don't. Read this for more.
***
Are the flag wavers paying attention? As yesterday's rant mentioned, the Bush administration was at best extremely lax in protecting the country from terrorist attacks, and at worst allowed or even provoked the attacks to allow the Bushies to pursue their world-domination pursuits. We've got evidence, and this article makes a good case for motive. The story of John O'Neill is almost too bizarre. After spending much of his career investigating Osama bin Laden and the attacks on the World Trade Center in 1993, the African embassies in 1998 and the U.S.S. Cole in 2000, O'Neill quit his job at the FBI in protest since his warnings were being ignored by the bureau and the administration. Just weeks before September 11 he started his new job as head of security for the World Trade Center. He was one of the nearly 3000 who died there on September 11. The article describes how the Bushies had already threatened the Taliban with a "carpet of bombs" before 9/11 if they didn't accept our "carpet of gold" to build Unocal's pipeline across Afghanistan.
May 15, 2002
Little makes me madder than to hear some senator or columnist praise Bush for the "moral clarity" and "resolve" of his confused, brutal and incomprehensible response to September 11. To summarize: after 15 Saudis, three Egyptians and one UAE citizen attacked the US, Bush orders that Afghanistan be bombed, focusing not on the suspect, Osama bin Laden, but on the government and citizens of that country. Bush declared a general "war on terrorism" which is little more than an offer to repressive regimes to assist them in repressing. Now more evidence is appearing showing that there were warnings in Bush's briefings about the attacks before they happened. I remember Jimmy Carter's presidency crumbling because of the Iranian hostage situation, which was by any measure nowhere near as bad as September 11 (although the secret dealings of the Reagan-Bush campaign with the Iranians to prevent an "October surprise" before the 1980 election made it worse). George W. Bush deserves an F-minus for his first 16 months in office; the American public should take pride in the fact that they did not elect him.
May 14, 2002
Drained state worse than stained dress: The Bushies did nothing to stop Enron's theft of billions of dollars from California, and they still have Enron parolees on the payroll. They should give California every penny of campaign money they received from Enron, and they should give the American people back the election they bought using it. Add Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Switzerland and Texas to the axis of evil to get back the money from Ken Lay's secret accounts. These guys are crooks, and they should pay. Read my May 6 rant for my suggestion of an appropriate punishment.
May 12, 2002
Boycott Wal-Mart! You heard it here last! Here's why: http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12962.
***
I went to hear Barbara Ehrenreich talk about her book Nickel and Dimed this afternoon. Entertaining and provocative. I don't know for sure what will work, but anyone who claims that our current economic system works is either ignorant or lying. Many of the hardest working people in this country are borderline or literally homeless because housing costs are so high compared to wages. Ayn Rand's book Atlas Shrugged featured John Galt, who was the anti-Robin Hood, stealing from the poor to give to the rich. I'm simplifying way too much--I actually liked the book and it is much more complicated than that, but Galt did see Robin Hood as the worst villain in history since he stole from the rich and gave to the poor. In any case, Wal-Mart and the other megacorporations are the anti-Robin Hoods of today, with the full complicity of the government and the media (three sides of the same triangle). Wal-Mart's low prices and high profits come on the backs of their low-wage "associates", the much lower-wage factory workers in China, and the no-wage Americans who lost their factory jobs to those Chinese slaves largely due to Wal-Mart pressure.
May 11, 2002
Scary reading! Newt Gingrich and his buddies sitting around at the American Enterprise Institute planning wars for the rest of our lives: http://www.aei.org/past_event/conf011029b.htm.
May 10, 2002
So much crap, so little time to rant about it! The National Rifle Ashcroft is insisting that the second amendment protects the rights of Americans to bear arms anytime, anywhere. Minions at the State Department are trying to make a case for war on Cuba. And nuclear war between India and Pakistan remains a distinct possibility. Congress has given away the farm to the corporate farmers while they're looking to pass "fast-track" trade legislation giving W pretty much a free hand to negotiate trade agreements without any pesky congressional input. We've never had a president more in need of oversight on everything he does than W, and never has a president gotten less.
***
Recommended reading: Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America. Ms. Ehrenreich went "undercover" as an hourly worker and tried to survive on the $7 per hour wages currently offered at Wal-Mart and other employers. The book is full of insights into the massive injustices in our system (particularly housing) and the huge barriers in place to block changes. Very entertaining and provocative reading.
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I haven't written my democracy rant yet, but the Green Party platform contains many of the ideas that I favor (see the Grassroots Democracy and Fair Elections sections). Reading Ralph Nader's book Crashing the Party has strengthened my belief that our current corporate-sponsored, two-party, winner-take-all (or loser-take-all for the 2000 presidential election) system has little to do with the ideals of true democracy.
May 8, 2002
No link between Iraq and September 11, according to Newsweek. The planned invasion of Iraq appears to be simply the most outlandish attempt to affect mid-term elections in the history of the country. Read this article for more. At least this explains the repudiation of the World Court by the Bushies--without some sort of justification the attack on Iraq will be one of the biggest war crimes in history.
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Spend a few days in Indonesia and you'll find many people asking you a question you weren't prepared for: Is America's war on terrorism going to become a war against democracy? -- Opening sentence of Thomas Friedman's opinion piece in the NY Times today. While the article as a whole is great, especially coming from the usually pro-Bush Friedman, this sentence assumes an incredible naiveté on the part of his readers. The war on terrorism has been a war against democracy since the very beginning. Had it been around in the 1770's, Bush's war on terrorism would have been supporting the British in detroying the terrorist infrastructure of those al Qaeda colonists like Washington, Adams and Jefferson whose rhetoric causes their followers to dump tea in the harbor and shoot at redcoats from behind fences.
Friedman ends his article much more intelligently than he starts it:
America needs to be aware of how its war on terrorism is read in other countries, especially those in transition. Indonesia is the world's biggest Muslim country. Its greatest contribution to us would be to show the Arab Muslim states that it is possible to develop a successful Muslim democracy, with a modern economy and a moderate religious outlook. Setting that example is a lot more in America's long-term interest than arresting a few stray Qaeda fighters in the jungles of Borneo.
May 7, 2002
Don't believe in vast right-wing conspiracy theories? Then you haven't researched the Carlyle Group. This investment club (minimum investment is reportedly $2 million) has George "Read My Lips" Bush and Osama bin Laden's father as investors, and has former Secretary of Defense Frank Carlucci as chairman, former Secretary of Treasury and State James Baker as Senior Counselor, former SEC chairman Arthur Levitt as Senior Advisor, and former British Prime Minister John Major as head of its European operations. Here's a quote from Carlyle's Global Strategy page:
We pursue transactions where our firm has a clear edge and, throughout the globe, focus on adding value to our investments through Carlyle’s expertise and access to global resources.
I assume a "clear edge" would be having the world's leading terrorist and the world's leading terrorist denouncer as sons of major investors, working together to ratchet up fear throughout the world and increase sales in weaponry supplied by companies in which the Carlyle Group is heavily invested. If you want to know who the real enemy is, the Carlyle Group is a likely candidate. Interestingly their web site makes a big deal of their high ethics, just like Enron's web site did.
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Jury of Their Fears: Are you opposed to the death penalty? You can't be on a jury in a capital crime case then--your "bias" against capital punishment disqualifies you. Therefore, juries in capital cases tend to be more willing to convict, which is part of the reason why prosecutors push for the death penalty. They may know that the punishment doesn't fit the crime, but the jury required in capital cases is more likely to convict. See this article for more.
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Middle America: The Welfare States. Paul Krugman makes the case that the "heartland" of America is on life support at the expense of the rest of the country, especially with the outrageous new farm bill. That bill also has serious negative consequences internationally as dirt-cheap subsidized American crops undercut farmers in developing countries. (See http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0506-09.htm)
The "Death Star" strategy, as described in the memos, allowed Enron to be paid "for moving energy to relieve congestion without actually moving any energy or relieving any congestion." And the "Load Shift" strategy allowed Enron to generate about $30 million in profits in 2000 using techniques that, according to the documents, included creating "the appearance of congestion through the deliberate overstatement" of power to be delivered in one part of the state. -- From a NY Times article describing documents recently released by Enron which show that California's energy shortage in 2000 was mostly the work of Enron. In a truly just world, Kenny Boy Lay, George Worthless Bush, his brother Just Elect Brother Bush, father George Read My Lips Bush and Veep Useless Dick Cheney would all have to live together in the tiny trailer in Key West that Barbara Ehrenreich described in her book Nickel and Dimed while trying to get by as dishwashers at Denny's working for ornery bosses from Guatemala. Of course, Enron has already sold off the division which did this crap, and since it is a corporation it can't be thrown in jail, or even forced to work at Denny's. As Howard Scott said: A criminal is a person with predatory instincts without sufficient capital to form a corporation. (from Sam Smith's wonderful quotation page).
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In the next 50 years, the current worldwide fleet of 700 million motor vehicles will jump to 3.5 billion, said [Secretary of Energy] Abraham, a former U.S. senator from Michigan. Daily world oil consumption will increase from 75 million barrels in 1999 to about 120 million barrels in 2020. -- Instead of seeing this as the threat to our very existence that it is, Abe sees it as an economic opportunity for Michigan. If the entire world starts driving like Americans do it will be quite a race to see whether we choke on the pollution, die in the accidents, or fry from the global warming first. I went to see an expo of alternative fuel vehicles on Saturday, including the nice new hybrid Honda Civic. While I'm all in favor of more efficient, less polluting cars, I doubt if there is much chance of obtaining a five-fold increase in efficiency to match Abraham's five-fold increase in vehicles. Hope lies mostly in reducing substantially the number of vehicle miles traveled, which will require much more intelligent land use and improving the viability of mass transit, cycling and walking as primary means of transportation.
Cinco de Mayo, 2002
This just in from AP: President Attends Church and Jogs. (Sorry, but the link has been changed to another inane Bush article. But honestly, there was an article describing W's Sunday morning with details of the sermon he slept through and the course he jogged on. And yes, I've heard that prepositions are not the words to end sentences with. That's what other words are for.) Since reporters can't get close to the action in Afghanistan or the West Bank, can't find out who Cheney met with, and don't know who planned the coup in Venezuela, this is the type of crap they give us. This is the Associated Press in the New York Times, not National Lampoon. Is there any room left for National Lampoon, Saturday Night Live, or other satirists? The "real" news is its own satire.
May 4, 2002
I've been reading Ralph Nader's book Crashing the Party, which chronicles his 2000 presidential campaign. Ralph makes more sense in one paragraph than Bush or Gore have in their entire miserable lives. I for one will never forgive Al Gore for staying in the race, thereby splitting the liberal vote and allowing Bush to get close enough to steal the election. (That's a more valid argument than the similar one that Gore used, since Nader offered a substantial alternative to Bush and Gore did not. Why settle for "not quite as awful" when you can have "infinitely better?")
May 3, 2002
Secure, undisclosed location comes to MSU. Is it too late for me to change alma maters? If they can't come up with somebody better than the Veep from the Deep to speak at commencement, they should just cancel it.
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Poll shows majority of Americans are still idiots. A University of Michigan poll said that "Seven in 10 Americans said they were willing to give up at least some of their civil liberties to improve security" and that "nine in 10 Americans favored having more police assigned to patrol public places and additional powers to permit the military to work with local police to conduct anti-terrorist activities." Blacks and Arab-Americans already know that Bush and Ashcroft are much greater threats to their life and liberty than Osama bin Laden ever dreamed of being. The rest of America will find out all too soon if they don't quickly realize that America is turning into a police state. Just like Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union it will all come crumbling down eventually, but most of us will live longer and happier lives if we stop the repression now. Unfortunately, most of us don't know that.
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Michigan, Ohio and Alabama aren't the only places being extorted by auto companies (see below) for the "privilege" of having polluting factories in their midst. Mitsubishi is putting the squeeze on Australia, threatening to move their plants out of down under if they aren't handed some dough under the table. Congratulations, taxpayers, your government has used your tax dollars to bribe a corporation to locate or remain in your community so that maybe you'll still have a job so you can keep paying taxes so your government can continue to bribe corporations. Don't expect to get paid too much for that job, though. The car company can still move to Malaysia or Bangladesh if labor costs get too high.
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Good Boondocks cartoon, as usual.
May 1, 2002
Bush-league logic: Ashcroft must be doing a good job as Attorney General because liberals hate him so much. See Molly Ivan's latest.
Here's a good one: "In our investigation, we have not uncovered a single piece of paper – either here in the U.S. or in the treasure trove of information that has turned up in Afghanistan and elsewhere – that mentioned any aspect of the September 11th plot. The hijackers had no computers, no laptops, no storage media of any kind." -- That's from FBI Director Robert Mueller in a speech made at the Commonwealth Club in San Francisco on April 19. So what exactly did the administration show to Tony Blair and Musharraf and others to convince them that the poorest country in the world needed the crap bombed out of it? Read the WSWS article about this.
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Nevada: It's the bomb! Maybe we can get napalm plates here in Michigan to commemorate Dow's contributions to the Cold War. How do you draw napalm?
April 30, 2002
A nice summary of W in the Middle (East), featuring some good quotes:
Why did he go?
The kindly answer is that Secretary of State Powell is the wisest and most practical person in the Bush administration, and that he, more than anyone else, knew that the situation requires that America play a central role in defusing tensions and bringing the Israelis and Palestinians to the bargaining table. From this perspective, the President's vacillations, his lack of clarity in the pronouncements he made as Powell's trip unfolded, undermined the Secretary of State's mission which, compounded by the intransigence of the Mr. Sharon and Mr. Arafat, ultimately unraveled into failure.
The unkind answer, increasingly making the rounds in the corridors of power in Washington and on the editorial pages of several major newspapers, is that Mr. Powell was 'set up' by savage internecine warfare. In this account Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, both of whom want to move soon and powerfully on Iraq, have been in part thwarted by Mr. Powell's careful, cautious view of an Iraqi incursion. Mr. Powell's mission, in this view, was 'payback time." Forced to solve an insoluble situation, his authority would be undermined, his reputation sullied, he himself humiliated. And the major domestic impediment to moving on Iraq, the State Department, would henceforward speak with a less potent voice in the internal administration debate on Iraq, burdened now with the somewhat dimmed luster of the enormously popular Secretary of State.
Mr. Bush still has no clear idea of what he is doing, or where he is going, or what the world's most powerful nation should do about violence in the Middle East.
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The constitution is slowly creeping back into the picture. In a ruling today a US district judge ruled that material witnesses cannot be detained for grand jury investigations, which could set free many who have been held for months without charges. The "Justice" Department is of course planning to appeal. Let's hope it doesn't go to the Fascist Five on the Supreme Court; they appointed this cesspool of an administration and probably aren't inclined to correct it. I'm hopeful that this will lead to Rabih Haddad's release--the last I heard is that he is being held solely as a material witness.
April 29, 2002
Interesting analysis of what the Saudis might be up to from William Safire. It refers to the quote from an unidentified Saudi source that I quoted last week.
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``At that point everyone is clapping and cheering,'' Clark said. Clark was a passenger on US Airways Flight 335, which was turned around and told to return to Philadelphia on Sunday after taking off on its way to Orlando. The FBI says this was because several men of Middle Eastern descent had bought one-way tickets with cash. The plane landed back at Philadelphia less than an hour later and the suspect gentlemen were harassed and cleared. After two hours on the ground at the Philly airport the FBI finally tells the remaining passengers what is going on, which precipitates their cheering. Three cheers for the FBI! They managed to use racial profiling to embarrass several people and inconvenience many others, but still the plane was allowed to take off and be well on its way to Washington before being told to turn around, which it probably would not have done if it had been hijacked. What could it possibly take for them to earn the disapproval of the brain-dead American public?
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This nonsense has got to stop! The state of Ohio has offered Ford an $83 million incentive package to build Mercury SUV's at its Avon Lake Assembly Plant near Cleveland. GM recently threatened to move assembly of its silly Chevrolet SSR (V8 powered two-seat roadster pickup mutant) unless Lansing, Michigan agreed to lower pollution standards. Politicians in Montgomery, Alabama were ecstatic that Hyundai agreed to build a 2000-job assembly plant there for only $133 million in state and local bribe money. That's $66,500 per job! Corporations have pitted city against city, state against state, and with NAFTA and WTO, country against country in a bidding war for jobs. Ralph Nader, in his book Crashing the Party, describes a recent case where Daimler-Chrysler squeezed millions out of Toledo and Ohio to locate a Jeep plant in Toledo. Entire neighborhoods were destroyed to build the plant, and an economic downturn resulted in far fewer jobs being created than were promised. I don't know all the answers, but it sure seems like corporations should be paying states substantial fees for the privilege of doing business within their borders, not the other way around. There is now more real competition between Michigan, Alabama and Mexico than there is between Ford, GM, and Daimler-Chrysler. This benefits the shareholders and executives of the corporations to the detriment of the citizens of the states and countries. We need to realize that we have more than enough stuff and that economic activity and jobs aren't the necessities--food, clothing and shelter are.
April 27, 2002
All they are saying is give peace no chance: The Bush administration is planning this massive war against Iraq, unprovoked, with no legitimate excuse. Congress should insist that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft be in the front line; nobody should be allowed to so flippantly and premeditatedly plan a war without putting their own Republican butts on the line.
Here's a copy of my letter to my senators and representative. If you agree with me, please copy it into your e-mail and send it to your congresspeople.
Dear Senators Levin and Stabenow and Representative Rivers:
The Bush administration appears to be quite open about its plans to start a war on Iraq. There seems to be no effort at resolving whatever issues we have with Iraq diplomatically; the only concerns seems to be timing, logistics, and the reaction of other countries to our attack. From what I have read, Iraq has not attacked us. I have seen unsubtantiated reports of contacts between Iraqi intelligence agents and Mohammed Atta in Prague, but nothing else. (And if Iraq was behind 9/11, why the war in Afghanistan?) Iraq's crimes are apparently two: one was the attack on Kuwait twelve years ago, which they were suckered into by our ambassador and for which Iraq has been and continues to be punished; and the possible possession of weapons of mass destruction, a crime for which the most guilty party in the world is the United States and which is shared with many of our allies.War in all cases is brutal and every effort should be made to avoid it. On the contrary, the Bush administration's entire approach to foreign policy in the Middle East appears to have war on Iraq as its top priority for which it is willing to compromise other interests. Undertaking an unprovoked attack on Iraq will be one of the greatest war crimes in history. I hope and expect that you, as my representatives in Washington, will speak out forcefully and repeatedly against the administration's plans and withhold the approvals and funding necessary for such a war.
April 25, 2002
Note on Updates: I occasionally read through my rants and discover errors in things I wrote a few days ago. I'll try to keep corrections to things like spelling and grammar--it seems wrong to make changes to my takes on issues if events prove me wrong. If this happens I will write a new correction at the top of the page rather than editing my previous rant, as was Winston Smith's job in Orwell's 1984. One correction I made a couple of days ago was to change my April 17 reference to the "Alaska National Wildlife Refuge" to say "Arctic National Wildlife Refuge," which seems to be the majority opinion (NY Times and most others) as to what ANWR abbreviates. A google search, however, turned up several articles referring to "Alaska National Wildlife Refuge", including this one from the State Department quoting a Bush speech.
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Okay, I know that one was boring, so now for some comedy relief:
Newark, New Jersey: Joseph Schmeckledink of Newark was arrested today after it was determined that he shaved the beards off of two of the 9/11 hijackers on September 9 of last year. He is charged with barbering terrorists.
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Another note on my Maginot Line rant from Tuesday: If there are al Qaeda evil doers in Cuba, it's because we brought them there!
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Senator Hollings on Free Trade and Fast Track. "Free trade" is bad for most Americans and for many of the workers overseas. It is bad for the environment. Giving W "fast track" authority will only enable him to make things worse faster. So why are so many in Congress in favor of it? Because they represent the corporations and other moneyed interests, not the rest of us. Don't tell the Bushies, but hopefully none of the Tahoe landholders who sued for compensation due to zoning restrictions was from Canada or Mexico. If they were, they could use NAFTA's Chapter 11 to accuse the local governments of restricting "Free Trade." NAFTA and the WTO take control out of the hands of people at the local level and give it to a group of secret judges working for the multi-national corporations. Al Gore's strong support for NAFTA is one of the reasons that I don't think he would have been much better than Bush--they're both working for the same guys.
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A dividend of endless war, or Caught between Iraq and a Hard Place: This quote comes from a Saudi official close to the Crown Prince, according to the NY Times:
"It is a mistake to think that our people will not do what is necessary to survive, and if that means we move to the right of bin Laden, so be it; to the left of Qaddafi, so be it; or fly to Baghdad and embrace Saddam like a brother, so be it. It's damned lonely in our part of the world, and we can no longer defend our relationship to our people." (I believe he is referring to the Saudi-US relationship.)
Bush lost the "Arab Street" a long time ago; now he's managing to lose the "Arab Palace" as well. If Bush has an ounce of reason in him he will have to choose either to forego the war on Iraq to maintain the oil flow, or to institute some serious energy conservation in this country. I would see this as a positive development, since the current plan is war on Iraq without conservation, but I'm afraid that W doesn't have an ounce of reason in him. He is more likely to add Saudi Arabia to his "axis of evil" (their credentials are better than the current members) and attack Saudi Arabia, Iraq and Iran all at once, thereby starting World War III.
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April 23, 2002
A win for the good guys! The US Supreme Court (yes, that Supreme Court) actually ruled in favor of the public and the environment today. In a case involving Lake Tahoe, the Court ruled that zoning and environmental restrictions on property do not constitute a "taking" for which the owners must be compensated. Had they ruled the other way it might have been an even more damaging ruling than their infamous Bush v. Gore ruling of December 2000. Pretty much any zoning or pollution control ordinance would have been under fire for "taking" property rights, resulting in an even greater assault on our landscape and environment than we have now. Fortunately Sandra Day O'Connor and Anthony M. Kennedy joined the liberal supremes John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen G. Breyer in this decision. Of course Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas opposed.
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Another Maginot Line. The Senate passed a bill on Friday to ban visitors from Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Sudan and North Korea. "We know the chances of another terrorist attack are great, and we know it is unconscionable for our systems to allow entry of another terrorist into the United States," warned California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein, one of the sponsors of the bill, during the debate preceding the vote. Excuse me, Senator, but I believe I heard that 15 of the 9/11 perps came from Saudi Arabia, three from Egypt, and one from the United Arab Emirates. Their countrymen can still get in! And while I'm aware of one terrorist attack on Cuba by someone now living in Florida (see below), I can't recall any terrorist attacks on the US by Cubans. (Can you? Admittedly I didn't research this, but I recall reading that the first WTC attack in 1993 was the first terrorist attack by foreigners on American soil.) And I don't notice many Americans afraid to get on a bus because "that guy might be North Korean." Personally, I'm more afraid of a white guy from New York in a Ryder truck than I am of any Sudanese I might come across. Thanks to August Pollack's blog for spotlighting this latest bit of legislative nonsense which, by the way, passed 97-0.
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The dirty deed is done. The US has ousted the head of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, Brazilian José M. Bustani, ostensibly because we don't like his management style. As mentioned here before, the real reason is that Bustani might have succeeded in resuming inspections in Iraq, thereby possibly denying the Bushies their main excuse and thwarting their lust to step up the war on Saddam Hussein. We have also been meddling with the UN inspectors for the same reason. Rarely have so many done so much to avoid peace. (More on this)
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Representative Cynthia McKinney (D-Georgia) is calling for a full investigation into the intelligence failures which preceded the September 11 attacks. She implies that the huge financial gains by George H. W. Bush and others close to the administration resulting from the "War on Terrorism" are fishy at best. While even I question whether the Bushies are evil enough to have knowingly allowed the attacks to occur, I am firmly convinced that their cynical "United We Stand" response of bombing the crap out of Afghanistan and the "axis of evil" nonsense is complete opportunism for the benefit of the Carlyle Group and other warmongering profiteers, not to mention their own political fortunes. The stench is strong enough that a full investigation should be made. Rep. McKinney is being blasted by Republicans and the right-wing press. You can give her some support by sending her a message at http://www.house.gov/mckinney/guest.htm.
April 22, 2002
When your only tool is a
hammer...
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French fascist to face Chirac in election. According to the NY Times, Mr. Chirac, a conservative, had 19.6 percent of the vote, Mr. Le Pen 17 percent and Mr. Jospin 16 percent. The top two, Chirac and Le Pen, will face each other in the primary election. While the French system is different from ours, it still allows for undesirable results as ours does (see picture above). I'm working on a big "democracy rant" which I'll post in a day or two. Stay tuned!
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From the Washington Post: "The organizers did an outstanding job," said Ramsey... "If it stays this way, it will be the best one we've ever had. . . . This is really what protest ought to be." I thought this was interesting praise for the anti-war, anti-Israeli-occupation, anti-globalization rally in Washington, since it came from D.C. Police Chief Charles H. Ramsey. I was one of about 40 who participated in a similar, though much smaller, rally in Ann Arbor on Saturday. No praise from our police chief that I've heard yet, unfortunately.
April 21, 2002
Monty Python's Terry Jones takes on W's concern for democracy in Venezuela.
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Editorials from Al Gore and Jimmy Carter in today's NY Times.
April 19, 2002
Wondering when we're going to start the war on Iraq? Try January 17, 1991. It has never stopped! US and British planes were bombing Iraq today.
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The whole point of training is to learn from your mistakes. The Americans don't seem to learn. They just keep killing people. --from a Canadian soldier quoted by the CBC, as reported in the Washington Post.
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Andersonville, Bataan, Shebergan. Prisoners captured in the Afghan war are still being held by the thousands in abominable conditions. Most are malnourished, many diseased, and many have already died in captivity. They are being held by the "Northern Alliance," the brutal American ally. The Bush administration apparently has no interest in mitigating this humanitarian disaster. As I have said before, if even one percent of the people who have been killed or held captive in the "War on Terrorism" had had any role or even prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks, even the CIA would have heard something about them. These prisoners were engaged in a civil war thousands of miles from America. Many were drafted or forced into fighting for the Taliban. In no way do these people deserve to be treated this way. No one does. Just one more answer to "Why do they hate us?"
April 18, 2002
Don't know where Osama is, so let's bomb some Canadians instead. Sorry, that's slightly unfair, but only slightly. Of course, no one really knows what is going on in Afghanistan, including Secretary of Offense Donald Rumsfeld. He says that he has never had enough info on OBL's whereabouts to go after him. So I guess you just go after whatever. The approach seems to be to have heavily-armed planes flying over Afghanistan day and night, and if they see gunfire or tall people they are to shoot or bomb first and ask questions later, if ever. This in a country where the only semi-organized opposition military, armed with deadly Toyota pickups, was destroyed five months ago. When your only tool is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Read Tom Tomorrow's and August Pollack's take on Rumsfeld's remarks.
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Hurray! The Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is safe for now! Of course, the Bushies are immediately threatening the Rockies in retaliation.
April 17, 2002
He told us his "War on Terrorism" would take a long time, and, by George, he's telling us again! In a speech today, W pledged to keep fighting, "terrorist by terrorist." He refuses to recognize that terrorists are best defined by their acts, and that his war is likely to drive more people into desperation, leading them to commit acts of terror and thereby becoming terrorists. Pretty much all terrorist attacks on the US in the last ten years can be traced to the Gulf War; I shudder to think how many will result from the "War on Terrorism." There's little worse in the world than a wrong-headed, obstinate, dim-witted, un-elected son-of-a-Bush!
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ANWR heading for a vote! Please e-mail your senators asking them to vote no on drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. For Michigan residents, our senators are Carl Levin (senator@levin.senate.gov) and Debbie Stabenow (senator@stabenow.senate.gov). The vote is scheduled for tomorrow, so bug them today!
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According to George Monbiot in the Guardian, the US intends to oust the leader of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons this coming Sunday because he apparently intends to resume inspections in Iraq, and it seems possible that Iraq might let him. As with the possibility of the resumption of UN inspections (see below), this would undermine the Bushies justification for attacking Iraq, which seems to be the only consistent element in their current excuse for a foreign policy. There were few legitimate reasons for daddy Bush's war on Iraq eleven years ago; there are none at all now.
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The Fourth Reich: Otto Reich was appointed as assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs by W a few months ago. This is like if Nixon had appointed George Wallace to be in charge of African affairs, or if W had appointed Spencer Abraham to be secretary of energy; i.e., incredibly inappropriate. W managed to get Reich into the job while avoiding Senate confirmation using some sleazy trick, no doubt aided and abetted by the spineless nature of the Senate in general. Reich is a Castro-hating, contra-loving Cuban-American with links to Orlando Bosch, a man who was convicted in Venezuela in 1976 of blowing up a Cuban airliner, killing 73. Bosch has even been convicted of terrorist acts in the US, but he was pardoned by Bush the Elder in 1990 and now lives in Florida. (So who is harboring terrorists?) It now appears that Reich was involved with the recent failed coup in Venezuela. See this Guardian article for the background on Reich and Bosch, and this NY Times article for the so-far incomplete story of Reich's possible involvement in the coup. W is right--there is evil in the world. A whole lot of it is in his administration.
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