2.12.2003
"Patriotism means to stand by the country.
It does not mean to stand by the president
or any other public official save exactly to the
degree in which he himself stands by the country.
It is patriotic to support him insofar as he efficiently serves
the country. It is unpatriotic not to oppose him to the
exact extent that by inefficiency or otherwise
he fails in his duty to stand by the country."
President Theodore Roosevelt, 1908
With all the hoopla going on I have to keep reminding myself "This is America, not a police state; this America not a police state..." a sort of mantra to keep my sanity in the face of an adminstration gone mad. It helps to run into friends, good people who's opinion I respect that are saying they are concerned for our nation, in disbelief at the way things are going nowadays. This tool, this project is for and about us, "We the People", the regular folks that know things are going in a wrong manner, people who can use discernment to weigh what are more and more skewed news reports and draw their own conclusions. The gist of what Democracy is about.
Read this report by William Rivers Pitt gleaned from Truthout. Now why would a news report scrub the fact that Bin Ladin called on listeners to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq? Does reality bump against what we are being told, the 'company line'? You judge. Take a moment to read what Mr Powell had to say about Osama Bin Laden and Iraq sixteen months ago: "We cannot let Usama bin Laden pretend that he is doing it in the name of helping the Iraqi people or the Palestinian people," said Powell. "He doesn't care one whit about them. He has never given a dollar toward them. He has never spoken out for them." What are we to believe, Mr Powell?
As an aside, you'll note the spelling used in the Powell quotation 'Usama' which is how it is spelled on his Interpol warrant. Oddly enough it was Libya that first the first state to issue an arrest warrant for him on March 16 1998. Mr Rumsfeld referes to him as UBL, leaving one to wonder about the spelling change; would taking the US out of his name help us not to think about his CIA roots? Marketing is funny that way and propaganda is marketing. OK it's a stretch but...
Condoleeza Rice seems to be pressuring UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix to fall into line. Shouldn't truth be served?
Read the full text of the Franco German Russian option for peaceful disarmament. Again, why the US rush to war? I am thankful that such a resource as Truthout exists; which must show seeing just how heavily I have used their site today.
2/12/2003
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