9.18.2003
I'll be away til Tuesday the 23rd.
If you are in New England come to Manchester NH for the Rolling thunder Down Home Democracy Tour-
9/18/2003
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F___ Saddam. We're taking him out." Those were the words of President George W. Bush, who had poked his head into the office of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. It was March 2002, and Rice was meeting with three U.S. Senators, discussing how to deal with Iraq through the United Nations, or perhaps in a coalition with America's Middle East allies. Bush wasn't interested.
Note the date on the above...
As Teeley explained it to The New York Times in October 1984, “You can say anything you want during a debate, and 80 million people hear it.” If “anything” turns out to be false and journalists correct it, “So what. Maybe 200 people read it, or 2,000 or 20,000.”
Do you listen to Democracy Now! everyday? You ought to consider fitting it in... (I do)
I'm hoping by now that mainstream news sources have been all over Mr Cheney's "Meet the Press" Propaganda Lie Fest. And I say "Lie Fest" advisedly, as in Hitler and Company's proven technique of governance, The Big Lie. The very concept of Democracy is predicated on giving the citizens the facts though, this technique of lying is obviously autocratic. Before I get going specifically about the Oscar meriting performance of "vice president" Cheney, think about how this technique has paved the way, along with a non-critical media's collaboration, on our nations journey into prosecuting an illegal war, morphing into an occupation that is still costing lives... While some of us believe quick snatches of "the company line" that we hear- you know, " A trailer found containing a biological weapons lab" that turned out to be a helium gas generator, but you don't hear that part of it, the retraction... I read that 23% of one polling sample were sure that the US had found the weapons of mass destruction that ol' Saddam had squirreled away to deliver to America, right along with his Nuclear devices that Mr Bush said could be here in 45 minutes. Sure Saddam Hussein is a very bad man, a man no worse after being our friend than he was before, he just had more weapons, good American weapons. I remember when President Reagan was worried that little impoverished Nicaragua was going to march 3 days into Texas too. And look and see who comprise the present Bush administration- among the neocons a bunch of felons from that era. Liars all around. Go figure.
Cheney lied his mean-spirited ass off before the American people. Listen here. View the show courtesy of the Information Clearing House. The homepage for Democracy Now! is down at the moment, you can search out the transcript there, I suggest you do. Read it , mull over in your mind what the "Second-in-Command" bald faced lying on national television means. Anyone who has been reading the news in any depth can see through the BS.
You know about the bogus claim concerning Uranium from Niger I'm guessing. Well, Mr Cheney is pushing it. How about the "Iraqi" (born in Bloomington Indiana and Cheney calls him an Iraqi) that is one of the FBI's 25 most wanted- that Bush didn't want back when Hussein offered him, despite the fact that Mr Abdul Rahman Yasin is important enough to rate a 25 million dollar reward.
Lying about the flying out of Saudi nationals including the Binladin family while most other planes were grounded in the US. This is a link a reader sent June 1 of this year concerning the Saudi escape flight.
How is it that Mr Cheney is so comfortable transparently lying? Could it be after the media was so well managed during the stealing of the presidential election, during 9/11, during the attack on Afghanistan and then the buildup to and the attack on Iraq that he is showing fatal hubris?
Or is he sure that "We the People" will never question too loudly, that the masses of us are cowed and stupid here in Plantation America. Freedom means more than the ability to shop at a gazzillion locations. America is seeming a big complacent feedlot for the "top of the foodchain" elite. Cheney, Bush, did they risk their asses in Vietnam? Well their kids won't in Iraq or wherever the next Neocon stop is for Empire America. Our's will though. We will pay in blood. The taxes on our work will not go to make America a better a better place for it's people, but to subsidize the protection of oil interests, to directly subsidize a near unaccountable defense industry.
Did you ever see a feedlot? In the distance on the plains of Western Kansas one could see a bubble of light. A massive fenced in area, full of cattle. Massive. Automatic feed dispersal belts so the bovine inmates (This was my impression. For the record: I enjoy hunting, I eat meat) standing about shoulder to shoulder can eat, gorge I'm guessing because what else do they have to do? Eat and crap. Suddenly a mist arcs above the place from spray nozzles stategically placed. It seemed nightmarish, so futile- putting me in mind of Jewish folks in WWII, then my mind flowed to the apartheid bantustans of the beleaguered Palestinian people and their Israeli occupiers.
To us, to our society...
Given a car, a tv, just enough bread to get by supplemented by a non-stop media circus and a good dose of learned helplessness, of institutionally cultivated apathy and you have Mr Cheney's view of America. A vast feedlot the top .05% income level oversee, they manage. And harvest the wealth of. Cattle, chattel, it is all the same as long as we remain quiet and forget about the ideals our nation is founded on. As long as we pocket our dignity and give our autonomy up to the experts, to the pundit collaborators. I stand amazed at the doublethink we are subjected to, the doublespeak. And the fact that regular folks like me seem unable to pick out the inconsistencies what we are offered each day. The instances come as a daily avalanche. How this administration can revise a history just months old. Without a peep from most of the governed.
1984 anyone?
Help get the truth out. Act. We can't let them get away with this. What sort of world will we be leaving our kids?
9/18/2003
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9.16.2003
Our Friend Truth
When you are home, relaxing in the quiet hours after a busy day do you ever search out the Congressional Record because you want a good read?
Nah, neither do I. But I did come across this entry from the House of Representives and was heartened. Take a look at "Iraq Watch, We Must Do Right By The American Taxpayer" from September 9, 2003.
I'll offer some teasers:
Mr. STRICKLAND. Mr. Speaker, it is good to be here this evening. I am here tonight to say something that for me is kind of difficult to say. I believe the President has deceived us, that he has distorted the truth, and that he has engaged in false claims which has taken us into a war which is daily claiming the lives of our soldiers.
He goes on to cite such examples of lying as the fictitious 9/11 Iraq connection, Saddams supposed tons of biological, chemical and atomic weapons that we faced immanent attack with. He mentions Cheney saying we will be greeted as Liberators. Wolfowitz saying that our illegal and immoral attack will pay for itself thanks to Iraqi oil.
Strickland gets a slap on the wrist.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. King of Iowa). The Chair would remind all Members to refrain from improper references to the President, such as accusing him of deception.
Further on:
Mr. DELAHUNT. Let me ask the gentleman, does this mean that at some point in the future, if we continue to have a foreign policy that creates these significant needs for military personnel, that some day on the floor of this House we will be debating the necessity for a draft?
Mr. STRICKLAND. I think so.
Mr. INSLEE. That is the $64,000 question.
Mr. DELAHUNT. It is time to ask these kinds of questions.
Mr. INSLEE. The gentleman points out something that I think is important and that is that the President needs to level with the American people about the real cost of this.
Now, right now we have volunteers suffering the real cost of this war with loss of life and limb; but our children have a real cost they are enduring too, a Federal deficit that has gone over $500 billion this year with this additional $87 billion, the highest deficit in American history; and that is a real cost that the President, if he wants to show real leadership, would level with the American people about and say that we need to pay for, rather than hiding the cost and playing a fiscal shell game and putting that on our children.
Please give this Report a read. Refer to it in e-mails, get the word out that there are people in Government that are stating the obvious. Mr Bush and his Administration are liars.
Mr. HOEFFEL It is my belief that the President misled Congress, and it is my understanding from the documents that I have since read that are now available to us that were not available to us in the fall of 2002 that the White House was well instructed about the doubts and the uncertainty from the CIA, the FBI, and the rest of the intelligence agencies.
Now, if it is objectionable to say that on the floor of the House, if the Republican leadership does not want to hear that on the floor of the House, bring it on.
Read about the screwing of our Veterans:
Then they decided that they were going to create a new category of veteran. We call them Priority 8 veterans. You can make as little as $25,000 and this administration considers you high income. And they say you cannot enroll in VA health care. You can be a combat decorated veteran and be excluded.
Let folks know what you have learned. Share the facts and figures. The truth can't be denied.
9/16/2003
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How much money is 87 billion dollars? Well, it is more than the 79 Billion asked for and gotten last April.
But would could be done with it, here at home, where it could add to our lives?
$87b Is More Than The Combined Total Of All State Budget Deficits In The United States
$87b Is Rougly The Total Of Two Years Worth Of All U.S. Unemployment Benefits
$87b Is Enough To Pay The 3.3 Million People Who Have Lost Jobs $26,363 Each
$87b Is More Than Double The Total Amount The Government Spends On Homeland Security
$87b Is 7 Times What The Government Spends On Title I For Low-Income Schools
$87b Is 87 Times The Amount The Federal Government Spends On After School Programs
$87b Is About 9 Times What The Federal Government Spends On Special Education
$87b Is More Than 10 Times What The Government Spends On All Environmental Protection
$87b Is 8 Times The Total For Pell Grants -- The Major College Program In The U.S.
$87b Is More Than The Total Cost Of The First 3 Years Of The Medicare Pres. Drug Proposal
87b Is Enough To Give Every Man, Woman And Child In America $300
9/16/2003
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We must find new ways to speak for peace... If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight
-- Martin Luther King
9/16/2003
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9.15.2003
This Land is Our Land
Please give this Jim Hightower a read...
Don't go calling us names like "consumer" or "stakeholder" when who we are is full-fledged, dyed-in-the-wool, unbridled, rambunctious citizens--indeed, we're the ultimate sovereigns of this great land. We don't merely strive for material gain, but also for the satisfaction of building community and reaping the deeper richness of the common good.
The idea of belonging to something larger than our own egos and bank accounts, the idea of caring, sharing and participating as a public is the big idea of America itself. As a boy growing up in Denison, Texas, I was taught this unifying, moral concept by hard-working, Depression-era parents who ran a small business in our small town. They knew from experience and from their hearts what America is all about: "Everybody does better when everybody does better," is how my old daddy used to put it.
I'm guessing you have some familiarity with Jim Hightower. If not, you really should. Here is an article of his from Alternet, a quick but informative read about the nature of the Homeland Security Department.
The Rolling Thunder Down Home Democracy tour. We are America. Let's work to take her back.
9/15/2003
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I have been remiss in not recommending sooner that you go to Open Source Politics an ambitious and informative new group blog.
I'm just getting up to speed in my reading and writing myself...
9/15/2003
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9.14.2003
Go to Left I on the news and ex-lion tamer and skippy the bush kangaroo to read some excellent postings.
A question: Where is our humanity? Our sense of justice?
9/14/2003
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Saw this linked over at BLAH3 - Can you believe our wounded service people, our troops putting their all on the line for Mr "Bring 'Em On" can be charged $8.10 a day for the food they eat while hospitalized? A lingering gift from Mr Reagan in the 80's... Scroll down through BLAH3 and catch some hot postings.
Democratic Veteran and Byte Back link to two different articles highlighting the present administrations war against our veterans; both bear reading. Is it supporting our troops to subtract their disability pay from their retirement pay? Is it too costly to take care of the folks that have given their all for their country? Obviously yes when the Commander-in-Chief panders to his rich contributors, giving them tax cuts that the country can ill afford.
American soldiers from Guard Units, "Citizen Soldiers" are having their duty tour extended, and are seeing both their families and their businesses suffer from their absence. The good news about extended service time; the soldiers get two weeks leave to come home to loved ones. The bad news, the soldier will have to pay his own round trip ticket to Iraq.
In this administration's "well thought out" war we read of our soldiers having the folks at home send them supplies, like night vision gogglesand packs.
Supporting our troops? Yup, it looks like that is something we at home can do much more sincerely than the present administration. Read, share what you learn. We have the truth on our side; let's help lead folks to think...
Hear what Jim Hightower ( 2 minute realaudio clip) has to say about Mr Bush and company and their "support" of our troops.
Speaking of Jim Hightower, you'll be coming out to Veterans Park in Manchester NH this Saturday, 11am to 8pm, for the Rolling Thunder Down Home Democracy tour, won't you? Rolling Thunder rocks the Granite state.
1 great reason to visit New England...
9/14/2003
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