Sunday, August 29, 2004

Over 100,000 Today in NYC

Over 100,000 Today in NYC
"I’ll speak out! I have nothing to lose.
I have absolutely nothing to lose
."
--Celeste Zappala


AP photo
More Than 100,000 Protest Bush in NYC
DemfromCT has rally stories at Kos. An open thread continues with more rally stories.


photo: Indymedia
This was the oldest person who was rallying today.


One woman stood out among the protesters in NYC.
Her name was Celeste Zappala.
Her son, Army Sgt. Sherwood R. Baker, was killed in Iraq.
These are her words.

Laura Bush: Swift Boat Attacks Are Fair

Laura Bush: Swift Boat Attacks Are Fair

TIME MAGAZINE:
Do you think these swift-boat ads are unfair to John Kerry?

MRS. BUSH
Do I think they're unfair? Not really. There have been millions of terrible ads against my husband.

Now there's a piece of great rationale from Laura Bush.
Two wrongs, according to Laura, make a right..well, maybe... sorta.

Quote of the Day-RNC Hypocrisy

Quote of the Day:
RNC Hypocrisy



"You can't craft a vicious, mean-spirited platform, then try to put lipstick on the pig by putting Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger on in prime time."

--Christopher Barron, Activist with the Log Cabin Republicans


*my sincere aplogies to real pigs, who are actually lovely creatures.

Hillary will admit what Bush won't

Hillary will admit what Bush won't

On today's Meet the Press, Senator Hillary Clinton said to Tim Russert when she was asked to comment on John Kerry's "No" vote on the $87 billion Iraq funding:

"I think John, who understands war a heck of a lot better than I do..and has understood completely what it would mean for us to be on a wrong path in Iraq, was making the point that..by the time we had that vote, we needed to take a hard look at the policies of this administration."

My point?
Senator Clinton will admit that which Bush will never admit.
John Kerry understands war a heck of a lot better than either of them.

I admire Senator Clinton for saying so.

It might be easy for some people to forget that fact while cheap political lies are being hurled at them electronically, 24 hours a day, on cable news networks.

In Maureen Dowd's words, Bush was 'defending Texas from Oklahoma' while John Kerry faced the real test.

The extent of Bush's knowlege of war includes the stories his daddy told him, old John Wayne flicks, donning fake ribbons on his uniform, playing dress-up on an aircraft carrier, and toting fake turkeys around a military base after sneaking into Iraq in the dead of night and leaving as quickly and stealthily as he came.

[TRANSCRIPT HERE]

BOP Interviews Norman Mailer

BOP Interviews Norman Mailer
"Stupidity is a huge weapon."
--Norman Mailer
Don't miss Christopher Lydon's timely and exclusive interview with Norman Mailer at BOP.

Bush speaks in new Interview

Bush speaks in new interview

Thanks to Matt Drudge, I have a few quotes from the latest TIME magazine interview with George W. Bush.

Read a few of them and read my questions and comments to President Bush following each one.

On John Kerry: “His service was honorable, as far as I’m concerned....I can understand why Senator Kerry is upset with us. I wasn’t so pleased with the ads that were run about me. And my call is get rid of them all, now.

Why did you make a slip of the tongue to say Kerry is upset with you? Are you directly involved in the Swift Boat lies, George?
Why can't you be a real man and say these Swift Boat tales were obvious, brazen lies and a political revision of settled history?
Why does the question always come down to your avoiding a denouncing of the ads and making it "all about you"... attempting to make illegal the opportunity for political free speech which the "527 ads" provide?


On Iraq:Had we had to do it over again, we would look at the consequences of catastrophic success—being so successful so fast that an enemy that should have surrendered or been done in escaped and lived to fight another day’

"Catastrophic success": Being so successful that you lose.
Good one, George.


On Iraq: "I couldn’t have sat down and said to you, By the way, we’re going to be so victorious so quickly that we’ll end up having to fight another third of the Baathists over the next year in order to bring liberty to the country. There’s an idea that you can chew on."

Chew on this, George. I'm embarrassed for you.
That is the most twisted philosophy I've ever heard.
"We're gonna win so fast we'll lose for a spell."
In 'The Art of War', Moral Law is laid down as an imperative to a state's success in war. It causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.
You have divided your nation and you are breaking your military.
You have no clue how to be a Commander-in-Chief.
Sun Tzu would be delirious with disbelief.
Had almost 1000 of our brave, loyal and strong troops not already died, I would laugh.


On Iraq: 'We’re dealing in a part of the world where our policy was, O.K., we’ll kind of tolerate the lack of liberty for other reasons and just hope it gets better.'

George, let's talk about liberty right here in the old U.S.A.
Do you expect Americans to tolerate your attempts to gag their liberty and free speech by eliminating all 527 ads because there are a few powerful organizations amongst them who expose too many of your lies? DO you think we'll just keep "hoping it gets better?"


On Washington DC: 'Washington is a much more bitter, ugly place, dominated by special interests, than I ever envisioned. I was surprised’

Oh, you poor innocent baby (who just happened to govern over one of the States with the heaviest special interest of all---Texas Oil).
Is the Washington scene more bitter, ugly and dominated by special interests than THIS place, George?


On Forcing Imperialistic Ambition Upon the American Middle-Class Taxpayer: “If the United States is willing to lead and never waver in our belief that liberty can change the habits of people, never blink, be kind and compassionate, generous with our money—which we are—but resolute in our belief in liberty, Iraq will end up being a free country. It doesn’t have to look like America, by the way. That’s one of the great myths—that all of a sudden, these countries must look like America.”

George, you are quick to be "generous" in committing our hard-earned tax dollars to your imperialistic ambitions. You are just as quick to be "generous" to your base--the top 1%--by giving them hefty tax cuts while burdening the middle class with your war expenses (while stealing their overtime pay). You are quick to be "generous" with our troops' lives-- committing many of the troops with a back-door draft to a dangerous place with no proper planning or intelligence. Iraq will look like America sooner than you think, because under your administration, we become less free and more poor with each passing day. Our jobs are going. You've "compassionately" and "generously" offered our "liberty" to third world labor at our middle-class expense. The greatest myth, George, is your delusion of greatness. "Compassion" is a big word and I am convinced, after living under your administration's rule these past four years, that you have absolutely no understanding of the meaning of the word.

While you make history, history will dispel delusion.

They'll say George W. Bush was a dangerous fool.


Media Shame: Cooperation with Lies

Media Shame:
Cooperation with Lies


The Palm Beach Post ombudsman has some thoughts about the Swift Boat liars and their free pass for the first couple weeks of their swill-campaign. Karl Rove, who's no idiot, is playing the media for the idiocy he has come to expect from them.
I wonder when the media will finally learn the lesson that there are not always two sides to every story?

The media reported on the Swift Boat liars' immoral attack on John Kerry's war record (and settled history) as if there were actualy "two sides". In doing so, they indulged a fantasy of fact and a fantasy of Karl Rove's. Buying into such lies exposes us all to a form of magical thinking that works to destroy the truth and health of American democracy.

Having nothing positive of their own record to boast about, the Bushites love the big Swift Boat lie because they think it will bolster their ability to eke out a pathetic win in November. How low in character. Politics are known to produce some unethical results, but the peddling of lies with an expectation that a malleable media will cooperate turns us to think about Germany circa 1939.

The Bush-Cheney campaign is betting that Americans will swallow another big lie, that outlawing '527s' will be positive for the furtherance of democratic truth in American politics. It's "Goebbels-on-speed" propaganda to tell good Americans that the 527s are being eliminated for their freedom. In reality, it's swallowing away their free speech with a tremendous radical-right gulp.

The real fair and balanced media (as in "not FOX") had best get going with some factual information. Too many good Americans get their education from the idiot box in the corner of their living rooms and the big headlines on the front pages of their newspapers.

Why not start with this one?



"John Kerry's war record is the truth; the attack on it is a lie."


"Democrat" Zell Miller Hates Democrats

"Democrat" Zell Miller
Hates Democrats


Zell Miller, with the help of Chris Wallace, wound up looking like a nasty little hypocrite today on FOX News Sunday. He expressed nothing but regret for the way he sees the Democratic party has progressed and blames them, 100%, for not supporting George Bush's radically right-skewed misleadership these past four years.

Many talk about what they call "Bush-hating". At the RNC podium, Zell Miller will be representing the ultimate in hatred--the hatred of his own party.

English poet/critic Samuel Johnson said that "No man is a hypocrite in his pleasures". Zell Miller, if not a hypocrite, is taking pleasure in supporting the worst president in our nation's history at the expense of the members of the party to which he claims to belong.

Political writer Michael Crowley recently referred to Miller as "a cartoonish GOP partisan" and I think he's right on the money.

Zell Miller's betrayal of the Democratic party cannot be anything but a personal vendetta. I believe he's let his pride and ego become far more important than the party to which he says he belongs. He obviously detests anyone or anything remotely connected with the word "liberal".
He's feeling slighted...alone.
He is alone, for all intents and purposes.
He will be alone at the podium of the RNC this week.

New Southern Democrats have come to take their place in a South that has progressed while Zell was still living in the South where, if you didn't want a black fellow hanging out in your establishment, you'd take a baseball bat and whack him about the head.

I find him to be a disgusting political creature.
True to nothing, easily discarded.

I'm sorry, Mr. Miller, it's time.
Time for you to get out of the way and let the new South breathe.

Get the hell out of our party if you hate it.

RNC News

RNC Convention News

I will update this post daily (until the start of the RNC convention).

--William Rivers Pitt- For Those About to Rock
---Dan Payne/Boston Globe- Questions, and more questions, on the eve of the RNC

--CBS News- The RNC-A User's Manual
--PoynterOnline- Editors Preview Plans for RNC Coverage
--ABC News- Bush Crams in Trips to Key States Before Heading to New York for GOP Convention

--From the Village Voice-
-Where are an estimated 215,000 protesters supposed to go?
-Coming to a Convention Near You: Scary Anarchist II New York papers way, way lose their cool over protest of the Republican confab
Elements of Style: Radical Chic: What to Wear on Sunday
Events: Stand Up and Be Counted: Marching to Defend Democracy
Rebel Yells Lost highway: The road to destruction
Rebel Yells Firing up Tompkins Square's radical roots
Elephants in our Living Room


--Radio Free Europe- Bush's Tumultuous First Term Divides Nation
--N.Y.Times- Air of "special intimacy" to be an added ingredient to the carefully scripted Bush convention speech
--FrontPage.com- Libel? Front page magazine calling John Sellers a "terrorist".
--LA Times- Pirate radio to moor at Republican convention
--Democracy Now- The Revolution Starts Now: Steve Earle on the Republican Convention
--Reuters- Republicans have promised they will not capitalize on the 9/11 attacks.
--MTV News- NYC may be a "close third" to Sodom and Gomorrah for green RNC delegates.
--LA Times- GOP Platform Draft Toes Bush Administration Line
--Texas Triangle- Cheney/Bush flip-flop fighting on Gay issue
--RNC- CJs: Five Convention Jockeys Will Highlight Events Inside-the-Garden (Christine Iverson, Mercedes Viana Schlapp, former Katherine Harris spokeswoman Rori Patrise Smith, Don King-fan Tara Wall, and Yohana de la Torre).


GOOGLE: RNC Convention

GOOGLE: GOP Convention

GOOGLE: Republican convention