Shame on CNN

Shame on CNN
..the stupid bastards

They're skewing. dumbing down, and misrepresenting the meaning of "Moral Values"

Photo/Dreams

From the Blog of an Unfinished Dream Pursuer

If one advances confidently in the direction of their dreams, and endeavors to lead a life which they have imagined, they will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.

--Henry David Thoreau

US Asks For New Bin Laden Tape Not to Be Shown

"The victory of "Bush, the despicable, is good, because it opens the way to Jihad (Holy War) in several Arab countries where despotic (regimes) will be, God willing, removed,"

- A man called Abderrahman on an Islamic website

US Asks For New Bin Laden Tape Not to Be Shown
11/4/2004
Raw Story Update: Bin Laden tape said to be on ice
Alleged to contain pre-recorded response to American election

At least one ‘new’ Bin Laden video, said to be in the possession of the Arabic television network Al-Jazeera, is nearing the end of an embargo allegedly enacted at the pressure of U.S. authorities, though the tape may still be withheld.

The site reporting on the video, TrackingTerrorism.com, told RAW STORY in private correspondence that they are respecting the embargo. They have been tracking unconfirmed reports for more than two days.

The tape is said to be currently leaked online on a few remote and clandestine Al-Qaeda websites. Militants are already praising its release, making comments such as, “soon the American People will see the edited version,” the site reports....

LINK to story


If you do not understand that the wrong man won this election, then I can only assume you are one of the dumb shits who voted for him.

Do you think the Bush administration would have hesitated for one moment to allow the tape to be shown if it was before the election (when they needed to terrorize America to vote for them?)

World Wound Deepens

This was the political cartoon in newspaper Aftenposten after it emerged that George W Bush would be the US president for another four years. The text reads: "...and now I'd like to send a little greeting to all my friends in Europe."
The thought of another 4 years of Bush rule may end up pushing Norway into the European Union.

Osama's War of Ideas Sprouts Lighter Wings on Bush Re-Election
World Wound Deepens

As division deepens in America, divisions deepen in Europe.

We needed France, Germany, and Spain as partners, and not as a "counterbalance".

While some may be feeling joyous over the results of the election, I think we should be weeping for ourselves. We've gained ourselves strong adversaries instead of willing partners in fighting terrorism.

Osama wins. Sorry, I have to say it. Even if the brave men of our military catch him today (and I hope they do), his war of ideas has sprouted lighter wings on the winds of Bush's re-election.

In the western world, what could have been rejoicing and reuinion is now a deepening of wounds.

With the appearance, to the world, that fundamental Christians have chosen Bush (and don't kid yourselves, that is how it looks), so goes the appearance that we are fighting a lone holy war against the Muslim world.

Bush and his Congress Will Change Rules To Further Silence the Large Minority

Bush and his Congress Will Change Rules To Further Silence the Large Minority

This is clearly not what the Founding Fathers intended. James Madison warned that the majority must be rendered, by their number and local situation, unable to concert and carry into effect schemes of oppression. His warning rings true today. Participation in government is becoming an unbelievably unattainable goal to the people (meaning all of the people) who are alleged to own and be a part of it.

I'm not surprised to hear the Bushites say they'll change the rules to suppress the minority. I've come to understand the radical nature of Mr. Bush and his base. For all of those people, such as Nicholas Kristof in today's New York Times, who are rationalizing and wringing their hands and saying we'll have to become more like the Pat Robertson crowd in order to find our power again, I have a message. Take a vacation. You sound insane and depressed. Remember the 48% of us who not only didn't vote for Bush, but understand, with perfect reason and reality, that our nation is headed over a cliff. (Probably more than 48% since there is such doubt about the election's integrity).


From a FOX News article:

As it stands today [Democrats] can block [a nominee] ... But I also believe that the president and majority leader may well decide to change the rules given the elections ... The president has a very strong political support, potential support, for asking for and getting this change.

Blogger Josh Marshall comments:

"..what I fear will be a growing pattern in this second term: an effort to use a narrowly secured majority not only to govern, even govern aggressively, but to make institutional changes that strip away the existing powers and rights of large minorities. These formal and informal checks and balances constitute the governmental soft-tissue that allows our political system to function."

A Soldier's Opinion of Bush Victory

".. No more heat. No more bad food. No more sand. No more being shot at. No more pulling the trigger. No more guard duty. No more bullshit missions. No more cold showers. No more explosions. No more friends lost. No more lines to talk to my family. No more body armor. No more bad water. No more warm water.
No more Iraq."

- From soldier's Live Journal

.
A Soldier's Opinion of Bush Victory

4 more years America

"If you voted for Bush, didn't vote, or voted no on gay marriage, I hope you get drafted.

I hope they stick you in my unit, and you go with me to Iraq when my unit goes back in September. I will laugh when you see what soldiers in that country face on a daily basis. I hope you work with gay soldiers too. I did. One of them saved my life. Think he shouldn't have the right to get married? Fuck you. He fought just as hard as I did and on most days, did his job better than me. Don't tell me gays don't have the same rights you do.

Think the war in Iraq is a good thing? I'll donate my M-16 to you and you can go in my place."

LiveJournal
Link1
Link2

The Constitutional Right of Secession

Political Thought
for the Day:
"The Constitutional
Right of Secession"
by Andrei Kreptul
from the Journal of Libertarian Studies

Austro-libertarian Jorg Guido Hulsmann has concluded that secession is "to break the compulsory ties between the secessionists and a government which they no longer accept."

Mr. Kreptul explores the idea of secession and the aspects of its constitutionality.

Also at the Von Mises institute,
Is Laissez-Faire a Threat to Freedom?
An Answer to George Soros
by George Reisman

"At one point, Soros even goes so far as to say: "Why does nobody have access to the ultimate truth? The answer became clear: We live in the same universe that we are trying to understand, and our perceptions can influence the events in which we participate. If our thoughts belonged to one universe and their subject matter to another, the truth might be within our grasp: we could formulate statements corresponding to the facts, and the facts would serve as reliable criteria for deciding whether the statements were true." This statement, which suggests an element of Platonism, appears to imply that we are in a better position to acquire knowledge concerning conditions in a remote galaxy than we are to acquire knowledge concerning conditions here on earth..."

What do you think?

After the Election - Quotes

After the Election - Quotes

ELECTION FALLOUT
What do we do now?, Salon.com, November 4, 2004
"Politicos, academics and artists -- Huffington, Paglia, Lamott, McInerney, Moby and more -- respond to the prospect of four more years of Bush. . . . [Arianna Huffington]: Unless the Democratic Party wants to become a permanent minority party, there is no alternative but to return to the idealism, boldness and generosity of spirit that marked the presidencies of FDR and JFK and the short-lived presidential campaign of Bobby Kennedy. Otherwise, the Republicans will continue their winning ways, convincing tens of millions of hardworking Americans to vote for them even as they cut their services and send their children off to die in an unjust war. Democrats have a winning message. They just have to trust it enough to deliver it. This time they clearly didn't." (11/5)


Gary Wills: The Day the Enlightenment Went Out, New York Times, November 4, 2004
"This election confirms the brilliance of Karl Rove as a political strategist. He calculated that the religious conservatives, if they could be turned out, would be the deciding factor. The success of the plan was registered not only in the presidential results but also in all 11 of the state votes to ban same-sex marriage. Mr. Rove understands what surveys have shown, that many more Americans believe in the Virgin Birth than in Darwin's theory of evolution... America, the first real democracy in history, was a product of Enlightenment values - critical intelligence, tolerance, respect for evidence, a regard for the secular sciences. Though the founders differed on many things, they shared these values of what was then modernity. They addressed "a candid world," as they wrote in the Declaration of Independence, out of "a decent respect for the opinions of mankind." Respect for evidence seems not to pertain any more, when a poll taken just before the elections showed that 75 percent of Mr. Bush's supporters believe Iraq either worked closely with Al Qaeda or was directly involved in the attacks of 9/11." (11/5)

Will Lester: Bush won battle of values, Salon.com, November 3, 2004
"President Bush combined his reputation for strong leadership in a time of war with a campaign about traditional values to win re-election despite voters' doubts about his job performance and policies. In a dozen swing states that decided the presidential election, moral values tied with the economy and jobs as the top issue in the campaign, according to Associated Press exit polls. Terrorism was close behind. Bush won among those in swing states who picked moral values by 84-15 and he won among those who picked terrorism by 85-15. Sen. John Kerry won by a wide margin among those who picked the economy." (11/5)

David Corn: The Great Divide Continues, The Nation via AlterNet, November 3, 2004
"The good news: America is a divided nation. Despite the pundit hand-wringing over this fact, it is a positive thing. Nearly – nearly – half of the electorate rejected Bush's leadership, his agenda, his priorities, his falsehoods. . . . Other good news: Second-term presidents often hit the skids. The last three second- terms were marked by scandal (Watergate, Iran-contra, Monicagate). . . . More good news; Bush will not be able to hand off his own wreckage – Iraq and the gargantuan deficit – to a new man. But this does not mean he will accept responsibility and deal with it. Bush has the ability to deny and defy reality. And if he cannot see that the trash has piled up, he will not be hauling it to the curb." (11/5)

Josh Marshall: [Portents of Very Bad Things], Talking Points Memo, November 3, 2004
"Setting aside my general political leanings, my personal views and feelings of partisanship, I think the result portends very bad things for America's role in the world and the well-being on all levels of this country. Changes in domestic politics, in theory at least, can be shifted back at a following election. The world, though, is different. There we are just a ship -- though the largest one -- on waters we can never truly control. And I fear that this result will set in motion dangerous dynamics that even the relatively young among us will be wrestling with and contending with for the rest of our lives. I've referred to this in the past, and hopefully will have a chance to return to it, but here's the essence of the matter, as I see it. Before today, the course that America had charted in the world over the last three years could be seen as the result of a traumatic event (9/11) and the choice of a president who was actually put in office by a minority of the electorate. This was a referendum on what's happened in the last three years. And it's been validated." (See also Politex: Fascists Lead by 2 As Ohio Counts , and, for a more upbeat take on the election, see also W. David Jenkins III's: Yes, Virginia, There Is a Bright Side ). (11/5)


Rabbi Michael Lerner: Democrats Need a Religious Left, Via E-Mail, soon to be on Tikkun, November 4, 2004
"Yet liberals, trapped in a long-standing disdain for religion and tone-deaf to the spiritual needs that underlie the move to the Right, have been unable to engage these voters in a serious dialogue. Rightly angry at the way that some religious communities have been mired in authoritarianism, racism, sexism and homophobia, the liberal world has developed such a knee-jerk hostility to religion that it has both marginalized those many people on the Left who actually do have spiritual yearnings and simultaneously refused to acknowledge that many who move to the Right have legitimate complaints about the ethos of selfishness in American life. ... Instead of assuming that most Americans are either stupid or reactionary, a religious Left would understand that many Americans who are on the Right actually share the same concern for a world based on love and generosity that underlies Left politics, even though lefties often hide their value attachments. ... The last time Democrats had real social power was when they linked their legislative agenda with a spiritual politics articulated by Martin Luther King. We cannot wait for the reappearance of that kind of charasmatic leader to begin the process of re-building a spiritual/religious Left." (See also Todd Purdum: Bush Proves to Be Galvanizing Force in Heartland). (11/5)

Katrina Vanden Heuvel: Stand and Fight, The Nation, November 3, 2004
"Progressives, who were on the defensive two years ago, added millions of new voters as well, and tapped a new energy and activism that will last far beyond November 2nd. The extremism and incompetence of this rightwing cabal has sharpened our focus to a razor's edge. But for me, one of the fundamental questions about this campaign has been whether you could defeat a terrible but clear incumbent without a substantive policy alternative, and this time at least we couldn't. Kerry offered intelligence, a return to fiscal discipline, a bulwark against a rightwing court, and a health plan that few understood. He failed to use the moral message of "Two Americas" to erode Bush's edge. He mounted a late challenge to Bush's disastrous war in Iraq-- but he also talked about "staying the course." That wasn't enough of a coherent positive, populist or moral message to complement the impressive mechanics. We've got to build a politics of conviction, of passion and substance. ... This is war at a very deep level about how this country will proceed and this war isn't over, it's just renewed. " (11/5)

Sidney Blumenthal: Bush Unbound: Winning on fear itself, the GOP is ready to take the country even farther right, Salon.com, November 3, 2004
"The campaign was one long camp meeting, a revival. Abortion and stem cell research became a lever for prying loose white Catholics. (Rove's designated Catholic leader, his own political pontiff, had to resign in disgrace after being exposed for sexual harassment, but this was little reported and had no effect.) To help in Florida, a referendum was put on the ballot to deny young women the right to abortion without parental approval, and it galvanized evangelicals and conservative Catholics alike. While Kerry ran on the mainstream American traditions of international cooperation and domestic investment, and transparency and rationality as essential to democratic government, Bush campaigned directly against these very ideas. At his rallies, Bush was introduced as standing for "the right God." ... The new majority is more theocratic than Republican, as Republican was previously understood; the defeat of the old moderate Republican Party is far more decisive than the loss by the Democrats. And there are no checks and balances." (11/5)



BUSH ADMINISTRATION

Maureen Dowd: The Red Zone, New York Times, November 4, 2004
"The president says he's "humbled" and wants to reach out to the whole country. What humbug. The Bushes are always gracious until they don't get their way. If W. didn't reach out after the last election, which he barely grabbed, why would he reach out now that he has what Dick Cheney calls a "broad, nationwide victory"? While Mr. Bush was making his little speech about reaching out, Republicans said they had "the green light" to pursue their conservative agenda, like drilling in Alaska's wilderness and rewriting the tax code... Vice continued, "Now we move forward to serve and to guard the country we love." Only Dick Cheney can make "to serve and to guard" sound like "to rape and to pillage." He's creating the sort of "democracy" he likes. One party controls all power in the country. One network serves as state TV. One nation dominates the world as a hyperpower. One firm controls contracts in Iraq." (11/5)



BUSH CAMPAIGN

Dan Froomkin: How Did He Do It?, Washington Post, November 3, 2004
"Much of the media is justifiably caught up in the dramatic endgame today, but here are some of the possible factors that emerge from the overnight press coverage: The Bush campaign super-charged the "moral minority." Exit polls showed 21 percent of voters said moral values were the most important issue -- and 78 percent of them voted for Bush. That's about 18 million Bush votes right there. Bush profited hugely from thee dramatic social, cultural and geographic divides that we first saw so clearly in 2000, that were if anything deeper this time around, and that assured him of enormous swaths of rock-solid support.• He was successful at stoking voters' fears about terror, vesting himself with the cloak of a commander in chief at war and defining his opponent as a weak and vacillating leader. He kept to his plan and kept his message simple. He didn't get bogged down in details and didn't admit mistakes. He divided -- and conquered." (See also Noam Shreiber: More on the GOP Base ). (11/5)



ELECTION 2004

Anthony Wade: The Day America Died, The Mugging of Democracy, and John, You Let Us Down, opednews.com, November 3, 2004
"It is time to move forward. It is time however to understand the lessons we all need to learn from what just transpired. Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat its failures. Forget words like “healing” and “uniting”. They are rhetoric designed to make us all weak for the next three years, so we will not have sufficient mobilization to truly address the underpinnings of what is now beyond doubt, a failed system. America died today. This is not about bitterness. This is not about denial. This is not, and never has been about me. This is about believing in the country you grew up in, and then watching it hijacked and stolen before your eyes while we all stand by in seeming helplessness. I am tired of feigning helplessness. It is time for action. Before that, a moment of retrospection... In the two states that required paper trails for their computer machines the margin of error on exit polling was within 0.1 percent. In Florida , with more than 3 million polled, Bush had a lead of only 5,355, yet he ended up winning by 326,000 votes. In Wisconsin there was an 8 point swing in Bush’s favor. In New Mexico a 7 point swing. In Minnesota , a 5 point swing. Exit polling accurately predicted the results in most states with very little error. Where there were discrepancies, they were significant in the +5 percent range, always favored Bush and always when there was no paper trail to check the veracity of the votes. We have a word for this where I come from, it is called a mugging." (11/5)

Randolph T. Holhut: We tried. We failed. We must try once again, Smirking Chimp, November 4, 2004
"It's now official. We are no longer a reality-based country. A majority of Americans voters apparently want decades of perpetual global war. They want to see their sons and daughters sacrificed on the altar of the neo-conservative dream of an American empire in the Middle East. They want more giveaways to corporations and tax cuts for the rich. They want to see Social Security privatized and see their retirement funds gambled away in the stock market. They want our air and water polluted and our natural resources plundered. They want to see more Supreme Court justices like Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas and a federal judiciary that will likely turn the legal clock back to the Gilded Age. In short, a majority of American voters must really want their nation to be a corrupt one-party theocracy run by a president who thinks he's on a mission from God has total disdain for democracy, the rule of law and truth itself." (11/5)

Claudia Long: 'Mourning in America,' The Smirking Chimp, November 4, 2004
"The terrorists have won. How could they lose? They had everything on their side - fear, greed, superstition, ignorance. They even had Osama Bin Ladin. Yes, after the administration warned us for months that 'terrists' were going to try to disrupt the election, Osama appears, just like they said, just in the nick of time to scare the hell out of people, scare them enough to vote for a war that has already killed 100,000 innocent women and children... And of course, they own the voting machines, don't they? Who cares if the exit polls in Florida and Ohio were wildly out of sync with the 'results'? So what if the chief executive of Diebold, the Ohio corporation that makes most of the voting machines, promised publicly to deliver Ohio for Bush? Will anyone investigate? ... It is difficult even to think about all that could be lost - objective reality, tolerance, the Constitution, clean air and water, health care, public education, the middle class, the Rockies, science, the Age of Reason. Is that an exaggeration? At this point, I don't honestly know. I do know that all these things are threatened, and that vast changes can overtake a society in a relatively brief period of time. Germany in the 1930's comes to mind." (11/5)

Mark Morford: Wallow in chaos, and laugh, San Francisco Chronicle, November 3, 2004
"It simply boggles the mind: We've already had four years of some of the most appalling and abusive foreign and domestic policy in American history, some of the most well-documented atrocities ever wrought on the American populace and it's all combined with the biggest and most violently botched and grossly mismanaged war since Vietnam, and still much of the nation still insists in living in a giant vat of utter blind faith, still insists on believing the man in the White House couldn't possibly be treating them like a dog treats a fire hydrant. Inexplicable? Not really. People want to believe. They want to trust their leaders, even against all screaming, neon-lit evidence and stack upon stack of flagrant, impeachment-grade lie. They simply cannot allow that Dubya might really be an utter boob and that they are being treated like an abused, beaten housewife who keeps coming back for more, insisting her drunk husband didn't mean it, that she probably had it coming, that the cuts and bruises and blood and broken bones are all for her own good." (11/5)


Dan Froomkin: How Did He Do It?, Washington Post, November 3, 2004
"Much of the media is justifiably caught up in the dramatic endgame today, but here are some of the possible factors that emerge from the overnight press coverage: The Bush campaign super-charged the "moral minority." Exit polls showed 21 percent of voters said moral values were the most important issue -- and 78 percent of them voted for Bush. That's about 18 million Bush votes right there. Bush profited hugely from thee dramatic social, cultural and geographic divides that we first saw so clearly in 2000, that were if anything deeper this time around, and that assured him of enormous swaths of rock-solid support.• He was successful at stoking voters' fears about terror, vesting himself with the cloak of a commander in chief at war and defining his opponent as a weak and vacillating leader. He kept to his plan and kept his message simple. He didn't get bogged down in details and didn't admit mistakes. He divided -- and conquered." (See also Noam Shreiber: More on the GOP Base ). (11/5)

Eric Blumrich: Okay, Honeymoon's Over, Bushflash.com, November 4, 2004
"After spending a lot of time, worrying about Bush's october surprise, I totally lost sight of his November surprise. There were a ton of conspiracies flying around, and the signal-to-noise ratio had shrunk to an all-time low, and it pretty much slipped, right uder my radar. I've read innumerable articles, and hearing innumberable news reports, though, that the Katherine Harris-style voter disenfranchisement was going to go nationwide. People consistently warned of the diebold voting machines. I saw the Ohio Secretary of State, and saw him puruing the same strategies ....But, I chose to ignore it. Buzzflash raised warning after warning- Greg Palast broke the story a week ago- but I was confident- I figured that the overwhelming voter turnout would swell things to the point that even the most crass Diebold political operative would have problems with messing with the results. But no. They did it again, people. THEY DID IT AGAIN. This election was STOLEN once again, through mass disenfranchisement, and those voting machines. Exit Polls have NEVER been out of synch with final results, as they were in Florida, and Ohio. It was universal- go to CNN.com, and look at the county-by-county results, as opposed to the exit polls, in the counties that DID use the machines, compared with counties that didn't. And the beauty of it? THERE'S NO PAPER TRAIL- just as folks warned. There's absolutely NO WAY to challenge these results- the opposition has NO recourse." (See also Daniel Patrick Welch: It's the Policies, Stupid ). (11/5)

Tom Engelhardt: [Volunteers to Their Own Impoverishment], via e-mail, soon to be on The Nation.com The Nation, November 4, 2004
"A little over half of voting Americans -- and there were a lot of voting Americans this time around -- have now signed on to the rashest presidency in our history (short perhaps of that of Jefferson Davis); they have signed on to a disastrous crime of a war in Iraq, and a losing war at that which will only get worse; they have signed on to whatever dangerous schemes these schemers can come up with. They have signed on to their own impoverishment. This is the political version of the volunteer Army. Now, they have to live with it. Unfortunately, so do we. My small guarantee. Much of this will change over the years to come. This world of ours already spins on a dime, economically, politically, militarily, environmentally. (Just wait, for instance, until the tactic being developed in Iraq, thanks to our President, the blowing up of oil pipelines, spreads beyond that country's boundaries, as it certainly will, and then check out oil prices and the stock market.) But, to sound a small note of hope, as the world spins on a dime, so often do administrations. And you just never know when one of them will indeed implode. Take Richard Nixon, who sailed through a disastrous war in Vietnam and into office as second time in 1972 on a veritable landslide of votes, and then slide slowly into Watergate and disgrace. These will not be quiet years and, I suspect, they will not prove good ones for George Bush." (11/5)

Kos: Values, Daily Kos, November 3, 2004
"We need to retake the language. We need to reframe the notion of "value". That's why Obama's speech below is so brilliant. He speaks of God in a way that not just fails to offend this atheist, but inspires me. It's faith used for the purpose of living a good life, rather than faith wielded as a weapon against a whole class of people. The wedges: gays, abortion, and guns. Democrats have abandoned guns as an issue, and over the next three or four cycles it will prove an increasingly ineffective wedge. The NRA won. Good for them. That leaves the two "faith based" wedges -- gays and abortion. And with great skill, the Republicans have equated those two issues with the word "value". That's going to have to change." (See also Benjamin Wallace-Wells: The Great Black Hope: What's Riding on Barack Obama?). (11/5)

Garry Wills: The Day the Enlightment Went Out, New York Times, November 4, 2004
"President Bush promised in 2000 that he would lead a humble country, be a uniter not a divider, that he would make conservatism compassionate. He did not need to make such false promises this time. He was re-elected precisely by being a divider, pitting the reddest aspects of the red states against the blue nearly half of the nation. In this, he is very far from Ronald Reagan, who was amiably and ecumenically pious. He could address more secular audiences, here and abroad, with real respect. In his victory speech yesterday, President Bush indicated that he would "reach out to the whole nation," including those who voted for John Kerry. But even if he wanted to be more conciliatory now, the constituency to which he owes his victory is not a yielding one. He must give them what they want on things like judicial appointments. His helpers are also his keepers. The moral zealots will, I predict, give some cause for dismay even to nonfundamentalist Republicans. Jihads are scary things. It is not too early to start yearning back toward the Enlightenment." (11/5)

Carolyn Kay: What's Next?, Make Them Accountable, November 3, 2004
"The forces of fear, greed, and hatred have won again. They used lies, thuggery, and other illegitimate methods, to be sure, but considering the list of Bush administration failures, the presidential race should not even have been close enough to steal. And we should have had more victories in the House, but especially in the Senate where two Republican winners have sounded almost insane in their vilification of their Democratic opponents. There are two things we the people have to do, and we must start immediately. We have to take back the Democratic Party and we have to take back the political discourse in America." (See also Alexander Cockburn/Jeffrey St. Clair: Democrats in End Time: As Republicans Gain Shattering Victory, Who Is to Blame This Time?). (11/5)



IRAQ OCCUPATION

Scott Ritter: The war on Iraq has made moral cowards of us all, The Guardian, November 1, 2004
"Civilian deaths have always been a tragic reality of modern war. But the conflict in Iraq was supposed to be different - US and British forces were dispatched to liberate the Iraqi people, not impose their own tyranny of violence. Reading accounts of the US-led invasion, one is struck by the constant, almost casual, reference to civilian deaths. Soldiers and marines speak of destroying hundreds, if not thousands, of vehicles that turned out to be crammed with civilians. US marines acknowledged in the aftermath of the early, bloody battle for Nassiriya that their artillery and air power had pounded civilian areas in a blind effort to suppress insurgents thought to be holed up in the city. The infamous "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad produced hundreds of deaths, as did the 3rd Infantry Division's "Thunder Run", an armoured thrust in Baghdad that slaughtered everyone in its path. . . . [W]e all are moral cowards when it comes to Iraq. Our collective inability to summon the requisite shame and rage when confronted by an estimate of 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians in the prosecution of an illegal and unjust war not only condemns us, but adds credibility to those who oppose us." (11/5)


Peter Dale Scott: Why the U.S. Must Withdraw from Iraq, Salon.com, October 28, 2004
"We face a different specter today: the sibling specter of escalation and imperial overstretch. The true Vietnam syndrome is our country's proven pathological history of involvement in unnecessary and unwinnable wars. These sibling Vietnam specters, one of withdrawal and one of escalation, haunt different sectors of our bitterly divided country. The first haunts those who fear America might lose control of the world. ... The second Vietnam specter haunts those who fear America is becoming trapped again by delusional dreams of domination. The immediate danger in Iraq, unfortunately, is not that we will pull out our troops and come home. On the contrary, it is that we will commit more and more troops, incur greater and greater casualties on all sides, and quite possibly expand the war beyond Iraq's frontiers, before we finally reach the relatively happy and simple outcome of withdrawal. ... It is time for Americans to go back to a saner Middle East policy that once again rejects impossible rollback ambitions in Iraq and the rest of the region. We need above all a policy that will help the Middle East to resolve its own problems, rather than seek to impose a solution. ... But first, it is time for America to realize not only that its continued military presence in Iraq serves no purpose, but also that it is a source of danger for America, the region and the world." (11/5)



MEDIA

Robert Parry: Too Little Too Late, opednews.com, November 4, 2004
"George W. Bush’s electoral victory is chilling proof that the conservatives have achieved dominance over the flow of information to the American people and that even a well-run Democratic campaign stands virtually no chance for national success without major changes in how the news media operates. It is not an exaggeration to say today that the most powerful nation on earth is in the grip of an ideological administration – backed by a vast network of right-wing think tanks, media outlets and attack groups – that can neutralize any political enemy with smears, such as the Swift boat ads against John Kerry’s war record, or convince large numbers of people that clearly false notions are true, like Saddam Hussein’s link to the Sept. 11 attacks. The outcome of Election 2004 also highlights perhaps the greatest failure of the Democratic/liberal side in American politics: a refusal to invest in the development of a comparable system for distributing information that can counter the Right’s potent media infrastructure. Democrats and liberals have refused to learn from the lessons of the Republican/conservative success." (11/5)

Cynthia L. Webb: Bloggers Let Poll Cat Out of the Bag, Washington Post, November 3, 2004
"In the thick of a historic and obsessively watched Election Day, bloggers shook up the mainstream media by providing an early look at election exit polls, proving once and for all their influence not only in the coverage of politics but perhaps in the electoral process itself. The early-afternoon posts of the numbers -- purportedly based on the data that media organizations get from people who have actually voted, which the media then use to predict outcomes and make correlations between votes and issues -- indicated bad news for President Bush, stoking early-afternoon chatter that grew to a roar and sparked a stock market sell-off. ... The article noted the importance of the blog race against the mainstream media outlets: "Many polling experts had warned that such shifts were almost inevitable since the bloggers were posting exit poll numbers hours before they could be considered reliable. ... The attention paid to blogs last night highlighted their increasing prominence in the worlds of politics and media." (11/5)



NEO-CONS

Peter Kononczuk: A Hawk's View: Perle Speaks Out, Benador, October 28, 2004
One of the neocon architect's of Bush Administration foreign policy has been kept under wraps in the runup to the election. But here, in a Prague panel discussion, we learn what may well be coming in 2005: "He believes a "surgical strike" against North Korea is one way of ensuring that it is not pursuing a nuclear-weapons program that is a threat to the United States. ... "We were probably all wrong" about Iraq's alleged weapons stockpiles. Regardless, after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, Perle said, "Americans were no longer ready to wait until it was too late." ... I think a year from now people will not be talking about a quagmire." What about the wider "war on terror" -- can it ever be won? "It can be won in the sense that with enough engagement and skillful policies, they [the terrorists] will look like the losing side and will find it difficult to recruit people," Perle said. "Will there still be people who will put on an explosive belt and go into a shopping center or on a bus and destroy themselves? Sure. But will there be an organized campaign on the scale we have seen recently? I think that we can defeat." (11/5)




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Cultural Civil War
Kos: Values, Daily Kos, November 3, 2004
"We need to retake the language. We need to reframe the notion of "value". That's why Obama's speech below is so brilliant. He speaks of God in a way that not just fails to offend this atheist, but inspires me. It's faith used for the purpose of living a good life, rather than faith wielded as a weapon against a whole class of people. The wedges: gays, abortion, and guns. Democrats have abandoned guns as an issue, and over the next three or four cycles it will prove an increasingly ineffective wedge. The NRA won. Good for them. That leaves the two "faith based" wedges -- gays and abortion. And with great skill, the Republicans have equated those two issues with the word "value". That's going to have to change." (See also Benjamin Wallace-Wells: The Great Black Hope: What's Riding on Barack Obama? ). (11/5)



Democrats

Katrina Vanden Heuvel: Stand and Fight, The Nation, November 3, 2004

"..We've got to build a politics of conviction, of passion and substance. ... This is war at a very deep level about how this country will proceed and this war isn't over, it's just renewed. "

Carolyn Kay: What's Next?, Make Them Accountable, November 3, 2004

"...considering the list of Bush administration failures, the presidential race should not even have been close enough to steal. And we should have had more victories in the House, but especially in the Senate where two Republican winners have sounded almost insane in their vilification of their Democratic opponents. There are two things we the people have to do, and we must start immediately. We have to take back the Democratic Party and we have to take back the political discourse in America."

(See also Alexander Cockburn/Jeffrey St. Clair: Democrats in End Time: As Republicans Gain Shattering Victory, Who Is to Blame This Time? )

Rabbi Michael Lerner: Democrats Need a Religious Left, Via E-Mail, soon to be on Tikkun, November 4, 2004

"Yet liberals, trapped in a long-standing disdain for religion and tone-deaf to the spiritual needs that underlie the move to the Right, have been unable to engage these voters in a serious dialogue...

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(See also Todd Purdum: Bush Proves to Be Galvanizing Force in Heartland )