Fear of the loss of jobs, money and prestige cause Belgium to say "Ah, forget about the war crimes! You're OK with us, Bush, Blair and Sharon!"

Bush says to Sharon: "The fence is a bad idea."

Sharon says he's gonna build it, anyhow...and Bush isn't doing enough to stop Palestinian terror.
Bush says, "The fence is a good idea."


Good fences make good neighbors.

Bad fences, especially when they are WALLS, create and uphold apatheid.
I was recently watching the movie "The Pianist", and pictures of the sad Warsaw ghetto come to mind when I think of this wall in Israel.
Then again, the Warsaw Jewish were not strapping on bombs and getting on buses filled with Polish Christians.
I don't know...it's crazy out there.
We need intelligent and humanistic leadership. It's clear we don't have it now. Not in Israel...certainly not in America.


Walling off human beings isn't going to be a meaningful answer for a lasting peace and the hope for a civil society; that's one thing I can say with certainty.





"And in despair I bowed my head
There is no peace on earth," I said,
For hate is strong
and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men."




Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Pentagon Scraps Online Terror Futures Market

By the way, this was my first impression upon hearing about the online terror futures market scheme:
"W.T.F.??!!"

Defying Labels Left or Right, Dean's '04 Run Makes Gains

From the NY Times:

"The way to beat George Bush is not to be like him. The way to beat George Bush is to give the 50 percent of Americans who don't vote a reason to vote again."

"If being a liberal means a balanced budget, I'm a liberal. If being a liberal means adding jobs instead of subtracting them, then, please, call me a liberal.
I don't care what label you put on me, as long as you call me Mr. President!"



Howard Dean

U.S. Adopts Aggressive Tactics on Iraqi Fighters

**What the hell are we doing????**

"Col. David Hogg, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said tougher methods are being used to gather the intelligence. On Wednesday night, he said, his troops picked up the wife and daughter of an Iraqi lieutenant general. They left a note: "If you want your family released, turn yourself in." Such tactics are justified, he said, because, "It's an intelligence operation with detainees, and these people have info." They would have been released in due course, he added later.
The tactic worked. On Friday, Hogg said, the lieutenant general appeared at the front gate of the U.S. base and surrendered."


This is the type of immoral activity that will come back and bite us in the ass.
If a moral appeal fails, I remind our nation of the rule of law that insures separation of civilization from the savage..
the Geneva Convention for starters:

Geneva Convention, Protocol I, Section III, Chapter I,
Art. 75

-"Fundamental guarantees":

2. The following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in
any place whatsoever, whether committed by civilian or by military agents:
(c) the taking of hostages

If you do nothing else today, be sure you take some time to watch today's Senate Hearing on Iraq Reconstruction at CSPAN.org.
Go here. Watch Senators ask tough questions of Paul Wolfowitz. Get the truth for yourself instead of hoping to draw it from CNN/FOX/MSNBC gobbledygook.

FROM A GUY NAMED ED
(As seen on a Newsgroup today):

"Congress continues to fail in its role to check the President.

The Republicans continue to sacrifice America and Americans for the benefit
of their evil paymasters.

And the Democrats continue to do the same thing.

Mainstream media continues to fail in its role of keeping the public
informed as its first duty has become to distract the public from the
truth about its evil owners.

More people continue to die so a handful of very immoral, very powerful,
very wealthy individuals can concentrate their power over the people even
more.

Don't buy their B.S. More importantly, don't pay for it, either.

Ed

___________


LISTEN TO ED.

Murkily We Roll Along


Merriam Webster:

Main Entry: murky
Pronunciation: 'm&r-kE
Function: adjective
Inflected Form(s): murk·i·er; -est
Date: 14th century
1 : characterized by a heavy dimness or obscurity caused by or like that caused by overhanging fog or smoke
2 : characterized by thickness and heaviness of air : FOGGY, MISTY
3 : darkly vague or obscure
- murk·i·ly /-k&-lE/ adverb
- murk·i·ness /-kE-n&s/ noun

Cambridge:

murk noun [U]
darkness or thick cloud, preventing you from seeing clearly:
It was foggy and the sun shone feebly through the murk.

murky adjective
1 dark and dirty or difficult to see through:
The river was brown and murky after the storm.

2 describes a situation that is complicated and unpleasant, and about which many facts are unclear:
He became involved in the murky world of international drug-dealing.
I don't want to get into the murky waters of family arguments.

~~~~~~~~~~

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz on Sunday defended the invasion of Iraq as an example
of how the United States had to be prepared to act on "murky intelligence" in its war on terrorism...."
~~~~~~~~~~~

What Paul Wolfowitz was actually saying *wink*:

1- The US had no evidence to justify the invasion of
Iraq.

2- The moral question was never a reason to go to this war the way we did.

3- It was never clear that Iraq was a security threat to the US.

4- The Bush administration wanted to invade and occupy Iraq and darn it, they just did it.

5- The WMD threat was just an excuse. ..an excuse all along.

________________

Well, well. Thanks for clearing up the murkiness there, Mr. Wolfy. Don't pull a Dr. Kelly on us, now. They'll be manning the suicide prevention hotlines should you feel guilty or despondent anytime soon about what you've wrought. You know....in case all those dead bodies begin to haunt your dreams.

Thanks to the disastrous, hypocritical, and discombobulated foreign policies of George W Bush, we have lost any positive diplomatic ties to Syria, I'm afraid.

From today's Reuters story:
"This administration is extraordinary. Maybe there have been some similar administrations in the past but not with this high level of violence and foolishness,'' Shara {Syria's Foreign Minister Farouq al-Shara} told reporters....."

God....you know, I really hate agreeing with a Syrian Foreign Minister on this.....I mean, it feels almost sleazy...but damn, it's true!

A very recent issue of The New Yorker features an excellent article by Seymour Hersh entitled "The Syrian Bet" (You can read it in its entirety...learn how the Bush administration has burned potentially useful (if not perfect) intelligence-allies. With the status of British and American intelligence today, we need all the friggen help we can get!!

Excerpt:

"... American intelligence and State Department officials have told me that by early 2002 Syria had emerged as one of the C.I.A.'s most effective intelligence allies in the fight against Al Qaeda, providing an outpouring of information that came to an end only with the invasion of Iraq. (A number of the details of the raid and the intelligence relationship were reported by U.P.I. on July 16th.) Tenet had become one of Syria's champions in the interagency debate over how to deal with its government. His antagonists include civilians in the Pentagon who viewed Syria, despite its intelligence help, as part of the problem. "Tenet has prevented all kinds of action against Syria," one diplomat with knowledge of the interagency discussions told me.

Syria is one of seven nations listed by the State Department as sponsors of terrorism. It has been on the list since 1979, in large part because of its public support for Hezbollah, the radical Islamic party that controls much of southern Lebanon. Hezbollah claimed responsibility for, among other acts, the 1983 bombing of the American Marine barracks in Beirut, which left two hundred and forty-one Americans dead; it was implicated in the 1984 kidnapping of William Buckley, the C.I.A.'s Beirut station chief, who was tortured and murdered; and it has been linked to bombings of Israeli targets in Argentina. Syria has also allowed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, two groups that have staged numerous suicide bombings inside Israel, to maintain offices in Damascus.

Nevertheless, after September 11th the Syrian leader, Bashar Assad, initiated the delivery of Syrian intelligence to the United States. The Syrians had compiled hundreds of files on Al Qaeda, including dossiers on the men who participated-and others who wanted to participate-in the September 11th attacks. Syria also penetrated Al Qaeda cells throughout the Middle East and in Arab exile communities throughout Europe. That data began flowing to C.I.A. and F.B.I. operatives.
Syria had accumulated much of its information because of Al Qaeda's ties to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Islamic terrorists who have been at war with the secular Syrian government for more than two decades... "

To Our Dearest Bob,



Thanks for the memories.....


"Life is eternal and love is immortal;
and death is only a horizon;
and a horizon is nothing save the limit of our sight."

--Rositer Raymone

Focus For Election 2004--


"It's The Fascism, Stupid!!!!!"


A Kind of Fascism Is Replacing Our Democracy
By Sheldon S. Wolin

Excerpts:

"....Supposedly ours is a government of constitutionally limited powers in which equal citizens can take part in power. But one can no more assume that a superpower welcomes legal limits than believe that an empire finds democratic participation congenial...."

"... The American system is evolving its own form {of fascism}: "inverted totalitarianism." This has no official doctrine of racism or extermination camps but, as described above, it displays similar contempt for restraints......"

".....Americans are now facing a grim situation with no easy solution. Perhaps the just-passed anniversary of the Declaration of Independence might remind us that "whenever any form of Government becomes destructive ..." it must be challenged. "


See recent related article:
A pattern of deception
By WALTER WILLIAMS


Hey--DLC--"It's The Fascism, Stupid!!!"

I am watching the Philadelphia DLC Convention on CSPAN. They are NOT doing much dynamic challenging...it seems they have settled and complied with the new American facism, and are feebly attempting to effect change while being locked in their little Bushbox. Instead of reassuring any of us Democrats that there is still a sense of total respect for democracy out there, I hear them warning theie little choir that the "ideological left" is a THREAT to them.
(See this article----) Excerpt: "...DLC leaders have criticized former Vermont governor Howard Dean, whose antiwar rhetoric fueled his rise to prominence in the Democratic presidential race, and today, Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), the DLC chairman, warned that the party is "at risk of being taken over by the far left." The choice for Democrats, Bayh said, is, "Do we want to vent or do we want to govern?"

**We can and we NEED to have it all, Evan, baby...say it every way we mean it...vent it to the heavens and the earth... show the American public the truth about the very real threat of neo-fascism here in this country. What's wrong? Can't you chew gum and walk at the same time? Vent and govern....where is the great sin, Evan Bayh? We need to look up to someone who is willing to loudly and proudly advocate open government and intelligent (multilateral) foreign policy..and we need to hear that neither of these are presently occurring with the Bush administration.
Don't you and the DLC forget this, Evan Bayh... or the name "LOSER" will be forever tatooed on your wimpy DLC foreheads!**


The DLC leaders are LOST.....LOST.....LOST.

I pray that someone in power begins to genuinely care about American democracy.
There is no Democrat who will win the next Presidential election while not fully accepting, admitting and talking firmly about the damage that has been done to American democracy these past few years..... damage to which Democrats contributed when they gave an ignorant rogue President the authority to make a preemptive strike on Iraq with no plan...no end-game.

In the old days, we were blessed with the knowlege that "it was the economy, stupid"....politics were far simpler before 9-11. The DLC has not come around to the fact that this is not "politics-as-usual" anymore...and never shall be again, I'd imagine.
Today, "it's the fascism, stupid!!!"

Virginia governor Mark Warner was one exception to the dreadful DLC rule in his talk in Philadelphia this morning.
He said: "When Democrats talk about the future, Democrats will win."
The DLC is living in the past and won't get out until they see the totality of the American landscape for the American people who pepper its plains and move about its mountains. Bush has definitely forgotten the people... and the DLC is not convincing me that they will bring about a whole lot of successful change because they aren't showing any of us the all-important contrasts between what has been so wrong about America these past few years and what could be so right about it's democratic future.

Credit: The Atlantic On Line

Regarding Dr. Kelly

Britiain's Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon is looking more like a liar by the day.

Dr Kelly's wife has a diary of his final days....and not trusting Hoon, apparently, she intends to send it to Sir Kevin Tebbit, the Permanent Secretary at the MoD.
We're getting a bit closer to the truth...the truth behind the 16 words and Bush's lies.
"....Dr Kelly spoke to fellow members of his church over his concerns about the way the intelligence used by the Government in its Iraq weapons dossiers had been "interpreted".
Geeta and Roger Kingdon, who follow the same Bahai faith as Dr Kelly, said the scientist gave a talk to fellow worshippers in which he said he was uncomfortable with the way the intelligence material was presented...."


Short blames government 'abuse of power' for David Kelly's death

In the article, Clare Short says:

"We all ended up mesmerised by Alastair Campbell
attacking the BBC. In the course of that, Dr Kelly felt so pressured he
felt the need to take his life. It has got enormous significance." But
she hoped "some good" might yet come out of the tragedy, if the
Government abandons spin and changes the way decisions are made."

To the 21 Victims of the Dongfeng Mine Disaster in Henan Province, China and To Their Loved Ones....



O Great Compassion, we take refuge in you.
This tragedy makes us better appreciate the preciousness of life,
That each of us is like a snowflake: unique, beautiful and fragile;
Therefore, guide us to entrusting faith, Great Parent of all things,
Make us your servant, your breath and your core,
Empowered by Other Power, we dedicate our lives, practice and faith,
To kindle the Light of Dharma in all beings,
For those who have fallen into the gloom of sorrow.

Namo Amida Buddha

I'm literally sick of hearing about our troops dying for this lie.
I say either get them the hell out of Iraq NOW or get on our knees and beg the United Nations for forgiveness, their help, and a new resolution.
Bush--you were dead wrong.
It's time to admit it.


Jane Eisner asks:

Troops keep dying -- but for what?
"....The ranks of the killed and injured inch upward, toward a time when the whole nation will have to ask itself: How many casualties are too much?"

I wonder how much of this can be believed?

"U.S. soldiers in Iraq are escaping from Iraq under the guise of Kurdish citizens, wearing the famous Iraqi and Arab al-Dashdasha (loose headdress) which has become mush sought-after recently, Iraqis told IslamOnline.net Sunday, July 27.
However, a U.S. colonel categorically denied that 2,500 U.S. soldiers have escaped from duty so far, noting that it was a rumor propagated by the Baathists and the loyalists to ousted Iraqi President Saddam Hussein....."


Have a look at this one.

US troops turn botched Saddam raid into a massacre
By Robert Fisk July 28th

"Obsessed with capturing Saddam Hussein, American soldiers turned a botched raid on a house in the Mansur district of Baghdad yesterday into a bloodbath, opening fire on scores of Iraqi civilians in a crowded street and killing up to 11, including two children, their mother and crippled father. At least one civilian car caught fire, cremating its occupants."

Condoleeza Rice Should Resign Immediately


Buh-Bye!

Conservative voters had best decide if they wish to continue to support American facism.
Conservative Congressional Representatives had best watch how loyally they cling to facist tactics used by this President and his administration.

Article: A pattern of deception
By WALTER WILLIAMS

Did President Bush lie to the American people in his State of the Union Message when he said: ''The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa''? Technically, no, because ''the statement that he made was indeed accurate,'' said National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice on July 13. ``The British government did say that.''

Rice speaks the literal truth, just as her boss does, to distort what is meaningful. Outright lying is not the administration's modus operandi; willful deception is.

DUPING THE NATION

Bush's statement on Iraq shows his telltale MO. Moreover, duping the nation into war is only one case of the pattern of calculated deception that has gone on since the outset of his administration.

We need to go back to Feb. 27, 2001, when Bush introduced his first tax cut proposal in a televised speech to Congress and the nation, to see the early duplicity. As New York Times columnist Paul Krugman observed on March 28: ``I can't think of any precedent in the history of American economic policy (when an administration was) quite this shameless about misrepresenting the actual content of its own economic plan.''

I noted in a March 16 Seattle Times column that what stands out in the Bush speech is the use of the ''Big Lie.'' Such a statement is a technically accurate claim that distorts rather than reveals the truth. Looking into Bush's MO in his tax legislation illuminates the pattern of deception as used in Iraq.

In his February address, Bush said: ''People with the smallest incomes will get the highest percentage reductions.'' The literally true assertion hid that the tax cut provided little help for most people and that the big winners were the top 1 percent of the taxpayers.

Tax-savings calculations under the Bush proposal made at the time indicated that a young childless couple earning $20,000 would have its taxes reduced by 41 percent. A middle-aged couple with $1 million in earnings would receive a 15 percent reduction. Just as Bush said, the lower-income couple had its taxes cut by a much larger percentage than the wealthy couple.

But Bush's Big Lie covered up that the young couple would save $410 in taxes, or about $34 a month; the older couple would benefit by $47,114, or about $3,900 a month. The wealthier couple's tax savings would amount to over twice as much as the other couple's total annual income. Suggesting that lower-income families fared better than the wealthiest ones surely qualifies as world-class deception.

The Bush MO used to justify the Iraq invasion finally created a veritable firestorm of criticism directed at the president. Things became so bad that CIA Director George J. Tenet took full responsibility for not warning Bush about the shakiness of the British assertion: ``These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president.''

Tenet's statement accepting responsibility, however, also noted that in the fall of 2002, months before the president's 16 words on the British claim, the CIA ''expressed reservations'' about their validity both to the British and to members of Congress. And the top Bush operatives knew nothing about the uranium story being highly unreliable?

There is much controversy over how the alleged uranium purchase surfaced in the Bush speech. But to me, the strongest candidate is that the 16 words were too tempting to pass up. They fit the president's MO to a T -- unwarranted by the evidence and hence deceptive, yet offering the cover of technical correctness.

USING PROPAGANDA

A hard truth appears to have escaped the notice of the public and received scant attention from the media: Bush is the first president in American history to use deceptive propaganda as his main means of communications in selling his policies. His pattern of deception continues unabated and in direct conflict with the notion of the public's informed consent that is central to American democracy.

Walter Williams is professor emeritus at the University of Washington's Evans School of Public Affairs.

2003 The Baltimore Sun

See William Rivers Pitt's latest article at Truthout:
Though The Heavens Fall



"The political fortunes of the Bush administration are never so strong as when people are dying."


The article includes a soldier's thoughts found on an internet sports website chat-area.
I have added photos for emphasis.


"IM STILL ALIVE ! WE GOT A HALF A PEICE OF INTERNET NOW....BOUT DANG TIME...DIGITAL DIVISION MY A**..."



"IVE BEEN IN IRAQ SINCE LATE APRIL.... BEEN SHOT AT TO MANY TIMES TO COUNT..."



"I HAVE SEEN THE DARKSIDE AND THE EVIL MEN DO, GUYS THIS AINT NO JOKE..."



"FOLK GETTIN SHOT UP OVER HERE EVERY DAY..."


"IRAQII'S TRYIN TO INFILTRATE OUR PERIMETERS...VEHICLES GETTIN HIT BY RPG'S ..."



"AND RUMOR HAS IT BUSH IS TELLIN THEM TO BRING IT ON....WHAT THE HELL?!"



"3ID IS GETTIN SCREWED BIG TYME....GOD KNOWS WHAT THEY GOT IN STORE FOR US...."


"ITS A THIN LINE BETWEEN LOVE AND HATE AND ALL I WILL SAY IS OUR LEADERSHIP AINT NOWHERE NEAR THAT LINE .."
/



"...KNOW WHAT IM SAYIN...THERE ARE SOME HOSTILE INDIVIDUALS OVER HERE....VERY VERY HOSTILE..."


"NO WMD....."



"NO WMD"



"NO NOTHING....."


~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"....death is a growth stock for George W. Bush. Death gives him political cover to ramrod through his extremist policies. Death makes Americans fear to question him. Death makes for good television. In Iraq, death fills the coffers of corporations like Vice President Cheney’s Halliburton...."
William Rivers Pitt

WAL MART R US
Baltimore Sun

"....AMONG THE LARGEST 500 companies, more than 300 - and eight of the top 10 - have had policies against discrimination based on sexual orientation. But when one more firm recently adopted such a policy, it was front-page national news. That's because when Wal-Mart speaks - for better or worse - America pays attention.
World-conquering size does that. The 41-year-old firm is now the world's largest corporation and private employer, with more workers in uniform (1.3 million worldwide) than the U.S. Army. It's also the world's largest retailer, grocer, purchaser of manufactured goods, importer, shipper and warehouser.

In just the last decade, Wal-Mart's sales have grown fivefold. Now, with 3,400 U.S. outlets and 1,300 abroad, its sales last fiscal year reached $245 billion - about the size of Switzerland's total economy. ..."


WE ARE WHAT WE CONSUME. AND DO WE EVER CONSUME.



HOW MANY OF THESE DO WE TRULY NEED?




HAVE YOU SEEN THE AVERAGE SIZE OF THE WAL MARTIAN-AMERICAN?

WE ARE A WAL MART NATION.
WE HAVE A WAL MART MAJORITY IN CONGRESS.
HAVING A PRIMAL URGE TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THEIR BUSINESS, BELIEF IN THE BOTTOM-LINE OVER AMERICAN QUALITY,
MISOGYNISTIC, UNION-HATING, "FAMILY-VALUED",
CENSOR-WANNABES, QUICKLY ENCROACHING UPON WHAT WAS ONCE GOOD AND RECOGNIZABLE ABOUT AMERICAN COMMUNITY,
LOW-BUDGET, LOW-QUALITY, LOW EXPECTATION ALTHOUGH SOLD CHEAP,

SEAN HANNITY AND JESUS SMILING TOGETHER ON THE BOOKSHELF.....




WE HAVE A WAL MART PRESIDENT.




WE HAVE A WAL MART ATTITUDE.
WE ARE BEING STUCK WITH WAL MART POLITICS.



WILL OUR FLAG SOON BE CHANGED TO THAT HORRIBLY ANNOYING YELLOW SMILEY-FACE?

The Media Is Being Watched Closely--Many Journalists Being Seen as They Are (As the Lazy Recipient and Relayers of Facts Handed to Them)--Many Being 'Called' On Their Bias---Cable News Networks Being Seen For The FOXinated Fools They Have Become--
Meanwhile, In Iraq, We Are ARRESTING Journalists!

I'll start out with a superb article about an excellent investigative journalist-- Greg Palast.
(here)

Excerpts:

.....Palast is disappointed, but not surprised, by what he perceives as US newspapers functioning more as distributors of information that is given to them, rather than aggressively trying to find and pursue leads on their own. "Why aren't papers trying to find that material for themselves?..."

"...For observers of the US since September 11, the compliance of the American media has played a pivotal role in stoking patriotic fervor which has given the Bush administration the benefit of the doubt several times, while failing to represent the voices of Americans who see things differently - including Palast.
For Palast, the state of alarm in the US since the attacks of September 11 is not necessarily unwarranted, but it conveniently serves the interests of the ruling elite. "America was attacked by maniacs. Our president didn't do anything to prevent it and hasn't done anything since. The truth is America is still a safe place - but the administration doesn't like that image because they think it's easier to control people when they're afraid...."

".....Palast is obviously dismayed by American media in the post-September 11 age, characterizing it as "gone to hell in a handbag". Palast views news in the US, television in particular, as being disproportionately affected by the rise of Rupert Murdoch's Fox News. "It's 'Foxification', they've gone from news to viciousness, barely disguised racism and pseudoentertainment intended to be taken as news - and every station is now trying to follow that formula," he said...."

~~~~~~~~~

GAME TIME!

FIND THE LYING FOX....


Is it this guy?


Or Is It This Guy?
~~~~~~~~~

I'm sure you've probably heard about Merle Haggard's new political country song by now.
On his website editorial, Haggard says, in part:
"...I'm suspicious, I'm paranoid, and I'm afraid. And the person who says he isn't has not looked up or around lately.
I don't even know the Dixie chicks, but I find it an insult for all the men and women who fought and died in past wars when almost the majority of America jumped down their throats for voicing an opinion. It was like a verbal witch-hunt and lynching. Whether I agree with their comments or not has no bearing...."

Here are some of the lyrics to his new song, "That's The News":

"Suddenly it's over, the war is finally done
Soldiers in the desert sand still clinging to a gun
No one is the winner and everyone must lose
Suddenly the war's over, that's the news."

The song ends with the lines:

"Politicians do all the talking
soldiers pay the dues
Suddenly the war is over,
that's the news."

See related article here

~~~~~~~~~~~

Careless mediafolk who decide to toss glib and meaningless comments about Howard Dean are being called on it each and every time.
They helped to damage Al Gore quite wrecklessly and unfairly before the 2000 Election...and look at the wretch we wound up with as a selected President.
The Dean defenders will not allow slapdash writers go shabbily off at the mouth about political buzzphrases that have no real meaning.
Dean is McGovern Redux, Dean is a leftist, Dean is a liberal, Democrats want Centrists and Dean's not a Centrist,
Dems want someone who'll win/Dean can't win .......blah..blah..blah....BLAH.
None of these labels apply, nor do they have much relevance to current reality. They seem to be no more than lazy lies told by a pliant media refusing to understand or recognize the force of history as it budges them along like the moss-laden stones they've allowed themselves to become. They've come to take themselves far too seriously to even notice the reformation of the political forces all about them.
See this article for an example...Dean Defense Forces: Lobbing E-Mail at the Enemy

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Today we learn that the US is arresting journalists in Iraq.
It was a complete JOKE to see Britt Hume interviewing Paul Wolfowitz this morning on the Sunday morning Fox news show. Hume asked Wolfowitz what our government planned to do about our obvious unhappiness about the 'biased' journalism in Iraq. Wolfowitz pulled no punches, saying that he was unhappy about the free press in Iraq. (See related article here)
Hume asked Wolfowitz, even if the media SEEMS biased, is that reason to cut off a free press if you're promoting democracy? (All the while you could just TELL that Hume was thinking about the tables turned...and knowing his own network is seen as biased).
See comments regarding Wolfowitz's statements here.
Excerpt:
"..."We know that our coverage in Iraq is balanced and unbiased and we are not instigating any violence,'' Salah Nejm, Al Arabiya's news director told Reuters.
Wolfowitz said in an interview on Fox News Sunday the two channels were guilty of "very biased reporting that has the effect of inciting violence against our troops.''
But Al Jazeera responded by accusing U.S. soldiers of intimidating its staff in Iraq.
"In the past month alone, Al Jazeera's offices and staff in Iraq have been subject to strafing by gunfire, death threats, confiscation of news material and multiple detentions and arrests,'' Al Jazeera said in a statement which it said had been sent to the U.S. embassy in Qatar, where the station is based. .."

".....Al Jazeera, whose critical reporting has managed to win it millions of viewers and raise the ire of most Arab governments during its eight years on air, gained international fame after the September 11 attacks and the ensuing war in Afghanistan.
Shouli said Washington was angered at Al Jazeera's coverage because it ``exposed U.S. activity in Iraq, which otherwise goes unreported by most U.S. media.''
"Americans are irritated that we are clarifying the facts. Arab networks were reporting the news in Iraq as it happens,'' he said.
Wolfowitz said in Sunday's interview Washington was talking to unnamed governments to try to get more "balanced'' coverage of Iraq...."


Read a real-life story about the problems of real Iraqi journalists in US-occupied Iraq. (here) Excerpt:
"...The Iraqi press is neck deep in a news agenda diametrically different to that pursued to by the internationals. While the western media tackles the issues of economic (read oil) development and the increasingly routine assassinations of US soldiers, the Iraqi media is trying to deal with agonising stories of more direct consequence to its readers.
What to do, for example, about the chaotic courts system, which as Amnesty researchers note, can keep a traffic offender in a detention pen with murderers for days before his US and British guards can locate him and deliver him before a judge?
Or the failure of the authorities to stop the unchecked sale of looted medicines in street markets, sold by the illiterate to the desperate, a trade that poisons, maims and claims lives every day? Or the violent outbursts of exhausted US troops, far too long 'in country' for anyone's good?
None of this is on the PAOs' agenda, whose mission is to spread the good news about the US-British presence in Iraq......"

Nat Hentoff asks:
"Who Made George W. Bush Our King?"
*He Can Designate Any of Us an Enemy Combatant*




"This is an unprecedentedly serious assault, folks, on the core of our system of justice. As Judge Motz said in her passionate dissent, "[This court's] decision marks the first time in our history that a federal court has approved the elimination of protections afforded a citizen by the Constitution solely on the basis of the Executive's designation of that citizen as an enemy combatant, without testing the accuracy of the designation. Neither the Constitution nor controlling precedent sanctions this holding." (Emphasis added). "

(see Village Voice article here)

July 26, 2003- Oil executive was found dead at his ranch..Ruled a suicide(here)

Oh---
he was also the Secretary of the Navy.

Cancer is rough stuff. I know from personal family experience. My heart goes out to this family.
I can't help but wonder if the stress regarding the stretching of our military and the exposed lies about Iraq contributed to this man's sorrows and burdens.
Do you agree?

From the Howard Dean Weblog: "The President Has Misled Us"

"Last week I asked sixteen questions about the war in Iraq that must be answered if the American people are to understand the truth around the rush to war and the failure to plan for peace.

"These questions are, however, only one piece of a far broader practice by this administration of misleading the American people and breaching the fundamental trust that they have placed in their elected leadership. This practice goes far beyond misleading the country and the world about the reasons for taking us to war in Iraq, this practice extends into the state of the nation's economy, its environment, its schools and beyond...."

DLC's From and Reed Shut Out Candidates from DLC Meeting in Philadelphia
Or: How to Sabotage, Damage, and Divide Your Own Political Party

Reed and From are at it again.
Creating "news" that is totally out-of-touch with most Democrats today.
They should be fired.
Immediately.

It all boils down to this point...a point which Reed and From are sorely mistaken and misleading:

They say, in this AP article from the NY Times:

"His {Howard Dean's} staunch opposition to the U.S.-led war against Iraq does not go over well with centrist Democrats, however, whose leaders circulated a memo in May that suggested Democrats could lose badly in 2004 if the former Vermont governor were their candidate.

On the eve of a Democratic Leadership Council summer meeting in Philadelphia, From said it was essential that the Democrats have a nominee strong on national security to be competitive with President Bush.'

A look at most recent polls will tell you that Americans are extremely doubtful about Bush's position on the Iraq war.
I dare say that Reed and From are being disingenuous, at best, to say that a Democratic candidate would have to cave in and agree with Bush on
Iraq in order to be competitive with him in 2004.

That is so far off-base it makes my head spin faster and more fluidly than Linda Blair's Exorcist dome.


The Democratic Party Needs An Exorcism

I hate to say this, but new RNC Chairperson Ed Gillespie is more accurate here than the DLC:
"In particular, Gillespie accused Senators John Edwards of North Carolina, Bob Graham of Florida, John F. Kerry of Massachusetts, and Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut of switching their views on Iraq after the regime toppled in order to appeal to their party's liberal base. ''Their new rhetoric may be good positioning in a Democratic primary, but it will not make us safer as a nation,'' he said...."

To their detriment, the GOP is sucking every bit of mileage from 9-11 as possible: "Several Republicans who spoke made it clear that Bush's handling of Sept. 11 will be used as a shield against any criticism of his foreign policy." I wonder how long they'll go on thinking we're fooled and that we will forgive their criminal lies about Iraq's connection to Al Queda and Iraq's "great and imminent threat to America".

The DLC allows the GOP to duly criticize their wobbly stand on the wrong-minded Iraq folly.
The weak, unquestioning Democrats are now paying for the sin of not standing for what was right all along.
We need the Howard Deans to spit out the truth...unafraid..unashamed.

Read this snipe from a DLC candidate and be ashamed:
''Conspicuously absent from their attacks is Howard Dean. Eddie Gillespie goes to bed every night praying for the Howard Dean campaign,'' Kerry campaign manager Jim Jordan said..."

It is easy to see through the DLC Democrats who voted for the Iraq resolution and, without serious question, helped to sell Americans down the wrong road to the unilateral preemptive strike on Iraq.The thing that would have made us safer as a nation would have been sticking with the United Nations instead of going off half-assed into a war for which we had the poorest intuitive strategy and a zero-endgame.

FIRE AL FROM AND BRUCE REED BEFORE IT'S TOO LATE TO REVIVE THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY!!!

"I SEE DEAD PEOPLE"

Is it me..or is anyone else tired and disgusted at seeing Uday and Qusay's ever-swelling and bloating deadheads on the news every half-hour on the half-hour?

Using a Buzzflash quote, has anyone noticed that the 'gory photos of alleged sons of Saddam weren't meant for the Iraqi audience? They were meant to suck up television and headline coverage so that the 9-11 report wouldn't be seriously discussed?'


Good quotes from a recent Washington Post article (here):

"The idea is not to exploit but to report."



"As grim as the photos were, all the debate about the status of the brothers brought to mind a line sung by the Munchkin coroner in "The Wizard of Oz" regarding a wicked witch who had been crushed by a house:
"She's not only merely dead, she's really most sincerely dead."

A Taxi Driver's Conversation With A Burly Bostonian

“To tell you the truth,” he continued, “any one of the current contenders would work for me. I just think your guy Dean has the balls to take on the Repub-lican machine. The thing is, we got to make Bush a one-timer. The greed, the lies — it’s killing the country.”



Scooting out towards Jericho, I glanced at this gruff old guy sitting next to me. This is a Democrat, I thought to myself. More than half the country voted for Gore in 2000, and they weren’t all effete, latté-sipping Volvo drivers. Not that I have anything against overpriced coffee or Swedish cars, but the media caricature of the “liberal Democrat” makes me want to scream.

That got me thinking about the tired mantra, “get government off our backs.” Ain’t that the biggest scam going? What — so unregulated corporate interests are free to shape every aspect of our country’s future?
Is that the deal?

While I was away last week, I paid attention to the news.

The list of last week's dead included a good many American soldiers. I suspect, sadly, this will go on and on. The fact that there is no end-game for Iraq is glaringly obvious.We think ambushing and murdering Saddam's sons is the answer. To me, it sounds like something Ariel Sharon would do to Palestinians. Bombing homes and exterminating its occupants. No trials..no taking prisoners. We are sinking to the savage eye-for-an-eye level of war. Look where it's gotten Israel in their "quest for peace" these past 60 years. Not very far.
An Egyptian political analyst was interviewed this week (article here):
"The US administration is wrong to think that the murders of Saddam Hussein's sons or of Saddam will bring an end to the armed resistance against the occupation," Egyptian political analyst Mustafa Kamel al-Said said. "The reasons for antagonism remain, there is no foreseeable withdrawal of US troops, living conditions are still bad, and the Americans are vetoing any political forces they deem unacceptable," Said told AFP."

The list of the dead last week also included a decent-but-despondent British scientist who was used badly by the government for whom he
worked....his fine work perverted to fit a bag of dirty lies aimed at the public to convince them of some great Iraqi threat. You could say that the British government virtually murdered David Kelly. George W Bush's determined vengeance and war-thirst contributed to Britain's fatal abuse of Dr Kelly. I hope they're all proud. I'd like to know what David Kelly's widow told Geoff Hoon. Hoon isn't saying.......(see here).
They like to blame the BBC for asking pertinent questions. Blaming the press is the facist-style M.O., you see.
other references:

-What David Kelly knew

-Dr David Kelly Timeline

Topping the dead-list, from the media standpoint, were two sleazy brutes who happened to be the sons of Poppy B and Dubya's arch-enemy.
What happened to the rule of law? When did we decide it meant nothing? I enjoyed reading Sandra Mackey's editorial in this week's NY Times. (here)
"In giving up on the attempted capture of the Hussein brothers as too risky, the American administration of Iraq has ignored the dictates of Iraqi culture. At the same time, it also runs counter to the kind of country we want Iraq to become — one built around the rule of law..."
I'm sure Bush and his blind supporters believe that this will assuage the families of Americans who have lost sons and daughters in the war...yet I ask you this---will those families soon forget that it was a mountan of Bush administration lies and criminal exaggerations that caused our troops to be in that land to begin with? Will any of us soon forget Bush's refusal to make any of his administration responsible for these lies?
The fact that Stephen Hadley still has his job this week tells me that Bush is intentionally harboring criminals in his administration...and I ask you to question why he is doing this. It can only be that he supports their lying and covering-up for him.
Hadley story commentary references:
-The Likely Story
-Stephen Hadley-Can This Guy Do Anything Right?

Best yet, our tax dollars ($30 million) are being paid to the scum-of-the-earth villa-owner/Iraqi sheik who turned the Hussein boys in. (here)

It's become painfully clear that, in order to maintain a stranglehold on their false truth, the Bush administraton is willing to do anything
to duck responsibility for getting us into what is truly a quagmire in Iraq.
Two very recent examples:
-The soldiers from the 3rd Division who complained to ABC News are under threat of punishment. The ABC reporter is dismissed as a homosexual Canadian.
see Andrew Greeley article here.
-Joseph Wilson's wife was exposed by the Bush administration as a covert CIA operative. Why? Because her husband dared to breathe the truth about
Bush lies and cover-ups.

I suppose you all witnessed Rep Thomas' calling of the police on his colleagues in the House of Representatives?



Perhaps you did not...and you certainly never would have heard the real story on FOX News. I witnessed FOX news giving only the Republican version of "the truth" after the watching the post-House discussion/floor activity on CSPAN. Thank GOD for CSPAN. It's the only place to get the truth nowadays...because you hear it yourself and are thus able to draw your own conclusions. Did you see Thomas' crybaby confession on the House floor last Wednesday? He has truly lost it! *You definitely wouldn't have seen it on FOX News.*
Thomas' fake humility shone through when he said: (article here)
"Because of my poor judgment, those outside the House who want to trivialize, marginalize and debase this institution were given an opportunity to do so," he said. "Because of my poor judgment, the stewardship of my party . . . has been unfairly criticized."

Here's what I think. Because of Thomas' poor judgement, the even poorer judgement of his GOP colleagues came through loud and clear in the immediate aftermath of the incident. They were most fairly and deservedly criticized. This is a party which I believe has truly lost its collective sensible mind.
If Thomas were truly humble and honest, he would never have fallen on his sword alone. He was obviously under the Hastert gun.....obviously having been read the riot act.


A last comment:
It does not seem that impeachment of Bush will occur. (See article from Village Voice here).
"Speaking of "civil officers" besides the president: During the buildup to the invasion of Iraq, Congress made no effort to investigate and showed little interest in obtaining independent information; instead, it meekly endorsed the resolution to go to war. If there are high crimes and misdemeanors involved, Congress is complicit in them."

Our Congressional representatives failed our nation and all of American democracy last fall by their blind unquestioning complicity in giving Bush carte blanche to attack Iraq. The fact that the blindly partisan and vitriolically loyal GOP has the majority in the House and the Senate would also zero out the chance that Bush would be impeached (and he SHOULD be impeached by all that is just and reasonable in a democratic nation- look at this bit of sarcastic comparison to see how ridiculous we have become).
This nation is in trouble, my fine readers.
What will you do?

* * * *"I stand by all the misstatements that I've made."

* * * *

...Governor George W. Bush, to Sam Donaldson, 8/17/93



Apparently, you've been the King of Whoppers a long time, George


This blog will be on vacation until July 25th.
Take a look around while I'm away...make yourself at home.

"Bush Is A Coward"
by Jack Balkwill- a Vietnam veteran

"On 9/11, when the nation needed leadership, Bush hid at an Air Force Base. The most protected person on the planet went into hiding, not because he was in danger, but because he is a coward. I cannot imagine another president who would have hid like that. Even the spineless Nixon would have seen it is the job of a president to go to the White House and assure the masses that everything is under control.


Big Texbush runs away when the going gets bloody.
He talks Texas talk; struts a chicken's walk.

The Democrats seem unable to locate an issue with which to oppose Bush, most having voted for everything he's requested to date. May I suggest the truth? The single image Bush has promoted is flag-waving hero of the Republic.

The evidence proves he is a coward.

A Firm Basis for Impeachment
Robert Scheer

'We now know, and perhaps the White House knew then, that the inspectors eventually would come up empty-handed because no weapons of mass destruction program existed — not even a stray vial of chemical and biological weapons has been discovered.
However, that would have obviated the administration's key rationale for an invasion, so lies substituted for facts that didn't exist.

And there, dear readers, exists the firm basis for bringing a charge of impeachment against the president who employed lies to lead us into war.'

Laurie Mylroie / Conspiracy Theorist

The Continuing Series: Get To Know Your NeoCons-
Today's Lesson: "Laurie Mylroie/Conspiracy Theorist"

Laurie-the NeoCon Conspiracy Theorists' Dreamboat


SEE: It Happened in Baghdad
9-11, Oklahoma City—You Name It
by James Ridgeway
From the Village Voice July 15, 2003

"....Mylroie, who at one time was a consultant to the Department of Defense, said she thinks the World Trade Center bombing in 1993, a botched plot hatched in the Philippines to blow up a dozen American airliners, and 9-11 all were the work of Iraqi intelligence. Under this theory, the Iraqis faked intelligence files in Kuwait to create false identities for their key agents, including master terrorist Ramzi Yousef, who then were dispatched to the U.S. As for Al Qaeda, Mylroie contended that Saddam and bin Laden were in it together but that the Iraqi intelligence apparatus was the key. Bin Laden on his own never could have put together the attacks within the U.S., said Mylroie. Only operatives from an actual nation would have the knowledge and resources to do so. Her evidence is tenuous and circumstantial, but she claimed authenticity on grounds it was embraced by Israeli spooks and the former head of the New York FBI office.

Mylroie also wondered whether the anthrax attacks were the work of Iraqi intelligence, and she has speculated that the Oklahoma City blast was suspicious because it occurred after Terry Nichols, convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh's cohort, visited Mindanao, a hotbed of Muslim extremism in the Philippines, and supposedly attended a meeting with Ramzi Yousef and other terrorists........"

"....If the commission seriously entertains Mylroie's ideas, its investigations could take an alarming turn of direction—away from Al Qaeda to Saddam Hussein and Iraq—and in this way go down the drain for good."



Reference-recent articles by Mylroie:
The Baluch Connection
The Circle of Terror
**this one's a real beauty**
THE WORLD TRADE CENTER BOMB: Who is Ramzi Yousef? And Why It Matters

GEORGE TO GEORGE




"Pssst....
Hey, pal..yeah..look over here...it's the Father of your country speaking....

I came clean when I chopped down that cherry tree.
The least you could do is to be a real man and fess up about all your dirty lies.

Don't make me come down from here and show you what for.
I may look like stone, but I can still kick your lying ass."

Re-post of an oldie-but-goodie....it rings just as true today
as it did on June 5th when I first presented it to you...maybe even more so!

Sing-a-long time!
Sing this to the oldies tune
"SINCE I DON'T HAVE YOU"



George W Bush singing to his missing adversary Saddam Hussein:

"I fibbed 'bout WMD..
And I don't have victory...
I don't have anything
Since I don't have you-u-u-u

I don't have proof you died..
And most folks think that I've lied...
I don't have anything
Since I don't have you-u





I ain't had much success..
And I guess..
I never will ever again
When you escaped from me..
In walked old mystery..
And it's been here since then..

Whoa,
I don't have your DNA
To prove I blew you away
I don't have anything
Since I dont have you-u,you-u....."

by Iddybud
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brights are coming out of the closet?

From NY Times July 12, 2003
The Bright Stuff
By DANIEL C. DENNETT

A recent Dennet interview from Reason Online: http://www.reason.com/0305/fe.rb.pulling.shtml

Brights network on the web: http://www.the-brights.net/

See Religion/Politics research statistics: Pew Research Center Report- Religion and Politics: the Ambivalent Majority

See Professor Larry Lessig's blog for Howard Dean's guest-blogposting!

Howard Dean begins.....

"It’s been a busy day, but it’s great to blog here on Larry Lessig’s blog.

I’ll be writing all week, but if there’s a day I can’t make it, Joe Trippi, my campaign manager, will fill in for me. Thank you Professor Lessig for inviting me.

The Internet might soon be the last place where open dialogue occurs......"

Instinct is an animal grace.
Truth eludes us in all these inner wars
between passion and prudence...
reason and spirit...



"Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment;
Cleverness is mere opinion
Bewilderment is intuition."

Jalal-uddin Rumi

P-I Focus: Power of presidency resides in language as well as law

By Renana Brooks
Clinical Psychologist

excerpt:
"...Bush's opponents must combat his dark imagery with hope and restore American vigor and optimism in the coming years.
They should heed the example of Reagan, who used optimism against Carter and the "national malaise";
Franklin Roosevelt, who used it against Hoover and the pessimism induced by the Depression ("the only thing we have to fear is fear itself");
and Clinton (the "Man from Hope"), who used positive language against the senior Bush's lack of vision. This is the linguistic prescription
for those who wish to retire Bush in 2004...."

The Dubious Suicide of George Tenet
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

excerpt:
"....Tenet's confession is designed to take the heat off," says McGovern, "to assign some responsibility somewhere. It's not going to work. There's too much deception here. For example, Condoleezza Rice insisted that she only learned on June 8 about Former Ambassador Wilson's mission to Niger back in February 2002. That means that neither she nor her staff reads the New York Times, because Nick Kristof on May 6 had a very detailed explication of Wilson's mission to Niger. In my view, it is inconceivable that her remark this week - that she didn't know about Joe Wilson's mission to Niger until she was asked on a talk show on June 8 - that is stretching the truth beyond the breaking point...."

This was my response to comments made on today's "Truth Laid Bear" blog.
*See the discussion in question here*.

Here's what started it:

LT Smash said this:

'It really all boils down to this:
Just about everyone here would rather be at home right now—but nobody wants to go home a loser.
If we gave in to the snivelers and peaceniks who cry, “Bring our troops home now!” Iraq would undoubtedly descend into a bloody civil war, and God only knows who would come out on top. Saddam might even emerge from hiding, claiming to have driven the “infidels” out of his country. The United States would have suffered another black eye, and our enemies would be further emboldened to attack us again. We would have lost the war, and all of the brave Americans and British who gave their lives in this operation would have died in vain.
I am not willing to accept that scenario. You shouldn’t be, either.
What can I possibly add to that?'

My reply:

"This is an extremely interesting discussion.

Here's what it all boils down to:

We never, never, I repeat, NEVER should have
been hasty in going in to Iraq with the coalition for which we wound up "settling".

Clearly, it was inadequate.
Recent history is SCREAMING that it was inadequate.

Clearly, we needed an international peacekeeping force and a wider international effort... and our leader, GW Bush, and his administration did not see fit to do this thing right (since they were so determined to do it).They were prideful, hungry...wrong.

They didn't do it right.
They have made so many errors.
They were wrong in ignoring the concerns of the international community.
It was disrespectful and shameful towards the international community. It was ignorant of the basic rule of law.

We've made a mess of things.
Is it any wonder these nations aren't jumping at the chance to hop in and join the US effort in Iraq?


Now....today..we are at a point of no immediate return in Iraq.
We have to do whatever we have to do to see this thing through.
But all it truly amounts to is this dreadful feeling of "saving face" because so many of our courageous men and women have been brutally slain. We can't just drop all and say "so long". The Russians did that in Afghanistan. We did that in the last Gulf War. It doesn't work. It creates terrorism.

The Neo-Con ideals are not practicable when seen in real-time Iraq. They have not translated well at all. This nation, this America...what is to become of it? She's been brutally wounded by right-wing fanaticists. These are not your average Conservatives with a healthy respect for the true meaning of democracy (small-d). They are empire-driven.

No, we cannot be in denial about what we face in Iraq today.

At the same time, let us NOT forget WHY we are facing it..how it came to pass. And let us not forget all the lies, doublespeak, and exaggeration.

If we fail to learn that lesson, we are doomed to repeating it.

**Can you say Viet Nam?
When will we ever learn?

Jude"

Congratulations to Bill Keller!
New York Times names new executive editor

Posted: Monday, July 14, 1:01pm EDT

"Bill Keller, a columnist for The New York Times who previously served as the newspaper's managing editor and foreign editor and as its bureau chief in Moscow and Johannesburg, has been chosen as its executive editor, reports The New York Times.
Mr. Keller's appointment to the highest-ranking position in the newsroom was announced today by Arthur Sulzberger Jr., publisher of The Times and chairman of The New York Times Company. It is effective July 30. "

America Under Threat

Read this.
.. think about it.
Your American democracy may be dying.



"....The events in Iraq are not over; they're just getting started. In forcing Hussein's regime out of Baghdad, the allies
have rendered Iraq ungovernable. The democratic alternative for Iraq that they talk about at press conferences was never more than propaganda.
As a result, Washington and London don't have much of a choice about how to proceed. They can run the country as an occupying regime, risking increasing guerrilla activity in the cities, civil war and resistance from Hussein's clan, which has far from lost its political and military capabilities.
Or they can make a deal with Hussein's people..."

"...Since G.W. Bush came to power, we are witnessing the most dramatic attack on American democracy ever since the Revolution.
We, outside the US are astonished, shocked, angry and, honestly, somewhat scared..."

"...Different people write that America repeats the Rome way, from the Republic to the Empire.
With all the consequences for the democracy that follows it...." (See my own comments from a prior blog entry)

"....the devastation of Iraq can become the beginning of an end to the American civil society.
Neoliberal admirers of "American model" outside the US dismiss all these warnings reminding us that, unlike Saddam Hussein,
G.W. Bush was elected legally, democratically and in full accord with the Constitution. So was Julius Caesar in Ancient Rome.
And so was Hitler in Weimar Germany...."


***Commentaries are a premium sent to Sustainer Donors of Z/ZNet . To learn more, go to ZNet at http://www.zmag.org**

My contribution to the poetry contest

Dave Barry had a great suggestion..why not enter a poetry contest?
So inspiring was his suggestion that I became a Freemont and entered immediately.
My literary contribution:

He Really Did It Not Me

"the night..the night was filled with dread
a bounty placed upon my head

i run..i run- to God knows where
too numb to feel, too tired to care

the crime- the crime i did not do
yet they would kill him if they knew

the dog..the dog ate mother's toes
the proof's in the fur in her torn pantyhose

i sha'nt..i sha'nt let the poor ol' puppance
take the cruel and harsh comeuppance

o yes--o yes i'll take the blame
and let them chase me down til i'm lame"

Freemont Road
Copyright ©2003 Freemont Road


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Get yourselves over to the poetry contest and add your very own "the dog ate mother's toes" Freemont masterpiece.
:)
From your friend ,
Freemont

A Liar's Carousel



I last wrote about journalist Judith Miller on June 22nd. See here.

Russ Baker has written an interesting article for the Nation...see: " 'Scoops' and Truth at the Times"

"Probably the most instructive exercise in assessing {Judith} Miller's reporting is to compare her with the Post's Barton Gellman. You would think the two were in different countries, if not on different planets......."

Baker goes on to compare/contrast Miller's NY Times headlines to Gellman's Washington Post headlines.
A striking contrast.
Quote from Nation article:

"Here are typical Miller headlines from May:


May 21: "U.S. Analysts Link Iraq Labs to Germ Arms"

May 12: "Radioactive Material Found at a Test Site Near Baghdad"

May 11: "Trailer Is a Mobile Lab Capable of Turning Out Bioweapons, a Team Says"

May 9: "G.I.'s Search, Not Alone, In the Cellar of Secrets"

May 8: "U.S. Aides Say Iraqi Truck Could Be a Germ-War Lab"

Now Gellman:


May 18: "Odyssey of Frustration; In Search for Weapons, Army Team Finds Vacuum Cleaners"

May 11: "Frustrated, U.S. Arms Team to Leave Iraq; Task Force Unable to Find Any Weapons"

May 10: "Seven Nuclear Sites Looted; Iraqi Scientific Files, Some Containers Missing"

May 4: "Iraqi Nuclear Site Is Found Looted; U.S. Team Unable to Determine Whether Deadly Materials Are Missing"
___________________________________________


Since we're talking about professional people (journalists and leaders alike) misleading the American public, in a somewhat-related story from the Boston Globe entitled "Bush overstated Iraq links to al-Qaida, former intelligence officials say",
Matt Kelley quotes Gregory Treverton, a former chairman of the National Intelligence Council under President Clinton:

''You see the polls lots of Americans believe that there was a link between Iraq and al-Qaida despite the lack of intelligence evidence on that score.''


Look at the headlines we're seeing from columnists like Miller in our most influential newspapers.
Observe stories now coming out about all the lies, exaggerations, and erroneous dribble-doublespeak the Bush administration has fed to us.
Is it any wonder the American public winds up looking like complete suckers...or at best, like "people from a different planet"?

Donald Rumsfeld looked like an ornery old fool on the Sunday news-talk shows this morning trying to talk his way around and
out of all the things he has said in the past.
Condi Rice was dizzy on the liar's carousel on the Sunday FOX morning show, too. (Did you see Tony Snow acting as a Bush-apologist in his interview with Rice? He was absolutely leading Condi with candied questions...you would have thought he was her DEFENSE ATTORNEY, for God's sake!)

They're spinning away about their pre-war lies. (How about their post-war lies? See here.)

It's truly amazing watching these people...journalists and leaders alike...on the liar's carousel.
Round and round and round they go...where they'll stop....nobody knows.

Nobody knows.
Nobody knows.
(The polls..the polls will tell you so).

When is Congress going to listen to us and get some action going on investigating all these lies?
Republican Congresspeople--what on earth is wrong with you?
If Congress fails to take action, the lies will continue to snowball, our President will assume he can get away with more,
and America will remain on a liar's carousel to facist hell.



Companion piece from the Independent/UK: "20 Lies About The War"