"The moral of the story? Don't have heartburn over those 16 words. Have it instead over the folks who’ve gotten our nation in a megamess that might cost hundreds more casualties and around $100 billion by Christmas, a figure this regime’s Liars Club is busy doing its best to hide. Judgment is the essence of leadership. It seems sorely lacking when it comes to the president’s Iraqi solution. "

David Hackworth


What happens when truths are laid out beautifully ......

"....whether you're a Democrat or a Republican -- or an Independent, a Libertarian, a Green or a Mugwump -- you've got a big stake in making sure that Representative Democracy works the way it is supposed to. And today, it just isn't working very well. We all need to figure out how to fix it because we simply cannot keep on making such bad decisions on the basis of false impressions and mistaken assumptions.
Earlier, I mentioned the feeling many have that something basic has gone wrong. Whatever it is, I think it has a lot to do with the way we seek the truth and try in good faith to use facts as the basis for debates about our future -- allowing for the unavoidable tendency we all have to get swept up in our enthusiasms........"

Al Gore

....and no one (if you watch TV or read newspapers) seems to be listening?



"......Al Gore slipped into Manhattan last week and gave a rousing speech downtown before a very young audience at New York University. He got some coverage, but Mr. Gore has never been mistaken for an entertainer. In the superamplified media din created by the likes of Arnold and Kobe and Ben and Jen, it's very difficult for the former vice president, a certified square, to break into the national conversation.

That says a lot about us and the direction we're headed in as a nation. You can agree with Mr. Gore's politics or not, but some of the points he's raising, especially with regard to President Bush's credibility on such crucial issues as war and terror and the troubled economy, deserve much closer attention....."

Bob Herbert/NY Times


..instead, on our TV screens, we are fed propped-up propaganda laced with Laci and cobbled up with Kobe. To boot, we get all that serious-sounding pumped-up epic-style music behind the repetitive 'slogan du jour' in big important-looking graphics.
The truth would make us too angry, so FOX, CNN, and MSNBC transmit the nearly-meaningless old fluff-n-hype 24/7.


FROM LE CIRQUE DU FLUFF-N-HYPE:



Spread it, baby.....


___________________




0
0
0



*Northeastern U.S. 8-14-03*

*don't forget about us*


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


From the speech: "We Stand Our Ground" by William Rivers Pitt:

"....If the American people fully knew what this war in Iraq was really about, if they fully knew what it means today to be a soldier in that part of the world, they would tear the White House apart brick by brick. If the people had but a taste of the horror and the lies, they would repudiate this administration and all it stands for. They don't know, because they have been fed a glutton's diet of misinformation and fraud. Changing that is why we are here...."

".... You will note that I did not name George W. Bush, for blaming Bush for the gross misadministration of this government is like blaming Mickey Mouse when Disney screws up. He is not in charge. Truman said "The buck stops here," and so we point to Bush as a symbol of all that has gone wrong. But he is not in charge. These other men, these New American Century men, have delivered us to this wretched estate, and by God in Heaven, there will be a reckoning for it....."
Quotes from William Rivers Pitt

*From a soldier's letter:

"... While the Army did a great in winning the war, what is not being covered is how broke the Army logistics system is and the damage it is doing to the long term readiness and moral of the Army. The Army seems to have this NTC rotation mentality, which consists of fuck it live in the dirt and filth you only have to be here for a month. That works at NTC, but it seems no one has thought of how to sustain an Army in the field for weeks and months at a time...."

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

Paul Krugman wrote in one of his columns this week (entitled Thanks For The MREs):

"......Letters published in Stars and Stripes and e-mail published on the Web site of Col. David Hackworth (a decorated veteran and Pentagon critic) describe shortages of water. One writer reported that in his unit, "each soldier is limited to two 1.5-liter bottles a day," and that inadequate water rations were leading to "heat casualties." An American soldier died of heat stroke on Saturday; are poor supply and living conditions one reason why U.S. troops in Iraq are suffering such a high rate of noncombat deaths?

The U.S. military has always had superb logistics. What happened? The answer is a mix of penny-pinching and privatization — which makes our soldiers' discomfort a symptom of something more general.

Colonel Hackworth blames "dilettantes in the Pentagon" who "thought they could run a war and an occupation on the cheap." But the cheapness isn't restricted to Iraq. In general, the "support our troops" crowd draws the line when that support might actually cost something.

The usually conservative Army Times has run blistering editorials on this subject. Its June 30 blast, titled "Nothing but Lip Service," begins: "In recent months, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress have missed no opportunity to heap richly deserved praise on the military. But talk is cheap — and getting cheaper by the day, judging from the nickel-and-dime treatment the troops are getting lately." The article goes on to detail a series of promises broken and benefits cut...."


ALSO-SEE: "Some Of Army's Civilian Contractors Are No-Shows In Iraq"

I found this blog entry by Demosthenes to be very interesting.



Excerpt:
"....Thus, 2004. If Dean gets the nomination, or even if he doesn't, there will be an army of politically activated, angry, and nearly fanatical Democrats with a single goal: get the pretender off the throne. There will also be an army of political activated, desperate, and nearly fanatical Republicans with a single goal: keep their man around for that all-important second term. They already loathe each other: the former believes the latter to be psychotic and megalomanaical warmongers and profiteers, and the latter believes the former to be treasonous socialists who want America to die in flames. Appeals to bi-partisan consensus will likely be offered by the Republicans, who will have both 2002 and Grover Norquist's "Bi-partisanship is date rape" line thrown back in their faces. The media will focus less on the rhetoric, and more on the war. Civility is out the window; Republican calls for it will likely be quickly rebutted as well by the "Bourgeous riot" of 2000, where the Republicans proved that they have little taste for civility where it doesn't benefit them. Dirty tricks are out of bound only insofar as they might be found out....."

HOW SAD
*and out of touch*

Establishment Washington Post is the most current apologist for the liar BUSH's war... virtually endorsing the Loserman..the most-booed candidate by members of his own party:

"....He's {Al Gore's} not the only Democrat who thinks he can have it both ways, pandering to anti-Bush passion while protecting his national-security flank. .......
Sen. Joe Lieberman has found plenty to criticize in the Bush administration foreign policy without abandoning his longstanding support of American strength and democracy promotion. It's an honorable position, and one that doesn't depend on portraying everyone else as poor saps duped by wizardly Bush propaganda...."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39381-2003Aug9.html


Wizardly Bush propaganda? How about incredibly misinformed and gullible Americans?
Has the Washington Post forgotten this?
I certainly haven't!

Many Misinformed About Iraq, Sept. 11 Attacks
June 15, 2003:
"...A third of the American public believes U.S. forces found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, according to a recent poll. And 22 percent said Iraq actually used chemical or biological weapons. Before the war, half of those polled in a survey said Iraqis were among the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001....."


...Meanwhile, George ("I once took the blame--along with everyone else but Bush") Tenet, smelly and filthy from the Iraq-war lead-up, is allowed four Washington Post pages to try to regain his dignity and reputation:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35443-2003Aug8.html

OUCH!
Just as the Tony Blair Government was lining up Geoff Hoon as the fall guy for the David Kelly affair,
Blair is suddenly in deep water himself.. as the trail leads to him!



http://www.thescotsman.co.uk/index.cfm?id=892822003

Blackout

The Bright Side o' the Blackout:

See Anonymoses for the scoop on the Bob Dobbs-Ted Koppel fiasco



..and Anonymoses' overview of some issues surrounding the blackout, including commentary by Greg Palast

Yellow Bush of Texas

Check Out MadKane's latest Song Parody

"Yellow Bush of Texas"



Excerpt:

"Dubya keeps the money flowing, fund raising from the right.
They pay big bucks to see him, though Dubya's not too bright.
They know that he'll remember where he got those piles of dough.
A promise of returns so great, their wealth will quickly grow..."

Virginia GOP Chairman Pleads Guilty

Head of Va. Republican Party accepts responsibility for charge, will serve 2 years probation

GOP chairman pleads guilty, quits

What Separates Him from the Others in today's GOP?

THE STUPID BASTARD GOT CAUGHT!!!

Bush Talks to God

Bush Can't Lay Out a Decent Economic Plan,
but.. ..Damn..
He's Sho Nuff Gonna Have One Bang-Up Detailed Layout for Armageddon.
Wooo Hooo!


http://www.msnbc.com/news/943879.asp?cp1=1

"...Apocalyptic preacher Jack Van Impe is claiming that he was contacted by Condoleezza Rice’s office and the White House Office of Public Liaison for an “outline” of his take on world events. ...He has predicted that the end of the world will strike somewhere between 2003 and 2012..."

'..“I was contacted a few weeks ago by the Office of Public Liaison for the White House and by the National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice to make an outline. And I’ve spent hours preparing it. I will release this information to the public in September, but it’s in his hands. He will know exactly what is going to happen in the Middle East and what part he will have under the leading of the Holy Spirit of God. So, it’s a tremendous time to be alive....” Jack Van Impe

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

The Sin of Pride
Vision Thing: A scholar wonders if Bush has the humility to see the nuance of this conflict
By Martin E. Marty



"...Christian theologians are wary when Bush uses the words of Jesus to draw neat lines and challenge the whole rest of the world: if you are not for us, or with us, you are against us. Without question, belief in American democracy as one of God’s blessings is part of the move against Iraq. But, as theologians in a number of faiths remind us, the demonization of the enemy—an “us and them” mentality—can inhibit self-examination and repentant action, critical components of any faith...."

The Dean Factor

The Dean factor
Critics say the former Vermont governor is taking his party too far to the left, but is he?

Column in its entirety:

First published: Thursday, August 7, 2003

This is a summer of navel gazing for the Democrats. The party that's out of power, and some would even say out of fresh ideas for regaining it, nonetheless seems to be on a mission to reclaim the political center. It's a smart enough strategy, except for the ensuing uncertainty over just where the center is these days. The navel gazers might be startled to see that dead center has moved much closer to the right flank. The old center strikes some in the party as too far to the left.
Nothing illustrates this better than the presidential campaign of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a sort of insurgency effort that's catching fire just as many Democrats who profess to know better had figured his 15 minutes of political notoriety would be over.

Mr. Dean has dared to be among the harsher critics of President Bush on two of the overriding issues of his presidency -- a relentless push for tax cuts and the not-quite-resolved war in Iraq. For that, he's cast as an early 21st century George McGovern, who prevailed over the old guard Democrats in an especially bitter primary campaign and went on to get trounced by President Nixon. Of course, that was in 1972, when Mr. Dean was barely out of Yale and years before he entered politics himself.

Mr. McGovern was on the losing end, ultimately, of nothing less than a political culture war. But it's hard to see how and where Mr. Dean is taking a similarly hard-line stand.

Is his opposition to the Iraq war, fought under circumstances that may yet be the subject of an inquiry by the Republican-controlled Congress, really a guarantee of another landslide defeat for the Democrats, as rival presidential candidate Sen. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, among others, suggests?

If that assertion is premature, an even greater stretch would seem to be the assertion by Mr. Lieberman that Mr. Dean's call for repeal of all $1.7 trillion of Mr. Bush's tax cuts is another recipe for electoral disaster.

Mr. Lieberman says that amounts to a tax increase on the middle class. But didn't President Clinton, whose "third way" politics Mr. Lieberman seems so eager to emulate, raise taxes on the middle class, too? Why could Mr. Clinton get away with that -- literally so, in his case -- in the name of reducing the federal budget deficit? Why is it that Mr. Dean's determination to do away with tax cuts tilted toward the rich, and in the name of cutting a much bigger budget deficit, amounts to radical politics?

Has the political center shifted that much in less than a decade?

Oh, and then there are Mr. Dean's positions on gun control (he'd leave that to the states, mostly, and to the subsequent relief of the National Rifle Association) and the death penalty (he used to be against it, but now he's for it).

And he's too far to the left for the Democrats' best interests?

Somewhere in Mr. Bush's White House, in as right-leaning an administration as this country has had in a very long time, someone is having a good, long laugh.

Remember Hiroshima and Nagasaki

An Unthinkable-But-True Anniversary: Remembering Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The Living Myths About Nuclear Murder

Hiroshima remembers horror in silence
"...tens of thousands of young Japanese fold origami cranes ever year in memory of a girl named Sadako. She suffered radiation sickness and believed that folding 1,000 cranes would make her well, but died before her task ended...."




Heed the lessons of Hiroshima, Nagasaki
By LAWRENCE S. WITTNER
Albany Times Union Aug 6, 2003

Excerpt:

"....It is this record of progress toward taming the nuclear menace that makes the Bush administration's nuclear policies so alarming. The President has withdrawn the United States from the ABM treaty, opposed U.S. Senate ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and -- by embarking on the building of a National Missile Defense (i.e. Star Wars) system -- has rendered the START II treaty defunct. Furthermore, the Bush administration is promoting plans for a resumption of U.S. nuclear testing and for the development of new nuclear weapons -- weapons that it hopes will be more practical than the larger variety, now effectively stigmatized by world opinion.

This break with the nuclear arms control and disarmament policies of the past will certainly magnify nuclear dangers. The Nonproliferation Treaty, after all, is based upon a bargain. The non-nuclear powers agreed to forgo the development of nuclear weapons on the condition that the nuclear powers begin divesting themselves of their nuclear arsenals. The result, over time, would be a nuclear-free world. If the Bush administration breaks this bargain, many non-nuclear powers seem likely to go nuclear. Also, the other nuclear powers may well throw off their previous restraint. Furthermore, with more nuclear weapons available, terrorist groups will find it easier to obtain them.



The Bush administration has good reason to be concerned about the dangers of weapons of mass destruction. Surely every sensible person is. But these U.S. government officials do not seem to realize that, through arms control and disarmament policies, we have developed an effective way to address the challenge of the nuclear age. Scrapping it is reckless and foolhardy."

Mars Close to Earth

MARS is Coming Close!

Mars Ready for Close-Up, Best View in 60,000 Years
Tue Aug 5, 2:13 PM ET



(Reuters) - "Mars is getting ready for its close-up, with the red planet coming as near to Earth this month as it has in almost 60,000 years."

Mars and Sweet Sama-Come Closer!

".....what is samâ? A message from the fairy, hidden in your heart;
with their letter comes serenity to the estranged heart.
The tree of wisdom comes to bloom with this breeze;
The inner pores of existence open to this tune.
When the spiritual cock crows, the dawn arrives;



When Mars beats his drum victory is ours.
The essence of the soul was fighting the barrel of the body;
When it hears the sound of the daf it matures and calms down.
A wondrous sweetness is sensed in the body;
It is the sugar that the flute and the flute-player bring to the listener....."

(Divan, 1734:1-5)

What do you suppose is up with Al Gore?

He's giving an anti-war speech this Thursday night at N.Y.U..

Do you think he might be thinking of teaming up with Howard Dean?



Speaking of Howard Dean, I actually enjoyed (for ONCE) Dick Morris' column in today's NY Post.
In its entirety, here is:

"REVOLUTION"

August 5, 2003 -- THERE is nothing new about the sudden emergence of a golden boy in the Democratic primaries. Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, Gary Hart: All seemed to come out of nowhere to contend for the presidential nomination.
But Howard Dean's candidacy is important not just because of who he is - a genuine left-liberal alternative - but for how he has managed to vault the front tier of the Democratic pack. Dean's use of the Internet to raise money, generate support and enthuse the party's activists will long be remembered as a signpost along the transition from the television to the Internet era of American politics.

Like John McCain in 2000, the Vermont governor has harnessed the Internet to raise funds quickly, cheaply and legally. But McCain's online fund-raising was catalyzed by a victory in the New Hampshire primary which he won the old-fashioned way, by media and pressing the flesh. Dean, on the other hand, used the Internet to grow from nothing into a full-fledged contender.

Capitalizing on the Democratic Party's pro-peace and pro-gay base, Dean used the customized, one-on-one, retail politics of the Internet to spread the word of his candidacy. Supporters forwarded the e-message to their family and friends and the Dean message spread virally, the first fully Internet campaign.

The larger message of the Dean candidacy is that the era of TV-dominated politics is coming to a close after 30 years. With dwindling audiences and an increasingly sophisticated electorate, the 30-second ad and the seven-second soundbite are losing their power to control the political dialogue. Taking their place is grassroots organizing, made possible by the Internet, in which candidates grow from the outside, mobilizing on the hustings, guerrilla style, before they take their act to the center stage of national politics.

After the collapse of the political bosses in the '60s and '70s, it seemed, briefly, that grassroots direct politics would become the new order of the day. In 1964, enthusiastic, young Republicans overthrew their party's Eastern establishment and nominated Barry Goldwater at a raucous convention in San Francisco. In 1972, the young Democrats had their day overthrowing the party elders and nominating George McGovern.

But both Goldwater and McGovern were crushed by the new force of television advertising. Lyndon Johnson defeated the Arizona Republican and Richard Nixon trounced the South Dakota Democrat with a torrent of negative advertising, marginalizing them on the right and left fringes of U.S. politics.

Grassroots politics remained interred for 30 years as the fund-raisers, the fat-cat donors, media mavens and political consultants (like me) ruled the process. With Americans mesmerized by television, the media blitz and the glitzy 30-second ad carried the day.

But the habits that underlay this media domination of politics has ebbed. The top prime-time TV shows now draw 10-15 million households where once they enthralled more than 30 million at a shot. National television news no longer reaches 60 million homes every night, but has to settle for 20 million instead.

The low costs of Internet campaigning, and the viral way in which it spreads by word of mouth and person-to-person contact, is offering an alternative to top-driven, capital-intensive TV campaigning. A candidate like Dean- animated by a cause larger than his own ambition - can attract vital support and find himself catapulted into prominence by astute use of this new political tool.

Dean may falter as John McCain did, but the inevitable replacement of television with the Internet as the fundamental tool of political communication is destined to accelerate. The true answer to campaign-finance reform, the Internet will open a real possibility of a transfer of power to the people, much as the right-wing Goldwater Girls (like young Hillary Rodham) and the left-wing activists in the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) had hoped would happen decades ago.

As TV's power wanes, so will the power of money to control politics. Just as the political bosses faded into irrelevance, so the excessive power of fund-raisers and big donors is also likely to drop.

In sector after sector of American life, we are throwing off intermediaries. We use the Internet to buy cars, book travel, do banking and sometimes even to kindle romance. We are now throwing off the political intermediaries and using it to pick a president.

I'll be away for a while. Make yourself at home. I chose to leave you with some Thomas Paine quotes.
It was a bit of a game for me. I picked the quotes out at random....eyes closed...pointing to a random open page.
They were found by chance....yet the words he spoke so long ago have special meaning today. Read them for yourself and see if you don't agree.



"I love the man that can smile in trouble, that can gather strength from distress, and grow brave by reflection. 'Tis the business of little minds to shrink; but he whose heart is firm, and whose conscience approves his conduct, will pursue his principles unto death. My own line of reasoning is to myself as straight and clear as a ray of light...."

"I have been tender in raising the cry against these men, and used numberless arguments to show them their danger, but it will not do to sacrifice a world either to their folly or their baseness.
The period is now arrived, in which either they or we must change our sentiments, or one or both must fall."

Thomas Paine / American Crisis / Tract I

Happy Birthday, Adam!

I just added humorist Madeleine Begun Kane to my list of Blogs to read daily!
Don't miss Dubya's Dayly Diary or her great link to Political Comic Strips, Anti-War Humor, and Song Parodies! :)

Act against Joseph Wilson's family was likely an act of TREASON

From DemocracyNow.org 30 July:

"Retired U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson is accusing the White House of orchestrating a smear attack against him and his wife. Wilson gained headlines earlier this month when he revealed that he had personally traveled to Niger in 2002 in a CIA-financed trip to investigate any nuclear link between the African nation and Iraq. Wilson set off a firestorm of debate when he told the media, the White House and CIA were both warned in 2002 of his findings.
Wilson now says the White House deliberately leaked to the press that his wife, Valerie Plame, is a covert CIA operative thus damaging her career and compromising past missions.
Writing on the Nation website, David Corn points out that whoever within the Bush administration outted Wilson’s wife may have committed treason. Disclosing information that identifies covert agents violates the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Plame’s identify was first revealed in a column by conservative Robert Novak who said government officials leaked him the information...."

Wilson Claims Bush May Start Another War in 2004 To Win The Election

"Former U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson predicts the situation in Iraq will deteriorate so much over the next year Bush may resort to start another war in order to win the 2004 election. "

You can read about Wilson's prediction from 14 June 2003 during his speech to the Education for Peace in Iraq Center here.

The Nuclear Issue: Pugwash and the Bush Policies
by Sir Joseph Rotblat
President Emeritus, Pugwash Conferences
(co-recipient, with the Pugwash Conferences, of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize)

Halifax and Pugwash, Nova Scotia, Canada
17-21 July 2003
Public Forum
Friday, July 18, 2003
Ondajtee Auditorium, Dalhousie University, Halifax

"It is imperative that Pugwash constantly remind the international community of the immorality, illegality, and peril inherent in nuclear weapons, and to propose concrete steps towards their elimination."

Excerpts:

- "...The prolonged squabbles over UN Resolutions and inspections, aiming at giving legitimacy to the war, seem to have been just a charade, intended to create the impression that it was not the USA alone but a coalition that was involved in the anti-Iraq campaign. The decision to overthrow the Saddam Hussein regime having been taken much earlier, it was only the time for its implementation that had to be chosen. This was probably dictated not by the outcome of the Hans Blix inspections, but by the need to assemble the necessary military strength...."

- "....Indeed, the official reason for the military attack on Iraq - the removal of weapons of mass destruction - has proven to be completely indefensible, since no such weapons have so far been found, despite the intense search carried out by large groups of experts appointed by the USA. As time goes on, and the WMDs are not found, there will be an attempt to play down the importance of finding them, but this will not alter the fact that the war was started on false premises...."

- "...Even if the Americans were less arrogant in pursuing that role than they are now, a system with a built-in inequality is bound to be unstable. It is bound to create resentment, a resentment that will find expression in various ways, including an increase in international terrorism. This in turn will force the "policemen" to take countermeasures, which will make the inequality even more acute. Democracy in the world, as we know it today, would be ended...."

- "...My main hope is that the opposition to it will come from within the United States itself. At present, Bush is very popular and carries a majority of public opinion: this is the usual wave of patriotism which comes with a military victory, but it is already decreasing significantly. I believe that the strong anti-war demonstrations that we saw earlier are a true reflection of the views of the majority of the American people. Somehow, I do not see the American people accepting the role assigned to them by the clique that has hijacked the Administration. Public opinion is bound to turn when the dangers associated with the current policies become apparent...."

- "....For the USA, the distinction between nuclear and conventional weapons has already been eroded, as was made clear in the Nuclear Posture Review, but the situation has become even more threatening with the additional disposition to act pre-emptively...."

- "...In a world armed with weapons of mass destruction, the use of which might bring the whole of civilization to an end, we cannot afford a polarized community, with its inherent threat of military confrontations. In this technological age, a global, equitable community, to which we all belong as world citizens, has become a vital necessity."

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

COMPANION ARTICLE:

US scraps nuclear weapons watchdog
Thursday July 31, 2003
The Guardian

"...A US department of energy panel of experts which provided independent oversight of the development of the US nuclear arsenal has been quietly disbanded by the Bush administration, it emerged yesterday.
The decision to close down the national nuclear security administration advisory committee - required by law to hold public hearings and issue public reports on nuclear weapons issues - has come just days before a closed-door meeting at a US air force base in Nebraska to discuss the development of a new generation of tactical "mini nukes" and "bunker buster" bombs, as well as an eventual resumption of nuclear testing...."

POINDY GONE AGAIN! 1986 REDUX

This is what happens when you reappoint Lucifers and Beelzebubs....who will these Republicans drag back into government next?
Satan Kissinger? (Oops..they tried THAT already, didn't they?)
How about replacing Ol' Poindy with Flea Gordon Liddy?
Better yet, dig up Nixon's corpse and let him loose.



credit: www.nationalcynical.com


Keep the sleazeball rollin'!

US Casualties on the Rise in Colombia
From the Daily Dystopian- 30 July

What are we doing in Columbia these days?
Are you aware?
Dystopia gives you an excellent reminder of who is wielding non-democratic US foreign policy and undue influence over our US President and Congress.
It really isn't the President who is in power, it seems. The war in Columbia is making business thrive.
Big business is actually ruling and contributing to who lives and who dies and has the power of the US military to do their bidding.
The media does not give us the full story (if they offer ANY story whatsoever).
When the number of kidnapped civilian American businessmen suddenly rises.. voila...you get some media coverage.
Go to Dystopia's blog and learn who some of these mercenary corporations are...who's been kidnapped....how the drug war has turned out to be a
twisted war on a post-9-11-configured "terror-basis".
A tangled web of secrecy and government corruption.

-------------------
"The world is nothing other than the projection of our souls."
-------------------

[ HEALING FROM WAR ]
Healing our Hearts
by Deepak Chopra

----------------------
"Just because we are part of a collective insanity, we must not assume it is normal. It is the psychopathology of the average."
----------------------


We have the deepest aspirations. We want to create a new mythology that says that peace and harmony and laughter and love are possible. That says that social justice and economic parity and ecological balance and a sense for the sacred and a universal spirituality irrespective of our origins are all part of the tangled hierarchy, the interdependency chorus.



Human beings have only existed for 200,000 years. For most of this time, we have been surrounded by predators. In order to survive, we have had a biological response, the flight/fight response. Because we have become so good at this flight/fight response, we have become the predator on this planet. We are the most dangerous animal.

That is not our whole history, however. Something very interesting happened to us about 4,000 years ago, when a few luminaries across the world appeared at once. They were the prophets of the Pentateuch, the great Greek philosophers, the sages of the Upanishads, the Eastern seers like Lao Tsu, Confucius and Buddha, and many others. They developed the ability to get in touch with the domain of awareness that is non-local, that transcends the space-time energy and everything that we can perceive with our senses.



The great English poet William Blake once wrote,

"We are led to believe a lie
when we see with and not through the eye
that was born in the night, to perish in the night,
while the souls slept in beams of light."

When we see beyond the physical we see into our souls.




We can go a whole lifetime without getting in touch with our souls. But once we get in touch with this presence, there is no going back. This soul place is one of knowingness, of light, of love, compassion, and understanding. Intention, imagination, insight, intuition, creativity, meaning, purpose, and decision-making are the attributes of this presence. When we get in touch with it, we have recourse to what is called the intuitive response, which is a form of intelligence that is contextual, relational, holistic, and nurturing. When I'm in this presence, and you are, we are in the same place.

We see that we are part of a great chain of being where we interdependently co-create each other. There is more that we share than what separates us. We all seek love, we all seek self-esteem, we all seek creative expression, we all seek self-actualization—these are the birthright of every human being.




There is no more important task at this moment in our history than to get in touch with the sacred core of our being that is common to all of us. Our practical proposals will be effective only when we get in touch with our souls, and feel this fundamental shift in our hearts. If we can feel that shift in our hearts, if we can join together and be living examples of this shift, then the world will transform, because the world is as we are. The world is nothing other than the projection of our souls.

Just because we are part of a collective insanity, we must not assume it is normal.



It is the psychopathology of the average.

I am committed to the vision Michael Lerner has expressed in Tikkun and elsewhere that we can emancipate ourselves from this psychopathology through the realm of spirit. Even though we have interesting scientific insights, the religious traditions of the world have access to universal truths.

A friend of mine sent me an English translation of an Egyptian papyrus discovered in the 1940s. The language is pre-Babylonian. We don't know who the author is, but he or she lived in the time of Solomon. The author is talking to God and he or she says:

"You split me and you tore my heart open and you filled me with love.
You poured your spirit into mine. I knew you as I knew myself.
My eyes are radiant with your light. My ears delight in your music.
My nostrils are filled with your fragrance. My face is covered with your dew.
You have made me see all things shining. You have made me see all things new.
You have granted me perfect ease. And I have become like Paradise.
And having become like Paradise, my soul is healed."




At this moment, there is a rift in our collective soul. But there is one part of our evolution that says this rift can be healed. And if we heal it, we will all move into that ecstasy which is nothing other than the exaltation of spirit.


From Tikkun.org

The Media Still Giving Bush A Free Ride on Iraq

This is Norman Solomon's latest article which includes comments about yesterday's Bush Press Conference.
Our pliant, timid, and easily-placated media is doing a grave disservice to the people of America.

This one statement by Solomom could have been made about ANY of the questions that were asked of (and not actually ANSWERED by) Bush at yesterday's conference:

"... It was a classic politician non-response.
And, in the absence of strong media followup, the
meaningless answer rendered the question ineffectual...."

My Thoughts on Yesterday's Bush Press Conference
A to Z
___________________________

Text here.

A. AVOID
Bush did not answer many of the questions with direct answers to the questions asked. Often, the reply was nearly totally unrelated to the topic.

B. BUCK-PASSER
Bush says he takes responsibility for all his decisions, yet if you listened to his replies, he ducked accountability and responsibility at every turn.

C. CHILDISH CHIVYING
Bush still calls journalists those goofy and annoying nicknames. The journalist Bush calls "Super Stretch", in particular, did not look amused in the least.

D. DUMB
How about those rem-a-nants of Al Qaeda?

E. ECCENTRIC
Bush actually said (and I cannot believe he said this)...that he watched Ariel Sharon and Abu Mazen's BODY LANGUAGE at Akaba!
It reminded me of the INXS song: "Use your eyes and your face / Words have no place / Move your body in a way / So I will know what you say
Body Language / Body Language / Body Language yo o o o o o......" Oooo Ariel...OoooooAbu....
Preceding the groovy body language comment, Bush dared to pat himself on the back for actually doing virtually nothing in the "producing results" department by saying: "I think we're making pretty good progress in the Middle East".
Guess what? I DON'T!!!!!!! I'll bet most folks with half a brain don't think so, either.

F. FALSE
When asked about job losses in America and jobs being moved from our shores to places overseas, Bush simply blamed technology.
Darn that technology!
Earlier in the conference when defending his ridiculous tax-cuts, he was quick to blame corporate misdeeds for a shitty market and a numb economy..
yet when it came to the unemployed, he never mentioned America's corporations playing a role in tax-evasion and abandonment of American workers in American cities (choosing anyplace else where workers will sweat for far lower wages).
Oh, but he did offer the fabulous solution of sending the unemployed to Community College for retraining. He just didn't mention what the hell they'd be retraining FOR.

G. GUSHING
Speaking of FABULOUS, did you know Condi Rice is just one FABULOUS person...and therefore she should not be held responsible for the outright lies she has told the American public? Wow, I am SO relieved to hear she's FABULOUS!

H. HALF-TRUTHS
When journalist named Carl asked Bush what's happened to all that money he was promising to send to Africa for AIDS since it is desperately needed, Bush said they may not get it all just yet..because they don't know what to do with the money. I'd love to hear from the agencies who are just WAITING for that money. Something tells me they'd know what to do with it-- immediately. No surprise.
This is the typical polidicking around we'd expect from Bush.

I. IRAN
Bush laughed at journalist Hutchinson's question about Iran. Hutchinson had asked, since Bush had included Iran in the Axis of Evil, if we planned to
use American force in Iran at any time in the future. Bush's mocking tone rang hollow. He began by attacking the press for putting out speculation-chatter about our country attacking Iran (shortly after the Iraq combat was over last April).
THEN he went on, in the next sentence by saying ALL options were still on the table....
meaning it's still a possibility we would consider force. So why the mocking tone? Why the Chimpy laugh? Not too funny, Bush.

J. JOG and DOG
In the same question about Iran, Bush warned Berlusconi and the EU they'd best get involved..or else. Well, he didn't actually say it that way, but that's the way I'm sure he was hoping Berlusconi and the EU would TAKE it. To me, it sounded too close to pre-Iraq for comfort....
like the old 'IF YOU DON'T, THEN WE WILL' all over again. (As if Berlusconi doesn't have his OWN problems and priorities right now).

K. KAY
Quote: "David Kay came to see me yesterday."
Personally, I think David Kay is a creep. I have thought so for a long time now...ever since he turned on Scott Ritter. I believe Ritter when he
avowed that our Intelligence undermined the UN Weapons Inspections process in Iraq. I have no reason NOT to doubt him.
David Kay called Ritter's actions as "shifting the focus back to what he sees as the impact of U.S. policy and the U.S. intelligence community
undermining UNSCOM". Well, hello??? That focus was important in light of the fact that it was THE reason Iraq pulled their cooperation away from the UN. It had so much to do with our ultimate decision to make this preemptive strike....Ritter was right. Kay got on the wrong side of intelligence and history, it seems. What will he do now to assist this desparate, lying administration? He may be a loyal soul at his own peril.

L. LOSS
Here is who, when, and what is to blame for our crummy economy and our hell-canyon of projected deficits:

1- Bill Clinton, of course...after all, we began the downswing in 2000.

2- 2001 recession (we can blame Bill for that, too, I guess.

3- 9-11---
You'll see 9-11 used to take the blame for A LOT of Bush failures and you'll see 9-11 used to take credit for Bush successes
(although I'm really not sure what those "successes" might be ). Anyhow, you'll see 9-11 USED. Often.

4- Corporate Scandals Oh--and none of them happened on Dubya's watch. And Dubya really didn't know Ken Lay. It's all Clinton's fault.

5- DRUMBEAT TO WAR!!!! God, I really LOVED this one!
Bush actually had the nerve to blame the MEDIA for talking up the possibility of the upcoming Iraq war day in/day out...AS IF THEY HAD NO
REASON TO DO SO!!! To blame them for TALKING about it...and saying it caused a market slump is outrageous.....simply outrageous. This is a
typical Bush-method of tring to censor the media...as if they aren't already lame enough! If there was a Drumbeat to War, it was a TRUE drumbeat
and the drummer was none other than George Dubya Bush hisself.

6- Wars cost money. (Renmember this, Bush...you took us to war as an option. It was not necessary. As it turns out, they were not even a real
threat to us! Beside that fact, if you knew your elective war would cost so much, why the hell would you create FURTHER tax-cuts?
If you realized how much the war would cost, why is it that your Budget people cannot give us any reasonably foreseeable estimates?)

Notice TAX-CUTS were no where on that list.
Bush will not take any responsibility for them.
Period.

M. MONEYLESS
Hey, Congress....Bush says you'd better hold the line on spending. You only have -minus $475 billion- with which to work.

N. NABBING
Bush says he'll spend "most of his time" doing his job as Presidunce this year. The rest of the time, he'll be nabbing at least $2000 per person
for his campaign treasure-trove. If we don't like it, we can suck a lemon or something like that.

O. OMINOUS OUTLOOK
I noticed Bush loved bringing up that new story circulating the media about the possibility of new hijacking/terror attacks this summer.
Aaaah-there just ain't nothin' like scarin' people when you want to keep them frightened enough to be dependent upon government and needing "security", eh?

P. PLEAS--PLEASE!
Another new line from the Bush administartion is "Give us TIME to find WMDs....we need TIME...." In the next breath, Bush says he gave the WORLD a chance to find the weapons and they couldn't or they didn't. He says they had 12 years and many resolutions. Well, perhaps they did...but how are we any better off than the world community in uncovering and destroying these WMDs? If there weren't EVER any, then, in retrospect, how could Bush ever have expected the world to do any more than they were doing? It's time to admit we were dead wrong in going this alone. It's time for a new UN Resolution. We need a leader who is smart and humble enough to reach out to the world and get their good faith back again. Our troops could use the help and the peace-keeping experience from UN allies. Will Bush go back to the UN humbly? Can Bush do it? From what I am hearing today, I don't think he has it IN HIM.

Q- QUEERS
When asked the question about homosexuality, he said "We're all sinners."
I stopped listening to his reply to THAT question right then and there. That answer had NO PLACE in a U.S. Presidunce's public vocabulary.

R- ROUNDABOUT REASON
When asked about his administration's hypocritical-seeming multilateral/diplomatic hope for peace in North Korea, (while the North Koreans are making it unquestionably clear they're going 'nucular'), Bush replied that "trying to engage bilaterally didn't work." Well, if Bush was still Mr Tough Talkin' Texan (as he was about Iraq in his pre-war drumbeat), then it seems he should be all ready to attack them now. After all, they're an imminent threat and they've not fully cooperated in the last 40 years.
Bush's answer is to pass the buck this time....let Japan and South Korea and Russia do it.

S- SO MANY EXCUSES
When asked if the tax-cuts were really such a great idea, considering the projected deficits, Bush reiterated his list of excuses (see my refernece in "L").
He said "Look, we would have had deficits with or without tax cuts." (In other words, if the nation's budget is already all bungled up, why not mess it up some more while you have the control and the opportunity?)
He also replied "..we spent money on the war..." (THE war?? Which one? Afghanistan or Iraq? Why is Bush lumping them together as he so often does when talking about Saddam and Osama as if are the same people...the same war) Bush also said "And so part of the deficit, no question, was caused by taxes: about 25% of the deficit. The other 75: 50% caused by lack of revenues and 25% caused by additional spending on the war on terror." OK--so that's 25% on Afghanistan? Can Bush tell us what percent of our budget Iraq will be sucking away? I don't think he CAN....which makes his tax-cutting one of the most iressponsible decisions of his career as President. His answer was not based on any form of true knowlege.

T. TSK-TSK
The very fact that THIS question was aked:
"..there's a sense here in this country and a feeling around the world that the U.S. has lost credibility by building the case for Iraq upon sometimes flimsy or, some people have complained, nonexistent evidence.
And I'm just wondering, sir, why did you choose to take the world to war in that way?"
.......speaks for itself.

U. UNPRODUCTIVE
In Bush's line of work, it's best to produce results. That's what the man says. Look at our economy. Our States.
I don't see a whole lot of results. I saw the two dead bloated bodies of Saddam's sons nauseatingly paraded on the media every half-hour on the half-hour last week. I think "death" and "fear" and "war" are what Bush considers to be "results"...because it's all I hear and see being produced by him.


V. "Ramzi — (painful, painful silence and dumbfounded look)----- "Ramzi -----al Shibh"---(confused look)--- "or whatever the guy's name was. "
W. "Sorry, Ramzi, if I got it wrong."
X. (Someone prompts Chimpy with the right name)
Y. "Bin al Shibh."
Z. "Excuse me. "

The Bush Administration's Top 40 Lies about War and Terrorism
Bring 'em On!
by Steve Perry


1) The administration was not bent on war with Iraq from 9/11 onward.

2) The invasion of Iraq was based on a reasonable belief that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction that posed a threat to the U.S., a belief supported by available intelligence evidence.

3) Saddam tried to buy uranium in Niger.

4) The aluminum tubes were proof of a nuclear program.




5) Iraq's WMDs were sent to Syria for hiding.



Where's WALDO......er..I mean WMDS?

6) The CIA was primarily responsible for any prewar intelligence errors or distortions regarding Iraq.

"Hey, hey...don't look at ME...look over there..at Tenet!"

7) An International Atomic Energy Agency report indicated that Iraq could be as little as six months from making nuclear weapons.

8) Saddam was involved with bin Laden and al Qaeda in the plotting of 9/11.

Barry White music playing........

9) The U.S. wants democracy in Iraq and the Middle East.

10) Ahmed Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress are a homegrown Iraqi political force, not a U.S.-sponsored front.

'BUDS'

11) The United States is waging a war on terror.

12) The U.S. has made progress against world terrorist elements, in particular by crippling al Qaeda.

13) The Bush administration has made Americans safer from terror on U.S. soil.

14) The Bush administration has nothing to hide concerning the events of September 11, 2001, or the intelligence evidence collected prior to that day.

Credit:Griefnet.org

15) U.S. air defenses functioned according to protocols on September 11, 2001.

16) The Bush administration had a plan for restoring essential services and rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure after the shooting war ended.

17) The U.S. has made a good-faith effort at peacekeeping in Iraq during the postwar period.

18) Despite vocal international opposition, the U.S. was backed by most of the world, as evidenced by the 40-plus-member Coalition of the Willing.

19) This war was notable for its protection of civilians.

Credit: Iranvision.com

20) The looting of archaeological and historic sites in Baghdad was unanticipated.

21) Saddam was planning to provide WMD to terrorist groups.

22) Saddam was capable of launching a chemical or biological attack in 45 minutes.


23) The Bush administration is seeking to create a viable Palestinian state.

24) People detained by the U.S. after 9/11 were legitimate terror suspects.

25) The U.S. is obeying the Geneva conventions in its treatment of terror-related suspects, prisoners, and detainees.

26) Shots rang out from the Palestine hotel, directed at U.S. soldiers, just before a U.S. tank fired on the hotel, killing two journalists.

27) U.S. troops "rescued" Private Jessica Lynch from an Iraqi hospital.

28) The populace of Baghdad and of Iraq generally turned out en masse to greet U.S. troops as liberators.

29) A spontaneous crowd of cheering Iraqis showed up in a Baghdad square to celebrate the toppling of Saddam's statue.

Credit: Ridiculopathy.com

30) No major figure in the Bush administration said that the Iraqi populace would turn out en masse to welcome the U.S. military as liberators.

31) The U.S. achieved its stated objectives in Afghanistan, and vanquished the Taliban.

32) Careful science demonstrates that depleted uranium is no big risk to the population.

33) The looting of Iraqi nuclear facilities presented no big risk to the population.

34) U.S. troops were under attack when they fired upon a crowd of civilian protesters in Mosul.

35) U.S. troops were under attack when they fired upon two separate crowds of civilian protesters in Fallujah.

36) The Iraqis fighting occupation forces consist almost entirely of "Saddam supporters" or "Ba'ath remnants."

37) The bidding process for Iraq rebuilding contracts displayed no favoritism toward Bush and Cheney's oil/gas cronies.

38) "We found the WMDs!"

39) "The Iraqi people are now free."

40) God told Bush to invade Iraq.

"Do it, George, my child, do it! Go kill Saddam and anyone who stands in our way!
A ha--a haha-ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha---haaaaa!"




~~~~~~

Still no word on Benjamin Padilla or the horse he rode out on

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.