More on Converge South

More on Converge South
cross posted at American Street


Converge South was held last weekend at Rev. Jesse Jackson's alma mater North Carolina A & T University , Greensboro, N.C. There was a barbeque held at the home of Greensboro blogger Dave Hoggard on Friday night, and I regret to say I couldn't make it. I heard it was a lot of fun and that a lot of new blogging relationships were formed. One new blogging relationship mentioned by Robert Scoble at the Conference on Saturday was forged between himself and Greensboro's colorful and talented character Billy the Blogging Poet. I wasn't in attendance because I was with fellow American Street blogger Anonymoses at a political (NC District Eight) rally in Concord, N.C. where Democractic Congressional candidate Larry Kissell and Senator John Edwards spoke to an enthusiastic crowd from the back of a pick-up truck. We were also invited to meet Senator Edwards before the rally. (See photos below).


ELizabeth Edwards and Ed Cone at Converge South 2006


I attended the conference on Saturday where Elizabeth Edwards, wife of former Senator and 2004 VP candidate John Edwards, led an excellent early-morning discussion about community-building on the web. The net-savvy Mrs. Edwards has established a great rapport with bloggers simply by being one of them.


Elizabeth Edwards at Joseph-Beth Booksellers in Charlotte NC


I had seen Mrs. Edwards speak three days earlier at Joseph Beth Booksellers in Charlotte, N.C. about her best-selling book "Saving Graces," and I found the theme underlying her book to flow seamlessly with the topic of her Converge South session. There are many ways the internet has already easily facilitated community-building, and both continued and new methods and motivations for building new associations on the web were covered well by Mrs. Edwards and the Converge participants.


Robert and Maryam Scoble offer 10 ways to write a "killer blog".

The vibrant (and married) blogging couple Robert and Maryam Scoble (who maintain separate blogs, both unique in their own right) led a 10-step session (which actually grew to what turned out to be 15 steps) on how to write a "killer blog". Anton Zuiker has a great summary of those steps.

Converge South 2006 - Some Photos

Converge South 2006 - Some Photos

Here are a few photos from Converge South. It's always a pleasure to see the people of "Blogsboro" again, and I wish to thank Ben, Sue, Ed, Dave, and all the bloggers of Greensoro who made this unique and wonderful experience possible. These people are the trailblazers of creating a blogging community that should inspire all other aspiring blogtopias.

Anonymoses and Maryam Scoble have blogposts.

I'll provide my own comments about the conference soon.


Elizabeth Edwards and Ed Cone talk about building community


Robert and Maryam Scoble - What a vibrant blogging couple!



Billy the Blogging Poet and his marvelous flying machine



I'm talking with Greensboro's own Sue Polinsky; Elizabeth Edwards and Robert Scoble in background.

The Sacred is Found in the Ordinary

The Sacred is Found in the Ordinary
Written for the Tar Heel Tavern [Edition 85]

The great lesson is that the sacred is in the ordinary,
that it is to be found in one's daily life,
in one's neighbors, friends, and family,
in one's backyard.

- Abraham Maslow

The greatest example of courage, faith, and love in my life was set by my mother. The unconditional love she gave to all her friends, neighbors, and family came back to her and to my family in her last days. Because of the example of her great and unconditional faith and love, I have been emptied of cynicism and firmly believe that I have been able to become a more capable vessel for the sharing of that unconditional faith and love for my own friends, family, and community.

A year ago today, Mother was fighting a cancer from which she would never recover.

Through the darkness of those days, neighbors came to call on her and on the family. They brought small gifts - a homemade bread, some lovely fresh flowers, a card with a message of love drawn in crayon from a child's hands.

Family came to help with household chores and to sit by Mother's bedside. They read her books. They talked about old times.

Father and brother pulled out their musical instruments and sat by her bedside playing and singing as if there wasn't a care in the world, even though their hearts were breaking.

The parish priest Father Michael and the Hospice spiritual advisor Dave came to hold our hands and remind us that faith is the little bird that feels the dawn breaking, yet goes on singing while it is still dark.

Then there were the ones who came from years out of my past just to hold my hand at Mother's funeral. Their simple gesture was enough to fill the empty pages of the lengthy time we'd spent apart.

There were beautiful cards filled with caring and sympathy.

Looking back, my last days with Mother are not remembered as an unscalable mountain. Instead they were a revelation of God from and within those who joyfully participated in the cycle of her unconditional love. They all helped me to rise - to find my way around the stumbling block of darkness and doubt.

Were there no God, we would be in this glorious world with
grateful hearts and no one to thank.

- Christine Rosetti

Meister Eckhart believed that if the only prayer you ever say in life is "Thank you," it is enough. My thanksgiving goes out in prayer for all of my blessings. Life can deal you any blow. You can be forced reap the bitter harvest from unimaginable sorrow and witness it being spun into hope and light by those who love you. What a joy to understand that the commonplace is the sacred. The consciousness that designed and created existence is also the intelligence that is programed into the core of every atom. We are interdependent walking miracles.

In my own life, the mysteriously endless cycle of love and the awakening example of truth that everyone is a divine instrument of God was created by my mother. In a particularly memorable act of empathy and kindness on the day Mother passed away, a Muslim friend told me that his faith taught him that there is no stronger love on this earth than the love of a precious mother. Her love for you is the closest thing to God while you live here on the earth. But the love of God is even 70 times stronger. Imagine that.

E.J. Dionne Hurls Boulder Through GOP "Family Values" Facade

E.J. Dionne Hurls Boulder Through GOP "Family Values" Facade

In today's WaPo, E.J. Dionne blows the lid off the phony "family values" vibe the GOP tries to embrace. He asks the question that sends a bullshit-detection boulder through their "family values" facade:

"When confronted with an issue, do politicians focus on narrow political imperatives or do they care most about the well-being of children and families? The politicians should have asked that question in Foley's case, and they should ask it about a lot of other issues, too."

Don't miss this R-rated hymn straight out of the GOP Family Values Hymnal at American Street.

It's so juicy..



..that it might even raise this dude's eyebrows!

Jonathan Alter on Barack Obama

Jonathan Alter on Barack Obama

Barack Obama was not a member of the U.S. Senate when he opposed the war in Iraq. Both John Edwards and Hillary Clinton were in the Senate, and if there's one thing we all should understand, it's that it's a whole lot easier to say "No" when you are not directly responsible as an elected representative for the security of hundreds of thousands of constituents and when you're a representative from a state with key military bases.

If we value inexperience over our leaders actually having been there/done that, then I suppose Jonathan Alter is 100% correct that Democratic primary voters will find Obama to be "perfectly positioned" for 2008. However, that's not at all what I witnessed in 2004 when Democratic primary voters flocked to John Kerry, who had voted for the Iraq War resolution. To the primary voters, Kerry had had a decided air of gravitas that comes only from life (and war) experience. The voters didn't use Senator Kerry's vote for the IWR against him then. Armed with plenty of real knowledge and 20/20 hindsight about the Bush administration's failures, misleadings and outright untruths, I cannot believe that Democratic voters will punish those who voted Yes to the IWR in 2008 because they will understand that it was not the Democrats who commanded this disastrous war. Many of the same Democrats who gave good faith and trust to the POTUS in 2002 are now being labeled as cowards and traitors in stump speeches by the President.

I trust that Democratic primary voters will understand that both Edwards and Clinton have been no less than repulsed by the gross inefficiency of Donald Rumsfeld, who offered many times to step down but was begged to stay by an incredibly incurious President who clearly never understood how to lead a war or the dangers of rushing your nation into an unjust and unwinnable type of warfare.

The truth is that it wasn't at all easy to vote "yes" OR "No" in October, 2002 to give the POTUS the authority to press the UN on Resolution 1551. A year had barely passed since the worst attack on American civilians in U.S. history. The cherry-picked intelligence being shouted from the Bush bully pulpit proved out to be a horrifically negligent, if not intentional misleading, but no one knew it or could prove it then. With weakness and inefficiency from CIA head George Tenet and the false stories from journalists like Judith Miller along with the rest of the pliant Oval-office stenopad-MSM, our leaders were put between a rock and a terrible place.

Collectively, we all learn from mistakes of our past. The question should be: What has Senator Edwards learned? What has Senator Clinton learned?

We'll never know what Barack Obama would have done had he been called on the floor of the Senate to look every American in the eye on the CSPAN camera and risk American lives (and his own reputation) just because he had a hunch that Bush was a dishonest broker. He never had to be there. I imagine he's glad of it because he won't have to answer for it one way or the other.

What the Democrats did in 2002 was not easy for them. Their floor statements will tell you that they were torn. Regime change in Iraq was the policy of America when President Clinton left office and it was still the policy at the time of the IWR. Would President Clinton have impulsively and inefficiently done what Bush did? I doubt it, but he wasn't POTUS at the time. He didn't have to make that decision, and I imagine he's glad of it because he won't have to answer for it one way or the other.

I know Barack Obama has a brilliant future ahead of him. I admire him. He's a fantastic orator and he shows a firm commitment to American progress. When it comes to voting for the Iraq War resolution, he could only second guess Senators like Edwards and Clinton. Even he, I'd imagine, would have the grace to understand that they were in a far different place than those outside the halls of federal leadership in those dark days.

Rove Aide Resigns in Abramoff Corruption Wake

Rove Aide Resigns in Abramoff Corruption Wake

Having passed inside White House information to ex-lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Karl Rove's aide Susan Ralston has submitted her resignation. Her official title was Executive Assistant to the Senior Advisor to the President of The White House.

A White House spokeperson has said that Ms. Ralston recognized that "a protracted discussion of these matters would be a distraction to the White House." Ralston had worked for Abramoff before joining Rove in 2001. She'd allegedly facilitated more than half of Abramoff's sixty-six contacts with the Bush White House.

The old surfer song "Pipeline" by the Ventures comes to mind when I read how Ms. Ralston aided Abramoff toward his corrupt goals. One example comes from a great timeline I found at Democratic Underground:

Late 2002 – Abramoff learns from his pipeline to the White House—which includes Susan Ralston, who used to be his personal secretary and was now working directly with Karl Rove--of the impending nomination of Leonardo Rapadas to replace Frederick Black as US Attorney of the Marianas. Abramoff instructs his team to send out e-mails claiming credit for getting rid of Black who--as he said in an earlier e-mail--“has been screwing us for years”.

November 18, 2002 – Following the request of U.S. Attorney Black, a federal grand jury in Guam subpoenas the Guam Superior Court for records involving a lobbying contract with Jack Abramoff.

Placing a new GOP-friendly attorney in Black's place may have hidden Abramoff's wrongdoing a bit longer - and the fact that US Attorney Black succeeded in uncovering the slime of a snake Abramoff from under his well-protected rock likely helped to expose Karl Rove's Deputy assistant as sahe worked for the cause of corruption in our White House.

A tip o' the hat to Jeffrey Feldman/Frameshop for quickly getting the news out about this resignation. A tip to John Byrne and Washington Monthly for collecting background information.

Moyers on Norquist, My Back Pages

Moyers on Norquist, My Back Pages

Watching Bill Moyers' fantastic documentary about the Jack Abramoff/Grover Norquist/Tom Delay net of deception, evil, and corruption, I was reminded to look back to some of my posts on Grover Norquist.

This one from 2003 is a doozy, and I've heard nothing in the mainstream media about it.

How this crook and others like him get away with stealing our most precious commodity, which is our democracy, through their evil dealings is beyond all reason. Do we have so many corrupt people in our nation that, through their willful ignorance of what is happening in the D.C. shadows, corruption is swept under a rug?

As more and more people understand how a lobbyist-funded "shadow government" has formed in the lobbyists' headquarters and in lobbyist-owned cafes and restaurants in the shadow of our Capitol building, the complete failure of our media to expose the theft of our democracy will become more and more unforgiveable. Thank God there are Bill Moyers and other real investigative journalists out there. I wish there were more, but rather than finding them in the mainstream, I think you'll likely find them on the blogs or the alternative internet media. As we learn more from each other through grassroots efforts, voters will likely catch on and oust more and more Republicans and Democrats who continue to operate within and cooperate with this perverted style of shadow governing.

Why Don’t We Hear About SPP?

Why Don’t We Hear About SPP?

The U.S. Department of Commerce is, for all intents and purposes, rewriting U.S. administrative law with absolutely no Constitutional justification.

What would you think if you knew that George W. Bush, while speaking from the bully pulpit about the need to build a wall across the Mexican/U.S. border, has been pushing for a commitment to a long-term goal of dramatically diminishing the the current intensity of America’s physical control of cross-border traffic and travel within all of North America?

What would you think if you knew that President Bush was promoting a system that loosens U.S. control over the screening of travelers from foreign countries at their first point of entry into anyplace in all of North America and from that first entry, the elimination of most controls over all of the temporary movement of these travelers within North America?

What do you suppose our Founding Fathers would say about erasing U.S. borders to enrich the richest in the false name of security and erase American democracy?

What do you think about a President who would keep all of this, for the most part, a secret from the American people? (Other than an unadvertised website.)

Given this President’s track record, I imagine you would not be particularly surprised at his reticence, but I’m here to tell you that you need to pay close attention, regardless of the fact that most of the whistleblowers aren’t likely from your favorite political crowd. With our common sovereignty at stake, we need to get active to stop the unconstitutional replacement of American authority for a supranational replacement created by elites. We need to be watchdogs over our own individual rights, freedoms, and our democracy.

If you think NAFTA has proven itself to be a disaster for human rights, worker’s rights, and the health of democracy in all subscribing nations and has watered down our Constitutional freedoms, then I’m sure you’ll find the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America [SPP] to have the potential to be even more dangerous.


There's a lot more information about SPP at my post from today at American Street

- - Jude

David Brooks Frames Doubt About Dems' Direction Unfairly

David Brooks Frames Doubt About Dems' Direction Unfairly

In his NYT column today that weakly attempts to divide the Democratic party, David Brooks asks,

"Can a politics that evades the modern realities of Islamic extremism and the skill-based global economy really be the basis of a majority movement? I doubt it."

It happens far too often that columnists lump a whole bunch of Democratic candidates and leaders together and draw conclusions that encompass a whole bunch of false choices.

As things go, I happen to agree with Mr. Brooks' statement above, and, being one of the bloggers who pays the closest attention to the activities of Senator John Edwards, I can tell you that he fully comprehends the "realities" of extremism. You'd have to be as blind as a bat not to notice how the divide between the East and West has reached canyon-like proportions over the past five years. For all the "attention" to extremism in the Muslim world that Mr. Brooks may attribute to the Bush administration, an overwhelming number of average Americans believe it's a wrong-eyed focus and that we're headed in the wrong direction. It's the fear-mongering, war-failing, reality-denying kind of focus to which Democratic leaders like Senator Edwards would love to apply their own "corrective lenses."

Evading a national security issue and putting a more efficient focus on ways to tackle the issue are two totally different ways of describing the politics surrounding the issue. After his column gives a partial description of Senator Edwards' ideas regarding how to proceed with the Iraq war, Mr. Brooks has chosen to label that offer of an alternative solution as "evasion," and I don't see the logic in that statement.

Senator Edwards has been totally up-front about our new life in the skill-based global economy. Trade agreements with foreign nations and the organizing activities of American labor will continue to evolve and find new ways to coexist as we move forward in this century.

Our nation has moved from isolation to interdependence to a new and necessary need for cooperation. It's a no-brainer that we can never go back - regardless of how much we tap nostalgia. Naturally, Senator Edwards understands this and communicates his modern positions clearly. I'd wager you could ask anyone who's ever been in a room where he's speaking and they will tell you that he's no backward-thinking dreamer, but instead a promising and hopeful symbol of America's future who inspires college students and elderly citizens alike across America toward greater and higher aims and values with a keen eye upon our current reality.

We should be moving ahead bravely with our leaders reassuring us that American workers will not be lost in the outsourcing shuffle. Mr. Brooks speaks as if supporting the American worker is a successful political exercise of the past, and that's where I'm afraid he's missing the boat. Labor is evolving, but it will never disappear, for in many small towns across America, the union hall is still at the core of our community life along with the VFW and our church basements. These are our brothers, fathers, and sisters that we're talking about.

Speaking about Senator Edwards and others as if they want to send the nation to yesteryear is disingenuous talk, especially since the fellow who currently occupies the Oval Office has set the progress and good name of our nation decades backward and has presided over an economy where Business has been encouraged, through the public policies of the Republican party, to be socially irresponsible and to ignore labor standards in foreign nations where they've moved their offices and factories. The gap between rich and poor in America is reminiscent of the pre-FDR era. Talk about sickening ways of "going Retro!"

If any political party leaders are "evading," the GOP has surely won the crown by evading an honest debate with Democrats on Iraq; they've evaded the American labor movement while allowing business to run roughshod over American livelihoods and human rights in foreign nations; and they've evaded raising the federal minimum wage for the American worker.

Loose talk that creates a false impression of a leader like Senator Edwards is deeply unfortunate, and I know David Brooks is a smart gentleman. When I see comments that reflect what I see as intellectual dishonesty, I have to ask myself why such brilliant writers would employ what I view to be such division with such weak argument.

Happy Birthday, President Carter!

Happy Birthday, President Carter!

I would like to remind Congresswoman Jane Harman, who gave credit for presiding over the end of the Cold War solely to Presidents Ronald Reagan and Bush 41 this morning on Fox News, that it was President Jimmy Carter who painstakingly laid a hopeful and firm foundation for the end of the Cold War.

I regret she forgot to mention him, especially since today is President Jimmy Carter's birthday. James Earl Carter, Jr.was born October 1, 1924, in Plains, Georgia.

Here's wishing a very 82nd Happy Birthday to President Carter and a salute to him and to his wife Rosalynn for the great work they're doing at the Carter Center in Atlanta.

New video of 9/11 Attackers Atta, Jarrah Surfaces

New video of 9/11 Attackers Atta, Jarrah Surfaces

The Times of London says that it has secured a 6-1/2 year old never-before seen video of two men - one who led and one who participated in the 9/11 attacks in the United States. The Times online states:

A video shows two of the world’s most infamous terrorists joking and laughing while filming their ‘death wills’ at Osama Bin Laden’s lair in Afghanistan. The journalist and author Yosri Fouda explains the terrible significance of the new find.

The following are some excerpts from the story by Mr. Fouda:

...nearly an hour long, that was filmed at Osama Bin Laden’s lair in Afghanistan 6½ years ago. They are revealed today for the first time, and they are a missing chapter in the searing story of the attacks on America on September 11, 2001.

Atta led the team of 19 suicide attackers and flew American Airlines flight 11 into the north tower of the World Trade Center. Jarrah piloted United Airlines flight 93. His assigned target was Capitol Hill, but the plane crashed. [..]

[..] the tape not only fills a gap in the story of September 11 but also provides chilling proof of the difficulty of fighting Islamic terrorism.

[..] The unedited video was passed to The Sunday Times through a previously tested channel. On condition of anonymity, sources from both Al-Qaeda and the United States have confirmed its authenticity. It has no sound — and lip-readers have failed to decipher it, according to a US source — but the images speak loudly for themselves.

The tape not only features Atta and Jarrah. It also gives a rare and intriguing sight of Bin Laden with his inner court.

It opens with 100 or so Al-Qaeda hardcore members sitting on the ground in the open air, obviously expecting something to happen. Among them are several children.

[..] Unedited, the extraordinary footage also gives us a glimpse into the superficially ordinary character of the man who would later spearhead the devastating terrorist attack.

[..] Distinctively the black sheep of the whole lot — plotters and hijackers — Atta and Jarrah came from the two most liberal Arab countries, both from the heart of their respective communities, both from middle-class families, both intelligent, pleasant and trusted wherever they went, and both with impressive educational track records. Jarrah went to a Christian school in Beirut; Atta advanced his English at The American University in Cairo.

[..]If the appearance of this video solves one mystery, the big question about both Atta and Jarrah is still with us: how on earth did such impressive young men with everything to live for develop such a mindset? Neither was mad and neither was brainwashed. If anything at all they were both the antithesis of such naive and easy explanations.

Go to website. Video will be available from noon (London time).

Archbishop Desmond Tutu at Clinton Global Initiative

Archbishop Desmond Tutu at the Clinton Global Initiative

*Dedicated to my fellow Tar Heel Tavern participants and all fellow travelers on this road called Life...


Archbishop Desmond Tutu joyously speaks of hope to the audience of CGI participants


Now that the transcript is available at the Clinton Global Initiative website, I wanted to share with you some of the most inspirational and thought-provoking faith-based statements made at the 2006 meeting by the illuminating and courageous Archbishop Desmond Tutu. May you be as inspired as President Clinton and the participants of the conference were. In India people will travel hundreds of miles for what is called the darshan, the look, of a holy man or woman because this look is believed to confer blessings. Just being in the room where Archbishop Tutu, a walking example of God's love on earth, was speaking was a darshan experience for me.

On Faith and Religion

There is no faith that I know that propagates death, murder, as a principle of that particular religion. There is no faith that I know which does not, in fact, seek to propagate compassion, justice, love, caring. And we need to hold on to that and underscore the fact that religion, in and of itself, is actually morally neutral. It is neither good nor bad. As I’ve sometimes tried to say, it is like a knife. When you use a knife for cutting bread, it’s good. If you use that knife to stick into somebody’s guts, it’s bad.

On the Meaning of Terrorism and Religious Perversion

And I am deeply concerned that even here, you know, we are sliding in the thing of saying 'Muslim terrorism.' Muslim - I haven’t heard people describe the guy who bombed Oklahoma... that’s an example of Christian terrorism. I haven’t heard them speak about the guys who are fighting in Northern Ireland. Christian against Christian. But those are Christian terrorists. They will say IRA. I haven’t heard that the Christians were responsible for the Holocaust, the Christians were responsible for apartheid. Somehow, we are able to define Christianity. Most Christians would be appalled if you said that that is a characteristic of Christianity. We would say it is a perversion.

On Pope Benedict XVI's Statement That Resulted in Anger Throughout the Muslim World

...He has tried to apologize. But he shows how very difficult it is to say sorry... very difficult. I find it difficult to say sorry to my wife in the privacy of my bedroom. [audience laughter] And rather than say sorry in public is one of the most difficult things, and that is why it was such an incredible experience to have people in the [inaudible] Commission say, please forgive me, in the glare of television lights.

On the War on Terror

We are part of a world that needs to remember a very simple thing. We are family. And we can try until we are blue in the face, we won’t win a war against terror, so-called, as long as there are conditions in the world that make people desperate.

On Progressing Together and a Statement on the Subhumanity of "Self-Sufficency"

And so I hope, I mean that we will get to learn that we can survive only together. We can be free really only together. We can safe and secure only together. And that God didn’t make a mistake of creating us. God created us different, not so that we should be alienated from one another, but that we should know our need of one another, that ultimately there can be no such thing as the totally self sufficient. In fact, to be totally self-sufficient is subhuman.


This is a Moral Universe

You and I are frequently appalled by the evil that is around in the world. And that makes us blind to the fact that there is a great deal of good. Well, you are an instance of that. You are here, you don’t need to have been, except because, I mean that Bill Clinton is so persuasive. [audience laughter] but you are here. And the incredible generosity that you have exhibited is part of saying this is a moral universe.

This is a universe with good, with right and wrong matter. It is a universe in which ultimately good will prevail. Ultimately. That you and I are people who are made for goodness. This is why the people we admire are the not macho, the aggressive, the
successful, I mean, Mother Teresa. There are many things you would say about her. Macho is not one of them. [audience laughter] and yet, the world reveres her.


God to Self: "Whatever Got Into Me to Create That Lot?"

God sees the tears of the compassionate
and is vindicated

You and I are creatures who are made for transcendence, were made for love, were made for caring, were made for embracing one another. I have look out of door but I mean, although God looks down and sees all of the ghastly things and God says 'oh, dear.' [audience laughter] Whatever got into me to create that lot? [more laughter]

And then God sees and God sees the others, the ones who wipe the tears from the eyes of the many, the ones that say we want to do something about poverty eradication. We want to do something about the HIV pandemic and God begins to smile through the tears. And a little angel walks up to God and wipes God’s tears from God’s eyes. And God says, yes, they have vindicated me.

Because you and I are ultimately made for goodness.

And that is what is going to prevail.

[tremendous applause]

The Buck Stops with Bush

The Buck Stops with Bush
Before the course of events can change in Iraq, President Bush must change.



What we have done in Iraq - the way we went about this venture - is something I'm sure that President Bush now regrets, even though he'd never admit it. We have a strategic nightmare on our hands, and we also have citizens of Iraq - not al Qaeda, but citizens - murdering one another. The children in the photo you see above are real. A U.S. soldier took this photo and I received a copy of it. Look at their faces for a while. Consider what you think we should do now that you have all the facts about the way President Bush and his administration misled us into what has turned out - because of their absolute inefficiency - as a case where a newly free citizenry has run amok with anarchic, sectarian methods to achieve power. Rather than cooperating with those Iraqis who have been voted into power by millions of purple fingers, anarchists view their elected opponents as friends of "the U.S. occupier" who rely upon (our brave, misused) American troops for the level of security necessary to keep them in power. The Bush administration is using a recipe taken straight from Osama bin Laden's favorite terrorist's 'cookbook'. Our President and his administration do not seem to understand the meaning of cooperation and diplomacy to put an end to the murder and mayhem that we so obviously have failed to abate - and have caused to increase.

There is a better way. We can see it. Many of our legislators can see it.

Do we want our legislators to keep up their partisan catfights on the floor of Congress with the majority party snuggling close to a President that hardly anyone trusts anymore? Of course we don't, but it seems the most reasonable among them has been left with no alternative. We all understand that there are precious lives at stake, and we would expect a pro-life party to act responsibly to honor each life in Iraq. Who do we blame when we go to blame our government for such an unfortunate and disastrous war product?

The buck stops with the Commander in Chief.

If the photo of these beautiful and innocent children looking to this soldier for protection has any truth to it, then we have done them a horrific injustice. We've destroyed their nation's infrastructure and caused many of them to become orphans long after we'd rid Iraq of their ethically perverted leader. Saddam Hussein's been locked up for years. He's no longer their boogie-man. While it's dandy for George W. Bush to brag about his capture, it seems totally disconnected from what we are doing in Iraq today.

We've invited, unleashed and increased the likelihood of terror being imported into Iraq by "taking the fight to Iraq so we don't have to fight them here." Our foolish President begged them to "bring it on." With the on-the-ground facts as we know them today, thanks to real-time intelligence reports, we can see that have done an immoral service to Iraqi citizens by daring terrorists to come to their homeland. The fight, for all intents and purposes, was unjustly brought upon an innocent nation. We'd have to be absolutely blind not to see it. There was no organized foreign terrorist activity in Iraq before 9/11. There was no connection between the government of Iraq and 9/11. The President readily admits it.

It's difficult to sleep at night knowing that my government has done all of this in my name. I wonder if the Commander in Chief loses any sleep at night or during his regularly scheduled beauty naps?

President Bush says that people like me are falling into terrorist propaganda by disagreeing with the awful way this action is being conducted by his administration. That's interesting, because I wouldn't begin to know what that 'terrorist propaganda' might consist of. I pay much closer attention to the way in which this action in Iraq and the overall war on terrorism is being handled, and I can see that we can do much better on all fronts for the good of our nation and the good of these children.

What we are doing in Iraq is not working. This is not the shining example of freedom and democracy in the Middle East that President Bush guaranteed, after he offered so many different and confuted rationales for going into Iraq.

To President Bush, I would recommend a good long look at this picture. Stare into the faces of these children and think about the promises you have made to them. In reality, you gave them - and America - false hope while you misled us and kept a grossly inept Secretary of Defense in power to politically protect a course that's been wrong from the start. Perhaps the problem is that, regardless of who might replace Donald Rumsfeld, the shattered premise for this war can never be altered. It's moral foundations fell apart long ago. New Congressionally-approved rules for torturing prisoners of war and turning away from the rule of law will cause further harm to the family of man, to their human rights, to freedom, to democracy, and to our chances of being a moral victor in this train wreck that we call a war. Dumping Mr. Rumsfeld will do no good unless we can take politics out of the game and look reality straight into its eye.

If President Bush wanted to be a better leader (rather than a bitter leader), he would cease his constant efforts to run down his fellow countrymen and find a way to work out of the political matrix. He would actually take the advice of his Generals. He might actually listen and debate the actual merits of the arguments he's receiving on a regular basis from Democrats and Republicans who are trying so hard to reach President Bush with reason, yet only find that he's locked himself away in a box of hubris, defensiveness, and political bravado that is doing no one any good.

Before the course of events in Iraq can change for the better for children like the ones in the photo above and for this country, President Bush is going to have to change. The buck stops there.

Apollo's Story - A Boy Gets a Second Chance in War-torn Uganda

Apollo's Story - A Boy Gets a Second Chance in War-torn Uganda

We need to spend more on humanitarian relief and education, and far less on building walls, guns, bunker busters, ABM systems, space war technology, and daisy cutters. In northern Uganda, as many as 30,000 children have been kidnapped and forced to serve as soldiers in a nightmarish civil war that the world has largely ignored. These innocent children are brutalized and mutilated, forced to commit atrocities, and given as sex slaves to military commanders. This targeted abuse of children is unacceptable. [see Firecrow's story at Daily Kos].

Read Apollo's story. He's an orphan and a former abductee and child-soldier who lost every single person and thing that had meant anything to him in this world. When it came time for something positive and hopeful to come his way, he had no one to congratulate him, and he made sure to take the time to congratulate himself. The IRC has done a great job in telling many stories like Apollo's. You can read more of them by linking here.

Sep 2006 - I am Apollo, 18 years old, both an orphan and a former child soldier. My original home is in the Pader district of northern Uganda. Now I am residing at an internally-displaced persons (IDP) camp due to the Lord’s Resistance Army insurgency.
When I was abducted by rebel soldiers at the age of 16 years, I was made to carry the wounded and other big loads that were not fit for my age. I would cry within my heart for fear of being killed, get tired since the march was very laborious, and had sleepless moments because of the severe pains all over my body.

New abductees were not allowed to drink water. Many perished and rotted like mushrooms. I am lucky to have survived.

I was not allowed to eat food for five days after I was abducted, yet had to carry heavy weapons. Many recruits died including my beloved brother, Otema.

On many occasions when we were escaping from the Uganda Peoples Defense Force (UPDF) soldiers and gunship helicopters, I would knock my legs against stones and tree stumps and fall down with the patient I was carrying. Immediately the rebels would come and beat me with the barrels of guns and big sticks which have been put in fire. I felt partly dead and paralyzed in some parts of my body, like my hands, neck and chest.

I was made to be an attendant to the brigade commander. I was supposed to bathe him daily and this gave me a lot of burden because however much I bathed him he was never contented with my service. He would call for his bodyguards and instruct them to discipline me by severe caning.

At times we would enter ambushes laid by the UPDF, which killed many inexperienced abductees. Other abductees would throw down their baggage to escape from the bullets and the UPDF soldiers. We had been told that once you are caught by the UPDF, you are killed there and then. But once you throw away your baggage you face the death penalty when you reach the base. I have seen a number of my fellow abductees being brutally murdered for such acts.

I got involved with the International Rescue Committee's ORACLE project after I returned from captivity in the bush in 2003.

I had nobody to help me go back to school because my sister, who was paying my school fees, was killed the day I was abducted. The rebels used the new and young recruits to kill my sister. These were inexperienced children who used clubs to beat her ‘til death. So when I returned home I thought only of very bad things like hanging myself or joining the armed forces, since I had earlier bush experience.

I received a letter from the IRC saying that I am most wanted in the IRC Kitgum office to fill out a form for education sponsorship. Since I am somebody who likes studies so much, I said to myself, "‘My God, congratulations! Congratulations!"

After filling out the form, I was enrolled at a high school in Pader district. I forgot about joining the armed forces and I started concentrating on studies as a way forward for the betterment of my life.

The IRC supported me by paying school fees and giving me a school uniform, pens, pencils, books, and a mathematical set and ruler. When I sat for my exams I passed with first marks and I was the third best performer in the Pader district despite the atrocities I saw while in captivity.

___________

Apollo works with the IRC in camps for Ugandans displaced by the conflict as a peer educator and HIV/AIDS counselor. He has been offered a place in a secondary school science program and plans to study biology, chemistry and mathematics. He says the IRC helped him overcome the trauma of his captivity and gave him hope and courage.

The IRC's ORACLE project, supported by the U.S. Department of Labor, protects children and young people from the exploitation of child labor by providing educational opportunities that help them meet their needs and goals.

Former Senator John Edwards is visiting Uganda on a humanitarian mission. From Sept. 28th - Oct. 3rd, Senator Edwards is traveling to Uganda with the International Rescue Committee. The group will look at the dire humanitarian needs of Uganda's massive displaced population, estimated at 1.5 million. The delegation will also examine the conditions facing the displaced as they begin to return home to long-neglected villages that have largely been out of humanitarian reach. I am hoping to hear about the trip upon Senator Edwards' return.

A writer named Maccabee at Daily Kos has written a diary about a cabbie he met who came from Uganda with some insightful views.

Bush: A President Securely in Denial

Bush: A President Securely in Denial

By taking strong and very wrong steps after 9/11, President Bush has sought to bury his administration's utter failure to stop the 9/11 attacks with macho rhetoric in which he runs down his fellow countrymen more than he criticizes the terrorists themselves.

Today in his wretched speech to the Reserve Officers Association in Washington D.C., he said some things that showed how much in denial he really is, if he actually believes his own words.

He said,

You do not create terrorism by fighting terrorism.

With this statement, Bush shows that he's totally in denial about the fact that we have created the kind of extremism in the Middle East and beyond that leads to hard-line, anti-West leaders being democratically elected. With the April NIE facts in front of his face, he stubbornly denies the bitter truth about the ways that the Iraq war has created the widest East/West divide seen in centuries. Worse, he lashes out at his own countrymen for facing the bare and unvarnished facts.

Iraq is not the reason the terrorists are at war against us. They're at war against us because they hate everything America stands for.

This line - the tired "they hate us for who we are" - is a very old one that only the most ignorant or stubborn of Bush supporters believe anymore. Why? Because most intelligent people see that Bush squandered the world's good will after he impulsively attacked Iraq and made a disaster of it to boot. A recent Pew study on global attitudes showed a steep incline in the percentage of residents in Middle Eastern nations who have a very low opinion of America. More of those people would support a war against us today than in 2001. So, you see, not only the terrorists hate us now. Thanks to the immoral disaster known as the Iraq war, just about every decent person hates us. If Bush was succeeding, the results would reflect more trust from average citizens in those Middle Eastern nations.

Bush said this about the NIE analysis of the threat we face from terrorists and extremists and about those who make the obvious case that, by our unjust attack and subsequent occupation of Iraq, we are clearly less secure. Bush said:

This argument buys into the enemy's propaganda that the terrorists attack us because we're provoking them. I want to remind the American citizens that we were not in Iraq on September 11th, 2001.

This is where we are required, as mentally healthy human beings who are perfectly capable of reason, to remind Bush that Iraq had no connection to 9/11. He admitted it himself, yet he's happy to score a cheap round of applause from ignorant people for stupid comments like that. A booming majority of Americans now know that there were no terrorists in Iraq on 9/11.

Bush is in total denial about where the arguments are coming from and, by his brand of deliberately insulting rhetoric, he shows that he really doesn't give a damn why they're making them. He wouldn't dare to debate the actual merits of the argument in front of any crowd, so instead he falsely asserts that those who make the argument are appeasers who fall into Osama bin Laden's trap. That's laughable, in a very sad way, when you think about who it was who actually fell into Osama bin Laden's trap - into Osama's hopes for big American attacks on Muslim nations.

Who actually fell asleep at the wheel when former President Clinton's administration soundly warned the Bush administration about a dangerous and gathering threat from al Qaeda? Who moved Richard Clarke out of the way and practically ignored his warnings for eight of the most crucial months in America's history?

When Afghanistan was the place - and Hamid Karzai was the fine leader who needed our help so badly and we had a chance to control the Taliban's extremist activity there and to capture teh mastermind behind teh 9/11 attacks on 3000 Americans, what did we do? We took our eye off the ball and attacked Iraq - a nation having nothing whatsoever to do with 9/11.

Every time he runs down his fellow countrymen for offering healthy criticism, he looks like those people that his own party leaders call "haters." Why does George W. Bush hate American Democratic voters? Why does George W. Bush hate ths majority of Americans who now believe that the war in Iraq was not worth the cost in blood and treasure?

One more look at this statment:

This argument buys into the enemy's propaganda that the terrorists attack us because we're provoking them.

We're not supposed to be "provoking them," Einstein. We're supposed to be defeating them. A terrorist couldn't touch us if they were defeated.

It's clear that Bush and his administration has no clue how to defeat terrorists while winning hearts and minds in the Muslim world...just as his administration had no clue how to protect us from the 9/11 attacks.

A Democratic president in 2008 will likely inherit the Iraq disaster from a Republican administration who left it for someone else because they failed to defeat extremism - and grew it like a field of wild weeds instead.

If Bush really believes what he's saying today, he needs some serious psychiatric help because he's in the kind of denial of which only good drugs can pull him out. Why? Because today we understand that Bush and his administration had blown off warnings for a stronger troop presence in Iraq, just like his administration blew off the blatant warnings that al Qaeda was ready to attack us on 9/11.

I'm sure you'll recall Bush, in previous speeches, telling us that the Generals would decide how many troops we needed. He led us to believe that the troops levels were satisfactory. We now know it wasn't true at all. How can we trust this person or his advisors? Historians will surely look back and see how misled and misinformed the American people have been and how wrong they were to have placed as much trust as they did in these socially sick and professionally incapable people.

Torture is at the Root of Jihad and Radicalization

Torture is at the Root of Jihad and Radicalization

Do these three Senators who have claimed to have "stood up" against George W. Bush and against torturing prisoners of war look proud of themselves now that they have passed a law that fails our nation's 217-year old high standards to refuse to copy the brutal standards of unciviled groups of thugs and murderers? When he first ran for Congress in 1982, John McCain's opponent had challenged him as an "out-of-state carpetbagger." McCain replied, "The place I've lived longest is Hanoi." That response allegedly silenced his opponent. Twenty-four years later, he has voted to rip away basic rights from America's prisoners of war. It appears that he has traded away some of his integrity and more of our Constitutional protections on the gamble that his party will look "strong." As someone who cares about the strength of our rule of law, and understanding that only through a breakdown of that rule of law could America be undone, I aver that McCain and the Rubber Stamping Republicans are not "strong" - they are "wrong."

Bob Geiger says,

...it now looks like we're going to have a law passed that, barring intervention from the courts, will leave it to George W. Bush to interpret what types of interrogation techniques violate the Geneva Conventions.

And just how scary is that?

I'll let you decide just how scary a proposition this is. I'm shivering.

From an editorial at the New York Times:

'Our democracy is the big loser.'

There are arguments with no solid moral foundations being presented by the rightwing to rationalize the abandonment of the Geneva Convention rules and the abandonment of basic human rights. Having had an Uncle who was a tortured prisoner of war and a surviving victim of the Bataan Death March who passed down pearls of wisdom to his family about the whole experience, I find that using those prisoners and their experience in support of torture and in the defense for the abandonment of the rule of law and basic morality in America is far more frightening than the threat posed by any extremists.

We may win some battles by throwing out a code of justice, but we will have lost this war and the freedom of our human souls if we have lost our moral authority.

Torture is at the root of jihad and radicalization. If we argue that giving terrorists a taste of their own medicine is a war-winner for America, than we are surely on our way to the kind of radicalization that destroys our American freedoms. It would create for us a whole new brand of American jihadists. That is not the America that I wish to see us become, and I would wager that the majority of justices on our U.S. Supreme Court would agree with me on that.

We have rightwing intellectuals getting bitterly partisan about some of our current intelligence community led by John Negroponte:

"Some, at least, of our intelligence experts are antiwar moonbats.."

and turning out little gems of "wisdom" like this one:

The NIE doesn’t say that the war in Iraq is counterproductive but that must be what a significant part of our intelligence apparatus believes.

..and making incredibly light of the rational analysis of the best information contained in the NIE:

"The NIE doesn’t say that the war in Iraq is an impediment to our war on terror. It‘s like a palm reading, it doesn’t really say anything at all."

Judging from what we now know about what the "palm readers" of the rightwing "read into" the NIE in October of 2002 about WMD in Iraq, I think it's quite bold of them to judge harshly about the common sense analysis of more recent NIEs.

Senator who uses the experience of a prisoner of war to warn American that we risk losing the war of ideas and increasing the divide between East and West, doing irreparable harm to America and the world in ways the rightwingers who are hyperfocusing on what they call "Islamofascists" are obviously not thinking clearly about for all their irrational anger and dependence on public fear to maintain a grip on power. Watch:



Human rights activist Vladimir Bukovsky was tortured for nearly twelve years in Soviet prisons. Last December, he wrote a WaPo op-ed titled "Torture's Long Shadow." In it, he relied upon his knowledge gained by his unfortunate experience to warn us against "reinventing the wheel" on the legal issue of torture:

".. if Vice President Cheney is right and that some "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment of captives is a necessary tool for winning the war on terrorism, then the war is lost already."

We are failing our own high standards in a decision by a one-sided and wrong-minded Congress that will soon have us back in the Supreme Court where this nightmare of a bill will surely be undone.

Steve Reich Interview on NPR Oct. 1

Steve Reich Interview on NPR Oct. 1

To see what the press has been saying about the amazing experimental musician/composer Steve Reich, check out the links below:

New York Sun, 9/26/06

New York Times, 9/29/06



If you listen to Weekend Edition this Sunday, 10/1/06, on NPR, you'll hear Jeffrey Lunden's interview with Mr. Reich. Excerpts that were not included in the broadcast will be available at NPR.

You can hear some samples at the My Space page that has been dedicated to his Mr. Reich's music.

Keith Olbermann Video Shows Bush Admin Actions Pre-9/11

Keith Olbermann Video Shows Bush Admin Actions Pre-9/11
At Raw Story David Edwards has provided us with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann's fantastic video of the Bush administration's pre-9/11 actions and failures. A transcript is also provided. Don't miss it. Keith and staff have done a thorough job.

At American Street, Barbara O'Brien has wisely gathered a collection of selected excerpts from writings and coverage over the past few years that convinces her that "every ball that could have been dropped, was dropped" by he Bush administration pre 9-11:

I have never said that President Clinton was blameless, or that there wasn’t more he could have done. But the elevation of the hapless and clueless George W. Bush into some kind of Demigod of National Strength has got to be one of the most pathological events in American history. For generations historians will be looking back on our little era and asking, “How could so many people have been so blind?”

..and I'd be remiss if I didn't include Barbara's advice for Democrats:

I think the time is ripe for Democrats to pull a Karl Rove and mount an attack directly on Bush’s alleged “strength.” It’s past time to dismantle the Big Lie that George W. Bush is an effective leader against terrorism.

Whatever else happens, please help keep this issue out in the light. Don’t let the VRWC cover it up again. Don’t let the lies continue.

September (photos)

September


Departing summer hath assumed
An aspect tenderly illumed,
The gentlest look of spring;
That calls from yonder leafy shade
Unfaded, yet prepared to fade,
A timely carolling.

- William Wordsworth, ‘September’



The Last Daisy of Summer

Then summer fades and passes
and October comes.
We’ll smell smoke then,
and feel an unexpected sharpness,
a thrill of nervousness, swift elation,
a sense of sadness
and departure.

- Thomas Wolfe




The Bumble Bee Partakes of Early Autumn's Delights


By all these lovely tokens September days are here, With summer's best of weather And autumn's best of cheer.

- Helen Hunt Jackson


*all photos by Jude Nagurney Camwell in her very own garden

The 2006 Clinton Global Initiative Meeting

The Clinton Global Initiative

Originally posted SEPTEMBER 20, 2006, there are now transcripts available of each session (posted below):

President Bill Clinton at the 2006 CGI Conference

The second annual meeting of the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) officially launched this morning with an opening plenary session which included First Lady Laura Bush and panelists including President Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf of Liberia, President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, President Alvaro Uribe Velez of Columbia and Javier Solana, the Secretary General of the Council of the (EU) European Union.

President Clinton introduces First Lady Laura Bush

At the plenary session, President Clinton announced the first five commitments of 2006, including a commitment by Mrs. Bush to provide thousands of citizens in sub-Saharan Africa with safe drinking water. Mrs. Bush committed a $16.4 million pledge from USAID, PEPFAR, the Case Foundation, and the MCJ Foundation. These committed funds will provide Play Pumps water systems to more than 1000 communities and schools in sub-Saharan Africa to provide thousands with safe and clean drinking water. It's both an ingenious and simple idea. It harnesses human nature and child's play to make it work.

The panel at the opening plenary was mediated by NY Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who asked a question of each panel member - "If the 'Clinton genie' could grant you one wish - what would that wish be?" I will provide some of their answers for you at a later time.

President Johnson-Sirleaf stressed the belief that the people of her nation's localities need to set the priorities for their needs in order for those needs to be realistically and successfully met. (re: schools, clinics, business needs, etc). The returning refugee population in her once turbulent nation need tools and seeds for farming in order to revive agriculture in Liberia.

President Musharraf made a plea for a return of diplomacy in world affairs. During the panel session, he stressed that a global divide was growing and that problems in the Middle East contribute to that divide. He sugested that we all need to build bridges rather than to burn them; to move away from extremism with something other than simply a militaristic solution. He stated that it was his opinion that Pope Benedict XVI's recent words - the ones that inflamed so many in the Muslim world - were "unwarranted." He believes that many in the Islamic world are already experiencing poverty and hopelessness; they feel a sense of abandonment and misunderstanding. "Rubbing salt in their wounds" is not a successful solution. He said that the cart cannot be put before the horse - that the Palestinian conflict lies at the core of many of the problems of extremism and terrorism. He doesn't trust that struggles such as the Iraq War will "fall in line" until the Palestinian problem has been resolved. He touched on some other political topics that I will cover in future posts.

Mrs. Bush speaks

Secretary General Javier Solana said that, without security, there can be no successful development. We all have a responsibility to protect the innocent from genocide - and we must remember that there are consequences when we use that very word. When Mr. Friedman asked Mr. Solana about a single policy change the EU could take right now, he said world leaders need to continue working together toward the alleviation of suffering and as a force for international security. Barbara O'Brien (Mahablog) has a lot more on Mr. Solana.

Keeping busy in the press room.








Afternoon Sessions

There were afternoon sessions held on four focus issues: Climate Change, Global Health, Poverty Alleviation, and Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict.

All transcripts can be seen by linmking the topic:
Energy and Climate Change: Saving Energy Sept 20 Part 1 - - Part 2

Global Health: Condition Critical: The Health Care Infrastructure Chasm Part One - - Part Two

Poverty Alleviation: Transforming Agriculture to Empower the Poor Part 1 - - Part 2

Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict: Meeting the Challenge of Coexistence: Living in Integrated Communities Part One - - Part Two


Video/Webcasts:

10:00 AM EST
Opening Plenary and "Urgent Issues & Innovative Solutions"

1:30 PM
Working Session: Energy and Climate Change: Saving Energy


1:30 PM
Global Health: Condition Critical: The Health Care Infrastructure Chasm

1:30 PM
Poverty Alleviation: Transforming Agriculture to Empower the Poor


1:30 PM
Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict: Meeting the Challenge of Coexistence: Living in Integrated Communities

5:00 PM
Effective Action, Lasting Results


I listened in to workshop sessions on Global Health and Mitigating Religious and Ethnic Conflict. I also have some video from a Press Conference held later in the afternoon by the session leaders. I'll share that with you at my earliest opportunity.


Later on...
Some of the bloggers who attended the CGI conference at a Press Reception.

One thing I'll leave you with is that I've talked to a few people this evening and one common thread running through the opinions offered about Day One of this conference is that the issues and the way they're being aproached and embraced by those participating in the CGI commitment process is generating a feeling of hope for this world that few have sensed for a long, long time.