Today in history..


Susan B. Anthony
photo credit: tcnj.edu

1884- Susan B. Anthony Supports Women's Suffrage Amendment

"Liberty for one's self is a natural instinct possessed alike by all men, native and foreign, black and white; but to be willing to accord liberty to another is the result of education, of self-discipline, of the practice of the golden rule-- "Do unto others as you would that others do unto you." Therefore we ask that the question of equality of rights to women shall be arbitrated upon by the picked men of the Nation in Congress, and the picked men of the several States in their respective Legislatures...

--Susan B. Anthony, March 8, 1884

The Heart and Soul of Globalization

In 2002, I accompanied Kooperkamp and members of his church to an anti-globalization demonstration outside the Park Avenue hotel hosting the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of global business and political elites. “We in the church tend to spiritualize power, like talking about the power of the Holy Spirit,” he told me. “But globalization is often about down-and-dirty politics, and that means going downtown and protesting when the opportunity presents itself.”

The Israeli-Palestinian issue/Haaretz

Disengaging from the disengagers
By Akiva Eldar

If there aren't any stunning surprises, U.S. President George W. Bush's blessings for the disengagement plan will, in the blink of an eye, become the kiss of death for Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government....

There is another possibility - that Bush and his team don't really know what they are doing. That's ......

The scariest idea of all
By Walter Cronkite

It is the contention of President Bush and his economic advisers that a rising economy will grow us out of the problem by increasing revenues and dispelling those dire predictions.

That seems to be what happened when President Reagan raised the deficit to then-historic levels. But there is a rising chorus of critics today - conservatives as well as liberals - who warn that history is not about to repeat itself. The very conditions that produced recovery then are conspicuously absent today.

"People are poor because they are lazy."
--G.W. Bush

At Harvard Business School, thirty years ago, George Bush was a student of mine. I still vividly remember him. In my class, he declared that "people are poor because they are lazy." He was opposed to labor unions, social security, environmental protection, Medicare, and public schools. To him, the antitrust watch dog, the Federal Trade Commission, and the Securities Exchange Commission were unnecessary hindrances to "free market competition." To him, Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal was "socialism." Recently, President Bush's Federal Appeals Court Nominee, California's Supreme Court Justice Janice Brown, repeated the same broadside at her Senate hearing. She knew that her pronouncement would please President Bush and Karl Rove and their Senators. President Bush and his brain, Karl Rove, are leading a radical revolution of destroying all the democratic political, social, judiciary, and economic institutions that both Democrats and moderate Republicans had built together since Roosevelt's New Deal.

Slate/William Saletan
Confidence Man
The case for Bush is the case against him.

Article highlights:

How can Kerry persuade moderates to throw out Bush? By turning the president's message against him....

....President Bush. Strength and confidence. Steady leadership in times of change. He knows exactly where he wants to lead this country. And he won't let facts, circumstances, or the Constitution get in his way...

....he couldn't tell the difference between the two threats. He figured that since both Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden were evil, they had to be connected...

....Again and again in 2001 and 2002, U.S. intelligence agencies sent signals that Bush was wrong..Bush ignored every one of these warnings. They couldn't be true, because they didn't fit his theory. He couldn't stand the complexity of the facts or the ambiguity of intelligence...

....everything changed. The stock market tanked, and the economy slowed. Sept. 11 shook the nation's confidence and drastically altered military budget projections. Bush didn't need to drain a surplus anymore. He needed to fund national defense and stimulate the economy...Bush claimed that his original tax-cut elixir was just as good for the new malady as for the old one. The deficit exploded, the economy failed to recover the jobs it had lost, and much of the country remained unprotected from terrorism. The world changed, but Bush couldn't....

....Bush prefers to circumvent the court system and local democracy by reopening the nation's founding document. He seeks to impose a permanent federal definition of marriage on "any state or city," regardless of what the voters in Boston or San Francisco want......

Holbrooke says Kerry's Iraq resolution decision was based upon experience, trust in Bush, and politics

"In the political realm, no life-and-death decision has haunted Kerry more than his October 2002 Senate vote in favor of a resolution authorizing Bush's use of force in Iraq. Those who worked with him called the decision "agonizing."

Richard C. Holbrooke, one of the many foreign policy experts Kerry consulted, said three things made it difficult: "One, he knows that war is hell from firsthand experience. Two, he didn't know if you could trust Bush to pursue war as a last resort. Three, he was starting a presidential campaign and knew where a bulk of the primary voters would be...."

Why doesn't this sit right with me?

[Kerry's] sister urged him to vote no, his friends lobbied him to vote no, his office received 20,000 e-mails in one week against U.S. military action.

It didn't sit right with them, either.

I didn't understand Sen. Kerry's decision back then. Because he hasn't firmly clarified his decision to my satisfaction, I still do not understand it today.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We get who we deserve
A letter to the Editor of The Bersksire Eagle:-

There has been a war cry of "anybody but Bush in 2004." Rallying passionately behind the chosen candidate after a meaningful comparison of ideas, philosophies and, easiest and most importantly, voting records has been forfeited for speculation about who is most likely to beat Bush. Sadly, this has taken the form of desiring the candidate who is enough like Bush to compete against him which is in effect the single party theory of change...

Sen. Kerry claims to have gone into politics in response to the horrors of Vietnam. He then abdicated his right to decide whether this generation of young soldiers would be sent to their Vietnam. I feel this is a more telling indicator of leadership qualities than [Howard] Dean's impassioned thank you and call to arms to his supporters. However, the media claimed Dean to be unworthy and so voters sheepishly moved across field.

Only two things have ever brought meaningful change in our world: inspiration or crisis. I fear that if we say no to the few inspirational leaders we have in favor of glossy strategists we condemn those who follow us to change through crisis..."

Robert Novak Nauseates Me

"In the most unusual turn of this year's satirical script, syndicated columnist Robert Novak - who sparked a federal investigation by printing the name of an undercover CIA officer - was taking the stage as that CIA officer's disgruntled husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson..."

Novak used a secret White House source to reveal that Joseph Wilson's wife was an undercover CIA officer. Would I have done the same? I doubt it..seriously. Over the past year, I have known information which never made the presses and very well could have made for interesting stories and could have made me "somebody" out here in the journalism world. I didn't choose my potential "fame" at the expense of someone's life and dignity. I'm no Robert Novak--and perhaps I'm proud of that fact because of my heightened sense of responsibility to real people. Novak not only damaged a woman's career; he endangered her life.

There is a proper place for satire in our society. This particular satirical incident is glaringly nauseating. In the case of Novak dressing up and strutting merrily as the victim of his own journalistic indiscretion , he serves to make a magnification of his pathetic disregard for ethical responsibility. I consider him a grub who feeds off the bottom-of-the-stinking-barrel.

NY Times interview with Sen. John Kerry on foreign affairs

Excerpts of an hour-long interview about foreign affairs with Senator John Kerry aboard his campaign plane on Friday, as recorded by The New York Times.

3000 did not die to be exploited by Bush's re-election campaign.

3000 should never have perished on that morn.
The same one who throws the images of that day in your face
Refuses to cooperate with American families who lost loved ones that same morning.

3000 innocent Americans were killed on September 11th Leaving behind families and loved ones.
Too many lost opportunities. Too many lost futures.
It is our responsibility as a nation to turn the dark events of September 11th
Into something from which we can all learn and grow
Instead of running from the tough questions and exploiting the dead

Heed the words of those who did not share in your relief on that day
To go home to your families and hug them for dear life
Do not forget the ones who did not share your good fortune
They were black, white, man, woman, Independent, Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Green.
They represented many countries from around the globe.
They did not pay with their lives so they could be used in a GOP re-election campaign.

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


In his first campaign commercial, George Bush reached down and molested the dead.

--Jimmy Breslin

Silence is most eloquent
*so why doesn't iddy shut up already?!?*


May I recommend Ultimate Subject?

I wanted to share this website discovery with you. I found it quite lovely and pregnant with truth.

"Vote this maniac

out of office."



"--Radio shock jock Howard Stern, urging listeners not to support Bush in the presidential election

From the pages of American political thought..


Thoreau

"..The mass of men serve the state thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailers, constables, posse comitatus, etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgement or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt. They have the same sort of worth only as horses and dogs. Yet such as these even are commonly esteemed good citizens. Others--as most legislators, politicians, lawyers, ministers, and office-holders--serve the state chiefly with their heads; and, as they rarely make any moral distinctions, they are as likely to serve the devil, without intending it, as God. A very few--as heroes, patriots, martyrs, reformers in the great sense, and men--serve the state with their consciences also, and so necessarily resist it for the most part; and they are commonly treated as enemies by it. A wise man will only be useful as a man, and will not submit to be "clay," and "stop a hole to keep the wind away," but leave that office to his dust at least:

"I am too high born to be propertied,
To be a second at control,
Or useful serving-man and instrument
To any sovereign state throughout the world."

He who gives himself entirely to his fellow men appears to them useless and selfish; but he who gives himself partially to them is pronounced a benefactor and philanthropist."

-- Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience

GO FIND ME A WAY TO DO THIS
How Bush And Blair Chose War And Then Chose The Justification
By David Cromwell and David Edwards

We are to believe that after a major conflict in which 88,500 tons of bombs were dropped in 1991, after eight years of inspections, and after more than a decade of continuous bombing raids, and of crippling sanctions imposed under the most intensive and sophisticated surveillance operation in history, both Blair and Bush received intelligence suggesting that Iraq was a "serious and current threat".

As we now know, this alleged intelligence is said to have been related to WMD and links with al-Qaeda that did not exist. We are to believe, then, that a rush of terrifying information relating to non-existent perils - a rush so overwhelming that long-standing policy was abandoned - suddenly emerged to lead Bush and Blair to believe that nothing less than war was required to avert the danger.

This truly is remarkable.....

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

Hans Blix, former chief UN weapons inspector quote:
"Perhaps Blair and Bush, both religious men, felt strengthened in their political determination by the feeling they were fighting evil, not only (arms) proliferation."

.....Blair and Bush have both seen their popularity plummet over the unpopular war and its bloody aftermath.

On Friday Blair raised the prospect of a rethink of international law and the United Nations to legalize pre-emptive strikes by foreign forces against so-called rogue states....

From Independent/UK:
Blix claims Iraq War was illegal; Blair's defense bogus

Mr Blix, speaking to The Independent, said the Attorney General's legal advice to the Government on the eve of war, giving cover for military action by the US and Britain, had no lawful justification. He said it would have required a second United Nations resolution explicitly authorising the use of force for the invasion of Iraq last March to have been legal.

Good reading at Anonymoses Blog


Anonymoses

I found many interesting tidbits at the Anonymoses blog today and March 5th, such as: "Is Bush's hateability going to be an election year issue?" Rather than reiterate them here, go...go...go now!

BUH-BYE, JOBS

China plans to create nine million jobs in 2004

Wall Street predictions economy would add 130,000 jobs blown apart as U.S. Labor Department reports gain of just 21,000

Calls about food stamps from needy NYers, unable to find enough work to support families are outsourced to workers in India and Mexico

IRAQ UPDATES

From TomPaine.com
Constitution-signing failed/Chalabi Power Play?

Ahmad Chalabi, the secular Shiite who's suddenly rediscovered his religious roots, pulled the plug...

From Counterpunch.org
Faltering Neo-Cons Still Dangerous-How They Might Influence the Election

If Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Karl Rove come to believe, around September or October, that they are likely to lose the election, it is not by any means beyond belief that they would, in desperation, undertake some new aggressive and "preemptive" military action against Syria, Iran, North Korea, or someplace else we cannot now even anticipate....They have used lies to instill fear and advance their ill-considered doctrine of preemption once, and it is not beyond the realm of possibility that they might do so again.
.....most likely, a Democratic administration would be almost as beholden to the nation's military-national security-corporate complex for campaign funding as the present Republican administration. There would be changes of tone in U.S. foreign policies, but very likely only limited changes in the policies themselves. The close ties between the U.S. and Israeli military-industrial complexes that I described would continue, and changes in U.S. policies toward the Middle East would be minimal.

From InformedComment.com
Knight-Ridder Questions Saddam-al-Qaeda Links

Warren Strobel et al. of Knight Ridder have looked at the case for Saddam-al-Qaeda links and found them lacking.

1. Although it is true that Abdul Rahman Yasin, a suspect in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, was attempting to hide out in Iraq, Saddam offered to turn him over to the FBI in 1998 in return for US acknowledgment that Iraq was not involved in that incident. The Clinton administration declined the deal. Cheney cited the continued "harboring" by Iraq of Yasin as one "proof" of an Iraq-al-Qaeda connection. Yeah, Saddam and Yasin were obviously really tight.

2. Bin Laden is said to have refused an offer in 1998 to go to Iraq, made by Iraqi intelligence officer Farouk Hijazi. A report made available to the CIA, however, said that Bin Laden declined the offer because he did not want to have Saddam's agenda dictated to him. The Knight-Ridder team does not point this out, but if you read this item in conjunction with # 1 above, it seems entirely possible that Saddam thought the US wouldn't deal for Yasin because he wasn't a big enough fish, and went looking for a more important terrorist to trade them for the US favors he wanted.

3. Cheney tried to tie Saddam to Abu Mus`ab Zarqawi. Such ties haven't been proven, but even if they were, it seems clear from the Zarqawi letter that he was not part of Bin Laden's group and only lately tried to get money from Bin Laden.

4. The US charged that Saddam was training terrorists at Salman Pak. The US military has found no evidence of such a training facility at Salman Pak, according to Seymour Hersh. There certainly were no chemical weapons there.

5. Then there was the canard about Iraqi intelligence offical al-Ani meeting with Muhammad Atta in Prague. CIA director George Tenet has flatly denied this report, and the FBI discounted it long ago.

6. Bin Laden/Iraq contacts in Sudan in the early 1990s, even if they did occur, led to no operational cooperation whatsoever.

NY Times(reg req)
Iraq Threat Deliberately Inflated, Kennedy Says

"The most important decision any president makes is the decision on war or peace. No president who misleads the country on the need for war deserves to be re-elected. A president who does so must be held accountable. The last thing our nation needs is a sign on the desk in the Oval Office in the White House that says, 'The buck doesn't stop here anymore.' "

--Sen. Edward Kennedy March 5, 2004


Their best excuses aren't good enough to explain away their deliberate misleadings:

--President Bush has said that he acted on the best intelligence available, and that previous administrations had also considered Saddam Hussein a threat.

-- ...two Republican senators, John Kyl of Arizona and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, circulated a letter noting that Democratic lawmakers as well as Republicans had made prewar statements that portrayed Iraq and its alleged weapons stockpiles as presenting an urgent threat to American security.

"CNN Presents" this Sunday, 8pm:
True Believers-Life Inside the Dean Campaign
The soaring rise and flaming crash of Howard Dean's presidential campaign from the inside looking out

No one knows if this will be truth, all-out fiction, or somewhere in-between. It should be interesting. As one of my fellow local Dean-team members has said, "It's amazing that no one has done this with the Lieberman or Gephardt campaign... coulda sworn they all withdrew before us."
*I think it's because we were far more interesting.*

"The Door" presents...





Also from "The Door":

Surprised by Joy-
the Last Word


photo credit: beatitudehouse.org

"..Joy can endure through the worst adversity but can evaporate with the merest moment of self-reflection...
..The beatitudes, after all, were not a collection of "how tos" for achieving happiness, but a mind-boggling exaltation of the very conditions that we spend our lives fleeing from. Only desperate people can really hear that kind of talk.

The truth is, we've got to give up on happiness before we can be apprehended by joy.

I pray that God makes us desperate enough to see through the illusion."