the Poliblog

Thoughts on the Midterms

2007-01-07T13:06:00.000-06:00

Written 11/10/06

Leading up to the midterm elections, I must admit I was getting a little nervous that the Democrats would find some way to blow it. I was nearly certain that they would take a majority in the House, but a slim majority and not taking the Senate would have been disappointing.

Watching the early returns only added to my apprehension. Since there are so many House races, I focused my attention on the Senate and perceived those results as potentially predictive of the general trend in the House as well. Bad news…Ford was down almost double digits in Tennessee, Webb was down to Allen in Virginia, McCaskill was down in Missouri and Lieberman had held off the more progressive anti-war democrat Ned Lamont in Connecticut. While I was glad to see Rick Santorum, a cultural reactionary, get the boot, the expected dramatic Democratic wave didn't seem to be building.

In the end, all but Ford among the aforementioned Democrats surged ahead late in the evening and by the next day the Democrats had seized a majority in the Senate in addition to a strong majority in the House. I was happy to see it and, if nothing else, there will be some check on the Executive branch for the next 2 years. I was especially glad that Rove's "metrics" were way off and that the electorate wasn't so easily scared into submission as they had been in 2002 and 2004. It was validating that liberal and moderate voters came out in opposition to the Iraq war and basically forced a change. Rumsfeld's forced resignation after the election is evidence that Bush felt the pressure of the anti-war sentiment.

Of course, the mainstream political coverage was conventionally horse-race oriented and the talking heads played up the election as a "revolution." From where I sit, Bush and his administration still controls the Executive, the Supreme Court still over represents a culturally conservative worldview and the Republicans still have the numbers in the Congress to prevent overriding a presidential veto. Hardly a revolution. Chomsky would argue that this is a prime example of those who hold power restricting and managing political discourse. The general public feels like there has been major change even when little has actually shifted in terms of political power and policy. We have to avoid that trap and push the politicians to actually change policy and set the tone for a progressive president in 2008.

Obama's Time has Come

2007-01-07T13:04:00.000-06:00

11/15/06

Barack Obama has opened up to the possibility of a presidential run in 2008. The largest concerns against his running and winning are that he is too inexperienced and that his race may be a divisive issue. I don’t feel that either concern is overly warranted. The general public seems less concerned with experience than character and an ability to convey a message that resonates. What truly prepares one to be president? Prior to being elected to the U.S. Senate, Obama was a State Senator in Illinois, a professor of Law at the University of Chicago and a prominent civil rights lawyer. He holds a degree in political science from Columbia University and a JD from Harvard. If he can survive the rigors of general election and can convince the general public of the usefulness of this experience to the presidency, he should be fine. Another 10 years in the Senate will only provide his competitors with more votes to mischaracterize and attack him over. Kerry fell victim to this tactic in 2004- being labeled as a flip-flopper based primarily on his votes in the Senate.

The racial issue is definitely an interesting one. On one hand, I doubt that many with racist tendencies will vote for a Democrat anyway- so it may be a non-issue. However, historically the winner of the presidency has to appeal to moderate voters and some may be scared off by Obama’s biracial identity and international heritage. However, I can already see that Obama’s larger message and vision promote his biracialism as an asset rather than a detriment. He has focused on bridging gaps in American culture and strived to deliver a message of pluralism and tolerance. Diversity is a strength of America for Obama and his ethnic background could lend credibility to this message. Concerns over race definitely shouldn’t prevent Obama from at least running. If he believes the time has come for America to embrace his multi-cultural vision than perhaps his time has come as well.

It seems the perfect time to try. Obama, in many ways, is the anti-Bush. Presidential politics are often dialectical, with the electorate voting in reaction to the last regime. Jimmy Carter probably wouldn’t have been elected if it wasn’t for the fact that he stood in such sharp contrast to Nixon’s corruption and Ford’s anti-intellectualism. Obama may get the same bump from his obvious contrasts with Bush. One’s father was president, the other’s was a sheep-herder. One is thoughtful and the other crafts policy based on gut instincts. Obama would certainly offer a contrasting leadership style and vision that could overshadow his race, or even turn it into a positive.

The Non-Option in Iraq

2007-01-07T13:02:00.000-06:00

11/27/06

The political players and the media are now isolating 3 overly simplistic strategies for US policy in Iraq. 1) Go Big 2) Go Long 3) Go Home. Catchy, I guess, but these seem to just be a short-cut to thinking. Only “go long,” (continue the current policy) is even possible based on the way these options are framed. “Go big” would require increases in troop levels, but we don’t have the troops to send for this option. Unless there is a draft, or some drastic measure taken to increase troop levels, this option seems unlikely. “Go home” is possible, but even more unlikely and hardly proposed by anyone. Even the most anti-war democrats propose a redeployment of troops and a gradual withdrawal of major combat troops. “Go long” is of course opposed by a vast majority of the public and is also unlikely.

So…the 3 options being outlined in the mainstream media are all unrealistic and unsophisticated options. My fear is that the public will be frightened into a “go big” approach. Fearful of a never-ending quagmire, but equally scared of Iraq becoming a terrorist haven- some may opt for what seems like a faster solution. I also fear a repeat of Nixon strategy of bringing home troops while escalating bombing and major military operations. I could see this new commission coming up with this kind of a strategy. Get US troops out of the way so we can bomb the militias into submission. This would lead to massive collateral damage, as it did in Cambodia.

The reasonable proposals by Democrats of a Middle East conference and a strategic redeployment are unfortunately being overshadowed by these non-options.

The War on Dissent

2006-06-04T08:44:00.000-05:00

Section 802 of the USA Patriot Act defines terrorism as acts that “appear to be intended ... to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion,” which is vague enough to include acts of civil disobedience and protest. Administration officials often argue that the definition must remain vague so as to efficiently apprehend terroists and will not be used to intimidate or prosecute dissenters.

However, a simple analysis of who has been investigated by the FBI's Joint Terrorism Task Force tells a different story. The truth is that the FBI has accumulated 1,173 pages of documents on the ACLU and 2,383 pages on Greenpeace- this according to a New York Times report (July 18, 2005). An influential anti-war organization, United for Peace and Justice, has also been under intense FBI surveliance. These are just a few of the high profile critics of the administration being targeted by a sub-agency responsible for investigating terrorist threats.

The Congress perceived the problem and legislated that the President must inform Congress on how the FBI was using the Patriot Act. The President, in signing the renewed Patriot Act, attached a signing statement, essentially proclaiming that he did not feel compelled to comply with the provision.

He wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

In other words, the executive branch has the constitutional authority to ignore the Congress on such matters- according to Bush. This is consistent with the administrations view of an all-powerful unitary executive. This constitutional authority is far from being expressly granted and the interpretation is favored by a smail minority of legal scholars.

Such a powerful executive is viewed by many to be a threat to the seperation of powers and to the rights of American citizens. There is a history of this type of abuse. During the Cold War the NSA, FBI and CIA conducted mass surveillance of civil rights and antiwar organizations. Dr. Martin Luther King was among those tracked and branded as "a subversive" and a "security threat." The information gathered by these agencies was used to intimidate and undermine the work of legitimate political organizations and leaders.

The Senate’s Church Committee hearings of the 1970's revealed these tactics and led to the enactment of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Senator Frank Church warned that the NSA's “capability at any time could be turned around on the American people...and no American would have any privacy left … There would be no place to hide.”

The public must not accept a roll-back in these protections. They arose in response to abuses that occured in a similar time- when security concerns often blinded the public and government actors. The right to protest is essential to democracy, especially during times of war and unrest. To hand absolute power to the executive is a dangerous proposition and could easily produce a situation where the people no longer have any control over the government.

Some will say that if it helps to stop terrorism than its worth sacrificing some rights. I contend that it is never wise to sacrifice fundamental rights- but beyond that- this is not an effective counter-terrorism strategy. The FBI should be focused on serious national security threats, not Greenpeace, the ACLU, PETA or Move On. These organizations may be a threat to the political status quo, but they are not a threat to security. The greatest threat to liberty in America is an unchecked executive branch.

Global Warming/ CO2 Emmissions Worsen Allergies

2006-05-27T18:35:00.000-05:00

Allergies seem to worsen every year and many people every year join the millions that suffer from seasonal allergies. Some argue that it is our modern antiseptic lifestyle that accounts for the allergies. The "hygene hypothesis" contends that our immune systems are left with little else to do than attack allergens and that our lack of consistent exposure to allergens worsens the symptoms. This may be a contributing factor, but the solution is not to add diseases to the environment or to increase exposure to allergens.

In fact, the increase in allergens in recent years is documented and allergies have worsened rather than subsided as the hypothesis would lead one to predict. One variable corresponds highly with the increase in allergy sufferers; the increase in CO2 pollution.

Studies have found that not only does pollution in general lessen natural resistance to allergens, but CO2 emmisions specifically lead to higher pollen yields. Record levels of pollen are being observed and they have exponentially increased the percentage of the population impacted by allergies.

According to ABC news;

"this year really is a horrible year for allergies. In fact, this is perhaps the worst allergy season in 40 to 50 years!"

Link

Doctors are reporting significant increases in allergy patients:

"many people who never have had an episode of asthma, even a mild one, are experiencing them this spring."

Link

According to the Boston Globe, there is a link between global warming and the rise in allergies:

"both the increasing levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide and rising temperatures associated with global warming may increase the amount of pollen that ragweed and other plants produce."

Link

" As carbon dioxide rises, so does the amount of pollen that ragweed produces. It could double over the next century if carbon dioxide levels increase as predicted."

Link

The New York Times notes that many recent studies have demonstrated the link between CO2 emmisions and pollen production:

"A laboratory study done by USDA in 1998 and 1999 found that ragweed pollen counts went from 5.5 grams per plant at carbon-dioxide levels that existed in 1900 to 10 grams at current levels. At predicted CO2 levels in the year 2100, the pollen count would reach 20 grams per plant."
(Linked in the Title)

The link between CO2 emmisions and allergies is yet another reason to reduce our use of fossil fuels. Not only do allergies decrease the quality of life for millions of Americans, but they also reduce economic productivity. Perhaps there is some common ground to be shared with the business community on this issue. Afterall, they are not immune to allergies either and if the number of allergy sufferers doubles as predicted, it will substantially impact their bottom lines.

The Logic of Withdrawal

2006-05-26T14:39:00.003-05:00

Howard Zinn’s book "Vietnam: The Logic of Withdrawal", though it appeared five years before the United States eventually abandoned that war, argued with remarkable foresight that getting out was the only realistic option. Now, nearly forty years later, the United States is once again involved in a seemingly intractable foreign conflict. And, following in the footsteps of Zinn, Anthony Arnove (his co-editor on the widely acclaimed Voices of a People’s History of the United States) has written a book that will likely prove equally prescient.

In "Iraq: The Logic of Withdrawal" (Amazon link above), Arnove sets out a compelling case for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq. Countering widespread arguments made in support of the occupation by conservatives and liberals alike, Arnove insists that the U.S. presence is the major source of instability and suffering for the Iraqi people. He challenges the idea that George W. Bush has ever been interested in bringing democracy to the country and explores the real reasons behind the invasion, which centrally involve control over strategic Middle Eastern energy resources. And he sets out a constructive vision for the antiwar movement, one that involves soldiers, military families, and the many communities affected by the occupation, who together can build a coalition to bring the troops home.

Leave the Spying to US

2006-05-25T18:49:00.000-05:00

The Bush administration has drawn the lines more clearly than ever regarding executive authority. If "national security" is involved- its within the authority of the executive branch to do WHATEVER they deem is necessary to preserve security.

In other words, there is a zero-sum relationship between civil liberties and national security- and national security will win every time under this interpretation of executive power.

A Bush administration official wrote, "courts are ill-equipped as an institution to judge harm to national security." (linked above)

Unfortunately, the executive branch is ill-equipped to judge harm to civil liberties. When national security is prized above fundamental rights- dangerous policies come into being. The detention of Japanese-Americans during World War II and the Illegal surveillance of civil rights organizations and anti-war groups under the FBI's Counter Intelligence Program are but two examples of the extremes the executive will go to under the guise of protecting national security.

The country is divided on the current policy of illegal surveillance. After September 11th, it seems rational to allow the government more latitude in preventing future attacks. Some argue that the government must keep secrets and to even make this program public threatens security. Others view it simply as a price they are willing to pay for what they perceive as better security.

These arguments are flawed on several levels. To prevent terrorism, the answer is not to spy on and terrorize citizens. No one is arguing that spying of any kind should be illegal- just unwarranted surveillance of innocent Americans. Promoting freedom and civil liberties is one of our best weapons in countering fundamentalist ideologies. The argument that exposing "secrets" damages our national security is merely a way to leave executive authority unchecked.

Another Hurricane in New Orleans?

2006-05-25T18:34:00.000-05:00

The forecast gives the city a nearly 30 percent chance of being hit by a hurricane and one in 10 chance the storm will be Category 3 or stronger, meaning sustained winds of at least 111 miles per hour (178 km per hour), said Chuck Watson of Kinetic Analysis Corp., a Savannah, Georgia, risk assessment firm.

``Given the state of the infrastructure down there and the levees, gosh, that's just not good news. But that's what the climate signals look like,'' Watson said.

Watson, worked in partnership with University of Central Florida statistics professor Mark Johnson. They base their forecast in part on the paths of storms over the past 155 years and expected global climate conditions this year.

The Disappeared

2006-05-23T14:33:00.001-05:00

The Night and Fog Decree was a set of directives issued by Hitler which authorized the "disappearing" of resisters to the Nazi State. The Nazis justified this tactic by arguing that the power to secretly kill people produced fear among the population and was a powerful means of social control.

The decree stated:

"An effective and lasting deterrent can be achieved only by the death penalty or by taking measures which will leave the family and the population uncertain as to the fate of the offender."

This method has since become a trademark of brutal dictatorships. Regimes that seek to control their populations and fear popular resistance often resort to "disappearing" their enemies. In response, the international community has strongly declared this practice to be a gross violation of human rights.

Unfortunately, the Bush administration has grown fond of the practice as another weapon in their war on terror. The discovery of secret prisons, or "black sites", has exposed the United States as being at odds with the international consensus against secret detentions.

The public must never stand for secret executions and detentions. We have a sophisticated legal system which, despite its flaws, is capable of administering justice far more fairly than the CIA. Tacit consent of such a policy only serves to legitimate the concentration of authority in the hands of a select few, violating the basic precepts of our founding principles.

Leaving No Soldier Behind: The Militarization of Education

2006-05-23T13:32:00.000-05:00

Since the September 11th attacks, the agenda of the Bush administration has become increasingly focused on foreign policy and domestic security, at the expense of pressing domestic issues. While large portions of the federal budget are allocated for funding the war in Iraq and a host of mismanaged homeland security operations, large tax cuts for the wealthy further strip the government's ability to fund domestic programs. President Bush isolated education as his top domestic issue, but has failed to fund his ill conceived No Child Left Behind legislation. In fact, the act is more intricately linked with the larger Bush foreign policy agenda than it may first appear and offers little hope to poor students beyond a chance to serve their country in the perpetual "war on terror."

Hidden within the funding benefits of the No Child Left Behind Act is Section 9528, which allows military recruiters access to directories with students names, telephone numbers and other personal information. Under the act, military recruiters are given the same access to student information as college recruiters, posing a substantial threat to student privacy. One prominent organization notes that, "the Pentagon has created an illegal database of 30 million 16-25 year-olds, including names, addresses, email addresses, cell phone numbers, ethnicities, social security numbers, extracurricular activities, and areas of study." Many parents and students are unaware that that this database exists, but likely wonder why they are receiving so many recruiting calls, letters, and visits.

Evidently, President Bush does not want to leave students behind in bad schools, but would rather they join up for military service. Instead of improving the schools themselves and offering better educational opportunities to the students, under-performing schools are targeted as fertile ground for military recruitment of our most vulnerable children.

Many parents have called for schools to resist releasing personal student information to military recruiters on grounds that it constitutes a violation of privacy, but schools have a strong incentive to provide the information. If a school withholds such information it can risk losing the bulk of its federal assistance. This is money that many schools can ill-afford to sacrifice. While there are ways for parents to opt out of the information sharing process, they are often unknown to parents and students and are under-publicized by schools.

However, the problem is gaining attention and schools are feeling the pressure to increase awareness about the process. Chicago Public Schools CEO Arne Duncan stated at a recent Board of Education meeting that, "We need to do a better job of getting the word out ... to help the parents, let them make an informed decision". Statements such as these are a positive sign but much more must be done. If schools, the media, organizations and individuals are able to publicize that parents do have the option to block access to their children's information, the threat to privacy will be greatly minimized.

Fortunately, several groups, including the War Resisters League (warresisters.org) and the Coalition Against Militarism in Our Schools (militaryfreeschools.org) have made "opt-out" forms available on their web sites, which can be sent to the respective district offices. While it is mandatory for the school district to make parents aware of the "opt out clause" in No Child Left Behind, the standard is arbitrary and it is imperative that agents outside of the school system take action.
There is also hope in Washington, as The Student Privacy and Protection Act of 2005 has been proposed as an amendment to the No Child Left Behind Act that, if passed, will give parents the option to opt-in rather than having to opt-out. Advocates of the amendment can express their support through a petition hosted on the web site of the organization Leave My Child Alone (leavemychildalone.org).

The crux of this argument against providing private student information to the military is that it does not further the education of the students and redefines the role of school, from a place of learning to a venue for targeting future soldiers. It is also important to note that the schools receiving the most attention from recruiters are those in inner-city districts, where students have fewer options and are more likely to opt for military service at the expense of furthering their education after high school. While this may make perfect sense from the perspective of those recruiting soldiers for the front-lines in Iraq, it makes little sense for those who strive to create a more equitable education system. Responsible citizens should oppose legislation making it easier to prey on students and families that are in an economically disadvantaged position, and thus most vulnerable.

The fundamental question is whether, as a society, we should tolerate fusing education with militarism in our poorest schools. How can we expect students at these schools to feel that they are respected as learners, critical thinkers and invaluable members of their communities when they are conditioned to be soldiers? How can we expect students to achieve academically when they are sold out by an administration that professes to value them as potential high achieving students, but in practice treats them as potential cannon fodder? President Bush argues that we must change the culture of failure in our under-performing schools, "the soft bigotry of low expectations" as he calls it. These low expectations become increasingly evident when a culture of militarism invades our schools.

The culture of failure in our schools can only be challenged when students and parents demand that they receive a quality education and recognize the threat that militarism poses to their futures. It is nothing new for the United States to short change education in favor of defense spending, but providing the military unprecedented access to our children for recruitment has made the nation's priorities all the more clear.

Protecting the Ignorant

2006-05-21T01:58:00.000-05:00

I haven't read or seen the "Da Vinci Code" but I feel the need to weigh in on what borders on hysteria. Christian leaders are creating their own counter-Da Vinci Code films and have actively campaigned against the book and the film in the media. They say that people will loose faith or become confused by the story. What they really fear is that the reaction to this story exposes how tenuous most "Christian's" faith really is. It reveals that the vast majority of the American public is far less wedded to dogmatic religious beliefs than many Church spokespeople are.

If certain individuals decide that they no longer wish to practice Christianity because of Dan Brown's novel or Opie's movie- it's a good bet that they weren't devout followers in the first place. If I were a religious Christian I would just assume weed these people out. But for these Christian "leaders" the story is just too confusing and some may mistaken it as fact.

First of all, facts have little role in a theological debate. The historical merits of Dan Brown's claims are not as important as the ideas themselves. What if Jesus was married? This questions "Christ's morality" according to Jerry Falwell. Aren't the evangelicals the ones forcing the "sanctity of marriage" down everyone's throats? They are also upset that the story "questions the divinity of Christ" because it calls into question the exclusion of many early gospels and the purges of alternate Christian sects such as the Gnostics. This is one historical fact that no one can refute. There were alternate views of Christianity that have been suppressed by the Catholic Church.

What they really fear is that people will question the authority of current Christian leaders. Perhaps some will interpret the Bible in their own way- instead of swallowing the force-fed interpretations of others. God forbid people actually think about their religious beliefs. They are really concerned because the impressionable people that organized religions pray on are now not engaging in critical thinking!

You shall reap what you sow as the Bible says.

Bush demands that immigrants 'have a command of the English language'

2006-05-21T01:51:00.000-05:00

...this one is just too easy

Book Review: David Blight/ Race and Reunion

2006-05-19T17:13:00.000-05:00

David W. Blight, Race and Reunion: The Civil War Era in
American Memory

The Civil War has imprinted itself on the collective memory of Americans. Even today, the bloodiest war in the nation's history captures popular imagination and is recalled as a watershed event in the young history of the United States. In Race and Reunion, David Blight seeks to investigate the Civil War in memory and attempts to demythologize the event and reveal the cultural trends that shaped, and continue to shape, its national remembrance. He argues that the reunion between white Northerners and white Southerners after reconstruction was realized at the expense of African-Americans. In essence, the hatchet was figuratively buried in the back of the former black slave, whom, according to Blight, had been at the epicenter of the real conflict.

To this end, Blight probes the first fifty years of Civil war memorabilia, ranging from graveside decorations to popular literature. He identifies three primary "visions of Civil War memory": "reconciliationist", "white supremacist", and "emancipationist". He argues that the original war was largely a clash of two competing paradigms. The Confederate worldview was primarily white supremacist and thus justified enslavement of other racial groups. The Union embraced a competing framework of emancipation and challenged the slavery of blacks. Both of these worldviews persist in Civil War memory, but the focus on emancipation, and specifically slavery as a central impetus for conflict, has greatly diminished since reconstruction.

Blight contends that the "emancipationist" vision was largely erased from popular culture as the price for reconciliation. In this way, his study of Civil War memory is as much a study of what people chose to forget. The "reconciliationist vision" paradoxically sought to compromise between white supremacy and emancipation. Reconciliationists wanted to "turn away from the legacy of slavery, and to suspend the judgment of those who defended it." The commonality that was embraced was that those doing the reconciling were white and the compromise was essentially to forget about slavery and move forward. Emaciptionists, "who remembered the war as the rebirth of the republic in the name of racial equality", were sacrificed.

The consequences of this compromise on the future of African-Americans, still fighting for full legal and political rights, were grave. The importance of the Northern victory on the battlefield was downplayed as Southerners gained victories on social, political and economic fronts. So long as African-Americans were not literally enslaved, under this vision, white supremacy was allowed to flourish. The prominence of the reconciliationist project is evident in the Jim Crow laws, which essentially unraveled emancipationist gains during reconstruction.

Indeed, the ability for the culture to selectively remember, and in turn forget, pervades the source material in this work. For example, by the 1890's, "The stock Confederate Memorial Day speech contained four obligatory tributes: to soldiers' valor, women's bravery, slave fidelity, and Southern innocence regarding slavery." According to this vision, all white soldiers of the Civil War were valiant, and the causes, especially on the Union side, were largely forgotten. Not only was the cause of African-American freedom forgotten, but racism was also being reinvented, as new and insidious forms of racial discrimination were institutionalized. According to Blight, "By 1913, racism in America had become a cultural industry, and twisted history a commodity".

While the Union cause was being lost to reunion induced amnesia, the Confederate cause was recalled and often distorted. Rather than a vision of white supremacy, the "Lost Cause" of the south was mythologized as virtuous. Popular books and films, such as Gone with the Wind and Birth of a Nation, and even influential historians of the day, glorified the south and further propagated this myth.
It is of no surprise that the purveyors of history at the time were primarily wealthy white men. However, Blight does a good job providing an African-American perspective to the narrative and emphasizes that the cause of emancipation was never completely lost. His treatment of the intellectual African-American history of the period is comprehensive, including extensive source material from Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois. In these thinkers, the emancipationist vision persisted. Blight contends that it was the inability of white America to reconcile a national "imperative for healing" among former enemies with the "imperative of justice" that was so deeply felt by former slaves. To be sure, Blight feels that justice should have trumped national unity, and he argues that in failing to fulfill this obligation race relations were badly damaged. In opting for what was portrayed as healing and national unity, racial hostilities were further fueled and race continued to be a dividing factor in American life. The healing that was supposed to come between the races after the Civil War was short lived.

Blight characterizes this as a tragic development, but still recognizes the Civil War as a "second American Revolution", a fundamental reformulation of national values. He credits this to the fortitude of African-Americans and others who carried on the emancipationist vision. The civil rights movement was the culmination, and in part the realization, of this larger quest for African American freedom and racial equality in the United States.
Blight's narrative begins and ends an account of the Blue-Gray Reunion at Gettysburg in 1913. The event is referred to as "the triumph of segregation", as no black veterans were invited to attend. If fifty years after the civil war segregation is deemed triumphant, can it be truly justified? Was it worth the lives of millions of Americans to preserve segregation and inequality? Blight contends that it was. While the emancipationist vision may have been partially extinguished, replaced by a drive towards national reunion, the legitimacy of white supremacy was called into question and it set the stage for future civil rights gains.

Blight recognizes the role of the North in reversing the gains of reconstruction and embracing reunion at the expense of emancipation, but he often underestimates Northern racism. He too often dichotomizes white supremacy as a southern mindset that northerners accommodated in their efforts to reconcile for economic and political purposes. The fact that northern statesmen so quickly cast aside the rights of African-Americans in favor of reconciliation makes one question whether a larger emancipationist agenda was ever considered as a driving force behind the Union war effort. If freedom was so fundamental a motivating factor, than why is it so quickly sold out? Blight partially deals with this concern by emphasizing the role that slaves themselves had in prompting and winning the war, both through slave rebellions and through service in the Union Army, However, the emancipationist vision encompasses more than just the slaves themselves according to Blight. It is the central guiding principal behind the Union effort. While I agree that emancipation was the central accomplishment of the war and its most important legacy, the demonstrated roll-back of African-American rights following reconstruction suggests that perhaps the Northern agenda was more complex.

Regardless, Blight weaves a masterful narrative in this work and keenly illustrates the ways in which a national trend towards reunion came at the expense of the most important principles over which the Civil War was fought. In an age of weapons of mass destruction, it is worth noting that weapons of mass distraction can be just as destructive. Blight brilliantly reveals the power of popular culture and its agents to manipulate opinion, and in effect, memory. Such propaganda was so strong in this case that it purportedly made a nation forget what it had fought a long and bloody war over. In cases like these, the truth is a victim, and the rights of many were deeply impacted.

2006 or 1984?

2006-05-11T17:55:00.000-05:00

George Orwell on Doublethink:

"The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them. ... To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies—all this is indispensably necessary. Even in using the word doublethink it is necessary to exercise doublethink. For by using the word one admits that one is tampering with reality; by a fresh act of doublethink one erases this knowledge; and so on indefinitely, with the lie always one leap ahead of the truth. "

George Bush engaging in Doublethink (In response to a massive data-mining and wiretapping program being exposed):

"the privacy of ordinary Americans is fiercely protected." The administration is not "mining or trolling through the personal lives of millions of innocent Americans"

(Tapping millions of private citizens phone conversations can not take place in a government that "fiercely" protects privacy. Bush claims that the administration is not doing exactly what they have been exposed as doing when he refers to mining through personal conversations.)

"Today there are new claims about other ways we are tracking down al Qaeda to prevent attacks on America."

" The intelligence activities strictly target al Qaeda and their known affiliates, he said.
"Second, the government does not listen to domestic phone calls without court approval"

(If millions of American citizens are affiliated with al Qaeda we are really screwed. Bush's second point was refuted by the testimony of the major telecommunications companies that did not deny collaboration with the NSA to make millions of phone calls available for screening.)

So far, the President said, "we have been very successful in preventing another attack on our soil. As a general matter, every time sensitive intelligence is leaked, it hurts our ability to defeat this enemy. Our most important job is to protect the American people from another attack, and we will do so within the laws of our country."

(This echoes Orwell's concept of perpetual war exactly. Peace justifies war. War=Peace and Peace=War)

The Case for Open Borders

2006-05-10T22:48:00.000-05:00

The immigration issue has been introduced, shortly before the midterm elections, seemingly as a way for Republicans to shore up their political base. The choice of this issue is odd, since it serves more as a "wedge issue" in favor of Democrats, dividing the nativist right wing from the big business Republican constituency. Bush has attempted to appeal to immigrant voters as a counter to the solid African American vote that the Democrats often take for granted. He, and others, also recognize that business interests rely on the low-wage labor of non-citizens and this had led him to propose a guest worker program to legalize such exploitation. Another element of the immigration issue, border security, relates to national security in a time when fears of terrorism are palpable. Immigration is a complex issue and the public response to the issue has been equally complex and polarizing.

The minutemen and other extralegal possees of citizens have risen up to lock down the border and round up noncitizens. Some in Congress have even suggested ammending the constitution to disallow citizenship for those born in the United States to illegal immigrants. At the same time, millions of noncitizens have taken to the streets in protest, demanding that they be recognized and treated as human beings. A series of threats and actions have emanated from both sides, creating an atmosphere of brinksmanship. Immigrants have threatened to go on strike and nativists have threatened to build a wall across the US/Mexico border. The immigrant protests have helped to humanize the issue, but many have responded to their presence with hostility.

The most common compromise has been to allow for a path to citizenship or guest worker status for those already here illegally, but not without first completely locking down the border and barring future illegal immigration. This course of action would only legitimize nativist, nationalist, and sometimes even racist, sentiments. The proposed guest worker program would merely create an underclass of laborers and continue to drive down wages. Essentially, this is only a compromise between right wingers and big business Republicans.

In this way, perhaps the immigration issue will end up serving to divide Democrats rather than Republicans. In a shrewd way, the immigration issue may act as a "wedge issue", dividing working class Democrats and middle-class progressives. Working-class Democrats often fear that a guest worker program would essentially bring the offshoring of jobs home. Once legally endorsed, businesses could recruit workers from other countries and pay them well less than the minimum wage mandated for citizens. Middle-class democrats do not often fear competition from immigrants and frequently favor humane treatment of undocumented immigrants and value cultural diversity. This split could be politically damaging.

Democrats need to reframe this debate. Nativism should be ridiculed as the value historically embraced by the most despicable political movements. The Ku Klux Klan, Nazi's, and the Boers of South African apartheid were all characterized by xenophobia and racist nationalism. These sentiments are fundamentally opposed to an ideal American ideology that values liberty, equality, the pursuit of hapiness and universal human rights. Instead of nativism, an ethic of cosmopolitanism (meaning citizenship of the world) should be further realized. Insofar as there is an "American culture", it should be defined not in terms of nationality, but instead as an abstract collection of values. If being American refers to being a part of a society that embraces freedom and social justice, then it becomes counter-intuitive to exclude anyone from taking part in the American project.

Our laws should apply to anyone working in this country. To allow for the exploitation of undocumented workers or to deny them access infringes on the inalienable rights of all human beings. Furthermore, closing the border denies fundamental rights as well. Why shouldn’t one be free to cross a "border" to escape oppression or in search of work to sustain one's life? Borders to a free society are oxymoronic (or just moronic) and they do more to stigmatize those who cross them than they do to restrict passage.

But what about the terrorists you ask? If the United States is to effectively discourage terrorism it will be through a comprehensive shift in policy. Our policies should be based on the fundamental values that shape and define our culture. This supposed "war on terrorism" is more a war of ideas than a conventional battle. If we are to challenge Islamic fundamentalism, our weapons should not not be violence and hatred but the Enlightenment principles of reason and universal rights. Our interventionist foreign policy is based on the same sentiment of nationalism that our immigration policy is based upon. These policies are what spawn terrorism and hatred of the United States. The only permanent solution to terrorism against the United States is to abandon these policies and reevaluate our fundamental values. Building a wall is akin to burying our heads in the sand. We must challenge terrorists with the superiority of our ideas and values, not shrink behind our borders and beg for our government to protect us through any means necessary.

Prior to and during World War II, U.S. government officials intentionally used immigration controls to prevent German Jews from seeking refuge from the horrors of the Nazi regime. Examples such as the infamous "voyage of the damned", which refered to the refusal of the U.S. officials to permit a ship full of Jewish refugees to port at Miami Harbor, are all too common in American history. I am under no illusion that the United States has lived up to its founding principles. History shows, however, that America is at its best when it moves towards the realization of these values. Emancipation, universal suffrage, the civil rights movement, the New Deal reforms- the United States has at times achieved great progress by appealing to fundamental rights and values. Reverting to nationalism and racism will only hinder this progression and set a dangerous precedent in a dangerous world. Open the borders and redefine American political culture!

Bush's Answer to the Deficit: Cut Social Programs

2005-02-07T09:36:00.000-06:00

The size of government has actually been remarkably stable over the last fifty years. It is a misconception that Democrats tax and spend and Republicans slash government and lower taxes. In the end, at the federal level, government spending never substantially drops. The difference instead is between where the government money is spent. One of the most important responsibilities of the President is to introduce the national budget. Thus, the President has a large say over where that government money goes and must set priorities.

George W. Bush introduced his budget today and he has set some priorities of his own. Bush inherited a budget surplus but is now running deficits of over $400 billion a year. Under pressure to balance the budget, he has chosen to reduce government spending on many programs. Balancing the budget requires the President to find the programs that are not benefiting the nation. In essence, the goal is to cut the fat out of the budget and leave the effective programs well funded. Bush claims that this was his motivation in cutting programs in his latest budget proposal. I'll let you be the judge of whether he made the right decisions.

Bush decided that providing health care to the poorest of the poor was not worth the tax payer's money. He chose to cut the Medicaid budget by $45 billion dollars. This includes a program to train doctors for children's hospitals that would be cut by a third. Similarly, a program that helps many of these same poor Americans pay heating bills would be cut by more than 8%. Bush's proposals to Congress also includes cuts in public housing subsidies and in food stamps.

It is not just the poor that bare the brunt of the proposed cuts. Farmers and veterans will also experience the pinch. The budget would cut farm subsidies by $587million. A reduction in those subsidies will be welcomed by developing countries but would severely limit the ability for American farmers to compete.

Furthermore, while Bush claims to support the troops, his latest budget would make it harder for them to receive basic health care services after they return home from duty. It would more than double the co-payment on prescription drug purchases and would require some to pay a new annual fee to receive basic government health care benefits. In addition to these cuts, the budget also includes deep slashes in spending on environmental protection and education. Evidentally, these programs have no place in the national vision of this administration.

Even with all of these cuts to important social services, Bush's budget does contain some new spending. The Pentagon's budget is expected to increase by about $20 billion and the Homeland Security Department would get an extra $2 billion. After these increases in defense spending, the cuts in social programs becomes a wash. It is increasingly clear that this new budget is not about addressing defecit spending, but about shifting resources from social programs to the military industrial complex.

This budget does not even include expenses on the war in Iraq and reconstruction in Afghanistan, for which the administration in expected to seek an extra $80 billion out of budget. Also not included in the budget is the proposed cost of funding the administration's overhaul of Social Security. While there is a good chance the provision will never pass, if it did, it would require borrowing an estimated $4.5 trillion over a twenty year period.

The President's priorities are clear; cut social programs and fund defense, military ventures, tax cuts for the wealthy and reforms that benefit multinational corporations. Bush claims that his cuts will largely be administrative and improve the efficiency of the targeted programs. It is revealing, however, that the most visibly inefficient bureaucracies actually receive hikes in funding. The intelligence community and the military seem to require more streamlining than successful programs to provide basic health care to the poor and veterans, among others. We can not afford a tax cut, a war, and our social programs. Unfortunately, the social programs, which benefit the most helpless and vulnerable Americans, are the first to get the axe. For the Bush administration, the "war on poverty" has been replaced by the "war of terror".

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The Social Security Strategy

2005-02-06T09:21:00.000-06:00

George W. Bush seems to be placing Social Security reform near the top of his agenda. He proclaimed that he had secured political capital after the election and if this is the issue he seeks to pursue, he will need it.

In the past, even the most ardent conservatives have balked when presented with the idea of fundamentally changing the crown jewel of progressives and the most popular social program in the nation's history. The prospect has been widely viewed as political suicide. Supporting privatization risks alienating retirees, future beneficiaries and is perceived as wholly reactionary, a rollback of FDR's New Deal revolution.

Thus begging the question, why Social Security? Why would Bush risk his political momentum on what most view as a loosing hand? Well...in typical Dubya fashion, he has a shrewd strategy in place to sell this to the people and the GOP. He actually feels he can turn this devisive issue into a winner and a potential death blow for Democrats. Here is his plan:

1) Remove retired persons from the crux of the debate by ensuring that their benefits will be not be impacted.

Bush has repeatedly noted that under his plan, the current benefits would remain unchanged. The effects of the reform will only be felt in the future. He hopes to neutralize political opposition from senior citizens and powerful organizations such as the AARP.

2) Scare young people by claiming that the system will be completely bankrupt by the time they are eligible to receive benefits.

Despite a consensus opinion among experts to the contrary, Bush continues to assert that Social Security will go bust in the future. This type of fear mongering is a familiar Bush tactic. He seeks to establish a sense of crisis and then exploit that fear to intimidate opponents and justify extreme reforms. If the system is doomed to insolvency, then why not gamble with it a little? Why not cut some guaranteed benefits? They won't be available anyway according to Bush. And when Democrats claim that his figures are wrong he plays the guardian, protecting the American public from deluded politicians who can't see the real dangers that lay ahead.

3) Appeal to a sense of risk taking among young people.

The prior two points are really nothing new. This tactic however could mark the true difference in the way that Bush approaches this issue. Bush is attempting to portray the old school Social Security defenders as behind the times and too rigid in their support of a system that is obviously imperfect. Similarly, he is appealing to young people who are willing to take some risks and take some personal responsibility for their future Social Security benefits. Bush tempts them with claims of invested money accumulating in private accounts. Of course part of this risk is that benefits can no longer be guaranteed. They are largely dependent on the performance of the stock market.

Wasn't the notion of a GUARANTEED social safety net the entire purpose of Social Security to begin with? The need for Social Security stemmed from a recognition that the stock market was subject to busts and that a SEPERATE trust needed to be set up to ensure people basic income after retirement. Bush hopes that young people, removed from the depression era history, will opt to give the stock market another chance.

The problem with this logic, aside from the obvious, is that it fails to account for the doom and gloom projections of the Bush Administration itself. If the economy collapses to such a state that the Social Security system goes "bankrupt", there is no chance that the stock market would be growing at such a rate to save the benefits. In other words, for Social Security to go bankrupt, the economy will have to really suck and if it sucks, your private account won't be worth shit.

Although Democrats have been gun-shy to provide their own solution to a potential Social Security crisis, the solution is really rather simple. Instead of radically restructuring the way the system receives its funds, why not just tap the same capital that the original system was based on? Raising the regressive cap on Social Security taxes would be more than enough to ensure the programs future solvence. As it is now, if you make more than $90,000 a year, you are out of the system. With incomes rising, it seems logical to simply remove that cap. Who suffers? Only people that make enough to bare the burden.

Democrats won't touch the issue because the know that it can be politically toxic. Bush is ignoring this conventional wisdom. Surely there are easier, more politically friendly, items to put at the top of the agenda. Why tackle this one? Perhaps Bush really believes that Social Security is doomed and views privatization as the best route to save it for future generations. More likely, he views it as a means to secure more available capital for investment in big corporations. Maybe it will "trickle down" to us young folks by the time we retire and we won't need Social Security.

Most importantly, Bush likely views this as a way to radically redefine the Republican Party. Give them an inch, they'll take a mile. Give them Social Security, they'll take us back to Herbert Hoover. Conservatives have been trying to reverse many of the gains of progressives for decades, from civil rights to social programs. Bush knows that if the neo-conservative agenda can co-opt the likes of Social Security, they can forge new voting coalitions and discredit past Democratic gains. This is the final prong of his Social Security strategy and it will be relied on to sell this reform to the Republicans in Congress.

Unfortunately, I don't believe that Bush really cares if future generations get their Social Security benefits. If he did, he would not have raided the Social Security surplus and spent it on a war. He wouldn't have pushed for a massive tax cut for the wealthy that could have been used to make Social Security solvent. He also would not be so quick to rule out raising taxes in the future to ensure its solvency. Just as he did with Medicare, Bush is claiming to improve a valued social program with the intent to merely funnel tax payer money to big business.

Luckily, Democrats have a strong opportunity to sap the President of political capital and set a tone of progressive resurgence on the Hill. Social Security is the type of issue that can unite Democrats and split Republicans. Democrats are unlikely to allow a band of neo-conservatives to fiddle and gamble with a defining social program and many Republican's still view Social Security reform as a political lightning rod, much as tax hikes are for Democrats. In the end, I expect the legislation will stall in the Congress and the President will be put on the defensive. But, if Bush is successful, it could signal a true political realignment. Is nothing sacred?

The State of Political Theater

2005-02-03T07:54:00.000-06:00

President Bush took political theater to a new level during last night's State of the Union address. What in the past was a short speech to Congress has gradually morphed into a grand platform for rhetoric and propaganda. If I agreed with his ends, I may applaud his means. After all, this is politics and there is a fine line between manipulation and communication. There is little more agitating than observing a carefully crafted political message and knowing all along that the masses are going to eat it up and ask for seconds. This despite the facts that the display is full of logical holes, exaggerations and neglect for the truth.

The most striking example of Bush's thematic skills was the recognition of the mother of a marine slain in battle and an Iraqi woman whose father had been assassinated at the order of Saddam Husein and who voted in the recent Iraqi election. As the two women embraced, Bush looked on as the triumphant hero who wishes to be seen as the one that made it all possible. In this single event, the themes of the entire military campaign were dramatically played out for the entire nation to witness. The sacrifice and the spoils of victory that make it all worth while. How do you argue with this? This was a big FUCK YOU to Michael Moore, bleeding heart anti-war liberals and anyone else who dare question Bush's decisions. At that moment you were either moved or recognized who really held the reigns of political power, or perhaps a little of both.

But in the end, this staged event did not communicate the truth. For every isolated situation such as this, there are many more mothers who have lost children and do not feel that the price was worth it. There are mothers in Iraq that wonder why they lost their children to malnourishment during a harsh regime of sanctions imposed by the United States. There are Iraqis who value their right to vote but would have liked to have achieved that right in their own struggle. There are members of the Shiite majority who were egged on to rise up against Saddam, only to be abandoned by the elder President Bush. Later, had they not been deprived of basic living standards largely because of the rigid sanctions, perhaps they could have successfully revolted. To these Iraqis, "victory" is bittersweet. They want to create their own Iraq, outside of the blanket of paternalism offered by the United States. Will George W. Bush allow them to?

If this speech was any indicator, he will not. Bush declared the fighting in Iraq to be a battle with terrorists. Many of these supposed terrorists were eligible to vote in the election. These are Iraqi's who want control of their country. A fraction of these insurgents may be terrorists, but most are labeled as such only in that they actively reject the imposition of "democracy" by a foreign power and do so in a violent fashion. These are Iraqis that do not benefit from "majority rules" democracy, because they are in the minority. They fear that an elected Shiite leader will seek vengeance against them and their fears are probably well founded. These people MUST have a place in the future of Iraq if it is to become the stable, liberated state that Bush likes to talk about so frequently. To brand them all as terrorists is to turn a blind eye to history. Ethnic conflicts in Africa, the Balkans and elsewhere stemmed from the reinforcement of ethnic division. But the label is politically and rhetorically potent, and Bush exploits it. Framing the war in Iraq as a single battle in a larger "war on terror" serves the imperialist intentions of neo-liberal world order. And of course, people love to hear that they are part of a dramatic crusade to end terrorism and tyranny.

But in reality, these are not the terrorists that seek destruction in the United States. To portray them as such is another political manipulation and justification for ongoing military action. Bush would like to portray the mother of the Marine and the Iraqi woman who voted on one side and those who object to the military campaign on the other. Those who fight the Bush administration, whether it is politically or militarily, here or abroad, are "with the terrorists". This is a powerful rhetorical weapon indeed.

The election results are not yet in, but much speculation is flying about regarding the potential victor. The favorite seems to be a Shiite Iranian-born and backed religious leader. Suppose the new government in Iraq aligns itself with the current regime in Tehran. Mind you, this is a regime which he specifically threatened in this very State of the Union address. He warned Iran to abandon any pursuit of nuclear weapons and vowed that America will stand against the leadership in Tehran and with Iranians who "seek liberty". We could very well end up involved in a conflict with Iran and, in turn, with the very leadership in Iraq that we helped install.

I highly doubt that Bush and his cohorts will allow this to happen however. It is more likely that America will continue to meddle with Iraq's political system until we achieve the result WE want. This would be very similar to what happened in South Vietnam, where the U.S. denounced a democratically chosen leader as unfairly elected.

Nevertheless, in George W. Bush's world these geopolitical complexities have no place. He preaches sacrifice, democracy and freedom. He is the crusader who feels that it is his calling, and therefore the calling of the United States to "rid the world of tyranny". What significance does the death of a single soldier have in the light of a world free of tyranny? Who would not sacrifice for such an achievement?

Unfortunately, this rhetoric more closely resembles that of a tyrant than a public servant. Bush asks us to sacrifice for the state and its crusade, he speaks about freedom and democracy but cracks down on civil liberties in his own country. He supports altering our Constitution to specifically deprive same-sex partners of any chance at achieving marriage rights. He cuts funding for social programs here at home to fund bombings abroad. The path to ending tyranny is not to fight every people's battles for them, but to serve as an admirable model to the world. We cannot simply impose our values on the world. That may play well during a stateside speech, but oversees it offends and undermines the valuable ability to promote democracy.

I hope that viewers and listeners of this speech will take it for what it was, political theater. One can admire a savvy politician but must never lose sight of the little man behind the curtain. It was a flashy show with little substance and I believe that most will find it impressive but unsettling. In the end, truth will win and Bush and his administration will be exposed. People can be easily manipulated, but they are often very angry when they realize that they've been had.

Imposed Democracy Will Never Succeed

2005-02-02T04:21:00.000-06:00

Iraqi voters bravely risked their lives in an inspiring collective act of courage in the recent election. In turn, the United States should act in good faith and fulfill promises of liberation. If the goal of this effort is truly to establish the foundation for a working democracy in Iraq and not to facilitate the veiled appointment of a puppet regime, then the United States should be prepared to honor the results and soon withdraw militarily.

Many Iraqis probably dreamt of this moment, but few likely anticipated that it would come in this fashion. Weakened by years of sanctions and Stalinist tactics, most Iraqis were more concerned with ensuring their next meal than in overthrowing a long entrenched dictator. But, throughout their struggle, some likely maintained faith that a revolution would come. It took great courage to participate in an election largely orchestrated by what most view as an occupying power. When the promise of democracy came, however flawed a process as it may in reality be, many Iraqis seized the opportunity to make a difference in charting a new course for a long suffering nation.

Similarly, the United States has an opportunity to chart a new course. In the past, we ousted elected leaders in Haiti, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Chile and Vietnam, among others. When the people chose to elect leaders whom we ideologically opposed, or viewed as a threat to our own national interests (usually economic), we installed our own hand picked "leaders". I hope that we do not undermine the votes of those who risked their lives in this case.

Ideally, the Iraqi voters will choose a leader that serves their best interests and one that can work with the international community, including the United States. However, it is unlikely that this process will go completely smoothly. A large faction of the Iraqi electorate largely boycotted the election. The Sunni Muslim minority, which ruled the country for centuries, has not embraced the process and it will be difficult to avert future ethnic conflict in the region.

I passionately hope that the Shiite majority does not wield their newfound political power in a democratic "reign of terror" against minority ethnic groups in the region. Democracy surely does not preclude this from happening. After all, when two wolves and a chicken vote on what's for dinner, the outcome is all too clear. Perhaps after decades of recent oppression they can seize the opportunity to start anew and avoid the cycle of political violence. Maybe they will choose a leader that can unite Iraq and regain its strength. In the end, the choice is largely theirs to make. The United States should honor its rhetoric and allow them to create their own destiny.

Robbed!?

2004-12-01T22:52:00.000-06:00

Bush Administration Inconsistent on Terrorism

2004-09-08T16:39:00.001-05:00

After coldly neglecting to mention the crisis in Russia durring his convention speech, George W. Bush is now taking a position on the tragedy. He has used the event to make it clear to the world that no country gets a free passon terrorism. Interpretation: Russia didn't support the U.S. in Iraq, why should we support them now. Bush is still championing the mantra that you're with us or with the terrorists.

The problem with this mentality is that it alienates potential partners in combatting terrorism and isolates the United States. If it's our way or no way, it is difficult to develop a truly cooperative effort. Countries have different and diverging interests, but it is in the interest of both the U.S. and Russia to minimize the threat posed by terrorists.

Not only has Bush taken a subtle geopolitical jab at the Russians, but his administration has argued that the Kremlin should have negotiated with the attackers. From the Russian perspective, this is akin to suggesting that bin Ladin should come to the White House to negotiate his terms.

It is true that the Chechens have a political agenda and perhaps the Russians could have prevented the masacre and past attacks by negotiating or changing their policy. But let us not forget, al Qauida also has a political agenda and it is fairly clear that they are attacking our people, not because they hate our "freedom" or way of life, but because they disagree with our policies in the middle east, primarily our bases in Saudi Arabia and support for Israel.

I am not suggesting that we should change our policies based on the demand of a terrorist organization, but to suggest that they are simply "evil" and "madmen" who hate us, is a shortcut to thinking. Should we negotiate with a group that resorts to such violent means in an effort to fufill their political wishes?

Similarly,the Chechens do not simply hate the Russians, they have taken issue with what they view as threatening policies on the part of the Russian government. The Russians didn't change, so they have resorted to terrorism. Should the Russians be expected to negotiate?

All in all, it is a complicated matter and should be treated as such. Attempting to fit this horrific event into the rubric of Bush's political catch phrases is a mistake and threatens to disrupt what could be a valuable parnership in fighting terrorism. Rather than exploiting the incident to brow beat the Russians over Iraq, the U.S.should seize the opportunity to seek common ground against a shared threat.

Chaos at the Convention

2004-08-24T04:32:00.000-05:00

The Federal Government has made it clear that it is bound to President Bush's simplistic declaration that "You're either with us or with the terrorists." The latest move to consolidate this dichotomy is the pitting of the government and the Republican party against protesters at the upcoming Republican National Convention.

The convention is likely to draw many protesters across a broad political spectrum. They are more likely to be treated as terrorists than the patriots that many of them are. The battle has already started, even before the convention begins. The FBI has been harassing and intimidating political protesters across the country about their plans for the convention.

They claim to be conducting interviews as part of the "Joint Terrorism Task Force" and are simply following up on leads they have received regarding potential disruptions at the elections. A task force on terrorism should be concerned with identifying terrorists, not questioning citizens who plan to exercise their constitutional right to protest. Unless the government views them as one and the same. If the "war against terrorism" is conflated to mean a war against everyone that opposes the current administration, we are dealing with a dangerous paradigm that threatens the liberties of all Americans.

On the ground, the government's forces are seemingly preparing for battle, securing public areas and militarizing zones. A federal judge has denied access to the Great Lawn of Central Park. Over 10,000 officers have already been deployed and are posted at designated areas throughout the city, They will also be unveiling new sonar technology to control the crowd.

The Long Range Acoustic Device allows the police to bark orders at 150 decibels and enables the use of an ear-splitting sound that can trigger physical sickness. The 45 pound acoustic sound machines cost $35,000 apiece and will be in full force at the convention, mounted on Humvees posted outside Madison Square Garden. This will be the first time that an instrument which can beam sounds for 300+ yards is used on civilians.

If the Bush administration anticipated such a negative response to the convention then why did they decide to hold it in a city where more than 80% of the public voted against the sitting president? Of course they want to exploit the attacks on 9/11 for political gain, but there is more to it than that. The Bush administration also seeks to provoke conflict with dissenters and to paint them all with a broad brush as political agitators and potential terrorists. In this way they are able to perpetuate an us vs. them mentality and further solidify centralized control and power over the public.

Neo-CIA - Possible CIA Head Advocates Cracking Down on American Citizens

2004-08-14T22:53:00.000-05:00

In a distrurbing development, Porter Goss has introduced a a bill to further centralize and insulate the CIA, while increasing its power domestically to unprecedented levels. The potential for violations of civil liberties is great and could mark a radical change in the CIA from an organization based on foreign intelligence work to one more closely resembling a domestic STASI.

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Newsweek
August 12, 2004

Rep. Porter Goss, President Bush's nominee to head the CIA, recently introduced legislation that would give the president new authority to direct CIA agents to conduct law-enforcement operations inside the United States—including arresting American citizens.

The legislation, introduced by Goss on June 16 and touted as an "intelligence reform" bill, would substantially restructure the U.S. intelligence community by giving the director of Central Intelligence (DCI) broad new powers to oversee its various components scattered throughout the government.

But in language that until now has not gotten any public attention, the Goss bill would also redefine the authority of the DCI in such a way as to substantially alter—if not overturn—a 57-year-old ban on the CIA conducting operations inside the United States.

The language contained in the Goss bill has alarmed civil-liberties advocates. It also today prompted one former top CIA official to describe it as a potentially "dramatic" change in the guidelines that have governed U.S. intelligence operations for more than a half century.

The al-Quida-Diamond Link

2004-08-08T16:22:00.000-05:00

Ever wonder why diamonds are so expensive? The value of diamonds is not high because of their scarcity but rather the difficulty in excavating the gems. Often, borderline slave laborers meet their death while toiling in the vast mines. The danger of the labor increases the price of the diamonds.

In addition, diamonds are often the focus of raging civil wars . In Sierra Leone, such a war resulted in forced amputations, human rights abuses and the displacement of the vast majority of the rural population. When you buy an expensive diamond you may be contributing to this practice.

Now there is another, more visible, reason to avoid the valued stones. Terrorists, especially al-Qaida, rely on diamond revenues to finance terrorist attacks. Back when the Bush administration sponsered advertisements linking minor drug purchases to terrorism, I was arguing that there was likely a much stronger connection to diamonds but no ads guilting diamond purchasers to give up their habit.

The evidence is now very strong and the article (link above) outlines the details:

Constitution Watch: The Patriot Act and its Threat to Civil Liberties

2004-08-08T14:30:00.000-05:00

The spirit of resistance to government is so valuable on certain occasions, that I wish it to be always kept alive. The People are the only sure reliance for the preservation of liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

After studying the Patriot Act and the proposed Patriot Act II, I am completely disturbed by the threat to the Bill of Rights and our civil liberties. There are numerous blatant violations of the Bill of Rights, including denials of due process, free speech, the right to protest, privacy, property rights, etc.

For example, did you know that the government can detain American citizens without a trial, representation, or even a charge for indefinite periods of time for having tenous "associations" with terrorist organizations? Terrorism cases now have their own "shadow constitution", rendering protections of civil liberties null and void. Some may say, "that only matters if you're a terrorist and they don't deserve the same protections." What is most disturbing is that the lines between what constitutes "terrorism" and what constitutes genuine political protest or disent is increasingly blurred. Furthermore, what distinguishes terrorist activity from traditional crimes is completely unclear. In this statement, the Department of Justice attempts to explain how terrorist investigations are handled differently;

"A terrorism enterprise investigation may be initiated when facs or circumstances reasonably indicate that two or more persons are engaged in an enterprise for the purpose of furthering the political or social goals wholly or in part through activities that involve force or violence and a federal crime..."

The language in vague, to put it mildly. The use of terms like "reasonably" and "in part" creates a wholly arbitrary method of investigation, ripe for abuse. Who decides what constitutes a "reasonable" affiliation with a terrorist group? Could sending a check to an orphanage in Africa that also funds terrorist activity place you in that company? Could protesting an IMF meeting, picketing as an animal rights activist or demonstrating in front of an abortion clinic be considered terrorist activity and warrant, by these standards, striping the accused of their constitutional rights? Protests can result in violence and they do threaten, in some capacity, the established order. "Obstruction" at some events or at abortion clinics can also be catergorized as a federal crime. This is a dangerous path to take.

If some one violates the law, by all means, they should be charged, but they are still entitled to a fair trial and their civil liberties. The problem with the Patriot Act is that it blurs these lines and allows for people charged of crimes to be stripped of their rights on the basis of protecting the public from "terrorism". It is easy to overlook these dangers in times where terrorism truly is a threat to security. However, once these lines are blurred, the checks on the power of the centralized government are minimized and our liberty is threatened, A snowball effect is probably the biggest concern. Once one liberty is stripped for a few, it makes it much easier for more to be stripped, eventually effecting the many.

These threats transcend political ideology and should concern all Americans, left, right or center. It is true that if the federal government monitered all of our activities their would be a lessened threat of terrorist attack. But at what expense? If we sacrifice our freedom for supposed security we have already lost. It is the responsibility of each American citizen to resist threats to our civil liberties as outlined by the founders of this nation. Never surrender to fear and continue to fight to secure freedom, against the terrorists and enemies of liberty in government.

U.S. Government Terrorizing the Public

2004-08-07T22:43:00.000-05:00

Incidents like the following are becoming increasingly prevelant in post-9/11 America. The goverment claims that it is attempting to better prepare the public for potential future terrorist attacks. Often, officials never even reveal that the mock attacks are simply drills and civilians in small towns are left in confusion over what has just taken place. Many of these staged acts of terrorism serve to further terrorize and desensitize the public, further perpetuating a culture of violence and terror.

It also appears that the objective of these drills is not to better prepare the public, but to better assert control of the public in the event of an attack (or possibly in general). It is for this reason that the government wants to make these drills as realistic as possible and often don't disclose that the attacks are fake. They wish to simulate dealing with a truly frightened group of people.

While this may help the government control the population, It doesn't seem to benefit the general public. Beyond genuinely frightening people, the mock attacks may desensitize us too much, possibly to the point where we assume that a real attack is just another drill. A situation such as this could be disasterous.

While this particular event seems extreme, these type of drills are a regular occurance. Often they go unreported, or coverage is limited to the local news. Many times the publc is completely in the dark as to what really happened and even the media is unsure whether an event was a real atack or a drill. It is this secrecy that alarms me most.
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Tenn. Official Suspended After Mock Terror Drill Disrupts County Meeting

The Associated Press
Published: Aug 4, 2004

ELIZABETHTON, Tenn. (AP) - An official who staged a security drill that disrupted a county commission meeting with guns and mock hostage-takers has been suspended.

Ernest Jackson, Carter County's emergency management director, will be off the job until the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation finishes its probe of Monday's drill, which upset officials, law enforcement and members of the public, Carter County Mayor Dale Fair said.

Jackson was suspended with pay Tuesday, Fair said.

The meeting was about to take up two tax proposals when three men and a woman burst in with guns drawn and claimed to be taking hostages. One man threatened to explode a bomb with a device he was holding, and another fired a shot, which turned out to be a blank.

As the meeting dissolved in confusion, Jackson announced it was only a drill.

Some officials were told about the drill shortly before the meeting but didn't know the details. The city police didn't know a drill was planned and responded to what they thought was a hostage situation.

Renee Bowers, who will take over while Jackson is suspended, said her agency had been trying to make disaster drills more realistic.

Recent Terrorist Threat a Fake?

2004-08-03T19:19:00.000-05:00

When I heard of the recently described plans by terrorists to attack various financial centers in the United States I was extremely alarmed. However, after looking beyond Secretary Ridge's announcement and doing a little research, I was even more alarmed by what I found. The "intelligence" used to formulate this "recent" terrorist threat was actually 3 to 4 years old, according to some sources. Thus begging the question, why now?

The reason, according to officials, is that they had received intelligence that Al Qaeda was planning an attack on New York and/or Washington DC and they just put 2 and 2 together and figured that they may target the buildings they had researched years ago. I have two primary problems with this logic.

1) When isn't Al Qaeda planning to attack New York and DC? The focus of the announcement was about the specific targets, and this specificity is what was most alarming. If Ridge had simply announced that Al Qaeda was planning to attack New York, it would have seemed like business as usual. Conflating recent intelligence about a general attack on a region with specific intelligence regarding sites in those regions from years ago is, at best, misleading.

2) The intelligence of the specific sites actually predates the 9/11 attacks! We now know that those attacks also targeted New York and Washington DC. If these sites were the primary targets, why weren't they attacked instead of the towers and the pentagon? At the very least, this discredits the intelligence to some degree. Combined with the fact that it very well could be obsolete intelligence, it doesn't seem to warrant a massive public warning.

So, I return to the question at hand. Why now? An announcement such as this, at the heels of the Democratic National Convention and filled with partisan rhetoric must at least raise a few eyebrows. I understand that this is a hefty charge and shows little respect to Ridge and the Bush administration, but, the timing on this seems odd - and I am just raising the question. Perhaps it is better to be safe than sorry, err on the side of caution and all. It's an added bonus if it helps get the President get reelected. I hope this isn't the case.

Capitalizing on the terrorist threat for political purposes is extremely unethical and actually serves to terrorize the public. People are afraid to go to work, go near the buildings, investors are on edge, etc. To justify this type of announcement, there better be some current evidence in my opinion. But, as I said during Bush's last State of the Union address, maybe they have access to intelligence that they can't share with the public. I was skeptical then and I'm skeptical now.

Barack Obama Delivers a Stirring Keynote Speech

2004-07-28T16:10:00.000-05:00

I worked on Barack Obama's senate campaign as a research assistant months ago. I was thrilled when he was able to distinguish himself from a crowded field and win the primary election in a landslide. I knew that he had great political talent, but even I have been surprised by his recent meteoric rise nationally after being chosen to deliver the keynote address at the Democratic National Convention.

Under incredible pressure, this state senator from Illinois was able to deliver a powerful speech that will undoubtedly mark the beginning of a long national political career. In his speech, the little known Obama was able to captivate the crowd and present a clear vision and a keen message. The speech was strongly rooted in the American experience and seamlessly weaved personal stories, philosophical pronouncements and policy prescriptions. In the end, almost all that heard it were moved and many in the media noted it as one of the greatest convention speeches EVER delivered. Click on the link above to view and listen to the speech and feel free to comment on it below.

Bush Vows to Push Gay-Marriage Amendment

2004-07-14T01:51:00.000-05:00

Bush and the GOP continue to promote reactionary policies that are completely out of touch with mainstream America in regards to civil rights. They claim that they favor a constitutional ban against gay marriage because they must protect marriage against "activist" courts. Funny, I don't remember the court system being refered to as "activist" when it handed Bush the election.

Maybe the United States isn't ready for equal "marriage" rights for homosexuals, but to push for an amendment to the constitution in order to prohibit them from ever receiving these rights is not only unnecessary, it threatens a dangerous precedent.

CIVIL UNIONS

The common compromise position is that we should allow homosexuals to enjoy the legal rights associated with marriage through a recognition of "civil unions", as supported by both John Kerry and John Edwards. This position draws a clear distinction between the traditional conception of "marriage" and a broader class of partnerships that also merit legal recognition. Civil union partnerships could enjoy the benefits and legal recognition of marriages without upsetting the traditional meaning of the term. The fact that the distinction would be made legally clear makes a constitutional amendment even more unnecessary.

MARRIAGE AS A LEGAL TERM

Personally, I don't see why gay marriages shouldn't just be incorporated and recognized as marriages under the law. The traditional idea of marriage as between a man and a woman is largely grounded in religious doctrine that should exist outside the realm of the secular government. The legal term "marriage" refers to something very different than the religious one. Thus, these religious concerns are really being expressed in the wrong forum. Religious leaders and followers can decide for themselves if they wish to honor homosexual marriages- the government should exist independently of religious trends and a primary goal should be to secure equal rights for all its citizens.

WHY AN AMENDMENT?

Equal protection and the separation of Church and State are cornerstones of the very constitution that many in the GOP seek to amend. If anything, a logical amendment would be to assure homosexuals do enjoy the right to marriage, or at least civil unions with the benefits of marriage. This type of amendment would be much more consistent with prior amendments and the spirit of the document. Historically, amendments provide important protections for minority groups and act as a safeguard against a tyranny of the majority.

It is for this very reason that the conservatives seek an amendment. They fear that homosexual couples may win Supreme Court cases where they charge that they have been denied their equal rights under the law. A suit such as this on the state level led to the recognition of civil unions in Vermont and a similar case has been won in Massachusetts. The conservatives fear that if they don't alter the federal constitution quickly, the same could happen at the national level. In essence, they are attempting to coercively preempt a historical progression on civil rights.

THE CONSEQUENCES

What if politicians had pushed through amendments to nullify the claims of Brown vs. the Board of Education or Roe vs. Wade? The constitution would start to look like merely another route to legislate policy. Amendments include the abolition of slavery, women's suffrage, due process, search and seizure rights- all of these amendments were meant to secure the rights of citizens, not deny them. One amendment that did attempt to legislate policy was the prohibition of alcohol, an utter failure that was later repealed.

The marriage amendment would likely be an even greater disaster, a clear signal of intolerance and disregard for the rights of minorities. It was not long ago that inter-racial and inter-religious marriages were also viewed as "immoral" and against tradition. I thought we had progressed beyond the false logic of exclusion and discrimination- evidently not all of us have. Let us hope that this philosophy is not revived in our constitution.

Kerry's Cabinet: My Predictions

2004-07-09T04:59:00.000-05:00

John Kerry has kicked things off with a solid choice at VP, but who will he choose for his cabinet positions? Here are a few early predictions:

Secretary of State - Joe Biden/ Sam Nunn

Secretary of Defense - Sam Nunn/ Wesley Clark

National security adviser - Richard Holbrooke/ William L. Nash

Homeland Security- Bob Graham/Gary Hart

Secretary of Health & Human Services - Howard Dean

Secretary of Housing & Urban Development - Jesse Jackson Jr.

Attorney General - Eliot Spitzer/ George Mitchell

Secretary of Veterans Affairs - Max Cleland

Secretary of the Treasury - Roger C. Altman/ Robert E. Rubin

Secretary of Transportation - Gary Locke

Secretary of Energy - Diana DeGette

Secretary of Education - Tom Vilsack/ Bob Kerrey

Secretary of Labor - Dick Gephardt/ Lawrence F. Katz

Secretary of the Interior - Bill Richardson

Secretary of Commerce - Laura D'Andrea Tyson/ Gene Sperling

Secretary of Agriculture - Kathleen Sebelius/ Tom Vilsack

Director of the CIA - Bob Kerrey/ Gary Hart

Please add your suggestions in the comments section.

Some thoughts on Edwards, McCain

2004-07-08T04:14:00.000-05:00

The Edwards pick is a very wise choice and a fairly obvious one. Despite rumblings by the GOP that McCain was actually the "first" choice, Edwards is clearly the "right" choice.

A Kerry-McCain ticket indeed would have been unprecedented and had great appeal among moderate and undecided voters, but it would threaten to de-mobilize the energized democratic base and appear to be a desperate measure by Kerry.

In recent years, McCain has become the darling of independents, primarily because of his uncompromising nature, marked by his ability to stand up to conservative elites when he is in personal disagreement. However, let us not forget, John McCain is VERY conservative and probably even to the right of Bush on the ideological spectrum based on his voting record.

The move would be akin to Reagan picking Teddy Kennedy as his running mate...well...minus the drunken car wreck and the "Camelot" roots. Still, while the ticket of Kerry-McCain would have signaled a radical change in American politics and a move to reach out to centrists and non-ideologues as a true "uniter" it just as easily could have been perceived as a major sell-out of the Democratic party and an attempt to shamelessly pander to undecided and frustrated (usually non) voters. Kerry acknowledged that the idea of picking McCain was more of a "concept" than anything else. It is an interesting concept-- but Edwards will prove a much better choice and was probably always his and the democratic party structure's first choice.

Why Edwards is the right guy:

1) Youthful charm, charisma, ability to communicate to the mainstream. All qualities that Kerry lacks to some degree.

2) Ability to moralize and co-opt the values message. Edwards appears to be a principled man with a great "American dream" story to tell. From a working class background, he was able to become a prominent trial lawyer- winning huge cases against large corporations for the "little guy". Edwards made a career out of exposing and bringing down guys like Dick Cheney and corporations like Halliburton. I expect he will do the same to Bush Corp.

3) Edwards’ theme of the "two Americas", "one for the powerful insiders, and another for everyone else", should resonate with working class people throughout the country. It should also help to provide a clear distinction between the two tickets and create a vision for what a Kerry-Edwards presidency may look like. JFK used a similar message to great effect against Nixon. Edwards just may be able to help Kerry deliver it as convincingly as Kennedy was able to in a similarly volatile time in history. This type of idealism should appeal to many who are disillusioned after 9/11.

The GOP knows this and it is evident by their hysterical reaction. Only moments after the announcement they were already gunning for Edwards. They questioned his experience and noted strongly that McCain was Kerry's "first choice". Dubya failed to mention that Edwards has more experience than he did before becoming president and that his father selected the biggest dope in political history as his VP. It is telling and Karl Rove and his crew are doing all they can to land the first shot. It doesn't seem to be working.

Kerry and Edwards hit the campaign trail

Editorials on the Kerry-Edwards Ticket

2004-07-08T03:08:00.000-05:00

The above link is to a host of editorial articles remarking on the recently announced choice of John Edwards as John Kerry's running mate.

Meet Bush's Top Choice for the Supreme Court

2004-07-07T15:54:00.000-05:00

Bush Stacks the Bench

The Progressive 7/6/04

George W. Bush indicated what kind of federal bench he wants to install if he wins in November when he pushed through the Senate the appointment of J. Leon Holmes.

Here's a guy who compares abortion to the Holocaust and slavery.

Here's a guy who insists that it is the obligation of the wife "to subordinate herself to her husband."

Here's a guy who once claimed that "concern for rape victims is a red herring because conceptions from rape occur with approximately the same frequency as snowfall in Miami," though he later apologized for that whopper.

Here's a guy who opposes in vitro fertilization.

Here's a guy who was president of Arkansas Right to Life and a founder of the Pro-Life Educational Alliance.

This is Bush's guy.

And unfortunately, the Senate confirmed him, 51 to 46, after a grueling, 14-month process.

What this says is that Bush will continue to appease the far right of his party by stacking the federal bench with some of the most reactionary people ever to sit there.

I was at the Green Party convention, and even the most ardent Ralph Nader supporter and all but the most doctrinaire Greens recognized that on this issue, anyway, there is a big difference between Bush and Kerry.

-- Matthew Rothschild

Reuters: Bush Liked Less Than Saddam, Bin Laden

2004-07-07T15:35:00.000-05:00

Bush Liked Less Than Saddam, Bin Laden
Wed Jul 7, 2004 11:07 AM ET

BUDAPEST (Reuters) - President Bush is disliked by more Hungarian secondary school children than former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, according to an opinion poll published on Wednesday...

...The survey of 34,000 students, aged 16-18, from 655 high schools showed Adolf Hitler was the most disliked foreign personality with 25 percent of the vote, followed by Bush with 23 percent and Bin Laden with 16 percent.

Bush was even more unpopular than former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, according to the poll...

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Obviously I AM NOT implying that there is a valid comparison between Bush and some of the most notorious tyrants in history. However, this little survey of Hungarian students is rather revealing. The arrogance with which the Bush administration has conducted "diplomacy" with the rest of the world has alienated many and has put Americans themselves in an extremely unfavorable light.

Bush is being mentioned in bad company

Breaking News: John Edwards the VP Candidate

2004-07-06T15:22:00.000-05:00

Edwards Joins Kerry's Bid to Unseat Bush

7/6/04
By RON FOURNIER, AP Political Writer

WASHINGTON - Presidential candidate John Kerry on Tuesday chose former rival John Edwards as his running mate, selecting the smooth-talking Southern populist over more seasoned politicians in hopes of injecting vigor and small-town appeal into the Democratic ticket...

(Full text link above)

The Progressive: Moore Overdoes It

2004-06-26T20:49:00.000-05:00

Moore delights at exposing the Bushies

Farenheit 9/11: #1 at the Box Office!

2004-06-26T20:36:00.000-05:00

Official Site

Clips from the film at Yahoo

Roger Ebert review of the film

"Fahrenheit 911" hits the political scene

2004-06-25T21:50:00.000-05:00

Here are some links on the upcoming opening of Michael Moore's "Ferenheit 911" and some commentary on the defensive posturing of conservatives concerning the film:

Michael Moore's controversial Fahrenheit 911 opening nationally Fri.
WIS, SC

'White Chicks' likely to lick 'Fahrenheit'
Variety 6/24/04

That's just depressing...but telling.

Gary's Review: 'Fahrenheit 911'
SanDiego Channel.com, CA

MOORE FILM, LESS OF A SHOWING? 'Fahrenheit 911' may not reach 1,000 theaters.
Eurweb, UK - Jun 24, 2004

Film Review: ''Fahrenheit 911''
Filmjerk.com - Jun 21, 2004

'Fahrenheit' Fight Nears Boiling Point This Week
Reuters Fri Jun 18, 2004

By Thursday, it degenerated into something close to self-parody as Move America Forward sent out a bulletin headlined, "Terrorist Group Hezbollah Endorses Michael Moore Film: Offers to Help Promote 'Fahrenheit 9/11/."'

The warning cited a report in London's the Guardian, which referenced a June 9 story in Screen International. The Screen story, about plans that United Arab Emirates-based distributor Front Row Entertainment has for the film, reported "organizations related to Hezbollah ... have rung up from Lebanon to ask if there is anything they can do to support the film."

Reps for the film declined comment, but one can only imagine how that somewhat-hyped Hezbollah endorsement will play at the local multiplex: "Say, Marge, what movie should we go see tonight?" "How about that 'Fahrenheit' flick? I hear Hezbollah gave it two big thumbs up."

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Wow! Implying that Moore's film is consistent with the ideology of a hardened terrorist organization is pretty low. It's also about as accurate as saying that Harry Potter books lead children to Satanism.

While I haven't seen it yet, I expect that it will help make sense of the rather chaotic political landscape of the post-9/11 world. Something that I think a lot of people could benefit from- especially with the Bush propaganda team in full force. After seeing the film I expect that most reasonable people will understand the motivation behind these rabid anti-Moore attacks. It's hard to attack the truth- so they will likely just pump out more lies. Only this time the smoke and mirrors won't be as effective with the curtain pulled back.

I just hope that people on both ends of the ideological spectrum see the film and form their own opinions, rather than avoid the film for fear that they might not like what they see. I'm sure there will inevitably be some that would prefer to put their heads in the sand than see the film- but they will be hard pressed to defend themselves against an informed following who gets Moore's message. That makes the film a powerful political weapon and an important work on a historic subject.

Bush and Cheney Won't Give Up the Lie

2004-06-20T20:54:00.000-05:00

Add "the Progressive" to the list of media sources editorializing that Bush and Cheney continue to mislead on the subject of an Iraq/al Qaida connection. Pretty damning stuff.(I like to think that I started the trend...but probably not).

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Bush and Cheney Won't Give Up the Lie
The Progressive 6/18/04
Matthew Rothschild

The report from the September 11 commission was clear. "We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States," it said. And there appears to have been no "collaborative relationship" between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, it added.

This finding undercuts one of the major rationales the Bush Administration put forward for the war against Iraq. Colin Powell, Donald Rumsfeld, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, and George Bush himself all played up the alleged links between Al Qaeda and Iraq. But the links, in any operational way, did not exist.

...Note how slippery Bush and Cheney are getting. Now they are talking about amorphous "ties" and "a relationship." But before they were talking about specifics, scary specifics, like joint work on chemical and biological weapons.

All of their falsehoods served a purpose: to scare the American people into going along with the Iraq War.

Now that their falsehoods have been exposed, they are way out on a limb of lies.

Just in: Saudi al-Qaida leader killed/ Condoleezza: certified spin doctor

2004-06-18T23:19:00.000-05:00

Al-Qaeda head in Saudi killed: Report
Saturday, 19 June , 2004, 09:10

Riyadh: : The presumed leader of al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, Abdul Aziz Al-Muqrin, was shot dead by security forces last night, security men at the scene in Riyadh told AFP.

Al-Muqrin's group had claimed responsibility earlier for the gruesome murder of US hostage Paul Johnson. Discuss: US fighting a fake war against terror

The Arab-speaking al-Arabiya television network said two other presumed members of Al-Qaeda were also killed in the clash with the Saudi security forces, while a fourth was wounded and arrested.

It said Muqrin and his colleagues had been shot while they were trying to get rid of Johnson's corpse.

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And, following up the previous post on this blog:

9/11 Report Cited No Iraqi 'Control' of Qaeda - Rice
Fri Jun 18, 2004 05:16 PM ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In publishing a report that cited no evidence of a collaborative relationship between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda, the Sept. 11 commission actually meant to say that Iraq had no control over the network, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Friday.

The New York Times runs an editorial on the lack of a Saddam/ bin Laden connection today.

Show Us the Proof
NYT June 19, 2004

When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history.

At least they're consistent

2004-06-18T01:30:00.000-05:00

Bush Insists al-Qaida-Saddam Ties Existed

AP
Thu Jun 17,11:11 PM ET

WASHINGTON - Saddam Hussein had "numerous contacts" with al-Qaida, President Bush said Thursday in disputing the Sept. 11 commission's finding that the former Iraqi leader had no strong ties to the terrorist network responsible for the attacks.

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Even the "experts" most sypathetic to Bush suggest that if there was any contact at all between the two, it was likely combative. There is no evidence that there has ever been a conspiracy involving the two camps and definitely nothing linking Saddam with the 9/11 attacks.

Obviously Bush is on the defensive, but the evidence just doesn't exist. The Bush team likes to think of things in terms of dichotomy. There are those with us and the "evildoers", with Saddam placed solidly in the latter category, along with his good friend (or so they say) bin Laden. So...they must have been in on it together, or so the logic (or lack thereof) follows.

Even those linked closely with bin Laden deny any ties with Iraq. I don't think they approved of Saddam's lavish western lifestyle, whores, booze and cigars. His invasion of Kuwait and adversarial relationship with Saudi Arabia probably didn't help any either.

Theoretically, if a link does exist between al Qaida and Iraq, it is among fringe Islamic fundamentalist groups in Iraq, not with (ex)followers of Saddam's Bathist regime. These groups are more dangerous than ever without a centralized power structure in place.

Under this scenario, Americans in Iraq become targets and the power vacuum fuels terrorist groups, groups with intricate organizational structures, and therefore the ability to effectively compete for control in an arena marked by chaos.

Bush unveils a striking new connection.

We won't get fooled again!

2004-06-15T02:11:00.000-05:00

Cheney says Saddam tied to al-Qaida
Associated Press June 14, 2004, 8:41PM

"ORLANDO, Fla. -- Vice President Dick Cheney said Monday that Saddam Hussein had "long-established ties" with al-Qaida, an assertion that has been repeatedly challenged by some policy experts and lawmakers."

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Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

OR

as Bush put it, "fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again."
hillarious audio of him saying it in Tennessee

Either way...they seem to think they can keep pumping out the same old unsubstantiated misinformation. Either come up with some evidence linking Saddam with al-Qaida or talk about something that the guy actually did do (like there isn't enough?) Bring up how he gassed the Kurds again, or better yet, talk about something that actually concerns Americans- like how the hell we plan to manage this situation in Iraq when the entire world despises us.

Well we're not.

I'll let them say it:

2004-06-14T01:01:00.000-05:00

I'm sick of Fox News Republicans calling those who object to the policies of George W. Bush "unpatriotic". America was founded on dissent and rejects mindless subservience. Here are a few quotes that are worth revisiting:

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“Loyalty is the realization that America was born of revolt, flourished in dissent, became great through experimentation. Our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past while we silence the rebels of the present.”
---Henry Steele, Historian

"Patriotism means to stand by the country. It does not mean to stand by the president or any other public official."

“To announce that there must be no criticism of the president or that we are to stand by the president right or wrong, is not only unpatriotic and servile, but it is morally treasonable to the American public.”
--President Theodore Roosevelt (both)

“It is the duty of the patriot to protect his country from its government.”
--Thomas Paine

“My country right or wrong, when right to keep right, when wrong to make right.”
--Carl Schulz

“My country, always. My government when it deserves it.”
--Mark Twain

“War is a racket… conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the very many…of course it isn’t put that crudely in war time. It is dressed into speeches about patriotism, love of country, and ‘we must all put our shoulders to the wheel,’ but the profits jump and leap and skyrocket and are safely pocketed.”
--Marine Corps General Smedley Butler

"America goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher of the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own."
--John Quincy Adams

"No, I know all the war rhetoric, but it's all aimed at achieving peace." (Oh...well of course)
--George W. Bush

"It's a different kind of war because we're fighting people who are -- they send youngsters to their suicidal deaths and they try to find a dark cave. They're kind of lurching around in the dark corners of some cities around the world. They're in over 60 countries. And slowly but surely, we're dismantling the terrorist network, which hates us because of what we love. See, they hate the fact that we love freedom. They can't stand the fact that in this country people can worship the almighty God any way he or she sees fit." (This is pretty disturbing).
--George W. Bush

"The other day, as you noticed, there was a fellow hiding in the dark caves -- or dark corners, not caves, it was in the city, dark -- dark corners of a city in Pakistan. He was going to be the 20th hijacker, bin al-Shibh. He wanted to come here to kill. He didn't make it, because we fortunately did not give him access." (Yeah, thank God there were only 19 hijackers instead of 20. And why is everyone always lurking in a shadowy cave? Maybe they should look in flight schools and Starbucks instead of fucking caves all the time)
--George W. Bush

"This is a man who continues to murder his own people, a man who has gassed -- used gas on his own citizens, a man who has used chemical weapons on his neighbors, a man who has invaded two countries, a man which hates -- who hates America, a man who loves to link up with al Qaeda, a man who is a true threat to America, to Israel, to anybody in the neighborhood."
--George W. Bush

"There's an old saying in Tennessee -- I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee -- that says, fool me once -- shame on -- shame on you. You fool me, you can't get fooled again." (Man...did he butcher that).
--George W. Bush

And just for fun, this priceless incoherent statement by our fearless leader:

"The march to war hurt the economy. Laura reminded me a while ago that remember what was on the TV screens -- she calls me, "George W." -- "George W." I call her, "First Lady." No, anyway -- she said, we said, march to war on our TV screen." (what!?)
--George W. Bush

He's not...well...very smart.

Bush team wrong on terrorism- at least Powell admits it

2004-06-14T00:41:00.000-05:00

Powell: Terror report was 'wrong'
Newsday
June 14, 2004

It's a numbers error. It's not a political judgment that said, 'Let's see if we can cook the books.' We can't get away with that now. Nobody was out to cook the books. Errors crept in," Powell said on ABC's "This Week."

On NBC's "Meet the Press," he called the problem "very embarrassing. I am not a happy camper over this. We were wrong."

Bush shamelessly targets the Catholic vote

2004-06-12T21:07:00.000-05:00

Bush Asked for Vatican's Help on Political Issues, Report Says

It's interesting that Bush appeals to the Catholic Church when it is consistent with his policy positions, but disregards their views completely when they run in contrast.

Bush sees "churchgoers" as a key block of voters and wants the Church to get the word out on some social issues...as long as those issues don't include the war in Iraq or the death penalty, both of which the Church strongly opposes.

Can Kerry Carry the Catholic Vote

Kerry seems to target the Catholics themselves, and does not appeal as much to the Church hierarchy. This may be partially because of his views on abortion and gay rights.

Is he actively trying to win the all important Catholic vote? Of course. But at least 1) he's Catholic! 2) he is targeting the voters themselves and not the Church leaders.

Bush soliciting the Catholic Church to act as another advertising wing for his campaign is rather demeaning.

So...you would expect Church leaders to feel insulted by Bush's advances, especially considering that he supports issues that the Church strongly condemns, right?

Wrong! While they make strange bedfellows, the Catholic Church seems to buy Bush's born-again Methodist line and overlook his glaring inconsistencies.

Who do they target instead? John Kerry. They have attacked him relentlessly over his positions on abortion and endorsement of civil unions for homosexuals. Some Catholic bishops have even threatened to withhold holy communion from Kerry because of his stance on abortion. Some have went as far as to endorse excommunicating him!

What about Bush!? I know he isn't Catholic, but you would think that holding the record for executions during a term as Texas governor and leading the nation to a war with little justification would warrant at least an old fashioned Catholic scolding.

Evidently, the Church's intolerant and patriarchal views on some social issues outweigh some of their, what seem to me, more principled tenants. It won't matter though. The Catholic vote goes Kerry, with or without the "Church" behind him. Voters don't want to have politics preached to them at church, they get enough of that on Fox News.

Bush meets the Pope

actions speak louder...

2004-06-12T16:13:00.001-05:00

Kerry touts stem cell research; Bush remembers Reagan

Much respect to John Kerry who was able to generate a policy attack out of Reagan's death.

While some may see this as underhanded politics, you have to admit, if Reagan was more than a vegetable he would have likely fought Bush tooth and nail over stem cell research for Alzheimer's. Well...actually, Bush probably would've promised to get Star Wars passed to shut him up.

And to continue my blood lusting, anti-Reaganism:

Top ten reasons why Reagan should not be missed (By abbamouse)

10. Reagan supported Bob Jones University in its fight to remain tax-exempt. Did I mention that BJU prohibited inter-racial dating, and that racially segregated schools are not permitted to claim tax exemptions?

9. I'm not exactly a fiscal hawk, but Reagan did vastly increase the size of the federal deficit by simultaneously cutting taxes, raising military spending, and proposing only modest, politically palatable cuts to welfare programs for the poor. He never submitted a balanced budget for Congress to consider and left Americans (and his successor) with a huge public debt burden.

8. Reagan targeted kids for budget cuts, since kids don't vote. AFDC (hint: the C stands for Children) was cut, as were subsidies for housing and school lunches. As a direct result, the economic boom during the middle of Reagan's Administration actually led to a DROP in the incomes of the poor and an explosion of the number of children living in poverty. Note that it wasn't all families who were expected to tighten their belts -- just the poor ones. Aid to households with incomes of less than $10,000 a year declined nearly 8% his first years in office, even while subsidies for households with more than $40,000 income were left essentially unchanged.

7. Not content with merely offending racial and ethnic minorities, Reagan decided to deny them access to equal protection of the law. When Congress appropriated money to enforce civil rights laws, he simply refused to spend it or to appoint anyone to the enforcement positions. The offices charged with civil rights enforcement remained padlocked during his Administration.

6. Imprisoned hundreds of thousands of poor and minority Americans in a "War on Drugs" -- even while supporting the drug smuggling of Burma, Afghanistan's rebels, the Nicaraguan contras, Panama, etc. I should point out that African-Americans and whites use drugs at exactly the same rates, yet African-Americans (one eighth of the US population) make up almost 60% of those in prison on drug charges. Of course, this policy continues to benefit Reagan's Republican Party since felons generally lose voting rights, even after being released. In some states about 1 in 7 African-American males cannot vote for this reason.

5. In order to fund a campaign of terrorism against Nicaragua (when I strip out the country names, my students consistently call the contras terrorists by a 5-1 margin), Reagan secretly sold arms to another group of terrorists (Iran's hardline government and its puppet Hezbollah in Lebanon) in violation of about a dozen American laws and every sensible policy towards terrorists. Tens of thousands died in the Nicaraguan "war" that Reagan started and fueled.

4. Reagan crusaded against tougher pollution laws and energy conservation measures. He slashed funding for renewable sources of energy, in favor of using oil and nuclear power. Leaving aside environmental concerns, these policies encouraged continued dependence on imported oil and reversed improvements in energy conservation made a t great cost during the 1970s. Even though gas prices dropped to near-record lows during his terms in office, Reagan refused to fill up America's strategic petroleum reserve. The reason this comes in at number 4 is that it practically guaranteed a recession and a war in the Middle East when any threat to cheap oil emerged, since it meant the US had no safety period to attempt to restore supplies. So Reagan deserves part of the blame for a war that happened years after he left office! And of course the first Gulf War led to the US presence in Saudi Arabia, the causus belli of Osama bin Laden. And finally, the unfinished business of the first war against Saddam Hussein dragged on for more than a decade, embroiling the US in yet another Middle East war. Of course, different policies by the Bush and Clinton Administrations might have averted much of the damage, but Reagan did limit the options of those that came after him.

3. Reagan waged war against the United Nations. I'm not talking about the controversial stuff like the Israel/Palestine dispute or nuclear weapons, but rather of the health and social functions the UN actually performs quite well. "The Administration withdrew from UNESCO, cut off America’s contribution to the UN Fund for Population Activities, cast the single vote against a World Health Organization code for infant formula, and supported the Kassebaum amendment reducing America’s contribution to the General Assembly by 25% unless the UN should amend its charter." In short, Reagan's war on global health and social welfare probably killed tens of thousands.

2. The Reagan Administration lined up in support of Pol Pot, perpetrator of the second most deadly genocide of the 20th century. Lest we forget, Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge forces killed something like 1 in 5 Cambodians -- nearly 2 million people in all! When Vietnam finally invaded to put an end to the genocide of ethnic Vietnamese and repeated attacks on its territory by the Khmer Rouge, the United States decided to get some payback for its defeat in Vietnam. It armed and trained a new generation of Khmer Rouge cadres in secret bases in Thailand, then sent them back home to terrorize the Cambodian people (and occasionally even kill a few Vietnamese soldiers). Something like 50,000 people were killed during his 8 years in office.

1. Reagan's cynical response to AIDS directly contributed to MILLIONS of deaths. AIDS has killed almost half a million Americans and killed 3 million people worldwide in 2003 alone. As with any infectious disease, lowering transmission rates early in the epidemic can save millions of people from infection many years down the road. The logic is rather similar to compound interest rates -- even a minor shift in interest rates, compounded over many years, can lead to a huge difference in wealth. Well here the wealth is dead people, Reagan's gift to the world. I won't go into detail about how Reagan neglected to mention AIDS for the first 7 years of his Administration, barred the Surgeon General from even talking about the epidemic, opposed every safe-sex program and effort to inform high-risk groups of the dangers and how to minimize them, and cut off all American funding for UN safe-sex programs around the world. Let's not mention the sorry state of research funding in the early years of the epidemic that ultimately delayed life-saving discoveries by years -- years in which millions died. No, I'll leave it to other people to provide the grim details. Try the Encyclopedia of AIDS entry on the US Presidency, for starters.

http://www.wright.edu/~jeffrey.dixon/abbamouse/mouseymusings.html

Mr. President...you aren't a moose.

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2004-06-10T16:36:00.000-05:00

Tens of Thousands View Reagan's Casket

Maybe they will embalm his body and display it, like the Soviets did with Lenin.

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