August 2004, Week I
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August 2004, Week I
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Sunday August 1 , 2004 The only devils in this world are those running around in our own hearts, and that is where all our battles should be fought. Mahatma Gandhi (1869-1948) Christian seems to be better today... he can't remember anything from yesterday or the day before... this is why Locoweed isn't on the Banned Substance List. People try it and get completely blitzed like Christian and never touch it again.. I hope. (Jump to today's Rants and Commentary) Monday August 2 , 2004 The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned.... Our hymns were loaded with arrogance - self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day. Robert Heinlein
I bought a DVD recorder... I can't make the damn thing work. Frustrating... The instruction book that came with it uses terms and acronyms I am unfamiliar with... and there are NO PICTURES! (Jump to today's Rants and Commentary) Tuesday August 3 , 2004 Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. George Washington Christy went to Kaiser this morning, her back is getting worse... they gave her a shot and some pills for pain and steroids, told her to lie flat on her back for three days... we are both laughing at that... I heard a car drive up about 2300, I walked out to the Motorhome, there were two girls out there, I told Mike to send them home. I went back out about tem minutes later there and they were still there so I went inside... the kid that gave Christian the Locoweed was there too. I got very angry, it makes me nuts. I had asked Mike where the kid was because his dad had called and said he was headed up this way, Mike looked me in the eye and said "[His] Mom had picked him up hours ago.." Mike lies, , you have to listen very carefully to what he is saying because how he says it is very convincing... Mike has a hard time being consistent and usually cursory analysis will yield something that doesn't ring true. (Jump to today's Rants and Commentary) Wednesday August 4 , 2004 Calie is 13 Years Old Today Autumn did well at the OT session, she really has ADD... she is all over the place and impossible to reason with. I am going to take Calie and Autumn out shopping this afternoon, and we'll 'Do lunch' too. We had a nice little lunch at the Olive Garden, Calie thinks it's pretty posh... We got home after a little shopping and the place was still a mess. With her back, Christy is virtually helpless and the kids apparently know it... they did nothing. I was cleaning, doing the dishes for the third time today, My friend Margaret does the dishes two or three times a week, I do them two or three times a day. I turned on the disposal and it froze up. I had let a rag get into it and it jammed it up good. After about a half hour of futzing with it I finally got it loose by turning it with an Allen Wrench, I flipped the switch on and realized too late that I had left the Allen Wrench in the socket... it spun around and ripped the power cord out and snapped it off... Grrrr... another half an hour to get that fixed... some times I marvel at the fact I have managed to keep myself alive all these years... Rhonda came over with her three kids, they are all adorable. Samantha looks like Shirley Temple, only much cuter. Her son is about 9 or 10, he is very well behaved. ...but the house was picked up, it wasn't clean... embarrassing... all the apologies and excuses in the world do not mitigate the fact that this is my home and it's condition reflects me. (Jump to today's Rants and Commentary) Thursday August 5 , 2004 Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, "War is an evil in as much as it produces more wicked men than it takes away." Immanuel Kant, philosopher (1724-1804) Lots of rants this week, I'm not sure why, I think it must be from the frustration of not being able to influence anything in my immediate vicinity... ya suppose? My kids ignore me, my friends think I am an incorrigible Liberal. The sobering thing to me is that I am uncomfortable trying to defend or to express my views anywhere but here [on the net] out of fear of being yelled at or worse by the Right Wing Ideologues who are of the opinion that they have a lock on Truth and Morality. I miss arguing without fear of condemnation... how innocent and naive I was when I argued with Jerry, With him, out of ignorance or stupidity I blundered into casting aspersions on something he deemed sacred and incontrovertible. and that was the end of a friendship... so sad. It's happened before and I fear it will happen again... I wish I could dismiss it and move on but even after three years it bothers me. It appears that to the minds of some, in this country you have the right to Sing with the Choir or keep your God dammed mouth shut. It wasn't like that four short years ago. (Jump to today's Rants and Commentary)
Friday August 6 , 2004 "You can get drunk enough to do most anything, but you have to realize going in that there are some things that, once you sober up and realize what you have done, will lead you to either grab a 12-Gauge or stay drunk the rest of your life" attributed to an Army Col. at CENTCOM Autumn cut her hair again last night, she found a pair of school scissors and whacked off the right side of her hair... she looks pretty punk... Christy took her to the beauty parlor today... she looks OK I guess... we have to do a 'comb-over' sort of thing... but it's OK. Christy got her and Cindy's hair cut today, they both look nice... I get to take "B" to see his mom tomorrow, lucky me. "B" and Mike start school on the 16th and Christian, Monica and Calie start on the 19th... Cindy and Autumn don't go till September (Jump to today's Rants and Commentary)
Saturday August 7 , 2004 Every one is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan I took "B" to visit his mother and siblings... from 1400 till 1600... He seems to have enjoyed the visit this time, they are always glad to see him and make him welcome, they fed him and too, a sure fire way to get on his side. Another fire, this one is over on Templin Highway and the 5 Fry. about 24 miles from here. (Jump to today's Rants and Commentary) Sunday August 8 , 2004 The wise are instructed by reason, average minds by experience, the stupid by necessity and the brute by instinct. Marcus Tullius Cicero, statesman, orator and writer (106-43 BCE) I have got to get a High Speed connection... the Internet is getting so data intensive that it's wiping out my ability stay tuned in... It's takes too long to do download anything. I have four e-mails totaling 4.11 MB of e-mail to download... someone apparently someone sent me a picture of something (it was a Video)... It has been downloading at 44KBPS for 20 minutes now, I am up to 2.12MB... that's ridiculous My ISP has been promising me a Radio Link for 3 years... I went to see "Collateral", wonderful movie, Jamie Fox and Tom Cruise... I had to sit in the front row and the fire alarm went off a half dozen times but I still enjoyed it a lot.
I separated the political rants, Articles and other stuff out of the journal and created a, to paraphrase the current administration, 'shadow journal' of ideas and concepts that interest me. Thinking back to the convention I am still upset by the Media's interference in determining what to put on the air and which speeches should be relegated to background noise while 'Self anointed experts' pontificated about what, in their biased opinion, was going on. We missed some wonderful speeches and the people who gave them were denied their time in the sun. I was in the car listening to a speech on the radio that was very good, I called Christy to have her listen and there was nothing but talking heads and their pet pundits on the TV... not one cared enough to televise it. One thing they neglected to realize is that those people who were denied air time had been selected by the DNC as worthy of the lime light for one reason or another. Just the fact that they were speaking is significant and what they had to say is significant too because it reflects the position and and direction of the party. I listened to NPR and, though they didn't interrupt as many times as the TV did they did pick and choose who we could listen to, they interrupted or completely shut off speakers to give their commentary and and 'expert analysis'. We are manipulated by the media, I don't see anything sinister about it. It's Show-Biz, they have lost sight their role in the process. The Rush Limbaugh's, Larry Mantel's and Ann Coulter's on the entertainment wing of the Journalism Spectrum have apparently endowed the rest of the News Media with the right to manipulate and comment on the News they are reporting. I guess they feel as though they are in competition with them, Hell, Fox News even hired Coulter... Ridiculous, why do they even pretend it's news?! It's Not News it is the worst kind of biased propaganda. Why is it that Mainstream Media feels that we, as the public they are trying to inform, need to be instructed as to the meaning of what we have just seen. If there is information that we should know about a speaker then we need to be told, If a reporter has verifiable inside information about the motivation behind the speech or speaker being aired, he is obligated to let us in on it. If he has no insight then he should just keep his or her damn mouth shut. They had representatives from the Republican Party giving commentary on Democratic Speeches, not one of them had a kind word about anything that was being said, and they had Democratic Party 'Analysts who I welcome discussion when it is being moderated by an unbiased host (If there is such a person), I even find time to listen to commentary and opinion. But it is impossible to evaluate the the motives of the speakers if we don't have all the facts. If we only get to see what they choose to show us then we are being manipulated. If we aren't shown everything then don't show us anything. I would prefer to read it in the Newspaper. The faith in which I was brought up assured me that I was better than other people; I was saved, they were damned.... Our hymns were loaded with arrogance - self-congratulation on how cozy we were with the Almighty and what a high opinion he had of us, what hell everybody else would catch come Judgment Day. Robert Heinlein Convention Oratory, Increasingly Shoved Aside
By Howard Kurtz Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, August 2, 2004; Page C01
BOSTON -- When Al Gore spoke to the Democratic convention here last Monday, Fox News Channel didn't carry it live. Host Bill O'Reilly allowed viewers to hear the former vice president for about 40 seconds before saying: "Oh man, I wish I was out there. I would have said hey, a deficit, we've got a war on terror, we're attacked. What are you talking about?" Whatever happened to "we report, you decide"? Shouldn't Fox viewers get to hear Gore before O'Reilly and his guests start sounding off? O'Reilly, responding to this reporter's criticism of the move on WashingtonPost.com, told viewers: "The newspaper pinheads claim that because we aren't covering the speeches we aren't fair. That, of course: a bunch of baloney. . . . How desperate some in the print media are to smear Fox News. In the words of Teresa Heinz Kerry, the newspaper critics can shove it." But sometimes even pinheads have a point, as some Fox staffers, both publicly and privately, acknowledge. "I don't know if that was the right call or not," says Brit Hume, Fox's Washington managing editor, who replayed a few minutes of the Gore speech two hours after O'Reilly passed it up. "At that point we were in a program that is principally about one man's analysis. It wasn't part of our live coverage. If it had been my hour, I'd have done it. Bill O'Reilly chose not to do it. It's his program." On Tuesday, O'Reilly interrupted an interview with Jerry Brown to listen to about four minutes of Ted Kennedy's 25-minute address. On Wednesday, he took Al Sharpton for two minutes of a 20-minute speech, interjecting: "That's our pal Sharpton, doing what Al does. He's whipping them up." "He's never held a job," Fox analyst Dick Morris said. In an interview with this pinhead, the host of the "O'Reilly Factor" says his job is to analyze the news. "I read Gore's speech [in advance] and there wasn't one thing in there that was new or groundbreaking," he says. Most of the speeches are "propaganda," O'Reilly says. "The 'Factor' is not an infomercial. The decision was made to stick with the format, unless it's a dramatic situation." But aren't conventions basically about speeches? Why come to Boston just to use the FleetCenter as a colorful backdrop? "Am I, as a news analyst, to do what the parties want? That's ridiculous," says O'Reilly, who plans to cover the Republican convention the same way. "I have to make a decision on informing the audience that comes to the 'Factor' as best I can." All the networks, of course, make editorial decisions to blow off what they view as lesser speeches in favor of their own anchors, correspondents and guests. And, of course, the talking heads like to talk. Toward the end of Sharpton's speech, MSNBC broke away, with host Chris Matthews complaining that the reverend had gone on too long. "This is a partisan act here," he said. "We're taking him off the air." CNN has missed speeches by sticking with "Larry King Live." On Thursday, as MSNBC carried Sen. Joe Biden and Wesley Clark, CNN's Wolf Blitzer, Judy Woodruff and Jeff Greenfield were chatting, followed by an interview with Kerry campaign chief Mary Beth Cahill, while O'Reilly was interviewing Newt Gingrich and then Rep. Dennis Kucinich. But Fox News Channel has been most wedded to its highly rated prime-time lineup. On Monday, it blew off Jimmy Carter, carrying just a few minutes of his speech, after which host Sean Hannity told conservative activist William Bennett: "I call this the reinvention convention. One of the things the Democrats want to do is create a false perception of who they are." Hannity later played the video of Heinz Kerry telling a reporter to "shove it." Some Fox executives see this approach as counter-programming, since the speeches are widely available elsewhere. They also believe that Kennedy and Gore, who have refused to appear on Fox in recent years, should hardly expect free airtime for their speeches. Gore has sharply criticized Fox as a conservative network. Critics will have a hard time blaming Fox News Chairman Roger Ailes for this approach. The former Republican strategist had little involvement in the convention coverage here and plans to be on vacation when the Republicans convene this month in New York. Hume, for one, thinks the networks should take a pass on the first three nights of these increasingly scripted and choreographed conventions. "You could make a very good case for not being here until Thursday -- even for the cable channels," he says. "If we were inventing this from scratch and there was no history here, no tradition, no custom, we wouldn't design it this way. You wouldn't anchor from here, you just wouldn't. Nobody has quite had the stones to say let's call a halt here." The 2008 convention planners should take note. Footnote: Cable and PBS were the big winners in Boston. With ratings slipping for the broadcast networks as they scaled back their coverage, cable news more than doubled its viewership from 2000. CNN averaged 2.3 million viewers in prime time, up from 1.7 million four years ago. Fox finished second with 2.1 million (up from 400,000), followed by MSNBC with 1.3 million (up from 607,000). Meanwhile, Jim Lehrer's coverage averaged 2.9 million viewers for PBS, 23 percent higher than four years ago. Kerry, for his part, proved a big draw, attracting more than 24 million viewers for his acceptance speech, compared with 21.6 million for Gore at the last convention. Role Reversal When John Kerry announced John Edwards as his running mate, Time sent veteran White House photographer Diana Walker to take a series of behind-the-scenes pictures for the magazine. Last Tuesday, Walker appeared in a Democratic film shown at the convention, singing the praises of Teresa Heinz Kerry. She spent the week in Boston and did interviews about Heinz Kerry that were set up by the senator's campaign. Walker says that after a long career with Time she is now a freelance photographer, though she may do more campaign work for the magazine. "I'm happy, proud and delighted to have the opportunity to talk about Teresa," whom she has known since the 1970s. "I'm free to talk about my close friend who happens to be the wife of the Democratic nominee." Walker says she is "very comfortable" that there is no conflict with her role as a photojournalist. Other editors and photographers, however, say that competing shutterbugs are getting few backstage opportunities from the Kerry campaign. "It just seems unfair," says Pete Souza, a photographer with the Chicago Tribune, and magazine rivals "are very perturbed that the only real behind-the-scenes access is being given to a friend of Teresa Heinz Kerry." (I wonder what the Photographer arrangements are on the Bush Campaign trail) "I don't have any control over what contributors do," says Time Managing Editor Jim Kelly. "If she was a full-time staff photographer, that would be a different matter." Kelly, noting that he picks the pictures, says when he sends Walker on a Kerry assignment, "she puts on her professional press hat." Moved to New Address Howell Raines made frequent appearances in The Washington Post's news columns when he was being ousted as the New York Times's top editor last year over the Jayson Blair fiasco. So what was his name doing on an op-ed piece in The Post last week, calling Republicans "the champion panderers in American politics"? Despite Raines's quarter-century at The Post's archrival, "I reached out to him," says Editorial Page Editor Fred Hiatt. "My thinking was, he's a great writer and has a very interesting outlook on politics and a lot of experience covering politics. I said I'd be interested when he was inspired, and then he sent this piece." Besides, jokes Hiatt, who is hoping for more contributions, "he lost his job as executive editor. I think he probably needs the $200." Howard Kurtz hosts CNN's weekly media program. © 2004 The Washington Post Company INJECT SOME CAFFEINE INTO JOHN KERRY Copyright: Eric S. Margolis, 2004 2 August 2004 NEW YORK - What to make of US presidential candidate John Kerry? Is he really an indecisive serial political flip-flopper and national security lightweight, as Republicans charge? George Bush takes pride in being strong and decisive, comparing himself to FDR and Reagan. Republicans keep trumpeting the president is bold and resolute. Middle America loves the image of a tough-talking president who is ready to use America's vast military power to crush those who object to `freedom.' Bush has been decisive all right - but decisively wrong. The American leader he most closely resembles is the 19th century Gen. George Armstrong Custer, an arrogant, opinionated, headstrong fool who spurned all warnings, boldly and resolutely lead his command to disaster on the Little Big Horn. Kerry, like anyone who served 20 years in the Senate, is by definition a flip-flopper. Legislators are hounded by powerful special interest groups whom they must accommodate to keep vital political donations flowing. This dependency, and heavily amended bills often contradicting their initial intent, produce contradictory votes. As for national security, one's stomach churns hearing President Bush, VP Dick Cheney, and neocon sofa samurais, all of whom dodged active military service during the Vietnam War, shamelessly accusing Kerry, who won three Purple Hearts in combat, of being soft on defense. Bush and Cheney presided over the two worst intelligence fiascos in modern US history: 9/11 and Iraq; plus the most expensive, stalemated wars since Vietnam: Iraq and Afghanistan are costing US $6.5 billion monthly. Plus over 912 American and some 20,000 Iraqis killed. Plus the Abu Ghraib prison horrors. Speaking of national security competence, the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld troika either blundered the US into a mistaken war based on grotesquely faked `intelligence,' a farce worthy of the Three Stooges, or lied the US into war, purposely deceiving Congress and the public, a malfeasance demanding impeachment. Half of all US ground forces are stuck in Mesopotamia while National Guardsmen, who should be fighting fires and floods at home, are press-ganged to Iraq. The Iraq occupation is grinding down the over-stretched US military. Enlistments are dropping sharply. The Bush-Cheney `crusade' against so-called terrorism enraged the entire Muslim World and is incubating ever more violent anti-American groups. Administration bungling allowed Osama bin Laden to escape from Tora Bora. Now, 20,000 US troops are tied down in Afghanistan desperately trying to find him before November elections. Bush & Co. have ruined America's good name around the globe. George W. Bush has become the world's most detested man. Only the brain dead and could call this grand failure a successful national security policy. The Bush Administration has added to America's insecurity, not security. It's very hard to imagine John Kerry doing worse than Bush. But will he do better? So far, hyper-cautious Kerry failed to call for a pullout from Iraq, as did courageous Governor Howard Dean. Kerry waffled over Iraq, fearing opposition to the war would exposed him charges of being unpatriotic. His proposed solutions to Iraq sound unrealistic. Kerry has mouthed the same empty platitudes as Bush about fighting terrorism, instead of telling Americans the truth: they face a growing insurgency in the parts of the Muslim World the US rules directly or indirectly. Senator Kerry was dismayingly quick to signal support for Israel's hard-line, expansionist government, disappointing those hoping for a more balanced Mideast policy. The relentless oppression of Palestinians by the Israeli-US alliance is the most important single cause of surging hatred of the US across the Muslim World. The media's destruction of outspoken Gov. Dean was not lost on Kerry. His carefully crafted blandness is designed to avoid controversy and appeal to the center, attracting undecided voters and wobbly Republicans. The last factor will be very important in November: increasing numbers of Republicans are unhappy with Bush, his warmongering cabinet, and the damage caused the US economy by his out-of-control spending. A swing of only 2-3% of Republicans away from Bush could produce a win for the Democrats. Kerry's acceptance speech at the Democratic Convention was a masterful political tour de force, covering almost every issue in the election. The senator came across well and established himself with the public as a credible presidential candidate and future commander-in-chief. Still, while clearly establishing his credentials, Kerry failed to emotionally connect with voters, to electrify them. He needed fire to go with brains. The unisex speech could have been delivered by either a Republican or Democrat. Two failed wars, threats to civil liberties, and runaway deficits is no time for pussyfooting. Kerry should take example from his intelligent, feisty wife, Teresa, who seems to have bigger cojones than her husband. She brings the sophistication, worldliness, and street smarts so lacking in the insular, xenophobic, Bush Administration. The wild card in this race is Osama bin Laden. Bush wins if US forces can capture bin Laden before November. Otherwise, George Armstrong Custer Bush and Decaffeinated John Kerry appear in a dead heat.
Government is not reason, it is not eloquence, it is force; like fire, a troublesome servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action. George Washington More commentary on the Media... And a Kerry Rant (sorta) from Margolis... I think he's right about Kerry, I wish he was a little less preoccupied with the taking the high road... I want him to take on Bush nose to nose... I also want to have a place somewhere on the net that is refuting all the accusations and nasty innuendo, the data is there but it is a bitch to dig out... There is more nasty Kerry crap on the net than you can shake a stick at. The pro Kerry stuff is out there too but it is all very reserved, and sedate. Lots of subtle essay on the merits of Kerry's reasonableness and intelligence, the Anti Kerry stuff is mostly vitriolic, "He is a Lying, Treasonous, Commie, bastard and we ought to kill him. The Swift Boat Sailors Against Kerry (or something) are what I am getting the most of, I got a petition forwarded to me from my Captain 41 years ago, Here is the e-mail and my reply.
Subject: FW: Strong Political Stuff Pete, This from your former commanding officer! No, I didn't check it out and I won't go on line to sign it. It just seems more and more stuff coming up on (oh-so-clean) Mr. Kerry. Have a good day! ----Original Message----- From: xexexexexe Hi, More from the political spectrum --------------Very interesting Subject: FW: Kerry unfit for office -- sign petition to prosecute! Subject: Kerry unfit for office -- sign petition to prosecute! (Please forward this invitation to friends, family members, and fellow American Patriots.) It's official. John F. Kerry is the Democrat Party nominee for President. But is he fit for office? Kerry has a long and well-documented history of providing "aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of war -- particularly in the case of North Vietnam, Nicaragua and Cuba. Kerry, by his own account of his actions and protests, violated the UCMJ, the Geneva Conventions and the U.S. Code while serving as a Navy officer. Kerry met, on two occasions, with North Vietnamese negotiators in 1970 and 1971, willingly placing himself in violation of Article three, Section three of the U.S. Constitution, which defines treason as "giving aid and comfort" to the enemy in time of warfare. Kerry was recognized for such "aid and comfort" in 1983, when he received an award for special contributions to the Communist victory from the incoming general secretary of the Communist Party of Vietnam, Comrade Do Moi. (See photos at http://kerry-04.org/war/record.php ). Thus, in accordance with the Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment, Section 3, which states, "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President ... having previously taken an oath ... to support the Constitution of the United States, [who has] engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof," We, the People of these United States, believe John F. Kerry is unfit for public office. Please join your fellow Patriots and sign the petition demanding that John Kerry be prosecuted for "giving aid and comfort to the enemy" and disqualified for national office. Link to -- http://PatriotPetitions.US/Kerry PLEASE -- forward this invitation to Patriot family members, friends and associates. (Circulation of this petition is being sponsored by The Federalist Patriot, the most widely read conservative e-journal on the Internet. If you have not already joined the ranks of Patriots receiving The Federalist Patriot, we encourage you to do so. This highly acclaimed conservative digest of news, policy and opinion will be delivered FREE by e-mail to your inbox each week. Simply link to -- http://FederalistPatriot.US/subscribe/patriots.asp Founder's Quote: "Guard against the impostures of pretended patriotism." --George Washington PRIVACY POLICY: Patriot Petitions is not a commercial site and does NOT release any information on our petitioners to any third party under any circumstances, nor do we accept any third party advertising to our lists. G I am actually interested in what you think about the situation we are facing in this country, not the stuff you send me that other people think... but now that you bring it up; Being my Commanding Officer for two years 41 years ago gives <Captain> no more credibility now than it did then. 41 years ago he could feed me shit and tell me it's pudding and I had no recourse, it's different today. I am 61 years old now, I walked a different road and saw different things, came to different conclusions. I was brought up to believe that you fight for what you believe in, I believe you should never follow anyone blindly, you only follow leaders when you believe they are right and just. "My Country Right Or Wrong" is Fascism personified, it was the creed of the Nazi Party. Kerry was morally obligated to speak out against the war if he believed it was wrong. If what Kerry did by speaking out against the Vietnam War was "Providing aid and comfort to the enemy" then the majority of the country needs to be imprisoned. Myself included... The debate about what happened 35 years ago is raging, as though it is relevant some how to the present. If we are going to compare Bush and Kerry records and commitment then to my mind Kerry comes out on top, Bush was a drunk, Kerry went to war and came home and denounced it, He put himself and his career on the line. Bush was an admitted drunk. Huh, how does this apply? im·pos·ture (m-pschr) n. The act or instance of engaging in deception under an assumed name or identity. http://PatriotPetitions.US/Kerry denouncing him as a traitor because he protested the war while he was still technically in the Inactive Naval Reserve, protest in their minds being synonymous with Giving Aid and Comfort To the Enemy... If that is the case then about 30,000 GI's are guilty too. http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Swift_Boat_Veterans_for_Truth I keep dreaming that I can connect with my Republican friends and show them the truth the way I see it. They whine about taxes and sail off to Bermuda, "Oh God aint it awful about Gay Marriage and girls getting abortions, praying in Schools. When I see kids going to schools and not learning anything, I see a war where we are pushing upwards of 1000 soldiers killed, I see Somalia going to hell in a hand basket, More greed and graft, babies going hungry, not enough Foster Parents to handle all the unwanted children... Gay Marriage... give me a god damn break!! Moral Values my aching butt... what is Moral about their priorities! Schools, they say the teachers are Prima Donna's and they are incompetent ... must be so because their kid can't read. School Bond Issues go belly up, Federal budget cutbacks impact State and Local governments too... Teachers are hamstrung by too many rules and regulations, class sizes are increasing, kids aren't becoming teachers any more... Too angry... got to mellow out... By PAUL KRUGMAN Published: August 3, 2004
message to my fellow journalists: check out media watch sites like campaigndesk.org, mediamatters.org and dailyhowler.com. It's good to see ourselves as others see us. I've been finding The Daily Howler's concept of a media "script," a story line that shapes coverage, often in the teeth of the evidence, particularly helpful in understanding cable news. For example, last summer, when growth briefly broke into a gallop, cable news decided that the economy was booming. The gallop soon slowed to a trot, and then to a walk. But judging from the mail I recently got after writing about the slowing economy, the script never changed; many readers angrily insisted that my numbers disagreed with everything they had seen on TV. If you really want to see cable news scripts in action, look at the coverage of the Democratic convention. Commercial broadcast TV covered only one hour a night. We'll see whether the Republicans get equal treatment. C-Span, on the other hand, provided comprehensive, commentary-free coverage. But many people watched the convention on cable news channels - and what they saw was shaped by a script portraying Democrats as angry Bush-haters who disdain the military. If that sounds like a script written by the Republicans, it is. As the movie "Outfoxed" makes clear, Fox News is for all practical purposes a G.O.P. propaganda agency. A now-famous poll showed that Fox viewers were more likely than those who get their news elsewhere to believe that evidence of Saddam-Qaeda links has been found, that W.M.D. had been located and that most of the world supported the Iraq war. CNN used to be different, but Campaign Desk, which is run by The Columbia Journalism Review, concluded after reviewing convention coverage that CNN "has stooped to slavish imitation of Fox's most dubious ploys and policies." Seconds after John Kerry's speech, CNN gave Ed Gillespie, the Republican Party's chairman, the opportunity to bash the candidate. Will Terry McAuliffe be given the same opportunity right after President Bush speaks? Commentators worked hard to spin scenes that didn't fit the script. Some simply saw what they wanted to see. On Fox, Michael Barone asserted that conventioneers cheered when Mr. Kerry criticized President Bush but were silent when he called for military strength. Check out the video clips at Media Matters; there was tumultuous cheering when Mr. Kerry talked about a strong America. Another technique, pervasive on both Fox and CNN, was to echo Republican claims of an "extreme makeover" - the assertion that what viewers were seeing wasn't the true face of the party. (Apparently all those admirals, generals and decorated veterans were ringers.) It will probably be easier to make a comparable case in New York, where the Republicans are expected to feature an array of moderate, pro-choice speakers and keep Rick Santorum and Tom DeLay under wraps. But in Boston, it took creativity to portray the delegates as being out of the mainstream. For example, Bill Schneider at CNN claimed that according to a New York Times/CBS News poll, 75 percent of the delegates favor "abortion on demand" - which exaggerated the poll's real finding, which is that 75 percent opposed stricter limits than we now have. But the real power of a script is the way it can retroactively change the story about what happened. On Thursday night, Mr. Kerry's speech was a palpable hit. A focus group organized by Frank Luntz, the Republican pollster, found it impressive and persuasive. Even pro-Bush commentators conceded, at first, that it had gone over well. But a terrorism alert is already blotting out memories of last week. Although there is now a long history of alerts with remarkably convenient political timing, and Tom Ridge politicized the announcement by using the occasion to praise "the president's leadership in the war against terror," this one may be based on real information. Regardless, it gives the usual suspects a breathing space; once calm returns, don't be surprised if some of those same commentators begin describing the ineffective speech they expected (and hoped) to see, not the one they actually saw. Luckily, in this age of the Internet it's possible to bypass the filter. At c-span.org, you can find transcripts and videos of all the speeches. I'd urge everyone to watch Mr. Kerry and others for yourself, and make your own judgment.
(Rant) Interesting Article Is anyone else getting tired of the Government (CIA - FBI - Pentagon) arresting folks first and then trying to build a case against them... I sure am. Brandon Mayfield, Wen Ho Lee, the Chinese fella who supposedly gave top secret Nuclear data to the Chinese, the Army Chaplain and & Muslim Cleric accuses of giving information to terrorists, Waco Texas, Ruby Ridge... ad infinitum. The country is turning into a Police State... Where is Due Process, Where is Innocent until Proven Guilty, Where is Search and Seizure. Kerry Makes Stop in 'City of Presidents' in Wisconsin By DAVID M. HALBFINGER Published: August 4, 2004 CUBA CITY, Wis., Aug. 3 - When President Bush was on his way to this tiny picturesque farming town on May 7, the school canceled a field trip, and 10-year-old Darian Reese waited for four hours by the side of the road to greet him. But the presidential motorcade did not stop. "I was pretty ticked off," the boy said. Darian was not alone. This "City of Presidents" - named for portraits of past presidents that were mounted on its lampposts back in 1976 - has never actually seen a president in the flesh, and the flash of Mr. Bush that a few glimpsed left even Republicans here nursing a grudge. John Kerry may not be a president, but he knows an opportunity to score political points. On Tuesday, after a day of promoting fiscal responsibility, he detoured his motorcade a few miles into Cuba City, population 2,200, as dusk fell on the cornfields here along the Iowa and Illinois borders. And he got out. With just a few hours' notice, the whole town, it seemed, was waiting - including young Darian, who called the whole thing "pretty neat." "I like him," said Jan Schultz, after meeting Mr. Kerry and just before shaking Teresa Heinz Kerry's hand. "I like his wife even better." "He's good looking!" swooned Glenda Birkett. A retired but still exacting schoolteacher, she said she was rankled that Mr. Bush's motorcade had sped through town at 45 miles an hour. "The speed limit's 25," Ms. Birkett said. Mr. Kerry pressed the flesh of townspeople and even hopped atop a lovingly restored bright red "presidential caboose" in the center of the city, but let pass the chance to give a whistlestop speech. He will have that chance later in the week, when his tour segues into a railroad journey from St. Louis west to the Rockies. He did, however, let people know that he was grateful for the turnout. "I'd be honored to come here as president," he called out to cheers. "It may be the party of the donkey but I've got the memory of an elephant." Mr. Kerry's Cuba City visit came near the end of a long, slow trip through southern Wisconsin to Dubuque, Iowa, that began with a town-hall meeting in blue-collar Beloit, Wis., where he played up his credentials as a fiscal conservative and accused President Bush of turning record budget surpluses into "deficits as far as the eye can see." At a sweltering, iceless open-air hockey arena, 1,000 loud supporters - many of them wearing T-shirts provided by unions supporting Mr. Kerry - cheered as Mr. Kerry said he would "reinstate something most of you try to do in your families every day: it's called pay-as-you-go." He cited his votes for the 1985 Gramm-Rudman-Hollings balanced-budget legislation and for the 1993 deficit-reduction act, and invoked the possibility that the current budget deficits, covered by borrowing from Social Security indefinitely, could leave the entitlement program in jeopardy in the future. "We have to get back to being fiscally responsible," Mr. Kerry said. "I am determined that as president, I'm not going to be responsible for piling debt on our children's heads, and taking Social Security away from people who have it today and ought to get it in the future." A spokesman for the Bush-Cheney campaign, Steve Schmidt, said Mr. Kerry "has no credibility when it comes to fiscal discipline. He has called for $2 trillion in new spending with no ability to pay for it." Mr. Kerry also said he would push for a line-item veto that could pass constitutional muster, "so that we can get the president able to direct those resources where we need to put them, and we get the pork and the waste and the throwaway and the special-interest deals out of the system." Aides said his proposal would let the president sign a bill while sending back to Congress a list of spending items he rejects, after which legislation rescinding any of those items would be guaranteed a swift up-or-down vote. He also said he would hold a news conference every month. "I don't have anything to hide," he said. "I want America to know what I'm doing. I want you to know what I'm fighting for. I want you to ask me questions." Asked to name the countries he would try to enlist in the stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq, Mr. Kerry said, "I'll go to every single Arab country, every Muslim country, because I believe the moderate leaders of Islam have a fundamental interest in not having Islam hijacked by extremists."
Kerry Detours to Visit Town Skipped by Bush By David Maraniss Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 5, 2004; Page A01 CUBA CITY, Wis. -- Who knows? Given the closeness of the election in the swing state of Wisconsin, it might all come down to what happened here in the City of Presidents. First, a few months ago, President Bush blew right on by, his bus rumbling down Main Street at 40 miles an hour without stopping, done and gone in a wave and a blink. Then, this Tuesday evening, right at suppertime and before the big lightning storm, here came John F. Kerry, zigzagging his Believe in America bus caravan several miles off route on the road from Beloit to Dubuque just so he could stop at the place that Bush slighted. President Bush waved to the crowd as his bus passed through Cuba City in May, but he didn't stop. (Tom Lynn -- Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
Reg Weber, one of three brothers who run a sausage factory on the edge of town, was waiting for Bush that day in May when he breezed past and was there waiting again this time when Kerry bounded out of his bus to work the rope line, a gesture that seemed to make all the difference. "By God, he's my man now," Weber said of Kerry. "All he had to do was stop and he got my vote. He recognizes the little people." You might ask why Cuba City, with its population of 2,174 and its remote location, is getting any personal attention at all in this presidential election. Good question, but first let's deal with some other imponderables. For starters, why is Cuba City called Cuba City? Turns out its original name was Yuba, but there was another Yuba in Wisconsin, so some town father a hundred years ago or more started going through the alphabet -- Auba, Buba -- and stopped at Cuba. It might have been Guba or Ruba or Tuba. Nothing to do with Hemingway or cigars. And how in the world did Cuba City become the City of Presidents? Even better question. No president has ever come from Wisconsin, let alone from this little sausage-and-dairy town tucked into the southwest corner of the state. But back during the bicentennial in 1976, the elementary school principal had a dream that morphed into a reality beyond his expectations. Joe Goeman's dream was to have a Parade of Presidents on Main Street. From George Washington onward, the lampposts running through town would have red, white and blue shields of the presidents, with their silhouettes, term in office and home state. The shields have been upgraded twice over the years and now glisten in invulnerable vinyl, but the dream did not stop there. Then came flag posts in front of every shop and house along Main Street, with dozens of American flags "flying 24-7," as the proud chief of police, Kevin Atkinson, explained. Then the water tower was painted red, white and blue, declaring City of Presidents in lettering visible most of the way to the village of Hazel Green. Now all of Cuba City is in on the act. Turn into the parking lot near the Millard Fillmore shield (New York, 1850-1853), and there is the presidential caboose, all shiny red, with blue trim and white stars, the names of the presidents lining the top and a bearded visage of President Ulysses S. Grant on the front. The general was not quite a homeboy, but at least he lived for a time across the Illinois border in Galena. Once you've got yourself a City of Presidents, why not lure some real, live presidents and would-be presidents? Goeman and other members of the City of Presidents commission, along with students in the elementary school, all began writing Washington with invitations urging presidents to visit the city that honors them. Dreams are big in this modest corner of the universe. Baseball's Field of Dreams is only 30 miles away in a cornfield in Dyersville, Iowa. If you build it, they will come. Not only baseball immortals, but politicians as well. It was on May 7 that Bush came, and briefly saw, but didn't conquer. Word had reached Cuba City a few days earlier that the presidential bus caravan would pass through Cuba City on its way out of Dubuque and up through western Wisconsin. The city buzzed with anticipation. Schools were let out for the day and kids were bused in all the way from Dickeyville. A thousand schoolchildren lined the sidewalks near the corner of Main and Clay. Two funerals were postponed so that they wouldn't get in the way. A huge cutout of Bush was placed near the caboose. Chief Atkinson called in reinforcements from the Grant County sheriff's office and had the local fire department volunteers remove any possible hazards from Main Street. "We were all ready," Atkinson said. "And Bush didn't stop." The Cuba City disappointment was big news in the tri-state triangle from Dubuque to Galena and up to Platteville. Madison lawyer Brady Williamson, a former Clinton advance man, got wind of the story and quietly placed the City of Presidents on the map when he began plotting the Wisconsin leg of the Kerry bus tour. They didn't want to make it an official stop, but memos in the Kerry camp made it clear that a jog to Cuba City would have a payoff. On Tuesday morning, Chief Atkinson was dealing only with rumor. "Are they coming through?" townspeople would ask, and all he could say was that he wasn't sure. He had heard not a word from Kerry's advance team or the Secret Service. When he stopped for lunch at Nick's on Main Street with Dick Davis, the hardware store owner and mayor, he still was not certain. The Dubuque paper was saying that Kerry was going to stop only at an Amoco parking lot 12 miles away in Shullsburg. Platteville radio had the same message: Shullsburg, yes; Cuba City, probably not. At 3 that afternoon, word changed again. Kerry was coming. Chief Atkinson was sent to the parking lot between Owl Furniture and the presidential caboose to start preparing for a visit. He was met there by a young man in a blue shirt and dark shades. Secret Service. Joe Goeman showed up wearing his City of Presidents hat and T-shirt. A county sheriff K-9 team led by a dog named Najeh (for backup Packers running back Najeh Davenport) began sniffing around the caboose. Into the parking lot zipped a white van with Staff 1 on the windshield, carrying a four-person advance team led by Kerstin Smith, an events planner from Chicago. The parking lot was empty aside from the cops and Presidential Joe. Kerry was due in less than two hours. They had to make something out of nothing. The volunteer driver, Craig Miller, an electrician from Manitowoc, headed out into the neighborhood on foot to round up a crowd. He found men mowing their lawns and kids playing in the street and elderly women sitting on their porches. "Come see John Kerry, the next president," he would say. "Is he really gonna stop or blow by like Bush?" they would ask. Kerstin Smith persuaded the fire department to bring in a hook and ladder for the kids to sit on next to the caboose. It is amazing how word can spread through a small town on a slow summer afternoon. Reg Weber came from his sausage plant. Sam McGrew, the superintendent of schools, arrived in dress shirt and tie. Nearby was Quentin Bottoms, a handyman, in blue jeans and farmer cap, with a pocketknife that the Secret Service politely took for safekeeping. Mary Hoff, who writes a local recipe column, showed up in her white terry-cloth bathrobe. She had been on her way to water aerobics when she heard Kerry was coming. By 5:30 the parking lot was full, 400 strong, with a hundred more across the street. "Less than two minutes!" an advance man told the crowd, instructing them in how to shout "Ker-ree! Ker-ree!" These Cuba Citians were not big on shouting. They weren't going to get suckered again. But they were willing to wait. Mary Hoff went off to water aerobics and was back in her bathrobe and still no Kerry. Finally, at 6:20, the flashing lights could be seen down at the bottom of Main, and then the big blue bus and all the press buses behind, and the caravan circled around the block and pulled up right in front of the caboose, and Chief Atkinson was there, hand out, and the door whooshed open and out bounded John Kerry, his bushy gray-and-black hair bobbing in the crowd -- winning votes just by stopping not in Yuba or Ruba or Tuba but Cuba City, City of Presidents.
"It's all about politics," our father, professor Sami Al-Arian, told the world when he was arrested Feb. 20, 2003, on charges that he alledgedly supported terrorists. In the past 18 months, our family has witnessed our father condemned by an attorney general who holds no regard for due process. We have seen firsthand his slow deterioration from the excessive conditions of his pretrial detention and the way he has been unfairly maligned in the press. Now, he is being used as a pawn in a high-stakes political race. A year and a half later, it is clearer than ever that the case against him has always been politically motivated. In their bid for Senate, Democratic candidates Peter Deutsch and Betty Castor have unfairly used our father to attack each other. Groups loyal to Deutsch had the gall to criticize Castor, the former University of South Florida president, for not firing our father, a tenured professor, when there was nothing but baseless accusations directed at his political activities. As recently as last year, the American Association of University Professors condemned USF President Judy Genshaft for firing him with no consideration for academic freedom or due process. Rather than uphold these deeply held principles, Castor has also resorted to taking cheap shots at our beleaguered father. To attack her political opponents, she has pointed to a photograph of our family with then presidential candidate George W. Bush. In fact, a number of similar photographs exist of our father with numerous members of Congress, prominent civil rights leaders, and even former President Bill Clinton. All of these pictures are a testament to his strong belief in the democratic values that govern our country, including working within the system to affect positive change, principles he has instilled in his own children. More than anything, this photograph is a painful symbol of broken promises in a presidency that has failed the test of tolerance and inclusiveness. A recognized community leader, our father met with prominent individuals of all political stripes in an effort to restore the civil liberties of all Americans. Instead of encouraging such participation, as politicians, Deutsch and Castor have done other concerned citizens a disservice by casting a dark shadow over our father's laudable efforts. Much to our dismay, what has been lost in this highly charged debate is the fact that our father, who has not yet been to trial, has never been given the presumption of innocence. He is being judged by unsubstantiated accusations, not by any evidence against him. Anyone who has closely followed court proceedings over the past few months would know that the government has yet to present any case against our father. It is clear that their approach was to arrest him first and build their case later, a tactic more fitting for a police state. Now the government has even stated its intent to circumvent due process of law by introducing secret evidence in court. Apparently an 11-year investigation that has yielded over 20,000 hours of wiretapped conversations, 700 videotapes and tens of thousands of documents has not been enough to form a solid case. This is not surprising considering the court has been presented with numerous glaring inaccuracies in the government's case over the past 18 months. What's more, federal authorities' continuous harassment of Tampa's Muslim community demonstrates that the case has been sloppily put together and largely politically motivated. Perhaps the most obvious indication of this is the state of our father's pretrial detention. Only a month after his arrest, he was moved to Coleman Federal Penitentiary, where he is the only pretrial detainee. There, he has been kept in solitary confinement and subject to humiliating treatment by prison guards, including frequent unnecessary strip searches. He is only given one 15-minute phone call per month. While we witness felons hugging their wives and children, we are allowed to see our father only through a glass partition. We find ourselves at a loss for words when our younger siblings ask us why we are treated differently. In Coleman, our father is denied the right to attend religious services, not given adequate medical treatment and prohibited from using the law library. Even more appalling is the fact that he has extremely limited contact with his attorneys and cannot examine evidence in the case kept here in Tampa. A number of concerned individuals and organizations have condemned these conditions, including the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Council of Churches and Amnesty International, which has called them "gratuitously punitive." Under these circumstances, we are left to wonder if a fair trial is possible. Even in this Senate race, our father's political opponents have somehow found a way to further malign his character. These shameless attempts have only reconfirmed our father's words from that fateful morning that his case is politically driven. This traumatic experience has had a devastating effect on us, our mother and our three siblings. No family should have to suffer the loss of a loving father and husband, especially one who has also contributed so much to the betterment of the society around him and has always taught us to do the same. As a family, we are confident that, if given his day in court, our father will ultimately be exonerated of all unfounded accusations against him. However, until that day, no one, be it members of the media or politicians, should pass judgment or treat his fate as a foregone conclusion. That is simply un-American. Laila Al-Arian is a journalist working in Washington, D.C., and Leena is a senior this fall at the University of South Florida.
Two great sites, Bipartisan and unaffiliated... http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Disinfopedia Both of these sites are excellent, they cut to the bone regardless of Party or Politics, the rip up Kerry and Bush ads, I have been looking for sites like this for a long time...
This sort of blew me away, I agree with Laura Bush 100% on this one; Laura Bush Says Media Contributes to Polarized Politics Published: August 04, 2004 WASHINGTON (AP) First lady Laura Bush thinks the news media is increasingly filled with opinions instead of facts, and suggested Tuesday that journalists are contributing to the polarization of the country. "I think there are a lot of reasons to be critical of the media in America," she said in an interview Tuesday with Fox News Channel's "The O'Reilly Factor." "I think that a lot of times the media sensationalize or magnify things that aren't -- that really shouldn't be," she said. "I do think there's a big move away from actual reporting, trying to report facts," the first lady said. "It's in newspapers and everything you read -- that a lot more is opinion." When her interviewer suggested that journalists were out of sync with most of the country, she said with a laugh: "You just gave me a really great idea. Maybe it is the media that has us divided." President Bush's mother had famously bitter relations with the news media during his father's term in office. After the 1992 election, as Barbara Bush gave Hillary Rodham Clinton a tour of the White House she pointed to nearby reporters and told her successor: "Avoid this crowd like the plague." Often war is waged only in order to show valor; thus an inner dignity is ascribed to war itself, and even some philosophers have praised it as an ennoblement of humanity, forgetting the pronouncement of the Greek who said, "War is an evil in as much as it produces more wicked men than it takes away." Immanuel Kant, philosopher (1724-1804) Lots of rants this week, I'm not sure why, I think it must be from the frustration of not being able to influence anything in my immediate vicinity... ya suppose? My kids ignore me, my friends think I am an incorrigible Liberal. The sobering thing to me is that I am uncomfortable trying to defend or to express my views anywhere but here [on the net] out of fear of being yelled at or worse by the Right Wing Ideologues who are of the opinion that they have a lock on Truth and Morality. I miss arguing without fear of condemnation... how innocent and naive I was when I argued with Jerry, With him, out of ignorance or stupidity I blundered into casting aspersions on something he deemed sacred and incontrovertible. and that was the end of a friendship... so sad. It's happened before and I fear it will happen again... I wish I could dismiss it and move on but even after three years it bothers me. It appears that to the minds of some, in this country you have the right to Sing with the Choir or keep your God dammed mouth shut. It wasn't like that four short years ago. (Rant) Bishops harden abortion stance (See: http://www.ajc.com/news/content/news/election/0804georgia/05polcatholics.html) According to the Churches I am familiar with, God granted Man free will, it appears to me that the Bishops are interpreting Free Will to mean that you are allowed to believe what We tell you to believe or we will banish you from the Church... I do not affiliate myself with any religion, so edicts like this mean nothing to me, like me telling the kids to clean up their room or I will tell the Easter Bunny not to bring them any candy. To say; "Love me unconditionally or I will banish you from Communion with Me and damn you to Hell." is like a little kid saying "Be my friend or I will beat you up". What kind of a God would say something like that?! Would Jesus Christ say "Love me or I will perform a Miracle on your ass and you won't like it!"? I doubt it... Why do people put up with arbitrary intimidation like this, why do they lend credibility to those frightened old men? They are just men, like any other men, they became Priests Bishops and Cardinals because they found something they were good at... intimidating people?... They apparently are threatened by the concept of free will. Free will means that occasionally people will disagree with them, people might examine what they say a little more closely. Are they are so certain that their beliefs are unreasonable that they are frightened that someday people will wake up and see what pathetic frauds they really are... People who speak the truth are not afraid of dissenters, People who truly believe they are right do not need to threaten or intimidate. They have deemed reall "Free Will" to be a threat to their authority and a threat to their ability to influence our lives and that, incidenatlly, is also means a threat to their coffers. A Priest can tell you what he believes, he can tell you how he was taught to interpret the Bible but, according to the Bible they are interpreting, no one has the right to tell you what to believe. Such a simple concept... why is that so hard for them to understand. A priest or a Pope can say he has the Church's Authority to deny services to anyone he chooses, that doesn't make it so, and it damn sure doesn't make it right. If you truly believe in God then you must believe that only He can deny anyone's right to his Love. Vestiges of the Inquisition still exist in all churches, they have granted themselves the authority to dictate to the uninitiated little people what they can do, say, think and believe... Another twist on the "Love it or Leave it" philosophy of governing, "Our way or the Highway", "You're for us or you're against us" Priests wield an awesome amount of power, what people apparently are unwilling to understand is that they only wield the power they grant them... "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we." George W. Bush 8/5/2004 "You can get drunk enough to do most anything, but you have to realize going in that there are some things that, once you sober up and realize what you have done, will lead you to either grab a 12-Gauge or stay drunk the rest of your life" attributed to an Army Col. at CENTCOM
'Where are you, good Republicans? Where's your pride?' Posted on Friday, August 06 @ 10:11:54 EDT By Ruth Lopez, Buzzflash Writer Joan Collins says, "Bush rally was sad day for democracy." Ms. Collins, every Bush/Cheney rally is a sad day for democracy, and America. It is a sad day when the President of the United States uses campaign rallies as invitation-only events, exclusively for those who support him. It is a tacit admission that no dialogue will be allowed. Mr. Bush doesn't even seem to feel the need to pretend that there is any reason he should put up with it. By NOT putting up with it, however, isn't the great "Uniter not a Divider" admitting his inability to reach across the political divide and bring Americans together? He doesn't even make the effort. If you're not with him, you're against him. And you will not be tolerated. You will be excluded: No American citizen is allowed in to a Bush/Cheney campaign rally unless they are an invited supporter. You will be discriminated against: If you support Mr. Bush, you may express your First Amendment rights anywhere you like, even at a Kerry rally. If you do not, your rights are forfeit, and you will be forcibly removed. You will be intimidated: Can anyone imagine, for even one moment, if any Republican were denied access to a John Edwards speech unless they signed a Loyalty Oath to him? Can anyone imagine John Edwards demanding such a travesty? You will be arrested: How many more instances will there be of Americans arrested for no other reason than not supporting George Bush? Pro-Bush t-shirt, good citizen; anti-Bush t-shirt, you're going to jail. My only question is this: Where are all the good, decent Republicans who realize how wrong this is? I want to ask them, is this your vision of what America is? Is this what it should be? Personally, I think George Bush is a coward. I think he's afraid. Afraid of us. Afraid of dissent. Afraid to look bad. I remember when we had real presidents, who not only weren't afraid of the American people, but who went into the sometimes unfriendly world and stood up and spoke to people, in public! Kennedy, and Reagan, in Berlin. Clinton, in Ireland. Don't kid yourself that those weren't dangerous places to be. They went anyway. Their audiences weren't screened. And people responded to them wherever they went. The world saw their strength, loved them for going, and wanted to be us. Boy, have things changed! President Bush goes to England and demands that Central London be shut down, protestors kept far away and the walls of Buckingham Palace be reinforced before he'll sleep there. He doesn't go out in public anywhere. Here or abroad. Photo-ops of him outside are carefully staged, no public admitted. It isn't just the rallies that are closed affairs -- the entire Bush presidency is. Where are you, good Republicans? Where's your pride? Why is this ok with you?? Every one is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan I sent an e-mail with this tagline: The belief that there is only one truth and that oneself is in possession of it seems to me the deepest root of all evil that is in the world. Max Born I got the response: Is there not a "right" and "wrong"? What about robbery, murder, rape, etc.? Max may not have had it totally correct. Again, I overreacted and wrote too much: Robbery, Murder, Rape... (You left off cannibalism, slavery and cheating at golf)... Stealing to feed your children, killing to protect your family... rape... well, in Kobi Bryant's opinion it was consensual sex, is "right" on his side or the girls. Right and wrong, good and evil... is mostly a matter of perspective and circumstance. There are a few million Iraqis who think we are wrong... they may even think we are evil. Who is right... who is wrong... You have strong views on gun ownership, you believe you are right... there are many people who think differently. People who disagree with you are only "Wrong" in your opinion. An opinion is only an opinion, it isn't a fact, it isn't a 'truth', an opinion can't be right or wrong in any context other than in your own mind. There are an infinite number of perceptions that can be pronounced "Right and Wrong", Everything from abortion rights to whether you should mow the lawn at night or in the morning. This is America and people fought and died to bequeath us the right to decide for ourselves what is right and what is wrong. Where the problem arises is when we disagree. When someone crosses the line and tells me that my beliefs are wrong simply because they differ from theirs is when there is conflict... And that is also where the constitution steps in and says back off. It can be bad when it is 'one on one' it is disastrous when one nation attempts to impose it's will on another... I believe the comment by Max Born to be a fundamental truth. The world is an intricate mesh of life and possibility, civilizations evolve to accommodate their societies and and we cannot be sure what calamity will befall us if that mesh begins to unravel. To paraphrase, I think the greatest peril we face as a society comes from those who claim to have the Right on their side clashing with those who also claim to have the Right on theirs. I think that history teaches us that those societies which decided to allow the most choices to flourish, and preclude the fewest, allow that natural selection of ideas to work. The more choices people have, the more likely they are to make the right ones. Incidentally: Cannibalism; In the Maori society eating the heart of an enemy killed in battle was a sacrament of respect. Slavery; Slavery was a God given right and the law of the land in America up until 1863. Cheating at golf; People who cheat at golf should be shot.
Economy, Politics Collide for Bush Team Challenge Is to Respond Without an Air of Panic By Jonathan Weisman and Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, August 7, 2004; Page A01 With job creation stalled, the stock market sliding and oil prices at record highs, a divided White House is under pressure to produce an economic policy response for President Bush's fall reelection campaign, Republican economic advisers said yesterday. But disputes within the economic and political team may jeopardize the effort to craft a clear economic agenda, the advisers said. Plans to simplify the tax code, broaden the president's health insurance proposal and partially privatize Social Security are bumping against political concerns that any detailed proposal will present a target for Democratic attack while potentially looking like an election-year panic. "It would not look good if they're throwing out ideas in political desperation," said Heritage Foundation economist Daniel J. Mitchell, echoing the more cautious sentiment dominating the White House debate. "They don't want to be like [President George H.W.] Bush in '92, where whenever he did do something, it looked like an election-year 'Let's throw out some stuff that nobody's going to take seriously.' " Speaking at a picnic in Stratham, N.H., yesterday, the president remained positive as he pushed policy prescriptions that have languished for months, if not years: cutting business regulations, curbing lawsuits and allowing small businesses to band together to purchase employee health insurance. "Today's employment report shows our economy is continuing to move forward," Bush told an audience at Bittersweet Farm. "And it reminds us that we're in a changing economy and we've got more to do. I'm not going to be satisfied until everybody who wants to work can find a job. I'm running because I understand how to take a strong economy and make it stronger." But he hinted at proposals to come: "I'm running for four more years to continue to work for a pro-growth, pro-entrepreneur, pro-small-business economic agenda that is good for America." Officials are still wrangling about what economic measures Bush should include in his speech to the Republican National Convention, which is less than four weeks away. Aides said the content of the speech is not set but said the goal is to make it more specific and substantive than the convention address of his Democratic challenger, John F. Kerry. Although no official would talk about it for the record because Bush has made no announcements, aides said a key second-term economic proposal will center on making health care more affordable for individuals and business -- with tax-advantaged savings plans for individuals and larger risk pools for companies. Recent economic news has ratcheted up pressure on Bush to be bold. The economy generated 32,000 jobs in July, far short of economists' expectations. The Dow Jones industrial average slid 324 points this week to the lowest point of the year, closing Friday 772 points below its position when Bush took office. Payroll jobs remain 1.5 million short of where last winter the White House said they would be by now. To avoid being the first president since Herbert Hoover to preside over a net job loss, Bush must hope for 372,000 new jobs a month in August, September and October. Yesterday's jobs report took administration and Bush campaign officials by surprise. Bush's aides had been expecting a number that several called "decent." Bush officials had been reveling in Kerry's failure to make notable gains in polls after last week's Democratic convention. The jobs number abruptly ended the celebration. The architects of Bush's tax cuts conceded that their economic impact has not had the staying power they had hoped. N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said record oil prices, terrorism fears and a lingering lack of business confidence have worked against the administration's jobs forecast. "I don't think [the tax cut] has run out of steam; I just think we've run into a lot of head wind," said Pamela Olson, who was assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy when last year's tax cut was formulated. "All those things are weighing down on [the recovery] moving forward in as robust a fashion as we had hoped." To date, the president's campaign has focused largely on his economic achievements, but that message is increasingly discordant. The anemic new job figures come six days after Bush asserted during his weekly radio address, "Our economy is on a rising path." Even then, the statement had a certain incongruity, coming a day after the Commerce Department reported that economic expansion in the second quarter had been weaker than expected. The same day, the White House had issued another forecast, showing the year's budget deficit of $445 billion, a record in dollar terms. Democrats have begun to portray Bush's sunny rhetoric as a clumsy effort to whistle past the graveyard. A revised stump speech Bush unveiled last week included the mantra "We are turning the corner, and we're not turning back." Democrats pointed out that Hoover said on March 7, 1930, "Prosperity is just around the corner." Kerry has hammered Bush on the phraseology ever since. "Saying we've turned the corner doesn't make it so," he said yesterday. "America will not turn the corner to better days until we have a new president who can see our problems and take action to fix them." The Democratic National Committee yesterday launched a $6 million ad campaign lamenting that "millions of good jobs" have been "lost to plant closures and outsourcing" while "President Bush protects tax breaks favoring corporations that move their headquarters overseas." Any policy proposal now would have virtually no impact on job creation before Election Day, said R. Glenn Hubbard, Bush's first Council of Economic Advisers chairman. But politically, Bush needs a strong policy response, said Kevin A. Hassett, a GOP economist at the American Enterprise Institute with close ties to the administration. "Having a positive policy agenda in the fall may be key to President Bush's reelection hopes," he said. "When you run for president, you have to talk about the future," said Rep. Ray LaHood (Ill.), a senior Republican in Congress. Policy suggestions such as extending health care to the uninsured or brokering a deal to curb asbestos litigation are coming from all corners of the GOP. But those suggestions are running up against cautious advisers who believe Bush should not court controversy, said Steve Moore, who heads the conservative political action committee Club for Growth. "They're really divided between two camps, the 'Morning in America' crowd for running on the record of the last four years, against others who say, 'Let's not run on Morning in America because if we want to actually do something in the next four years, we need a mandate, we need to talk about policy.' " The first camp has thus far held sway, Moore said, and "paradoxically, the worse Bush stands in the polls, the more risk-averse they will be." Allen reported from New Hampshire. Staff writer Howard Kurtz contributed to this report. |