What is happening? What has happened to our education system? College graduates who can't read and comprehend? Even one of my own children, a college graduate, declared last night at a family dinner, "I don't read".
My children were read to from the very beginning of their lives and encouraged to read thereafter. They were always showered with children's books and our home had more meaningful books than a small school library, yet to this day each of my children are limited readers. No time for it I would guess.
Video games and movies seem to be a curse. They not only blur the lines of reality they sometimes shatter them. They rob our children of their imagination. In stead of creating their own imaginary world they rely on someone else to create it for them. They live vicariously and act out violence towards others through games meant to entertain by blowing others away with blasts from weapons and by unleashing bombs and monsters.
Whatever the reasons for this decline in reading skills reported below, the one thing that is capable of robbing us of our freedom, of our democracy, of our country's economic and world status and insure destruction of the earth - it is this - the dumbing down of our children. Educated people demand freedom and self-government. Uneducated people fall victim to dictators and those that eagerly profit from the destruction of earth's environment - the life-support system that maintains our lives.
At this point in the advancement of technology there is no quick way to become educated, no magic pill, no electronic implant. God forbid there ever comes a time when people can be forcefully programmed in that way.
The art of concentration, contemplation, reasoning and the dissemination of ideas and knowledge is still best served by reading books. Those who profit from taking advantage of poorly educated people no longer need to burn books - they have successfully replaced them with an unending supply of drivel and dross.
Gary
College graduates' reading skills drop
An adult literacy assessment has shown an alarming trend: the reading proficiency of college graduates is declining, and experts don't know why.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13491148.htm
Tuesday, December 27, 2005
Friday, December 23, 2005
The Magic Medallion
I recall hearing a story years ago about a man in New York City who always wore a large medallion on a chain around his neck. A friend of his became very curious since he never saw the man without the medallion dangling outside his clothes. So, one day when they met on the street he politely expressed his curiosity and asked if this was some type family crest or memento.
The man replied."No, this is a powerful amulet given to me by a spiritual master from my native home in India. It has the specific power to protect me from Tiger attacks."
Examining the medal closely his friend asked, "Does it really work?"
The man replied, "I should say so. I have lived in New York now for four years and in all that time not one Tiger attack."
This story reminds me of George Bush's attempts to justify his much criticized attack on Iraq, the torture incidents, violations of civil rights, illegal spying on US citizens and the trampling of civil liberties by his administration.. He and his administration claim their "war on terroristssss" has been effective and the evidence is we haven't been attacked since 9/11.
The man replied."No, this is a powerful amulet given to me by a spiritual master from my native home in India. It has the specific power to protect me from Tiger attacks."
Examining the medal closely his friend asked, "Does it really work?"
The man replied, "I should say so. I have lived in New York now for four years and in all that time not one Tiger attack."
This story reminds me of George Bush's attempts to justify his much criticized attack on Iraq, the torture incidents, violations of civil rights, illegal spying on US citizens and the trampling of civil liberties by his administration.. He and his administration claim their "war on terroristssss" has been effective and the evidence is we haven't been attacked since 9/11.
Critcs point out that this administration and its actions cannot easily take credit for the absense of another attack. Everyone knows how porous our borders are and how easily our ports of entry can be compromised. Critics additionally point out there are more determined terrorists now as a result of the Bush invasion of Iraq than before and that eight years passed beween the first attack on the World Trade Center and the second on 9/11. Most authorities agree that under the present conditions another attack is all but certain. Just when is anyone's guess.
Read the essay below to get a better idea of just how serious this latest breach of our laws and constitution is viewed.
Uncivil Liberties
By Dahlia Lithwick Slate.com
Wednesday 21 December 2005
Why won't the Bush administration obey the law? In the days after Sept. 11, everyone agreed that we needed to recalibrate the delicate balance that had been struck between security and civil liberties. It now appears, however, that while the American people thought they were bargaining in good faith with their president, he was nodding and smiling and taking what he wanted in secret.
At the start of this "war," Congress thought it was authorizing the use of force in Afghanistan. But now we've learned that in so doing it also gave the president limitless powers to break the law. Congress thought it was passing the Patriot Act. But it was actually giving the government broad and seemingly open-ended new surveillance authority. We believed the executive branch to be bound by the rule of law - by the Constitution and the Geneva Conventions and the ancient writ of habeas corpus. But the president was redefining torture, disregarding international conventions, and granting himself broad discretion to name and imprison enemy combatants for years on end.
Americans believed they were bargaining in good faith with their government over the original deal struck in 1978 when Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. FISA was supposed to represent a compromise between security and civil liberties, by making it illegal to spy on Americans without judicial oversight but setting the bar for such oversight quite low. Even as amended by the Patriot Act - which further lowered the standards for a FISA warrant - the statute still purported to adhere to the fundamental bargain: Americans would not be spied upon by their government without basic constitutional checks in place.
The Bush administration is forever quick to point out the flaws in all these bargains we have struck. The Patriot Act didn't go far enough, so the administration pushed for Patriot II. The Geneva Conventions afforded prisoners too many rights, so those rights were suspended. The statutory definition of torture precluded intelligence-gathering, so new definitions were invented. FISA was too cumbersome in a crisis, so it doesn't bind the president. Perhaps it's naive to think we had these negotiations in public because this delicate allocation of rights and powers is fundamental to a democracy. It's not shocking that the Bush administration sought to expand its powers. It's shocking that the president unfailingly refuses to ask.
There are two explanations for the Bush administration's failure to stay within the boundaries of the legal structures for which it's bargained: One is that the administration believes it is fighting this war on its own; the courts, the Congress, and the American people are all standing in its way. The other is that the administration is convinced that none of our statutes or policies or systems will actually work in a pinch. Our laws aren't just broken. They are unfixable.
The former argument was offered this week by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who defended the secret spy program with the astonishing claim that Congress wasn't told because Congress would not have passed it. Gonzales said the administration considered asking Congress to authorize the program but was "advised that that was not something we could likely get." (This, even though Congress just about sold off the farm after 9/11, granting the president every extra power he requested.) That just can't be right. And it isn't. As Chief Justice John Roberts explained so eloquently at his recent confirmation hearings, the Youngstown case, decided by the Supreme Court in 1952, stipulated that "where the president is acting contrary to congressional authority ... the president's authority is at its lowest ebb." The courts have expressly said that if Congress wouldn't sign off on the deal, executive-branch authority is lesser, not greater.
The other argument for consistently reneging on bargains about civil liberties was put forth by President Bush this week when he insisted that we are facing a "new threat requiring us to think and act differently." The existing laws that govern his conduct are helping the terrorists and hurting us. Bush's admission - that he authorized a program four years ago that is secretly monitored and reauthorized by himself - is astonishing. His admission that he intends to continue to do so masks a darker truth: He believes that FISA can't be fixed. Like the judicial system for Americans or the courts-martial system for prisoners of war, FISA can't be modified to protect us; it must be overridden by fiat and in secret.
Over the past several days, Bush's weary supporters have begun to publish defenses of his conduct. They argue, in effect, that the president has the authority to conduct warrantless searches for foreign intelligence because no courts have ever held that his office does not have that inherent authority. This assumes there is a war on. But that isn't the most galling argument. The most reckless argument is that FISA is either outdated - as Condoleezza Rice has suggested - or too slow, or demands too much in the way of proof. Never mind that experts say warrants can be verbally authorized in a matter of hours and proved retroactively and that the FISA court has, as of today, approved 5,200 applications and rejected four. To Bush it is broken, and rather than fix it he'll just make up his own law.
The system sucks, Bush's champions argue. Possibly. The bureaucracy is crippling. Indeed. And so what is the solution? Byron York argues - mind-bendingly - that with his order allowing the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless searches, Bush "was trying to shake the bureaucracy into action." Somehow, the bureaucracy would be galvanized into coordinating better investigations by a secret spy program operating without its knowledge.
So, which is it? Does the Bush administration refuse to honor its legislative and constitutional bargains with Congress, the courts, and the American people because it believes we are all just getting in its way? Or does it sidestep us because it believes that all these trappings of a democracy - the courts and the laws and public accountability are broken and unfixable? The first possibility is grandiose and depressing. The latter is absolutely breathtaking.
Tuesday, December 20, 2005
Life Of The Party
If you are a Democrat are you not quite sure the Democrats have a decent candidate for president in 2008, someone the average Democrat can relate to? Are you fed up with the Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and the Washington insiders picking the candidate and telling you who to vote for? Are you sick and tired of Democrat representatives, beholden to corporations who speak through mouths full of mush and who are afraid to speak candidly for fear they'll offend some conservative voters? Do you want a Democratic candidate who speaks the truth to power and who will clearly win in 2008 and not just come close which assures the election will be stolen by the corrupt Republican-corporate machine? Is that what's troubling you son? Is that what's bothering you sister?
Well, stand up and be full of cheer because there's a bright ray of sunshine coming from the west. Actually there are two rays of sunshine - one being Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana and the second Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico. These two men have the potential to handily win the nomination and then soundly defeat whichever corporate lackey and forked-tounged, hypocritical, nefarious, imperialistic party hack the Republicans (or the Democrats) come up with.
In case you previously missed it, the April, 2005, interview below by Salon.com will help give you a good feel for why I think Schweitzer is the man. I'll post more on Schweitzer and Richardson soon. For additional info go to the links listed in the article below and www.schweitzerforpresident.com
What a breath of fresh air!
Gary
Life of the Party
Brian Schweitzer, the blue governor of the red state of Montana, may just have the answer to the Democrats' woes.
- By Tim Grieve - Reprinted from Salon.com
April 19, 2005 HELENA, Mont. -- The future is wearing a turquoise bolo tie wrapped around the open collar of a blue-and-white-striped button-down dress shirt. And if that doesn't sound quite right, then you haven't considered the mismatched gray suit coat or the blue jeans and boots down below. Meet Brian Schweitzer, the soil sciences major who grew up to be the governor of Montana -- and may be the next best hope of the Democratic Party.
On Nov. 2, George W. Bush beat John Kerry in Montana by 20 percentage points. On the same day, Montana voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- and elected as their governor a populist, pro-choice Democrat. Are Montana voters as schizophrenic as the governor's fashion sense, or is Brian Schweitzer just that good?
A lot of folks say it's the latter. Everyone from the Washington Monthly to the American Spectator has taken note of the rancher from Whitefish, Mont., and what the Wall Street Journal called his "well-spoken, gun-owning, dog-loving, native-ritual-doing, shot-of-whiskey-drinking true-west style." Democrats hungry for hope in the dark days after 2004 find themselves wondering whether another little-known governor from a small red state can somehow help them find their way back to the White House.
Ask Schweitzer about 2008, and he ticks off the names of Democratic governors who've proved they can appeal to red-state voters. What about him? "You know, all these people are saying, 'To be governor of Montana, he must have it figured out,'" Schweitzer says. "I'm telling you, I've broken more colts than there are days that I've been in office. I'm just a regular guy, getting things done in Montana. I don't know if that works nationally, but I don't care."
But it's clear that he does care. In an hour-long interview, Schweitzer gave impassioned advice on how Democrats can win back the rural West by "leading with their hearts" and recognizing that a one-size-fits-all platform on gun control won't play in hunting and fishing states like Montana.
A native Montanan who spent time in the Middle East before returning to start his own business, Schweitzer espouses a political philosophy that combines the class-based populism of a John Edwards with the budgetary pragmatism of a Howard Dean, all wrapped up in shit-kicking Western dialect that the Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas Zúniga calls "a genuine version of Bush's fake ranch."
Salon spoke with Schweitzer late last week in his office in Helena. To get to the governor, you park your car on the curb out in front of the State Capitol -- there are no parking meters here -- and walk straight into the governor's office, unmolested by bureaucratic gatekeepers or security personnel. Helena is a long way from Washington, but maybe not for long: Before I can even compose a question, Schweitzer is offering his prescription for what ails the Democratic Party.
"You know who the most successful Democrats have been through history?" he asks. "Democrats who've led with their hearts, not their heads. Harry Truman, he led with his heart. Jack Kennedy led with his heart. Bill Clinton, well, he led with his heart, but it dropped about 2 feet lower in his anatomy later on.
"We are the folks who represent the families. Talk like you care. Act like you care. When you're talking about issues that touch families, it's OK to make it look like you care. It's OK to have policies that demonstrate that you'll make their lives better -- and talk about it in a way that they understand. Too many Democrats -- the policy's just fine, but they can't talk about it in a way that anybody else understands."
That sounds like a not-so-veiled criticism of John Kerry.
Oh, Washington, D.C. The problem is, they get to Washington, they drink that water, they get Washington-speak. This is not a criticism of John Kerry. It's the reason that people keep saying, "Oh, [the next Democratic president is] likely to be a governor." It's because governors are faced with this all the time: Their language has to be the language that is clear enough for Joe or Mary Six-Pack to understand. When you speak on the Senate floor or on the House floor or in a Cabinet meeting, you don't even have to use the words that we use. It's a new language -- you know, "budget reconciliation, blah blah blah blah."
No. When you're out visiting with folks in a way that touches their heart, you tell them, "We're going to find the money to do the right thing." Well, when a senator stands on the Senate floor, it'd take him two hours to explain that.
But is winning back the White House really just a matter of learning to say things in a clearer way?
A whole lot of it's visual. I heard somebody say, very early in the last presidential campaign, that they turned the volume off on their television and just watched the two candidates, and they said, "Bush is going to win." You know, when Bush walked in the room, he'd say, "Oh, hey, how ya doin' there?" giving somebody a high-five right there, giving somebody a thumbs up. When Kerry walked in, he found his way to the podium, and he described in painful detail -- with big words, in a strong way -- all the things that he was going to make right for the American people.
Please.
You need to have good solid policy -- that's important. But you've got to touch people. They've got to know you; they've got to know that you believe in what you're saying. And that's probably more important when people vote than your policies. Because how the hell are they going to raise their families, maybe work two jobs, go hunting on the weekend, bowl and drink beer with the boys on Tuesday night, and still have enough time to figure out who's telling the truth about the budget, about healthcare, about education?
So it's about the candidate himself -- about coming across as authentic and as someone voters will say is "one of us"?
They look up there and say, "That guy's a straight shooter. If I wasn't so busy bowling and working and fishing, and if I had time to spend on these issues, I bet I'd come to the same conclusions that that guy would. But it's a good thing that he's doing all that studying and stuff, because I'm busy fishing and bowling."
How do you build that kind of affinity? Do you have to show the voters that you're a regular guy -- the "who would you most want to have a beer with?" test -- or is it a matter of building some kind of link with voters on political or social issues?
You're asking me? Hell, I'm out here in Montana. I don't have any idea what the big shots in Washington, D.C., are doing. I don't think I've got any great solutions for the rest of the world, but I think I understand Montanans.
OK, let's talk about Montanans then. Did 53 percent of them vote for you because they thought you were a stand-up guy, or was it because they thought you shared their values and their positions on issues?
Both. They think I'm a stand-up guy and I'm a straight shooter. I'm plain-spoken, but the things that I say make sense.
But you've got to get people to listen in the first place. In a lot of the country -- in the South, in the rural West -- folks aren't particularly receptive to hearing what a Democrat has to say. They've made up their minds already, and they're not going to trust many Democrats on something like gun control, for example.
Maybe. But you know, when they see you pick up a gun, they know you've used one before. When you pick up a gun and you put in a round and you fire one off, they know that you know what it's all about.
In my Senate campaign [Schweitzer ran unsuccessfully in 2000], I had a great campaign ad. I stood in front of one of my barns, and I said: "Montana is not New York City. We don't need a bunch of new gun laws. We need to enforce the ones we already have." And then we moved to a shot where I was with one of my sons and my daughter, and I was holding a .270, which is a fairly good-size rifle. As I'm talking, I lifted the bolt, shoved in a bullet, put the safety on and handed it to my son as my daughter watched, and he touched one off. And as I was doing that, I was saying, "In Montana, we understand that passing responsibility from one generation to another with gun safety is part of who we are."
So it wasn't about guns, necessarily; it wasn't about family, necessarily; it wasn't about responsibility, necessarily. But it was the nexus of those. But we didn't run it enough. What happened was -- consultants. "Oh, this issue, that issue, some other issue." They're all talking about the issues. And I just kept pushing them in the Senate race: "Why don't we just run the gun ad and nothing else?" And they said, "No, no we've got all these issues."
So this time around, when we started shooting ads, they had some polling data, and they knew what pushed the buttons of the people in Montana. And I said, "No. This is the way this campaign is going to work: The more times that we run ads with me on a horse or carrying a gun -- it's better if I'm doing both -- the more likely it is that we'll call me a governor at the end of the day. Because what those ads said is, "I'm a real Montanan."
Does that kind of personal authenticity trump everything else in the minds of voters?
There's more that the big shots from big cities will never understand. I probably shook hands with at least half of the people who voted for me, maybe two-thirds. You can do that in a place where there's only 920,000 people.
But you can't do that when you're running for president. How would you translate that sort of personal appeal into a national campaign?
You're asking me about a national campaign? What the heck would I know about a national campaign?
Look, I started this out by saying that Democrats can win if they lead with their hearts. Let people feel you! Don't try to verbalize. Let them feel you first. If you're not a passionate person -- I happen to be. If I'm for something, you're gonna know it pretty quick. And if I'm agin it, you're gonna know it too. I'm straight about those things. Some people can't do that. Maybe they've had a lot of time in politics, or they're lawyers, or it's just their makeup. And they have all these highfalutin pollsters and media people, and they say, "Well, there's this demographic that kind of bleeds into this demographic, and you don't want to lose these over here because you were on this." I don't believe any of it.
I think most people will support you if they know that you'll stand your ground.
Even if they don't stand on the same ground?
That's right.
Is that why Bush won Montana by 20 percentage points -- because people thought he was the kind of guy who'd stand his ground?
Well, that, and he's a Republican. Wasn't he on the ballot with an "R" next to his name?
If that "R" is so important -- and if the West is where Democrats have to win to begin turning things around nationally -- then the party is going to have to figure out a way to overcome it. How can Democrats close the gap in places like Montana?
I understand that the Democrats in the big cities, on the East and the West coasts, have a grave concern about gun control. Frankly, as it turns out, so do Republicans. [California Gov.] Schwarzenegger supports gun control, I think. [New York Gov.] Pataki certainly does, [former New York Mayor] Giuliani does, most of these East Coast Republicans do. So I can appreciate that they've got a problem in their inner cities. But that's not what we have out here in the flyover zone. We have guns because we like them. We have guns because in some ways it just kind of defines who we are. We like having guns around. It's not necessarily that you're out shooting -- it's knowing that you could if you wanted to.
When you crowd a bunch of people together, when you've got people living on top of each other, they're likely to have run-ins. So you need a whole bunch more laws. When you've got more cattle than people and you've got blue sky that goes on almost forever, people have got room to roam without bothering each other. Live and let live.
Are there Democrats who can make that sort of appeal on a national level?
Sure, there's bunches of them. I'm not going to start naming names. I don't know who all the national Democrats are. I can tell you that my pal Billy Richardson is a good guy, a good governor, a big shot. Kathleen Sebelius in Kansas. You know, they still have the Democratic Caucus in a phone booth in Kansas, and she gets elected. So there's two.
Of course, my good friend in Michigan [Jennifer Granholm] -- she can't run unless they do the Schwarzenegger thing, which is unlikely. Ed Rendell, I wish I could do his voice; he's got the greatest voice in the world. Janet Napolitano in Arizona has been very, very successful. And let's not forget Tom Vilsack. He's a wonderful individual.
Howard Dean, who earned an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association as governor, has said almost exactly what you've just said about guns. But people in Montana probably don't think of him as a friend to rural gun owners.
Most people that matter in Montana have never heard of Howard Dean or anybody else we've talked about today. People who are into politics -- they've already decided how they're going to vote not only in 2008 but in 2012. They're not persuadable. The more people follow this, the less persuadable they are. Anybody that knows the names I just talked about is either a hard "R" or a hard "D." They already know how they're going to vote for the rest of their lives.
So Joe and Mary Six-Pack, they don't have time to watch "Hardball With Chris Matthews." They haven't any idea who Pat Buchanan is, or Robert Novak. They don't watch that stuff. They don't read about it. They open the newspaper; they read a couple of headlines on the front page to see if they know anybody that got in a pickle, and then they go right to the sports page or the comics. And if they see something about politics in there -- hoo, they're not reading that.
Don't you think any of it seeps through? The Republicans' involvement in the Terri Schiavo case, for example?
Sure it does. Maybe a little [on] Terri Schiavo because it was blasted on the national news. But I don't think anybody figured out what was going on there, except that it looked to them like it was a big political move by some rascals in Washington.
Do they make any distinction about which "rascals" those were?
You know, Joe and Mary Six-Pack, they don't disassociate. They're pretty much all in the same box.
They may not differentiate among Democrats, either. Again, Howard Dean has a record that's not at all unlike what you're trying to pull off in Montana, but it's hard to imagine Dean as the kind of national candidate who would do well here.
The first time people heard of Howard Dean, they heard of him as some guy from Vermont -- and people vaguely know where that is, but it sounds like it's where lots of hippies live -- and that he was against the war. So even before they saw him on TV, they figured he had a ponytail and a nose ring. Turns out, if they had gone three or four pages deep, they would have found out that the guy was a well-respected, moderate Democrat. But in the course of national politics, you've got about a blink or two to make up your mind whether you like somebody.
And then it was "electability." Democrats were thinking, "Oh gosh, we've just got to win. Let's get somebody that's electable." And they thought, "This guy Kerry, he's a smart guy, a senator; he served in the war, so they can't ding him for that; he voted for the war." So they started making it into a thinking thing rather than using the heart. Now, Kerry may have been the best candidate, but he wasn't selected because he was the best candidate from the heart. He was selected because in Iowa and New Hampshire people intellectualized it. They said -- and remember, this wasn't Joe and Mary Six-Pack making this decision -- "I love Howard Dean, but I think I'll marry John Kerry because Mom and Dad are going to like him better."
You're Catholic, but religion didn't play much of a role in your election.
I went to high school in a monastery. I understand Catholicism. But I don't have a need to carry my religion on my sleeve. It's something I have in my heart. Twenty-five percent of Montana is Catholic. Twenty-four percent are Lutheran. Eighteen to 20 percent are Episcopalian. This is not Baptist country -- I think it's a few percent Baptists. We have pretty mainline religions in Montana.
That's different from the South, where born-again evangelicals can dominate the political debate.
God, guns and gays.
But it's different here, politically?
I think that guns are probably preeminent in a place like Montana. When it comes to religion, people respect your own opinion. If the question is, Is it important in the flyover areas, the Midwest and the West, to understand something about God, I think it is. I think people are likely to be more God-fearing. Are they in church on Sunday necessarily? No. They might be fishing. People have different ways of getting close to their maker. In Montana, lots of time that means getting out.
But what about the political issues that go along with religion?
Gays and choice, you mean? When you simply say, like I do, "I'm pro-choice -- I just think that's an intensely private decision that every woman and her physician can and should be able to make, period" -- what else is there? That's certainly not someplace for government to be sticking its nose.
When it comes to gay marriage, folks in Montana, they're pretty traditional about who ought to be marrying who. They're not thinking that men ought to be marrying men and women ought to be marrying women. I think that's pretty consistent across the country, except for a few enclaves on the East and West Coast.
John Kerry opposes gay marriage, too. But if you took a poll of Montanans today, I'll bet 85 percent of them would say that he supports it.
Oh, they'd probably think that he married some guy. But understand that the Bush-Kerry race [didn't] matter in Montana because there was never an ad run in Montana -- not a single ad. It wasn't in play. Kerry didn't come here, Bush didn't come here, no ads were run. People didn't know who the heck they were. The things they heard about Kerry they didn't like from the very beginning, because the things they heard about him were what Karl Rove told them about him.
Many Democrats believe that the determining factor in the election was the war -- and the thought that George W. Bush was the one that would keep Americans safest. Was national security the driving issue in Montana?
No. Most people in Montana have never been to New York City. The twin towers are something they've only seen on television. And Montanans have served in much higher numbers as a percent of our population in every conflict we've ever had. Part of that is the large number of Indians -- Indians are warriors, some of the greatest warriors in modern times and in ancient times -- and part of it is the rural nature of who we are. And it's one way to demonstrate that you're a stand-up guy, and I respect that.
But were Montanans outraged at the same level as folks in New York City or in other vulnerable cities? Frankly, is al-Qaida coming to Montana?
It would be a bad idea for them to come here. To start with, if they show up here and start making some trouble, somebody's just going to shoot their asses and ask questions later.
But the point is, when you live in big cities, you see how many people can be killed by a single event, like flying into a building or a dirty bomb. I just don't believe that Montanans were so touched as they were on the East and West coasts about this. I mean, we were outraged that we were attacked, of course. But I will never know the feeling that somebody who is from New York had to have watching that happen.
How does the Iraq war play in Montana?
Oh, about 50-50, right now.
How does it play with you?
As you know, I lived in the Middle East, and I learned to speak Arabic. I had misgivings from the very beginning. We were told that this incursion was going to make the world a safer place. But that didn't square with me because I knew, in the Middle East, the days of the Crusades are like they happened just a few years ago. Any incursion of the West into Islamic cultures is going to be met with resistance. So now we say that, really, the reason we [went] there was to create democracies, and democracies will spring up [throughout the region].
But here's the problem. Our closet allies in the Middle East would be? Saudi Arabia, with a functional king; Kuwait, with a functional king; Jordan, with a functional king; Egypt, with a -- I don't know -- president for life. Israel, it does have a democratic republic. But what do you think our allies are saying when we're standing there saying, "We are going to let democracy rise up"? Well, that's pretty threatening to them. So I don't know what the endgame is here.
You know, I've had people say to me, "But when you're attacked, you've got to respond." I agree. I think we should have gone to Afghanistan and turned over every single rock until we got Osama bin Laden. And I would personally put his head on a stick; I would do that.
That's the place we needed to be. The problem is that somehow we got diverted along the way and we went into Iraq. Now, we had Iraq tamed better than any other country in the world. They couldn't even take off or land a plane or even move a truck in the desert. We had airplanes over Iraq, 24/7, for years. We don't over Iran. So why Iraq? I haven't got the answer yet. I'm still asking the question.
We're there. I support our troops; I support the families. You know what? In Montana, we don't make the decision to go. We just answer when called. This is for the big shots in Washington, D.C. I'm just a rancher from Montana.
And you have the luxury of not having to deal with foreign policy from Helena. You're working instead on domestic issues with Montana's Legislature.
We've gotten just about everything I've wanted: a scholarship program, a healthcare program, a prescription drug program. We passed five [medical malpractice] bills -- five med-mals! -- no tax increases, some economic development bills that are very cool, and a "best and brightest" scholarship program, so every middle-class family in Montana finally can attain the dream to send the next generation to college.
Can the Democrats use an issue like that in a play for "moral values" voters?
Hell, yes. When every mother and father knows that there will be support if they have a kid that deserves the opportunity to make it to the top ... Education is the equalizer. It doesn't matter if you were on third base or were in the dugout when the game started -- you have an opportunity to make it to home plate with education.
And healthcare. You know, in Montana, 20 percent of the people don't have health insurance. They're not indigent, living under bridges someplace or in a culvert with a sleeping bag. Maybe Mom and Dad both work. They say prayers with their kids when they tuck 'em into bed, and then they close the door and they walk down the hall, and they get on their knees and they pray one more time that nobody gets sick because they don't have health insurance. They just can't imagine having a sick child and not being in a position to be able to get the help that they need.
That's something that we've got to fix, and we're fixing it in Montana. We've got a targeted tax credit for small businesses to buy insurance for themselves and their employees. We passed five med-mal bills. If that helps, we'll do it. If making [insurance] more affordable by pooling people together so they can buy insurance will help, we'll do it. We've put significantly more resources into something called the Child Health Insurance Program to get more matching funds from the federal government so that lower-middle-class kids up to 18 will get a healthy start. We're doing it.
And how do you persuade the most conservative voters -- the ones for whom abortion and gay marriage are be-all, end-all issues -- that they should think about education and healthcare as important "moral values" too?
The most conservative voters? The beauty is that I only need about 50 percent to win. The most conservative voters will not even give me a shot. I don't need 100 percent of the vote. Just do the right thing, for God's sake. And if that means I'm only going to be governor for the next three and a half years, so be it. Just tell 'em who are you are, tell 'em what you believe in, and tell 'em in a way that they're gonna believe you.
The Democrats spend a lot of time worrying about how to finesse these social issues.
Please. Please. Just tell 'em what you are. You know, this polling stuff, having to go out and figure out which way the wind's blowing -- do you believe in something? Did you have something when you started? If you do, tell 'em what it is. You'll be all right. If you're a kook, you're not going to get elected. But if you're real, you're normal, you're halfway bright, and you're willing to stand up -- that's the most important thing.
Well, stand up and be full of cheer because there's a bright ray of sunshine coming from the west. Actually there are two rays of sunshine - one being Governor Brian Schweitzer of Montana and the second Governor Bill Richardson of New Mexico. These two men have the potential to handily win the nomination and then soundly defeat whichever corporate lackey and forked-tounged, hypocritical, nefarious, imperialistic party hack the Republicans (or the Democrats) come up with.
In case you previously missed it, the April, 2005, interview below by Salon.com will help give you a good feel for why I think Schweitzer is the man. I'll post more on Schweitzer and Richardson soon. For additional info go to the links listed in the article below and www.schweitzerforpresident.com
What a breath of fresh air!
Gary
Life of the Party
Brian Schweitzer, the blue governor of the red state of Montana, may just have the answer to the Democrats' woes.
- By Tim Grieve - Reprinted from Salon.com
April 19, 2005 HELENA, Mont. -- The future is wearing a turquoise bolo tie wrapped around the open collar of a blue-and-white-striped button-down dress shirt. And if that doesn't sound quite right, then you haven't considered the mismatched gray suit coat or the blue jeans and boots down below. Meet Brian Schweitzer, the soil sciences major who grew up to be the governor of Montana -- and may be the next best hope of the Democratic Party.
On Nov. 2, George W. Bush beat John Kerry in Montana by 20 percentage points. On the same day, Montana voters overwhelmingly approved a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage -- and elected as their governor a populist, pro-choice Democrat. Are Montana voters as schizophrenic as the governor's fashion sense, or is Brian Schweitzer just that good?
A lot of folks say it's the latter. Everyone from the Washington Monthly to the American Spectator has taken note of the rancher from Whitefish, Mont., and what the Wall Street Journal called his "well-spoken, gun-owning, dog-loving, native-ritual-doing, shot-of-whiskey-drinking true-west style." Democrats hungry for hope in the dark days after 2004 find themselves wondering whether another little-known governor from a small red state can somehow help them find their way back to the White House.
Ask Schweitzer about 2008, and he ticks off the names of Democratic governors who've proved they can appeal to red-state voters. What about him? "You know, all these people are saying, 'To be governor of Montana, he must have it figured out,'" Schweitzer says. "I'm telling you, I've broken more colts than there are days that I've been in office. I'm just a regular guy, getting things done in Montana. I don't know if that works nationally, but I don't care."
But it's clear that he does care. In an hour-long interview, Schweitzer gave impassioned advice on how Democrats can win back the rural West by "leading with their hearts" and recognizing that a one-size-fits-all platform on gun control won't play in hunting and fishing states like Montana.
A native Montanan who spent time in the Middle East before returning to start his own business, Schweitzer espouses a political philosophy that combines the class-based populism of a John Edwards with the budgetary pragmatism of a Howard Dean, all wrapped up in shit-kicking Western dialect that the Daily Kos' Markos Moulitsas Zúniga calls "a genuine version of Bush's fake ranch."
Salon spoke with Schweitzer late last week in his office in Helena. To get to the governor, you park your car on the curb out in front of the State Capitol -- there are no parking meters here -- and walk straight into the governor's office, unmolested by bureaucratic gatekeepers or security personnel. Helena is a long way from Washington, but maybe not for long: Before I can even compose a question, Schweitzer is offering his prescription for what ails the Democratic Party.
"You know who the most successful Democrats have been through history?" he asks. "Democrats who've led with their hearts, not their heads. Harry Truman, he led with his heart. Jack Kennedy led with his heart. Bill Clinton, well, he led with his heart, but it dropped about 2 feet lower in his anatomy later on.
"We are the folks who represent the families. Talk like you care. Act like you care. When you're talking about issues that touch families, it's OK to make it look like you care. It's OK to have policies that demonstrate that you'll make their lives better -- and talk about it in a way that they understand. Too many Democrats -- the policy's just fine, but they can't talk about it in a way that anybody else understands."
That sounds like a not-so-veiled criticism of John Kerry.
Oh, Washington, D.C. The problem is, they get to Washington, they drink that water, they get Washington-speak. This is not a criticism of John Kerry. It's the reason that people keep saying, "Oh, [the next Democratic president is] likely to be a governor." It's because governors are faced with this all the time: Their language has to be the language that is clear enough for Joe or Mary Six-Pack to understand. When you speak on the Senate floor or on the House floor or in a Cabinet meeting, you don't even have to use the words that we use. It's a new language -- you know, "budget reconciliation, blah blah blah blah."
No. When you're out visiting with folks in a way that touches their heart, you tell them, "We're going to find the money to do the right thing." Well, when a senator stands on the Senate floor, it'd take him two hours to explain that.
But is winning back the White House really just a matter of learning to say things in a clearer way?
A whole lot of it's visual. I heard somebody say, very early in the last presidential campaign, that they turned the volume off on their television and just watched the two candidates, and they said, "Bush is going to win." You know, when Bush walked in the room, he'd say, "Oh, hey, how ya doin' there?" giving somebody a high-five right there, giving somebody a thumbs up. When Kerry walked in, he found his way to the podium, and he described in painful detail -- with big words, in a strong way -- all the things that he was going to make right for the American people.
Please.
You need to have good solid policy -- that's important. But you've got to touch people. They've got to know you; they've got to know that you believe in what you're saying. And that's probably more important when people vote than your policies. Because how the hell are they going to raise their families, maybe work two jobs, go hunting on the weekend, bowl and drink beer with the boys on Tuesday night, and still have enough time to figure out who's telling the truth about the budget, about healthcare, about education?
So it's about the candidate himself -- about coming across as authentic and as someone voters will say is "one of us"?
They look up there and say, "That guy's a straight shooter. If I wasn't so busy bowling and working and fishing, and if I had time to spend on these issues, I bet I'd come to the same conclusions that that guy would. But it's a good thing that he's doing all that studying and stuff, because I'm busy fishing and bowling."
How do you build that kind of affinity? Do you have to show the voters that you're a regular guy -- the "who would you most want to have a beer with?" test -- or is it a matter of building some kind of link with voters on political or social issues?
You're asking me? Hell, I'm out here in Montana. I don't have any idea what the big shots in Washington, D.C., are doing. I don't think I've got any great solutions for the rest of the world, but I think I understand Montanans.
OK, let's talk about Montanans then. Did 53 percent of them vote for you because they thought you were a stand-up guy, or was it because they thought you shared their values and their positions on issues?
Both. They think I'm a stand-up guy and I'm a straight shooter. I'm plain-spoken, but the things that I say make sense.
But you've got to get people to listen in the first place. In a lot of the country -- in the South, in the rural West -- folks aren't particularly receptive to hearing what a Democrat has to say. They've made up their minds already, and they're not going to trust many Democrats on something like gun control, for example.
Maybe. But you know, when they see you pick up a gun, they know you've used one before. When you pick up a gun and you put in a round and you fire one off, they know that you know what it's all about.
In my Senate campaign [Schweitzer ran unsuccessfully in 2000], I had a great campaign ad. I stood in front of one of my barns, and I said: "Montana is not New York City. We don't need a bunch of new gun laws. We need to enforce the ones we already have." And then we moved to a shot where I was with one of my sons and my daughter, and I was holding a .270, which is a fairly good-size rifle. As I'm talking, I lifted the bolt, shoved in a bullet, put the safety on and handed it to my son as my daughter watched, and he touched one off. And as I was doing that, I was saying, "In Montana, we understand that passing responsibility from one generation to another with gun safety is part of who we are."
So it wasn't about guns, necessarily; it wasn't about family, necessarily; it wasn't about responsibility, necessarily. But it was the nexus of those. But we didn't run it enough. What happened was -- consultants. "Oh, this issue, that issue, some other issue." They're all talking about the issues. And I just kept pushing them in the Senate race: "Why don't we just run the gun ad and nothing else?" And they said, "No, no we've got all these issues."
So this time around, when we started shooting ads, they had some polling data, and they knew what pushed the buttons of the people in Montana. And I said, "No. This is the way this campaign is going to work: The more times that we run ads with me on a horse or carrying a gun -- it's better if I'm doing both -- the more likely it is that we'll call me a governor at the end of the day. Because what those ads said is, "I'm a real Montanan."
Does that kind of personal authenticity trump everything else in the minds of voters?
There's more that the big shots from big cities will never understand. I probably shook hands with at least half of the people who voted for me, maybe two-thirds. You can do that in a place where there's only 920,000 people.
But you can't do that when you're running for president. How would you translate that sort of personal appeal into a national campaign?
You're asking me about a national campaign? What the heck would I know about a national campaign?
Look, I started this out by saying that Democrats can win if they lead with their hearts. Let people feel you! Don't try to verbalize. Let them feel you first. If you're not a passionate person -- I happen to be. If I'm for something, you're gonna know it pretty quick. And if I'm agin it, you're gonna know it too. I'm straight about those things. Some people can't do that. Maybe they've had a lot of time in politics, or they're lawyers, or it's just their makeup. And they have all these highfalutin pollsters and media people, and they say, "Well, there's this demographic that kind of bleeds into this demographic, and you don't want to lose these over here because you were on this." I don't believe any of it.
I think most people will support you if they know that you'll stand your ground.
Even if they don't stand on the same ground?
That's right.
Is that why Bush won Montana by 20 percentage points -- because people thought he was the kind of guy who'd stand his ground?
Well, that, and he's a Republican. Wasn't he on the ballot with an "R" next to his name?
If that "R" is so important -- and if the West is where Democrats have to win to begin turning things around nationally -- then the party is going to have to figure out a way to overcome it. How can Democrats close the gap in places like Montana?
I understand that the Democrats in the big cities, on the East and the West coasts, have a grave concern about gun control. Frankly, as it turns out, so do Republicans. [California Gov.] Schwarzenegger supports gun control, I think. [New York Gov.] Pataki certainly does, [former New York Mayor] Giuliani does, most of these East Coast Republicans do. So I can appreciate that they've got a problem in their inner cities. But that's not what we have out here in the flyover zone. We have guns because we like them. We have guns because in some ways it just kind of defines who we are. We like having guns around. It's not necessarily that you're out shooting -- it's knowing that you could if you wanted to.
When you crowd a bunch of people together, when you've got people living on top of each other, they're likely to have run-ins. So you need a whole bunch more laws. When you've got more cattle than people and you've got blue sky that goes on almost forever, people have got room to roam without bothering each other. Live and let live.
Are there Democrats who can make that sort of appeal on a national level?
Sure, there's bunches of them. I'm not going to start naming names. I don't know who all the national Democrats are. I can tell you that my pal Billy Richardson is a good guy, a good governor, a big shot. Kathleen Sebelius in Kansas. You know, they still have the Democratic Caucus in a phone booth in Kansas, and she gets elected. So there's two.
Of course, my good friend in Michigan [Jennifer Granholm] -- she can't run unless they do the Schwarzenegger thing, which is unlikely. Ed Rendell, I wish I could do his voice; he's got the greatest voice in the world. Janet Napolitano in Arizona has been very, very successful. And let's not forget Tom Vilsack. He's a wonderful individual.
Howard Dean, who earned an "A" rating from the National Rifle Association as governor, has said almost exactly what you've just said about guns. But people in Montana probably don't think of him as a friend to rural gun owners.
Most people that matter in Montana have never heard of Howard Dean or anybody else we've talked about today. People who are into politics -- they've already decided how they're going to vote not only in 2008 but in 2012. They're not persuadable. The more people follow this, the less persuadable they are. Anybody that knows the names I just talked about is either a hard "R" or a hard "D." They already know how they're going to vote for the rest of their lives.
So Joe and Mary Six-Pack, they don't have time to watch "Hardball With Chris Matthews." They haven't any idea who Pat Buchanan is, or Robert Novak. They don't watch that stuff. They don't read about it. They open the newspaper; they read a couple of headlines on the front page to see if they know anybody that got in a pickle, and then they go right to the sports page or the comics. And if they see something about politics in there -- hoo, they're not reading that.
Don't you think any of it seeps through? The Republicans' involvement in the Terri Schiavo case, for example?
Sure it does. Maybe a little [on] Terri Schiavo because it was blasted on the national news. But I don't think anybody figured out what was going on there, except that it looked to them like it was a big political move by some rascals in Washington.
Do they make any distinction about which "rascals" those were?
You know, Joe and Mary Six-Pack, they don't disassociate. They're pretty much all in the same box.
They may not differentiate among Democrats, either. Again, Howard Dean has a record that's not at all unlike what you're trying to pull off in Montana, but it's hard to imagine Dean as the kind of national candidate who would do well here.
The first time people heard of Howard Dean, they heard of him as some guy from Vermont -- and people vaguely know where that is, but it sounds like it's where lots of hippies live -- and that he was against the war. So even before they saw him on TV, they figured he had a ponytail and a nose ring. Turns out, if they had gone three or four pages deep, they would have found out that the guy was a well-respected, moderate Democrat. But in the course of national politics, you've got about a blink or two to make up your mind whether you like somebody.
And then it was "electability." Democrats were thinking, "Oh gosh, we've just got to win. Let's get somebody that's electable." And they thought, "This guy Kerry, he's a smart guy, a senator; he served in the war, so they can't ding him for that; he voted for the war." So they started making it into a thinking thing rather than using the heart. Now, Kerry may have been the best candidate, but he wasn't selected because he was the best candidate from the heart. He was selected because in Iowa and New Hampshire people intellectualized it. They said -- and remember, this wasn't Joe and Mary Six-Pack making this decision -- "I love Howard Dean, but I think I'll marry John Kerry because Mom and Dad are going to like him better."
You're Catholic, but religion didn't play much of a role in your election.
I went to high school in a monastery. I understand Catholicism. But I don't have a need to carry my religion on my sleeve. It's something I have in my heart. Twenty-five percent of Montana is Catholic. Twenty-four percent are Lutheran. Eighteen to 20 percent are Episcopalian. This is not Baptist country -- I think it's a few percent Baptists. We have pretty mainline religions in Montana.
That's different from the South, where born-again evangelicals can dominate the political debate.
God, guns and gays.
But it's different here, politically?
I think that guns are probably preeminent in a place like Montana. When it comes to religion, people respect your own opinion. If the question is, Is it important in the flyover areas, the Midwest and the West, to understand something about God, I think it is. I think people are likely to be more God-fearing. Are they in church on Sunday necessarily? No. They might be fishing. People have different ways of getting close to their maker. In Montana, lots of time that means getting out.
But what about the political issues that go along with religion?
Gays and choice, you mean? When you simply say, like I do, "I'm pro-choice -- I just think that's an intensely private decision that every woman and her physician can and should be able to make, period" -- what else is there? That's certainly not someplace for government to be sticking its nose.
When it comes to gay marriage, folks in Montana, they're pretty traditional about who ought to be marrying who. They're not thinking that men ought to be marrying men and women ought to be marrying women. I think that's pretty consistent across the country, except for a few enclaves on the East and West Coast.
John Kerry opposes gay marriage, too. But if you took a poll of Montanans today, I'll bet 85 percent of them would say that he supports it.
Oh, they'd probably think that he married some guy. But understand that the Bush-Kerry race [didn't] matter in Montana because there was never an ad run in Montana -- not a single ad. It wasn't in play. Kerry didn't come here, Bush didn't come here, no ads were run. People didn't know who the heck they were. The things they heard about Kerry they didn't like from the very beginning, because the things they heard about him were what Karl Rove told them about him.
Many Democrats believe that the determining factor in the election was the war -- and the thought that George W. Bush was the one that would keep Americans safest. Was national security the driving issue in Montana?
No. Most people in Montana have never been to New York City. The twin towers are something they've only seen on television. And Montanans have served in much higher numbers as a percent of our population in every conflict we've ever had. Part of that is the large number of Indians -- Indians are warriors, some of the greatest warriors in modern times and in ancient times -- and part of it is the rural nature of who we are. And it's one way to demonstrate that you're a stand-up guy, and I respect that.
But were Montanans outraged at the same level as folks in New York City or in other vulnerable cities? Frankly, is al-Qaida coming to Montana?
It would be a bad idea for them to come here. To start with, if they show up here and start making some trouble, somebody's just going to shoot their asses and ask questions later.
But the point is, when you live in big cities, you see how many people can be killed by a single event, like flying into a building or a dirty bomb. I just don't believe that Montanans were so touched as they were on the East and West coasts about this. I mean, we were outraged that we were attacked, of course. But I will never know the feeling that somebody who is from New York had to have watching that happen.
How does the Iraq war play in Montana?
Oh, about 50-50, right now.
How does it play with you?
As you know, I lived in the Middle East, and I learned to speak Arabic. I had misgivings from the very beginning. We were told that this incursion was going to make the world a safer place. But that didn't square with me because I knew, in the Middle East, the days of the Crusades are like they happened just a few years ago. Any incursion of the West into Islamic cultures is going to be met with resistance. So now we say that, really, the reason we [went] there was to create democracies, and democracies will spring up [throughout the region].
But here's the problem. Our closet allies in the Middle East would be? Saudi Arabia, with a functional king; Kuwait, with a functional king; Jordan, with a functional king; Egypt, with a -- I don't know -- president for life. Israel, it does have a democratic republic. But what do you think our allies are saying when we're standing there saying, "We are going to let democracy rise up"? Well, that's pretty threatening to them. So I don't know what the endgame is here.
You know, I've had people say to me, "But when you're attacked, you've got to respond." I agree. I think we should have gone to Afghanistan and turned over every single rock until we got Osama bin Laden. And I would personally put his head on a stick; I would do that.
That's the place we needed to be. The problem is that somehow we got diverted along the way and we went into Iraq. Now, we had Iraq tamed better than any other country in the world. They couldn't even take off or land a plane or even move a truck in the desert. We had airplanes over Iraq, 24/7, for years. We don't over Iran. So why Iraq? I haven't got the answer yet. I'm still asking the question.
We're there. I support our troops; I support the families. You know what? In Montana, we don't make the decision to go. We just answer when called. This is for the big shots in Washington, D.C. I'm just a rancher from Montana.
And you have the luxury of not having to deal with foreign policy from Helena. You're working instead on domestic issues with Montana's Legislature.
We've gotten just about everything I've wanted: a scholarship program, a healthcare program, a prescription drug program. We passed five [medical malpractice] bills -- five med-mals! -- no tax increases, some economic development bills that are very cool, and a "best and brightest" scholarship program, so every middle-class family in Montana finally can attain the dream to send the next generation to college.
Can the Democrats use an issue like that in a play for "moral values" voters?
Hell, yes. When every mother and father knows that there will be support if they have a kid that deserves the opportunity to make it to the top ... Education is the equalizer. It doesn't matter if you were on third base or were in the dugout when the game started -- you have an opportunity to make it to home plate with education.
And healthcare. You know, in Montana, 20 percent of the people don't have health insurance. They're not indigent, living under bridges someplace or in a culvert with a sleeping bag. Maybe Mom and Dad both work. They say prayers with their kids when they tuck 'em into bed, and then they close the door and they walk down the hall, and they get on their knees and they pray one more time that nobody gets sick because they don't have health insurance. They just can't imagine having a sick child and not being in a position to be able to get the help that they need.
That's something that we've got to fix, and we're fixing it in Montana. We've got a targeted tax credit for small businesses to buy insurance for themselves and their employees. We passed five med-mal bills. If that helps, we'll do it. If making [insurance] more affordable by pooling people together so they can buy insurance will help, we'll do it. We've put significantly more resources into something called the Child Health Insurance Program to get more matching funds from the federal government so that lower-middle-class kids up to 18 will get a healthy start. We're doing it.
And how do you persuade the most conservative voters -- the ones for whom abortion and gay marriage are be-all, end-all issues -- that they should think about education and healthcare as important "moral values" too?
The most conservative voters? The beauty is that I only need about 50 percent to win. The most conservative voters will not even give me a shot. I don't need 100 percent of the vote. Just do the right thing, for God's sake. And if that means I'm only going to be governor for the next three and a half years, so be it. Just tell 'em who are you are, tell 'em what you believe in, and tell 'em in a way that they're gonna believe you.
The Democrats spend a lot of time worrying about how to finesse these social issues.
Please. Please. Just tell 'em what you are. You know, this polling stuff, having to go out and figure out which way the wind's blowing -- do you believe in something? Did you have something when you started? If you do, tell 'em what it is. You'll be all right. If you're a kook, you're not going to get elected. But if you're real, you're normal, you're halfway bright, and you're willing to stand up -- that's the most important thing.
Monday, December 19, 2005
The Times They Are a' Changin' for Our Southern Neighbors
How about the socialist democratic revolution going on in South America? Guess whose heavy imperial hand, attempts at assassination and subversion of democracy have helped instigate this popular backlash in Venezuela, Argentina and now Bolivia? Evo Morales, an indigenous "Indian" was elected yesterday as Bolivia's president despite every effort by wealthy corporatists to defeat him. It will be interesting to see how Bush and our CIA (Corporate Intelligence Agency) responds to this current "threat to our national security". Evo might not survive to take office if our CIA has anything to do with it. He better consult with Hugo Chavez of Venezuela on how to survive.
The definition for "national security" under the Bush regime is more appropriately defined as the opportunity for wealthy people and corporations to exploit a nation's resources, the working poor and less educated. This exploitation is not new, but it has been evolving throughout history and is reaching the point that mass revolutions will be the only means to stop it. Truth and justice cannot be denied. Sooner or later they will prevail.
I support this move by Bolivia towards a more true democracy. Bush, his gang of pirates, and the corporate puppet regimes that previously reigned supreme in these countries, don't. Why are they against the people of these countries democratically choosing there own leaders and having a say in the actions of their governments? What do you suspect?
Don't tell me Bush, Cheney and the rest of the corporatists are not dangerous to our country, to other nations, and a serious threat to freedom, justice and world peace. Corporations have slowly pushed democracy and people's rights aside and have taken over almost every nation's government - most prominently our own. Corporate greed and corruption have reached a fever pitch that threatens the freedom of all people and of every nation. Oppressed people everywhere are beginning to come together to reject imperial power and demand social equity.
This spiraling cycle of oppression and exploitation by the powerful and the rising up of people against fascist and dictatorial tyranny is inherit throughout the history of man but has never reached the mass potential of today's modern world due largely to the spread of industrialization and the supporting technology and weaponry. Globalization not only spreads economic development and pollution to all corners of the globe but also spreads greed, corruption, human rights violations, corporate crime, tyranny and war.
In other news, President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina announced yesterday they will pay off their entire $9.8 billion dollar debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whose interference and unfair policies contributed to Argentina's failed economy in 2001. Also soon to be free of the corporatist IMF is Brazil who pledges to quickly pay their IMF debt of $15.5 Billion. These moves are considered not only economic but political. This will free these countries from IMF and US control. Kirchner thanked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for his assistance, prompting applause from government officials listening to the speech at the presidential palace. Venezuela this year has purchased almost $1 billion of Argentine bonds. Kirchner also lauded his own government for helping sustain an economic recovery by ignoring IMF advice. Argentina was the third-largest debtor to the IMF after Brazil and Turkey and has had a loan agreement with the fund since 1983.
In South America "the times they are a ' changin'" could become the theme song for a new coalition of nations bent on coming of age and freeing themselves from imperial control. Mexico could be the next nation to oust the puppet Vincente Fox in favor of a socialist leaning president. I'm sure Chavez and Kirchner will be willing to offer assistance.
Leftist Appears to Be Winner in Bolivia
LA PAZ, Bolivia — Evo Morales, a former coca farmer who has pledged to torpedo U.S. anti-drug efforts here and be a "nightmare" for Washington, appeared set to become Bolivia's first Indian president after a surprisingly strong showing in Sunday's election.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bolivia19dec19,0,4927055.story?track=tothtml
Argentina to Repay IMF Debt Four Years After Default (Update3) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aqmy9waeK_A0&refer=latin_america
The definition for "national security" under the Bush regime is more appropriately defined as the opportunity for wealthy people and corporations to exploit a nation's resources, the working poor and less educated. This exploitation is not new, but it has been evolving throughout history and is reaching the point that mass revolutions will be the only means to stop it. Truth and justice cannot be denied. Sooner or later they will prevail.
I support this move by Bolivia towards a more true democracy. Bush, his gang of pirates, and the corporate puppet regimes that previously reigned supreme in these countries, don't. Why are they against the people of these countries democratically choosing there own leaders and having a say in the actions of their governments? What do you suspect?
Don't tell me Bush, Cheney and the rest of the corporatists are not dangerous to our country, to other nations, and a serious threat to freedom, justice and world peace. Corporations have slowly pushed democracy and people's rights aside and have taken over almost every nation's government - most prominently our own. Corporate greed and corruption have reached a fever pitch that threatens the freedom of all people and of every nation. Oppressed people everywhere are beginning to come together to reject imperial power and demand social equity.
This spiraling cycle of oppression and exploitation by the powerful and the rising up of people against fascist and dictatorial tyranny is inherit throughout the history of man but has never reached the mass potential of today's modern world due largely to the spread of industrialization and the supporting technology and weaponry. Globalization not only spreads economic development and pollution to all corners of the globe but also spreads greed, corruption, human rights violations, corporate crime, tyranny and war.
In other news, President Nestor Kirchner of Argentina announced yesterday they will pay off their entire $9.8 billion dollar debt to the International Monetary Fund (IMF) whose interference and unfair policies contributed to Argentina's failed economy in 2001. Also soon to be free of the corporatist IMF is Brazil who pledges to quickly pay their IMF debt of $15.5 Billion. These moves are considered not only economic but political. This will free these countries from IMF and US control. Kirchner thanked Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for his assistance, prompting applause from government officials listening to the speech at the presidential palace. Venezuela this year has purchased almost $1 billion of Argentine bonds. Kirchner also lauded his own government for helping sustain an economic recovery by ignoring IMF advice. Argentina was the third-largest debtor to the IMF after Brazil and Turkey and has had a loan agreement with the fund since 1983.
In South America "the times they are a ' changin'" could become the theme song for a new coalition of nations bent on coming of age and freeing themselves from imperial control. Mexico could be the next nation to oust the puppet Vincente Fox in favor of a socialist leaning president. I'm sure Chavez and Kirchner will be willing to offer assistance.
Leftist Appears to Be Winner in Bolivia
LA PAZ, Bolivia — Evo Morales, a former coca farmer who has pledged to torpedo U.S. anti-drug efforts here and be a "nightmare" for Washington, appeared set to become Bolivia's first Indian president after a surprisingly strong showing in Sunday's election.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-bolivia19dec19,0,4927055.story?track=tothtml
Argentina to Repay IMF Debt Four Years After Default (Update3) http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000086&sid=aqmy9waeK_A0&refer=latin_america
Saturday, December 17, 2005
Bush Has It His Way - The Orwellian Way
In response to the revelation of Bush's "secret" program allowing the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens, Bush angrily said, "Yesterday the existence of this secret program was revealed in media reports after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result our enemies have learned information they should not have. And the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemy and endangers our country."
Let me see here. Correct me if I'm wrong. Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA. Her name and fictitious fronting company were ". . . revealed in media reports after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result our enemies have learned information they should not have. And the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemy and endangers our country."
Oh, the hypocrisy, the dichotomy and the arrogance.
Bush also claims in clear down-the-rabbit-hole White Rabbit-speak, by spying on Americans he is protecting our freedoms.
Bush arrogantly and defiantly says to congress and the American people that he will not cease spying on American citizens. "That's exactly what I will continue to do - as long as I am president of the United States", he stated in closing.
Maybe there is something we can do about the "as long as" factor.
Gary
For a video of the full 8 minute address click here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10505574/
Let me see here. Correct me if I'm wrong. Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA. Her name and fictitious fronting company were ". . . revealed in media reports after being improperly provided to news organizations. As a result our enemies have learned information they should not have. And the unauthorized disclosure of this effort damages our national security and puts our citizens at risk. Revealing classified information is illegal, alerts our enemy and endangers our country."
Oh, the hypocrisy, the dichotomy and the arrogance.
Bush also claims in clear down-the-rabbit-hole White Rabbit-speak, by spying on Americans he is protecting our freedoms.
Bush arrogantly and defiantly says to congress and the American people that he will not cease spying on American citizens. "That's exactly what I will continue to do - as long as I am president of the United States", he stated in closing.
Maybe there is something we can do about the "as long as" factor.
Gary
For a video of the full 8 minute address click here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10505574/
Thursday, December 15, 2005
Bush Is No Houdini
I'm so tired of Bush and his administration lying about his failed invasion of a sovereign nation that did not attack us and about the reasons Bush went to war. We know the reason. We are not fools. Bush and his administration have lied themselves into a deep hole from which there is no ladder out and they keep digging it deeper with each additional lie. Now Bush, after morphing through a whole series of lies about why he invaded Iraq, is finally saying, well, if I'm a fuck-up, then so are the Democrats who voted to give me the authority to invade Iraq. But that itself is another lie.
The 1998 legislation Bush refers to gave the president authority "to support efforts to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein" by providing assistance to Iraqi opposition groups, including arms, humanitarian aid and broadcasting facilities, not a green light to go to war. Although by giving Bush that authority those Democrats who voted for it knew full well that Bush would indeed invade. They are culpable in that regard despite what they are now saying.
Quite frankly, there were a number of our elected representatives, millions of US citizens and many millions of people from other nations that did not accept the evidence that was provided and hyped by Bush as proof that Saddam had secret stockpiles of WMD and all of the various other charges. Saddam in fact was on his way to becoming another Qudaffi, a dictator on his way down - not up. Gore himself, if he had been allowed to take his rightful seat in the White House, had agreed that Saddam needed to be removed but I doubt seriously that Gore would have lied to the American people, manipulated and fabricated intelligence and preemptively invaded a sovereign nation. Gore has a good heart and an intelligent mind - he also is a man of great integrity and a sense of morality that would have not allowed him to violate the principles upon which this nation was founded.
The first reason Bush gave was because Iraq had not complied with UN Resolutions to disarm. But the UN was not convinced and would not sanction the invasion. Instead they recommended further inspections and continuing sanctions. Then Bush said it was because Iraq was developing nuclear weapons to provide to terrorists and that he was manufacturing stockpiles of biological weapons. So after he invaded and no weapons of mass destruction were found Bush said it was because Saddam had cooperated with the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center. When that was disproved Bush said it was because Saddam was an evil dictator who tortured his people and was a threat to peace in the middle east. Then after that reason wasn't accepted by the American public Bush now claims the reason he invaded Iraq was to establish the seeds of Democracy in the region that would soon spread to all the middle east.
How ironic that the US invasion of Iraq has created an ongoing conflict, unrest and has been the catalyst for greatly increased terrorist activity not only in the middle east but around the world. It was not Saddam but Bush who has caused the escalation of conflict, death and suffering. How ironic that although Saddam was a brutal dictator who coldheartedly murdered and tortured his own countrymen, he kept a lid on conflict between the feuding Muslim factions within Iraq's borders. Add to that irony the fact that in Washington's eyes, Saddam was not always an enemy. In fact, three Presidents counted on him to keep Iran's brand of Islamic radicalism in check, Reagan, Bush I and Bill Clinton.
What's amazing is that historians and all of our middle east experts knew that the ruling faction, the Sunnis to which Saddam belonged, represented only 25% of all Iraqi's, the Shiites representing the most at about 64%, and the Kurds the remaining percentage. They knew the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds were historic enemies of each other and were thrown together by the British back in 1918 as they drew a border around three distinct tribal territories and called them a nation state. They knew the Kurds in the north have always wanted their own state as did the Sunnis of the central section and the Shiites of the south which are political and religious kin of the Iranians. Bush and his warlords should have realized that establishing a democracy and forming a government from the same group hated by the other two factions would be no simple task and might possibly never work. Shiite control would mean an alliance with Iran - our sworn enemy and also Sunni Saddam's enemy. If you allow unimpeded voting in an Iraqi democracy who is going to control it - the Shiites, the Sunni's or the Kurds? The Shiites, who were persecuted by the ruling Sunnis under Saddam, are sure to gain control and how do you expect them to react to the decades of persecution by Sunnis? How do you expect the Kurds to act towards both Sunni's and Shiites?
Under this scenario Bush apparently fantasized about how he would be received as a great liberator by the Iraqi's just as the French received American troops who liberated Paris. With no plan for how we would control this mess that only a brutal dictator had been able to keep a lid on, Bush and his band of greedy pirates blundered their way into the biggest mess since Viet Nam. Why does it appear the people who gain power seem to be the most stupid and screwed up?
Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Hans Blix who headed up the UN's WMD inspection team, and Scott Ritter, UN Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq, all disagreed with Bush and his gang of warhawks that were searching for any excuse to invade Iraq. Anyone who thinks this was not about controlling Iraq's oil and gaining a powerful military foothold in the middle east is as wrong-headed as Bush and his corporate profiteers. This is an arrogant and brazen attempt to extend empire and to stake a claim on the world's largest oil reserve and none of the other nations on this earth think otherwise.
Unless we find a way to remove Bush and Cheney from office between now and 2008 our nation is going to suffer more lies and a deeper hole of debt and world turmoil. Short of Bush and his nefarious cabal orchestrating a serious terrorist attack on the United States or instigating a threat of greater proportions than now exists, there is no way I can see that the Iraq situation will disappear or be mitigated with Bush in office. It is reasonable to fear the election just held in Iraq will not even come close to solving the problems of the middle east and instead may lead to increased civil strife and war. Bush will spend the rest of his presidency trying to lie his way out of this mess with the goal of salvaging the Bush family name (impossible, it's already tarnished by Bush's father and his father before him.) and of receiving favorable treatment by historians. This will take a cooperative deception like none we've ever seen. I seriously doubt Bush can find a way to accomplish this or that America's and the world's historians would ever cooperate. It would take the creation of an illusion of grand proportions - and despite the illusionary world Bush lives in - Bush is no Houdini.
The 1998 legislation Bush refers to gave the president authority "to support efforts to remove the regime of Saddam Hussein" by providing assistance to Iraqi opposition groups, including arms, humanitarian aid and broadcasting facilities, not a green light to go to war. Although by giving Bush that authority those Democrats who voted for it knew full well that Bush would indeed invade. They are culpable in that regard despite what they are now saying.
Quite frankly, there were a number of our elected representatives, millions of US citizens and many millions of people from other nations that did not accept the evidence that was provided and hyped by Bush as proof that Saddam had secret stockpiles of WMD and all of the various other charges. Saddam in fact was on his way to becoming another Qudaffi, a dictator on his way down - not up. Gore himself, if he had been allowed to take his rightful seat in the White House, had agreed that Saddam needed to be removed but I doubt seriously that Gore would have lied to the American people, manipulated and fabricated intelligence and preemptively invaded a sovereign nation. Gore has a good heart and an intelligent mind - he also is a man of great integrity and a sense of morality that would have not allowed him to violate the principles upon which this nation was founded.
The first reason Bush gave was because Iraq had not complied with UN Resolutions to disarm. But the UN was not convinced and would not sanction the invasion. Instead they recommended further inspections and continuing sanctions. Then Bush said it was because Iraq was developing nuclear weapons to provide to terrorists and that he was manufacturing stockpiles of biological weapons. So after he invaded and no weapons of mass destruction were found Bush said it was because Saddam had cooperated with the terrorists who attacked the World Trade Center. When that was disproved Bush said it was because Saddam was an evil dictator who tortured his people and was a threat to peace in the middle east. Then after that reason wasn't accepted by the American public Bush now claims the reason he invaded Iraq was to establish the seeds of Democracy in the region that would soon spread to all the middle east.
How ironic that the US invasion of Iraq has created an ongoing conflict, unrest and has been the catalyst for greatly increased terrorist activity not only in the middle east but around the world. It was not Saddam but Bush who has caused the escalation of conflict, death and suffering. How ironic that although Saddam was a brutal dictator who coldheartedly murdered and tortured his own countrymen, he kept a lid on conflict between the feuding Muslim factions within Iraq's borders. Add to that irony the fact that in Washington's eyes, Saddam was not always an enemy. In fact, three Presidents counted on him to keep Iran's brand of Islamic radicalism in check, Reagan, Bush I and Bill Clinton.
What's amazing is that historians and all of our middle east experts knew that the ruling faction, the Sunnis to which Saddam belonged, represented only 25% of all Iraqi's, the Shiites representing the most at about 64%, and the Kurds the remaining percentage. They knew the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds were historic enemies of each other and were thrown together by the British back in 1918 as they drew a border around three distinct tribal territories and called them a nation state. They knew the Kurds in the north have always wanted their own state as did the Sunnis of the central section and the Shiites of the south which are political and religious kin of the Iranians. Bush and his warlords should have realized that establishing a democracy and forming a government from the same group hated by the other two factions would be no simple task and might possibly never work. Shiite control would mean an alliance with Iran - our sworn enemy and also Sunni Saddam's enemy. If you allow unimpeded voting in an Iraqi democracy who is going to control it - the Shiites, the Sunni's or the Kurds? The Shiites, who were persecuted by the ruling Sunnis under Saddam, are sure to gain control and how do you expect them to react to the decades of persecution by Sunnis? How do you expect the Kurds to act towards both Sunni's and Shiites?
Under this scenario Bush apparently fantasized about how he would be received as a great liberator by the Iraqi's just as the French received American troops who liberated Paris. With no plan for how we would control this mess that only a brutal dictator had been able to keep a lid on, Bush and his band of greedy pirates blundered their way into the biggest mess since Viet Nam. Why does it appear the people who gain power seem to be the most stupid and screwed up?
Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency who was recently awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Hans Blix who headed up the UN's WMD inspection team, and Scott Ritter, UN Chief Weapons Inspector in Iraq, all disagreed with Bush and his gang of warhawks that were searching for any excuse to invade Iraq. Anyone who thinks this was not about controlling Iraq's oil and gaining a powerful military foothold in the middle east is as wrong-headed as Bush and his corporate profiteers. This is an arrogant and brazen attempt to extend empire and to stake a claim on the world's largest oil reserve and none of the other nations on this earth think otherwise.
Unless we find a way to remove Bush and Cheney from office between now and 2008 our nation is going to suffer more lies and a deeper hole of debt and world turmoil. Short of Bush and his nefarious cabal orchestrating a serious terrorist attack on the United States or instigating a threat of greater proportions than now exists, there is no way I can see that the Iraq situation will disappear or be mitigated with Bush in office. It is reasonable to fear the election just held in Iraq will not even come close to solving the problems of the middle east and instead may lead to increased civil strife and war. Bush will spend the rest of his presidency trying to lie his way out of this mess with the goal of salvaging the Bush family name (impossible, it's already tarnished by Bush's father and his father before him.) and of receiving favorable treatment by historians. This will take a cooperative deception like none we've ever seen. I seriously doubt Bush can find a way to accomplish this or that America's and the world's historians would ever cooperate. It would take the creation of an illusion of grand proportions - and despite the illusionary world Bush lives in - Bush is no Houdini.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Hugo Chavez - Can He Survive Corporate Assassins?
Why did Pat Robertson, that icon of compassionate American Christianity, recently call for the assassination of Hugo Chavez, president of Venezuela? Is it because Chavez is persecuting Christians and attempting to create a Godless nation? Is it because Chavez is a brutal dictator, a madman who is abusing his nation's people, imprisoning them and murdering them? Is it because Chavez grabbed power by means of violent military takeover and is threatening his neighbors? Why does Pat Robertson hate Hugo Chavez and want him out of power? What is Robertson's "Christian" motive?
Why has George W Bush become an enemy of Chavez and wants to see him taken down? What is it that is so threatening to the US concerning Chavez's presidency and brand of government? Is it because Chavez has a nuclear program and is attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction? Is it because Chavez is building an army and threatening his neighbors with war and annihilation? Is Chavez a threat to democracy and is he trying to establish a communistic government? Is it because 20% of US oil consumption is provided by Venezuela, our number one largest provider, and Chavez is attempting to cut off that supply? Is it because Chavez is robbing his nation and its people of Venezuela's oil wealth?
The amazing answer is that it is none of these things. Instead the reasons seem to be rooted in the fact that Chavez, instead of bending to the will of Bush and corporate interests both in Venezuela, in the US, and internationally, stands in their face and defies them. Also, Chavez refuses to condemn Castro and instead befriends him supplying Cuba cheap oil for their energy needs in trade for doctors. All the other reasons seem to be rooted in Chavez's refusal to be a lackey to Bush, big money and corporate powers. It could also be a profound fear that Chavez's populist, honestly democratic, truth telling, people powered, socialist-leaning philosophy could gain momentum in South America taking the power away from corrupt politicians, ruthless corporations and the wealthy elite and giving it to the people. This power grab might spread to Mexico and then - God forbid - the US!
Venezuela's legitimately elected and popular president, Hugo Chavez, was a former military colonel imprisoned in 1992 in a failed coup to take over Venezuela's corrupt government. He is enormously popular with the common working class but despised by the rich for interfering with their corrupt pursuit of obscene wealth and power. He apparently doesn't just talk the talk but walks the walk. Consider the following:
A full 60% of Venezuela's land is held by 2% of the nations wealthiest citizens while 75% of Venezuelans live in stark poverty. Chavez is enacting land reform that limits the amount of land that can be owned by individuals to 12,000 acres and is distributing idle land to peasant cooperatives. The military is buying fresh vegetables and meat in the countryside and trucking it to poor neighborhoods for sale at subsidized markets.
Chavez has set the stage for a fundamental shift in economic and educational opportunity by banning school entrance registration fees for students which previously served as a barrier to the majority of Venezuela's children. “Bolivarian” schools have opened in poor neighborhoods, often maintained and run by parents and volunteers, but supported by the government. The government now provides breakfast and lunch to children at school, which helped boost enrollment by one million over the last year. Literacy is increasing rapidly as millions of new students have entered school. An educational revolution is underway.
Chavez has established a health plan setting up clinics in the poorest communities, often staffed by respected Cuban doctors and nurses who are on loan to a society that in return provides cheap oil to Cuba. New state run pharmacies are selling medicine at a 30% discount. Some of the better new Venezuelan students, previously unable to even dream of college, have found themselves enrolled in Cuban medical schools.
Chavez is also trying to trim the fat of corruption and graft within the government by restructuring bodies ranging from the Judiciary to the Constituent Assembly. And Chavez initiated the recent rewriting of the Constitution which now includes such provisions as civil rights for Venezuela's indigenous population.
And he has openly defied Major oil companies by supporting OPEC production limits and not over-pumping as was previously done. This has allowed Venezuela to get a higher price for their oil from major producers and refiners to support the reforms in his country. At the same time, if you can imagine this, gasoline in Chavez's Venezuela sells for 24 cents per gallon!
Most Americans don't know it but Venezuela owns Citgo here in the US which consists of 13,500 gas stations and eight refineries all in the United States that produce almost 900,000 barrels a day in gasoline and other products. In the third quarter Citgo obtained profit of $94 million on sales of $12 billion. Not bad, but small change next to the $33 billion earned by top five oil firms over the same period. Politicians have been demanding that oil companies share their wealth more with citizens most affected by high energy prices but only Hugo Chavez has answered their call. He has previously offered to sell American gasoline at about half the present cost but was rebuked by our government which is controlled to a large degree by major oil. Now he has instructed CITGO to offer cheap heating oil to America's most neediest citizens to help them through the winter and a few of our political representatives are taking him up on this latest offer. See Miami Herald report link below.
Mildly stated, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, dislikes George W Bush and the Bush administration - and with apparent good reason. Bush has positioned himself as an enemy of Chavez. In 2002 during the last open election, our CIA openly attempted to orchestrate a coup - an overthrow of Chavez and his government - although Chavez, a populist hero was fairly elected by a huge majority in South America's oldest democracy. That is astounding! Additionally, there is irrefutable evidence the CIA in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, major oil companies, corporations and the wealthy elite of his own country, are trying to have Chavez assassinated or at the very least driven from office. Even Coca Cola along with other brand industries have helped organize protests, some violent, against Chavez. What is their fear? It's simple, Chavez is looking out for the interests of his people, not the powerful corporatists who live off the sweat and blood of the poor working class. Chavez represents justice and fairness, the enemy of uncompassionate, corrupt and greedy corporate profiteers.
So what is the defense of Pat Robertson for calling for Chavez to be assassinated? In my mind, Pat Robertson is a corrupt whore and an evil hypocrite. George W Bush is not far behind. Furthermore, what is Bush's defense for attempting to overthrow a legitimate democracy?
Capitalism is not God and corporate officers are not his high priests. Although Chavez is not perfect and without sin, Hugo Chavez is apparently working on behalf of all the people of Venezuela not just the wealthy elite. He is a visionary - a modern day Simon Bolivar. If Jesus were here to give his blessings, which of the three men, Bush, Robertson, or Chavez would he most likely smile upon?
Gary
For more insight into Chavez and his populist movement and his offers to supply cheap oil to America's poor go here:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1143 and http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13386277.htm and http://bad.eserver.org/reviews/2001/2001-7-12-2.20PM.html or just go Google: Chavez Venezuela Citgo
Why has George W Bush become an enemy of Chavez and wants to see him taken down? What is it that is so threatening to the US concerning Chavez's presidency and brand of government? Is it because Chavez has a nuclear program and is attempting to develop weapons of mass destruction? Is it because Chavez is building an army and threatening his neighbors with war and annihilation? Is Chavez a threat to democracy and is he trying to establish a communistic government? Is it because 20% of US oil consumption is provided by Venezuela, our number one largest provider, and Chavez is attempting to cut off that supply? Is it because Chavez is robbing his nation and its people of Venezuela's oil wealth?
The amazing answer is that it is none of these things. Instead the reasons seem to be rooted in the fact that Chavez, instead of bending to the will of Bush and corporate interests both in Venezuela, in the US, and internationally, stands in their face and defies them. Also, Chavez refuses to condemn Castro and instead befriends him supplying Cuba cheap oil for their energy needs in trade for doctors. All the other reasons seem to be rooted in Chavez's refusal to be a lackey to Bush, big money and corporate powers. It could also be a profound fear that Chavez's populist, honestly democratic, truth telling, people powered, socialist-leaning philosophy could gain momentum in South America taking the power away from corrupt politicians, ruthless corporations and the wealthy elite and giving it to the people. This power grab might spread to Mexico and then - God forbid - the US!
Venezuela's legitimately elected and popular president, Hugo Chavez, was a former military colonel imprisoned in 1992 in a failed coup to take over Venezuela's corrupt government. He is enormously popular with the common working class but despised by the rich for interfering with their corrupt pursuit of obscene wealth and power. He apparently doesn't just talk the talk but walks the walk. Consider the following:
A full 60% of Venezuela's land is held by 2% of the nations wealthiest citizens while 75% of Venezuelans live in stark poverty. Chavez is enacting land reform that limits the amount of land that can be owned by individuals to 12,000 acres and is distributing idle land to peasant cooperatives. The military is buying fresh vegetables and meat in the countryside and trucking it to poor neighborhoods for sale at subsidized markets.
Chavez has set the stage for a fundamental shift in economic and educational opportunity by banning school entrance registration fees for students which previously served as a barrier to the majority of Venezuela's children. “Bolivarian” schools have opened in poor neighborhoods, often maintained and run by parents and volunteers, but supported by the government. The government now provides breakfast and lunch to children at school, which helped boost enrollment by one million over the last year. Literacy is increasing rapidly as millions of new students have entered school. An educational revolution is underway.
Chavez has established a health plan setting up clinics in the poorest communities, often staffed by respected Cuban doctors and nurses who are on loan to a society that in return provides cheap oil to Cuba. New state run pharmacies are selling medicine at a 30% discount. Some of the better new Venezuelan students, previously unable to even dream of college, have found themselves enrolled in Cuban medical schools.
Chavez is also trying to trim the fat of corruption and graft within the government by restructuring bodies ranging from the Judiciary to the Constituent Assembly. And Chavez initiated the recent rewriting of the Constitution which now includes such provisions as civil rights for Venezuela's indigenous population.
And he has openly defied Major oil companies by supporting OPEC production limits and not over-pumping as was previously done. This has allowed Venezuela to get a higher price for their oil from major producers and refiners to support the reforms in his country. At the same time, if you can imagine this, gasoline in Chavez's Venezuela sells for 24 cents per gallon!
Most Americans don't know it but Venezuela owns Citgo here in the US which consists of 13,500 gas stations and eight refineries all in the United States that produce almost 900,000 barrels a day in gasoline and other products. In the third quarter Citgo obtained profit of $94 million on sales of $12 billion. Not bad, but small change next to the $33 billion earned by top five oil firms over the same period. Politicians have been demanding that oil companies share their wealth more with citizens most affected by high energy prices but only Hugo Chavez has answered their call. He has previously offered to sell American gasoline at about half the present cost but was rebuked by our government which is controlled to a large degree by major oil. Now he has instructed CITGO to offer cheap heating oil to America's most neediest citizens to help them through the winter and a few of our political representatives are taking him up on this latest offer. See Miami Herald report link below.
Mildly stated, Hugo Chavez, President of Venezuela, dislikes George W Bush and the Bush administration - and with apparent good reason. Bush has positioned himself as an enemy of Chavez. In 2002 during the last open election, our CIA openly attempted to orchestrate a coup - an overthrow of Chavez and his government - although Chavez, a populist hero was fairly elected by a huge majority in South America's oldest democracy. That is astounding! Additionally, there is irrefutable evidence the CIA in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund, major oil companies, corporations and the wealthy elite of his own country, are trying to have Chavez assassinated or at the very least driven from office. Even Coca Cola along with other brand industries have helped organize protests, some violent, against Chavez. What is their fear? It's simple, Chavez is looking out for the interests of his people, not the powerful corporatists who live off the sweat and blood of the poor working class. Chavez represents justice and fairness, the enemy of uncompassionate, corrupt and greedy corporate profiteers.
So what is the defense of Pat Robertson for calling for Chavez to be assassinated? In my mind, Pat Robertson is a corrupt whore and an evil hypocrite. George W Bush is not far behind. Furthermore, what is Bush's defense for attempting to overthrow a legitimate democracy?
Capitalism is not God and corporate officers are not his high priests. Although Chavez is not perfect and without sin, Hugo Chavez is apparently working on behalf of all the people of Venezuela not just the wealthy elite. He is a visionary - a modern day Simon Bolivar. If Jesus were here to give his blessings, which of the three men, Bush, Robertson, or Chavez would he most likely smile upon?
Gary
For more insight into Chavez and his populist movement and his offers to supply cheap oil to America's poor go here:
http://www.venezuelanalysis.com/articles.php?artno=1143 and http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/13386277.htm and http://bad.eserver.org/reviews/2001/2001-7-12-2.20PM.html or just go Google: Chavez Venezuela Citgo
Saturday, December 10, 2005
Whose Rights Are Being Served?
I am one among many who feel our immigration laws and policies have been too lax for too long. Removing the birthright citizenship policy is an issue that might receive bi-partisan support. At least it should be carefully considered.
Political whores (most elected representatives) will be quick to denounce this proposal for fear of losing any Latino support they may now enjoy. These whores think first and foremost of themselves. Their number one priority is holding on to office and they spend almost 100% of their time running for reelection rather than representing the American people whose interests they are supposed to represent. Nobel Prize winner, Harold Pinter, said it clearly, ""Politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power."
That's why I'm surprised it's Republicans (corporatists) who are pushing this proposal and not Democrats. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised at all if a large segment of legitimate Latino citizens were in favor of this change if it would cut down on the incentive to enter this country illegally as suggested. And that's even if the now legitimate Latinos originally came in to this country illegally themselves. I would guess that now-working Latino-American citizens who have established themselves and gained legal citizenship would want to protect their turf against an influx of illegals who would compete for their jobs -despite the fact they may share ethnicity. Ross Perot made the point during his campaign for the presidency that " a lifeboat can only hold so many people before it becomes overloaded and begins to sink".
First, I think it's interesting that the US is one of only a few countries that allow "birthright citizenship". No European countries do. I'm not sure of my position on this issue but at first blush I'd say we need to study it, consider the ramifications and determine if "birthright citizenship" is a good thing for legal citizens and for the nation as a whole. Those who support the status quo say it is no encouragement for illegal immigration as charged pointing out that a "natural born" citizen born in this country of illegal immigrants must wait until they are 18 before they can petition the government to allow other family members to be brought in.
But, the majority of citizens may think differently. A national poll last month by the non-partisan Rasmussen Reports found that 49 percent favored denying citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, with 41 percent opposing such a proposal. One thing is certain, illegal immigrants drive down wages. Those a-holes who like to point out that illegal immigrants take only those jobs that Americans don't want are playing with the truth. The truth is the average American can't afford to live on the wages they pay illegals. Many of these illegal immigrants live 20 to a 2-bedroom house and ride 10 to a vehicle. Is that the living standard corporate pirates expect the average American to adopt? How many people do we want in our lifeboat? At what point is one more too many?
GOP Faction Wants to Change 'Birthright Citizenship' Policy
By Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — For nearly 140 years, any child born on U.S. soil, even to an illegal immigrant, has been given American citizenship. Now, some conservatives in Congress are determined to change that.A group of 92 lawmakers in the House will attempt next week to force a vote on legislation that would revoke the principle of "birthright citizenship," part of a broader effort to discourage illegal immigration.The push to change the citizenship policy is backed by some conservative activists and academics. But it could cause problems for the White House and the Republican Party, which have been courting Latino voters. GOP officials fear the effort to eliminate birthright citizenship will alienate a key constituency, even if the legislation ultimately is rejected by Congress or the courts.The principle at issue rests on the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 to guarantee the rights of emancipated slaves: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."Some lawmakers advocating tougher immigration laws contend that the amendment has been misinterpreted for decades. Conservatives maintain that although illegal immigrants are subject to criminal prosecution and are expected to abide by U.S. laws and regulations, they are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States in the full sense intended by the amendment's authors — and their children therefore fall outside the scope of its protection.Those who want to change the interpretation acknowledge that illegal immigration is largely driven by the hunger for jobs at U.S. wages. But they also say that for some immigrants, automatic citizenship provides another compelling incentive to cross the border. They note that the United States is one of few major industrialized nations that grant birthright citizenship with no qualifications."Illegal immigrants are coming for many different reasons," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), one of the lawmakers pushing for the House measure. "Some are coming for jobs. Some are coming to give birth. Some are coming to commit crimes. Addressing this problem is needed if we're going to try to combat illegal immigration on all fronts."But the proposal may rankle Latino voters."This is about attempting to deal with a serious policy problem by going after people's babies…. It doesn't have to become law for this kind of proposal to offend people," said Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for policy of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group. "This one really hits a nerve." The 92-member House Immigration Reform Caucus, headed by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), wants to attach an amendment revoking birthright citizenship to a broader immigration bill scheduled to be taken up sometime next week. Although several revocation bills have been introduced in the House, the most likely one to move forward would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are not citizens or permanent resident aliens.There is no official tally of the number of children born to illegal immigrants; unofficial estimates range from 100,000 to 350,000 a year. Smith and other critics of current immigration law say that 1 in 10 U.S. births — and 1 in 5 births in California — are to women who have entered the country illegally.Upon reaching the age of 18, a U.S.-born child of illegal immigrants can petition to obtain permanent legal residency for his or her parents and siblings. Although it generally takes years for such requests to be approved or rejected, parents who receive visas then can begin the process of applying for full citizenship.Because of the length of time involved, some immigration experts say that birthright citizenship is not a major incentive for the vast majority of illegal entrants."No, absolutely not," said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. "It's something that a few middle-class professional people do. I have never met a poor person who has his wife walk across the desert at eight months pregnant so they can wait 21 years to be sponsored by their child."Harry Pachon, executive director of USC's Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, said there were undoubtedly some immigrants for whom birthright citizenship was a significant incentive. "But is it in the hundreds of thousands? I don't think so, and there's no evidence to support that," Pachon said.Still, opinion polls suggest that many Americans consider it a major problem. A November survey by independent pollster Scott Rasmussen found that 49% of those surveyed favored ending birthright citizenship, while 41% were opposed to any change.Such sentiments appear to reflect growing ambivalence on the part of many Americans about the economic and social impact of immigration, which appears likely to become a major issue in many 2006 congressional races.President Bush and many GOP lawmakers are pressing for a broad rewrite of U.S. immigration laws, including steps to crack down on illegal border crossings and to create a temporary guest worker program open to many of the 8 million to 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.But some House conservatives, including those in Tancredo's caucus, want to vote before year's end on a bill that mainly contains tough enforcement measures. They are fighting to include revocation of birthright citizenship among its provisions.Some opponents of birthright citizenship have assumed that revoking the right would require a constitutional amendment. But others argue that it could be revoked by passing legislation to delineate who is entitled to citizenship and who is not, while leaving the Constitution alone.John C. Eastman, director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at Chapman University in Orange, told the House immigration panel in September that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" suggests that the 14th Amendment does not apply to children of undocumented immigrants because their parents are living in the United States illegally.In an interview, Eastman said that members of Congress who introduced the 14th Amendment made it clear in floor debate that they did not intend for it to apply to children of noncitizens temporarily residing in the United States. There were no illegal immigrants then, Eastman said, because there were no laws on the books addressing the issue."You didn't have a massive immigration of people who were retaining allegiance to another nation and maybe coming here temporarily and then going back," Eastman said. "In 1868, you didn't make that trip across the Atlantic twice."Advocates for immigrants contend that the revocation debate is designed to pander to public anxiety about immigration, despite what they say is a lack of evidence that it would have a significant effect on illegal entries. Some of them also say that if birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants were revoked, it could create a large population of "stateless" children whose futures had been compromised because of the actions of their parents. Their citizenship would be determined by their parents' countries of origin; some children might be required to petition another government to establish their legal status.Supporters of birthright citizenship expressed hope that they could head off the revocation measure in the House, or failing that, on the other side of Capitol Hill."There is no support for the concept in the Senate," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). "There are certain things that we have done as a nation for a long time that I don't think we're going to change. Rolling back the clock is not going to solve the problem of immigration.
Political whores (most elected representatives) will be quick to denounce this proposal for fear of losing any Latino support they may now enjoy. These whores think first and foremost of themselves. Their number one priority is holding on to office and they spend almost 100% of their time running for reelection rather than representing the American people whose interests they are supposed to represent. Nobel Prize winner, Harold Pinter, said it clearly, ""Politicians, on the evidence available to us, are interested not in truth but in power and in the maintenance of that power."
That's why I'm surprised it's Republicans (corporatists) who are pushing this proposal and not Democrats. On the other hand, I wouldn't be surprised at all if a large segment of legitimate Latino citizens were in favor of this change if it would cut down on the incentive to enter this country illegally as suggested. And that's even if the now legitimate Latinos originally came in to this country illegally themselves. I would guess that now-working Latino-American citizens who have established themselves and gained legal citizenship would want to protect their turf against an influx of illegals who would compete for their jobs -despite the fact they may share ethnicity. Ross Perot made the point during his campaign for the presidency that " a lifeboat can only hold so many people before it becomes overloaded and begins to sink".
First, I think it's interesting that the US is one of only a few countries that allow "birthright citizenship". No European countries do. I'm not sure of my position on this issue but at first blush I'd say we need to study it, consider the ramifications and determine if "birthright citizenship" is a good thing for legal citizens and for the nation as a whole. Those who support the status quo say it is no encouragement for illegal immigration as charged pointing out that a "natural born" citizen born in this country of illegal immigrants must wait until they are 18 before they can petition the government to allow other family members to be brought in.
But, the majority of citizens may think differently. A national poll last month by the non-partisan Rasmussen Reports found that 49 percent favored denying citizenship to U.S.-born children of illegal immigrants, with 41 percent opposing such a proposal. One thing is certain, illegal immigrants drive down wages. Those a-holes who like to point out that illegal immigrants take only those jobs that Americans don't want are playing with the truth. The truth is the average American can't afford to live on the wages they pay illegals. Many of these illegal immigrants live 20 to a 2-bedroom house and ride 10 to a vehicle. Is that the living standard corporate pirates expect the average American to adopt? How many people do we want in our lifeboat? At what point is one more too many?
GOP Faction Wants to Change 'Birthright Citizenship' Policy
By Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON — For nearly 140 years, any child born on U.S. soil, even to an illegal immigrant, has been given American citizenship. Now, some conservatives in Congress are determined to change that.A group of 92 lawmakers in the House will attempt next week to force a vote on legislation that would revoke the principle of "birthright citizenship," part of a broader effort to discourage illegal immigration.The push to change the citizenship policy is backed by some conservative activists and academics. But it could cause problems for the White House and the Republican Party, which have been courting Latino voters. GOP officials fear the effort to eliminate birthright citizenship will alienate a key constituency, even if the legislation ultimately is rejected by Congress or the courts.The principle at issue rests on the first sentence of the 14th Amendment, ratified in 1868 to guarantee the rights of emancipated slaves: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the state wherein they reside."Some lawmakers advocating tougher immigration laws contend that the amendment has been misinterpreted for decades. Conservatives maintain that although illegal immigrants are subject to criminal prosecution and are expected to abide by U.S. laws and regulations, they are not "subject to the jurisdiction" of the United States in the full sense intended by the amendment's authors — and their children therefore fall outside the scope of its protection.Those who want to change the interpretation acknowledge that illegal immigration is largely driven by the hunger for jobs at U.S. wages. But they also say that for some immigrants, automatic citizenship provides another compelling incentive to cross the border. They note that the United States is one of few major industrialized nations that grant birthright citizenship with no qualifications."Illegal immigrants are coming for many different reasons," said Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Texas), one of the lawmakers pushing for the House measure. "Some are coming for jobs. Some are coming to give birth. Some are coming to commit crimes. Addressing this problem is needed if we're going to try to combat illegal immigration on all fronts."But the proposal may rankle Latino voters."This is about attempting to deal with a serious policy problem by going after people's babies…. It doesn't have to become law for this kind of proposal to offend people," said Cecilia Muñoz, vice president for policy of the National Council of La Raza, a Latino advocacy group. "This one really hits a nerve." The 92-member House Immigration Reform Caucus, headed by Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.), wants to attach an amendment revoking birthright citizenship to a broader immigration bill scheduled to be taken up sometime next week. Although several revocation bills have been introduced in the House, the most likely one to move forward would amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to deny automatic citizenship to children born in the United States to parents who are not citizens or permanent resident aliens.There is no official tally of the number of children born to illegal immigrants; unofficial estimates range from 100,000 to 350,000 a year. Smith and other critics of current immigration law say that 1 in 10 U.S. births — and 1 in 5 births in California — are to women who have entered the country illegally.Upon reaching the age of 18, a U.S.-born child of illegal immigrants can petition to obtain permanent legal residency for his or her parents and siblings. Although it generally takes years for such requests to be approved or rejected, parents who receive visas then can begin the process of applying for full citizenship.Because of the length of time involved, some immigration experts say that birthright citizenship is not a major incentive for the vast majority of illegal entrants."No, absolutely not," said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a conservative think tank. "It's something that a few middle-class professional people do. I have never met a poor person who has his wife walk across the desert at eight months pregnant so they can wait 21 years to be sponsored by their child."Harry Pachon, executive director of USC's Tomás Rivera Policy Institute, said there were undoubtedly some immigrants for whom birthright citizenship was a significant incentive. "But is it in the hundreds of thousands? I don't think so, and there's no evidence to support that," Pachon said.Still, opinion polls suggest that many Americans consider it a major problem. A November survey by independent pollster Scott Rasmussen found that 49% of those surveyed favored ending birthright citizenship, while 41% were opposed to any change.Such sentiments appear to reflect growing ambivalence on the part of many Americans about the economic and social impact of immigration, which appears likely to become a major issue in many 2006 congressional races.President Bush and many GOP lawmakers are pressing for a broad rewrite of U.S. immigration laws, including steps to crack down on illegal border crossings and to create a temporary guest worker program open to many of the 8 million to 11 million illegal immigrants in the country.But some House conservatives, including those in Tancredo's caucus, want to vote before year's end on a bill that mainly contains tough enforcement measures. They are fighting to include revocation of birthright citizenship among its provisions.Some opponents of birthright citizenship have assumed that revoking the right would require a constitutional amendment. But others argue that it could be revoked by passing legislation to delineate who is entitled to citizenship and who is not, while leaving the Constitution alone.John C. Eastman, director of the Center for Constitutional Jurisprudence at Chapman University in Orange, told the House immigration panel in September that the phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" suggests that the 14th Amendment does not apply to children of undocumented immigrants because their parents are living in the United States illegally.In an interview, Eastman said that members of Congress who introduced the 14th Amendment made it clear in floor debate that they did not intend for it to apply to children of noncitizens temporarily residing in the United States. There were no illegal immigrants then, Eastman said, because there were no laws on the books addressing the issue."You didn't have a massive immigration of people who were retaining allegiance to another nation and maybe coming here temporarily and then going back," Eastman said. "In 1868, you didn't make that trip across the Atlantic twice."Advocates for immigrants contend that the revocation debate is designed to pander to public anxiety about immigration, despite what they say is a lack of evidence that it would have a significant effect on illegal entries. Some of them also say that if birthright citizenship for illegal immigrants were revoked, it could create a large population of "stateless" children whose futures had been compromised because of the actions of their parents. Their citizenship would be determined by their parents' countries of origin; some children might be required to petition another government to establish their legal status.Supporters of birthright citizenship expressed hope that they could head off the revocation measure in the House, or failing that, on the other side of Capitol Hill."There is no support for the concept in the Senate," said Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.). "There are certain things that we have done as a nation for a long time that I don't think we're going to change. Rolling back the clock is not going to solve the problem of immigration.
Friday, November 25, 2005
The Cancerous Right-Wing
It is unconscionable that Bush, his administration, Rush Limbaugh and other right wing conservatives continue to claim there is no evidence for Global Warming. Are these people really that ignorant or does the fact of global warming and admitting it make it more difficult for them to support programs that profit them monetarily while the earth and its people suffer the results? We know the truth - the majority of climatologists and other scientists all agree that global warming is taking its toll and that the damage to our ecosystem will continue to grow with evermore disastrous results. The people who make fun of these scientists and deny we are destroying our environment are the most despicable people on this earth - those who would destroy the earth for personal gain. Just like cancer that destroys it's host and dies along with it, these evil bastards are equally as deadly and as malevolent. Here's more proof of global warming as if it were needed.
Core Evidence That Humans Affect Climate Change
By Usha Lee McFarling
An ice core about two miles long - the oldest frozen sample ever drilled from the underbelly of Antarctica - shows that at no time in the last 650,000 years have levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane been as high as they are today.
Core Evidence That Humans Affect Climate Change
By Usha Lee McFarling
An ice core about two miles long - the oldest frozen sample ever drilled from the underbelly of Antarctica - shows that at no time in the last 650,000 years have levels of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane been as high as they are today.
Thursday, November 24, 2005
Drugs and Prisons
I learned a long time ago from visiting with County Sheriffs all over Tennessee (It was my job) that, no matter what the county's population size, If a county had a jail that houses 200 inmates they would fill it. Once a referendum was passed and a new modern jail housing 400 prisoners was completed - they would fill that one in short order.
Theoretically, if a county of 50,000 population were to build a jail that could house 50,000 prisoners the only thing that would keep the authorities from filling it would be a lack of funding. A sizable tax base is needed to support a jail and the law enforcement system that feeds it - so they couldn't lock up everyone unless it was paid for by federal funds. In that event, the only people in that county that would not be in jail would be the county sheriff, his officers and jailers and a minimum of one judge to sentence anyone that slipped through the cracks and to return those to jail that served their time for the first offense.
A jail and the law enforcement employees that are needed to support it is a business - and a profitable one. Just ask Corrections Corporation Of America that privately operates prisons and jails across the nation. It was formed and has it's headquarters right here in Nashville, Tennessee. CCA now has a capacity of 70,500 in it's prisons and maintains a 95% occupancy rate which is much better than most major hotels. They generated $1.16 billon in revenues last year and recently increased their prisoner capacity to shore up profit margins. .
The total number of prisoners in US federal prisons and state jails was 2,131,180 in 2004 and is increasing about 3.5% per year. The figure from the following report that jumps out at you is that 60% of federal prisoners housed are drug prisoners. That's probably true of local jail populations as well - or perhaps a much higher percentage. The link below addresses this problem and discounts the contention that locking up drug offenders decreases crime rates and makes drugs less available.
In fact, locking away drug users has been shown to create more criminals by placing these basically law-abiding drug offenders in long-term contact with hardened criminals. The severe prison sentences handed down to recreational drug users make them bitter towards society for violation of a law they consider unjust in the first place. For example, contrary to popular belief, marijuana smokers users do not automatically graduate to stronger, more addictive and deadlier drugs nor do they get involved in crime other than the one violated in the course of marijuana procurement, distribution and use. The fact that the criminal and often violent element of society also uses marijuana is no indictment of the majority. The same element also use alcohol.
Most of us are likely to know people who either regularly or occasionally use marijuana or even cocaine - perhaps you are one of them. Regardless of what you may think of these people, those that I have come into contact with over the years are neither criminally inclined or a menace to society. Quite the contrary, I have found many if not most are good people with great talents who would never break any laws except the one in question, a law they feel is wrong to begin with. Willie Nelson, an American icon, is one of the more notable persons who "reputedly" uses marijuana and is revered by many as a great American - even by many of our nation's leaders. Willie, despite his reputation, is embraced by the Christian community as well as the secular. Hypocrisy and whoredom know no theocratic or philosophical boundaries.
I realize that some of the current cheap and easily manufactured drugs now destroying lives have become a real problem but incarceration is an ineffective deterrent as everyone knows. If the same amount of money spent on housing all drug offenders was spent on educating the most serious drug offenders and addressing their immediate problems, many if not most would become productive members of society. Instead we keep creating an industry that creates profits for a few and greater problems for our society. When will self-righteous arrogance and ignorance end and the compassionate, fair and just world envisioned by Jesus, the Buddha and Muhammad arrive?
Gary
Population Bomb Behind Bars
http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-23-00.html
Theoretically, if a county of 50,000 population were to build a jail that could house 50,000 prisoners the only thing that would keep the authorities from filling it would be a lack of funding. A sizable tax base is needed to support a jail and the law enforcement system that feeds it - so they couldn't lock up everyone unless it was paid for by federal funds. In that event, the only people in that county that would not be in jail would be the county sheriff, his officers and jailers and a minimum of one judge to sentence anyone that slipped through the cracks and to return those to jail that served their time for the first offense.
A jail and the law enforcement employees that are needed to support it is a business - and a profitable one. Just ask Corrections Corporation Of America that privately operates prisons and jails across the nation. It was formed and has it's headquarters right here in Nashville, Tennessee. CCA now has a capacity of 70,500 in it's prisons and maintains a 95% occupancy rate which is much better than most major hotels. They generated $1.16 billon in revenues last year and recently increased their prisoner capacity to shore up profit margins. .
The total number of prisoners in US federal prisons and state jails was 2,131,180 in 2004 and is increasing about 3.5% per year. The figure from the following report that jumps out at you is that 60% of federal prisoners housed are drug prisoners. That's probably true of local jail populations as well - or perhaps a much higher percentage. The link below addresses this problem and discounts the contention that locking up drug offenders decreases crime rates and makes drugs less available.
In fact, locking away drug users has been shown to create more criminals by placing these basically law-abiding drug offenders in long-term contact with hardened criminals. The severe prison sentences handed down to recreational drug users make them bitter towards society for violation of a law they consider unjust in the first place. For example, contrary to popular belief, marijuana smokers users do not automatically graduate to stronger, more addictive and deadlier drugs nor do they get involved in crime other than the one violated in the course of marijuana procurement, distribution and use. The fact that the criminal and often violent element of society also uses marijuana is no indictment of the majority. The same element also use alcohol.
Most of us are likely to know people who either regularly or occasionally use marijuana or even cocaine - perhaps you are one of them. Regardless of what you may think of these people, those that I have come into contact with over the years are neither criminally inclined or a menace to society. Quite the contrary, I have found many if not most are good people with great talents who would never break any laws except the one in question, a law they feel is wrong to begin with. Willie Nelson, an American icon, is one of the more notable persons who "reputedly" uses marijuana and is revered by many as a great American - even by many of our nation's leaders. Willie, despite his reputation, is embraced by the Christian community as well as the secular. Hypocrisy and whoredom know no theocratic or philosophical boundaries.
I realize that some of the current cheap and easily manufactured drugs now destroying lives have become a real problem but incarceration is an ineffective deterrent as everyone knows. If the same amount of money spent on housing all drug offenders was spent on educating the most serious drug offenders and addressing their immediate problems, many if not most would become productive members of society. Instead we keep creating an industry that creates profits for a few and greater problems for our society. When will self-righteous arrogance and ignorance end and the compassionate, fair and just world envisioned by Jesus, the Buddha and Muhammad arrive?
Gary
Population Bomb Behind Bars
http://www.cato.org/dailys/02-23-00.html
Sunday, November 13, 2005
The Chronological History Of A Lie
The following list is amazing. And true! The search for WMD in Iraq officially ended shortly before Christmas 2004 but none of the people quoted below will admit they were lying or that they were wrong. What does that say about their character, their judgment or their qualification to lead?
Below is a chronological history of these lies and the people who told them - everyone of them were aware they were either lying or exaggerating to the American people and to the world at the time. Even if you argue they "thought" what they were saying "might" be true, they didn't bother to qualify those statements as pure guesswork and convenient supposition designed to support the illegal invasion of another country. They were adamant that they were telling us the truth and as leaders essentially placed their integrity and the public's confidence in them as leaders on the line.
These lies represent the biggest and most costly lies of this century (so far). They have been recorded and are awaiting truthful historians to record the effects on our world. The claims that these lies were based upon information provided by our intelligence agencies is disputed by many within these agencies claiming that their recommendations were not heeded or were ignored by an administration drunk with power and one staffed by people that were predetermined to invade Iraq prior to Bush becoming president. There are no excuses and no redeeming consequences that can absolve these people from their actions and only the most dishonest historians will attempt to glorify another shameful and misguided military conflict that looks and smells like Viet Nam but with the potential for much more disastrous and long term results.
Any student of middle east history, Egypt, Israel and the Islamic culture could have easily predicted what the results of this action would likely be given the history of conflict between the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. To pretend there was no other way to remove Saddam was the first of many lies and misrepresentations. The idea that American troops would be greeted as liberators was pure fantasy to even those with only a casual familiarity with the world of the middle east. Any Israeli, Palestinian, Pakistani, or Egyptian street vendor could have told them what to expect.
Nearly every one of the quotes below are egregious, boldface lies. They span 2 1/2 years from 2/1/200 to 7/9/2003. My comments are in parentheses.
THE SETUP - "How the United States should react if Iraq acquired WMD. The first line of defense...should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence-- if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration." - Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor - January/February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs 2/1/2000
(Oh, that really makes sense to threaten a nation with obliteration. This blustery threat was made a full 18 months prior to 9/11/2001. Tell me that doesn't sound like the chest beating bluster of Kim Jong-IL or the threats of Khrushchev. Is this rhetoric by Rice the setup for invading Iraq which was planned long before 9/11? But before going to war they had to move public opinion and what greater way than instilling fear of an attack on America? And then 9/11 happened. What a stroke of luck. Remember Bush chuckling that he had hit the Trifecta?)
LIE - "We are greatly concerned about any possible linkup between terrorists and regimes that have or seek weapons of mass destruction...In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons. A regime that hates America and everything we stand for must never be permitted to threaten America with weapons of mass destruction. " - Dick Cheney, Vice President - Detroit, Fund-Raiser 6/20/2002
LIE - "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney, Vice President - Speech to VFW National Convention 8/26/2002
(A clear lie - there was plenty of doubt cast by the CIA, the UN Inspection Team and other Saddam watchers.)
LIE - "There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest." Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Response to Question From Press 9/6/2002
LIE - "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." - Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor - CNN Late Edition 9/8/2002
LIE - "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." - George W. Bush, President - Speech to UN General Assembly 9/12/2002
(Not that "we suspect" or "we are led to believe" but this claim is stated absolutely.)
LIE - "Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." - George W. Bush, President - Radio Address 10/5/2002
(These sources were most likely Chalabi, his relative Curveball and the other expatriates that were being paid for information and expected to get positions of power once Saddam was defeated. Only a fool would not be cautious concerning anything they told you. I guess that explains it.)
LIE - "The Iraqi regime...possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." - George W. Bush, President - Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002
LIE - "And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons." - George W. Bush, President - Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002
LIE - "After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon." -George W. Bush, President - Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002
LIE - "We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." - George W. Bush, President - Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002
(This is an obscene lie meant to scare Americans into believing they could be attacked in the US. Why would an American President repeat this claim which was considered by almost all other nation's intelligence people and even many within our own CIA as false? )
LIE - "Iraq, despite UN sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq's procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand." _ John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control - Speech to the Hudson Institute11/1/2002
(This false claim is from the man who now represents this nation to the United Nations. Who among other nations will ever trust this man?)
LIE- "We estimate that once Iraq acquires fissile material -- whether from a foreign source or by securing the materials to build an indigenous fissile material capability -- it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year. It has rebuilt its civilian chemical infrastructure and renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, and VX. It actively maintains all key aspects of its offensive BW program." John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control - Speech to the Hudson Institute 11/1/2002
(Same comment as for preceding lie)
LIE - "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists...The war on terror will not be won until Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney, Vice President - Denver, Address To Air National Guard 12/1/2002
( Although they didn't exist prior to the "war" Iraq is now "deprived" of WMD but has the "war on terror" been won as Cheney said it would be?)
LIE- "If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 12/2/2002
(Who now appears to have misled the world?)
LIE - "The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Response to Question From Press 12/4/2002
(By Fleischer's own admission he has lied. He said they would not say it if it wasn't true - and it was not true - he lied - they lied!)
LIE - "We know for a fact that there are weapons there." Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 1/9/2003
LIE - "I am absolutely convinced, based on the information that's been given to me, that the weapon of mass destruction which can kill more people than an atomic bomb -- that is, biological weapons -- is in the hands of the leadership of Iraq." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - MSNBC Interview 1/10/2003
(Frist was also convinced that Terry Schaivo was not brain dead - and now he wants the American voters to elect him as president - someone so easily misled, who rushes to judgment without studying the facts and is guilty of careless decision making. God forbid!)
LIE - "What is unique about Iraq compared to, I would argue, any other country in the world, in this juncture, is the exhaustion of diplomacy thus far, and, No. 2, this intersection of weapons of mass destruction." Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - NewsHour Interview 1/22/2003
LIE - "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." - George W. Bush, President - State of the Union Address 1/28/2003
LIE -"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." - George W. Bush, President - State of the Union Address 1/28/2003
(They thought this because the US provided Saddam these agents to use against Iran - the same US that is adamantly opposed to the spread and use of biological and chemical warfare by other nations.)
LIE - "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Remarks to UN Security Council 2/5/2003
LIE - "There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State -Addresses the U.N. Security Council 2/5/2003
(Powell's marching orders were to scare Americans and other nations into supporting the illegal invasion of Iraq)
LIE - "In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world -- and we will not allow it." - George W. Bush, President - Speech to the American Enterprise Institute 2/26/2003
(Guess who it is who wants to dominate the middle-east and who the rest of the civilized world considers dangerous and intimidating? Just guess!)
LIE - "If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us . . . But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Interview with Radio France International 2/28/2003
(This is the lie of all lies. This poor fool embarrassed himself and lost any credibility he had with the American people. He was a pawn of the Bush administration.)
LIE - "I am not eager to send young Americans into harm's way in Iraq, or to see innocent people killed or hurt in military operations. Given all of the facts and circumstances known to us, however, I am convinced that if we wait, a threat will continue to materialize in Iraq that could cause incalculable damage to world peace in general, and to the United States in particular." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Letter to Future of Freedom Foundation 3/1/2003
(I repeat, you were also convinced that after seeing a video of Terry Schaivo that she was not brain dead and was responding to questions, etc. You are a dangerous man to be in a leadership position.)
LIE - "Iraq is a grave threat to this nation. It desires to acquire and use weapons of mass terror and is run by a despot with a proven record of willingness to use them. Iraq has had 12 years to comply with UN requirements for disarmament and has failed to do so. The president is right to say it's time has run out." Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Senate Speech 3/7/2003
(Scott Ritter, Hans Blix and all the other weapons inspectors clearly concluded there was no evidence of WMD or that Saddam had not complied with UN demands.)
LIE - "So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Remarks to UN Security Council 3/7/2003
LIE -"Getting rid of Saddam Hussein's regime is our best inoculation. Destroying once and for all his weapons of disease and death is a vaccination for the world." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Washington Post op-ed 3/16/2003
(Frist obviously thought his training as a doctor allowed him to use this pathetic play on words to appear clever. What an arrogant jerk this guy is.)
LIE - "Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We know that based on intelligence, that Saddam has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He's had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." - Dick Cheney, Vice President - Meet The Press 3/16/2003
LIE - "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." - George W. Bush, President - Address to the Nation 3/17/2003
(Obscene scare tactics. If any of the agencies attempted to gather intelligence from George W Bush they would come up empty handed. He possesses no intelligence.)
LIE - "The United States . . . is now at war so we will not ever see what terrorists could do if supplied with weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Senate Debate 3/20/2003
(Brilliant! Another revelation from The Mad Hatter. Frist sounds disappointed but he should not despair. Now that the number of terrorists have been increased exponentially the chances for us seeing what they could do are a thousand times greater thanks to him and his colleagues. On the other hand if the American people are wise, we will not ever see what Frist could do if he became president. Pray with me!)
LIE - "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 3/21/2003
( We might be in for quite a wait. It might take longer than it takes OJ to find the murderers of his wife.)
LIE - "There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them." - General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief Central Command - Press Conference 3/22/2003
(Gosh, if they just happened to find some Iraqis guarding something in Iraq wouldn't they be suspicious by now?)
LIE - "One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites." Victoria Clark, Pentagon Spokeswoman - Press Briefing 3/22/2003
(Well here ya go! This is obviously someone who knows where those sites are - and how many! Someone should have given Bush her phone number.)
LIE - "I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction." - Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board member - Washington Post, p. A27 3/23/2003
LIE - "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - ABC Interview 3/30/2003
(Aha! Rumsfeld knows where they are! You notice he covered the four compass points . . . . . . somewhat. Since he knew where they were he should be fired for not sharing this information with the rest. Maybe Bush and Rumsfeld are saving these weapons to give to China to use against North Korea like when we gave these same weapons to Saddam to use against Iraq. Yeah - that must be it. Brilliant! )
LIE - "We simply cannot live in fear of a ruthless dictator, aggressor and terrorist such as Saddam Hussein, who possesses the world's most deadly weapons." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Speech to American Israel Political Action Committee 3/31/2003
( Although this statement was a lie I saw this almost identical statement which IS true: "We simply cannot live in fear of a ruthless dictator, aggressor and terrorist such as George Bush, who possesses the world's most deadly weapons." ~ Undisclosed UN Member)
LIE - "We still need to find and secure Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities and secure Iraq's borders so we can prevent the flow of weapons of mass destruction materials and senior regime officials out of the country." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Press Conference 4/9/2003
( Uh - when - uh - do you think that will be completed? Isn't it a little late to plan the very first thing that should have been done? Unless of course you knew there were no WMD"s in the first place.)
LIE - "You bet we're concerned about it. And one of the reasons it's important is because the nexus between terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction ... and terrorist groups -- networks -- is a critical link. And the thought that ... some of those materials could leave the country and in the hands of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect. So it is important to us to see that that doesn't happen." Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Press Conference 4/9/2003
(So when does that plan go into effect?)
LIE - "Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty." - Robert Kagan, Neocon scholar - Washington Post op-ed 4/9/2003 (Did I miss it?)
NOT A LIE - "I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 4/10/2003
(This is not a lie. We heard this loud and continuous - but now we don't hear it so often since they've run out of places to look.)
LIE - "But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 4/10/2003
( Ari tells us to make no mistake and he claims this is the only reason for this war. He didn't explain there would be four more reasons that cancelled out each one before it. )
LIE - "Were not going to find anything until we find people who tell us where the things are. And we have that very high on our priority list, to find the people who know. And when we do, then well learn precisely where things were and what was done." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Meet the Press 4/13/2003
( After saying just 15 days before that he knew exactly where the WMD were now Rumsfeld says "We're not going to find anything until we find people to tell us where the things are." Which is it Rummy? You either know or you don't. )
LIE - "I have absolute confidence that there are weapons of mass destruction inside this country. Whether we will turn out, at the end of the day, to find them in one of the 2,000 or 3,000 sites we already know about or whether contact with one of these officials who we may come in contact with will tell us, 'Oh, well, there's actually another site,' and we'll find it there, I'm not sure." - General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief Central Command - Fox News 4/13/2003 (The last three words in the above comment is the only truth.)
LIE - "We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."George W. Bush, President - NBC Interview 4/24/2003
LIE - "There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Press Briefing 4/25/2003
LIE - "We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so." George W. Bush, President Remarks to Reporters 5/3/2003
LIE - "I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Remarks to Reporters 5/4/2003
(That was 2 1/2 years ago. Powell was required to lie to keep his job.)
LIE -"We never believed that we'd just stumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Fox News Interview 5/4/2003
(Absolutely a lie. Rumsfeld continually said we know exactly where they are.)
LIE - "I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program." - George W. Bush, President - Remarks to Reporters 5/6/2003
(Now it's a weapons program - not the actual weapons.)
LIE - "U.S. officials never expected that 'we were going to open garages and find' weapons of mass destruction." Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor - Reuters Interview 5/12/2003 (obvious lie)
LIE - "I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden." - Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne, Press Briefing 5/13/2003
(Those were the ones we gave or sold Saddam - that's why he was certain. Saddam used them on Iraq and the Kurds while the US winked and nodded with approval.)
LIE - "We said all along that we will never get to the bottom of the Iraqi WMD program simply by going and searching specific sites, that you'd have to be able to get people who know about the programs to talk to you." Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense - Interview with Australian Broadcasting 5/13/2003
(Talk about lying and backing off what was previously said.)
LIE "Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found." - Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps - Interview with Reporters 5/21/2003
(I repeat: Those were the ones we gave or sold Saddam - that's why he was certain.Saddam used them on Iraq and the Kurds while the US winked and nodded with approval. The should have said "has weapons" - a Freudian slip?)
LIE - "It's going to take time to find them, but we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth. One thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction." - George W. Bush, President - Speech at a weapons factory in Ohio 5/25/2003
(It's sad isn't it - that this man is our president rather than Al Gore)
LIE - "Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff - NBC Today Show interview 5/26/2003
LIE - "They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Remarks to Council on Foreign Relations 5/27/2003
(Defensive backpedaling - still not admitting their reason for going to war was false.)
LIE - "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense - Vanity Fair interview 5/28/2003
(This is not a lie and instead is a rare glimpse of the truth. They wanted to invade, planned to invade, but knew American citizens and the rest of the world would not accept an invasion for reasons of oil and American empire. They had to make Saddam out as an immediate threat to the world and knew they would have to lie and fabricate evidence of WMD. The majority of Americans and people around the world now realize this.)
LIE - "The President is indeed satisfied with the intelligence that he received. And I think that's borne out by the fact that, just as Secretary Powell described at the United Nations, we have found the bio trucks that can be used only for the purpose of producing biological weapons. That's proof-perfect that the intelligence in that regard was right on target." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 5/29/2003
(These trucks were determined to be for commercial use and had no capabilities for making biological weapons. To read how the US was duped by Chalabi and his relative, the intelligence source referred to as Curveball, go here - http://www.blogger.com/ )
LIE - "We have teams of people that are out looking. They've investigated a number of sites. And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories." Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Infinity Radio Interview 5/30/2003
( These turned out to be water purification units or something on that order)
LIE - "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." - George W. Bush, President - Interview with TVP Poland 5/30/2003
(How can the president of the United States be led to make such false statements which were later proved false? If you were president wouldn't you want to make sure any charge so serious was fully documented as true before making it? This is the same strategy used in the elections. Claim those who oppose you are wrong despite evidence to the contrary and keep repeating it. Too many Americans trust that our leaders would not lie to us.)
LIE - "You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons ...They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on." George W. Bush, President- Press Briefing 5/30/2003
NOT A LIE - "It was a surprise to me then -- it remains a surprise to me now -- that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there." - Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force - Press Interview 5/30/2003
( This one is not a lie - how did they allow this guy get out there and make this statement?)
LIE - "Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do, because I think there's a lot of information out there." Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, Defense Intelligence Agency - Press Conference 5/30/2003
Question for Wolfowitz: The fact that there hasn't been substantial cache of weapons of mass destruction -- is that an embarrassment?
Wolfowitz: No. Is it an embarrassment to people on the other side that we've discovered these biological production vans, which the defector told us about? - Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense - CNN Interview 5/31/2003
(Who is the other side that Wolfowitz refers to? Those who were proven right? These vans were later proven not to be Winnebagos of Death. Is Wolfowitz capable of embarrassment? If this brazen man, who designed and planned this illegal war, isn't incompetent and dangerous - no one is.)
LIE -"This wasn't material I was making up, it came from the intelligence community." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Press Briefing 6/2/2003
LIE - "'We know that some of them, especially the biological weapons, were being destroyed,' Hastert said, adding that it would 'take a little while to find weapons of mass destruction... and we're going to continue to do it.'" Dennis Hastert, House Speaker R-IL - Press Briefing 6/4/2003
( We knew they were being destroyed because the weapons inspectors supervised it.)
LIE - "We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents. This is the man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He knew the inspectors were looking for them. You know better than me he's got a big country in which to hide them. We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth." George W. Bush, President - CAMP SAYLIYA, Qatar 6/5/2003
(The truth has been revealed and the truth is Bush was lying and knew it as he was doing it.)
LIE - "I would put before you Exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found. People are saying, 'Well, are they truly mobile biological labs?' Yes, they are. And the DCI, George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, stands behind that assessment." Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Fox News Interview 6/8/2003
(George Tenet was honored by George Bush for being incompetent and for falling on his sword.)
LIE - "No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored." Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor - Meet the Press 6/8/2003
(Liar Liar, Liar! It was claimed over and over the Bush administration knew exactly where the weapons were. See the above documented statements.)
LIE - "What the president has said is because it's been the long-standing view of numerous people, not only in this country, not only in this administration, but around the world, including at the United Nations, who came to those conclusions...And the president is not going to engage in the rewriting of history that others may be trying to engage in." Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Response to Question From Press 6/9/2003
LIE - "Iraq had a weapons program...Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out they did have a weapons program." George W. Bush, President - Comment to Reporters 6/9/2003
(At that point Bush was beginning to hedge over whether Saddam had actual WMD to claiming that Saddam had a WMD program.)
LIE - "The biological weapons labs that we believe strongly are biological weapons labs, we didn't find any biological weapons with those labs. But should that give us any comfort? Not at all. Those were labs that could produce biological weapons whenever Saddam Hussein might have wanted to have a biological weapons inventory." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State- Associated Press Interview 6/12/2003
LIE -"Those documents were only one piece of evidence in a larger body of evidence suggesting that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa ... The issue of Iraq's pursuit of uranium in Africa is supported by multiple sources of intelligence. The other sources of evidence did and do support the president's statement." Sean McCormack, National Security Council Spokesman - Statement to press 6/13/2003
(Do you think maybe Sean is in somebody's pocket?)
LIE - "My personal view is that their intelligence has been, I'm sure, imperfect, but good. In other words, I think the intelligence was correct in general, and that you always will find out precisely what it was once you get on the ground and have a chance to talk to people and explore it, and I think that will happen." -Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Press Briefing 6/18/2003
LIE - "I have reason, every reason, to believe that the intelligence that we were operating off was correct and that we will, in fact, find weapons or evidence of weapons, programs, that are conclusive. But that's just a matter of time...It's now less than eight weeks since the end of major combat in Iraq and I believe that patience will prove to be a virtue." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Pentagon media briefing. 6/24/2003
(Defensive backpedaling, obfuscation and refusing to admit mistakes are not virtues. )
MS. BLOCK to Colin Powell : There were no toxins found in those trailers.
LIE - Secretary Powell's answer: "Which could mean one of several things: one, they hadn't been used yet to develop toxins; or, secondly, they had been sterilized so thoroughly that there is no residual left. It may well be that they hadn't been used yet." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - All Things Considered, Interview 6/27/2003
(Embarrassing defensive backpedaling. He forgot to mention that maybe they had not been built for developing toxins (which later proved true) and had not yet been redesigned for that purpose.)
LIE - "That was the concern we had with Saddam Hussein. Not only did he have weapons -- and we'll uncover not only his weapons but all of his weapons programs -- he never lost the intent to have these kinds of weapons." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - All Things Considered, Interview 6/27/2003
LIE - "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 7/9/2003
(This amazes me. Absolutely straight out of Alice in Wonderland - Mad Hatter/White Rabbit flabbergasting! Where are the weapons that were not there? Does this not call for a psychiatric review of Fleischer?)
The Hunt For WMD is Over The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq came to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter came home, and analysts are back at Langley. Officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas 2004. Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials. ISG's final conclusions were published this past spring.
Any half competent attorney could take the list of lies above and other supporting evidence and convict the Bush administration of crimes against the world and this nation. Those lies along with the campaign to justify this war by manipulating public opinion to believe that there was a connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attack, the torturing of prisoners, the outing of a covert agent, the inept response to Katrina, the failure to secure and protect our borders, the corrupt political and corporate cronyism and theft of our tax dollars, the massive debt, etc. etc. are more than enough to convict Bush and this administration and call for his resignation.
All the above and the Ohio and Florida election fraud allowing Bush to take office for consecutive terms is destroying our democratic form of government. Democracy cannot survive without honest elections and without honest leaders in the White House. If we allow voter suppression and dirty tricks to go uncovered and unpunished, these tactics will become more virulent in future elections.
The neo-cons believe that our constitution, our form of government and all of our institutions are no longer relevant to the modern world and need to be changed to support the corporate model. All nations in history that allowed fascist governments to become established have all suffered violence and turmoil before recovering their freedoms and a semblance of peace. In all dictatorships a wealthy class made up of a select group supports the dictator, helps him to ascend to and maintain power until the masses finally organize and gain enough power to overthrow them. The underpinnings of fascism and military rule are now taking shape in the US. Is a revolution necessary to prevent this? Jefferson thought not. It seems he had this difficult time we are now experiencing in mind when he made this statement
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake " - Thomas Jefferson 1798"
You just gotta love Jefferson.
Gary
Below is a chronological history of these lies and the people who told them - everyone of them were aware they were either lying or exaggerating to the American people and to the world at the time. Even if you argue they "thought" what they were saying "might" be true, they didn't bother to qualify those statements as pure guesswork and convenient supposition designed to support the illegal invasion of another country. They were adamant that they were telling us the truth and as leaders essentially placed their integrity and the public's confidence in them as leaders on the line.
These lies represent the biggest and most costly lies of this century (so far). They have been recorded and are awaiting truthful historians to record the effects on our world. The claims that these lies were based upon information provided by our intelligence agencies is disputed by many within these agencies claiming that their recommendations were not heeded or were ignored by an administration drunk with power and one staffed by people that were predetermined to invade Iraq prior to Bush becoming president. There are no excuses and no redeeming consequences that can absolve these people from their actions and only the most dishonest historians will attempt to glorify another shameful and misguided military conflict that looks and smells like Viet Nam but with the potential for much more disastrous and long term results.
Any student of middle east history, Egypt, Israel and the Islamic culture could have easily predicted what the results of this action would likely be given the history of conflict between the Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. To pretend there was no other way to remove Saddam was the first of many lies and misrepresentations. The idea that American troops would be greeted as liberators was pure fantasy to even those with only a casual familiarity with the world of the middle east. Any Israeli, Palestinian, Pakistani, or Egyptian street vendor could have told them what to expect.
Nearly every one of the quotes below are egregious, boldface lies. They span 2 1/2 years from 2/1/200 to 7/9/2003. My comments are in parentheses.
THE SETUP - "How the United States should react if Iraq acquired WMD. The first line of defense...should be a clear and classical statement of deterrence-- if they do acquire WMD, their weapons will be unusable because any attempt to use them will bring national obliteration." - Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor - January/February 2000 issue of Foreign Affairs 2/1/2000
(Oh, that really makes sense to threaten a nation with obliteration. This blustery threat was made a full 18 months prior to 9/11/2001. Tell me that doesn't sound like the chest beating bluster of Kim Jong-IL or the threats of Khrushchev. Is this rhetoric by Rice the setup for invading Iraq which was planned long before 9/11? But before going to war they had to move public opinion and what greater way than instilling fear of an attack on America? And then 9/11 happened. What a stroke of luck. Remember Bush chuckling that he had hit the Trifecta?)
LIE - "We are greatly concerned about any possible linkup between terrorists and regimes that have or seek weapons of mass destruction...In the case of Saddam Hussein, we've got a dictator who is clearly pursuing and already possesses some of these weapons. A regime that hates America and everything we stand for must never be permitted to threaten America with weapons of mass destruction. " - Dick Cheney, Vice President - Detroit, Fund-Raiser 6/20/2002
LIE - "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney, Vice President - Speech to VFW National Convention 8/26/2002
(A clear lie - there was plenty of doubt cast by the CIA, the UN Inspection Team and other Saddam watchers.)
LIE - "There is already a mountain of evidence that Saddam Hussein is gathering weapons for the purpose of using them. And adding additional information is like adding a foot to Mount Everest." Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Response to Question From Press 9/6/2002
LIE - "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." - Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor - CNN Late Edition 9/8/2002
LIE - "Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." - George W. Bush, President - Speech to UN General Assembly 9/12/2002
(Not that "we suspect" or "we are led to believe" but this claim is stated absolutely.)
LIE - "Iraq has stockpiled biological and chemical weapons, and is rebuilding the facilities used to make more of those weapons. We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." - George W. Bush, President - Radio Address 10/5/2002
(These sources were most likely Chalabi, his relative Curveball and the other expatriates that were being paid for information and expected to get positions of power once Saddam was defeated. Only a fool would not be cautious concerning anything they told you. I guess that explains it.)
LIE - "The Iraqi regime...possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. We know that the regime has produced thousands of tons of chemical agents, including mustard gas, sarin nerve gas, VX nerve gas." - George W. Bush, President - Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002
LIE - "And surveillance photos reveal that the regime is rebuilding facilities that it had used to produce chemical and biological weapons." - George W. Bush, President - Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002
LIE - "After eleven years during which we have tried containment, sanctions, inspections, even selected military action, the end result is that Saddam Hussein still has chemical and biological weapons and is increasing his capabilities to make more. And he is moving ever closer to developing a nuclear weapon." -George W. Bush, President - Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002
LIE - "We've also discovered through intelligence that Iraq has a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas." - George W. Bush, President - Cincinnati, Ohio Speech 10/7/2002
(This is an obscene lie meant to scare Americans into believing they could be attacked in the US. Why would an American President repeat this claim which was considered by almost all other nation's intelligence people and even many within our own CIA as false? )
LIE - "Iraq, despite UN sanctions, maintains an aggressive program to rebuild the infrastructure for its nuclear, chemical, biological, and missile programs. In each instance, Iraq's procurement agents are actively working to obtain both weapons-specific and dual-use materials and technologies critical to their rebuilding and expansion efforts, using front companies and whatever illicit means are at hand." _ John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control - Speech to the Hudson Institute11/1/2002
(This false claim is from the man who now represents this nation to the United Nations. Who among other nations will ever trust this man?)
LIE- "We estimate that once Iraq acquires fissile material -- whether from a foreign source or by securing the materials to build an indigenous fissile material capability -- it could fabricate a nuclear weapon within one year. It has rebuilt its civilian chemical infrastructure and renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, and VX. It actively maintains all key aspects of its offensive BW program." John Bolton, Undersecretary of State for Arms Control - Speech to the Hudson Institute 11/1/2002
(Same comment as for preceding lie)
LIE - "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group or to individual terrorists...The war on terror will not be won until Iraq is completely and verifiably deprived of weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney, Vice President - Denver, Address To Air National Guard 12/1/2002
( Although they didn't exist prior to the "war" Iraq is now "deprived" of WMD but has the "war on terror" been won as Cheney said it would be?)
LIE- "If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 12/2/2002
(Who now appears to have misled the world?)
LIE - "The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Response to Question From Press 12/4/2002
(By Fleischer's own admission he has lied. He said they would not say it if it wasn't true - and it was not true - he lied - they lied!)
LIE - "We know for a fact that there are weapons there." Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 1/9/2003
LIE - "I am absolutely convinced, based on the information that's been given to me, that the weapon of mass destruction which can kill more people than an atomic bomb -- that is, biological weapons -- is in the hands of the leadership of Iraq." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - MSNBC Interview 1/10/2003
(Frist was also convinced that Terry Schaivo was not brain dead - and now he wants the American voters to elect him as president - someone so easily misled, who rushes to judgment without studying the facts and is guilty of careless decision making. God forbid!)
LIE - "What is unique about Iraq compared to, I would argue, any other country in the world, in this juncture, is the exhaustion of diplomacy thus far, and, No. 2, this intersection of weapons of mass destruction." Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - NewsHour Interview 1/22/2003
LIE - "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production." - George W. Bush, President - State of the Union Address 1/28/2003
LIE -"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." - George W. Bush, President - State of the Union Address 1/28/2003
(They thought this because the US provided Saddam these agents to use against Iran - the same US that is adamantly opposed to the spread and use of biological and chemical warfare by other nations.)
LIE - "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Remarks to UN Security Council 2/5/2003
LIE - "There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction. If biological weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally chilling." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State -Addresses the U.N. Security Council 2/5/2003
(Powell's marching orders were to scare Americans and other nations into supporting the illegal invasion of Iraq)
LIE - "In Iraq, a dictator is building and hiding weapons that could enable him to dominate the Middle East and intimidate the civilized world -- and we will not allow it." - George W. Bush, President - Speech to the American Enterprise Institute 2/26/2003
(Guess who it is who wants to dominate the middle-east and who the rest of the civilized world considers dangerous and intimidating? Just guess!)
LIE - "If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us . . . But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Interview with Radio France International 2/28/2003
(This is the lie of all lies. This poor fool embarrassed himself and lost any credibility he had with the American people. He was a pawn of the Bush administration.)
LIE - "I am not eager to send young Americans into harm's way in Iraq, or to see innocent people killed or hurt in military operations. Given all of the facts and circumstances known to us, however, I am convinced that if we wait, a threat will continue to materialize in Iraq that could cause incalculable damage to world peace in general, and to the United States in particular." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Letter to Future of Freedom Foundation 3/1/2003
(I repeat, you were also convinced that after seeing a video of Terry Schaivo that she was not brain dead and was responding to questions, etc. You are a dangerous man to be in a leadership position.)
LIE - "Iraq is a grave threat to this nation. It desires to acquire and use weapons of mass terror and is run by a despot with a proven record of willingness to use them. Iraq has had 12 years to comply with UN requirements for disarmament and has failed to do so. The president is right to say it's time has run out." Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Senate Speech 3/7/2003
(Scott Ritter, Hans Blix and all the other weapons inspectors clearly concluded there was no evidence of WMD or that Saddam had not complied with UN demands.)
LIE - "So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Remarks to UN Security Council 3/7/2003
LIE -"Getting rid of Saddam Hussein's regime is our best inoculation. Destroying once and for all his weapons of disease and death is a vaccination for the world." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Washington Post op-ed 3/16/2003
(Frist obviously thought his training as a doctor allowed him to use this pathetic play on words to appear clever. What an arrogant jerk this guy is.)
LIE - "Let's talk about the nuclear proposition for a minute. We know that based on intelligence, that Saddam has been very, very good at hiding these kinds of efforts. He's had years to get good at it and we know he has been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons. And we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." - Dick Cheney, Vice President - Meet The Press 3/16/2003
LIE - "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." - George W. Bush, President - Address to the Nation 3/17/2003
(Obscene scare tactics. If any of the agencies attempted to gather intelligence from George W Bush they would come up empty handed. He possesses no intelligence.)
LIE - "The United States . . . is now at war so we will not ever see what terrorists could do if supplied with weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Senate Debate 3/20/2003
(Brilliant! Another revelation from The Mad Hatter. Frist sounds disappointed but he should not despair. Now that the number of terrorists have been increased exponentially the chances for us seeing what they could do are a thousand times greater thanks to him and his colleagues. On the other hand if the American people are wise, we will not ever see what Frist could do if he became president. Pray with me!)
LIE - "Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 3/21/2003
( We might be in for quite a wait. It might take longer than it takes OJ to find the murderers of his wife.)
LIE - "There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them." - General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief Central Command - Press Conference 3/22/2003
(Gosh, if they just happened to find some Iraqis guarding something in Iraq wouldn't they be suspicious by now?)
LIE - "One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites." Victoria Clark, Pentagon Spokeswoman - Press Briefing 3/22/2003
(Well here ya go! This is obviously someone who knows where those sites are - and how many! Someone should have given Bush her phone number.)
LIE - "I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction." - Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board member - Washington Post, p. A27 3/23/2003
LIE - "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - ABC Interview 3/30/2003
(Aha! Rumsfeld knows where they are! You notice he covered the four compass points . . . . . . somewhat. Since he knew where they were he should be fired for not sharing this information with the rest. Maybe Bush and Rumsfeld are saving these weapons to give to China to use against North Korea like when we gave these same weapons to Saddam to use against Iraq. Yeah - that must be it. Brilliant! )
LIE - "We simply cannot live in fear of a ruthless dictator, aggressor and terrorist such as Saddam Hussein, who possesses the world's most deadly weapons." - Bill Frist, Senate Majority Leader - Speech to American Israel Political Action Committee 3/31/2003
( Although this statement was a lie I saw this almost identical statement which IS true: "We simply cannot live in fear of a ruthless dictator, aggressor and terrorist such as George Bush, who possesses the world's most deadly weapons." ~ Undisclosed UN Member)
LIE - "We still need to find and secure Iraq's weapons of mass destruction facilities and secure Iraq's borders so we can prevent the flow of weapons of mass destruction materials and senior regime officials out of the country." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Press Conference 4/9/2003
( Uh - when - uh - do you think that will be completed? Isn't it a little late to plan the very first thing that should have been done? Unless of course you knew there were no WMD"s in the first place.)
LIE - "You bet we're concerned about it. And one of the reasons it's important is because the nexus between terrorist states with weapons of mass destruction ... and terrorist groups -- networks -- is a critical link. And the thought that ... some of those materials could leave the country and in the hands of terrorist networks would be a very unhappy prospect. So it is important to us to see that that doesn't happen." Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Press Conference 4/9/2003
(So when does that plan go into effect?)
LIE - "Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty." - Robert Kagan, Neocon scholar - Washington Post op-ed 4/9/2003 (Did I miss it?)
NOT A LIE - "I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 4/10/2003
(This is not a lie. We heard this loud and continuous - but now we don't hear it so often since they've run out of places to look.)
LIE - "But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 4/10/2003
( Ari tells us to make no mistake and he claims this is the only reason for this war. He didn't explain there would be four more reasons that cancelled out each one before it. )
LIE - "Were not going to find anything until we find people who tell us where the things are. And we have that very high on our priority list, to find the people who know. And when we do, then well learn precisely where things were and what was done." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Meet the Press 4/13/2003
( After saying just 15 days before that he knew exactly where the WMD were now Rumsfeld says "We're not going to find anything until we find people to tell us where the things are." Which is it Rummy? You either know or you don't. )
LIE - "I have absolute confidence that there are weapons of mass destruction inside this country. Whether we will turn out, at the end of the day, to find them in one of the 2,000 or 3,000 sites we already know about or whether contact with one of these officials who we may come in contact with will tell us, 'Oh, well, there's actually another site,' and we'll find it there, I'm not sure." - General Tommy Franks, Commander in Chief Central Command - Fox News 4/13/2003 (The last three words in the above comment is the only truth.)
LIE - "We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them."George W. Bush, President - NBC Interview 4/24/2003
LIE - "There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Press Briefing 4/25/2003
LIE - "We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so." George W. Bush, President Remarks to Reporters 5/3/2003
LIE - "I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Remarks to Reporters 5/4/2003
(That was 2 1/2 years ago. Powell was required to lie to keep his job.)
LIE -"We never believed that we'd just stumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Fox News Interview 5/4/2003
(Absolutely a lie. Rumsfeld continually said we know exactly where they are.)
LIE - "I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program." - George W. Bush, President - Remarks to Reporters 5/6/2003
(Now it's a weapons program - not the actual weapons.)
LIE - "U.S. officials never expected that 'we were going to open garages and find' weapons of mass destruction." Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor - Reuters Interview 5/12/2003 (obvious lie)
LIE - "I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden." - Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne, Press Briefing 5/13/2003
(Those were the ones we gave or sold Saddam - that's why he was certain. Saddam used them on Iraq and the Kurds while the US winked and nodded with approval.)
LIE - "We said all along that we will never get to the bottom of the Iraqi WMD program simply by going and searching specific sites, that you'd have to be able to get people who know about the programs to talk to you." Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense - Interview with Australian Broadcasting 5/13/2003
(Talk about lying and backing off what was previously said.)
LIE "Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found." - Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps - Interview with Reporters 5/21/2003
(I repeat: Those were the ones we gave or sold Saddam - that's why he was certain.Saddam used them on Iraq and the Kurds while the US winked and nodded with approval. The should have said "has weapons" - a Freudian slip?)
LIE - "It's going to take time to find them, but we know he had them. And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth. One thing is for certain: Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction." - George W. Bush, President - Speech at a weapons factory in Ohio 5/25/2003
(It's sad isn't it - that this man is our president rather than Al Gore)
LIE - "Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff - NBC Today Show interview 5/26/2003
LIE - "They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Remarks to Council on Foreign Relations 5/27/2003
(Defensive backpedaling - still not admitting their reason for going to war was false.)
LIE - "For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense - Vanity Fair interview 5/28/2003
(This is not a lie and instead is a rare glimpse of the truth. They wanted to invade, planned to invade, but knew American citizens and the rest of the world would not accept an invasion for reasons of oil and American empire. They had to make Saddam out as an immediate threat to the world and knew they would have to lie and fabricate evidence of WMD. The majority of Americans and people around the world now realize this.)
LIE - "The President is indeed satisfied with the intelligence that he received. And I think that's borne out by the fact that, just as Secretary Powell described at the United Nations, we have found the bio trucks that can be used only for the purpose of producing biological weapons. That's proof-perfect that the intelligence in that regard was right on target." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 5/29/2003
(These trucks were determined to be for commercial use and had no capabilities for making biological weapons. To read how the US was duped by Chalabi and his relative, the intelligence source referred to as Curveball, go here - http://www.blogger.com/ )
LIE - "We have teams of people that are out looking. They've investigated a number of sites. And within the last week or two, they have in fact captured and have in custody two of the mobile trailers that Secretary Powell talked about at the United Nations as being biological weapons laboratories." Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Infinity Radio Interview 5/30/2003
( These turned out to be water purification units or something on that order)
LIE - "But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." - George W. Bush, President - Interview with TVP Poland 5/30/2003
(How can the president of the United States be led to make such false statements which were later proved false? If you were president wouldn't you want to make sure any charge so serious was fully documented as true before making it? This is the same strategy used in the elections. Claim those who oppose you are wrong despite evidence to the contrary and keep repeating it. Too many Americans trust that our leaders would not lie to us.)
LIE - "You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons ...They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on." George W. Bush, President- Press Briefing 5/30/2003
NOT A LIE - "It was a surprise to me then -- it remains a surprise to me now -- that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there." - Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force - Press Interview 5/30/2003
( This one is not a lie - how did they allow this guy get out there and make this statement?)
LIE - "Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do, because I think there's a lot of information out there." Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, Defense Intelligence Agency - Press Conference 5/30/2003
Question for Wolfowitz: The fact that there hasn't been substantial cache of weapons of mass destruction -- is that an embarrassment?
Wolfowitz: No. Is it an embarrassment to people on the other side that we've discovered these biological production vans, which the defector told us about? - Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense - CNN Interview 5/31/2003
(Who is the other side that Wolfowitz refers to? Those who were proven right? These vans were later proven not to be Winnebagos of Death. Is Wolfowitz capable of embarrassment? If this brazen man, who designed and planned this illegal war, isn't incompetent and dangerous - no one is.)
LIE -"This wasn't material I was making up, it came from the intelligence community." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Press Briefing 6/2/2003
LIE - "'We know that some of them, especially the biological weapons, were being destroyed,' Hastert said, adding that it would 'take a little while to find weapons of mass destruction... and we're going to continue to do it.'" Dennis Hastert, House Speaker R-IL - Press Briefing 6/4/2003
( We knew they were being destroyed because the weapons inspectors supervised it.)
LIE - "We recently found two mobile biological weapons facilities which were capable of producing biological agents. This is the man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder. He knew the inspectors were looking for them. You know better than me he's got a big country in which to hide them. We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth." George W. Bush, President - CAMP SAYLIYA, Qatar 6/5/2003
(The truth has been revealed and the truth is Bush was lying and knew it as he was doing it.)
LIE - "I would put before you Exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found. People are saying, 'Well, are they truly mobile biological labs?' Yes, they are. And the DCI, George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, stands behind that assessment." Colin Powell, Secretary of State - Fox News Interview 6/8/2003
(George Tenet was honored by George Bush for being incompetent and for falling on his sword.)
LIE - "No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored." Condoleeza Rice, US National Security Advisor - Meet the Press 6/8/2003
(Liar Liar, Liar! It was claimed over and over the Bush administration knew exactly where the weapons were. See the above documented statements.)
LIE - "What the president has said is because it's been the long-standing view of numerous people, not only in this country, not only in this administration, but around the world, including at the United Nations, who came to those conclusions...And the president is not going to engage in the rewriting of history that others may be trying to engage in." Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Response to Question From Press 6/9/2003
LIE - "Iraq had a weapons program...Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out they did have a weapons program." George W. Bush, President - Comment to Reporters 6/9/2003
(At that point Bush was beginning to hedge over whether Saddam had actual WMD to claiming that Saddam had a WMD program.)
LIE - "The biological weapons labs that we believe strongly are biological weapons labs, we didn't find any biological weapons with those labs. But should that give us any comfort? Not at all. Those were labs that could produce biological weapons whenever Saddam Hussein might have wanted to have a biological weapons inventory." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State- Associated Press Interview 6/12/2003
LIE -"Those documents were only one piece of evidence in a larger body of evidence suggesting that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Africa ... The issue of Iraq's pursuit of uranium in Africa is supported by multiple sources of intelligence. The other sources of evidence did and do support the president's statement." Sean McCormack, National Security Council Spokesman - Statement to press 6/13/2003
(Do you think maybe Sean is in somebody's pocket?)
LIE - "My personal view is that their intelligence has been, I'm sure, imperfect, but good. In other words, I think the intelligence was correct in general, and that you always will find out precisely what it was once you get on the ground and have a chance to talk to people and explore it, and I think that will happen." -Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Press Briefing 6/18/2003
LIE - "I have reason, every reason, to believe that the intelligence that we were operating off was correct and that we will, in fact, find weapons or evidence of weapons, programs, that are conclusive. But that's just a matter of time...It's now less than eight weeks since the end of major combat in Iraq and I believe that patience will prove to be a virtue." - Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense - Pentagon media briefing. 6/24/2003
(Defensive backpedaling, obfuscation and refusing to admit mistakes are not virtues. )
MS. BLOCK to Colin Powell : There were no toxins found in those trailers.
LIE - Secretary Powell's answer: "Which could mean one of several things: one, they hadn't been used yet to develop toxins; or, secondly, they had been sterilized so thoroughly that there is no residual left. It may well be that they hadn't been used yet." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - All Things Considered, Interview 6/27/2003
(Embarrassing defensive backpedaling. He forgot to mention that maybe they had not been built for developing toxins (which later proved true) and had not yet been redesigned for that purpose.)
LIE - "That was the concern we had with Saddam Hussein. Not only did he have weapons -- and we'll uncover not only his weapons but all of his weapons programs -- he never lost the intent to have these kinds of weapons." - Colin Powell, Secretary of State - All Things Considered, Interview 6/27/2003
LIE - "I think the burden is on those people who think he didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they are." - Ari Fleischer, Press Secretary - Press Briefing 7/9/2003
(This amazes me. Absolutely straight out of Alice in Wonderland - Mad Hatter/White Rabbit flabbergasting! Where are the weapons that were not there? Does this not call for a psychiatric review of Fleischer?)
The Hunt For WMD is Over The hunt for biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq came to an end nearly two years after President Bush ordered U.S. troops to disarm Saddam Hussein. The top CIA weapons hunter came home, and analysts are back at Langley. Officials who served with the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas 2004. Charles A. Duelfer, who led the weapons hunt in 2004, submitted an interim report to Congress that contradicted nearly every prewar assertion about Iraq made by top Bush administration officials. ISG's final conclusions were published this past spring.
Any half competent attorney could take the list of lies above and other supporting evidence and convict the Bush administration of crimes against the world and this nation. Those lies along with the campaign to justify this war by manipulating public opinion to believe that there was a connection between Iraq and the 9/11 terrorist attack, the torturing of prisoners, the outing of a covert agent, the inept response to Katrina, the failure to secure and protect our borders, the corrupt political and corporate cronyism and theft of our tax dollars, the massive debt, etc. etc. are more than enough to convict Bush and this administration and call for his resignation.
All the above and the Ohio and Florida election fraud allowing Bush to take office for consecutive terms is destroying our democratic form of government. Democracy cannot survive without honest elections and without honest leaders in the White House. If we allow voter suppression and dirty tricks to go uncovered and unpunished, these tactics will become more virulent in future elections.
The neo-cons believe that our constitution, our form of government and all of our institutions are no longer relevant to the modern world and need to be changed to support the corporate model. All nations in history that allowed fascist governments to become established have all suffered violence and turmoil before recovering their freedoms and a semblance of peace. In all dictatorships a wealthy class made up of a select group supports the dictator, helps him to ascend to and maintain power until the masses finally organize and gain enough power to overthrow them. The underpinnings of fascism and military rule are now taking shape in the US. Is a revolution necessary to prevent this? Jefferson thought not. It seems he had this difficult time we are now experiencing in mind when he made this statement
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to its true principles. It is true that in the meantime we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war and long oppressions of enormous public debt. If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, and then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are at stake " - Thomas Jefferson 1798"
You just gotta love Jefferson.
Gary
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