Good article, Kaydie..........sm
Posted By: m on 2008-11-17
In Reply to: Interesting article - Kaydie
and good to see you!
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Good one, Kaydie!! NM.
.
Thanks, kaydie. Good post. nm
nm
Very good reply, Kaydie...
From hearing John McCain's POW days, it shows me a courageous man who was beaten repeatedly and severely and continued to encourage his fellow POWs as well as refused to be sent home ahead of other men who had been there longer. What does this say about him? It tells me that he is a he11 of a bigger man than most. He has been through the worst of times and survived. He put others before him. That is what his story means to me. So when he says country first.....I believe him. He has put country first. Tell me when Obama has put country first! Show me the changes he has made in the senate that have benefited this country. Show me when he has stood up to his own party. Show me the executive decisions he has made.
To me....Obama is so lacking it isn't even funny. He lacks in character, integrity, and experience. His association with certain people and his racist tendencies....that right there is enough for me to say NO TO OBAMA! His campaign slogan of change is great at at time like this. Obama is the bringer of false hope.
McCain & Palin ང 
good article
Why No Tea and Sympathy?
Published: August 10, 2005
WASHINGTON
W. can't get no satisfaction on Iraq.
There's an angry mother of a dead soldier camping outside his Crawford ranch, demanding to see a president who prefers his sympathy to be carefully choreographed.
A new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll shows that a majority of Americans now think that going to war was a mistake and that the war has made the U.S. more vulnerable to terrorism. So fighting them there means it's more likely we'll have to fight them here?
Donald Rumsfeld acknowledged yesterday that sophisticated bombs were streaming over the border from Iran to Iraq.
And the Rolling Stones have taken a rare break from sex odes to record an antiwar song called "Sweet Neo Con," chiding Condi Rice and Mr. Bush. "You call yourself a Christian; I call you a hypocrite," Mick Jagger sings.
The N.F.L. put out a press release on Monday announcing that it's teaming up with the Stones and ABC to promote "Monday Night Football." The flag-waving N.F.L. could still back out if there's pressure, but the mood seems to have shifted since Madonna chickened out of showing an antiwar music video in 2003. The White House used to be able to tamp down criticism by saying it hurt our troops, but more people are asking the White House to explain how it plans to stop our troops from getting hurt.
Cindy Sheehan, a 48-year-old Californian with a knack for P.R., says she will camp out in the dusty heat near the ranch until she gets to tell Mr. Bush face to face that he must pull all U.S. troops out of Iraq. Her son, Casey, a 24-year-old Army specialist, was killed in a Sadr City ambush last year.
The president met with her family two months after Casey's death. Capturing W.'s awkwardness in traversing the line between somber and joking, and his love of generic labels, Ms. Sheehan said that W. had referred to her as "Mom" throughout the meeting, and given her the sense that he did not know who her son was.
The Bush team tried to discredit "Mom" by pointing reporters to an old article in which she sounded kinder to W. If only her husband were an undercover C.I.A. operative, the Bushies could out him. But even if they send out a squad of Swift Boat Moms for Truth, there will be a countering Falluja Moms for Truth.
It's amazing that the White House does not have the elementary shrewdness to have Mr. Bush simply walk down the driveway and hear the woman out, or invite her in for a cup of tea. But W., who has spent nearly 20 percent of his presidency at his ranch, is burrowed into his five-week vacation and two-hour daily workouts. He may be in great shape, but Iraq sure isn't.
It's hard to think of another president who lived in such meta-insulation. His rigidly controlled environment allows no chance encounters with anyone who disagrees. He never has to defend himself to anyone, and that is cognitively injurious. He's a populist who never meets people - an ordinary guy who clears brush, and brush is the only thing he talks to. Mr. Bush hails Texas as a place where he can return to his roots. But is he mixing it up there with anyone besides Vulcans, Pioneers and Rangers?
W.'s idea of consolation was to dispatch Stephen Hadley, the national security adviser, to talk to Ms. Sheehan, underscoring the inhumane humanitarianism of his foreign policy. Mr. Hadley is just a suit, one of the hard-line Unsweet Neo Cons who helped hype America into this war.
It's getting harder for the president to hide from the human consequences of his actions and to control human sentiment about the war by pulling a curtain over the 1,835 troops killed in Iraq; the more than 13,000 wounded, many shorn of limbs; and the number of slain Iraqi civilians - perhaps 25,000, or perhaps double or triple that. More people with impeccable credentials are coming forward to serve as a countervailing moral authority to challenge Mr. Bush.
Paul Hackett, a Marine major who served in Iraq and criticized the president on his conduct of the war, narrowly lost last week when he ran for Congress as a Democrat in a Republican stronghold in Cincinnati. Newt Gingrich warned that the race should "serve as a wake-up call to Republicans" about 2006.
Selectively humane, Mr. Bush justified his Iraq war by stressing the 9/11 losses. He emphasized the humanity of the Iraqis who desire freedom when his W.M.D. rationale vaporized.
But his humanitarianism will remain inhumane as long as he fails to understand that the moral authority of parents who bury children killed in Iraq is absolute
Good article..nm
nm
me again, good article
Hate to be *slamming* guys..Im working this weekend and on break time, Im here *smile*.
Editorials, Including Those at Conservative Papers, Rip Bush's Hurricane Response
By E&P Staff
Published: September 02, 2005 12:30 PM ET
NEW YORK Editorials from around the country on Friday -- including at the Bush-friendly Dallas Morning News and The Washington Times -- have, by and large, offered harsh criticism of the official and military response to the disaster in the Gulf Coast. Here's a sampling.
Dallas Morning News
As a federal official in a neatly pressed suit talked to reporters in Washington about little bumps along the road in emergency efforts, New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued an urgent SOS. The situation near the convention center was chaotic; not enough buses were available to evacuate thousands of survivors, and the streets were littered with the dead.
Moments later, President Bush took center stage and talked at length about the intricacies of energy policy and plans to keep prices stable. Meanwhile, doctors at hospitals called the Associated Press asking to get their urgent message out: We need to be evacuated, we're taking sniper fire, and nobody is in charge.
Who is in charge?
Losing New Orleans to a natural disaster is one thing, but losing her to hopeless gunmen and a shameful lack of response is unfathomable. How is it that the U.S. military can conquer a foreign country in a matter of days, but can't stop terrorists controlling the streets of America or even drop a case of water to desperate and dying Americans?
President Bush, please see what's happening. The American people want to believe the government is doing everything it can do -- not to rebuild or to stabilize gas prices -- just to restore the most basic order. So far, they are hearing about Herculean efforts, but they aren't seeing them.
***
The Washington Times
Troops are finally moving into New Orleans in realistic numbers, and it's past time. What took the government so long? The thin veneer separating civilization and chaos, which we earlier worried might collapse in the absence of swift action, has collapsed.
We expected to see, many hours ago, the president we saw standing atop the ruin of the World Trade Center, rallying a dazed country to action. We're pleased he finally caught a ride home from his vacation, but he risks losing the one trait his critics have never dented: His ability to lead, and be seen leading.
He returns to the scene of the horror today, and that's all to the good. His presence will rally broken spirits. But he must crack heads, if bureaucratic heads need cracking, to get the food, water and medicine to the people crying for help in New Orleans and on the Mississippi coast. The list of things he has promised is a good list, but there is no time to dally, whether by land, sea or air. We should have delivered them yesterday. Americans are dying.
***
Philadelphia Inquirer (and other Knight Ridder papers)
I hope people don't point -- play politics during this period. That was President Bush's response yesterday to criticism of the U.S. government's inexplicably inadequate relief efforts following Hurricane Katrina.
Sorry, Mr. President, legitimate questions are being asked about the lack of rescue personnel, equipment, food, supplies, transportation, you name it, four days after the storm. It's not playing politics to ask why.
It's not playing politics to ask questions about what Americans watched in horror on TV yesterday: elderly people literally dying on the street outside the New Orleans convention center because they were sick and no one came to their aid.
The rest of America can't fathom why a country with our resources can't be at least as effective in this emergency as it was when past disasters struck Third World nations. Someone needs to explain why well-known emergency aid lessons aren't being applied here.
This hurricane is no one's fault; the devastation would be hard to handle no matter who was in charge. But human deeds can mitigate a disaster, or make it worse.
For example: Did federal priorities in an era of huge tax cuts shortchange New Orleans' storm protection and leave it more vulnerable? This flooding is no surprise to experts. They've been warning for more than 20 years that the levees keeping Lake Pontchartrain from emptying into the under-sea-level city would likely break under the strain of a Category 3 hurricane. Katrina was a Category 4.
So the Crescent City sits under water, much of its population in a state of desperate, dangerous transience, not knowing when they will return home. They're the lucky ones, though. Worse off are those left among the dying in a dying town.
The questions aren't about politics. They are about justice.
***
Minneapolis Star Tribune
But whatever the final toll, the wrenching misery and trauma confronting the people of New Orleans is much greater than it should be -- as it is, in fact, for tens of thousands of people along the strip of Mississippi that was most brutally assaulted by the storm. The immediate goal must be to ease that suffering. The second goal must be to understand how we came to this sorry situation.
How do you justify cutting $250 million in scheduled spending for crucial pump and levee work in the Southeast Louisiana Urban Flood Control Project (SELA), authorized by Congress in 1995?
How do you explain the almost total lack of coordination among federal, state and local officials both in Louisiana and Mississippi? No one appeared in charge.
***
Des Moines Register
The devastation wrought by Hurricane Katrina was the first practical test of the new homeland-security arrangements and the second test of President Bush in the face of a national crisis.
The performance of both has been less than stellar so far.
Katrina was a disaster that came with at least two days of warning, and it has been more than four days since the storm struck. Yet on Thursday, refugees still huddled unrescued in the unspeakable misery of the New Orleans Superdome. Patients in hospitals without power and water clung to life in third-world conditions. Untold tragedies lie yet to be discovered in the rural lowlands of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.
Very good article, thanks. nm
nm
Good article.
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Fear Destroys What bin Laden Could Not |
by Robert Steinback |
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One wonders if Osama bin Laden didn't win after all. He ruined the America that existed on 9/11. But he had help.
If, back in 2001, anyone had told me that four years after bin Laden's attack our president would admit that he broke U.S. law against domestic spying and ignored the Constitution -- and then expect the American people to congratulate him for it -- I would have presumed the girders of our very Republic had crumbled.
Had anyone said our president would invade a country and kill 30,000 of its people claiming a threat that never, in fact, existed, then admit he would have invaded even if he had known there was no threat -- and expect America to be pleased by this -- I would have thought our nation's sensibilities and honor had been eviscerated.
If I had been informed that our nation's leaders would embrace torture as a legitimate tool of warfare, hold prisoners for years without charges and operate secret prisons overseas -- and call such procedures necessary for the nation's security -- I would have laughed at the folly of protecting human rights by destroying them.
If someone had predicted the president's staff would out a CIA agent as revenge against a critic, defy a law against domestic propaganda by bankrolling supposedly independent journalists and commentators, and ridicule a 37-year Marie Corps veteran for questioning U.S. military policy -- and that the populace would be more interested in whether Angelina is about to make Brad a daddy -- I would have called the prediction an absurd fantasy.
That's no America I know, I would have argued. We're too strong, and we've been through too much, to be led down such a twisted path.
What is there to say now?
All of these things have happened. And yet a large portion of this country appears more concerned that saying ''Happy Holidays'' could be a disguised attack on Christianity.
I evidently have a lot poorer insight regarding America's character than I once believed, because I would have expected such actions to provoke -- speaking metaphorically now -- mobs with pitchforks and torches at the White House gate. I would have expected proud defiance of anyone who would suggest that a mere terrorist threat could send this country into spasms of despair and fright so profound that we'd follow a leader who considers the law a nuisance and perfidy a privilege.
Never would I have expected this nation -- which emerged stronger from a civil war and a civil rights movement, won two world wars, endured the Depression, recovered from a disastrous campaign in Southeast Asia and still managed to lead the world in the principles of liberty -- would cower behind anyone just for promising to ``protect us.''
President Bush recently confirmed that he has authorized wiretaps against U.S. citizens on at least 30 occasions and said he'll continue doing it. His justification? He, as president -- or is that king? -- has a right to disregard any law, constitutional tenet or congressional mandate to protect the American people.
Is that America's highest goal -- preventing another terrorist attack? Are there no principles of law and liberty more important than this? Who would have remembered Patrick Henry had he written, ``What's wrong with giving up a little liberty if it protects me from death?''
Bush would have us excuse his administration's excesses in deference to the ''war on terror'' -- a war, it should be pointed out, that can never end. Terrorism is a tactic, an eventuality, not an opposition army or rogue nation. If we caught every person guilty of a terrorist act, we still wouldn't know where tomorrow's first-time terrorist will strike. Fighting terrorism is a bit like fighting infection -- even when it's beaten, you must continue the fight or it will strike again.
Are we agreeing, then, to give the king unfettered privilege to defy the law forever? It's time for every member of Congress to weigh in: Do they believe the president is above the law, or bound by it?
Bush stokes our fears, implying that the only alternative to doing things his extralegal way is to sit by fitfully waiting for terrorists to harm us. We are neither weak nor helpless. A proud, confident republic can hunt down its enemies without trampling legitimate human and constitutional rights.
Ultimately, our best defense against attack -- any attack, of any sort -- is holding fast and fearlessly to the ideals upon which this nation was built. Bush clearly doesn't understand or respect that. Do we?
Email Robert Steinback at: rsteinback@MiamiHerald.com. |
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FYI good article........sm
http://www.newsweek.com/id/113672
That is a good article.
Thanks for sharing.
Another Good Article...
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/10/senator_obamas_
four_tax_increa.html
I confess. Senator Obama's two tax promises: to limit tax increases to only those making over $250,000 a year, and to not raise taxes on 95% of "working Americans," intrigued me. As a hard-working small business owner, over the past ten years I've earned from $50,000 to $100,000 per year. If Senator Obama is shooting straight with us, under his presidency I could look forward to paying no additional Federal taxes -- I might even get a break -- and as I struggle to support a family and pay for two boys in college, a reliable tax freeze is nearly as welcome as further tax cuts.
However, Senator Obama's dual claims seemed implausible, especially when it came to my Federal income taxes. Those implausible promises made me look at what I'd been paying before President Bush's 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, as well as what I paid after those tax cuts became law. I chose the 2000 tax tables as my baseline -- they reflect the tax rates that Senator Obama will restore by letting the "Bush Tax Cuts" lapse. I wanted to see what that meant from my tax bill.
I've worked as the state level media and strategy director on three Presidential election campaigns -- I know how "promises" work -- so I analyzed Senator Obama's promises by looking for loopholes.
The first loophole was easy to find: Senator Obama doesn't "count" allowing the Bush tax cuts to lapse as a tax increase. Unless the cuts are re-enacted, rates will automatically return to the 2000 level. Senator Obama claims that letting a tax cut lapse -- allowing the rates to return to a higher levels -- is not actually a "tax increase." It's just the lapsing of a tax cut.
Good article - Thanks
DH told me tonight the guy who wrote this was a big Obama supporter. This shows what other countries think of us. Not too good it looks like.
Very good article
He is spot on about Obama in every way.
A very good article.......... sm
I found particularly interesting the link within the article to a writing by Edwin Vieira, Jr. If his suppositions hold true, then we could be in for even more trouble that we had imagined. He presented a very interesting scenario towards the end of his article.
Unfortunately, those who support Obama will negate this as "not a credible source" before even reading the first article, much less the second. Vieira's credentials are outlined at the end of the article and are stellar.
Very good article........ sm
as well as the one below. Thanks for posting them, sam. And it's good to see you around these parts again!
Good article in LA Times
I just read an article about Bush. It states nothing he has done in his five years has benefitted the working person, only the corporations or extremely rich. It went on to explain that the rich got $91,000+ in tax cuts, the working class were lucky to get $300.00, heck I didnt get anything. Yet we now have a major deficit because of the tax cuts. It also stated the passing of tort reform, keeping law suits for people who are hurt by hospitals, drug companies, major corporations, left maimed and crippled for life, they now have a cap on how much they can receive in a law suit. Then there is the bankruptcy law. Corporations can still claim bankruptcy and start over, heck, Trump has done it twice, but in October the working class no longer will be able to. They will have to go to credit counseling and set up a payment plan for the bills they owe. The lobbyists are having a hey day in Washington D.C. and it was never this bad but when you have all of Washington controlled by one party, i.e., Republicans, they do what they want. When they held the Downing Street Memo meeting in Congress the other day. The democrats asked for a room to hold the meeting and were told by the ruling party, there were no rooms for them to hold a meeting. So they held the meeting in a cubby hole basement room. And what company is getting all the business in Iraq? My my, the company Cheney used to run. Coincidence? I think not. Enron and other major companies did not pay taxes in the last few years. Every year, I end up having to pay extra. Now he is pushing private accounts for SS. Oh, geez, during the early 2000's I lost money with my 401K. I would rather get a SS check but you see, its his plan to destroy anything that was created to catch a person before they fall through the cracks, those were created by Democrats. He does not want govt to be responsible in the long run for a person who needs help. I look at it this way. I think a person should take responsibility for their life but if something happens and they need help, for pete sake, that is what govt is for. I would rather my taxes help my brothers and sisters of America then wage war.
Good article from an athlete
who makes us on the left proud.
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The Speech Everyone Is Talking About: Etan Thomas
Etan Thomas Electrifies Anti-War Washington
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by Dave Zirin |
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Every generation the wide world of corporate sports produces an athlete with the iron resolve and moral urgency to step off their pedestal and join the fight for social justice. A century ago, it was boxer Jack Johnson, flaunting, as WEB DuBois put it, his unforgivable blackness. In the 1930s, the Brown Bomber Joe Louis and track star Jesse Owens took turns spitting in Hitler's eyes, and Mildred Babe Didrikson continued to show that a woman could be the equal - if not superior – of any man. In the 1940s and 50s, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, and the Brooklyn Dodgers advanced the cause of civil rights through the transgressive act of the multi-racial double play. In the 1960s, Muhammad Ali, Jim Brown, Bill Russell, David Meggyesy, Tommie Smith, and John Carlos showed how mass struggle could ricochet into the world of sports with electric results. In the 1970s, Billie Jean King used a wicked forehand, and took to the streets, to demand equal rights for women, and Curt Flood showed the labor movement - and the bosses - how to go from crumbs to a bigger piece of the pie. In the 1980’s Martina Navratilova came out of the closet and onto center court, with her girlfriend on her sinewy arm in plain view of all.
Today we may just have a figure to join their ranks in the NBA’s Etan Thomas. Regular readers of this column will know that I have interviewed the Washington Wizards' Power Forward on numerous occasions and highlighted his views on everything from the death penalty to the ravages of Hurricane Katrina. He is also the author of a book of poems called More Than An Athlete.
But this past weekend, Etan made a play for pantheon status. Etan took it to that Ali level, by delivering a blistering poetical speech as part of the weekend’s antiwar demonstrations in Washington DC. His contribution, which was played in its entirety on Democracy Now!, is being hailed as “the best of the day” in various nooks and crannies of the blogosphere.
Here is the transcript. Read and pass it along – it has the power to topple tyrants.
“Giving all honor, thanks and praises to God for courage and wisdom, this is a very important rally. I'd like to thank you for allowing me to share my thoughts, feelings and concerns regarding a tremendous problem that we are currently facing. This problem is universal, transcending race, economic background, religion, and culture, and this problem is none other than the current administration which has set up shop in the White House.
In fact, I'd like to take some of these cats on a field trip. I want to get big yellow buses with no air conditioner and no seatbelts and round up Bill O'Reilly, Pat Buchanan, Trent Lott, Sean Hannity, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush, Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., John Ashcroft, Giuliani, Ed Gillespie, Katherine Harris, that little bow-tied Tucker Carlson and any other right-wing conservative Republicans I can think of, and take them all on a trip to the ‘hood. Not to do no 30-minute documentary. I mean, I want to drop them off and leave them there, let them become one with the other side of the tracks, get them four mouths to feed and no welfare, have scare tactics run through them like a laxative, criticizing them for needing assistance.
I’d show them working families that make too much to receive welfare but not enough to make ends meet. I’d employ them with jobs with little security, let them know how it feels to be an employee at will, able to be fired at the drop of a hat. I’d take away their opportunities, then try their children as adults, sending their 13-year-old babies to life in prison. I’d sell them dreams of hopelessness while spoon-feeding their young with a daily dose of inferior education. I’d tell them no child shall be left behind, then take more money out of their schools, tell them to show and prove themselves on standardized exams testing their knowledge on things that they haven’t been taught, and then I’d call them inferior.
I’d soak into their interior notions of endless possibilities. I’d paint pictures of assisted productivity if they only agreed to be all they can be, dress them up with fatigues and boots with promises of pots of gold at the end of rainbows, free education to waste terrain on those who finish their bid. Then I’d close the lid on that barrel of fool’s gold by starting a war, sending their children into the midst of a hostile situation, and while they're worried about their babies being murdered and slain in foreign lands, I’d grace them with the pain of being sick and unable to get medicine.
Give them health benefits that barely cover the common cold. John Q. would become their reality as HMOs introduce them to the world of inferior care, filling their lungs with inadequate air, penny pinching at the expense of patients, doctors practicing medicine in an intricate web of rationing and regulations. Patients wander the maze of managed bureaucracy, costs rise and quality quickly deteriorates, but they say that managed care is cheaper. They’ll say that free choice in medicine will defeat the overall productivity, and as co-payments are steadily rising, I'll make their grandparents have to choose between buying their medicine and paying their rent.
Then I'd feed them hypocritical lines of being pro-life as the only Christian way to be. Then very contradictingly, I’d fight for the spread of the death penalty, as if thou shall not kill applies to babies but not to criminals.
Then I’d introduce them to those sworn to protect and serve, creating a curb in their trust in the law. I’d show them the nightsticks and plungers, the pepper spray and stun guns, the mace and magnums that they’d soon become acquainted with, the shakedowns and illegal search and seizures, the planted evidence, being stopped for no reason. Harassment ain’t even the half of it. Forty-one shots to two raised hands, cell phones and wallets that are confused with illegal contrabands. I’d introduce them to pigs who love making their guns click like wine glasses. Everlasting targets surrounded by bullets, making them a walking bull's eye, a living piñata, held at the mercy of police brutality, and then we’ll see if they finally weren’t aware of the truth, if their eyes weren’t finally open like a box of Pandora.
I’d show them how the other side of the tracks carries the weight of the world on our shoulders and how society seems to be holding us down with the force of a boulder. The bird of democracy flew the coop back in Florida. See, for some, and justice comes in packs like wolves in sheep's clothing. T.K.O.'d by the right hooks of life, many are left staggering under the weight of the day, leaning against the ropes of hope. When your dreams have fallen on barren ground, it becomes difficult to keep pushing yourself forward like a train, administering pain like a doctor with a needle, their sequels continue more lethal than injections.
They keep telling us all is equal. I’d tell them that instead of giving tax breaks to the rich, financing corporate mergers and leading us into unnecessary wars and under-table dealings with Enron and Halliburton, maybe they can work on making society more peaceful. Instead, they take more and more money out of inner city schools, give up on the idea of rehabilitation and build more prisons for poor people. With unemployment continuing to rise like a deficit, it's no wonder why so many think that crime pays.
Maybe this trip will make them see the error of their ways. Or maybe next time, we'll just all get out and vote. And as far as their stay in the White House, tell them that numbered are their days.”
Dave Zirin's new book 'What's My Name, Fool?': Sports and Resistance in the United States [Haymarket Books] is available now. Check out his writings at edgeofsports.com. Contact the author at dave@edgeofsports.com
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It is a good article. Thanks for posting !
nm
Good read, article. sm
My cousin, who lives in Alaska, told me about this web site. It has some interesting articles. I enjoyed this one - here is the link/url.
http://alaskadispatch.com/tundra-talk/1-talk-of-the-tundra/121-the-world-according-to-sarah.html
Good article - Obamamania
http://www.therant.us/staff/imani/2008/10282008.htm
Good article, thanks for posting....sm
Heard Cheney on Rush the other day. Good man, probably the most intelligent VP we've ever had.
Wow....I agree with you. Good article,,,,sm
Can't believe I actually agree with you, but I do!! Very good explanation of all who are at fault which is actually....EVERYONE!!
Good article...thanks for sharing.
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Good article by Molly Ivins
AUSTIN, Texas -- While it's still an open contest for Worst Legacy of the Bush Years, the destruction of goodwill for America around the world is definitely a contender.
In the days and weeks following Sept. 11, the United States enjoyed global sympathy and goodwill. All our old enemies sent regrets and offers of help. The most important newspaper in France headlined, We Are All Americans Now. The most touching gestures and offers rolled in, wave and after wave -- nations offered their teams of rescue dogs to search for bodies; special collections were taken up by D-Day survivors in Normandy; all over the world, American embassies were surrounded by long lines of people coming to offer sympathy, write notes, leave flowers.
You could make a pretty good case that one root of the Bush administration's abysmal diplomatic record is simply bad manners. We don't need any help was certainly a true response. But, Thank you would have been better.
You recall that George W. went on to make a series of unpleasant statements. You're either with us or with the terrorists may have sounded like a great macho moment, but no one likes to be verbally shoved against a wall and given no choice. There was the whole world asking, What can we do to help? and our response was, Our side or else. Why? Why coercion, rather than invitation?
Bush's State of the Union speech in January 2002 remains a monument to gracelessness. None of the language is worth remembering, but it contained a great deal of crowing about our defeat of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. As Barry Bearak of The New York Times observed before that war, if you wanted to bomb Afghanistan back to the Stone Age, you didn't have far to go.
The trouble with Bush's graceless provincialism on that occasion is that the invasion of Afghanistan was an international effort -- NATO, for the first time in its history, responded under its an attack on one is an attack on all clause. French, Germans and Canadians not only served in Afghanistan, but continue to do so. And, as we noticed increasingly is important, they shared the cost, as well.
You see, one beauty of building an international coalition is that you don't have to pay for the whole thing by yourself. Bush the Elder built a coalition for the Gulf War in 1990 that covered about 90 percent of the cost. By contrast, the financial burden of the Iraq War continues to be almost entirely ours -- with special thanks again to the British.
The colossal ineptitude of Bush's diplomacy, if it can be called that, leading up to the Iraq war was somewhere between ludicrous and nuts. Bullying, bribing, threatening -- and these were our allies. The insanity of our approach to Turkey, one of America's oldest democratic allies in the Middle East, is textbook -- to be studied in international relations schools for years. In the name of bringing democracy to Iraq (actually, at the time we never mentioned that as a reason), we threatened to end it in Turkey. Good grief.
The administration's open contempt for the United Nations did us incalculable damage. It wasn't just the ugly, clumsy pre-war diplomacy, but the petty, vindictive attempts at revenge afterward against those who were right all along. Trying to get Mohammad ElBaradei fired as head of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- how small and wrong. Making John Bolton ambassador to the United Nations -- oh, please.
So, a lot of cleanup is needed. Cards and letters (well, OK, e-mails) have rolled in from the Beloved Readers. We are getting gems daily. People are full of dandy ideas about how to fix this mess -- any and all parts of this mess -- but the foreign policy suggestions are especially interesting.
What the people seem to grasp that the Bush administration doesn't is the link between the Middle East, energy policy, defense policy, the environment and the economy. Again and again, readers point out that oil is at the root of the knot of problems and we can give ourselves much more flexibility to deal with the Middle East if we are not so dependent on it for oil. Ergo, we need an energy policy that emphasizes conservation and alternative energy sources.
The geopolitical problems that stem from our dependence on fossil fuel are the most difficult part of our relations with the rest of the world right now, and they look ever more ominous in the future. Reader Jim Schmitz observes that oil is a limited resource -- if you accept the idea that we've already hit peak production and have nowhere to go but down -- and we're addicted to it. If we kick the oil habit, we not only solve huge chunks of our biggest national security problem, we are also positioned to take part in the incredible boom in the alternate energy industry.
The beauty of thinking long-term is that when you look at a problem like illegal immigration, your first thought is not building a fence on the border, it's helping economic development in Central and South America. This not only makes us more friends, it's a much better solution to the problem. Lots of folks have dandy ideas on how to have more friends and fewer enemies -- for example, convert the money we spend in this hemisphere on the drug war to economic development. We should set up clean drinking water systems in all Third World countries -- that suggestion comes from a reader who thinks the total cost would be less than we spend in Iraq in a month.
More ideas on How to Fix This Mess coming soon.
To find out more about Molly Ivins and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.
COPYRIGHT 2005 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.
Originally Published on Thursday November 3, 2005
Another good Molly Ivins article.
Posted on Thu, Dec. 29, 2005
Undermining our country to save it
By Molly Ivins
Creators Syndicate
AUSTIN - The first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.
Thirty-five years ago, Richard Milhous Nixon, who was crazy as a bullbat, and J. Edgar Hoover, who wore women's underwear, decided that some Americans had unacceptable political opinions. So they set our government to spying on its own citizens, basically those who were deemed insufficiently like Crazy Richard Milhous.
For those of you who have forgotten just what a stonewall paranoid Nixon was, the poor man used to stalk around the White House demanding that his political enemies be killed. Many still believe there was a certain Richard III grandeur to Nixon's collapse because he was also a man of notable talents.
There is neither grandeur nor tragedy in watching this president, the Testy Kid, violate his oath to uphold the laws and Constitution.
The Testy Kid wants to do what he wants to do when he wants to do it because he is the president, and he considers that sufficient justification for whatever he wants. He even finds lawyers like John Yoo who tell him that whatever he wants to do is legal.
The creepy part is the overlap. Damned if they aren't still here, after all these years, the old Nixon hands -- Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, the whole gang whose yearning for authoritarian government rose like a stink over the Nixon years. Imperial executive. Bring back those special White House guard uniforms. Cheney, like some malignancy that cannot be cured, back at the same old stand, pushing the same old agenda.
Of course, they tell us we have to be spied on for our own safety, so they can catch the terrorists who threaten us all.
Thirty-five years ago, they nabbed a film star named Jean Seberg and a bunch of people running a free breakfast program for poor kids in Chicago. This time, they're onto the Quakers. We are not safer.
We would be safer, as the 9-11 Commission has so recently reminded us, if some obvious and necessary precautions were taken at both nuclear and chemical plants -- but that is not happening because those industries contribute to Republican candidates. Republicans do not ask their contributors to spend a lot of money on obvious and necessary steps to protect public safety. They wiretap instead.
You will be unsurprised to learn that, first, they lied. They didn't do it. Well, OK, they did it, but not very much at all. Well, OK, more than that. A lot more than that. OK, millions of private e-mail and telephone calls every hour, and all medical and financial records.
You may recall that in 2002 it was revealed that the Pentagon had started a giant data-mining program called Total Information Awareness (TIA), intended to search through vast databases to increase information coverage by an order of magnitude.
From credit cards to vet reports, Big Brother would be watching us. This dandy program was under the control of Adm. John Poindexter, convicted of five felonies during Iran-contra, all overturned on a technicality. This administration really knows where to go for good help -- it ought to bring back Brownie.
Everybody decided that TIA was a terrible idea, and the program was theoretically shut down. As often happens with this administration, it turned out that they just changed the name and made the program less visible. Data-mining was a popular buzzword at the time, and the administration was obviously hot to have it. Bush established a secret program under which the National Security Agency could bypass the FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act) court and begin eavesdropping on Americans without warrants.
As many have patiently pointed out, the entire program was unnecessary because the FISA court is both prompt and accommodating. There is virtually no possible scenario that would make it difficult or impossible to get a FISA warrant -- it has granted 19,000 warrants and rejected only a handful.
I don't like to play scary games where we all stay awake late at night, telling each other scary stories -- but there's a reason we have never given our government this kind of power. As the late Sen. Frank Church said, That capability could at any time be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capacity to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn't matter. There would be no place to hide. And if a dictator took over, the NSA could enable it to impose total tyranny.
Then we always get that dreadful goody-two-shoes response, Well, If you aren't doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about, do you?
Folks, we know this program is being and will be misused. We know it from the past record and current reporting. The program has already targeted vegans and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals -- and if those aren't outposts of al Qaeda, what is? Could this be more pathetic?
This could scarcely be clearer. Either the president of the United States is going to have to understand and admit that he has done something very wrong, or he will have to be impeached. The first time this happened, the institutional response was magnificent. The courts, the press, the Congress all functioned superbly.
Anyone think we're up to that again? Then whom do we blame when we lose the republic?
Molly Ivins, based in Austin, writes for Creators Syndicate. 5777 W. Century Blvd., Suite 700, Los Angeles, CA 90045
Forgotten Sacrifice...Good article...sm
Forgotten Sacrifice
By F. John Duresky
Wednesday, July 5, 2006; Page A13
A few days ago, as I do every day in Iraq, I listened to the commander's battle update. The briefer calmly and professionally described the day's events. Somewhere in Iraq, on some forgotten, dusty road, an insurgent fighting an occupying army detonated an improvised explosive device (IED) under a Humvee, killing an American soldier. The briefer fielded a question from the general and moved to the next item in the update.
The day before that, in America, a 15-year-old's incredibly rich parents planned the biggest sweet 16 party ever. They will spend more than $200,000 on an opulent event marking a single year in an otherwise unremarkable life. The soon-to-be-16 girl doesn't know where Iraq is and doesn't care. That same day an American soldier died in Iraq.
Two days earlier, a 35-year-old man went shopping for home entertainment equipment. He had the toughest time selecting the correct plasma screen; he could afford the biggest and best of everything. In the end, he had it installed by a specialty store. He spent about $50,000 on the whole system. He has never met anybody serving in the military nor served himself, but thinks we should turn the whole place into a parking lot. That day, another American soldier died in Iraq.
Three days earlier, some college students had a great kegger. There were tons of babes at the party, the music was awesome. Everybody got totally blitzed, and many missed class the next day. The young men all registered for the draft when they were 18, but even though our nation is at war, they aren't the least bit worried about the draft. It is politically impossible to conscript young people today, we are told. That day, another American volunteer died in Iraq.
Four days earlier, a harried housewife looked all over town for the perfect accessory for her daughter's upcoming recital. Her numerous chores wore her out, but she still found herself preoccupied. Her oldest son is having trouble in his first year of college, and he has been talking of enlisting in the Army. She is terrified that her child will go off to that horrible war she sees on TV. She and her husband decide to give their son more money so he doesn't have to work part-time; maybe that will help with his studies. That day, another soldier died.
Yesterday millions of Americans celebrated Independence Day. They attended parties and barbecues. Families came together from all across the country to celebrate the big day. Millions of dollars were spent on fireworks. At public events, there were speeches honoring the people who served and those who made the ultimate sacrifice. These words mostly fell on bored ears. While the country celebrated its own greatness, other Americans were still fighting in Iraq.
Today Americans go back to their normal business. The politicians in Washington have made sure the sacrifices of the war are borne by the very smallest percentage of Americans. They won't even change the tax rates to prevent deficits from running out of control. Future generations will pay the cost of this war.
Many Americans feel strongly about the war one way or another, but they aren't signing up their children for service or taking the protest to the streets. What can they do? It is they whom we in the military trust to influence our leaders in Washington.
Today, as on every other day in Iraq, American servicemen are in very real danger. Our country is at war. Mothers, fathers, wives, husbands and children are worrying about their loved ones in a faraway land. They all hope he or she isn't the one whose luck runs out today.
The writer is an Air Force captain stationed in Iraq.
Good article - link inside.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/sep/10/women.uselections2008
Thanks for the article, puts O in a good light really.
Told me how he is trying to rein in the lobbyists and get spending under better control and not things as usual in DC. I am Obama girl, thanks for posting!
Good Article. The American Cancer Society sm
is also advocating national health care as are a lot of medical organizations. They see the problems with the current system every day and know things cannot continue as they are.
That's a good, fair article. Very well stated. Thanks for posting the link!....nm
Each brown place in the link takes you to a different article that supports this article...nm
x
So does someone's comment at the end of the article, discredit the whole article??
Unbelievable.
kaydie
believe me, I feel the same way. word is, they want her out of NY, too. They are sorry they voted for her. I just don't see her stepping down from the race gracefully. I figure they have to offer her something really big and I don't see her as obama's vp, unless he is hiring a food taster. I can't believe any medical personnel would vote for her after she said nurses were highly overpaid and underworked - I have seen those girls so tired they can't make it home without pulling over to snooze. AND she just said a couple of months ago that we had already made inroads on health care costs by outsourcing med. tx's and in the same speech promised to bring jobs back to the USA, go figure.
Thank you Kaydie. (sm)
Great post. Very intelligent and well written.
Hi Kaydie
Thanks for your reply and for giving me your viewpoint.
As for voting, I've felt the same way that you do... no one cares what little old me thinks about the next president, but they'll let me vote so I think I have a say so. But I've decided that I need to participate "just in case".
On the religion side, I think that is where so much of the hatred towards Christians lie, in the "intolerance". You see we are taught that Christ IS the only way to heaven and to God, and other religions ARE wrong. If we didn't believe that 100%, we would not really be Christians, because the Bible teaches us that (my preacher is very good about not straying from the bible or misusing verses, and has said time and time again that if he does he expects to be immediately corrected). The Bible is the unerring word of God, written by man, but inspired by Him.
The problem is, you can't just walk up to a Muslim or Jew or anyone else and say "hey, your religion is wrong, because this is what mine says!" because they can immediately say the same thing to you, and if that is your only argument then your going to argue in circles with them.
That's why I believe it is so important to study other religions. Not to believe in them, but to be able to have an intelligent debate with them.
A big thing I notice is that people now a days believe that "to tolerate" means to also believe in. Like because I'm Christian I should believe that Christ is the way to heaven, but so is being a Muslim, Jew, etc. But that contradicts us horribly. To tolerate, according to Webster's, is to "to allow the existence, presence, practice, or act of without prohibition or hindrance; permit. " Basically, to respect others religions. I respect Muslims, Buddhists, Catholics, Jews, and their views. But I respectfully disagree with them. If one of them wanted to talk with me, I wouldn't just shove my fingers in my ears and say "la LA la la la i'm right your wrong" but I would talk with them and since I believe that Christ is the only way to heaven, I would give them my viewpoints and my reasons for believing this, and maybe they would accept. Maybe not. That's all we can do as Christians, state our case. It's between God and that person to do the rest.
So basically I think that's why people feel that Christians are intolerant. I know a lot of us don't want to even accept other religions as being in existence, but they are, and we have to learn to be respectful in presenting the Gospel to those of other religions.
If you want a good study check out Josh McDowell's "A verdict that demands a truth". It's not a book to sit down and read with a cup of coffee, it's more like a text book. But it picks into every corner of the "why?" of Christianity. It is really worth it to read!
Thank you so much, Kaydie -
I could already tell so much of a difference in my "boy" - in fact, I think he was gone and I got a "man".
He enlisted in the reserves, decided to go active, but they sent him on to basic and said for him to finish the paperwork when he comes out of AIT so he could go active, but now he has decided to just stay in the reserves and go to college with an ROTC program so he can leave the reserves and enlist as an officer - hopefully, he can be all he wants to be!
Also, Kaydie -
Katterbach/Ansbach is where I lived when I was there. I also lived in Bamberg for about 6 months. My uncle lived in Ansbach and I lived with him for awhile and then moved to Bamberg to live with my husband.
And Kaydie, what exactly does that mean?
??
Kaydie
Gosh, till bashing Obama.
In your posts, you have commented on Obama's race, you have commented that he plays the race card which he never has, and you connected his name to Adolf Hitler, all things a racist would do. It just dawned on me that you are a racist. If Caspar the Friendly Ghost were running for President, you would vote for him because he is white.
You commented that you hate McCain but you don't know who to vote for. That is because the alternative to McCain would be voting for a black man who would be in the White House!
If you look at Obama through non-racist vision, you might see more clearly.
Kaydie -
Off the subject of politics, but wanted to tell you something about stereotyping.
I am a 39 year old white woman and am in college. I was in the bookstore talking to the manager and clerk one day during a break, just hanging out, and the subject got on the men in our life. Well, my boyfriend is black. When that fact came out in the conversation, both of their jaws dropped and almost simultaneously they stated that they never would have guessed that because I did not "look like I would date a black man". They went on to talk about how professional I look, how I speak as a professional, and present myself as professional.
you go kaydie -
x
You know what Kaydie?
You are a perfect example of McCain/Palin strategy. Scare, scare, scare. Your constant harping "till the cows come home" gets really old. How about "Joe the Plumber/" Do you REALLY think he wasn't a plant by the McCain group? Know what my husband said? "He looks like a dam*ed skin head." hmmmmm My husband is also a Viet Nam vet and he will not vote for McCain. If you think I'm opinionated you ought to get him going. LOL
you go, Kaydie.
Strength of conviction, that is what I see and what this great country was built up. You keep on posting what you believe in. Not everyone here has their eyes closed to what is going on. Thank you for posting with dignity and not constantly insulting and name calling like so many others here do.
for Kaydie
Your unselfishness by serving the best country in the WORLD is literally beyond admirable. Whenever I see one who served our country, their uniform, cap (I hope I said that right), I become very emotional. In fact, I wanted to work at the Army &/or Marines office nearby, rather than this job. Since I didn't serve, I was unable (as I interpreted it).
I salute you, Kaydie, the same as I do John McCain and all the rest!
It makes me furious when your votes mysteriously "disappear," etc. It's despicable! What does that say aboout the opposing party? There's no denying it!
THANK YOU, Kaydie! You're a true patriot!
Don't go, Kaydie....sm
I know you haven't always been treated kindly on this board, but as an American, you still have the liberty to voice your opinion, whether a single person agrees or not. I have always found your posts insightful and interesting. Stay with us!
You can say that again, Kaydie.....sm
I, for one, need to get back to work. We have to quit making this such an interesting place to be! HAHAHA
THANKS, KAYDIE...nm
nm
Kaydie......... sm
Good to see you. I always enjoy reading your opinions, even though we don't always agree on things. Life would be so boring if we did agree on things, don't you think?
As I have in the past with others, I will have to disagree with your stance that abortion should be allowed. I am not discounting all that you have said here in regards to children who are brought into this world unwanted by their birth mother, and to me that is a tragedy in and of itself. I also am not discounting the sorrow with which some women must bear a child in circumstances that are not favorable. However, tthere are alternatives to abortion. I still believe and always will believe that taking a baby's life under any circumstance is the right thing to do. God alone is the giver of life and God alone is the taker of life. The child that is aborted could be the child that will discover the cure for cancer or AIDS or some other dread medical disease. He or she may be the peacemaker this country/world needs. He or she may just be an average citizen with no world impact, but he or she has the right to live their life, just as you and I do.
Much is said about when life begins and there are varying opinions as to when that moment is. Mine is that life begins at conception and that God knows us even before that point, so taking a baby's life is wrong. Why, if it were not wrong, is a murderer who kills a pregnant woman charged with 2 counts of murder? Why, if it were not wrong, do some women feel such guilt at having aborted their child, even if they felt at the time that it was the "right thing to do"? Why, if it were not wrong, did God create pregnancy in such a manner that it is practically undetectable, except for a chemical pregnancy test, until the point at which the heart and nervous system begin to develop at around 5 to 6 weeks?
Abortion has been around for ages and likely will not go away just because of a few words written on a message board or even by legislation declaring it illegal, but if I can challenge even 1 person to critically examine the facts and not just the emotional ramifications behind abortion, then it is worth my time in stating my opinion. I have enclosed a link to a web site which shows in great detail the development of a baby from conception until the point of birth. I hope that you will look at it and understand that life does begin at conception and not at some arbitrary point between conception and birth.
There is an alternative to abortion.
for Kaydie....s/m
I share your opinion.
Kaydie
I can totally relate to DH story.
I grew up with a very abusive father. He wasn't an alcoholic, but I would get beaten with many things besides a belt (2x4s, choker chain, shovel, bench, just to name a few). I was a straight A high honor roll student. I never got into trouble in school. I have never done any drugs. I didn't really have a social life because I would be put to work around our business and I mean lots of physical labor etc. He would tell me I was a retard and stupid all of the time. ALL of the time. He would never go to any of my stuff, including my high school graduation. There are stories I could tell you but I would rather not. I know what it's like to grow up like that. I would never wish that upon ANYBODY. I wanted to die and I felt like a slave until I was able to take control of my own life after high school.
I also want to share with you that I am the poster of the "What embryos and fetuses are for" because through all of the crap and hatefulness I have had to deal with in my life, I knew there was more to life than pain. I knew I was here for a reason. Now as an adult, I have a beautiful family whom I love very, very much. I take it from your post you think everything was rosy for me with wanting that experience for my children. I know what reality is. I think I turned out okay and I have a great husband and children. LIfe is what you make it. Unfortunately, there will always be someone hurting children and that is a terrible thing. But I truly feel life is precious and something to be cherished. With adversity comes empathy. Just my opinion, of course.
Kaydie?
O
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