|
POEM: UTOPIA- .............ABOUT NOUTOPIA ................ARCHIVES
..............QUOTES
 THE CONSTITUTION ...have
you ever read it?
What
about the THE
DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE?
No
Utopia:Thursday
- 9/18/03
"Enjoy
every sandwich"
--WARREN
ZEVON
POETIC JUSTICE
"Monday's
decision by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals
for the 9th Circuit didn't merely scramble the already jumbled
electoral situation in California," says a commentary in
the Washington Post. The piece by Harold Meyerson continues,
"It was also a direct challenge to the Supreme Court's Gang
of Five, the justices who plunked down George W. Bush in the
White House three years ago with their ruling in Bush v. Gore."
It appears the 9th Circuit was throwing it's Florida presidential
vote decision back into the face of the Supreme Court. As the
Meyerson commentary says, "Now the 9th Circuiters have called
Bill Rehnquist's bluff. Did he really mean all that stuff about
extending the equal protection clause to voters who stood a greater
chance to be disenfranchised by the absence of a uniform standard
of counting votes? Was he really concerned about the tabulation
disparities between one county and the next? Or was Bush v. Gore
just a one-time-only decision crafted to elect a Republican president?"
Poetic
justice?
TOP
THE FOG MACHINE OF WAR
Like
a kid caught in a web of his own deceit, back-pedaling, tweaking
the record, restating, denying, reinventing, reconstruction,
revising history, explicating what the definition of "is"
was, George Bush and accomplices say they never said Saddam was
responsible for 9/11.
" 'No, we've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved
with September the 11th,' the president said yesterday after
a meeting at the White House with lawmakers," as reported
in the Washington Post.
Of course, the president was never so explicit when he was pumping
the country up for war. At that time the White House had it's
fog-of-war machine cranked up full bore, opaque mist billowing
from coast to coast. Explicit was not part of the strategy.
But the administration is still spewing smoke as the Post points
out, "In stating that position, Bush clarified an issue
that has long been left vague by his administration. On Sunday,
Vice President Cheney said on NBC's "Meet the Press"
that success in Iraq means 'we will have struck a major blow
right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base
of the terrorists who had us under assault now for many years,
but most especially on 9/11."
The Post also notes that 69 percent of the American people believe
that Saddam Hussein had his hand in 9/11. Now where do you suppose
they got that idea, from Hillary Clinton? No, they got it from
a careful campaign of insinuation.
For instance, "In his May 1 speech announcing the end of
major combat in Iraq, Bush said, 'The battle of Iraq is one victory
in a war on terror that began on September the 11th, 2001.' He
added: 'With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters
declared war on the United States. And war is what they got.'
"
It's good the President has finally let some truth ooze from
his lips (as
did Rumsfeld),
but remember, this is only because some pressure is now building
to get some straight answers from this pack of liars. So let's
no back off now.
TOP
SOME GOOD ANTI-FOXIFICATION
NEWS
The Senate
has voted to roll back the new FCC rule changes by a vote of
55-40. These are the rules that would greatly increase the trend
to centralize the info-dispersing system in this country. They
would have made it easier for large corporations to own more
media outlets and threaten local control of broadcasting. They
would further Foxify the news. But the Senate said no.
 Of course
this required the help of Republican Senators, and hat's off
to them. But their votes followed a surge of negative reaction
from Americans to this continued effort of the Bush administration
to put this nation lock, stock, and barrel into the hands of
the few. The pic (left) represents an outpouring of comments
and letters from voters against the new rules, many of them coming
through the MoveOn website.
Now lets see what the House will do. As a recent announcement
of this vote from MoveOn.org notes, "...this
is still an uphill battle. Media lobbyists will be working around
the clock to ensure that the new rules stay in place. We'll
keep you posted on what you can do to make sure the final
appropriations vote goes our way. But with each winning vote,
we move
closer to a decisive defeat of massive media consolidation and
the FCC
rule change."
Here's the Washington
Post coverage
of the story.
TOP
Sunday
- 9/14/03
LARGEST BUDGET DEFICIT
THE NATION HAS KNOWN
The $166
billion tab for the Afghanistan war... so far... will morph into
the off-the-scale
cost
for both Afghanistan and Iraq, all of which will be borrowed
and paid for not by you, but your children. Thank you mom and
dad for your
phenomenal support for the incredibly incompetent and greedy George
Bush cabal.
New schools in Iraq; not-so-new-schools in the U.S.A. Fancy Bombs
for a determined, but amorphous Iraqi enemy; a strained and tattered
power grid for the U.S.A. And no one (for good reason) is feeling
any safer.
According to a story
in the NY Times
today the Bush administration says it can finance what Lyndon
Johnson called both "guns and butter". "But Democrats
and virtually every mainstream economist say that something will
have to give, very possibly the government's retirement promises
to millions of aging baby boomers," says the Times story
by David Firestone.
THE PERFECT
STORM
How did we go from the 281 billion budget surplus when Bush was
inaugurated to this abysmal place we're in now? The perfect storm,
that's how. As the times article puts it:
"...the glittering promises crumbled. The budget was upended
by what economists now say were three independent forces gathering
in power at once: a steep economic decline, a political consensus
to slash taxes and the effects of the 2001 terrorist attacks.
The surplus disappeared, replaced the next year with a budget
deficit that has since grown to a record size. The $5.6 trillion
surplus once predicted for the 10 years ending in 2011 is now
a $2.3 trillion cumulative deficit under the best-case prediction
issued by the Congressional Budget Office two weeks ago."
A MILTONIAN
EXPERIENCE
"It really has been a Miltonian experience, from the heights
to the depths," said Robert D. Reischauer, a former director
of the Congressional Budget Office, invoking "Paradise Lost"
as a metaphor for the budget's fall.
To learn more about how far we've fallen and how hard, go
to the Times article. Its long, but well worth your time. If you're
a Bush supporter you'll get some sense of what a masochist you
really are; and what a sadist too, given what you're doing to
the rest of us.
TOP
IS THIS MAN REALLY WORTH
$200 MILLION?
 "...Mr. Grasso was in his perch again when the closing
bell halted trading last Friday afternoon. But his public image
had changed significantly. He had spent much of the week explaining
to government officials and reporters how he stood to walk away
from his career at the exchange with almost $200 million in compensation."
Read
all about it.
SPEAKING OF MONEY
Here's
a funny little story:
North Carolina cops are searching
for a guy who successfully passed a $200 bill bearing George
W. Bush's portrait and a drawing of the White House complete
with lawn signs reading "We like ice cream" and "USA
deserves a tax cut."
The phony Bush bill was presented to a cashier at a Food Lion
in Roanoke Rapids on September 6 by an unidentified male who
was seeking to pay for $150 in groceries. Remarkably, the cashier
accepted the counterfeit note and gave the man $50 change. In
a separate incident involving a different perp, Roanoke Rapids
cops Tuesday arrested Michael Harris, 24, for attempting last
month to pass an identical $200 Bush bill at a convenience store.
The counterfeiter would have been more accurate if he'd produced
a super-freighter full of minus 200 dollar bills.
So the stupidly inattentive cashier should not feel too bad.
A huge percentage of the U.S. population has accepted a Bogus
Bush Budget loaded with real minus-money posted with White House
lawn signs saying things like: "Ha! Ha! Ha!" and "Free
the Rich!" and "Power to the Powerful!"
That hapless cashier is not the only one in the country that
seems to have had a lobotomy.
TOP
A PARADOX OF FREE MARKET
CAPITALISM
Capitalism,
not being geared to the interest of the working class, but to
the desires of the moneyed class often results in prosperity
for the latter joined with a bleak outlook for the former. But
there are other odd quirks of capitalism, such as the one we're
now experiencing.
"Productivity is soaring," according
to the NY Times,
"holding out the promise of rising prosperity. Unfortunately,
now we're waiting for the prosperity to kick in. And there's
the paradox.
"The increase in productivity
has allowed many employers to cut payrolls or workers' hours.
Why pay six people to assemble 90 toaster ovens an hour when
only four workers are needed to assemble the 60 ovens that can
be sold? Better yet, why not speed up the line and cut the four
workers to three, each one forced to work faster? But that leaves
three workers unemployed, without income and unlikely to buy
toaster ovens — or much else — until they get work
again. Gradually, the demand for toaster ovens falls to 50, then
40, and another worker is laid off, or everyone's hours and pay
are cut. And demand falls even more, producing its own negative
dynamic."
There's is only one good side to this situation. It could lead
to the disappearance of George Bush. But hey, no pain, no gain.
TOP
USE YOUR IMAGINATION
FOR GOD'S SAKE
In another if his assaults
on American liberty George Bush "...wants Congress to
give federal investigators the power to compel witnesses to submit
to secret interrogations without the traditional protections
of the grand jury."
People love this kind of thing when it affects only terrorists,
but you never know who's really a terrorist until you have evidence
and a just process to prosecute them. This is what we mean by
the "rule of law". This is what we mean by "justice".
What we've got to understand is once these laws are in place
they can be used against anybody by anyone who has the power
to enforce them. Some day that may be your political enemies.
Though it may seem hard to believe you would ever be in that
situation, use your imagination for god's sake!
The way it works now is, "...if you don't want to talk to
the FBI, you don't have to -- and the only way the Justice Department
can force you to talk is to put you in front of 23 of your fellow
citizens with a court stenographer making a detailed transcript.
All of this significantly deters abuse." But Bush wants
recourse to "administrative subpoenas", which FBI agents
can issue with far less oversight.
Be honest now, do you really
want to give a pack of neoconservative wolves the power over
you to haul you off for secret interrogations? Or, forget about
neoconservative wolves. If you happen to be a neoconservative
wolf yourself, do you want to give flaming liberals this power
over you?
Use your imagination for God's sake.
TOP
Saturday -
9/13/03
HE WALKED THE LINE
I keep a close watch on this heart
of mine
I keep my eyes wide open all the time
I keep the ends out for the tie that bind
Because you're mine, I walk the line
|
The man
in black died yesterday.
Also here.
TOP
A WHITE EXPANSE OF NOTHINGNESS
Some say the science
of global warming is not conclusive. Some of those who say this
can't be trusted any further than you could throw them, so you
could say, relying on George Bush or his administration for information
is the choice of fools.
 Photo 1: The Arctic National
Wildlife Refuge - "A White Expanse of Nothingness" |
But the proof is undeniably there. Nicholas Kristof of the NY
times lays
out some of this proof in his column today. Kristof is reporting
from Kaktovik, Alaska.
 Photo 2: The Antic National Wildlife Refuge -
"A White Expanse of Nothingness" |
Some of Kristof's markers:
- A robin...built its nest in
town this year (there is no word in the local Inupiat Eskimo
language for robins).
- The Okpilak River valley was
historically too cold and dry for willows, and in the Inupiat
language "Okpilak" means "river with no willows."
...now it's crowded with willows.
- The warming ocean is also bringing
salmon, three kinds now, to waters here. The Eskimos say there
were almost no salmon a generation ago.
- "The weather is different,
really different," said 92-year-old Nora Agiak, speaking
in the Inupiat language and wearing moose-skin moccasins and
a jacket with wolverine fur. "We're not getting as many
icebergs as we used to."
- Alaska has warmed by eight degrees,
on average, in the winter, over the last three decades, according
to meteorological records. The U.S. Arctic Research Commission
says that today's Arctic temperatures are the highest in the
last 400 years, and perhaps much longer.
- The U.S. Navy reports that in
areas traversed by its submarines, Arctic ice volume decreased
42 percent over the last 35 years.
- Pack ice, which always used
to hover offshore, providing a home for polar bears, now sometimes
retreats hundreds of miles north of Kaktovik.
- For hundreds of years, the Eskimos
here used ice cellars in the permafrost. But now the permafrost
is melting, and these ice cellars are filling with water and
becoming useless.
|
...so we just can't say for sure there's such a thing as global
warming ...
And if you believe that, they've a got a trillion dollar war
in the fertile crescent they'd like to sell you... oh, wait,
they already have.
 Photo 3: The Antic National Wildlife Refuge -
"A White Expanse of Nothingness" |
The Times report also includes an informative slide-show of scenes
accompanied by Kristof commentary in which the writer notes that
the area the Bush administration wants to open for drilling is
described by Interior Secretary, Gale Norton, as a "white
expanse of nothingness". But, according to the evidence
of Kristof's own eyes, this is definitely not so.
 Photo 4: The Antic National Wildlife Refuge -
"A White Expanse of Nothingness" |
Maybe Norton's description --"white expanse of nothingness"--
was an unusual self-critique of The Administration from
an internal White House memo that somehow slipped into Norton's
notebooks. Maybe it was a Freudian slip. Maybe it was an act
of God.
 Photo 5: The Antic National Wildlife Refuge -
"A White Expanse of Nothingness" |
If the question, "What will
be some of the consequences of continued environmental stupidity?"
is running around your mind, read Kristof's article to find
out.
Also, try these links for info on the Antic National Wildlife
Refuge (ANWR):
TOP
O'RIELLY'S GONNA NEED
A BIGGER MOP
Paul Krugman of the NY
Times says we ain't seen nothing yet ...of the damage that's
being done to the American political system, that is ...by the
cynical excesses of the Bush Administration, that is.
What
Krugman says is, "The press has become a lot less shy
about pointing out the administration's exploitation of 9/11,
partly because that exploitation has become so crushingly obvious.
As The Washington Post pointed out yesterday, in the past six
weeks President Bush has invoked 9/11 not just to defend Iraq
policy and argue for oil drilling in the Arctic, but in response
to questions about tax cuts, unemployment, budget deficits and
even campaign finance. Meanwhile, the crudity of the administration's
recent propaganda efforts, from dressing the president up in
a flight suit to orchestrating the ludicrously glamorized TV
movie about Mr. Bush on 9/11, have set even supporters' teeth
on edge."
Well, it's about time the press found its balls (a gender-specific
metaphor only).
We don't need a sycophantic press corps for chrissakes! It's
bad enough that one news organization (Fox) seems to have set
up an office in the basement of the White House. Some say they
think they've seen Bill O'Rielly skulking up and down the mansion's
halls frantically mopping up The Administration's doo
doo (as the delicate of speech prefer to say). Well, according
to Paul Krugman, O'Rielly's gonna need a bigger mop.
Why he says these White House thugs are going to further brutalize
our system is that the change in political climate will have
them acting out of fear now, instead of out of the greed they
were more comfortable with.
"Now it has all gone wrong," Krugman points out, "The
deficit is about to go above half a trillion dollars, the economy
is still losing jobs, the triumph in Iraq has turned to dust
and ashes, and Mr. Bush's poll numbers are at or below their
pre-9/11 levels.
"Nor can the members of this administration simply lose
like gentlemen. For one thing, that's not how they operate. Furthermore,
everything suggests that there are major scandals - involving
energy policy, environmental policy, Iraq contracts and cooked
intelligence - that would burst into the light of day if the
current management lost its grip on power. So these people
must win, at any cost.
"At any cost," he says (and all of us --friend
and foe alike-- knows this in our guts to be true). Why? Because
these are not basically good people just making mistakes. It's
a political wilderness out there, and predators are presently
at the top of the food chain. And folks, the grizzly of ruthless
intention does not suffer lightly being separated from it's baby,
Power.
Krugman says we're in for one of the ugliest campaigns ever.
He's most likely right. But the quintessence of ugliness --no
matter how bad the campaign might get-- will finally be realized
if George Bush is "re-elected"... by means
fair or foul. Then Americans will find out how
ugly their world can be.
TOP
Friday
- 9/12/03
E-IGNORANCE IS NO EXCUSE
Remember how we looked
down on those banana republics who had to have their elections
monitored to make sure the powers that be didn't cook the election
results. Well, fellow citizens, we may soon be a banana republic,
but without the bananas. To be precise, we may be an E-banana
republic. A once proud democracy fallen to hi-tech voting fraud.
Be honest now. You've haven't the slightest idea what's really
going on in your computer. Those manufacturers could have pulled
all kinds of digital sleights-of-hand inside those vanilla boxes
and you wouldn't be any the wiser. And when something goes seriously
wrong, if your like most of us, you just throw up your hands
and pay the 50 bucks an hour through the nose to fix it. To make
matter worse, as far as you know, if the repair guy happened
to be a sinister dude, he could be setting all kinds of delayed-release
e-bombs to go off who knows when? That being said, we have a
problem.
If you think electronic voting
is a cure for the Florida Syndrome you are an E-innocent.
To treat your malediction go
here to an article detailing a speech by Lynn Landes given
at the forum: Voting Machines: A Threat To Democracy? Sunday
Sept 7, 2-5 pm at the Ethical Society in Philadelphia. It's hair-raising
reading.
TOP
IF THEY TOOK POLYGRAPHS,
THEY'D MELT DOWN THE MACHINE
Molly Ivins is mad
as hell and she's not going to take it any more. If the whole
country felt this way, maybe it would jolt the complete adolescent
incompetents who thought up this war out of their arrogance.
Nah. There's no hope for these men... Bush, Rumsfeld, Cheney,
Wolfowitz. They're locked into their own Club Hell and want to
make the rest of us members (rank and file, that is) no matter
how much damage they do.
"Anybody who opposed this
war in the first place was accused of lack of patriotism,"
Ivins says, "and now anybody who points out that it's not
going well is guilty of defeatism." This is a neat closed
system. But Molly ain't buying it. We shouldn't either.
It's amazing. These guys don't just shade truth the way politicians
have since politics was invented. They hack truth to pieces.
They leave truth in a bloody heap making it almost impossible
to get a positive I.D. on the corpse. But it doesn't take a Lenny
Brisco or Jack McCoy to figure out whodunit. It's been in the
news for over two years. We've got means, motive, and opportunity.
We've got fingerprints. We've got paper trails. Witnesses. And
we know if The Administration took a polygraph it would
melt down the machine. The problem is most Americans don't want
to look at the evidence. This means the voters themselves may
be accomplices in American democricide. Or, at the very least,
accomplices after the fact.
What's that John Dean warned Richard Nixon... "There's a
cancer on the presidency?" Folks, in our case, the cancer
is the presidency. Anyone know a good oncologist?
Read Ivins here.
TOP
Wednesday
- 9/10/03
QUESTION OF THE WEEK: What is a kleptocracy?
QUARTER TRILLION DOLLAR WAR?
What
if the president had said back then, "Let's go to war, but
it's going to cost a quarter trillion dollars?" Would we
have choked then?
Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo thinks this is where it
might be going. Add his numbers here.
IT AIN'T OUR FAULT
The surest
sign that adults aren't running things in the Bush administration
is the desperate placing of blame on critics of a failing policy.
Adults don't look to place blame, they accept responsibility
and look for solutions. But that's not the way this administration
works.
Josh Marshall
(TPM), commenting on neoconservative criticism of vocal opposition
to the policies of the Bush Administration --the most recent
being Donald Rumsfeld's sums
it up this way:
"So here the whole sordid business comes full circle. The
administration games the public into an endeavor by exaggerating
the gains and minimizing the price. Then the gains are revealed
as not quite so great. And the price is revealed as very much
greater. And if all that weren't bad enough, the operation is
bungled on several fronts. So the gamers and the scammers say
it's the fault of the critics who tried to carve through the
mumbo-jumbo in the first place. And when the public has a touch
of buyers' remorse over a product that was peddled on false advertising,
the answer lies in the public's own degeneracy and division.
"It's everyone's
fault but theirs. 'The terrorists', domestic enemies, cultural
declension, the French, perhaps tomorrow the decline of reading,
the end of corporal punishment in the schools, permissive parenting,
bad posture, rock 'n roll, space aliens. The administration is
choking on its own lies and evasions. And we have to bail them
out because the ship of state is our ship."
The reason there's no national unity concerning the Iraq war
now is because the President didn't give a sweet one whether
there was unity when he barged into Iraq. He failed to forge
unity. Unilateralism is not the same thing as unity.
Sunday
- 9/7/03
NOUTOPIA'S T. I. A. G. DEPT (There Is A God):
Recent Time/CNN Poll:
If George W. Bush runs for reelection
in 2004, would you say you will definitely vote for him, might
vote for or against him, or will you definitely vote against
him?
Definitely For 29%
Definitely Against 41%
Now if God will only stay in the picture long enough to monitor
the election (maybe God will get Jimmy carter to help) ...if
only to prove that He/She is not a neoconservative, fundamentalist,
capitalist, elitist.
|
TEXAS TYPHOON
 After
an almost 3 year buildup of ill winds, hot air, and empty promises,
NoUtopia has acquired an exclusive arial view of George
W. Bush's vision of America about to hit the U.S. mainland.
TAX CUTS UP, JOBS STILL
DOWN
"The perils of presidential
promises hit the White House anew when the Labor Department reported
this morning that employers shed 93,000 jobs from payrolls in
August. It was the seventh consecutive month companies had slashed
payrolls, up sharply from the 43,000 positions lost in July.
This time, the losses came just as the president's $350 billion
tax cut package was showing up in consumers' pockets.
Read it here
in the Washington Post.
PRESIDENT VACATES WHILE
TROOPS PERSPIRATE
There's nothing that
indicates true attitude better than thoughtless action. So if
you want to get behind George Bush's sappy photo-op regard for
the men he's been sending to be ducks in skeet shoot, nothing
says it better than his month-long vacation.
As Alan
Bisbort comments in the Harford Advocate (August 21, 2003),
"Not since the days of Marie Antoinette, or at least Nancy
Reagan, has there been such a disconnect between the ruling elite
and what Marie and Nancy might call the unwashed masses. A potent
symbol of this cynical detachment is provided by George W. Bush's
month-long vacation, during which his only forays among the unwashed
masses have been to whack his little white balls around a golf
course -- and to host a "down-home" barbecue to shake
down rich donors for another run at the White House. The cover
charge for barbecue with the Bushes? Each of the 350 "very
special guests" paid $50,000 to nibble on those Republican
pig and cow carcasses."
While the president vacates (more than usual) the men under his
command perspirate ...and perspirate. "To be perfectly clear,"
Bisbot says, "...the temperature in Iraq is 30 degrees hotter
than it is in Dubya's Crawford, Texas vacationland. It's so hot
that official meteorological data has been blocked from the media
by the Department of Defense ...so that Americans won't know
that our troops are the human equivalent of down-home barbecue.
What the DOD has also tried to keep a lid on, though foreign
news services haven't been so easily bullied as the embedded
American press, is that our troops are operating in this inferno
without adequate water supplies, sanitation, shelter or barbecue
-- actually, any type of food."
Some Americans with eyes that see and brains that actually process
what they see are angry at this commander and cheat. Bisbort
reports that, "The spirit of their dissent is summed up
in this letter from a woman in Minnesota, posted on Media
Whores Online: "After watching a piece on CNN the other
night about the wounded soldiers now being attended to at Walter
Reed, many of whom are now minus one or two limbs, I couldn't
help but wonder: Was it just me? Did I miss the coverage of the
current White House resident spending some serious time visiting
these young soldiers? It would have been the decent thing (not
to mention the least he could do) for Junior to have spent the
first day of his vacation visiting with these brave young men.
Before going on to Crawford and picking up the golf clubs, how
about having spent some time with the young man who will never
be able to hold his newborn infant with both arms?"
No it wasn't just her. Read
Bisbort.
TOP
HOW GOVERNMENT IS PURCHASED
I received a forwarded
email this morning from a friend. It laid out a Bill Clinton-Enron
connection and complained that this particular mutual government/corporate
suck-up was not being attended to by the media. I have sympathy
for the complaint because of my anger at the media's almost complete
capitulation to The Dubya Administration regarding Iraq
and Bush policy in general. To have credibility news outlets
should have been giving greater coverage to the voices of opposition.
But news about Clinton chasing Enron money only strengthens the
view of those of us who think there's a good argument to be made
that our present means of choosing political representation is
corrupt beyond words ...and is corrupt systemically.
The irony of Republicans now complaining about Clinton's political
corruption is that they chose to harass the man for something
they could get great media mileage out of (sex, sex, sex) rather
than indict him for a legitimate form of corruption so dear to
their own hearts. They preferred to let sleeping dogs lie. And
it worked. As a result of the actions of hypocrites like Republican
sex-sniffer Henry Hyde (an appropriate handle for a guy who had
something similar to hide) the media was so busy cutting Clinton
off at the knees for Monica, they didn't have time (nor the corporate
inclination) to go after him for something truly gross and illegitimate
--something they themselves are often party to.
Republican conservatives like to lump all liberals into one category.
This is the common simplicity of idiocy. To be fair, Liberals
do the same thing, but Republicans are so much better at it.
But, though I'm a liberal, I was never a Clinton lover. The man
was stupid beyond belief to give his enemies the leverage against
him that he did. He squandered a great liberal opportunity. And
he shared the typical me-first inclination of politicians. In
the me-first contingency, though, he could not hold a candle
to George Bush.
|
BUSH AND ENRON |
CLINTON AND
ENRON |
In 1986, according
to a publicly available record, Bush and Enron drilled for
oil together--at a time when Bush was a not-too-successful oil
man in Texas and his oil venture was in dire need of help. Bush's
business association with Enron, it seems, has not previously
been reported.
Enron and its
executives are the single largest contributors ($550,000 and
counting) to George W. Bush, Republican candidate for President
of the United States. Kenneth Lay, the chief executive of Enron,
has personally given at least $250,000 in soft money to Bush's
political campaigns. He is also one of the "Pioneers"--a
Bush supporter who has collected $100,000 in direct contributions
of $1,000 or less.
The (Bush) Administration's energy program, developed by Vice
President Dick Cheney in secret meetings--six of them with Enron
officials--could
have been written by lobbyists for the now failed company.
According to the House Committee on Government Reform analysis
of 17 major concessions ... gave Kenneth L. Lay, just about everything
he wanted. The report concluded that "it
is unlikely that any other corporation in America stood to gain
as much from the White House plan as Enron."
...the Bush energy plan emphasized increased federal power over
utility pipelines that forced local utilities to carry Enron's
product. This was an expansion of powers granted in the 1992
Bush Energy Policy Act ... (a) law that undermined the power
of local authorities and regional utility companies for
the benefit of Enron.
Enron claimed $382 million in government refunds. And Bush touted
this company that created 881 offshore dodges to avoid taxes.
Rather than acting to discourage such tax dodges (which Clinton
worked to eliminate) Bush,
sought to reward a company that took advantage of offshore loopholes.
In January 1999, Enron
pitched in $50,000 to help pay for Bush's inaugural bash
in Austin, Texas, after he won reelection for governor.
The president's
rejection of price controls to hold down soaring electricity
costs in the Golden State reflects the views of Enron, the
largest wholesaler of electricity and largest owner of natural
gas pipelines in North America.
Enron
and its employees gave $113,800 to Bush's presidential campaign,
his 10th most generous contributor; $250,000 to the Republican
National Convention host committee; and $300,000 to the Presidential
Inauguration Committee.
Enron Chief Executive Officer Kenneth Lay, who raised more than
$100,000 for Bush's campaign, is a member
of the president's energy transition team and attended his
economic summit.
George
W. made a phone call to movers and shakers in the Argentinean
government to secure a $300-million deal for a U.S. pipeline
company.
It seems that Enron, the largest pipeline company in the United
States, had suddenly entered the bidding. According to the Argentinean
official handling the bidding process, G.W. called him and noted
that a deal with Enron "would be very favorable for Argentina
and its relations with the United States."
When this became public the Bush staff denied his involvement...
....And, if you believe that, let me tell you about this war
I'm trying to sell...
|
Clinton
administration orders to the company (Enron) and other power
providers to continue supplying electricity to California's near
bankrupt utilities (even though they didn't really want to).
Under Clinton, the feds wanted to clamp down on lax banking laws
that permitted off-shore tax dodges (favored by Enron). At first,
the Clinton Treasury Department just named the offending countries,
hoping to embarrass them into changing then he
threatened economic sanctions if they didn't move.
But...
"Enron did surprisingly well during the Clinton years,"
declared NBC News reporter Lisa Myers on the February 25 NBC
Nightly News. She explained: "Lay played golf with the President,
and Enron received $1.2 billion in government-backed loans for
projects around the world. Documents obtained by NBC News show
the Clinton administration billed three Enron projects in India
and Turkey as success stories, personally pushed by the late
Commerce Secretary Ron Brown. About that time, Enron made its
first $100,000 contribution to the Democrats
During
the early part of the Clinton administration, Enron was able
to successfully secure financing for the Dabhol Power plant in
India with loans from the U.S. Export-Import Bank totaling
$298 million dollars to cover about 32 percent of the costs.
Enron's ownership stake was 80 percent in the Indian power plant.
Former Enron Chairman and CEO
Kenneth Lay wrote a personal letter to Clinton in 1995, supporting
the president's budget proposal in Congress.
Later that year, Clinton
administration officials helped Enron during the company's
negotiations over a natural gas project in Mozambique.
The top negotiator on the gas project for Mozambique was Minister
of Mineral Resources John Kachamila, who complained of "outright
threats to withhold development funds if we didn't sign,"
with Enron.
So we have two
administrations cozying up to a corrupt corporation. What shall
we make of this ...that money goes to power and visa versa? DUH.
What I make of this is, the way we conduct our elections better
be revamped or these kinds of relationships will never cease.
Election finance reform should be at the top of every American's
agenda.
You get what you pay for.
And one last
thought: If money is free speech, then those with the most money
have the freest speech. Free speech is not money. This is a great
lie of the elite.
|
TOP
HOW WE GOT HERE/THERE
I did
something like this a while back, but here's
Molly Ivins' version. It's a list of quotes by big-heads that traces
our paces to the present moment.
And Molly even
quotes Bill O'Reilly of Fox News: "And I said on my program,
if, if the Americans go in and overthrow Saddam Hussein and it's
clear he had nothing," says Bill, "I will apologize
to the nation, and I will not trust the Bush administration again."
-- March 18, 2003.
I wouldn't count on an apology from O'Rielly, though ...or one
from The Administration either ...being a big-mouth talking head
or president is never having to say you're sorry.
Check it out.
WHEN FAITHFULNESS IS
NEXT TO GODLESSNESS
What do you call the
citizens of a nation who believe things that lack the evidence
to back them up? Congregations?
This interesting situation is reported
in today's Washington Post. The story says that, "Nearing
the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks,
seven in 10 Americans continue to believe that Iraq's Saddam
Hussein had a role in the attacks, even though the Bush administration
and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of
this."
Who needs evidence ...we, after all, are Americans?
TOP
SQUEEZING REVENUE BALLOONS
You know how if you squeeze
an inflated balloon on one side it pops out on the other? Well,
that's the way it is with revenues and expenses.
The Republican governor of Alabama has discovered that huge tax
cuts for the rich at the federal level require huge tax increases
at the state level. That is, unless you want to run your state
at the poverty level.
As this
story in the NY Times says, "It has all been an extraordinary
campaign and an extraordinary conversion for Mr. Riley, a conservative
Republican governor and former congressman who rose to power
on a strict tax-cut platform.
"Yet now, at football games
and universities across the state, Mr. Riley, a first-year governor
facing a $675 million deficit, is fighting to persuade Alabama
to raise taxes and revamp one of the nation's most regressive
income tax systems."
"There's nothing else Alabama can do but raise taxes,"
Mr. Riley said in an interview. "We're last in all the things
that are good, first in all the things that are bad."
Other Republicans don't like
this, and are campaigning against their party member's plan.
It's been incredibly awkward," said the state Republican
chairman, Marty Connors. "I admire Bob Riley. But what am
I supposed to do? Throw away 20 years of Republican ideology
for something like this?"
....well, yeah, for starters.
TOP
DEAD IRAQUIS ARE NOT
IMPORTANT
Reporter
Helen
Thomas was remembering the good old days of the Viet nam war when we used to
count the dead bodies of enemies. She's found out official attitudes
have changed.
In trying to
get some idea of how lucky liberated Iraqis are being affected
by this war (in the death deparrtment, that is) she hasn't been
having much success. In her efforts to dig this info up she was
told by one Defense Department official: ''They don't count.
They are not important,'' meaning the (Iraqi) casualty figures.
Now we do count dead Americans (286 so far --which includes 183
deaths from hostile fire since the start of the war. It also
includes 148 dead since President Bush declared the end of major
combat operations), because American deaths do matter. Why? Because
Americans are inherently more valuable than Iraqis ...any patriotic
American knows that.
Thomas reports that news organizations have come up with estimates
of Iraqi dead that range from 1,700 to 3,000 persons --many due
to the heavy tonnage of bombs dropped on Iraq. But that just
doesn't matter.
An official at
the U.S. Army Center of Military History acknowledged that the
question of enemy fatalities ``is a bit sensitive to our people.
We just don't face up to how many people were lost.''
There are many things we don't face up to. They will be discovered
as times goes by.
TOP
HOW NEVER HAVING HAD
TO SWEAT TO LIFT ANYTHING HEAVIER THAN SMALL IDEAS CAN LEAD TO
COMPLETE CONTEMPT FOR WORKERS
To say
the administration of George Bush is usupportive of working people
is to miss the point. The Bush administration is anti-working
people.
In her fine Labor Day column Molly Ivins reveals
the contempt these elites hold for the American worker. The
evidence?
"...when Ted Kennedy and ... Paul Wellstone were working
to get an emergency extension on unemployment benefits (1 million
unemployed workers had already exhausted their benefits before
the House finally acted in January 2003 and were simply left
in the streets with nothing under the too-little, too-late Bush
bill) ... Rep. Tom DeLay protested that Democrats want 'unlimited
unemployment so people could stay out of work for the rest of
their lives.' "
At meetings between Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and labor officials,
it was reported that, "...Chao shocked the group by opposing
any increase in the minimum wage, showing no sympathy for retired
steelworkers who lost pension benefits, and reciting a list of
legal actions her department has taken against unions and their
leaders."
"We had a pretty unbelievable session," said John J.
Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. "She was angry at points,
insulting at points. I said that in all my years in labor, I've
never seen a secretary so anti-labor."
And what about right-wing judge
Antonin Scalia's son who, following in his neocon father's footsteps,
disses the idea of work-related injury.
"For years, " Ivins says, "(Eugene Scalia) attacked
and mocked the very idea of repetitive stress injuries, calling
them "junk science," "exotic and absurd, like
a trip through Disneyland's Pirates of the Caribbean." "Work
less, and you'll feel better! Why I've experienced the same thing
myself!"
"He has written that heavy
lifting does not cause back strain and that reported increases
in repetitive stress injuries are caused by "feeding frenzies."
Try doing the same thing hundreds and hundreds of times an hour,
hour after hour, day after day, week after week."
What is this guy (who probably
never lifted anything heavier than a small idea in his life)
an ergonomics expert?
Read Molly here
...there's more.
TOP
Thursday
- 9/4/03
A TRIPARTITE NATION?
"The corporate media doesn't
talk about it much, but the United States is rapidly on its way
to becoming three separate nations." This according
to Congressman Bernie Sanders.
Just in case you're a cockeyed optimist or very patriotic Bush
administration sycophant, this would not be:
1. the
rich
2. the richer
3. the prime Bush constituency
|
No, this would be:
1. the
out on the street
2. the soon-to-be out on the street
3. the prime Bush constituency
|
Sanders is not Pollyanna. He's well aware that disparities of
wealth have always existed in our society. "But," he
says, "the disparities in wealth and income that currently
exist in this country have not been seen in over a hundred years.
Today, the richest 1 percent own more wealth than the bottom
95 percent, and the CEOs of large corporations earn more than
500 times what their average employees make. The nation's 13,000
wealthiest families, 1/100th of one percent of the population,
receive almost as much income as the poorest 20 million families
in America."
Phenomenal numbers.
The Vermont congressman points out that "The unemployment
rate rose to a nine-year high of 6.4 percent in June, 2003. There
are now 9.4 million unemployed, up more than 3 million since
just before Bush became President. Since March, 2001, we have
lost over 2.7 million jobs in the private sector, including two
million decent-paying manufacturing jobs -- ten percent of our
manufacturing sector." He adds that this exploding unemployment
is now affecting white collar jobs as well.
In fact, the middle class, as a result of the election of George
Bush and his administration's skillfull engineering of a shift
of wealth and power to an entrenched oligharcy, is on it's way
to becoming a victim of it's own fawning acquiescence.
No one who is not rich should
do anything to support this president ...if you read Sanders
well. Nothing. Nada. Zip. He is not the people's president. He
is all about wealth and power. George Bush couldn't
care less about your future.
You don't believe it? "With the support of the Bush Administration,"
says Sanders, "many companies are also reducing the pensions
they promised to their older workers -- threatening the retirement
security of millions of Americans."
There go your golden years.
You don't believe it? "One of the manifestations of the
collapse of the middle class is the increased number of hours
that Americans are now forced to work in order to pay the bills,"
say Sanders.
There goes your quality time with family.
Wrapping up his commentary Mr. Sanders says, "This country
needs to radically rethink our national priorities. The middle
class is the backbone of America and it cannot be allowed to
disintegrate. We need to revitalize American democracy, and create
a political climate where government makes decisions which reflect
the needs of all the people, and not just wealthy campaign contributors.
We need to see the middle class expand, not collapse."
Are we awake yet?
Wake
up!
TOP
Tuesday - 9/2/03
LIVING IN GATED BUBBLES
WHILE WE'RE SUCKING POND WATER AND SITTING AROUND WITH OUR THUMBS
UP OUR CABLE SYSTEMS BEING PATRIOTIC
If you'd
like your legacy to your offspring to be a planet in the best
condition possible you'd better do everything in your power to
un-elect George Bush in 2004, because his administration is doing
all it can to undo what previous governments have done to protect
our environment. If BushCo, Inc. (thank you Jim
Hightower for
the apt moniker) continues in this way our children and their's
and their's will end up sucking pond water and buying obscenely-priced
bottled oxygen from some neocon corporation exclusively franchised
by Halliburton through a no-bid contract with the Interior Department,
while the elites spend glorious days in gated bubble communities
completely free of noxious fumes. They will finally have stolen
every planetary resource for their own, while we stood by and
watched with our thumbs up our cable systems.
As an article
by Osha Grey Davidson in MotherJones says, "...while George W. Bush
gets low marks on the environment from a majority of Americans,
few fully appreciate the scope and fury of this administration's
anti-environmental agenda."
To spell it out Davidson shares his list. He says the Bush administration
has been gutting key sections of the Clean Water and Clean Air
acts; has crippled the Superfund program, which is charged with
cleaning up millions of pounds of toxic industrial wastes such
as arsenic, lead, mercury, and vinyl chloride in more than 1,000
neighborhoods in 48 states; has sought to cut the EPA's enforcement
division by nearly one-fifth, to its lowest level on record (fines
assessed for environmental violations dropped by nearly two-thirds
in the administration's first two years, and criminal prosecutions-the
government's weapon of last resort against the worst polluters-are
down by nearly one-third); has abdicated the decades-old federal
responsibility to protect native animals and plants from extinction,
becoming the first not to voluntarily add a single species to
the endangered species list; has opened millions of acres of
wilderness-including some of the nation's most environmentally
sensitive public lands-to logging, mining, and oil and gas drilling;
and of course, the White House has all but denied the existence
of what may be the most serious environmental problem of our
time, global warming.
So why is the population not screaming about BushCo, Inc's
appalling environmental record? Although there are many contributing
factors, given present world conditions, Davidson thinks the
answer might be pretty simple. He thinks few people know the
magnitude of the administration's attacks on the environment
because the administration has been working very hard to keep
it that way**.
Remember this
is one of the most secretive administrations ever. They'd prefer
that nothing they do ever comes to light, because they are privileged
and they know better what's good for you than you know yourself.
They thrive on subterfuge and misinformation. And while they
have the power to prevent the dissemination of information, they
will ... to hell with the constitution. In fact, these are the
most cynical, un-American government officials ever to have conned
their way into influence and power.
Go here
to read
the Mother Jones Report. Also, go here to Earthjustice for related info.
**There are some innocent naifs who argue that there's
no way anyone, powerful or not would, in bad faith, destroy the
very environment they themselves rely upon for survival. But
there's great wisdom in cliche's and aphorisms. Most of them
did not develop in a vacuum.
Did you ever hear the one about "cutting off your nose to
spite your face"? And to make matters worse, if there's
lot of money to be realized in spiting your face....
|
TOP
Monday - 9/1/03
GOTTA KNOW WHEN TO HOLD
'EM AND KNOW WHEN TO FOLD' EM
Interesting observations by columnist Jay Bookman
about the misreading and over-playing hands. If life were really
only just a poker game.
 Bookman says the
best metaphor for foriegn policy is high-stakes poker, "...the
kind played by fat guys smoking bad cigars. It's about bluffing,
and gambling, and never knowing what card will come up next.
Foreign policy demands the same skill set as Seven-Card Stud
or Texas Hold 'Em — in the end, the player who can best
assess and manage risk is going to win.
"And that's
why our invasion of Iraq has gone so awry. We let emotions such
as fear, pride and wishful thinking cloud our analysis of the
situation, and now we're paying the price."
"In poker terms, we misread the table," Bookman says.
"We threw all of our money into a hand that we mistakenly
thought would be a low-risk, easy winner, and that's the biggest
mistake you can make. In fact, we've got so much invested in
the pot now that we can't afford to fold 'em and walk away. We've
got to play it out to the last bitter card and hope we get lucky.
"Sometimes
that works. More often it doesn't."
Isn't it time for ordinary citizens to hose-out the saloon?
TOP
WHAT IF?
A while
back, debating with a friend about the impending war, I wondered
what the world might be like if the United States, with all its
wealth, know-how, and power were to seize the moment and embark
upon a truly new and creative approach to international relations
and global problems instead of resorting to the same-old, same-old
--that is, going to war and unleashing all of the destructive
energy war requires. What if we were blessed at this moment in
history by great minds with great thoughts rather than the constipated
thinkers and pec-flexing activists who are presently running
things. Bob Herbert of the NY Times wonders too.
In today's
column
Herbert says we need a break. We need some adults to straighten
things out. Herbert also seems to think these over-the-top rebels
without a clue are driving us to ruin.
The columnist observes, "We barreled into Iraq with no real
thought given to the consequences, and now we've got a tragic
mess on our hands. California looks like something out of 'Lord
of the Flies,' and yet the person getting the most attention
as a candidate to clean up that insane situation is an actor
with a history of immature behavior whose cartoonish roles appeal
most strongly to children. Maybe he'll shoot the budget deficit.
Hasta la vista, baby."
Having seen how
the American public has taken hook, line, and sinker to the skewed
fantasies of the me-first Republican neoconservatives who are
stealing everything in sight in broad daylight, I'm losing hope
for the country. In a democracy, if you can't trust the voters
to have basic common sense, the jig is up. When the victim conspires
with the perp, you understand, you know too soon, there is no
sense in trying.
But what if, as Bob Herbert puts it, "...we had done some
things differently. If, for example, instead of squandering ...staggering
amounts of federal money on tax cuts and an ill-advised war,
we had invested wisely in some of the nation's pressing needs.
What if we had begun to refurbish our antiquated electrical grid,
or developed creative new ways to replenish the stock of affordable
housing, or really tackled the job of rebuilding and rejuvenating
the public schools?
"What if
we had called in the best minds from coast to coast to begin
a crash program, in good faith and with solid federal backing,
to substantially reduce our dependence on foreign oil by changing
our laws and habits, and developing safer, cleaner, less-expensive
alternatives? This is exactly the kind of effort that the United
States, with its can-do spirit and vast commercial, technological
and intellectual resources, would be great at.
"Imagine
if we had begun a program to rebuild our aging infrastructure
— the highways, bridges, tunnels and dams, the water and
sewage facilities, the airports and transit systems. Imagine
on this Labor Day 2003 the number of good jobs that could be
generated with that kind of long-term effort."
Just imagine...
we need a break indeed.
Read Herbert here.
TOP
Sunday - 8/31/03
BEING BUSHWACKED BY gOD
(small "g")
The Ten
Commandment monolith may be gone from the rotunda of the Alabama supreme
court, but the struggle to keep church and state at a safe distance
from each other is not over. So unless you long to hear religious
directives being made by the likes of the condescending Donald
Rumsfeld, or born-again George Bush, keep alert or you may be
bushwacked by the Bible.
An article in today's Washington
Post scans the landscape for church-state booby traps. It's worth
reading.
And more here.
And here
by Christopher Hitchens.
TOP
WHAT'S BEEN HAPPENING
RE: IRAQ LATELY?
1. Paul
Bremer admitted last week, the cost of the Iraq adventure is
going to be spectacular: $2 billion for electrical demands and
$16 billion to deliver clean water.
2. We're losing one or two American Soldiers every day.
3. A car bomb exploded outside a Najaf mosque on Friday, killing
scores of people, including the most prominent pro-American Shiite
cleric.
5. The U.N. office in Baghdad was bombed at great human cost.
6. The policy in Iraq is paralyzed almost to the point of nonexistence,
stalled by spats between the internationalists and unilateralists.
7. Rumsfeld is running the Department of Defense the way a misanthropic
accountant would.
8. Halliburton, the corporation that made Dick Cheney a rich
man, is executing its $1.7 billion no-bid contract in Iraq and
looking forward to even greater no-bid rewards.
9. U.S. and allied intelligence agencies are investigating to
see if they were duped by Iraqi defectors giving bogus information
to mislead the West before the war (Iraqi defectors who had met
secretly with the executive branch big-heads to shape war strategy).
You can read about these things in Maureen Dowd's NY Times column
today.
TOP
YOU GOTTA WORK TO STAY
IGNORANT
Commentator
Thomas Friedman of the NY Times, who probably knows more about
the middle east and Iraq than our work-to-stay-ignorant president
ever will, calls for Boy-George to wake up in today's
column.
He says, "I don't know what Mr. Bush has been doing on his
vacation, but I know what the country has been doing: starting
to worry. People are connecting the dots — the exploding
deficit, the absence of allies in Iraq, the soaring costs of
the war and the mounting casualties. People want to stop hearing
about why winning in Iraq is so important and start seeing a
strategy for making it happen at a cost the country can sustain."
I hope the populace is taking notes. If we get to the next election
and this incompetent gets elected again....
Reflecting on the recent bombing of a Najaf Shiite mosque which
killed a moderate muslim leader, Friedman says, "If you
think we don't have enough troops in Iraq now — which we
don't — wait and see if the factions there start going at
each other. America would have to bring back the draft to deploy
enough troops to separate the parties. In short, we are at a
dangerous moment in Iraq. We cannot let sectarian violence explode.
We cannot go on trying to do this on the cheap. And we cannot
succeed without more Iraqi and allied input."
Read more here
about
why Friedman says, Our Iraq strategy needs an emergency policy
lobotomy.
Maybe the Executive Branch needs one too.
TOP
Saturday - 8/30/03
FORKED TONGUES WITH MANY
TINES
Arrogance
is a many splendored thing. It's worse effect might not so much
be lies, but a complete disrespect for truth. Take this little
rundown
by Jason West
of Alternet.org. In it he tells of an encounter with a high level
political appointee prior to the invasion of Iraq.
Before the invasion, West reports, the programmed neocon said
that, "...Americans would be welcomed in Iraq, and not with
a fleeting shower of goodwill but with a 'deluge' of 'rose water
and flowers' that would last in perpetuity.... Within a year,"
he said, "Iraq would be a beacon of democracy and stability
in the Middle East." Well that hasn't exactly worked out;
but no matter.
After that assessment the reporter followed with a question about
the Army war College Report released before the invasion (which
said that "Without an overwhelming effort to prepare for
occupation, the US may find itself in a radically different world
over the next few years, a world in which the threat of Saddam
Hussein seems like a pale shadow of new problems of America's
own making."), our robo-conservative dismissed the report
with a smug smile, and reiterated his belief that "...most
of those in uniform really didn't know anything."
And this is the kind thinking that controls the policies and
actions of the most powerful nation on earth. If we were a pip-squeak
country it would be appropriate to be run by pip-squeak thinkers,
but we're not.
For more of West's
rundown on Stepfords from hell go here.
TOP
Friday - 8/29/03
MAESTROS OF MENDACITY
A good
examination here
of the Kay
Report by Josh Marshall. This report apparently makes its case
to get The Administration off the hook for its pre-war
declarations, first by dissing them, then arguing that not
finding WMD supports the rationale for going to war.
What Marshall says: "The strategy behind the Kay report
will apparently run something like this: Present a body of evidence
that utterly discredits the administration's pre-war arguments
about WMD. But dress it up with tons of documents and details.
Say it confirms the administration's arguments. And then hope
no one notices."
One thing you can say about Neocons, they really know
how to lie. They unfortunately happen to be peak performers of
the art ...absolute maestros of mendacity.
TOP
BOY GEORGE'S WAR PLODS
ON
Paul
Krugman of the NY Times gives a gloomy assessment of Boy George's
Iraq fiasco in todays paper. He sums up his article like this:
"Still, even the government
of a superpower can't simultaneously offer tax cuts equal to
15 percent of revenue, provide all its retirees with prescription
drugs and single-handedly take on the world's evildoers —
single-handedly because we've alienated our allies. In fact,
given the size of our budget deficit, it's not clear that we
can afford to do even one of these things. Someday, when the
grown-ups are back in charge, they'll have quite a mess to clean
up."
|
Amen.
TOP
Thursday - 8/28/03
POWERFUL CONSERVATIVES
CURTAIL ANOTHER LIBERAL INDIVIDUAL RIGHT: BREATHING
I've vacillated over
the past two years about whether George Bush is a complete idiot,
a little bit of an idiot, just an idiot with money and powerful
friends, merely an idiot with a mean smirk and even meaner streak,
largely a lying idiot, or an idiot smart enough to know that
a president being an idiot in early 21st century America is not
necessarily a bad thing; but the one constant in my thinking
has been the idiot part. Never has the man disappointed me in
the idiot department, and he's not disappointing me again.
Bush, again using a national crisis to benefit his prime constituency,
the corporate class, "...relaxed its clean air rules today
to allow thousands of industrial plants to make upgrades without
installing pollution controls, arguing that other regulations
were in place to reduce emissions." This according to an
article
in the NY Times.
It seems the Utilities have pressed for the changes because,
"...it would allow them to make improvements that would
ensure the reliability of the power supply, a prominent issue
after the Aug. 14 power failure that led to the biggest blackout
in the nation's history." Of course the condition of power
plants was not the problem with the blackout. It's the
condition of the transmission grid. But George Bush knows this because he argued against
fixing the problem.
Go here
to read how one enormously unenlightened man can cause global
environmental damage with apparent impunity because a conservative
Supreme Court gave him the presidency then started a popular
war.
TOP
BUSH BLINKS
The Bush
administration, finding itself in a fertile-crescent corner,
is apparently rethinking it's screw-you-we're-gonna-run-everything
approach to foreign policy, at least in terms of our occupation
of Iraq.
The NY Times
reports today
that The Administration is considering allowing U.N. administration
of occupied Iraq, but under a U.S. commander. But remember, these
guys are still in the driver's seat as far as the U.S.A. is concerned,
so although the Iraqis might be getting lucky soon, we still
have to wait at least another year and a half for relief. The
elections are that far off. And even that's not a sure thing.
But is god is good...
The Times says, "The idea was described by Richard L. Armitage,
the deputy secretary of state, as just "one idea being explored"
in discussions at the United Nations. It was first hinted at
publicly last week by Kofi Annan, the United Nations secretary
general." This is good news.
TOP
Sunday - 8/24/03
A GOD THAT FITS IN A
HUMAN HEAD
The problem
with God is usually not God, it's the folks interpreting God.
The only container we have to hold our ideas of god is our head,
and although the head-size of some of the religious can be prodigious,
it'll never be big enough to encompass God. Yet over and over,
believers do ...try to contain God that is. They tailor God:
a little snip there at god's compassion, a large tuck in universal
love, take a huge hunk out of his/her creativity, hack off a
galaxy-sized piece of cosmic intelligence... pretty soon you
have a God that'll fit inside a human head.
 An
example
of what I'm talking about was an incident at the demonstration being held
by supporters of Judge
Roy Moore
(now suspended for defying a court order to remove his 2-ton
monument to the Ten Commandments). There was a Creationism vs.
Evolution debate going on in the crowd when Donald Ely, a pro-creationist
Pastor said to a man who made a lonely stand for science, "We
came from an earthworm? Son, you're lost."
What I want to know is, if God could create the entire universe
out of nothing, what's so hard to believe about God evolving
a human from an earthworm? These people have such a diminished
idea of deity they think God must be as stunted as they are.
Pastor Donald Ely could not imagine a God who might do such a
thing. But what does Pastor Ely know about God, really?
Unfortunately, small ideas of god are as old as the Ten Commandments
themselves. When Moses came down from the mountain with God's
commands the bible tells us he was stupefied to find his followers
worshiping a golden calf. Their small idea of God had them idolizing
a cow. He was so pissed he threw the commandments down, shattering
them, and had to go back up and tap the Lord for a replacement
set. Moses obvious believed that misdirected reverence was a
bad thing.
In a story in the Washington Post (8/26/03) we learn that "Moore
told a cheering crowd he is up against those who "are offended
at looking at God's words." But that's not what we're offended
at. We're offended at an arrogance that presumes special knowledge
of god, then flaunts that arrogance in the face of the rest of
us.
Wheather or not the words of any scripture are God's words or
not, only god knows.
In remarks to the press, the pro-commandment demonstrators, trying
to elevate their position, compared themselves to Dr. Martin
Luther King, who did some real religious work in Alabama.
But Taylor Branch, a Pulitzer-prize winning biographer of King
wouldn't have it. Summing up his view about the Alabama scene
he said, "This is about a rock. And the whole episode is
actually the most glaring example I've ever seen of idolatry."
With all due respect to the greats in the field, the crux of
theology is, if you can't inflate yourself to God's size, deflate
God's to your own.
It's much more comfortable to construct intellectual arguments,
or idolize a book or a rock than to do the hard work of God's
will as expressed by Jesus: Love your neighbor as yourself. And,
adding for emphasis (as if addressing confused Judge Roy Moore
himself), he said, This is the whole of the Law.
In the end established religion is not much more than a convenience
of scale. In fact Judge Moore would have done better to erect
a statue of Mother Teresa in the court-house. She had an immense
idea of the divine and a much more developed sense of God's law.
TOP
Saturday - 8/23/03
WE'VE NOT BEEN ABOVE BURNING WITCHES
They're
in the middle of a bonafide religious happening down in in Alabama
where they've had religious happenings before --both good and
bad: hooded white knights burning crosses as well as Martin Luther
Kings defying bosses. Today we have an Alabama judge who one
day decided there should be a 2-ton stone monolith depicting
the mythology of a very specific religion set up and displayed
with reverence, protected by velvet ropes, and sanctioned by
government. But Judge Roy Moore has not set this up in his living
room next to the TV, or on his front lawn, or on church property.
He's put it in the community's face, in the exact area where
(supposedly) blind justice is meted out by the state daily. He
put it in the lobby of a court-house, to be specific.
If you can't read that message citizens you really are
brain-dead. For the moment, at least, this zeal is confined
to Alabama. But don't count upon our high-sounding constitutional
words to stand against an onslaught of religious proselytizers
maniupulating strings of power in a climate of fear and suspicion.
We've not been above burning witches.
The question about these commandments the judge had placed there
is, whose god is doing the commanding? This very political angle
pertains to commandments issued by any god who might be in any
way linked to government. Jesus said, render unto Caesar the
things that are Caesar's and to god the things that are god's;
but he failed to list exactly what those things might be. In
the annoying manner of mystical leaders, he left discernment
up to us. This is why we have so many flavors of religion, and
why governments step into the God game at their peril. It's a
religious jungle out there.
We've just got
to be smarter than Judge Moore. We all know how prone government
already is to issuing it's own commandments, what do you think
it would do if it had God's imprimatur? As I said, we've not
been above burning witches.
Just ask yourself,
what if somebody wanted to install, in some other courthouse,
a list of commandments from ...say, Allah or other Great Spirit?
Would that be perplexing to you? This is why we should all try
to keep religion from dancing with government. It's very dangerous
dancing --especially when done on a razor's edge.
If you think Iraq is a quagmire, try religion. For example, the
primo, number 1 Commandment that judge Moore has enshrined is:
"I am the Lord they God. Thou shalt not have strange gods
before me."
Right away, we get into trouble trying to parse gods. It's an
impossible task. And, anyway, I just don't believe God suffers from an adoration
complex. God is not some narcissistic Hollywood celebrity. God
is far bigger than that. The idea of God getting bent because
we might be titillated by other gods, is way too small a conception
of God, as far as I'm concerned. God has absolutely nothing to
be jealous about (or afraid of), when you get right down to it...but,
the point is, when the dust settles, whose god will be determining,
by mystical commandments to government, which spiritual
practice or salvific imperialist path the people of this nation
must follow? And who might be persecuted for not following it?
Might it be the God who's commandments stand enshrined in Roy
Moore's courthouse? Or might it be an even harsher god's ...some
over-the-top militaristic middle-eastern god who sanctions an
assortment of smitings ...some egotistical *Elohim?
If we don't answer this decisively, Alabama's woe could soon
be our own.
*
Like some
plain Neocon Republican God:
A jealous
and avenging God is the LORD; The LORD is avenging and wrathful.
The LORD takes vengeance on His adversaries, And He reserves
wrath for His enemies. -- Nahum 1:2-8 (or maybe Tom Delay or Newt
Gingrich 5:4:3:2:1-2003) |
TOP
ANOTHER MACNAMARA'S BAND?
"How
long is it going to take for us to recognize that the war we
so foolishly started in Iraq is a fiasco — tragic, deeply
dehumanizing and ultimately unwinnable? How much time and how
much money and how many wasted lives is it going to take?"
This is the opening paragraph of Bob
Herbert's column
in yesterday's NY Times.
Until politicians solicit wisdom as passionately as they do money.
This would be the most likely answer.
Herbert quotes one high-ranking U.N. official (who chose to avoid
attribution), "This is a dream for the jihad," he said,
"The resistance will only grow. The American occupation
is now the focal point, drawing people from all over Islam into
an eye-to-eye confrontation with the hated Americans.
Continuing he
observed, "It is very propitious for the terrorists. The
U.S. is now on the soil of an Arab country, a Muslim country,
where the terrorists have all the advantages. They are fighting
in a terrain which they know and the U.S. does not know, with
cultural images the U.S. does not understand, and with a language
the American soldiers do not speak. The troops can't even read
the street signs."
But today Colin
Powell says we still ain't looking to buddy-up with other nations
in Iraq in the power-sharing realm. I wonder, is Robert Macnamara
behind the scenes here somewhere?
TOP
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FEATURE COMMENTARY:
The problem with
God is usually not God, but God‘s interpreters. The only
container we have to hold our ideas of god is our head, and although
the head-size of some of the religious can be prodigious, it'll
never be big enough to encompass God. Yet over and over, believers
do ...try to contain God that is. They tailor God: a little snip
at god's compassion, a large tuck in universal love, a huge hunk
out of his/her creativity, hack off a galaxy-sized piece of cosmic
intelligence... pretty soon you have a God that'll fit inside
a human head.
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FEATURE COMMENTARIES
Red
Herrings and Front-men
"Does even the most left-wing
Democrat want to defend the proposition that the world would
be better off with Saddam in power?" This is Newt Gingrich's
justification for the war. This is the sleight-of-hand now in
play by front-men. This defensive shift in the justification
for war is taking place all over the news from president Bush
on down. But it should not be surprising to find such good Christian
men adhering to the observation of Don Marquis, an American humorist
of the early 20th century, who said that, "Honesty is
a good thing, but it is not profitable to its possessor unless
it is kept under control." Boosting profit and keeping
honesty under control permeates the atmosphere of the Bush administration.
In fact, if we're going haul ourselves out of this mess, we'll
need a Pentagon-sized Department of Debunkers headed by the Amazing
Randy with under-secretaries Penn & Teller whistle-stopping
the country deflating illusions .
Less
Beautiful and Noble
By the time the average U.S. citizen wakes from his-and-her reality
tv, comfort, and fear-induced stupor there won't be a single
social or regulatory program of the federal government left.
For Republican neoconservatives this is exactly the point. To
follow their rhetoric, government-funded programs such as public
education, social security, medicare, and universal health care
coverage, run counter to the dictates of a market economy and
thwart the will of God. With George Bush's tax-cut orgies, by
the time Dubya supporters John and Jane Doe (at the moment among
post-9/11 hyper-patriotic 70-percenters) realize they've participated
in their own enronization every single one of those programs
will have been sucked into the investment portfolios of the richest
among us.
The Grandure of the Deceit
Today we have an
administration that misled us into a war and manipulates information
without shame, creating lies that have resulted in death and
destruction and altered the character of the nation, and the
right claims it’s unpatriotic to be critical. It’s
not. If we're talking about mendacity, the difference between
the Clinton and Bush administrations is simply the the grandure
of the deceit.
Is
Iraq His Elizabeth Smart ?
By all the evidence
I've come to believe that faithfulness to God is like anything
else in this world, it's only as good as its practitioner. Sometimes
faith leads to self immolation, sometimes to the immolation of
others; sometimes the practitioner goes to jail, sometimes he
starts a religion, sometimes he even gets declared president
by the Supreme Court. In the beginning (to quote a phrase), there's
no way of telling where it'll end up. This puts religious faith
in the same class as everything else we do and should not be
relied upon as a guarantee of right-action. |
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