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[2]Virtually all "cases" reported to the Academic Freedom Abuse Center deal with leftist political comments or leftist assigned readings. To use the idiom of right-wing commentators, we see here the emergence of crybaby conservatives, who demand a judicial remedy, guaranteed safety and representation. Convinced that conservatives are mistreated on American campuses, Horowitz has championed a solution, a bill detailing "academic freedom" of students; the proposed law has already been introduced in several state legislatures. Until recently, if the notion of academic freedom for students had any currency, it referred to their right to profess and publish ideas on and off campus.
Horowitz takes the traditional academic freedom that insulated professors from political interference and extends it to students. As a former leftist, Horowitz has the gift of borrowing from the enemy. His "academic bill of rights" talks the language of diversity; it insists that students need to hear all sides and it refashions a "political correctness" for conservatives, who, it turns out, are at least as prickly as any other group when it comes to perceived slights. After years of decrying
the "political correctness police," thin-skinned conservatives have joined in; they want their own ideological wardens to enforce intellectual conformity.
--Russell Jacoby, The New PC: Crybaby Conservatives, 16 Mar 2005
See Campus Speech Codes
The Washington Post: read by people who think they run the country.
The New York Times: read by people who think they should run the country, and who are very good at crosswords.
USA Today: read by people who think they ought to run the country but don't really understand the Washington Post. They do, however, like their statistics shown in pie charts.
The Los Angeles Times: read by people who wouldn't mind running the country, if they could spare the time, and if they didn't have to leave LA to do it.
The Boston Globe: read by people whose parents used to run the country and did a far superior job of it, thank you very much.
The New York Daily News: read by people who aren't too sure who's running the country, and don't really care as long as they can get a seat on the train.
The New York Post: read by people who don't care who's running the country, as long as they do something really scandalous, preferably while intoxicated.
The San Francisco Chronicle: read by people who aren't sure there is a country .... or that anyone is running it; but whoever it is, they oppose all that they stand for. There are occasional exceptions if the leaders are handicapped minority feminist atheist dwarfs, who also happen to be illegal aliens from ANY country or galaxy as long as they are Democrats.
The Miami Herald: read by people who are running another country but need the baseball scores.
The National Enquirer: is read by people trapped in line at the grocery store.
"'Bread and Circuses' is the cancer of democracy, the fatal disease for which there is no cure. Democracy often works beautifully at first. But once a state extends the franchise to every warm body, be he producer or parasite, that day marks the beginning of the end of the state. For when the plebs discover that that they can vote themselves bread and circuses without limit and that the productive members of the body politic cannot stop them, they will do so, until the state bleeds to death, or in its weakened condition the state succumbs to an invader -- the barbarians enter Rome.
"Mine was a lovely world -- until the parasites took over."
--Jubal Harshaw, To Sail Beyond The
Sunset
One of the most dispiriting effects of the plague of political correctness on college campuses has been administrators imposing speech codes and codes of conduct that punish students for verbal or written expressions that might offend their classmates on issues of religion, national or ethnic origin, disability, race, gender or sexual orientation.
College presidents, provosts and deans act
as if they have discovered a constitutional right for students not to be offended.
--Nat Hentoff, 16 Oct 03
See Academic Bill of Rights
By John Brand, D.Min., J.D.
YellowTimes.org Columnist (United States)
(YellowTimes.org) - Election campaign signs are plastered all over town. Some promote the candidate as a "Conservative" or even as "A Proven Conservative." What these folks do not tell us is what they seek to conserve. We all know that the best predictor of future conduct is past behavior. We have a pretty good idea what it is that Republicans seek to conserve.
On the top of the list, of course, is profligate spending. Republicans make a drunk sailor, throwing about his money on a Saturday night, look like a miser. When President Bush took over, he found a 250 billion dollar surplus. Now, about three years later, we have a 500 billion dollar deficit.
We must not think that President Bush, belonging to a party bragging about fiscal responsibility, is a new phenomenon when it comes to monetary irresponsibility. Mr. Arch Conservative, that self-proclaimed paragon of fiduciary conservatism, President Reagan, increased the national debt from about three trillion dollars to over six trillion dollars in eight years. Surely, that record must be added to Ripley's "Believe It or Not."
In spite of all the propaganda that Democrats throw money to the wind, we are surely beginning to realize that it is the Republicans who waste our dollars. Fiscal irresponsibility is a proven track record of Conservatives.
Secondly, conservatives have an interesting way of distributing our national wealth. One would expect that the political heirs of Abraham Lincoln would place the people's weal above all other considerations. After all, our Republic is based upon the rock "that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth."
Being the heirs of such worthwhile and noble ideals, it is only reasonable to expect that a government for the people would make certain that basic services are provided for all the people who, after all, are the backbone of our society. Adequate wages, health care, Social Security, and public education are some of the significant concerns of a government for the people. Conservatives talk a pretty good game in these areas but are woefully lacking in substance.
The candidates professing to be conservative are putting us on notice that the number of uninsured and underinsured citizens will continue to rise. They also avow that they are not particularly interested in public schools, Social Security, or the preservation of pension funds.
How can public services be assured if the controlling mantra is "Throw money to the rich and self-serving special interest groups"? Do Conservatives expect an angel from heaven to insure the protection of basics to come from God's personal money market fund? In the absence of such divine assurance, it is left to liberals to protect the people from the predatory greed of Conservatives.
But I am asking too much to expect Conservatives to care a fig about hard-working folks. The record speaks for itself. When the President declared that the Treasury surplus belongs to the people, guess who were the main benefactors of this discovered boon? Not the folks who have to decide whether to buy prescription drugs or food. Not the millions of unemployed who have even given up looking for work. Not the millions who went from well-paying jobs to receiving less than half of what they used to make.
We all know those who got the big refunds were the Super Rich who spent their money at Neiman-Marcus or bought Hummers. Conservatives simply don't understand that the trickle-down theory does not work. They are all in favor of outsourcing American jobs, allowing American companies to move their offices off-shore beyond the reach of the Internal Revenue Service. President Bush proclaimed that all this is good for America. But he never explained how it is "good."
Has our fearless leaders ever wondered what will happen a few years down the road with this sort of Conservatism? Well-paying jobs are drying up, no matter what spin the President puts on reality. How do the Conservatives expect to keep on going? I guess they have some kind of delusion about the generation of capital. Years ago, I saw a cartoon of an innovative farmer. In order to save feed money, he taught the cow to bend backwards and feed off her own udder. Of course, it was meant as a joke. But somehow I have the feeling that the Conservatives are living by that kind of voodoo economics. You suck yourself dry until there is nothing left.
Decreased tax revenue, increased under-employment and unemployment reduces revenues for the government and the old cow won't have any milk in her udder. That means that pretty soon Conservatives won't be able to award contracts guaranteeing obscene profits to VP Cheney's former employer... . then what?
Of course, Conservatives are always strong on religion. However, their opiate is more of a hoped for magical elixir than the reality of the Bible. I wish the folks promoting WWJD, (what would Jesus do) would take their own message seriously. There is the record in all four Gospels about WWJD. He took after bankers, accountants boiling books, and wheeler-dealers with a whip.
Boy, would Jesus be kept busy today cleaning out Wall Street Brokerage Houses, banks, defense contractors, executives at HMOs and the pharmaceutical corporations! Yet Conservatives who brag so much about God and Jesus pay scarcely any attention to the substance of the Gospel in which they profess to believe.
To continue with Conservatism means the destruction of the Bill of Rights. The Patriot Act ensures that end. When all is said and done, the Attorney General has the sole power to declare anyone a terrorist at his discretion and to put that person away for life without benefit of the protection given to all citizens by the Bill of Rights.
Well, you get the general drift of my concerns. What is it that casts a spell over so many Americans when they hear the word "Conservative?" They almost go into a rapture and lose all contact with reality. It is as though someone confessing to be Conservative automatically has a mantle of righteousness, the aura of divine sanction, and the intelligence to solve all complicated problems with simplistic 30 second sound-bytes.
And why is it that when the word "Liberal" is mentioned, so many Americans start to salivate like Pavlov's dogs? They have no idea what the word means. They do not realize that whatever benefits they receive in this economy have been the result of liberal political insights. Yet they turn against the ideas seeking to level the playing field in which the Conservatives have sold government and made it a subsidiary of "Corpgreed, USA."
The spin doctors not only have done a number on many Americans; left in office, they will be able to eliminate everything constitutional government stands for.
In conclusion, another accomplishment of Conservatives is the use of whatever means it takes to erase, destroy, and obliterate records they don't want anyone to see. President Nixon taught that lesson well. Now the President just declares that information that should be public property is classified and kept from prying eyes. Then, maybe two or more years later, a Commission is appointed to investigate the matter. Dah, in two years records can be changed in every which way.
Would it come as a total surprise that eventually the President's service record would reveal that he was given the Congressional Medal of Honor? Of course, the award had to be kept secret because while under the pretext of serving in Alabama, he was really performing a highly important security mission for the nation. Since he faced continuous danger in this top secret venture, all records had to be kept secret.
[John Brand is a Purple Heart, Combat Infantry veteran of World War II. He received his Juris Doctor degree at Northwestern University and a Master of Theology and a Doctor of Ministry at Southern Methodist University. He served as a Methodist minister for 19 years, was Vice President, Birkman & Associates, Industrial Psychologists, and concluded his career as Director, Organizational and Human Resources, Warren-King Enterprises, an independent oil and gas company. He is the author of "Shaking the Foundations" and "Rebuilding the Foundations".]
John Brand encourages your comments: jbrand@YellowTimes.org
YellowTimes.org is an international news and opinion publication. YellowTimes.org encourages its material to be reproduced, reprinted, or broadcast provided that any such reproduction identifies the original source, http://www.YellowTimes.org. Internet web links to http://www.YellowTimes.org are appreciated.
LIBERAL ~: [1] I just think it's time to retire the "liberal elite" label, which, for the past 25 years, has been deployed to denounce anyone to the left of Colin Powell. Thus, last winter, the ultra-elite right-wing Club for Growth dismissed followers of Howard Dean as a "tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading, body-piercing, Hollywood-loving, left-wing freak show." I've experienced it myself: speak up for the downtrodden, and someone is sure to accuse you of being a member of the class that's doing the trodding.
The notion of a sinister, pseudocompassionate liberal elite has been rebutted, most recently in Thomas Frank's brilliant new book, "What's the Matter With Kansas?," which says the aim is "to cast the Democrats as the party of a wealthy, pampered, arrogant elite that lives as far as it can from real Americans, and to represent Republicanism as the faith of the hard-working common people of the heartland, an expression of their unpretentious, all-American ways, just like country music and Nascar."
Like the notion of social class itself, the idea of a liberal elite originated on the left, among early 20th-century anarchists and Trotskyites who noted, correctly, that the Soviet Union was spawning a "new class" of power-mad bureaucrats. The Trotskyites brought this theory along with them when they mutated into neocons in the 60's, and it was perhaps their most precious contribution to the emerging American right. Backed up by the concept of a "liberal elite," right-wingers could crony around with their corporate patrons in luxuriously appointed think tanks and boardrooms - all the while purporting to represent the average overworked Joe.
Beyond that, the idea of a liberal elite nourishes the right's perpetual delusion that it is a tiny band of patriots bravely battling an evil power structure. Note how richly the E-word embellishes the screeds of Ann Coulter, Bill O'Reilly and their co-ideologues, as in books subtitled "Rescuing American from the Media Elite," "How Elites from Hollywood, Politics and the U.N. Are Subverting America," and so on. Republican right-wingers may control the White House, both houses of Congress and
a good chunk of the Supreme Court, but they still enjoy portraying themselves as Davids up against a cosmopolitan-swilling, corgi-owning Goliath.
--Barbara Ehrenreich, Dude, Where's That Elite?, 01 Jul 2004
[2] Brancaccio: We moving away from liberal? Is liberal finally . . . even you admitting it's a dirty word?
Lakoff: Well, it's been branded by the other side. For the last 20, 30 years they've been putting other adjectives with liberal, like limousine liberal, latte liberal, you know, Chardonnay and brie liberal, even though more Republicans eat brie than Democrats do. Very important, you know . . .
Brancaccio: There's research about this?
Lakoff: There's research about this. Everything has market research. But the fact is that the identity has been given to the word "liberal." And people talk about the liberal elite when, in fact, it's the conservatives who have the real money in the country and the elitism. The Democrats should use that. The Democrats have to call the people who get those big tax cuts, not just the rich, but the elite. "Rich" is a good word in America. You know, remember, you have rich experiences. You want a
rich life. You know? "Rich" is a good word. But "elite" isn't a good word.
--George Lakoff, in an interview by David Brancaccio, the transcript of which was posted to Alterntet.org 10 Aug 2004
[1] [UNDER SIEGE SINCE 1791] At the time of its conception, the First Amendment was "Article the Third." But by the time Virginia joined eight other states in ratifying the Bill of Rights on Dec. 15, 1791, the first two of the 12 amendments had been discarded and the First Amendment took its place in history. As that guarantee of our most important freedoms reaches its 209th birthday today, there is a little to celebrate and a lot left to wish for.
It has been another year under siege for the First Amendment.
From the halls of power in the nation's capitals to countless communities across the country, elected leaders and ordinary citizens challenge the primacy of free-expression principles and try to trump them with other values they consider more important.
--Paul McMasters, Ombudsman for The Freedom Forum
[2] There was a time before America when the mob spoke for the village. Anyone who thought differently was quickly driven out -- or worse. America and the First Amendment were supposed to be a rebuke to that sort of churlishness.
--Paul K. McMasters, Blog-mob mentality punishes freedom of speech, 27 Feb 2005
. . . the first duty of a politician is to get re-elected. The other ninety-nine laws of politics don't matter.
--William C Heine, Kooks and Dukes, Counts and No-accounts, pg 102
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
4. Supremacy of the Military
5. Rampant Sexism
6. Controlled Mass Media
7. Obsession with National Security
8. Religion and Government are Intertwined
9. Corporate Power is Protected
10. Labor Power is Suppressed
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
14. Fraudulent Elections
[...]
[...] Galloway is generally in bad smell in Britain. This may or may not be attributable to his political enemies, but it is certainly attributable to more journalists than the neo-neo-con Christopher Hitchens, who described Galloway in London's The Independent as "a thug and a demagogue, the type of working-class-wideboy-and-proud-of-it who is too used to the expense accounts, the cars and the hotels -- all the cigars and backslapping." (Only a Brit could have written that sentence.)
So here is the irony of ironies. Into our midst comes this one Brit, who deservedly or not carries with him the whiff of bad reputation, to confront our Puritan-pure, sea-green, incorruptible politicians (Heh? Our guys never carry water for their campaign contributors, do they?), and in 20 minutes, he told more truth about our policy and our war in Iraq than any of our politicians have in years.
--Molly Ivins, Irony Overflowing, 26 May 2005
We are not attempting to resurrect a relic, but rather to advance the notion that the practices of a good neighbor--self respect, mutual respect, common welfare, and the need for neighborly solutions--can once again be the right way to talk to our friends, communities, and representatives about the policies and practices of a responsible global leader and partner.
We lay out seven principles--ones that we think might help answer the questions:
How do we evaluate what in the world we are doing?
What in the world we should we be doing?
The first four principles are the guiding principles of a Global Good Neighbor Ethic for International Relations, while the latter three refer to the main areas of foreign policy: security, sustainable development, and governance.
Principle One: First step to becoming a good neighbor is to stop being a bad neighbor.
[...]
Principle Two: Foreign policy must not be tied to elite ideological, military, or economic interests but must serve the broadly defined interests of society--our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Principle Three: We live in an interdependent world. New efforts are needed to frame this interconnectedness and interdependence, but we should remember that these are not new ideas but ones that Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt made part of their public discourse and became part of the foreign policy ethic of the 1930s and early 1940s.
Principle Four: We need to recognize the immense power that the United States has, but we should use this power not to seek global domination but to exercise responsible leadership, keeping in mind that power is ephemeral and that true power comes from prestige.
Three other principles address the primary areas of international relations: defense policy, sustainable development, and governance -- or differently framed as freedom from fear, freedom from want, and freedom of speech and human rights.
Like many of FDR's initiatives, the principles of a global good neighbor ethic break with the traditions of foreign policy elites and emulate the practices of towns, communities, and neighborhoods across our land.
These are principles that reflect our basic values, our golden rules, our personal sense of responsibility, our common sense. These are principles based on the everyday practices of good neighbors.
You misunderstood: Even though writers have an obligation to help people make sense of their society, they also have the tremendous responsibility of only giving it to them in bits they can handle. In this instance, the last time a writer helped someone make sense of our govt. and it's relationship to society in general, that writer performed a horrendous DISservice.
The person enlightened was one Mrs. Hildegard Von Hinklesmeyer. Mrs. Von Hinklesmeyer, a well-meaning albeit misguided young widow, felt it was her civic duty to understand such things. The writer, operating out of the best of motives, (he believed that once he had performed the service requested he would receive a service requested in return....) forgot to take into account that Mrs. Von Hinklesmeyer wasn't a writer like himself. After putting things into a context she could understand, and covering all aspects of how government related to the people, Mrs. Von Hinklesmeyer immediated had a complete and total breakdown. She now lives in a small trailer house in the woods near a small town in Mid-Missouri, where she spends her days screaming epithets at the family of red squirrels that lives in an old oak tree in her back yard and weaving small nets to place around her tulips so the robo-hummingbirds will stop firing laser beams at her trailer.
The writer, out of a belated sense of responsibility, lives in a small college town nearby where he can keep an eye on her. He now understands that not everyone has the emotional make-up to deal with such complex and devastating material. The shame and embarrassment from the incident runs so deep that fifteen years after the incident in question, he still refers to himself in the third person while describing the events.
Don't let this happen to you.
--Clayton McKee; 20 Dec 1995
Because some people are completely useless for anything except fertilizer, and since we can't kill them but have to wait for them to die, we need some kind of storage facility.
--Fang-Face DreamWeaver, 14 Apr 2004
The spirit of Mrs. Hobby lives on in George W. Bush. Almost three years after the events of Sept. 11, 2001 - the biggest intelligence failure in U.S. history - and after his own administration went to war for reasons that did not exist, the president has ordered his crack staff to see which of the Sept. 11 commission's recommendations can be implemented fast and without congressional approval. Bush, you will recall, opposed the creation of the commission in the first place.
"We will move on all fronts very aggressively in the coming days and weeks," a presidential aide told reporters down at the Bush ranch in Crawford, Tex. "We're going to focus on all the recommendations and determine which ones can be done through executive branch action. The president said he wants this on a fast track."
This is Hobbyism at its most egregious. She, too, was a wealthy Texan, and maybe there is a kind of softheadedness that afflicts that state's more affluent citizens. But it takes a New York kind of chutzpah for Bush to suddenly announce he will do what he has put off doing for lo these past three years. In that time the president steadfastly stood by his team of jolly incompetents who, rather than explain what had gone wrong, merely slapped Bush on the back and bonded with him in a manly fashion. George Tenet stayed at the head of the CIA even after he had assured Bush that it was a "slam-dunk" that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction.
Why the sudden alacrity? It's because the chairman and vice chairman of the Sept. 11 commission, Republican Thomas Kean and Democrat Lee Hamilton, have been all over the airwaves warning that another terrorist attack could be imminent and that the nation's intelligence apparatus, so obviously broken, has yet to be fixed. They recommended a host of measures, some of which - improved border and port security, an integrated "watch list," etc. - you would have thought would have been implemented
on Sept. 12, 2001. Insistently, the commissioners recommended speed. To paraphrase: Lives are in danger and little is being done.
--Richard Cohen, Bush's 9/11 Farce, 27 Jul 2004
Jesse Helms always did think Aristide was another Fidel, not being able to distinguish between a Catholic and a communist. We know the main armed opposition group is a bunch of thugs and that they have been joined by old Duvalierists, including members of the Tonton Macoutes, the infamous torturers.
The Bush administration wanted this to happen -- it held up $500 million worth of humanitarian aid from the United States, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and International Monetary Fund. Without U.S. or multilateral help, the country spiraled downward.
So here we are, reduced to hoping for the best again.
David Corn of The Nation magazine developed a wonderful metaphor for this experience. It goes like this: Two kids are playing, and one says, "I'm gonna take this stick and whack that hornets' nest."
Second kid says, "Don't hit the hornets' nest."
"I will."
"Don't hit the hornets' nest."
"Will so."
"Don't hit the hornets' nest."
Kid hits the hornets' nest, all the hornets fly out and starting stinging, kid turns and says: "Now you have to help me deal with all these hornets. It would be irresponsible and disloyal if you didn't."
"George, da Canajian pipple would be 'appy to do anyt'ing wit'in der power to 'elp you," replied the Prime Minister.
"I do need your help," said Bush. "Could you possibly send us 1,000,000 condoms ASAP to tide us over?"
"Certainment! I will get on hit right haway," said Jean.
"Oh, and one small favour, please?" said President George W.
"Oui?"
"Could the condoms be red, white and blue, and at least 10 inches long, with a 4 inch diameter?" asked Bush.
"No prob'lem," replied the Prime Minister, and with that Chretien hung up and called the President of Trojan. "I need a favour. You got to make 1,000,000 condoms right haway, and sen'dem to Hamerica."
"Consider it done," said the President of Trojan.
"Great! Now listen mon ami. Dey haf to be rouge, blanc et bleu in colour, hat least 10 hinches long, and 4 hinches in dia'meter."
"That's easily done. Anything else?"
"Yes," said the Prime Minister, "an print on dem; MADE IN CANADA, size: SMALL".
We are asking Americans to think about that because how do you ask a man to be the last man to die in Vietnam? How do you ask a man to be the last man to die for a mistake? But we are trying to do that, and we are doing it with thousands of rationalizations, and if you read carefully the President's last speech to the people of this country, you can see that he says, and says clearly:
"But the issue, gentlemen, the issue is communism, and the question is whether or not we will leave that country to the Communists or whether or not we will try to give it hope to be a free people."
But the point is they are not a free people now under us. They are not a free people, and we cannot fight communism all over the World, and I think we should have learned that lesson by now.
--John Kerry, 22 Apr 1971, in his testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
[2] The opinion reflected in an electoral-vote margin smaller than in any 20th century election other than 1916 and 2000.
[3] The opinion expressed by the smallest popular vote margin obtained by a sitting president since 1916.
--Stephen Shalom
NO C-heney
NO A-shcroft
NO R-umsfeld
NO B-ush
I hope all americans are thinking of going on this one!
--Unknown
1. The Texas Constitution was written by a bunch of drunken amateurs on a bad day, and it shows. We do things in the Texas Constitution that other states leave to a County Court or a city council. Micromanagement is the rule; consequently you'll see the most unbelievably stupid things on ballot, and you'll find that every statewide election includes a slew of Constitutional Amendments which have nothing to do with the vast majority of the state.
2. Texas is much more "conservative" than most states. The dominant political ideology in most places is neo-con ChristoFascist; people who are considered flaming commie pinko liberals here would be, in other states, moderately center-right.
3. Ignore the hype about the Governor's race. The Governor of Texas is mostly a figurehead. The Lite Gov is the guy with the chops.
4. Job titles may have nothing at all to do with job descriptions. The Texas Railroad Commission regulates oil companies.
5. Money talks; competence is irrelevant.
6. The defining quote about Texas politics: "Hell, if you took ignorance and stupidity out of the legislature, you wouldn't have representative government any more..."
There's more but that'll get you through the starting gate.
--R. Clayton McKee, 15 Sep 2002
Mine doesn't say that, but it does define politican thusly: A person primarily interested in political office for selfish or other narrow usu. short-sighted reasons. --?
This is the politics of Bedlam.
--Bertrand Russell, The State (1915), printed in Selected Papers of ~, pg 60
The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC for short, is just another right-wing think tank, really. One cannot swing one's dead cat by the tail in Washington D.C. without smacking some prehensile gnome, pained by the sunlight, scuttling back to its right-wing think tank cubicle. These organizations are all over the place. What makes PNAC different from all the others?
The membership roll call, for one thing:
Quite a roster.
These people didn't enjoy those fancy titles in 2000, when the PNAC manifesto 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' [...] was first published. Before 2000, they were just a bunch of power players who had been shoved out of the government in 1993. In the time that passed between Clinton and those hanging chads, these people got together in PNAC and laid out a blueprint. 'Rebuilding America's Defenses' was the ultimate result, and it is a doozy of a document. 2000 became 2001, and the PNAC boys - Cheney and Rumsfeld specifically - suddenly had the fancy titles and a chance to swing some weight.
'Rebuilding America's Defenses' became the roadmap for foreign policy decisions made in the White House and the Pentagon; PNAC had the Vice President's office in one building, and the Defense Secretary's office in the other. Attacking Iraq was central to that roadmap from the beginning. When former Counterterrorism Czar Richard Clarke accused the Bush administration of focusing on Iraq to the detriment of addressing legitimate threats, he was essentially denouncing them for using the attacks of September 11 as an excuse to execute the PNAC blueprint.
Iraq, you see, has been on the PNAC menu for almost ten years.
--William Rivers Pitt, The Writing on the Latrine Walls, 09 Aug 2004
"Indeed," it is written on page 14 of 'Rebuilding America's Defenses,' "the United States has for decades sought to play a more permanent role in Gulf regional security. While the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein."
Two years after the talk began, the invasion is completed. There are no weapons of mass destruction, there is no connection to September 11, and the Iraqi people have in no way welcomed us as liberators. The cosmetic rationales for the attack have fallen by the wayside, and all that remains are the PNAC goals, some of which have been achieved in spectacularly profitable fashion.
--William Rivers Pitt, The Writing on
the Latrine Walls, 09 Aug 2004
This Project could not be of any great Expence to the Publick; and might in my poor Opinion, be of much Use for the Dispatch of Business in those Countries where Senates have any share in the legislative Power; beget Unanimity, shorten Debates, open a few Mouths which are now closed, and close many that are now open; curb the Petulancy of the Young, and correct the Positiveness of the Old; rouze the Stupid, and damp the Pert.
--Jonathon Swift, Gulliver's Travels: A Voyage To Laputa
There were stories of Vietnam veterans returning to America, only to be spat upon by people who viewed them as an evil extension of a dishonest and war-mongering government.
Now fellow veterans spit upon one another.
America, love it or leave it-is back with a vengeance. Body counts are once again the measurement of successful warfare. Restricted VA benefits for the wounded, bodies returned in the dead of night and shielded from American eyes, a false and misleading premise for war, that daily, kills America's youth; John Wayne-patriotism is glorified and peaceniks are vilified: all of the old ghosts are back.
If Swift Boat veterans are truly concerned with truth and honor, perhaps they should focus on the numerous articles about Iraq veterans being billed for their hospital stays and having their disabilities downgraded so the government won't have to pay as much as they should; of veterans having to fight the VA system for benefits; of troops being short of bullets; of families having to take up collections for the purchase of body armor for their loved-ones, because the government fails to supply them; of Humvees poorly armored to protect our soldiers; and of course, the stories of high ranking officers who live well and distant from the grunts who bleed and die in America's name.
No, these men care not for the present, only their past. They have no concern for the living, only the fading of their glory days. They remember Vietnam through the prism of their own partisan patriotism, not the painful lessons learned by all who served.
--John Cory, The Ghosts of War, 12 Aug 2004
[...]
History tells us that, over the short term, the Big Lie usually works. Over the long term, though, the damage it does - both to those who use it, and to the society on which it is inflicted - is incalculable.
--Thom Hartmann, What Would Machiavelli Do? The Big Lie Lives On, 26 Aug 2004
Trade with Cuba is wrong because the country is communist, but trade with China and Vietnam is vital to a spirit of international harmony.
A woman can't be trusted with decisions about her own body, but multi-national corporations can make decisions affecting all mankind without regulation.
Jesus loves you, and shares your hatred of homosexuals and Hillary Clinton.
The best way to improve military morale is to praise the troops in speeches while slashing veterans' benefits and combat pay.
If condoms are kept out of schools, adolescents won't have sex.
Providing health care to all Iraqis is sound policy. Providing health care to all Americans is socialism.
HMOs and insurance companies have the best interests of the public at heart.
Global warming and tobacco's link to cancer are junk science, but creationism should be taught in schools.
A president lying about an extramarital affair is an impeachable offense. A president lying to enlist support for a war in which thousands die is solid defense policy.
Government should limit itself to the powers named in the Constitution, which include banning gay marriages and censoring the Internet.
The public has a right to know about Hillary's cattle trades, but George Bush's cocaine conviction is none of our business.
Being a drug addict is a moral failing and a crime, unless you're a conservative radio host. Then it's an illness, and you need our prayers for your recovery.
You support states' rights, which means Attorney General John Ashcroft can tell states what local voter initiatives they have the right to adopt.
What Bill Clinton did in the 1960s is of vital national interest, but what Bush did in the '80s is irrelevant.
Feel free to pass this on.
If you don't send it to at least 10 other people, we're likely to be stuck with Bush for 4 more years.
Friends don't let friends vote Republican.
Here are the "Top Ten" lessons I learned on the [John Kerry 2004 Presidential] campaign:
1. The world is run by 20-somethings.
You may not believe me, but it's true! Only 20-somethings have the energy, freedom, and tolerance for such a low-paying, exhausting, and demanding job. Sure, the top jobs are mostly held by more experienced political folks, but junior staffers do the bulk of the work and influence many of the decisions.
2. Focus on the Big Picture.
There's a big difference between having a vision, and supporting a bunch of policies.
3. Being the "electable candidate" doesn't make you electable.
Back in the primaries, I was drawn to John Kerry for the same reason lots of other people were. I thought he was the electable candidate. He was a veteran, and that was important, I thought, during a wartime election. He was a moderate and that was important, I thought, for a centrist country. Howard Dean was true to his heart, and I admired him for it, but I still thought he just wasn't "electable." Well, the 2004 election proved that maybe I'm not as good at judging a candidate's electability as I thought I was.
4. There's a big difference between mudslinging and drawing a contrast.
Mudslinging has a long tradition in American politics -- even among presidents. [...] Despite this long tradition, I think it's worthwhile for us to try and move past it. But that doesn't mean we should stop drawing contrasts between candidates.
5. Socrates once said, "If a man doesn't know where he's sailing, there's no such thing as a favorable wind."
Toward the end of the campaign, there was a big story about weapons that had gone missing in Iraq. . . . [...] About 15 of us polled a few hundred people, who didn't have strong views about it one way or the other. The results of our polling were then given to the campaign. During a conference call that night, a decision was made about whether to change the campaign strategy the following day. This illustrates a bigger problem with polling today. While polling is an invaluable instrument that has created highly sophisticated campaign techniques, it should be used to figure out how best to raise an issue, or where to raise it, not whether to raise it at all.
6. Don't let politics drive decisions.
We live in a democracy, where politics is how we get things done. If one side accuses another of politicizing an issue, that's not really fair because politicizing an issue is simply democracy in action. What are politicians supposed to do, stay out of politics?
7. Be bold.
When I was in college, I went to a friend of mine for advice about an upcoming interview. He said, "Don't be timid -- be bold." But one of the most striking things about politics is how timid everyone is. To some extent, that's understandable, because the stakes are so high -- for the world, the country, and the careers of everyone involved. But timidity has also led to a decline in national leadership.
8. The character and personality of your candidate matter.
Don't discount the importance of a candidate's personality -- it is a substantive and relevant question to ask whether he or she possesses the temperament that the presidency or any office demands. The candidate's style and record matter too.
9. Anger is not enough.
I joined the Kerry Campaign, because I was angry about the course of our country, and I thought Kerry could change it. But as I realized, a few months into the campaign, anger will not sustain you when you need energy in those early morning hours, toiling away on a speech. Whenever I was feeling exhausted or beat, no matter how small or unimportant the issue I was working on, I'd think about all the people in this country who were depending on us. That's where I got my energy. You have to have a hunger to build -- to repair -- not just to tear down.
10. The election is all about people.
When I first got an offer to join the speechwriting team, I was bursting with excitement. I was happy to live out of a suitcase in my cousin's basement for the next six months. But at some point midway through the campaign, sitting at my computer in our D.C. headquarters, hammering out sound bites for Senator Kerry, I began to lose touch with what the campaign was really about. It hit home on Election Day when I volunteered to go door-to-door
outside Philadelphia. By chance that day, I was teamed up with another volunteer, a few years younger, dressed in baggy pants and a sideways baseball cap. Jason, I soon learned, was a soldier, just back from Iraq, spending time at home before being redeployed. He was not a U.S. citizen, so he could not vote. But that didn't stop him from persuading other people to vote. Jason reminded me that things change because people care and take action.
[This material is copyright Adam Frankel 2005, and is reproduced here without permission.]
Traditional African democracy doesn't involve organized opposition. Power is arranged like a pyramid. At the top is the king who exercises supreme authority, assisted by his council of elders and sub-chiefs. But the king or chief has no power except that which is given to him by the people. He is usually enthroned for life, but the actual duration of his reign depends on how well or poorly he performs. If he is a good king, he stays. If he is a bad king -- who oppresses the people, or acts against their interests and traditions -- he is overthrown by the people, using the constitutional means established for the purpose.
African democracy has a lot to teach the world about decision-making. Minor day-to-day decisions are made by the chief or king in consultation with the council of elders. But major decisions affecting the community are made by the people -- all the people. The job of the king or chief is really to implement the will of the people.
In the African system, for example, if villagers want to build a school, the chief calls the whole community together under the trees of the village square. The gathering of the villagers acts like a city council or parliament. Wide and passionate discussions are held that day on the subject of the new school. Everybody is free to voice an idea. There is no organized opposition, but opposing views are strongly and freely expressed. The chief or king is the last to speak, but that doesn't mean
he has "the last word" as would be the case in Western culture. At the end of the day, a consensus is almost always reached. And -- most important -- the new initiative enjoys broad support, since even opponents feel heard and respected. This kind of democracy is not a struggle for power, but an organizing structure.
--Baffour Ankomah, from Ghana, editor of the magazine New African
One of the uglier paradoxes of our time is that, as the world becomes vastly more complicated, the punditocracy becomes more simplistic.
Today, those who get paid to deliver their opinions and convictions in newspapers, on television, in the White House, and on the floor of Congress are more undeniably, more absolutely, more positively certain their point of view is not only the right one, but the only one.
What ever happened to respect for the ideas of another? What ever happened to the question that anyone about to put forth some set-in-concrete viewpoint should ask himself or herself: What if I'm wrong?
It's called intellectual humility. It's the opposite of hubris. It's the un-arrogance of the thoughtful. And it's gone.
--William Fisher, The Weapon of Mass Change, 21 Feb 2007
[Also filed as PARADOX OF PUNDITOCRACY, in Appendix 07.]
(c) 2003 anarchie bunker
Permission is freely granted to copy, print, and distribute this material by any means, so long as the author is given proper credit and so long as this statement is included in any and all copies made for distribution.
[This material has been reformatted for HTML, but is unchanged from how I received it. -ed]
Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction.
Q: But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.
A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.
Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq?
A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.
Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, did we?
A: That's because the weapons are so well hidden. Don't worry, we'll find something, probably right before the 2004 election.
Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?
A: To use them in a war, silly.
Q: I'm confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?
A: Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.
Q: That doesn't make sense. Why would they choose to die if they had all those big weapons with which they could have fought back?
A: It's a different culture. It's not supposed to make sense.
Q: I don't know about you, but I don't think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.
A: Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.
Q: And what was that?
A: Even if Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.
Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to invade his country?
A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.
Q: Kind of like what they do in China?
A: Don't go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.
Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it's a good country, even if that country tortures people?
A: Right.
Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?
A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Isn't that exactly what happens in China?
A: I told you, China is different.
Q: What's the difference between China and Iraq?
A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath party, while China is Communist.
Q: Didn't you once tell me Communists were bad?
A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.
Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?
A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Like in Iraq?
A: Exactly.
Q: And like in China, too?
A: I told you, China's a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.
Q: How come Cuba isn't a good economic competitor?
A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being Communists and started being capitalists like us.
Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn't that help the Cubans become capitalists?
A: Don't be a smart-ass.
Q: I didn't think I was being one.
A: Well, anyway, they also don't have freedom of religion in Cuba.
Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?
A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he's not really a legitimate leader anyway.
Q: What's a military coup?
A: That's when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.
Q: Didn't the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?
A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.
Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?
A: I never said Pervez Musharraf was illegitimate.
Q: Didn't you just say a military general who comes to power by forcibly overthrowing the legitimate government of a nation is an illegitimate leader?
A: Only Saddam Hussein. Pervez Musharraf is our friend, because he helped us invade Afghanistan.
Q: Why did we invade Afghanistan?
A: Because of what they did to us on September 11th.
Q: What did Afghanistan do to us on September 11th?
A: Well, on September 11th, nineteen men - fifteen of them Saudi Arabians - hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into buildings, killing over 3,000 Americans.
Q: So how did Afghanistan figure into all that?
A: Afghanistan was where those bad men trained, under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.
Q: Aren't the Taliban those bad radical Islamics who chopped off people's heads and hands?
A: Yes, that's exactly who they were. Not only did they chop off people's heads and hands, but they oppressed women, too.
Q: Didn't the Bush administration give the Taliban 43 million dollars back in May of 2001?
A: Yes, but that money was a reward because they did such a good job fighting drugs.
Q: Fighting drugs?
A: Yes, the Taliban were very helpful in stopping people from growing opium poppies.
Q: How did they do such a good job?
A: Simple. If people were caught growing opium poppies, the Taliban would have their hands and heads cut off.
Q: So, when the Taliban cut off people's heads and hands for growing flowers, that was OK, but not if they cut people's heads and hands off for other reasons?
A: Yes. It's OK with us if radical Islamic fundamentalists cut off people's hands for growing flowers, but it's cruel if they cut off people's hands for stealing bread.
Q: Don't they also cut off people's hands and heads in Saudi Arabia?
A: That's different. Afghanistan was ruled by a tyrannical patriarchy that oppressed women and forced them to wear burqas whenever they were in public, with death by stoning as the penalty for women who did not comply.
Q: Don't Saudi women have to wear burqas in public, too?
A: No, Saudi women merely wear a traditional Islamic body covering.
Q: What's the difference?
A: The traditional Islamic covering worn by Saudi women is a modest yet fashionable garment that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers. The burqa, on the other hand, is an evil tool of patriarchal oppression that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers.
Q: It sounds like the same thing with a different name.
A: Now, don't go comparing Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are our friends.
Q: But I thought you said 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were from Saudi Arabia.
A: Yes, but they trained in Afghanistan.
Q: Who trained them?
A: A very bad man named Osama bin Laden.
Q: Was he from Afghanistan?
A: Uh, no, he was from Saudi Arabia too. But he was a bad man, a very bad man.
Q: I seem to recall he was our friend once.
A: Only when we helped him and the mujahadeen repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back in the 1980s.
Q: Who are the Soviets? Was that the Evil Communist Empire Ronald Reagan talked about?
A: There are no more Soviets. The Soviet Union broke up in 1990 or thereabouts, and now they have elections and capitalism like us. We call them Russians now.
Q: So the Soviets - I mean, the Russians - are now our friends?
A: Well, not really. You see, they were our friends for many years after they stopped being Soviets, but then they decided not to support our invasion of Iraq, so we're mad at them now. We're also mad at the French and the Germans because they didn't help us invade Iraq either.
Q: So the French and Germans are evil, too?
A: Not exactly evil, but just bad enough that we had to rename French fries and French toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.
Q: Do we always rename foods whenever another country doesn't do what we want them to do?
A: No, we just do that to our friends. Our enemies, we invade.
Q: But wasn't Iraq one of our friends back in the 1980s?
A: Well, yeah. For a while.
Q: Was Saddam Hussein ruler of Iraq back then?
A: Yes, but at the time he was fighting against Iran, which made him our friend, temporarily.
Q: Why did that make him our friend?
A: Because at that time, Iran was our enemy.
Q: Isn't that when he gassed the Kurds?
A: Yeah, but since he was fighting against Iran at the time, we looked the other way, to show him we were his friend.
Q: So anyone who fights against one of our enemies automatically becomes our friend?
A: Most of the time, yes.
Q: And anyone who fights against one of our friends is automatically an enemy?
A: Sometimes that's true, too. However, if American corporations can profit by selling weapons to both sides at the same time, all the better.
Q: Why?
A: Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for America. Also, since God is on America's side, anyone who opposes war is a godless unAmerican Communist. Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq?
Q: I think so. We attacked them because God wanted us to, right?
A: Yes.
Q: But how did we know God wanted us to attack Iraq?
A: Well, you see, George W. Bush prays to God to tell him what to do.
Q: So basically, what you're saying is that we attacked Iraq because George W. Bush hears voices in his head?
A: That's not what it's called. That's another discussion. Now close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.
Q: Good night, Daddy.
It is impossible to describe to you exactly what did happen in Detroit, the emotions in the room, the feelings of the men who were reliving their experiences in Vietnam, but they did. They relived the absolute horror of what this country, in a sense, made them do.
They told the stories at times they had personally raped, cut off ears, cut off heads, taped wires from portable telephones to human genitals and turned up the power, cut off limbs, blown up bodies, randomly shot at civilians, razed villages in fashion reminiscent of Genghis Khan, shot cattle and dogs for fun, poisoned food stocks, and generally ravaged the countryside of South Vietnam in addition to the normal ravage of war, and the normal and very particular ravaging which is done by the applied bombing power of this country.
We call this investigation the "Winter Soldier Investigation." The term "Winter Soldier" is a play on words of Thomas Paine in 1776 when he spoke of the Sunshine Patriot and summertime soldiers who deserted at Valley Forge because the going was rough.
We who have come here to Washington have come here because we feel we have to be winter soldiers now. We could come back to this country; we could be quiet; we could hold our silence; we could not tell what went on in Vietnam, but we feel because of what threatens this country, the fact that the crimes threaten it, not reds, and not redcoats but the crimes which we are committing that threaten it, that we have to speak out.
--John Kerry, 22 Apr 1971, in his testimony to the United States Senate; Committee on Foreign Relations
Once a policy has been adopted and implemented, all subsequent activity becomes an effort to justify it.... Adjustment is painful. For the ruler it is easier, once he has entered the policy box, to stay inside. For the lesser official it is better ... not to make waves, not to press evidence that the chief will find painful to accept. Psychologists call the process of screening out discordant information "cognitive dissonance," an academic disguise for "Don't confuse me with the facts."
--Barbara Tuchman, historian, The March of Folly: From Troy to Vietnam
It's just common sense that individuals and institutions must be in some way obliged to answer for their actions -- governments to the contituents, companies to their stakeholders, each of sui in our daily life. But so bizarrely secretive is this Bank, which now controls more than $150 billion in capital, much of it your tax money, that it is accountable to no one. Not even the Bank's own directors, are allowed to see about Bank projects until two weeks before they vote yea or nay. Loopholes
the size of the state of Florida have been buried in the fine print of legendary voluminous reports. Mostly, directors depend on the arguments of the project leaders, and mostly, they agree with what they are told.
--Lawrence E. Joseph, Common Sense, pg 144-144
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