Wednesday, August 25, 2004
Kerry: While Kerry gave his talk at the historic Cooper Union (site of an important Abe Lincoln talk in early 1860), right wing talk radio and cable folk expropriated his language in asserting, repetitively, that Kerry is "smearing the President."
Kerry was very laid-back on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, saying little beyond the usual campaign riffs and minimizing the swift boat episode. A lost opportunity.
North Korea: The International Herald Tribune had a brief “report” as to “The United States has scheduled naval exercises off the coast of North Korea at the end of October.”
...which leads to a new 'paranoic' thought: How about an updated Gulf of Tonkin incident during the week before the election?
Swift Boat notes
The major media have said little over the report from the Dallas Morning News that confirmed that Bob Perry, the principal funder of the Swift Boaters for Bush, is listed as a “co-host” of a Bush fundraiser in New York.
Media Re-focusing on Bush? USA Today:
*Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?
* What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?
* Did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and securing a coveted pilot slot despite poor qualifying scores and arrests, but no convictions, for stealing a Christmas wreath and rowdiness at a football game during his college years? http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-23-bush-service_x.htm
Al-Qaeda are NOT Going to Attack Us: Since 9/11, we’ve all been primed to worry about the next attack. Some of us have countered that 9/11 was a unique circumstance, that even mediocre security and intelligence would have stopped it, and with the improvements at airports and with an alert, if minimally improved intelligence capacity, a repetition is far from likely.
Additionally, there is the notion that bin Laden would see such an attack as bad strategy, that it would reverse his momentum and take us back to the days when countries sympathized with the U.S. instead of their current loathing of our invasion and occupation of Iraq. The fellow below expands on that notion.
Dr. Frank Richter, a terrorism expert based in Detroit, had been touring Louisiana pointing out some of the irregularities inherent in America's War on Terrorism. In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly, the former professor of international politics at Wayne State University and advisor to presidential candidates such as John Glenn and H. Ross Perot commented that the many seemingly pointless "yellow alerts" have proven fruitless for a reason.
"The Bush administration has even been charged with hiking the terror alert status for political gain. But that makes no sense. Since the alerts began, President Bush' poll ratings have plunged. No evidence of a political plot there.
"Why then have terrorist alerts been issued with such regularity in an election year?" Richter asked rhetorically. "It's simple. The Bush administration cannot afford to keep quiet about even a slight up-tick in terrorist chatter that may precede an attack. Americans would be outraged if the Homeland Security folks failed to warn us and a real terror attack killed dozens of unsuspecting victims who had been kept in the dark…
Al Qaeda, long ago, made a strategic decision not to attack Americans again in their homeland. But why? We know they hate us. The answer is that the war on terrorism is not really about terror attacks at all. Terror is only a tactic, albeit a very effective one. The purpose of Al Qaeda's attack on America, our allies and pro-Western Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia is to divide the Muslim world from the modern, secular world embodied by globalization.
"The reason the Islamist terrorists have not attacked America again at home is that bin Laden believes that Al Qaeda is winning the war. Because of American military responses to 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Muslim world is nearly united in its anti-American attitudes." http://www.louisianaweekly.com/cgi-bin/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20040823p
However, Al-Qaeda has NOT been weakened:
The information, which reveals the immense resilience of al-Qaeda and its remarkable ability to reconstitute itself, negates yet again claims made by the administration of US President George W Bush that al-Qaeda has dispersed and is now on the run. While it is true that al-Qaeda has lost several of its operational commanders, such as the masterminds of the September 11, 2001, attacks - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Walid Muhammad Salih bin Attash, who have been captured - al-Qaeda has been able not just to survive this loss, but to thrive in difficult circumstances. This is because it has quickly adapted itself to the changed situation. The recent arrests have revealed that there has been an infusion of young blood into al-Qaeda. At the same time, the younger operatives have strong links with the old guard. http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH25Df05.html
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Bombing: Struck me that as our troops retreat to enclaves- reminiscent of Vietnam, I’m afraid- other areas of Iraq become occupied by “enemy” forces, and thus subject to bombing. So, now Fallujah, completely OUT of our control, is bombed with regularity. This regular bombing is precisely what we were doing to Iraq between 1991 and 2003.
So, Saddam is gone, but…
Democracy? Limited Sovereignty, indeed. U.S. control continues.
In what had been touted as Iraq’s first democratic election, last week’s tumultuous Iraqi National Conference closed with a four-judge panel selecting a list of candidates for the Interim National Council, leaving the hundreds of delegates invited to the conference to approve the decision with only a show of hands. In the end, the same former exile groups currently holding the highest seats in Iraq’s appointed interim government will also dominate the country’s newest temporary body.
” Last week’s conference was suppose to elect 81 Iraqis to a new 100-member Interim National Council, responsible for oversight of US-installed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s transitional government until elections planned for early 2005. The council will have veto power over Allawi’s policy decisions and approve next year’s budget. The US already appointed the other nineteen members to the National Council before handing partial sovereignty to a group of Iraqis in June. http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=868
Business Mobilizes to Retain their Boy
The political ad wars are about to get nastier.
A group of well-connected Republicans, backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has formed a new group to run advertisements in battleground states attacking Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, and his ties to trial lawyers.
The group, called The November Fund, intends to raise several million dollars to spotlight the damage they believe abusive lawsuits cause the economy, and to highlight Sen. Edwards' career as a trial lawyer and his ties to the trial bar.http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109330329959799090,00.html?mod=politics%5Fsecondary%5Fstories%5Fhs
Krugman
How have they been able to get away with it? The answer is that we have been living in what Roger Ebert calls "an age of Rambo patriotism." As the carnage and moral ambiguities of Vietnam faded from memory, many started to believe in the comforting clichés of action movies, in which the tough-talking hero is always virtuous and the hand-wringing types who see complexities and urge the hero to think before acting are always wrong, if not villains.
After 9/11, Mr. Bush had a choice: he could deal with real threats, or he could play Rambo. He chose Rambo. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html?hp
Double Dealing Pakistan
While Mr. Musharraf, playing host to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, vowed that anyone seeking to act against Afghanistan from his soil would be stopped, the diplomats said Pakistan was turning a blind eye to just such activity.
"They are training, financing and organizing these operations on Pakistani soil," said a Western diplomat in Kabul, the Afghan capital. "There is evidence from people who have been picked up in Afghanistan that they are receiving training in Pakistan."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/international/asia/24stan.html?pos=&pagewanted=print&position=
Frist and Hillary offer little on Health Care
Glad to see that these two agree that consumers are the key to “radical” change.
The marketplace also has an important role. Consumers must demand quality health care and the tools to provide it, such as pricing and performance information powered by robust information technologies. If these things are done, we believe the quality of care we receive in this country can be radically improved. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30277-2004Aug24.html
Arundhati Roy: Do U.S. voters have a real choice?
It's true that if John Kerry becomes president, some of the oil tycoons and Christian fundamentalists in the White House will change. Few will be sorry to see the back of Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld or John Ashcroft and their blatant thuggery. But the real concern is that in the new administration their policies will continue. That we will have Bushism without Bush.
Those positions of real power - the bankers, the CEOs - are not vulnerable to the vote (. . . and in any case, they fund both sides).
Unfortunately the importance of the U.S elections has deteriorated into a sort of personality contest. A squabble over who would do a better job of overseeing empire. John Kerry believes in the idea of empire as fervently as George Bush does.
The U.S. political system has been carefully crafted to ensure that no one who questions the natural goodness of the military-industrial-corporate power structure will be allowed through the portals of power.
Given this, it's no surprise that in this election you have two Yale University graduates, both members of Skull and Bones, the same secret society, both millionaires, both playing at soldier-soldier, both talking up war, and arguing almost childishly about who will lead the war on terror more effectively.
Like President Bill Clinton before him, Kerry will continue the expansion of U.S. economic and military penetration into the world. He says he would have voted to authorize Bush to go to war in Iraq even if he had known that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. He promises to commit more troops to Iraq. He said recently that he supports Bush's policies toward Israel and Ariel Sharon 100 percent. He says he'll retain 98% of Bush's tax cuts.
So, underneath the shrill exchange of insults, there is almost absolute consensus. It looks as though even if Americans vote for Kerry, they'll still get Bush. President John Kerbush or President George Berry. http://www.democracynow.org/static/Arundhati_Trans.shtml
Poll: Swift Boat Stuff an apparent plus for Bush
LA Times poll has Bush over Kerry 49-46%. While still in the margin of error, it’s clearly a change.
-R
Kerry was very laid-back on Jon Stewart’s Daily Show, saying little beyond the usual campaign riffs and minimizing the swift boat episode. A lost opportunity.
North Korea: The International Herald Tribune had a brief “report” as to “The United States has scheduled naval exercises off the coast of North Korea at the end of October.”
...which leads to a new 'paranoic' thought: How about an updated Gulf of Tonkin incident during the week before the election?
Swift Boat notes
The major media have said little over the report from the Dallas Morning News that confirmed that Bob Perry, the principal funder of the Swift Boaters for Bush, is listed as a “co-host” of a Bush fundraiser in New York.
Media Re-focusing on Bush? USA Today:
*Why did Bush, described by some of his fellow officers as a talented and enthusiastic pilot, stop flying fighter jets in the spring of 1972 and fail to take an annual physical exam required of all pilots?
* What explains the apparent gap in the president's Guard service in 1972-73, a period when commanders in Texas and Alabama say they never saw him report for duty and records show no pay to Bush when he was supposed to be on duty in Alabama?
* Did Bush receive preferential treatment in getting into the Guard and securing a coveted pilot slot despite poor qualifying scores and arrests, but no convictions, for stealing a Christmas wreath and rowdiness at a football game during his college years? http://www.usatoday.com/news/politicselections/nation/president/2004-08-23-bush-service_x.htm
Al-Qaeda are NOT Going to Attack Us: Since 9/11, we’ve all been primed to worry about the next attack. Some of us have countered that 9/11 was a unique circumstance, that even mediocre security and intelligence would have stopped it, and with the improvements at airports and with an alert, if minimally improved intelligence capacity, a repetition is far from likely.
Additionally, there is the notion that bin Laden would see such an attack as bad strategy, that it would reverse his momentum and take us back to the days when countries sympathized with the U.S. instead of their current loathing of our invasion and occupation of Iraq. The fellow below expands on that notion.
Dr. Frank Richter, a terrorism expert based in Detroit, had been touring Louisiana pointing out some of the irregularities inherent in America's War on Terrorism. In an interview with The Louisiana Weekly, the former professor of international politics at Wayne State University and advisor to presidential candidates such as John Glenn and H. Ross Perot commented that the many seemingly pointless "yellow alerts" have proven fruitless for a reason.
"The Bush administration has even been charged with hiking the terror alert status for political gain. But that makes no sense. Since the alerts began, President Bush' poll ratings have plunged. No evidence of a political plot there.
"Why then have terrorist alerts been issued with such regularity in an election year?" Richter asked rhetorically. "It's simple. The Bush administration cannot afford to keep quiet about even a slight up-tick in terrorist chatter that may precede an attack. Americans would be outraged if the Homeland Security folks failed to warn us and a real terror attack killed dozens of unsuspecting victims who had been kept in the dark…
Al Qaeda, long ago, made a strategic decision not to attack Americans again in their homeland. But why? We know they hate us. The answer is that the war on terrorism is not really about terror attacks at all. Terror is only a tactic, albeit a very effective one. The purpose of Al Qaeda's attack on America, our allies and pro-Western Arab regimes like Saudi Arabia is to divide the Muslim world from the modern, secular world embodied by globalization.
"The reason the Islamist terrorists have not attacked America again at home is that bin Laden believes that Al Qaeda is winning the war. Because of American military responses to 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Muslim world is nearly united in its anti-American attitudes." http://www.louisianaweekly.com/cgi-bin/weekly/news/articlegate.pl?20040823p
However, Al-Qaeda has NOT been weakened:
The information, which reveals the immense resilience of al-Qaeda and its remarkable ability to reconstitute itself, negates yet again claims made by the administration of US President George W Bush that al-Qaeda has dispersed and is now on the run. While it is true that al-Qaeda has lost several of its operational commanders, such as the masterminds of the September 11, 2001, attacks - Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Walid Muhammad Salih bin Attash, who have been captured - al-Qaeda has been able not just to survive this loss, but to thrive in difficult circumstances. This is because it has quickly adapted itself to the changed situation. The recent arrests have revealed that there has been an infusion of young blood into al-Qaeda. At the same time, the younger operatives have strong links with the old guard. http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FH25Df05.html
What’s Happening, Iraq:
Bombing: Struck me that as our troops retreat to enclaves- reminiscent of Vietnam, I’m afraid- other areas of Iraq become occupied by “enemy” forces, and thus subject to bombing. So, now Fallujah, completely OUT of our control, is bombed with regularity. This regular bombing is precisely what we were doing to Iraq between 1991 and 2003.
So, Saddam is gone, but…
Democracy? Limited Sovereignty, indeed. U.S. control continues.
In what had been touted as Iraq’s first democratic election, last week’s tumultuous Iraqi National Conference closed with a four-judge panel selecting a list of candidates for the Interim National Council, leaving the hundreds of delegates invited to the conference to approve the decision with only a show of hands. In the end, the same former exile groups currently holding the highest seats in Iraq’s appointed interim government will also dominate the country’s newest temporary body.
” Last week’s conference was suppose to elect 81 Iraqis to a new 100-member Interim National Council, responsible for oversight of US-installed Prime Minister Iyad Allawi’s transitional government until elections planned for early 2005. The council will have veto power over Allawi’s policy decisions and approve next year’s budget. The US already appointed the other nineteen members to the National Council before handing partial sovereignty to a group of Iraqis in June. http://newstandardnews.net/content/?action=show_item&itemid=868
Business Mobilizes to Retain their Boy
The political ad wars are about to get nastier.
A group of well-connected Republicans, backed by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, has formed a new group to run advertisements in battleground states attacking Sen. John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, and his ties to trial lawyers.
The group, called The November Fund, intends to raise several million dollars to spotlight the damage they believe abusive lawsuits cause the economy, and to highlight Sen. Edwards' career as a trial lawyer and his ties to the trial bar.http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB109330329959799090,00.html?mod=politics%5Fsecondary%5Fstories%5Fhs
Krugman
How have they been able to get away with it? The answer is that we have been living in what Roger Ebert calls "an age of Rambo patriotism." As the carnage and moral ambiguities of Vietnam faded from memory, many started to believe in the comforting clichés of action movies, in which the tough-talking hero is always virtuous and the hand-wringing types who see complexities and urge the hero to think before acting are always wrong, if not villains.
After 9/11, Mr. Bush had a choice: he could deal with real threats, or he could play Rambo. He chose Rambo. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/opinion/24krugman.html?hp
Double Dealing Pakistan
While Mr. Musharraf, playing host to President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan, vowed that anyone seeking to act against Afghanistan from his soil would be stopped, the diplomats said Pakistan was turning a blind eye to just such activity.
"They are training, financing and organizing these operations on Pakistani soil," said a Western diplomat in Kabul, the Afghan capital. "There is evidence from people who have been picked up in Afghanistan that they are receiving training in Pakistan."
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/24/international/asia/24stan.html?pos=&pagewanted=print&position=
Frist and Hillary offer little on Health Care
Glad to see that these two agree that consumers are the key to “radical” change.
The marketplace also has an important role. Consumers must demand quality health care and the tools to provide it, such as pricing and performance information powered by robust information technologies. If these things are done, we believe the quality of care we receive in this country can be radically improved. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30277-2004Aug24.html
Arundhati Roy: Do U.S. voters have a real choice?
It's true that if John Kerry becomes president, some of the oil tycoons and Christian fundamentalists in the White House will change. Few will be sorry to see the back of Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld or John Ashcroft and their blatant thuggery. But the real concern is that in the new administration their policies will continue. That we will have Bushism without Bush.
Those positions of real power - the bankers, the CEOs - are not vulnerable to the vote (. . . and in any case, they fund both sides).
Unfortunately the importance of the U.S elections has deteriorated into a sort of personality contest. A squabble over who would do a better job of overseeing empire. John Kerry believes in the idea of empire as fervently as George Bush does.
The U.S. political system has been carefully crafted to ensure that no one who questions the natural goodness of the military-industrial-corporate power structure will be allowed through the portals of power.
Given this, it's no surprise that in this election you have two Yale University graduates, both members of Skull and Bones, the same secret society, both millionaires, both playing at soldier-soldier, both talking up war, and arguing almost childishly about who will lead the war on terror more effectively.
Like President Bill Clinton before him, Kerry will continue the expansion of U.S. economic and military penetration into the world. He says he would have voted to authorize Bush to go to war in Iraq even if he had known that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction. He promises to commit more troops to Iraq. He said recently that he supports Bush's policies toward Israel and Ariel Sharon 100 percent. He says he'll retain 98% of Bush's tax cuts.
So, underneath the shrill exchange of insults, there is almost absolute consensus. It looks as though even if Americans vote for Kerry, they'll still get Bush. President John Kerbush or President George Berry. http://www.democracynow.org/static/Arundhati_Trans.shtml
Poll: Swift Boat Stuff an apparent plus for Bush
LA Times poll has Bush over Kerry 49-46%. While still in the margin of error, it’s clearly a change.
-R
