Ever since the Abu Ghraib prison-abuse scandal broke earlier this year, the standard line coming out of the White House is that it was all the soldiers' fault, that it was all because of a few "bad apples." In keeping with the Bush Administration's stay-on-message-no-matter-what motif, they kept on saying the exact same thing even when it was revealed that military higher-ups not only knew about the abuses, at the very least they tacitly approved because they didn't order them to stop. While the story has mostly died down thanks to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and others in the conservative media who insisted it was much ado about nothing, a few more intrepid souls have kept on following the trail.
Now that trail may very well have led right onto George W. Bush's desk.
Thanks to persistent Freedom of Information Act requests, the ACLU managed to pry out of the Administration a treasure trove of angry memos from FBI agents stationed in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.
The memos complain how Department of Defense ("DOD") interrogators, with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's approval, passed themselves off as FBI agents while using what the writer called "torture techniques" against prisoners. "If this detainee is ever released or his story made public in any way," one memo says, "DOD interrogators will not be held accountable because these torture techniques were done [by] the ‘FBI’ interrogators. The FBI will [be] left holding the bag before the public."
Other memos relay agents' disgust at the use of "strangulation, beatings, placement of lit cigarettes into the detainees ear openings, and unauthorized interrogations" in Iraq and Guantanamo, and that Pentagon officials "were engaged in a cover-up of these abuses." In revulsion, FBI supervisors ordered their agents not to take part in such questionings: "We have instructed our personnel not to participate in interrogations by military personnel which might include techniques [allowed] by the Executive Order but beyond the bounds of standard FBI practice."
Yes, it now seems there was an explicit order from President Bush allowing the abuse of captured prisoners, an order the FBI refused to follow. (Astoundingly, the American media has largely glossed over this revelation, preferring instead to dwell on the titillating details of just which tortures were committed.)
One of the released memos, dated May 22, 2004, says that "an Executive Order signed by President Bush authorized the following interrogation techniques, among others: sleep 'management,' use of MWDs (military working dogs), 'stress positions' such as half squats, 'environmental manipulation' such as the use of loud music, sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc." The letter goes on to say that the week before, after the Abu Ghraib scandal had broken, the order was slightly revised so that "all interrogation techniques previously authorized by the Executive Order are still on the table but that certain techniques can only be used if very high-level authority is granted."
All of this violates the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners. Some months after 9/11, then-White House counsel (and now Attorney General-designate) Alberto Gonzales wrote a much-publicized memo claiming that mistreatment counted as torture only if the prisoner was killed or permanently injured. He also wrote that the Conventions did not apply to al Qaeda prisoners and that the Government could do pretty much whatever it wanted. The memo sparked a furor when it was leaked, and the White House appeared to back down.
But the FBI memos reveal that abuse and torture continued not just long after the policy was supposedly changed, but it went on even months after the Abu Ghraib scandal broke. For all we know, it continues even now. And by the way -- given the memo's reference to the order revision allowing such "techniques" only on "very high-level authority," who signed off on the continued abuses?
It appears nobody in the White House realized that the Conventions are there for a reason: to prevent torture and mistreatment of prisoners of war. This is a very slippery slope, if the United States claims it can unilaterally ignore international law and do whatever it likes with captured fighters, what will prevent our enemies from doing the same thing with our soldiers?
Big kudos to the FBI, which is capable of recognizing an illegal order even if the Pentagon is not.
If the FBI E-mails are correct and Bush did indeed issue an Executive Order approving the use of human-rights abuses against prisoners, then ultimate responsibility for Abu Ghraib and numerous other examples of abuse, torture and even summary executions extends all the way into the Oval Office. It doesn't matter how much the Administration tries to make the little guys, who actually carried out their orders, take the fall. They were ordered to do so by their superiors, who must also be held accountable.
The very notion that the President of the United States secretly signed off on the use of torture, no matter how it was defined, is appalling. It's even more appalling to realize they really thought they could get away with it. The moral high ground in the War on Terror is getting further and further away.
12/22/2004
12/21/2004
Adoption for Your Amusement, Again
Back in April, ABC raised hackles with a stunningly ill-conceived promo for a 20/20 episode about open adoption. “Barbara [Walters] will bring you what might be called the ultimate reality show,” co-anchor John Stossel proclaimed as he plugged the upcoming show. “As you watch, a pregnant teenager will decide which of five couples gets her baby." Disgusted by the prospect of adoption's very personal and emotional nature being perverted into some loathsome sort of grand prize, viewers showered the network with complaints and ABC quickly backed down.
Just to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, the usual suspect has picked up where ABC left off. And then some. For on January 3, 2005, Fox, the network behind such highlights of cultural programming as The Swan and The Littlest Groom, pollutes the airwaves with the first episode of a new reality series about adoption.
The premise is, to put it mildly, repulsive. A young woman who was adopted at birth faces eight men, one of whom is her actual biological father while each of the other seven tries to deceive her into thinking he's the real deal. She has to decide which one is genuine. If she picks correctly she gets $100,000; if not, the misidentified fake gets the cash.
This exercise in degradation is called, of course, Who's Your Daddy?
Even for a network unafraid to get down into the slime of shameless human exploitation, this is a new and very offensive low. The decision by an adoptee to find one's biological parents is fraught with questions about identity and who one really is. Taking that most personal of quests and turning it into a game show laced with deception and greed is truly repugnant. The fact that Fox actually found people stupid and desperate enough to prostitute themselves in this manner says volumes about the sorry state of American television and the lengths to which people will go to get their fifteen minutes of fame.
"I can understand the reservations," executive producer Kevin Healey said in an interview, "but the people came to it with great excitement and a willingness to play the game. It's a fun and healthy way to get to know this person that they've never met."
Fun and healthy? Where's the fun in seeing someone's hope to learn who she is and where she came from dashed to the merry laughter of millions? Perhaps someone out there will see the show, think back on their own adoption, and see it not as an expression of love and family but rather as a way to make a quick buck. Doesn't sound healthy to me.
"The daughters feel bad when they pick wrong," co-executive producer Scott Hallock added, "because they're like, 'I let my dad down.'"
Yeah, we're all crying with you. If you're dumb enough to think the path to self-discovery involves humiliation on a national (international, really, once you count global syndication) scale and comes with a cash prize, you deserve what you get. This hearkens back to the sort of entertainment seen in the Roman Coliseum, where condemned criminals and slaves were forced to hack each other to death for the amusement of the emperor. What fun!
Fox has once again hit bottom with this despicable excuse for entertainment. Until the next time, that is.
An editable form letter with contact list is online at http://simpleasthat.com/actionletter/index.php.
Just to prove that no good deed goes unpunished, the usual suspect has picked up where ABC left off. And then some. For on January 3, 2005, Fox, the network behind such highlights of cultural programming as The Swan and The Littlest Groom, pollutes the airwaves with the first episode of a new reality series about adoption.
The premise is, to put it mildly, repulsive. A young woman who was adopted at birth faces eight men, one of whom is her actual biological father while each of the other seven tries to deceive her into thinking he's the real deal. She has to decide which one is genuine. If she picks correctly she gets $100,000; if not, the misidentified fake gets the cash.
This exercise in degradation is called, of course, Who's Your Daddy?
Even for a network unafraid to get down into the slime of shameless human exploitation, this is a new and very offensive low. The decision by an adoptee to find one's biological parents is fraught with questions about identity and who one really is. Taking that most personal of quests and turning it into a game show laced with deception and greed is truly repugnant. The fact that Fox actually found people stupid and desperate enough to prostitute themselves in this manner says volumes about the sorry state of American television and the lengths to which people will go to get their fifteen minutes of fame.
"I can understand the reservations," executive producer Kevin Healey said in an interview, "but the people came to it with great excitement and a willingness to play the game. It's a fun and healthy way to get to know this person that they've never met."
Fun and healthy? Where's the fun in seeing someone's hope to learn who she is and where she came from dashed to the merry laughter of millions? Perhaps someone out there will see the show, think back on their own adoption, and see it not as an expression of love and family but rather as a way to make a quick buck. Doesn't sound healthy to me.
"The daughters feel bad when they pick wrong," co-executive producer Scott Hallock added, "because they're like, 'I let my dad down.'"
Yeah, we're all crying with you. If you're dumb enough to think the path to self-discovery involves humiliation on a national (international, really, once you count global syndication) scale and comes with a cash prize, you deserve what you get. This hearkens back to the sort of entertainment seen in the Roman Coliseum, where condemned criminals and slaves were forced to hack each other to death for the amusement of the emperor. What fun!
Fox has once again hit bottom with this despicable excuse for entertainment. Until the next time, that is.
An editable form letter with contact list is online at http://simpleasthat.com/actionletter/index.php.
12/20/2004
Social Insecurity
Remember the fear campaign with which President Bush and his neoconservative cadre scared us into supporting his invasion of Iraq? All those tales of horrible (nonexistent) weapons which could turn Main Street, USA into a smoking hole in the ground? Well, he's at it again, and this time his target is much closer to home. Mistaking his close election win for an actual mandate, Bush has set his "shock and awe" sights on Social Security.
Yes, that Social Security; the program which has provided America's senior citizens, disabled workers and the children of workers who die young with a financial safety cushion for well over half a century. According to Bush, the system is in active crisis because while Social Security currently takes in $1.25 for each dollar paid out and is thus very much in the black, it will be paying out more than it takes in by 2018. The Social Security Administration, the group that actually runs the program, begs to differ, saying that given current economic trends this won't happen until 2042; the Congressional Budget Office says 2052. (The same CBO report says that that extending Social Security's solvency by another century while maintaining benefits would require additional revenues equal to less than three percent of federal spending. This happens to be less than that we're currently spending in Iraq.) Even given the fickleness of the economy, this is hardly an active crisis.
Bush claims it is, however, and his solution is...partial privatization! Yes, his answer to a fiscal problem which may occur a few decades down the road is to allow individuals to some of their payroll taxes into the stock market right now, the theory being that people will make more than enough money from their investments to offset smaller Social Security benefits. It's really just a variation on the old the-market-knows-everything mantra that gave us the Great Depression, the S&L scandal, Enron, etc. This solution has three tiny little problems.
First, every penny taken out of the system has to be made up in order for current benefits to be paid and the trust fund maintained. And Bush is determined to get the money by borrowing it, with total ten-year estimates as high as $2 trillion added to our already $7.5 trillion national debt. This may well make foreign and domestic investors wary about continuing to finance our exploding debt when the Bush Administration itself clearly doesn't care. This makes the dollar and stock market fall, interest rates and unemployment rise, and so on.
Second, privatizing Social Security would be putting the program in the hands of the ilk who gave us such financial triumphs as the seemingly endless stock-market and mutual-fund scandals, not to mention the up-and-down vagaries of the market as is. Who will have to explain the magic of the markets to angry seniors whose entire retirement benefits were stolen by the likes of Ken Lay or went down the drain with a company's bankruptcy?
And third, administrative overhead costs, which currently take up less than one percent of the annual Social Security budget, would multiply more than ten-fold under a privatized system. That's as much as $75 billion a year gone from retirement benefits to line the pockets of Wall Street. Not surprisingly, Wall Street is the one sector of the American economy actively pushing for such "reform." And also not surprisingly, the financial industry gave big bucks to Bush, more than $30 million in the 2004 campaign alone.
That works out to a 250,000% return on their investment. Not too shabby. Better than the S&P 500 and loads better than Hillary Clinton did with her much-maligned cattle futures.
The eventual fiscal problem with Social Security can be almost or entirely solved with one single change. As it stands now, only the first $87,900 of a person's income is subject to Social Security payroll taxes. Meaning that someone earning a bit under ninety grand pays exactly the same amount into Social Security as someone like Bill Gates. Or Tom Cruise. Or, for that matter, George W. Bush. Raising or removing the cap would do away with this inequity and maintain the system's integrity for decades to come.
Of course, the whole notion of Social Security's guaranteed benefits is heresy to Bush's well-heeled friends, who have never hid their desire to blow up the "socialist" system and replace it with a super-capitalist free-for-all in which individuals sink or swim. If you invest in the right stocks, you get to live in a nice comfy house and have all your needs met. If you don't, or if your stock turns out to be run by crooks -- well, those are the breaks, kid. Hope that refrigerator box is warm in winter.
Dismantling Social Security and endangering the livelihood of senior citizens just to satisfy the ideological fantasies of government-hating Republicans and to further enrich the financial industry is a terrible idea. Congress should block it at the first opportunity.
Yes, that Social Security; the program which has provided America's senior citizens, disabled workers and the children of workers who die young with a financial safety cushion for well over half a century. According to Bush, the system is in active crisis because while Social Security currently takes in $1.25 for each dollar paid out and is thus very much in the black, it will be paying out more than it takes in by 2018. The Social Security Administration, the group that actually runs the program, begs to differ, saying that given current economic trends this won't happen until 2042; the Congressional Budget Office says 2052. (The same CBO report says that that extending Social Security's solvency by another century while maintaining benefits would require additional revenues equal to less than three percent of federal spending. This happens to be less than that we're currently spending in Iraq.) Even given the fickleness of the economy, this is hardly an active crisis.
Bush claims it is, however, and his solution is...partial privatization! Yes, his answer to a fiscal problem which may occur a few decades down the road is to allow individuals to some of their payroll taxes into the stock market right now, the theory being that people will make more than enough money from their investments to offset smaller Social Security benefits. It's really just a variation on the old the-market-knows-everything mantra that gave us the Great Depression, the S&L scandal, Enron, etc. This solution has three tiny little problems.
First, every penny taken out of the system has to be made up in order for current benefits to be paid and the trust fund maintained. And Bush is determined to get the money by borrowing it, with total ten-year estimates as high as $2 trillion added to our already $7.5 trillion national debt. This may well make foreign and domestic investors wary about continuing to finance our exploding debt when the Bush Administration itself clearly doesn't care. This makes the dollar and stock market fall, interest rates and unemployment rise, and so on.
Second, privatizing Social Security would be putting the program in the hands of the ilk who gave us such financial triumphs as the seemingly endless stock-market and mutual-fund scandals, not to mention the up-and-down vagaries of the market as is. Who will have to explain the magic of the markets to angry seniors whose entire retirement benefits were stolen by the likes of Ken Lay or went down the drain with a company's bankruptcy?
And third, administrative overhead costs, which currently take up less than one percent of the annual Social Security budget, would multiply more than ten-fold under a privatized system. That's as much as $75 billion a year gone from retirement benefits to line the pockets of Wall Street. Not surprisingly, Wall Street is the one sector of the American economy actively pushing for such "reform." And also not surprisingly, the financial industry gave big bucks to Bush, more than $30 million in the 2004 campaign alone.
That works out to a 250,000% return on their investment. Not too shabby. Better than the S&P 500 and loads better than Hillary Clinton did with her much-maligned cattle futures.
The eventual fiscal problem with Social Security can be almost or entirely solved with one single change. As it stands now, only the first $87,900 of a person's income is subject to Social Security payroll taxes. Meaning that someone earning a bit under ninety grand pays exactly the same amount into Social Security as someone like Bill Gates. Or Tom Cruise. Or, for that matter, George W. Bush. Raising or removing the cap would do away with this inequity and maintain the system's integrity for decades to come.
Of course, the whole notion of Social Security's guaranteed benefits is heresy to Bush's well-heeled friends, who have never hid their desire to blow up the "socialist" system and replace it with a super-capitalist free-for-all in which individuals sink or swim. If you invest in the right stocks, you get to live in a nice comfy house and have all your needs met. If you don't, or if your stock turns out to be run by crooks -- well, those are the breaks, kid. Hope that refrigerator box is warm in winter.
Dismantling Social Security and endangering the livelihood of senior citizens just to satisfy the ideological fantasies of government-hating Republicans and to further enrich the financial industry is a terrible idea. Congress should block it at the first opportunity.
12/15/2004
To Tell the Truth
Remember the old TV game show To Tell the Truth? A group of panelists all claimed to be a single specific person, and the contestant who figured out which one was being honest and not lying through his or her teeth would win prizes.
It's back, sort of.
Three years ago, the Pentagon's proposed Office of Strategic Influence went down in flames after its true purpose became known -- the dissemination of false articles in foreign media publications with the intent of fooling the enemy. What the OSI never figured out was that in this age of global communication, anything published anywhere quickly becomes known everywhere else, so fake news planted abroad could quite easily blow back into the American press.
A more direct example occurred only last month, when the Pentagon admitted planting a CNN story that the attack on Fallujah was underway even though it wouldn't start for another three weeks, with the supposed aim of "smoking out" insurgents in the city. The revelation was greeted by yawns from most of the media, instead of outrage at being turned into an unwitting propaganda tool.
Here we go again. According to The New York Times, the Pentagon is considering "planting news stories in the foreign press or creating false documents and web sites translated into Arabic as an effort to discredit and undermine the influence of mosques and religious schools that preach anti-American principles."
Like they don't hate us enough already. American credibility across much of the world, but particularly in the Arab world, is already in the toilet. Recent polls show that solid majorities in most Arab countries now see America as the greatest threat to world peace, and this latest revelation is not about to help matters.
Besides, now that the Pentagon -- and, let's face it, the Bush Administration in general -- has shown they are willing to lie to further American interests, the American people now face a dilemma: every time we hear an official pronouncement, we have to wonder if it's true. Lots of people already disbelieve anything they hear from Washington, and that number can only increase if lying becomes official policy, no matter what the justification.
On the other hand, disseminating propaganda lies instead of real facts to the media does have its upside: no one will ever have to know about such unpleasantries as insufficiently armored vehicles or botched planning. Everything will be perfect. Well, except on the actual ground in Iraq, but as most people wouldn't go there in a million years, who's going to know the difference?
Here's a bright idea: why not try telling the truth for a change? Rather than mount a crude propaganda effort to fake out the purveyors of hatred, we should broadcast and publicize messages of tolerance and inclusivity, so the people who now hear only the voices of jihad get another source of information. The best disinfectant for hatred is always sunlight, and lots of it.
Besides, if we have to lie to people to get them to like us, what does that say about us to begin with?
This was a bad idea three years ago, and it's still a bad idea. The Pentagon should jettison this half-baked plan, and fast.
12/09/2004
Shut Up and Die
Comparing the Bush Administration's everything-is-just-peachy comments on Iraq to the daily mayhem we see from that war-torn country, one can come to the conclusion that there are apparently two Iraqs.
One exists in a world where American soldiers hand out candy to smiling and photogenic children, where the Iraqi people eagerly embrace a perpetual American occupation backing up a puppet government, where people look forward to standing in line as sitting ducks while waiting to vote for a candidate approved by Washington, where people are happy to forget all about their bombed-out homes and their relatives being scooped off the street and the risk of getting killed while going to the store.
The other exists in the real world, where American soldiers trying to secure an entire country cannot even secure a ten-mile stretch of roadway between the Green Zone and the Baghdad airport, where a homegrown insurgency grows more every day, where two fighters are recruited for every one killed, and where an estimated one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed since the American invasion began almost two years ago.
The myopia of President Bush and his inner circle gets more and more pronounced every day. Their method of dealing with bad news from Iraq may be a simple one -- just wish it all away -- but it does not exactly help the situation. Instead, they hide behind meaningless slogans ("Freedom is on the march!" "We're making progress!" and so on) whose only apparent purpose is to trick people who don't bother reading beyond the headlines into thinking everything is fine. One wonders if Bush et al believe their own nonsense.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of the few first-term Cabinet secretaries not shown the door after the election, showed off his management style while visiting American soldiers in Kuwait yesterday. (Rumsfeld evidently does not believe his own propaganda, as he didn't go anywhere near the Iraqi border, leaving that for the suckers -- oops, soldiers -- who are fighting his war for him.) He asked for questions from the troops, getting the usual collection of softballs and sound bites.
But just once, he got an actual question, from a soldier who put him on the spot by asking, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromise ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us?" As the mass of soldiers erupted in applause, Rumsfeld shot back, "You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."
In other words, shut up, go back to the front lines, and get blown up for the greater glory of -- well, we're still figuring that part out. Anyway, we decided to fight this war on the cheap and we'll do it to the last drop of your blood.
If he said it during a war that was thrust upon us, where we were required to rush into the field or else, it would be one thing. But considering that this was very much a war of choice, and that Rumsfeld et al sneeringly rejected cautions from military professionals about the troops and resources needed, it was absolutely outrageous. And does anyone remember Bush's now forgotten campaign promise that the troops would have all the armor they needed?
It's like the old Groucho Marx line when he was caught with another woman and tried to deny the incredibly obvious: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
Bush, Rumsfeld and their band of merry men are determined to take us through the looking-glass, where black is white, where up is down, and where an endless desert quagmire is a fabulous success. They're entitled to their delusions, but they can't make the rest of us go along with it.
One exists in a world where American soldiers hand out candy to smiling and photogenic children, where the Iraqi people eagerly embrace a perpetual American occupation backing up a puppet government, where people look forward to standing in line as sitting ducks while waiting to vote for a candidate approved by Washington, where people are happy to forget all about their bombed-out homes and their relatives being scooped off the street and the risk of getting killed while going to the store.
The other exists in the real world, where American soldiers trying to secure an entire country cannot even secure a ten-mile stretch of roadway between the Green Zone and the Baghdad airport, where a homegrown insurgency grows more every day, where two fighters are recruited for every one killed, and where an estimated one hundred thousand Iraqi civilians have been killed since the American invasion began almost two years ago.
The myopia of President Bush and his inner circle gets more and more pronounced every day. Their method of dealing with bad news from Iraq may be a simple one -- just wish it all away -- but it does not exactly help the situation. Instead, they hide behind meaningless slogans ("Freedom is on the march!" "We're making progress!" and so on) whose only apparent purpose is to trick people who don't bother reading beyond the headlines into thinking everything is fine. One wonders if Bush et al believe their own nonsense.
Meanwhile, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, one of the few first-term Cabinet secretaries not shown the door after the election, showed off his management style while visiting American soldiers in Kuwait yesterday. (Rumsfeld evidently does not believe his own propaganda, as he didn't go anywhere near the Iraqi border, leaving that for the suckers -- oops, soldiers -- who are fighting his war for him.) He asked for questions from the troops, getting the usual collection of softballs and sound bites.
But just once, he got an actual question, from a soldier who put him on the spot by asking, "Why do we soldiers have to dig through local landfills for pieces of scrap metal and compromise ballistic glass to up-armor our vehicles and why don’t we have those resources readily available to us?" As the mass of soldiers erupted in applause, Rumsfeld shot back, "You go to war with the Army you have. They’re not the Army you might want or wish to have at a later time."
In other words, shut up, go back to the front lines, and get blown up for the greater glory of -- well, we're still figuring that part out. Anyway, we decided to fight this war on the cheap and we'll do it to the last drop of your blood.
If he said it during a war that was thrust upon us, where we were required to rush into the field or else, it would be one thing. But considering that this was very much a war of choice, and that Rumsfeld et al sneeringly rejected cautions from military professionals about the troops and resources needed, it was absolutely outrageous. And does anyone remember Bush's now forgotten campaign promise that the troops would have all the armor they needed?
It's like the old Groucho Marx line when he was caught with another woman and tried to deny the incredibly obvious: "Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?"
Bush, Rumsfeld and their band of merry men are determined to take us through the looking-glass, where black is white, where up is down, and where an endless desert quagmire is a fabulous success. They're entitled to their delusions, but they can't make the rest of us go along with it.
11/22/2004
Second Verse, Worse Than the First
Three weeks after the presidential election, many progressives are emerging from shock-induced comas, muttering about persistent reports of voting irregularities in Florida and Ohio and studying maps of highways north to Canada. In our absence, many things have happened:
Attorney General John Ashcroft resigned, and on his way out the door attacked federal judges who reminded the Bush Administration that it is not above the law when it comes to the War on Terror™. He called the rulings "intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing," apparently preferring that we all simply accept Our Leader's judgments without question or dissent. He was much more pleasant when all he did was protect the public morality by covering up nude statues.
His designated replacement, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, may not be the Bible-thumper his predecessor was, but he is hardly an improvement. As President Bush's chief counsel when he was Governor of Texas, Gonzales was notorious for providing Bush with pre-execution clemency memos so brief, they routinely omitted any extenuating circumstances, proof of innocence, and so on. Thus rendered blissfully ignorant, Bush rejected every single memo without a second thought (or a first one, for that matter) and in doing so very possibly condemned innocent people to death. But Gonzales is even more notorious for his 2002 memo justifying the use of torture of al Qaeda prisoners on the grounds that unless someone is killed or permanently injured, it's not really torture and is thus OK. (This doctrine was, of course, extended for use in Iraq and led to the Abu Ghraib abuses which were exposed earlier this year.)
The last voice of moderation in the Bush Administration also resigned. Long after he was humiliatingly pushed aside in terms of policy, Colin Powell quietly stepped down as Secretary of State. He leaves behind a legacy of failure, of which only the loudest was his UN Security Council briefing on Iraq -- which even he now admits was based on phony data. Let us not forget the State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 report, which loudly proclaimed that terrorist attacks had declined significantly on Bush's watch, only to be quietly withdrawn and republished with the real information -- that terrorist attacks had significantly increased. But then again, sabotaged from Day One by the resident neoconservative hawks, he never really had a chance.
His replacement is none other than Condoleezza Rice, who distinguished herself in the first term by reducing the role of National Security Adviser to little more than a PR cheerleader for the White House, being forced to admit that Bush had been briefed on the al Qaeda plot weeks before 9/11, and managing to stabilize precisely nothing as head of the Iraq Stabilization Group. But she's a reliable yes-woman, and therefore she stays.
Porter Goss took over as head of the CIA, and one of his first actions set the tone for what will likely be a long and dispiriting term as head of the nation's intelligence agency. In a memo circulated to all staffers and promptly leaked to the press, Goss ordered CIA analysts to "support the Administration and its policies in our work," reducing them to parroting yes-men. In other words, if the facts don't agree with the party line, it's the facts that have to go. It's the same loyalty-above-all-else mindset that gave us the Iraq quagmire, only now it's official policy.
Add to all this Bush's plans for the partial privatization of Social Security (which will enormously enrich GOP backers on Wall Street while endangering the livelihood of millions of senior citizens) and no planning in Iraq other than more of the same, and it looks like we're in for a rough ride.
Fasten your seat-belts; it's going to be a bumpy four years.
Attorney General John Ashcroft resigned, and on his way out the door attacked federal judges who reminded the Bush Administration that it is not above the law when it comes to the War on Terror™. He called the rulings "intrusive judicial oversight and second-guessing," apparently preferring that we all simply accept Our Leader's judgments without question or dissent. He was much more pleasant when all he did was protect the public morality by covering up nude statues.
His designated replacement, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, may not be the Bible-thumper his predecessor was, but he is hardly an improvement. As President Bush's chief counsel when he was Governor of Texas, Gonzales was notorious for providing Bush with pre-execution clemency memos so brief, they routinely omitted any extenuating circumstances, proof of innocence, and so on. Thus rendered blissfully ignorant, Bush rejected every single memo without a second thought (or a first one, for that matter) and in doing so very possibly condemned innocent people to death. But Gonzales is even more notorious for his 2002 memo justifying the use of torture of al Qaeda prisoners on the grounds that unless someone is killed or permanently injured, it's not really torture and is thus OK. (This doctrine was, of course, extended for use in Iraq and led to the Abu Ghraib abuses which were exposed earlier this year.)
The last voice of moderation in the Bush Administration also resigned. Long after he was humiliatingly pushed aside in terms of policy, Colin Powell quietly stepped down as Secretary of State. He leaves behind a legacy of failure, of which only the loudest was his UN Security Council briefing on Iraq -- which even he now admits was based on phony data. Let us not forget the State Department's Patterns of Global Terrorism 2003 report, which loudly proclaimed that terrorist attacks had declined significantly on Bush's watch, only to be quietly withdrawn and republished with the real information -- that terrorist attacks had significantly increased. But then again, sabotaged from Day One by the resident neoconservative hawks, he never really had a chance.
His replacement is none other than Condoleezza Rice, who distinguished herself in the first term by reducing the role of National Security Adviser to little more than a PR cheerleader for the White House, being forced to admit that Bush had been briefed on the al Qaeda plot weeks before 9/11, and managing to stabilize precisely nothing as head of the Iraq Stabilization Group. But she's a reliable yes-woman, and therefore she stays.
Porter Goss took over as head of the CIA, and one of his first actions set the tone for what will likely be a long and dispiriting term as head of the nation's intelligence agency. In a memo circulated to all staffers and promptly leaked to the press, Goss ordered CIA analysts to "support the Administration and its policies in our work," reducing them to parroting yes-men. In other words, if the facts don't agree with the party line, it's the facts that have to go. It's the same loyalty-above-all-else mindset that gave us the Iraq quagmire, only now it's official policy.
Add to all this Bush's plans for the partial privatization of Social Security (which will enormously enrich GOP backers on Wall Street while endangering the livelihood of millions of senior citizens) and no planning in Iraq other than more of the same, and it looks like we're in for a rough ride.
Fasten your seat-belts; it's going to be a bumpy four years.
10/31/2004
Vote
With two days left to go until the election, there is nothing left to be said.
Well, maybe a little.
We have seen how the Bush Administration's inner circle keeps President Bush isolated from the real world, to keep him blissfully ignorant in a bubble of sycophancy.
We have seen how the Bush Administration constructs an alternate reality of Orwellian proportions to avoid facing the real world, to deny or explain away any inconsistency, any failure, any setback.
We have seen how the Bush Administration ignored its own counter-terrorism czar's pre-9/11 pleads for action to be taken against al Qaeda, and even ignored an intelligence briefing barely a month before the attacks, warning of al Qaeda's plans. Afterwards, the Administration politically milked the attack for all it was worth, fought an independent investigation of the attacks every step of the away, and even stonewalled the victims' families in an attempt to cover up their own incompetence.
We have seen how the Bush Administration came into power itching for the opportunity to invade Iraq and "get" Saddam Hussein, then used the 9/11 attacks to play to our fears. We were shamelessly and callously manipulated with lies and distortions about Saddam's phantom weapons arsenal, about his nonexistent role in 9/11 and his barely-there connection with al Qaeda, which those in power still parrot (albeit slightly modified) even today.
We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed aside anything which countered the official ideology. Military officers who said we needed more troops, intelligence analysts who said there was no real evidence of Iraqi WMDs, professional diplomats who warned of the harsh realities of occupying Iraq -- all were ignored and sometimes retaliated against by a neoconservative cadre who listened only to people who agreed with them.
We have seen how the Bush Administration exploited our post-9/11 fears to ram the Patriot Act through Congress, to draft a truly draconian Patriot Act II and to make a good college try at stamping all dissent into the ground.
We have seen how the Bush Administration deliberately lied to Congress and the public about the cost of the Medicare bill, putting forward knowingly false numbers and keeping the true price secret until after it was safely enacted into law.
We have seen how the Bush Administration took the first federal budget surplus in decades and exploded it in an orgy of tax cuts, the overwhelming majority of which went to the wealthiest Americans while giving chump change to most everyone else. We now have half-trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, flushing anything even resembling fiscal responsibility down the toilet.
We have seen how the Bush Administration went out of its way to offend, bully and push around everyone else in the world in the drive to attack Iraq, vaporizing all our post-9/11 goodwill and setting back the cause of good international relations by years if not decades.
We have seen how the Bush Administration hides everything behind an obsessive wall of secrecy, fighting to keep anything and everything hidden from the public even after everyone knows what is being concealed. For exhibit A, one need look no further than Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, which everyone knows allowed energy industry lobbyists literally to write energy policy.
We have seen how the Bush Administration directs no-bid secret sweetheart deals to politically connected companies such as Halliburton and Bechtel.
We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed its "No Child Left Behind" law through Congress, then simply and repeatedly refused to spend the money to make the law a going concern.
We have seen how the Bush Administration relentlessly demonizes gay and lesbian Americans, weaving ghost stories of homosexual hordes somehow "destroying" marriage for the rest of us and backing a Constitutional amendment relegating them to second-class citizenship.
We have seen how the Bush Administration insists loudly and without fail that black is white, that up is down, that the ongoing disaster in Iraq is a great triumph, and that we have al Qaeda on the run when the terrorist network is gaining new recruits every day, and that it's all the media's fault for pointing out their lies.
We have seen how the Bush Administration uses terrorism alerts for political means, to keep the American public good and scared, and thus susceptible to official propaganda.
We have seen how the Bush Administration cuts domestic spending to the bone and beyond to pay for the continuing adventure in Iraq. Homeland security, education, health care, even military pay and veterans' medical benefits are sacrificed.
I could go on and on and on with reasons why we should vote the Bush Administration out of office on Tuesday. (For a fuller list, see One Thousand Reasons and 525 Reasons to Dump Bush. But now it's all up to you.
On Tuesday, get out and vote.
If you believe that George W. Bush is the savior of Christian civilization and will beat back any threat to America, whether or not it's actually real, vote.
If you believe that John Kerry will do a better job at protecting America and at repairing the frayed fabric of our nation, vote.
If you believe that both Bush and Kerry are tools of the same power interests and a real outsider is needed, vote.
Whether you vote Democratic, Republican, Independent, Green, Communist, Socialist, American Tradition, United Fascist Union, United Christian, Prohibition -- heck, even if you vote for the National Barking Spider Resurgence Party, get out and vote.
Remember, if you don't vote, someone else will vote for you. And their interests may not be the same as yours.
Vote!
Well, maybe a little.
We have seen how the Bush Administration's inner circle keeps President Bush isolated from the real world, to keep him blissfully ignorant in a bubble of sycophancy.
We have seen how the Bush Administration constructs an alternate reality of Orwellian proportions to avoid facing the real world, to deny or explain away any inconsistency, any failure, any setback.
We have seen how the Bush Administration ignored its own counter-terrorism czar's pre-9/11 pleads for action to be taken against al Qaeda, and even ignored an intelligence briefing barely a month before the attacks, warning of al Qaeda's plans. Afterwards, the Administration politically milked the attack for all it was worth, fought an independent investigation of the attacks every step of the away, and even stonewalled the victims' families in an attempt to cover up their own incompetence.
We have seen how the Bush Administration came into power itching for the opportunity to invade Iraq and "get" Saddam Hussein, then used the 9/11 attacks to play to our fears. We were shamelessly and callously manipulated with lies and distortions about Saddam's phantom weapons arsenal, about his nonexistent role in 9/11 and his barely-there connection with al Qaeda, which those in power still parrot (albeit slightly modified) even today.
We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed aside anything which countered the official ideology. Military officers who said we needed more troops, intelligence analysts who said there was no real evidence of Iraqi WMDs, professional diplomats who warned of the harsh realities of occupying Iraq -- all were ignored and sometimes retaliated against by a neoconservative cadre who listened only to people who agreed with them.
We have seen how the Bush Administration exploited our post-9/11 fears to ram the Patriot Act through Congress, to draft a truly draconian Patriot Act II and to make a good college try at stamping all dissent into the ground.
We have seen how the Bush Administration deliberately lied to Congress and the public about the cost of the Medicare bill, putting forward knowingly false numbers and keeping the true price secret until after it was safely enacted into law.
We have seen how the Bush Administration took the first federal budget surplus in decades and exploded it in an orgy of tax cuts, the overwhelming majority of which went to the wealthiest Americans while giving chump change to most everyone else. We now have half-trillion dollar deficits as far as the eye can see, flushing anything even resembling fiscal responsibility down the toilet.
We have seen how the Bush Administration went out of its way to offend, bully and push around everyone else in the world in the drive to attack Iraq, vaporizing all our post-9/11 goodwill and setting back the cause of good international relations by years if not decades.
We have seen how the Bush Administration hides everything behind an obsessive wall of secrecy, fighting to keep anything and everything hidden from the public even after everyone knows what is being concealed. For exhibit A, one need look no further than Vice President Cheney's Energy Task Force, which everyone knows allowed energy industry lobbyists literally to write energy policy.
We have seen how the Bush Administration directs no-bid secret sweetheart deals to politically connected companies such as Halliburton and Bechtel.
We have seen how the Bush Administration pushed its "No Child Left Behind" law through Congress, then simply and repeatedly refused to spend the money to make the law a going concern.
We have seen how the Bush Administration relentlessly demonizes gay and lesbian Americans, weaving ghost stories of homosexual hordes somehow "destroying" marriage for the rest of us and backing a Constitutional amendment relegating them to second-class citizenship.
We have seen how the Bush Administration insists loudly and without fail that black is white, that up is down, that the ongoing disaster in Iraq is a great triumph, and that we have al Qaeda on the run when the terrorist network is gaining new recruits every day, and that it's all the media's fault for pointing out their lies.
We have seen how the Bush Administration uses terrorism alerts for political means, to keep the American public good and scared, and thus susceptible to official propaganda.
We have seen how the Bush Administration cuts domestic spending to the bone and beyond to pay for the continuing adventure in Iraq. Homeland security, education, health care, even military pay and veterans' medical benefits are sacrificed.
I could go on and on and on with reasons why we should vote the Bush Administration out of office on Tuesday. (For a fuller list, see One Thousand Reasons and 525 Reasons to Dump Bush. But now it's all up to you.
On Tuesday, get out and vote.
If you believe that George W. Bush is the savior of Christian civilization and will beat back any threat to America, whether or not it's actually real, vote.
If you believe that John Kerry will do a better job at protecting America and at repairing the frayed fabric of our nation, vote.
If you believe that both Bush and Kerry are tools of the same power interests and a real outsider is needed, vote.
Whether you vote Democratic, Republican, Independent, Green, Communist, Socialist, American Tradition, United Fascist Union, United Christian, Prohibition -- heck, even if you vote for the National Barking Spider Resurgence Party, get out and vote.
Remember, if you don't vote, someone else will vote for you. And their interests may not be the same as yours.
Vote!
10/28/2004
Um...What?
"A political candidate who jumps to conclusions without knowing the facts is not a person you want as your Commander-in-Chief."
-- President Bush at a Pennsylvania rally, referring to Democratic criticism over American troops failing to secure hundreds of tons of high explosives in Iraq -- evidently hoping no one will notice that jumping to conclusions is standard operating procedure in his Administration
-- President Bush at a Pennsylvania rally, referring to Democratic criticism over American troops failing to secure hundreds of tons of high explosives in Iraq -- evidently hoping no one will notice that jumping to conclusions is standard operating procedure in his Administration
Curse of the Bambino, R.I.P.
Eighty-six years.
Eighty-six years.
EIGHTY-SIX YEARS!
Eighty-six years ago in 1918, American soldiers were marching across Europe in World War I. A Ford Model T pickup truck cost $600. And the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.
Four times since that season, in 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986, the Sox made it to the Series only to lose it all. True fans blamed not the team, but the long-dead Babe Ruth, whom legend says put a curse on the team after he was sold to the New York Yankees in 1919. The Curse of the Bambino was rolled out every time the Sox lost another heartbreaker.
Well, tonight that curse is history. Eighty-six years after they last won the World Series, the Boston Red Sox are back on top of baseball. They won the American League pennant in a wild come-from-behind playoff series against their hated rivals, the Yankees, then dealt with the St. Louis Cardinals in four straight games.
As the party to end all parties fills the streets of New England, victory on the diamond has rarely been sweeter.
Here's to you, Boston. May we not have to wait eighty-six years for the next one.
Eighty-six years.
EIGHTY-SIX YEARS!
Eighty-six years ago in 1918, American soldiers were marching across Europe in World War I. A Ford Model T pickup truck cost $600. And the Boston Red Sox won the World Series.
Four times since that season, in 1946, 1967, 1975 and 1986, the Sox made it to the Series only to lose it all. True fans blamed not the team, but the long-dead Babe Ruth, whom legend says put a curse on the team after he was sold to the New York Yankees in 1919. The Curse of the Bambino was rolled out every time the Sox lost another heartbreaker.
Well, tonight that curse is history. Eighty-six years after they last won the World Series, the Boston Red Sox are back on top of baseball. They won the American League pennant in a wild come-from-behind playoff series against their hated rivals, the Yankees, then dealt with the St. Louis Cardinals in four straight games.
As the party to end all parties fills the streets of New England, victory on the diamond has rarely been sweeter.
Here's to you, Boston. May we not have to wait eighty-six years for the next one.
10/16/2004
Shocked, Shocked
During Wednesday night's debate, when asked if "homosexuality is a choice," President Bush replied by once again supporting a constitutional amendment preventing gays from marrying and somehow threatening the marriages of everyone else.
When it was his turn, John Kerry mentioned that Dick Cheney's daughter is gay: "We're all God's children...and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice."
Now, everyone knows Mary Cheney is gay. Not only is this not a secret, but it's been quite openly discussed this year, by her father among others. But you'd never guess it from Republican reaction. The White House and the Bush campaign (which are, let's face it, one and the same), acted like Kerry had "outed" her. Either that, or he had said he wanted to see her doing the Midnight Lesbo Show at a local strip joint.
"Now, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more," Lynne Cheney said after the debate, "and the only thing I could conclude is this is not a good man. This is not a good man. And of course, I am speaking as a mom and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man -- what a cheap and tawdry political trick." The sense of outrage was finely tuned, and was flogged by the GOP's media allies from Rush Limbaugh to Fox News as a "smear."
Unfortunately for the Republicans, their outrage was as false as it was palpable. I don't recall hearing any such flatulence from the right when GOP pundit and Illinois senatorial candidate Alan Keyes said a few weeks back that the VP's daughter was a sinner who practiced "selfish hedonism." Nor were the Cheneys up in arms when Congressional Republicans took to the House and Senate floor earlier this year to flog the anti-gay-marriage amendment, trying to deny gay and lesbian Americans first-class citizenship by denying them the same marriage rights the rest of us take for granted. Or when Republican candidates even now use the issue as a political wedge to bash their Democratic opponents. They even remained silent when the Bush Administration announced it would ignore the Clinton Administration's addition of sexual orientation to the federal government's anti-discrimination rules.
John Kerry said Dick Cheney's daughter is gay. Horrors! Doesn't he realize that Mary Cheney is solely the Republicans' to exploit, and he is not allowed to horn in on their act? Another interpretation is that the Bush campaign was playing to its evangelical Christian base by pretending that being gay is terrible and shameful, and referring to an openly gay person as being gay is a horrible insult, one which must be repudiated loudly and repeatedly.
The GOP's outrage over this fake "smear" is so blatantly phony as to make P.T. Barnum cringe. Then again, since they have no real accomplishments to tout, they've got to run on something. After all, a manufactured incident is better than nothing at all.
When it was his turn, John Kerry mentioned that Dick Cheney's daughter is gay: "We're all God's children...and I think if you were to talk to Dick Cheney's daughter, who is a lesbian, she would tell you that she's being who she was, she's being who she was born as. I think if you talk to anybody, it's not choice."
Now, everyone knows Mary Cheney is gay. Not only is this not a secret, but it's been quite openly discussed this year, by her father among others. But you'd never guess it from Republican reaction. The White House and the Bush campaign (which are, let's face it, one and the same), acted like Kerry had "outed" her. Either that, or he had said he wanted to see her doing the Midnight Lesbo Show at a local strip joint.
"Now, I did have a chance to assess John Kerry once more," Lynne Cheney said after the debate, "and the only thing I could conclude is this is not a good man. This is not a good man. And of course, I am speaking as a mom and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man -- what a cheap and tawdry political trick." The sense of outrage was finely tuned, and was flogged by the GOP's media allies from Rush Limbaugh to Fox News as a "smear."
Unfortunately for the Republicans, their outrage was as false as it was palpable. I don't recall hearing any such flatulence from the right when GOP pundit and Illinois senatorial candidate Alan Keyes said a few weeks back that the VP's daughter was a sinner who practiced "selfish hedonism." Nor were the Cheneys up in arms when Congressional Republicans took to the House and Senate floor earlier this year to flog the anti-gay-marriage amendment, trying to deny gay and lesbian Americans first-class citizenship by denying them the same marriage rights the rest of us take for granted. Or when Republican candidates even now use the issue as a political wedge to bash their Democratic opponents. They even remained silent when the Bush Administration announced it would ignore the Clinton Administration's addition of sexual orientation to the federal government's anti-discrimination rules.
John Kerry said Dick Cheney's daughter is gay. Horrors! Doesn't he realize that Mary Cheney is solely the Republicans' to exploit, and he is not allowed to horn in on their act? Another interpretation is that the Bush campaign was playing to its evangelical Christian base by pretending that being gay is terrible and shameful, and referring to an openly gay person as being gay is a horrible insult, one which must be repudiated loudly and repeatedly.
The GOP's outrage over this fake "smear" is so blatantly phony as to make P.T. Barnum cringe. Then again, since they have no real accomplishments to tout, they've got to run on something. After all, a manufactured incident is better than nothing at all.
10/12/2004
Death of a Superman
Christopher Reeve, who died yesterday at 52, refused to accept what fate dealt him. After becoming synonymous in the public mind with the Man of Steel, having played the last son of Krypton in the four Superman films of the late 1970s and 1980s, Reeve appeared in a number of Hollywood and TV films. But he generally never outflew his caped character.
Until, that is, he fell from a horse in May 1995, snapping his spinal cord. Paralyzed from the neck down, he seemed condemned to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
But Reeve did not see it as a condemnation, rather as a challenge. While he never walked again, he put himself through years of physical therapy and saw it as a major triumph when he was able to move a finger five years after the accident.
Nor did he let his condition stunt his creative life. He returned to acting, appearing in a number of TV films and series, including "The Practice," the super-teen "Smallville" and a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. He even took the director's (wheel)chair to helm several TV productions, including 1997's "In the Gloaming."
He and his wife opened the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center in New Jersey, dedicated to helping other paralytics realize their potential and go on living rather than seeing their condition as a sort of living death. When the issue of stem cell research took the spotlight, with its potential for therapy and possibly even cure for paralysis and other conditions, Reeve publicly criticized President Bush for blocking all but a trickle of federally-funded research.
He served as a source of inspiration and hope for people around the world living with paralysis and other medical conditions, teaching them that being unable to move does not mean they are unable to live. Christopher Reeve might not have actually soared through the clouds as he did on the silver screen, but he was a Man of Steel nonetheless. He will be sorely missed.
Until, that is, he fell from a horse in May 1995, snapping his spinal cord. Paralyzed from the neck down, he seemed condemned to spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair.
But Reeve did not see it as a condemnation, rather as a challenge. While he never walked again, he put himself through years of physical therapy and saw it as a major triumph when he was able to move a finger five years after the accident.
Nor did he let his condition stunt his creative life. He returned to acting, appearing in a number of TV films and series, including "The Practice," the super-teen "Smallville" and a remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window. He even took the director's (wheel)chair to helm several TV productions, including 1997's "In the Gloaming."
He and his wife opened the Christopher and Dana Reeve Paralysis Resource Center in New Jersey, dedicated to helping other paralytics realize their potential and go on living rather than seeing their condition as a sort of living death. When the issue of stem cell research took the spotlight, with its potential for therapy and possibly even cure for paralysis and other conditions, Reeve publicly criticized President Bush for blocking all but a trickle of federally-funded research.
He served as a source of inspiration and hope for people around the world living with paralysis and other medical conditions, teaching them that being unable to move does not mean they are unable to live. Christopher Reeve might not have actually soared through the clouds as he did on the silver screen, but he was a Man of Steel nonetheless. He will be sorely missed.
10/07/2004
We Told You So
Just in time for "The Progressive Perspective" to come back on the air from our new world headquarters on the East Coast, comes the final crumbling of President Bush's excuses for invading and occupying Iraq without provocation.
Way back in 2002 and early 2003, Hans Blix, the United Nations’ head weapons inspector, said Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
After the fall of Baghdad, David Kay, the White House’s handpicked weapons-hunter, reported that “we were all wrong” and said there were no weapons.
And now Charles Duelfer, Kay’s replacement, has made his report to Congress. In it, he reports that -- guess what? -- Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
Specifically, that were no such weapons when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, having all been destroyed after the first Gulf War in 1991. That while Saddam did retain the capacity to rebuild a WMD arsenal, it was never maintained. That any remaining programs were at best dormant. And that no attempts to restart weapons programs were conducted after the UN inspectors left in 1998.
When President Bush and his White House cadre of neoconservatives launched their propaganda campaign back in 2002 to scare the American people into backing an invasion, Reason #1 was Saddam's supposed WMD arsenal. We were terrified with tales of unmanned aerial drones spraying anthrax over our cities. We were horrified by scenarios of Saddam gift-wrapping a nuclear weapon and presenting it to Osama bin Laden. And we were cowed into silence by the constant drumbeat of statements telling us we were either with the President or we were with "the evildoers."
We were so frightened by the what-ifs, the coulds, the possiblies, that we stampeded to wave the flag and to tell the Administration, "Yes! Get him before he can get us!"
Of course, he couldn't "get us." It became apparent within days of Baghdad's fall, when people started to realize that no WMD had been found or even used. And as the weeks and months rolled on, when nothing at all was found, the true believers began to panic. "You obviously want Saddam back in power!" they said when the straightforward was pointed out to them, evidently forgetting that the ends do not justify the means.
With this final debunking of the prime invasion rationale, one might expect President Bush to acknowledge it, if only by a little bit.
Of course not.
"There was a risk -- a real risk -- that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," Bush said at a Pennsylvania rally. "In the world after September 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."
We now know what was said all along -- that these weapons did not exist.
Indeed, there is a far greater risk that such weapons would be given to terrorist groups by Iran or North Korea, or built with nuclear material smuggled out of Russia. But we see no moves whatsoever to confront Tehran or Pyongyang with the same ferocity that was used against Baghdad. And in a truly idiotic move, the Bush Administration has actually cut spending on helping Russia secure nuclear material and keeping it out of the wrong hands.
In his debate with John Kerry last week, Bush came off as confused and defensive when asked why he did not subject Iran or North Korea to the same "shock and awe" treatment he lavished on Iraq. "The IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] is involved," he said. "There's a special protocol recently been passed that allows for instant inspections."
This after publicly sneering at the IAEA and whole concept of inspections when it pointed out before the Iraq invasion that Saddam did not possess nuclear weapons.
But it was never really about 9/11 at all. Months ago, it was revealed by various Administration insiders that Bush had demanded the invasion of Iraq long before 9/11, that he had used the terrorist attacks to scare us into supporting his plans no matter what.
George W. Bush and his inner circle wanted to invade Iraq. They had a variety of reasons, from getting the oil to "finishing the job" to revenge against the man who "tried to kill [Bush's] daddy." They didn't care whether their reasons were good or even rational.
We now see the price we have paid. Our national credibility is shattered. We have rapidly gone from being the most respected nation in the world to being one of the most hated and feared. We have poured well over $100 billion into the Iraq quagmire, and more than 1,000 Americans have given their lives to -- what?
Did they die defending America from a raving madman? No, because according to Duelfer, Saddam had no intention of taking on the United States and had nothing to do it with anyway.
Did they die to spread democracy in the Middle East? Not likely, with handpicked Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi saying that elections, if held at all, will be held in only part of the country, and with Washington backing him up.
Did they die to liberate the Iraqi people from a dictator? Yes, but our welcome was rapidly worn out and this was never realized back at the White House.
Bush has finally been reduced to saying that Saddam was an "evildoer," a bad man. Sorry, but that just isn't a good reason for throwing away lives, money and our national reputation.
At this point, with less than a month before the election and the Bush campaign still unable to come up with a compelling reason, I guess we'll never hear one.
Way back in 2002 and early 2003, Hans Blix, the United Nations’ head weapons inspector, said Saddam Hussein’s Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
After the fall of Baghdad, David Kay, the White House’s handpicked weapons-hunter, reported that “we were all wrong” and said there were no weapons.
And now Charles Duelfer, Kay’s replacement, has made his report to Congress. In it, he reports that -- guess what? -- Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction.
Specifically, that were no such weapons when the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, having all been destroyed after the first Gulf War in 1991. That while Saddam did retain the capacity to rebuild a WMD arsenal, it was never maintained. That any remaining programs were at best dormant. And that no attempts to restart weapons programs were conducted after the UN inspectors left in 1998.
When President Bush and his White House cadre of neoconservatives launched their propaganda campaign back in 2002 to scare the American people into backing an invasion, Reason #1 was Saddam's supposed WMD arsenal. We were terrified with tales of unmanned aerial drones spraying anthrax over our cities. We were horrified by scenarios of Saddam gift-wrapping a nuclear weapon and presenting it to Osama bin Laden. And we were cowed into silence by the constant drumbeat of statements telling us we were either with the President or we were with "the evildoers."
We were so frightened by the what-ifs, the coulds, the possiblies, that we stampeded to wave the flag and to tell the Administration, "Yes! Get him before he can get us!"
Of course, he couldn't "get us." It became apparent within days of Baghdad's fall, when people started to realize that no WMD had been found or even used. And as the weeks and months rolled on, when nothing at all was found, the true believers began to panic. "You obviously want Saddam back in power!" they said when the straightforward was pointed out to them, evidently forgetting that the ends do not justify the means.
With this final debunking of the prime invasion rationale, one might expect President Bush to acknowledge it, if only by a little bit.
Of course not.
"There was a risk -- a real risk -- that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks," Bush said at a Pennsylvania rally. "In the world after September 11th, that was a risk we could not afford to take."
We now know what was said all along -- that these weapons did not exist.
Indeed, there is a far greater risk that such weapons would be given to terrorist groups by Iran or North Korea, or built with nuclear material smuggled out of Russia. But we see no moves whatsoever to confront Tehran or Pyongyang with the same ferocity that was used against Baghdad. And in a truly idiotic move, the Bush Administration has actually cut spending on helping Russia secure nuclear material and keeping it out of the wrong hands.
In his debate with John Kerry last week, Bush came off as confused and defensive when asked why he did not subject Iran or North Korea to the same "shock and awe" treatment he lavished on Iraq. "The IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] is involved," he said. "There's a special protocol recently been passed that allows for instant inspections."
This after publicly sneering at the IAEA and whole concept of inspections when it pointed out before the Iraq invasion that Saddam did not possess nuclear weapons.
But it was never really about 9/11 at all. Months ago, it was revealed by various Administration insiders that Bush had demanded the invasion of Iraq long before 9/11, that he had used the terrorist attacks to scare us into supporting his plans no matter what.
George W. Bush and his inner circle wanted to invade Iraq. They had a variety of reasons, from getting the oil to "finishing the job" to revenge against the man who "tried to kill [Bush's] daddy." They didn't care whether their reasons were good or even rational.
We now see the price we have paid. Our national credibility is shattered. We have rapidly gone from being the most respected nation in the world to being one of the most hated and feared. We have poured well over $100 billion into the Iraq quagmire, and more than 1,000 Americans have given their lives to -- what?
Did they die defending America from a raving madman? No, because according to Duelfer, Saddam had no intention of taking on the United States and had nothing to do it with anyway.
Did they die to spread democracy in the Middle East? Not likely, with handpicked Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi saying that elections, if held at all, will be held in only part of the country, and with Washington backing him up.
Did they die to liberate the Iraqi people from a dictator? Yes, but our welcome was rapidly worn out and this was never realized back at the White House.
Bush has finally been reduced to saying that Saddam was an "evildoer," a bad man. Sorry, but that just isn't a good reason for throwing away lives, money and our national reputation.
At this point, with less than a month before the election and the Bush campaign still unable to come up with a compelling reason, I guess we'll never hear one.
9/15/2004
Going on Hiatus
"The Progressive Perspective" will be off the air for a few weeks for a cross-country relocation.
In the meantime, here are some other progressive news and opinion sites lest you feel the urge to turn to (gasp!) Rush Limbaugh:
Never stop thinking for yourself, and see you in a few weeks!
In the meantime, here are some other progressive news and opinion sites lest you feel the urge to turn to (gasp!) Rush Limbaugh:
Never stop thinking for yourself, and see you in a few weeks!
9/10/2004
What I Really Meant To Say Was...
Earlier this week, Vice President Cheney made headlines by saying that we had better "make the right choice" on Election Day, "because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again." In other words, vote Republican or else.
This did not go over well with many people, and quite a few comments were made on how Cheney apparently cannot gain votes through reasoned discourse or pointing to the Bush Administration's first-term accomplishments (no, wait, there aren't any), so he has to resort to fear and threats instead.
The Vice President has now been let out of his secure undisclosed location to do some damage control, with the first stop being an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer after a rally in Ohio. Surprise, surprise -- he now says he didn't really mean it.
"I did not say if [John] Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack," Cheney said. "Whoever is elected president has to anticipate more attacks. My point was the question before us is: Will we have the most effective policy in place to deal with that threat? George Bush will pursue a more effective policy than John Kerry."
He was the voice of reason itself and it was a good college try at spin. But we all know he meant exactly what he said. He really was deadly serious in saying we would face more and worse terrorist attacks should we actually take democracy seriously and vote the "wrong" way on November 2.
Cheney's arrogance is truly breathtaking. Imagine the gall required for someone to actually get up and say that if we dare vote for someone else, we will pay the price. On the other hand, we don't have to imagine it. We see it every time he insists that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were bosom buddies, as he did yet again at yesterday's rally, despite the fact that this has been debunked more times than can be counted, most recently and definitively by the 9/11 commission's final report.
But he is hardly alone in continuing to foist this deception off on the American people. Hardly a campaign speech goes by, whether it's from President Bush or someone else, that rhetorically links the two very separate groups. And it's working, too -- according to a Newsweek poll conducted late last week, 42% of Americans still believe that Saddam was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. (This is down from the 69% of Americans so hoodwinked a year ago, but that's still quite a lot of indoctrinated people.)
Which means that no matter what Cheney says to get re-elected, regardless of its validity, honesty or even sanity, he fits right in with the rest of the crowd.
This did not go over well with many people, and quite a few comments were made on how Cheney apparently cannot gain votes through reasoned discourse or pointing to the Bush Administration's first-term accomplishments (no, wait, there aren't any), so he has to resort to fear and threats instead.
The Vice President has now been let out of his secure undisclosed location to do some damage control, with the first stop being an interview with the Cincinnati Enquirer after a rally in Ohio. Surprise, surprise -- he now says he didn't really mean it.
"I did not say if [John] Kerry is elected, we will be hit by a terrorist attack," Cheney said. "Whoever is elected president has to anticipate more attacks. My point was the question before us is: Will we have the most effective policy in place to deal with that threat? George Bush will pursue a more effective policy than John Kerry."
He was the voice of reason itself and it was a good college try at spin. But we all know he meant exactly what he said. He really was deadly serious in saying we would face more and worse terrorist attacks should we actually take democracy seriously and vote the "wrong" way on November 2.
Cheney's arrogance is truly breathtaking. Imagine the gall required for someone to actually get up and say that if we dare vote for someone else, we will pay the price. On the other hand, we don't have to imagine it. We see it every time he insists that Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda were bosom buddies, as he did yet again at yesterday's rally, despite the fact that this has been debunked more times than can be counted, most recently and definitively by the 9/11 commission's final report.
But he is hardly alone in continuing to foist this deception off on the American people. Hardly a campaign speech goes by, whether it's from President Bush or someone else, that rhetorically links the two very separate groups. And it's working, too -- according to a Newsweek poll conducted late last week, 42% of Americans still believe that Saddam was directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. (This is down from the 69% of Americans so hoodwinked a year ago, but that's still quite a lot of indoctrinated people.)
Which means that no matter what Cheney says to get re-elected, regardless of its validity, honesty or even sanity, he fits right in with the rest of the crowd.
9/09/2004
Vote Republican...Or Else
Knowing they have no real successes to point to, the GOP has rapidly sunk into the gutter, resorting to name-calling and similarly juvenile tactics. For example, one need merely look at Zell Miller's rambling attack on all Democrats as would-be traitors. Not to mention the allegedly independent Republican merchandise, from the "10 Out Of 10 Terrorists Agree: Anybody But Bush" bumper stickers to the "John Kerry: Osama's Choice" buttons.
But even by these low standards, Vice President Cheney's latest comment raised eyebrows.
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice," Cheney said at a rally in Des Moines. "Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."
So let me get this straight: if we vote for John Kerry, al Qaeda will bomb Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, and Disneyland.
But if we vote for George W. Bush, we'll be safe.
It sounds like something out of a gangster movie. I can just imagine some big guy wearing a suit bulging at the armpit from a barely-concealed .45, muscling his way into the voting booth and growling, "Youse know what youse gotta do, right? Just vote duh right way and nobody gets hoit. After all, youse would hate for somet'in' bad to happen, right?"
Does Cheney really believe that Osama bin Laden (remember him?) is quaking in his mountain cave at the thought of a Bush re-election? Why should he? Remember that Bush all but abandoned the hunt for him a few months after 9/11, and indeed handed him a gold-plated recruiting poster by invading and occupying Iraq.
One would think that bin Laden would be praying for Bush to win. After all, John Kerry might actually take this War on Terror stuff seriously and go after the guys who really hit us that awful September morning. But if Bush wins, bin Laden can be assured of four more years of incompetent bumbling and attacking the wrong people.
Somewhere, Joe McCarthy is smiling. Rarely has a candidate so blatantly and shamelessly threatened people with the consequences of taking democracy seriously. Cheney might as well walk around holding a sign saying, "Vote Republican...Or Else!"
Cheney's remarks show just how desperate the Bush campaign has become to win at any cost. But even more than being simply dumb, trying to intimidate us into voting a certain way is, as Democratic VP candidate John Edwards rightly pointed out, un-American.
If Cheney cannot win votes other than by bullying us with the promise of devastating attacks "if we make the wrong choice," he does not deserve to win this or any other election. It's so simple, even he can understand it.
But even by these low standards, Vice President Cheney's latest comment raised eyebrows.
"It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on November 2nd, we make the right choice," Cheney said at a rally in Des Moines. "Because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States."
So let me get this straight: if we vote for John Kerry, al Qaeda will bomb Wall Street, the Statue of Liberty, and Disneyland.
But if we vote for George W. Bush, we'll be safe.
It sounds like something out of a gangster movie. I can just imagine some big guy wearing a suit bulging at the armpit from a barely-concealed .45, muscling his way into the voting booth and growling, "Youse know what youse gotta do, right? Just vote duh right way and nobody gets hoit. After all, youse would hate for somet'in' bad to happen, right?"
Does Cheney really believe that Osama bin Laden (remember him?) is quaking in his mountain cave at the thought of a Bush re-election? Why should he? Remember that Bush all but abandoned the hunt for him a few months after 9/11, and indeed handed him a gold-plated recruiting poster by invading and occupying Iraq.
One would think that bin Laden would be praying for Bush to win. After all, John Kerry might actually take this War on Terror stuff seriously and go after the guys who really hit us that awful September morning. But if Bush wins, bin Laden can be assured of four more years of incompetent bumbling and attacking the wrong people.
Somewhere, Joe McCarthy is smiling. Rarely has a candidate so blatantly and shamelessly threatened people with the consequences of taking democracy seriously. Cheney might as well walk around holding a sign saying, "Vote Republican...Or Else!"
Cheney's remarks show just how desperate the Bush campaign has become to win at any cost. But even more than being simply dumb, trying to intimidate us into voting a certain way is, as Democratic VP candidate John Edwards rightly pointed out, un-American.
If Cheney cannot win votes other than by bullying us with the promise of devastating attacks "if we make the wrong choice," he does not deserve to win this or any other election. It's so simple, even he can understand it.
9/08/2004
One Thousand
Many reasons have been advanced as to just why we all but abandoned the hunt for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to pursue our splendid little war in Iraq. Some say we attacked to satisfy George W. Bush's personal quest for revenge against the man who "tried to kill my daddy." Others cite the imperial fantasies of the Administration neoconservatives, or the American oil industry's thirst for Iraq's oil reserves, or other reasons, or all of the above.
Some even believe the official White House reason. Never mind that the reason keeps changing on an almost daily basis, mutating from Saddam Hussein's vast weapons-of-mass-destruction arsenal to his highly advanced weapons programs to his could-possibly-be-a-threat-someday-if-the-stars-are-aligned-properly programs, to his "capability" of having such programs. There was Saddam's hidden hand behind 9/11, which became his propensity for giving WMD to terrorists, which became an undefined "relationship" with al Qaeda. There was also his undeniably brutal dictatorship, but that was just peachy with us during his charnel-house war with Iran back in the 1980s. The constantly shifting justifications seem to have finally centered more or less on the charge that Saddam was a very bad man.
But whatever reason you choose, from saving humanity to a new Crusade for the 21st century, there can be little doubt that what was grandly named Operation Iraqi Freedom has become a nightmare in the desert. We have earned the hatred of the world, have poured more than $135 billion into the sand (just think of what we could have accomplished with that money here at home!), and have now sent our one-thousandth American to his death there.
Sixteen months and more than 800 lives ago, President Bush (who went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War and escaped the consequences thanks to his family connections) pulled off his little Top Gun stunt by landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. He declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," in a statement that surely ranks right up there as one of the most blissfully ignorant things ever said.
Since then, we have watched in numb horror as the bodies piled up and the casualty lists grew longer. We were told that the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein would end the fighting. Then we were told that Saddam's capture would end the fighting. Then we were told that the "transfer of sovereignty" to a handpicked group of Iraqis would end the fighting. None of them turned out as planned. The fighting goes on, and the corpses continue to come home.
And every time a family back home got the news no family should ever receive, we were told that their sacrifice was heroic, that their sons and daughters died to win the War on Terror™, regardless of the fact that the Bush Administration discarded it to pursue their little Mesopotamian vendetta.
We do not yet know just who became casualty #1000, but we do know several things about him.
We know that his remains will land at Dover Air Force Base in the middle of the night, stealthily brought back into the country by a military convinced that the sight of our soldiers returning in flag-draped coffins must be hidden from the American people lest people ask why they had to die in the first place.
We know that Bush will not go to his funeral, just as he has refused to attend the funerals of any of the young men and women who went to Iraq to die at his command.
And we know that he will not be the last to die, as George W. Bush is inexorably committed to "staying the course." Never mind the fact that there is no course to stay, there is only a perpetual holding action with no strategy, no end and increasingly no purpose.
Some may say that I am allowing my anger to leak through as I write these words. You're right, I am angry.
I am angry at the uncaring waste of American and Iraqi life. I am angry at those who never themselves fought in a war but eagerly send others to their deaths on an ideological whim while brushing off the warnings of the veterans who know what combat is like. I am angry at those who praise noble sacrifice with one hand and cut service pay and medical benefits with the other. I am angry at everyone who sees our men and women in uniform not as individual people with families and hopes and dreams, but as faceless numbers to be thrown away.
And I am angry at the puppet masters in power who seem to believe that endlessly telling the same lies over and over again will magically transform them into truths.
Voting George W. Bush and his crowd of ideologues out of power on November 2 will not bring back the people who have died because of their negligence and incompetence. But it will ensure that no one else has to follow in their grim footsteps.
Some even believe the official White House reason. Never mind that the reason keeps changing on an almost daily basis, mutating from Saddam Hussein's vast weapons-of-mass-destruction arsenal to his highly advanced weapons programs to his could-possibly-be-a-threat-someday-if-the-stars-are-aligned-properly programs, to his "capability" of having such programs. There was Saddam's hidden hand behind 9/11, which became his propensity for giving WMD to terrorists, which became an undefined "relationship" with al Qaeda. There was also his undeniably brutal dictatorship, but that was just peachy with us during his charnel-house war with Iran back in the 1980s. The constantly shifting justifications seem to have finally centered more or less on the charge that Saddam was a very bad man.
But whatever reason you choose, from saving humanity to a new Crusade for the 21st century, there can be little doubt that what was grandly named Operation Iraqi Freedom has become a nightmare in the desert. We have earned the hatred of the world, have poured more than $135 billion into the sand (just think of what we could have accomplished with that money here at home!), and have now sent our one-thousandth American to his death there.
Sixteen months and more than 800 lives ago, President Bush (who went AWOL from the Texas Air National Guard during the Vietnam War and escaped the consequences thanks to his family connections) pulled off his little Top Gun stunt by landing on the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln. He declared that "major combat operations in Iraq have ended," in a statement that surely ranks right up there as one of the most blissfully ignorant things ever said.
Since then, we have watched in numb horror as the bodies piled up and the casualty lists grew longer. We were told that the killing of Uday and Qusay Hussein would end the fighting. Then we were told that Saddam's capture would end the fighting. Then we were told that the "transfer of sovereignty" to a handpicked group of Iraqis would end the fighting. None of them turned out as planned. The fighting goes on, and the corpses continue to come home.
And every time a family back home got the news no family should ever receive, we were told that their sacrifice was heroic, that their sons and daughters died to win the War on Terror™, regardless of the fact that the Bush Administration discarded it to pursue their little Mesopotamian vendetta.
We do not yet know just who became casualty #1000, but we do know several things about him.
We know that his remains will land at Dover Air Force Base in the middle of the night, stealthily brought back into the country by a military convinced that the sight of our soldiers returning in flag-draped coffins must be hidden from the American people lest people ask why they had to die in the first place.
We know that Bush will not go to his funeral, just as he has refused to attend the funerals of any of the young men and women who went to Iraq to die at his command.
And we know that he will not be the last to die, as George W. Bush is inexorably committed to "staying the course." Never mind the fact that there is no course to stay, there is only a perpetual holding action with no strategy, no end and increasingly no purpose.
Some may say that I am allowing my anger to leak through as I write these words. You're right, I am angry.
I am angry at the uncaring waste of American and Iraqi life. I am angry at those who never themselves fought in a war but eagerly send others to their deaths on an ideological whim while brushing off the warnings of the veterans who know what combat is like. I am angry at those who praise noble sacrifice with one hand and cut service pay and medical benefits with the other. I am angry at everyone who sees our men and women in uniform not as individual people with families and hopes and dreams, but as faceless numbers to be thrown away.
And I am angry at the puppet masters in power who seem to believe that endlessly telling the same lies over and over again will magically transform them into truths.
Voting George W. Bush and his crowd of ideologues out of power on November 2 will not bring back the people who have died because of their negligence and incompetence. But it will ensure that no one else has to follow in their grim footsteps.
9/07/2004
Watch What I Say, Not What I Do
It made for great theater. In his acceptance speech at the Republican convention, President Bush set a markedly different tone than the red-meat rhetoric previously on display from other speakers. Unlike Zell Miller and others, he did not all but accuse the Democratic Party of treason en masse for daring to take democracy seriously and run a candidate in this year's election.
No, the Bush on display was a return to the "compassionate conservative" language of the candidate of old, before the 2000 election was safely in the bag and all that nonsense could go into the trash can. He attempted to make us forget the swaggering, the boasting, the bullying, and reassure us that he really did care.
"I believe we have a moral responsibility to honor America's seniors," Bush said to loud applause, "so I brought Republicans and Democrats together to strengthen Medicare. Now seniors are getting immediate help buying medicine. Soon every senior will be able to get prescription drug coverage, and nothing will hold us back."
Of course, he did not mention that the bill which he so enthusiastically signed into law actually barred Medicare from negotiating volume discounts from pharmaceutical companies as can the VA health system, Medicaid, large insurance plans, and other customers. Nor did he mention that in anticipation of having to give senior consumers discounts on their medications, a number of pharmaceutical firms actually jacked up the prices on their products, ensuring that their profit margins would remain sacrosanct.
Putting such pesky facts aside, the speech did sound good. But the day after so proudly touting this wonderful acheivement, the Bush Administration announced a 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums, from $66.60 a month to $78.20. The very next day. And right before a three-day weekend. Even given the White House's propensity for burying bad news on a Friday or a weekend when nobody will pay attention, that really takes large brass ones.
To put this in perspective, Social Security benefits, upon which many seniors depend to make their premium payments, are increasing by only 3 percent this year.
The Republicans apparently think they can pull a fast one over on Americans by splashily spouting feel-good oratory one day and then quietly delivering the bad news the next day. Will Americans let them get away with it?
No, the Bush on display was a return to the "compassionate conservative" language of the candidate of old, before the 2000 election was safely in the bag and all that nonsense could go into the trash can. He attempted to make us forget the swaggering, the boasting, the bullying, and reassure us that he really did care.
"I believe we have a moral responsibility to honor America's seniors," Bush said to loud applause, "so I brought Republicans and Democrats together to strengthen Medicare. Now seniors are getting immediate help buying medicine. Soon every senior will be able to get prescription drug coverage, and nothing will hold us back."
Of course, he did not mention that the bill which he so enthusiastically signed into law actually barred Medicare from negotiating volume discounts from pharmaceutical companies as can the VA health system, Medicaid, large insurance plans, and other customers. Nor did he mention that in anticipation of having to give senior consumers discounts on their medications, a number of pharmaceutical firms actually jacked up the prices on their products, ensuring that their profit margins would remain sacrosanct.
Putting such pesky facts aside, the speech did sound good. But the day after so proudly touting this wonderful acheivement, the Bush Administration announced a 17 percent increase in Medicare premiums, from $66.60 a month to $78.20. The very next day. And right before a three-day weekend. Even given the White House's propensity for burying bad news on a Friday or a weekend when nobody will pay attention, that really takes large brass ones.
To put this in perspective, Social Security benefits, upon which many seniors depend to make their premium payments, are increasing by only 3 percent this year.
The Republicans apparently think they can pull a fast one over on Americans by splashily spouting feel-good oratory one day and then quietly delivering the bad news the next day. Will Americans let them get away with it?
9/02/2004
The Gloves Come Off
It was like Old Home Night at the GOP convention yesterday. All this wishy-washy "kinder and gentler" nonsense went right out the window, and top Republican officials got down to what they do best -- slash-and-burn attacks.
In his remarkably ugly keynote speech, Democratic (in name only) Senator Zell Miller wistfully recalled the good old days of the 1940 election, when Wendell Wilkie refused to campaign effectively against FDR on security issues, then harshly attacked today's Democrats for not having the same willingness to roll over and play dead.
"While young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan," Miller thundered righteously, "our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief."
No, it's being torn apart because a lot of people are rather unhappy that our Commander in Chief sent young Americans to die in the sands of Iraq under false pretenses and with no postwar planning other than wishful thinking. It's being made weaker because the rest of the world is isolating us to stew in our own juices, seeing us as a power-mad bully who would rather push other countries around than work with them to fight al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups.
The Democrats don't have to do all that. President Bush is doing it very nicely all by himself.
Referring to (unspecified) comments from Democratic leaders, Miller growled that "nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators." Heck, he doesn't have to hear that from Democrats, or even from Americans. All he has to do is listen to the officially liberated people of Iraq, who see us very much as occupiers and want us out. For that matter, he can listen to none other than George W. Bush himself, who said in April that Iraqis are "not happy they're occupied. I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either."
Oh yes, and John Kerry "can only encourage our enemies" by actually thinking about various possible courses of action instead of seizing on one and never deviating from it no matter how disastrous the results.
(This came after President Bush of all people caused a minor stir by saying the War on Terror can never be won, only to be smacked around by his handlers and sent to grovel on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, saying that he didn't really mean it.)
He all but accused the Democrats of treason. How dare they field a candidate for President? Don't they know there's a war on? (He seems to have forgotten that we have a little thing in America called democracy.)
All in all, it was one of the most repulsive speeches in recent convention history, threatening to outdo even Pat Buchanan's 1992 "culture war" rant.
Then Vice President Cheney took the stage.
After talking about how "businesses are creating jobs, people are returning to work" without mentioning that newly-created jobs pay far less than those that were lost, he got down to business.
Tearing into Kerry, he sneered about his "more sensitive war on terror," conveniently forgetting that Bush himself aired the same sentiments just last month. He also attacked Kerry for voting against pouring more money into the Iraq occupation, saying "he does not seem to understand the first obligation of a commander in chief and that is to support American troops in combat." As opposed to sending them into combat in the first place based on lies, wishful thinking, and political obsessions, of course.
Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else see something wrong with the logic of throwing soldiers into harm's way as cannon fodder and then attacking anyone who doesn't fall into line?
Cheney went on to use the very same rhetoric that has been proven wrong time and time again. It's like nothing has changed in all the months since we invaded Iraq.
Cheney also repeated the standard GOP attack on Kerry for reconsidering his position upon realizing that his original viewpoint was wrong. Republicans call this flip-flopping. Others call it maturity and intelligence. (In a sign of the doublethink for which this Administration is justly notorious, Bush himself is thus guilty of flip-flopping in the first degree for having changed his mind quite a few times, only in his case it's called "being Presidential.")
In all, in terms of words used, Cheney spent fully twenty-five percent of his speech attacking Kerry (that's 671 words out of a total of 2,658) while barely mentioning the real issues facing America. Our economic problems merited 92 words. Health care gathered only 50 words. And Iraq, the great obsession of the Bush Administration, warranted a grand total of 34 words.
With 976 American soldiers killed in Iraq so far, that's almost 29 dead per word.
One would think they would rate more in an Administration which claims to love them so much.
Still, the convention's grand finale is coming up tonight. President Bush's speech has been publicized in advance as laying out his second-term agenda. Given the fact that he has yet to present a first-term agenda apart from a principle of endless war against anyone who looks at us sideways, I'll believe it when I see it.
In his remarkably ugly keynote speech, Democratic (in name only) Senator Zell Miller wistfully recalled the good old days of the 1940 election, when Wendell Wilkie refused to campaign effectively against FDR on security issues, then harshly attacked today's Democrats for not having the same willingness to roll over and play dead.
"While young Americans are dying in the sands of Iraq and the mountains of Afghanistan," Miller thundered righteously, "our nation is being torn apart and made weaker because of the Democrats' manic obsession to bring down our Commander in Chief."
No, it's being torn apart because a lot of people are rather unhappy that our Commander in Chief sent young Americans to die in the sands of Iraq under false pretenses and with no postwar planning other than wishful thinking. It's being made weaker because the rest of the world is isolating us to stew in our own juices, seeing us as a power-mad bully who would rather push other countries around than work with them to fight al Qaeda and similar terrorist groups.
The Democrats don't have to do all that. President Bush is doing it very nicely all by himself.
Referring to (unspecified) comments from Democratic leaders, Miller growled that "nothing makes this Marine madder than someone calling American troops occupiers rather than liberators." Heck, he doesn't have to hear that from Democrats, or even from Americans. All he has to do is listen to the officially liberated people of Iraq, who see us very much as occupiers and want us out. For that matter, he can listen to none other than George W. Bush himself, who said in April that Iraqis are "not happy they're occupied. I wouldn't be happy if I were occupied either."
Oh yes, and John Kerry "can only encourage our enemies" by actually thinking about various possible courses of action instead of seizing on one and never deviating from it no matter how disastrous the results.
(This came after President Bush of all people caused a minor stir by saying the War on Terror can never be won, only to be smacked around by his handlers and sent to grovel on Rush Limbaugh's radio show, saying that he didn't really mean it.)
He all but accused the Democrats of treason. How dare they field a candidate for President? Don't they know there's a war on? (He seems to have forgotten that we have a little thing in America called democracy.)
All in all, it was one of the most repulsive speeches in recent convention history, threatening to outdo even Pat Buchanan's 1992 "culture war" rant.
Then Vice President Cheney took the stage.
After talking about how "businesses are creating jobs, people are returning to work" without mentioning that newly-created jobs pay far less than those that were lost, he got down to business.
Tearing into Kerry, he sneered about his "more sensitive war on terror," conveniently forgetting that Bush himself aired the same sentiments just last month. He also attacked Kerry for voting against pouring more money into the Iraq occupation, saying "he does not seem to understand the first obligation of a commander in chief and that is to support American troops in combat." As opposed to sending them into combat in the first place based on lies, wishful thinking, and political obsessions, of course.
Maybe it's just me, but does anyone else see something wrong with the logic of throwing soldiers into harm's way as cannon fodder and then attacking anyone who doesn't fall into line?
Cheney went on to use the very same rhetoric that has been proven wrong time and time again. It's like nothing has changed in all the months since we invaded Iraq.
- "In the global war on terror, as in Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush has brought many allies to our side." He forgot to mention that most of the allies who supported us in Afghanistan refused to do so in Iraq, correctly seeing that one had nothing to do with the other and that invading Iraq was being pursued for all the wrong reasons.
- "As the President has made very clear, there is a difference between leading a coalition of many, and submitting to the objections of a few." Opposition to the Iraq war was not about the "objections of a few," it was about the objections of most of the world. With very few exceptions, while some governments may have joined the much-flogged Coalition of the Willing via foreign-aid bribes or threats of diplomatic retaliation, the civilian populations of these countries were fiercely opposed to the invasion.
- "George W. Bush will never seek a permission slip to defend the American people." Of course, the root of the opposition to attacking Iraq was that it had nothing to do with defending America; it was about picking a political fight with a country that most definitely was not a threat.
Cheney also repeated the standard GOP attack on Kerry for reconsidering his position upon realizing that his original viewpoint was wrong. Republicans call this flip-flopping. Others call it maturity and intelligence. (In a sign of the doublethink for which this Administration is justly notorious, Bush himself is thus guilty of flip-flopping in the first degree for having changed his mind quite a few times, only in his case it's called "being Presidential.")
In all, in terms of words used, Cheney spent fully twenty-five percent of his speech attacking Kerry (that's 671 words out of a total of 2,658) while barely mentioning the real issues facing America. Our economic problems merited 92 words. Health care gathered only 50 words. And Iraq, the great obsession of the Bush Administration, warranted a grand total of 34 words.
With 976 American soldiers killed in Iraq so far, that's almost 29 dead per word.
One would think they would rate more in an Administration which claims to love them so much.
Still, the convention's grand finale is coming up tonight. President Bush's speech has been publicized in advance as laying out his second-term agenda. Given the fact that he has yet to present a first-term agenda apart from a principle of endless war against anyone who looks at us sideways, I'll believe it when I see it.
8/31/2004
The Return of the Compassionate Conservative
It is the animal everyone thought was extinct. During the 2000 campaign, George W. Bush called himself a "compassionate conservative," promising that he would be a different sort of Republican than the hard-edged Newt Gingrich crowd, that he would be "a uniter, not a divider."
Well, as we all know, that language went right back into the filing cabinet after Inauguration Day as Bush proceeded to divide the country as it had not been in decades. He blew the federal budget surplus on a series of giant tax cuts, most of which went to the wealthiest Americans while leaving middle- and lower-class taxpayers with crumbs. He stocked the Government and the judiciary with conservative ideologues dedicated to poking their noses into people's private lives while letting business do whatever they pleased regardless of the consequences. He let industry lobbyists literally write Administration energy policy, larding it up with tax breaks for themselves. He told the rest of the world to go fly a kite after promising during the campaign to work hand in hand with other nations. He unleashed John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act after 9/11, stealthily observing our reading habits and trying to recruit mail carriers and plumbers to spy on us in our homes.
And, of course, he abandoned the hunt for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to drain American blood and treasure into the desert sands of Iraq in an obsessive vendetta against Saddam Hussein.
As the Republican convention kicked off in New York yesterday against the backdrop of hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets, decrying Bush's actions as President and calling for his electoral defeat in November, witness the return of that strange and exotic beast called the Compassionate Conservative.
Down the memory hole is any remembrance of the 1992 convention, when speaker after speaker alienated large swaths of America with their "culture war" oratory and snide personal attacks on the Democrats. Gone is the "you are with us or you are with the terrorists" language. Nowhere to be found are the accusations of disloyalty and insufficient patriotism for expressing doubts about Administration policy.
Unwelcome is any mention of the huge tax cuts for the rich, the loss of millions of jobs, the stagnation of the American wage, the skyrocketing costs of health care, the mass giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry disguised as a Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the disinformation campaign to fool the American people into believing Iraq was behind 9/11, the transformation of our world image from a beacon of hope and opportunity to a raging bully, the massive antiwar demonstrations around the world.
Instead we see people mounting the stage at Madison Square Garden hailing the President as a modern-day Winston Churchill, a holy warrior holding back the darkness of Islamic terrorism while crusading (oops, that word is forbidden) for the light of America.
And the Republicans, having brought their convention to New York for the first time ever, are determined to play the 9/11 card for all it's worth, trotting out none other than Rudolph Giuliani to proclaim that "we need George Bush now more than ever."
There is something exceptionally ugly and shameless about how the Republicans so eagerly exploit 9/11 for their own purposes. The dust had not yet settled at Ground Zero before the Bush Administration sought to use the attacks as an excuse for going after Saddam Hussein. Bush fought the establishment of an independent 9/11 commission tooth and nail until the victims' families finally shamed him into it, and then did everything he could to prevent it from getting the job done. And in the propaganda campaign leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the terms "9/11," "al Qaeda," "Iraq" and "Saddam Hussein" were used interchangeably until a solid majority of Americans were convinced that Saddam was behind 9/11. Even our soldiers who stormed into Iraqi territory believed that they were avenging those who died in the attacks and going after the people who were behind them.
Bush "was for us right here in New York City," said former NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, "inspiring a nation as he stood on hallowed ground, supporting the first responders." Of course, he had the good taste not to mention that after using the rescue workers as props, Bush then allowed his promise of $20 billion in general aid and first-responder assistance to languish.
Nor did he say that under White House pressure, the EPA deliberately withheld a multitude of data on how the post-attack air in Lower Manhattan was contaminated with various toxins, allowing rescue personnel, residents and Wall Street workers to believe that the air was safe to breathe. Hundreds of such people now suffer from health problems ranging from shortness of breath and chronic coughing to asthma and acid reflux disease.
"Our President has proven his ability to adapt to changing times while holding true to his basic beliefs in freedom, opportunity, and compassion," said Montana Governor Marc Raciot, neglecting to point out that Bush has made a habit of never admitting to any mistakes ever, staying with the same policies and approaches long after it becomes obvious that they just don't work. Neither did he remark that a number of very unfree regimes have been given a "get out of jail free" card as the price for their political support in the War on Terror™.
One can almost see a 1940s-style propaganda poster, showing a larger-than-life Uncle George standing in front of an American flag and with the wreckage of the World Trade Center in the background, protectively cradling a child in his massive hands as he defiantly faces off against a menacing Arab man with explosives strapped to his body and carrying a scimitar. "Our President -- Keeping Our Children Safe!" the poster could say.
Protestors are kept far away so as not to disturb the peaceful intellectual slumber of the true believers. Dissident Republicans are told to stay in line and not make waves. Yes, this is indeed a kinder and gentler GOP convention, happy smile fixed firmly in place with the superest of superglue. If only it actually represented the party's means and goals.
Well, as we all know, that language went right back into the filing cabinet after Inauguration Day as Bush proceeded to divide the country as it had not been in decades. He blew the federal budget surplus on a series of giant tax cuts, most of which went to the wealthiest Americans while leaving middle- and lower-class taxpayers with crumbs. He stocked the Government and the judiciary with conservative ideologues dedicated to poking their noses into people's private lives while letting business do whatever they pleased regardless of the consequences. He let industry lobbyists literally write Administration energy policy, larding it up with tax breaks for themselves. He told the rest of the world to go fly a kite after promising during the campaign to work hand in hand with other nations. He unleashed John Ashcroft and the Patriot Act after 9/11, stealthily observing our reading habits and trying to recruit mail carriers and plumbers to spy on us in our homes.
And, of course, he abandoned the hunt for Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to drain American blood and treasure into the desert sands of Iraq in an obsessive vendetta against Saddam Hussein.
As the Republican convention kicked off in New York yesterday against the backdrop of hundreds of thousands of people marching in the streets, decrying Bush's actions as President and calling for his electoral defeat in November, witness the return of that strange and exotic beast called the Compassionate Conservative.
Down the memory hole is any remembrance of the 1992 convention, when speaker after speaker alienated large swaths of America with their "culture war" oratory and snide personal attacks on the Democrats. Gone is the "you are with us or you are with the terrorists" language. Nowhere to be found are the accusations of disloyalty and insufficient patriotism for expressing doubts about Administration policy.
Unwelcome is any mention of the huge tax cuts for the rich, the loss of millions of jobs, the stagnation of the American wage, the skyrocketing costs of health care, the mass giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry disguised as a Medicare prescription-drug benefit, the disinformation campaign to fool the American people into believing Iraq was behind 9/11, the transformation of our world image from a beacon of hope and opportunity to a raging bully, the massive antiwar demonstrations around the world.
Instead we see people mounting the stage at Madison Square Garden hailing the President as a modern-day Winston Churchill, a holy warrior holding back the darkness of Islamic terrorism while crusading (oops, that word is forbidden) for the light of America.
And the Republicans, having brought their convention to New York for the first time ever, are determined to play the 9/11 card for all it's worth, trotting out none other than Rudolph Giuliani to proclaim that "we need George Bush now more than ever."
There is something exceptionally ugly and shameless about how the Republicans so eagerly exploit 9/11 for their own purposes. The dust had not yet settled at Ground Zero before the Bush Administration sought to use the attacks as an excuse for going after Saddam Hussein. Bush fought the establishment of an independent 9/11 commission tooth and nail until the victims' families finally shamed him into it, and then did everything he could to prevent it from getting the job done. And in the propaganda campaign leading up to the invasion of Iraq, the terms "9/11," "al Qaeda," "Iraq" and "Saddam Hussein" were used interchangeably until a solid majority of Americans were convinced that Saddam was behind 9/11. Even our soldiers who stormed into Iraqi territory believed that they were avenging those who died in the attacks and going after the people who were behind them.
Bush "was for us right here in New York City," said former NYC Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik, "inspiring a nation as he stood on hallowed ground, supporting the first responders." Of course, he had the good taste not to mention that after using the rescue workers as props, Bush then allowed his promise of $20 billion in general aid and first-responder assistance to languish.
Nor did he say that under White House pressure, the EPA deliberately withheld a multitude of data on how the post-attack air in Lower Manhattan was contaminated with various toxins, allowing rescue personnel, residents and Wall Street workers to believe that the air was safe to breathe. Hundreds of such people now suffer from health problems ranging from shortness of breath and chronic coughing to asthma and acid reflux disease.
"Our President has proven his ability to adapt to changing times while holding true to his basic beliefs in freedom, opportunity, and compassion," said Montana Governor Marc Raciot, neglecting to point out that Bush has made a habit of never admitting to any mistakes ever, staying with the same policies and approaches long after it becomes obvious that they just don't work. Neither did he remark that a number of very unfree regimes have been given a "get out of jail free" card as the price for their political support in the War on Terror™.
One can almost see a 1940s-style propaganda poster, showing a larger-than-life Uncle George standing in front of an American flag and with the wreckage of the World Trade Center in the background, protectively cradling a child in his massive hands as he defiantly faces off against a menacing Arab man with explosives strapped to his body and carrying a scimitar. "Our President -- Keeping Our Children Safe!" the poster could say.
Protestors are kept far away so as not to disturb the peaceful intellectual slumber of the true believers. Dissident Republicans are told to stay in line and not make waves. Yes, this is indeed a kinder and gentler GOP convention, happy smile fixed firmly in place with the superest of superglue. If only it actually represented the party's means and goals.
8/27/2004
A Father and His Daughter
I never thought I would find myself agreeing with Vice President Cheney on anything. To many people he is the power behind the throne, the obsessed ideologue behind the invasion of Iraq, the Emperor to President Bush's Darth Vader.
But once in a while -- once in a long while -- he actually says something sensible.
On Tuesday, Cheney was the main attraction at a rally in Iowa. After hearing the standard stump speech about Iraq and the War on Terror, one attendee said that "we have a battle here on this land, as well" and asked Cheney about his stand on gay marriage.
Coming from a man who still believes Iraq was behind 9/11 and had nuclear weapons before last year's invasion, Cheney's response was eminently levelheaded. "With respect to the question of relationships," he said, "my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to." He went on to say that marriage is historically "a relationship that has been handled by the states. The states have made that basic fundamental decision in terms of defining what constitutes a marriage."
This put him into direct conflict with Bush and the Republican Party, both of whom adamantly support a constitutional amendment denying the same marriage rights enjoyed by everyone else to gays and lesbians, taking it entirely out of the hands of the states to begin with. "Attempts to redefine marriage in a single city or state could have serious consequences throughout the country," the draft GOP platform says, "and anything less than a constitutional amendment, passed by Congress and ratified by the states, is vulnerable to being overturned by activist judges."
What was behind Cheney's sudden burst of humanity? The answer is simple: one of his daughters is gay. Just for a moment, he stopped thinking like an ideologue and started thinking like a father. "We have enormous pride in both of them," Cheney said. "They're both fine young women. They do a superb job, frankly, of supporting us. And we are blessed with both our daughters."
You see, in a political environment which blames all our problems on the eternal Them, whether they be people of a different religion, skin color, sexual orientation, or anything else, it becomes a lot harder to go with the flow when one of "them" is family.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan ducked the issue at Wednesday's press gaggle, but the GOP's right-wing base promptly attacked Cheney with righteous fury. The Family Research Council, one of the loudest anti-gay-marriage groups, pounced on him for sending "mixed messages," frostily wondered why he was "allowed to depart from this position when the top of the ticket is unified on all other issues," and told him in no uncertain terms to get back in line.
Do the FRC and other religious-right groups actually expect Cheney publicly to relegate his own daughter to second-class citizenship for the sake of ideology? Apparently so, and their actions should make Cheney think long and hard about whether their backing is worth it.
Anyone who demands that someone must turn his or her back on a loved one as the price of their political support can, in the words of the Vice President himself, go f*ck themselves, and Cheney should say so loudly and publicly.
But once in a while -- once in a long while -- he actually says something sensible.
On Tuesday, Cheney was the main attraction at a rally in Iowa. After hearing the standard stump speech about Iraq and the War on Terror, one attendee said that "we have a battle here on this land, as well" and asked Cheney about his stand on gay marriage.
Coming from a man who still believes Iraq was behind 9/11 and had nuclear weapons before last year's invasion, Cheney's response was eminently levelheaded. "With respect to the question of relationships," he said, "my general view is that freedom means freedom for everyone. People ought to be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to." He went on to say that marriage is historically "a relationship that has been handled by the states. The states have made that basic fundamental decision in terms of defining what constitutes a marriage."
This put him into direct conflict with Bush and the Republican Party, both of whom adamantly support a constitutional amendment denying the same marriage rights enjoyed by everyone else to gays and lesbians, taking it entirely out of the hands of the states to begin with. "Attempts to redefine marriage in a single city or state could have serious consequences throughout the country," the draft GOP platform says, "and anything less than a constitutional amendment, passed by Congress and ratified by the states, is vulnerable to being overturned by activist judges."
What was behind Cheney's sudden burst of humanity? The answer is simple: one of his daughters is gay. Just for a moment, he stopped thinking like an ideologue and started thinking like a father. "We have enormous pride in both of them," Cheney said. "They're both fine young women. They do a superb job, frankly, of supporting us. And we are blessed with both our daughters."
You see, in a political environment which blames all our problems on the eternal Them, whether they be people of a different religion, skin color, sexual orientation, or anything else, it becomes a lot harder to go with the flow when one of "them" is family.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan ducked the issue at Wednesday's press gaggle, but the GOP's right-wing base promptly attacked Cheney with righteous fury. The Family Research Council, one of the loudest anti-gay-marriage groups, pounced on him for sending "mixed messages," frostily wondered why he was "allowed to depart from this position when the top of the ticket is unified on all other issues," and told him in no uncertain terms to get back in line.
Do the FRC and other religious-right groups actually expect Cheney publicly to relegate his own daughter to second-class citizenship for the sake of ideology? Apparently so, and their actions should make Cheney think long and hard about whether their backing is worth it.
Anyone who demands that someone must turn his or her back on a loved one as the price of their political support can, in the words of the Vice President himself, go f*ck themselves, and Cheney should say so loudly and publicly.
8/25/2004
Friends in Low Places
The incendiary accusations in Swift Boat Veterans for Truth's ad campaign smearing Senator John Kerry as having lied about his Vietnam record have now all but collapsed. In the meantime, President Bush, once again putting his leadership skills on display, repeatedly refused to join other politicians from both parties in condemning the attack ad, choosing instead to say piously that he is against all such ad campaigns. (Of course, the really dirty ads are coming from just the Republican side.)
With the White House refusing to rein in the attack dogs, the group has unveiled another ad. This one specifically attacks Kerry's 1971 congressional testimony opposing the war, saying he "demoralized" American soldiers and "dishonored his country...he just sold them out." The ad's producers have evidently learned their lesson from the firestorm over the false accusations in the first ad, restricting this one to showing angry reactions which cannot be definitively refuted. The fact that none of the men shown in the ad ever served with Kerry or even claim to have met him is apparently irrelevant.
Meanwhile, more information is coming out about the allegedly independent group's connections to the Bush campaign:
One would think the Bush campaign would learn from its mistakes and call a halt to this particular character-assassination campaign. But after four years of smearing political opponents as unpatriotic, we know better.
With the White House refusing to rein in the attack dogs, the group has unveiled another ad. This one specifically attacks Kerry's 1971 congressional testimony opposing the war, saying he "demoralized" American soldiers and "dishonored his country...he just sold them out." The ad's producers have evidently learned their lesson from the firestorm over the false accusations in the first ad, restricting this one to showing angry reactions which cannot be definitively refuted. The fact that none of the men shown in the ad ever served with Kerry or even claim to have met him is apparently irrelevant.
Meanwhile, more information is coming out about the allegedly independent group's connections to the Bush campaign:
- Benjamin Ginsberg, the campaign's chief outside counsel, also advised the Swift Boat group on legal matters. He resigned from the campaign after his dual role was made public.
- Kenneth Cordier, who appeared in a Swift Boat ad saying "[Kerry] betrayed us in the past," was on the Bush campaign's Veterans Steering Committee. He resigned from the campaign as well after his activities were revealed.
- A Bush campaign office in Florida handed out fliers publicizing a Swift Boat event.
- Bob Perry, the group's primary financial backer, has close political and personal ties with Bush's chief political strategist, Karl Rove.
One would think the Bush campaign would learn from its mistakes and call a halt to this particular character-assassination campaign. But after four years of smearing political opponents as unpatriotic, we know better.
8/23/2004
Denied
Haley Waldman is eight years old. She lives in New Jersey and is something of a tomboy who doesn't like wearing dresses. But as a faithful Roman Catholic, she spent a long time looking forward to her first Holy Communion. So in May she put on her best white dress, went with her mother to church, and ate the ritual wafer which Catholics believe represents the body of Jesus.
And then the Catholic Church declared her Communion invalid.
You see, Haley has a rare medical condition called celiac sprue disease which makes it impossible for her to digest the wheat-based protein called gluten; eating wheat would damage her intestines and possibly lead to cancer. So she cannot eat the regular wheat-based wafer used in Roman Catholic ceremonies. And while low-gluten wafers exist, they do not work for all celiac patients.
Her mother, Elizabeth Pelly-Waldman, informed her parish priest and asked that Haley be allowed to eat a rice wafer instead, but her request was refused. So Haley ended up taking her first Communion at another local church, one with a priest who did make an exception -- only to have Trenton Bishop John Smith rule it invalid, claiming that Communion wafers must be wheat-based.
"This is not an issue to be determined at the diocesan or parish level," Smith said in a statement, "but has already been decided for the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world by Vatican authority."
One has to wonder what in the world Smith was thinking when he denied Haley's Communion. After all, it's not like she asked for a rice wafer because she just doesn't like wheat, it was because she physically cannot eat wheat. She loves the Church and was eager to receive her first Communion, but was denied that sacrament by someone who does not know her and who evidently does not care about her health.
Does the Church really have no provision whatsoever for medical necessity? Or is it because the Church is such a slave to doctrine that no exceptions are possible under any circumstances for any reason? Alcoholics are in a similar position, as the use of grape juice as a substitute for wine during Communion is likewise forbidden. (Sadly, this is not limited to Christianity. Most religions have their super-adherents who block out everything which does not fit into their neat little world.)
Meanwhile, Pelly-Waldman has appealed to the Pope for help. "This is a church rule, not God's will," she wrote in a letter to the Vatican, "and it can easily be adjusted to meet the needs of the people, while staying true to the traditions of our faith."
Haley Waldman is devout, believes in God and Jesus, and is willing to go the distance to be a good Catholic, but quite reasonably not at the expense of her health. Why is the Church refusing to meet her halfway?
And then the Catholic Church declared her Communion invalid.
You see, Haley has a rare medical condition called celiac sprue disease which makes it impossible for her to digest the wheat-based protein called gluten; eating wheat would damage her intestines and possibly lead to cancer. So she cannot eat the regular wheat-based wafer used in Roman Catholic ceremonies. And while low-gluten wafers exist, they do not work for all celiac patients.
Her mother, Elizabeth Pelly-Waldman, informed her parish priest and asked that Haley be allowed to eat a rice wafer instead, but her request was refused. So Haley ended up taking her first Communion at another local church, one with a priest who did make an exception -- only to have Trenton Bishop John Smith rule it invalid, claiming that Communion wafers must be wheat-based.
"This is not an issue to be determined at the diocesan or parish level," Smith said in a statement, "but has already been decided for the Roman Catholic Church throughout the world by Vatican authority."
One has to wonder what in the world Smith was thinking when he denied Haley's Communion. After all, it's not like she asked for a rice wafer because she just doesn't like wheat, it was because she physically cannot eat wheat. She loves the Church and was eager to receive her first Communion, but was denied that sacrament by someone who does not know her and who evidently does not care about her health.
Does the Church really have no provision whatsoever for medical necessity? Or is it because the Church is such a slave to doctrine that no exceptions are possible under any circumstances for any reason? Alcoholics are in a similar position, as the use of grape juice as a substitute for wine during Communion is likewise forbidden. (Sadly, this is not limited to Christianity. Most religions have their super-adherents who block out everything which does not fit into their neat little world.)
Meanwhile, Pelly-Waldman has appealed to the Pope for help. "This is a church rule, not God's will," she wrote in a letter to the Vatican, "and it can easily be adjusted to meet the needs of the people, while staying true to the traditions of our faith."
Haley Waldman is devout, believes in God and Jesus, and is willing to go the distance to be a good Catholic, but quite reasonably not at the expense of her health. Why is the Church refusing to meet her halfway?
8/19/2004
A Bedtime Story
This was actually written by someone else, but it's too good not to include here:
Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction, honey.
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, Daddy. Why would they choose to die if they had all those big weapons to fight us back with?
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: 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.
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 un-American 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, God personally speaks to George W. Bush and tells 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: Yes! You finally understand how the world works. Now close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.
Good night, Daddy.
Elmer Bernstein, 1922-2004
Any movie buff knows the chords and strings of Elmer Bernstein's music; after all, there is certainly a lot of it. When he died yesterday at the age of 82, he left behind the scores for well over two hundred films and TV shows, including some of the most memorable in movie history.
Who doesn't think of a vast sweep of Western scenery when one hears the theme from The Magnificent Seven? Or walk in step and with a slightly martial air to the music from The Great Escape? (It has become one of the most instantly recognizable theme songs in all of cinema, enough to be parodied on a Simpsons episode some years back.) Or feels just a tiny shudder at the crashing, biblical music of The Ten Commandments?
Bernstein's prolific success is all the more remarkable because his film career was nearly destroyed right at the beginning, in the early 1950s. Like many of his artistic colleagues, he was sympathetic to the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s, but he remained a self-proclaimed Communist even after Josef Stalin's tyranny became evident. (Interestingly, Stalin's relentless persecution of Soviet Jews never seemed to sway this Jewish composer.) Never one to keep his opinions to himself, he continued to champion leftist causes and criticized what he called the excesses of capitalism.
As the House Un-American Activities Committee and other super-patriots relentlessly purged American institutions of political unreliables, Bernstein saw opportunities disappear. But since he was not in front of the cameras like actors, nor high-profile like directors or writers, he was able to find some work, even if it was scoring such notorious clunkers as Robot Monster or Cat-Women of the Moon.
It took Otto Preminger to bring him back from exile, hiring him to write the music for 1955's The Man with the Golden Arm. Cecil B. DeMille also recruited him to score his 1956 Exodus epic, The Ten Commandments. It was not the only way DeMille faced down the blacklist; he also tapped Edward G. Robinson, who made his mark playing tough-guy gangsters in movies like Key Largo before his political views made him untouchable, to play the Hebrew overseer Dathan.
From then on, Bernstein worked constantly, turning out film scores by the bushel. From To Kill a Mockingbird to Birdman of Alcatraz to Devil in a Blue Dress, he composed some of the best movie music of the 20th century. He kept on working right through his 70s, with his last film being 2002's The Rising of the Moon. And yet, with all his work and all his films, he won only one Oscar, for 1967's Thoroughly Modern Millie, out of fourteen nominations.
And now Elmer Bernstein has ridden off into the sunset, doubtless to the strains of The Magnificent Seven. Movie fans everywhere will miss him.
Who doesn't think of a vast sweep of Western scenery when one hears the theme from The Magnificent Seven? Or walk in step and with a slightly martial air to the music from The Great Escape? (It has become one of the most instantly recognizable theme songs in all of cinema, enough to be parodied on a Simpsons episode some years back.) Or feels just a tiny shudder at the crashing, biblical music of The Ten Commandments?
Bernstein's prolific success is all the more remarkable because his film career was nearly destroyed right at the beginning, in the early 1950s. Like many of his artistic colleagues, he was sympathetic to the Soviet Union in the 1930s and 1940s, but he remained a self-proclaimed Communist even after Josef Stalin's tyranny became evident. (Interestingly, Stalin's relentless persecution of Soviet Jews never seemed to sway this Jewish composer.) Never one to keep his opinions to himself, he continued to champion leftist causes and criticized what he called the excesses of capitalism.
As the House Un-American Activities Committee and other super-patriots relentlessly purged American institutions of political unreliables, Bernstein saw opportunities disappear. But since he was not in front of the cameras like actors, nor high-profile like directors or writers, he was able to find some work, even if it was scoring such notorious clunkers as Robot Monster or Cat-Women of the Moon.
It took Otto Preminger to bring him back from exile, hiring him to write the music for 1955's The Man with the Golden Arm. Cecil B. DeMille also recruited him to score his 1956 Exodus epic, The Ten Commandments. It was not the only way DeMille faced down the blacklist; he also tapped Edward G. Robinson, who made his mark playing tough-guy gangsters in movies like Key Largo before his political views made him untouchable, to play the Hebrew overseer Dathan.
From then on, Bernstein worked constantly, turning out film scores by the bushel. From To Kill a Mockingbird to Birdman of Alcatraz to Devil in a Blue Dress, he composed some of the best movie music of the 20th century. He kept on working right through his 70s, with his last film being 2002's The Rising of the Moon. And yet, with all his work and all his films, he won only one Oscar, for 1967's Thoroughly Modern Millie, out of fourteen nominations.
And now Elmer Bernstein has ridden off into the sunset, doubtless to the strains of The Magnificent Seven. Movie fans everywhere will miss him.
8/18/2004
Gee, Thanks
"We want to continue to perfect this [missile defense] system, so we say to those tyrants who believe they can blackmail America and the free world: you fire, we're going to shoot it down."
-- President Bush at a Pennsylvania rally, evidently forgetting that the last time he made such a "bring 'em on" boast, he was taken seriously and hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq were killed as a result
-- President Bush at a Pennsylvania rally, evidently forgetting that the last time he made such a "bring 'em on" boast, he was taken seriously and hundreds of American soldiers in Iraq were killed as a result
The Amazing Vanishing Vote
Suppose that you walk into your local voting precinct this Election Day and encounter not the standard pull-lever-to-register-your-vote voting machine, but a computerized system instead. You touch the screen to cast your vote for the candidate of your choice, get a message saying your vote was recorded, and leave. That night, the local news says that Candidate A won in your town, and won big.
You think back over the last few weeks. That can't be right, you say to yourself. Everyone's been talking about the upcoming election, and a whole lot of people said they were going to vote for Candidate B. Others have this same feeling, and contact the county clerk's office, demanding a recount. The clerk's office reruns the vote count and comes up with the same result. Only then do you learn there is no paper record of people's votes or any other way to verify the election was accurate. With no way to prove otherwise, Candidate A is officially declared to be the winner.
You and a lot of other people go to bed that night positive that the election was stolen right out from under your noses, but there is no way to show it.
Fantasy? Maybe, maybe not. But the potential is certainly there.
Numerous studies have revealed that electronic voting machines are highly vulnerable to hacking and similar manipulation, making it relatively easy for an intruder to rig election results. Independent programmers who have examined the programming code are appalled at the many and obvious security flaws. Standardized setups, insecure physical machinery, and unencrypted data transmissions all make the machines a security nightmare.
Normally, this would not be a major concern, should the manufacturers be on the ball in fixing these issues. But they're not. Companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, which build the machines, have repeatedly refused to make them accessible for independent audits, and they have consistently failed even simple security tests. Leaked internal E-mails from Diebold reveal that the company's own engineers said the system was not sufficiently secure and was rushed into production.
The machines' performance in the 2002 elections leaves much to be desired. Widespread problems included machines which could not boot up, systems which crashed and wiped out vote tallies, machines which recorded votes differently than the way people actually voted, and so on. And yet the machines are being used anyway for the 2004 election, in various states and localities around the country.
(As if all that weren't enough, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell, who raised enough money for President Bush to be listed as a "Pioneer" on the campaign web site, sent out a fund-raising letter in 2003 saying he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year.")
A relatively simple solution is to have voting machines print out and store a physical paper receipt, visible to the voter and clearly showing the vote that was cast. That way, a paper trail exists for recounts and tally checks, and voters can be satisfied that the machine is recording their votes accurately.
The manufacturers, however, have consistently fought such a solution, claiming it would be unnecessary and too costly. Basically, their attitude is "trust us." Voting without a paper trail, however, calls into question the whole fairness and accuracy of an election, and no price is too high to pay for that. After all, we would never use an ATM that did not provide a paper receipt, so why should we accept it from a voting system?
Fortunately, there is an alternative for voters in electronic-only districts. You can request an absentee paper ballot which physically exists for recounts and verifiability and cannot be vaporized into random electrons.
Meanwhile, having already delivered the 2000 election to his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush has done his partisan part for electoral fairness by fighting independent audits for voting machines on the one hand and telling Republican voters to use absentee ballots on the other. "The new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount," says a recently distributed GOP flier. "Make sure your vote counts. Order your absentee ballot today." What a surprise.
The very basis of American democracy is the standard that all votes will be counted fairly and accurately. Electronic systems that are insecure, have no paper trail, and have no way to tell that the vote count is real all but wear a sign saying "Steal This Vote." Democracy itself demands something better.
(For more information on the promise and peril of electronic voting, check out the Verified Voting and Black Box Voting web sites.)
You think back over the last few weeks. That can't be right, you say to yourself. Everyone's been talking about the upcoming election, and a whole lot of people said they were going to vote for Candidate B. Others have this same feeling, and contact the county clerk's office, demanding a recount. The clerk's office reruns the vote count and comes up with the same result. Only then do you learn there is no paper record of people's votes or any other way to verify the election was accurate. With no way to prove otherwise, Candidate A is officially declared to be the winner.
You and a lot of other people go to bed that night positive that the election was stolen right out from under your noses, but there is no way to show it.
Fantasy? Maybe, maybe not. But the potential is certainly there.
Numerous studies have revealed that electronic voting machines are highly vulnerable to hacking and similar manipulation, making it relatively easy for an intruder to rig election results. Independent programmers who have examined the programming code are appalled at the many and obvious security flaws. Standardized setups, insecure physical machinery, and unencrypted data transmissions all make the machines a security nightmare.
Normally, this would not be a major concern, should the manufacturers be on the ball in fixing these issues. But they're not. Companies such as Diebold, ES&S and Sequoia, which build the machines, have repeatedly refused to make them accessible for independent audits, and they have consistently failed even simple security tests. Leaked internal E-mails from Diebold reveal that the company's own engineers said the system was not sufficiently secure and was rushed into production.
The machines' performance in the 2002 elections leaves much to be desired. Widespread problems included machines which could not boot up, systems which crashed and wiped out vote tallies, machines which recorded votes differently than the way people actually voted, and so on. And yet the machines are being used anyway for the 2004 election, in various states and localities around the country.
(As if all that weren't enough, Diebold CEO Walden O'Dell, who raised enough money for President Bush to be listed as a "Pioneer" on the campaign web site, sent out a fund-raising letter in 2003 saying he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the President next year.")
A relatively simple solution is to have voting machines print out and store a physical paper receipt, visible to the voter and clearly showing the vote that was cast. That way, a paper trail exists for recounts and tally checks, and voters can be satisfied that the machine is recording their votes accurately.
The manufacturers, however, have consistently fought such a solution, claiming it would be unnecessary and too costly. Basically, their attitude is "trust us." Voting without a paper trail, however, calls into question the whole fairness and accuracy of an election, and no price is too high to pay for that. After all, we would never use an ATM that did not provide a paper receipt, so why should we accept it from a voting system?
Fortunately, there is an alternative for voters in electronic-only districts. You can request an absentee paper ballot which physically exists for recounts and verifiability and cannot be vaporized into random electrons.
Meanwhile, having already delivered the 2000 election to his brother, Florida Governor Jeb Bush has done his partisan part for electoral fairness by fighting independent audits for voting machines on the one hand and telling Republican voters to use absentee ballots on the other. "The new electronic voting machines do not have a paper ballot to verify your vote in case of a recount," says a recently distributed GOP flier. "Make sure your vote counts. Order your absentee ballot today." What a surprise.
The very basis of American democracy is the standard that all votes will be counted fairly and accurately. Electronic systems that are insecure, have no paper trail, and have no way to tell that the vote count is real all but wear a sign saying "Steal This Vote." Democracy itself demands something better.
(For more information on the promise and peril of electronic voting, check out the Verified Voting and Black Box Voting web sites.)
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