Wavering Elephants

John Warner

Chuck Grassley

Dick Lugar

Chuck Hagel

Gordon Smith

George Voinovich

Richard Burr

Susan Collins

Norm Coleman

Olympia Snowe

Arlen Spector

This is from a comment at Buzzflash

If the Iraqis are forced to sign The Oil Bill and my best quess is that will be the ONLY way to get Bush/Cheney to consider an "end" to the "war", it should be a piece of cake to tear up the contracts in international courts once we have pulled out.
But that's the rub. Cheney's interpretation of withdrawal (and too many in Congress agree with him) will still leave a strongarm force of upwards of 50,000 US troops on 14 bases in Iraq.
So, try this out for a semi-baseless (sorry 'bout the pun. unavoidable) conspiracy theory: Those bases we built, at a staggering cost, in the billion$ per base, are not going to be handed over, even if Bush and Cheney are impeached and ALL of the United States Armed Forces personel are withdrawn. How is that possible? you ask.
Mercenaries.
A Corporate occupation force, 125,000 strong, working for Oil industry support services companies, Blackwater, KBR, et cetera, funded, at least initially, by the 8 billion$ pallets of $100 bills that went "Missing". Just like the other 40 billion$ unaccounted for in Iraq.
Hellisburnin's HQ is safely out of reach of US justice, Bush and family have a mountain fortress ranch of 98,000 acres in Paraguay and Cheney will probably be very comfortable in Dubai. The US will no longer be officially involved in Iraq (aside from reconstruction, we hope) but the junta will continue to plunder Iraq for years to come acting in the private sector.
I hope I'm wrong.

It seems very simple to me

Theres a big statue in New York Harbor with a poem on it.
It doesn't say anything about quotas or qualifications or skills. Waves of immigrants have "overrun" this country over the past two centuries and every one of them has made this nation stronger and better, whether they were doctors or ditch diggers.
Currently our corporations rely on an underclass of illegals to provide labor at the lowest possible rate. They can do that because these people are kept illegal. If they were legal residents, they would have to be paid legal wages. That would raise the floor of labor compensation across the board. Big money don't want that.
So, as they always have in the past, they stir up the racial divide, they talk about Our White Christian Heritage Bullsh!t, our racial purity. And it works! And people who won't even admit it to themselves fall for it. In a stratified hierarchy, somebody's got to be the bottom. The more stratified, the more wretched the bottom is.
Ever stop to think why 12 million people would leave their homes and families, brave harsh conditions and dangerous people to sneak into America and take backbreaking jobs for pittance? Think it has anything to do with NAFTA? or the Maquiadoras that pay 1/10 what they pay up north? For a century, we've exploited Central America ruthlessly, meddling in their governments, leaving their economies in shambles, NAFTA was just the icing on the cake. Not that our corporations are sweetness and light to US, but they don't give a crap about the brown people they squish in those "backward" countries.
And neither do many Americans.
Our borders don't contain the flows of money and power in the world. They hardly guage the flow of goods. The only thing they stop is people and they don't do a very good job of that. And we need those people. With 12 million undocumented workers and low unemployment, it would seem that their absence would put a crimp in the businesses that they work for.
The only honest immigration reform is to open the borders to all comers, it's an American tradition. Or did y'all forget about:
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
We're all immigrants on this continent.

First, Kill your Television.

Stop being a passive consumer of entertainment.
Stop being a passive consumer.
Stop allowing lies to wash over you.
Stop expecting everything you hear to be true.
Stop accepting it when what you were told (sold) turns out to be lies.
Keep your eye on the ball.

Dear Congress

This coming weekend, stick around DC and meet the voters. We will be there to chat with you. And to any of you that are planning on running for office in 2008? I'm sure that we can work you in, there will be a big podium with lots of mics. In fact, a million of US would be so interested in hearing how you will bring our troops home, that we are traveling from every district in America to the Capitol, Washington, DC. to meet with you, 1-on-1, on Monday Morning.
It would be a shame if you were back home on Saturday and missed an historic moment on the National Mall. Not to mention the opportunity to address important, life & death important, issues with people that are paying attention.
Every member of both houses will have at least one constituent in that crowd. They will be Republican and Democrat, young and old, rich and poor, all colors, styles and sizes, Veterans of Wars going back to WWll and Veterans of the Anti-Wars. We are three quarters of America and we have all come to the same point of view on one thing:
This war must stop, the Troops must come home, Congress MUST act to make that happen.
Take this opportunity to let US know how you will make that happen.
Otherwise, why should I care if you ever run again?

An open letter to Keith Olberman

Dear Mr. Olberman
Let me salute your courage, congratulate you on your ratings and raise a toast to your continued health.
No one else in the kind of position you are in, an anchor on a popular Main Stream Media news program, has had the integrity to speak the truth as you do. Or the courage to take the risk.
Out here, we half-joke that our most honest News analysis is delivered by two comedians and a sportscaster. And it's probably no surprise that a sportscaster would call 'em like he sees 'em. Mark Twain said that the only hard facts in the newspaper are the box scores in the Sports section. You can't spin a horserace, it's win, place or show.
I would like to invite you to an event that you would be welcome to speak at and where you would find a very appreciative audience, but it is your Journalistic Trade that would do the most good for the most people. Please come to Washington DC on the 27th of January and cover the Anti-War event that will happen there. It will be a sensational scoop, since the rest of the MSM will be somewhere else trying for another Britney Spears crotch-shot or some other titillation. One Million People, angry enough, well informed enough, fed up enough to get off the couch, get out of their comfort zone, spend money out of pocket and travel to (for many) a distant city to exercise their Freedom! It's a Hell of a sight!
And not one of the Major Networks or Cable News organizations will be there.
How do I know? Because we have had well over half a million people on the mall several times since before Shock&Awe and no one from the Big Media covered the events! NO ONE!
The January 27th March is one of several days that will be quite newsworthy and maybe even entertaining. Monday the 29th, Code Pink and several other organizations are setting up lobbying meetings with every member of congress, constituents from every Reps' district. (Sunday will be devoted to training the lobbyists in protocol, et cetera)
Throughout all of this, there will be Raging Grannies, Veterans for Peace, Cindy Sheehan and her whole orbit. Probably Eton Thomas and Jello Biafra. There's easily 55 minutes of interest here. You could do several segments just on Medea Benjamin, Anne Wright and Cindy and her Gold Star Moms, the Iraq Vets and Military Families Speak Out, Ray McGovern and Scott Ritter. These are people that the American Public should know, not just as some iconic wacko characters in the ditch in Crawford but as the deep powerful articulate thoughtfull knowledgeable people they are. And if some of the more colorful hecklers attend, you may get to see a Worst Person in the World in action, Fred Phelps and his warped gang curse us AND the Army!?! go figure.
Did you know that there had been several large anti-war demonstrations In DC and New York? Most people don't. And many of the people that have come out, have gone home to find out that their act of courage and civic duty was completely ignored, first by the Media and therefore, by the general public and of course, by the misAdminstration that we are trying to reach. Having stood in the freezing cold, in a crowd of well over three quarters of a million people, packing 30 or 40 blocks of Washington's streets then hearing on the radio going home that "a few thousand protestors had been on the Mall" has made me and many of my fellow Americans rather contemptuous of the MSM as they've fallen all over themselves to outFox FOX.
You have surprised America with your candor, you give those of us in the Peace Movement hope that there might be a crack in the wall.
Wait a minute, you say, What Peace Movement?
We're here and we have been right from the start. Jack Murtha? Johnny-come-lately. Hillary, Kerry, Reid and Pelosi, way (too) late to the party. Iraq Vets Against the War, obviously post Shock&Awe. Even Cindy Sheehan wasn't active 'til her son was taken, that was long AFTER the January 18th 03 march. (That was a world-wide day of protest, BTW, millions of people around the world joined US to try to prevent the fiasco we're in).
We exist, we organize, we gather, march and demonstrate and still, we hear pundits belaboring the meme that there is "no anti-war movement". How could that be?
Because there are no news crews, no trucks, no Times or Post or Tribune reporters, our events, our very existence, are not covered. And if it doesn't happen on MainStream Tv, it didn't happen!
Hello, we now represent the mainstream, that is, the bulk of the American population has come around to our view that this war is wrong and must stop Now. That we want our Troops Home Now.
But even though we have the agreement of more than two thirds of our fellow citizens, including our troops, we are somehow not newsworthy?!?
So I offer you an Invitation to a Scoop. Please come to DC. If ever there was a time that a media news personality was needed, this is it. If ever there is a time that your megaphone could really have an impact for the good of all, this is that time. Just showing the American People that there are a million Citizens that are willing to risk standing up in Bush's America would burst the Rovian Blackout on News-Cheney-doesn't-want-to-hear. This is the Ultimate "at long last, have you no decency, sir?" Moment.
It would be a courageous act. One that resonates with 200 million people and will long be remembered.
And that should put your ratings through the roof. Permanently.

The Job

Job 1 get the oil
Job 2 Put our Enduring Footprint on top of the oil

Job 1 is approaching the landing strip. The Al Maliki "Government" is getting close to inking the thirty year production contracts with Exxon, Shell and BP, et cetera. These will take, not only the oil out of Iraq but also most of the money from the oil. By the time those contracts are up, the infrastructure investments of the Western companies will be just about completely amortized, leaving Iraq with a continuing need for outside investment and a bad case of domestic poverty.
(in reality, I doubt that any contract with the current regime will last even a couple of years.)

Job 2 is also nearly complete. Four gigantic military bases and the largest Embassy in the world.
The line about.."we'll only be there as long as we have to be and not a minute longer".. wasn't an outright lie, depending on how you define: "have to":
If we want the Oil, our troops "have to" stay.
The Plan has always been to stay there 'til the oil runs out.
This Plan, by the way, is set out in a series of papers from the American Enterprise Institute. At the beginning of the war there were rumors of "Fourteen Enduring Bases" being built as permanent outpost of American power in the heart of western Asia. But, like the rest of their NeoCon fantasies, aint working out quite like they figured.
They have built four bases around Iraq, one in Anbar, one in Kurdistan, one north of Baghdad and one south of Baghdad. The bases are the size of a suburban town with their own stripmall, housing, bus routes and airstrip, hardened command structures and defensive perimeters. Standing force structure between 5 and 10 thousand personnel with facility to accept 50 000 and process them through (they call them lily pads, isn't that cute?). Permanent forces will only leave the base to protect oil production facilities and only in heavily armed convoys, most of the time the posture is hunkered down, Fort Apache style.
Meanwhile in Baghdad, The Embassy is quite the accomplishment. 27 acres of prime riverside real estate (who knows what historic neighborhoods they bulldozed) with hundreds of buildings to house thousands of people in a fortified enclave. Self contained, it will have water, sewer and electricity no matter what chaos befalls the city around it. Iraqis joke that Bush has made an even more grandiose palace than Saddam.
These facilities haven't come cheap, I'll guarantee. Halliburton didn't give Dick the ex-employee discount. There is no way to know how much they actually cost since all to do with them has been kept secret and Congress hasn't pressed for a breakdown of the tabs they have been signing for the past four years. But, Oh Well! It's just Billion$. (and since the big tax breaks for Bush's base, it's not even his friends' money, It's borrowed from China on your kid's creditcard)
Meanwhile, back in reality, It's hard to imagine the American People standing still for this part of the plan, the permanent occupation-under-siege, supported by continuous airwar for the next three decades. No.
We are already demanding troop withdrawal, that was a loud and clear message of the November Election, a build-down to a permanent force is not acceptable to US or to the Iraqis nor to any of the rest of the world. We want the war to end. Hostilities to cease. Troops come home. Can we make it any clearer?
And it's hard to imagine the Iraqi People standing still for this, either. There already is a civil war going on, fractured on religious and tribal lines. This is not Blue vs Grey, there are dozens of factions settling scores and "Purifying" neighborhoods. As it is, who can tell who we are supporting and who is the enemy. Maliki's Shi'ite cleric sponsor kidnapped an American soldier and his militias use US supplied weapons and hardware on their deathsquad raids, the Sunni's insurgency is receiving financial support from our ally Saudi Arabia. The only thing that most of the factions agree on is fighting off the occupation forces, that's US.
Once we pull back and let the civil war rage outside our fortress walls, we will be totally ineffective in stabilizing Iraq. Quite the contrary, our armored presence will continue to destabilize society and any complicite regime, the attacks on our forces will escalate in sophistication and scale until we are driven out.

Letter to Bill Gates Senior

Sunday's LATimes brought this article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-gatesx07jan07,0,6827615.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Dear Mr Gates,
Since this article was in the LATimes, you have, by now, probably been deluged with letters scolding you for the hypocrisy of helping with one hand while hurting with another.
May I make a suggestion?
Your wealth and high profile combined with your percentage of ownership in companies like ENI give you an inordinate amount of clout and while the vaccination program and the other vital health initiatives you support or have originated are wonderful, with direct benefit to the poorest people on earth, you could help them far more by policing your assets.
ENI flares off it's gas because doing otherwise would negatively impact shareholders profits. They don't factor the effects on people and the environment onto the balance sheet, they "externalize" them. Soon there will be a law outlawing flaring, but no one expects the giant oil companies to comply. As a high profile share holder, you can rally the support of other shareholders to force the company y'all own to clean up it's operations.
I know that it runs counter to everything that Biz Majors are taught, but externalizing the liabilities to maximum profits at the cost of our families and our habitat are truly penny-wise-pound-foolish.
I have never poked into where you keep your fortune, it's none of my business, but I would guess that your holdings are relatively diversified. If you went through your portfolio, dug out the dirty and dangerous aspects of those companies' operations and brought shareholder pressure on their executives, right there, you could be doing great good for the greatest number of our race and our world. By organizing your fellow investors and motivating them to do the same, you could achieve what governments and millions of people who are not investors, cannot.
There probably is an algorithm that could determine a value on environmental degradation or human misery for accounting purposes, whether it registers a high enough value remains to be seen. It's not in use because there is no column for it in most ledgers.
By inserting that column into the books of the companies you hold stock in, you might just save the whole planet.

Another letter to my Senator, for whatever good it's worth

Senator Dodd,
I understand you are considering running for the Presidency in '08, like a lot of other people are. The article I read in the Washington Post focused from start to finish on money. Specifically your ability to muscle money out of the industry that you will be in charge of regulating.
Do yourself and all of US a favor.
Don't.
Don't fundraise on Wall Street.
Don't even throw your hat in the ring.
If you want people to elect you to that higher office, prove to US that you have better ethics and a better plan than the looters that we just kicked out. We need protection from corporations that bought and paid for the Republican party and through that leverage, wrote legislation that's made them fat at our expense. Don't take corporate money and then triangulate and compromise so that they are cushioned. That's exactly the trash we are intent on hosing out of DC.
Refuse their money and undo the damage that they have already inflicted over the past 25 years.
When National Health is on the table, the Insurance companies and the Financial institutions should have no place at the table. They are irrelevant to healthcare, in fact, they are detrimental. They should be diving for the exits, not buying another political party.
Likewise, when the bankruptcy bill is re-overhauled, this time Big Finance cannot be the only voice that is heard. The way it was written (was it Goldman-Sachs or Morgan-Stanley?) in 2005 makes corporate bankruptcy easier to use and recover from while making personal bankruptcy a punitive nightmare, disallowing asset shelter, even domicile sheltering. No corporation can be made homeless, but families can, but, Hey, weren't those bonuses spectacular on Wall Street this year!
In the coming collapse of the economy, as the housing bubble deflates, People will need protection from a predatory industry.
Get it for them.
You've been on this committee a long time, you must know where the bodies are buried. Prove that you are not for sale.
If you take the lead on these kinds of issues, publicly swear off PAC money and advocate aggressively for the People, turn K-Street into a ghost town, You might just end up on Pennsylvania Avenue yet.
If not, considering your disastrous vote giving Cheney/Rummy/Wolfie the green light for this God-Awful cock-up in South West Asia and your support for Joe Lie berman, you can't count on carrying Connecticut in the next cycle, no matter how much money you can raise.
--------------------------------------------------
BTW, I heard from Joe Courtney that you are writing a bill to establish Habeas Corpus as the law of the land. That is great news! After 702 years, it's about time!
Hopefully it'll turn out better that the 'McCain OK's Torture' bill.
It could be presented as one of a series of very simple bills, affirming basic principles, such as Habeas, the First, Fourth, Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments, the Right to Vote and have your vote be verifiably counted, Establishing Personhood as referring only to flesh-and-blood persons, Re-Affirming The Geneva Convention and the Treaty of Westphalia. (I know, these are what we thought was settled law, but...) Make them bills that can be read aloud in thirty seconds, simple, unequivocal and basic (as all bills would be, if I ran the circus). There should be no controversy over these basic precepts, they should pass unanimously, no?
Make Bush veto the basic American Canon or sign the very laws that will convict him. That would bring his agenda to a screeching halt and make ending his fiasco in Iraq and the disgrace of Guantanamo happen sooner.
You wouldn't have to campaign. Or Fund-raise.

NIM

Jerry Ford died.
Goodbye Oatmeal Man.
All this week you will hear about this "Healer" of America's soul. How letting Nixon fade into San Clemente was so important to curing the Nation of the Nixon nightmare.
BulIshi+. That move wasn't any more therapeutic than a band-aid on cancer. Nixon was unpardonable, a cancer on the presidency, Ford avoided dealing with it, so, Nixon and his bitter-enders were able to convince themselves and anyone who would listen that they had been unfairly hounded out of office by hippies and libruls.
VietNam had polarized this country for half a dozen years. Liberals that had resisted and protested the war had been so demonized that the National Guard had opened fire on college students. Dozens of agencies from the Army and the CIA to groups that we still can't identify, infiltrated and derailed peace groups and it was common for "hippies" to get beat up by "Patriots" and harassed by police. Mainstream employers still wouldn't hire longhairs up into the eighties.
We got blamed for "losing the war". Nevermind that the warriors hadn't been able to win the war in seven years, right? History proved the Left, right. The VietNam war was a terrible blunder that cost millions of lives and encompassed enough atrocity for a Nuremburg. Nixon and Kissinger also had culpability in Chile, in Central America, the Philippines and several other theaters.
All the Perps got away. In the interest of "Healing", the Bitter-enders were allowed to fester. They became the Conservatives, then the NeoCons, that so dominate the political landscape now. Big Money, Big Religion, Big Media, the think tanks, all came from reaction to the People intervening in the Establishment's game.
Pardoning Nixon and glossing over his crimes and those of his cronies, deprived US of Justice. We needed the revelations that a trial would have featured. We needed an unequivocal statement that a verdict would have provided. We needed to repudiate the greedy, ugly America that we were starting to become, because that national debate was swept under the rug, it gave rise to the culture war that the Right has been waging and winning ever since.
Jerry Ford "kept the lid on", it's said, but really, he just kicked the can down the road.
(I always wore my WIN button upside-down)

All over but the Screaming

Listen Guys, it's over, we lost, time to go!
Our troops didn't lose this one, our "Leaders" did.
Before the war even started, there were many voices, including retired and active duty military, that could see that attacking Iraq would be a disastrous mistake. Now, nearly four years later, the majority of the American people have come to the conclusion that we were right.
Despite the blaring megaphone of propaganda that has been drowning out any realistic discussion of our middle east policy, the truth of the disaster is coming out. Over 1.4 million American service(wo)men have cycled through Iraq, nearly 3000 have died, more than 20 000 have been grievously injured, the military infrastructure, the trucks and tanks and all the other gear, are wearing out without replacement or repair, many of the troops are on second, third, even fourth deployments and a lot of them are National Guard or Reserves. Some who thought they were done and heading home have been held over under stop-loss and others that had retired are being re-activated.
It's said that the Nascar voter knows more people in uniform than in same-sex relationships. That's one reason why the public has changed it's view. Troops in the field and returning Vets talk to their families and friends, their friends talk and so more people learn, from a source they trust, that the Occupation is a debacle, that we aren't helping and that we need to get out.
But there is a problem.
George Walker Bush, the Decider.
This guy is a walking disaster all his own. He's failed at everything he's set his hand to and his dad and Jim Baker swing in and rescue him, it's a pattern. Only this time the little thug is the POTUS and the business that he's driving into the ground is America. Problem is, he's so big now, he shrugs off Baker and Poppy, even as they try to find a way to salvage the "mission" (permanent bases in Iraq keeping control over the Oil in the hands of Bush's buddies).
Denial is a wide river that runs through the WhiteHouse. Even as Bush announced his pick to replace Rummy, he was touting the success of his adventure in Mesopotamia (which Gates promptly contradicted in Congressional hearings). No one seems to be able to get through to the Fool that he has to accept failure and take the responsibility for it.
And you can bet that the propaganda machine is cranking up a campaign to blame "Liberals" for "Losing" another war, "Backstabbing our Troops" and other spiteful lies. Folks, Liberals had no control over this mess, we didn't lose the war and neither did the troops (in fact, the War was won, the Occupation has been the disaster). We will hear a lot about how liberals don't support the troops. Bullshit, all of it!
If you want to support the troops, don't send them off to fight wars for lies. Don't send them into unwinnable situations. Don't send them off ill-equipped and under armored. Don't cut their VA support when they return, physically and mentally wounded. Don't hide the fallen and the wounded from the public. Don't hide from the families of the casualties.
If you support the Troops, bring them home NOW!

Bipartisanship is another name for date rape

Bi-partisanship?
Where did the Democratic "Leadership" get the idea that the election was a call for bi-partisanship?
This was a landslide victory for the Ds and would have been much more so if the electronic voting machines hadn't been rigged to shave points. It was a complete repudiation of the Bush/Cheney misAdministration, a real thumpin'.
Exit polls showed the largest majority (80%) of voters were concerned with corruption (specificity the K-Street Project) and the next largest issue (67%) was Iraq. Where were the Democratic candidates that pledged to work with the Thugs?
NOWHERE
If anyone was sent a message to work with the other party, it was the Republicans that have methodically stacked the deck for a permanent one-party rule. Dems were elected to roll that back. How do you reach a bi-partisan agreement on that?
We elected Dems to STOP the Republican's ongoing crime spree, bring the thugs to justice and bring our troops home.
The only bi-partisanship we are looking for is Republicans coming to their senses and crossing the aisle to work on OUR agenda.
Politics has always been a team sport. Sometimes the teams are more focused, sometimes less. The Republicans have been very focused since the reformation after Nixon's implosion (and old age) took out a lot of the old guard. That team is cracking up somewhat as the Christian Right realizes how badly they have been used.
The Dems, with their broad base of constituent groups, have a much looser party discipline simply because of the diversity within the Party. In recent years, under the assault from the Right and out of power, Democratic lawmakers have not been able to prevent the Bush/Cheney gang from pushing through whatever it wanted with party line votes. The Rs controlled the committees and that determined what hit the floors of congress, oversight committees had no interest in investigating the misAdministration.
Now the Dems get their inning and if the Republicans want bi-partisanship, THEY have to cross the aisle.

Victory?

A little side comment in an article on an AP/Ipsos poll showing Bush's ratings heading into Nixon territory, has me scratching my head, parsing each phrase: "The president recognizes that the American people are understandably concerned about the violence in Iraq, He shares their concerns but believes that our policy in Iraq must be determined by victory in the war on terror, not public opinion polls."
That is: The pResident knows Iraq is a blunder of major proportions, He knows that we are very unhappy with his blunder, but he's going ahead anyway. So much for democracy (this is the same message that we heard from Cheney last week).
But the real stumper is this:"...Our policy in Iraq must be determined by victory..."
What?
What is Bush's definition of Victory? What's Cheney's? We've heard a string of disposable excuses for our invasion and each of them has melted away as soon as it is closely examined, but there has never been a clear statement of what a "victory" would consist of, that is, one that is based in reality (before Shock&Awe, Cheney and the NeoCons described a fantasy of maidens with rose petals and a spontaneous flowering of Jeffersonian democracy in Mesopotamia. That was dead before "Mission Accomplished").
We have piles of metrics describing our failure in Iraq: Violence is up, electricity is down, Unemployment is up, Water and sewer are still down, militia membership is up, women's rights are down and most telling, after almost 4 years, with 144 000 troops in country, we still haven't been able to secure the 10 mile road from Baghdad to the airport!
Most of the Iraqi People, most of our Troops, most of our Military brass and most of our Citizens want US out of Iraq. Most of the rest of the world warned US in advance not to go into Iraq, they have only become more opposed as this drags out.
Our invasion and brutal occupation of an Arab country with it's overtones of Crusade, have done more to radicalize Muslims all over the world than any group of extremists in the caves of Afghanistan and the Tribal Areas of Pakistan could ever dream of.
Our continued presence in Iraq and our escalating rhetoric toward Iran only irritate the wounds we've caused.
Someone (NOT Cheney or Condi) needs to sit down with pResident Bush and try to get him to understand a couple things. F'rinstance, no matter how much you want it, no matter how often you say it, there is no such thing as "Victory" in an occupation. That attacking Iraq was a huge mistake and cleaning up the mess we've made is going to be painful and expensive. That when we, the People, say that we want our troops OUT of Iraq and brought home, we mean it.
And we don't mean 50 000 troops concentrated on army bases and a fortress/embassy while we carpet bomb the rest of the country. We mean Stop the Carnage.
He's got to be made to understand that continuing to beat a dog with a stick isn't going to make the dog healthy again.

Time to put the hammer down and go!
When Democrats take over the House and Senate in January, it's time to roll out the big stuff.
America just dumped the GOP agenda right where it belongs, in history's trashbin. The only bi-partisanship any of US want to see is when people who fell for the Thugs buIIshi+, see the light and come over to our side. We didn't fight all this way to now decide to stick with the Thugs bad plan.
We want change, Big Time.
We want our troops home, NOW
We want Habeas Corpus reaffirmed in Law.
We want Posse Comitatus Reaffirmed in Law.
We want the Geneva Conventions reaffirmed in Law.
We want the Fourth amendment reaffirmed in Law.
We want the people that lied us into an unwinnable disaster to be held accountable.
We want the Crony Corporations that looted our Treasury held accountable.
We want the corrupting influence of Lobbyists and their money eliminated.
We want to trust our Vote.
We want fair treatment and decent pay for workers.
We want ultra-rich people and corporations to pay their share.
We want basic healthcare for everybody.
From these dozen core issues, here are a dozen simple, direct bills that would deliver on the promises of Election '06, that would force Bush to either veto basic American values or sign his own arrest warrant, that would solidify the Democratic Party as the Party of the People.
Start with a simple one-sentence bill: No one may be held for any reason, by any officer, agent or contractor, without access to a court of law and legal representation.
Another simple one: The United States Armed Forces: Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force and the Intelligence Agencies may not be called up to make war on, or spy on Americans in America. The Coast Guard and the National Guard are to protect our nation and our coasts.
Another: Torture is never permissible. Mistreatment of any kind of prisoner for any reason is elevated to a federal crime. All prisoners of war, "Unlawful combatants", or whatever cute name they are using this month must be accounted for and released. Guantanamo and all of the covert detention facilities must be closed.
And: Any infringement of people's rights of privacy in their communications and possessions must be warranted by a court.
Despite the Century old canard, Corporations do not have the rights of People. They don't die, they can't be jailed for crimes, they can't even be put out of business as punishment. Since they can't be held ultimately responsible, they can not enjoy the rights and privileges of Citizenship. Negate Buckley vs Valeo while we're at it.
These five simple pieces will make very clear what we stand for and what we are up against. They undo some of BushCheney's most serious assaults on the Constitution. Forcing W to veto the basic principles of our freedom will isolate him and his gang.
And that will make the rest of this easier.
A congressional demand for a date certain for our complete exit from Iraq coupled with tying any more funds for the (SoCalled)WarOnTerrrrrrr to cuts in lower priority Pentagon spending (Star Wars or the f22, for example). No more emergency supplemental, the war is DOD, goes on the DOD budget, zero sum.
Raising the minimum wage and undoing the Kentucky River decision (redefining "Supervisory position" to cheat workers out of overtime) are the bare minimum that working people can expect, a roll back of the Alternative Minimum Tax and restoration of Corporate, capital gains and estate taxes would rationalize the tax code (and guarantee Working peoples' support for the Democratic party for the next half century). Repeal of the Draconian Bankrutpcy bill will blunt some of the assault on the Middle Class that we've experienced over the past decade or two. It would also be a good idea to stop subsidizing businesses that outsource jobs overseas with tax breaks.
45 million Americans can't afford the greatest healthcare in the world. For those that can, the cost is three times the price for their care compared to any other industrialized nation. American companies are at a disadvantage in international competition, in part, because the cost of healthcare for their employees and retirees is higher than the cost of materials in their products. Expanding Medicare to cover everyone in the country with basic medical care, allowing Medicare to negotiate drug and medical equipment prices and removing the huge corporate profit margins by eliminating the need for private Insurance will bring excellent medicine to all Americans and bring much needed relief to American Businesses.
Meanwhile we investigate.
The lies that led US into Iraq must be brought out and exposed to the sun. Thousands of people have died, thousands more are wounded and none of the reasons we've been given have been true. There are so many people involved in the illegal wars and criminal detentions that there really ought to be a Truth and Reconciliation Commission, we cannot afford to sweep this fiasco under the rug like Watergate or Iran/Contra, we must put a stake through it's heart this time.
Henry Waxman has a running start on the corrupt war profiteering by Halliburton, Bechtel, Custer/Battles and a host of others, you can be sure, the taxpayers are going to enjoy finding out where their $40 billion went missing.
John Conyers has already held hearings on Election Problems, both the technical side and the political dirty tricks aspects, there's lots more where that came from.
Campaign Fundraising, Election spending, Earmarks and Lobbying all meet in a particularly greasy neighborhood of DC, K-Street. And since Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff fine tuned the money machine to favor the GOP almost exclusively, this would be a great time to dig into that particular cesspool. It will devastate the Republican Party and if there are dirty Dems that go down, so be it, good riddance.
Nearly every committee in congress could find malfeasance to investigate and once the results start to show, Impeachment, not only of Bush but Cheney and a double dozen of the primary players, becomes inevitable, with indictments following close behind.

Money and Elections

This is what is called an Off-Year election. A minor election for 1/3 of the Senate, all of the House and a bunch of Governors, but no President. And yet, the campaigns and outriders together spent over $2,600,000,000, that's 2.6 BILLION dollars!
Where did that money go?
Where did that money come from?
The answer to the first Q is simple; It went to Television ads. (disclaimer: I don't have or watch Tv, so on this I rely on testimony of others who do) The last few weeks have been wall to wall political ads on most every channel. That's a huge influx of cash into corporate coffers.
Where it comes from is also pretty simple: it comes from contributors, usually rich people and corporations. By the wheelbarrow load. Despite contribution limits. And that begs the Q. Why?
Well, that's simple too. Contributors are betting that the candidate will win and will remember them when the contributor is in front of them in their official capacity.
See? Simple. It's got other names, too: Bribery, Graft, Corruption...
Sometimes it works the other way around, that is, the candidate extorts money from potential victims of his committees. Either way, the massive fundraising for running campaigns distorts the process that follows the election, that is governance. As Molly Ivins says, "you gotta dance with the ones that brung ya".
So.
What to do?
Not so simple.
Before anything else can be put into effect, we've got to make one thing clear. Corporations are not humans. They are fictive entities composed of humans, but they do not have the rights of actual, individual humans. Corporations are taxed differently, they can't register to vote, they aren't subject to the same penalties for crimes. A corporation "lives" in many places at once, including across international borders.
It is an instrument designed to shield it's constituent owners and operators from responsibility. A corporation that kills 12,000 people because fixing the valves at a chemical plant would hurt their profitability can not be put to death for those murders. A corporation the steals millions or billions of dollars from our treasury can not be jailed, taken out of circulation to prevent them from committing more crimes.
Due to a clerical summary to a Supreme Court case, Santa Clara vs Southern Pacific Railroad, in the Robber Baron Era (not the decision of the judges, but a spinning of the summary by a biased Court Reporter) corporations have been claiming human rights throughout the Twentieth Century. Coupled with that, the Buckley vs Valeo decision equates money with speech, as in limiting the amount of money one donates to a cause is the same as limiting what you may say in favor of that cause. You see the flaw there, right?
Individuals can't yell loud enough to be heard over the roar of the corporations' megaphones.
We need to make a legal case that makes clear that corporations are NOT persons and do NOT enjoy the rights of people, that corporate money is NOT protected free speech.
Whether that is brought about by Initiatives or State Legislators or through the Courts, that is the necessary first step to straightening out the mess we're in.
Step 2. We, the People, own the airwaves. Tv and Radio rent bandwidth from US (at ridiculously low prices) and they make, literally, fortunes off of them. Cable is a regulated monopoly, licensed by US. They all have in their lease agreements, obligations for Public Service Announcements (PSAs), basically advertising public interest info, unpaid.
If we insisted that all political advertising be in the form of PSAs that the Media were obliged to run, allocated on a proportional basis to all candidates and limited in number, events like Debates would become much more valuable for informing voters. And the cost of campaigning would be reduced to travel expenses and printing signs.
Outside, 527-style "Issue ads" that benefited one candidate or one party, one corporation or industry sector, would be considered as bribes (see below). Groups like the SwiftBoatLiars and NAM that have huge financial resources can not be allowed to drown out the discourse.
The obvious result here is that by eliminating the obscene expense of Media in a campaign, we reduce the amount of fundraising needed and that's good because:
Step 3. Is that the Taxpayer (that's US) must pick up the tab for elections.
ANY money, gift or service offered to a sitting politician is a bribe.
Elected officials must completely divest themselves of ALL ownership shares and/or options, public or private, of any companies they hold. No Blind Trusts or Mutual Funds or Offshore Ownership or any of those tricks. The Representatives of the People can not serve Wall Street and US simultaneously.
Maybe that eliminates a small number of very rich people that can't afford to take a job that "only" pays $250 000/Year, so be it. Millionaires are over-represented, currently, working people are unrepresented.
By the way, Job Offers are bribes of a sort, too. Many of the Bushies came into regulatory agencies from the industries that they would regulate, formulated regulations that profited those corporations mightily then quit government to take lucrative jobs at those companies, lobbying the agencies and committees that they had previously sat on. It may be a delayed bribe, but it is a bribe nonetheless. The revolving door needs to have a two year cooling off period in it.
Under Public funding, Incumbents receive Treasury funds to finance their campaigns. Challengers that are not in public office can raise private funds, but they are matched for the incumbent dollar for dollar. When both candidates are ineligible for private funds (e.g. one is incumbent and the other is an office holder) or if the challenger chooses not to raise outside funds, there is a formula for an equitable public funding of both candidates. If we want representation, we have to be willing to pay for it, otherwise, politicians will represent those who help them get in.
In Modern America, this almost amounts to a vow of poverty on the part of those who would govern US. It ensures that greeedy people move on after a term or two. That the people who stick with it are highly dedicated people who can live modestly.
I've got to say something about Lobbyists here. Lobbying arose from people collaring their congressman in the Lobby and pleading their case. It's now a huge and very slimy business. To a great extent, the Lobbying firms of K-Street are conduits of cash from rich special interests to congressional and bureaucratic staff with various degrees of quid pro quo attached. This didn't appear overnight, it's been growing since the 80s, but the current misAdministration and Congressional "Leadership" have developed a synergy with K Street that has turned the US Treasury into a cash dispensing machine for well connected companies.
If public officials can not accept so much as lunch, K Street will be boarded up.
Then we will have taken the money out of politics and taken our Nation back from the Thugs that have brought US so low.
There are several other election reforms that would make our system a "more perfect union": Instant RunOff Voting is one, Direct Election, that is: not via the Electoral College, verifiable paper trail voting machines with open source, publicly owned software, making Election Day a holiday... but all those are for another article or two.

What to do what to do

Bob Burnett wrote in today's Common Dreams ( http://www.commondreams.org/views06/1026-28.htm ) an article outlining a general direction for positive change after the Mid-term election (provided that it's not simply stolen). Riffing on that, here (in blue) are some slightly more specific plans to follow his lead:
1. The American people are the best defenders of the United States. Therefore, Federal budget priorities must be changed. Funds should be shifted from the defense and security sectors to programs that strengthen the citizenry, such as healthcare and education. America spends too much on the military and this is weakening our democracy.
30% reduction in Pentagon spending, focused on procurements of useless, big ticket projects, Star wars, f-22, bunker buster nukes, etc. would fund all of the domestic programs that have been looted or slashed and stop the raid on Social Security
2. The United States is not engaged in an international arms race, but rather a competition in the global marketplace that we are losing. Therefore, America requires a new vision in order to regain its competitiveness. Federal leadership is needed to provide this strategy.
Actually, armaments are our strongest export sector and should be curtailed (but that's another article for another day). The new vision we need is to stipulate that goods imported to the US, whether by foreign or domestic companies, must conform to American standards in worker wages and conditions, environmental impact and product safety and labeling. End the race to the bottom.
3. A cornerstone of this new vision for America is recognition that Democracy is best served by placing limits on capitalism. The interests of big business are not always consistent with the common good, such as protection of the environment and the rights of working people. The Federal Government must intervene to insure that Democracy is not subverted by big business.
End corporate personhood. Repudiate Buckley vs Valeo, money is NOT speech. Corporations do not have the right to drown out the People.
4. Fiscal solvency is another, essential component in a new vision. Federal leadership is required to balance the budget and stop America's addiction to debt financing.
Ending our occupation of Iraq, withdrawing our troops from the seventy or so countries where they are stationed and calling off the specious(and totally failed) war on drugs would be a huge start in the right direction. Just eliminating the DEA would reduce the size of government by 11 000 employees and save $3 Billion per year. (that's about $30 billion down the tube so far, but that, again, is another story for another day)
5. Finally, the security and solvency of America requires a nation-wide program for energy independence. While development of non-carbon-based sources of energy should be part of this effort, a vital component will be conservation. Federal leadership must motivate Americans to engage common sacrifice, reduce fossil-fuel consumption for the common good.
A new energy infrastructure based around solar/wind/tidal energy will create business opportunities and plenty of jobs. Conservation retrofits likewise. Governments at all levels can get into the act whether they call it energy security or a jobs program.

LongTime, NoBlog.

Yesterday's News

NPR news is my "other" source after the web. There's no Tv in the dojo. So it's anoying when the reasonably centerist, public news source goes Fox.

Mangling an old quote: The only true facts in the Newspaper are the box scores on the Sports page, everything else is opinion.

Scott Simon NPR News

Mr Simon,

I'm a longtime listener to NPR (member of KCRW, WSHU, WLIU...) and a fan of yours. Some of the wack little things you throw in crack me up and your handling of sensitive, tragic events preserves the victims' dignity and has moved me to tears.

That's why I was so peeved when you had Frederick Kagan on this morning.

Kagen is the frontman (at least in this interview) for the gang of thugs that have hijacked our government and engaged US in not one, not two, but four wars (and counting), Afghanistan, Iraq, Paraguay/Andes and now Lebanon/Syria/Iran. He was identified as a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, which, technically, he is. But he (along with his brother, Robert) is also one of the promulgators of the PNAC and if memory serves me, the Netanyahu paper: A Clean Break.

These two documents and a raft of others, some public and some not available to the public, argue for and outline the disastrous path America and Israel have been put on since Bush/Cheney siezed the WhiteHouse and Sharon took the Knesset.

The Kagens, along with Wolfowitz, Perle, the Wormsers, Gaffney, Feith, Woolsey (and the list goes on, find it at AEI) and most importantly, Cheney, Libby, Addisson, Bolton, Gonzales and Yoo, are responsible for the arrogance, the cooked Intel, the full court press for war that took us totally the wrong direction after 9/11. Following the trajectory they have US on, they have made US a rogue state. And one that is creating more "Failed States" that are the breeding grounds for terrrrrrrsm. Their "Plan", particularly in SouthWest Asia is energizing a massive hatred for US, not for "Our Freedoms" but because of our actions.

They were wrong.

Way wrong.

And lots of people have died and are dying as a result.

Their beligerant "philosophy" has created War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity, it has shredded our Constitution and torn up the Geneva Conventions. They lie to Congress, they lie to the People and what they don't lie about, they try to keep secret. In the eyes of many, they should stand trial.

And yet, here is Kagen on NPR, spouting the Party line, cheerleading the illegal invasion of Lebanon, ducking your one tough question (which I noticed you didn't follow up).

This man is a criminal, his gang are raising Hell in the world in our name (all those Jets and Helicopters, Rockets and Bulldozers are Made in America and everyone in SouthWest Asia knows this).

His insinuation that we should back Israel all the way to Tehran is one of the worst possible stands in this situation. (could be worse: Just nuke Iran 'til it's a glass parking lot)

While I don't believe that every story must be "balanced" with an opposing viewpoint, there was no indication in your segment that this thug was not just wrong but criminaly so. All people heard was that he is a "scholar" at a "respectable" think-tank. It gave tacit endorsement to him and his spew that most of America rejects, that ALL of America would reject if it wasn't so slickly packaged and sold to US by people we respect and rely on for the truth.

Granted that NPR has for a long time had a clear pro-Israel bias, Linda Gradstein is infuriating in her slant, but this is worse than just ignoring the human-ness of Arabs, Kagen and his gang are actively engaged in subjugating the Arab world by force and you gave him a platform to shout from.

Please, Scott, you are a man of Peace, don't let bloody warmongers use you.

American Ideal

In the GOP style
Just say, for the sake of argument, that the GOP controlled all three branches of government and could re-invent America to their specifications, what would that look like?
Women, er, girls, back to the kitchen! The Workplace is just too dangerous and complicated for you. And you can forget that Planned Parenthood ever existed.
Since nearly everyone with a Spanish surname was rounded up and deported (even the ones born here, 'cause their parents were probably illegal and they don't talk English too good) It's been hard to find cheap labor so everything is outsourced, We export Jobs and Dollars and Import everything else.
Medicare and Social Security got too expensive since SDSI, Corporate, Capital Gains & Estate Taxes were eliminated and Income tax was capped at $1 million, but axing them was out so the age of eligibility was raised to 80.
The combination of drastic tax cuts and the Conquest of SouthWest Asia had depleted our Treasury to the point that most of the functions of Government were disassembled. Most folks don't even remember FEMA. Or the EPA or the USDA or the NLRB...
But Homeland Security and the Military are well stocked! In fact, that's where you could get a job. In the NEW National Guard. These aren't your old-school weekend warriors and sandbag fillers, nope. These are crack troops, trained in urban counter-insurgency, that patrol all our major cities and towns. When local police forces balked at implementing provisions of the Patriot lV Act, particularly the forced collection of DNA from everyone in the country and the installation of surveillance gear giving universal coverage in any space, public and "private", they were stripped of their firearms and relegated to foot patrols and traffic direction and the NG stepped in. Now the NG presence is felt everywhere, they are the guys (and they are almost all white guys) on the streetcorner with assault rifles and flak jackets. There are 6 million of them nationwide, almost 2% of the population.
Did I mention the state of constant war that we are engaged in? Even before we had seized half of the Middle East, we had engaged in South America, a campaign to undo Chavez's Bolivarian Revolution. Several little wars got hot and we are in the process of securing that region as well. Keeping out the flood of deportees and the deluge of new refugees required building a "militarized" border, a wall that made the Israeli wall look puny and the Berlin wall look understaffed. All of this takes troops. Since a draft was about as likely as ending Social Security, a backdoor draft ensured that we had enough bodies to stand 10 million men at arms.
By backdoor draft I mean the "War on Drugs".
Judges were given instruction to dispense stiff sentences with a join-the-army option, for even the most minor possession. Some recruiters, pressured to perform, set kids up that they weren't able to convince otherwise. This has kept the Military supplied with new recruits, many of them minorities. Typical "drug enlistment" was six years plus reserves and from time to time, stop-loss orders kept some of these guys in for 15.
That is, if they survived. Occupying a dozen countries from fortified positions, under constant siege, outnumbered 100:1, relying on armor and intimidation to get through, this was tough duty. The actual number of casualties we sustained was classified but it was in the hundreds per month.
Of course, none of that is ever mentioned on the Tv News. At first, after the takeover, Media was just all happy-talk, titillation and fearmongering "Reality" Shows, but soon, the Decency in Media Act made sure everyone's shirt was buttoned right up and everyones' roles were biblically Correct. Between the DiM Act and the privatization of the Internet into subscriber-only commercially censored fiefdoms, the collapse of Print Media and the sell-off of the USPostal Service, it was nearly impossible to find out what was happening in the world, or to find others who believe anything other than the Party Line.
But some things fell so badly apart that they couldn't be swept under the rug, like the MadCow outbreak in the Chicago area or the Jet collision at Dulles that killed several Senators and several hundred others in the Air and on the ground. Each disaster was proof that the Terrrrrrrsts were still active among US and demonstrated the need for increased vigilance.
And patience with the astronomical cost of gas.
If you could get it, Gas was over $10/gallon! If you could get any. For months at a time, Non-essential vehicles could not fuel up. Deciding what was essential was a process of pleading and pulling strings that most people had no leverage to pull.
Advancing militarily from Mesopotamia into Persia had united the world against US. Even England refused to sell US any Oil during the WorldWide Embargo. Our Economy took a huge hit, but so did the rest of the world's, they realized that if the Giant fell down, everyone would be squashed, so the Embargo didn't hold, but Oil was no longer traded in Dollars and traders held out for exorbitant prices for their crude. Supplies became erratic, causing ripples that kept US just off balance, but not a Tidal wave that would take US down.
Not since the great depression has this country had such scenes of poverty and destitution. People were literally starving to death in American Cities, Businesses collapsed and Unemployment went through the roof (though the Military and HSA soaked up some).
(to be continued)

(this is an unfinished piece, I could spend another day on it, but things are happening too fast)

An open letter to Barbara Boxer

Sen. Barbara Boxer,

First let me thank you for your principled stands on so many issues, I cant even keep track. Several times we've looked up to see the lone voice in the chamber is our Barbara. I lived in LA and worked for your first election to the Senate when you came and joined forces with APLA and you haven't let me down. That's more than I can say about any other politician I've ever voted for.

But I moved. I'm a CT voter now and I ask you, please before you embarrass yourself backing Joe Lie berman, meet Ned Lamont and talk with him, dig in and see if you can trust him, can work with him. I know you will be pleasantly surprised.

Hapless Joe no longer represents CT Democrats, he's become a Beltway animal, completely out of touch with his constituency and his party. He has been the FigLeaf of "Bi-partisanship" that has greased the way for Bush/Cheney's agenda. His votes have benefited the Bush Thugs and their cronys in the Corporate Boardrooms (the ones that pay his way, we guess) and hurt his constituents.

He is one of the reasons that the Democratic Party is considered rudderless, every time anyone tries to steer us back on course, Joe throws the tiller overboard. There is no party without at least some party discipline.

Now, he's decided that his seat is too important (to him) to work within the Party system, that is, he basically quit the Party. Good Riddance.

Please rethink your support for Hapless Joe, meet with Ned Lamont while you are in Connecticut.