September 2004 Archives

The Broken Promises of George W. Bush - American Progress Action Fund

President Bush made a lot of promises during his 2000 presidential campaign. The record shows it was all talk.

Yahoo! News - Document: Bush Leaves Military Service

The White House on Wednesday night produced a November 1974 document bearing Bush's signature from Cambridge, Mass., where he was attending Harvard Business School, saying he had decided not to continue as a member of the military reserve.
The document, signed a year after Bush left the Texas Air National Guard, said he was leaving the military because of "inadequate time to fulfill possible future commitments."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the resignation was found in connection with a lawsuit brought by The Associated Press. The White House said the document had been in Bush's personnel file and that it had been found by the Pentagon

Bush needed to take a physical exam by the end of July 1972 to keep flying. But he skipped the physical and his commanders grounded him in August 1972. Bush never flew for the military again.

Here's what I've been seeing for quite a while. Aside from the fact that the lower 98% of us DO NOT benefit from Bush's "tax cuts", people are unaware of what Bush actually supports and opposes. This is the way he likes it. If the true policies and shady deals with industry lobbyists (the "deal" being, they get to be the new regulators, giving them free reign to pollute, endanger, and neglect, all for the sake of "free market". What "trickles down" is a spoled envbironment, unsafe air, unsafe food processing, unsafe water, poisonous fish, buried waterways, formerly protected lands being opened up to drilling and other kinds of industry development, lower education qaulity (they want to "privatize" all education), and on and on and on.

PIPA - What's New

Majorities of Bush supporters incorrectly assumed that Bush favors including labor and environmental standards in trade agreements (84%), and the US being part of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (69%), the International Criminal Court (66%), the treaty banning land mines (72%), and the Kyoto Treaty on global warming (51%). They were divided between those who knew that Bush favors building a new missile defense system now (44%) and those who incorrectly believe he wishes to do more research until its capabilities are proven (41%). However, majorities were correct that Bush favors increased defense spending (57%) and wants the US, not the UN, to take the stronger role in developing Iraq’s new government (70%).

My take is, if they've used that successfully up to now, then why change? And why expect them not to continue the distortion, appeals to the most simplistic and inane analysis, and then sound bite it to death? This is the way the Bush administration keeps their real agenda secret from the American people.

The most dangerous kind of "waffling" is not saying one thing one time and then another somewhere else. The most dangerous is saying one thing repeatedly, and then DOING another, often the complete opposite. Bush promises "common sense" policy, and then this translates into giving regulatory jobs to the very lobbyists for comapnies who fight such regulations, after all, they don't think they make enough money. Another 4 years of this deceiver will turn our land into ming , drilling, and polluting havens for developers, and they will produce their own "science" to deny that the efeects are real, and continue to mouth the denials, and mouth the platitudes only an Bush-head could love.

They (the Bush heads) have something in common with their commander-in-chief: they reject any evidence showing that they are wrong. That's another grave danger of this president. ( I almost hesistate to apply that otherwise lofty title to this master deceiver).
The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Kerry Sees Debate as Chance to Shed 'Flip-Flop' Label

(Kerry) hopes to use the first of three presidential debates to assure voters that he is strong and consistent on foreign policy

So, for all the reasons I give above, plus scores more, not the least of which is that he will get millions killed before its all over if we don't stop him (and them). Cheney is right to say that if we don't make the right choice for president, we'll get hit again. It's likely anyway. But MUCH MUCH more so with this cowboy in office, and his gang of thugs as advisors.

The debate won't change that if Kerry kicks his butt intellectually (which is already clear to anybody who DOESN'T live in Bush World), becuase they will continue to churn out inane new talking points, and twist the words into one liners, and continue their appeal to the lowest common denominator.

I'm hoping for that small but subtle and powerful shift from the silent, undecided, unmotivated, who see through the bullshit, and know soemthing of the gap between reality and the the Bush administration's lack of acceptance of such.

The sojomail from today has Jim Wallis' response to the ad saying Democrats will "ban the Bible". ( I see Eric has already posted on it)

When I read about the new RNC mailing, my first response was to ask how conservative Republicans can accuse the "liberals" of wanting to ban the Bible when they ignore it altogether on the weighty scriptural matters of social and economic justice or on Jesus' command that Christians be "peacemakers." There should at least be a serious debate in this election about what those biblical teachings mean in relation to Christian voting. But the Republicans apparently don't want any debate about religion and the election. They have just declared themselves the winners.

The whole Wallis article from the email (subscribe to sojomail here) is below in the Read More section

In addition to being AWL from the National Guard, Bush hasn't seemingly changed that much since. It seems he spends as much time on vacation as he does doing his duties in the White House. And it's not just a matter of doing "electronic commute", but large gaps in activity that show no Bush activity during critical "junctures" (in quotes, because of how often he and his dad like to use the word "juncture").......

The Onion | Documents Reveal Gaps In Bush's Service As President

"Our opponents have dredged up this kind of thing every time Bush has run for office," Bush campaign strategist Matthew Dowd said. "We've faced down widely reported, fully researched, carefully documented accounts of Bush's alcoholism, drug use, private-sector business failings, ignorance in matters of state, smug arrogance, and general self-serving lackadaisical behavior. So I'm hardly worried. An overwhelming mass of published information like this has never stopped Americans from voting for him before."

via KOS This is an awesome and sobering BLUNT INSTRUMENT of a reality check on our illustrious leaders:

Why We Cannot Win by Al Lorentz

We have fallen victim to the body count mentality all over again. We have shown a willingness to inflict civilian casualties as a necessity of war without realizing that these same casualties create waves of hatred against us. These angry Iraqi citizens translate not only into more recruits for the guerilla army but also into more support of the guerilla army.

This is also what many peace activist are saying in an appeal to AT LEAST the logic of those who say "That's war". Even this soldier sees the folly and the hubris in our thinking that slaughtering innocent civilians into submission will NOT WORK. (And I would add: And even if it would work, SHOULD we? Is this what this is about? To make it work? And for US? Never mind what works for THEM. )

Now listen, any of you Bush-ditto-heads (like they would be reading this--- well, just in case--- or , "here's what I would say as a "testimony to the truth" to those who drink the koolaid; accept the lie" --- here is something that you actually have to READ and think of in REAL HUMAN terms, and not as a short, simple, pithy, sound-bite.

Thanks to Eric for just pointing this out to me:

Bush won't mention his veto threat. Joe Klein doesn't mention it either

KERRY: When say I voted for it, I was willing to vote for the $87 billion providing we paid for it! Providing we asked Americans to sacrifice, all of us together. So Joe Biden and I...brought an amendment to say, Hey America --rather than have a $690 billion tax cut for everybody over the next ten years who are earning over $200,000, why don't we take just $600 billion, and that way we pay for the war right up front and not add it to the deficit. Guess what? George Bush said no. The Republicans said no. And what they're doing is trying once again to mislead America as they do so effectively, make a joke out of something that's serious.

Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition, now director of Bush 's Southern Presidentail Campaign, references a page of the 9/11 commission over and over on the Daily Show....and , as usual, like his boss (Bush), totally distorts what the said page ACTUALLY said (ie. Bush totally fuzzied and distorted what Kerry said about Saddam, which ABC highlighted quite well).

Pandagon: The Truth About Page 66 or Ralph Reed is a Liar

Ralph Reed popped up on the Daily Show tonight. Reed, former director of the Christian Coalition and current director of the Southeast for the Bush campaign, found himself attempting to rebut Stewart's instinct that Iraq was a diversion from the War on Terror. In his quest to do just that, Ralph mentioned page 66 of the 9/11 Commission Report no less than three times. By repeatedly referencing the extensive and incriminating ties supposedly documented on a specific page of the authoritative document, Ralph both employed the old debater's trick of hinting at extensive knowledge by virtue of knowing insignificant details (hence the repetition of the page number) and drilled viewers with the knowledge that the 9/11 Commission had, in fact, found terrific examples of cooperation and thought them important enough to report.
Very good Ralph, very convincing. And while page 66 does talk about the few links between al Qaeda and Iraq, it concludes "to date we have seen no evidence that these or the earlier contacts ever developed into a collaborative operational relationship. Nor have we seen evidence indicating that Iraq cooperated with al Qaeda in developing or carrying out any attacks against the United States."

Another great source of careful explanation, point by point, to those who have thus far desired the simplistic and deceiving approach of the Bush campaign. (Of course, most who accept the Bush slant will rareky if ever accept contradicting evidence)

KR Washington Bureau | 09/23/2004 | Despite accusations, Kerry's position on Iraq has been consistent

Kerry voted in October 2002 for the congressional resolution that authorized President Bush to go to war in Iraq. He now says that the invasion was not justified and has made the United States less secure.

These positions are not contradictory, but his attempts to explain the distinction between them are often complicated, and they have given President Bush an opening to caricature Kerry as a flip-flopper. However, beneath the torrent of campaign verbiage, Kerry's position on Iraq for the past two years has been consistent and defensible - just difficult to sell in a sound-bite world.
Kerry always called for a broad international coalition to confront Saddam Hussein, and going to war only as a last resort. Like most senators, he thought Bush needed the authority - it passed the Senate 77-23, and Kerry was one of 29 Democrats who supported it.
But once Bush got the authority, Kerry believes, he misused it.

Not that hard. The presdient deceived the Congress into thinking he was going to be reasonable. But as it turned out, the president took it as a blank check.

Kerry: "... It was not a vote to go that day. It was a vote to go through the process of going to the U.N., building the allies and then making a judgment of whether we had to go."

"Let there be no doubt or confusion about where we stand on this. I will support a multilateral effort to disarm (Saddam) by force, if we ever exhaust ... other options," Kerry said in debate.

Then as now, he urged Bush to work with the United Nations.

"If we do wind up going to war with Iraq, it is imperative that we do so with others in the international community," Kerry said.

In fact, Bush promised at the time to build a broad coalition and go slow.

In an Oct. 7, 2002, speech in Cincinnati, just four days before the Senate vote, the president pledged to exhaust other options and said that war was "not inevitable." He urged Congress to pass the resolution to give him leverage.

Here's the line that Bush, as usual, grossly misrepresents. Perhpas this president truly doesn't understand the "nuances" ; I think he does; in either case, he;'s either an idiot, or a liar. The latter is the case. Bush is depending on the inabilityt of most Americans to draw the distinction:

"I actually voted for the $87 billion before I voted against it," Kerry said once, a line that the Bush campaign used in commercials to mock Kerry for inconsistency.

When that measure failed, Kerry voted against the $87 billion on final passage. He said his vote was a protest against adding $87 billion to the burgeoning federal budget deficit. He also said he was protesting what he saw as sloppy planning for securing the peace. That position, at least, is consistent with a belief that Bush mishandled the authority that Congress gave him.

Here also is a hint at the political process; one which "attaches" a lot of other issues to specific legislation, in an attempt to include plans of action on how to fund various efforts; and in these negotiations , much more is at stake than one particular issue, even the NAME of the bill. The matter of 87 billion in the face of an already rapidly rising deficit is also very much on the minds of some in Congress. In fact, many of bills Zell Miller ranted about Kerry voting down were ALSO voted down by Cheney himself, but this does not fir the character assasination story line, so that little tidbit is left out.

In short, as above, Kerry's position is intelligent, consistent, and very much at odds with the President, adn YES, it is much more so at odds with the President as the LIES of George W. Bush and his cronies have surfaced and been rebvealed by various members of Congress, FORMER Bush administration officials, and even some present ones.

A good wrap summary is made by Kerry:

This is about President Bush and his decisions and his choices and his unwillingness ... to live in a world of reality. Indeed.

Some interesting points here, and I agree with some.....it seems well aimed at the "clear and simple" aspects of the Gospel ( many of which I believe ARE indeed simple and clear, but somehow seem lost on the Religous Right, who seem all too ready to "forgive" Bush his shady and party boy past, while using the same ammunition against opponents.

While I don't particularly like focusing on some "crusty" language as indicators of fitness for the presidency, the Religiou Right does seem to have quite a bit of self-delusion about the "character" of Mr. Bush. When asked about the topic of his "Bible Study", Bush never answered. When a fellow particpant in that Bible Study was asked, he couldn't give an answer. All of this seems quite fishy to me, having been a particpant of many Bible Studies myself, I would find it ot be an honor to be asked by the Secular media about this.

Anyway.....

Why Evangelical Christians Must Vote Against Bush

Christians who live in America pledge our allegiance to Jesus Christ - if there is a difference between the demands of America and the commands of Jesus Christ then Christians who live in America will obey Jesus Christ's commands instead of the American demands, while Americans who believe in Christ will follow the American demands instead of Jesus' commands. It is a question of submission - to whose authority do we submit? Jesus said that no man can serve two masters - either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other (Matt. 6:24).

This is why I can't fly the flag when others are using it is some sort of badge of spiritual superiority. My allegiances are higher, and the message of the gospel is at stake, and holds a higher authority than the misleadings of a national administration. When they proceed with irresponsible and unethical operations (not only their actions themselves, but their preoccupation with keeping their actual actions a secret, and portraying events in a manner to deceive the public. THey betray basic principles of trust.

I heard RFK Jr.. on Al Franken today, and they talked about the Bush EPA apointees to regulatory postions. All of them are former lobbyists for comapnies who are the biggest violators of regulations. Say one thing "Clean Air Act", "Healthy Forest Act", and do another, which totally is out of character with the names they give their programs ('usually describing them as "common sense programs"....which translated from BushWorld talk, mean "regulations and protections make no sense becuase they waste money." Again, Bush delivers even greater riches and priveleges to the large corporations who oppose spending even 1% of their income on public and environmental health and safety. Shame on them. Christian indeed. Hogwash. Blasphemy.

Bush's hometown paper in Crawford Texas is endorsing Kerry. via Eric's Tasty Morsels of Thought - Bush's Hometown Paper Endorses Kerry

Four items trouble us the most about the Bush administration: his initiatives to disable the Social Security system, the deteriorating state of the American economy, a dangerous shift away from the basic freedoms established by our founding fathers, and his continuous mistakes regarding Iraq

Reuters: It (the Iconoclast paper in Crawford) urged "Texans not to rate the candidate by his hometown or even his political party, but instead by where he intends to take the country."

Which is, straight down the tubes. And WAY TOO Many people don't see it. They get their knowledge the way their commander-in-chief does: from the GOP Spin-pundits, and "tell-uh-vishun", usually Fox.

The New York Times > National > Fact Check: A Closer Look at Cheney and Halliburton

Halliburton's business with the military has grown substantially since Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney took office. The company rose to seventh-largest military contractor in 2003 from 22nd-largest in 2000.
The contracts did not prove to be as profitable as executives had hoped, however, and accusations of political favoritism led to a public relations nightmare. On Thursday, Halliburton said it was considering selling its subsidiary that holds the contracts in Iraq.
Mr. Cheney's financial disclosure statements from 2001, 2002 and 2003 show that since becoming vice president-elect, he has received $1,997,525 from the company: $1,451,398 in a bonus deferred from 1999, the rest in deferred salary. He also holds options to buy Halliburton stock.
Mr. Cheney's critics concede that there is no concrete evidence that he has pulled any strings on Halliburton's behalf. But he has refused to answer a request from Democrats in Congress that he provide an accounting of any communications he and his staff have had with Halliburton or actions they have taken on Halliburton contracts.

A couple highlights from a hilarious list

RHPT.com -Fear and Loathing on the World Wide Web

Excuses for Not Finding Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

-You misunderstood. What we said was, "We plan tons of mass construction."

-Let's just say that the informant's message, "Saddam is poised to release massive amounts of lethal chemical and biological agents," would have been better translated as "Never, ever pull Saddam's finger."

If it weren't for the hurricanes, I'd be saying we ought to apply economic sanctions to Florida. (Of course, with Jeb down there, brother George won't do that-- he owes him his presidency, after all). But they're at it again.

After starting the book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy", I have added to this government's dirty laundry list. The State of Ohio is now up to skullduggery, intending to nullify new registrations because of "improper card stock" on which the registrations were done. Looks like Jimmy needs to get up there as well.

Still Seeking a Fair Florida Vote (washingtonpost.com)

After the debacle in Florida four years ago, former president Gerald Ford and I were asked to lead a blue-ribbon commission to recommend changes in the American electoral process. After months of concerted effort by a dedicated and bipartisan group of experts, we presented unanimous recommendations to the president and Congress. The government responded with the Help America Vote Act of October 2002. Unfortunately, however, many of the act's key provisions have not been implemented because of inadequate funding or political disputes.
The disturbing fact is that a repetition of the problems of 2000 now seems likely, even as many other nations are conducting elections that are internationally certified to be transparent, honest and fair.

In the sense that his class of people are talked about throughout the Bible. The rich who oppress, hoard for themselves, and then rule with an iron fist to keep it that way. This article speaks to that "great tax cut", which actuall hurts the majority of the people, and they're deceived into thinking they actually gained something.

Blog for America

the middle class has seen its satisfaction levels drop in recent years ... due to stress from worrying about things like health care and retirement

They won't be getting any happier. Last week, Congress extended the Bush tax scams that were set to expire at the end of the year. The scam, of course, being the rhetoric of fairness and something for everyone being used to sell a policy of redistributing the tax burden onto the middle class and a cash bonanza for Bush's elite friends.

Here is the introduction I wrote to my first posting of this work by Elizabeth O'Connor (original location)

There was one book that made it to our family bookshelf from my grandfather's library. It was "A Call to Commitment", witten in 1963 by Elizabeth O'Connor. It was a first in a series of books telling a storied history of one of the most remarkable Christian communities I have ever known. Other books were to follow: Journey Inward, Journey Outward, The New Community.

In the summer of 1976, when I was 20, a group of people from my high school youth group at the First Baptist Church in Owensboro, Ky. began talking about Call to Commitment. I remembered seeing this on the bookshelf in our family room, and took it up and began to read a story that was to become a story around which I would gather with many people in the future, including a couple of visits to observe and dialogue with these people in the flesh.

Servant Leaders, Servant Structures is both a look back and a look ahead. It summarizes in the first two chapters some of the earlier history since the inception of the The Church of the Saviour, and the third chapter tells some of the story of what has happened since 1975 when The New Community was published.

I approach this offering of this work with a great respect for the gift of writing and story telling that is Elizabeth O'Connor's. In my attempt to bring this story to the Internet, I hope I can effectively "link" it within the World Wide Web to related stories and activities of groups now working to bring about the same kind of community which is centered in the Christ which they proclaim and attempt to incarnate in the life of the society around them.

The hope is that in time a cadre of servant leaders will bring into being other Servant Leadership Schools and thousands and thousands of small compassion groups where people come together to pray, dream, plan, and take action for a fairer world.

In his Handbook for Small Mission Groups,(The Potters House, 1658 Columbia Road, N.W. Washington, D. C., 20009), Gordon Cosby describes the nuts and bolts of groups that endeavor to be agents of change in the lives of their members and agents of social change in the world. They might be called compassion groups, which is a name that Michael Lerner uses when he envisions such groups undergirding a mass movement of compassion. I like that name better than mission groups. In our modern society mission might imply making others the objects of charity rather than describing the reciprocal relationships that exist within the groups and with the world.

Each of the communities has its own cluster of missions stamped with their own uniqueness, telling stories of struggle, grit and grime, and luminous moments when they were bearers of mercy and grace. Sometimes these missions of the communities, so wondrous to behold, are sorely beset with the problems that we have with ourselves and each other-our small and large betrayals, our competitiveness, our envy, our different and strong opinions of how things ought to be, our rush to get things done or our taking forever, our struggles to control, to have our wills prevail, and on and on-all those petty and serious ways in which we fail to embody the concepts of servant leadership that roll so easily from our tongues.

An example of an older, smaller, and more hidden ministry is a Montessori school for very young children conducted in the basement of the first Jubilee building. Nona Beth Landon, a slender young woman with long braided hair and degrees in music and education, is the founder. For fifteen years she and one of the mothers living in a Jubilee building have been the Pied Pipers for scores of children in the surrounding streets. In time other centers for children, offering tutoring and art programs, opened in the basements of jubilee apartment buildings. Somewhere in the wonder of it all is Family Place, a homelike, drop-in center for young immigrant mothers and their small children. Its wide range of programs includes social services, counseling, support groups and meals. Completing the cluster of missions is Sarah's Circle, a 36-unit inter-generational housing program with an emphasis on the elderly. Its basement also has a kitchen and dropin center. Long ago we made the discovery that the basements of old apartment houses are the District of Columbia's richest unexploited real estate.

*Rm. 12:16, Jer.

Artists have not only placed in these outposts their offerings of sculpture, stained glass windows, paintings and tapestries, they have also taught classes in art, storytelling, poetry, quilting and dance to children and old people, and to the sick and homeless, so that everywhere creativity abounds.

The institutions born of the churches are themselves works of art. They, too, impart spirit-energy and make way for others. As I write this, the newest, Lazarus House, a renovated four-story building that will accommodate eighty-one homeless men and women has opened its doors to receive the first eight residents. They tell me that they are dancing in the halls for joy, which is not hard to imagine if one has been to Lazarus House.

Expressions of Community Flavor
While existing under the same umbrella and bound by the same covenant, each community has its own individuality. One cannot visit one of the church communities and know what the others are like. Even the worship services are different, though they may be held in the same place.

Priesthood of Believers

A church cannot take seriously the concept of the priesthood of all believers without conceiving of itself as a seminary for the training of the laity for the priesthood. The School of Christian Living had been doing just that through all the years-training its members to be servant leaders.

The movement to the New Land could not have been made without a deep trust in the capacity of lay persons to be priests, but that trust would have been sadly misplaced had there not been at the heart of the community one hundred twenty lay persons disciplined in the devotional life and trained to be servant leaders. The risk was there, nonetheless, because one never fully becomes a leader until one has found the courage to lead.

From the day The Church of The Saviour came into existence it has been changing and evolving. In the spring of 1976, we found ourselves engaged in the living of a new Easter. Each day had put before our eyes sights to disturb our sleep and inform our days.

Part 1
Roots of a Call

As a teenager Gordon Cosby stood on the street corners of Lynchburg, Virginia, passing out the Gospel of St. John and asking permission to speak with passersby about Jesus Christ, while all the time there grew in him doubts that this was the best way to share his excitement about the faith.

Preface

In 1952, when I was one and thirty and new to Washington, D. C., two friends invited me to visit a class that Gordon Cosby was teaching at The Church of The Saviour. I was fond of these friends and in the debt of their love, so out of respect for what was important to them I went to visit the church that they were excited about and described as "different." I remember trying to take care of my resistance by telling myself, "What are you worrying about? It is onlv one evening to kill."

Pastor Draven links to subvergence » journey inward, journey outward, talking about the amazing relevance of a book written in 1968, describing the first 20 years of The Church of the Saviour in Washington , DC.

This book describes a church that truly understood what it meant to be missional. The amazing thing is, they were doing things 40 years ago that most of us only see in our most idealistic moments. Here are several quotes from the book, all of which I think speak pretty well for themselves

I have a complete copy of Servant Leaders, Servant Structures by Elizabeth O'Connor online on my old website --- The author herself told me she thought it would be wonderful to have it online when I asked her back in 1996, on a visit to COS. Gordon Cosby later wrote me a letter thanking me for all the information and stories about COS's impact on me that I had put online. I still have that letter tucked away somewhere. But feel free to comment. (Maybe I should "blog it" and put it in this section, so comments and trackbacks can be applied)

Newsday.com - Opinion

"That (Bush) coasted on his family name was understandable," said Yale frat brother Tom Wilner. "Lots of guys do that. But Georgie, as we called him then, has absolutely no intellectual curiosity about anything. He wasn't interested in ideas or books or causes. He didn't travel; he didn't read the newspapers; he didn't watch the news ... How he got out of Yale without developing some interest in the world besides booze and sports stuns me."

Chasing down bogus war records and irrelevant cocaine tips, the media have missed the boat on the background of the gloating "war president." It was Wilner who loosed the most salient line in Kelley's book: "Hell, it's not George's substance abuse that bothers me as much as his lack of substance."

I always thought this would make a good 527. Educated Veterans for Truth, to talk about just that. Scary, that a guy who STILL shows next to no curiosity about LEARNING.

Political Wire says the new Bush ad is "devastating". I watched it. It's the same old shit. Bush and his people insist that this is the way. Lie. Twist. MIsrepresent. MIllions believe it. Go forth and repeat the lie. I think his trust is falling, and fewer people are believing it. (There's still that scary mass of dittoheads that drink the koolaid)

Political Wire: Bush Hits Kerry Hard on Iraq

Even Democrats have to agree President Bush's new ad is devastating. It's a response to Kerry's Iraq ad last week.

LIke I said, this independent but usually Democrat says "So what is new? Absolutely nothing".

Political Wire: Bush and Kerry Shared Debate Coach

While students at Yale University, President Bush and Sen. John Kerry "shared the same oratory teacher and debate coach

It's a lying "trifecta" for the Liar in Chief

Top News Article | Reuters.com

He said nearly 100,000 "fully trained and equipped" Iraqi soldiers, police officers and other security personnel are already at work, and that would rise to 125,000 by the end of this year.

The documents (Pentagon documents) show that of the nearly 90,000 currently in the police force, only 8,169 have had the full eight-week academy training. Another 46,176 are listed as "untrained," and it will be July 2006 before the administration reaches its new goal of a 135,000-strong, fully trained police force.

Via Eric: via IcThus: Yahoo! News - Pope Denounces 'Imbalance' of Wealth

John Paul called the U.N. meeting important and said it was aimed at "a more united and efficient action against hunger and poverty." He noted the Vatican (news - web sites)'s No. 2 official, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, who is the city-state's secretary of state, participated in the debate and pledged the Holy See's support for the initiative.
The United States didn't join in the pledge to fight hunger and poverty. The Bush administration objected to proposals for international taxes as undemocratic and impossible to implement.

A Jewish God-fearer in a room full of Christians: what does church look like?

I had been reading Journey Inward, Journey Outward, by Elizabeth O'Connor, in which she so eloquently told the story of Church of the Savior, and explored what it means to be the Church. What a wonderful way to give new life to the evangelical church! Finding those within the congregation that have the love and vision of a missionary for the local community. Helping them develop their gifts, the very things they love to do, helping them become the unique self that they were created to be, helping them become the Good News! Then to set up a team of people around them to work together at bringing that vision to its fullness! Being about the business of calling out the depths of others, and teaching those around us to do the same. This would completely revitalize and reform the evangelical and traditional church. This would put the focus on being the Church, as opposed to "going to church."

Yes, the task and reason for being of the Church. To know and be known, and in so doing, to get at with each other what it is that God is calling us to do --- we FIT somewhere at ALL times, and it's a pretty important matter to find that. It's a big advanatge to even being on the journey toward it; but it only encourages that the next step be taken. Journey Inward, Journey Outward bears witness to that balance and that mutual nourishment that the inwards gives to the outer, and the life together of the outer, back to the innner.

One would think that if I speak of it in such a way, I've surely been having it happen; but it's only the glimpses that I remember. But I know that in the kind of Church that COS has built, they've really got something authentic, radical, and faithful. And it won't let me go.

I don't know where I'm supposed to find that if there aren't others who want to be committed to it.

I'm angry today about this (so what else is new?) I just back from Church, and I more often than not come away deeply discouraged, not because of anything that was said or sung, but because of what I expect would happen were I to "speak up"; and because I realize that the there would be a backlash if I were to suggest that I see this as a "duty" of the Church (to sound concern for the rush to war, the desperate measures to cover up indications of deception aimed at butressing the incentive for this "rush", and the dark avopidance of describing exactly what their real intentions are: to remove all stops for "free enterprise" by selling EVERYTHING, including Iraq (by hawking the "free market opportunities" that will soon be m ade available there as sson as we level the place and get rid of those "malcontents". Such "conspiracies" of ruthless "free marketers" --- which I don't see as conspiracy at all, but actual operating philosophies of the neoconservatives ---- aside, simply sticking to the fact of decpetion and unwarranted rush to preemptive war, is enough for the Christian Church to say "Enough". This is not faithful to democracy, justice, or love.

I think it was in The Twilight Zone: The Movie, that one of the 4 or 5 stories in that quintet of stories was one about a racist bigot talking in a bar with his friends, and being quite loud about it. Finally, a couple of black guys come ask him to shut up, he refuses, and they throw him out of the bar. When he gets up off the pavement, he's in Nazi Germany, and he's a Jew, and Gustapo police hunt him down and shoot him. He falls into water, and when he emerges, he's in a Vietnam jungle, and sees some American soldiers. When he waves them down to ask for help, they see him as a Vietcong, and shoot him, and next......you get the point. It was a kind of purgatory.

This is where Bush, Cheney, Ashcroft, and Rumsfeld (among others) need to go. They need to wake up one day in an Iraqi village in say, Fallujah, and have an opportunity to plead with person in their actual position , the President, the Defense Department, the vice president; and their counterpart (they themselves) say to them "Sorry you have to be Collateral damage, but 'That's War').

They need to be put in a house nearby one of the production plants owned by one of their administration's biggest contributors, to whom they have given free reign and eliminated all regulatory restrictions to how much they can pollute, and contract cancer from the results.

They need to be one of the parents of a Child who diers from Ecoli contracted from bad meat sold in a meat plant which has become "free" of "restrictive" measures to ensure the health afety of their products.

The need to be the grandchild of a school teacher who inherits the privatized, profit-driven educational system that the Bush administration is pushing on its Education initiatives, whose "No Child Left Behind Act" is in consistent keeping with other initiatives such as "Clean Air Act" which dramtically raises the amount of polluting elements a company can "get away with", and then makes many of these "lower standards" to be "voluntary", which is kind of an oxymoron, since regulations are devised as safeguards against those greedy comapnies who would not operate with much deference to public safety. The "Healthy Forest Act" is touted as a program that "makes sense", since it is obviously sensible to remove the restrictions and protections of pristine lands so that companies can profit from it; and so "Healthy" is code for "No Tree Left Behind" (as George Lakoff put it.)

A Bush-Cheney campaign manager just mouthed the talking point I mentioneda bit ago; that Kerry is wishywashy (derived from complex answers), and that the president has ONE approach and he knows what it is. Bullshit. He's STILL saying that Kerry doesn't have a consistent position on the war. The Kerry guy doesn't debate that.

I'm appalled. From the moment of the vote for authorization, Kerry has said that he expected the president to use that authority as He said he would; to seek an alliance, to intensify inspections, to gather the evidence for WMDs. Bush didn't do that. He BETRAYED the people who voted for the authority who actually expected the President to do that.

That , to me , is a great comeback. He ought to say (and , well, actually, he HAS) that I voted for the authority because you said, Mr. president, that the vote would be important to our bargaining position, and to gain allies. You didn't go that route. You gave every indication (and we found out other things which supported these indication) that you were pre-determined to go to Iraq. You used disproven evidence to back up your case that there were WMD's in the absence of any such evidence. You told us that it was important to have this authority in order to be able to react quickly in the face of immanent danger, of which we now know there was NEVER such a danger. YOU LIED, you greedy bastard.

And this is basically what Kerry has said as CIRCUMSTANCES and evidence has mounted, and continues to do so. As for Bush, IN SPITE of evidence, REGARDLESS of clear miscalulation (or lack of ANY CALCULATION, and ignoring of those who WARNED him based on ACTUAL CALCULATIONS), Bush "stays the course". I don't call this strength. I call it hubris. I call it a deadly, destructive lack of ability or willingness to adjust because a mistake has been recognized. I call it ignorance, driven by greed and utter disdain for true democracy. Bush is an enemy of the state, and of the world. The world is better off without YOU, Mr. President, in power.

This is why Christians should vote for Kerry. Under Bush, with his apparent devotion to imperial prowess and his baptism by the neocons as the "ambassador for new markets" (see the article I was quoting from last night, Baghdad Year Zero ) , he will stop at nothing, including inviting the masses whom are the "beneficiairies" of our "democratization" to become increasingly willing to fight back.

Under Bush, peace has no chance to "invade" the United States government administrations. The health and well being of the people of this country are not a match for the determination of the Bush administraiton to allow, encourage, and enable the irresponsible, exploitative, profit-seeking gutting of the public protections put in place over the years to keep corporations from endangering the public health and welfare. Bush and his neocons want to "privatize" EVERYTHING.

There is more, MUCH more to morality than abortion issues, prayer in schools, and gun rights. If people think that an increasingly insecure world, massive casualties being inflicted and sustained by American forces, won't push these "issues of platform" deep into the background, they're living in fantasy land.

Colin Powell is talking on This Week With George Stephanopoulos, defending the adminstration against the statement of Kerry that Iraq was a "profound diversion". This is disturbing when we look at the stories told abolut Powell by Bob Woodward in both his books on the Bush wars (Bush at War and Plan of Attack), and how Powell was disturbed with the diversion of resources to Iraq from Afganistan. His defense today was basically that Afghanistan was a success. I think he is treading water professionally, in terms of his own real convictions; he is obviously deciding to "stay the course", perhaps holding on to the hope that he can achieve something from the inside rather than as an outcast, which he would become (if only he would decide to say "enough", and add to the swelling ranks of people who have said "enough" like Paul O'Neill, Richard Clarke, John DiIulio, Joseph Wilson , and ...well, who's next?

Now Madeline Albright is now on, saying, NO, we DID drop the ball in Afganistan by removing our most of our focus on Al-Quieda. But she's a Democrat, so what does she know?

I think that Kerry , regardless of what people are saying, including a lot of people with whom I agree, CANNOT spell out the extent of his opposition to war in general. It would be, sadly, a devastating blow to his chances. While Bush has to hide his true right-wing, neocon tendencies becuase they wouldn't sell (which he did in 2000, and is doing it again), Kerry has to hide his true feelings and intentions that sit to the left of the public opinion. It is , no doubt, a sad state of affairs. But I believe that Kerry IS and WOULD be an order of magnitude higher on the scale of international ethics and national behaviour.

The level of total capitulation to corporate interests has made Bush an accessory to absolute greed, and that's what seems to me to signal grave danger when he says things like "I mean what I say"; in other words, "whatever it takes" has a much more ominous meaning in the sense that he is determined to show commitment to an absolute cowtailing to the interests of the "partners" in the neoconservative regime.

Someone just said on Meet The Press "They (the debates) will be important, because people are yet to figure out who JOhn Kerry is, and that's unusual at this stage of the game". Huh? I hear that every election cycle. It's one of the GOP talking points. It's pretty clear that the GOP consistently attacks "nuance" and the more complex arguments. The extent of Bush's deception of the electorate, his reversing of his "campaign promises", and the veil of secrecy that cacoons the real workings and deals of his adminstration belies his simplistic insistence that he "means what he says" (and his cronies and ditto-heads repeat the mantra over and over, all the whil being ignorant of how "their man" is taking them and their children and their future for a ride, and robbing them blind, and drafting their kids (not the administratrion's kids), but THEIRS, into a future that promises endless uprisings against the demonic corporate power that will use ANY methodologies , and one of their largest programs/policies is the one which is in place to "reverse spin" and deceive the public on the real intentions of the administration.

More from Baghdad Year Zero - Pillaging Iraq in pursuit of a neocon utopia

What a scathing inditement of the spiritual forebears of the Neocon movement (the hope of utopic , economic purity and prosperity )....Thanks MIke, for the sobering pointer to this article, and your thoughts in your blog

Baghdad Year Zero (Harpers.org)

Bremer's reforms unleashed forces that the neocons neither predicted nor could hope to control, from armed insurrections inside factories to tens of thousands of unemployed young men arming themselves. These forces have transformed Year Zero in Iraq into the mirror opposite of what the neocons envisioned: not a corporate utopia but a ghoulish dystopia, where going to a simple business meeting can get you lynched, burned alive, or beheaded. These dangers are so great that in Iraq global capitalism has retreated, at least for now. For the neocons, this must be a shocking development: their ideological belief in greed turns out to be stronger than greed itself.
Iraq was to the neocons what Afghanistan was to the Taliban: the one place on Earth where they could force everyone to live by the most literal, unyielding interpretation of their sacred texts. One would think that the bloody results of this experiment would inspire a crisis of faith: in the country where they had absolute free reign, where there was no local government to blame, where economic reforms were introduced at their most shocking and most perfect, they created, instead of a model free market, a failed state no right-thinking investor would touch. And yet the Green Zone neocons and their masters in Washington are no more likely to reexamine their core beliefs beliefs than the Taliban mullahs were inclined to search their souls when their Islamic state slid into a debauched Hades of opium and sex slavery. When facts threaten true believers, they simply close their eyes and pray harder

when the ends become larger than the lives that must be rolled over in the process of that ultimate goal, against which any obstacles are destined to become "collateral damage", the moral bankruptcy of such a vision (which is darkness at its core) is evident, at least to those who have caught a glimpse; just a "clue" as to the heart of the Biblical vision of shalom; justice; the "New Jerusalem".

This article, via MIke via Harpers Magazine writer Naomi Klein, is a really disturbing account of war profiteering. It all makes sense when you consider how many "copntractors" and Outside business people have been the victims of kidnappings, beheadings, and hostage taking.

Baghdad Year Zero (Harpers.org)

Immediately after the nominal end of the war, Congress appropriated $2.5 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq, followed by an additional $18.4 billion in October. Yet as of July 2004, Iraq's state-owned factories had been pointedly excluded from the reconstruction contracts. Instead, the billions have all gone to Western companies, with most of the materials for the reconstruction imported at great expense from abroad.

More scary stuff, and all totally disgusting.

WorkingForChange-The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: Part III

On December 4, 2000, I wrote, "Florida's Ethnic Cleansing of the Voter Rolls," printed in Salon.com. It began:
If Vice President Al Gore is wondering where his Florida votes went, rather than sift through a pile of chads, he might want to look at a "scrub list" of 57,700 names targeted to be knocked off the Florida voter registry by a division of the office of Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris. A close examination suggests thousands of voters may have lost their right to vote based on a flaw-ridden list of purported "felons" provided by a private firm with tight Republican ties.
How did we know the "felons" were innocent? We asked a county elections official, Linda Howell, of Madison County, Florida. In March 2000, Harris sent the supervisor a list of criminals -- and Ms. Howell's own name was on it.
"I was very upset," Howell said. "I know I'm not a felon." Howell, a white Republican, refused to remove her own name from the voter rolls and threw out the Harris list. In another county, an elections official restored the rights of one "felon" on the list -- a local judge.

Of the 3,258 names on the original list, the county concluded that more than 15 percent were in error, and tried to restore as many as possible. If that ratio held statewide, no fewer than 7,000 voters were incorrectly targeted for removal from voting rosters. Gore lost by 537 votes.

Wanna know what's scaier than this? They're trying it again. And Bush is once again talking about "compassionate conservatism". ??????

WorkingForChange-The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: Part III

I wrote 'Black-Out in Florida' (The Observer, London, November 26, 2000:
Vice-President Al Gore would have strolled to victory in Florida if the state hadn’t kicked up to 66,000 citizens off the voter registers five months ago as former felons. In fact, not all were ex-cons. Most were simply guilty of being African-American. A top-placed election official told me that the government had conducted a quiet review and found -- surprise! -- that the listing included far more African-Americans than would statistically have been expected, even accounting for the grievous gap between the conviction rates of Blacks and Whites in the U.S.

I knoew of such things, but I had no idea of the extent of it. Tens of thousands of unjustly "purged" voters! And Gore needs only 500. Tens of thousands would have even kept there from being any dispute. I'm sure I'll have many more things to be angry about as I read the book. The above quotes were from the workingforchange website, which ran piecs of Chapter 1 of the book.

I'll be picking that up over the Public Library later today. After the second reccommendation I've been given by a couple of friends (Dave Turner in Cincinnati, with whom I have had many political discussions over the years, ands a lot lately as we comisserate about the "Bushies"....and Eric, who's been commenting here, and I subscribe to his blog

WorkingForChange-The Best Democracy Money Can Buy: Part I

WorkingForChange brings you an exclusive serialization from Palast's New York Times bestseller
Florida Secretary of State Harris, in coordination with Governor Jeb Bush, ordered local elections supervisors to purge these 57,700 from voter registries. In Harris?s computers, they are named as felons who have no right to vote in Florida.

You may suspect something?s wrong with the list. You?d be right. At least 90.2 percent of those on this ?scrub? list, targeted to lose their civil rights, are innocent. Notably, over half?about 54 percent?are Black and Hispanic voters. Overwhelmingly, it is a list of Democrats.

And this is reversely ironic, since the opposite is closer to the truth. It happened on their watch, due to their absolute arrogance and hubris, and due to their refusal to allow "actual experts" to inform their apriori policy making (if one can call it "policy". It's more like "ideology", since "policy" in many areas consists mainly of manipulating language and promote appearances of "programs" ; while in the back rooms, they conspire to remove all obstacles to making their financial supporters happy, by basically screwing the American people of their health, environment, educaiton, and economic protections.

Like I have said in numerous and sundry ways, this administration is EVIL. The fact that a scary percentage of people don't see "the horns" makes it all the more effective. Even the Religious Right's apocalyptic scnearios emphasize how the AntiChrist deceives the people with utopian deceptions; and yet, this one doesn't seem like it shoudl be so hard to figure out from all the "evidence" that is growing in front of our eyes.

Tally No! Miami Herald's Recount Results were Sloppy, Incomplete

In late December, the Orlando Sentinel took a look at about 3,000 overvotes in Lake County. The paper found more than 600 valid ballots that had been ignored by the machines, with Gore picking up 130 even in this heavily pro-Bush county. In late January the Chicago Tribune reported that in 15 Florida counties with a particularly high rate of overvotes, more than 1,700 votes that showed a clear choice had been discarded. Most of the counties in the Tribune's study were small, rural and predominantly Republican. Yet even so Gore's net gain was 366 votes. And a Washington Post review of the computer records of 2.7 million votes in eight of Florida's largest counties reported that overvotes trended toward Gore at a rate of three to one.
Add these together, even with the new undervote count, and Bush is back cutting brush in Crawford, Texas, while Al Gore is your new president. But because it chose to ignore these legal votes in its own recount, the Herald/Knight Ridder effort is an expensive waste of time, useless for everyone but Bush/Republican propagandists. It will be a test of the media to treat these results with the critical scrutiny they deserve. (One paper which has already failed this test is USA TODAY, which ran the Herald results under the misleading headline, “Recount Study: Gore Still Loses,” thoughtlessly accepting the Herald’s flawed counting standards.)

The Feed summary from the NYTimes said this:

Republicans quickly seized on today's Congressional address as irrefutable evidence that the invasion of his country was justified. Democrats are simply trying to put a positive pre-election face on what is going on in Iraq.

The first sentence was accurate, buth the second missed the boat, and suggested the opposite. I'm not saying the NYT wants to distort things, but this was somebody was being awfully sloppy and careless. The actual context for that summary:

The New York Times > Washington > Campaign 2004 > Political Points | 9.23 12:20 PM: All About Allawi

But some Democrats said that Republicans, worried about the potential political consequences of continued violence and loss of American troops, are simply trying to put a positive pre-election face on what is going on in Iraq and are misleading the American public in the process.

Probably nothing....but when I saw this in my RSS Reader, I took a doubletake.

Good one:
Talking Points Memo: by Joshua Micah Marshall: September 19, 2004 - September 25, 2004 Archives

Don Rumsfeld said yesterday that elections in "three-quarters or four-fifths of" Iraq might be good enough.
In other words, run the place on Florida rules.

Bush: "You can't lead this country, when your ally in Iraq (ie. the US appointed Prime Minister) thinks you question his credibility"

Oh, Mr. President, what about you and "the rest of the world"? Don't you, almost daily, question the credibility and the earnestness of "the rest of the world" by snubbing and lecturing the UN on justice, and defying "the rest of the world" with your "mean what I say" arrogance and folly, and effectively sacrificing your own "credibility"? It's amazing how many incredibly ironic things come from that "straight shottin'" mouth of yours.

via KOS
United States Senate Democrats - Doing Right by America

The Bush Record

Al Franken's Blog
I know you guys are going to think I'm a real Nurd for saying this or pointing thr is out, but I notice that nobody is blogging your blog....at least as far as your trackbacks are showing. This enables, if they work, for people who link to a post on YOUR blog to show up as a "Trackback" just as your comments do. Let's see if yours work.

This link, via Josh Marshall, traces the CONSISTENCY of Kerry's stance: Hussein is not trustworthy, he should be held accountable, INspections should tighten and increase, and a coalition should be strengthened. As Bush's team slowly dissolved all of those safeguards, and arrogantly shunned the rest of the world, who , on the day after 9/11, said "W