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August 11, 2004
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Jose Marti wrote this long ago. sounds familiar. I heard part of it from a segmen on a Salman Rushdie speech on Democracy Now!
From Marti-
The evil was very grave: the Republicans, entrenched in power, cynically abused it; they subverted the integrity of the vote, and of the press; they mocked the spirit of the Constitution through partisan legislation, and copying the tactics of tyrants, used overseas wars to deflect attention from their actions. Who had a chance to compete against them? Defeat them? — if elections are won by the force of money, if the Republicans have a free hand with the national coffers?
But a wave rose up that no one saw forming on the margins, and no one knows how it came, breaking over the heads of all the ambitious and illustrious politicians of the nation — despite the anger of the members of his own Democratic party, despite time-proven practices and conceits — and landed in the White House a man just a little more than barely known, a tough but humble man, fit for the task of fearlessly and patiently reforming the corrupt government … the wave brought Cleveland.
Up close you see that the change has not been essential or durable, but circumstantial and like a proof: an eruption proving that it can be done: that the eruption of a fistful of men, a fistful of honorable people, nothing more than that, have given victory to Cleveland — a thousand votes less, among ten million voters, and the president would have been an impure and sinister man, a brilliant sofist: he would have been Blaine.”
Posted by: fauxreal | Aug 11 2004 6:11 utc | 1
yeesh. please correct all my spelling typos in your head…
Posted by: fauxreal | Aug 11 2004 6:12 utc | 2
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 11 2004 9:26 utc | 3
Empire Notes:
Given that Kerry seems to be saying that going to war was the right thing to do, I’m at a loss to understand what he means by “the hard work necessary to give America the truth.”
So far, Kerry has been campaigning on the idea that he will do the occupation better — more allies, more allies, possibly more allies. Now, he seems only a step away from claiming that had he been present when the US went to war on Iraq, Iraq would have had WMD.
Posted by: b | Aug 11 2004 10:33 utc | 4
@b
This is where Kerry loses my respect. via xymphora
“John Kerry’s seeming inability to articulate a coherent position on Iraq, his unwillingness to distance himself from Bush when the increasingly unpopular disaster of a war there should be a clear political winner for Kerry, may be a manifestation of the systematic problem in American politics which allows thugs like the neocons to force a war through all the checks and balances which are supposed to protect the American political system. Once the American psyche is ‘in play’ due to some real or artificial threat to the country, the peculiar American combination of moral self-righteousness and violence manifests itself in inevitable foreign entanglements if there is some interested party in power with ulterior motives for war. Kerry may be more of a mainstream American than his background would suggest, and be channeling the knee-jerk reaction of Americans to a perceived crisis, or have come to the cynical realization that the only way he can become President is if he manages to outdo Rove in manipulating American opinion. Even a hint of sensible pacifism won’t fly in today’s talk-show world where any nuanced approach is easily ridiculed, and this despite the fact that it is clear that the vast majority of Americans dislike the American violence against the Iraqi people. In order to become President, if you are not gifted with the natural stupidity of Bush, you have to pretend to be stupid by claiming to have dumb and simplistic policy positions.”
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 11 2004 11:02 utc | 5
Halliburton in more Iraq trouble? – Pentagon auditors said to find failure to account for $1.8 billion in contracts.
Pentagon auditors have concluded that Halliburton Co. failed to adequately account for more than $1.8 billion of work in Iraq and Kuwait, said a newspaper citing a Pentagon report. …
[WSJ] said the findings in the 60-page Pentagon audit report, dated Aug. 4 but not publicly released, are likely to increase pressure on the U.S. government to withhold hundreds of millions of dollars of payments to Halliburton.
This, it said, potentially threatens the services that KBR provides U.S. troops and other personnel in Iraq and Kuwait.
Sure, if your customer depends on your service, why should you stick to your contracts?
Posted by: b | Aug 11 2004 11:43 utc | 7
@CP:
Great thoughts from Hack.
Thanks for the Link.
FH
Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 11 2004 11:54 utc | 8
Don’t listen to the spin on Kerry. Kerry said that he would have voted to give the authority to the President to threaten war, but that he would have given more time to the inspectors.
I don’t find this position unreasonable, but beware, this is not how it is spun. Don’t believe the spin, go find the actual text.
GRAND CANYON, Ariz. (Reuters) – Democratic presidential nominee John Kerry (news – web sites) said on Monday he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force against Iraq (news – web sites) even if he had known then no weapons of mass destruction would be found.
Taking up a challenge from President Bush (news – web sites), whom he will face in the Nov. 2 election, the Massachusetts senator said: “I’ll answer it directly. Yes, I would have voted for the authority. I believe it is the right authority for a president to have but I would have used that authority effectively.”
Speaking to reporters from the Powell’s Landing on the rim of the Grand Canyon above a mile-deep drop, Kerry also said reducing U.S. troops in Iraq significantly by next August was “an appropriate goal.”
“My goal, my diplomacy, my statesmanship is to get our troops reduced in number and I believe if you do the statesmanship properly, I believe if you do the kind of alliance building that is available to us, that it’s appropriate to have a goal of reducing the troops over that period of time,” he said.
On that timetable, Kerry’s aim would be to pull out a large number of the 138,000 U.S. troops in Iraq in the first six months of his administration.
“Obviously, we’d have to see how events unfold,” he added. “I intend to get more people involved in that effort and I’m convinced I can be more successful than President Bush in succeeding in doing that. It is an appropriate goal to have and I’m going to try to achieve it.”
Posted by: Jérôme | Aug 11 2004 12:30 utc | 9
Hackworth:
Ironically, too, our bombs and heavy-handed firepower become major insurgent recruiters in guerrilla warfare. And that’s what’s happening in Iraq, where a significant percentage of the population is now openly clamoring for the Yankees to go home.
bin Laden:
It will suffice to remind you of your latest war crimes in Afghanistan, in which densely populated innocent civilian villages were destroyed, bombs were dropped on mosques causing the roof of the mosque to come crashing down on the heads of the Muslims praying inside. You are the ones who broke the agreement with the Mujahideen when they left Qunduz, bombing them in Jangi fort, and killing more than 1,000 of your prisoners through suffocation and thirst. Allah alone knows how many people have died by torture at the hands of you and your agents. Your planes remain in the Afghan skies, looking for anyone remotely suspicious.
Hackworth:
Almost the entire Arab world views us not as liberators occupying that bludgeoned country solely to pull the Iraqis up by their sandal straps, but as Crusaders who’ve returned to finish the dirty work the Christian world started a thousand years ago.
bin Laden:
If the Americans refuse to listen to our advice and the goodness, guidance and righteousness that we call them to, then be aware that you will lose this Crusade Bush began, just like the other previous Crusades in which you were humiliated by the hands of the Mujahideen, fleeing to your home in great silence and disgrace. If the Americans do not respond, then their fate will be that of the Soviets who fled from Afghanistan to deal with their military defeat, political breakup, ideological downfall, and economic bankruptcy.
Posted by: koreyel | Aug 11 2004 12:33 utc | 10
The elephant in the Oval Office
Iraq – the failed occupation
Anger at restoration of death penalty leads to Danes refusing to hand over Iraqi prisoners to British
US government, media silent on torture of Iraqi kids
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 14:48 utc | 11
The not so triumphant return…
Chalabi returns to Baghdad
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 14:56 utc | 12
Looks like they’re on to him
…Thousands of Iraqis in the southern city of Nassiriya calling for the fall of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi, have set fire to the local office of his political party.
The demonstrators are enraged by military action against Shiite rebels in the sacred city of Najaf.
They have screamed: “Down, down Allawi” and “Allawi you coward, you American agent…”
Protesters set fire to Allawi’s party offices
Thousands protest against Allawi in Iraq city
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 15:09 utc | 13
Ahhhhhhhhh Nemo, maybe that’s why Chalabi is back in Town?
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 11 2004 15:11 utc | 14
Pentagon plan for global anti-terror army
Sydney Morning Herald, August 11, 2004
The Pentagon has urged Congress to authorise a $700 million package designed to build a global anti-terrorist network of friendly militias.
Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, a key architect of the Iraq war, told the House Armed Services Committee the money would be used “for training and equipping local security forces – not just armies – to counter terrorism and insurgencies”.
If approved as part of a larger defence bill, the package would “provide greater internal security in areas that are or could become sanctuaries for terrorists,” he said.
Continued: Link
Posted by: Blackie | Aug 11 2004 15:16 utc | 15
More “Yikes!”….
From Committee Reports for the 108th Congress:
(Sec. 332.) Authority to distribute explosive materials to qualified aliens – … it shall be lawful for any person knowingly to distribute explosive materials to any qualified alien:
(snippets..read the whole thing):
… if, in the case of a qualified alien described in subsection (c)(1), the distribution to, shipment to, transportation to, receipt by, or possession by the alien of the explosive materials is in furtherance of such cooperation; …
….if, in the case of a qualified alien described in subsection (c)(2), the possession, shipment, or transportation by the alien of explosive materials is in furtherance of the authorized military purpose.
Qualified alien defined – In this section, the term ‘qualified alien’ means an alien — (1) who is lawfully present in the United States in cooperation with the Director of Central Intelligence…
Link
Posted by: Blackie | Aug 11 2004 15:20 utc | 16
While Australians worry about al-Qaeda – they’re forgetting about THEM
Man is the terrorist of this world and thinks everything can be controlled – but nature has other plans.
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 16:00 utc | 17
War games
US forces, close to attack on Najaf, suddenly pull back
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 16:45 utc | 19
@koreyel
I posted a link to that blog last week and I believe Nemo wrote an excellent analysis of it and the mindset of the average grunt and the bullshit that they are fed in this illegal war.
He’s a good writer no doubt. But he’s misguided and in the wrong place.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 11 2004 17:03 utc | 20
Former Mossad deputy director Shmuel Toledano
interrupted a lecture being given by IDF Chief
of Staff Lt.-Gen. Moshe Yaalon and charged that
under Yaalon’s leadership,
“the Israel Defense Forces has
lost its morality and military ethics.”
Toledano asked the participants,
“How can you like the IDF
the way it operates today?”
Yaalon responded by saying he was sorry
there were people nourished by the enemy’s
false propaganda.
Yaalon was speaking to the Council for Peace and Security,
a group of 1,000 top-level reserve generals, colonels,
and Shin Bet and Mossad officials.
His lecture focused on Palestinian terrorism,
the situation on Israel’s northern border,
and regional and world events, ynet reported.
During the question and answer period, Toledano,
a former deputy director of the Mossad intelligence
agency who also served as a Knesset member and as
an adviser to former prime ministers Golda Meir,
Levi Eshkol and Yitzhak Rabin, asked to say a few words.
“What do you intend to do in order to bring back our IDF,
and not your IDF, which is soulless and merciless?”
Toledano asked Yaalon.
“There is a feeling among the public that
the IDF under your command has entirely lost
the sacred value of military ethics following
the death and destruction the IDF is spreading
at checkpoints,”
he said referring to recent media reports
of soldiers’ brutality against innocent
Palestinians.
Responding to Toledano’s allegations,
Yaalon related to some of the moral
dilemmas facing the army.
“In the State of Israel,
the Chief of Staff cannot do things that
don’t agree with society’s moral standards,
because those under his command would otherwise
not agree to carry out their orders,
and those at home would not allow it,”
Yaalon said.
“Whoever relies on the enemy’s false propaganda,
with its blood libel reports of massacres in Jenin,
Khan Yunis and Rafiah, and doesn’t listen to our reports,
receives an entirely different picture.
I am sorry about the loss of innocent life,
and every time it happens –
adult, woman or child –
we investigate this at
the highest levels,” Yaalon said.
Yaalon related to a recent Amnesty
International report as an example of the
“false reports being distributed about Israel.
I look in the mirror every day,
and after I finish my term of duty,
I will be able to say that every decision
I made was intended to prevent your suicide,”
he said, looking squarely at Toledano.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 11 2004 18:27 utc | 21
Thanks CP…
My bad.
I lost track of some of the off topic threads last week.
Now that his Stryker superiors are wanting to edit his stuff before he posts it will be interesting to see how it changes.
Also agreed: “misguided”–that is the perfect word.
Posted by: koreyel | Aug 11 2004 18:34 utc | 22
@ koreyel
The Mosul Rambo is not only fed false propaganda by his officers, which he then recycles on his blog, but to an interested observer his detailed accounts of morale, patrol and checkpoint routines, tactical response procedures, unit firepower and information re: e.g., the spare ammunition on Strykers being located outside the vehicle et cetera could be information that could be quite damaging to US forces if said interested observer was not well disposed to them.
The blogger seems decent at heart, semi-brainwashed and a little overwhelmed by the adulation he receives. In addition, as Pat has pointed out, he has a compulsion to ‘boastfulness’ and assumed expertise, which, as well as a revealed lack of understanding of the nature, motivation or strength of the forces opposing him, are things that opponents can learn a great deal from. Evidently his superiors have spotted the possibility of leakage of potentially damaging material from his blog and from now on, if he blogs again, his postings will be vetted for content.
He has quite a fan-base in America, one which presumably will not realize that the ‘vetting’ is equivalent to shutting the door after the proverbial horse has bolted. As an insight into the mind of a badly briefed ‘grunt’ struggling to find his own voice and understanding the blog is of some interest. Most of his ‘fans’ treat the blog as a true-life adventure story and some seem to feed vicariously off the young man’s accounts for reasons all their own, which again is an interesting insight into the formation / maintentance of American public perceptions. He claims to have highe caliber ‘fans’ too, in the Pentagon among other places.
Somewhere inside him seems to be an independent spirit trying to break out, a thing I doubt possible for a few years until he has left the army and learned a little more about the truth of wars, lies and propaganda.
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 19:07 utc | 23
…And speaking of slick propaganda…
Chalabi supporters pictured protesting at closed INC office Baghdad, August 11th
Poster reads “We’ll be back to stop the Najaf massacre.”
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 19:09 utc | 24
Mexican standoff in Iraq – “Attack Najaf and we’ll blow up the oil pipelines.”
Iraqi Resistance threaten to blow oil pipelines if US Marines attack Najaf
Oh! The agony for America! What to do? Perhaps the earlier pulling back of the US Marine assault and the Resistance threat are related? Surely not? It was never about oil, right?
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 19:16 utc | 25
re the (relatively) new war blog: The man seems to me lost in petty details (which, as Nemo has pointed out, may not be so petty to some). It’s his everyday job, of course, but from what I have read, he does not ask the questions whose answers might hurt him. Safely entrenched behind his military expertise and some self-assured rhetoric (he sounds very young), he frames Iraq in the way he wants to see it. We are all victims of circumstance and conditioned by our situations, but this chap seems to be a particularly willing member of the herd. My uninformed civilian 0.002$.
Posted by: teuton | Aug 11 2004 19:27 utc | 26
In case you were missing the appearance of this regular headline…
US jet fighters bomb Fallujah, four killed
Maybe CENTCOM could just mail everybody a stock press release and we could fill in the date and the death toll ourselves.
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 19:37 utc | 27
Teuton & Nemo.
Yes and yes.
In regards to those hard questions that can jolt one out of the herd…
… this piece in the New Yorker: Two Soldiers might be worth sending along to him.
It slapped me hard–much as the best horror stories do.
I put the article down feeling frozen, chilled, seeing life a little differently.
The author, Dan Baum, finds just the right tone to explain the naked truths of body bags, and the cold-plated inertness of a couple of corpses.
Maintaining one’s war bravura after reading it, would be akin to whistling in an Iraqi graveyard.
Posted by: koreyel | Aug 11 2004 20:18 utc | 29
@CP:
How the hell did you find that Precambrian ooze?
Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 11 2004 20:18 utc | 30
Just a surfer anonymous.
Meanwhile Link to failure
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 11 2004 20:25 utc | 31
Am I the only one who thinks there’s something extremely fishy about ‘news’ like this: Osama Calls for Attacks? It seems to me this is just fed to the press to keep OBL ‘alive’ in the world’s mind. And then there’s the unnamed “Middle East security expert” telling us there could be something to it – or it could be all BS. Maybe it’s dead wrong, but I think there are a lot of news of this kind that are just the red herrings that are named in the report. There is no information, just data… and Reuters is happy to offer them, bit by useless bit.
Posted by: teuton | Aug 11 2004 21:46 utc | 32
@ Harold Lloyd
Just as well – if they were still around they’d probably have something to say about this
Seems to be a national pastime, eh?
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 22:39 utc | 34
@Nemo:
Unfortunately, yes, it does seem to have become the national pastime.
Ziggurats, dinosaurs, people, holy shrines, whatever.
Posted by: Harold | Aug 11 2004 22:53 utc | 35
@Nemo:
The best comedian in the world could not come up with this crap.
Out of the Betty Ford Clinic; And Seeing Clearly
Posted by: Harold Lloyd | Aug 11 2004 23:20 utc | 36
@ Harold Lloyd
Damn those fiendish Afghans and their WMD (Weapons of Mass Distraction), eh?
And speaking of WMD:
Iraq ceased nuclear program in 1991, chemical and biological weapons stocks destroyed, programs ended in same year
Will all those CIA guys and their informants be compelled to give back the money they’ve been getting for the last thirteen years? It’s the American taxpayer whose been paying for one of the longest ‘stings’ in history after all.
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 11 2004 23:40 utc | 37
Don’t get that hair cut soldier!
US anti-terror advice to protect military competing in Olympics – grow your hair
Well, if nothing else that should shave a bit off the security budget.
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 12 2004 1:05 utc | 38
Dang…
One thing I do miss dearly from the good old days of Billmon_consolidated_LTD was our weekly thrashing of Bush-thug.
When was the last time we had a post and a comment section that allowed all of us to pounce rapaciously on that obnoxious S (n) O B?
Man…how I use to roll with belly laughs.
Tell me… is there anything more liberating than our freedom to rip apart the so-called leader of the free world?
Heinlein in the guise of Lazarus Long wrote: Freedom begins when you tell Mrs. Grundy to go fly a kite.
I’d amend that to read: Freedom exists as long as you can tell the President of the USA to go fuck himself in the ear with his God.
At any rate…
Here is the current online NYT headline:
Bush’s Mocking Drowns Out Kerry’s Explanation of Iraq Vote.
To which I’d like to say…the chimp doesn’t mock…it smirks. The creature doesn’t have enough intelligence to mock.
And…oh yeah…in case I forget…go fuck yourself in the ear with your God Mr. President.
Posted by: koreyel | Aug 12 2004 3:14 utc | 39
Hypocrites, bastards and accomplices to torture
Evidence obtained under torture is fine, as long as we didn’t do the torturing – British legal ruling
The British administration is a disgusting, immoral and criminal one – and for those who ever doubted it, now it’s official
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 12 2004 3:22 utc | 40
“See you in heaven.” – a tortured Guantanamo Bay inmate to his wife.
See you in heaven
It will be a relief from America’s Hell without doubt.
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 12 2004 3:29 utc | 41
If the picture of Bush hugging McCain doesn’t make you sneeze blood… then perhaps the last paragraph from the article will:
In Niceville, Mr. Bush’s appearance took on the air of a revival meeting as the audience chanted affirmation to his description of the rationale for his antiterror efforts and roared at any religious reference. Gary Walby, a resident of nearby Destin, told the president during a question-and-answer session that though he always voted Republican, “this is the very first time I felt God was in the White House.”
Wow.
Sick. Sick. Sick.
Posted by: koreyel | Aug 12 2004 3:41 utc | 42
One thing I do miss dearly from the good old days of Billmon_consolidated_LTD was our weekly thrashing of Bush-thug.
Child, we be but children, compared to LLP, LTD,
whatever. We be but primitive tribes. Don’t know
something from shinola. And certainly don’t have
the skills to comment upon it. Don’t even know
what fire is yet. But we learning.
If you be REALLY REALLY NICE, you can join our
GORILLA band.
Posted by: Margaret Mead | Aug 12 2004 4:00 utc | 43
re. soldier-warblogger-
I donno, he sort of lost my respect when his link to the Guinness site was misspelled. shame, that.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Have any of you read Sidney Blumenthal’s new editorial at Salon.com- here?
It’s I think a good point about the state of the republican party these days. I think he overstates the case a little, as in:
“By the time of Nixon’s election in 1968, the Democratic coalition had cracked up under the duress of race and Vietnam
That is, in the sense that it’s not clear how unified the Democrats are today, beyond wanting to see their man in office. The democratic coalition may yet break up over peace in Iraq- but not before the election, I’d guess.
He also claims, of the state of the GOP in Claifornia, that “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is politically possible only as a social liberal and honorary Kennedy, through marriage.”, forgetting the importance of star power in today’s undereducated society, prone to salivating over bling-bling and pimped-out Hummers as it is. Though Arnold certainly isn’t Nixon’s GOP, either, so he doesn’t really undermine the premise of his essay on that.
And he’s dead on about Illinois, it’s clear the GOP in this state is cracking up over Keyes. Good.
So.. if all this is true, the race remains Kerry’s to loose. I think he’s up to it…
Posted by: æ | Aug 12 2004 4:14 utc | 44
ae,
I just hung up the phone with my sister in Illinois, far northern Chicago suburb … who said, the whole Keyes move is so lame that even “people in Illinois get it”.
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Aug 12 2004 5:07 utc | 46
😉 Margaret Mead: child, we be but children, compared to LLP, LTD, whatever. We be but primitive tribes. Don’t know something from shinola. And certainly don’t have the skills to comment upon it. Don’t even know what fire is yet. But we learning.
If you be REALLY REALLY NICE, you can join our
GORILLA band.
Very nice Dr. Mead. Now I encourage you to talk about birth control in the US vis a vis your experience in Samoa?
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Aug 12 2004 5:11 utc | 47
WAPO confesses…
Washington Post says Iraq coverage flawed
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 12 2004 5:30 utc | 48
Kate-
nice! I caught somewhere (err- probably that article, as I think of it) he’s polling ~27%. Here in Chicago the Obama signs are everywhere.
And he’s been so totally busted on his wee snipe at Hillary’s carpetbaggin’ ways. Totally pethetic. Guess that’s going to be number five for him?
Posted by: æ | Aug 12 2004 5:50 utc | 49
@NEMO:
Get the name of the GD paper right:
It’s PRAVDA ON THE POTOMAC, for christ’s sake!
And Howard Kurtz(the Original Whore of Journalistic Babylon) wrote it.
Nemo, check out the Onion, Weekly World News, or go FARKING. Your “reliable journalistic sources” are drying up.
Posted by: Wm. Randolph Hearst | Aug 12 2004 6:07 utc | 50
Screw the two NewPravdas….We should all delete them from our bookmarks and start reading the SMH regularly instead….
… If you need proof to purchase just read the links from Blackie and Nemo on this thread.
Posted by: RossK | Aug 12 2004 6:22 utc | 51
William Randolph Hearst eh? I’ve heard stories about you and that ‘Rosebud’.
What were they about? Hmmm, it was on the tip of my tongue…
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 12 2004 6:56 utc | 52
Guardian: “The withdrawal of foreign troops is the only solution – The media-hyped fiction of a handover of power in Iraq is designed for US voters”
The fact is that Iraq is in a much bigger mess today than before the war. The situation was summed up by a former inmate of Abu Ghraib prison: “We want electricity in our homes, not up the arse.” …
It is necessary to bear this record in mind, as pressure has built up for the US left to fall into line behind Kerry. Many will, understandably enough, vote for him to get rid of a warmonger government. If they succeed, he must be put under immediate pressure to withdraw from Iraq.
Posted by: b | Aug 12 2004 8:10 utc | 53
Sidney Blumenthal is optimistic:
The party that Nixon built is crumbling. Bush is the candidate of canned talking points and a party whose instincts have become rote and often counterproductive. The “war president” wraps himself in the flag, but the latest code-orange terrorist alert aroused no rally-round-the-flag syndrome; instead, it raised questions about Bush’s timing and handling. Rather than campaign on his record, he has challenged Kerry to justify his vote for the Iraq war resolution, and when Kerry explained his reasoning accused him of “nuance”. How can Bush change the subject?
With independent voters bleeding away from him, he has taken to stumping with the maverick Republican senator John McCain, his mortal enemy. Can Bush dump Cheney without being seen as desperate and repudiating his entire term? Bush’s father owed his political career to Nixon’s patronage; now the son is in danger of inheriting the wind.
Posted by: b | Aug 12 2004 8:16 utc | 54
This News Item Brought to You by ASZ News Service:
SIGNS OF THE END TIMES
Posted by: Anonymous | Aug 12 2004 18:02 utc | 56
@ no name
Rapture indeed, but the winged cat story is a bit National Enquirer stuff.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 12 2004 18:37 utc | 57
FH
The BBC mullahs are doing fuck all to tell the story.
Try this link with a grain of salt.
Posted by: Cloned Poster | Aug 12 2004 18:48 utc | 59
Just goes to show you that polls are pure perception management. Have yet to meet someone who openly supports the chimp. But if one was to listen to the pollsters, the contest is too close to call in all areas except the phrenologist vote, where the dolichocephalic candidate is way ahead of the brachycephalic incumbent.
Posted by: b real | Aug 12 2004 19:15 utc | 62
Re: AOL. It’s Time-Warner yes?… or there was a recent merger…
Posted by: Kate_Storm | Aug 12 2004 20:06 utc | 64
N.J. Gov. McGreevey Resigns Over Homosexual Affair
New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, who earlier this year said he opposed gay marriage, announced on Thursday he would resign and admitted having a homosexual affair.
On what reason did he oppose gay marriage? I know gays and bis who do oppose it. If he has discussable reasons to oppose it, there is no need to step down.
The mayor of my city, Hamburg, is openly gay as is the mayor of Berlin and the party leader of the liberal party. So I don´t understand the fuzz about this.
Posted by: b | Aug 12 2004 21:25 utc | 65
Flashharry, that IS an interesting analysis on Najaf. Thanks for the link.
Bombing a city as part of an election campaign – we’ve heard it all before, but it is still mind-boggling in its absolute moral bankruptcy. Violence, and nothing else, has become the currency of the US’s Iraq ‘policies’.
“Why do they hate us?” No idea, really.
Posted by: teuton | Aug 12 2004 21:27 utc | 66
Cloned Poster
Who the fuck owns AOL?
The aol welcome screen has four screen messages that incessantly rotate so any aol member will, over time, imbue the message they are putting out.
I use aol because of work necessity; but a try to be totally conscious of their subliminal messages.
The message is of course, whatever stuffs the bottom line. Sex, entertainment, macho-sports, and a smattering of the official propaganda to assure you that you don’t have your head in the sand (instead of up your ass), all of which are enhanced by the dons patrons in Washington.
The professionals of mass mind control, Skinnerism/behavioral psychology/PR are extremely well trained hedonic engineers. If we don’t understand this we are their victims (consumers).
Posted by: Juannie | Aug 12 2004 21:39 utc | 67
@ teuton
“Why do they hate us?” No idea, really.
Not you teuton, and your fellow civilized european Westerners, but we fucking aMERICANS.
Posted by: Juannie | Aug 12 2004 21:43 utc | 68
Juannie, if you “fucking Americans” (your words) cannot change the system, I don’t know who or what, short of an economic collapse or a nuclear war, can. The opposition in the US is the world’s best hope. If there is a ‘real’ opposition, that is. The rest of the not-so-civilized world can support you, but ultimately, it’s the job of the US people. I think.
Posted by: teuton | Aug 12 2004 21:52 utc | 69
guys, just slightly OT, but I have posted a second piece on “control of oil” and am still hoping for your questions and comments in order to improve it and feed the debate…
Posted by: Jérôme | Aug 12 2004 22:20 utc | 70
Jérôme, it will be my pleasure to pester you with amateurish questions, but not before tomorrow, because I have to go to bed now. (Have taken a quick look at your new text; thank you once more.)
Nemo, take care. Friede.
Posted by: teuton | Aug 12 2004 22:28 utc | 71
It’d be fantastic if the change could come from within the United States itself, though it’s gonna be tough when the majority of its citizens think they’re living in paradise, enjoying a greater std of living than any other developed country. How do you get the message through to them that the US pales in so many comparisons? Or that WE are the very terrorists we are afraid of? I feel that message is probably more effective when it comes from outside the bubble. Similar to the notion that it takes somebody from outside a bully’s close circle of friends to kick his ass and open his eyes a little. Once the tears in the fabric are exposed, it becomes easier to see what it is constructed of.
Posted by: b real | Aug 12 2004 22:39 utc | 72
@ b way upthread (4:16am) re: the Blumenthal analysis:
“…Can Bush dump Cheney without being seen as desperate and repudiating his entire term?”
Don’t wanna go off the deep end here, but…. it’s always good to keep in mind that the Cabal could always go to the well once more and pull another Casey…
Posted by: RossK | Aug 13 2004 4:09 utc | 73
Like sharks with blood in the water: Just overhearing part of an office conversation (before the headphones went on)in re Governor McGreevey, I wonder, why are republicans so obsessed with sex?!
Posted by: beq | Aug 13 2004 13:25 utc | 74
Tales from the Washington knights
Fables of reconstruction
Posted by: Nemo | Aug 13 2004 18:41 utc | 76