Read Howard Zinn:What do we do now?:

I bring this up because I am unable to refute Zinn's logic; as dangerous as a full withdraw sounds, it seems to be a better option. Here's the snipet:

"In a recent piece in The Washington Post, Kerry talks about 'success' in military terms. 'If our military commanders request more troops we should deploy them.' He seems to think that if we 'internationalize' our disastrous policy, it becomes less of a disaster. 'We also need to renew our effort to attract international support in the form of boots on the ground to create a climate of security in Iraq.' Is that what brings security--'boots on the ground'?
Kerry suggests: 'We should urge NATO to create a new out-of-area operation for Iraq under the lead of a U.S. commander. This would help us obtain more troops from major powers.' More troops, more troops. And the U.S. must be in charge--that old notion that the world can trust our leadership--despite our long record of moral failure.
To those who worry about what will happen in Iraq after our troops leave, they should consider the effect of having foreign troops: continued, escalating bloodshed, continued insecurity, increased hatred for the United States in the entire Muslim world of over a billion people, and increased hostility everywhere.
The effect of that will be the exact opposite of what our political leaders--of both parties--claim they intend to achieve, a 'victory' over terrorism. When you inflame the anger of an entire population, you have enlarged the breeding ground for terrorism.

!!

What of the other long-term effects of continued occupation? I'm thinking of the poisoning of the moral fiber of our soldiers--being forced to kill, maim, imprison innocent people, becoming the pawns of an imperial power after they were deceived into believing they were fighting for freedom, democracy, against tyranny.
I'm thinking of the poisoning of the moral fiber of our soldiers--being forced to kill, maim, imprison innocent people, becoming the pawns of an imperial power after they were deceived into believing they were fighting for freedom, democracy, against tyranny.

And the costs of the war--the $400 billion military budget (which Kerry, shockingly, refuses to consider lowering)--make it inevitable that people in this country will suffer from lack of health care, a deteriorating school system, dirtier air and water. Corporate power is unregulated and running wild.

Kerry does not seem to understand that he is giving away his strongest card against Bush--the growing disillusion with the war among the American public. He thinks he is being clever, by saying he will wage the war better than Bush. But by declaring his continued support for the military occupation, he is climbing aboard a sinking ship.

We do not need another war President. We need a peace President. And those of us in this country who feel this way should make our desire known in the strongest of ways to the man who may be our next occupant of the White House.


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Paul Krugman, NYTIMES, To Tell the Truth
Krugman notes the obvious: The press failed to do their job durign their Iraq War. However, he makes a more important observation:

People who get their news by skimming the front page, or by watching TV, must be feeling confused by the sudden change in Mr. Bush's character. For more than two years after 9/11, he was a straight shooter, all moral clarity and righteousness.

But now those people hear about a president who won't tell a straight story about why he took us to war in Iraq or how that war is going, who can't admit to and learn from mistakes, and who won't hold himself or anyone else accountable. What happened?

The answer, of course, is that the straight shooter never existed. He was a fictitious character that the press, for various reasons, presented as reality.

His attributions to why the press failed is familiar to us an Internet land:

1."After 9/11 much of the press seemed to reach a collective decision that it was necessary, in the interests of national unity, to suppress criticism of the commander in chief."
2."Another answer is the tyranny of evenhandedness. Moderate and liberal journalists, both reporters and commentators, often bend over backward to say nice things about conservatives."
3."And some journalists just couldn't bring themselves to believe that the president of the United States was being dishonest about such grave matters."
4."After 9/11, if you were thinking of saying anything negative about the president, you had to be prepared for an avalanche of hate mail. You had to expect right-wing pundits and publications to do all they could to ruin your reputation, and you had to worry about being denied access to the sort of insider information that is the basis of many journalistic careers."

Yet, Krugman believes something is changing:
The usual suspects have tried to silence reporting about prison abuses by accusing critics of undermining the troops — but the reports keep coming. The attorney general has called yet another terror alert — but the press raised questions about why. (At a White House morning briefing, Terry Moran of ABC News actually said what many thought during other conveniently timed alerts: "There is a disturbing possibility that you are manipulating the American public in order to get a message out.")

Is this liberal media taking advantage of Bush? Sound's pretty far fetched to me. It would seem more reasonable to assume that Bush blundered the art of mass-lying. He got himself wrapped up into a complex lie which heavily depended on certain assumptions: 1.The United States does no wrong 2.During times of war, oppossing the war is supporting the enemy.

The first assumption is refuted by mountains of evidence. The second, is a little more hairy, and has its roots in World War II. Infact, George Orwell commented on pacifists in a way that readily relates to right-wing critiques:

Pacifism: The majority of pacifists either belong to obscure religious sects or are simply humanitarians who object to the taking of life and prefer not to follow their thoughts beyond that point. But there is a minority of intellectual pacifists whose real though unadmitted motive appears to be hatred of western democracy and admiration of totalitarianism. Pacifist propaganda usually boils down to saying that one side is as bad as the other, but if one looks closely at the writings of younger intellectual pacifists, one finds that they do not by any means express impartial disapproval but are directed almost entirely against Britain and the United States. Moreover they do not as a rule condemn violence as such, but only violence used in defence of western countries. The Russians, unlike the British, are not blamed for defending themselves by warlike means, and indeed all pacifist propaganda of this type avoids mention of Russia or China. It is not claimed, again, that the Indians should abjure violence in their struggle against the British. Pacifist literature abounds with equivocal remarks which, if they mean anything, appear to mean that statesmen of the type of Hitler are preferable to those of the type of Churchill, and that violence is perhaps excusable if it is violent enough. After the fall of France, the French pacifists, faced by a real choice which their English colleagues have not had to make, mostly went over to the Nazis, and in England there appears to have been some small overlap of membership between the Peace Pledge Union and the Blackshirts. Pacifist writers have written in praise of Carlyle, one of the intellectual fathers of Fascism. All in all it is difficult not to feel that pacifism, as it appears among a section of the intelligentsia, is secretly inspired by an admiration for power and successful cruelty. The mistake was made of pinning this emotion to Hitler, but it could easily be retransfered.

However, Saddam is not Hitler, and Iraq is not the reich. We signed on to a war for reasons which (I did not believe at the time)were shaky at best, and without regard for the utterly predictable consequences. Hitler once stressed that people will believe any lie, if it is simple and said over and over again. However, this isn't the Weimer republic, and Bush is no hitler. Let us thank god for that.











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Net Politik
"Should -- why would Al Gore associate with a group that is that left wing and that radical? What if he spoke before the Klan? Would that -- would we not hold him in judgment for that?" - Sean Hannity, 5/26/04, comparing political activist group Moveon.org to the KKK.

Thats it! They destroy the concept of Irony, and thus people don't see them for what they are. As Bill Hicks pointed out, "Pro-lifers murdering doctors...Its irony on a base level, but its a hoot." Hey, what's an unpolite comment every once in a while?

Note: for those Ironically challenged, MoveOn did not release a video which compared Bush to Hitler(it was voted off by the public)- but the RNC publically broadcast it to paint them as extremists. So therefore MoveOn are extremists, just like the Klan. Thats Irony kids)
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Go to Source of quote: History News Network:Historians Vs. George w. Bush

Excerpt:
"And then there was this split ballot, comparing the George W. Bush presidencies failures in distinct areas. The George W. Bush presidency is the worst since:
In terms of economic damage, Reagan.
In terms of imperialism, T Roosevelt.
In terms of dishonesty in government, Nixon.
In terms of affable incompetence, Harding.
In terms of corruption, Grant.
In terms of general lassitude and cluelessness, Coolidge.
In terms of personal dishonesty, Clinton.
In terms of religious arrogance, Wilson.

My own answer to the question was based on astonishment that so many people still support a president who has:
Presided over the loss of approximately three million American jobs in his first two-and-a-half years in office, the worst record since Herbert Hoover.
Overseen an economy in which the stock market suffered its worst decline in the first two years of any administration since Hoover's.

Taken, in the wake of the terrorist attacks two years ago, the greatest worldwide outpouring of goodwill the United States has enjoyed at least since World War II and squandered it by insisting on pursuing a foolish go-it-almost-alone invasion of Iraq, thereby transforming almost universal support for the United States into worldwide condemnation. (One historian made this point particularly well: After inadvertently gaining the sympathies of the world 's citizens when terrorists attacked New York and Washington, Bush has deliberately turned the country into the most hated in the world by a policy of breaking all major international agreements, declaring it our right to invade any country that we wish, proving that he'll manipulate facts to justify anything he wishes to do, and bull-headedly charging into a quagmire.)

Misled (to use the most charitable word and interpretation) the American public about weapons of mass destruction and supposed ties to Al Qaeda in Iraq and so into a war that has plainly (and entirely predictably) made us less secure, caused a boom in the recruitment of terrorists, is killing American military personnel needlessly, and is threatening to suck up all our available military forces and be a bottomless pit for the money of American taxpayers for years to come.
Failed to follow through in Afghanistan, where the Taliban and Al Qaeda are regrouping, once more increasing the threat to our people.
Insulted and ridiculed other nations and international organizations and now has to go, hat in hand, to those nations and organizations begging for their assistance.
Completely miscalculated or failed to plan for the personnel and monetary needs in Iraq after the war, so that he sought and obtained an $87 billion appropriation for Iraq, a sizable chunk of which is going, without competitive bidding to Haliburton, the company formerly headed by his vice president.
Inherited an annual federal budget surplus of $230 billion and transformed it into a $500+ billion deficit in less than three years. This negative turnaround of three-quarters of a trillion dollars is totally without precedent in our history. The ballooning deficit for fiscal 2004 is rapidly approaching twice the dollar size of the previous record deficit, $290 billion, set in 1992, the last year of the administration of President Bush’s father and, at almost 5 percent of GDP, is closing in on the percentage record set by Ronald Reagan in 1986.
Cut taxes three times, sharply reducing the burden on the rich, reclassified money obtained through stock ownership as more deserving than money earned through work. The idea that dividend income should not be taxed—what might accurately be termed the unearned income tax credit—can be stated succinctly: “If you had to work for your money, we’ll tax it; if you didn’t have to work for it, you can keep it all.”
Severely curtailed the very American freedoms that our military people are supposed to be fighting to defend. (“The Patriot Act,” one of the historians noted, “is the worst since the Alien and Sedition Acts under John Adams.”)
Called upon American armed service people, including Reserve forces, to sacrifice for ever-lengthening tours of duty in a hostile and dangerous environment while he rewards the rich at home with lower taxes and legislative giveaways and gives lucrative no-bid contracts to American corporations linked with the administration.
Given an opportunity to begin to change the consumption-oriented values of the nation after September 11, 2001, when people were prepared to make a sacrifice for the common good, called instead of Americans to ‘sacrifice’ by going out and buying things.
Proclaimed himself to be a conservative while maintaining that big government should be able to run roughshod over the Bill of Rights, and that the government must have all sorts of secrets from the people, but the people can be allowed no privacy from the government. (As one of the historians said, “this is not a conservative administration; it is a reckless and arrogant one, beholden to a mix of right-wing ideologues, neo-con fanatics, and social Darwinian elitists.”)
My assessment is that George W. Bush’s record on running up debt to burden our children is the worst since Ronald Reagan; his record on government surveillance of citizens is the worst since Richard Nixon; his record on foreign-military policy has gotten us into the worst foreign mess we’ve been in since Lyndon Johnson sank us into Vietnam; his economic record is the worst since Herbert Hoover; his record of tax favoritism for the rich is the worst since Calvin Coolidge; his record of trampling on civil liberties is the worst since Woodrow Wilson. How far back in our history would we need to go to find a presidency as disastrous for this country as that of George W. Bush has been thus far? My own vote went to the administration of James Buchanan, who warmed the president’s chair while the union disintegrated in 1860-61.

Who has been the biggest beneficiary of the horrible terrorism that struck our nation in September of 2001? The answer to that question should be obvious to anyone who considers where the popularity ratings and reelection prospects of a president with the record outlined above would be had he not been able to wrap himself in the flag, take advantage of the American people’s patriotism, and make himself synonymous with “the United States of America” for the past two years.

That abuse of the patriotism and trust of the American people is even worse than everything else this president has done and that fact alone might be sufficient to explain the depth of the hostility with which so many historians view George W. Bush. Contrary to the conservative stereotype of academics as anti-American, the reasons that many historians cited for seeing the Bush presidency as a disaster revolve around their perception that he is undermining traditional American practices and values. As one patriotic historian put it, “I think his presidency has been the worst disaster to hit the United States and is bringing our beloved country to financial, economic, and social disaster.

Some voters may judge such assessments to be wrong, but they are assessments informed by historical knowledge and the electorate ought to have them available to take into consideration during this election year."


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One thing is becoming clear: Bush is not conservative. He is a social conservative, a ficisical reactionary, and a foreign policy radical. Unfortuantly, with so much ideology, his policies have been driven by political and ideological pressure instead of facts, expertise, and thoughtful deliberation.

Well read and thoughtful conservatives are becoming nervous of the implications that Bush might have on conservatism. George F. Will notes. "This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts." Even a Neo-Conservative war supporter Robert Kagan asserted, "All but the most blindly devoted Bush supporters can see that Bush administration officials have no clue about what to do in Iraq tomorrow, much less a month from now."

I cannot argue with either statements, they are reality (true conservatives tend to have a knack for understanding current realities). Again, it boils down to a lesson that all Americans should remember: Always seperate Ideology from reality. Much of Bush's problems could probably be summed up by this blurp from the washington post contrasting the idea hierarchies of past with the current administrations:

Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist with the National Center for Policy Analysis, said policy ideas typically bubble up from experts deep inside federal agencies, who put together working groups, draft white papers, sell their wares in the marketplace of ideas and hope White House officials act on their suggestions. In this case, ideas are hatched in the White House, for political or ideological reasons, then are thrust on the bureaucracy, "not for analysis, but for sale," Bartlett said.

Folks, we must learn to seperate ideology from actual debate and practice. You see Ideology helps build coalitions between people with similar values, but when used to create policy it leads to distortions of cold reality. These distortions created the Vietnam War, World War II, Korea, and now the occupation of Iraq. Some have misinterpreted my critisism as "becoming an unofficial broadcaster of terrorism". To them, I will smile, and turn the other direction. They live in ideology world; I strive to live in the real world. Winston Churchill was a master of confronting reality, and he reminds us:
"In war as in life, it is often necessary when some cherished scheme has failed, to take up the best alternative open, and if so, it is folly not to work for it with all your might."

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I know many of y'all are not fond of Al, however you cannot deny his intelligence. Below, I've provided some excerpts that may help everyone understand the divide in America right now.
Read the Full speech here:

"Somewhere along the line, the Republican Party became merely the name plate for the radical right in this country.

The radical right is, in fact,a coalition of those who fear other Americans:
as agents of treason;
as agents of confiscatory government;
as agents of immorality.

This fear gives the modern Republican Party its well-noted cohesiveness and its equally well-noted practice of jugular politics.
Even in power, the modern Republican Party feels itself to be surrounded by hostility: beginning with government itself, which they present as an enemy; extending to those in the opposition party; and ultimately, on to that portion of the country whose views and hopes are represented by it - that is to say, to virtually, half the nation. "

"As with individuals, nations succeed or fail - and define their essential character - by the way they challenge the unknown and cope with fear.

And much depends upon the quality of their leadership.

If their leaders exploit their fears and use them to herd people in directions they might not otherwise choose, then fear itself can quickly become a self- perpetuating and free-wheeling force that drains national will and weakens national character, diverting attention from real threats deserving of healthy and appropriate concern, and sowing confusion about the essential choices that every nation must constantly make about its future.

Leadership means inspiring us to manage through our fears.

Demagoguery means exploiting our fears for political gain."

"50 years ago, when the nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union was raising tensions in the world and McCarthyism was threatening freedom at home, President Eisenhower said, "Any who act as if freedom's defenses are to be found in suppression and suspicion and fear confess a doctrine that is alien to America.

But only 15 years later, when Ike's V-P, Richard Nixon, finally became President, it marked the beginning of a big change in America's politics.

Nixon embodied the spirit of "suppression and suspicion and fear" that Eisenhower denounced.

Like Bush, Nixon understood the political uses and misuses of fear.

After he was driven from office in disgrace, one of Nixon's confidants quoted Nixon as having told him this: People react to fear, not love. They don't teach that in Sunday School, but it's true.

The night before that election, 33 years and 3 months ago, Senator Ed Muskie of Maine spoke on national television for the Democrats and said,

There are only two kinds of politics. They are not radical and reactionary, or conservative and liberal. Or even Democrat and Republican. There are only the politics of fear and the politics of trust.

One says: You are encircled by monstrous dangers. Give us power over your freedom so we may protect you.

The other says: The world is a baffling and hazardous place, but it can be shaped to the will of men. ...(C)ast your vote for trust ...in the ancient traditions of this home for freedom."



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Political language - and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists - is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

Every generation imagines itself to be more intelligent than the one that went before it, and wiser than the one that comes after it."

Men can only be happy when they do not assume that the object of life is happiness.

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.

Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act.

Note: Orwell differentiates Nationalism and Patriotism below, its a must read:

By 'nationalism' I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human
beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions
or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled 'good' or
'bad'.[See note, below] But secondly--and this is much more important--I mean
the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing
it beyond good and evil and recognising no other duty than that of
advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with
patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any
definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction
between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved.
By 'patriotism' I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular
way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no
wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive,
both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is
inseparable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every
nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, NOT for himself
but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own
individuality.

Nationalism is power-hunger tempered by self-deception.
Every nationalist is capable of the most flagrant dishonesty, but he is
also--since he is conscious of serving something bigger than himself--
unshakeably certain of being in the right.

All nationalists have the power of not seeing
resemblances between similar sets of facts. A British Tory will defend
self-determination in Europe and oppose it in India with no feeling of
inconsistency. Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own
merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of
outrage--torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations,
imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of
civilians--which does not change its moral colour when it is committed
by 'our' side.

In nationalist thought there are facts which are both true and untrue, known and unknown. A known fact may be so unbearable that it is habitually pushed aside and not allowed to enter into logical processes, or on the other hand it may enter into every calculation and yet never be admitted as a fact, even in one's own mind.

The reason for the rise and spread of nationalism is far too big a
question to be raised here. It is enough to say that, in the forms in
which it appears among English intellectuals, it is a distorted
reflection of the frightful battles actually happening in the external
world, and that its worst follies have been made possible by the
breakdown of patriotism and religious belief. If one follows up this
train of thought, one is in danger of being led into a species of
Conservatism, or into political quietism. It can be plausibly argued, for
instance--it is even possibly true--that patriotism is an inoculation
against nationalism, that monarchy is a guard against dictatorship, and
that organised religion is a guard against superstition. Or again, it can
be argued that NO unbiased outlook is possible, that ALL creeds and
causes involve the same lies, follies, and barbarities; and this is often
advanced as a reason for keeping out of politics altogether. I do not
accept this argument, if only because in the modern world no one
describable as an intellectual CAN keep out of politics in the sense of
not caring about them. I think one must engage in politics--using the
word in a wide sense--and that one must have preferences: that is, one
must recognise that some causes are objectively better than others, even
if they are advanced by equally bad means. As for the nationalistic loves
and hatreds that I have spoken of, they are part of the make-up of most
of us, whether we like it or not. Whether it is possible to get rid of
them I do not know, but I do believe that it is possible to struggle
against them, and that this is essentially a MORAL effort. It is a
question first of all of discovering what one really is, what one's own
feelings really are, and then of making allowance for the inevitable
bias. If you hate and fear Russia, if you are jealous of the wealth and
power of America, if you despise Jews, if you have a sentiment of
inferiority towards the British ruling class, you cannot get rid of those
feelings simply by taking thought. But you can at least recognise that
you have them, and prevent them from contaminating your mental processes.
The emotional urges which are inescapable, and are perhaps even necessary
to political action, should be able to exist side by side with an
acceptance of reality. But this, I repeat, needs a MORAL effort, and
contemporary English literature, so far as it is alive at all to the
major issues of our time, shows how few of us are prepared to make it.


See Orwell's full essay: Notes on Nationalism



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Emeritus Professor of Politics at Princeton Discusses a new form of American Totalitarianism

"Like previous forms of totalitarianism, the Bush administration boasts a reckless unilateralism that believes the United States can demand unquestioning support, on terms it dictates; ignores treaties and violates international law at will; invades other countries without provocation; and incarcerates persons indefinitely without charging them with a crime or allowing access to counsel.

The drive toward total power can take different forms, as Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union suggest.

The American system is evolving its own form: "inverted totalitarianism." This has no official doctrine of racism or extermination camps but, as described above, it displays similar contempt for restraints.

It also has an upside-down character. For instance, the Nazis focused upon mobilizing and unifying the society, maintaining a continuous state of war preparations and demanding enthusiastic participation from the populace. In contrast, inverted totalitarianism exploits political apathy and encourages divisiveness. The turnout for a Nazi plebiscite was typically 90 percent or higher; in a good election year in the United States, participation is about 50 percent."


NOTE: He, nor I is calling Bush Hitler; so don't claim that I did.

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What is a "Liberal" in the minds of conservatives? My impression is that they seem to use the term to denote:
a. A non-conservative
b. Pro-Big government intellectual
c. Anyone who disagrees with conservative politicians or pundits

I will explicitly state *WHY* I oppose the Iraqi war, on the grounds of morality, evidence and philosophy. The purpose is to open debate, not to pidgeon hole and label. Only by challenging each other's assumptions can we evolve our view of the world. If I am wrong, I'd like to know.

Simply put, I see Bush as a radical who is threatening Americias security at home and abroad. In addition, I've been frightened by the nationalistic rhetoric from some of the war's supporters. I use George Orwell's Definition of Nationalism:

By "nationalism" I mean first of all the habit of assuming that human beings can be classified like insects and that whole blocks of millions or tens of millions of people can be confidently labelled "good" or "bad." But secondly -- and this is much more important -- I mean the habit of identifying oneself with a single nation or other unit, placing it beyond good and evil and recognizing no other duty than that of advancing its interests. Nationalism is not to be confused with patriotism. Both words are normally used in so vague a way that any definition is liable to be challenged, but one must draw a distinction between them, since two different and even opposing ideas are involved. By "patriotism" I mean devotion to a particular place and a particular way of life, which one believes to be the best in the world but has no wish to force on other people. Patriotism is of its nature defensive, both militarily and culturally. Nationalism, on the other hand, is inseperable from the desire for power. The abiding purpose of every nationalist is to secure more power and more prestige, not for himself but for the nation or other unit in which he has chosen to sink his own individuality.

What frightens me is the lack of discussion regarding the ethics of deadly force against other human beings. War is not something to be taken lightly, and it should always be open to debate and reconsideration. Those who support the war may say that although thousands of Iraqi civilians have died during the occupation, it was worth the price to free 25 million. However, the more one unravels that defense, the more tangels one will find. Under what circumstances is it acceptable to put innocent civilians at risk of death or disfigurement without their consultation? In International Law, the one exception is that deadly force may be used in self-defense even when innocent people will be killed in the combat required to defeat the aggressor. Where is the evidence that Iraq posed an imminant threat? You must skew the very definitions of imminent and threat to argue that it existed. Forget flags and slogans, people have a right to live, even when a majority thinks their death serves a greater good. Ghandi once said, "What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty or democracy?"

So, you may retort by noting that we saved Iraqis from mass slaughter at the hands of Saddam. Yet, such intentions cannot be argued retroactively. We raced to war with an administration using the wrong intelligence, from the wrong people. As a matter of International law, the United State's occupation is illegal. It is violently opposed by most of the world community, infact a world gallup poll before our invasion cited the United States as "The most dangerous Country" followed by North Korea, Iraq, and Israel. You see, the lack of WMDs and the torture are the tip of the ice burg. I oppose the war on the grounds that it has isolated the United States from the International community, made the world even MORE dangerous, and was admittedly built on lies (see Wolfawitz and Pearle). In the process, we've spent unknown quanities of money that could have been used to neutralize the true threat to our security- Russia's poorly guarded stock pile of 20,000 nuclear warheads. The CIA knows that warheads are missing, but the Russian's refuse to give us a straight answer on how serious is the situation. I don't whole heartidly support Kerry, but I consider Bush's strategy a grave danger to our security. Moreover, I do not think his administration will ever gain legitamacy in the world community. Call me arrogant, but the evidence against the war is overwhelming. It goes beyond slogans, and sound bytes... its a tangled web of deception, inhumanity, and arrogance; its heavily documented from multiple sources of varying affiliations, political spectrums, and nationalities. Are they really all wrong, and fox is right? Or have I missed the big picture? If you want the sources of my information, let me know, i'll happily send it to you.

"The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance"- Thomas Jefferson








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Go to full article: When Bonesmen Fight

Hayden provides a pragmatic reason to vote for Kerry:

"The differences between Bush and Kerry over Supreme Court appointments, religious fundamentalism, civil rights, the environment, John Ashcroft and the future of Iraq are fundamental, dividing the two parties at the constituency level. Bush genuflects to the Christian Right while Kerry sings Kumbaya. The Bush people are scary and destabilizing, which is why the CIA types seem to prefer Kerry (covertly, of course). For the record, this November I am voting with the CIA. They represent the lesser evil in the choices before us."

Some examples of Intellgience Community warnings about Bush's policy:
MEMORANDUM FOR: The President FROM: Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Decoding the Presidential Daily Briefing


President Bush never really cared for such "filters", however. As M. STEVEN KENNISTON wrote:
"In the months preceding war our President flatly refused to grant an audience to any anti-war organization, including Veterans for Common Sense, Veterans for Peace, and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Many of the men and women in these groups have experienced the horror of war first-hand and have commanded troops and served their country with dedication and valor. Yet when they sought to voice their concerns that the terrible costs of this war and its potentially disastrous consequences were not justified, they were rebuffed. Our President chose instead to listen to the counsel of a group of reactionary ideologues recruited from neo-conservative think tanks, such as the American Enterprise Institute and the Project for the New American Century."

On a political note, conservatives impeached Clinton for a hummer. Ironic, huh.


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Full Article: Governing a Divided Nation: Senator Mark Dayton - The Politic - Features

Senator Dayton shares his opinion of American's two party system:

"Well, the government is not like Burger King. You don't just get to have it your way. With 290 million people with many regional and self-interests, to have a government that sifts through all of those differences, under our protection of equal rights and opportunities, coming to a composite or resolution of those differences is an art of the political process. Sometimes the picture looks better than others. Winston Churchill once said, "Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the rest." My own view is that most of the problems, failings and shortcomings we see in our own government are first and foremost problems, failings and shortcomings of the human race, individually and collectively. In other countries where they have only one political party or candidate to choose from, they have much worse governance than we have. If you look at countries that have a plethora of political parties, that much of a diffusion of political power causes very real problems in having lasting government systems."

While I partially agree, Senator Dayton does not address structural problems with our government. However, the Senator did give good insight into Congress's fault in the Iraq war:

"I faulted Congress for abdicating its responsibility as the sole authority to decide on the declaration of war. But the President wanted a resolution with no restrictions and kept saying, "Don't tie my hands, don't tie my hands." George Washington, at the time of the Constitution, said, "In matters of power, trust not in the goodness of man, but bind him in chains to the Constitution." The founders didn't want to tie the president's hands, but they wanted to bind him in chains to that document and to that responsibility to share power and share authority. They knew the natural tendency was for someone to try and seize all of that."

Perhaps it is time that we constrain the unchecked executive authority to wage war.
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Except:

"Can I tell you the truth? I mean this isn't like TV news, is it?

Here's what I think the truth is: We are all addicts of fossil fuels in a state of denial, about to face cold turkey.

And like so many addicts about to face cold turkey, our leaders are now committing violent crimes to get what little is left of what we're hooked on."


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Washington Post: Reveal the Rules- Editoral

The Nation: Do You Feel the Draft?- Katha Pollit

The Progressive: Bush's First Scapegoat- Matthew Rothschild

Mother Jones: The End of Empire- David Rieff




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